Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Billy Eichner

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Ted Danson is chuffed to sit down with his new pal Billy Eichner. Billy talks to Ted about how his parents let him have a gay-coded bar mitzvah, getting fan mail for his film “Bros,” how being Billy on the Street didn’t come naturally to him, being mentored by Joan Rivers, why working hard is overrated, and more. Billy also shares about a 1989 film starring Ted that meant a lot to his family. This episode was recorded in 2023. To help those affected by the Southern California wildfires, make a donation to World Central Kitchen today. Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes. 

Before you came, I was sitting outside and always trying to talk myself out of, don't make this about you, this is about the guest. Please, who are you talking to? The king of making it about me. Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Billy Eichner is one of my favorite kinds of comic actors. He can go headlong into an outrageous character, whether he's playing Billy on the street or Craig on parks and recreation.

Billy also is a very intelligent man, full of empathy, who's done a lot of thinking about what it means to be a creative soul in this world. I appreciated this opportunity to see that side of him. Let's meet him now. Billy Eichmann. One of the things I did was, like I said, I devoured as much as I could of Billy on the Street, Parks and Rec, and I watched Bros twice.

Oh, wow. And I have to say, you are a really, really wonderful actor. Thank you. I really enjoyed it. I'm so glad I did this. I'm so glad I came here today. Okay, your turn. Have you seen any of my work?

Actually, I certainly have, but we'll get to that in a minute. On your podcast. But I did. I watched it at first and I think probably at first I was like, oh, slightly jarred and delighted and then I went back and the second time, because I'd just seen it, I was just amazed at watching you. And that last, I'm a sucker for the love story, right? So that last scene in the museum was just brilliant.

The speech, the song, all of it was really, really lovely. Wow. Thank you so much. I'm very proud of that movie and I really appreciate you watching it and having that reaction. It means a lot to me. Thank you.

Do people write in to you a lot? I have, yeah. And movies have this strange shelf life now because of streaming. And I think a lot of people have found it on streaming, not exclusively gay men who it's ultimately about, but a lot of gay men. And I've gotten so many messages from people,

they come up to me too in person sometimes and also write to me privately online and you don't always get a chance to respond to everyone. You don't always get a chance to respond to everyone you want to. Some of these messages are extremely moving. Right. You know? And that movie is ultimately about a certain generation of gay men around my age.

I mean, one hopes that everyone can relate to it. It's for everyone, but you know, it is about these two middle-aged men falling in love really for the first time. They've been out their whole lives, but that's different than falling in love for the first time and kind of unraveling all of our, someone described it as elder millennial gay anxieties.

Wait, I love that. And I thought that was so brilliant. I was like, wow, I wish I thought of that. Wait, say that again, elder. Elder millennial, meaning older millennial gay men's anxieties and unpacking all of that and how those get in our way when it comes to relationships and love and sex and all of it. And so I think, you know, I think it affected and affects hopefully everyone.

You know, it is a window into our lives, especially for people who don't know much about what it's really like on the day to day. A date is a gay man of a certain age, but especially gay men. And they've written to me and just sometimes have really poured their hearts out in ways that I could never have expected from just writing a romantic comedy. But because we don't have a ton of films like that, They're out there, but we haven't had a ton of them over the years. And we don't get a ton of films and TV series that really, in a very specific way, tackle what it is to be a gay adult. We have a lot of, we have a lot more content now about what it's like to be a queer, LGBTQ,

teenager, 20, teenager, 20-something, and that's amazing. We never had that when I was a kid. That is truly remarkable. Those shows are doing wonderful things for the world. But I'm not a teenager. I started writing Bros with Nick Stoller when I was in my late 30s. And Luke, who plays opposite me in the movie,

who didn't write it. Luke's also really, really good. He is so good at it, Luke McFarland. And he's also a 44 year old gay man. So, you know, and we talked a lot about our experiences and, you know, how things that happen to you as a teenager or even in your 20s or 30s, how those things get ingrained in you and can ultimately become a real barrier to being open or vulnerable

or in love. Like what? What do you mean? Like incidents? It's not necessarily an incident. In my generation of gay men, and by the way, I need to preface this by saying I can't speak for all gay people, which is a tricky thing about doing gay content sometimes because you don't get a lot of it. And so it has to somehow speak to every single member of the LGBTQ community, which is an impossible thing. I can only speak to my own

experience and those of my friends and people that I've observed over the years. My experience with being gay, I grew up in New York City. I was very lucky. I had very liberal, gay-friendly parents. It wasn't a huge issue for me to come out. It wasn't a total non-issue, but it wasn't traumatizing in any way. I had unbelievable parents and a huge support system and a lot

of exposure to gay culture just growing up in New York City that you wouldn't otherwise get, especially pre-internet, because I didn't grow up with the internet. So I didn't have an issue being gay so much as at that point in time in those years, we really put masculinity on a pedestal. So it was okay to be gay as long as you didn't seem gay. And I think we sort of fetishized that when it came to sex and dating and how vulnerable we could be, how effeminate, or whatever that means now to people. You know, these definitions have changed over the years. But all of that stuff, we were really dealing with,

and not really thinking that that was fucked up even. We just thought that's how it was, right? So, you know, we were gay and we were fine with that, but we were attracted to a certain sort of stereotypical version of American, all-American masculinity. And there was a lot in the culture at the time that kind of spoke to that, you know, which was kind of, even if it wasn't overtly gay, was appealing to the gay world in a way that really put hypermasculinity, this kind of jock bro-y behavior on a pedestal, whether that was Marky

Mark at the time in Calvin Klein underwear, or shirtless, ripped dudes, you know, greeting you at the door at Abercrombie & Fitch in the late 90s, right? Which is really what would happen. When I was in college, that's what you were aspiring to be in a way, or you thought you were supposed to aspire to be. And that stuff will get in your system when you're a young person and you won't even realize what effect it's having on you. And I want to talk about your parents.

Because I read that you said that they were the most supportive of your creativity. That if you can imagine it, you can be anything you want. Yeah. And that to me is a miraculous thing for any person to hear from a parent and not all people do. You don't always get unconditional love growing up. Is that something you realized in hindsight or did you know at the time that you were getting it? I don't think I realized it fully at the time.

But in hindsight, there's nothing more clear to me. That is ultimately underneath it all the reason for however successful I've managed to get. It is from a very young age. They let me be me. And I'm working on a project right now for Audible. It's an audio series which really digs into my childhood and teenage years. And I started working on it not really knowing what it would become because it's a little too early for me to do like a memoir, you know,

but I wanted it to be personal. I've never really talked about those years in detail. And what it really ends up being, now that I'm in the middle of working on it, is a love letter to my parents. Oh, that's great. And just thinking about things that happened, my behavior as a kid that they never,

I don't know what conversations they secretly had, right? But in front of me, to me, you know, I was growing up in the 80s in New York City at the height of the AIDS crisis, which they as adults must have been even more aware of than I was. And I was aware of it. Because on local news in New York in the 80s, you heard about AIDS and gay men. And gay men were essentially so vilified and associated with death and dying and risk and sickness, you know.

And those were some of my formative years, you know. And my parents must have seen all of that. They grew up in New York, too. My parents, both at different points in their lives, lived in the West Village. So they were not no no strangers to gay culture. I came along in the middle of all of that, and I was this young kid who even at the age of five years old, was obsessed with the entertainment industry,

loved Broadway, was obsessed with Madonna, loved Barbra Streisand. I showed all these very obvious signs early on of being gay. They embraced all of it. They took me to Madonna concerts. They took me to see Streisand. They took me to see Bette Midler at Radio City Music Hall when I was 12 years old. And they liked a lot of those same things too because like,

Because they're outrageous human beings. They're New Yorkers, right? And so they, they loved those big personalities too, you know, and my dad was hilarious. And I had an older dad too. My dad fought in the Korean War. So he was much older than my mom and had me later in life. So you would think that would have been an obstacle. But then you think, oh, when my dad grew up, Barbara Streisand was pop music. She was pop music to him. So me as a gay kid loving her, even if he may be understood, oh, my son's probably gay, he liked that music too. It was such the strange bond and they were not a show business family

They're a middle class. We were a middle-class family in Queens, New York I was we I grew up in a tiny apartment so not flush necessarily No, they were middle-class nine to five people, but I was essentially an only child I do have a half brother, but we didn't grow up together And I was very much my mother's only child, and I was treated as such, you know? And they embraced all of it. I wanted singing lessons, I got singing lessons.

You know, I had a bar mitzvah. The one thing I, I did not want to get bar mitzvah, but it was one of the few things we disagreed on. Even then, I was just the idea of religion freaked me out. I hated going to Hebrew school, I didn't believe in any of it, but it was the one thing we disagreed on and that really meant a lot to them that I got a bar mitzvah. So I did have a bar mitzvah,

but the theme of my party was Broadway meets pop music. And there was a life-size airbrushed version of Madonna that was made on one side of the DJ booth. Life-size three-dimensional. It was like airbrushed on what they used to call like foam core, you know? And she's in like the cone bra and a garter belt. This is at my bar mitzvah, because this is what I wanted. And on one side of the DJ booth was that, and on the other side of the DJ booth was

the same kind of airbrushed cardboard cut out of the Phantom of the Opera. That's pretty, that's a big wide range. That's pretty cool. Yes. These are profoundly gay interests, right? And they said, sure, great. And they just always let me be me. And that continued.

And that's like the biggest miracle of my life. Did you have to tell them or did they know that you were gay at some point? Did you? I went to Northwestern and they came out to see me in a musical that I was in. They flew from New York to see me and then the next night we went to dinner and I'm a junior in college at this point and at this point I'm out to my friends for about a year, but not out to them.

Even though I did not think it would, you know, come as a huge surprise. But I still had to come out and at dinner one night, my mother out of nowhere said, so are you dating anyone? Boy, girl, whatever. It's just like that. How amazing is that? This is 1998. Boy, girl, whatever. She just wanted to know if I was dating anyone. You know? And I literally said, oh, God.

And then that night they drove me back to the apartment I was living in at college. And I said, okay, pull over. And they pulled over. And I said, as it turns out, I'm gay. And they were totally cool with it. And, but you know, it's still like a huge weight off your shoulders, you know, just emotionally. So I started crying and then my mom started crying, but no one was angry or sad at all. It was just kind of this weight lifted.

And then I said to them at some point, my dad did, my dad for a moment did do the classic thing like, are you sure it's not a phase? And I was like, dad. And I looked at him and I said, dad, you took me to Barbra Streisand concerts that I demanded on going, you know, I demanded to go to when I was like 12 years old and Broadway shows and Madonna. I was like, you guys must have known that I was gay. And he said, classic Jay Eichner, we discussed the possibility.

And I was like, I bet you have. And so they were great. They were great about it. They were great about everything. I was really lucky. I Was a gift you gave them to bring it up You know and answer the question. Yeah. Yeah. I mean my mother gave me the gift You know, she was basically saying it's okay to tell us, you know, we just want to know what's happening in your personal life

You know, and I always joke as my my mother actually, strangely enough, passed away six months later. And I always joke around that, you know, now it's like 25 years later and I'm still not dating anyone. Like that's always my joke. Like if she was around now, I'd be like, well, I'm still very gay, but still not dating anyone. Did your father, who's passed away, is that correct? Yes, he has.

Did he live long enough to see you be Billy Eigner, full blown? No. He lived long enough to see me come close. In my 20s, I started doing a live comedy show in New York that I wrote for myself and my friend Robin Taylor, who I pulled in to be my sidekick because I needed a straight man, quote unquote, to play off of, I thought. And that's where, that live show, it was called Creationation, is where this persona, this Billy on the Street-like persona started to evolve on stage. It didn't start like that.

I started off just kind of normal and as myself telling jokes, and then somehow one thing led to another, and I started to develop this character that was just irrationally angry about entertainment to the point where you would think something else is going on with this person, right? Why is he so angry about this movie that he saw? By the way, this predates social media, which is really amazing. It's like I was satirizing something.

I didn't even know how close to that guy so many people would actually become in real life. But because this was the early days of the internet. And so it's in that live show where I said to my friend who was directing it, what if I took this character and we took a camera out on the street? And I went up to people as this persona and forced them to talk to me about Kate Winslet's Oscar chances, right? Or, you know, who's more impressive, Meryl Streep or Glenn Close?

Like all these ridiculous pop culture themes that I would bring up, right? And force them, you know, force New Yorkers who are so, you know, to be in New York, I'm a native New Yorker myself. I grew up on those streets and you all, you have to walk around with blinders on. There's hundreds of people around you, but you kind of have to act like they're not there. And, you know And you're just going about your day and getting your work done and doing whatever you have to do. So I thought, what if I kind of broke that barrier

and forced them to talk to me about some ridiculous entertainment industry topic? But that's a leap, right, from the show you were doing or did it come kind of from that? So we would make these videos and then show them as part of my show on a screen. This was before YouTube. The first Billy on the Street video I made was in September of 2004 for a one-off show I was doing in the basement of a Jewish center on the Upper West Side.

And they happened to have a screen and a projector. So it was a 90-minute show full of sketches and segments and songs I would write, funny songs and there was a band and it was like a, I used to say it's like a variety show where I'm the only act, basically. Right? And one of the things we did, eventually, was this on the street thing. How did it play that night? Do you remember? It killed.

I love it. It killed. And probably if I watch that version of it now, we didn't know what we were doing with editing. We were theater kids. We didn't know about cameras. We don't have iPhones at this point. We had to teach ourselves how to edit on a big desktop, and we just did it in order to make these videos

for my live show. And again, this was before YouTube, but the audience, even from that first one, they were falling out of their chairs. And it's a really cynical, smart New York audience that was following me at this point. So to impress them and to shock them meant something. And I swear that first night I saw the audience reaction

to that and I thought, oh fuck, I'm gonna have to keep doing this because it's a bitch to do. And it did not come naturally to me to, I know it's such a cliched comedian thing to say, but I am not that person. I'm pretty shy. Which is why you can pull it off. I have a strong belief that if you were an abrasive, nasty, loud person, you could not

be funny doing that. You wouldn't. I wouldn't have the self-awareness. No, exactly. Right, and so, and I thought, I mean, the first time we ever shot the video for that same show in 2004, I had to circle Washington Square Park four times

before I worked up the nerve to talk to anyone, let alone shout at them. I was just talking to them at this point, because I hadn't fully leaned in to the character yet. So it did not come naturally to me, and yet I saw the audience reaction and I thought, oh God, I'm going to have to keep doing this. It's too funny.

We did, and then it's a long story. YouTube came along a few years later, and eventually the videos start going viral, which led to the TV version of it, which really just became, ironically, a delivery system for more viral videos, which we took from the TV show. I used to make a joke about, I worked for years doing videos on YouTube in order to get a TV show. I used to make a joke about I worked for years doing videos on YouTube in order to get a TV show which creates videos that people watch on YouTube. Yeah.

You know, because if you didn't grow now, I guess kids grow up and YouTube is NBC. I've been told, hey, get rid of all these different characters. Just have YouTube. Exactly. That's all. Right. So for me in my mind, YouTube, I didn't equate YouTube with success because it's not what I grew up with. You were only successful if you were on TV, like a proper TV show. So then Billy on the Street becomes a proper TV show

on a semi obscure cable network, but still. But then the success of it comes from segments taken from that show going viral on YouTube. Right. So, I know it was such an odd thing, but yeah. I want to keep talking about it, but let me jump in with Joan Rivers. Was Joan who you say was a mentor? Of sorts, yeah. From a distance or? Oh, no. In person.

Oh, wow. When did that happen? Was that before Billy on the Street? Because there's something about Jones style of comedy and Billy on the Street. Yeah. You could draw a line. Absolutely. To sum up the story about my dad, because that's how we really started.

My dad saw all those live shows, and he saw some of those Billy on the Street videos go viral. And then Funny or Die, the production company, got in touch with me, and we said we were gonna go out and pitch a half hour TV version of the show. My dad saw the sizzle reel we made to sell that show at pitch meetings, which is like a sample tape that you make to show how the show would function

as a half hour show and not just little quick segments, right, and we took that around and showed it to execs. My dad watched that sizzle reel, and that's the last thing that he saw me do. And then a month after he died, we went and used that sizzle reel to pitch Billy on the street as a TV show and sold it. How old was your dad when he died?

He was 80 already. Oh, right. You said. Yeah, he had me later in life. So, you know, he led a full life, but the timing of it was very strange. Joan Rivers, which my dad is also connected to because when I was a kid, my parents and I used to go to what we call the beach club, but was really just a pool in the Bronx called Shore Haven.

And this is where we went over the summers for a number of years when I was very young, you know, between the ages of, I don't know, five and 10. And they would have performers come sometimes for the adults and Joan Rivers came. And I, my parents, once again, being my parents and letting me do whatever I wanted to do and letting me watch whatever I wanted to watch. I watched the most adult things. I don't mean porn. I just mean like, you know, things that were meant for adults.

Serious films and things like that, you know, art house films and things. They just let me watch whatever I wanted to watch. And we watched The Tonight Show every night. And I liked Johnny Carson, but what I really loved was Joan Rivers' guest hosting for him. Joan came to perform at the Shorehaven Pool Club or Beach Club when I was a kid, and it was an adults-only show because Joan was so raunchy, even though it was in the middle of an August afternoon. But my dad knew that I loved Joan Rivers from watching her on The Tonight Show.

And I think I'm seven years old at this point. So he snuck me in to the show and like held me on his shoulders so I could watch Joan perform. And I vividly recall it. And years later, I mentioned this show to Joan because she was, she, it was like an 85 degree hot, humid New York summer day, but she still came out in the middle of the afternoon in like a long evening gown and a fur to give you Joan Rivers. But it was so funny because it was so hot out.

And when I meet Joan years later, I tell her that story and she remembered that show. She remembered that performance because she said, yeah, it was so fucking hot and I'm there in like a fur coat. It was very Joan. So the way that I meet Joan is I'm doing that same live show. This is in New York between 2005 and 2008. We did it, I'm sorry, no, 2003 to 2008 off did it. I'm sorry. No 2003 to 2008 off and on in the middle of that executives from Bravo

Come to check me out because at that time if you remember Bravo was the only network really putting gay men on the air in Any significant way openly gay men I should say and they did the Queer Eye and all of that They were looking to build off of that. And they came to scout me and they liked me. And at the time they were putting together a pilot for Joan to host called Joan Rivers Straight Talk. Straight Talk being a play on words because it was going to be basically a prime time version of The View. But instead of Barbara Walters and four different types of women, it was going to be more comedic, and it was going to be Joan Rivers and four different types of gay men.

Right, doing straight talk. That's great. Such a fun idea. But this is just before Joan had her resurgence, right, before her documentary came out and before she won Celebrity Apprentice. So she's not in her words, like super hot at that moment. But Bravo did this pilot and they were looking to cast it, cast the game in it.

So they came to my show and they had me come in and audition for Joan. And then Joan, she liked me at the audition and so she came to see my show in this 90 seat theater, you know, because she loved theater, Joan. And she just really got me. And she loved me. Did she see a clip of Billy on the street?

Oh yeah, she saw the whole video when she came to the show and then I kept auditioning to be part of the panel. They cast me on it. I guess I was supposed to be like the Joy Behar or something, the funny one. And then Andy Cohen, before he got his own show, he was on the panel too, and a couple of other people. And that pilot ended, we shot it, but it did not get picked up.

We did a Billy on the Street video for the pilot, as if that might be a recurring segment on the show, should it get picked up. But it was not picked up. But Joan and I really bonded during that process. And like I said, she came to see my live show and she just loved how outrageous I was. And she just totally got it on every level.

And I think she could feel my drive. You know, we were both, I was a gay Jewish kid who grew up in Queens and obsessed with show business, but from afar, not in a show business family and not conventional looking necessarily like a definite outsider. She had similar aspects to her story. We just ended up staying close. I reached out to her once a couple of years later.

And at this point, I was starting to get really frustrated. Because everyone was coming to my show and watching my videos and telling me how great I am, but I couldn't get a job. You know, in the classic words of my father, again, if you're such a genius, why can't you get three lines on Law and Order? Okay. By the way, he wasn't insulting me. He was frustrated himself.

He was like, I don't understand. People come to your show and they're falling out of their seats laughing and all these agents and executives and then you can't get a job that even pays like $50. How come it's not adding up? And I was getting frustrated too. And I reached out to Joan and I said, I don't know what to do. How much longer can I go being told I'm all these very nice things, but no one's giving me a job.

So what am I supposed to do? And she said, she did a weekly stand up show in New York for charity, Joan, literally up until the day she died. I think the night before she went in for that procedure that ended up killing her, she did stand up at this tiny little club. And so she said, come to my stand up show. I'll set some seats aside for you and a friend. And then we'll go upstairs and we'll have drinks

and we'll talk. So we did. And we went for drinks with Joan after. And she had watched me for a few years now kind of have this frustration. And she just gave me the most amazing pep talk. And she talked about how many years it took her to get on the Tonight Show as a guest and how it took someone, she was so unconventional, but it took someone like Johnny Carson, who

was that respected and that revered and that quote unquote mainstream to basically say, this woman is going to be on my show a lot and give her that stamp of approval so that anyone who might have been scared of her or not known what to do with her, that fear went away just because he gave her the stamp of approval. So she basically said, you know, you just need that. You know, it took me years to get that. And she gave me an amazing pep talk. And then anyway, she was putting together a fashion police at this point, which

became a show she did for E, which was very successful. And she said, I'm putting you in that pilot. And so I made a Billy on the street style video for that. Was this involved around the Oscars or no, this wasn't fashion police at the Oscars. It had started as a series of specials she did, which then turned into a weekly series for E. Gotcha.

So she wanted me on that. But even again, like the executives weren't quite sure. You know, a lot of questions around it. And then not long after that, that kind of gave me this little push that I needed to just stay in the game a little bit longer and see what happens. And she was very complimentary and she named all these comedians who were now huge, but that she had watched come up, you know, and she said, they remind me of you. You know, you just need to, I mean, maybe she was just

being nice, but that little push, I even went and told my dad after, who at this point was starting to get a little nervous about what was gonna happen to me, rightfully so. And I even said to him, I was like, well, I just saw Joan and she said I have to stay in the game a little bit longer. And as nervous as he was, remember Joan and my dad,

because he's older, are from the same generation. So he really respected Joan too. And he even said, he was like, well, if Joan says that, you gotta do it. That's so great. And so I ended up sticking with it and not long after that, got an email out of the blue from Funny or Die

that led to Billy on the Street becoming a TV show. And the very first season of it You know it became known as a show which had all these celebrity guests run around with me But I didn't know any celebrities when it started right so the I happen to know Rachel Dratch from SNL from New York I knew her and she was hilarious. She had done bits on my live show over the years So the first season of Billy on the Street the TV version of it, there's only two celebrity guests, Rachel Dratch and Joan Rivers. That's it.

And obviously it all slowly but surely snowballed after that, but you know, and then Joan passed away. Not too long after that. And let me tell you one more quick story, because I have to. In those years when I was struggling, and I think it was after that, the drinks I had with her that night where she could hear my frustration. Not only did she put me on fashion police, just for the pilot of it, but she said, I

want you to put your man on the street videos on DVDs and drop them off in my lobby. Because at this point, Joan, after decades of being blackballed from mainstream late night TV because of Johnny Carson, she was finally being allowed to make the rounds again because her documentary had come out and was a hit and people had a newfound appreciation for her. So all these late night hosts, Letterman and all of them, which had all declined to have her on for years and years.

Why? Sorry to interrupt, but why? Because Johnny Carson basically blacklisted her when she in the 80s decided to stop being his villain host and host her own show opposite him. Oh, okay. So there's a long history there that's very fascinating and you can go into. And Joan, you know, she still loved Johnny because he made her career. It was just this very unfortunate falling out they had.

And for many, many, many years, she could not get on a proper late night talk show because all the guys hosting those shows were so reverent towards Johnny, even though he wasn't even alive anymore. But Joan had a resurgence at this point. And so she was making the late night rounds again for the first time in years, which was a huge thing for her. And she said, I want you to drop off DVDs of your videos. And when I go to these late night shows, I'm going to leave your DVDs with all the showrunners

and tell them you have to watch this guy. Right? I mean, people thought Joan was my grandmother because she was so nice to me. And I would have to explain that, no, we had no actual blood relation. And I don't even know why she's being so nice to me. But she is. And she went and did Letterman at this time. And she dropped off the DVDs with Letterman and I guess, you know, or his producer,

and I'm sure they were like, yeah, okay, sure, we'll watch these DVDs of this random guy, okay. You know, they probably never did. But then Billy on the Street became a show, and the videos start going viral. And who calls to book me, who has now discovered me and is a huge fan, but Letterman.

And when you think about it, it makes sense because Letterman really created the on the street, this anarchic on the street thing that I was clearly very influenced by. And I watched, again, going back to my parents, even when I was like seven years old, they would go to bed and let me stay up and watch Letterman when he was on at 1230. And they would say, why don't you go to bed? You have to get up. You have school. And I was like, I'm not tired.

I need to watch Letterman. And they were like, okay. And so I would, you know, and I went up and then I got up and went to school and was like a very good student and a total nerd. It didn't seem to affect me. This is just what I like to do. And so Letterman was a huge influence on me, right? And so then Letterman, you know, became a fan,

and I end up getting booked on Letterman for the first time. And I think in between getting booked on Letterman and actually doing the show, Joan died. It was literally a few weeks later. The timing of it was so strange. But yeah, Joan, she was really, and look, she's a complicated person for sure. You hear stories about everyone.

In my experience with her, it was this shocking level of support and encouragement from a true legend who just felt that she wanted to help me out. Yeah. I really needed it at the time. This is going to sound, I don't know, either self-serving or weird or whatever. But before you came, I was sitting outside and, you know, always trying to talk myself out of, don't make this about you,

this is about the guest. Please, who are you talking to? The king of making it about me. Right. So, and then I had this thought about your parents and wanting them, this is the weird part, to feel good about this interview. And then you just said, and I was also circled Joan because I thought that's amazing because I do seize whether I'm making it up or not.

Some of Billion Street has that same kind of Joan energy that she was so good at. Anyway, the image I'll always walk away from, excuse me, from this conversation is you on your father's shoulder at nine, you know, 90 degrees, because your father wanted you to see Joan because he knew that you would appreciate that. That's an amazingly supportive, astounding thing. That tells you all you need to know about your father. In my mind, sorry, over here. That's absolutely true.

And yeah, that's, I was going to say that's the secret. It's not a secret. It explains everything. And it explains why even in my worst moments of self-doubt, having that safety net, you're just taught from a young age that it's all going to be okay, you know, because we're here for you. Even in their absence, all of these years, that feeling really stays with you. You know? It does.

It does. Now, let me tell you one story about my dad involving you, because this is a natural segue, because we've never met, I don't think. And I was thinking about you and your career and of course, needless to say, you're a legend. And of course, I grew up watching Cheers and all the movies and everything and loving you. But there's one movie which doesn't get quite as much attention, but I really associate you with it for a specific reason. It's the movie you did call Dad. With Jack Lemmon. With Jack Lemmon and a young Ethan Hawke, I believe.

A young Ethan Hawke. And a young Ethan Hawke. And look at him now. So my parents, again, being pretty into entertainment themselves as an interest and also wanting me to be happy, I loved the movies. So there was a period in my childhood where we literally went to the movies every Saturday night, just the three of us, right? And I almost always chose the movie, right? Sometimes they're more adult things, sometimes they were superhero movies.

It was everything, indie movies, popular movies. It was everything, right? So we went to see Dad, the film Dad. And I remember it, I remember loving the movie and being really moved by it. But the specific thing I remember is my dad, you know, he was a New Yorker and he was blunt and he grew up in the Bronx, but he was still from a different generation of, of man and he was pretty stoic, right?

And that movie, Dad, I remember him crying at that movie. And at the time, he was dealing with his father, my grandfather, who was getting older and liked the Jack Lemmon character. He was even more difficult than the Jack Lemmon character in the movie. And he was impossible to deal with. And him and my grandmother had been married 65 years. And he was driving her insane. He just became this very unhappy old man. And my dad was dealing with that.

And I remember, I honestly think it's the first memory I have and one of the very few memories I have of my father crying during any experience was watching that movie. And I was a young kid. I remember thinking, whoa, dad is crying. At dad. No, but really, it really stuck with me. And that movie just moved him. I mean, it moved, we were all crying.

Everyone in the theater was crying. It's a very sad moving film. But I just wanted to tell that to you, because that memory has stuck in my head all these years. You know? That's great. Thank you. Yeah, no, it's a beautiful movie and underappreciated, maybe. Yeah. Gary Goldberg wrote and directed that. I know. I did a deep dive on it last night before I came here.

Diving together. That's great. I know. I read the dive on it last night before I came here. Diving together? Yeah, that's great. I know. I read the whole Wikipedia entry for Dad. That led me down a long road with Ethan Hawke and Jack Lemmon and grumpy old men. I ended up on the page for grumpier old men, the sequel. That led me to Anne Margaret. It was a long night. Walter Mathau.

Wow. Jack Lemmon. Come on. Jack Lemmon once invited, I love this story, invited Walter to go see a screening of a movie that he was a little bit nervous about. It was an early screening and they sat and watched it very quietly together alone in a theater. And the lights come up and Jack turns to Walter and goes,

well, and Walter said, I'd get out of it if I came. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Let me just go back for the silly kind of anecdotes about on the street. Did you ever been attacked? Has anything gone awfully wrong? I loved the one and I can't remember the name so I'm terrible, but it was a black woman who you talked to and then she got halfway across the street, and your parting line was very funny, but on her back, and she turned around and let you have it. And I can't remember who loved it,

and started writing, some singer, somebody, some actress. Oh, I was asking her about La La Land and Emma Stone. Right. Yeah, and I asked her if she thought this was during, I was asking her about La La Land and Emma Stone. Right. Yeah. And I asked her if she thought this was during, La La Land is nominated for Oscars at this point and we're leading up to the Oscars whatever year that was. And I asked her if she was waiting for the La La Land hype to die down. This random woman in the street.

She really had no time for me. She had real shit going on in her life. I walk away from her, and then she starts crossing the street, and she looks back at me and says, I don't know who you're trying to sass for a fucking camera, but you've got the right bitch to put you in the wrong motherfucking place.

She just improvised that. I mean, that was her genuine reaction to me, and I was so grateful, but it was brilliant. Quick question. Do you have to get people's permission to show that? Every single person that I speak to on the street signed a release afterwards. And she did, obviously. Yeah, no, we're legally, that's one thing they would not let me mess around with.

Especially if I'm yelling at people and stuff. There's another woman I get into a big fight with and what is, I think maybe based on views online maybe the most seen clip, it has online alone, not counting whoever watched the original half hour show on Netflix or whatever, it has over a hundred million views this clip. I get into this fight with the woman, she doesn't recognize me and she's not happy with me for being getting up in her face and we end up cursing out each other and she ends up walking away.

For those of you who know, it's the clip where the woman, she's like a middle-aged white woman and she says, is this a TV thing or an internet thing? And I said, actually, it's a TV thing and an internet thing. And we get up into each other's face and she's like, I don't like your attitude. And I was like, I don't like your attitude. And she says, who gives a shit? And she walks away and I said, who gives a shit about you, bitch? And I saw that.

Yes. I saw that. That's a very popular clip. They're going to play that at my funeral, sadly. So that woman walks away and then it's up to my producers to go up to her. Clean up on her. Yeah, exactly. And so they have to explain what this is because, you know, it always becomes a tense thing.

It's like, oh, fuck that is, we know that's going to be funny, but will this person sign the release because it's funny because she genuinely got angry, but that's also why she might not sign the release. So they go up to her and we know we're in New York near Union Square. Um, and my producers explained, you know, he's a comedian and he has a show at this point, I think it's season four or five. So at this point, they had the advantage of being able to take out their phones and be and show her, oh, look, here he is with Will Ferrell and here he is with Tina Fey.

You know, he's a comedian. And that woman who was genuinely angry said, you know what? When I was younger, I dated Andy Kaufman. So I understand what he's doing and I'll sign the release. Astounding. Only in New York City. Yeah. By the way, she must have been- Only Andy.

Only Andy and only in New York City. I dated Andy Kaufman. So I understand this Billy on the Street thing. So I'll sign the release. Like you can't make that up. That is a magical moment. Yeah. God bless New York City. Seriously.

Yeah. Yeah, she got mad at me. And was quick and biting and wow. Oh, God, she was hilarious. Would have ripped you. I mean, I loved it. You know, I thought it was hilarious. It was a perfect encapsulation

of what the satire of that show is Which is this maniac who is so obsessed with them with the entertainment industry and the minutiae of it an award Season and all of it that can't see beyond that at all. Yeah, and why would you how could you? I love also with very well-known celebrities, actors walking with you and the people have, do you know who this is? No. No. No idea.

No, I know. Chris Pratt at like the height of his movie superstardom, everyone thinks he's, oh, he's Chris Pine. Someone says, oh, you're Josh Duhamel. They don't even look alike, really. I mean, and it's, yeah, I mean, that to me is at the heart of that show. And it evolved over the years into certain things that were just silly or absurd. But at the heart of it is a satire of my own love-hate relationship with my own fascination

with Hollywood. You know? I'm taking that to its extreme. No, it's brilliant. own love-hate relationship with my own fascination with Hollywood. I'm taking that to its extreme. No, it's brilliant. It is brilliant. Acting, were you part of Upright? Upright Citizens Brigade? Yeah. No. Well, I wasn't that I took all the classes.

Right. I did go to Upright Citizens Brigade after Northwestern. At Northwestern, I just did theater. There's a huge improv scene at Northwestern, but I was not part of it. So you were training to be actor. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's all I wanted to be.

I just wanted to be on Broadway, you know, because my parents took me to see all that theater when I was a kid and I saw Nathan Lane in Guys and Dolls in 1992 and I said, oh, that's the greatest thing ever. Nothing will ever get better than that and I want to do that. Have you let go of that or why don't you write a musical? Write a musical? It only takes 11, 12 years. Exactly. It'll have to be Grumpier Old Men, the musical.

That's how old I would be by the time that, by the way, I'm sure someone has tried writing that. I don't know about writing a musical. That's really hard and it takes forever, but I would love to do some theater in New York. It's what I started out wanting to do and now sort of strangely the only thing I haven't dabbled in. So I would love to do and now sort of strangely the only thing I haven't dabbled in. So I would love to do that. But yeah, I just wanted to, you know, I was in theater class doing Beckett and Pinter

and Chekhov and all the real shit. I know I say that on people who are like, huh? But I love that because that is the, you would not go Billy on the street. Yeah, here he is doing Pinter. Of course. But Billy on the street was just this odd creation. And to me, even though it's not acting in the traditional sense, it's not scripted. Oh, it's full blown character. It's a character and it requires, in a way it is acting 101 because the main is with acting is listening.

Working off another. Right. And you bet if I'm not listening real close, that I can't do it. No. And what's really interesting about Billy on the street is that, you know, we all make assumptions about people. So I would go up to someone thinking, I have some clue as to what this person's going to know about or not know about. By how he looks.

By how they look in some way, age or how they're dressed or something. I'm always wrong. It truly is a lesson in Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover, especially in New York City. Yeah. Right? And so- The little old lady will kick your ass. Exactly. And way smarter, brighter. Or have opinions about things that you just would not...

Why does this 80-year-old woman even know who Selena Gomez is, let alone have all of these very detailed opinions? Oh, and I saw her on The View when I saw her on Good Morning America. And you're like, wait, what? And all of a sudden you're in a 45-minute conversation with this elderly woman about Selena Gomez. And so, that's the beauty of New York City and the beauty of the show, I guess. But for me, it was a character. And it did require certain things I had learned in acting school,

even though if you had told me when I was at Northwestern, that my big break was going to be running around the streets of New York, talking, shouting at real people, I would have thought you were out of your mind. Yeah. You know, it just kind of happened. It was one idea out of many, and it just connected. What I thought was brilliant about Bros was your performance

was you took people, well, at least my perception of you at that point was mostly based on Billy. Of course. And you took enough of that and brought it with you and then expanded into this, you know, you're not this angry, afraid of relationship, who gives a fuck, who needs you. You are a vulnerable da-da-da-da-da-da,

and that, you know, that's the story. That's the story. And I've truly, by the end, you really are fantastic. Oh, thanks. You really, really are. Wow, that's so nice. And you just made the love's so nice. Thank you. You just made the love story totally work.

Thank you. Worked really, really hard on that movie. Movies, as you know. Especially when you're writing it. So start that, go back. How did this all take place? You decided you wanted to write or someone came to you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Decided you wanted to write or something came to you? No, no, no, no, no, no. I had one scene or two scenes in a movie Nick Stoller wrote and directed, which was the sequel to Neighbors with Seth Rogen. Right. Nick did the original one. I'm not in that. But he put me in a few scenes in the sequel to it. Okay, we had a nice time.

A few years later, he casts me in a recurring role to play. Fred Savage was playing a gay character on a show on Netflix called Friends from College, which had two seasons, I believe, with Keegan-Michael Key and Fred Savage, an amazing cast. Nick and his wife co-created that show and he directed all the episodes, and they wanted someone to play Fred's boyfriend and then husband on the show. And he put me in it. And I think on Friends from College,

he realized that I was an actor, that I was a real actor, I was, in his words, what the story he tells, which I don't even know at the time, but the premiere of Friends from College, it was a Netflix show, but the premiere was at a movie theater. They showed the first two episodes at a movie theater in New York. He said that when he saw me on

a movie screen and the audience's reaction to me, he thought, we can build a movie around Billy. And he loves romantic comedies. And he had done Forgetting Sarah Marshall. By the way, that's a huge phrase to say that we can build a movie around this actor. Not everybody can do that. Great character actors, great, wonderful actors.

Some would tell you he made a horrible mistake. But, um, but, gotta hand it to the guy. Go on. Uh, so, he said that to him, that's what like sparked the idea. And then he reached out to me and said, he emailed me out of the blue and said, hey, I love making romantic comedies. I want my next movie to be romantic comedy, but I think it would be cool if it was about a gay couple because we don't get

a lot of that. But I'm not gay. So do you want to write it with me? And we can build it as a vehicle for you and I'll direct it. And he even mentioned then, you know, he has a close relationship with Judd Apatow. So he thought Judd, Judd had been looking for years to do a gay-centric film and had tried a couple of times and it never made it all the way through. And so he thought Judd would come on as a producer. And I was shocked and baffled.

I was like, what? I've never written a movie. I've never even had a large supporting role in a live action movie, let alone be the lead. I've done TV things, but it's a little different. I said, okay, let's meet about it. We met about it. I just said, okay, well, I don't know if I can do this, and I don't even know if I have a story to tell, because I do love romantic comedies and always have,

but at the same time, I'm not a big relationship person like the guy in the movie, though I have had a couple of experiences, which ended up inspiring, loosely inspiring what happens in the movie. And we just started meeting and hashing out what the story would be. It's a fascinating process because it really becomes like a series of therapy sessions, ultimately.

You know, for any writer, I think they understand that. I know a writer who I'm working with now on something who's written in so many different genres of film and TV, but he says everything is inspired by the fact that he's still heartbroken over this one woman that dumped him. Everything, even like a horror movie he wrote, it somehow still springs from that. So it became like a series of therapy sessions where I really had to dig deep and figure out, okay, like, well, what is the source of my status as a person who does date or doesn't date a lot? And thinking about my friends, many of whom are also gay men around my age and who are also, you know, a lot of them are great catches in every way,

but still single, you know? And I thought about how gay men of my particular generation, again, I'm 45, like the generation 10 years plus above us and the generation 10 years plus below us, there is such an enormous generation gap, right, in terms of what the world was like between those two generations, culture and politics. The generation above mine, I don't like to define them by saying they're the age generation, but for many of them, their lives were forever impacted by that.

And that is a reality losing... Impacted by... AIDS. AIDS, yes, sorry. You know, because they impacted by that. And that is a reality losing- Impacted by? AIDS. AIDS, yes, sorry. Because they lived through that. I was alive and aware of it and still was, HIV was certainly an issue when I came out of the closet, but not to the degree that it was for

the guys who were a bit older than me. And hence were what? More apt to be in a relationship? Oh, no, no, no. I'm just talking about the generation gap between the two generations. So you have those guys, right? A lot of whom lost their friends in their 20s and 30s,

and they had no civil rights, no equal protection under the law. A lot of them didn't come out or to later in life. Then you have the kids, I say kids, 10 years younger than me, plus who are LGBTQ, who grew up with so much more representation. I'm not saying they don't have their own set of unique challenges.

Of course they do, especially trans folks. But it's very different than it was. Yes. Right? And we didn't grow up with Rupaul's Drag Race and Heartstopper and all of this representation and the internet, which made it, even if you were in the middle of nowhere, easy to at least access queer people online somehow. Right. You know, so, and my generation is very much perched between these two generations.

And it's just an odd, interesting, fascinating place to be. And I think about that a lot. And some of the themes I talked about earlier where in my generation, I thought, or at least among my gay friends, I shouldn't say my, I can't speak for the whole generation, but at least among the people that I know and myself, I had no problem with being gay, but there was this fascination and this drive to be masculine, right?

To exhibit this type of bro-y behavior, that that was sexy or, you know, and that's kind of what, you know, you were going after in some way. And that leads to putting up walls emotionally, to exhibit this kind of stereotypically masculine behavior. It's all stereotypes, of course. But when you're young, you don't realize that.

And I think that there is something to all of that, which I was trying to unpack in the middle of what also had to be a kind of fizzy and funny rom-com. Right. You know? But I'm more kind of serious minded than people think. And so I think, and even Nick, I think, at one point was surprised by kind of where I wanted

to go with it. But that's just what felt right to me. Which part? You know, for instance, there's a, well, A, the first thing I said to him, even at our first meeting, was, look, I don't know what this movie is going to be. I don't know if I have the skills to do any of this. But what it cannot be is, oh, it's when Harry met Sally, but it happens to star two gay

characters because the way we conduct our lives is very different. You know, some gay men live heteronormative, as they say, lives, and they go and they get married and adopt kids and they live behind the white picket fence, and that's wonderful and that's one way to go. But a lot of the gay men I know do not do that. And we do stay single longer. And we do have open relationships.

And there are different conversations, different understandings about monogamy or lack thereof. And what I insisted on is that to the best of my ability and yes, within the framework of a major studio romantic comedy, I needed to be honest about these things. What I said to Nick was the most important thing to me, yes, I want it to be relatable to everyone. Yes, you want straight folks and younger people and older people, you want everyone in on it.

You don't want it to be alienating or unclear. But my main priority is I want my gay friends to go and say, yes. Yeah. Like, that's it. Like, you know. You get it. I'm sitting here grinning at myself because I watched and I was,

I was, I don't know if that's scared, that's a little heavy, but I was like, and I stopped watching it. I don't know if that's scared, that's a little heavy, but I was like... And I... And I stopped watching it. And then I went, Nope, I'm going to keep watching it. And then I got... And I went from like the last third on, and I went, Dad, you're an idiot. Because I got that full-blown love story, full-blown human characters, full-blown everything, and was enchanted by it. I mean, it's really good.

Went back and watched the whole thing in a much more relaxed, calm way, and I think you really nailed it to me. I really do. Thank you. And the journey, you know, because you did have to, both of you had to give up something to be willing to at least be in a three-month monogamous relationship or whatever the declaration is. Exactly. That's our happy ending.

Which is pretty funny. Sorry to give it away, but you've had a year or whatever. But no, yeah, and it was important to me that both characters, that Luke's character too had his own arc, you know, and that he wasn't just the both characters, that Luke's character too had his own arc, you know, and that he wasn't just the pretty face, that there's more going on underneath that surface too. And it's funny because we're very, very different characters, but we share kind of the same issue.

We just show it, it just manifests differently, you know, towards the beginning of the movie. And he's very much, you know, leading with his, like, aesthetic, essentially. Like, that's his armor against the world, and my character is leading with his intellect and kind of his militancy and his activism, you know. And, but they are both, and by the way, there's nothing wrong,

it's great to lead with your interleague and it's also great to be beautiful and look like Luke McFarlane. But I would imagine. But, so those aren't bad things and sex is great and physical attraction, all that stuff is important, but there was a, with both characters there is a fear of letting those different guards down.

And they have to, ultimately. So yeah. I really thought you nailed it. I really did. Thank you. I really liked it. So I don't know if your brain works its way about targeting or thinking ahead, but 10 years from now, what do you want to be doing?

More directing, more writing, more acting? Well, I'm starring in the Grumpier Old Men reboot, for sure. What do I wanna do? You know, again, I'm in a period now where I am trying to get back to what I really wanted to do, which is to act more. That becomes, in our culture at large and in our industry especially, it's a pretty narrow-minded place a lot of the time.

A lot of people, not just gay actors, people do get stereotyped as the one thing, that first thing that people saw you do that they liked. For me, that's Billy on the Street. Okay. But you just went from Billy on the Street, if you had to put names to it, character actor to leading man. You did that with Bros.

I really do believe that. Thank you. You look at the last 30 minutes or whatever and you go, oh, wow, that's powerful leading man. Thank you. It's funny that I don't really think, and I'm not being self-deprecating, I would be very comfortable and probably always assumed, at least when I was younger, that I would just be a character actor.

Me too. And that's the way to go, by the way. Yeah, totally. Definitely. Absolutely. And I certainly never, I mean, what happened with Bros was I'd never for a second, if left to my own devices, I would have never thought, oh yeah, I'm going to write a rom-com lead for myself.

This would have never in a million years happened. It's only because Nick thought that I could and I had the opportunity, so I took it and I went with it. Let me jump in because that's a big, big thing right there, which is willingness. Sometimes people say, how did you make it? How do I succeed? There's a will, you need to be willing to go through a lot of crap, drop a lot of, check your ego at the door.

There's a lot you need to give up and be willing to give up. Not bad stuff, but be willing to give up to be successful. And that feels like what you've done. Thank you. I mean, I think that's true. It certainly, when you are any type of unconventional anything in this business, it probably means you're going to have to work a bit harder. probably means they're gonna have to work a bit harder. It just does. And you know, and then to have had Billy on the Street, which I love and I'm so grateful for and love how much people love it, you know, now for me it's about going beyond

that. It's basically what happens in Bros, like, you know, we built it that way for a reason that the movie starts off, and you're like, oh wow, this is like an intense person, you know? But it's about unraveling that, because everyone is multi-dimensional, you know? And in a way, that's kind of my story off camera too, professionally. Um, is to, you know, I want to, I want to just be able to play different types of people to not always lean into that persona. Um. Would you be willing to write them for yourself?

I will probably have to if history is any guide. But that's good. That's a good thing. It's good. Sort of. I mean, the reason why you may have to is not good. But the fact that you would write and have that create a part of your soul get exercised is a pretty cool thing. Strangely enough, the being able to self-generate,

that was what made it all happen. I never thought of myself as a writer. I would dabble sometimes, I would write jokes or bits or things in high school, I did a little improv. I never in a million years would have thought that writing would be so much a part of it. But whether it's Billy on the Street, creating that for myself, Bros, which even though the idea of doing it came from someone else,

when all was said and done, I still had to lead the charge there from a writing standpoint and teach myself how to do all of that. I mean, Nick taught me a lot about structure, but I had to just kind of lean in and go for it and believe that I could write funny, natural sounding dialogue and flesh out characters and create this fictional world. And so the writing really has saved me. It just is also something I didn't expect would be partially by necessity such a big part of the process for me,

if that makes sense. You know? Is your life almost all about creativity or do you do stupid stuff? Oh, I do a lot of stupid stuff. What's your day off? What's your day off from being creative and confronting the world and all that? What's your day off?

Oh, by the way, I am totally lazy and love not working. I mean, I love not working. Sometimes I think people... There was a point in my life I was so driven to make it all happen, but now it's happened enough. I don't need to be the most famous or the richest or this, that, and the other thing. I want to keep working and being creative and doing things, but trust me, I'm also...

I know some people who do what we do who are enormously successful. You know, some of the most successful producer writers in our business, right? And I just, I have profound respect for them, but they, in a way sometimes I'm happy that I'm driven, but I don't have that level of drive. And I'm kind of relieved that I don't have that level of drive. And I'm kind of relieved that I don't have that gene. Maybe it goes back to my parents. I think it does, honestly.

It all goes back to that. You know, like, yeah, I wanna be successful and all that, but I don't want it to define every moment of my life. And I just wanna be a normal human being, which luckily I think I've gotten to be. So I'm not as obsessed with it as people might think. I just work hard when the time comes to work hard. What other things do I like to do?

I don't know. I have no fucking hobbies. Do I to do? I don't know. I have no fucking hobbies. Do I have hobbies? I don't. Not. I like to work. I mean, I read and watch stuff and I scroll too much on my phone.

That's not a hobby. That's a terrible thing to do with your life that I'm doing constantly. I'm trying to think. I mean, I don't know. You know, I have an old group of friends. I'm really lucky. I have a really, I don't have a big surviving family, but I have a old group of friends and we are still... From New York days? From New York, from college. I still am on a thread every day that consists of my best friend

since high school, who is still my best friend. I talk to him nearly every single day. We're on a text thread with him and all my old college friends who he knows now for years through me. And we literally text each other every single day. And we're all over the country. But we're very close, and I spend a lot of time with my friends, and we go way back. And for the most part, there are a couple of exceptions, but we weren't from show business

families. You know? We weren't even from show business families. We weren't even from particularly wealthy families. So a lot of us have had to scrape and crawl our way to success. So we really appreciate it. We have a sense of humor about it. And we like to have a good time. Because life is too short to be caught up in all this show

business nonsense all the time. My hobby is hanging out with Mary. That is such a good, I want that hobby. Yeah. Can I come over? Yes, please. We, we don't even get out of bed. If we're not, you know, jumping in a car and going to work at five in the morning,

then we're, you know, we're in bed drinking two or three cups of coffee and playing word old for an hour and a half. That sounds like heaven. I'm sorry. It is. I want to be in bed with you guys playing cups of coffee and playing Wordle for an hour and a half. That sounds like heaven. I'm sorry, it is heaven. I wanna be in bed with you guys playing Wordle, talking incessantly about my career trajectory. Billy, I am so chuffed that I got to sit around

and talk to you and get to know you. Likewise, are you kidding? Ted Danson. You probably would never have had me on, Billy on the street. First of all, that is so untrue. I got an hour plus just talking to you. You're gonna get me in bed. That's where you and Mary and me,

that's where we're gonna end up. I think it's good that you add, because Mary can be jealous. Add the, and Mary, Clarence. Are you kidding? I'm a gay man, Mary has to be there. Are you kidding me? But yes, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and please cut this down, I'm sure you will.

I always talk too much on these things. No, you didn't. And I gotta say, I have blazoned in my imagination, nine-year-old you on your father's shoulders is an image I don't think I'll ever forget. That was such a cool story. Wow. Thank you. Yeah.

That means a lot. Yeah. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. You too Ted Danson. That was the super talented Billy Eichner. Thank you Billy for being here and talking with me. So appreciated. That's it for our show this week.

Special thanks to Woody and our friends at Team Coco. You all remember Woody? Woody Harrelson? Star of film, stage and TV? Anyway, I miss him. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone you love. As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app

and give us a great rating and review on Apple podcasts if you have a sec. Be sure and check this episode out on YouTube too. That's TOO, not TOO. See you next time. Everybody knows your name. not T-double-one. See you next time, Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Research by Alissa Grawl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bajista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Genn, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne. We'll have more for you next time, where everybody knows your name.