The Digression Sessions - Ep. 141 - Brian Huskey! (@TheBrianHuskey)

Episode Date: November 10, 2014

Funny Daddy Follow Us On Twitter! @BetterRobotJosh – Josh Kuderna @MichaelMoran10– Mike Moran @DigSeshPod – For Podcast Updates! @TheBrianHuskey – Brian Huskey Hola DigHeads! This week, Josh and MIke are honored to have to the amazing actor/comedian/writer/improviser, Brian Huskey on the podcast! You may recognize Brian from a whole plethora of TV and movie spots, including This is the End, Superbad, Bob’s Burgers, and Arrested Development (the show not the band). Or perhaps you’ve spotted him performing at the UCB or in his current role as Leon West in HBO’s VEEP?!   Man, for such a busy fella, Brian was so not a dick and very generous with his time and advice! Brian was kind enough to sit down and discuss his experiences with the comedy world over the years; he’s written scripts, been the “Sonic” burgers guy, gets “kinda” recognized by strangers all the time, and is almost too perfect at playing doctors (he looks really good in a lab coat).   Thanks to Brian Huskey for being so utterly cool! And thank you DigHeads for being just as cool. Please do your favorite pair of earbuds a solid, and leave us a review on iTunes, Stitcher, and say hi on Facebook & Twitter. Check out the Thunder Grunt Podcast Network too! We love you!  

hey everybody i'm josh kaderna and i'm mike moran and you're listening to the digression sessions podcast a baltimore-based comedy talk show hosted by two young, handsome stand-up comedians slash improvisers. Join us every week as we journey through the world of comedy and the bizarreness of existence. As we interview local and non-local comedians, writers, musicians, and anyone else we find creative and interesting. Yes. Oh, yeah. Who's the guest this week?rian husky is the guest on this week's program actor improviser all around good dude brian husky who you can find on twitter

he is at the brian husky and he goes under the same name on instagram as well and he's got some great pictures michael yeah that's what i hear he's got some good grams so find him on there he's got some great pictures, Michael. Yeah, that's what I hear. He's got some good grams. So find him on there. He's at TheBrianHusky. He's been in a bunch of stuff. You might know him as, oh, yeah, it's that guy. I like that guy. Yes. He pops up in a ton of stuff. He's been in like over 100 movies and shows.

His IMDb is quite extensive. It's like war and peace. Yep, yep. But just a little bit better. Just a little bit better. And, of course, the highlight of his career is doing bit better. Just a little bit better. And of course the highlight of his career is doing our show. He even said so himself.

Brian is currently in Baltimore shooting Veep, where he plays Leon West. And he's also in that show Selfie, which is on ABC. And the day we recorded this, he was supposed to find out whether or not uh the show got picked up or not so so either congratulations brian or better luck next time so i tried your best yes it looked like you're having fun out there nice cut slugger good no uh brian he was so cool we uh yeah hit him up on twitter and uh he was nice enough to let us come up to his hotel room and believe that we weren't going to rape or hurt him or anything. And we didn't. Well, we wanted to.

I think emotionally we probably hurt him a little bit. There's a little bit of emotional rape. But no more than any of our usual podcasts. No, no, not at all. No, we kept it to a minimum. No, it was super cool man we talked to you know he started out in improv of course that's near and dear to our hearts so he was one of the uh one of the original uh ucb guys kind of in the the second wave of classes when they

moved to new york so we talked to him about that we talked about uh uh the the highlights and low lights of auditioning and uh how it starts to come together when you get involved in comedy and kind of like a cool inspiring thing too to find out that he when you get involved in comedy. Kind of like a cool, inspiring thing, too, to find out that he didn't get involved in comedy until he was like 29. Yeah. And now that's how he makes his living. Right. So it was really cool.

There's hope for us. Fingers crossed. But, yeah, it was so cool. So I hope you guys dig it. Thank you to Brian for doing the show. Thank you guys for listening. Thanks so much, everybody. And if we could plug a couple things here.

We could. At the Dig Sesh HQ which is currently my car. We're recording this like a couple... Shut up. Like a couple weirdos. People are looking at us like what the hell is going on here. Yeah we're doing the most boring show ever. Just in my car.

Oh look there's a cab Michael. It's a big city cab do feel like i like those balconies not bad i do feel like a country bumpkin you know when that is like nice hotel like can you believe it the bathroom doors go all the way to the floor yeah we're like trying to contain ourselves in front of them oh my god there's not trash on the ground. Where are we? Are we still in Baltimore? It was a beautiful hotel where they had fruit infused water in the lobby.

For free no less. And water infused fruit I think. It was wild. It goes both ways there. Okay, so a couple things to plug for us. As always,

subscribe and rate us on iTunes and Stitcher. We appreciate that. Check out Thundergrunt.com. Thundergrunt Podcasting Network is our network, and it's a home to a bunch of great Baltimore podcasts, so check that out. Go to digressionsessions.com slash calendar,

and that has all of our live upcoming dates for Michael and I as far as stand-up and improv and otherwise. And a couple of big dates to plug for me. If you live in the Pennsylvania area, Pennsylvania dig heads, I'll be at the Harrisburg Comedy Zone hosting on the 14th and 15th. So come out to those. Michael? I can't remember as usual,

but I will be doing a big headlining show at the Creative Alliance two days after Thanksgiving. Yes, I believe that's... The last Saturday of the month. I believe that's the 28th. But yes, the last Saturday of November. Go find Mike. And for all my other dates, go to MichaelMoran.com.

Or Digression Sessions. I think it's Mike Moran. MikeMoranComedy.com. He doesn't even know his own website. Sorry. I can't even find my own Facebook page half the time. You're just going to Google and you write Facebook. Am I logged in?

Am I in? Hello? Josh. I just now realized that email is like not normal mail. What? It's like on the computer. It's electronic, Joshua. I go to the post office.

I'm like, what? How do I get into my email box? I believe there's a couple emails for me, darling. You're talking to a penguin. Hello? A penguin? Just, you know, you're crazy. Okay.

You're just a crazy person. Why would it be around a penguin? You know why, Michael. You think the zoo is the man hello michael moran comedy.com i've been down to that post office bunch of hippos i don't know grandpa just overweight women i don't know what they're doing down there all right i think this rambling intro has come to a close. And read my column at Brightest Young Things. Yeah, there you go. BrightestYoungThings.com.

Check that out. Yeah. Thanks, everybody, for listening. This has been awesome. We've been on a good run here. And I'm glad that we can keep it going. And I hope you're enjoying the show. So we really appreciate feedback.

Find us on Twitter. I am at BetterRobotJosh. And I am Michael Moran10. Yes. And the podcast is at DigSeshPod. So us on Twitter. I am at BetterRobotJosh. And I am Michael Moran10. Yes. And the podcast is at DigSeshPod. So follow all those. Get some podcast updates. We have a Facebook page. The Regression Sessions Facebook page. Oh, man. Facebook.

Come to our Facebook Regression Sessions page. Check that out. I'm going to be Googling Facebook tonight. Josh said this is where it was. Where's the Facebooks? All right, that's it for this rambling intro. Right, Michael? Let's talk to Brian Husky.

Okay. Let's do it. All right. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye, everyone. Love you. I love you. Yeah, we're both with the Baltimore Improv Group.

And, yeah, it's pretty good. We have a show tonight. Actually, it's funny. We had Matt Walsh on the show. And I was like, yeah, it's a pretty cool format. We call it the mashup where we'll get a stand-up to go up and they'll do their act for like 10 minutes and then we'll improvise off of that.

He's like, yeah, that's ass cat. And I was like well it's just talking talking to an improv legend he's like yeah that's the that's our format like oh okay you guys do but they'll do this set yeah no so they're not that's why i was like well they're not getting like suggestions they're just doing their actual he's like well that's ass cat that's harder though i I mean, we've had stand-ups who have come in, and they just start doing their act. Like, they'll get a suggestion, and they're like, shoo. Shoo reminds me of your name.

Yeah, that's always me. It reminds me of my girlfriend. Yeah, and you're just going to end up with... I mean, all the jokes are there. Yeah, that's kind of... The other night, we did, like, an improvised stand-up thing, and I kept, you And I kept thinking like, am I allowed to go into one of my bits

if somebody says a word or something that... And then I started like trying to get people to say things that would allow me to do one of my bits. What's that? I heard crematorium. Now that reminds me of... All right brian husky well this is this is it we start we start this is it very marin of you guys yeah exactly like casual and that was such scripted casual banter we had we rehearsed it for a few hours yeah we got it down handed me a

piece of paper i know you're very busy with v but this took priority right as far as like how he has to rehearse it even though we're on a podcast. I was blowing the scenes last night. I was like, I got this podcast tomorrow, guys. We got to wrap this up, guys. I got to get to my hotel because the Dig Sesh boys are coming by at 1 p.m. But no, thanks for doing this, man. This is awesome.

Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Man, it's happening. I know you're super busy. This is great with Veep bringing all the cool people to Baltimore. I know. And they'll just be like, hey, you want to do our show they're like okay all right all right we should just be the veep cast i think so yeah we'll just get everybody and then when they're done we'll

switch to something else the vcast is so expanding and gigantic now this season yeah it's crazy i know we got pat and oswald who couldn't say he was going to be on the show. So we just said that he flew out to do our podcast. But now we are saying that he's on the show. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Oh, he can't say. Why was that? Why was that a secret?

Like what? Yeah. Brian, what happens this season? Well, Patton is supposed to be. He's like a witness protection program participant. But he's like one of the worst ones because he's a very public figure. So they're always like, you've got to be on the DL a little bit more

than you are. And he's like, eh, I'm sorry. It's okay. I'll be alright. It's been a long time. Yeah, there's some cool people on the show. But now I can't, I have no idea if I could say or not. So I'm like, yes, cool people. It was the last season.

I just want to say on the advertisements like Veep, cool people. Cool peeps. Tune in. Show it up. I hear Joey Buttafuoco like making a pass. Oh, really? Fingers crossed. Who is that?

The tabloid star of like 20 years ago. Oh, right. Strong reference. Amy Fisher. Good for the millennials. They'll be like, I don't know. It was a goldmine for stand-up comedians for like 20 years ago. Oh, right. Strong reference. Amy Fisher. Good for the millennials. They'll be like, I don't know. It was a goldmine

for stand-up comedians for like five years simply because his name was Buddy. I'll make a Barney Miller reference. Perfect. We like to keep it timely

on this show. Perfect. So yeah, how is it going doing, Veep? It's great. Yeah. Yeah, it's always fun. It's always chaotic,

but they are chaotic in a very creative way. Just in that they will do whatever is necessary to get the scene right. Right. To the point of rewriting on, you show up and it's like, oh, this scene's not writing or not working.

Right. And they'll let you start to give your input and we had to do that for a scene yesterday where it was this big thing. or not working. Right. And they'll let you start to give your input. And you'll like, we had to do that for a scene yesterday where we were, it was like this big, big thing. And they're like, it's not quite there.

Some things are not clear. And we just, during lunch, hashed it out. That's awesome. So are, is the creator of the show there and the writers are there for the filming? Yeah.

Yeah. And it's, you know, they have Armando's the creator but he was away for this episode and so they have chris addison and tony roche and simon blackwell the writers and stuff and they yeah they're just they're always there they're always like pitching lines and sort of and if you come up with something they'll say oh that's good do that yeah how about here's a spin on that.

Right. But we were talking, I was talking to Tony Hale yesterday because I've been doing this other show called Selfie on ABC. Yeah, I saw that. And it's a very different, it's super fun, but it's a very different beast because this network and they, it's very like what's written is what you do. Yeah. You come in and execute this.

Right. And he was saying like it's gonna be weird when i go have to go back to work where it's just like you don't get to what if i did this now i'm gonna do this now i'm going to you know and having the input on the character yeah when it's 2 a.m and you're ready to go home do you like shut yourself off creatively so that you don't come up with any good ideas. You need to keep the ball rolling. What a great script. I guess it's time to turn in. No, by that, at 1 a.m., everybody's just like,

God, we're going to get through this, right? We're going to get through this. We're holding each other, just huddling around. Yeah. That has to be so hard with comedy. Because, I mean, I run into that just on a very low stakes thing. Like, oh, there's only 30 people here and it's hard to muster that energy. Yeah.

How do you conjure that up at one in the morning? Like, oh, now we need to be at the top of our game. You remember that they're paying you. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. That is like one of the greatest motivators. You're like, oh, this is not just like, I don't feel like doing it.

Right. Yeah. Like, no. Your Four Seasons hotel card falls out. Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, you can't dick around. It's HBO.

Okay. Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. But it's also, it's just also like it's my favorite show. Really? You know. That's great. Yeah.

To do or just period? To do and just, yeah, I think on TV right now. It's so goddamn funny. Yeah, it's my favorite show on TV right now. You ever seen Reba? Yeah, okay, I'll change that. it's a distant tenth to reba reba takes the top nine and then it's we'll fix it in post don't worry don't worry we won't embarrass you on this thing we'll take care of you yeah i mean you know it's just like it's it's uh if to be on the show is like my favorite show to do because of everything I just said. Right.

As far as like process and all that kind of artsy fartsy stuff. And then I just, it, it is one of those shows. It's not like anything else that's being done. Right. As far as the tone and, and kind of expecting,

like I think being respectful to the viewer of like, there's a ton of jokes that you may not catch. Oh, there's so many jokes per minute. It's like almost everything everybody says. And then you're having to follow storyline stuff too. So it's very, they don't spoon feed stuff too much. And it can be kind of dark. Yeah.

But it's great. Yeah. That's what I was surprised when we had Matt Walsh on, he was saying that like our mayor and the governor were like, oh, we love the show and you should come to the Orioles game with us. It's like, you guys know they're just destroying politics, right? Every politician is the worst person. It's a great show.

But that, I guarantee you, for a politician, the ones who are like, oh, I get it. I'm in on the joke. They think they're kind of defending themselves. Right, right, right. I'm one of you guys. a politician and the ones who are like yeah like oh i get it i'm in on the joke like they they think they're kind of like defending themselves right right right right i'm one of you guys yeah we're all in it together yeah not me but like not me i know guys like that yeah i totally know guys like that okay cool man so i'm uh yeah i'm really excited to do this because you're one of those guys who i saw like you're in everything like i was looking at your imdb yeah you're how

many movies shorts tv shows do you think you've been in i don't know it's at 1000 wow i don't know if it's a thousand i remember it was like over 100 it was guaranteed that each one is equally stellar yeah yeah i i don't know i did I did a friend's podcast and he was like, do you know anything? He's like, at this point you're over like 110. Yeah. Wow.

It was a lot. I didn't know that. Yeah. Cause I just, you just pop up in everything. Yeah. Well, and I'm always like,

Oh, Hey, it's Brian Husky. He's great. Thank you. That's really nice. Well, I did have a funny thing where somebody on Twitter is like, hey, who's that guy who's

in everything for less than five minutes? And I wrote back, he's like, thank you for that compliment? There's something about me that's unsustainable past five minutes. Right. Nope. Can't deal with him anymore. That's good. You get in, you get out.

Yeah. I liked it. I liked it. You leave on a high note. Yeah. I'm just kind of like that weird guy passes the party like i don't know then you just get out of there yeah yeah but that did that i'm totally having that that guy thing or people are like do we go to high school together really people people will recognize you not realize where totally that's awesome do you get Do you get that a lot? Do you lie to them and screw with them? Eighth grade English, yes.

No, you know what I thought? Well, it is that weird. There's this pretty good documentary called That Guy and That Thing. They interview a bunch of character actors and stuff, and they all talk about that thing of someone's like, what have you been in? And there is a little bit of, i don't know like uh social grace to you don't want to say like oh well i'm an actor you probably see me in thalaba

i'd be saying that to people who didn't even ask yeah excuse me i'm an actor make it that latte please yeah you just be slapped a lot but yeah you don't you know so unless it kind of comes up or there'll be like oh so you oh yeah yeah what have you been in i was like i have a lot of stuff and he'll name a couple things like no no yeah i hear about that like i've heard like david cross gets that too like people just come up to him and point and be like how you it's like what am i supposed to do with that like you're that guy right like yes i'm that guy i'm the chosen one does anyone ever mistake you for a different actor uh or yes uh michael gross perhaps from family ties no um

mike moran with the references bringing it who did Who did? All I got is 80 sitcoms. The worst. Well, somebody, uh, uh, and again on Twitter, Twitter is a vicious,

vicious place for your ego. They posted a thing of like, uh, a picture of Frank Oz and like, is this Brian Husky? Fuck you, man. And are they tagging you in that?

Like at Brian Husky? Yeah. Yeah. So shitty. Yeah. Even with our podcast, we've had like a couple reviews that are like middling to like whatever and i'm like what the fuck's wrong with

these people so i can't imagine when you're on that level you know yeah just random people being like nah yeah or whatever take it or leave it yeah i don't care i don't care about you but i did so the thing of um uh people saying what have you been in yeah there's one person that's like what have you been in i was like uh i've been in this i didn't see that and i said i was on goldbergs recently i'm like oh yeah yeah that's my favorite show but you weren't on it and i was like well no i was you're like no i've watched every episode you you were not on that show what like how you're saying it so factually. You're going to be like, oh, I'm not sorry. No, I wasn't.

I was thinking of the Gold Steens, the cable version of that show. I'm a crazy Israeli import version. I was thinking of Pawn Stars. You had a lot of gold on that show. Sorry. So, yeah. So, did you start out in improv? I did. I was a. So, did you start out in improv? I did.

I was a photographer before I did this stuff. Makes sense. You got a great Instagram account. Thank you, Push. Yeah. My Instagram. I want people to see that. Yeah.

No, it's really good stuff. I think you and Roy Scoville are in a competition for best comedians. I want to know. He uses some filters. He definitely uses some filters on his pictures. You're talking about like some performance enhancing filters. Not necessarily germane to the Instagram realm.

Yeah, he's layering a reality on top of what he's photographing. So that's not fair. That's not fair. So you're saying you're strictly an Instagram filter guy. You operate within those confines. The way I do it is i will take the picture uh usually using hipstamatic and then i'll filter it up on instagram but then i'll keep the other version for myself because apparently

they own that version instagram yeah and pick and pictures that you put on Twitter, they supposedly own. Really? Yeah, that's why I see a lot of people that use a WhoSay account or something. Because then they can keep whatever rights to it, I guess. Yeah. Right. Okay.

So I have, yeah. Covering all your bases there. Got to in this business of posting pictures for your own egos. Got to protect yourself in that sunset yeah you just that picture you took yeah but so yeah so i was doing that and then i moved to new york and um i became friends with rob corddry we were roommates oh awesome and he was starting to get in comedy uh at that time he was just doing uh national shakespeare company tour stuff he came back

from tour he started to do comedy like a sketch group and he was like you're funnier than my sketch group we should do something together i was like yeah because i had always always wanted to do it since i was like in second grade i have a speech i framed about how i want to do comedy when i grow up really yeah but you didn't do like stand up or anything i kept circling it i kept like i don't know if you guys have this but it's that that thing of like i wanted it so much that i was terrified of it you know oh yeah yeah and you put it on that pedestal yeah and the longer the longer i waited the more of a you know massive mountain the climate gets bigger and bigger yeah yeah yeah yeah when i did my first open mic i was like yeah you yeah, you know, and to everybody else, they don't care.

They're like, so I was jacking off the other day. I'm like, I need the perfect jack off joke. It is crazy how like that first open mic, you literally like you work on it for months. You know, you got the books, you're writing out everything. You're scared to death that you're not going to memorize everything. And now at like a real show, I don't know what I'm going to do like three minutes before I go on. Yeah. So yeah, I'll figure it out the rest of the way it is you know and i think in so many i don't know i maybe it's

more for comedy but then drama and stuff but that thing of just the more you you know there's a big tenant in in improv like don't think right yeah um but the less precious you make the like the sanctity of that moment right sticking the landing and all that kind of stuff the more you're just going to be in the moment yeah because otherwise you're ahead of the moment you're anticipating yeah and not giving a shit is the key yeah and it's a very and it's like a buddhist thing too it's completely i mean it really is like the the most sort of like layman's term of like being a Buddhist is like, just don't give a shit. Right, right, right. Yeah, it's walking that line of caring too much and then not giving a shit too much.

Yeah. Just be like, whatever. Yeah, you don't want to be the guy who really doesn't give a shit. Yeah. Completely wasted and just being an asshole on stage. Right. on stage right but also i think but i think you have to you have to build a skill set to get to that point where you have the the tools and stuff where you're like well if it's not going the way i want that's okay because it's going to be a discovery of something new yeah and i'll be able

to kind of juggle that a little bit right and it becomes second nature at some point yeah you can just kind of fall into it a little bit yeah Yeah, yeah. How long did it take for you to get there? I don't know. Improv made sense to me. I had tried, like in college, I tried to start an improv group and I went to the theater department and they sort of like just swatted my hand away basically. They said like, unless you dedicate your life to theater you

have no business playing with the you know the the the tools with a british accent like that yeah he had a british accent for a small southern school in carolina uh and i you know like saying this like pretty much every anyone who listens to a podcast like he's telling the same story but it really is like my entry point into this stuff was was so uh it took me so many different ways to get into it until i finally got it i was like i'm very cognizant of like here are all the points where i tried to do it and it didn't happen right so how do you because i played in a band for a long time. Okay. And that fed a big performative bug. Right, yeah. And we talked too much on stage. That's kind of how I started.

Oh, yeah. And you're trying to be funny in between songs. People are like, fucking play music. Whoops, I broke a string again, guys. Give me a second here. Anyway. Banter. Yeah.

What did you play? Excuse me, I'm drinking water. Hydrate. A nice Nirvana water. Bass. Oh, okay. Bass guitar. Nice. I'm drinking water. Hydrate. A nice Nirvana water. Bass. Oh, okay. Bass guitar. Nice.

I also play the bass. All right. But that was more of a, that happened because everybody plays guitar. And so when they're putting a band together, they're like, can you play bass? You're like, all right.

Mine was more just like, I'm not good as most people in my high school. I'm switching to bass. Oh, yeah? I love, I was, I've always been been like I always hear that first and stuff I remember looking at Senada Mandela that was sort of the thing and we're like looking at that police album oh I just been like oh you look so cool gigantic base and you know uh-huh yeah it's cool so sting made the bass cool to you and you're like all right sting

and then sting became sting and i was like oh wait then he started doing improv yeah then he started having tantric sex and everything went south to that so we'll talk to you about that in a little bit we're warming up to the tantric so yeah we're going tantric on tantric great uh okay not giving a shit is key to good tantric sex exactly yeah totally exactly okay so playing in bands and then so when you want to start an improv troupe had you had experience with improv before like no done it before no i just want to start one i just rob again rob started taking classes and we were we were part of like the second wave of classes that Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre did in New York yeah so this was

this is so sobering I think it was like 98 uh-huh so I feel like forever ago well if you think about the fact that it's like what 18 years ago yeah yeah yeah yeah so it was a young adult amount of time ago yeah that's late high school for me yes feels like two years ago at the oh yeah oh no no everything stopped about you know everything stopped in 99 yeah at the end of high school is where everything stopped for me for some reason yeah this is who I'll always be yeah well yeah it's like dude I have trends come and gone since then do cars look different you know we're all still

wearing jinko are the kids still doing it all for the no y2k is gonna happen again I'm still worried it's coming back very wound up about that yeah get your computers ready and those fallout shelters too but it was the thing about improv that made sense to me was like oh oh, this is what I do with my friends. Like you just have an idea and then you start to build on the idea with the other person. And when I was in college, I was like, maybe I'll try stand-up. And I went to the shitty little Holiday Inn stand-up room for like a week

and I would go and watch the acts and I'd try to talk to them because I was trying to write a paper on comedy and those guys were all so consistently depressed and depressing and bitter and evil you said I want in on this yeah and they just were all like oh you're on the road your relationships fall apart and all this kind of stuff turns into a 70s rock song yeah yeah lonely highway you should just be bob seger instead of this but but then yeah so but the other thing about improv it was sort of reminded me of like um the band scene because you were you're supportive of each other but you're competitive with each other and it's collaborative yeah and it's all sort of for this the same end goal in a way but you're right but you can still

put your own individual stamp on it yeah but you're still in it together yeah yeah totally so it's good yeah yeah that's yeah that's how I started comedy too. Yeah. Like just realizing that you could take classes was a revelation for me. Like, Oh, that's, that's what you do. Yeah. You just,

you can just go sign up. I had a revelation of like, I was like, I thought everybody else was just like me. Like that. They just were stumbling through life and not knowing exactly what they wanted to do. Or I thought,

you know, I'm, I'm a banker, but I'm going to do this improv class. But I was astounded when I found out. I was like, oh, some of you guys want to be actors? Wow, that's ballsy. Yeah, so you had no formal acting background or anything?

No, really? You didn't do theater in high school or anything like that? I did a couple plays. I played an Indian in Dark of the Moon, which basically means I was painted bright red and walked across the stage. It's supposed to have been in the deep south. It was the deep south, yeah.

What a beautiful Indian. Make him more red. Dark scalping people. Make him look like the Atlanta baseball team. Big smile. I was always in profile. Those teeth are not bucked nearly enough i did the tomahawk gesture now that's an indian that's what you took great job uh but yeah and

then i did i did uh some a few one-act plays but one was a comedy and i was like oh i like this but i remember even in third grade i did we did a play and I was the funny daddy in it but I'm really like I like this I could be the funny daddy I like her span sponsors from people be I'm not sure I like being the funny daddy daddy like one of the best you could ever see can I use it as my stage name the funny daddy funny daddy uh-huh daddy like my that'll be my catchphrase uh-huh starring funny daddy as red indian funny daddy just sounds like this guy is like sired a thousand children across the nation it's like i'm a funny daddy i gotta get that i'm not there and i'm not there that's funny um so do you think that that your improv background is what helped you uh convert to regular acting it seems like so many comedians have a difficult time going

from like stand-up to acting yeah i guess so i well i guess it was my acting training right you know so when would train you know you just want to work or i just want to work and and so sort of transition like saying like transitioning to acting is just you just want to be doing up for everything yeah you just want to be doing you want to be paid to do it ideally yeah yes um but even to that like too much focusing on that like i should be paid for doing this is hard right you know but it can get dangerous there and that's why you know i got to the point with with photography where i was like really not enjoying it because i was doing it as a job yeah um but this i do enjoy doing as a job. Right. What were you taking pictures of? What were the main things? When I was in North Carolina, which is where I'm from,

I was working for a weekly that was sort of like the Village Voice. So that kind of like photojournalism portraiture and, you know. Yeah. Kind of like not important photojournalism. Right. Not too artistic. Yeah. More just like just capture what the story's about.

Cool shots of bands and stuff. Yeah. Right on. And then when I was in New York and I was going to artsy photo school, it was just super depressing pictures. Oh, really? That documented my loneliness at the time. Here's a grave.

Here's another grave. Here's another alleyway. Here's a pile of trash. Here's a sad picture of a flower. Here's a heroin addict. Yeah. Here's Here's a pile of trash. Here's a sad picture of a flower. Here's a heroin addict. Here's me in a pile of trash. I remember showing them to my family, and they were like, oh, these are interesting.

Are you okay? You ever do any color pictures? And I show them my color pictures, like, oh, there's no people in any of your pictures. You coming home for Christmas? We're worried what is christmas it's all a ruse capitalist bullshit um so that's what you went to new york for initially was uh photography yeah okay and then uh so and then you said you're roommates with rob we're roommates

for god like five years how'd that happen like a mutual friend uh he was working at scholastic books company and my friend joy brewster that i went to high school with since you know uh or even yeah earlier than that um that's crazy she i remember meeting him and he thought i was the biggest dick in the world the first time he met me. Really? Because he didn't realize I was doing a bit, but I showed up. Like they were eating lunch and Joy was like, oh, we're over here, swing by.

And I was with this beautiful Danish girl because I went to the International Center of Photography and I would spend all my time just puppy dogging around these gorgeous European women. Showing them pictures of your garbage. Yeah, never have anything to do with me. And was like oh art and uh but i showed up and uh and she's like hey this is my friend brian and um and i said you'll have to excuse us my mind is awash we've been gallery hopping all day and i like really just wouldn't back down from the bit of just being us us being

these pretentious and the fact that she was this dated she's like yeah that's what we've been doing yeah it's just totally believable yeah when i walked away he was like who the fuck how uh how long after that did you become roommates uh um day after like it yeah immediately it was the opposite it's a trend we were finishing storylines that evening yeah i think it was probably about a year because he went on tour with the national shakespeare company and he was like hey i need somebody to sublet my room i'm gone but he didn't pretentious guy doing yeah but at that point we had hung out a few times and he's like oh he's funny right i was dumb he's fucking around and uh but then he didn funny. He's like, I was dumb not to.

He's fucking around. But then he didn't tell me that the roommates I was going to be paired up with were the worst people on earth. Just totally sadistic. It was the stand-up that you met at the Hyatt. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. You guys are so old at this point. No, just really.

And these are all guys he knew from college. And they were all just weird. Really? In what way? Like frat types? No, no. One was this gay guy who would bring home. Oh, there you go.

That's a problem right there. That was the main thing. I get it. When I say they were all terrible, I lumped them all into him being terrible. And I'm sure he absorbed them all. That's how they do it, Brian. Yep. That's their agenda.

He's always looking at my ass and stuff. He barely cut my balls when he was blowing me. Here's another guy. He was hilarious, and he was trying to be an actor too, but he was just a really unhappy guy. Yeah. But he would bring home 14-year-old boys from the laundromat who were consistently Asian.

Your roommate wasn't Jeffrey Dahmer, was he? No, but it was close to it. And then he would like bring him into his like windowless mattress on the floor room and fuck him and then like send him on their way. Whoa. And I came home one time

and he was watching this like gay shit video. Wow, you are not lying. No, it was hardcore. I thought you were going to say like, oh yeah, they played music late at night. Yeah, they ate my food. They ate my food. Yeah.

Holy shit. And then the other two guys had their own little, they all had like weird sexual perversion stuff. And I was just like, I am super unhappy. Wow. This is a very hard time in my life. Were you just like, where does Rob fit into all this? Like, what?

Do you think maybe you were the weird one since you were the minority there? I tried to get into some. I tried different fetishes. I just couldn't. The budget wasn't there for me. All right, guys. Roommate meeting. Brian, you haven't brought home any 14-year-olds since you've been here. I don't know what my voice is as far as a fetish.

I'm finding myself. Obsession. I don't want to steal yours. That's your thing. You already picked Elaine. I like vanilla pudding, but I can't fit that into anything. Boring, Brian. I don't know.

Put your mattress on the floor, would you? All right? Jesus. You need to hate yourself more. So do you tell Rob, like, hey, thanks for letting me know. I was moving into, like, a depraved dungeon. Well, when he said I'm coming back, I was like, yeah, you didn't tell me that I was going to live with, you know, like, some weird version of sad, like, Star Trek play.

He's like, well, I didn't want to brag.'s like well i didn't want to brag no exit i didn't want to sound but uh he's like oh yeah oh yeah they're awful i don't i don't think i want to live with them and so then i was like well do you oh yeah man they're the worst do you want to find a place and he's like sure and then we just nice do you think you would have got into comedy if it wasn't for Rob? I don't know. I venture to say maybe not. Yeah. Or... It's interesting.

Yeah, it's pretty profound to me that that was... And I've told him, I was like, listen, listen, this is a huge weight you're carrying, but you are responsible for the person I am and the happiness I experience sometimes. Brian, go home. Yeah. Please. No, I need to get close to your face when I say this. As close as possible.

Let's move back in together. But I don't know. I mean, because I kept trying and I kept being, I think I was just really insecure about it and I kept getting thwarted. And I don't know if I would have gotten to that point and that age where I'm like, I'm too old. I'm just going to.

Right. So. Interesting. Who knows? How old were you when you finally got into it? I was. Like, 17 classes. 29.

Wow. Yeah. That's kind of where I was. I mean, I didn't take an improv class until I was 28, I think. Really? Yeah. And I didn't do anything before that.

Yeah. Yeah. I played Peter Pan in middle school. Yeah. Same here. Played it. We were a little younger, though. improv class until i was 28 i think really yeah i didn't do anything before that yeah yeah peter pan and same school yeah same here played it we were a little younger though i was like i was like 25 maybe i think yeah 25 when i started taking classes yeah that's that's that's fine yeah it's it's yeah i mean everybody moves at their own but it is crazy when you because i'm buddy with buddies with zach woods you know he's like a UCB guy. And I used to coach him. And he was 17 or something, 16 when he started.

Yeah, there's a picture of him and a UCB touring group at the Arlington Drafthouse. And it's like, oh, wow, he's been in the game a while. And already I thought he just started seeing him on Veep and then Silicon Valley. And it just kind of oh, wow, he's been in the game a while. And already, like, I thought he, like, just started, like, seeing him on Veep and then Silicon Valley. Yeah. And it just kind of came out of nowhere. And then you're like, oh, wait, he's like a prodigy or something. Well, it is. There are a lot of guys who just start young.

And I'm always not envious. But I, you know, when I think back, I was like, I don't, I just, I started when I started. Yeah. If I had started then, I think I would have been too much of a mess, like, as far as what I thought

my voice would be, you know? You have to really develop a lot of crappy habits that are difficult to shake. Yeah, and I might not have been

in the same place to kind of hear the things I needed to hear and be open to it. Right. And have that perspective. Yeah. Maturity.

Somewhat level of maturity. Yeah. Some version of that. And also, it's cool to think that your life is going one way. Because by your late 20s, you kind of feel like you're getting a sense of where you're going. Yeah. The die is kind of cast.

Yeah. And now I'm like, wait a minute. I'm a stand-up comedian now? When did that happen? It's exciting. It's exciting. Even if I don't make it or whatever, I'm just like, wow. To be pursuing that thing you actually enjoy.

Yeah. And to be feeling good about it, not feeling like a total piece of shit about it. It's like, wow, this is good enough for me. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of what we were talking about. You just don't even realize that's an option. I'll just be the funny guy at whatever job I end up right or something you know yeah like oh wait so you just

do it but that's yeah it's it's strange to like when people have asked me you know younger younger people come to me they come to see your roommates yeah when the the Asian boys come out of the hallway, I was like, maybe you should do comedy. Can I talk to you a second? Your roommate walks in the room with a drill and a thing of bleach. He's not funny enough. They ask, how do you do it?

You just kind of do it. I don't know. I don't know if that's true. I do think there are people who approach things with a sort, with a certain model to it, you know? And I think, I don't know.

I feel like a lot of standups are this way. They, they, they realize that they are their own business. Yeah. So they have to kind of like go at it like that. I think improvisers are wired to have that kind of thing. Like,

well, let's just see what happens. Let's go in this direction. Yeah. What happens? Um, the bad thing about that is you're become dependent a little bit on like, well,

I hope somebody sees us doing this. Yeah. Um, you know, cause if the, if they don't, then you can operate in a vacuum and the vacuum can be great because if it's satisfying and you just want to

do it for creative reasons that's great but if you're trying to support your family or whatever get to that next level yeah yeah yeah yeah what was that for you was that you're in new york so i know there's like a lot of commercials up there was was that some of your bigger like early breaks i think the big early break was i did for a time, I did these commercials for Sonic Drive-In. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's Molly Erdman. I feel like I turned into that person. Like, that's right.

That's where I know you from. Well, that's better than all your other stuff. You were great in that. Oh, you were great at selling diabetes to America. So good at that. I couldn't wait until you brought that up. Now let's dive right into this. Woo, glad we got there organically. you have coupons yeah do tell do tell so that was it yeah that was good but just because it also gave me financial sure security yeah i mean it's a huge national

commercial yeah yeah and that you know it's that it's that weird thing you're like oh okay okay good thank you so that's something that's something and then jason free sonic food for you and your family for the rest of your life right yeah and they're like but don't get fat yeah have you found yourself like going to a sonic or feeling weird about that or how does that work um your friends and family encourage you to like stop by and mention that well're going to North Carolina. Well, yeah. When I went to North Carolina, it's like, do you want to go to a Sonic? It's like, no. I don't like the food and I don't want to be that guy.

They're just dropping stuff. I remember when I did the commercials for this place. Just lingering outside of one. Yeah. They just don't give a shit. You're like, oh, yeah. Looking into a camera that's not there. Hi, I'm Brian Hussey.

Yeah, yeah. Excuse me, sir. I set my own lights and stuff. And then so that happened. And then Jason Mantzoukas and I have been friends for a long time. Did you meet him through UCB, I'm guessing? Yeah. Yeah.

And we met because we knew of each other. But we started to become friends because he plays drums. And we would just get together. We're in a rehearsal space and just make nonsense. Just jam. Yeah. And then we both got really into badminton together. Really?

I was obsessed with badminton after this one summer with my friends where I was working down there. I'm assuming this is an obscure rock band you're speaking of. Yeah, badminton. Yeah, they're great. It's like nine keyboards and a ukulele. They're so cool they're from switzerland i like their older stuff i feel like they sold out yeah i know that's when they had that 10th keyboard just like what are you doing come on i can't hear the number eight what's next you're gonna do a power ballad how do you how do

you get into that like it's a fucking awesome you just do it, baby. Much like comedy, you got to show up. Much like you just show up and start doing it. I don't know. I've never been good at sports of any kind, and I was really good at that for whatever reason. And just one summer, I was staying with my friends and working for a paper, and I would just come home with my buddy,

and we would just play for like three hours in the evening and get really into it. Is it a good workout workout it's a great workout because you're just constantly moving right it can go really fast and yeah it goes really fast when you get like a like a good racket and then you get the actual birdies that have feathers on them because you can like real feathers yeah what and you can that's why they call it a birdie yeah i'll be goddamned and you can just be a bird then why is it a birdie uh keep it fun because everything has to be a little a little pussy about badminton everything's gotta be a little bit like oh badminton okay you name your racket yeah they were they originally called them

eagles like no they're birdies right and then they push us to the ground put their hands on our face and push us down and that's the tennis team doing that i'm guessing yeah it's a chess team even worse right the debate team on our face it reminds me like how lame it is at restaurants that everybody calls scrubbers scrubbies you know it's a scrubber just like a metal like a metal like uh behind the scenes yeah yeah yeah yeah like a scrubby like aren't we adults you know like or somebody will get mad or, yeah. Like a scrubby. Like, aren't we adults, you know? Or somebody will get mad or something. Be like, and me, the scrubby. The scrub-oo?

No. The scrubby wubs. The scrub scrub. Mr. Scrub Wubs. But yeah, and I can emphasize it anything to anybody, badminton. Do you still play? No. No.

I want to. I keep wanting to. We keep talking about lakes. Because we would go to prospect park in brooklyn and i bought a portable net that we would set up and then mark off the terrace like the actual chalk and stuff with a string okay and then we would uh mark off the sort of you know the back end of it and we would just play for you know three or four hours any challenges show up i'm picturing a pickup basketball game. You got game?

There's this writer, improviser, he was on Conan, and now he writes for the Goldbergs named Andy Secunda. He's really funny. I know that name. I can't picture him. He was on The Swarm, this improv group, this amazing improv group called The Swarm. Is that what the format's named after?

I never even knew that. No. Like montage is sometimes called a swarm oh really yeah no they're just that was just okay yeah right on uh but yeah he got in on it too and yeah it's fun that just kind of died off yeah yeah anyway so most of my discussions about all this stuff go back to badminton but so he and i wrote uh wrote a sold a couple of movies and i wrote them and so it's just that those were the things that started to give me a little bit of like a sense of security of like oh this is it's real this is real yeah right this is legitimate like i sold a movie yeah that's nuts yeah they didn't make them but we sold them and wrote that's nuts yeah they didn't make them but we sold them and wrote that's still great yeah uh what were they what were they about uh one was

uh about this guy funny daddy uh i don't you know what i really don't know because we still have the option of buying it and trying to sell so i'm getting it back yeah so i i don't really have no idea if i can sort of you don't want to put it out there yeah but the other one was when we were riding with rob for rob um and it it's basically the same we didn't know that that idea was out there but this guy who goes during college donates his sperm for beer money uh and he finds out he has all these kids so and they had that vince vaughn movie which is based on australian movie so gotcha gotcha gotcha well good thing you sold it early there is uh there's this comedian nick griffin he uh he writes horror films that's like a side project scripts and he uh was trying to sell a script to some studio he wouldn't say which one it was but

uh they're like nah we're gonna pass he's like okay cut to like i don't know maybe a year eight months later he's at the movie theater he's on tour and then he's watching this movie and he's like wait a minute that's my move this is my move yeah they just took it from yeah i've heard that that can happen oh yeah sue him and he got paid but still oh yeah such a bummer have you had anything like that no the closest closest thing air bud air bud um the uh mine was called sky bud it was just a blatant ripoff yeah indiana jones clearly which is that was so painful as As a 10-year-old watching that, I'm like, that's my movie. God damn it. I'm not even into this stuff yet. I sound like Mickey Mouse, too.

No, I mean, nothing's been ripped off. Yeah, that's good. We had a thing where that first movie that I think I can't talk about, Paramount was going to make it. They put it in turnaround, which means they make it, another studio could buy it.

And then Summit said, we want to buy it. We were all ready to sort of get going. And then the Twilight trilogy started. And Paramount passed on that. This one executive passed on it. Oh, on Twilight? Yeah.

Oh, wow. And so he got such a reaming that he made a big proclamation of like, well, Paramount will never release any properties to Summit again. And so they literally, as they were starting the business deal, they just stopped our project

from being sold over to them. Wow. Has anything good come out of the twilight series um god it's made a lot of teenage girls feel you know feel something for the first time you know they're going through a hard time yeah yeah that's true sexually um robert that guy robert he looks like an ugly sexy dead person doing great ugly sexy dead person yeah he has that market corner yeah he does I bet he's one of those people in real life where if you see him you're like

what the fuck you're so fucking weird looking Jesus Christ you photograph great but you are is that how you react to ugly people on the street oh my god famous ones what the hell is wrong with your face sir photograph great but is that how you react to ugly people on the street yeah well famous famous ones the hell is wrong with your face sir the famous ones can pay for the protection other ones yeah you can pay for a bag yeah sir you could easily afford to cover that

you know that or somebody's super ugly like you could be famous oh god it's hard i mean but yeah yeah for. Jesus. On the freak show circuit. It's so hideous. You could be beautiful. You go so far out there that you come back around again. I loop back around. Yeah. At the time when you're taking UCB classes, does it feel like you're a part of something special?

Or is it just like, this is just something I'm doing with a friend? It did. It did feel special. What was the improv scene at that time it was in new york it was like um uh so rob and myself and john bowie who you know he does a big i guess right now he's most known for playing kripke on uh Bang Theory. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. And then Seth Morris, who does a lot of, yeah, he's great. We were in a sketch group called Naked Babies, like an improv sketch group.

And so in the classes, everybody started to kind of break off and do, you know, Walsh had this great bit of advice of like, you just find the people you vibe with, and then you start to make stuff, and then you, in the making of that stuff, you start to influence the sort of next wave of what comedy is going to be. Right.

You put your voice out there and that voice becomes like the next thing that the public at large will hopefully get to see. Totally. Yeah. So we were doing that. And then there's this group called Respecto Montalban, which was Paul Scheer and Rob Hubel and Owen Burke, who's a funnier guy, and Gary Sanchez,

executive producer guy now. Yeah, really funny guy. And Donna Furman and Daniel Schneider, who they just did Housewives of... Oh, Atlanta? No, it was on yahoo right hulu hulu okay gotcha um uh one of those on the one of the ooze and jackie clark who's a writer on marry me now and both those girls or ladies are on writing that's so insane like all

these people you're talking about like yeah they you know they're on conan yeah yeah awesome thing like that's what I mean. At the time, you just have no idea. Like, oh, this person's just funny, but then everybody seems to be flourishing from that class. And there's that weird painful period where it's sort of like,

oh, why is he... He got to do something? There's that... I feel like that's in every scene. Yeah. But it's just at that next level with you guys. Like, what, he sold to Paramount? I don't sell to Paramount.

Yeah. But versus us, like, wait, they got in the Chicago Improv? But it is. At every level of doing all this stuff, there is that, wait, he got the closing set? No matter what. What the fuck? You know, like, he got to do this room? There's always somebody who's

doing yeah you're always there's always going to be the next sort of thing that you would yeah that's i really try to like just be happy and as long as i'm progressing steadily you know like maybe if i'm in the same place in five years i should be concerned yeah but i'm like perfectly fine with just like doing this every night and just slowly yeah going up the ladder yeah yeah i i early on there was a point i was like i think i'm gonna age into my work opportunities interesting yeah just for because for a long time my type i guess was i was sort of like i was in between sort of like the you know the the authority figure that i get put into a lot and kind of like looking like a skinny little young

guy yeah so i was yeah i kind of and i wasn't kind of skinny little young guy enough to look like the kind of like oh here's the the 20 something but you were too young to be old yeah yeah and can we make him a doctor again? You've worn a lot of lab coats. You do kind of have that look. A lot of lab coats. I've got a whole closet full of them. I've been in a lot of lab coats.

I've been in a lot of principals, professors. You just hand out signed, autographed lab coats. Yeah. Quest Diagnostics wants me to do some funny sets at their conventions. Get sponsored, you know, getting those Quest Diagnostic commercials. Oh, man. Rampant.

Just carry a lab coat. Where do I know you from? One second. One second. Oh, yeah, you're the Quest guy. Yeah, anytime I wear white, people are like, huh, there's something about you. He's pulling a pen from his pocket he's gonna say it in a very neutral tone but it's gonna be very weird

is that like is that something that like you i mean it's like a blessing and a curse at the same time do you hate that do you're like oh i'm doing this again or is it just more like oh this is fun uh it goes back and forth yeah you know like i literally had um uh this last spring i think there was i had i think it was nine auditions in a row where i played a doctor nine nine yeah it was just like it's a doctor it's a doctor you're playing a doctor you're a doctor so what do you what do you say your agent at that point i was just like is there anything else out there like lawyer i did say it's like i'm scared of being type you know yeah hold and stuff he's

like it's just they but they're requesting you and i was like okay that's fine so yeah so it's good where it's like they want to see like specifically you. It's not like an open thing for a doctor, but it's like, I'd like to do more. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that there's enough. And the guy I'm getting to play on selfie, he's like a lab tech, but I get to be like insane. So he's not just sort of like button up. He's like really weird.

And that's the cool thing with Veep too. Like your character definitely has more of an edge to him. Like it was nice in that yogurt scene to see you flip out yeah matt walsh and stuff because most of the time instead of playing like the nebbishy like nerdy guy in this one you're like a no-nonsense yeah journalist who's just fed up he's a prick yeah he's a real piece of shit which is great like every i mean most of the roles, they're either extremes of sort of status hierarchy. They're either like the far end of just struggling to attain some kind of power, or they think they have so much power that they can just shit on other people.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how did the nine auditions go? Got two parts out of it, so pretty good. Yes. Pretty good. Did you want to get the parts are you throwing it at this point like fucking nine no i mean i i work i will always not always but i generally take work you want to work yeah i know you work a lot though senior imdb i try

you're in the trip i have that thing i make up i make up all those stuff. The Brian Husky story. When did that come out? 110 Oscars? What? Brian Husky around the house? That just sounds like a light in the darkness. The Brian Husky story. Hanging with Mr. Brian Husky. The receding of the hair. The Brian Husky

story. No, it'd be called Labcoat. Dr. Labcoat. Underneath the labcoat coat funny daddy is another lab coat layers of lab coat yeah um no i mean yeah like coming together like that like as far as like getting like bit rolls and then like getting in bigger stuff that had to be amazing right yeah yeah yeah and to and to be like with matt walsh now like the whole thing of like not knowing what ucb was at the time or the impact it would have and then later on an hbo series with

these people that you were performing with and they were teaching you about yeah like that's insane well they could matt and i did a shot a movie that was two summers ago that we wrote oh really uh called a better you oh awesome. And it's like an improvised movie. Yeah, I've seen bits of that on YouTube. Yeah. That's good. So, and that was great. That was just a thing.

Because he and I became friends, and it's really crazy. And I told him this one. He says, it's really crazy that you were at one point like this teacher, this person that I wanted to i was your mentor you know he said you got to go home you gotta go out you're the next so close to my face rob told me about this about you so i don't want to see the tattoo but yeah that that thing of you know because i think everybody can't you have to kind of kill your heroes a little bit yeah right but I'm glad interact with them you can't but he had like him and Matt Matt Besser is like one of the if he if he thinks you're talented or likes what you do he can be one of the most supportive yeah I mean champion you

nearly willing people yeah like improv for humans like bringing in used people to mess around and he back in the day like when he was a teacher he was terrifying he was like really he's an intense guy yeah he was much more intense than right like i heard stories of him like stopping shows like that they were like in the middle of a scene it was like what are you doing oh well he would did that not shows but he would do that a scene. He was like, what are you doing? Oh, well, he would do, not shows, but he would do that in class. Like he was just like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that?

I thought I was being fun. And then afterwards, like if you ask a question, he'd be like, all right, so what were you doing in that scene? And it'd be like, well, I came in and he says like, don't tell me what happened. What were you doing? And it just, the more, the more like he's, like, don't tell me what happened. What were you doing? And it just, the more, like, he's trying to get you to, like, focus and say, like, oh, here's what the game was.

Here's how I missed it or whatever. Yeah. But you just get so caught. It's like a cop. It's like a cop of, like, you know, you're driving kind of faster. Well, I was trying to get it. Sir, did you know you're driving a little too fast? We really have to condescendingly ask you. Do you know why I pulled you over?

What do you get my mom? But didn't you and Matt Walsh do a scene that was kind of along those lines where you were trying to improvise and he kept coming in with like, be funny. Oh, that was the Better You promo thing. Yeah, and he shoved me down a flight of stairs. Every word he started with, you got to be funny. Be funny. Funnier, funnier.

Make it funnier. Get to the joke. Get to the joke. I was like, I don't know what's happening. See, this is what's great about improv. Absolutely. We can just check the device. Just checking to see where we're at.

Are we ready to start? We good? Do we want to say anything racist or anything? Get that out of the way? Or do you want to save that for the cast? Oh, boy. Let me, the Armenians. This is a white supremacist cast you know cool yeah oh well uh let's burn something

i think we should yeah i like your white sheets thank you nice they're paid for wow hbo paid for big ups hbo sheets uh how often are you on the road shooting stuff, like for movies, shows, what have you? Not, I don't know, not a ton. Seems like every three to four months or something go away for, but not like big long stretches. That's not too bad. Yeah. I got to do something in Vancouver recently, which is really cool. What was that? It was called the-

Cocaine? which is really cool what was that it was called the cocaine the it was called the returned which is based on some french series about uh this town i think it's just a town but where uh all a bunch of people who had died just come back and they're not oh yeah you know they're not ghosts i think my dad's into that oh yeah it's supposed to be really good it's on a knee it's gonna be on a knee okay but it sounds really cool cuz they're not ghosts I haven't seen he's told me a lot about it yeah so it's sort of like the circumstances around like some people have moved on they've remarried or like I was doing my scenes with a Michelle Forbes or Mishka Forbes.

And she was, have you ever watched The Killing? Thank you for fixing that. Yeah, yeah. I don't know which one she goes by. The Killing,

you were just here? Yeah, I've never, I haven't seen it, but I'm familiar with it. She's like, she's an actress. She's a full, like, I was like,

you're amazing. Do you still think of yourself as just an improviser who's like, I hope no one finds out that I'm not an actor. Oh, totally. They're going to send me home at any minute. Wait a minute.

Walsh has a good term. He's like, I'm a schmactor. You end up defending yourself like a communist in the 50s. Big Senate here. Red scare. Have you now or have you ever been an improviser? Am I improvising right now is this scripted

is this a scene does this be yes in responding and not having something prepared should I hide improvising

I don't know what to do yeah kinda I do but well maybe no

no I don't actually I don't and I'm saying that because I'm trying to to stop myself from doing that

because I think it's a little bit of like, oh, then you're not fully accepting what has happened and what is happening. And it's kind of a... There's a little bit of a safety net, I think, when I do

that. I'm like, I'm not really an actor. Yeah, yeah. You know, because then I have a trap door. It's like, well like i'm not really an actor yeah yeah you know because then there's like i have a trap door it's like well i'm not really an actor so if it doesn't yeah it's kind of what we were talking about earlier having that like giving a shit too much kind of thing like well i'm you know i'm not really all the way in here but i think now i think now i uh i realize that there are so many schools of thought and so many different approaches to acting that it doesn't really matter what your approach is, your process,

because it's all in service of the end result. Sure. Of the acting. Of the craft. Of the craft. The craft. I'm on the bed right now jumping yep brian's naked he's looking out the window of the inner harbor breakaway pants really you just wait to break

them off just waiting uh what was it like the uh the early uh auditioning process because i recently did that and uh it was it was hard it's awful i mean there's a lot of rejection there i'll just anything sucks well it's just they just don't care like you're you're just another kind of cog or yeah it's like all right next yeah no thanks was that for uh like a tv thing or for a commercial i think it was a commercial it was weird they said it was a psa for babies which i just don't understand you seem like a big baby yeah are you just like a gigantic jellyfish or something well i normally am no i was like uh uh it was it was something about like parents doing like acting silly to get their kid to walk right or something like that so you come in and uh it's so they want to fuck up the way kids learn to walk i think i'll walk

like john cleese yep yep just Yep. Just huge, huge steps. No, you just come in and like, all right, your name. Okay. Just look into the camera, pretend that's a baby. And then I was with this chick that I don't know who I just met. I'm like, okay, be funny. You're like, ugh. Great direction.

Ugh. And then so. So you break out your best hooker jokes. Yeah. Exactly. I'm not looking at the camera. And it was the casting agent around here named pat moran so she cast like all the local stuff like yeah there are a bunch of people

there like oh i saw you on veep and blah blah i got to say something the other day who are these people my friend's a stand-up so she got me into it so uh yeah yeah it was just really weird it's like oh hi i'm josh, I'm Andrea. Okay, now have chemistry. And you're like, ugh. Commercial auditions is one where you really don't, you really should not give a shit. Really? The more, because every time I go in with somebody,

it's like, okay, do you want to run? Can we run it again? Let's just run it. It's like, well, there's a board there. You just look at the thing and read it. Yeah. They're just like over like just the anxiety and like i you're gonna screw this up for me because they're just gonna see anxiety yeah but i mean that when i got to the point where i was like oh i'm not i'm not i don't know i'm not i'm not worrying about this or I'm not attaching my own sense of value

to how this person. Because the people running the camera usually want to be actors too and this is kind of a day job. Yeah. You get really burned out seeing somebody come in and say, this toothpaste tastes great

over and over again. Yeah, yeah. Because Tim Simons was, he used to run cameras for commercial auditions in LA. And for Veep, I was in the callbacks for some of the roles. Right. And so he was there.

I was like, hey, man, are you running the camera for this? What are you doing here? He's like, no no i'm auditioning craft services for the actors yeah and then it was like he got it never like after i was like congratulations and i hope you don't think i'm a huge dick because i just didn't know you at the time that's a great way to end any congratulations yeah i'm really happy for you don't think i'm a don't think i'm a dick yeah and he And he was like, yeah, nobody knew me. Yeah.

And that's what's great about this show. Like Armando especially, he's just like, I don't care what their credits are. Whoever's funny. Whoever does this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, before we get you out of here, I just want to hear some of the early highlights maybe of maybe the the best and worst uh experiences maybe with auditioning or acting and uh worst worst uh audition experience uh was for a commercial for a regional bank um that's a big one that's a big one at the time money was a big one and the uh the director was this guy were like uh sort of ironed uh slightly light blue jeans you know very very wait he ironed his jeans i didn't even know

people just jeans and then he had a very sort of like very particular um linen peasant collar white shirt um that he wore both times the first one in the callback you got to cultivate a look and when i came back for the uh no he wasn't in the first one but he wore that to the to the to the fitting but uh so he was there at the callback and i did it and the breakdown said um incredibly socially awkward terrified to be on camera, freaking out. That seems like perfect for an audition. Yeah. I'm already there, man.

Yeah, totally. And so it was like, oh, these are extreme, extreme, extreme. So I did it. I did it as I did in the first one. And he's like, okay, okay. Can you do this again, but this time not be so retarded? Like you just seem like a real retard he reiterated the points yeah and i was like and i said i was like so let me just see if i got your note when i do this character or this

part you don't want me to be so retarded don't act like such a what you call a retard and he's like yeah yeah i mean you just seem super retarded when you do it. You're acting like, just like, I don't know. You're just being like, just don't be so retarded. That's when you pull out the, my younger brother is mentally handicapped card. Well, to that, yeah, exactly. So I was fucking furious and I was like, okay,

I'll do it again. And I did it again and I got the part. Wow. And then at the fitting, I said, Hey, I need to talk to you before we work together. Yes.

And he was like, yeah, what's up? And I was like, at the audition, you said this to me, I'll let you know that I've never been more offended by anyone I've worked with professionally. Dang. And that my manager's son was born two weeks ago and he has a down syndrome and he's a friend of mine,

my manager. And so he's been going through some stuff. I was like, you were saying things to me that you have no idea what the context or situation in my life is. You might as well have been racist. You might as well have just called me, you know, the N word or something, you know, or made a terrible jewish slight or whatever yeah and he was like oh oh gosh i'm so sorry i didn't even i didn't even realize that yeah i mean it's just i mean from my perspective as a director it's just so hard to get find the words to get people to do what you want that's just your fucking job yeah that's literally i find a better word it is so hard to do my job than being paid to do so hard to um what's that word direct yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

thank you you should be a director you're good at directing so that was the word because i was just like i ended up in that conversation with a hail hitler yeah i'm glad we talked about this hail hitler killing jesus but can i talk about the gays for a second um and so that was one of the situations like i just i had no respect for him and it's weird to work with somebody i was like i don't give a shit about what you're saying to me i don't think you're funny i don't like how you approach things that's good that you confronted him instead of blowing up or just keeping inside. Yeah. Calmly explain to him. I didn't want

to offend him. You know, it was kind of like, well, I'm gonna do it at the fitting because they can't fire me. Yeah. And I don't really care if he thinks if he doesn't like me. So it's bold. Yeah. Bold word. Word to me. Brian bold husky. That's one for the little people.

Some of the highlights then? Highlights. We'll go out on some highlights. I like a highlight. I will say- Besides this podcast. Because this moment right here. Doing, when I shot, I have a part in This is the End where my head gets cut off.

That movie was great. Yeah, it was, right? Yeah. I was so, I thought it would be, I was like, this will be kind of funny, but it was great yeah it was right yeah i was so i thought it would be i was like this will be kind of funny but it was so funny and it i mean they just like they commit so hard to like the apocalypse part of it when they're in that gas station everything falls apart like i literally jumped i was like whoa and they do such a job a great job at at taking these little having all these little side games yeah you know around it to give you

a break from this other idea yeah it was super serious yeah um but i was just really i love all those guys and i was really proud like my very first take i did um they just like lost it like and i was just really like, oh, that made me feel really great. Nice. Yeah, do you feel a pressure when you're like, everybody's so funny? I gotta bring my game here. Yeah, and I had done a tiny part in Superbad

and I showed up and I was like, you know, hey Evan, hey Seth, remember me in Superbad? You were in Superbad? I didn't, booey. I guess you really liked what I did, huh? Yeah, I guess it really resonated. Very memorable.

I did get cut out down to nothing. I forgot about that part. Anyway, good to see you. Yeah. I'm feeling good. Good times. Voice just goes higher and higher. Yeah.

Always a good sign. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for doing this, man. Thank you, guys. This was super awesome. I'm glad that it worked out. Trusting us to come up here and not kill you

guys there's still time if there's like the end of this is gonna be like in Grizzly Man just the stuff you don't wanna hear

it's gonna be so vicious cut to Werner Herzog listening to the podcast oh never listen you must burn this podcast throw this iPod

in the Baltimore Harbor but listen to the first part of the podcast it's very insightful. Not bad, not bad. The badminton stuff really caught me off guard. It's true. It's a great workout.

It's a great game. It moves very fast. We'll show up on Faces of Death, the audio book. Yeah. Fingers crossed. That brings us to our sponsor, Audible.com. Anything to plug here? Selfie?

Yeah, selfie. I don't literally I think we're finding out today if we're getting picked up oh really yeah so either keep watching or we should you should have watched it either or either shame on you or thank you yeah and then I don't think I'm a dick if we

get a if we get a distributor for a better you go see that. That'd be awesome. And then Veep, what, the spring or season? Summer? I don't know. Four? Season four.

Maybe spring, I guess. Somewhere in there. People will find it. And if you're in LA, come up to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. But most importantly, the Instagram. Yeah. What's the Instagram, Brian? Oh, the Brian Husky.

Whoa. Yeah, pretty easy. They are great pictures. Thank you. There's the Instagram, Brian Thornton? Oh, the Brian Husky. Whoa. Yeah, pretty easy. They are great pictures. Thank you. There's some nice pictures of the harbor in there, the Baltimore harbor. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about that, Baltimore. Yeah, bringing it.

Bringing it. Yeah, follow Brian. He's got, you got a knack. No, thanks, kids. Hey, no problem. No problem, Mr. Husky. Stay clean, guys. Stay off the drugs.

Some stuff to plug for us. And I'm with you. I always feel exhausted when I plug. And this thing. And my guys. Stay off the drugs. Some stuff to plug for us. And I'm with you. I always feel exhausted when I plug. And this thing. And like us. Remember me? Five stars on iTunes. We really appreciate it.

DigressionSessions.com slash calendar has all of our upcoming dates. Follow me on Twitter. I'm at BetterRobotJosh. This is a separate podcast for our plugs. The plug cast. You should get a British woman to record it. That always has things sort of like, oh. Yeah, that's true. Everybody takes British woman to record it. That always has things sort of like, oh. Yeah, that's true.

Everybody takes British people seriously. Yeah. And a woman's going to be like, oh, I bet she's wearing glasses. That's not a bad idea. That's probably like one of those marketing tricks. Yeah, with some classical music in the background, just very faintly. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But anyway, MattBetterRobotJosh on Twitter. If I could focus on what's important guys my twitter and i'm on instagram at better robot josh the podcast is at dig such pod on twitter uh the 14th and the 15th i'll be at the harrisburg comedy zone don't get jealous it's a whole zone yeah i'm in the zones man i'm in the zones so check that out and Michael anything to plug here

Michael Morantin follow me on Twitter I really need to change that name it's not a good time yeah I need to change mine too sounds like an AOL account and I just need to change in general other than that

I got a couple things I forgot to as usual I don't have them memorized or have them written down two after thanksgiving i will be doing a headlining show at creative alliance what is that the 28th i don't know that's something sorry well is it thanksgiving always the 25th it'll be this last saturday of the month yes last saturday of the month creative alliance mike moran headlining, Ben O'Brien, and Ivan Martin opening.

Nice, nice. And you're only going to get the hardcore Mike Moran fans because they have to put the math together on that one, you know? You're not giving them the exact dates. You're weeding out the fair weather fans. Exactly. Yeah, I don't want it to be, you know, overwhelmed. Yeah, make it a cryptic puzzle for people to find out where you are. Yeah, exactly.

All right, that's it for this cryptic puzzle. Thank you again, Brian. We did it. Thanks, guys. Thanks, man you are. Yeah, exactly. All right, that's it for this cryptic puzzle. Thank you again, Brian. We did it. Thanks, man. Bye. Bye, everybody. And press the button. Thank you.