Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade - Edward Norton Talks Fight Club, Adam Sandler, and Seth Rogen!

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Edward Norton joins Dana and David this week to talk about Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen’s improv, and his new movie The Invite. Also, getting stoned with Brad Pitt at the Venice Film Festival, why the Hulk’s pants always turned purple, and being directed by Olivia Wilde. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

People forget that Fight Club became such a... Phenomenal. Definitive film and everything, but it was a total financial bomb. Brad had said to me, he kind of pulled me to the side. He said, how do you think this is going to go? And I said, I don't think this is going to go well at all. And he said, me neither. Let's get stoned.

Sandler's interesting because, like, I thought Uncut Gems was just a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant film. And he was as great as he's ever been in anything. And I remember I was texting with him or something. You know, I don't remember it was the reviews or the Oscars or something came around. He wrote me, no love for the Sandman, you know. Edward Norton, very cool dude. Got a little mystery to him, which doesn't happen a lot in this business. He came out of the box fast.

We'll talk all about his career, his techniques, his philosophy. He's very thoughtful. He has a great sense of humor. He's very generous with people he works with. It was fun to talk to him because he's a really classic great movie actor. There's some good stories,

Brad Pitt stories, Adam Sandler. We kind of broke down a little bit. A lot of fun and it pops up in a lot of cool movies we asked about the Hulk. I told him why I wouldn't say the Hulk. Yeah.

Yeah, the Hulk and his new movie with Olivia Wilde. So it's a very interesting The invite that comes out. interview with someone who's just a brilliant actor who just keeps working and doing cool stuff. Look from in The Invite with Penelope Cruz, Seth Rogan, Olivia Wilde, and Edward Norton. So that's in theater soon. Yeah.

I'm definitely going to that one because he was talking about it and I got very interested. Yeah. Oh, here he is. Yeah, it sounds cool. Edward Norton. Congratulations. You're on our podcast. Awesome.

Yeah, everything's coming together for you. Whose birthday is it? It's Janice. Well, wait, let's go by hierarchy. It's Jerry Mathers, who played the Beaver in the 1962. And myself, do you share your birthday, we don't have to get the number, but with a other well-known person, you have five seconds. I think maybe Robert Redford.

Wow. What a good one. Oh, my God. I got, Jerry Mather. John Penn and Robert De Niro are all in the same, like, mid-old. I can't remember. Okay. I can't remember who's on my day, though.

It kind of makes sense. But anyway, yeah, it is my birthday. And they said, you don't have to do this with Edward Norton on your birthday? I go, you fucking kidding me? You were like, what could be better? Pretty much. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Be like a 10-year-old all day long?

Me open present. I mean, are you a birthday guy? Like, fuck a day, man. No, nobody is. It's rational after the age of 10. Listen, the audience is wondering who has one on my birthday. I'll tell you quickly. Selina Gomez.

Okay. Okay. I'll let the applause die down. And Don Henley. All right, continue. I like Donner. I like Don Hanley. So I have. Nicely diverse.

I add nothing to this fucking. That is kind of nice. Mine's just Jerry Mathers and me. Do the math. We're in the same tribe. All right. That's good. I like that.

So as far as the movie, the invite for a second, we can start with that. Okay. Whoops. Whoops. I read some of the reviews. They're incredible. Hollywood Reporter gave you a love letter. Did you see that?

I didn't. Okay. Is it good to hear that phrase, love letter? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's kind of weird, isn't it? Like in the time we've all been doing this, like, I mean, I, I remember being in New York in my early 20s, and there were people who could close a play,

you know, like Frank Rich in the New York Times, he could open or close a play. And then there was those people like, you know, there was, and I, it's wild. Roger Ebert, maybe. Yeah, Roger Ebert, these things back then. You could really, you, and there was writers you loved, and there was people,

I feel like, it's not to disrespect anybody, as a writer or anything, but I just feel like in this like rotten tomatoes world, I'm not as tuned in. I'm just not that tuned in anymore to, I'm not as tuned in as I used to be to what an individual kind of review. It doesn't really mean anything.

Yeah, and it's like it's more like, are we fresh overall? Are we rotten to me? You know, are we? Are you rotten? Like, are we, I don't know, You know, it's like, how are we, how are we, I don't know, there's like this different metric now in a way. And maybe it's, maybe it's healthy in some ways, but then you do sort of, sometimes it, you kind of miss that thing of like, I mean, it was dramatic.

Five stars and it really mattered. Yeah, you felt like you lived, sometimes you felt like you lived and died on that stuff. Well, if we do stand up, David and I, or a theater, wherever, then there's a thousand reviews. just you go online and you see what people thought of the show. Or is very egalitarian. You know, that's different. Like it's right there, you know you bombed. And Rotten Tomatoes is interesting because I think they rough up so many movies.

They added a audience meter, tomato meter where they go, well, the critics hate it, but the crowds liked it. So I think Edward might be in more of the both liked it with his movies. Sometimes. Sometimes. Although people forget that, like, Fight Climb. became such a, you know, that became such a phenomenon.

Definitive film and everything, but it was a total financial bomb. I mean, when it came out, it didn't do, it didn't do well at all. I mean, I think,

I think that movie cost 60 or 70 million bucks to make, and I, I'm not even, I'm not even sure it got to 40, I don't even know if it got to 40 million at the U.S. box office. It was very,

um, the whole, and it, it, and I remember, um, I remember, they made a very strange decision to premiere that movie at the Venice Film Festival,

which didn't feel like a good fit with subtitles and all these things. And it got booed. It got booed. But I had... Boothed? Yeah, it got booed. And I had at the hotel beforehand, Brad had said to me, you kind of pulled me to the side.

He said, how do you think this is going to go? And I said, I don't think this is going to go well at all. And he said, me neither. Let's get stoned. And he had flown in private, so he had a big joint. And we kind of stood in the back of this hotel, and I was, you know, I'm like a lightweight. And Brad's, like, at the time, you know, was a pro. And we, we, we, we, we, I remember, but I remember sitting in the back and watching the movie.

And people, people were actively, they were booing, they booed at the end and people left in the middle of it. And at the end of it, Brad, he, Brad turned to me in the dark. at the end of it, kind of tearful. And he said, I think that's the best movie I'm ever going to be in. And it was, and it sounds like a story, a funny story, but the thing is that the experience, the experience was really, really schizophrenic

because there was this feeling, and this is just to the point. Sometimes you have your own feeling about a thing and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, like, it doesn't grab in some of the ways that the industry or the town signals, but then it's got its own, you know, and I think about comedies.

Like, I think there's so, there's things that have become, you know, they didn't get well reviewed, and maybe they did well or they didn't do well, but they become kind of epic, they become classics. And I, it's kind of interesting because you can be, I remember that feeling of being disappointed in the short term

and then, but then slowly over time, you go, oh, this is actually, This is better than this is better. It's almost better. I would take that because it turns into a cult. It turns into an important thing that hits people. And if it's still being talked about to this day, you might hear it every day. I mean, there's things I've done that if it was bigger and then you don't hear about it,

I'm not even on your level. It's beyond. We'll start with that. But like, let's say a comedy I hear about to this day, Tommy Boy, it made. I literally was thinking that while we were talking about this. I mean, like, that's a classic movie in everybody's comedy pantheon. And I don't think at the time, 32 million? 32.

What did Wayne's World make right before that? I can't remember. No, you're going to say some high number, you prick. I don't know. No, but you're right. As far as resonance was just like that. But comedians, I don't know about anybody else, but most comedians get their ass kicked doing movies

their TV shows. It's just like as if we're trying to do Apocalypse now and we came out with this. They should on Sandler more than any comedian in history for decades. I would text him after they're out of their minds. You're not trying to. And so we were used to that. I remember Steve Martin one time going, yeah, the critics hate me, but it's kind of a trap because Bert Reynolds used to say that too, reference. And no one really knew the critics hated them. You don't even thought of it until they announced it. We're not reading their reviews. But I'm talking to somebody. who's done very well for himself. Go ahead.

Yeah, and sometimes. No, but Sandler's interesting because, like, I thought Uncut Gems was honestly maybe one of my favorite films in the last 10 years. It's just a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant film. And he was as great as he's ever been in anything. And I remember I was texting with him or something. And, you know, I don't remember if it was the reviews

or the Oscars or something came around. And he wrote me, no love for the Sandman. You know, and I remember he wrote no love for the Sandman. And I said, but I remember, you know, and you laugh and you go like, oh, fuck them, you know. But it is, but I do remember thinking at the time even, I thought it is funny. It's like, it's like sometimes people just don't want to give it up. The Matrix doesn't want to give it up. They're just going to keep out of them in a box and, you know.

He's pushing out of it. That's the thing is like that he gets very close and they're like we'll let you get this far. He had that and then he's had Jay Kelly recently

where he's kind of knocking at the door a couple of times I think one more turn. He'll punch through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, punch strong gloves like, yeah.

Like to me that's one of PTA's best. I love it. Yeah. And Adam's so good in that. He's, but I don't know. I don't know if it's

if you guys feel, I don't know if it's age or just getting a thicker skin or having family in your priority shift or whatever or if there's been a real cultural shift. There's no question people are consuming things in a different way and they're listening.

Like you said, the gatekeepers, I don't think things aren't the same. I mean, there's this, there's an atomization. there's not as much power in, there's not as much power in, like, in the idea of cultural gatekeepers.

I feel like there are more ways, there's more ways for all of us, anyone who makes anything can kind of get direct to their own audience in ways that I, I actually am happy, you know, I'm happy, I think it's,

oh, yeah, because we came up with Johnny Carson or S&R, SNL or a sitcom. And that was it. And there were three channels. So now, like Shane Gillis, he really got bumped off of S&L. He came on our podcast and he released his own special on YouTube. And he was kind of a little shy. I guess maybe I'll play theaters and they just took off the fans. So I do like that about it, you know. Do you read comments, Edward, about yourself?

Do you read, are you on social media? No, not really. I mean, I use it. I use, I, like I'm a real interloper and social media. I don't, I, I mean, you know, they, it seems, the algorithm seems to know that I like surfing and, and people falling. Like, like, they, they must have, somehow, like, like somewhere in New York, I think, at my desk, I still have like a sticky on it with that Mel Brooks line that, you know, you know, tragedy is when, you know, tragedy is when I, I cut my little finger comedy is when you fall in an open sewer and die. That's like one of Mel Brooks's lines. And I, yeah, and I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm a sucker for, for that stuff.

But I don't, I don't, no, I don't, I don't go down that rabbit hole. It's like you watch one surfing video and then it goes, you love surfing. Here's a hundred videos. You're like, one. Yeah. There's, you know, the way I would describe it, and there's other people like you, unintentionally mysterious because you're certainly not fostering a celebrity thing. And so it's using the word loosely of cool.

I mean, Gene Hackman would come in, crush in a film. Then he'd go to New Mexico. You didn't know what he was doing. And I know this, for what I gather with you, this isn't intentional. You're just not hungry for that. I mean, it sounds very self-congratulatory. You're just about doing great stuff, you know. Well, look, I mean, everybody gets shaped by their own inclinations and decisions, but then also there's a lot of luck.

You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot that's not in your control, too. And I, I'm certainly, I've certainly been hugely lucky in the sense that from pretty early on I was getting to choose. you know, I had choices about what I wanted to work on and what I didn't. And so I was getting to cut my own path. But then I do think, in all honesty, I think there are performers, let's not even say actors, there's performers of all types who are just, like, were drawn to them because they're iconic. They're very, they're a star, you know, they're like, and it's kind of like who they are. their characteristics.

I mean, we're talking about Sandler, and I'm not even joking. Like, to me, Sandler's iconic because we just love him. He's got these characteristics that we love, and we go to him again and again and again. Not that he doesn't do things like Uncut Gems, Shave. But then there's other,

and I think those kinds of people tend to draw attention in a different way. And then there are people who I think, think like that's not I don't think that that's my value I don't even think that's my value in a way like I or because I just tend to I tend to gravitate toward character driven stuff and I do I don't really think it's me like I don't I don't think people are that interested in commentary on me or following me around or doing that because I don't that's not even the role I've served for them you know what I mean I don't I'm not you're not iconic

interesting and they go see that because you're going to put some spin on it or whatever they know at least you'll try hard to bring something yeah which for me i will be honest i i am i it's a it's a happy uh i love getting i love getting to do the work i get to do and if there's you know if if if there's this or that that that that i i don't get to do because i'm not like you know i don't i don't i'm not i don't i'm not the most commercial or that's so you know i'll i'll take it because i think um i think some sometimes what comes with all that as we all know is can be a real burden you know what i mean and and it's like i i i mean i i have a lot of friends who you know being too much in the limelight has ended up putting them in 12 step you know what i mean like i don't i don't i don't uh i don't sort of yeah they

surround you with their iPhones now. It's not autographs or anything. I mean, not me, but, you know, really famous people, and they just start filming you if you're walking around. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies.

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MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Well, you did do the Hulk. You know, that was like a big tent pole, part of a franchise. And what was that like for you? That's like a big... I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I did it.

I mean, I loved it because I loved those comic books. I was a, you know, I was a nerdy kid who subscribed to... I subscribed to probably like half a dozen of... those things and I loved when they it was like but when you were too little to get porn maggot you know that like Marvel people forget like comic books

showed up in a brown envelope you know what I mean it was a little bit illicit you know you got a brown envelope and you got the little plastic sleeve and yeah you know I couldn't read enough comic books I loved it superman's back there I'm such an actor if I was in the Hulk

I would be holding production because I'm telling the director I should be red because I'm mad and not green. And then we'd go back and forth. We'd land on green, but I would waste everyone's time because I'm overthinking it. You were like purple pants, really? I know, who's wearing purple pants?

You know what? It didn't matter what Bill Bixby was wearing. That's what's really funny too in the comics, but also in the great Bill Bixby, you know, in the Lou Farragno show we grew up on. It's like whatever Bill Bixby was wearing, you know, should, but the pants became purple. Why? Oh, I didn't even think of that.

Why? You know, and that was from the comic book, too, but why were, why, why, no matter what Bill Bixby was wearing was Lou Ferragno and purple pants. You know, who should have noticed that? Secret Joker friend or something. Fucking script supervisor. There's so many people that dropped the ball on that. Of course, my mother's, my mother's favorite comment that she loved to make whenever we watched the Hulk with Lou Ferreggno was she would always say, why do his pants only rip up to there. Oh, geez.

She would be like, very observant and rather interesting. Like his wiener, get bigger. We don't. Yeah, no, it's like, but it was funny how his, his,

his pants shredded up to his because Bill Bix would wear like cat from Best Buy and then he would suddenly, I never even connected. I was so into the Hulk too and I was so blinded by the fun of it. I didn't really look at that.

I'm just excited that Bill Bixby was mentioned on our podcast. I know. He's not, He's not talked about a lot on him. That's like Ross Martin. Yeah. Oh, from Wild West.

Gordon? Yeah. I still love that. Do you remember courtship of Eddie's father? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was.

What were you like three months old when he watched? Yeah. No, but it was, but it had that. Yeah. Go ahead. It's funny how there's things that from when you were really young, you kind of remember the song. I remember the song too.

There's certain things that had a, I don't know, they had a vibe. They had a vibe that you knew maybe you were a little too young for it, but there was something about it that seemed sweet. Or happy. Every one of those old shows has a theme song that I hear and I, like, Partridge Family. There's so many where they're just good, and they have good memories right away. And there's some potion where they put together these jingle songs. Cheers.

And you just love them. And then your whole life. Great song. It's funny. I don't think they do it that much on those shows anymore or any shows, but... Oh, we grew up during such an innocent time,

and you think of those shows and they were, you know, maybe they weren't politically correct or whatever, but I dream a genie and, you know, while west, go ahead. There's, no, there's, there's so much, you know, there's so much, you know,

chatter and debate right now about all the, the inevitable, you know, all the corporateism and the compression of, you know, is this studio going to buy that studio and all the mergers? And I agree, I agree that on balance, you know, just more, more diverse places to get stuff done is probably better on the whole. But the, but I think, and I think, you know, I'm not one of the ones who's sort of down on, to me, streaming. And this whole idea of all these platforms, it's hard to argue that it's created more opportunity for more people to make more different kinds of stuff than ever when we were coming up. I mean, and I think it's on balance. You know, it's so much that in a weird way I feel at times I'm like, I just can't keep up with,

I just can't keep up with what's going on. I can't. People are always referencing me seeing this and that. I'm like, where do you find the time? This show, that show. Yeah. It's so much. It's so much, but I will say, and I know that there was a much narrower bandwidth of types of things when we were growing up, but at the same time, it was really interesting.

There was basically the three networks, and there was what was coming out in the theater. And I do have this kind of memory that you kind of knew everything, you knew everything that was available. Yeah, you knew. Everyone did. Yeah, you kind of knew what night a show was on. Yeah. You knew what was coming out. Thursday night TV.

Star War Indiana Jones is coming out this summer. You'll know that now it's a fucking blur. Yeah, it's very, very, very, very psychologically challenging to keep up with how much stuff gets made. And the whole idea of like, I don't know, I'm sure it cuts both ways because it's all the things we were talking about. I think people with unique. cool voices and ideas. They can almost get out there and, you know, it's easier than ever to make your own stuff.

It's easier than ever to get your own stuff out there and distribute it. And you can have, and there's so much that's cool about that. And I think you do see a lot of people figuring out how to, like, find an audience. You don't have to go through the gatekeepers to get it. Well, the current number one movie as his podcast is being made is a young man, I think he's 19 or 20. He did backgrounds, did some AI, and he's out doing these big corporate films. I'm not against them, but it's just interesting to observe that.

So there's never, and it's going to accelerate. Within 36 months, I'll be able to go, Wayne's World 3, kind of done as Alfred Hitchcock would do it. Boom. And then in two seconds. An AI right now, I just heard this stat the other day, can read 100,000-page document in two seconds and have photographic memory of it. So we're right at the cusp, but fast, you know, but we still. I find myself not worrying. I mean, doing the invite was actually a really good, like, really strong affirmation of this,

the way that Olivia Wilde made the movie and the amount of improv. Yeah, she, she's a terrific actress and she directed this new comedy that we made. It's me and Seth Rogen and Olivia. and Penelope Cruz. And Olivia, she did, I mean, I've been doing movies for 30 years. I have never, never done what she did, which is it was a single set. It's one apartment, two couples in one apartment for one evening. And she shot it in page order.

So we got to make it in the exact order of the scene. and it had this really cool effect, which was what you were always building on what had actually come right before. And so if a wild, and she was encouraging so much improvisation and so much, it was almost like going back to acting classes

when you were in college. She was having us write our backstories and know a lot. And she wanted us to kind of invent our characters, bring them in. Wow. And as a result, as we were doing it, she was really wide open to the idea

that the ending might end up very different than anything that had been on the page. And it did. Because you're building toward it, and it's changing as you go. Yes. And it was changing as we went. And it was a very nervy, but very cool feeling.

Seth is one of the great improvisers I've ever worked with. He's phenomenal. Olivia and I had kind of a riff that we were building on. Penelope brought in all this great stuff from Esther Perel and from other stuff she was interested in.

And, but I guess my point of this was that it was the ultimate, it was the ultimate rebuttal to the idea that, you know, AI is just going to like print and punch out everything because the film, which Olivia just did a completely phenomenal job with, like, it's, I saw it at Sundance with Seth, and we kind of, we were with our wives, we turned to each other and we were like, she, that's like a classic. She made like a classic, like Mike Nichols kind of vintage comedy. And the thing is, it didn't even end up like what we thought it was when we started out because of how live, alive and on the feet. and improvisational it was, and I don't, I mean, let alone AI,

I don't even thinking we had good, you know, Will McCormick and Rashida Jones were, you know, with the six of us, were at a table working on this thing, very fluidly evolving it in rehearsal, evolving it, but even from that, it changed on a daily basis as we carried it forward,

and it was like, this, that's the kind of thing that makes me think like, you're never, you know, AI is never going to, it's, I just can't imagine like that kind of a process getting supplanted by something because I think there's, there's just things about people bouncing things off of each other that that's part of. And the things you wouldn't think of because you're just, yeah, the things you wouldn't think

out of the box, that wouldn't make sense. Sounds like Olivia is very, very smart. Yeah. She is really smart. He's got four brilliant actors and you're not trying to control them. I mean, it's just like go, go, go. Some play, you know, people at home don't realize some. One thing is some directors, writers lock to the script.

You cannot go outside these lines. And that's okay too. But I've never done one where people might not even know when they see a movie. You shoot it completely out of order. And I think when I tell people that casually, they go, wait, you don't do it the way the movie is. You say, no, you start at the end. you might have your final crying scene the first day. And you don't even know how you got there, really,

because it will change a little bit. And I've never had that gift of going straight through. I didn't even heard of it, really. But if you have one set, I guess you can. It was great. And there's a moment. We were trying to figure out, Seth and Olivia became,

it's basically about an unhappy couple meeting, a happy couple over cocktails, and everything that this collision produces. And it's, it's kind of hysterically funny, but it does get down into the real shit at the end. And in the beginning, I think when we embarked on it,

the ending was a lot lighter. And by the time we were halfway through, we were sort of realizing there was so much savagery underneath it. There was so much real, you know, the way that couples get really nasty with each other, that in a way, it almost felt like, it almost felt like you couldn't duck it. And by the end, Seth and Olivia became really convinced that we could and should get down into the real shit a little more.

But we were sort of figuring out, like, well, how are we going to make that frequency shift? And there was this, I kind of had this idea that had just been for me of what had happened to my character. And Olivia said, maybe we should find a way for you to say, you know, that. but she did something wild, which is she set up, she didn't, she never, she asked me to write it and not tell it to her, and she shot herself and Seth listening to the, there's this monologue that, and she shot herself and Seth listening to it for the first time. And her emotion in the film is Olivia listening to this story for the first time, but which is beautiful and really ballsy as a director. I mean, really, really, you know, kind of a big swing. But the funniest thing was,

When you see this film, Seth says something to me on the back end of this very vulnerable sort of reveal and share that is, I think it's maybe one of the funniest things I've ever heard anybody improvised. Like, he made it up on the spot because he had never heard the story. And it was so good that the whole scene, to my point, the whole scene just completely went off the, it, it changed the entire trajectory of the scene, this one line that Seth, Seth made up. And it was, it was, it was such a, it was a, it was a really fun way to work.

But I will, I will admit, like, it was a little like Birdman. It was sort of like Birdman was fascinating and great and I loved it. At the end, we all had this feeling of like, this could be a, this could just not work at all, you know, and then lo and behold, he did it. I think when we finished, Seth and I were walking out at one point, and we were like, Seth was like, it was fun to do. I have no idea if it's going to come together. And I just give Olivia, like, all the credit in the world because she really,

she kind of hit the high and the low with it. Well, there's an interesting thing where, I'm sorry, when you do a movie that there's something fun about the fact that with everybody good at their job and the best people, you still don't know, you can fuck it up. I mean, you just don't know if it's, going to be good. You can walk out of there going, we nailed it. And for some reason, it just falls in its face. And you go, no one has for sure, or we would have movies that all killed at all time. So part of the fun is going, if you make one work, it's such a big deal. You go,

we got through editing. We got through the post of the trailer. Yeah, it feels like a miracle. It's like a miracle. To get the finish line, it's still good. You go, oh, that's great. That sounds fun. She did book smart, which I, is that what she did book smart? Yeah, yeah. I thought that was great. Yeah, she did a great job. And she made a science fiction film called Don't Worry Darling that I also thought was really sharp and great and weird. Is that with Harry Styles? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I saw that too.

It's really, really good, actually. But no, I did this movie Death to Smoochie that I love. But by the way, it's Danny, you know, Robin Williams and me, but Danny DeVito directed it and is in it. Catherine Keener, John Stewart. I mean, you just run down the list of everybody who's in the movie. And we could not, I mean, I could not have had more fun. And it didn't do well at all. Like it, you know, and it's kind of come up.

I'm not going to say it's Fight Club, but I do think there's a bit of a cult following around Desti's Tzu. But the same thing. It was like, I mean, we were killing ourselves. We were cracking ourselves up making it. It's funny. You feel like an asshole later. No, I was like, it was like, it was like this long winter in Toronto.

I started like feeling like I had stomach muscles coming in and I was like, I haven't been working. I realized I was laughing so much. You know, I was actually like getting fit. Yeah, that's an unfortunate thing that happens sometimes. You know, the crew's laughing like this and like, oh my God, everyone's high-fiving. And then you, you know, you see the dailies in the old olden days, you know, just a big shot. And it's going to work.

And then it's cut into the film and like, That's SNL sketches too. They work all week and the audience. The audience goes, fuck you. Oh, God. I had that, the, the, you know, I had that thing where the end of the, at the dress and you have to kill one, you know, you got to kill one, you know, or something. Yeah. And I got down to that thing where, I got down to that thing where there's sort of, I guess you guys called it like the, you know, the 1140 or the whatever, the 1245.

Yeah, the last one that they saved the weirdest one for. And basically, we had two of those. And Lauren was like, Lauren was like, you got to, you got to pick one of these. One of these is your, is your last slot one. And I loved them both. And the one that got killed, the one that got killed was this thing of like, me and Kate McKinnon were like this couple. Do you remember the, who was the couple at the Dresden Room?

Do you remember the singing couple at the Dresden Room in East L.A.? like they were like Stephen Eady I know he's on them you know they were like the piano bar couple this really like but they were like an older yeah they yeah they I feel like they were named like Stephen Eady or something like that

anyway Kate and I were like this completely cookey couple who are obsessed with the idea that they're going to write that their songs are going to get done by Rihanna and and it was it was a little bit ishtar. It was like, it was like, it was like, it was like, it was like, it was like a couple

writing songs for Rihanna. And I was so in love with it. And, uh, and they killed it, um, they killed it right at the end. Because we did it in dress. I was convinced if we had done it in the real show, it would have gone in dress, in the dress, it was like, it just, it, I knew what we were doing wrong. We had to fit, but it didn't go over. And so, Lauren was like, Marty and Elaine. Yeah, Marty and Elaine. Marty and Elaine. Thank you. It's so. difficult in comedy. It's you're always humbled. Like that,

that didn't work, but that throwaway got out of applause break. Yeah, it's hard to get cocky. You get a cutaway in a movie, a reaction shot gets a bigger laugh than anything. And you're like, you're in a screening going,

that's the funny part, all right. All right. What have you guys said? We have no idea what we're doing. No, no. Hard to get cocky.

Yeah. I also, I heard the first, first movie I directed, um, was called keeping the face. and me and Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller, yeah, yeah.

And he's great in it, and we had a really good time. And when I went to do it, I met this editor named Malcolm, and he had cut, Malcolm had cut, I think he'd cut, like, he'd worked on a lot of Landis films, so he had done, like, Animal House, and he had done, he had a really great roster of comedies that he had cut. And I thought it'd be good to work. work with someone like that. So I was working with this guy. And it was back when, you know,

we were using avids, but then you had to conform back to film. Remember, you, we weren't, you know, you still had to, you had to rematch the film to the digital edit. And we were going through this, but we locked the movie and we were going through this process of, of, you know, where they cut the negative and all those old things from when we were doing stuff on film. I said to Malcolm, like, hey, we fit, you know, let's go out, let's have a drink, celebrate, or whatever. And he said, I'm going to hang by the phone. And I said, what's going on? He goes, well, we're cutting negative tonight, you know.

And I was like, yeah, but that's like, I mean, that's like, you know, a science lab. They do that. And he's like, yeah. And I said, what's your anxiety? And he told me this story, which is he cut spies like us. Do you remember spies like us? Yeah, Dan Aykroyd. Yeah, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase.

Kind of a kind of a pretty funny movie. anyway, they had cut spies like us and it had gone to the lab to cut the negative and all these things. And Malcolm said they called him and he said he got this call and they said, can you hold for the head of technicolor? And he said, oh no, like there's a huge scratch on the negative or something and we're going to have to replace a shot or something. And he said, he said, as soon as the guy got on, he said, what real is it? just what reels it in? And the guy said, real three. And he said, I'm doing the math, like, what real three, real three?

And he said, what shot in real three? And the guy said, real three. And he said, what are you talking about? And he said, the whole reel is gone. The whole negative of real three is gone. And he said, what could have happened? And it was a guy, he had moved the reel, like, instead of into the developer, he had put it in, you know, he put it into the wrong solution.

And he had completely erased the negative. of the cut negative of real three. And Malcolm said they had to call in, you know, the head of the studio, the insurance company, technical, all of it. And basically they were like, they told him and Landis like, you have to get from the end of reel two to the beginning of real four with the most efficient, you know, use of reshoots or shots and everything. And he said they, he said they did this crazy thing.

They picked up a few shots. They took out takes. They did this thing. they put it all together, and he said he and Landis were like, well, this is obviously never going to work. Then they did a test and they scored higher. They got bigger laughs and scored higher with basically their whole real three eliminated. It's just so ridiculous. I know, I know.

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style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. I have a good feeling about this movie, though, because in the trailer, you see the couple come in, and just, just though you four actors and the awkward, yeah, hey, thanks for having us, of course, you know, I mean, just that tension immediately grabbed me. So I really am going to want to see it in the theater. I think that I would, it sounds like a line, but I would definitely I would definitely get another couple and go, you know, go as a double date because it's a, it will provoke a very interesting dinner table conversation afterwards. You know. Oh, I mean about unspoken truths that couples don't mention.

Yeah. And I don't know. You maybe, maybe want to go to this movie with another couple that you both agree are attractive. We know what you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You're like, would I, would we, you know, like, that's got a little. People should watch the trailer.

Trailer has 10 million views already. And all these comments are fawning over it. And also just such a big cast. When they come to you, before you wrap, I want to say it, when they come to you, this type of movie, is it just a script? Olivia is attached to direct and she's the star? Is that when you get it or do you wait? No, no, this was different.

This was different. This was different. There was this Spanish, this little Spanish independent film that this guy, Sesegay wrote. It was a play and then he made a film of it. And the film is, the Spanish film is the same scenario, two couples. I think it was called the people upstairs or something. But anyway, I saw it, I saw it maybe, I don't know, four years. years ago, four or five years ago. And I liked it. I saw it with my wife, Shawna, who, you know,

you guys know from, she produced all Judd Apatel's movies and a lot of, a lot of air stuff. But so she's kind of, she's the comedy, um, guru and guru. Yeah. She did like Elf and Anchorman and. Those are big, big, big, wow. Meet the parents. She did those ones. There's some bangers that. That era, Ben Stiller doing his thing. Will. Anyway, I look to her for, you know, is this funny? Is this not funny? I think she's kind of famous for the dick jokes in Superbad.

That's her. They were there. They did a good job. You guys seem like such a match. Exactly. Because I am known for, actually, although I've done now with Seth, I have known Seth and Jonah and all those guys and Michael Sarah through Shana. And I have done, what have I done with Seth?

I've done. We did sausage party together. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. We did sausage party together. And then they turned that into an Amazon series. So we've been, every, every now and then I drop my kids at school and I go record some Sammy Bagel, some Sammy Bagel Jr. And I just did, I just did an episode of the studio with Seth that was really, really fun. But, but this Spanish film is brilliant. And there had been remakes of it in like Poland and South Korea and France and everything. And I thought to myself, I would love to get the rights to this and do a, you know, do a, do a, do a, do a, do a, a, a, a, do a, a, a, a, a U.S. remake of it or something. And then I found out someone else had,

some producer had grabbed the rights and it was gone. And I, and I, and I even threw my hat in the ring and said, hey, I would direct this and be in it. And I, in my mind, I was like, I was going to calls, you know, either Seth or Karel or someone like that. And, and, and then I, and then I actually, like, actually talked to the guy who ended up producing the movie, who had the rights. And he sort of, he kind of, he was really nice to me, but he kind of was like, yeah, I think I'm going another direction. Like, it basically was like, thanks, thanks, but I'm going to talk to.

And then he went through these permutations of it with other directors and other actors, and they never got it together. And it kind of... What a process. But it was under my skin. You know, most stuff, I'm like, oh, that didn't work out. I didn't really think about it again.

But this one kind of got under my skin. And I did for a couple years, it was like the one that got away. I thought, oh, that one was so good. I wish I could have done that one. Interesting. And then lo and behold, Seth texts me and said, hey, do you know something about this thing called the invite?

I said, no. He said about the two couples. And I was like, wait a minute. Is that what they're calling it? And he said, yeah, he said, you know, Olivia Wilde wants to do it, and she wants to do it, you and me, what do you think? And I was like, is this the Spanish thing? And he goes, yeah.

And it was like four years after I gave up on it, it came back around. Oh, great. Yeah. And I, and in a weird way, like, it was meant to be maybe, but I also think, Olivia, what Olivia did with it is so much better than anything I had in my head. Like, she really, she just saw it, she saw it with more layers on it. You know, she saw more in it than the pure comedy of it. And I do think what she did has a lot of what I love about Mike Nichols films or what I love

about, you know, Woody Allen's Manhattan or husbands and wives and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. She took it to a whole other level and really was a gift that it came back around. Yeah. And you got to be a part of it. Yeah. It was coming out. Let's tell you when, if you don't know, I know. June 26, I think. That sounds right. June 26th, the invite. Mm-hmm. 21 days on set. 35-millimeter film. Yeah, shot on film.

Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like, I mean, I don't think the Odyssey is going to be a lot of laughs, you know. No. It's going to be good. But I think, you know, at some point you want to laugh in the course of the summer. Oh, is that what's up against the Odyssey? I'm just saying, I mean, I figured the Odyssey is going to straddle the summer like a colossus. Matt Damon will find a way to get funny. Unless there's another Trojan horror movie.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Ed. Edward, I appreciate you coming on. I think I ran into the other night. It's always good to see out in the real world. And Dana is... And I just wanted to say,

we were so happy and we saw your name on the list. Like, of course, you know. And also, I loved the Pete Seeger. I loved you doing that character. Bob Dylan, movie. Yeah, Bob Dylan, a complete unknown. Huge Dylan fan, Woody Allen fan, Beatles. Pink Floyd

You have to pick one If I have to pick one Oh man Led Zeppelin Pink Floyd God It's impossible I mean

I was just It was Oh man That's not fair I'm sorry John Lenin Paul McCartney Oh I mean

It's tough too It's tough too I mean Bob Dylan Neil Young Oh you're killing Yeah It's like

I mean But Dylan is in another You know He's Yeah I know He's a mystic. He's one of the only, he's one of the few people I never wanted to meet. Like, I just was like, I just would, there's, there's only a few people who are like a wizard out there and a mystic.

And I, I never, there's lots of people. I mean, you can, you meet Bruce Springsteen and he's a great guy, you know, but I don't, but Dylan, like, you don't. Dylan has a thing. He's not a people, please. No, aren't there some comedians? There's probably some comedians. It's better not to me. There's some that aren't hilarious in real life.

I will say that. We're traditionally sad clowns, you know. They're traditionally kind of messed up inside. Easy. Well, it's just sort of a cliche. I know. We're all damaged. Edward, I have one last boring piece. You can even click off for this.

But here's a piece of trivia. I did a movie called Joder years ago, and they give you your wardrobe. And they just came off another movie. And so I go open my wallet. And there's a license in it, and it's Tyler Durian. And it's a picture of Brad. And I'm like, what's the? this. He goes, oh, I forgot to switch it. We just did fight club. We just used the same

props and everything. So I kept it because I thought it was so fun because I loved fight club and shit. Anyway, that's a good one. That's a good one. I'll tell you another funny trivia. Dana, do you remember making Wayne's World the producer named Hawk Koch or Howard Koch? Of course. Yeah. Okay. So you're going to like this. So in this movie, the invite, in the script, my character was, is, his name was Shane. and he was a bit of a jock, and Olivia and I were talking about, you know, okay, like, let's make it something more to me, you know, a little more to me. And I said to her, so my character's name in the movie is Hawk. And I said to her, I said, you know, the first film I produced, I met this produced, the first film I was in, Primal Fear, was produced by this guy named Howard Koch, Jr., who, when he turned 50, went through certain,

life experience emotional and he changed his name to Hawk. He changed his name to Hawk to reflect like who he wanted to be and what he wanted to be. And he's like hugely respected when he became the head of the academy and, you know, he's very beloved. He did Wayne's world. He did Wayne's world with you guys. Anyway, anyway, um, Olivia liked it so much and she liked this idea of a person who changed his name because he changed his life. So we made, so my characters, Hawk is, is very specifically inspired by a hawk. Kach. Love it.

Who you know, too. That's a perfect name. Well, thank you, Edward. Thank you, Edward. Enjoy. Catch you around. See you around. See you around.

Yeah. Enjoy your summer. See you around campus. You too. All right, listen, if you're enjoying the fly on the wall, of course, hopefully you are. Click follow. We don't want to be desperate, but obviously smash that goddamn button on your favorite

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Subscribe, Dana. What do you think? I'm going to tell you this right now. Him and I'll believe me later. Fly on the Wall, believe it or not, is presented by Odyssey. And executive produced by Hold For It, Dana Carvey and David Spade. Or David Spade and Dana Carvey. We don't write this stuff.

Heather Santoro, Greg Holtzman, and Leah Reese Dennis. The show is edited by Evan Cox, with production support from Phil Sweet Tech. Talent production and booking by Sophia Lippor.