Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Charlie Day

Episode Date: April 9, 2023

With the airing of its 15th season in 2021, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia became the longest-running live-action sitcom in the history of American television. In this week’s Sunday Sitdown, Willie gets together with the show’s star and co-creator, Charlie Day, to talk about dreaming up that series with his best friends, his successful movie career, and his first turn at directing in the new film, Fool’s Paradise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you this week with the hilarious Charlie Day. You probably know him best from its always sunny in Philadelphia, a show that is now shooting its 16th season. It is, believe it or not, the longest running live action TV comedy in history, meaning not animated. The Simpsons holds that title. But longer than Seinfeld, longer than Friends, the list goes on and on. It's a show he dreamed up, Charlie and a couple of buddies, really beginning when they were 20-somethings living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and they would shoot these short videos about their lives. And it turned into this phenomenon, this show that's still going and really for the foreseeable future. So he's got that piece of his life, how that was created, why it has endured. And also, he's been in a bunch of movies you know and love.

He's in horrible bosses, Pacific Rim. He's in the brand new movie. movie. Yeah, Super Mario Brothers. He plays Luigi alongside Chris Pratt's Mario. So he's got that going on. And also what he and I really dig into here, his upcoming film, Fool's Paradise. It's the first time he's ever directed a movie. He writes it. He stars in it, plays a silent film star, sort of an accidental silent film star, and assembled this unbelievable cast. You got Oscar winners, Adrian Brody's in it. John Malkovich is in it. Edie Falco is in it. Jason Sedakus, Ken Jong, Kate Beckinsale. It goes on and on and on. He's assembled a bunch of his friends to do this really cool, interesting movie, which is sort of a satire about Hollywood through the eyes of this guy who's kind of thrown into it by accident and who doesn't speak. So kind of a Charlie Chaplin performance. It's a really cool movie, and he's just a fun guy to sit and talk to. So we got together at a bar on the Lower East Side. After we had our conversation, we went around, walked the neighborhood, where he kind of

dreamed up. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. And it was like, oh, that's the school and the parking lot where we shot the film that became the episode for the pilot. And we actually knocked them the door of his old apartment, an old tenement building. And somebody was around, opened up. We got to go upstairs. So we had a great time, a great conversation. I think you'll really enjoy getting to know a little bit better. Charlie Day right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thanks for doing this, man. It's happening. We're doing it. I feel like we just did a whole interview, but I guess we could just keep going. I was going to split.

You want a little bit more? Yeah, let's go get something to eat. Let's do it. Just clip that and print it, guys. I think we did it. It's so good to meet you. Back at you. We've got a lot of mutual friends who send their tidings and say great things about you.

I know. We were just both praising this guy, Jason Bateman. He's a good one. He's a good one. And apparently a good interview or two. Do you feel threatened by that? He's pretty good on that podcast, isn't he? He knows that.

He's putting in the minimum effort. He's just fine. My thing with him on that is he just makes a statement and then at the end says, yes. Like, here's my thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you confirm or deny? Bats are, you know, not technically an actual mammal, yes? Yes.

So you're confirming it? That's about the extent of the interview. I guess you're right, yeah. Well, let's not talk about Bateman. Let's talk about you. Let's do it. And your excellent new film, Fool's Paradise, which you created, which you wrote, which you star, and which you, for the first time, in your career direct.

How did this idea come about? There's a lot in there that I'm sure is your own personal experience in Hollywood. Tell people about the idea for the film where it came from. You know, anytime I have an idea to make something, I think it usually, first it starts from an acting standpoint, which was the case with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where my friends and I thought, boy, it'd be fun to act in a show that sort of fit our sense of humor and let's just make our own.

I probably was thinking I love the movie being there, Hal Ashby's movie with Peter Sellers, and it just seems like it's the kind of movie that will never get made anymore. And that I would love a chance to play that type of a character, and I didn't want to sit around

and wait for the phone to ring, so I thought, well, let me just do my own little love letter to that movie and start there and see where it takes me. So the performance you give is, we were talking about Charlie Chaplin before, that's one comparison to make. But latte pronto, which people have to watch the movie to understand his name in the film. Well, I'll just say you don't talk a lot. I mean, it's a performance you have to give without saying lines.

So what was the idea behind that and the challenge of it as well? My second crazy idea, and maybe it was a dumb one, was to play a character where I don't talk. But no, just, I think just for the acting challenge, which I hadn't gotten to do it. And maybe my love of silent films as well and seeing if I could deliver a performance without my usual kind of go-to tools and tricks. and then also wanting to craft something that was very neutral, which was saying, could I make a character who is the opposite of charismatic, you know, who just sort of has nothing to offer so that all these people can put whatever identity onto the character that they see, and then by the process of doing that, can I make the other character's voices louder?

Can I remove this character's voice, and can you hear, my voice through the writing and through the performance of another actor, um, like I'd never, I'd never envisioned doing that movie and casting someone else as that part. I was thought, well, this works if the person who wrote the movie is actually saying nothing,

so that you're then listening a little bit closer to the other characters and what it is they have to say. And the directing piece of this is your first time doing it. That's a totally different exercise, obviously, then a lot of the things producing and writing and acting, done before. How did that add to the challenge of playing this difficult character, number one, and also running the show? What was that like? Well, I felt a little comfortable in that arena because at the time that I started, I think I had 13 years experience running the show of

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howardton. So I felt comfortable making the decisions that you have to make, what props you use, where to shoot it, and often even where the camera goes. However, I think I ran into some roadblocks because I didn't have the infrastructure of, hey, this is on FX, and it's coming out at this point in time.

And I also didn't have my two buddies when I was really questioning something. I didn't turn it over my shoulder and say, hey, Rob, do you think we should? Oh, he's not. I'm on my own. Um, that was tricky, but I, you know, formed new alliances and, uh, um, with John Ricard or Leslie Jones, who came in to edit. Um, and then reaching out to friends, like, uh, the brilliant and talented

Guillermo del Toro, who saved my butt on many occasions on this film. So, um, it's, I felt as though I was very comfortable already with the, the role of director. It felt very, similar to what I do and it's always sunny in Philadelphia and still felt as though I made every mistake in the book that, you know, I took many years to slowly clean up as many of them as I could.

And you've assembled an amazing group of actors to come play with you. To the extent we want to say who all's in it, I guess people can look it up anyway, but you've got... I'll say who's in it. Please, yeah, I mean... Myself in Ken Jong,

who I think Ken delivers a performance in this movie unlike we've ever seen him give. It's soulful, it's emotional, it's hysterical. But it's never dishonest. He really gives a very honest performance. So Ken came on and I got Kate Beckinsale and Jason Sedakis, Jason Bateman. Edie Falco, John Malkovich, the late great Ray Leota. I have Common.

I have Adrian Brody, did I say that? It's kind of amazing, actually. I start to feel bad. I'm going to miss somebody. No, I think you've got it. And that's, I have to believe for you, that's sort of like the payoff for a career of relationships and doing good work and saying, hey, can you come in for a couple of days and work on this thing that's really important to me? I think I got lucky in that regard that, you know, I had some talented friends who I've gotten along with over the years that were willing to come and work with me like Sedakis and Bateman. and then

you know John Malcovic saying yes to the film I think that helped with the actors who I hadn't worked with like Adrian Brody or Ken or Kate Beck and Sale saying look there's actors I'm sure you respect agreeing to do this film so please trust me and then I like to think that I wrote something that they wanted to do which is saying

hey I'm going to let you be really really really funny you want to come be funny for a few weeks Little did they know I would slowly ask them to work on this over many, many years. They didn't know what they were in for. Yeah, I keep calling them every six months saying, hey, can I shoot one little scene with you somewhere? But they were all a good sport. And they said yes.

And they all kept coming back. So what kind of set did you run based on set you've worked on, based on directors maybe you like their style, directors maybe you didn't like their style? What kind of a place did you want to create? Well, I wanted to be as prepared as possible so that the actors could just enjoy themselves and focus on the acting and that I wasn't standing on set trying to figure out, all right, where do I want the camera to go? So I had storyboarded the whole film with this guy, J. Todd Anderson, who had done all the Coen Brothers movies. And together we'd sort of worked on the shots.

and my co-producer Rebecca Edwards, and we had really mapped out the whole movie before we even rolled a single camera. And then I found this talented young man, Nico Aguilar, who was a protege of Guillermo Navarro, who was Guillermo del Toro cinematographer. And Nico was at the time 25,

so now that makes him about 62. But he was, young and hungry and talented. So with the storyboards and the lighting work that Nico had done, the set was ready for the actors to come and play. And then there were

certain performers that I might have wanted a very specific thing, but like Ken, I might have maybe done more takes with Ken Jong than, say, Jason Bateman. But only because I kept wanting to pushed Ken further and further into a place that he was less comfortable to do. By push, I mean

collaborate with him. Certainly it wasn't forcing him to do anything. And, you know, other people I would just let play. So with Bateman and Siddakis, I can just set the camera up and say, look, this is what I wrote, but if you guys want to improve upon it, please do. And, you know, and of course they did. Other people who was more, I had a specific thing I wanted them to do, but I just think I try to keep an open and creative set, which is to say, we're all trying to make something as good as we can make it. So let me create an environment for you to feel free to do that. It's a credit to you that they all did it, first of all. And number two, it's clear that everyone's having a good time. I mean, it just looks fun. It comes across in the

movie. I don't want to watch a comedy where it doesn't seem like people are having it. good time but I mean you don't you you by a good time I think what you want is to feel as though they're committed to their performance you don't want to say oh they're just having a goof off and no one cares but but you want to feel as though they're fully committing to the choices that they're making and I might have been asking someone to make a sort of a more heightened choice than what they might make in a drama but you know everyone everyone was willing to do that Ray Leota really stands out. We're just talking about how good he is.

To me, I was watching that. It's like at his best, Ray Leota, and it turns out to be one of his last, if not his last film performances. It's probably my biggest regret is that Ray is not going to get to see the audience, see him. He has seen the film, and I would often,

over the course of making this call Ray and ask him if he could come to the editing room and maybe give me a little wild line of dialogue here or there. And when I went through a series of reshoots, he came back for that. And Ray would text me every, you know, three months, hey, man, what's going on with that movie we did? You know, when's it getting out? And I would say, Ray, I'm so sorry.

I'm stuck back doing it's always sunny in Philadelphia. I have to deliver this season. And as soon as I wrap, I'm going to get back in the editing room. So everything's on hold. And like you said, he delivers a performance that is, in my mind, you know, I won't say it's Goodfellas good, but it's Ray Leota good. It's up to his standards of, you know, what he can do well. And he's funny, too.

He's really funny in the movie without being over the top. And, you know, he would pitch me jokes that he wanted to try. I'd always let him try it. And I'd say about half of them actually made it in the movie. And he was just a really driven, committed, serious about his craft guy. And I feel lucky he's in the movie. In fact, initially, Danny DeVito was going to play that part. And Danny had a scheduling thing, and he couldn't do it.

and I was talking to John Ricard, one of my producers, and John said, hey, what do you think about Ray Leota? What do you mean? What do we think about Ray Leota? I love Ray Leota. And he said, you know, I think he is looking to do a movie right now, and his agent said he might be interested in comedy. I said, we'll send him the movie.

So the fact that he said, yes, the fact that he gave this performance, and the fact that he kept coming back to help. me improve the movie. I'm really grateful for the work he did, and I'm excited to get to share another Ray Leota performance with the world. Is that a crazy thing for you? Because I have these moments, too. We're about the same age, and Goodfell's was it. And now here you are, not that long ago in the great span of time, and you're just texting with Ray Leota, and you're giving him notes, and he's giving you notes. Do you have those moments like, my gosh, look at the collection of actors I've assembled here.

Yeah, like having to give a note to John Malkovich felt very wrong. It wasn't an acting note, but he was standing in a place where the light wasn't quite right. And I had to try to be like, I've got to get him to move, but I don't want to, I don't want this to go wrong. Excuse me, Mr. Malkovich. Excuse me, Mr. Malkovich. You might know me from basic cable television. Could I get you to move a little to the... I mean, what you find is people who do this business do it because they love it and are always willing to try different things or make adjustments.

I very rarely have I worked with anyone who said I have this sort of fixed idea about how this is going to go. So the professional side of it where you're just working together, you're building a, you're painting a painting together. and you know you're saying hey do you want to try some blue or like I was thinking yellow oh yellow is a great idea let's try yellow that that sort of collaborative collaborative process is very natural the taking yourself outside of it and thinking these are people that I admired growing up and I aspired to be like or work with that does not compute you know that that has not hit me the way that it probably should um you Yeah, it's still a big deal.

You know, I had a moment like that with DeVito once where we were years into doing his show, and he has this beautiful beach house in Malibu, and he invited Mary Elizabeth, my wife and myself out there to stay. And we got up in the morning, and I was walking downstairs to go get some coffee, and I walked past a picture of him jumping onto a couch from taxi. And my mind made the connection that it showed where I think, thought, wait a second, the guy that I do the show is the same guy from the show that I grew up with. Look, I'm a lucky guy. It's pretty incredible. Because that's the thing. One part is getting to make

these movies and hoping they resonate with the audience and that's what drives me to do it and making people happy, making people laugh. The other part is just getting to make the thing itself is is learning to appreciate, hey, you're getting to work with John Malkovich. You're getting to work with DeVito. Both things are the motivation for doing it. You don't want to be too fanboy in the moment because you're directing them. So you just, you put that to the side. I really, it doesn't compute until after the fact. It's probably better that way. Yeah. In fact, when it's happening, half the time I'm more like the sort of an annoyed author, which is like, you know, if you could just say that a little differently.

God damn it, Malcovich. Damn it, Malcovich. No, he was, no notes. So what I love about your character, too, is Latte, is I feel like he's the rest of us watching Hollywood and sort of like looking around at the absurdity of it, whether it's, you know, all those, he's not saying anything about it. He's like got his face against the glass going, who are these people? Why do they behave this way? He becomes the eyes of the audience and the vehicle for the satire to land, which is to say, you know, let's look at the absurdities of these characters and their egos and, you know, their idiosyncrasies. And, yes, you see people through him. And he becomes, you know, the choice of calling him latte pronto and having the joke where Ray Liotta is asking for a Late Pronto and Ken Jong, and he's,

then he turns to me and says good work and Ken Jong overhears that thinking that my name is Latte Pronto and then it sort of stumbles out and spirals out of control and everyone assumes I'm Latte Pronto that sort of came with

me just thinking how odd it is that we just sort of accept anyone's name first of all how many names in show business are sort of fake show business names and I think that's less of practice now than it used to be But, you know, we just all sort of collectively call a man the rock.

And, you know, I like the rock. You like the rock. And we're sitting here talking about the rock. And it's pretty odd to, you know, refer to a man as an inanimate object. And all just sort of accept it as normal. So I thought, well, it might be funny to see that happen and how does it happen. And wouldn't it be funny to see it happen if it wasn't someone's choice? Well, what's great, too, is that.

and then so many of these other little vignettes through the film, it's clear these are maybe, you know, exaggerated versions of things you've seen, but moments that you've experienced in some form or someone you know has experienced in Hollywood over the last 25 years. Sure. I mean, most of them

I think were just sort of generalized ideas about maybe a theme or a character type. Only the sequence in which I go to Jason Sadecas's house and meet him was taken more or less beat from beat from my life, with the exception of me dropping the pitcher of water, which I stole from the French mime Jacques-Tat-Tat-I.

Which is... As you do. Yes, of course. Of course. As one does. Name drop, right? So what's it like to be on the eve of the release of this thing that's your baby? Is it exciting?

Is it nerve-wracking? This is your directorial debut. People are going to be checking it out. What does that feel like? it's rewarding it's rewarding to finally be releasing this movie you know I started writing it in 2014

and I first got some money together to start filming it in 2018 and then I wound up reshooting a big chunk of it in 2021 and now it's finally coming out so

it I wanted to make something on my own terms, both comedically but also aesthetically. I wanted to make something that was hysterical but also kind of beautiful to look at. And I wanted to try something that could be absolutely absurdist and then try to be extremely heartfelt and emotional and then immediately absurdist again. And those are tough things to ask. to get to do. But the fact that I just was relentless about

getting it made and getting it made on these terms and that this amazing and talented cast came along for the ride. And not just the cast. I mean, the composer of this movie is John Bryan. And if you know his work, I mean, he did Punch Drunk Love. He did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His scores are as good as it gets.

I managed to get him a full orchestra in the same stage that they recorded the music for the Wizard of Oz. And we had an 80-piece orchestra working on this otherwise sort of absurdist film. It feels rewarding to just say, I can get it done. Of course, how people respond to it. that's always a little nerve-wracking, but that's outside of my control. My main thing is wanting to make something and wanting it to live up to whatever standard I just have in my gut. And I got to do that. So ultimately, I feel both a sense of relief as I do excitement.

I just want to share it. It's like a child I'm super proud of and I'm ready for it to go out in the world. And if people don't like the child, well, you know, they can suck it. And there's your piece right there. And there's my quote.

Get that out to PR right away. No, it really is excellent. I think people are going to love it. Because as you say, it's very funny, but it's also moving and it's great. Congratulations on it. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down Podcast, stick around to hear more from Charlie Day right after the break. Welcome back now

more of my conversation with Charlie Day. On the other end of the cinematic spectrum, we have another movie out right now. We're about to come out as we sit here. Mario Brothers. How much fun was that? There's a lot of anticipation. People are psyched for this movie. Another teeny tiny little movie. Oh, man. I mean, what a lucky break. Just to get to be a part of that, a part of that world. and then to have the movie come out and to have it be a thousand times better than what I could have hoped for or expected. That one, you know, oddly, when they called, I hesitated for a second. And I just thought, well, super-mar, is it me? Is it the right fit for what I do? And then, in hindsight, it was so crazy to even have any sort of hesitation about it.

but I have an 11 year old son you were telling me about your son is 13 I knew how much he enjoyed me being in the Lego movies and then and he was younger then and now he's a really great age

for me to be in a you know a Super Mario Brothers film and I got to take him to the premiere and a group of his friends and I think it was the first time ever that he was sort of looking around and noticing, oh, dad does something kind of interesting. And he was excited.

He felt so much excitement and joy about just being a, by proxy, a part of this experience. That was the most rewarding aspect of being a part of the movie. And then on top of that, you know, getting to be that sort of iconic character, no complaints. Great, I love it, happy to do it. It caught me by surprise how big the movie was going to be in the fan base. I thought, it's Super Mario Brothers. We all know it. We like it.

But then in hindsight, I realized, okay, I'm a huge fan of, say, the Big Lobowski, actually, the Big Lobosky, maybe 25 times. Well, the amount of time you might be a fan of a movie, amount of hours you've put in, are going to come nowhere near the amount of hours you have spent with Mario and Luigi. If you were from my generation, you grew up with the games. And then also thinking about, okay, if you're a kid

and you're going through middle school and middle school's tough and you want to get home and you just want to get rid of all the stuff from the day. You can escape into the world of Super Mario Brothers and you can perform a series of tasks and you have some control and challenges and it will take you away from your daily struggles in a way that is pretty healing and helpful to people. So people have a relationship with these characters that I think it runs pretty deep. So when people, became so passionate about the news. You know, as we're learning, I do math late.

So I put together all those things. I thought, wow, right, this is going to be big for people and meaningful for a certain core of the audience to just have the characters brought to them again. So. And it hits generations, too. I mean, we played. We played.

And our kids play. And our parents saw us playing. Yeah. We're annoyed by the fact that we're playing. Now we're annoyed by how much time our kids are on their devices. But, yeah, it's three generations and their beloved characters. So, and for me, fun to be a part of a big franchise. You know, Sunny has been the greatest thing that's happened to me professionally,

but never has been sort of considered like a massive franchise thing, and the horrible bosses movies were great or Pacific Room was great. But, you know, no one's ever called me to play Indiana Jones. So to be a part of it, big franchise is just fun. It's fun to get to be on the ride. Now that you've been Luigi,

they're going to start calling you for Indiana Jones. Maybe that Marvel phone rings, we'll say. He's a franchise guy. He's a franchise guy. I mean, you know, Robert Dangerer, you're going to play that character forever. Time to pass it on. We have our second clip from here.

There you go. And you and Chris Pratt are Mario and Luigi. We are. That's a great combo. You know him much beforehand? I did know him. You know, oddly enough, Chris had worked with my wife on a film, and he'd been cut out of it. The film was called Going the Distance, and I was in it with Justin Long and Jason Siddakas, I think it was my first studio movie.

And they'd asked Chris and my wife to do a scene where they're in an airplane, and I think I can't remember. maybe Drew's on the plane with him. And they got cut out of it. But I'd met him there and then just sort of would bump into him and see him around and always been really friendly with him. And then we were in the Lego movies together. So doing some press and promotion for that. I got to know him a little bit.

And yeah, I've gotten along with Chris really well. And I feel comfortable knowing that he was doing the movie because he's great in the Lego movies, and that's putting a big movie on his shoulders. He's carried a lot of big films. So I knew he could do it with this one, and he does a great job. There's a lot of anticipation out there. The teenage

boy set, especially, I told you. For sure. For sure. They're pumped. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that they called you for this film because of your voiceover work with the Independent Film Channel, IFC? Nice. Now you're doing your homework. That's right.

I mean, for three years, I had that gig, if you would hear like, coming up next on IFC. Yeah. You know, it's Spike Glees, do the right thing, you know. And I thought, okay, this is a security blanket. I paid for my apartment right down the street here. Paid for renting my apartment, to be clear, not owning it. And I went into a...

work. I'd moved to L.A. and I'd been recording in L.A. And I went into work one day, and there was someone else in their recording. And they'd made a mistake where they had kept me on the books, even though they'd fired me. And they hadn't told me that they'd fired me. So the studio that was recording had accidentally called me in, but the IOC people had moved on, which is their right to do. Three years was a long time to do the gig. I was happy to do it. And I was panicking that I had made a bad financial decision because I'd bought a house in East L.A. With the independent film channel money and with the money that I'd gotten from doing the Luis Guzman sitcom. Well, the Luis Guzman sitcom was canceled.

I got fired from the IFC job, and I had just made my first payment on the house. And I thought, I'm going to have to rent this thing out or sell it. but I'd been making sort of a home movie with my two friends around that same week and it was that week that we got a call from FX that said we'd like to pick up the pilot of it's always something in Philadelphia. I'd heard that story. So that's true. It was like within a day or two.

Yeah, everything else had fallen apart and that had taken off. Wow. That's incredible. Now I probably could buy that apartment on the street. I'm not going to. Let's go take a look at it. it. Let's available. Let's look at it. Before you got to New York, just going back to the way you grew, you were born here, I know, but you grew up in Rhode Island. Your parents are music teachers.

So you had a real musical background. When did performance come into your life? Stage performance. I want people to see me. I want to go act and plays and do all that kind of stuff. Was that an early thing for you? Yeah, I'd always been doing it. So there was a relationship to the arts in my house. I'm grateful for that looking back. I think I was embarrassed about it as a kid. You know, like, why are my parents listening to classical music or watching an opera on the TV? You know, I want to go play baseball with my neighborhood buddies

and I'm going to look. They come in here. It's going to be real embarrassing. Looking back on it, I think it was, I don't know without their love of the arts if I would have felt as confident that I could pursue a career in it because I certainly didn't know anyone who was an actor and and I didn't know anyone who knew anyone who was an actor. I was just a kid playing baseball

in Rhode Island and hang out with his friends. But because my parents were music teachers, every now and then my mother would put together the school plays at the school that she taught, and every now and then I would I think I did you know I think I walked out and held an intermission sign when I was in kindergarten and I remember being like I'm going to hold this thing upside down

see if I can get a laugh and I got a laugh and I thought oh that's so cute he held it upside down and I remember holding that secret in being like wow I I was able to to get the audience to react to something but also like I fooled them

this is at five years old or something like that That was the first, like, this could be good. And then I did a play again, I think maybe in fourth grade, a third or fourth grade. And then I didn't have the guts to do anything until my senior year of high school. Oh, really? Yeah. So I sort of was rebelling against it and thinking,

no, I'm just going to be a sporty guy. And probably it was like a primal thing. Like, girls will think that's cooler. and then around my senior year of high school started teaching myself how to play the guitar and did a play and then maybe started to get attention from girls for the first time in my life. I thought, okay, this is a better fit for me. I think I've had that conversation with my son because when you're that age, it's sports, sports, sports. You want to be like, no, the guy with the guitar wins in the end.

You want to be that guy. And the guy of the guitar can keep doing it, right? Where it's like, you know, like, you know, Mc Jagger's still on tour, man. Yeah, that's right. Like, in sports days, they're going to stop. But you play baseball in college, right, for a year or so, or no? I did not play in college. Oh, you didn't play in college?

No, I went to make the team, and their starting second baseman, because I played second base traditionally in a smaller guy's position. Their starting second baseman was, I think, 6-2-220. And I remember the first, like, practice, try-out practice. We were doing a scrimmage, and I bunted because I was really good at bunting and getting on bay. I bunted, I got on base, and I got a hit my second at bat. I thought, okay, this is going well. Well, this guy, he gets kind of jammed up on a pitch, and he hits a home run.

Like, it's like, it's tightened inside. And he gets a little stuck and it still goes out of the park and I'm thinking, well, that's it. It's done. I can't compete with that. An actor was born. And an actor was born. Yeah. And I literally went and I joined the, my college didn't have an acting program, but they had like an acting club.

And I went and I joined the acting club right after that guy got jammed up and hit a home run. But no excuses because, like, I think Al-Tuvais. like a couple inches shorter than me. That's true. He's a pro, so he's making me look bad out there. You can turn on a fastball, too. Just like that guy at Merrimack. Yeah, that's right.

The guy in Merrimack could be, yeah. So you do some Williamstown in the summers, you graduate college, and then when does this idea of being a professional actor? Williamstown. Williamstown changed it for me. So I was starting to fall in love with it in that acting club and think,

okay, I like this, I like doing it. People seem to like me doing it, so it's fitting better than baseball. It's certainly fitting better than educational stuff, which is a square peg through a round hole. But a friend tells me to look at this place called the Williamstown Theater Festival. And essentially, you go up for a summer and you help build the sets, you empty garbage, cans, you maybe sell concessions, and if you're lucky, you get a line or two in a play. And a real play, a professional play with sometimes great Broadway actors, sometimes famous Hollywood actors are there for the summer doing the thing. I did a play there with Ethan Hawke.

I did a play there. My first play there was with Scott Wolfe, who was at the time, a huge star on Party of Five. It was the most famous person I'd ever been around. But, it wasn't those guys that made me think I could be an actor. It was, it was, uh, the guys that weren't famous that were sort of working New York actors that I, that was when it first dawned on me, okay, you know what, you can have a career. You don't have to become Tom Cruise. You can just work. And, and, and I thought, okay, well, if, you know, if this guy can do it, I thought, well, I can do it too. Seeing a non-superstar performer was, I think, the first time I realized,

okay, it is a business, and there are many different ways to fit into it. So I remember I took the bus in from Merrimack to New York, to audition, to get into the higher ranks at Williams. the next summer. I was so nervous. I had to do a monologue. I remember I had like a beer at a bar to calm down. I said, I don't just have a beer. Take the edge off, man. And I went and I was doing my monologue. There was a little air conditioner on the wall. And I was kind of playing like a kind of like a brooding guy in a play. And I kind of like punched the thing, not like, you know, give it like a little tap saying, man, everybody hates me or something, whatever

the line was and the thing comes off the wall and crashes. Oh no. And I don't stop. I just kind of look at it and go, yeah, I see everything. I touched terms of shit. And then I just keep going with the thing. Someone pulled me aside. One of the people ran the program and said, that's why we let you in because that moment happened and it didn't throw you. You stayed in it. Which is a good metaphor, I guess, if we're looking for sound bites, but like staying in it with the movie, but I think I just had always had the ability to, like, no matter what was thrown at me, just sort of stay in it. And when I look back at all my friends who are working, that is the key difference. It's just, honestly, just not stopping trying, not that drive

to just keep, I don't know if it's reinventing, but just constantly, constantly just trying at it. They also said you owe us $400 for the air conditioner, which was a tough. Yeah. And then I had to get a new air conditioner. I had to buy my new air conditioner, which was worth it. Look at you now. Yeah, that's how I got it. Look at you now. I bribed him with an air conditioner. Stick around for more of my conversation with Charlie Day right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Charlie Day. You've mentioned a few times Always Sunny, which, my gosh, can you believe how the run of that show working on season 16, right?

Yeah, we're having, season 16 as we speak. So just the quick origin story behind it for people don't realize you and Glenn and Rob, I guess, or Jimmy, right? Your friend, Jimmy, you're making these videos, right? And based off those videos of guys

trying to figure out Hollywood, here comes this sort of iconic comedy now. Yeah, well, down the street here, Jimmy Simpson and I used to make all sorts of funny videos. This is pre- YouTube, pre-Tic-Tac. And just to entertain ourselves to get a little bit better at acting, you know, to say, okay, I know what happens on a stage, what happens when the camera's right here?

And it's a different thing. You've got to learn some new tricks. And it was a good way to learn fast because we would make a video and you'd be like, oh, that one doesn't really work. And then you would try something in one where you're like, oh, that really works. I need to go more in that direction. So we've been making a lot of those. I'd moved out to L.A.

and had been talking with Rob about trying to make a television show. And then at some point, he and Glenn had a scene that they said, hey, will you try to make something? Can we film this at your apartment with Jimmy? And can we film a scene where Glenn comes over to ask for some sugar and for his coffee and you have some for him but you also tell him that you have cancer

and can we do a scene where Glenn has to try to get out of the apartment while being sympathetic but he still wants the sugar and he doesn't know if and you don't offer it to him so now he has to ask

and you know we kind of workshoped that scene and we shot it in my apartment and there was a spark to it. There was something that just from an acting standpoint, I think, felt alive and real. And comedically, it felt kind of edgy and interesting. And we just sort of, you know, Rob went off and wrote something, I think,

and then he gave it to Glenn, and then they brought it to me. And we shot a full episode about these characters and that type of behavior. and then we sat and we waited for a year, or something like, we didn't sit for a year, but we sat and waited for a while for some big producer to attach. We were sending it all over town, but we couldn't get anyone to even really look at it. And while we were waiting, we went and we shot a second episode.

We said, all right, what are these characters up to in episode two? And around that time, we were growing impatient with, because we were all working actors. We all had agents and things. And we were growing impatient with waiting for a big producer to come on. And we thought, hey, can we just go pitch this second episode? We think it's pretty strong. And that was the version that we wound up selling to FX.

Well, FX gave us the money to say, okay, go and shoot an actual pilot with a budget. And by a budget, I mean, like, one-tenth of what a TV show gets paid. But, like, you know, a legal budget. And you never obviously could have imagined. You were happy it got picked up. You didn't know where it was headed. To become the longest running. I didn't even change my name because we were just using our own names.

I thought, well, I'll go with. Well, it was a little sneaky because I thought, all right, well, if I keep the name Charlie as the character and someone sees me on the street and they go, yo, Charlie, I won't have the experience of someone saying, hey, Kramer. Right, right. I will just assume they're a gigantic fan of me, and I won't know the difference. So that one actually paid off. That's some foresight there that was so big people are going to be yelling at you on the street. Just in case.

You never know. You never know. But my gosh, to have it go as long as it's gone. It's the longest running sitcom in the history of TV, which is just a staggering thing. To what do you attribute that? Why does it have such staying power? There's a lot of factors. as to why we've lasted for so long.

I mean, first and foremost, the fact that we get along and we want to do it, we're lucky. You know, there's no sort of, I hate you, I hate you, I'm going my separate ways. You know, we really enjoy the process of working together. So that in itself is a gift, and I think each one of us contributes something different that really makes the show work. from a business standpoint the executives at FX are pretty much all the same people from when we first started

and oftentimes at these networks there's a lot of changing in the executive ranks and someone comes in to run the network and they say well I'm getting rid of all these old shows I'm going to start

with new ones so thankfully John Langraf and his team have kept us on the air. And then I think the show has felt always felt

unfiltered in a way that I think television is now, in general, was not when we began. I think when we began there were a lot more sort of TV police about what could be an episode of television and

now it's a lot looser, but I think the fans have always responded to it in a way that it feels specifically for them. That, you know, I often find people saying, hey, my, my, like, kid in college is just getting to the show. And I feel as though it might have something to do with when you're at a mom and dad's house and you have the ability to go kind of look around and choose your content a little bit more on your own, that they find this thing that feels unfiltered in a way that it's speaking directly to them.

I don't know. The way I found different kinds of bands, like where you have your sort of first wave of, I know the most famous, most talked about people in the papers, and then when you get a little bit of time and freedom to go dig a little deeper, you find these things and you think, Oh, wow, this thing has a really specific tone that's unique onto itself and therefore speaks to me.

So that's a hunch. I don't know. Maybe it's just luck. And you guys, I think, are committed through 18 seasons or something like that. I mean... Yeah, well, we have the offer from ethics to go up to 18. I mean, to me, it could go on indefinitely, as long as you guys enjoy working on it. If you enjoy working together and it's still funny and it is.

than it's harder and harder to do I think with how much everyone has going on in their lives the ideal version of the show for me is the three of us having nothing going on in our lives except for the show so that we can be fully focused and committed to the show that's a hard ask for anyone to say hey do that for 18 years and don't pursue any other things and no one should do that, you know.

But I think that's the challenge trying to find the window where we just make sure we can give it the attention it deserves. Rob's been bogged down in that soccer team, Ryan dragged them into. Rob's buying soccer teams and I'm promoting movies and Glenn's promoting movies. Apparently, Caitlin's on like 10 TV shows. And this DeVito guy, I think he's going to make it, man. Yeah, he's like. Sure he's out.

He's got a spark. shows flashes, doesn't he? He's got talent. He's got talent. Congratulations on the movie. People are really going to dig it. We did a great job with it. That means the world to me. Thanks for much. Fun to talk to you, man. Thanks. Thank you. My big thanks again to Charlie for a great conversation. You can catch the Super Mario Brothers movie in theaters now and his new film, Fool's Paradise, hits theaters on May 12th. And my thanks to all of you, as always, for listening. If you want to hear more of these conversations, with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode.

And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. See right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down Podcasts.