The Three Questions with Andy Richter - David Duchovny

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Multi-Hyphenate David Duchovny joins Andy Richter to talk about academia, writing his book Truly Like Lightning, growing up in New York, and more.

uh hi everybody andy richter here uh with another episode of the three questions and i've got david dukovny on today uh the multi multi-talented. It's embarrassing how many things you do. It's embarrassing to me. Is it? Is it? I mean, because you do music, you do poetry, you write novels, and then you act in things, too. Which is like, once you do acting, why do you do all that work? You found a cush gig, you know? Well, that's absolutely right

um yeah you know acting is it's nice to have your words written for you but uh as as you know uh well those there are long days on set that you start to feel like existential dread of uh you know what the hell am i doing yeah you, waiting around trying to get these few lines right all day. So there's, there's something about writing novels or, or making music. That's a, that's a little, I have a little more agency, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was going to ask if it's a control thing, because. Well, people, you know, control is like a negative word to people. Well, but it's, I mean, not to me. I mean, you know, I, agency, it's just, you're, it's a semantic game then because it is control. Like that's, I mean, not to me. I mean, you know, I agency, it's just your, it's a semantic game then because it is control. Like that's, I mean, we all want to, I don't know. We're all like scared animals, you know, in this big, crazy world. And we want to be able to feel like we got some handle on it. So, yeah, I mean, I understand. And especially on movies, on TV shows, you know, they are inherently necessarily collaborative,

but that can also leave you feeling like, you know, a ship's crew member on the deck heading into a horizon and you don't know what the fuck's going on, you know? Well, you're lucky if you're on the deck. Yeah, yeah. you don't know what the fuck's going on you know you're lucky if you're on the deck yeah yeah well yeah i think you know when you think about it your performance while you have the lines written mostly and uh you know somebody's gonna light you somebody's gonna shoot you somebody's gonna cut you so there's all these factors that go into your quote-unquote performance as an actor that that are really not in your control at all yeah yeah so yeah and um yeah and it's also i'm always

amazed to it like how really you know like uh you are your job is just to kind of find this quiet place where you can focus on saying the shit right you know and while and you're doing it sort of in the middle of a of a traffic jam of a construction zone yeah yeah yeah now i you grew up in new york city yeah and and you were and i mean i want to get back to that too but but I, but this, cause this does prompt a question that I was curious about. You went to school for, uh, English literature. You were in pursuit of a PhD, was it of English literature? Yeah. How does acting happen along that way? I mean, is it something that you were really wanted to do,

or was it just kind of like, it just, I had never thought it was a good gig. Yeah. I never thought about it really. I had, uh, I, I'd never grown up knowing an actor. I mean, the, the, the closest I ever came to an actor was, uh, I knew some guy whose dad was, uh, uh, on the Breckstone commercials. That was about, I don't know if you remember those. It's a, it's a it's an eastern thing but i i mean from living in new york i know breakstone but i yeah i don't we didn't have them when i was

a kid so yeah so that was it i mean it wasn't like you know if i was watching gilligan's island which was the show i'd watch as a kid i i i didn't even relate to those people as actors i just i just related to them as gill and whatever. Ginger and Marianne. I didn't think, oh, what does Gilligan wear when he's not being Gilligan? Does he take that hat off? Does he eat food? I don't know.

So I had no thoughts about that. But I wanted to be a writer. And I thought if I was a professor, if I was teaching, then I would be able to have three or four months of the year off in which I would write. And it seemed like that was the, that looked like the structure of my life in a way. Yeah. And is it your mom a teacher? My mom was a teacher for many, many years. Yeah. In New York City. Yeah. And my sister is a teacher in Brooklyn right now. So, you know, as a writer, I just began to feel very kind of isolated and lonely. Kind of the things that I like about it now.

Yeah, yeah. When I was 21, I hated about it. Yeah. So I thought, how can I write and not be so alone? And then I thought, well, plays. I'll write plays. And then, you know, the actors will have to come and do, you know, and then we'll direct and we'll do it that way. Come and entertain me and keep me company. Keep me from being so sad.

Say my words. Yeah. And then I thought, well, if I'm going to write plays, I should probably know something about acting. So I was at Yale at the time, and they have so many productions going on at all times, big and little. They're basically looking for bodies. They don't have enough in the acting school there to cast everything they're doing. So I started hanging out over at the drama school and actually taking playwriting courses and met the actors.

And they said, hey, you know, we need a body here. We need a body there. And I just started to act that way. And, you know, here I am. So you sat like you sat in on the acting classes. I didn't sit on an acting classes. I sat on playwriting classes. I don't think it's very weird because if if if you were like my program was uh

english literature i was getting a phd in that yeah you if you said hey i like books too you couldn't just come in and sit in our class but somehow they they let me that was yeah waltz in and i'd sit there and god you know they kind of had an open door policy which was cool for me but no not with the not with the acting i didn't i didn't study any acting there yeah so did what did you have a technique what or did you just wing it fake it well at first at first i i winged it and faked it which is what i eventually get back to. After all the technique, then you get back to wing technique. So at first, but then when I started to take it seriously or started to actually want to work, I got into some classes in New York. So I was actually commuting between New Haven and

New York. I had like this double life where I was a PhD candidate and a TA, a teaching assistant. And then I'd ride my bike to the New Haven train station, get it on the train, take it to my bike to class. And we were learning Strasburg technique. And then I took a different class, which was Meisner techniques. I've kind of worked around in both the major, you know, acting techniques of this country's of the 20th century anyway. And, and, you know, for me, it's like, you know, it's whatever works on the day, you know, we're, we're fluid beings, right? So you show up on set and you were caught in traffic and you're in a shit mood. Well, now you've got to figure this out. So you can either use that, what's happening today, or if that's not working, you've got to search back

and use your technique and try to make it happen. And then worst comes to worst, you just fucking fake it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because that's, I always, I don't know what to, you know, the most I can ever get about sort of acting technique that I understand. By the way, sorry about the dog. No, never apologize about a dog. Okay.

That's my creative. She gets worked up because people walk in front of the house. She's got to go to the backyard and bark at them. It's a house. Yeah, yeah. You know, because my whole career has been, oh, shit, they're going to give me this opportunity. It would be rude of me to act as if I don't know what I'm doing because everybody else here is treating're right i do know what i'm doing and then i'm just gonna fucking hope that somebody likes you know i when a director says okay we got it and then they frequently will say is there's i mean unless it's really something that i enjoy

they'll say do you want to do anything and usually it's no it's you i just you know i i want to go home that's what i want to do so but it's funny that you describe it that way because i would i would describe like the technique of your technique and and conan and the show as let me try to get this right off what you were just saying as acting like you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. That's like the, that was like the fundamental humor of the show was we are so bad at this.

No, that was supposed to be swab. That's what we were going for. You know what I mean? That's funny that you put your were going for you know what i mean that's funny that you put your your uh you know because clearly you were preparing clearly you didn't know what you're doing but the the style which i always loved and which was funny was i just got here what am i supposed to do yeah well my philosophy with that show and and it built over time. I mean, first of all, I took, and I mean, and I did, I've done a lot of press lately about what that all means.

So I've been talking about it lately, which I don't, you know, how often do you really, well, how far would you have to live up to your own ass to think, what have I meant to the comedy community? Unless somebody asks me. So I have been thinking about it lately. And, and I didn't, you know, when I first got the job, we just were doing it because it was a comedy job. It was this kind of show and we got to fill up this amount of time and I haven't done it before, but we'll figure something out. But to me, what that show ended up being was, is it had to be about every single one was kind of

like a documentary about these two guys that did this for an hour a day. And, and the key to it, to me was always people have to experience this hour in the same way that we're experiencing this hour. So it was always important important me to be myself and to react to things in as much of an honest way as i could i mean it is show business and i do yeah you know like i say it's a version of me but when it's like me when company's over like me on my best behavior most you know because i mean if it was just me there would have been plenty of interviews where i didn't say a fucking thing and you know did a crossword on my phone or something. Well, I'll just say, you know, and I know that's not what, you know, we're supposed to be talking about here.

And that's fine because I'd rather talk about you than me. But I read an article. This is why I sought out your podcast. As a matter of fact, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts so so I read this article um I think it must have been in the times in the New York Times and and I thought you were really sincere and and and thoughtful and I I liked what you were saying then I read that you had a podcast and I thought oh I'd like to do that podcast and oh great not putting pressure on you to be sincere and thoughtful but what Oh, great. I, you always had a real, there was always a real generosity to what you were doing and, and, uh,

and a kindheartedness that wasn't like, it wasn't faked at all. Oh, thank you. If it was faked at all, it was faked well, you know, and, and, and I thought your timing was always great. And you always just made me laugh so much. So I was like, Oh, and then I read, read oh this is what this guy's really been thinking about so that's interesting like he's oh thanks he's kind of a little he's a little tortured there that's cool well i mean you know it's a weird it was a weird

job it was a job for to which i was very suited in many ways and I kind of described that in the article and that like, I kind of from an early age was in charge of morale and was kind of there to react to whatever happened. So I kind of was bred to, to do this kind of job. It does get to be, you know, you get tired of being,

I say a lot. And I've said this numerous times, to showbiz wives. I understand. Like, I understand what it is to be a showbiz wife because I was kind of his TV wife. So I understand, like, this is great. This is wonderful. We have a great job. But sometimes I get annoyed that people don't pay attention to me or, you know, or kind of look at me as an accessory to somebody else. Well, here's it's very interesting for me to hear you say that because there were moments when I'd be on the show and this is a while ago. I can't remember the last time I did it.

And it's OK that you guys didn't invite me back for the big goodbye. I had nothing to do with that. We had some classic bits. Someday I'll tell you about all the people that were truly hurt. If you were truly hurt. No, I'm not truly hurt.

Because there were some people, yeah, there's some stories about who got emails from whom. There were times when i felt my attention wandering to you more than i felt was uh it was okay and i felt i felt like oh i i feel like there's a little i can't increase this tension here i've got to take my eyes off andy right now yeah and get back over here it was well yeah i, and it's not there's not like a lot of tension between me and Conan. You know, I mean, honestly, and as time has gone on, the pressure has gotten less and less because we've understood.

We've understood like it there, we do a volume business, everyone doesn't matter that much and unto itself except for if everybody had fun and that was kind of we got to that it took a long time to get to that um but there i would i would make me nervous too the one that would make me the most nervous was jane lynch whom i've known since about 1988 uh and we actually were in show. We were in married in it. We did a show called the real life Brady bunch and she and I were Carol and Mike. And she used to do this thing on the show. I mean, she still kind of did it even towards the end where she'd be on the show and

Conan would ask her a question and she'd turn to me and answer it. And I always was sitting there feeling like, turn, no, look at him. Look at him. He's the one you should be looking at. Of all, I used to like to think about bits to do when I would do Conan. And one of the bits I did on Conan had really terrible repercussions for me in my life. Oh, the Vancouver thing. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, now, it was so silly, though, because they were very soft. You came on the show when he was doing – was he doing a week of shows in Vancouver? Was that it? No, no. I was just – there were rumors at the time that the show was moving from vancouver to la and oh yeah i just got married and i was uh i was one of those people you know pushing for that because i don't think i don't think i'm on i was on the show when this happened you weren't what year was this uh

90 uh probably 98 99 then i was there i I was there. I was there. Yeah, I think you were. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I remember. You're not getting out of it that way. I mean, I remember, well, I mean, this whole last month has been weird to see hours of tape that I don't have any recollection of. Yeah.

But I specifically remember you telling Vancouver jokes and there being a backlash but i don't have a memory of it happening it was a really great gag because it was conan uh is going to ask me well why do you want to move the show and i would say well and i you know say something negative about vancouver and i said something about that it rained a lot and then the it was your guy's idea which was great and i loved it was your guy's idea which was great and i loved it was like you're gonna cut to the audience they're gonna see a bear a mountie and a hockey player crying like dabbing hey you're laughing now yeah yeah yeah i was like great gag great guy yeah and then uh but unfortunately the next day it was reported in the Vancouver papers,

almost as if I'd held a press conference and said, who can live in Vancouver? It rains too much. And I went on a PR defensive. Wow. For months and couldn't set it straight that I actually, here's the truth, that I loved Vancouver and actually like a lot of rain myself temporarily. Yeah, yeah. But there was no going back.

There was no, there was no taking it back. People are so touchy about that kind of stuff. I mean, and it's like, it's also, it's the softest. It's the weather.

Most cliched thing that you can make fun of that town about, you know? Well, I think what it was is that we were, you know, I thinkouver felt protective of us you know we had like we and i get it you know and i i think they're i think they were hurt or in some collective way hurt that we were leaving and and that it just came out this way

and i get it all you know yeah and i i i love them too and i love that place too. So I understand. And it just kind of took this weird form. But one time I remember I wanted to come on and I said to the producer, I can't remember who I was. I said, I want to bring a guitar and and then just on with me. And I didn't play guitar at the time. I said, I want to bring guitar. And then Conan would logically ask me about the guitar. And I would say, don't ask me about the guitar. I told you.

And they didn't go for it. And I was always upset. I was like, I said, that's so fucking funny. Let me just do it. Don't ask me about the guitar. I told you. He went over this. I'll tell you why they said no is because it's like a,

and I'm not the big theater student, but it's, isn't there like the, is it Chekhov's gun that are like, if you bring out a gun, somebody's got to use it. It's known as the company's guitar. Now somebody's got to play that fucking thing can't you tell my loves are growing well when you did you find yourself when you started taking

those acting classes did you find yourself kind of energized by by the challenge of the technique and it took over where writing had been your drive? Less writing and more like sports, you know, because I had been, well, obviously I've been like pretty intellectual. I've been doing well in school and I was moving on that way and those institutions, fire learning and stuff like that, but hadn't really exercised my emotional being in the same way or my performance being since I played sports, you know, and that was, I loved,

I loved the game. I loved the pressure of the game. So it kind of, I related to it like that was like, Oh, this is like having a ball in my hands again you know yeah and uh i i still think it's like that you know i i get the nerves i get you know i get excited to play and uh aside from that it was accessing emotions that was never anything i was like uh you know lauded for doing like nobody said hey david you know, lauded for doing. Like nobody said, hey, David, you know, be more emotional. That's not, that wasn't what they were saying at Princeton and Yale, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So for me, it was really a place where I could mature and explore emotionally, which is, which wasn't something necessarily part of my education before that. I really, I was like, oh my God, I can have all these emotions and be these ways and, and I don't have to go to jail. Wow. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I'm not

breaking anybody's heart. Nobody's killing themselves because I'm being such an asshole. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. I, I, I, I, I enjoy that. I enjoy that exploration, you know? And then, of course, humor was something too. It was like, oh, I can make people laugh. I like doing that. Yeah. I like doing that. And you don't, there isn't, you know, especially in English literature, and I mean, I don't know what Yale is like,

but there's not a lot of concern about where the laughs are in those programs. You know what I mean? It's like, because. I don't you know what i mean it's like because i don't know you know it's like people people do have certain misconceptions about that because i've just been talking about my daughter who's studying english right now too and and we were talking about how funny kafka is i know that's a really silly thing to say yeah yeah if you if you don't approach it as this kind of hallowed piece of literature, you know, enshrined on Mount Everest of literature, it's fucking funny. And so is Beckett.

And so is Joyce. There's Shakespeare. I mean, if Shakespeare done well, you're laughing. Yeah. The guy, Pinter. Like, I find, yeah, Pinter,, like all those long stretches of just silence and meaningless drivel is just hilarious. And you're right, you know, like waking up as a cockroach is pretty fucking funny. You know what I mean?

Like, oh, shit, I'm a cockroach now. I have the same consciousness. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I started in college and i took a lot of english classes and it didn't seem that fun and when i remember well also too when you're like a freshman in the sophomore in college and you think you're going to write something and it's going to be important and it's always so dreary you know and so you know it's like when i went when i transferred to film school it's a cliche that everybody's first film that's not just an exercise is about suicide like all

these it's just a film school cliche yes if you go if you go watch the first crop of everybody's doing a short film that they all are just you you know, that they all decided it's their thing. It's you'll go through if there's 10, there's six of them were about suicide. Somebody killing themselves. I mean, that's the way it was. I don't know. Now. Now it's probably about.

Superheroes now. But but yeah, it's I I never felt, I did write one, I tried to write one funny story and I felt it was, it was like, well, this is really funny. Okay, let's move on to Jeremy's. You know, that was, it didn't, it didn't really seem like there was anything sort of substantive to it, which, you know, I, I, I mean, I don't really care one way or the other. I mean, I do think comedy is the most perishable of entertainment. Really? Yeah, I do. I think that things that were funny 30 years ago.

Stylistically. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just, no, just basic funny. Things that were funny 30 years ago. Well, certainly. Certainly, yeah, the last couple of years. Yeah. But some stuff, you know, it just, it doesn't age well. I couldn't disagree more. I mean, I agree that, that, that, that,

that yes, styles change and that and certain subject matters are going to become highlighted culturally and become either more or less funny over time. But I think, I think that, that, that to make people laugh, you know, to make people laugh in the most fundamental way is, is not attached to the style of the day or the news of the day. Really. It's, it's more of a, you know, to me, it's just a big joke that we're're we're here on this planet and we have

to die you know yeah yeah and we know it and we know it so so comedy to me is the highest you know i mean obviously within drama you know i mean my heart goes to the things that are mixed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But to me, like the, the most evolved response to many situations is to, to, to try to see what's funny in it. Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, like Vancouver, try and find out what's funny about Vancouver and then you find out quickly what's not funny. Yes. Well, I found out what's not, which is almost as valuable that's funny what is yeah

yeah now you are uh are you are do you live in new york city still or no no my my son graduated from high school last month uh-huh and that was that was that's pretty much it for me oh really and are you here in california or yeah um because you're a new york city boy you're a new york city baby yeah yeah uh did you grow up on the on you grew up downtown is that correct yeah yeah i grew up on well lower east side i guess you call it but like 18th and 3rd and then 11th and 2nd yeah those are my cribs yeah and those are you know those are pretty normal neighborhoods in terms of like Manhattan that being a mix of people living there, but also a lot of street action, you know. Yeah. My neighborhood when I was growing up was this odd mixture of Ukrainian and Puerto Rican.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, wonderful. Hirogis and Cerveza, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, wonderful. Pierogies and cerveza, you know. Yeah. That was a very Chicago thing too. There was a lot of neighborhoods that were yeah. Overlapped Ukrainian. It was one called Ukrainian village that was Ukrainian and, but Mexican, everything, but it was all overlapping and Polish overlap with Mexican.

When I was, when I was in Chicago, you could run into people on milwaukee avenue that had lived in chicago for 20 years and didn't speak a word of english because they didn't need to they could just be polish you know right so so my my neighborhood was oh it was completely just it was it was literally a melting pot you know yeah it was like the cliche of what america likes to think of itself as what what drew i mean are your folks from that neighborhood what drew them to that neighborhood oh wow that's right yeah yeah um my father born in brooklyn um so he worked in manhattan and uh you know i guess

they've just decided to live there i mean they my mother had never really wanted to stay in America, but she's 91. She's still trying to get out of here. But, yeah, so my dad born in Brooklyn, mom born in Scotland, and they settled on Lower East Side. They just picked it, yeah. Yeah, and it was a great place to grow up. I mean, there was a lot of freedom. You know, you weren't really aware of the horrible things that can happen. I mean, you know, there was the occasional, you know, horrible thing that could happen.

But it wasn't in everybody's minds that a child could get snatched off the street and disappear forever. Right. Right. So I had a lot of liberty and a lot of autonomy. Right. So I had a lot of liberty and a lot of autonomy. And, you know, the city is great for that because you don't need to be in a car. You know, you can just go wherever you need to go. Yeah. Did. Did you ever sort of exercise that freedom to the point of being dangerous? Of me being dangerous or getting into dangerous, getting into dangerous situations? Um, I'm sure that I did, you know, I just, I'm sure that I didn't know it at the time, you know, it's like, I, I'm, I'm sure I, I pushed, I pushed, you know, boundaries, but

you know, I just, I just had that kind of, when you're young, you just don't think, But, you know, I just I just had that kind of when you're young, you just don't think, you know, you just you're just doing shit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I never broke any, you know, big ticket laws, you know. Right. Right. Right. Just little ones, you know, graffiti and shit like that. Yeah, because I have a 15 year old and a 20 year old and people have often asked me, you know, people with younger kids, like, how do you give them freedom when they start going out by themselves? What do you do? And all this stuff. And, you know, and I've always, I've always felt that any advice was tempered with the fact that like my kids just weren't built to be trouble seekers.

You know, they both were like like my son is very kind of almost overly cautious in a way and my daughter as she's gotten older has been that way too so i always just wonder like you know i i think like you are who you are and your parents can either give you freedom or they can give you strict boundaries depending on what they think you need. I mean, if they're doing it right. Some parents are just like, see ya, have a good time. Yeah. Well, I mean, as a parent, you realize early on, you know, that your kids may be a mixture of you and your spouse, but they are their own thing, you know.

And, you know, like that water is going to seek its own level in some way. Yeah. And all you can do is just like yell warnings from the sideline. Watch out for that. Yeah. yell warnings from the sideline watch out for that yeah did you ever uh when you were younger like did you ever covet a more sort of suburban lifestyle never never because i just didn't know it i mean you mentioned the brady bunch i did covet that i was like man that that's a nice house that that california looks fun you know yeah and but but I mean those that's the like the specificity of my thinking it was like that kind of numbskull thing yeah oh yeah that's

what California is I there there is a um there's a housing project near where I grew up called Stiles and Town of Peter Cooper you know You know what those are in the city? Yeah, yeah. They're sort of like a bunch of high-rises that look like there's 50 of them and they're all the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were built as kind of affordable housing, I think, for veterans of World War II. So they were built in the late 40s and 50s.

But they had little parks and they had little and it was like the self-contained like suburbia and i do remember wishing from time to time that i lived in in peter cooper because it just seemed like like it was a real neighborhood like like like oh my park i have my own park yeah and and there's green there's grass there's a tree you know there's actually a tree yeah so i did that was if i ever coveted like suburbia it was coveting stives in town peter cooper yeah that's that's sad that was your idea of idol you know that was my idea of nature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now you were, uh, you were a big sports guy, right?

Was that when you were young? Was it all sports all the time? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. I just want to be in the park. I go to Peter Cooper. Yeah.

And, uh, yeah. Baseball, basketball, tennis, swimming. Yeah. I just loved, uh, as I got older, I loved team sports more than like individual sports, but I, I just, yeah, I loved it. And you played in high school? Was that kind of? I played in high school.

I played a little in college. And that was really my first heartbreak about what am I going to do? Because once I stopped playing organized sports, which was my second year of college. And that was basketball? Basketball and baseball. Oh, and baseball. You were on both teams. Yeah, I stopped playing both. Wow. And yeah, it was a real like redefinition for me. I felt, first of all, I felt like a great failure, you know, like I hadn't done what I wanted to do.

I was heartbroken. And then it was like, well, what am I going to do with my life? I mean, it wasn't like I thought I was going to be a pro. I mean, that was obvious enough. But I thought at least for the next four years, I'm going to be doing these things. And then, yeah, I mean, that's how I identified myself as a guy chasing a ball. Right. Right. As an athlete who also read books. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, how long did that how long did that period last where you feel that kind of well you know that heartbreak of it well yeah that sort of sense of failure that turns into readjustment and then you kind of you know I don't know how long it took

I mean I certainly I remember just feeling like it's almost like the feeling of well you're not a liar so much as like i guess i'm not who i thought i was yeah it's a very it's a shitty feeling but it's very necessary one to to reinvent or or it's necessary to be honest like that with oneself in a way and and also to realize that that's not that's not actually a self-definition. That's just something you were doing. And were you cut from the teams? Is that how it ended?

I mean. It's funny you ask because I don't think I was, but here's the story. I'll try to tell it quickly. In the year 2000, which was one of your great gags. Yeah. And I was very happy to have been involved in that one. Cause it always made me laugh. Yeah.

But in the actual year, 2000, the Lakers and the Sacramento Kings were locked in a, in a, in a big struggle for the, the Western conference finals. And I, and I went to a game,

I think it was game six or seven. And I had known just briefly, I think it was game six or seven. And I had known just briefly, I knew the owners of the Sacramento Kings, the Maloufs brothers. And as I was walking to my seat, I had great court side seats. I was walking to my seat and I said hello to the Malouf brothers. And Coach Carrillo, who was the legendary coach of Princeton, was now at that point in 2000, an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings. And I said, I'd love to say hi to coach Kirill after the game. And they said, sure. And so I went down, I watched the game.

It was an amazing game. I have to say that the refs kind of handed it to the Lakers. I mean, it was a great game, but I felt like the Kings was a better team at that point. I'll probably be run out of LA like i was run out of vancouver but um i went to the maloose after the game and i said oh man that was that was really horrible what happened in the fourth quarter there i i understand i understand if coach grill doesn't want to see me and they said no we told him you were here he wants to talk to him. If you wait over there,

it was like, and I wait in that tunnel, you know, that the great tunnel that there's light out there and it's dark in here. Yeah. And that weird feeling of waiting for someone after a show or, you know, like standing around with your thumb up your ass feeling in the way. Yeah,

exactly. And I see backlit coming from the tunnel. And he was a little round man, this little round figure like ambling towards me. And I knew he'd had a heart attack recently. I knew he wasn't doing great. But he gets within like 20 feet of me. And it's only him and me now. And I start to raise my hand to wave at him.

And he says, aren't you glad I cut you? And I say, well, coach, I think I, he didn't cut me. I think I quit. And he said, no, no, I cut you, but look how good you're doing now. I mean, you should be glad I cut you. You're doing so good. And I was like, coach, I think I quit. I how good you're doing now. I mean, you should be glad I cut you. You're doing so good. And I was like, coach, I think I quit. I don't think you cut me.

And we like this thing. So many years later. Well, somebody, you both feel proprietary about your success. You know? Yeah. It was my decision. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I think the hard thing about that kind of situation too, and it's, it's good to get it out of the way young, which is when you have an idea of yourself and the world tells you, no, no, that's not who you are. And you can fight it and fight it, but usually the world wins, you know, like when it's, you know, it's like, no, you're, you know, it's like I try to tell my kids. If if there's somebody being an irritant and then more people are saying you're being an irritant, it's it's a democracy. So if three people say you're an asshole, you're being an asshole. hypocrisy so if three people say you're an asshole you're being an asshole you know like you can have all the righteousness in the world and all the picture of of what your motives are but no if you're being an asshole you're now and i mean you weren't being an asshole but you were

like you thought you know you were you were an athlete and they're like no you're not you're good sure whatever you know have fun you got hobby, but now find something else to do. Well, I mean, it's you mentioned your kids around this and it's certainly something that. That I thought about more later as I became a parent, because you don't think of it that way when it's happening. You know, you don't think of it as, oh, the world is just conversing with me right now. Right, right, right. No, it feels like everybody hates me. They're stealing my dreams.

So, but when you have kids, like, yeah, you know that every dream that they have, they're not all going to come true. But you want them to. You, but you want them to, you know, you want them to. And then you just realize, you know, it's almost like your heart will break more for them than it would for yourself. And then you realize, Oh, it's just all about resilience. You know, this whole, this whole life is just, everybody's getting knocked down every day. You know, that's just the way it goes and uh social

media side which gives you like this false view of everybody's perfect life or not but um you know it's just the ability to kind of say oh you know like you asked me how long it took see i don't know you know that's the you know how fast can you bounce back you know how long did it take for me to go okay i guess i'm not i'm not i'm not gonna be this great athlete that's the, you know, how fast can you bounce back? You know, how long did it take for me to go? Okay. I guess I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to be this great athlete. That's not who I am. That's not going to define me. Yeah. Now is the rest of my life going to be one of those guys sitting around on

podcasts talking about what a good athlete he used to be? Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Can't you tell my loves are growing? Yeah, no, it is. It's like you say, resilience. It's also too, you know, I don't have a religion, but I do sometimes say I'm a devout relativist.

And it's in comparison. times say i'm a devout relativist and it's in comparison i am always like i always i think it's a very valuable thing when you think that you got it shitty to go but wait a minute here check out these other lives that are way worse and then you just kind of be like well all right i don't have to be a pollyanna about it but i at least can kind of know that i'm not being persecuted by the universe and can kind of move on yeah i mean there's that but there's also i mean and i have i do talk to my kids about this as well it's like you are entitled to your own human pain no matter how good you seem to have it yeah because the gig comes with a lot of pain. Yeah. Period.

Yeah. I mean, the gig of being alive. Yes. Yeah. So then, I mean, there are other really bad hands and really bad rolls of the dice that people get, and that's obviously legitimate too. Yeah, yeah.

But even if you don't think you have a right to feel bad, and you do, I'm not going to say to you, you don't feel bad. Right. Or you shouldn't feel bad. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe you can feel a little better. Maybe you have it.

Maybe you do have it better. But, you know, that's the first noble truth of the Buddha, right? Life is suffering. So, you know, I take that as my gospel. Anyway, I mean, I'm not like a dark, dark person, but, you know, there's a lot of hurt. But I get what you're saying. You know, it is good to relativize sometimes. Yeah. And just be grateful for the good things.

I just, yeah, I mean, I just find it, I don't know. I just, I've always found it useful for so many different ways. I've talked about it before for motivational ways, especially like going into a very daunting business and looking at successful people that I just think are not that great and going like, well, if that fucker can do it, then all right, I can do this. You know, I just said it can give you confidence in that way. But you're right. People and especially. Any, you know, any in social media, anything

I can say stuff about. You know, my car breaking down and people will say oh i bet it's a nice car and at least you have a car and you have a job and you're on tv and shut the fuck up don't ever complain right you know all right okay fine you know whatever but you know everybody's life becomes their life and and i'm sure as you know as you go through i've seen many many people who have it all and who are fucking miserable and addicted to the misery in some way which is just i don't even i used to kind of be fascinated with it but now i'm just bored by people who don't seem to want to take the reins of their own just not even like some crazy happiness just like no not being a fucking mope not hating everything all the time you know yeah well i think you know

like what that puts me in mind it was like people were self-obsessed self-obsession is pretty boring you know yeah yeah so i i just get bored and then i get angry you know at those people just because i'm like i don't i don't give a fuck yeah yeah especially when you got to work with him that's that's what you're getting at yeah yeah let's name some names but no this isn't that kind of podcast that's my next podcast you know you uh you touched on something uh i think that's very very valuable which is uh you know you put it in a way that was kind of uh you know funny but it's true because i had similar experiences where when i when i first got on sets because like i hadn't been you know an actor i hadn't i hadn't thought of myself as that till I was maybe 26 or 27.

And, uh, it was actually on, uh, on Chaplin. I had a small role in Chaplin and there were, there were lots of very well established, established actors on that. And I saw them work and I was like, and it't like oh that asshole can do it i can do it but i was like oh it's not you know they're good yes yeah but it's not magic yeah i can i think i can do it yeah like when i saw it up close you see it i see it in the movie theater it's like oh i can't do that i mean that's magic then i would see it up close to be like oh yeah no they're good but i think i can do it yeah yeah and that was valuable for me to see that

yeah yeah i yeah and you're right i mean that's a yeah you're right that is a more sort of gracious one my version of that was when i got out here and was doing this brady bunch show which you know i mean i was making a living but not a real living but we would go groups of us what year was that 92 nine yeah 91 92 when we would we would go groups of us and i had a pickup truck so i used to load up the truck with stuff and people and we'd go to the beach that's dangerous it was it was the 90s the uh life was cheap back then um but uh we used to drive out to the beach and i would look at just all the houses on the hills as you drive down PCH. And I would think show business paid for most of these, I bet you. And ancillaries of show business,

not every house on that hill is owned by a famous director, actor. There's some agents. Yeah. There's some agents in in those there's some guys that hang lights in those there's you know and and that that was tremendous because also i was looking at it from a very midwestern this is an industry this is a craft this is a trade i'm learning a trade and and i always took like for me it's more on a television show because it's a long-running thing and you know you know yeah you know you were part of a show that was a living for a generation yeah of of workers there yep and i've been a part of two long two or three long running television shows and and yeah you know i i felt

like i was a trades person too i felt like i should show up on time and i should show up prepared and everybody here is is doing a different job of this thing yeah all we're all kind of holding each other up and making a living. When you started working in television and you started to enjoy the success of the X-Files, that was the first big regular gig, right? Well, I actually did a show called Red Shoe Diaries where I was like the host of this show. Which diaries? Red Shoe. Oh, Red Shoe Diaries. Right, right, right. It was kind of dirty, right, wasn't it? Well, I don't like to say dirty. I don't like

to use that word. I do because that's what appeals to me. Is it dirty? It had that what they call cable edge, correct? Yes, exactly. Yes. That's the way I like to think is it dirty it had that what they call cable edge correct yes yes yes that's the way i like to think of it um and uh in fact when i got the x-files i was still doing that and i i only existed on the margins of the show i was like i did the pilot we called it a movie we thought we're doing a movie at the time because it was so cable at that

point was so kind of amorphous that it was like, oh yeah, this is a movie, but they might show it on some TV channel and then there'll be other kind of episodes of it. And it's like, oh, really? Okay. So I was in the pilot, I was in the movie, and then it got picked up and would continue. But at the end of the pilot, my character who has found his dead lover's diary, and in that diary

has read about this affair she was having, and she ends up killing herself because she can't square her lives. And I find this, and I'm heartbroken. I didn't know her. know, her lives. Right. And I find this and, you know, I'm heartbroken. I didn't know her. She shouldn't have to die. And I take out an ad in the paper for women, if they have secrets that they can't tell anybody, they can't tell their shrink or their priest or whomever, tell me. And so they send me their stories which are very similar to penthouse letters when it comes down to it of course um that's that was the extent of my responsibility i would basically i was a lonely guy with a border collie walking around the docks of San Pedro. And I'd take out of my trench coat, I'd take an envelope and I'd start to read Dear Red Shoes.

You'll never guess what happened to me. Yeah. And that was the show. So I could do, while I was doing the first year of the X-Files, I actually would come down to L.A. for maybe one weekend every three months and shoot like six wraparound yeah yeah wow yeah well did did going from Ivy League education searching towards a PhD or you know heading towards a PhD in literature to sci-fi television show like and you know with that enjoys a kind of pop success

were you okay with that like was there or was there something where you felt like you were you know you were focused on higher minded pursuits and now you're kind of yeah i mean i i know i just well i just wanted success at that point. Yeah. Yeah. And did I not want to be hugely successful? No, I wanted to be hugely successful. I wanted, you know, I wanted that show to be as popular.

I didn't think it would be. Yeah. I didn't, I did not think it would be at that point. It was weird. It was a weird, it was, and that was what was so great about it was that it was so fucking weird. And what was so great about it was it was so fucking weird. And at that point, you'll remember, TV was like the ghetto. You know, it was like, if you were an actor,

you didn't want to be doing TV. It's different from now. And The X-Files is one of the reasons it's different. The show started getting movie worthy you know until right around that time so i my plan was like no no no i'm just gonna i got i got rejected from so many television shows and they'd always say he he's a movie actor he's a movie actor he's and i'd be like oh yeah that's you're damn right i am you're damn right thanks for not giving me the job. Right. I am too good for this. Well, this movie actor can't buy that sandwich.

So, uh, I was not, you know, I didn't want to do television. I didn't want to. And, um,

I also, but that didn't, you know, the, the, the work that we did, I thought was, uh,

you know, movie worthy. And then, you know, the fact that it was sci-fi to me, again, same thing. Sci-fi back then was, was sci-fi. Now sci-fi kind of rules the universe, you know, but, and every good actor, every great actor wants a sci-fi franchise now. Yeah. Yeah.

How do I get in the Marvel universe? You know, it's like, but it was different back then. Sci-fi was considered like, you know, Twilight Zone or whatever. So there was part of me that was like, you know, this is a little like sci-fi, you know, it wasn't my bag. But then, you know, the show was what it was and I didn't see how good it could be. And I didn't see how kind of flexible the storytelling mechanism would be yeah and i think it also too was like it was a turning point for legitimizing genre stories i think that probably

you know the x i wouldn't say like without the x, we wouldn't have the ubiquity of the Marvel universe. But it certainly softened up the mainstream to like being like, yeah, all right. This stuff that's kind of meant for kids or, you know, weirdos. Yeah, this niche stuff is not going to fly in the mainstream. And then it did, you it uh because they hadn't really i can't i can't think of anything that kind of had a paranormal occulty kind of you know i mean back going back to like the night stalker maybe you know or that's not twilight worldwide phenomenon yeah yeah yeah so yeah i think i think that's probably right and i you know um so i was on the side of

you know of of the past the way i looked at it was like no not what i want to be doing or associated with but i'm gonna i'm gonna do this pilot because it's good and and it's probably too good to to keep keep at that Yeah. And all that stuff. So I was wrong about it all. But, you know, I kind of hung in there and also needed to get, I needed to get a lot better. I needed to work. Yeah. I didn't know.

I didn't know how much better I needed to get, you know. Yeah. I was very fortunate to be employed and to teach myself over a couple of years of 14 hour a day, 10 months out of the year, being on set figuring out what the fuck it is I do. How, how is what, how am I going to get that through with this grind? You know, how am I going to, how am I going to relax enough? How am I going to keep myself interested? How am I going to learn? You know, really,

it really forced me to figure out the kind of work that I wanted to do and to be decent at it. Cause when I started, no, I was barely treading water, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And it is, treading water you know yeah yeah and it is i i mean you know one of the things i'm happy about that i get to do is i'm going to hopefully get to act more because i miss acting and i find you you know in the last 10 or 11 years my acting has pretty much been one-off guest spots or a couple things where i've had an arc in and i it's exactly what you say that when i come back somebody hires me to do a recurring on it the first day back i feel like

absolute shit and i mean like that when i and when i look at the end thing which i don't do that much i don't enjoy watching myself i think you're not good at this. And then, you know, a couple episodes in, I'm like, all right, there, it's, you know, it's muscle memory, and you're kind of getting back to it. And like I say, I don't have any technique. My technique is just, and people have objected to this when I've said this, but like, it's just being a good liar. Like I'm not really this guy. And I have to, I have to think like, how would I put myself over as this guy in real life? And so I have to sort of think about on a, on a, you know, granular level, how do I sell this lie? And it's like, well, I would maybe do this. I would talk like this. I would try not to.

That's exactly what a technique is. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, yeah, I know. I know. But people just to couch it in like being a good liar, they feel like, you know, that somehow not, it doesn't sound noble. And it's like, well, it's not that noble. I mean, you know, well maybe call yourself a good storyteller. Okay. That's what I'll do from now on. Yes. You heard it here first folks. Now when, when X-Files becomes a juggernaut,

are you too busy with your 14-hour days to kind of be flummoxed by that? Or, I mean, what was that like? Well, there was a lot of it that was just went on somewhere else because I was working. But, yeah, I mean, you know, after a while, you get the feeling um that this is crazy but it's also it's happening to you yeah it's uh it seems normal yeah it seems like yeah that's what happens yeah yeah yeah yeah it's easy how things get normalized so quickly

you know when i think back on it i think wow you know that was that was something uh like many things were something you know but but uh you know at the time it was just like yeah yeah let's um you know certainly there was the scrutiny, the instant recognizable nature of my face was weird at first. Yeah. And then that becomes normal too. So it's just a strange thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does it, um, I, the thing,

the thing that I find about being publicly known, that's kind of, I still am ambivalent about is kind of the need to withdraw, uh, because of, you know, the attention that you get just going out, you know, taking your kid to the grocery store and stuff. I mean, is that something that, that happened in your life? And I mean, and how have you coped with that? Uh, this be like an asshole in public. Yeah. Long cigarette holder and constant sunglasses. I don't know. Uh, yeah, I think, I think that's, that's the, uh, that's the difficulty is figuring out, you know, sometimes I just think, Hey man, I gave it the office you know I gave it yeah it's like but then you know eventually you do you do get a little more perspective on it and you go

I have to understand this equilibrium here I know what I know what it's about yeah um and am I going to teach this individual a lesson or am I just going to you know just i know what it's about yeah um and am i going to teach this individual a lesson or am i just going to you know just make them what they think makes them happy yeah or whatever it's like so i mean i went through times teaching people lessons like i do sometimes when i'm driving you know because they need a driving lesson uh but you know then i stopped yeah you know what just just be of service and uh and and you know be decent human being yeah yeah because it does i find energy to be a finite resource so it's like how am i going to do the energy to just be sort of nice and get through this or am i going to

school this person on how rude it is to interrupt my lunch well uh i want to make sure no my name is not molder my name is not maybe it's not hank moody i didn't write that book i yeah whatever and i mentioned just like yes i'm older yes i'm moody sure sure yeah yeah yeah well do i want to make a greeting for your voicemail sure sure yeah bring it to bring it come on yeah yeah it's just yeah it's just this is a funeral but whatever we got time before they close the casket all right um i want to make sure we get to your new novel uh which is called truly like lightning and i just want i want to make sure you get a chance to plug it here yeah well that's you plugged it there you just said the name well but you know tell me what it's about oh god it's an epic andy i i it'd be i have it's a long i i

sold it as a uh to showtime we're gonna hopefully we're to make it as a television show. Awesome. Yeah. As a miniseries or is it, would it be like. It would be ongoing. It would be ongoing. For instance, the second season would not have, it's not in the book. The first season would be the book. Oh, wow. But it's, I guess the hazy basic premise is about this former Hollywood stuntman who I play who converts to Mormonism because he has to in order to inherit this bunch of land out by Joshua Tree that his grandmother, a Mormon, left him. And in the course of like the charade, like an actor trying to act like a Mormon, he actually converts himself and like really starts to believe it. And he ends up moving to this huge miles and

miles expansive land out in Joshua Tree with three wives and raises 10 kids off the grid for the last 20 years. The kids have never met another human being. So by a turn of events, he's kind of pulled back into society and so are the kids. So it's really it's about the struggle between religion and modern society, science and faith and the past and the present and, you know, parenting, really. Yeah. What what can you look back on like one one moment that kind of sparked inspiration to tell this story? Because that's a big rambling story, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

There's a few, you know, that's the way it happens in the novels that I've written. It's usually like a couple of like lightning bolt kind of ideas that link up yeah and you squish them together yeah and they become a bigger idea yeah so um you know uh this one actually it actually goes back to the x-files when i was i was writing an x-file um i had an idea for one which was really about, it was like a meta one where they were making a movie in Hollywood of a case that Mulder and Scully had been involved in. And they were, you know, invited to the set. And I cast Gary Shanling to play Mulder and Tay Leone, my ex, my wife at the time, to play Scullyully so this is a fun thing for me to do

and uh but the x-file the gag the caper in the middle of it was based on this guy named michael hoffman who just had a uh a netflix documentary about him a couple months ago he was a forger of mormon documents who ended up oh i, I saw that. Yeah. So he killed a couple of people with pipe bombs to try to cover his tracks. So I was fascinated by this guy because I was reading about him at the time. I was fascinated by him because he had said that when he was forging Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, he was so consumed with the spirit of it that it wasn't really a forgery. It was actual, it was more like channeling. It was more like he was Joseph Smith. And as an actor, you know, we were just talking about it. I was like, oh,

that's, you know, you hear actors talk about that. I mean, that's what actors are doing supposedly. And we're also forgers, you know, in that way. That way, you know, you say I'm a liar, you know, same thing. So I was fascinated by that. So I kind of created a story around a forger of actually Jesus Christ's words. Yeah. So I transmuted, I translated Mormonism to just Christianity, but because I was interested in that story, I did do a lot of research around Mormonism to just Christianity. But because I was interested in that story, I did do a lot of research around Mormonism at the time.

And I had always been kind of fascinated by it. And there was a professor of mine in New Haven named Harold Bloom who wrote about, called Joseph Smith a genius, like a literary genius, you know? And that was fascinating to me. I was like, oh my God, you know, because my idea of Mormonism was more like the Book of Mormon, like the cliched version of it. So these things kind of started rattling around my head. And then there was, you know, a plot device, you know, that they, aside from polygamy, device you know that they believe aside from polygamy and there was another uh tenet that joseph smith held and brigham young too that is no longer practiced called blood atonement which

is there are certain sins that are beyond the uh atonement of christ's sacrifice and the only way that you can personally atone for those heinous crimes is to have your own blood spilled so i thought oh wow that's a great plot device. Like if, if you don't believe in the justice of society, but you have like a religious justice that, that fights against, you know, society. Yeah. And so these things started to like tumble around and yeah, it only took 20 years, but I wrote it.

Yeah, no, it's I. I definitely want to check it out because I like I have an interest in Mormonism. I mean, I have I have read about it a fair amount that. Oh, I forget the the the classic Joseph Smith book book is it no country knows my name or no man knows my name yes yeah yeah uh and it's just i mean it's amazing what's amazing to me is that the recentness of it is and that's kind of like the point of this guy forging documents is it's just a lot easier because it all kind of happened 10 minutes ago within terms of, you know, civilization time. Um, and yet it's become, it's as legit as any other religion, you know, and it's just, it's just all

the stuff that you can look at Mormonism and go, wait a minute, this took place in Cahokia, Illinois. And that's, you know, that's BS. That did, you know, that's just people, some sort of collective. And then you go, but Noah's Ark. Right. Or walking on water, you know, you know, turning loaves into, you know, making loaves and fishes appear. It's all, you know, magical. And it all just kind of depends on the belief of the people

yeah well well also what you say is exactly uh appropriate for what i was doing and what bloom was talking about which is that there's a there's a kind of uh flying by the seat of your pants vitality and present day-ness to Joseph Smith. He's not looking back 2,000 years ago all the time. He's saying, hey, it's happening now. It's happening in America. So it's very American because Americans like to think, hey, it's all happening here. This is the place where it's happening now. It's happening in America. So it's very American because Americans like to think, hey, it's all happening here. This is the place where it happens. So there was something very American in it. There's something very energetic, not like looking 2,000 years ago

to the miracles, but looking like now to the world. So that was cool to me. It was like, yeah, why not? Why do we have to be born late? Why can't we why can't we be born in the best times? You know, why can't we be born in the time of miracles? Yeah. Yeah. And also you also then get to kind of reexamine what the notion of piety is and and put in all kinds of convenient parts that allow you to, you know, marry more than one person at a time, which is all, you know, that's the other fascinating thing about that religion is the notion, and it's kind of like causes them trouble these days, the notion that anyone can be, you know, there's no pope. Anyone can have a direct conduit to God. And when you can do that, it's like, you know what?

God says, you know, that we should chrome the house, you know, and, you know, God says I should blow up the city's water supply. And, you know, and when you get down to that, once you give that kind of egalitarian freedom to a religion, like some crazy shit is going to happen and some crazy shit has happened. Well, I mean, you're describing Martin Luther as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Describing Protestantism. Yeah. Which is, which says you don't need the mediator of a priest to help you God. You're describing the advent of the printing press, which said, the priest doesn't own the Bible,

everybody can have one in their own home and can read it whenever they want, and we're going to translate it into your language, you know. So, that's always going to be the move. It's always going to be, people are going to say, hey, there's this thing, but there's a limited supply, and we're going to hold on to it, and we'll let you know what's going on. And eventually people are going to go, I think you got to share a little more. And if you don't, then we're going to have our own supply chain. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Religion. It's crazy. Anyway. We solved it. We'll be right back. Well, is there something that you've left undone? I mean, the second question of these three questions is where are you going? And is there something you've left?

Because, I mean, you do so much and you have so many irons and so many fires. And here you wrote this novel that you've been stewing on for 20 years. And now it's very possibly going to be a TV show. Are there things left undone i don't know if if they're actual things but i keep on liking to do stuff you know i mean i certainly am not trying to uh do the same thing again uh but in my experience every different every project that's different calls out a different part of myself and different, you know, you're a different person every day. So things just change through the work. And I'm fascinated by that, you know, every step of the way to watch how it's all different. And

I do love collaborating. I love meeting new people and working with people that I like and whose work that I like um so I'm I'm I guess I wouldn't say like oh there's something I want to do that's specific but I would say that I'm still hungry to keep doing things I don't know if that makes sense oh it makes absolute sense I mean it's like I've never had a plan. I've just my plans always been to be open and then to make a choice when it comes, because that's all anything ever is. That's building a house. That's cooking a meal. It's just a series of decisions that life presents you and you go, oh, I'll go this way or I'll go that way. I know it's so impossible because you realize, sometimes you realize that that little decision was so important for the rest of your life. And once you start to think about that, like, for instance, I tried to turn down the X-Files because I already said, I already committed to doing a little part in a television movie for a friend. And I was like, no, you know what?

I can't go back on my word. I said I was going to do that. And like, well, my agents just, they all came down. I mean, they said, you have to not do it, you know, get you out of it. But if it was left to me, I would have said, you know what? I, I, I believe more in my word than I do in this thing or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

I believe more in my word than I do in this thing or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But Kierkegaard, another philosopher said the moment of decision is madness. You know, it's like, cause,

cause when it comes down to it, like you don't, you can like write your ledger down pros and cons and, you know, and all this stuff, but you know, every decision you've ever made has come down to like pocket. I'm going to do that. Yeah.

So that's the crazy thing when you realize it's all instinct and just like oh i feel like i'm gonna do that yeah i just try to say yes as much as i can yeah i i agree yeah i mean you know you don't want to look like an asshole and do some piece of garbage but i've done that too you know so oh boy i have i sure have i'm always i always call those jobs, they paid me enough. I know it's not great, but ah shit, here comes the number and yeah, I got to do that. You have said, they couldn't pay me enough. Have you ever said that?

They couldn't pay me enough. Yeah, but sometimes they can. They certainly can. Well, you know, we're they can, they certainly can. Well, you know, we're kind of talking about lessons here. Kierkegaard and all. Yeah.

What, what, isn't there a moment in your podcast where you always talk about Kierkegaard? Yeah, but that's just cause it's a exterminator company here in Burbank and they're a sponsor. Oh, I thought you sponsor oh i thought you were i thought you were big in denmark forgive me no it's uh kierkegaard pest control uh on on olive

avenue and burbank um what i mean i mean what is what's what's the biggest lesson you've gotten out out of your own story, you know, that you can impart or not? It's not my own story, but it's something that I kind of, I'll tell my kids. It's never as bad or as good as it first appears. Yeah. And I'll also say, you know, stay on the train because the scenery will change,

you know, like that. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just sit down and wait a bit, you know? Yeah.

Um, also much like, I think it's in King Lear. One of the characters says, this is not the worst. So long as we can say, this is the worst. Yeah. Also much like, I think it's in King Lear. One of the characters says, this is not the worst. So long as we can say, this is the worst. Yeah.

Yeah. We're not dead. We're still saying, Oh, this is the worst. Yeah. Can't be. Cause you just said it.

So right. These, these things, it's just like, it's just to try and get like a long perspective, even when you're in the heat of the moment, it's a tough thing to do. But that would be, you know, whatever ups and downs I've had, career life and stuff like that. It's never been as great or as bad as it seemed. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for taking this time with me. This has been this is this was as great as it seemed right now all right come on just disproved he was an asshole the whole time he said all kinds of great stuff andy i just wanted to like i said like towards the beginning i just wanted to say i guess it was my way of saying thanks you know that i always appreciated uh what you did on tv and uh you know i appreciate as as a as a as just a guy sitting in a room

looking at it but also as a guy sitting next to you that uh i dug I dug, I dug your thing and it's your thing. And, uh, you know, even though you can't explain it, which is probably why it's your thing. Um, yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, I dug it. So that was, you know, I just wanted to be as inarticulate as I just was. No, no. I mean, it's, I'm, I'm, um, I never know what to do in the face of a sharp-toothed compliment ready to sink its fangs into me. Well, it's good we're just on Zoom where you can just press that leave button. Yeah, yeah. I muted you. Whenever I hear you saying nice things, I just mute you.

All right. Well, thanks again, David. And thank all of you for listening and we'll be back next week with more of this stuff I've got a big big love for you The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco and Your Wolf production. It is produced by Lane Gerbig

engineered by Marina Pice and talent produced by Kalitza Hayek The associate producer is Jen Samples supervising producer Aaron Blair and executive producers, Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Make sure to rate and review the three questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.