Happy Sad Confused - Bill Hader

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

As BARRY comes to a close, Bill Hader joins Josh to reflect on the series, his progression as a filmmaker, and more. UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS! ⁠⁠John Cena -- 5/15 at 92NY in NYC. Virtual tickets available. ⁠⁠Get your tickets here!⁠⁠ SUPPORT THE SHOW BY SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! ⁠BABBEL -- Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you’ll get an additional 3 months for FREE. That’s 6 months, for the price of 3! Just go to ⁠BABBEL.com⁠ and use promo code HSC. HELLOFRESH -- Go to HelloFresh.com/hsc50 and use code hsc50 for 50% off, plus your first box ships free! MASTERCLASS -- Get unlimited access to EVERY class, and as a HSC listener, you get 15% off an annual membership! Go to MasterClass.com/HSC for 15% off To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! For all of your media headlines remember to subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Wakeup newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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on the end of Barry and the beginning of a very promising directing career. career. Hey guys, I'm Josh Harwoods. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Another great guest on the pod this week, guys. First time guest, shockingly enough, Bill Hater, though I've known Bill for many years, has never done the pod before, but this was a great occasion for it is the, it is sadly the end of Barry. Four years on HBO coming to an end quite soon. We get into the entire run of Barry and what has come before the S&L days and what's to come in the future. in a, what I just alluded to, a very exciting potential directing career.

Well, we'll get to that in a second anyway. Bill Hader is the main event on Happy, Say I Confused. Other things to remind you about, tell you about, well, we have the live events continue. I've mentioned this before, but just to mention it again, because it is a big one. Tickets are available to me and John Sina. Yes, John Sina live in New York City, May 15th. You can also watch this one virtually if you can't be there in person. But if you can, come on out because this is going to be a great one.

John Cena talking all things fast X, Fast 10, I still can't figure out what to call it. And Peacemaker and his entire acting and wrestling career, it's going to be a great, great night. Many more events coming up, at least one that I know will be a very hot ticket. So I'm not going to say much more except to say. segue into the Patreon because Patreon folks get the early access get the discount codes so if you want to get in on what is going to be a very very hot ticket very soon you might want to enroll in patreon now if you've been contemplating it patreon.com slash happy said confused you get all the early access all the bells and whistles ask a question announcements discounts swag all the all the

cool stuff. So check it out. And yeah, you will not be sorry because there's some really, really cool live events coming up. Other things to mention, God, I've stockpiled a lot of really amazing conversations. I'm actually kind of ahead of the curve in a way, though so ahead of the curve and we've stockpiled so many that we're going to be continuing to run two episodes a week at times. But here's what you can count on guys. Every Thursday, I've been very diligent about this, not to pat myself on the back, but the last couple months, every Thursday, you can count on a new, happy, sad, confused, and as I was just saying, many Mondays, too, we're dropping bonus episodes. So I will say, we've got, let's see, how can I tease some of the stuff coming

up? Well, we've got a Marvel superhero coming up. We've got a new addition to the Marvel universe. Who am I kidding? Every actor is in Marvel now. So you can say that about everyone, but we've got two ones I'm very excited about, one returning champion, one new to the podcast. Look, I'm just going to say it. Our buddy Sam Huyn has some stuff coming out soon. A movie, a little TV show called Outlander. So you might want to, yeah, you might want to be aware of that.

More Last of Us content coming up that you guys are really going to be into. If you dug that show, you're going to be very excited about. Maybe another guest from the White Lotus coming on. on up. And that's just the stuff that's actually been booked. This is a, you know, this is a fluid situation, guys, but I want to give you a little bit of a tease for all the fun stuff that is coming up. I'm very excited because, look, we're only in April, but I'm already looking to the summer. I'm looking to Comic-Con. I'm looking to some big world premiere events that I will be covering for MTV, that I will take you guys along for the ride on, one in

Europe. I'm not going to go more specific than that. I don't want to go too specific yet. But in May, I will be visiting one of my favorite cities for a ginormous event. And I will give you the blow-by-blow on that one very soon. And some other really exciting things also potentially coming around this summer. So it's going to be a busy time. Come along on all the Josh Horowitz adventures. Remember to review rate and subscribe. Spread the good word. Anyway, okay, so back to Bill Hater. Let's go to him right now, but before I do that, just a little preamble. No real big spoilers in this conversation.

We take this a few weeks back. I have seen, I will say, the first seven of eight episodes of the final season of Barry. They're fantastic. One of my favorite shows on TV. If you have not got it on the Barry bandwagon, get in on it now. Exceptional performances from everybody in the cast, including Bill and Henry Winkler, amazing, Sarah Goldberg, they're all fantastic. So no big spoilers in this. We talk a little bit about a cameo that's in the show in the first few episodes, but I don't think it's going to

ruin your enjoyment. But this is a fun conversation because Bill, of course, is one of the funniest human beings on the planet. And I've done some amazing sketches. I'm not patting myself on the back. I'm saying they're amazing because of Bill over the years. But this was a chance to really get kind of like more geeky on the filmmaker side of things because Bill has directed all eight episodes of the season of Barry. He's directed episodes of from all the seasons, but this time he did all eight, which is kind of insane. But it really shows how committed he is, how serious he is, how talented he is. And as we talk about in the conversation, I know for a fact that the future directing career of Bill Hader is one to watch. Think what happened with Jordan Peel when you think

about what we're going to see on the filmmaker side of things with Bill Hader. It's going to be really exciting. So I'm thrilled for this last season of Barry. I'm excited to see the finale along with the rest of you. And even more than that, I'm thrilled for what he's going to bring to the big screen because at his heart, he is just that gigantic film geek and loves movies in particular. So to see what he does there is really, really exciting. And I don't even know what it's going to be, but I know it's going to be cool. So, okay, that's all the preamble you get. Enjoy my conversation with actor, genius comedian, comic actor, writer, director, man of many talents.

This is the one and only Bill Hater. Enjoy. Welcome officially to the podcast for the very first time, Bill Hader, despite our many chats, you've never done the long-form soul-searching deep dive. So I appreciate the time. Oh, no problem, man. Thanks for having me. So where are you at? This is, we were just saying when you hopped on the Zoom, this must be kind of an unusual time. Like, presumably it's all wrapped. It's done. I've seen the first seven episodes. It is, it is not fully done. It's, it's, we are, um,

So we're mixing right now. So we, the episodes you saw, only one through five were completely done, done. And then six, seven, and eight were still mixing and doing visual effects on. Yesterday I had a visual effects meeting and we realized our next meeting is our very last one. And everyone got real sad because I love Laura Hill and our visual effects team are just amazing. So, you know, it's just, we're coming up to that stuff. We have my last color correction with Carl Hersey, the director, and Dave, the colorist, we're just beautiful people.

And so it's all, it's just been a series of these kind of bitter sweet. There's a little goodbyes and, yeah. Yeah, goodbyes, you know, so it's tough. But then it's nice that, you know, people seem like to show who've seen it. So that's, it's really nice. Talk to me a little bit about, let's go back to the beginnings of Barry for a second, Because when you launched this with Alec, there, I mean, I'm sure you must have had the concern that, like, were people going to accept it, considering your track record, your history, primarily, you know, known primarily for comedy, for SNL, etc. Were you gratified, shocked that the critics, the audience received it in the way it was intended in that first season?

Yeah, I was very surprised. I mean, I knew I liked it. but I don't you know you very you don't know as I've learned on S&L you can like something but doesn't mean the audience is going to really enjoy it but the only way I can really do anything is you just try to do it for yourself and let's write for the story and you know hopefully people will like it but yeah I was really surprised you know and it's funny too because at that time everyone was like wow this is really dark right And now if you go back on the first season, it's like full house. Yeah. It's full house compared to where it went. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So it is, it is, it is interesting, yeah. Is part of that where the story just had to go dictated by the characters and the arcs or part of it, is it part of it like having kind of like, oh, I know I have license to do that now. They're willing to go on this journey. Yeah, I mean, it was more of the former thing. You know, it's your, the characters are going in a certain direction. direction. And I think from the get-go, we never wanted the show to feel the violence to feel funny or glib or, you know, that's why, you know, Janice Moss in the first season dies. And it was very, for me, I was like, you have, we have to be reminded of Janice Moss for the whole series. You know, her name comes up every episode, you know? And, and, and because when someone dies, you don't forget them. So it affects so many people from,

forever. So I thought it illustrated what Barry's been doing to people very well and to hold on to that. But by virtue of that, yeah, it's hard to then mind comedy out of things that don't want comedy. It is interesting. We'll sometimes try to put comedy into a thing and it just kind of gets spit right out at us. And then sometimes the scenes that usually work is we'll write it very straight. A good example is this season. There was a scene where Noho Hank and Cristobal had to do a pitch to a bunch of criminals. And initially it was written in like a warehouse and there was like and the joke was more that there was food laid out for them and it was this kind of thing. and then Duffy Boudreau and I

read it and we worked on it and it just was like a very straight scene of them pitching this thing to these crime guys and then you start to do kind of you write it straight and then you kind of do like a mystery science theater on it where you can do with movies where you just start to

you know make the snide comments or make surreal like stupid comments and then and then it turned into us going well if this was at Dave and Busters and I was like oh what was at Dave and Busters and what if we did this thing in you in the show now but that tends to be a thing where it works you know something like Sally being attacked last

at the end of last season there shouldn't be anything funny in that you know you can't really make that funny but it's honest you know so when people talk about the tone of the show I'm I kind of just see is honesty, you know, what's honest. One thing that people are going to discover as they watch these episodes is your name crops up a lot in the credits. You are directing every single episode this season, which is, you're no idiot, Bill Hader. You knew this was going to probably break you.

I mean, this is a lot. This is an undertaking. I definitely have more white. And, yeah, I put on like 20 pounds between season three and season four. Yeah, just from the sheer stress of it all. But yeah, you know, I, you know, Aida Rogers, our great producer, kind of came to me at the end of season three and said, you know, I think you should direct them all because it doesn't matter if we had Martin Scorsese directing them. You would be behind their back going, no, no, no, it goes over here, no, that needs to go. You know, I would, I just, you know, I think it'll be faster if we can do it this way, you know, and much more efficient.

Did you ever, you do have, speaking of great filmmakers, you have, I don't think we, I think we can say this, right? Guillermo pops in there. Yeah, Giro, yeah, he has a cameo in one of the early episodes. Yeah, he's great. Amazing. Did you, did you ever ask, like, someone in the likes of him? I mean, you had some amazing directors. Let's not, no slouches that have directed the episodes throughout the years. But did you ever ask like a feature prominent director like Guillermo, Edgar Wright, etc., to like try their hand at an episode? No, no, probably because I would drive them nuts. You know, I think that's the honest answer. I would be like, ah, sure you want to, as, you know, season one, I was better because season one, I wasn't that bad. And then season two, you know, a little worse. Then by season three, I think I just drove out like crazy because it was like,

you know, once you got down to like, why are you on a 50 millimeter lens? Okay. Which from me, it's like, you know, that's something you would use to, you know, 50 millimeter to me is like, you know, trying to, you know, a 20, a 200 millimeter lens or something, you know what I mean? It's like, that's something NASA needs to see the craters on arms or something. I tend to like things that are a little wider. it does feel like an amazing just to look at your progression as a filmmaker through this series is pretty remarkable and what struck me in the episodes I saw what people have talked a lot about in previous seasons you know the runners the Ronnie and Lily's episode etc and this season like I feel like actually a lot of restraint from you as a director a lot of confidence and restraint and like knowing the power of holding a shot on an actor's faces you're in love as you should be with your actors and your actors faces, I feel like. Yeah.

I do think, yeah. I think the actors this season, uh, yeah, it's hard not to, you know, you, it is a bit of confidence and it is just, well, what tells the story? Yeah. You know, and I think a lot of that comes from a love of old movies to, you know, watching a lot of old films and you would walk, look through them and kind of count setups, you know, if you watch a scene in an old movie and go, okay, they change the angle

there, they change angle, you know, they only really, it's like, it's like, four setups right there and it's really intense amazing scene you don't need a lot of coverage right and so i think that's something that's really important and uh and and and so it was having the confidence to just tell the story and try to tell the story through shots um that that was very and you know that's kind of it's very like kind of italian i mean i guess everybody does it but i always think of the Italians for some reason of like, you know, the, the shot can kind of tell the story of all those, like, those great Italian movies in the 50s and 60s. I was watching a lot of those during the pandemic and all those Polish filmmakers, too, tend to do that as well.

You know, Ange Veit, his early movies, I really love. That's all to say, I will do all this and I will work really hard at it and I'll have all these very, like, cool, that's a influences, and then I watch it in the mix, and I go, geez, I like the common brothers. Sure. And the way they, Barry Sonnenfeld will throw that camera around. And yeah, yeah, there's no way I'm ever going to escape that, okay, yeah, it's just, it's me watching S&L and going, gosh, I like Phil Hartman. You know what I mean?

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I can't imagine something like Twin Peaks isn't an influence in some way on you. You know, I saw the first season of Twin Peaks when I, my friend Mark Pilvensky's house when I was in my early 20s, and I don't really remember a whole lot of it. But I do love, so Twin Peaks is not really, but I do love David Lynch. I mean, I would say blue velvet, it was a massive movie when I saw it. Eraserhead, blue velvet were huge. Well, there's something to that underbellion blue velvet, right? That kind of like underneath the surface, you know, just have to scratch at it.

And then there's like the most perverse. Yeah, I felt like the end of season three last year. It was like the stripper and crystal ball, like that old thing. When I watched it, it was like, oh, this feels very David Lynchy in a weird way. You, in one of the early episodes, you direct Sarah, Sarah's character through what seems like a panic attack, a full-on panic. It actually goes through in the car. And look, we've talked a lot about your issues with anxiety over the years. It's going to always be a constant issue in your life.

I guess what's it like for you as a director directing another actor through something that I would imagine you've probably gone through. in your life. Well, Sarah's so good that you can just say, have a panic attack. And I think the thing I've learned and I try to stick to it and I'm bad at it sometimes is you try to let the actor on their first take

just do their thing. Sure. And then you come in with notes and you try to make the notes simple. This is my goal. I screw it up all the time. We just did reshoot. a couple months ago and I immediately gave one actor way too many notes and they said can you

please stop it with a right right and then and then one actor I gave him a big note before they did their first take and then I went I had to go over and be like okay forget what I said yeah you were going to do I think I you're doing the wrong direction yeah just a little faster that's it yeah yeah just a little faster you know what you're doing let me just yeah get what I said um but in that scene it was a thing of like let Sarah do it and then it was like you know it's just just a degrees like she's so good she comes up with a lot of stuff that you kind of go oh i like this i like this i think we could go a little bit i think let's try one a little bit bigger and then romey who plays her mother you you know you're just trying to find a fun juxtaposition between them

you know and that's a good example of a scene that i had planned to be covered with a couple different shots. And then when I, we shot the, the wide shot first and Gavin Kleintop and our first AD in Carl Hersey, the DP, just kind of looked at me knowing like, you know, the whole thing could just play in this. And I was like, yeah, I don't think we need these other shots. Let's just do the insert of the phone. And then I think we can go, you know, and then you just kind of call it. But, but that is, that, that would not have been, I would not have been like that season one, or possibly even season two. I still would have shot everything. I think what's also gratifying for folks that are going to come back to this after having watched the first

three seasons. And this was evident in the first season, but I think it really struck me watching this season is, yes, the name of the show is Barry, but this is such an ensemble show where you really have a full sense of each of these ensemble's lives and the damage that Barry were themselves have done to themselves and how they're reckoning with the damage of the past three, three, seasons, three years, whatever time frame this is. I'm curious, like, I mean, do you find that, like, they're all on the same journey in effect in season four? Like, are in broad strokes, they kind of are dealing with the same issues. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I always said, like, you know, this season, all the characters have Barry's disease, you know, which is like, can't, I have this thing.

that keeps getting me in trouble, but is that who I am? Is that a thing I can get rid of? You know, is that my nature or can I change it? You know, and I think what you'll see as a show goes on is that some way that you can change that is by acting, is by trying to be someone else, you know, is putting up a persona of what you want to present to the world. and by putting that persona up you can be that version of yourself that you want to be right and it's like can how long can you sustain that you know is that something that you connect with on any personal level of trying yeah yeah i mean there's definitely aspects of my personality i don't like and you're always trying to work through them.

But, and I do, you know, as you get older, you know, real bad things happen to you. And so you need to. We accumulate the bad shit. You accumulate bad shit. Yeah. And it's kind of like, well, what do you do with it? Right. And when we're writing this show, there is like.

most of the people who work on the show are around my age you know are close to my age and have experience this stuff so they relate to um they relate to it you know so it's it's a thing that you're you're writing towards and it's and and everybody from the writers you know with duffy budro and liz sarnoff or or you know Iida Rogers and Gavin Kleintop and uh and then our editors, Ali, Ali Greer and Frankie Gutman, while we're watching and kind of honing the story, it's really helpful to have people go, that doesn't feel real, you know, that just doesn't

ring true to me, you know, or that, that bumps me that you wouldn't have a reaction to that or that she doesn't care about that. And there is stuff in the show, I will say, by virtue that it's 30 minutes and there's a lot happening, that you do kind of gloss over things that, okay, in reality, this would be a full conversation or whatever. But some of that is just storytelling, you know. Right. But you were saying before, it is about emotional honesty. Yeah, emotional honesty is the most important thing.

So as long as it feels emotionally true and it comes from a place, basically, you, you basically try to take something from your life or a feeling you've had in your life and then you exaggerate it to a place that was entertaining. But it is, it could be something super small, but then you can make it a bigger deal, but it's still the same emotion. How often does Unforgiven come up in the writer's room? Because even as I was watching, even again, not revealing anything, but by end of episode seven, I'm like, I feel like,

we're about to like go unforgiveness yeah yeah yeah episode seven is yeah yeah that's yeah that's yeah it's it is it is it is uh actually you know what unforgiven doesn't come up as much as it did early on and i don't know if the if the if the um if the writers if a lot of the writers have even seen unforgiven you know i know aleck and duffy and i liked unforgiven um I mean, especially like the kind of ending of it and everything. And that was really reflected at the end of season two. Right. That taxi driver, Unforgiven thing.

And for the audience, that may have been a minute since they've seen Unforgiven, which is essentially about this character played by Clint Eastwood, William Money, who is denying or trying to escape who he was, his nature, we're talking about. And his nature is he's a stone cold killer. He's a motherfucker of a killer. And it ends, and I remember this when I was a kid watching it in this kind of like catharsis where he kind of returns and becomes what he was. And the weird part was the audience kind of cheered.

Like it was like a, it was like a great moment. Yeah, they didn't. Yeah, it was like you wanted to, yeah, there's parts of the audience that really just want to see Cliniste would like blow away some shit up. Yeah. And the idea that was a powerful to me about that movie was you grew up. It's very much for a certain generation. but if you grew up watching a lot

like Clint Eastwood movies were on TV constantly and you watch a lot of Clint Eastwood movies and it was always him blowing people away indiscriminately and for him to make a movie kind of commenting on that and going like, yeah, okay, the real version of this is a guy

who's very lonely and very sad and hates himself. And that's the real version of it. Yeah. And so for me, early on, it was like, oh yeah, I'd be interested at exploring that.

But if that guy, if William Money went and hung out with the people from waiting for Guffman, you know, that's kind of, that was the initial thought, you know. Amazing. Hey, guys, I'm thrilled to tell you about one of our sponsors today. This is Masterclass, something I've been using for a long while. This is an amazing opportunity for you guys. Because with Masterclass, you can learn from the world's best minds anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. I've used this myself many times.

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phase of your career which is to be filmmaker storyteller a director which correct me wrong that's the aspiration that's that's the next yeah yeah i was the most interested in yeah so do you but on any level does do you feel any similar feelings through what you went through at the end of SNL to what you're feeling now, or does it feel by virtue of what it is totally different? Yeah, it's, it's, you know, SNL was, was, you know, you were part of a bigger machine and, and SNL was hard because the work at SNL, by the end, especially, it was always, I think consistently very hard for me, which I've talked about a lot. And I always want to make clear, you know, people were nice. It wasn't like the place was mean or whatever. It was my own personal mental. mental problems making the show, doing live comedy every week was very tough on me mentally. And so I was very happy that that was going to be over with, but I was horribly sad at having to say goodbye to all these people I'd worked with so closely for eight years.

So it was very bittersweet in that way. And I was moving. I was moving to Los Angeles from New York. So it was a giant shift. And in Barry, it's a different feeling of, oh, thank God, I got to tell this story and write the end of the story. And I'm very proud of it. But it's a similar bittersweet thing of, oh, I don't get to go and work with these great actors and crew. You know, we have our premiere on Sunday.

we're going to we have a big premiere event and you know I know like that could be the last time I see some of these people you know it's it's um you know I'm I'll probably be very emotional because I really you know you you sit there and I can sit in my room and come up with a story and you can write you know in your room um oh Barry takes a motorist and this whole motorcycle chase happens and we it's on a freeway and you write this all up and then it's like this massive effort of shutting down a freeway and like getting all these people and all these technicians and these artists and all these brilliant people yeah you know to help you with your idea and it's and so it can go from that to the close up of sarah goldberg at the end of season

three when barry's telling you're like barry berkman did this and you have that moment which we didn't write. It just happened in the moment. And you go, I can't believe this actress is going there for me. Right. For my idea, you know, she's going there for it. And so I'm always so appreciative. So that kind of love and respect I have for all the people who work on the show.

That's the hardest thing sing about all of them. I confess I'm really not sure what your directing career is going to look like. And I say that as an exciting thing. Like, I'm not sure, like, and when we talk in my 10 years about, like, the last three films you directed, you know, you know, like, do you have in your mind, like, a very specific kind of path you're going down? Like Jordan, Jordan Peel, you know, to use the kind of analogy, like he decided on a very specific kind of lane and he's killing it, right? Like, are you led to a very specific kind of lane of film that you want to make as a, as a director? You know, I always, you know, I have three ideas and they're all very different, you know, and I think it'd be interesting to, you know, as an actor, I always like to swerve a bit where you would, you would do something like Super Bad and then be in, you know, skeleton twins and then it too, you know, and it's fun to kind of do different things. But I wrote a feature film during the pandemic with Duffy Boudreau, who's a writer on the show.

He's also my best friend. We've known each other since we were 15. And then he and I had two other ideas. One is kind of hard to explain, but the other one was more of like Barry and tone, but instead of a crime story, it's more of a horror story. That I wouldn't be in that one if we end up doing that one. But yeah, you know, it's like more interesting to. it's interesting to me to try because I like a lot of different things

and I think that's why I was kind of happy that Barry was ending because I'm like oh I like this but I like to try the people I always respond to were people who you know one of my favorite Scorsese movies

is Age of Innocence and I just remember going to see that in the theater I have that poster in the other room I love AIDS of Innocence I love that film so much and I just remember seeing it I mean this is so fucking cool that he made this

I know I just said And that you grow up and say the guy made Age of Innocence, the guy made Goodfellas, you know, and Cape Beer and Coondoon. And it's like, come on. Cundoon, yeah, just the variety and the consistency of the films were always, was always there. So I always, I, the dream would have to have something like that. But like I've learned with my career, man, it's like I can't, I moved to L.A. in 1999, I was like, I want to be a writer-director and, you know, and then, you know, somehow

six years later was on, you know, Sounded Live. Right. And I never considered that a thing or a thing that would ever be possible, you know. So, and then I have to get out of Silent Live and it's like, okay, I'm going to, the whole thing was like, you're going to be in movies, you're going to be in movies, you're going to be in movies, and then it's an HBO show that brings me this. And it wasn't until the HBO show started happening that I was like, well, maybe I could direct some of these and direct, you know.

Up until that point, it was very, oh, you're an actor. You're going to do that. So anytime I kind of go one way in my experience, something else comes in and then you go over here. And so not to mention it wasn't even like, I feel like TV wasn't a director's medium until like the last five or 10 years. It wasn't even considered, like, a place where directors could really show off and, like, tell narrative, own the narrative themselves. Yeah, I mean, I will say point blank, I mean, the guy that I look at is hero Mirai.

I remember seeing Atlanta and just going, yeah, the first time I watched a TV show and I went, who directed this? Right. You know, right, right. How can we get him to direct episodes of Barry? You know, so, yeah, yeah, he, I found him incredibly inspiring. I still find all his work so inspiring. have you have you taken the marvel meeting the james gun meeting like is there a place for you in that world whether as a writer director or actor that that you could see yourself in just because it is

such a part of sort of giant part of the world yeah i mean i i i always felt like they're make you know it's all really great stuff i think i i again i never say never to any of these things but as of right now today i'm really interested in trying to have my own little corner of the sandbox to do my thing and and so uh any of those meetings i really just don't want to waste anybody's time because i'm like oh i like to try to do this right let me try this and i don't want to like you know because the other thing you can do i've learned because i've done it is you you you can really feel like you're you're doing a lot of work um in holly would and you're doing nothing.

You're just taking meetings and you're developing, like, tons of stuff. Yep. And years go by and you go, we haven't shot a single thing. Yep. And so for me and the way my brain works, I have to be able to kind of just focus on one thing and see where that takes you. And if it takes you to a place that works, great. If it takes you a place and you go, okay, I did that.

Didn't really turn out the way I wanted it. Oh, they'll have a meeting with me over here. And then you go over there or you do a thing and something else happens from a place that you didn't. It's kind of like what I said before. You just don't know what's going to happen. But my attitude about that right now is like, I love what you guys are doing. But just, you know, for me, it's much more of a personal, almost personal curiosity. Yeah.

Well, can I do, can I try this first, you know? I did go down the rabbit hole when I knew I was catching up with you. from some of our sketches, some of our conversations. Our two sketches over the years are two of my favorites. Both of them somehow, and I don't know if I wrote this or you improvised this, both of them really involve you spitting a lot of things in my face. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're a ghost that haunts me when I inadvertently killed you.

And then you, you, you, um, great cost. We were on a budget MTV that. And then, and then you, um, you ended up cutting off your own hand because you were so upset, I kept spoiling things for you, and you spit in my face multiple times. I don't really have a question, except I miss doing that crazy shit with you. And I guess my question is,

do you miss comedy? Like, I mean, obviously there's comedy in battery, but like, what, what, is that a hole that feels, it's filling occasionally, or what, or what? Like, do sometimes. Yeah, you know, I got to do a part on, on, um, Curbier Enthusiasm where I played these three brothers.

And that, that was like a nice thing where it was like, really big and broad and fun and silly and you're getting to work with larry david and you know it's so fun you know but um but yeah like you know and that might come back you know it's it's some of these other ideas and playing with are much more fun like just you know capital hey comedy type of things right always think like the emotion has to be there right you know that's the and that's always the balance of all that stuff. But I will say, I've been on a text thread since the first day of the pandemic. I've been on a text drive with Fred Armisen and John Malaney, and it's been going on pretty much every day since the last three years. And it's very funny.

Was there ever a consideration of having, I mentioned Keith Morrison at the outset, of having Keith Morrison or Josh Mancovic do a special Dateline episode devoted to the events of Barry? Oh, that was funny. Oh, man. No, we never thought about that because I didn't want to cross the streams, basically. Yeah, I didn't want to like, yeah, you know, you just don't want to make it too reverential of like, oh, he used to play him on Saturday Live and you're disappearing up your own ass. But I love those guys. I love Josh Mackewitz so much because I love Keith Morrison, obviously.

but I love Josh McElwitz because he he always he always says you didn't do that did you you know which I love do the phenomenon 9-1-1 you didn't do that did you you must have the phenomenon of running people

into people on the street that obviously want to reference Stefan and all the characters but then they probably feel compelled for whatever reason to do their bad version of your own characters Oh, yeah, that's happened. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's happened before. But it, and like, are you there to judge them? Are you there to say? I just go, oh, that's good, yeah. But, you know, I've done that too, though, where I've met somebody. I mean, I've had at SNL and you would say, oh, remember when you said the, you know, and then you're doing it, you know? So I've been guilty of that, too, and I get really kind of starstruck by somebody. Like, remember when you did the thing where?

Sure. I think I did that to Martin Short recently, and he was like, yes, Bill, I was there. I recall, yes. I recall when I did the thing. Yeah, I don't know if I, actually, I did a thing with Martin Short the other day, and I had to restrain myself from going full Jiminy Glick on him because. Oh, yeah, yeah.

The Jiminy Glicks were classic, and I showed my kids Clifford, and they were like, this is the darkest, weirdest movie I've ever seen. Speaking of, how is the education of the children in terms of film classics? Are they on the same page with you? Have you had some differences? Yeah, the other day we watched Rear Window, and when it started, they were like, oh, this movie's old, and then by the end of it, they were, you know, like that the whole time, and they were freaking out.

It was so fun. And I watched this old John Sturgis movie called Jeopardy, Barbara Stanwyg. And I had this, my kids had a big slumber party at their house, at my house, their house, my house. And they were upstairs, and I was downstairs watching a movie. And slowly the kids were coming down there watching the movie with me. And it was really sweet. And they were going, oh, my God, what's going to happen? Because it's kind of a thriller.

Yeah. And that was really nice, you know, that was really sweet, you know, to that good storytelling. Nothing trumps good storytelling. Right. Do you feel any resentment that all the emotional connection audiences felt with BB8 seems to have been transferred to Grogu in recent years? Like you were, you and Ben Schwartz were responsible to some degree for BB8's sweetness and charisma. And now that little twerp has taken. all from you. Well, I don't know what Grogu is. You don't know, you haven't watched

Mandalorian? I don't watch anything. But no, but no, I will say, I always say BBA, that's like, it's, it's kind of a, I don't know why. I mean, it's very sweet that J.J. Abrams put my name on it, but I came in and did stuff like voice stuff for it that didn't work. And then he brought me in later and said, hey, do you want to do this? It was like a people. talk box thing and then i did that and the reason he hasn't had me come back to do other because anybody can do that it really is like it's like a machine that you can operate right so it's not like i did some voice stuff that just didn't didn't work you know right um so i'm i don't really sure what ben did but i mean i just know they that was what that was my experience doing it so it is

weird that i did that and i get asked about it still and you know we'll be on location and they'll be these guys with these little BB8 dolls. You'll sign them or whatever, yeah. I do not sign them. I will not sign them. I'm not signing this. Yeah, yeah.

I can't bad, autograph people don't like me. I don't, I won't sign things. Really? What's the, what are the dudes anything or is a specific kind of characters? You're just not. I just don't sign anything because they use it.

I just don't, you know what it was? I had a real, I used to sign stuff. And then one time I saw somebody and they had their kid come up to me to sign a BB8 thing and it was three in the morning I was leaving the inside out premiere and then we went to like an after party thing and it was super late and the guy kept his kid up all night

to like go over there so they'll sign it so I can sell it online. That's fucked up. Yeah. And I was like that's fucked up and so now I just kind of blanket like I'm not signing any of this shit. I respect it. All right. Let's end with some really important provocative questions. This is the happy, sick, infused, profoundly random questionnaire

Are you ready, Bill? Yep. All right. Dogs or cats? Dogs. What do you collect? I collect Blu-Rays, DVDs, and books.

Physical media. Come on. Sometimes the cloud will disappear one day and where are we going to be. The cloud is going to disappear. During the pandemic, I went a little crazy and just bought someone. stuff because I was like if the internet somehow goes down I'm going to have to be able where's my hud sucker proxy DVD yeah yeah I have to be able to watch a man escaped by

russon now when criterion goes down criterion goes down how how yeah I've got to be able to watch you know now I just anytime I like a move by it right yeah yeah what's the What's the wallpaper on your phone? It's a picture of my kids. This is the correct answer. Would you ever skydive? No. I don't know.

Would you rather have dinner with Vin Diesel or Daniel Day Lewis? Daniel DeLewis. What's the last actor you were mistaken for? I'm always mistaken. Well, I always was mistaken for Rain Wilson. and then the last I was mistaken for was

Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan's son Jack Wade and I was like that guy is way skinnier than I that guy is in shape and he's like half my age please do not tell him

I'm very I'm really like Like, that's awesome, you know. Yeah, that's a great compliment to him. He looks like me because that would suck. Please don't tell him he looks like me. His part came up to me and goes, I love the boys. And then he got, and then he says, oh, wait.

He got close. He got close to him. Oh, shit, never mind. Oh, God, yikes. What's in the briefcase at the end of Pulp Fiction? Oh, I think it's a giant Wonka Bar. Big golden ticket. That's why they're so freaked out

because it's just like a golden ticket. It's like, it just closed. I was like, we're going to have to go to the factory. What a sequel that would have made? Yeah. What's the most annoying thing about you

according to your kids? According to my children, oh man, that's a laundry list. That's too many. I don't give them, probably I don't give them fair warning about anything. I kind of just go like, we're going here, but get off that, you know, I think, you got to give me five-minute warning that I have to wrap up this phone call.

Please don't just come in, you know, so I relate to that too. I remember my parents coming and being like, get off the phone. You're like, can I just have five minutes? All right. Finally, in the spirit of happy second, fused, an actor that makes you happy, Bill. Oh, an actor that makes me happy. Yeah, when they show up on screen, you're in for a treat. oh man um the actor that makes me happy uh there's so many that's why it's like my brain just

broke too many there's too many uh but i you know i i i uh um i really love diane keaton i there's dion keaton in the 70s no one is better than diane keaton and i've met her before and I just don't know what to say to her. I think she's still just amazing. Diane Keaton's in something, I'll watch it. I just think she's amazing. Yeah, and there's no one like her. Like, she's on her own wavelength, right?

She's just on her own frequency. Yeah. Anybody who could be in love and death and sleeper in any hall, but then is also in the godfather. And then was in red and then shoot the moon, that movie. She's unbelievable in that movie. So she's just somebody that I've always just. really admired yeah just forever i think love and death was one of the first movies i ever

committed to my brain just like yeah yeah wheat fields of wheat um what what what movie makes you sad oh makes me sad um i mean the obvious one is come and see that's a really hard watch uh but it's great um and i really love the film uh a movie i cry at is a a movie called Kess. That's a British movie called Kess. Movie gets me. And finally, what food makes you confused? It makes me confused.

Yeah. I would say anything, I would say a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because it can kill me. That's caused for confusion. I'm confused of how this thing could have so much power over me. You know? And how every 12 year old can eat it and how it can kill me. Yeah, it's just very, I'm just easy to beat, bad guy. you know just they just put peanut butter on their things and i just be like i don't know you know it just be

terrible well i i'm missing you in person where you can have the opportunity to spit in my face for a good cause next time you'll see at one time you'll just be walking down the street and something will hit you in the face and that'll be me classic hater um everybody should check out going out in style season four of barry uh i can't wait to see the finale man congratulations uh take a breather enjoy the moment And I'm really honestly excited to see what comes next, man. Let's keep talking. I appreciate it, Josh. Thanks, man.

And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't to do this by Josh. Hello Fall. I'm Anthony Devaney. And I'm his twin brother, James. We host Raiders of the Lost Podcast, the Ultimate Movie Podcast, and we are ecstatic to break down late summer and early fall releases. We have Leonardo DiCaprio leading a revolution in one battle after another,

Timothy Salome playing power ping pong in Marty Supreme. Let's not forget Emma Stone and Jorgos' Borgonia. Dwayne Johnson, he's coming for that Oscar in The Smashing Machine. Spike Mike Lee and Denzel teaming up again, plus Daniel DeLuis's return from retirement. There will be plenty of blockbusters to chat about two. Tron Aries looks exceptional, plus Mortal Kombat too, and Edgar writes the running man starring Glenn Powell. Search for Raiders of the Lost Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.