The Watch - ‘Winning Time,’ ‘The Dropout,’ and Adam Scott on ‘Severance’

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Chris and Andy talk about ‘Winning Time,’ the new HBO series about the 1980s Lakers, and why it feels like a fandom-driven sports show (1:07). Then they talk about what makes ‘The Dropout’ work compared to other ripped-from-the-headlines shows (20:51) before they are joined by Adam Scott to talk about why ‘Severance’ is his dream project (36:36). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Adam Scott Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's popping, everybody? This is Logan Murdoch, and I'm here with my co-host for the Real Ones podcast on the Ringer NBA show, The Incomparable, the realist, the man who invented the pregame Red Bull Snow Cone. Raja Bell. Thank you, Logan. You're far too kind, sir. Did you know that the Ringer NBA show feed now has six podcasts a week? Six. Every Sunday, Big Was has a different guest from the NBA world on weekends with Was.

And you can find me and Rajah every Monday and Thursday on Real Ones where we cover all the most interesting. NBA storylines. On Tuesdays, Jay Kyle Mann and Jonathan Charks discuss up-income and talent in college basketball and the NBA. And on Wednesdays, you can hear Justin Barrier, Rob Mahoney, and Big Was discuss any and everything going on in the world of hoops. Man, and on Friday, Chris Ryan and Syrac so he asked the big questions on the answer. So head over to the Ringer NBA show's Spotify page and take a listen. There's so much to dive into. And while you're there, just go ahead and give us a follow too. about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis,

which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, guselcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reaction.

and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks.

Running connects us to a rush of energy that floors. flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there.

Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line with a whole new appreciation for Jerry West.

It's Andy Greenwald! That's true. That's both relevant and true. I love it. Oh, Andy, what a glorious Monday in the United States of America where we're talking about so much popular culture, a supersized episode of The Watch today where we're talking about winning time,

the new show on HBO, about the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s. We're talking about the dropout, the newest show on Hulu about Elizabeth Holmes and Thiernos. I kind of feel like she's doing a little bit of a Baltimore accident in that but we're going to get to that and then the second half of the episode

is dedicated to a supersized interview we did with Adam Scott the star of Severance and seems like he seems like he's been on this podcast before but he hasn't but we talked about Severance we talked about Party Down we talked about you two and REM

it was a really expansive conversation among men in their 40s so it's great to see you where do you want to start which we get into first. Well, I mean, this is so odd for us, Chris, because we have a veritable smorgasborg of just like relevant television content. I almost want to ask you what you had for dinner last night or what you had for breakfast today, but I won't. I'll resist. I'll resist it. I made lentil tacos last night.

What? Yeah. How can you throw me a curveball? I was setting up to be like, we're going to stick to the script. I made a run to the Studio City Farmer's Market and picked up some, uh, some, you know, blue corn tortillas and a really, really dope Serrano salsa that really has a kick. And I make a little like crema with that and like some sour cream. And then we do lentils, tortillas, like a little Serrano sour cream. The lentils, I imagine, you don't make them soupy or else they'd run

right out of the tortilla. No, they're like they're almost like a bean. Like it's like a bean in like that kind of situation. This is fascinating. But also, it is to me legitimately. I think Kay is dozed off. There is like a real Irish man makes

Mexican food once element. I know. You did just describe a hot sauce mixed with sour cream as kind of a crema. That's called

Columbusing. But what's the Irish? It's called Pied Pipering. It's the Irish version of Columbusing. I know. It's leprechaunting, yeah.

You're like, I was drawn to the Toronto because it was green and I felt comfortable. And then I thought I would add some dairy. Yeah. Maybe a potato?

Just an entire potato. Chris, I was going to go at you a little bit for this wonderful, like, just rustic, natural journeying you did. But then I realized yesterday was your 10-year anniversary of living in Los Angeles. What better way to celebrate that iconic milestone than going to a farmer's market in the valley and kind of mastering Mexican food? Lakers exceptionalism. Yes.

Yes. There's the segue. So let's get into this. So as a programming note, we're going to talk about winning time episode one today. And then on Thursday, we're going to run my interview with Max Pornstein. is the showrunner on the show. And we had a great chat about the making of the show and the pressure he felt, you know, he's actually worked on several Godzilla movies, but in a lot of ways, this is a different kind

of monster movie. Yeah, it's because it's got a lot of stakeholders, many of which have sort of, you know, distanced themselves publicly from the show itself, being the NBA, the bus family, etc. But this show comes from Max Bornstein. It comes from Jim Hect, who kind of optioned the, or was the original. sort of emissary to Jeff Pearlman to adapt this book, Jeff Perlman's Showtime book. And then, of course, it goes through the lens of Adam McKay, who directed the pilot. Jonah Hill actually directs the second episode.

But you've got a lot of very strong creative voices involved with the show. And then you've got one of the most stacked casts in recent television history, I have to say, in a lot of ways. So I was at The Lakers on Saturday night, and it was very amusing to see John see Riley and Quincy Isaiah sitting courtside in what was either guerrilla marketing or one of the great trolls I've ever seen. But having those guys at the game at the Lakers Warriors game was really funny. Let's start Broadstrokes, Eddie. What did you think of the episode? Well, I actually, before we go broad, I have to ask you, because I was not a part of your interview with Max. Did you ask him if you ever had a similar experience where like Godzilla refused to

participate in his research process? That's right. Because that piece of it is fascinating, right? where they're like, like, Mothra's, like, that's not how it went down. Like, I was actually... Some pending litigation about logo copyrights. Yeah, and so, like, all the monsters are making their own version of the story. Yeah. Where they're... Actually, this is...

There's something here. Okay, yes. So, as usual, I have kind of two takes about this, and there's the creative, and then there's the place that it has in the marketplace. Let's start with purely the creative. I went on a journey with this first step. episode, which I think probably everyone did because it is breathless and covers an enormous amount of ground. I started a little bit resistance to it and ended up being more or less

completely on board and excited for what's to come. I kind of relaxed into it and gave into it. I think that my initial hesitation came from the fact that it is extremely Adam McKay and especially late period Adam McKay, which where he is both, he is less comedian entertainer and more instructor in chief, right? And so there's a lot of it which like breaking the fourth wall, explaining what this means, explaining who I am, explaining that Larry Bird was popular because he was white by flashing the word white on the screen. It's very heavy-handed in its aesthetics from the beginning. But, and this is a tribute to everybody involved, and I think ultimately including McKay too, the more time you spend with it, and I'm being grandiose, I'm talking like

19 minutes spent with it, the more the absolute charisma and charm of these performers starts to come through and you're like, there is very little to be upset about here. This is very, very, very pleasurable. It's about a lot of great actors having a lot of fun with a great era that we kind of either remember or we just sort of have weird, vague sepia tone nostalgia that makes it a celebration. I think this show made me realize that I only now understand fandom. Okay, wow. I kind of talked a little bit about this with Max when you could hear us in our interview about it. But you know, you and I have chatted so much over the last few years about

all these franchise stories coming to life, some of which featured characters that we've been thinking about for most of our existence, doing things that we never thought we'd ever see them do before or again. And when those kinds of things happen,

you know, I think sometimes you and I go along for the ride and sometimes we're like, yeah, but are we sure it's good? You know? Oh, you mean like fictional characters? Yeah, when you see Luke and Baby Yoda doing something together. You're just like, I can't tell what this is doing

to my content receptors, you know? And I thought I understood that sensation. And then I saw this show. And I was like, I am almost completely unable to evaluate this critically because I'm so fucking excited

to watch what the story is. And it honestly could be like a single episode for every day of the like 1,200 days of Lakers franchise and I would just be like fine what did they do this day?

What minor like draft argument did Jerry West and Jerry Buss have today and how did Claire Rothman figure into it? And I just think that like watching these characters who in my mind I guess I almost even underrated what a huge NBA fan I was

because I was just like oh Jason Clark's playing Jerry West and John C. Riley is Jerry Buss and there's Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and I just like my mind kind of just like turned into into silly putty. You know what I mean? Like and even I have opinions about the aesthetics of it

and like the filmmaking style and the writing and everything like that. But ultimately what I think is that they have found the show that like was like a waiting to be made in this particular way where you were like what if we could do a no holds barred balls of the wall show about a professional sport that actually had the real people and had the

real names and the real events. And yeah, like, I don't think this is going to be a historical document. And I don't know necessarily whether or not, you know, they can manufacture enough inherent drama in the show. Although I have watched a few episodes and I would say I'm still very, very much locked in. But really what it is is like this feeling of watching this thing that I love so deeply come to life in a different way that I'm like completely. I'm like completely hooked, man. Yeah, I mean, we are marks for this content regardless. But I do think it is worth noting there are a couple small miracles that occur here,

and they're relevant in terms of the conversation we've been having over the last few weeks about real-life stories being brought to the screen, either as mini-series or as ongoing series, relevant to the conversation we're going to have momentarily about the dropout. And I think actually to circle back, it's probably why having someone with as strong and aesthetic footprint as Adam McKay was crucial here, because it does not feel like class. It does not feel like Wikipedia theater, partly because the characters are truly so big and broad and really were that it almost beggars belief, but also because it is having fun. And I think that there's something really essential there to keep note of. Like, this whole project

is joyful and exciting. And it clearly was for the people involved, too. That's important. We've gotten so far away from that, particularly in terms of our prestige hour-long dramas, that just to have a show that is enjoying itself this much feels like a break and makes you want to look forward to it and enjoy it. I think the other thing, though, is the casting of people, particularly John C. Riley at the top of the call sheet, who can play a cartoon and then make you feel for them, you know? He could play Popeye and you'd be like,

what's the deal? Why does he love spinach so much? You know, it's not just playing the notes of a swinging, you know, just a Nouveau rich guy who decided to, to buy a team, there's pathos to it. And somehow there's heart to it. And then you get to the next level of it. And I want to make sure that we shout them out. You said that Quincy Isaiah was at the game last night. Quincy Isaiah plays Magic Johnson. And, oh, and Solomon Hughes plays Kareem. This show doesn't work if you don't find these guys. And it is a huge credit to the casting director

and to everyone else involved. They found people who are not just plausible, but compelling as two of the most famous people, certainly for the sports world, if not the larger culture of the last 50 years, right? There's also like a amazing. I would also shout out Devon Nixon who's playing his father. Oh, yeah. He's playing Norm Nixon. And the moment that I'm actually referring to where I was kind of like, my soul is leaving

my body is a scene where Magic Johnson plays one-on-one against Norm Nixon at Donald Sterling's house. And I was like, this is like dudes walking into Moss, Moss Isley Spaceport for me. Like, I was like, this is actually like, I, I, I think. think that like I don't really know how to explain how that makes me feel in so much as like, well, this is why this is as good as X, Y or Z other show. It's just like, I didn't think I would ever get to see something like this. And so it becomes like a very powerful thing when it plays on an almost like childlike

or childlike kind of level of I just want to be in this world stuff that you almost can't see some of the stuff that maybe is flawed about it. But I personally like the thing. that are like a little bit broad about it, I think come from the show having to service two different constituency basis. So one is NBA freaks, you know, like Bill and House did a prestige TV podcast about it. Like obviously those guys are going to be looking at it from an eye not only of NBA fans, but people who grew up in that era. So you've got like, you know, people who will have like real solid opinions about Jack McKinney and Pat Riley and all these people

who we're going to see on the show. And then also, not to put too final point on it, but like the Casey Boys is of the world where Casey Boyce, the head of HBO, did an interview with a Hollywood reporter and he was like, I've seen five basketball games. And it's like, this show is still interesting to me,

even though I could care less about the NBA. So how do you make something that will appeal to people who might not be basketball fans while also not making actual basketball fans feel like they're watching an entry-level class? Well, I think the key is, and this is what's key to the show's success, and also what I think is most noteworthy about it, honestly, is what it opens up, what it unlocks for HBO going forward, is that the show is at once a, you know, and they clearly took the pain to take it seriously. McKay is a big basketball fan, and obviously, you know, as you said, it's based on a book by Jeff Pearlman. But the show is also entourage, right?

I mean, it also is absolute Los Angeles glamour, escapism porn. And there's no shame in that. That was a very successful strategy for HBO. And I look at this show, and particularly I look at the cast list. And we can, you know, you've named a couple people. But it is, if you go to the Wikipedia page, it is two columns deep, right? Like, we've mentioned a lot of the big names, but there's also bigger names that just kind of show up sometimes. Sally Field, yeah.

Sally Field, Jason Siegel. Jason Siegel has a billboard here in a. LA and Hyperion for his appearance as Paul Westhead, which doesn't happen, right, in the first episode. He's got a billboard. Lola Kirk, Tracy Lest, Julianne Nicholson, Julian Jacobs, Wood Harris. It just goes on and on and on. And I think back to when watching the show, all the stuff that went down when AT&T bought HBO.

And then they were announcing plans to develop a streaming service. And then there were those weird early demarcations between what was. HBO and what was HBO Max. And there was a whole different programming team in charge of launching HBO Max. And I would talk to people in the industry who were like, well, I had a pitch meeting at HBO and I had a pitch meeting at HBO Max and they're both interested. And they're like bidding against each other for similar projects. And the specter behind all of this was AT&T and John Stanke being like, we bought this company to compete with Netflix, the Netflix's of the world. So we're going have to ramp this up. Like, it's cute that you want it to be like this crown jewel

curation machine for Sunday nights, but like, we need more content. And since that happened, a lot of other things have happened. Discovery bought the whole thing and Casey consolidated power over both the streamer and the network, which probably makes a lot more sense going forward. But regardless, this to me is the show that unlocks the future of HBO. In that, it is HBO's version of a mass market popcorn show. They successfully HBOed. something that in lesser hands. Yes, not just the NBA, but like something that is massively popular

that is, you know, that there's a version of this show that exists on almost any other network. Remember when ESPN did like Bronx's burning, right? Or like a network could have taken a swing at this, a broadcast network. What makes it HBO is the Adam McKay footprint. It's the just absolute ridiculous

rolodex of stars that were like, yeah, sure, I'll do a couple days on that. And it's just a full court press, pardon the pun, of making this the absolute most version of it that it can be. And in so doing, maybe it's the best version too. But now going forward, oh, this is an HBO show, even though it feels like it's HBO Max or Hulu. But it's HBO now. And this has changed the conversation, right, for them. I think, in a way that is probably really strong for a brand that didn't really need the help because we've been talking about them nonstop for six months.

So you mentioned the filmmaking. It's become, ever since the show aired on Sunday and in a lot of the reviews I've read, there's been a lot of debate about the aesthetic of the way the show looks and feels. And obviously, it's, you know, it's employing multiple different film stocks. It sometimes switches to like Betamax or VHS style video camera shooting, especially in the opening scene with Magic Johnson finding out that he was HIV positive. You know, there's fourth wall breaking. There's text overlaid. There's inside jokes that would be, or references. that would be more of a 2022 perspective put on to an early 80s storyline. And I think that, you know, I can understand why some people might be turned off by it for

sure. It's definitely a lot and it kind of asks you to submit to the filmmaking, which I personally always enjoy when when filmmakers are very like dominant over the viewer, you know, not always, but I do, you know, with the exception of like some Snyder stuff. Like I tend to like very, uh, I believe you have said before on this microphone that you like to be dominated in a cinematic sense. I think that I would always rather see what somebody's POV is in their most unfiltered, unadulterated way. I have plenty of time for like the invisible direction of television shows. And I'm sure we're going to talk more about that going forward. But I liked that.

And I also think that the filmmaking in its own way needs to manufacture some story. Because ultimately, this is. a account of some pretty boring stuff. It's a lot of phone calls. It's a lot of backroom politicking. They haven't even started training camp yet in this first episode. You know, like they just draft magic. And so I don't think that there's like on a day to day hour to hour basis. This isn't the West Wing. You know what I mean? Like they have to like create some energy here and to borrow a phrase from another famous John C. Riley performance. It's like, I want to go fast, daddy.

Like, I want to create some, like, stuff happening in this show that maybe will compensate for the fact that you've essentially got not a lot of inherent drama in it. Right. They're manufacturing this stuff. Look, this is just a fault. I mean, I think it's the great point to make. And I think, again, this is the kind of HBOification of a genre that is, in all our other conversations, is starting to feel a little played out. It begins with the most interesting thing that's awaiting the characters in the future. you know, it is hemmed in absolutely by the nature of our shared reality.

Like, we know that they won a lot of championships and that it ended at a certain point. That puts a little bit of a, I thought it ended, but then I guess LeBron scored, what did he score, 56 the other night? So maybe it didn't end. And yet, all of the other things that are just bubbling and percolating and the energy and the caffeine, or maybe things stronger than caffeine energy that shot through the show carries it. And does it carry it, you know, indefinitely? Unclear. Like already this was, I guess, announced as a miniseries. Then it's like, well, no, maybe we can just keep this going or maybe we can

apply this formula to other sports and things. I mean, they're speculating that they could adapt the sequel, which was more about the Shaq Kobe era. Yeah. Yeah. And at this point, why not? And I think maybe, I mean, I, we should keep to the degree that we keep the conversation separate, we should. But I, there are interesting overlaps between this and the dropout, which I think, winning time aside is absolutely, to my taste, the best of this current spate of podcast ripped from the headlines. Sure. So let's get into the dropout then.

Stories. But it's still, you know, but has some clear limitations as well. So dropout has, I was about to say it has an interesting backstory. It also has the same backstory as many, many other shows that we've been talking about recently in that it is a, it tells a story of a real event, Elizabeth Holmes. Chris's favorite, favorite imitation to do. Perhaps not on Mike, but I'll let him decide what he wants to share. I just like doing Elizabeth Holmes talking about everyday stuff.

Yeah, right. Like, it's going to be really difficult to make a left across Olympic here. It just kills me. It's great stuff. So Elizabeth Holmes, billionaire genius disruptor who had a company called Theranos that was purportedly able to run hundreds of blood tests on a single drop of blood, thus democratizing the healthcare system. And the only problem was it completely didn't work and never did.

And there was a ABC News podcast called The Dropout that told the story relatively quickly, almost in real time because I think, you know, the early, the end of this story as shown on the screen is 2017. She's getting deposed, right? where she's being deposed. And but the show, it's so, and then, of course, you know, Hulu buys the rights of the podcast,

let's put it in development and let's make a show, which is not dissimilar to what happened with a New York magazine article that spawned inventing Anna. The other stories we have, whether on like Super Pump, the Uber show or the various we work shows that are in, that are in the pipeline. The Tiger King shows, plural.

What's fascinating to me about this show is it has a, is that when it was announced as a series, it was a pretty spicy meatball because it was sold to Hulu with two of the industry's best Liz's attached. Liz Maryweather, who created New Earl and was on this podcast at least once to talk about it twice, I think. And Liz Hannah, friend of the pod

who was on this show to talk about The Post and has worked on Mind Hunter and a bunch of other things as well. Interesting marriage between someone known for TV comedies and someone who had been writing either features or shows about serial killers. And Kate McKinnon was announced as the star. So immediately you're like, well, this is going to be a satire.

During the show's long gestation, Kate McKinnon drops out. Amanda Seafried, fresh off her Oscar nomination for Mank jumps in. And the show we are watching, and now I've watched two episodes for getting into the conversation about it. I think they put three up, right? This is not a comedy. There are moments of levity, but it is absolutely not a comedy. And I think, fascinatingly, it's all the better for it. So I would love to know the backstory of this.

But to me, it's an interesting case study in getting these things kind of right. And I guess I'm trying to figure out in real time as we talk about it, because you and I haven't talked about this show at all yet, as opposed to the other shows where we sort of do test podcasts about, you know, for hours, before we tell Kai, okay, we're ready. This is game-tested material. Is this just naturally a more interesting story? Because it's incredibly rich, both in terms of what it says about millennial.

Like, we all deserve a chance to be the very best culture, but also tech bro culture and how challenging it would be to be a woman following the script of the famous, like Steve Jobs, I'm going to drop out and create something worth a billion dollars out of my garage narrative? Is this story just incredibly fascinating on its own merits? or is it a combination of the story, the storytellers, and particularly Amanda Safreed, who I think is incredible in this.

I am a huge, huge, huge fan of her performance, and maybe that's the best place to start. I think the crucial thing is that it's a character study. So I was just talking with Joanna on the prestige pot about Super Pumpt,

which I have a lot of time for because I find it very entertaining and I like looking at Kyle Chandler wearing a Pixie's T-shirt. But it's ultimately, like Super Pumped is kind of more in the weeds of the three-card Monty game of financing and regulation breaking that went into the rise of Uber.

And I would imagine the fall of Kalanick by the time we get to the end of the season. And while some of that is in the dropout, while you can see the Elizabeth Holmes character kind of coming to terms with the catch-22 of, I need funding to do my research, but I can't do my, you know, but I can't sell this thing without, finishing my research. So it's like essentially the, the beast that she has to feed is sort of part of what creates the monster.

That being said, I find this just like this portrait of Holmes specifically as done by the creators and, and Safe Reed, like to be completely captivating. And I don't know, you know, when Amanda Save Free first walks in and she's like a high school student,

I was a little bit like, are they really going to try and pull this off, you know, like, and A, they do. B, once she gets to school, like to college and starts like finding her way through the world, it just becomes a completely harrowing and totally committed performance. And I find it to be a really interesting living in the gray area portrait of this person who wasn't altogether good and turned bad or wasn't always bad and found somebody to believe otherwise. It's like, was just a little bit off and turned that being just a little bit off into like a selling point until it was obviously a negative.

And I just watching her kind of find her way through this personality of this person who's obviously just like doesn't quite feel right in the world but can also put on like a human skin suit and and sort of interact with it is just amazing. Yeah, I think that, and again, this is just maybe, maybe this isn't even worth mentioning or exploring too much, but it remains a frustration to me that we have these shows that are in this right sandbox of some of the more fascinating trends or movements in American culture, not just pop culture over the last few years. Like, to your point, this idea of embracing and trying to understand and articulate people's behaviors or their personalities, you know, on a larger spectrum of, and I, use that word intentionally of how they perceive the world and interact with it. Well, at the same time, we're coming off of this insane bender of like 10 years where, of 20 years, or maybe 2,000 years, if you are a woman, of lionizing a certain kind of absolute attitude-based bravado, right? That like, Steve Jobs being like, no, I will bend history and then winning, right?

Or the Wolf of Wall Street type of like, you, my charisma is what matters. And we see this in this show early on too in the second episode where, despite having a machine that might even be getting worse, Theranos begins to succeed because Elizabeth Holmes finds her ability to bullshit bullshitters, you know, that she can go on a yacht with Larry Ellison, which is an incredible scene in the second episode, and succeed in that. And so when I say frustrated with that, it's because the nature of an eight-episode streaming miniseries based on facts doesn't really allow, I think, artists the full expression of communicating the significance of something. It's really just telling ultimately, and it can try to on the margins, but ultimately

it's just telling us a story that has a already established boundary. So I kind of wish, and I'm still waiting for like the great movie from this era, and maybe I've missed it. Maybe Sean Fennessee will come on and tell us about it or tell us the ones to look for coming forward. But that said, a phenomenal performance like Amanda Safreed really makes up for a lot of it. That scene I'm talking about in the second episode on the yacht hits all of the predicted notes of, you know, is pantomiming Larry Ellison. They're yelling about giving me the fucking money. But Safreid is so odd in her skin in that scene that we understand all the subtext that I'm dying to see. Yeah, the big scene for me was when she is dancing in her room at a poster of Steve Jobs.

That's so good. And it's like she's just trying to will her unarticulated dream into existence by almost like throwing like laser beams. from her hands at this poster of a guy. And she's just like, I just want this so badly. And it is a really beautiful portrait of that moment in your life when you feel like you've got everything is bursting out of you in your late teens and early 20s. And you just want somebody or something to acknowledge your importance

and give you a sense of purpose in your life. And it's just a perfect little encapsulation of that feeling that I think is very universal. And that's the thing is that I don't really, personally care that much about the Elizabeth Holmes story, nor do I care about the accuracy of winning time in relation to

this is what happened. This is Jerry West actually was like of two minds of whether to draft Magic Johnson. I want it to be interesting TV and everything else is secondary and that's the thing about the dropout is like you know, this is a possibly overcovered phenomenon now, but like this idea

of this person is, this character is really, really fascinating to me. I agree. And I think Michael Schoalter directed at least the first few episodes did a really good job, particularly in the opening episode of like Adam McKay in Winning Time, putting some style behind it, putting a stamp on it, giving us a sense through pacing and cutting of what this is going to feel like or what it ought to feel like. Also, phenomenal needle drops throughout. Why, Controlled by Yeas drops in the pilot, and I levitated just a little bit off of the earth. The wolf parade drop. That's great. It's great, too. But I love the point that you just made about the show. Having a. something quite insightful to say about a very particular youthful moment, but what it means in this world where everything feels possible because you can DM the people you want to be and you see their daily lives. And it's not, you know, I think we've talked about this, whether on the podcast or in other interviews or conversations with people, like growing up,

like we liked to read Entertainment Weekly Magazine, but I don't think we knew how people became writers for TV shows. That wasn't understandable, let alone there wasn't like a breadcrumb trail. And there's something that's so essential about youth where you want something more than you ever wanted anything in your life, but you don't have the perspective yet to realize that maybe you don't even know what you want. Like even now, if I ever talk to people who are graduating college and they want a career in media or they want to write for the screen, and they want the cheat code. I mean, that's natural. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't mean to embarrass people who feel that. I'm still waiting for you to tell me this. Yeah. Well, that's the chicken code.

And I have, as discussed, given you an email with all of my best marinerates and all of a sudden you're back making lentil tacos and we'll take this off air. But, like, you know, there actually is no answer to that because you may have written like nine spec scripts from your college dorm room, which is awesome. But it doesn't mean that anyone is going to make them at 22 or that they should, right? Like there's no, there's no, and Elizabeth Holmes didn't have a voice being like, maybe enjoy college or try to or maybe live a life before you commit yourself. In the show, she does. In the show, there are people who are just like, go break some hearts, like go get out of this thing, you know? But I think that that's the only thing that trips me up. And this is a show I'm into.

I'm going to watch the series. I'm very interested in it. And it's an enjoyable watch. And like with Winning Time, it's one of those things where like if it ever starts to drag, you just look down the cast list. and it's like Bill Irwin and Willie Macy and Laurie Metcalf and Stephen Fry hanging around and Alan Ruck is going to show up eventually. Michaela Watkins, an incredible job on the smaller parts too. Like this actor James Hiroyuki Lau plays Edmund Koo, who's an engineer,

just owns the second episode with just a really beautiful, noteworthy performance that elevates the thing entirely. But I keep bumping up, and I think this is just the nature of what TV is now, or this type of TV, around the limitation. of the historical record. Because, for example, in the first episode of the dropout, we meet Elizabeth, we get the sense of the momentum and who she is and Steve Jobs poster on the wall. And then she goes to a exchange program in China where she meets Neveen Andrews, who people

of course know and love Unlost, as one of the key players in the Elizabeth Holmes story, as Sunny Balwani, her sort of boyfriend slash, it gets complicated. But an older man who she meets on this exchange program. And then she goes to college. And there she meets Bill Irwin's professor who is, like, impressed by her and also has been burned by not investing in students in the past. In Yahoo, yeah. Like the Yahoo guys were his students at Stanford.

And this is accurate. This is what happened. And it leads to some interesting places. But there's a part of me that's like the Hollywood brain part that's like, these two older male characters are redundant. Like, there should be one who challenges her but also wants to invest and piggyback on her. And like, that would be clearer. And then we could be saying more emotionally in the storytelling, but we have to service

reality. And I think that's always going to be the, that's always going to be the bar for me that is hard to, to cross for these types of shows where they can be incredibly well done, incredibly entertaining, incredibly worthwhile. But they almost don't graduate to like high art because they are dragged down by the anchor of Wikipedia. The anchor of Wikipedia is where I always feel like we end these podcasts. these days.

It's true. Deep in the footnotes. Well, we can wrap it up there. We'll continue to talk about the dropout intermittently throughout the season. Like I said, we've got Max Pornstein on Thursday

and we'll do some other stuff on Thursday. But now let's get into our interview with Adam. Scott, do you think it's worth setting up and it's a pretty extensive interview? Yeah, no. I mean, we talked to Adam

about how he got into involved in the project, how Ben Stiller approached him about Severance. We, I guess, talk lightly about the show with spoilers through four. You and I have not

talked about episode four on the pod, maybe we'll get to it later in the week or next week. So I don't think it's particularly spoiler-heavy. It's a lot about Adam's process. Also not really spoilery about Party Down, other than the fact that he's making it again and is excited about it. Also not very spoilery about Eastbound and Down. Which was crucial to us. I feel like my voice got several pitches higher when I started talking about Eastbound

it down. Between Adam and Danny McBride, what do you think we're searching for when we talk about to these people who are responsible for some of the greatest comedic scenes of our adult lives, because I feel like we want them to be like, yes, Padawan, like, you were right? Or just like, would you like me to now do? I think we want them. Yeah, we're going to get, like, Barron holds on just to do Duchenko for like five minutes. I think that's doable.

But, no, but Adam was, Adam was great. Like, he's a listener of the podcast. It was great to have the chance to talk to him. And our severance coverage will go on. And this is sort of like bonus, because we don't really get into the episodes, but we talk about how they made it. And I found that really interesting. Okay, so Adam Scott coming up next.

Then we'll do Top Chef. We've got Max Bornstein. We'll do some other stuff on Thursday. Kai McMullen is our producer. We'll talk to you guys later in the week. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for, that's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need, fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply.

The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.

This episode is brought to you by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er.

Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash. Terms apply. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd, but too often, life gets busy. Or the price holds you back. Price line is here to help you make it happy. With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see the game live.

Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. I'm thrown for a loop because Chris, who usually does the introductions, has thrown to me on a punchy Monday, but I'm thrilled because this is exciting. This is long overdue, I feel. We are joined today by one of our favorite actors. You know him from many things, from Parks and Recreation to our personal favorite guest appearances on Eastbound and Down to now leading Apple TV's great new drama series, Severance.

Adam Scott, live from his closet, thank you for joining the watch. You guys, I'm such a huge fan of this show. This is weird, actually, being on it. You are incredibly kind of- In a good way. Thank you for happening. I'm thrilled to be here. Sorry.

It might get weirder. Adam, I feel like it's very rare error. there are only two people who have ever, we've ever been nervous about approaching publicly who then were very nice to us and at least pretend to know who we were. One was our frequent guest, Jason Mansuka, and the other one was you.

And we're still a little stunned that you've been listening. What do you mean approach publicly? Well, I feel like the time I saw you publicly. Oh, you mean an approach to be on the show? Yes. Yeah. No, but see, when we've seen each other out in the world, you know, at the high-flying Los Angeles events that all three of us had.

That's right. But also, I always kind of focus in on you, Andy, because you're one of the people I can talk to about, like, 80s college rock. Yes, which we have. There aren't a lot of them left. Yeah, that's a dying breed. Is it because we're dying? Are we aging out? And also that you guys were like, did you guys both work at Spin Magazine? Chris, I feel like you worked at Spin. Yeah, I was a writer for it, but Andy actually worked there. Yeah. Spin, I mean, there's Nothing cool. Like that was my fantasy, like alternative career was being a rock journalist or music journalist. It's just for, you know, Spin, Rolling Stone, especially like in the 80s, 90s and Rolling Stone. So you guys were like living out my dream. I got to tell you something, man, you made the

right choice. It really worked out better for you. Yeah, I guess Spin Magazine isn't really a thing anymore, is it? I think digital, it's still like a digital publication, but it's not, it's not, we're not getting hard copies anymore. Adam,

we want to talk to you about a bunch of different things, but we should probably do some severance stuff off the top. Sure. I wanted to ask, because Andy and I, when we were discussing the show in the last couple of weeks, we were, you know,

he had mentioned that Dan Erickson's scripts were like, the project. It was like something of like a kind of like, I guess a hot property. And it was that there was some, a lot of talk about like, oh, this is a really cool idea. When did you get involved? And were you brought into it knowing, like, this is like kind of like a very touted property

or a touted idea? Well, I first heard of it from Ben Stiller. He just called me, it was January 2017. He called and just kind of told me the elevator pitch, so to speak, of severance. You know, just a few sentences, just basically told me the hook of the, showed the basic idea of bifurcating your mind and your memories. And so he just sort of told me this early on, this sort of pitch of the thing. It just sort of stuck in my mind because it sounded, obviously it sounds cool and fun. And if Ben wanted to direct it, that would make it even better.

And then it was just, it was like a couple years later that it actually sort of came around and I was actually able to read anything. And my immediate reaction when I, when I was reading them, was this is something that I want, that I would want to watch. This is exactly the thing, that the stuff I like as an audience member. And the kind of thing that, that I would hope and dream to be in, but at that point, didn't really feel like I was being thought of for anything. like that, but it is precisely the sort of thing I had been trying to steer towards and sort of felt like if I am able to actually land this and nail down this job, it will be the thing that I've been spending my career thus far sort of earning, you know, getting to do

something like this. Is that because of just in terms of the position on the call sheet, or is it also related to the fact that, you know, in many ways up until now, your career, to a degree, has been slightly severed because I know that you, to coin a phrase, you know, are a very talented and skilled dramatic actor and got into the business working in that side of things and then have had this really fun and entertaining detour almost into comedy. although obviously there's always elements of both and every performance you give. Reading these scripts, I mean, which I had the opportunity to do, my takeaway was exactly yours. I can't wait to watch this and then be, how do you do both?

How do you walk this tightrope? And I wonder if that was one of the things that you responded to as well, just on a personal and professional level. Yeah, when Parks and Rec ended, I definitely wanted to try and find stuff that was in that other lane a little bit, just to sort of vary it up a bit and nothing against anyone who worked on hot tub time machine too.

But I felt that that was, you know, maybe not the direction I wanted to continue in. And that was a byproduct doing that. By the way, which was a blast. And I love those guys and Steve Pink. And, you know, great group of people. so much fun, but it was sort of a byproduct of this long road I'd been on where I felt like I couldn't stop. I didn't want to have a summer break where I was not working and not really thinking about, not really taking everything into consideration and just jumping at things that would keep me on the treadmill,

so to speak. And so after Parks ended, I thought, I should maybe pump the brakes a little bit and really, really consider what it was I was doing. And I wanted to try and find things that were a little more dramatic or whatever. And, you know, Big Little Eyes was certainly a detour in that direction. Sorry, Andy, I think your question was more like, why was this the thing that I felt was what I was kind of working towards this whole time or trying to earn? this whole time. Is that right? No, I think you got it. I mean, I just, and, you know, turning to the show itself,

one of the things that I love about it is the challenges that you and the other actors get to rise to, which is that you are basically playing two different people, you know, often in the same episode, and flexing and using different muscles and surprising combinations of muscles, you know, I mean, there's to go from the kind of, you know, the drop ceiling, fluorescent light inanity of some of the workplace stuff to an episode where you are then, you know, having to revisit the site of where your, uh, your wife, your late wife has died in an accident. I mean, it's asking a lot of you as a performer, which I feel like is, must be exciting and challenging. Yeah, that is, it was, um, it was hard. I mean, it was, it was

really fun and fulfilling, but, but, but, you know, it was a, it was a challenge and, you know, it took a while to make it. You know, as you can see, it's very deliberate and beautifully shot. And, you know, so it's all really composed. And so from an acting point of view, yeah, I think it was really important to us to Ben and Dan and I that the two different versions of Mark,

that it feel like one guy, that it feel like, because you know, you don't want to, as an actor, your instinct is to really kind of, um, lean in and like,

you know, I want this one of them to have a mustache and a fedora and the other, you know, uh, but this needed to feel like just different one guy, different parts of one guy, different halves almost, but the same person and they share,

physiologically they share emotions. They just don't know how to name or place the things they carry over to each other. But they do affect each other because they're sharing not only a body, but an entire menu of feelings. But they've had different experiences, which is one of the things that is fun to watch unfold. I mean, we'll be airing this interview after the fourth episode is up. And there's just a great moment when Mark sees his brother-in-law's book. When Mark, when Mark, Marks. Yeah. And it's like, this is fascinating. Yeah. This is really emotional and helpful. The thing you're saying, Adam, is really interesting because, like, it's not like

he goes to work and becomes Bob Hope. It's like, there is, like, a lightness to the any, you know, like, where you can tell he's left something in that elevator that that's right, hangs over him the entire time he's outside. And that's why, maybe it's why he's drinking and can't really, like, relate to other people the way he would want to be. But then when he's in the office, it's not like he's like the class clown or anything, there is elements of that stuff with PD.

It's like you just sort of have left something at the door. And that's a very, I wonder, you know, I always hear about like, well, what's actable about that. But like, how do you sort of translate emotional sort of ideas like that into performance? Yeah. That was sort of the challenge. And kind of what we sort of settled on is it was just sort of a matter of addition and subtraction, right? like, because also we were going back and forth sometimes in the same day. We shot the whole season at once.

So like a big movie. So you're jumping all over the place. And so it was important just to map out where, where, not just where we were as far as which any or Audi we were, we were shooting at any given time, but also where they were in the story, because they each have an arc and they're different arcs. and they respond to those things that happen to them differently. And also, you know, the iny is, for all intents and purposes, like two and a half years old. And then the Audi has 40 odd years of all the stuff that goes along with living a full life of sorrow and joy and everything.

So it was a matter of what to take away for the iny and what to take away. and what to add? What are the things that that one has that the Audi doesn't? You alluded, Adam, to the fact that this was a long process. You saw the scripts or heard about the idea. That's five years ago now already. I wonder what the experience was like for you as it began to ramp up towards production when the full weight of what Apple can bring to it and what Ben brings to it

and what all of the scripts brought to it, where suddenly it's an exciting project that Ben's going to direct, and then all of a sudden it's John Turturo and Patricia, Archette and Christopher Walken and you have how many days to shoot it and you're on location. And it's a beautiful composed production. And I wonder what that was like just walking onto those sets with these people around you to play with. Yeah, Jessica Lee Gagne, the DP. Genius.

Certainly. It's incredible. And she shot Dana Moore as well, which couldn't be more different and feels like it's occurring, you know, it's unfolding as you watch it in a completely different way. than Severance does. It was really kind of overwhelmed, the scale of it, you know, because I was here in Los Angeles

and we shot it in New York, so I've been talking to Ben. We were supposed to start in March, or April 2020, and obviously we're delayed. Yeah. Well, let's start at the beginning. So Rudy Gobert.

So it ended up being delayed six months And so, you know, he'd been sending me photos of the sets as they were being built, you know, everything. But then once you're there and you're actually, it's in front of you. And, you know, you walk in and see these hallways that they'd built, endless white hallways for us to walk down. They're all there on stage. And you actually have to walk through them to get to the office set, which is in the middle of this labyrinth. of white hallways, which they're always moving around depending on what we were shooting. So no joke, I would get lost like 80% of the time trying to get to the set.

Yeah, and just the sheer scale of it was overwhelming and the precision of it was overwhelming. And that all sort of folds into just Ben and how as a direct, he's someone that you can just trust 100% and sort of give over to what it is you're doing. Because usually, for me anyway, as an actor, I always have like a roaming third eye on my performance just kind of to protect myself and to just be a judge of whether something's working or not. Obviously, you're always doing that. But for this, I kind of, I kind of have felt like in order to really properly do this, I would need to kind of let go of that a bit. And with Ben, I felt 100% safe doing that because I trust his taste implicitly, but also know how

meticulous he is and nothing will get by him any moments that seem false or whatever, whether it be the acting or the sets or the cinematography, whatever, he has a 360-degree eye on absolutely everything. And so for me, it was such a relief that I could just let go and not worry about any of that stuff and just trust him. I did want to ask about Ben's direction because I think they're probably, and you know this far better than we do, many ways to be a good and successful director. I'm curious about how he's able to, at least on the day, in the moment, be both megalomaniacal and controlling of everything and aware of every detail while sculpting the larger product, the larger forest, but also be there with you as a tree and get the emotional

truth of it. I think that, you know, in the wrong hands, the project like this could have gone off the rails of whimsy or been suffocated by the conceit of it. And at least, you know, in the early going, what's been remarkable about it is that tightrope. You know, there are human beings trapped in the maze. That's right. It could have either gotten completely lost in the aesthetic and have no soul. Yes. Or the reverse.

And it just be a wall of emotion and you don't feel the world outside of that. Yeah. And yeah, he had it all locked in. And just from a point of view of the... actors, you know, he's obviously an actor and a really, really good one. And I'm one of the people urging him to get back to it. I think Brad's status. Have you guys seen the mic white? I just love that. I've seen it a few times. It's such a moving movie and performance. And he's, he's so, so great. And, you know, it's often what's great about having an actor direct. You know,

Ken Marino just directed a party down episode last week. And it's just lovely having an actor there, a director there that understands what the actors are going through and how to talk to them. But with this specifically, it was incredibly important that he be able to jump in there and say the right thing and not lean in to. he knew exactly how to handle and it was essential. So I was looking at going, like looking through your filmography Adam and it was, you've obviously been in some remarkable stuff, but I was wondering whether or not you've ever been in something

as visually exacting as this, where your performance needs to kind of geometrically line up with a composition and, you know, you hear all these stories about like Fincher shooting something and being like a whole take. take will go by and Fincher will come out towards an actor and then turn and move an ashtray two inches and be like, go again. And I was curious whether or not, what kind of impact that has on somebody like you, who I think has been in a lot of stuff where you're allowed to be very

naturalistic or maybe the camera's just going. Like loose. Yeah, yeah. And like I imagine you're like, no, man, you got to move the frame one centimeter farther to the left here, you know, like when you're holding the picture frames. Yeah. It's such a, such a good question because that was, When I got there, we were talking about the moment I kind of got to New York like a month. We started shooting the day after the election, by the way. And for the first week, when it looked like Trump was going to win, like, the night of the election, I was like, I have to get up at 4.30. I am going to bed. So I had a media blackout from going to bed that night till the morning they announced Biden won.

I finally decided, okay, fuck it. I'm going to watch CNN. Because I needed to focus on this fucking show, like I was about to dive into this thing and it had to just, I could not be distracted by the election and the fact that, I think particularly because it did not look good

when I went to bed and I just couldn't handle those five days if that was happening. I just didn't want to think about it. That's the focus I was trying to maintain. that first week. So anyway, I got there a month before we started shooting. And from the moment I walked in there and saw the scale of the sets and the precision of the pro, you know, he's bringing me through and showing me all of the lumen, the world of Lumen and how it's reflected in the props and the word.

Every, everything. I was like, oh, okay. And made a decision to just give myself over to that, give myself over to that, give myself over to. the precision of this world and the precision of making this show and having not really, as far as I can remember, having been a part of something like that before, I decided I am going to just, like I said, give over to it and kind of give myself over to Ben and what he wants to do here. because I love watching this shit.

I've just never been in one of something like this. Like, I love, my favorite thing in Social Network, which is one of my favorite movies the last several years, my favorite shot of the movie is the twins eating burgers in that famous burger place, right? And it's one shot. I don't think that scene is longer than 12 seconds long, right? but they have this place teeming with details.

There are people, there's movement. I mean, the work it took to get that shot, I could only imagine. And that level of detail is in every scene of that movie. And that's something I really appreciate is looking and seeing that there are people making stuff who still like care so much. That's something I do love about Ben is he just gives a shit so hard. Like he really cares and wants things to be great. That's so funny that you mentioned that social network scene. I was just watching that.

And then right after that was on cable, I was watching the untouchables, the De Palma Capone movie. And at the end of that movie, when Capone gets found guilty, there's like this operatic. Spoiler, by the way. Sorry about that. Dolly shot. of the courtroom where like everything chaos is just like gone off because like and you can see that every single extra in the courtroom has a job like they're not just like yelling olives olives they're like they're like I'm the reporter I'm this person I'm that person and they're all

like doing something different and it you see this one shot and you're like holy shit man brian de palma like you're really good at this yeah and this was just a whole new world and when it was hard, I appreciated it because I was like, this should be hard. This is, this is crazy that what we're trying to pull off. This is a big swing. It should be challenging. And I kind of really reveled in that and appreciated that. So between parks and party down, you are not just a veteran of, you are one of the key players in two of the all-time great ensemble hang shows of certainly of this century, and it just had so much chemistry and it's such a pleasure to be with and to be around. And I'm wondering how those experiences and skills were maybe brought to bear with

specifically the MDR group. Because in the midst of this large canvas that Ben is painting, you, for in particular, you, Britt Lauer, John Turturro and Zach Cherry, have to perform, you know, like you're a basketball team that can move the ball around. You have to have your own rhythms and your own experiences and bring your own thing to make it sing. And I wondered what that was like on the smaller scale while making this show. By the way, just to answer a kind of part

of your earlier question about like what was it like walking into this large world. Early on after I got the job and Ben was like, so we're thinking about figuring out the rest of the cast and I was like oh, for Irving, I have an idea.

I saw someone that's a guest spot on billions. I thought they were really good. And he was like, yeah, yeah, no, that's a good,

that's a great idea. I'll, I'll check them out. I was thinking John Totoro, and was like, okay, why don't you go ahead

and cast the show? Just the scale I'm thinking on is just not the same. Sorry, but then it's Turturo doing something we've never seen him do before

and seem to be loving it and the energy that he brings, you know, like you walk out of the bathroom and he comes around the corner. Yeah. It's electric. But the question was more specifically about the four of you building your relationship and chemistry within the larger controlled visual universe of severance.

Right. Yeah. I think that was part of Ben's thinking was the kind of workplace comedy vibe is a fun way into this world. And I think me having been a part of it in a couple of shows sort of, sort of, helped with that kind of the forming of that vibe for him. And I think it is, it's a, it's a kind of a comfortable place for the audience to sort of enter the world. And then let that kind of percolate a little bit.

And then you start kind of feeling something a little more sinister lurking underneath it and something a little unsettling and weird. and then kind of sort of an entree into the world. And so as far as the four of us sort of finding that rhythm together, it did take a couple days because it's not a loose improvy show. It just isn't. Every word is so important and is there for a reason. So it was a matter of finding that feeling and that rhythm together. without going off on little, you know, tangents and runs and bits on camera anyway.

It's not, there's nothing particularly meta about the show, but I do get a kick out of the fact that both, you know, you're aware of this and Ben is clearly aware of this too, the effect it would have on the audience to have you as a performer who has now, as I was referring to, twice been America's most popular coworker showing Hellie how to do this absolutely terrifying, mindless numbers crunching. You know, you have a tone in your voice and a smile on your face where I was like, I've watched TV for a decade. I'd love to work with this guy. So what if the numbers are a little scary? What he's saying makes absolutely no sense. No. I was curious, you know, you mentioned Terturo, Adam, and I would imagine that you probably don't get very starstruck very often, but I would imagine it would be pretty hard not to be around Christopher Walker and John Tarturo. And at what point do you just like say,

You were in the fucking deer hunter, man. Yeah. What's up for that? Yeah. With Totoro, it was, I waited a while. I waited until I felt like we were friendly and I could maybe even friends. You know, I mean, we were making the show for nine, ten months. So I waited a while before I told him, you know, I went to see Mac opening night in 1992.

I did his scene in the in the walk-in freezer and do the right thing in acting class in high school. And, you know, he's just, he's, he is one of our great actors and has been for a long time and is just still so curious and dedicated to, to his work. He's, and just a lovely, lovely guy. So, yeah, it took a while. And as far as walking goes, I don't think I would ever get to be comfortable around Christopher Walkin. He's, you know, and such a sweet. You know, actually my first day working with John Totoro and Christopher Walkin, the night before, I was so excited that tomorrow morning I'm working with John Totoro and Christopher Walkin. And I had worked with John maybe one or two days.

It was like six weeks into the shoot. And I'd seen him. But this was actual where Anne Wawken was going to be there. And I even took a photo of the call sheet and sent it to a friend. I'm like, guess what I'm doing tomorrow? But I was so fucking excited that I couldn't get to sleep. Finally, like I was getting picked up at like, I don't know, 540, let's say, something like that in the morning. and finally got to sleep at like two

just because I couldn't sleep. Sick. So I'm getting picked up at 5.40. I wake up to pounding on my door at 7.30, right? Oh, no. The stage is 45 minutes away. I'm very, I'm late enough that they had time to send someone down. Yeah, exactly.

And I was running around my apartment, just grabbing stuff to get ready. crying. I was so horrified. Oh, it's the worst. Oh, my God. It is, you want to disappear. So I got there and had to approach them. And I mean, there could not be a worse way to start. So on top of everything else, I now had to earn back some sort of respect with,

they were both very, very kind about it. And, you know, it ends up happening to everyone. But for the rest of the shoot, I had like, three alarm clocks next to my bed. Adam, we don't usually do this on the show, but we have John Triturot here to confirm whether or not your best friend. He's been listening. We're going to have him.

There's plenty more to ask about severance, but there's obviously a lot of mystery still to come and episodes to come. So I did want to take a little bit of the time you've been generous with to ask about some other long gestating projects, including the one we've been referring to, which is party down, which one of the great show. of the 21st century. Thanks. As you said recently on TV,

perhaps a little more popular now than when it was on stars the first time. Oh, my goodness. Just a smidge. Your very first answer, you were talking about how Ben Stiller called you about a cool project five full calendar years ago. And I feel like this is just a part of working in Hollywood.

You hear something. You get excited, but you can't get too excited because there's always something else in front of you. What has it been like living with the specter of potentially, maybe someday, one day, doing more episodes of Party Down for a decade. In the fact that it is actually now happening, you must still be a little bit incredulous. Yeah, it's really weird.

I mean, I think when you came to the park set, Andy, like, what was that, 2011? 2012. It was like January. It was March 2012. So that was 10 years ago. I think we talked about it then. I mean, at least the Party Down movie, which was a real thing for a while that I was asked about in every interview was this phantom party down movie.

And it was kind of in its beginning stages for a while. But then petered out, and I think it's probably good that it petered out ultimately because I think part of what's great about the show is the genius of the idea that the guys had, which is one party per episode. And so a movie would break up that structure and you'd have to come up with a, you know, three act arc. And, you know, I guess you could put three parties together, but there would still have to be some. Anyway, doing more episodes is the way to go, I think. And yeah, we would kind of email about it every couple of years for the last 12 years.

And I guess it was pre-pand- or maybe done. during, I think it was during the pandemic, Rob and Dan and John Enbaum and Rudd and I just started sort of emailing back and forth, like maybe, yeah, because there was this Vulture thing in, like, 2018, where the cast was there and everyone on stage said if it came back around, they were in. And so I think that kind of inspired John to get thinking on ideas. And then during the pandemic, we kind of got serious about it, and stars got serious about it. And all just sort of came together. As far as working out everyone's schedule, it was just a miracle that we were able to work out as many as we did.

So I know that you're filming now that's in production. It's a real thing. And can I give you, you may have heard it on the podcast, but can I give you my Zag, my take on this? Because I know there was some concern when it was announced that almost everyone's involved. and Lizzie due to scheduling was not able to come back. Yeah. My take, and you can, you don't, we don't want spoilers. I just want your, you know, maybe almost as a fan yourself.

Understood. I would love to see Lizzie back in the show. I'd love to see you guys back together. You were wonderful together. But kind of for a show that it is about disappointment on a kind of granular level, I think it's kind of exciting that your character, I mean, it's not going to be like a tidy, necessarily, as far as I know, a tidy romantic conclusion.

There's not like one true pairing kind of thing, which I think makes sense for what the show was. So I know this is heresy. I'm kind of more excited about the opening up of what it could be. What do you think about this? I think that if you're looking for examples of disappointment and letdowns, you won't be disappointed by the new season of Party Down. Put that on the poster.

Disappointments and letdowns. Welcome to Party Down. And you wonder why the ratings were what they were the first time. No, we're good. That's right. This is what we want. Speaking of disappointment, are you personally disappointed that over the last 10 years,

as everybody asks you about Party Down, not enough people ask you about whether we're going to get a Pat Anderson spin off from Eastbound and Down? Oh, man, Pat Anderson, I'm going to die. What a king. I was just doing something resilient. I saw that scene. I had not seen it for years. where I'm sitting,

it's not the scene where we talk about the Jonas brothers, it's one where I'm sitting with Jody Hill at rehab. Yeah. And I tell him, I want to apologize

for sleeping with his wife, but I get the name wrong and it turns out it's his, it's his sister. Is that what it is? Is that what it is the other wife? And it turns out it's his wife. That's right.

And his sister watched. Yeah. I was actually, It was funny because we just talked to Danny McBride for Righteous Jumpstones. Oh, cool. Going down a YouTube rabbit hole of Eastbound clips because of it. And I came across an outtake of you guys. It's you, Danny, and Matthew McConaughey.

And McConaughey is doing like warmups. Like it's in between takes. And he's doing like, hip, here, huh, here. And you are just, you're fucking so straight face. I just don't even know how you did it. Or maybe you were just in the zone. and you were like, Pat has my undivided attention as an actor. But like, meanwhile, McConaughey's like looking at a business card and just going,

Hamida, howma, hama. Was that like a common thing for McConaughey? I don't know. But were Danny and I kind of looking at each other? A little bit, but you were like, you were like, in and out of like breaking, but you were like, I'm waiting for the, like, we're about to roll. Like, let's go. Yeah.

I was like, I was not going to. make him feel weird about doing his thing. I was, but I was also like, whoa, this is amazing. Because Danny and I would glance at each other every, when he was, because he did, you know, just doing that before. Everyone has their thing. And I sure totally respect it. You should see me before the pot.

But there was also this feeling, because this is pre-Dallas Biers Club, McConaughey, it was in this period when he had become sort of this. this figure like this like almost brando-ish like he walked on the set and everyone was just like holy shit it is matthew mcanaughey i know they would do that now but it was different than it was pre-oskre pre kind of new phase um it was where he was like a mingo era right yeah yes it was more like bongos and and um he was allergic to shirts there you go no shirts bongos he was like this mythic figure He was like a Jeff Bridges and Lubowski type figure. Anyway, like he had mystical powers or something.

So it was incredible doing that. I couldn't believe I was in Puerto Rico with Matthew McConaughey and Danny McBride at a baseball stadium. Which, by the way, that sounds like the greatest long weekend ever, regardless of whether there were cameras. That sounds pretty good. It was crazy. really fun. So now's the time I think that at least two of the three of us have been looking forward to the most, which is we have to talk a little bit, we have to talk Al Rock a little bit on the podcast. We have to claim our minds. Don't excise me from this narrative, man.

Let me and Adam have this. No, this is why Chris and I are two out of the three. No, this is, this is why Chris and I are friends. This is a very safe space. We should preface this by saying that you and Scott Ackerman hosted your own podcast pretty much on this topic. Are you talking to REM re-me, which is available to be listened to. But so for people who haven't listened to it yet, I'm going to start with a big question. And then we could trickle down a little bit. This has come up in dribs and drabs whenever we talk about music, which is either too much or not enough, depending on literally which listener you're speaking to.

Has there ever been a bigger, better, and more important band in rock history than REM who seems to have left such a small cultural footprint and what happened? I know you guys have talked about this a little bit. And I know you think about it. But do you have a particular take on why this is? Because it boggles the mind. When Chris and I met 25 years ago, everyone had an opinion about R.E.M. They were one of the biggest bands in the world.

And now you don't hear them in contemporary music in a way that is disappointing. Yeah. They were the biggest band in the world for probably two, three years there. Like from out of time through Monster, like, holy shit, they were huge. Yeah, it's interesting because you say cultural footprint and you think about the hits they've had and the term, the end of blah, blah, blah, as we know it, you see it in newspaper headlines. Shiny, happy, whatever is still thrown out there in infinite ways as just sort of a phrase that we all know. and it's kind of gone on to mean different things. So that sort of footprint,

they're kind of in, they're sort of just kind of permanently tattooed on culture in a certain way. But as far as being revered like the Rolling Stones or one of these other kind of giant bands. Right. From the past, you're right. There's some weird slipperiness with R. E.M. where they've sort of, and maybe it's because the post Bill Berry years weren't as popular as, as the other ones, or as, as culturally paid attention to as the pre-years? What's your take on it? I think they also just didn't play ball. I mean, they didn't, they, if they had kept doing reunion tours or playing stadiums or whatever, that would, that would be a different thing. That could have been successful in that way. They didn't want to do it. And I,

I find one of the strangest cultural divides to try to communicate from either side of was just how important they were probably tall three of us in a way of being like, oh, this is a band that is small that's just for me. Oh, now they're for everybody. Oh, and they're still great and decent and admirable and what that meant for us as fans of things to watch that trajectory, you know. That's right. In a time when selling out was terrible or bad,

but somehow they kept integrity and kept making good music. and what that felt like. It felt like an inclusive rocket chip to be on when suddenly, because I became a fan around Green and then just in time for everything else. Yeah. It was fun being a huge fan of the biggest band in the world. Like that was since I wasn't, you know, a fan of like reckoning instead because I was just a little kid.

Once I kind of became a teenager and tuned into them around. one I love. It was fun like seeing the world kind of really go after and pay attention to this band. And then I found myself in the post Bill Berry years trying to sell everyone on

REM as if they were some new unknown band like no up is incredible. You have to listen to and I think their last two albums were really great too so I feel like they collapsed. And they ended.

yeah yeah it really is but look at chris right now chris had chronic town in kindergarten i was not i was going to say i was going to tell you guys that i i often will like when i'm getting into a new band go to like their spotify page and at the bottom they'll have like playlist that they've curated you know like playlist that they've put together and i have noticed anecdotally a new adventures and high-fi revival coming our way just like that popping up in a lot of like newer bands being like this is what we were listening to in the studio or whatever. And I was like, it's, it's here. I feel it. It's out there. I feel it could happen, maybe. But Chris, you have a theory about that. Sorry, go. No, a theory is better than me

making fun of Chris. Well, save it because I want to hear it. I feel like if they released ElectroLite as the first single on that record, it would have been a completely different reception. Yes. Rather than Ebo the letter. The crowd pleasing Ebo the letter. The Patty Smith, Black and White. Yeah, right. Yeah, it sort of makes sense because they just, it's a complete change up from Monster, which makes sense. But electrolyte is just like such a bull's eye. It would have gotten radio play and stuff. It just sort of, I feel like that was just the bumpy start that kind of inevitably that album was going to be underappreciated. Yeah.

But also, isn't that our 2020's brain? Because at the time, you know, it was just like, and look at these motherfuckers. they won't play ball. Like, they just had the biggest records in the world, and now they're bringing Patty Smith out for a dirge. It's like, that would have been, like, releasing night swimming or something. You know what I mean? Like, it was just such like a beautiful poppy.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I wasn't really going to drag Chris, but I did feel like it was worth noting, and I wondered where you fell on the spectrum at him. Like, Chris, wasn't you two more of your gateway drug for the Alt Rock Nation than REM? Well, I kind of got into REM weirdly through the reverse stream of getting into pavement and finding out that pavement was obsessed with REM.

So that. That's how I kind of went back to early R.A.M. But in terms of like, I think just because of my age or whatever, but like, yeah, bad in Joshua Tree and then Octung Bribby were the ones that, yeah. My high school best friend, well, best friends in kindergarten and I were both REM obsessives. And we made our moms take us on a spring break trip to Athens, Georgia, from Philadelphia. The year out of time came out. And still the most starstruck I've ever been was we went to like the tourist office.

and we found out the woman there was Bertus Downs' mother. And Burdice Downs was the band's lawyer at the time. And so this is the level of dorkiness. Yes, exactly. You know Michael Stipe's attorney? I mean, that's a different level of... I have Bertus Downs business card right over there. Just in case?

Yeah, you never know, guys. When we interviewed Michael Stipe and Mike Mills, we all went out to dinner afterwards and Burdus Downes. was there and he gave me his business card and I was just like, you have no idea when I was 19, having your business card would have been dangerous. So you had a Chris Farley moment, like Chris Farley interview moment. You've broken bread with Mike and Michael of the band. What was, if you're comfortable sharing it?

What was the dorkiest thing that you couldn't help yourself from saying? Oh, man, it was, you know, we also, before REM, we had the same podcast about you too and ended up interviewing the whole band. And I've never listened to that interview because it's got a, I know it's embarrassing all my questions. That's like Pat Anderson footage for you. It's just like, you can't, you can't look at it. Yeah, it's problematic. So, yeah, so we did the interview and and then afterwards went out to dinner and I think Michael Stipe really kind of knew the level of fan I was because we all walked in to the restaurant and there's a big table and there's that moment of okay, where's everyone going to sit,

that little lull before someone just goes for it and scoots in. Are we breaking up the couples or not? Yeah, what's going on here? And Michael just said, there was that lull, and then he just turned to me, he goes, Adam, how about you sit in between me and Mike? And I was like, so got to be the middle.

Sure. Curb your enthusiasm. Yeah. I'll sit between you guys. And so we were on like a, it was a, like a booth. So I was in between the two of them. and just ask them whatever I wanted. And it was, it was, it was great.

Tried not to be too much of a, of an idiot. But it was really, really fun. They're really, you know, as you, as we've all gleaned over the years, they're lovely, good guys. It's just a different, you learn, I guess you sort of appreciate this more as, as you get older, that people are just wired differently and want different things out of their careers and their talent.

And they didn't want to write, the music for a Spider-Man musical, you know? And there's no dig at Bono and Edge for doing that. They always want to keep doing the next biggest thing. And it's okay to say, no, we did the things we wanted to do. They just stopped. And I believe them when they say they're never going to reunite. I still keep doing it.

You think it'll happen? You don't think it only like an acoustic performance for like a charity at some point. Like I think that'll happen, right? I think they have done it for a wedding, like a wedding of a, friend or something. In a wedding. Yeah. But it wasn't reported or anything.

So what you're saying is we all need to get divorced and remarried. Let's get married. Somehow we can get married right now. Yeah. Adam, man. Thank you so much for spending so much time with us. You've been so generous with your time. Oh, you guys, I really love the show.

You guys have such great taste. And like Northwater and Station 11, these are shows that I discovered because of you guys, I just love the show. And so keep up the great work. Thank you so much, man. Chris, this is your audience. You got someone to watch the Northwater. The Northwater is great.

Yeah, it's so criminally underappreciated. Like why Colin Farrell didn't get every award. I mean, that is a performance, man. It's great. Well, I was going to make a polar bear joke, but then I realized, unlike Chris Burling the Untouchables, I'm not going to do it. So I'll leave it at that.

Adam thing. Come on again sooner next time. Oh yeah, absolutely. Anytime, guys.