The Three Questions with Andy Richter - David Krumholtz

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Actor David Krumholtz (seen recently in “Oppenheimer” and “Lousy Carter”) joins Andy Richter to discuss toilet renovations, playing bongos in a Grateful Dead cover band, his unbelievable Peter Sarsgaard anecdote, why he had to quit weed, the TV shows that don’t work, the future of the multi-cam sitcom, and his latest film ("Lousy Carter" available on VOD now).Hey there! Do you want to talk to Andy live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out this Google Form! 

Hey everybody, welcome back to The Three Questions. I am the host of The Three Questions, Andy Richter, and this week I am talking to actor David Krumholz. You most recently saw him in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, but you've seen him in everything. He was in the Santa Claus franchise, the Harold and Kumar trilogy, 10 Things I Hate About You, Ray, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Sausage Party, and much, much more. He was in that show, Numb Three Years. He's in everything. His new film, Lousy Carter, is available to rent or buy on Amazon. And before my chat with David, I wanted to let you all know that I'm working on an upcoming call-in show for Sirius XM's Conan O'Brien Radio,

and I want to hear from you. We recorded our first episode with special guest Andy Daly the other week, and it was fun. If you want to be a part of this new show, you can call us at 855-266-2604 or fill out the Google form in the description for this podcast episode. And now, enjoy my conversation with the great David Krumholtz. Is this happening as we speak?

Yeah, we're recording. We're now podcasting. I feel like we're doing a bad job already. No, no, no. Listen, the kids love this kind of nuts and bolts, the gritty reality-based podcasting. The sense scene stuff. Yeah.

How are you? How to use computers. I'm okay. Good, good. And we just talked about it. You are in what looks to be a little girl's room. You know, you can get in trouble making assumptions about such things, but it does look like you're sitting on the floor of a little girl's room. And I have a four-year-old now, so I know little girl's rooms, which is in New Jersey, in your home, in your daughter's room, right?

I am in my daughter's room. She's 10. They're, they're renovating my toilet on the other side of the house. There's lots of banging and drilling. So that's why the toilet, what kind of toy, what kind of problem toilet problems are going on over there with you? I don't, it's, it's more of an aesthetic thing. I'm a big black toilet guy.

Um, when I sit on black toilets, I tend to sing black toilet, like, you know, like black velvet. I love a nice black toilet. We're getting up with poo. We're getting rid of the old establishment authoritarian white toilet. Yeah. Imperialistic white toilet and we're putting the black toilet. Now, the black toilet shows every drop of urine.

I'm told the biggest problem with a black toilet is if there's blood in your pee or poo, you can't see it. How are you to know? Right, right. But I mean, if you see it all the time, maybe you don't want to know. Maybe I'm done looking at the blood in my pee. That's something I'm past. Yes. You know, I'm okay with not knowing.

That's right. If I have a colon issue of some sort, cancer, what have you. Right. I'd just rather go. Yeah, yeah. You know, and blame the black toilet. And also the fact is you could check, and I'm glad we're getting into this in the first couple minutes. You could check what's on the paper, you know, what's on the post-wipe paper.

Well, if you poo. If you poo, do you poop your penis when you pee? Well, you know what? Sometimes I do use a little, just a little bit of toilet paper to just dab the drips off the end. I'm 57 years old. And so, you know, there's, there's things that, you know, there's things don't, it's not like there's a, you know, we don't, it's not a hard out. No, it's a fade, you know, usually with the urine. So I went to a little industry event

went to the bathroom it was at a restaurant and i heard someone really struggling to pee yeah in the stall yeah like squirt squirt squirt squirt they had such a bad problem they did they they avoided the urinal went straight to the wall hospital, and Leonardo DiCaprio walked out. And did you say, Leo, what's going on? I did say hi to him, but I didn't mention the pee thing, but I thought that was interesting. Wow. It's probably a supermodel buildup. That's probably somehow clogging up the works.

If that's what you want, there's a more, I'm sure there's a medical term for it. that's what there's a more, I'm sure there's a medical term for it. You know, I, uh, I recently, uh, you are very dishy. I love it because, and I just recently, I, I'm not on Twitter much anymore, but I, I, there was something you posted and then I was looking at your Twitter and you have done lots of kind oftweet kind of anecdotes about just, because you've had a, you've had a long career, a long career too that spanned from childhood to a very wise, seemingly wise adulthood. And that also has covered probably more than most people's own personal

development. You know, like, like different, different versions of you have been busy as an actor and famous, you know, or famous ish, you know, um, for a long time. And so I think you have, and also you're smart and funny and they're not everybody in this business is. I'll be honest. I'm accomplished. Yeah. Which is nice. I can say that now.

I'm an accomplished actor. I've done a few accomplishments, but more importantly, at some point they took me too seriously. You see, they let me in and I saw, I saw things. I was witness to things. Yeah. But no, the truth is there was nothing to see. I've never really seen anything that bad.

And when I did the Twitter threads that I did, my whole thing was like, do no harm. Could I hurt a couple people? Yeah, I probably could. I saw a couple things, but nothing crazy. Right, right. Be sick to my stomach or make me run for the hills but um but you know innocent stuff but uh i don't i don't want to hurt anybody so i'm skirt around that and really the the theme of those threads was was my ego inflation and how it manifested at certain moments

right my career and and what a buffoon i feel like now in retrospect for being such an ego fool well i mean i don't i don't think it would be fair to hold that against you because you came from from from nowhere and show and show business terms like that's correct yeah you're you're you might as well have grown up in the middle of Kansas or something. That's correct. Not a Nepo. Yeah. Not a Nepo baby at all.

And, and you've been working for a long time and this business, I have often felt it takes a real strength of character to be in this business, which is wonderful and fun and great and you know manifest it at you know people you see the product of your work is the exhibition of joy like you know like making people laugh or making people happy like what what better thing to do but there's a lot of horse shit along the way there's a lot of like nonsense there's a lot of lies there's a lot of noise there's a lot of yeah yeah yeah i find that uh you've got to what i what i figured out and it took me a really long time uh was to let myself go crazy a little bit. Yeah. I thought the safer I play it in my whatever, in my work or in my interactions with people in the business. But one thing I never was ashamed of was prioritizing that thing as number one

and that bringing people joy is number one. Right. Whereas I saw other people in the industry knocking that down their priority list a little bit with money. Number two was fame. Number three was branding and marketing and, and, and getting ahead at any call. And I thought, well, I don't forget.

Don't forget fucking and fucking sure. Fucking really gets in there with some people. That's high on their list. Major thing. And, and, but I thought to myself, I'm never, I'm never going to be able to do it. I don't have that capability. I cannot deprioritize the fact that I feel really lucky to be in movies and television and that people really love me. And I meet kids who like love me and shit.

That means a lot to me. And I, I was incapable of prior to prioritizing anything over that. And then I thought, well, then I'm, I'm probably going to lose this game, you know,

because I'm not selfish enough. I'm not greedy enough. I'm not a cutthroat or I'm not willing to, to, you know, I'm too nice. Push over. Push over. What I realized, though, like I angry and insane that I, instead of being afraid of losing my mind to all those emotions to sort of let that happen. Yeah. And I feel more comfortable within the business now than I ever have because I get to be wacky, crazy. I don't care anymore about, you know, much other than what I care about.

And I don't care if anybody cares and it's that kind of thing, you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I'm not an idiot. I don't insult people and I still, you know, dot my eyes and cross my T's in terms of how I speak with people. I make sure that I'm respectful and kind and. Right. And you know, your lines and.

But like Kieran Culkin for instance I've known Kieran since he was a kid uh yeah we went to the same strange uh private school together in New York City he's a few years younger than me and I saw him I think at the SAG awards and I came up to him and I said hey congratulations on everything I haven't seen him in a few years and I said hey man it's awesome that everything's going so well for you and he. I haven't seen him in a few years. And I, and I said, Hey man, it's awesome that everything's going so well for you. And he said, you haven't seen the show. Have you?

And old me would have said, no, I've, I've watched the show religiously and, uh, I love every moment. I've I'm obsessed with it. That was old me.

Yeah. Yeah. I would have just bold face lied. Sure. I said to Karen, I haven't seen a single moment to be honest with you i'm just really happy that you're doing well because you're a nice guy yeah yeah and you know but it's funny he cared did he care he cared at all it was funny that

he read that on my face that he knew i'm lying you know that he knew i hadn't watched the show and if you had lied he wouldn't known that too probably yeah exactly yeah yeah and that would have been even really embarrassed then he then he would have had a right to be pissed off like a guy lied to my face no i don't care anymore i told him the truth you know i have not seen the show and whatever who gives a shit right no you find you do find actors though that don't you think you can do that you You think you can be like, come on, we're just people. And here I'm going to tell you something on it. Like, I remember I guested on a show.

It was a, you know, I was a, I had a few different episodes as a guest on a show. And it was a show like, I mean, people might be able to figure it, but it was a show like about a divorced mom trying to get, you know, back into dating world. And I had a, like I say, I had a few different, you know, I had a guest spot a few different five or six times. And I was talking to one of the actors and kind of the, uh, one of the younger cast, regular cast. And I said, this show is really funny. It's really well-written, a lot of good jokes. And I mean, and it's not for me. I mean, it's like the show it's like it what does it have for me i'm not gonna be watching it you know and

not to be a sexist dick but i mean it's like a i don't sitcoms i don't watch less you're not the demographic yeah but this is not who this show is for that it was as if i told that guy you know you are a piece of shit and everything you've ever done is shit he was so offended i was like was he yeah i was just like he's like not not for you what do you mean and i was like no i i just said it's good but it's like this is a grown man this was yeah it was a grown man it was a grown man but but like kind of a capital a actor you know know what I mean? Like a real actor, actor, which I love. One of the things that I saw was that you said in the deuce, which is a HBO series that you did, I guess you can still call it an HBO series. Who knows what everything's called,

but you were in that from 2017 to 2019. And you said that Maggie Gyllenhaal taught you how to act at 2017 after having done it since like what? 1992, you know? Yeah, no, I think, I think what I mean by that, what I meant by that was that she taught me working with her, taught me to to take the the pump out of it you know the uh the deliberation out of it the the the you know there's it it became less of an art form honestly yeah and and i came to believe through working with maggie that oh acting really isn't an art form it's just a moment especially if you're working with a really good actress, if you happen to be in a scene with someone, it's not just a monologue or you on stage just talking to the void, but you're in a scene with some amazing actor.

the chemistry you find you you feel the buzz you try yeah it was just like we are right now you know even on zoom you know 3 000 miles apart you know you try to find it and cultivate it and find the rhythm of it and that's not an art so much it as is as it is a form of communication that's heightened or or given a specific tone according to what's written. And for the longest time, I was sort of doing this thing in my mind of going, I work hard because I'm an artist and my life is risky because I'm an artist. I'm a suffering artist.

And it made me a shittier actor. I didn't approach, I thought I had to overcompensate for what wasn't in my my instincts in scenes with firm choices and, you know, specific looks and, you know, tricks, little tricks, like bags of, like my bag of tricks, you know? Yeah. By the way, I still employ sometimes, but they come. Sure. You know, I don't make a choice to employ them, but you know, the, you know, someone

don't blink, you know, that whole thing. Right. You know, I was very conscious and very deliberate with all that stuff. And working with Maggie, Maggie said, no choices. Let's just buzz. Let's just find the buzz. Yeah. Find the buzz.

We can make the buzz louder. And that to me, and what came out of that, not knowing it would, but what came out of it was really authentic scenes and really authentic moments between her character and my character that played beautifully in the show. And, um, it helps that she has like pillows for eyes. She has really beautiful big eyes and you can really stare into her eyes and get lost in them. She just, uh, I, I, I admired her bravery. Yeah. I thought, wow, I that's, that's what's, I admired her bravery. Yeah. I thought, wow, that's what's been holding me back is that I'm still worried about how my nose looks.

Yeah. I'm still worried about like my teeth and my, you know, that face I always make. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to make that face less on this project. You know, it was so ridiculous and insane. And at a certain point, I never understood. I had a hard time. You know when people, and a lot of people have a hard time with this, but you know when people say be yourself? Yeah.

What the F does that mean? Yeah, yeah. I want to talk about something that would offend me. If anyone told me to be myself, I'd be offended by that. I'd find that offensive. I'd be like, how dare you assume that I know what the fuck that means. I have absolutely no clue what that means. Yeah, yeah.

If you find that guy, let me know. I'd like to meet him. Yeah, yeah. And it was working with her on that stuff. And David Simon's an amazing writer, and it so well-written and that I sort of went, oh yeah, there, that's me. And it also coincided with my dad dying and this realization, you know, when you're, I don't know, do you have your parents still?

I do. I do. But I, it's unique situation in that I, I'm a strange, I'm estranged from my dad. I see. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me, let me just, uh, I won't delve into that Andy, because God knows and that I'm estranged from my dad. I see. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Well, let me just, I won't delve into that, Andy, because God knows that's a thorny bush. God bless you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I will talk about my dead dad. And it's not a competition. That's not what I'm saying. No, it's true. There's probably more laughs to be mined from your dead dad than my alive, complicated, estranged father.

So I'm driving. I remember he goes into hospice, my dad. And I had spent three and a half years being his sole caretaker. Wipe in his butt. Wow. Is your mom past too? I mean. Oh, my mom and dad are divorced.

Oh, I see. I was two. So I wanted nothing to do with it. I understand. I don't blame her. My dad was utterly alone and he had a rare neurological disorder that ended up turning him into what people affectionately refer to as a vegetable. He couldn't, he couldn't move or talk or, but he was sort of trapped inside his body at his mind. So it was really, really awful. And he was the nicest guy. It was the

sweetest guy in the world. So it was like really an unfair, that whole thing. And I had gone down this journey in an intrepid way with him the whole way. You know, I was his strength. I was going to be his strength. I was going to make him laugh. I was going to do all those things. And he goes into hospice and we're at the end now. And I realized that we're at the end and I'm driving to the hospice to see him. And I have this massive realization, so massive that I have to pull over.

And I literally, I pulled over and the realization was my dad and all parents knew something about me that I will never know. He knew something about who I am that I will never know. And essence, because they see you when you're a baby, they see your purity, they experience your purity. They, they can see you coming now that I have kids, you know, I know I can kind of predict their next move and their next phase of in a way. Yes. And you can, you can also, what they, what they will tell you is their idea of your, of themselves. Right. You will go, uh, you're close, but there's a part of it you're missing, you know?

And my dad, and that was the other part of the realization was like, oh, my dad sat through all my bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. For years and never said, Hey, that's not who you are. Or maybe he did, but I ignored him. You know, I didn't really hear him say that. And that I was going to lose that. I would lose the one person who knew the one thing, right.

That I needed to know, especially as an actor where I own product and, and, and he passed away. And I, I, you know, a couple of days later and I thought, well, the goal then is to find that. you know, a couple of days later. And I thought, well, the goal then is to find that the goal then in my acting in acting is to find that thing that my dad, that essence that he was so proud of, and he was unconditionally loving of if I can find that and cultivate it and bring it out in my performances. And so all that happened on the deuce with Maggie Gyllenhaal, that all that timing, the timing of it was, was, was all there.

Wow. And, and, and yeah, at that point, I think I started like, I stopped being a cliche actor. You know, it's funny. Maggie's husband, uh, Peter, uh, is, is hilarious. Yeah. One day we were talking and he's brilliant. And one day we were talking about,

uh, Peter Sarsgaard, right? Yeah. He was saying that he, that he used to take himself too seriously. And he said, he used to carry,

uh, a dove in a cage. What? He would take it on planes with him him like he'd walk on a flight with the bird and like put it in the overhead i am an actor i have to carry this dove in this cage but what was wonderful was he's telling me the story and saying i must have been out of my fucking mind right right right i mean i thought yeah that's the humility that i need um but yeah i mean i i didn't i just don't want to be the pro you know the sort of stereotypical actor

yeah you know yeah you gotta bleed for it at times but man it's fun it's kindergarten right and and ultimately um really and truly i don't care if it's the most serious subject matter in the world. If I'm not having fun as an actor, then I feel like, why am I acting? It's acting. It's not an art form. It's acting. It's not painting. It's not learning a musician, having to hit a note, singing.

It's not that. It's so free form. It can be anything I want. It's make-believe. You're playing make believe yeah and that's the other thing interestingly enough when i when i my daughter was probably like three when i did the deuce and when i started the deuce and she wanted to start playing make believe with her little toys yeah and i thought to myself boy i hate make-believe like it's excruciating you mean being with her and doing it yeah like i love my daughter so much but like no toddler stuff can be so tedious it's tedious and and you got to pretend

do the voices and everything and i came in one day kind of feeling ashamed about having cut off my last make-believe session with my daughter and uh maggie like brought it up like said like how you doing i said ah you know i'm all right i'm playing make-believe with my daughter and maggie said i hate make-believe and i thought all right, we're going to get along. Well, first of all, you brought up a couple of things. Like I have a 23 year old, an 18 year old and a four year old. Like I just got remarried last year and we thank you. And so we have a new little one and I am like, I feel truly like an old catcher that was an alcoholic for years and then like sobered up and came back to the league to coach and all the, you know, like all the stress and drama of the team.

I'm like, it, none of it matters, you know? And so, so now playing with a little one and she's actually, she's really great. She's like, and people, people that don't have kids will know she's like very self-possessed and she can entertain herself with kind of make believe, but there is that shit where they just need you to repeat something over and over and over, which, you know, back when I was getting high with my first round of kids and I'd, I'd talk to other parents and they'd be like, well, I'm never high around the kids. And I would think to my, I wouldn't say it, but I'd be like, well, no, that's the perfect time to be high.

It's so boring. You're just doing the same shit over and over. That's, you know, you're in the backyard watching them go down a little slide 50 times, tuck into the garage, hit the one hitter, come back out. Yeah. You can watch them another 85 times. It's great.

I was there for a while myself. Only recently have I stopped doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's yeah. I,

that's, you know, I never had a problem with drinking, but like weed, I liked it too much. It was too much like a self medicmedicating toggle switch on contentment. And, you know. Well, weed, what I came to realize about weed is it kind of robs you of your persona and it replaces it with a really, really good friend.

You know, like very accepting. There's a, weed, the stoned head is a very accepting head yeah guy accepted me for all yeah whistles he knew all my secrets and he didn't right right and so when i would smoke weed i was just visiting that friend yeah yeah why not visit him every day all day yeah he doesn't give me any shit he loves me yeah i love myself so much on weed, but yeah, yeah. They made weed too strong. I'll tell you this. I don't know any pothead. I don't know any pothead career pot to this day who still smokes, who doesn't think they kind of made weed too strong.

Yeah. Yeah. They ruined it a little bit. Yeah. I just posted an article online. It was sort of like, you know, regular weed use has complications, you know, and, and I posted it online and got so much, like I, so much responses of like people like, uh, now do booze. Like we, yeah, but we know booze, you know? And, but it is like, everyone acts like the legalization of weed is just like,

we're now we're, we live in candy land and, you know, and every cloud is a cotton candy cloud and we can ride unicorns. No, this is a fucking serious. There can be impact on your life that like I didn't get shit done. I ate like a fucking horse after 8 PM. You know, I lost, I lost like 20 pounds just from not getting high and wildly selfish.

Yeah. I'll be honest. I am the poster boy for the worst shit that can happen yeah i had i ended up developing i didn't smoke weed for nine years okay years off i come back my dad's dying this is all deuce time and i'm like i gotta smoke some weed man yeah i'm dying i can't handle it i didn't want to drink, drink too much. I knew that I could go down that road. Yeah.

And there is a difference. Oh, big time. You get high too much. It's one thing and get, but it's nothing like getting drunk too much. Nothing. Yeah. Both of which they, both things I'm, I don't do anymore because I, I cannot do them in moderation and that's the bottom line. Right.

But, um, so I, I, i smoke weed for the first time in nine years and i trip and i'm like what in the world and i think oh it's the tolerance thing you know it's been a long time but like two weeks later i now i can't stop i just smoke every day two weeks later and it's still kicking my butt and i I called my buddy, Seth Rogan, who is the authority on this shit. The Julia child of weed. That's right. And I said, is it me? Or has weed gotten like way stronger since I stopped smoking it nine years ago?

And Seth was like, oh yeah, no, it really has. And I couldn't stop. Yeah. And about a month in, I get wildly, and I mean wildly nauseous, just out of nowhere, right? Like crippling, unfathomable nausea. And vomiting? Are you vomiting? And vomiting that sends me straight to the emergency room. Like I'm afraid. It's that bad. And I get to the emergency room and they test me and they do some gastroenterological tests Like I'm afraid it's that bad. And I get to the emergency room and they test me

and they do some gastroenterological tests. I'm there all day. And finally they come to me and they say, let me ask you a question. Do you smoke weed? And I said, wow, that's a strange question to ask. And this is mind you, this is like 2017 ish. And I go, yeah, I smoke weed. And they said, how often? I said, every day, all day. And they said, you have cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. Ooh. So I look this up and there's nothing. Like it's on the government website, which is reputable. It is the government.

It's on like, you know, but there's no, nothing anywhere else about it. This is a rare thing that they're saying that people are getting. And I'm like, bullshit. This is bullshit. You're not, it's not the weed. It's my stomach is attacking me. I must've eaten something crazy. It's not the weed. I ended up in the hospital again, about three weeks later. And again, emergency like must go to the hospital situation. Wow. I'm going to cut this in this story a lot but basically over the next year i lose 110 pounds jesus and i'm going through like you're not a large person no well i had been at that time if you watch the first season of the deuce i was like 230 pounds oh okay second season but still. That's, you know. Right. But essentially, I lose 110 pounds.

Jesus. Craving. And I get sick on a movie, and my agent calls and goes, what the fuck is going on? And I said, I hate to say this, but they told me it might be weed. And she's like, you need to stop smoking weed. So I stopped smoking weed. And like a month later, I can eat things again. I can drink water without being nauseous

like there's no nausea and i think this can't be this can't be so i get every gastroenterological test in the book breath test pill camera yeah the whole fucking endoscopy colonoscopy ultrasounds and i'm clean as a whistle and i think think to myself, well, then I can probably smoke weed again. Of course. Long story short, I tested the theory, this cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome theory four or five times over the course of four years. This is a very real thing. Now it's very rare, but it's a thing and they're seeing it in emergency rooms. But basically the hybrid growing and the oils and all the shit they're putting on weed to make it super strong now is making it,

is making people wildly nauseous. And I'm on death's door. Nauseous. Wow. In the time that I, in the four years, I probably made 20 visits to the emergency room. Jesus Christ.

Which by the way, insurance doesn't cover. Yeah. I was, you know, I was going to wonder like, yeah, I'd be in and get me out of here. Yeah. Possible. Um, you know, you have to get IVs, uh, cause you're so dehydrated. You cannot anything down. And it goes on for weeks.

Weeks after you stop, it's still like there's like a kickback. So like you stop and then three weeks later, you're still nauseous. But then like, like it was never there. It goes away. Yeah. I haven't smoked weed in two years and I have no problems. Whereas for four years straight, I was nauseous out of my mind. Emesis is the medical term for nausea.

So cannabinoid hyper emesis. It's hyper nausea. It's like the craziest thing ever. So kids, you love the pot. You love the pot. Yeah. Doesn't love the pot. Right.

Be careful. I know. There should be, you know, know warning they put yeah europe they put in canada they put pictures of decapitated lung or whatever yeah did lungs born outside rotten lungs yeah on their packages you would think on maybe one of those weed packages beside the like bart simpson cartoon character they put on there. There might be a little disclaimer saying it. Yeah, right, right. Like you can see, there'll be like an

ice cream sundae and a brain, a rotting brain. Like on this, right next to each other. Give them equal space. No, yeah, it's the same thing. It's like you know, if you know enough professional stoners like you do know, you know some if you know enough professional stoners, like you do know, you know, some Seth Rogans who are a fucking mystery.

Like how there's somebody can be that smoke that much weed and be that productive. It just, it's very weird. But see, even he took it down a notch. Like he does. Did he? Wow. But it's so strong. He doesn't need to smoke that much anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And so he's, down a notch. Like he does. Oh, did he? Wow. But it's so strong. He doesn't need to smoke that much anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. And so he's, he's productive also because he smokes less in a way. Like. Right. Right. He's not smoking blunts all day long. Right.

And everybody's brain is different. So it's like, who knows, you know, how it all fits together like weird, you know, puzzle pieces. it all fits together like weird, you know, puzzle pieces, but everybody that knows, that knows professional stoners also knows somebody that you think like that person has fried their brain. Like that person, you know, weed induced, induced psychosis. Like, yeah, I know a few of those people. And to just, to deny it is, is not, I don't think it's doing it. Just to deny it is not, I don't think it's doing, it's not doing the weed industry a favor, you know? Look, I play bongos and sing in a Grateful Dead cover band in New Jersey. Oh, no. Do you really?

Seven years. Yes, Andy, do not judge me. It's my midlife crisis manifest. All right, all right. It's my hobby. I have no other hobbies. Gets me out of the house when I'm waiting for job. But I know lifelong potheads yeah most of the scene is made up of you know of course over 55 60 year old people who've been in weed since you know the 70s and i know and love many of them

i have those people you know many of those people in my life but there's no doubt a couple of them and only a couple of them are completely fried yeah you know but they yeah and god bless them you know yeah look man if we didn't make me sick man i'd still be smoking yeah yeah i mean yeah if i didn't you know yeah if i i that's i do have the feeling of like if if and when i quote unquote retire like then i might be kind of be like i I might have to tell my wife, look, honey, I'm going to be high constantly now. Sorry. I haven't sworn it off. You know, maybe one day they'll come up with a cure for this cannabinoid. Sure.

Sure. Yeah. I miss my accepting friend. I'll be that for you. Thanks, Andy. I'll be that for you thanks andy i'll be that for you you know well one thing i did want to bring up because you brought it up and you said if you're not having fun like what's the point and you and i work together yes on a show called lion's den yes it was called that and uh it was for people

that but the reason i'm bringing up is because well just for people that, but the reason I'm bringing it up is because, well, I'll just, for people that don't know, Lion's Den was a Rob Lowe starring show that after he left the West Wing. Right. Yeah. After he left the West Wing on kind of not great terms. Correct. If I'm correct. Right. NBC gave him his own show.

It was a legal drama, but, you know, kind of legal drama, you know, and you were on it and Matt Craven was on it. And I was hired to play in a ripped from the headlines storyline, the B plot. Cause it was you, it was you, me and Matt Craven, Matt, you know, uh, uh uh rob lowe was nowhere near this story right um but i played basically steve bartman which if anybody knows in the the cubs this is all coming back to me now yeah steve bartman working with you but the whole i understand but steve bartman was a guy who fucked up the cubs chances of getting into the playoffs. Cause he reached out to try and catch a foul ball and stopped a Cub from catching it.

And then they went on to lose the game. Like, you know, and, and everyone blamed him in the lion's den version. I'm a guy who, who did that. And,

and then the newspaper printed my name and address and phone number, which is like in what fucking world would like the Chicago Tribune go, here's where Steve Bartman lives and here's his phone number. Go get them mob. So I'm in this and I've, I've actually mentioned it before because it involved, and I have not done a lot of drama, just straight drama. Right. And it involved one of the most embarrassing lines I've ever had to say. And it was Matt, you, you and Matt Craven, like you, your character was really pissed at my character for fucking, because you were a lifelong fan of

you know the whatever you know that whatever the team was you know the fruit bats or whatever and uh you were really pissed and so matt craven yeah matt craven was doing most of the interviewing and then it got to a point where you couldn't take it anymore. And you went like, why'd you do it? Just tell me, why'd you do it? And my character said, and I had to say this, because I thought if I caught that ball, my son would think that I hung the moon. Oh, that's right.

God, I remember that. Wow. And it just like, oh my, I just, I wish I'd been in the writer's room when someone pitched that line just so I could not stop howling with just like anger and laughter. I had a dream recently. I had a dream recently that I was doing another Rob Lowe vehicle. I'm serious that I was on a series with another series with Rob Lowe and it was produced and written by the same guy who wrote the lion's den. Yeah. I'm serious that I was on a series with another series with Rob Lowe and it was produced and written by the same guy who wrote the lion's den.

Yeah. It was like a reboot of the lion's den. Wow. Which by the way, got canceled like after eight episodes. Yeah, it was. Yeah. The other thing I remember too, is that it was next door to a dildo factory, the stage and, and that when we were shooting the hills above us were on fire.

Yeah. I remember. Yeah. Big chats worth fires. But the one thing that struck me and the reason I bring it up aside from, cause it's fun to talk about. Was a funny dildo that someone threw. No, it was because I felt, I felt like I did me, you know, like I kind of, I came in and,

and you know, the, how, for people that don't know, you block a scene, you come in with just the director and maybe the DP and you kind of figure out where everybody moves on what line. And then as it goes, you do it a few times. And then as it comes on other people from other departments, props and whatever, you know, the, the guy pushing the dolly, they come in so that they can see how it all works. So you do it like 10 times, you know, like on its feet with the book in your hand. And by the third or fourth time I start fucking around, like I start like doing an accent or saying the line silly or whatever.

And I got the feeling that that was not cool. or whatever. And I got the feeling that that was not cool. Like that, that, you know, that like, and that, and that you and Matt were kind of like enjoying it, but also kind of like sort of sending me the signal of like, oh, we don't do that here. We don't do that here. And I was really like, oh, wow. Is this what drama is?

No, you know what it is? It's possible. Yeah. wow is this what drama is no you know what it is it's possible yeah because if i remember correctly i'd had a rough time on that show yeah they stopped writing for my character to the point where like you know one of the episodes i literally pick up the phone and say hold please and that's my whole part oh that's awful i remember driving and throwing the script out the window when i read it i was like the fuck are you serious and threw script out the window when I read it. I was like, the fuck? Are you serious? And threw it out the window. And then I went in the next day and said, I threw the script out the window last night.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing here. You got me saying, hold, please. Like, I don't really want to do that. There's a wonderful actor out there that needs this job that would be more happy to say, hold, please. But I think I've come a little farther than that. So toward the end of the run of the series they wrote me a bigger storyline and that was one of the episodes if not the one episode where i had a big storyline

yeah and i think it was toward the end of the run when we had already been pulled off the air or maybe we were still on air but it was bad juju on set i think that you're right i think i remember that people were pissed off because it was one of those shows that was supposed to be a big hit yeah clearly wasn't working and it clearly was going to get canceled so it's possible that you haphazardly were poor form with your jovial fun in the moment but none of us should have made you feel that way but it's possible that we bristled at that because we were all like oh shit this what's the point i didn't i didn't feel it from you guys i didn't feel it from you and matt i felt like you guys were like that's just

not the way it's been around here this is fun we and i mean i remember you guys having fun with me right but it but it also feeling like everyone else in the room was kind of, you know. It was a miserable. You know, look, I've done, Andy, I've done 16 television series. Wow. 16 series. As a series regular. As a series regular.

That's a lot. And picked up from a pilot. You know, two of them have been, have lasted, have lasted more than the initial order. Right. Yeah. One was numbers. The other one was the deuce. I literally have done 14 failed full series as a regular.

Yeah. And that's kind of what happens on all of them. You just get to a point where you're going, my God, we just sold all this bad material for weeks, knowing it was bad, knowing this was clunky the whole time, hoping for the best, hoping someone might like our trashy, stupid show. And of course they wouldn't. This is beneath the worst show on television, which is why it's getting canceled. And yeah, you do fall into a misery. I did a show called the playboy club

which was supposed to be a huge thing for nbc and they spent all kinds of money on it was it post mad men yes and that was yeah yeah it was it was you know 1960s period piece in chicago and uh that show got canceled and we got shut down which is rare you know you get canceled and they usually let you finish the order. They go, hey, you know, you're canceled, but, you know, finish the episodes. Do all. Because they're going to pay you anyway. And they're going to show them in Bulgaria somewhere.

Yeah. Some kind of money on them. But the Playboy Club was literally like someone showed up and said, you have to stop filming right now. Wow. And there was shrieking. If I tell you screaming, certain actresses, certain people could not handle this monolithic thing that was supposed to be the biggest hit of the year, the newest, freshest thing. We were all going to get Emmy nominations and it was going to, they couldn't handle the idea that it had, it had failed so

bad. And yeah, I, I, I'm in that case, I'm glad it stopped there. I'm glad we didn't shoot a few more because people were miserable. Yeah. Yeah. The worst is multicam sitcoms. Cause you're canceled. You've already had kind of a rough run. You're pitching, you're, you're, you're bombing with other people's jokes.

Yeah. With stick basically. Yeah. Praying and hoping that some of the schtick is is fun and you can right or just sort of futz with it and twist with but for the most part there's like two ways to say the line and that's that's what you got yeah and it's and it's it's a it's a bit that's been done a thousand times and that's the reason you're doing it is because like yes that has you know let like that is that is a cheeseburger joke like

we know people like cheeseburgers yeah but it's like yeah but this is a shitty cheeseburger you know it's like the difference between a cheeseburger and a cheeseburger is it's got to be a good cheeseburger and this sucks and you and even too like you can bomb in front of studio audiences who have been who want to help so much. They will laugh at six takes of something and you can still die. The shitty material can still die in front of people that are dying to help you. But then you get canceled, but they say, Hey, finish your order. And then they bus in teenagers from like Torrance and you you know what i mean and yeah yeah they're about

your show at all yeah not on tv anymore they don't even know what it is yeah what it was and now they're told by the way this is never going to air and they're like well why are we here you know they're getting they're there for the pizza and even the pizza sucks and dude the bombing that goes on the the and and the excruciating nature of finishing an order when you know the show has failed but money right you get paid why do you do a multi-cam sitcom because as everyone knows you hit it big on a multi-cam sitcom that's the true jackpot of hollywood yeah right yeah that's where you walk away with a hundred million dollars after 12 seasons. You ask any movie star, you know,

how many movies they had to do in a row, hit movies to do in a row to make a hundred million dollars. It'd be a lot, but the true jackpot is multicam sitcom. So you do them like a tumbler, you know, you're like met the table table again. The last one I did was I thought very funny, but couldn't believe it got picked up because

it was a multicam sitcom about religion called Living Biblically. I played a rabbi, which I told myself I would never do. I would never, you know, and there I was. But the greatest thing about it was I called the creator, this wonderful, hilarious writer named Patrick Walsh. And I said, Patrick, if I'm going to do this rabbi thing, he has to be a crazy rabbi. He has to be an unhinged, like we cannot, he's not the sympathetic rabbi. He's not the kind rabbi. He's not Judd Hirsch.

He's not the wise rabbi yeah he need to be cuckoo crazy what kind of rabbi is this rabbi and they said yes and i had so much fun doing it and we all knew the show really was going to have a tough time making it and it didn't make it but man we had so much fun doing it because it was just so stupid, just so wacky and stupid, you know? Um, but that was it that I swore off multicams after that, because, you know, in all, all in all 14, I did 14 failed series and eight of them were multicams. So, yeah. Yeah. They, you know, they, yeah, they, the, the lure of them is, is undeniable because it's not just the big money. It's a good schedule too like it's it's you know schedule yeah it's a very easy job and that's why whenever you know you hear about

the really big multicams and like the cast is fight you know they're you know they're like clamoring for double their income and it's like you know they're or you know less work like what work you want two days a week the rest of the time you pop in trying a suit you know amazing isn't it yeah yeah and they make ludicrous amounts of money yeah can't you tell my love's a crow i think it's just a derivative thing art form the multicam itself and i also not to expound on multicams but i think friends ruin the multicam and i'll tell you why because seinfeld came on and was kind of the quintessential character-driven multicam framer would make a face jason alexander would make a face the face was enough to get a laugh just like jim mcnatowski on taxi just like i hate to say but bill cosby on the cosby show

yeah i was gonna say the cosby show was a lot like there was no story it was just a lot of face making but it was everybody loved it but friends all those characters had pretty much the same exact sense of snarky sense of humor. And you could hear the writers. Yes. And then Will and Grace. You could hear the jokes. You could hear them written jokes.

And they all sort of spoke in that tone. All of a sudden, it's no longer character driven. That killed the sitcom. And you know what's amazing to me? Why hasn't anyone ever made a super filthy for cable multi-cam sitcom yeah yeah you know just a curse fest dirty show yeah yeah you could totally do it and they don't they don't do it i don't know why yeah i wonder i don't know i wonder if there's still enough of a puritanical stripe in people to just to where seeing characters in that, you know, you're used to that sort of that milieu that, you know, like the sofa and the kitchen and the front door.

Like, you know, you're used to that set and the different permutations of that set. Yeah. Or the office or the bar or the coffee shop. And to be really filthy in there, it would be you know like farting in church for people like they couldn't but i would watch it man a peep yeah yeah like a peep show like a multi-cam inside a peep show dungeon yeah yeah i've always wanted to see too like a gross out animated show like you know like body humor animated series like i don't know why there hasn't been one of those i actually was trying was trying to pitch one and you know

unless it's fucking you know based on a breakfast cereal or a board game nobody wants to fucking hear about anything anymore you know remember a show called wonder shows in animated, but that was the closest thing to like super warped. Absolutely. Rose out. He, the guy, the guy that one of the guys that ran that show was on, was a writer on Conan for a minute. And I, I know his name is Vernon something. Um, but he also, he writes on South park too. And he's written, he's just an amazingly funny weird guy he also did uh a vernon chapman

i just got a little message there vernon chapman amazing writer so funny um i want to get to i want to make sure that i that i plug uh lousy carter uh which is a movie that's currently uh in theaters i think it was in theaters okay like last week it's on streaming oh it is be an ass theater somewhere i see but to the to pluralize the word is really pushing all right it's currently in theater and so it's in theater yeah yeah but it sounds like tell me tell me a little bit about what, what the movie's about. Cause, and you star in it, which do you get, you get a lot of opportunity to be number one on the call sheet. I do, but no one ever sees.

They're always like indies that no one ever sees. This is my sixth or seventh lead of an indie. Wow. Yeah. And the other six that like just fly under the radar man they just you know they end up like you know tiny release like you know like a like a pebble in the ocean just like yeah dropped out there and you might find it you know my instagram is the best bet at trying to get it promoted this is not that which is nice they magnolia pictures who's

distributing the film has really done an amazing job in promoting it. And that's really nice and gratifying because you know, you do enough of these and you start going, well, they don't like me at all. Yeah. Oh,

tell me about it. I just, it was just, uh, an oral history printed about the, cause, and it would just have, I think it was just 25 years.

I don't know, but Andy Richter controls the universe, my first series. And in talking to the guy about that, it made me remember like, oh yeah, I definitely, and you can put all kinds of stuff ahead of it. You can make all kinds of mental gymnastics about, well, it's not just me. There's the marketing of it. There's the script that, you know, there's lots of other you cannot get about the get beyond the fact that somebody gave you money and put you in a thing and then put you in front of america and said here's the andy richter thing and yeah they didn't handle it well and stuff but still america lead. I've been there. Yeah, and it sucks.

It really sucks to be rejected. Somebody tells you they don't want to dance at a dance. It's one thing. But when America goes like, eh, we gave you two mid-seasons, and we're still kind of like, eh. Well, so I created a TV show called Gigi Does It, in which I wore four and a half hours of prosthetic makeup and oh true old woman so i've worked my balls off literally on this show i haven't my body waxed

the whole thing and i'll be honest with you you know what the highest ratings we ever got were we got a whopping 18 000 viewers one night oh my just go, wow. They don't want to see me at all. Even in half hours of prosthetic makeup, they don't want to see this. And the bummer about it is, yeah, you can, you're right. You can blame the marketing, whatever. But the truth is like, it is a smack down of portions. It makes you not want to create your own thing again. Cause you're like, yeah, it's, it's been proven, you know, we feel tested and it's

clear. I'm not someone, but anyway, back to lousy Carter, which stars me, which is actually a really fun little movie. And it kind of gets better every time I see it, which is weird. Well, it's interesting. It's an interesting premise because it's kind of, you know, it's a story that's been told a lot, but this is, but it's different of you know it's a story that's been told a lot but this is but it's different you know totally right so you're you're having to buy in it asked the

audience right right off the bat to buy into a tone that feels both heightened and and almost like beaten down at the same time you know. Would someone react this way to finding out that they have six months to live, which is the premise of the movie to some extent? Of course not. But would they? Well, let's go with the conceit that this is a different kind of person. Yeah. That we're establishing that the tone of the film is a different kind of tone. People don't really talk to each other like that, but do they?

Who are these people? And so it really does a fine job, and it's a difficult thing to do, and it's a credit to Bob Byington, who wrote and directed it. And he's made a few movies like this, where it's kind of this riding the wave, And he's made a few movies like this where it's kind of this riding the wave, very sort of on thin ice of tone and believability. And in a way, it becomes almost surreal what you're watching and almost hyper real at the same time. You know? Yeah.

Real, too real. But also kind of so real that it's strange. at the same time, you know, real to real, but also kind of so real that it's strange. And essentially, yeah, the movie's about a literature professor, grad school literature professor who finds out he's got six months to live and he's kind of okay with it. Instead of freaking the hell out and bugging out, he's kind of okay with it because the best part of his life is behind him, basically. He's come to that realization that it's all over now anyway. It was all over years ago.

And now someone's putting an end to it. God, I guess, is saying, you know what, I'm going to relieve you of your misery. Get you out of this life. And so there's some sort of relief that my character feels and acts accordingly. It's also a movie, honestly, I think it's a movie about loneliness and about disconnection and also about, it's about sociopathic disassociation. Yeah, yeah. It really is. I mean, my character's kind of a sociopath. Heassociation, you know, like, you know, it really is. I mean, my character's kind of a sociopath.

He finds this news out. He only tells one person. He purposely doesn't tell the other people because without saying it out loud, you get the sense that he's getting off on the idea that they're going to miss him when he's gone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's sick. It's there's, there's very something, you know, pathological about it. And he's gone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's sick. It's there. Yeah.

There's very something, you know, pathological about it. And that's the fun of the film. That's the comedy in it is like, let's watch this guy, you know, we're,

we're in on the seat, the audience is in on the secret and then things unfold in a certain way. And even in a shocking way, um, which keeps the movie sort of alive and moving. And thank God. Um, way um which keeps the movie sort of alive and moving and thank god um and it's only an hour and 22 minutes or something like that it's like a really short little movie beautiful yeah everything's too fucking long these days jesus christ how is this going on and let us leave

no i i mean i love the sound of it because there is like, like I do, you know, the, like I think about like there's a, there's a Carl Sandburg poem about grass that grows. I don't, I mean, I'm not going to do it justice, but it's basically that they're traveling past a horrific, a site of a horrific civil war battle. And now it's just covered with beautiful lush grass grass so it's like the relentlessness of life of the life force just always no matter what life is gonna and and you see that too like in kind of you know and in a movie like you know like lousy carter you're supposed to be like, well, life is precious and mine is short. So I better make the most of it and tell everyone and everything that I love them.

Whereas like out in the real world, you're kind of like, well, yeah, but you know, sometimes it's not that great, you know? And it's like, it's like, if it's going to end, maybe it's like a lot of times the wisest things you do is say, you know what, I think I should do something else. If anything, it's Bob's statement of like, there's no point in shaking your fist at the sky about anything. Yeah. If it's out of your control, it's out of your control. So why fight him? You know, it's about relinquishing control and,

and him sort of going along with it. All right, I'll go along for this death ride, you know, for that, you know, sure. Why not?

Right. Yeah. But it, but it's, it's, but it's jarring because, you know, as an audience member,

you think, well, I'd freak out. I'd lose my mind. You know, I cry every day and I'd scream and I, but I don't know. Would you, if you were this, you know, well, I'd freak out. I'd lose my mind. I'd cry every day and I'd scream. But I don't know. Would you if you were this?

So yeah. And that's the question the movie asks. And I think it's fun. It's a fun little movie. God damn it. I hope people watch it. Well, go watch it, everybody. I'm going to watch it.

I haven't watched it yet because I don't do research before I interview people. Why would you do that? I interview people. They would you do that? I interview people, they sell me on their shit, and then I go be a consumer of it. You can fly and say you're going to go watch it. Right, exactly. No, no, I actually will watch this movie. I swear to God.

That's bullshit. No, it's not. Okay. I'll prove it to you. I'll send you a photo of me watching it. Fair enough. With a big grin on my face. That'll clear up.

Yay! Yeah. you a photo of me watching it a big grin on my face yeah um well what do you uh what do you hope for your future like you know you're i mean i don't know how old you are what are you but well i'm 71 no you're not 46 i'll be 46 in a month now yeah well my hair i think is a good place to start is okay is gone i went to a it's not gone it's but you know it's going and i went yeah hair specialists and i said what can we do you know besides surgery right who took one look very quickly and said you have no follicles. There's nothing you can do besides surgery. You must get surgery. Which is plugs, right?

Which is plugs. So baldness is in my future. And he told me that within five to 10 years, this will be completely gone. Yeah. And then I'll have to figure out who that David Krumholz is. Um, because I've, I've been a hair actor my whole life. Plus I have thick eyebrows, you see, and I like bald with thick eyebrows is a very bad

look. So I may have to thin the eyebrows out to make the whole thing work. Right. I thought into this. Or let him get even, even more thick. Let him really go wild as you get older. So people don't even notice that you're bald. They're just.

No, not at all. By your eyebrows. Just like, holy shit. Crap. Yeah. So I hope that the children, that my children and yours thrive. Yeah. I hope nothing goes bad, uh, you know, for them. Uh,

other than that, I really don't care about much else other than I would like to make money and leave the business. Do you, do you get frustrated with the passivity of, of acting? You know, like that, you, you know, like you said, you develop a show for yourself, but then it, you know, you get a smack down and it's kind of like, well, all right, I'll go back to just getting hired. But I mean, cause I'm, I'm speaking for myself. Like I, I, I would love to act more and I just, you know, but I mean, I, it's such a stupid business and I went off and you know, and again, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't really attach a lot of my actual personal, uh, worth to what people want to see me in or what they see me as. Like the, like if I, if people look at me and they go like, I don't believe you in a drama. All right. You know, whatever. I'll, I'll do something else. I'll direct TV commercials. I don't give a shit.

I mean, it's a drag cause I, cause it would be fun to do that. But if that's not what people see, that's not what they see. So, but I get so tired of just the passivity of acting and that just waiting and waiting and waiting for this incredibly dumb process. Right. Well, I'll say this. I'm proud to be an actor, but that's like being proud of doing an Ollie on a skateboard. I ran into recently, I met F. Murray Abraham, who's 80 years old. He drank a full bottle of Cristal in front of me. Wow. It was amazing and good for him.

And we spoke, and I said, you know, people are giving me credit for this movie Oppenheimer. And he said, yes, I saw it. It was very good. And I said, thank you. I said, I agree. It's a good movie. They're giving me a lot of credit for it,

and I don't think I'm that great in the movie. I think it's a decent performance and i said sometimes and he goes i know what you're gonna say i said yeah and he goes sometimes they give you credit for just being good at all it's like shocking that you're good to them yeah my god this this actor that we've seen in a thousand things believe it or not he's a good actor yeah Yeah. He's not a fluke. And I feel like that happens a lot. And then that's kind of like a part of the, it's like, it's like a backhanded compliment, you know, it's like, yeah, it's, it's only because we're shocked that you're good at

all. Yeah. So there's a bit of that, the terms of the passivity, I like to convince myself that I am that the hardest part of being an actor, the hardest work I do as an actor happens in the times I'm waiting for a job, breathing, stressing it, stressing out over it, calling my agents, keeping an eye on things. I'm a very active participant in my getting a job and I always have been, and it's worked. So I'm not going to change that. I consider myself a partner with my agent and manager. It's not like they work for me or I work for them or I'm waiting by the phone. I would go crazy. They want my input. And if they

don't, I'm happy to get a new agent who will, you know, that's just the way it is. So I, I, I like to convince myself that's hard work. It's not really even hard at all. Um, what I try to balance and I'm not good at it is what I, in terms of thinking about the future, which was the question you asked me, what does the future hold? What do I think the future holds or what do I hope it holds? What does the future hold? What do I think the future holds? Or what do I hope it holds? It's hard to balance what I think I deserve with, uh, with what I, on the, at the very

least I hope happens, which is peace on earth and everybody's nice to each other and nobody, you know, gets nasty and I continue to work steadily. Yeah. Yeah. But there is part of that, that, that, you know, deservance is a concept that has no bearing on reality whatsoever. Zero. It's hubris when you think about it. It's complete hubris.

And yet it's a knee-jerk instinctual reaction, right? It's like I worked so hard. It's like the lion pride that works so hard to take down the elephant. Yeah. They take down the elephant and they eat the goddamn elephant. And they're like, the next elephant should be easier to take down. Yeah. Because, you know, we figured out how to do it this time, so it should be easier.

And the next elephant's a son of a bitch. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's that, you know, like, uh, it's, it's, it's supposed to be hard. It's fine. I can deal with it. It's toughened me up. I'm punchy like a fighter.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I'd rather that it makes me a better actor. I think honestly, it makes me better at the job to be a little punchy and to be a little like craven and a little,

uh, bitter and a little angry, but also, you know, more invested. Yeah. So it works for the job. Yeah. You know. You can't be Pollyanna and do the best work you can do. You just can't because Pollyannas are chum, you know, in, in this business, you just get eaten. So there's just, I just want to be nice.

I want to continue to be nice and have to be nice to me. Absolutely. I think that the key to success in this business is work hard and be nice, just like it is in any business, but people really circumvent that. And a lot of people fail upward and aren't nice and still make it, but they don't last. There's, you know, launch I'm interested in longevity. Yeah. Yeah. I also, I agree. And, and you, and I'm, I have said it the same, like be nice. Cause they're long days. And if you're not nice, eventually,

that's going to catch up to you. There are people that you can point to that are like, well, what about that asshole? And you're like, okay. Yeah. But I just, on a personal level, it takes so much psychic energy to be an asshole for me. I cannot, whenever, if I, and there's times when it's kind of called for and I've done it and you know, where you have to kind of, somebody's trying to take advantage and you say, fuck you, get off of my back or whatever. I'm not going to do that. I hate it. I hate the way it feels. I don't walk away feeling like, you know, Jean-Claude Van Damme after kicking somebody's ass. I feel like a fucking asshole, you know? Right.

What's funny is I think I've done that too. I've had those moments too. And I think that really people are just standing there going, oh my God, look at him trying to be an asshole. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not good at it.

We're just not. Yeah. Yeah. You are not. It also, there's also a cry wolf aspect to it. It's like, I do find sometimes if I get, if I get pissy, it matters because I'm very rarely pissy, you know? Right.

And that's very true. That does work. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what's a big, what do you think is, I mean, you, I mean,y, you know? Right. And that's very true. That does work. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what's a big, what do you think is, I mean, you, you, you speak very freely about things you've learned and what do you think is the biggest point you've learned out of, out of this, you know, coming from this as a kid coming from, you know, a very humble background without a lot of flash and showbiz in it to, to being a working actor,

sitting in your 10 year old daughter's nicely appointed bedroom. Uh, I'll tell you that you owe it to the, I owe it to the privilege. It's a privilege to be in movies, man. Yeah. Dream of being in movies and you get so jaded, you get so far away from it. I'm at a point where I can barely watch anything because I judge it so mercilessly. Yeah. I remember being in love with everything and being fascinated with movie stars and being starstruck and all those things. And you cannot be in this business as long as long as I have, without becoming jaded. You just can't. I try to.

It's not something you can avoid. And so I have to. It's a daily reprieve. I have to remind myself that I owe it to the privilege of divine intervention or whatever the hell it is that I get to do this. Because I could be, I don, I, I don't know. I could be clipping toenails at a lawn somewhere, you know, I, I could be, you know, who knows what. Yeah.

And it's very important to remind myself that every day, all day. And the other thing is finding meaning outside of the damn thing. Yes. Because when you, when you are your only meeting, because you're, you're selling yourself, right? You're an, yes. You're the product. You're the sales. You're everything.

Yeah. And, oh man, the, the, the depths of self-involvement that you can get to can become quite creepy. Yes. And destructive. And destructive. And I worked, I worked with a very famous actor who I won't say who it is. Who was the- Will Arnett.

It's Will Arnett, isn't it? Well, as I said, very famous. Yes. Okay. He was excruciatingly self-involved. Yeah. I felt terrible for him. Yeah.

Gone. He was gone. There wasn't any person there. There was just the person he thought he was, that he wanted everybody to think he was, that there was just nobody else in his life. There was nobody he cared about. There was nobody. It was shocking. And it was scary. It actually frightened me. It actually was disturbing on some level. And super talented human being. I was a huge fan of his and I saw that in him and it really scared me. And I thought you got to find meaning outside of this. You have to. And so I'm thankful that I have children. Yeah. Like I honestly think like, and that's not like me telling everybody they should have children, but man alive, I needed it. I needed something to cure me of my narcissism. You know, really?

I mean, that's just the truth. Blunt truth. Me too. I needed kids. I need. I agree. I care about other people. I need to be involved in their life.

They're my little happy pills. I get depressed sometimes, but I can't be depressed around my kids. You know, I can't go to the, I can't throw pity parties for myself around my kids. Yeah. There's a lot of having kids that's faking it until you make it, you know, terrible mood, but your kid shows up. So you got to put on a smile and before you know it, you're smiling naturally, you know? So that, that's what I've, that's the point.

And that's what I've learned. I think. Yeah. Well, David Krumholz, thank you so much. The good one. learned, I think. Well, David Krumholz, thank you so much. The good one. You're the best. Oh, thank you. Lousy Carter.

It's available to rent or on digital everywhere. So, you know, check that out. Lousy Carter. I'm going to look at it. I swear to God. I'm going to watch the whole goddamn things. I have an hour and 20 minutes. And you have Tubi.

I do. You can watch it there. I've got Tubi all over the place. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time, David. You're a good dude, man. It's wonderful to speak with you and see you again. Thank you.

And thank all of you out there for listening. We'll be back next week with more of the three questions. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to submit to my upcoming call-in show for Sirius XM's Conan O'Brien Radio. You can call 855-266-2604 or fill out the Google form in the description for this podcast episode. I'll talk to you soon, I hope. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Daugherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel.

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