The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Paget Brewster

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

Paget Brewster joins Andy Richter to discuss not having a plan in showbiz, being a “pilot killer”, working on Criminal Minds and more! 

hey everybody welcome to another episode of the three questions um i am talking to um one of the best people in show business true uh true true also uh one of the smallest egos in show business. True. True. True. Also, one of the smallest egos in show business. No, the amazingly talented and wonderful and magical Paget Brewster. It's me, Andy. It's you. We have not seen each other in a long time because the world has conspired against us. But we have Zoomed. We have. We have. We did

some pandemic fundraisers. We did a table read for Andy Richter Controls the Universe, which just recently had the 20th anniversary of its premiere, which is cuckoo.

Insane. Cuckoo bananas. But yeah, but I'm so glad you could do this. I'm so happy that you could come on here and chew the fat for an hour. Because I miss you in my life. Boy, you know, I tell people all this all the time. I tell people this this the time I tell people this all the time I said having Paget Brewster around is like having

a USO show going on at all times because she's always there to entertain the troops and you were that that was the way that you are when I worked with you is that you were always just like

a ray of old timey show business sunshine of like, hey, fellas, what's going on? You know, have a coffee and a donut. And I and it was it was so appreciated. I hope you take that as the supreme compliment that I do. No, I absolutely do take that as a compliment. And I will say this. I'm very flattered I absolutely do take that as a compliment. And I will say this. I'm very flattered that you asked me to do this podcast because eventually I would have found out that you were doing a podcast and my feelings would have been hurt that you didn't ask. So two words, one stone.

Thank God that you're not up on the latest podcast because this thing's been going on for a while. How long? How long? How long? Three years. Something like that. Yeah. Oh, geez. I'm sorry.

I know that's OK. Jesus Christ. And, you know, and honestly, you've been on the list from the initial moment that I had this podcast of like, here's who I want. And then I just never reached out because I was and I said this to you and we talked about a little bit a minute ago I framed it as look say no because I hate it when people ask me like you know like hey do you have an hour and a half to spend on on making content for me and you know and it's always kind of like oh I don't don't know. Do I like you? Yeah, I guess I like you enough. It's a hard ask. It's a hard ask. And a lot of people have podcasts. And I have been asked to do podcasts by strangers. Yeah. And basically now what I say is I do my friends podcasts. That's what I do. Unless it's something fascinating. Right.

Or if it's like, you know, I don't know if Dr. Fauci wanted me on his podcast, I suppose I'd say yes. I don't know what I'd talk about. You would say yes. Too political for me. Don't care for it. I could steer him into just comedy. That's true.

If anyone can do it, it's you. Just, you know, disease, comedy, you know, that kind of thing. What do you have to lose by asking him to do your podcast? You have nothing to lose by asking him. Nothing. That's true. Maybe he'd like to be a little comedic right now. Oh, I could. Actually, I'm going to write that down. You can ask anyone. Dr. Fauci. Yeah, but it uh probably uh hurt me with my right wing fans but aren't you wouldn't they want to hear from him too doesn't don't people want to hear they could rage listen yeah they could rage listen i suppose so that's where well how are

you what are you doing with yourself i'm doing animation voices and narration and and you have like a i saw an lgbtq uh horror movie coming out what's that about it's a it's actually a it's actually a very very good movie i'm very proud of it i think it's beautiful and and smart and funny and horrifying. It's a psychological horror thriller about a young gay man going through basically a mental breakdown that results in he's feeling pain and sort of causing himself pain and he can't get to the bottom of what it is,

what's causing it. And you sort of find out it's childhood trauma and his mother's mentally ill, and it's about sort of this discovery of mental illness and going through the medical system and seeing how people respond to it and what it does to your relationships. And I'm only

in it for one scene okay and it was right in the middle of the pandemic and what's it called it's called hypochondriac hypochondria yeah and it stars zach via um it's uh now i can't remember everybody else in it well you shouldn't have to ah yes imdDb it, people. Look it up. IMDb it. I don't know when it's coming out. It's coming out this summer. I know XYZ bought it at South by Southwest or some dance or something. Well, that's cool. What about you?

What about you? You're doing the podcast. You're doing. I'm doing the podcast. I am waiting for the phone to ring. I have fingers crossed. There's still an Andy Richter market out there.

What do you mean? I mean, just, no, I mean, it's just, it's a weird, it's a weird, very entitled, very lucky situation to have been on a show like the Conan show for 11 years

and to sort of lose that sort of armor plating that working freelance gives you, you know, that sort of when your parents say, well, after this job, what's next? And you go, I don't know. And then they go, oh my God, how do you live like that? And you go, I don't know. I just do. And I lost that because I got used to a steady paycheck and stuff. So I and it's, you know, and as everyone will say, it's not it's not a great time to be a 55 year old white man out trying to get work and that's fine with me i understand what's behind that and i do not want to come off as that i'm grousing about that at all because we white guys have had it real good and we don't have a lot of room for bitching so um but i'm just wait i'm i'm actually i'm shooting something uh chelsea peretti is uh written and directed and starring in, which is insane that she's doing that. A movie that I have a part in that's called First Time Female Director. And it'll be out in six years, probably.

And, you know, after everyone in the cast, facial surgery has rendered them irrecognizable, unrecognizable. So I'm doing that and that's really fun. And I'm trying to develop stuff, you know, but mostly just hanging out with my dog and my kids. And I got a real wonderful girlfriend now and we spend lots of time together and

that's it. And how's your husband? How's your hubby? My husband's the best. My husband is my engineer. Uh-huh. So he's a composer, and he's been scoring indie films and documentaries. And we built a recording studio. There was like this five-month, I don't want the neighbors to hear, but they know.

the neighbors to hear, but they know. There was like a five-month loophole where we live in Los Angeles that allowed you to turn your garage into anything you want without specific permits. Oh, wow. We turned our garage into a recording studio. So it's soundproofed. It's a floating, it's like a room within a room. How did you know that? Like you just knew like there was some lapsing in laws or something? I heard about it and we had talked about building a studio. And this was about five years ago, six years ago now. And so we did it.

Then when the pandemic hit, I immediately thought, oh, okay, this is going to be Spanish flu. This is going to be two years. Yeah. And that and this, you know, 1917, 1918, that was before people were flying all over the world with a fair a fair amount of ease. So I thought there's going to be two years we're going to be locked in. So we ordered a vocal booth because the room didn't have that before and put in a vocal booth. And the entire time, with the exception of one day on hypochondriac and one week playing hillary duff's mother on how i met your father i did one episode all of my work has been voiceover um narration animation voices uh crime uh documentary series narration in that studio wow my husband recording and running the you know the computer and the

board and everything while i'm in the booth and so it's been we were really fortunate that that we we had the equipment to to stay safe and continue working right and so i've just been hustling for you know um i had done animation before the pandemic but but it's been my sole focus it's really fun work i love it it's great yeah and and also too it's not you didn't have any there's i imagine that there's no decrease in quality uh you know like you're getting you're sending up because i mean i for instance uh i watched the the whatever the behind the scenes of disney rides show because i'm that kind of nerd and i i was like wait a minute that's pageant yeah doing the voiceover for that that was that

was actually the first job that we got and we didn't have the vocal booth yet so i bet we built a vocal booth out of furniture pads you know what they wrap sure sure and these things called gobos that are standing padded insulated like a it's like a folding uh you know it looks like i'm trying to explain for people like the foam egg crate kind of no no no it's like a standing hard structure uh on a hinge so it folds like um it folds up uh it's thick it's like uh you know four inches thick each wall with a hinge on it so we had three of those and then draped fabric over it and so you can get all the egg carton stuff on the inside and on the floor and so that's how we recorded behind the attraction then our vocal booth showed up and so uh we just we haven't stopped and i i i love it and i and i

it's hard to it's so much fun it listen it doesn't pay what a TV show pays, you know, like a network show, but it's being able to do it from home and feel like, you know, we're running a business. We should buy a cappuccino machine for our business lunch is really fun. So he's, and we're both kind of, we're slightly hermits anyway. So this has been, we've been extremely fortunate to enjoy each other's company. My hobby is cooking. So that wasn't a big leap when suddenly, you know, you couldn't go to restaurants. So we've weathered this, knock wood, that it's ending soon um fairly well yeah yeah well now this podcast i don't know if you're from the the concept of this podcast yes i looked it up okay so uh we should

get into the where do you come from part which i i know a little bit uh but you're you're you're from massachusetts that is correct and. And your parents were both school administrators at sort of like boarding schools, right? Yeah. I grew up on the campus of a school in Concord, Massachusetts called Middlesex, which was a private boarding school. It was all boys until 1976 or 77, and then it went co-ed. So, I and my younger brother, Ivan, we grew up in a dormitory, and our parents were dorm parents. My dad was an English teacher, and he coached soccer and crew, you know, the rowing, the rowing with it. And my mother was the ceramics teacher. And later on, my dad became college placement and admissions and, you know, did different jobs within Middlesex.

And and so so that I mean, it's an unusual way to grow up. You know, you it's the boarding school from, oh, there's some Brendan Fraser movie that shot at that boarding school. It's beautiful. It's safe. It's protected. So, you know, all of the faculty kids who are living in dorms, we just were, we were just free to roam. We had a pond.

We had an ice rink where there was a library and, you know, we just had this safe environment. And idyllic, I imagine, too, like a truly because John Irving novel or something. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, less bleak than the, you know, happiest John Irving. Not like it really was. It really was. And we thought everyone lived that way. We thought everyone's parents didn't work for three months during the summer. I mean, it didn't occur to me. I think I was 15 when I realized, wait a minute, most people work all year. All year.

How can I be that old? Well, and it's also just like the fact to live in a dorm is kind of, you know, that's a very, I don't, I had never heard of like kids living in a dorm. Because then in the three months in the summer that your parents didn't work, but you still were on campus. Sometimes, yeah. But they did when they were, my mom and dad, also they got married very young. My mom was 19 and my dad was 23 when they got married. Wow. She was 21 when I was born.

Wow. So my dad was 25 and my brother came two and a half years later. bought a little house in rural Maine next to where my dad's mother, my grandmother, Joan, lived in Maine. So we had this, it's kind of like a barn, more of a barn. It was built in 1780 something. It was, you know, and it's cold in in Maine but we would only be there in the summer yeah um so we had this you know beautiful oh will we go to Maine for the summer I mean it was a extremely privileged yeah yeah um you went to Maine to get a taste of real life yeah yeah

what it's really like yeah when it's kind of shoot the porcupines tonight kind of chilly at night that's you know no there are ticks andy well now it was it was it weird because i mean i imagine the students at middlesex are pretty well to do was it weird being around a bunch of rich kids and being known as like a teacher's kid within this world of rich kids? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I was born in 1969. So in the 70s, in the middle 70s, when it became a co-ed boarding school, there was a lot of pot smoking. At one point, some rich kid dosed all of the pets with LSD. The pets?

The pets. All of the faculty pets. And some of them died. Oh, my God. What a... One time, a kid lit a... My brother and I were bugging a couple of kids in another dorm who were, you know, teenagers. They were just playing ping pong.

And I'm sure my brother and I were irritating. And, you know, no one wants random kids running around. And a kid lit a ping pong ball on fire and hit it at me. So there were some, it was, you know, it was. Who knew that could even, you could even do that i knew that could even you could even do that i didn't know you could i can't believe that kid did it did he dose it in douse it in like lighter fluid i mean now that i'm saying it i'm trying to figure out how that even happened maybe they do burn uh i think i smoked pot for the first time probably uh when i was six or seven i was up in the dormitory what in the girls dormitory wow

and uh i the babysitter uh got said you know suck on this suck on this you know and it was just a joint and then i remember she was drying her hair with a blow dryer and I just watched her drying her hair with a blow dryer and you know it was just so bizarre and I took the blow dryer from her and it sucked my hair into the yeah yeah the thing in the back um yeah so I'm not I don't really like pot maybe that was a weird but you know listen basically basically harmless nothing really our pet our dog torque didn't die from the lsd dosing um became a huge fish fan he did he was really into blue strapler well as you get i mean i imagine you went you and your brother went to school there then, yeah?

Well, I, part of my parents' pay was that their children, if their test scores were good enough, could go to Middlesex for free. So I got in and just did not belong there. And it was not a good fit. And I was, you know, at that point, listen, I grew to be a beautiful young lady. You certainly did. Thank you. But when I was a kid, not great.

Kind of looked kind of like a little vulture. Braces. I had a, I had a, like a men's military haircut that I thought worked on my head shape. But I was not popular. I wasn't cool. I wasn't wealthy. I wasn't, I was a fact brat. You know, the faculty kid is a fact brat. So it was, it was diminished high school was tough and uh i was

failing my classes and i was asked to leave which broke my parents heart but i think they then realized oh this also would not be a good fit for our son so i went uh back to i had been in all my parents uh priority for my brother and i was education so they put all of their money and were helped by my grandparents to put my brother and i into um same-sex schools the the the school the the private schools in Concord that were not where my parents taught were a boys school and a girls school. So I had gone to girls school until I was 14 or 15 and started at this, you know, this wealthy New York City, you know, co-ed school where suddenly I was just I was just a loser. And and so it was not a good experience for me. So when I was asked to leave, I begged my parents to send me to the girls school that my mom went to in Westchester, New York. And so I did.

They were kind enough to to to pay for that. And I my senior and junior years, I was at a school in Dobbs Ferry, New York. And it was it was all girls. Yeah. I mean, there are so few all girls schools. And who knows if that would even work now? But it worked for me. knows if that would even work now but it worked for me um it was a safe environment and it felt um you know girls weren't competing against each other for the attention of boys um

there weren't sort of click hierarchies it was yeah i found that everyone had a valuable place It was, I found that everyone had a valuable place in that society. And whether you were, you know, a beautiful rich girl or a nerd or a jock or a mathlete, in a single sex environment, everybody was, you still had your place. Right. So it was a weird, there's a big difference in schooling um in schooling if if you're around uh you know boys yeah i i've always because uh my ex-wife went to girls catholic school and i've known i've known women that went to you know non-co-ed schools and it it does seem, I mean, from just my life experience, like there is a real benefit to that. And that the introduction of boys into girls' scholastic lives is quite often destructive and quite often disruptive. Whereas I do think like boys going to school with boys, I feel like that's fine

because then they can just be boys. They can just be, you know, boys to themselves. Like, I don't think that boys are in any way endangered by women. And I do realize that this is the same rationale that keeps women in other parts of the country or in other parts of the world wearing scarves and being isolated into their own restaurants and their own places of worship. I understand that that's the same rationale, but it's like, I do feel like, yeah, I bet as a girl, it is kind of nice to go to a school

where there aren't those stupid fucking boys around, you know? I mean, I obviously I think everything has an advantage and a disadvantage. I don't know if I was sort of really properly socialized. graduated high school about men and women because i hadn't been i hadn't really you know grown up having to navigate how teenage competition sexuality um misogyny sexism you know um homophobia like there's there was no, there were girls at the school, there were teachers at the school that were gay and nobody, it didn't matter. You know, it felt like, well, girls don't care.

It becomes something else outside in the real world. So I think there were disadvantages to that as well. But, and I also think there were disadvantages to to that as well um but and i also think there is a difference in if if if a country requires men and women to be separate these are also countries that that do not uh allow uh for the lgbtq lifestyle so i mean that's it's a different thing but i understand what you're saying. It's just one of those things that I'm left a little uncomfortable with,

but it's kind of like, well, yeah, but at a certain point, there's real life experience sometimes trumps what may seem like an ideal. Yeah, but even my saying to you, it was a girl's school because we've learned so much, specifically in the last five, ten years, that now sounds so antiquated to me. And there's a reason why.

It's from another generation. It's just from another generation because those girls schools were also teaching etiquette and dancing and you know how to marry how to marry a a boy from the boys school i mean you know so it's uh yeah and if you're going to have a career it'll be you know as a spinster teaching your your classmates children or something like that you're not going to be a fucking engineer, that's for sure. Oh, no. Yeah. No, there was no STEM.

Yeah. No, I learned how to fence and I learned French. That just in case, you know, some Quebecois and street gangs come down here and start hassling people. I practice neither these days. Well, what did you want when you got out of school? As you were getting towards the end of your schooling and it was time to go to college what what were you looking for uh because my parents were teachers um i knew i had to go to college and i wanted to go to an art college i had always excelled in art and English, but I didn't see the value of a degree in English or literature

or art history. I just didn't understand what you did with your life at that point. Although, what do you do with a degree from Parsons School of Design? I don't know what I was thinking. I got in, but I really just wanted to get to New York so I could act. Really? Now, were you acting in high school? The whole time. Yeah. A lot of acting.

But it was inconceivable that anybody would. I didn't even know. I didn't know Juilliard existed. I would never have gotten into Juilliard, but I didn't know that acting colleges. Also, that just would not be accepted. That was not acceptable. Yeah. Yeah. Same.

And I mean, I'm from a little town in Illinois, but it's the same thing. It's just like, no, you don't. Nobody does that. No one does that. No one does that for a living. So, yeah. So I went to Parsons for not even one year. I went to Parsons School of Design.

I was living in the George Washington Welfare Hotel on 23rd and Lex. Wow. In an eight by eight room. But I had my own bathroom. So that was very luxurious. That and Lex. Wow. In an eight by eight room, but I had my own bathroom. So that was very luxurious. That's nice. Yeah. Eight by eight feet by eight feet.

Not, not like an eight room apartment. I understand. I know, but if you didn't know, it wasn't eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms. I mean, well,

it sounds like, well, she went to boarding school and learned how to fence. This bitch probably had an eight bedroom apartment in Manhattan when she fucking felt like it. No, so I went to Parsons, just the foundation year and auditioned. I was doing NYU thesis films

and I was acting in Friends little things. And I ended up doing um uh auditioning for Hurley Burley the the David Ray play at uh Circle in the Square theater group even though I wasn't I didn't go to NYU I wasn't part as a freshman in college uh I wasn't even there I was at Parsons that's what I mean but you were that's how young you were that you got that audition. Yeah, I was 18, 18. And so I got the part of Darlene and went and apologized to all of my teachers at Parsons and said, this isn't you. It's me. I should never have been here in the first place. You're a great teacher because I knew how heartbroken my parents were year after year when they would have students that that didn't try or didn't care or, you know, they really, they did,

they taught me a profound respect and appreciation and I think understanding of teachers who care, really, really care. And it hurts them when they can't excite or teach or inspire kids. So I apologized to all my teachers and dropped out. And my parents said, well, that's it. You're out. You're out of the family and we're not going to pay your rent and we're not going to help you out. And I was like, no problem. And so I was waitressing. And I mean, my rent was $495 a month because it was that little room. Yeah. With people, you know, a lot of sort of mentally ill people and people on SSI living on my floor. It wasn't a coveted apartment space.

So I could cover the bills, waitressing and then later bartending. And oh, yeah. But then I was too chicken to eat. I didn't even try to go to acting school or anything i i i started uh singing in a band i put a band together ended up you know dating my living with my drummer and uh uh great guy you know cool guy we were together for a long time and and uh we had a band called mechanical bride and then i did a dance band like some club we had a club hit uh covering that song aquarius by the fifth dimension um and i wasn't doing any i wasn't trying to pursue acting i

thought i would be the like a one name i thought our band would be so big i'd be paget the singer like share or sting i would just be offered acting roles in uh uh oscar winning films and right yeah yeah i had a real good plan well it must have felt good to have your parents say all right rouse and then you and then you were like all right fine. And you did it. And did they come around to respecting the fact that you did that? They did. They did. And I always knew if something went wrong, if I needed medical help, if something really went wrong, that they would be there to help me. I wasn't abandoned.

I wasn't estranged. I wasn't, you know, they, they just said, if this is the choice you're going to make, you're going to have to support it. And I now feel like, well, every parent should say that to every 18 or 19 year old. Like, I mean, this, the world has changed and I think people just can't afford housing now. So that, that actually wouldn't work. But for, for my age and my generation, um, I, I completely respect that they said, we don't understand what you think you're going to do and we're going to make you prove that you can do it. And they did. And I did.

And so it worked out great. Yeah. And so you did. I mean, did you have I mean, you say, you know, that you thought, oh, you would be a, you know, a mono name. That was the hope. But that's not like a real plan. Did you have a plan or did you just kind of, you know, follow one thing after the other and kind of just instinctively go from one opportunity to the other just as they presented themselves?

No, I did not have a plan. I didn't have a plan. to the other just as they presented themselves. No, I did not have a plan. I didn't have a plan. And I think, honestly, the plan was, I had been told by all of my teachers and all of my drama teachers and everyone at school, you know, from second grade on,

oh, you should act, you're a great actress. Oh, you're funny, but you can be serious. And I was so scared to really try. And I feel like I spent years of my life walking around with, I thought this was like my get out of jail free card. Like, oh, but I can act. And as soon as I put my mind to it, I'm going to be a huge success. And I just was too scared to try. And so I didn't.

I mean, I didn't even end up, I was acting. I was going to acting school in San Francisco. And this is from 93 to 96 and bartending. And I got an agent and he sent me. I he hung out at my bar in Potrero Hill in San Francisco and he sent me on auditions. They were auditions for anchor people, correspondents, talk show hosts, because that's what he specialized in. I didn't know there was a different kind of agent. And that's and there's lots of that and going on in San Francisco in particular or. Yeah, no, just there. There are agents for do you want to host? Do you want to,

you know, be a pitch person on QVC or a host for a kid's show or, you know, their anchor people? And it's all hosting. So I just through good luck ended up with a talk show because in 1994, Ricky Lake was this huge talk show for Fox. So then suddenly every production company wanted anyone in their twenties to host a talk show. And I was signed by Westinghouse. No, no,

no. Oh, man, women and men. Oh, okay. No, the guy,

Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark Wahlberg, who hosts Temptation Island. Yeah. No, there were other guys too it was mostly tempest bledsoe uh gabrielle carteris me um there were so many people had talk shows uh it was just a huge huge fad like a trend so i did the pageant show in San Francisco. I hosted a talk show for 65 episodes and we aired at 1.30 in the morning.

And through that, I got an agent in Los Angeles and moved to Los Angeles in 1996. Wow. And told that agent, I want to pursue acting, not hosting. And he started sending me on acting auditions. Oh, that's good. You tell them what they only set you up with what? No, what I mean, they usually set you up with what works. Yeah. How am I going to make my 10 percent? Right. Right. That's what they're thinking. Yes, exactly. And it's kind of like, why don't you just do more of the thing that somebody already paid you for?

Which I understand now because that's what i want to do now what was i mean was the talk show just kind of your standard sort of you know uh cheating boyfriends kind of oh wow yeah and it was fun or was it sort of did you you? I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. It was, I had a microphone in the audience. It was a live audience, 150 people maybe. A panel, you know, chairs up to 14 guests. It was, we had a drag queen fashion show, like Ms. Padgett. We had, I love him. why do my parents hate him we had you know this guy Dave green and his 15 polygamist the the polygamy family from

you wives and you know we did we did all of that stuff everybody was doing and then and then it got really Jerry Springer or suddenly things were getting violent and Westinghouse hired these hired these producers and said, you know, we need fights. We need fights if we're going to take this national. And I just would never let I would just never let anyone fight. Yeah. Yeah. And that was what bartending was really good for. You can see when someone and they produced it so that these people would end up physically fighting each other. And I see it coming and I would just run up to the stage and put my leg on the chair arm between the two people about to fight. And they're not going to hit me. Yeah. So it was.

And I learned that from bartending all the years that I was bart, uh, it's easier for me to stop a fight between, uh, anyone, two guys, two girls, a guy and a girl. It's easier for the bartender because no one wants to hit the bartender. Like now you get no booze.

Right, right, right. So it's like, and most people don't want to fight. Most people are waiting for an excuse to not have to get into a physical fight. So,

so the Patrick show was only one year, 65 episodes, and then I moved to LA. But you then probably had somewhat of a little nest egg to move down to LA and get started. And was that weird? Did you have people in LA or were you kind of, you know, getting off the bus with your cardboard suitcase and your sundress?

I had just gotten my driver's license. Wow. I was 26. Yeah. 96. No, I was 27. Uh-huh. I was moved here in 96.

So I was 27 years old. I just gotten my driver's license. I had saved, I think I had saved $5,000. Wow. And I got an apartment on Poinsettia Place in Hollywood. And kind of a, there was some criminal element. Mm-hmm. But I had an agent before i got here and that agent uh uh was great

and probably did illegal things like lied to network set me on auditions uh and then uh would say no she's not going to do that TV show. She has a development deal with ABC, which was a lie. And then NBC was like, wait, she's not going to do this. She just auditioned for a show and you won't let her test. Nope, she's got an overall deal at ABC. So NBC is like, well, we'll give her an overall deal. And then he's like, okay. And then calls Fox and says, hey, there's this new kid in town,

the feeding frenzy all these development deals you might be interested and he just he just fabricated awesome fantastic brilliant you should have paid him 11 i should have yeah he's in my will i'm working on my world right now that's good a little party, hey, go on a nice vacation with your kids. Thanks. Thanks for the leg up. Yeah. Now, is this a time?

Because I know from when I worked with you on Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Look it up, folks. Way before it's time. Way before it's time. Which people tell me that. And I'm always like always like well that doesn't that's not really comforting like you were that was way before it's time it's kind of like i mean it's nice and i understand it but it's sort of like is it really i don't know i mean you know

it just feels like it just felt like wrong you know or it didn't work and i mean and there's all these things that go into it like whether or not it gets supported or whether or not it gets understood or whatever. And I mean, it wasn't like it wasn't some sort of complicated algorithm. It was just a show with cutaways, you know, but whatever. When people say to you ahead of its time, you feel like you're uh it just was the wrong time yeah yeah yeah like if only you waited five years to do that show i know it's like that doesn't happen and i i'm not gonna sit around waiting five years like oh man i'm good i met this guy that's got this idea for a show and i'm gonna help him put it together but But let's just wait five years. Wait till the time is right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait till the rest of the world catches up with us. Us visionaries. Can people see it? Is it on like a Fox effect? I think so. I think it's on YouTube or somewhere. I mean, it was on DVD.

And people ask me that and I don't know because I hate looking at myself. So I, you know, hopefully maybe like I'll become gravely ill and my children will seek it out and then we'll find out. No, but anyway, back to the back to the topic. I knew you a little bit because you were dating somebody that I knew through the Chicago diaspora, the Chicago comedy diaspora. So we had met. Yes, I had met you before. We knew each other socially.

Yes, exactly. But then I got connected with Victor Fresco, who created Andy Richter Controls the Universe. He had worked with you on a previous show that did like six episodes or something like that. Yes, we had done. Something like that yes we had done we had done trouble with normal yeah and you played a shrink with a bunch of goofballs a bunch of yeah yeah a bunch of people with anxiety yeah issues so but he wrote this part for you the part of jessica my boss and friend for for you that's what i've heard but the thing that we heard from the network was and this this is just still among all the dumb shit i've ever heard she's been involved in a lot of pilots that didn't go true that was true so we we're not gonna cast her she's good oh undeniably yeah

she's great she the part was written for oh well i can see why she's really great and just because she's been on other shows that have a hundred other reasons to fail you're gonna punish her by not letting her do our show yep Yep, that's what we're doing. So we cast another woman in that role who was a lovely, talented actress, but just not right and as good. And then when it came to the end of that, and I apologize to her if she's listening, I'm not going to say it. But, you know, but the part was meant for you. And they let us hire you, you know, in that. Like, it was like that they were like, you know, like, all right, we'll, you know, we'll let you move away from that open flame so as not to burn yourself. Like, they were doing a big favor.

It's like, no, we, okay, thank you for letting us do this thing that will be good for everyone involved. That was tough. That was because I did, I auditioned three times. Yeah. And that thing with the pilots, tell me about like how the, how you can be successful enough to get in a bunch of pilots,

but then have that be your fault. Oh, I mean, look, the only, the, the two people I knew of who were called show killers for a while were myself and john cryer wow and we both overcame uh the stink of failure that surrounded

us yeah cloud it was uh we both did a lot of pilots. It wasn't just pilots. We were called pilot killers, but we would we did pilots and then we would do shows that the pilot was picked up, but we were canceled by the third or sixth episode. Uh, what if it's just, uh, you know, bad mojo? What if it's easier to blame? Let's, let's, let's blame a couple of actors as show killers, call them show killers. Then we don't have to worry about anyone thinking we made a poor choice with writers or producers or directors or sets or time slots or advertising or, you know, it's, it's, um, yeah. Or our own stupid fucking ideas that we impose on people. Correct. Yeah. And listen, there are great executives. There sure are. They're bad executives. The one out there's a lot more of one than the other, though.

I won't say which, but I don't know what they're I don't know what they are supposed to do. Oh, I mean, I will give them that. If I had to run a network, it would tank. Like if I program things, it would all just be, well, first of all, it would just be my friends. But, you know, like I wouldn't pick, name a big hit sitcom right now. If you brought that to me and said, mean don't i don't mean really name them just you out there listening to this name one i if you brought that to me i would go ick no it's terrible you know hacky bullshit get out of here whereas that those are like

love it can't get enough two spoons spoons, yum, yum, yum. So I would be terrible at it, but it still baffles me how there's this whole business of people that hire talented people, good-looking people, people that you enjoy watching, and then they know better than all of those people at what, you know, at them doing what they do, what they were hired to do. But, you know, it's, you know, I mean, you know. We're on the other side, too. It's true.

We are, we are, you know, we're enemies. Yes. We're essentially enemies. Yes. we're enemies yes we're essentially enemies yes and and also to say like to call you a pilot killer is part of a show killer or show it was a show killer show killer that's what yeah to call you and john cryer uh show killers is part of a system that says when you say, when someone, a young executive finds someone like you or a John Cryer and comes in and says, hey, I found this person, this thing, this idea, this script. And to me, it seems really good. Everybody above them says, who else has spent money on them?

And because they have to, like, you can't can't just go i mean it's the same reason everything's superheroes now because then you say oh man i have this great noirish script that's just full of twists and turns and really rock solid oh yeah it was a ever a comic book no no it's just a script well fuck you uh it's the same thing with people. It's like, have they made a ton of money for somebody else? And because you had been in these things that were, you know, I mean, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. In these things that, you know, for some reason or another, the thousand reasons that things go bad,

but it's your fault because you were there because you happened to be there. And it's so fucking crazy. It's so dumb. You know, it's so fucking crazy it's so dumb you know it's like i love watching you i love watching you go crazy i love it so much it's just i think i just and then it's like i get metaphor mad where i'm like you know like just because a sandwich shop went bad doesn't mean the ham's terrible sell the ham somewhere else what the fuck you know it's like maybe the sandwich shop was poorly run the guy had a gambling problem that makes the ham bad

anyhow well anyway it worked out because i mean to a to a sort of a you know a half-assed way and that we got a couple of really wonderful that was truly one of the top jobs ever, like for me. Oh, our show? Yes. I agree. Just the fun of it. And just how nice it was and how fun it was. It was.

We did get two mid-seasons out of it. And that was just because Gail Berman, who was running the network at the time, begged and pleaded for them to give us another network. But beyond her, it was just like a group of these kind of beef-eating men who were like, where's the titties? You know, where's the cars that blow up? sort of there was some sort of show on that like i i want i want to say like it was a show created by mcg or somebody like that that was just all car explosions that sounds so familiar i think there was it was no seriously at that exact same time and that was the show that they were like this is gonna be it they were putting all their money behind all their advertising yeah i think peter scalari was in it i don't remember what it was called.

Peter Scolari was in it. Yeah. Somebody could look it up. You know, whatever that was. That was, you know, 2001, 2002. That did happen. Yeah. It was just dumb show with like lots of cars, lots of girls in bikinis, and lots of explosions.

And that's, from my shorthand for it, was exploding titty. That, like, that's what they really were looking for, was exploding titty. And listen, there is a place in the world, there is a place in the world for exploding titties. And there is quality exploding titty. You know, like, there's really good exploding titty. Sometimes it's done very well.

Yeah, but it's just, like, not everything has to be that, and we certainly did not have that. But wasn victor even it wasn't wasn't victor fresco our ep our boss wasn't he nominated for an emmy after our show was canceled like we yeah we got it nominated for writing or we got a yeah we got we got a nomination for a writing emmy you know but i mean but they've done that the ben stiller show they gave them them the writing Emmy after they were canceled. Oh, wow. You know, so it's it's it's been done before. So but anyway, I mean, we both, you know, we both are our doozies.

We both are trapped in our houses speaking into microphones now. So things worked out. It all evens out. Really? We're worked out for both of us. I just spoke on a Zoom with John Cryer a few nights ago. Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah.

We're doing fun now. I used to see him in the Warner Brothers gym and it was always so lovely to see him. He's great. Yeah, he's a wonderful guy. So then after that, though, your career took a turn towards the dark. You descended into criminality and the psychology surrounding it.

And I'm so happy I did. Was that now, and I'm talking, of course, about Criminal Minds, which you, it was a rocky road on that show. True. Undeniably, you know, like you were on the ins, then you were on the outs, then you were back on the ins. Yes. And was that, how did you feel going from doing comedy and being so gifted in comedy to then doing these kind of procedural sort of, you know, super hyper drama kind of show?

I loved it. Oh, you did? super hyper drama kind of show. I loved it. Oh, you did? I was ecstatic. Yeah. I had, I think I joined Criminal Minds in, I joined Criminal Minds in, I think, the ninth episode of the second season. So that was 2005. I had met everybody when they were shooting the pilot for Criminal Minds in Vancouver

because I was shooting a made for TV minds in vancouver because i was shooting a made for tv movie so i'd hung out with the cast um and uh then uh a year and a half goes by i thought actors do movies i should do movies i'm not gonna do any more tv i'm gonna do movies and so i did three movies back to back and they all needed reshoots and they were all kind of messy. And so I was flying back and forth, Austin, Texas, fly to L.A., drive uh, uh, would you be interested in meeting on this show called Criminal Minds? Um, and it was on the TV. Like, I don't know how it was already in a repeat, but the pilot episode was playing. It might've been on A&E already or something. and E already or something. And I said, yes, of course, I would love to meet with them because I realized movies are, this is not for me. It's just flying around, living in a hotel and trying to do your laundry.

And there still was a lot of misogyny on set. So it's, you know, how do you avoid these people on location? Like, it just wasn't for me. And I realized- And there's no continuity. It's not even like you can deal with the misogyny and then continual you know like make your workplace better because everybody's going to be gone it's just yeah it's all and people like people are having affairs on location you know i just i don't want to see it i don't want to be around it i don't want to know

i just want to go to a job where i drive to work i go in every day i know everybody hey hal you know hey georgie you know and you and you do your job and you're all working towards something so i realize that i don't need you know if a great movie comes along and i can do you know pop that out in a couple of you know once a year twice not even twice a year i very rarely do them i prefer tv so i met with the i met with the um the the producers and writers and the creator or not the creator. The creator of Criminal Minds was fired for I think he said something on Facebook that he was going to murder one of his writers. So the guy who created it just gets money forever and never ran the show. No, no to you aspiring writers out there.

Get fired after the first episode. You're creating something. You created it. Oh, money. Yeah. So so I met with the people at Criminal Minds and I was that I was one of those people that that read everything about serial killers. I watched every documentary and interview series and true crime. And I loved it. I ate it up. That's your two spoons. Eat it up. I was that gal. Yeah. And so when I met with

and also all I did on on location going everywhere was I was watching Law and Order and I just I appreciated it so much. I was like, this makes me feel like I'm home. I have this I can count on every night, no matter what city I'm in. I can just, I can watch this show and I know gung gung. I've got my friends and I'm going to enjoy myself. And there was something comforting about it. And so when I met with the people at Criminal Minds, they started saying, oh, you know, this is typical of a case. It would be a case like this. And, you know, this is what's happening with our killer. This is the show we're working on this week. And I said, oh, that's based on the Toy Box Killer.

And they said, what? I said, it's based on it. I remembered his name then. I don't now. And I said, oh, this guy and his common law wife was in Kansas in 1987. And they were a little appalled. But they said, how do you know that about that case? And I was like, oh, I read everything. And I think that was it. I think that's when they thought. She's on to us. We better shut her up.

She's on to us that we're ripping off real crimes and we need to get her in here to just shut her up. Shove a paycheck in her mouth. They said, do you have any questions for us? And I said, and I really hope I don't get in trouble for this. I said, my only question is, how crazy is Mandy Patinkin? Because he was the lead on that show at the time. And, you know, everyone heard stories about him. And they said, oh, no, no,

no, no. He's you'll love him. He's not a crazy. It's not that kind of crazy. He just sometimes doesn't want to do what we wrote. And, you know know he can be he can be testy about things that he doesn't agree with but he's incredible and he's a great actor and you'll love him you'll you guys will sing show tunes together and you'll have a great time and they were 100 right okay i loved working with mandy i would work with mandy again yeah yeah drop of a hat i think he's fabulous but he's a you know he's's he's a dramatic, interesting character. And I can see how it can lead to difficulties. A capital A actor, that's for sure.

But he is absolutely worth it. So that was. Yeah. And I say good for you for asking that because it and usually that kind of question where you corner, you're not just like, yes, yes, whatever it takes. Yes, yes, whatever it takes. Yeah, no. They don't like, they honestly don't really want that. If you want, if you say.

I don't know. You think they respected it? I think they do. Oh. I think that whether they know it or not, I have always felt that whenever I've said no or created a boundary or said, said hey fellas I here's a question about something and which is me taking care of myself yeah and making sure that you know I'm not getting fucked over here I think they always kind of are like oh oh okay you know and then because I think if you, as Margaret Atwood puts it, present rearward, that is a continual invitation, a like, you know, in perpetuity invitation to get effed in the A. Wow.

And so I think it was probably, I mean, in addition to knowing about killers and murderers and in a way that was unsettling uh to them obviously no i think you might be right i think the idea maybe the distilled idea is i care enough about me and my quality of life to ask this question whether it loses me the job or not and also i don't need you necessarily you know like if this doesn't happen i'll be okay i think that's i didn't and i was lucky i don't have kids i don't have ailing parents my in-laws are healthy you know it's i was not in a i was allowed to find out is this something i want to do are these the people I want to be around? And number one on the call sheet, it sort of dictates what's going on on a set as evidenced

by you on the show we did, which was a lovely experience because you're generous and grateful and funny and invested and interested and talented. Like you were the best number one on the call sheet to, to, to, to make sure a set ran well and with respect and love and joy. Oh, thank you. It's important to me.

It's important to me. I always feel that regardless of where I am in the hierarchy, I am a, I went to film school. I like to think of myself as a member of the crew. We're all members of the crew. However, grips don't get their own room in their own toilet. So I'm a very lucky, privileged member of the crew. But also, too, there's lots of people that can do the grips job there's not as many

people that can do the job that i'm doing so it's like i understand you know there's kind of you know it is based on sort of free market ideas in terms of supply and demand um but i also have always felt and felt disappointed by people who are in a similar situation who don't realize this. I always feel that morale is my job. Maybe not my first job, but it is certainly a big part of my job. And I don't know why I think that other than just like, I always liked it when I worked for nice bosses that made me, you know, nice bosses. I'll do anything you want. Not anything, but, you know, I'll work. I'll work.

And I'll be happy to be here because you are appreciating me. Shitty bosses. Fuck them. You know, I need some paper towels. I'm stealing these paper towels, you know yeah and and it's and i have always felt that if if you're in the top echelon and you ignore your in in in production i suppose it could apply to you know the auto body shops and stuff but if you're at the top and you're not concerned about the everyday workday experience of everybody involved you are being

derelict in your duties and you're you're you're committing malpractice i agree 100 and because also too it just it's like i've always found even if you are the most crass you know all people are to me are just machines that I can get productivity out of. Nothing works better than kindness. Even if all you give a shit about people that work for you is to just get them to work, be nice to them, you know, like pay them a little better than they think they should be paid or that the rest of the world to pay them. it'll come back to you i just you know it's always been such a simple thing um well now you know i don't know exactly the ins and outs and we i talked about a little bit the sort of yet back and forth with with criminal minds uh do you want to address

that at all like how that happened and how that i'm more concerned about like what it made you feel like like what your feelings were from those not on the show back on the show kind of yeah it was it's been it's been documented there was a backdoor pilot with uh forest whitaker and on criminal minds that was going to be a new criminal minds show and we all just kind of think oh well it's the first time les moonves has seen who no longer is the president of cbs first time he's seen the show in seven years or something and oh right six years i don't know that that he just said uh i want the new new women new women agents those agents give me new i want some new women and um i wonder why well he claimed they claimed it was a cost-cutting measure but we all the women all made a third of half of what

we weren't so it wasn't a cost-cutting measure it was some silly whim, you know, for whatever reason. And the fans got upset and they signed a petition. And my my agent did some fancy footwork and I was let go after I had think I had done. I had made a deal to finish out at 17 episodes of the year. And my co-star, AJ aj cook had been let go she was with a different agent who she has since left um uh who didn't do fancy footwork and you know uh so i i was fired and i was gone and um um i i uh i got i was really mad we were both really mad. We were both really mad. And it was because, you know, we did everything right.

And we were team players. We were early. We knew our lines. We did the work. We were there every day. We didn't, you know, leave earlier, show up late. Or we weren't rude. We weren't, you know, we didn't have lawsuits against us for sexual harassment like

we did everything right yeah and we're let go and our showrunner ultimately quit uh that year just saying the network's not even gonna let me have my own show i don't want to fucking be here anymore yeah so um but i do i was so angry for so long and I held onto it. You know, how, how Conan like held onto that rage of, and it just, it, it just, you're poisoning yourself. Like, but it's so hard to get through. And the only person I could like think of that had, that had felt that unfairness, like that, just a sledgehammer to your life and your sense of self

and you did everything you were supposed to do and it just it fucks you up and the only the only person i could think of was conan because i'd seen you know what what happened there and but i still couldn't get past my anger and i i feel like it took a couple of years before before I could move away from such resentment. Yeah. Did you and Conan have conversations about it? No, no, no. I just I witnessed and I felt like I understood his pain. Yeah. And I also started to see, oh, wait, I feel like he was maybe hurting too long. His hurting may be hurting him. You know what I mean? I felt like he was helping me to stop being so angry because I started to feel empathy. Like I always understood his anger,

but at a certain point, I felt like I was watching this person who I think is a lovely person, knowing him through you. Like, oh, I think he might, this might be, he's now in it so long, it's hurting,

he's hurting himself. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think, I mean, because believe me, he and I don't, we didn't have lots of conversations about this. But I think you're right, and I think it's something and I don't, we didn't have lots of conversations about this. But I think you're right.

And I think it's something that I observed too. And I think that he did, that he has done over time a good job of cleansing himself of it. He did. I think he did. Yeah. Stepping away from it. Because it is, you're both in a situation too. I mean, I obviously was closer to his, but you're both in a situation where it's really hard to complain to anyone else in the universe about this wrong that's been committed against you because you have a lot of money.

You're talking about a big TV show. I mean, in relative terms, you've got a lot of money compared to anybody else. You've been on TV. You still have lots of opportunities laid out before you but you're still a human being who got kicked in this crotch and who got fucked over and who got treated shitty and who again like you said did all the right things yeah what do you want me to do here you go i did it and then maybe a little bit more for extra credit. Oh, yeah. By the way, we're fucking you over anyway. That's I mean, that that hurts and then you can kind of, you know, you get reinforcement for that hurt by, you know, a lot and from a lot of different areas and a lot of people, you know, fans writing petitions and campaigns and things. So you feel like, well, I'm right to be this hurt.

And yeah, you are. But like at a certain point, who are you hurting? Like, you know, who's your grudge? I started hurting myself. Not me, not physically. I wasn't, you know, doing drugs or cutting or anything. But I was emotionally, it just was a toxicity in my system for too long. And I finally let it go just by letting it move through my body.

Almost like it's like an illness. I had an illness and I had some shitty symptoms for a couple of years. And then it moved through my system. I didn't go to therapy for it. I wasn't in therapy. I went and got other shows. I was on other shows. I did a year of community.

I did two years of another period. I did a year of grandfathered. I did other shows. Yeah. And then had gotten past my anger and had agreed to come back and guest star because they had asked me to come back. I just kept saying, no, that's how pissed I was. Yeah. And when I finally got through it four years later, they asked me if I would agree to guest star. They were saying, please come back to the show.

And I was like, no, you kicked me in the tit. And so finally, when I'd gotten past it, they said, well, will you guest star? And I was like, OK, but you got to pay me what you pay me. I'm like mad. And I'm going to cover up my tits yeah no more kicking don't you kick my tit and so so i agreed to come back and and guest star and i loved everybody there i was happy with everybody there that wasn't the problem it was like some unknown darth vader at cbs and i assume it's less moonves because it's easier to blame it on that guy in the same way that i was a show Les Moonves because it's easier to blame it on that guy.

Right, right. In the same way that I was a show killer for some show. It's easier to blame it on Padgett than maybe we picked the wrong director. I don't know. So I was guest starring and Thomas Gibson was let go for something that I wasn't a party to. And he had been the leader of the unit. His character was the leader of the behavioral analysis unit and in the crime eyes, the crime eyes. And so I was there that week and they were like, oh, God, what are we going to do?

We have to shoot ABC, let him go and get it. And so I basically sort of did his, you know, did his part for the episode to to to make it cohesive and then every the showrunner said now please come back please come back now because without him we're gonna have to get another series regular to do that job and right now your character is running um you know interpol Interpol in London. Yeah. It turns out I wasn't dead after getting that table leg through the spine when I was fired. What a way to fire somebody.

Yeah. So she said, please come back because if it's not you we are gonna have to hire someone else and everyone here is really very happy yeah and i the whole cast was saying the same thing please don't let them hire dick why can't it be you and i'd spent four years of people fans coming up to me in the supermarket and asking for hugs and saying why are you gone why did you leave yeah so that week when they presented it to me i was like why am i gone i i'm good at this part i love these people i love this show yeah you know it's not shakespeare but it makes people happy and it's fulfilling and it's like this is a good gig yeah and i do want my job back and so it was this you know it was a lot but it was all

even the bad parts were good um and it was was it healing like did you feel like they're saying yes yeah yes yes and coming back and did your representative say it's going to cost you though like that was there any of that like vindictive pricing on you oh no that was all me oh they they were um they were like oh this is a great price settle and i was like fuck you they need me more than i need them and we did actually get into a fight i'm no longer with that agent but i had to send her several thousand dollars worth of uh gift shoes because I yelled at her on the phone a lot in front of people. It was bad.

But I really was strident that I was not going to come back. I didn't need to come back. And I was only going to come back if I was paid not even as much as all of the men. Just you have to give me a raise. You have to pay me more than you were paying me before. Right. And this is what this is what the the the person who left was making and i know i'm not going to make that but i need to make more than what i did when you can but also why not why not make what he's making

like well that was never going to happen we still weren't there i know what still weren't i know but it's still it, it's outrageous. It's continuing outrage that everyone goes, well, of course you won't make what Thomas Gibson makes. It's like, why the fuck not? But I do understand the fact of the matter was he was there the whole time. And he did have an enormous value to that show. And he was great at that character. He was great as Hotch. So I understood.

I just didn't put in as much time. So no, I'm not. I get that. Right, right. But it was an extremely satisfying. And also, this is one of the last shows that pays royalty. I'm pointing to my TV like you know where my TV is. That pays residuals. So this

pandemic, we were still, you know, we were we were able to save money and pay our mortgage and pay our bills because we have royalties coming in. Yeah. Yeah. From criminal minds. That's great. You know, so, yeah, it was definitely something I was and I hope that it comes back. We've been talking to Paramount Plus about relaunching it as a streaming series doing 10 episodes a year and it sounds like we're getting close but part of the the problem with this show and the firings and everything was it's cbs and abc and mark gordon and there are a lot of entities so it's it's watered it's really hard it's not easy it's not abc for abc yeah Well, I've been I've kept you a long time. So we better move on to the what's next in the Padgett Brewster saga.

Like what is there something you're not doing that you want to do or, you know, is there criminal minds? What do you limited run series? Paramount? Well, I'm not signing that contract today. And I wish I were. So I would really signing that contract today. And I wish I were. So I would really like that. I would love for that to happen because we would all love to get back together. Yeah. We would love to do that show. But not I can't do 22 episodes of anything anymore.

I can do a multicam, but even multicams have changed. Yeah. I would be. I would be happy. Okay, in an ideal world, I would do a multicam with a live audience that I loved and thought was really funny and brilliant and exciting. But I don't know if those days will return because I don't know. I mean, with COVID protocols and with, it just seems like, I don't know,

that the possibility of that has been suspended. And maybe there's so many cooks in the kitchen now that I don't know if great sitcoms are coming. So that would be my dream. Criminal Minds, 10 episodes a year. That would be my dream. Otherwise I really love doing animation and narration and i want to be like

audible's number one voice for crime narration like i want to do docu-series and i loved that disney show doing that disney um the the show you saw behind the attraction, making the rides. I love it. And part of it is I'm 53. I don't want to stop drinking wine and eating cheese and lose weight and be in front of the camera. I don't want to dye my hair anymore. I don't want to put high heels on and try and hit my mark and find my life.

I've become, because I put in a lot of work and because I, you know, I did go, I went back to Criminal Minds and it's back into 15 hours a day, 16 hours a day. And I would love to do it again for 10 episodes, but I'm tired and I love doing voices and I work with so many people who do voices and they just want to act. Yeah. So I kind of feel like, get out of the way. Yeah. So I kind of feel like, get out of the way.

Yeah. I've saved money because I knew I was going to age out of this profession. But this voice thing, as long as no one kicks me in the throat. Yeah. Knock wood. Hopefully I can keep doing this because I find it extremely satisfying. Yeah. I love table reads for animation. I love, I will substitute for anyone in a table read

for animation i love it yeah yeah what about you me yeah oh gosh i don't know you know uh my life uh i mean work-wise right now in terms of like what I want, I want to work. I have, you know, I have struggled forever about like, I should be creating more things and then feeling like, nah, it's not really what I do. You know, I mean, I work better on assignment. I work better coming into a situation. It's not, I was an improviser, not a standup. I work better in groups. You know, most of my best writing has been, I've never touched the keyboard. There's been people sitting in a room and there's one, you know, there's like an intern typing in what we're all saying because we're bouncing things off each other

and being inspired by each other. I don't like loneliness. I don't like, you know, the notion of writing my own things sounds great. But then when I sit down to do it, I'm like, I don't know. I mean, what about the people, the friends, the laughs, you know? So work-wise, and I got, I'm also lucky enough to have irons and lots of fires. I have hosted game shows. I am now pursuing more. I've directed commercials, and I'm pursuing that again now that I have more time with the Conan show.

And I would love to parlay that into directing television because I'm absolutely assured of my ability to do it in a very competent way. You would. Yeah. Absolutely, you would. you would be great thank you part of making the conan show for all those years and one of the greatest gifts that he gave me was inviting me into the creative process of that show into the into being and i refer to myself sometimes in a grandiose way as the comedy consigliere. I was the guy that he would go, does this joke work? And I would say, yes. And then he'd go, okay.

Like, and it's, I would want the same thing if I were in his position. Because you can look at something and think, that's really funny. And then you turn to three people you respect and they go, no, it's not. And you go, oh, right. Okay. Sorry. You know, or you can go, all right. You know, there's the inverse that sucks. And everyone's like, what are you nuts? That's hilarious. Oh, okay. You know, everybody has a capacity to be wrong. So it's very helpful to have somebody that you have a kind of rock solid belief in that you can go, I I'm lost here. What do you think? Yes. Okay, good. Yes. No. All right. No, then fuck it. We're not going to do it. So he gave me the gift

of being able to make television. And I did it for thousands and thousands of hours. I fixed things on the fly, troubleshoot, troubleshooted things so i i would love to be able to direct television everybody says that though so it's like i'm not like out you know screaming it in the streets or anything but i also too i also i love acting i think you have the pedigree for it because because a lot of the actors on Criminal Minds directed episodes, direct episodes, and all of them did an incredible job. First time directing, they'd never directed it. They directed Criminal Minds.

They have a support system, and they have an understanding of the show, but it's the history. It's the observation of how everyone has behaved and succeeded and failed. And you have put in all the hours. And I am a victim of the same thing. You are that idea of and it's why you're so astonished with Chelsea Peretti. She created it. She's directing it.

She's this idea. Make your own content like everyone's yelling that at us all the time. Like make your own agents are like, can you make your own content? You know that I can commission, but I can i've tried i have written pilots i have written three pilots i have taken them out i have met with production companies and and managers and studios and i have worked with a screenwriting couple to create a movie and it doesn't it just doesn't it hasn't worked yeah if you're creating also no one wants new content no one wants any new content right now everything is intellectual property there is no here's a new show idea no one wants it no one will take a chance on it everything has to be

oh clifford the big red dog oh uh happy days oh uh? Oh, it has to be something that has made money in the past. So I hear the saying, make your own content, but I've tried and it doesn't, I'm not saying it wouldn't work for you. I'm saying it's a waste of your time. I think you should be pursuing directing because you would be extraordinary at it and you're able to talk to everyone and every department. You can answer questions that quickly. I have no desire to direct. The idea of 50 people coming at me with questions is that I'd rather bartend. No joke, no joke.

I'd rather bartend. It is a little daunting to me because I do enjoy the downtime that one enjoys as an actor. You don't get that as a director. You do not get that as a director and i just would have to get used to that but in the spaces when i have been a director and i just said space is like a fucking tool but you know in the in the times that i've been a director uh that you're not a tool i know i know you've never said anything to make you sound like a tool but anyway yeah but if i heard this i'd be like spaces who

are you what are you a yoga instructor uh in the times that i've directed i have truly enjoyed it and it's been exciting and there's like this kind of almost this feeling of beat the clock like you know we got 12 hours to do this thing and it's like then we're cutting coming down oh i gotta adjust something. Oh, you know what? Let's just collapse these two scenes together kind of stuff. And that's thrilling to me. I do love that.

So there's that. But also too, mostly for me, you know, in my future, it's mostly my personal life. You know, I recently got divorced and my kids are, you know, one's off into college. The other is going off to college soon. So there, there's a lot of blank slates in front of me that I just kind of, what's always worked for me in the past is just to be open and to, to be reactive and not, I've never, very rarely have I ever like forced something good into happening. I was there when it presented myself and I said, that sounds good. Let's do that.

You know, that's the same. That's the same thing I've done that you, that you, that you said earlier talking today, you were like, did you have a plan or did you just, and the answer is no, I just, I just went with the wind and I had it good. And I was like, super. I had a hunch. And that's because it's the same way I was.

It's the same way I always was. I didn't, you know, I sat next to kids in improv class that wanted to be on SNL. And I was, I don't have the temerity to think I'm going to be on SNL. You know, I just want to see what happens. This seems fun, you know. Yeah. Well, then we've been very fortunate because we didn't have a hope chest or um you know make a vision board or whatever uh we just were like i'd like to do

something that uh is interesting and i'm gonna learn something and if it pays me money that would be delightful right let's see what comes i still the number one thing I have uh and I I think I in I was inspired my aunt was you know like my when I was a kid she was like my superstar and I in eulogizing her uh I came up with the phrase she insisted on having fun and that's like wow that's kind of what i feel like you know that's i'm always going to try and fit that in there i'm always going to try and you know um jim burrows james burrows the director yeah he had i found his fun clause i was just thinking that he had the guy jim burrows james bur, the one of the best TV directors ever. And yeah, Big Bang Theory, two and a half man.

Cheers. He had a fun clause, which was and it was iron iron clad airtight. He said if I and he was the only arbiter of it. If I'm not having fun, I can walk out at any time. And he said, and take my crew and take my crew walk out and take my crew. If I am not having fun. And that's how his deals were structured to shoot pilots. He only, he said he only imposed it once.

Yep. You can probably you out there with, uh, with some time on your hands, you can probably you out there with uh with some time on your hands you could probably look up which show it was uh the one in which jim burrow has only worked for like half of the pilot um but anyhow yeah have fun that's the thing well you know what what's your what what you know the sort of like what you've learned like what do you what do you feel like is the kind of thing that you can share with people if they were to ask, like, what's the point of it all? Oh, you know, I was thinking about this because I knew what your podcast was. I'm too busy cooking and watching Top Chef to listen to one.

Forgive me. I love you. I love you. Honey, I listen to Howard Stern. That's my podcast. OK, great. You know what I mean? I don't I don't.

We like what we like. Yeah. The podcast world. I'm i'm an old man like you know like i'm milton burl on youtube you know it's it's like i it's not my thing so i enjoy doing it but you know uh so anyway go ahead but i was thinking about this what have you learned and i've been thinking about it and i i i all like all i can think of in in answering that what have you learned is i have i i i i have learned that anything i've learned my imparting it doesn't help anyone like everyone has to learn everything as they learn it. There's no way even for me to say, you know, gals, don't over pluck your eyebrows. You're going to over pluck your eyebrows and they're going to have to figure it out.

There's nothing anyone can say. The only things I could think of to tell you were were two tips that I really enjoy. And they're like like cleaning hacks. Like otherwise, I can't there's nothing i can say i can't say love yourself cut yourself some slack the things i've learned that have made my life better are all things that everybody has to learn on their own yeah and you're gonna fuck up you're gonna go to bed angry you're gonna say the wrong thing you're gonna you're everyone is going to do something stupid because it's what we are as an animal that's just an animal that we are we're smart enough to create these extraordinary things and love and music and and and selflessness

and we're you know capable of wretched cruelty and manipulation you know so we're all gonna fuck up and there's no nothing i can tell you that you can, except you sharpen scissors by cutting aluminum foil. Wow. Now, you also take the spots off your dishes in the dishwasher by crumpling up a ball of aluminum foil. So if you have aluminum foil, you can do two great things in one day. And I love those kitchen hacks. And that's the only thing I can think of. Hopefully someone will do that and be like, wow, this is great.

I've just sharpened my scissors and my dishes look better. And I learned that from Paget Brewster because everything else you have to learn on your own. You are so deep in the pocket of Reynolds Wrap. It's so obvious. Oh, I wish. how do i get them to sponsor me reynolds rap get at paget brewster you owe her money that just reynolds rap through the roof their sales who has said the thing that they learned that has that has stuck with you the most in your interviews boy is there something someone said that you're like,

Oh my God, you know what? That every week, just, just recently. I mean, there's been other ones, but it's like the,

there's been so many, uh, that it's like, and also quite frankly, like there's people that I think I'd like to have them on the podcast. And then I have to look up and see like, Oh, right.

They were here two years ago. Like, I just, that's just the nature of my of my like my oily brain things slide right out of it but um steve o from from jackass was just on and he said something that about um that the the words enthusiasm or the word and i'm gonna get it wrong go listen to that episode but he said that uh enthusiasm like that that those two words are like the roots are love and god like that somehow that in like that that there is enthusiasm is like, is like, if you love, you know, if you, if you put love out into the world, it's like, it's this, it's sort of the source, the God source. I'm saying, yeah, yeah. No, I understand what you're saying. That it is, that it is getting the most profoundly close to enlightenment probably it's what is our universe capable of if we if we can because we are capable of that we are capable

of of of of make a choice with love as the outcome and sometimes we're frail or angry or fearful or. But if you choose that, yeah, that would be as close to the evolution of our species as we can get. And that and that maybe, you know, maybe within that. I mean, I'm not a religious person, but sort of maybe in that like because enthusiasm, you just think of it as like, oh, being a cheerleader or going to a sports game and going rah rah. But it's like, no, it's, it is life force. It is saying yes to everything. It is saying like, I will actively participate. I will look for the best. I will, you know, try real hard to, to, to push away the shit and to look towards the light. And that's pretty great. You know, I mean, and it's and I mean, and of course, it's complicated by, you know, there being 60 seconds in every minute and, you know, life.

Yeah, but it's a simple idea. It's a clear idea and not a mantra, but something you can think of. Well, to enshrine enthusiasm as high as you would art or love or patriotism or bravery. And it's something for me who can be a bit of a downer. It's very meaningful. Golly, I don't think of you as a downer. Stick around. Stick around. Stick around. Listen, this has been so much fun.

It really has been. Thank you. It wasn't even a podcast. It was just a chance to talk to one of my favorite people. And I love you so much and I miss you. And I'm going to fix that soon now that the world's opening up. So, Padgett Brewster, thank you so much. And thank all of you out there for listening. to fix that soon now that the world's opening up. So, Padgett Brewster, thank you so much.

And thank all of you out there for listening. And I will be back next week. God willing. 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 Galitza 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.