Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 202. Connor Ratliff: How and Why To Do Improv

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

Connor Ratliff is a beloved cult comedy figure known for his award-winning podcast Dead Eyes and his long-running live show/YouTube series The George Lucas Talk Show. He also played an improv student in Mike’s film Don’t Think Twice, which is a bit of a winking joke because Connor is one of the most experienced and revered improvisers on the scene. Mike and Connor go deep on improv comedy process, Connor shares some of his most devastating audition stories, and the two take a phone call from their mutual friend Chris Gethard.Please consider donating to Paws NY Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I met with this agent. She'd asked for a reel, and I didn't really have much. I had like two things on a VHS tape. And I gave her this tape, and she said, I'm going to be gone for a couple weeks. When I get back, we'll look at your reel, and then we'll take it from there. And so a couple weeks later, I called,

and they said, I haven't had a chance to look at you're real yet. Call back in a week. So I called back a week later. She said, I haven't had a chance to look at you're real yet. Call back in a week. I thought, you know what? I'm going to leave it two weeks. So I called back two weeks later.

And she said, yeah, I haven't had a chance to look at your reel. So I'm thinking maybe you can just like come pick it up and then you can own that. That is the voice of the great Connor Ratliff. Connor Ratliff is here after all these years. One of my favorite actors, writers, improvisers, you may know him from his. His podcast Dead Eyes, which is one of Time Magazine's top 100 podcasts of all time. It was an exploration of being hired and then fired on a production that was produced by Tom Hanks for the show Band of Brothers. And the reasoning was that he had, quote, dead eyes.

We explore that today. You may know him from his live show, the George Lucas Talk Show at UCB and other places. at Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He was also in Don't Think Twice. He was an improv student in my movie Don't Think Twice. He's really, really funny. He has so much insight into improv and acting. I think you're going to love this conversation today.

Even if you don't know Connor, he is kind of a, I would describe him as a cult comedy figure. The people who know him love him from the Chris Getherd show, for example, which he wrote for and performed on for many, many years. So I think you're going to love this episode today. By the way, thanks to everyone who has signed up for working it out premium on Apple Podcasts. There's an episode with Connor Ratliff that is up now where we take your jokes that you sent to us and we attempt to punch them up. That's up now.

If you subscribe, you'll have all the episodes, 200 episodes with no ads, and you'll get these bonus episodes. Like the one with Connor, there was another one with me and Jenny. There was one with Pete Holmes where we punch up your jokes. Anyway, the bonus episodes are really, really fun. We appreciate it. It helps support our show. And I also wanted to mention that I have some tour dates coming up with John Malaney, who was on our 200th episode two weeks ago.

These are some dates that John Mullaney is headlining with special guests, Nick Kroll, Fred Armisen, and myself, we are doing a show in New Hampshire. We're doing one in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We're doing one in Canada as part of the Great Island. outdoors festival. Those shows have been so, so fun. I'm going to be doing my own show at the Netflix's A Joke Festival, May 6th at the Wilshire E Bowl Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets for that. All right, berbigs.com. It's just going to be me and friends. It's not a full, complete new show, but I'll probably do maybe a half hour or 45 minutes a new material. Plus, special guests,

working it out with friends. Join me in Los Angeles. I love this chat with Connor Ratleff. Very improv-focused episode. I ask him questions about improv. from listeners who seem to be improv nerds. I'd say the questions are very nerdy and good. We talked to our mutual friend Chris Getherd on the phone who calls in. Connor was a big part of the Chris Getherd show. If you're at all interested in improv

or acting or theater, there's a lot of great talk on this episode today. Enjoy my conversation with the great Connor Ratliff. So, okay, so to introduce you to the audience, Yeah. If they don't know you, they might know you and love you. It's like you had, I would say the most pop thing you ever did was Dead Eyes. Yeah.

Your podcast, which was, you know, Time magazine's, like Top 100 podcasts of all time. Yeah. Which is amazing. It was really a scrappy little podcast. There were basically three of us making it, and then we added a fourth person, an extra producer for the third season. But it really was just such a small operation that was not, There's a big achievement to get that level of acclaim and attention. It's a great example of a simple idea,

which is that you're an actor many years ago. You were not cast in Band of Brothers. It was cast in Band of Brothers. I'm sorry, you were cast in Badd'Am. I'm sorry. We're not even going to cut this out because I'm going to... No, because it's an important distinction. You're going to mis-explain it on purpose.

No, you were casting Band of Brothers. which was a beloved series. It was the biggest thing of all time when it came out. Nothing had been bigger. Yeah. And it was, had a huge cast. And it was Tom Hanks produced. And then after you were cast,

it came to you through the grapevine that Tom Hanks himself said, I don't know if this guy's quite right. He has dead eyes. Yeah, he was directing the episode I was in, which was the best news in the world to me. until it wasn't. Like it was like, oh my God,

and he's directing my episode. And then the day before we were supposed to film, I got the call. You got to go re-audition for Tom. He looked at your tape. He's having second thoughts. He thinks you have dead eyes. So I have this very surreal encounter

where I go in and I audition for truly, like, as small a part as you could have in something. This was not a star-making performance. But to me, it was like, this is my entry into film and television. This was going to be my big break. Of course. And then it ended up being instead, you know, I got fired immediately.

I read for him. Everyone was very friendly. But then they're like, well, they're going to go another way. And I was devastated by it. And then decades later, I make this podcast that sort of treats it as if it is like the kidnapping of the Lindberg baby. I treat it as if it's like, we're going to figure out, which was the comedic sort of premise that podcast is that most of the episodes are actually diversions from that.

They're mostly... Well, I'm in one. We're just talking about how you were in my movie Don't Think Twice. You're in one, man. You were baffled. You kept saying to me

when we were getting ready to record, like, I don't know why you were fired. You know, like, you were like, I don't have the answer. I stand by that. And then, as we're doing the episode, you started realizing, oh, I get what this is. I get what this is.

And then at the end of the episode, you actually had one of the biggest reveals of any episode, which was, I just casually asked one of the questions I asked everybody, which is, have you ever crossed past, I was with Tom Hanks. You're like, oh, yeah, he actually is a big fan of Don't Think Twice.

And he sent me a nice email. That's right, which you're in. And he said, I love everybody in the movie. And I was like, Mike, Mike. Yes. He loved everybody in the movie. Yeah, yeah. I have to count that.

He loved me in the movie. Yeah, yeah. And of course, Tom and I are now on good terms. Yeah, he came on the last episode of the show, right? He came on the last episode of the show. We had a great conversation. Well, he's the nicest person. Not just that.

Like, I was sort of prepared because he's one of the, all, time talk show guests, which is one of the all-time SNL hosts, one of the all-time talk-show guests. But a talk-show guest is a performative thing. He comes on, he's got the great story. He's got the, you know, he's got the energy

to sort of spar with the host. He, having not listened to my podcast at the point where he came on, and I heard later, when I met Rita, the first thing she said to me was, oh, he was so scared. He was so scared to come on your podcast. Oh, my God.

Without ever having heard it before, he engaged with it exactly how I had hoped, which is he just sort of was like, tell me what happened because he didn't remember. And then he was fully, like, he said things in that interview that were not like, unless maybe he's so media trained that you can't get past how good he is at it.

But I don't think it's that. He said things in that interview that were so honest about the way, the business works. Like, there's a point where I brought up that when I re-oditioned for him, I had just made my own little movie with a good friend of his

whom he casts in all the things he directs. This guy named Holmes Osborne. And I started to mention this to him. And before I could even ask the question, he said, oh, if you had dropped that name, you would not have been fired. Which is, like, a really, like, shockingly honest answer about the way,

because you think most of people would try to be like, oh, no, well, no preferential treatment. But there is a thing where it's like, oh, if he vouches for you, I know I can trust you in this little part. You're not going to screw it up, you know? It's interesting. Like, well, a couple things on that. First of all, you're a great actor. Not always. Hold on.

I think you're a great actor. Thank you. And I've had a series of informal readings of my next movie I'm working on, and you were kind of. enough to play the lead, which you're not the right age. You're not right for it necessarily, but you did it just as a friend just because you're the right- I also enjoy doing it. You're the right voice for it.

But like, but when I'm watching you act, I'm just going, oh my God, you are gonna, I'm convinced, mark my words on this podcast, you're going to have like a, like, I think like an Edie Falco or kind of like a Gandalfini kind of career. I think at this point I'm gunning for a Richard Farnsworth. No, but like we're somewhat, okay. Or it's Farnsworth. He got cast like before he died, basically. Yeah, like as the old man in the straight story.

Yeah. So like, but you're going to have a career where something breaks you as an actor. I'm convinced that your level of acting is this. Where something breaks you and people go, oh my God, Connor Ratliff was with us all along. That's very nice. By the way, my producers can vouch for this. I never say this.

This isn't like my like stock like compliment. I know, no, I know you don't. I'm convinced that you are like this undiscovered mega talent of acting. Do you feel like, where do you feel like, like this is one of the questions the producers had today? It's like you've been in acting and improv and comedy for probably two. 25 years. Well, no. And you haven't had your straight story yet.

You haven't had your soprano. The thing is, after the Band of Brothers experience, I gave it one more crack. I moved to New York, and I tried to start over. I had been acting in London, and I thought, well, I moved to New York, and I made no traction. I couldn't get anywhere. And there was a case where I met with this agent, and it was almost like, this was the thing that was truly the end before I stopped for about a decade was I met with this agent and she's like asking me like,

so what do you do? What do you do? And I said, well, I've done this. I did that. And she goes, and when I was growing up, you know, I'm classically trained. I did a bunch of Shakespeare as a teenager in drama school in England and she goes, can I tell you something? Never read a Shakespeare play. And she was so proud, like she'd gotten away with that one. And I was like, oh, no, cool. And then she said, I had, you know,

She'd asked for a reel, and I didn't really have much. I had, like, two things on a VHS tape. And I gave her this tape, and she was getting ready to go away on her honeymoon. So she said, I'm going to be gone for a couple weeks. When I get back, we'll look at your reel, and then we'll take it from there. And so a couple weeks later, I called, and they said, I haven't had a chance to look at your real yet. Call back in a week.

So I called back a week later. She said, I haven't had a chance to look at your reel yet. Call back in a week. I thought, you know what? I'm going to leave it two weeks. That way, plenty of time. So I called back two weeks later, and she said, yeah, I haven't had a chance to look at your reel. So I'm thinking maybe you can just like come pick it up and then you can own that.

And then we'll just see what happens down the line. And I was like, okay. That's a terrible outcome. And I remember that verbatim including the pause, that you can own that. I'm like, I think you did watch the reel. And I went back to the... That's the title of the episode. You can own that.

I went back to this office. And I got buzzed into the building, but I hadn't been buzzed into the office. And I was coming to pick up this VHS tape. And they wouldn't buzz me into the office. And I said to the person, I was told to come in and pick up my tape. And they said, you don't have an appointment.

And I said, I'm just coming. I was told to drop by and pick up my reel. And they were like, no, we're not going to. And I thought, and I just remember saying to them, throw my tape in the garbage. I don't need it. And then I was done for like a decade. And I didn't like do any acting stuff. And I just worked in the bookstore.

And I was happy working. I was working at Barnes & Noble Union Square. And I did a bunch of creative stuff during that time that nobody really saw. I wrote a novel at one point. No one will ever read it. It got rejected for a bunch of places. So those people got to read it. but that's it.

I'm just kind of like, I don't even know where it is now. And I was just really done with it. And then I started doing improv because I saw a couple of shows and they looked fun. And at first someone, I said, how do people perform here?

I was at UCB. Yeah. I said, how do people perform here? And they said, oh, well, you take a bunch of classes. And I was like, never mind. I completely shut it down. I'm not going to take any more classes. I've already gone to drama school

in two different countries. I don't. Right. I was like, I don't want to. Who needs this? And then it's, certain point, my parents kept encouraged me to take improv classes

because my dad used to do improv back in Chicago under Del Close. Oh my God. I mean, that's outrageous. There was a, yeah, he was in a group with Betty Thomas from Hill Street Blues who directed like the Brady Bunch movie and all these other comedy movies. Basically, he saw, he was living

in Chicago, my parents were living in Chicago and he saw a sign saying audition for an improv group. So he went and audition and he got put in the group and it basically was just like a team. They would rehearse every week, they would practice every week, and then they would do a show on Sunday nights. And I have these posters in my apartment for the improv shows they were doing. I just recently actually went and did my show in one of the venues that used to be where my dad would do improv. So I grew up and like Del Close would be in a movie on TV.

And my dad would be like, oh, that's Del Close. That's Del Close. Yeah. And it was sort of this name that I was like, oh, yeah, my dad did improv. It was sort of in the back of my mind. I never thought about doing improv. And my parents kept encouraging me. They were like, you know, Amy Poehler has a theater,

and they do improv, and they do classes. You should take classes. I was like, I don't know. And the only person I know whose parents were actively encouraging that is not a normal thing. Everyone I know who does improv, the best case scenario is the parents understand what improv is. They were the prodigal son of the family.

Yeah, the – and whereas I finally did it because my mom said to me, look, just take a class. And if you don't like the first class, don't go back. Yeah. And it was the first thing where I was like, yeah, what's the harm? And I took the first class and I immediately knew that I wasn't good at it and that I was curious because I knew I was funny and I knew I was good at acting.

And I knew I had a writerly mind. But I was like, why don't I know how to do this? Like I knew I had certain elements that were necessary for it. But I'm like, there's something I'm not understanding about this that I need to figure out. And I did improv for years without thinking I was going to get back into acting. That was an accident. I just was doing it because I enjoyed it and I was intrigued by it.

So you went on to be an amazing improviser. So I asked people on Instagram for their questions about improv for you. Sam Donald Bowers wrote, what are the top five tools of an elite improviser? An elite improviser. Which is an oxymoron. Yes. Yeah, it's like being king of the swamp.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you mean the field of study where everyone is broke? Yeah, the tools. What are the tools for good improv, I guess? Yeah, a handful. Like, listening to other people is the main one. Just like paying attention. TJ and Dave, I think always say big years.

Yeah. That it's not just having ideas and executing them because you have to be responsive. You have to be paying attention to what your scene partners are doing. And even to some extent, whenever I'm doing solo improv, I'm still being responsive to what I'm getting from the audience in terms of that the audience sort of becomes the thing that you're working. working with.

So listing is the main one. And then I don't know if there are any others. That's interesting. I mean, it's hard to think what the other ones are. You're not entirely wrong. And I think, like, it carries over into acting, too. What's so crazy is, like, I'm kind of obsessive over reading, like, things that Ily Kazan has written.

He always talks about, like, the actors he wanted to work with for people who, you could listen. Yeah. Some people just can't listen. Yeah, if you're too busy thinking of, oh, I'm going to do this thing next, which you do have to be thinking and coming up with ideas. But yeah, the listening is the main thing because I guess another thing is like figuring out who you are as an improviser and what you like doing and being the most honest and

interesting person, a version of yourself you can be because a thing that, like, we don't need anyone else to start doing improv. It's not a thing like we need like nurses or teachers. No, no, no. The world doesn't, oh, if only more people we're trying to do improv. No, no. But to the extent that there's a need for even one more improviser, it's so that the thing that is good about, oh, another person is trying to do it is if that person is unlike anyone else. Yeah.

And your improv should reflect that to some extent that if you're just trying to imitate what you've seen other people do, it's very different than if you're really bringing your true, your weirdest specific version of yourself in that anyone, like there's certain kind of improv that you see it done where you're like, you can imagine 20 other people doing the same version of that scene.

But the really great improvisers are people where you're like, no one else would do the scene that specific way. That's exactly where stand-up and improv overlap, in my opinion. And for years, when I was coming up in the 2000s, I did improv with my group Little Man, Nick Kroll and Brian Donovan, Ed Harrow, Conrad Malkhey, Chris Fosdick, and we were at UCB.

And meanwhile, I was doing stand-up also, but there was always this competition between stand-ups and improvisers. Like, they didn't get along or like, We improvises really, we don't do stand-up. And stand-ups were like, we don't do improv. And it's like, no, it's actually, I believe, same muscle. It's an interesting thing because I always perceived it.

There was, I think there was more tension. There used to be more tension than there is now. Way more. I always perceived it to be that I didn't sense that the improvisers really had an issue with stand-up. I always felt like stand-ups hated improv because, and they would, like a stand-up would walk into an improv theater. and they would see a bunch of people on stage going like, and they'd be like, what is this?

Right. You know? But I'm going to grill you on the listening thing. So you're saying like top five things, listen. Listen. And there are no other things, basically. That's the most important thing. But let's drill down on the listening.

Yeah. If it indeed takes up all five spaces, how do you get better at listening? And B, how do you know you're on the right track to getting better at listening? I guess some of it is there are other like skills you have to learn in terms of how to initiate scenes, how to, you know, how to act if you're not an actor. If you're coming out of it, you're not like, I came into it already knowing how to act. So that was one thing that, because there are like writerly improvisers who are great at the writing part of it, but they struggle with the acting part.

But if their writing is good enough, it doesn't matter. Okay. So there are skills and things like that. you start to learn things like don't worry about sometimes you trip yourself up trying to be too elegant and say something the way you're

like sometimes you just need to say things that are not great writing but they communicate to your scene partner like you know you're my pediatrician you know and my kid is sick well you're giving a gift to your team partner

sometimes you're like you wouldn't write that in a script because you'd be like let's just establish this through other you know in a movie just show it's a doctor's office or something. But in improv, sometimes you're like trying to be clever and not say the thing. And sometimes you just need to say something like, you're my dad. Yeah, yeah. And just because the audience needs to know, you're building a thing from scratch and pretending that it's not.

Yeah. And sometimes you try to like be a little bit too smart so you say like, well, you know, you raised me well. And then they might, you know, the, if you haven't established you're my dad, And they might change it to the point where they're like an animal trainer and you're an animal or something. Sometimes you just need to say things in a plain and simple way in improv just to get the thing to make your point. Well, sometimes our friend Tammy Sager will improvise with me and the Please Don't Destroy guys at UCB. And she'll do a thing where if there's confusion about who characters are, because it's like that's your dad. but also it's your brother by accident

because of a series of things where people didn't listen, she'll come on and go, oh, well, there was a misunderstanding because Mr. Breyer, actually is Mr. Breyer Sr. and Mr. Breyer Jr., because there was a mix-up at the mailbox, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, and then it kind of fixes everything moving forward.

And she completely took the bullet for everyone in the scene. Right. Because she doesn't get a laugh off of it. She just actually fixes it and then you can move forward. Because she's listening. Yeah. And then, like, taking care of the problems,

putting out fires, Yeah. And then letting it go. Oh, I have a question which is, don't think twice. Did you feel like we got improv right? Because it's hard to get it right. I mean, there are some things in that movie. There's a thing that you wrote into my scene that was a thing that had really happened

that I hadn't told you about. Perfect. That I was like, that's a good sign. There's like the improv warm up where everyone says they're saying a thing about me and they're all hurtful things. I say this game hurts my feelings. That had really happened to me in a Herald team. It's like, you're fat, you're dangerous.

Yeah. This game hurts my feelings. I think it's in the trailer. Yeah. And I hadn't told you that story. And then we were doing it. I'm like, did I tell Mike? I'm like, I know I hadn't.

I think that it gets a lot of stuff exactly right. I think that weirdly, you know, the thing, there's such a spectrum of how improv is portrayed in non-impro when you were just showing, like in a movie or TV show. And I always think that, like, S&L has done some, like, improv troupe scenes, often featuring people who have an improv background

where it's like, this isn't what any improv is like. It looks more like experimental, like, theater in San Francisco in the 70s or something. Yeah. They'll do things, and it won't quite look like improv. They'll be sort of like in black turtlenex and being like, the water is like the wind or whatever. After I don't think twice came out.

Do you remember this? If A did a spoof of sort of don't think twice on SNL. And it was like the way I could tell that they were doing it as like a joke on us was that the main female improviser was in overalls. And Gillian was in overall. And it's like, well, that's not an improv thing. It is. Like our customer just made that up. My favorite portrayal of improv in anything, I think.

Well, there's a cutaway in an episode of 30 Rock, which is it's Liz Lemon and Jenna Maroney back in their improv days. And it's them getting like a short form prompt, which is like Slingblade and Oprah are on a date. Slingblade being the Billy Bob Thornton movie. And Liz Lemon starts doing a Slingblade impersonation says, I love them French fried potatoes.

And then Jenna M. And he says, no, you don't, Oprah. And it's such a quick, funny version of, like, it's a denial. And it's also, like, accidentally funnier. But my favorite version of improv is, do you remember the episode of Broad City where she's dating a, she thinks she's dating a drummer? Because she thinks he's talking about his band.

And then she finds out he's in an improv troupe. Yeah, yeah. And they have this scene at a film. I filmed at, I think, under St. Marks, which was, like, one of the indie improv venues in New York City. And the improv that's done is by some of the best current improvisers at that time. And the improv they're doing is so horrible in exactly, in every wrong way. Yeah, yeah. Even down to the fact that there's, like, one woman in the group.

And they, like, there's a scene I remember where she initiates a scene and then a guy in the backline immediately tags her out of her own scene. And it's just like such a nightmare of like, oh, yeah, this really. But I think the thing that like don't think twice, it definitely gets like the complex, especially as more time has gone on because now I'm basically like I'm an old man in the improv world. Right. And elder.

Yeah. And I think that story hits differently for me now than it did when you were filming it. Because I've been doing improv basically for 15 years now. 15 years as like a main stage performer. And so that was like a decade ago when we were doing that. So I was only a third way into my sort of like improv life. It still felt like it felt at the time like a real compliment to be in that movie as like an example of like someone in the improv world.

But a lot of that movie has to do with sort of like letting go of it and sort of like what do. you do when you're sort of like starting to outgrow it and starting to like look at other ambitions you know yes and realizing that not everybody gets the same thing i mean that was the main thing for me when i wrote it was like oh that's a crazy realization when you realize like oh we all came up together and it was all for one-on-one for all but actually it's like never goes like that and also like the reasons for doing it are different for everybody that it's not uh For people, like, even though in that movie you have someone who's an example of, like, how sometimes people can go into wildly successful pursuits and show business, that's never a good reason to get into improv. No.

Like, it's really, like, if you're thinking, I want to start doing improv so that I can become a star, it's not that it hasn't happened or that it can't happen, but what a roundabout way. Like, the odds are so long. Yeah. Like, so long. Like, it's so hard to describe. I actually always say to people about improv and Liz Allen came on the show and talked about coaching improv and doing improv in Chicago for years and years. I always encourage people, like, take a workshop with Liz Allen, take a workshop at UCB. Don't think of it as a plan.

Think of it as like an, like a life experiment of things. What if you did a thing where you just said yes all the time? Right. It's a really cool, trippy life experience. And if it trickles into other things in your life, that's a great outcome. Yeah. But the actual experience of it is a, it's a creative outlet. It is an art form.

But it's not a stepping, it's not a reliable stepping stone. And it also actual show business is a whole different world. And like to any extent, like I'm an example of someone who fell backward into acting and film and TV and so like that from doing well in improv. So I'm like an outlier in that. But I don't get the same thing out of anything that I've booked, any like film or TV thing that I've done that I got because I, it's, It's not, it's a job. It's not, it doesn't, it doesn't hit the same parts of my brain. Even the most fun things that I've done in like film and TV or other things professionally,

I still kind of, it's a completely different world. It's sort of, it almost feels like everyone's reasons for doing it are as personal as the way you need to approach it in terms of like, why are you doing this? If you're doing this because you think it's interesting and you enjoy it, that's a very good reason for doing it. Yes. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Let me see if Getherd will pick up, because I'm just on with Getherd and I had, I asked him if he could talk on air.

Hey, buddy, you're on the air with Connor Rallif. Oh, right now, currently. Is that okay? Yeah, I mean, I just got home. I'm sitting in my car, my driveway. So, Connor Routliff, you've worked with for many years. Oh, yeah. I was an early adopter of Connor Rattelph, I would say. Now here's a thing I want Connor to discuss. All right.

Which is, so when we were doing my old public access show, Connor was a huge part of it, and many people's favorite part of it, legitimately. And he did a bit where he ran for president, and his platform was, you have to be 35 to be president, and I'm 35 so I can be president. And Mike, when I tell you that he only,

like, I would be like, Connor, why don't you come play a character? He's like, no, I do the president. And he would only appear on the, show as a presidential candidate who would say with no jokes and the utmost sincerity that he really thought he was going to win and he was going for. And like his heartfelt monologues about his in. But this went on for, I believe, two years that he would only appear on the show. Yeah.

Like, we once did a show at South by Southwest. And one of the years, we had a guy in our show was crazy. We had one of our characters, oil wrestling audience members in a baby pool. And this somehow built to a point where someone challenged Connor who was in a suit because he was running for president And Mike when he stripped down This is real When he stripped down an oil wrestle with an audience number He was inexplicably

Already wearing underwear with his own face on them Advertising that he was running for president It was only that he revealed that he only wore Presidential shoulder his underwear with his own face on them. Every time he... But he never showed it for a lot. He never intended to actually show it as a joke.

It was just a thing he's character. It was so bizarre. We're not even going to be able to use the rest of the interview. We're not going to be able to use the rest of the interview with Connor because it hurts his legitimacy. So much to air this story. I think it adds to my legitimacy. All right, Gett, we got to run.

But I love you. you, miss you, and come back on the podcast again. Say the word now. You call you there. All right. All right, bye. See, you, buddy. See, and I would say that the reveal that I was secretly wearing campaign-themed underwear,

where they were boxer briefs that had my face and my presidential slogan on the underwear. This is not a personal revelation. This is about process. This is what this conversation is all about. I'll talk about process so the cows come home. Okay, this is another question. This is from Abby Bernasco. What's something you hate that other people do during improv scenes?

I mean, this is going to be so... I never like it when someone says my name in an improv scene. Like when I'm doing a scene, then someone, like, uses my name. Because for me, the whole point of it is make... Unless there's a real... Someone says Connor. Someone says Connor. Or someone says, like, well, this is Connor Ratliff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm always just like, that's not who I was being. And I only like it if they're, every now and then Shannon O'Neill has done it and it's always like a burn. When she does, she's the one of the few people who does it and it's actually like it works. Yeah. Because I will be playing like a degenerate who's on trial and is going to get the death penalty. And then she'll label me Connor Ratliff. She'll wait until it's like the most like I'm painted into a corner where like this will really get me.

I tend to not, one of the things I really don't like, I guess, is. courtroom scenes that end up becoming about how we have not properly staged a courtroom scene. I don't like it. I don't like it. Yeah. It's probably fun the first time you ever discover it, but it's not. It's not right. There's a move that people do that I've never seen people do correctly, which is it's an early thing people do where you'll be improvising a scene. It's like a nervous, easy thing to say when you don't really know how to do it yet, where we'll be saying something like, oh, yeah, we're going to be saying something like, oh, yeah, we're. We're going to go, I've got some food in a picnic basket and we're, we're going to go have a picnic today. And then the next person will say like, yeah, it's going to be the best picnic ever. Mm-hmm. And anytime someone says something's going to be like the best thing ever as a move.

It's not in the world of real. I only like it if we then actually were to commit to that and say like, yeah, that's actually the goal today. Right. Is in the history of outdoor dining among friends or colleagues. We're going to be acknowledged by good housekeeping magazines. This is going to be something that is going, like to do one where it's actually about, the goal is actually to make history today.

And here are the achievements. Here are our goals for the day. Like to really make it about that as opposed to lines like that that are just sort of like filler lines that don't mean anything. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, one of the best pieces of advice someone gave me about improv once is, to your point about courtroom scenes, if you're not familiar with the thing you're doing, Do it the best that you possibly can. Yeah. It'll inevitably be wrong, but most likely that'll be an interesting part of the scene. The way that I tend to do improv, I'm occasionally trying to be funny, but funny is not really my goal.

I'm almost always trying to do the most legitimately dramatic version of whatever's happening. And that's usually my path toward it being funny because it always fails. Like no matter how stupid the idea is, I kind of want to do like the harp. Lee version of that. I want to do the Eugene O'Neill like absolutely like we're going to win a Tony Award for Best Play

for this scene. And then inevitably it three lines in just the act of trying to do something that well fails spectacularly. Yeah. What's a flub that you still think about? A

flub. A flub in like an improv scene like a mistake Yeah. It's funny because it's Jackie Marchy asked that, but it's like a little bit of an oxymoron. Because, you know, there's a phrase people say, but there's no mistakes, which I think is true. I mean, there are mistakes,

but in the sense that those mistakes are all opportunities. They're all opportunities, yeah. You can misspeak, and it often is the best thing that could happen to a scene. I'm trying to think of there. That's why I love improv just as a philosophy, like as a thing to study, because, like, I think that's true of almost everything. Yes. There's so many things in art and in life where the thing that goes wrong turns out to be the thing that, like, oh, if that hadn't happened, it would have just been same old, same old.

It's hard to remember an example because it happens so often that it's just part of the thing. and you just tend to erase most improv memories. It just goes right into the recycle bin. Because it is whenever there's a big mistake, it's just fun. It's just an opportunity to have something fun happen. I can speak to it like, because I remember this as one of my core memories

in learning how to do improv. I was in a class top by Gilo Zeri. It was like my improv like 201 teacher. and I really hadn't done anything good yet in any classes. I was figuring it out. And someone was doing a scene where this doesn't sound like a particularly funny idea for an improv scene, but someone was doing a scene where their child had broken a thermometer and swallowed the mercury inside.

And so the guy's like, he's calling 911. He's like, oh, no, oh, no. And I thought, well, I'll do a walk. I'll enter the scene as the 911 as the paramedic. And he's on the phone to 911. And I was thinking, oh, we'll cut forward in time and I'll be the paramedic. But I didn't know how to make that move. So I just ding-dong, knocks on the door thinking I'll be the paramedic arriving.

And the guy who was on the phone said, oh, hold on just a second. Someone's at the door. And I thought, oh, no, I can't be the paramedic now because no time has passed or whatever. And so in the two seconds that went by, I'm thinking, what else could it be? What else is going on in the scene? and without even consciously thinking of it, he opened the door and I said, hello, I'm selling thermometers.

And it really was just, it really was just what else is in the scene. There's two things. There's medicine and there's a broken thermometer. And I said it, I remember Gil laughed. And I remember thinking like, almost like a child, like, oh, yes,

I've solved the one problem that is not urgent in the scene. Yeah. Not the poison child, but the broken thermometer. And I think about that so often because it wasn't intentional, but it was like a roadmap towards like, look how simple this can be. Like the math of this,

I mean, it's still surprising to me when I think of it because I don't, I didn't think of it as a joke. Yeah. I thought of it as what else is there to talk about. What else is there? Yeah.

And it was such a mathematical, like there's that and there's this and there's also this. I'll say this. Well, that, that's part of the reason why I always encourage people to take an improv class if they can. Because I think any kind of creative it's good for, I think it's good for writing. It's a lot of like, what about this? What about this? What about this? What about this? You know, like I have a character in my movie right now where I go, nothing happens with this guy. What have he this? What have you got fired? What if he fell into the lake? What if you blah, blah, blah. And then, like, one of those things ended up being the thing. Yeah. And it's literally coming up with the worst ideas.

And then eventually, in the list of the worst ideas, is the best idea. Right. And I do feel like generally in my life, my best ideas have always been jokes that I've said not meaning them. And then I'm like, actually, we should do that. Yeah.

I'll always say something that I'll think, here's a super thing. Yeah. And then I'll be like, actually, we should really do this. Yeah. And I think it also rewires your brain just for life in a way that you open yourself up a little bit towards possibility.

I find that conversationally, if you learn how to do it right, it makes you a better listener in life and you're sort of like, I mean, this isn't necessarily true of every improviser, but for me it really changed my whole outlook on everything, including having an awareness, like one of the things that really kind of was key,

to me even the discoveries that I needed to make in order to make Dead Eyes as a podcast was realizing that there is a separate part of you that is a creative person and an artist and a talented person and then there's the business where they may need you or they may not but they're making even if what they make is a great piece of art

it's also to someone it's a product like you can have a 100% the greatest films that have been made by a Hollywood studio are still being like sold they're still still they're not just a product. They are great works of art, but there's somebody out there who's like,

this isn't making money or this is or I don't see money in this. And that that is a separate thing. Like the thing that it really changed for me is realizing that like I didn't need validation as an actor or performer. The place to get it from is in this realm, not in the realm of whether or not you're right for this other thing. one's making that's going to be bought and sold. Well, the crazy thing for me being an actor for years and years and then being a director

and casting people is realizing that as an actor all those years, it had nothing to do with me. Yeah. Like whether or not you're cast, sure, you have to be, do your best, you have to study the material, you have to be in the moment. After that, it has everything to do with what they're looking for. It doesn't have to do with you. And you might be what they're looking for. And you take it so personally.

You take it so personally. And the odds are it has nothing to do with you. So it's just a numbers game. And the thing is, no matter how, like I know I'm a good actor. I know I'm funny. I know I'm talented. I know all these things. I also know I am not right for almost everything.

Almost everything. Almost everything that happens. I am not the right person for it. 99% of things that are made you and I are wrong for. I also had a horrific discovery this week on a professional and personal level, which is I just did my show and every now and then I'll have a guest to do it, come and join the acting class. And so I had a surprise guest this week, which is Rachel Zagler came on the show.

Oh, great. And it's filmed and we're going to put it on YouTube and all this. And I was looking to try to get a keyframe for the YouTube video. And you know, in animation, there's there's like key frames and there's what they call in-betweeners like the so like in an animated cartoon they'll be like this pose and this pose

and all the good poses but then they need the things that go between those poses to get them and those are the ones that are like less frameable they're less good I'm scrubbing through the hour trying to find a frame that has me and Rachel in it

where we both where it's both an acceptable looking photo of the two of us and Rachel almost entirely exists in keyframes. Like you realize the difference between a movie star. I can see where this is going. And I am almost entirely in between. You're a tweener.

Every frame of me looks like I'm blinking or my mouth is hanging open or I'm turned my head in a way it's not right. I'm literally going, there's 24 frames in every second. I have yet to find a frame. This shatters my belief that you and Rachel Ziegler are the same person. If we're here to make any point today, that should be it. There was a question from, okay, Judd Apatows is, is it too late to start doing improv?

No. Asking for a 58-year-old friend? No, I started late. I mean, now it seems quaint because I was 33 when I took my first improv class. All of my peers at that point were at least a decade younger than me. And I don't think there's any age where I wouldn't be curious to see what you would get out of it. But I don't think if someone was 90 years old and they wanted to take improv, the things that they'd have certain disadvantages,

but they'd have some major advantages. One of which I think is, I think the older you are at it, the more you realize there's nothing really to be frightened of. Yeah. I think that was my thing going into it early on. Even when I failed really badly at something,

I always felt like it was good. That's how I learn. In some ways, that's what the goal of this podcast has been through 200 episodes. is like opening up the notebook a little bit and being like, you know, these aren't all great. This is all, a lot of this is in progress and like it's iterative and it takes years, months, years, you know, for these things to become. And I've done, I've done in the past year, for example, I've done some of my worst improv and some of my best improv.

And that's part of the process is that like you're never, you're never more than a few seconds away from doing your best or your worst improv in any other show. So I don't think there's ever a point where it's too late to start. This is from Malik Alasal, who's been a guest in the show. He's the star of the show adults. Yeah. Which I have put myself on tape for. Okay, so you, it's a good back and forth. Malik says, is there actually a good time to say no in improv?

Yeah, there's, there's, the thing about saying no in improv, it's kind of a confusing thing because it's sort of like the early rule of like don't fight in an improv scene is really just about like don't get bogged down in the easy back and forth yes, no

that sort of thing. There are times where you can say no there are times where you can like the yes and is more about the reality of it like the you initiate

something and then you say, no, we're not, this is actually this. But there are instances where any improv rule is true until the moment that there's a really good and interesting and fun reason to break that rule. So there are times where even the full denial of the reality of what's happening, it could be that you're not really, it's not the same as me rejecting your idea and it's more like you're like, you're like in a Chris Nolan movie where you're inceptioning the movie. We're like, this actually, none of this is real. We're like tearing the fabric.

There are times where you could fully do something that's like the biggest no. But it's more about like, are we, is this building to something more interesting? Is there a fun reason to do it? Right. And as opposed to a casual no, which is just kind of like, all right. Yeah, there are lots of time. Then we have to rebuild. Like you're not supposed to fight an improv.

That's mostly like a training wheels when you're learning how to do it. because if everyone can improvise a fight, it's not that interesting to look at. But some of the best scenes which you know how to do improv are fights. Yeah. But you've got to do a fight that's going somewhere and that's...

Yeah, like one way to... A simple way to look at it is like... Like, saying no in a scene is like kicking someone's sandcastle. Yeah. And like... Saying no for a reason is like... kicking the sandcastle and then you realize that what you're actually building

is a series of sandcastles around the sandcastle. Yeah, there's like a buried treasure under the sandcastle. Sandcastle that you're exposing. It really is like any of these rules you discover, there's always a good reason to violate them if, but it's all ultimately about collaboration and building with your scene partners. There was a question from Anne-Marie Wells writer, which is, how are you not afraid to be not funny?

And it tied into a thing that you and I were sending back and forth today, which is on Instagram, it was like a site that had a series of quotes. If you improvise as a comedian, you don't just, quote, think faster than the audience. You physically turn off the part of the brain that feels shame. Yeah. In a landmark study, neuroscientist Charles Lim put jazz musicians into an MRI machine to see what happens when you switch from memorized performance to improvise creation. the results were surprising during improvisation, the prefrontal cortex didn't light up.

It went dark. Even though the study focused on music, this specific neural signature applies to the improvising brain in general. The DLPFC is your brain's quote editor. The prefrontal cortex is your brain's editor. It's the voice that says, don't say that. that's risky or you'll look stupid. The data shows that expert improvisers

have the neurological ability to shut this region down on command. I think I might have turned mine off just generally. Just full-time? Yeah, just I never switched it on. I mean, I definitely think part of that was starting a little bit late for me that I had already experienced so much failure by age 30.

When I was 30, I remember specifically thinking I had failed in every single column of what I considered, like, adult life. I really felt like I had blown it. Yeah. And so when I started taking improv, I remember thinking, like, what's the worst that can happen? You know? And it really was, like, having that feeling, like, nowhere to go but up.

The last thing we do is working it out for a cause. If you have a nonprofit you like to contribute to, we will contribute to them. then we will link to them in the show notes and encourage people to contribute as well. Yeah, pause and why. Basically, if people are having problems and it looks like they're gonna maybe lose their pets,

like lose ownership of their pets for either financial or like health reasons or something, they will help people out so that people can keep their pets. It says, pause New York helping NYC residents who are at risk of losing their pets due to physical and financial obstacles. That's fantastic organization.

We'll contribute to them. We will link to them in the show notes. If people want to hear more of me with Connor, we are punching up your listener jokes on the bonus feed, which you can subscribe to now on Apple Podcasts. Connor Ratteliff, such an honor. I feel like we could talk for hours. We absolutely could.

We'll do it again. I'd love to. Working it out because it's not done. We're working it out because there's no... That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. You can follow Connor Ratteliff on Instagram. at Connor Ratliff. You can watch the George Lucas talk show

where he plays George Lucas, interviewing people, completely unauthorized, on YouTube. He also has a show called Connor Ratliff Presents, the acting class, which we talk about on the show today. If you have a chance to see Connor live on stage, I could not recommend it more highly.

Check out Burbigs.com to sign up for the mailing list and be the first to know about my upcoming shows. You can watch the full video of this episode on our YouTube channel at Mike Burbigli app. There's a lot of great episodes on there. I think the Malaney episode is maybe the most views

we ever had in a week. It has a really fun clip that went pretty wide on Instagram of that ridiculous Frank Sinatra story, which is true and not even really my story. But it, John's always trying to get me

to tell that story. And so that's a fun one you can watch on YouTube. Our producers of working it out are myself along with Peter Salomon Joseph Berbigley and Mabel Lewis and Gary Simons. Sound mixed by Ben Cruz, supervising engineer, Kate Balinski.

Special thanks, as always, to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. Bleachers has a new album out soon. Jack's been teasing that on his Instagram. And congratulations to Jack. He won another Grammy this year as a producer for Record of the Year for Kendrick Lamar's Luther. Special thanks, as always to my wife, the poet Jay Hope Stein, and our daughter, Una, who built the original radio fort made of pillows.

And thanks most of all to you who are listening. If you enjoy our show, please rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts. That really helps us out. 200 episodes. We did it. Thank you, everyone. Maybe go over to the YouTube episode and say what you like about the episode. Or didn't like this is what more commonly on YouTube.

People write what they didn't like. But you could break from the trends and say what you like about it. Thanks most of all to you are listening. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell your improv scene partner. Let's say you're in a long form improv scene. Your partner says something.

like we should go on a train trip. You could say yes. And on that train trip, let's listen to Mike Brubigley is working it out. It's where Mike Brubigley talks to other comedians, writers, actors,

and improvisers about the creative process. And they might say, that's not a podcast. It's a fish. And scene. Thanks, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time.