Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Eric Andre

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Ted Danson is a little nervous about being pranked as he sits down with the uniquely talented actor and comedian Eric Andre. Eric is the mastermind behind riotous and absurd projects such as Bad Trip and The Eric Andre Show, and Ted is curious to know what goes on in that head of his. They discuss the humanity that runs throughout Eric’s work as well as his journey of dealing with anxiety and personal loss. Bonus: Eric asks Ted how he got into acting. Like watching your podcasts? Visit https://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.

Who told you to go to therapy, or did you see somebody you knew? I think I just knew it was time. And I'm also surrounded by comedians and writers all day, so I'm surrounded by people obsessed with therapy. Who are deeply wounded and deeply funny. Deeply wounded, deeply funny. Hi, welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name, with me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson,

sometimes. On this show, we talk to a lot of unique individuals, but I can say that there's no one quite like today's guest. Eric Andre is a comedian, an actor, a TV host, musician, probably more. You might have seen one of his pranks on YouTube or the Eric Andre show on Adult Swim, which he's been the creator and host of for six seasons. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to sit down with him. I was terrified I was going to be pranked. Turned out all right, though. You'll see. Anyway, Eric is also the star of a hidden camera comedy movie that made me absolutely cringe with joy, if that's possible. It's called Bad Trip, and it's on Netflix. You need to check it out. I so enjoyed talking to Eric. I found him vulnerable and incredibly willing to be able to share some of the trauma

that's been part of his life. Ladies and gentlemen, Eric Andre. You look great. I feel good. You're handsome. I'm handsome. What's your secret? I have pickled tits and a jelly belly. If you make it to 75, people just treat you with so much respect.

I think they're afraid you may crack and break or something. But I've reached the Mr. Dance on the stage. Okay, so no Ozempic. No. Oh. Should we start it? Should we start doing it? Yeah.

What is Ozempic? You take it and it stops the cravings, right? Oh, it's not for the brain. No, it's for the belly. Oh, the belly. It's for the belly. But you're a tall guy, so you... No one has ever paid me to take my clothes off. You make a fortune taking your clothes off.

I was about to... I wouldn't say a fortune, first of all. A fortune. I make 300 bucks a week. And second of all, I will pay you $5 right now to get completely nude. Well, guess what? They paid me $15 to never get nude ever in front of them. That's a dollar amount I can't match.

You haven't done that thing where you look at your skin and you go, what the fuck happened? And it happens in about three or four years very quickly where it's just very sad, very sad. No, no, no. Yeah. Why am I doing this to myself? I don't know. I don't know. You're beating yourself up.

Let me take this back and say, because I watched for, at 8 o'clock, I got up and watched Bad Trip. I apologize for missing it when it first came out. No, it's okay. I'm surprised. But it is fucking brilliant. I'm surprised I'm here and you watched anything that I've ever done.

It is brilliant. Thank you. Truly brilliant. I appreciate it. And I've never laughed harder, but what was amazing was how sweet and kind i don't think you could do what you do if you weren't a sweet kind generous big-hearted person i really don't because if you were an asshole and you do scary things to people or put people in jeopardy it would not yeah it would not

work yeah and at the end watching everybody who you did prank during the uh whatever you call it out during the credit scroll yeah they were so loving and kind and thrilled and relieved and relieved somebody told you i read in an interview but it's true you you i fell in love with America watching that movie it was like so much, yeah, humanity and everybody that was the win

because it's easy to make a prank movie cynical and feel mean spirited and kind of give you an icky feeling so it was hard to make it feel did you know that right off the bat when you started pranking people that you had to do it a certain way? Not really, because on my show,

I can prank people and just be a nightmare terrorist maniac, and it's a short show. But when you're in a movie, a movie is a different medium than a television show. A television show is only 22 minutes long and, you know, comedy and a feature is at least 90 minutes long. So when you're with protagonists for that much time,

you have to like them. You have to like them for a TV show as well, but you really have to, they have to be human. You have to empathize and sympathize with them and you have to like them and you have to, you have to just be hanging out with them longer and you have to just hang out with them longer. So if you're hanging out with them longer...

My show on Adult Swim is only 11 minutes, so I just get to be completely schizophrenic, absurdist, maniac because 11 minutes, you don't have to invest in a character. But 90 minutes, you have to save the cat. You have to like the protagonist and hang out with them for at least 90 minutes.

So because of that, we realized early on that the pranks, all my destruction and destructive behavior had to be accidental. A la Chris Farley. He was a big influence so like um once we realized that i had to be this lovable lovable boob who just uh means well and his heart is in the right place but he's just like a very accident prone and and right and um uh idiotic in a lovable way that kind of uh informed how to write the prank so a lot of the pranks were we call them help me, help me pranks. They're pranks where the actor is in peril so that the marks, the people we're pranking, kind of get on the hook and get invested in whatever the scenario is. How written is it?

I mean, obviously you have... The story was very written. It's a narrative told through pranks. So we had like a very structured narrative that we wanted to nail. But once you're within the prank and you're interacting with the person, you're improvising and you're letting it go wherever. But you have written it enough so you have planned for as many possible contingencies. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like Curb, you know. Curb is improvised, right?

But they've worked for three months on the structure. On the structure, yeah. So it's probably the most like, that movie was probably the most like Curb out of anything. Did you love it? Are you proud of that? I'm very proud of it. Oh, it took me seven and a half years to make.

It took me almost a decade to make and I made no money. So I, all I have is pride. Our whole family went nuts for it. My wife today, Mary's son, Charlie is like a fanatic. Oh,

awesome. Yeah. It's really cool. Amazing. I am terrified of pranks. I am. I am, you know... Well, wait till the end of this podcast.

Look under your... Don't look under your seat. Did he have time alone in this room before I got here? No, I wouldn't. I'm off the clock. I came from so many

shoulds and shouldn'ts. You know, it was like a gentleman never... You know, it was rude intentionally, unintentionally. Is this from your parents? Parents and grandfather. Very English. I do have a fear of, intentionally, unintentionally. Is this from your parents? Parents and grandfather, very English.

I do have a fear of, oh, I don't want people to be suffering in any way if I'm pranking them and they don't know. Well, I'm a sociopath, so that is normal. No, but you're not because you don't take it out on them. You make yourself the brunt of it. The butt of the joke, yeah. Because if you don't you just become unlikable quick but what's really cool and makes it almost um it's so dangerous yeah to watch yeah

that it's riveting yeah besides funny you do see the danger you do believe it's quite stressed guys coming at you with a knife yeah and it ups it ups the level of, so when you laugh, I think you laugh even harder out of the relief that, you know, your hero didn't get stabbed. Did you ever get beat up? I've gotten manhandled. I've gotten manhandled and roughed up. I pranked Alex Jones at the Republican National Convention. Thank you. At this Bikers for Trump rally amongst a mosh pit of alt-rights.

I haven't seen that. How did that go? That was a little bit sketchy. It was a little bit tough. What was the conceit of the prank? Alex Jones. This wasn't hitting camera this was overt um i i alex jones was giving a rally giving some speech outside at this rally it was like a bikers for trump rally and there was a lot of all right kind of proud boy type guys there. And in the middle of his speech, I jumped up on stage

and I asked him to fuck my wife for no reason. I was just like, hey, I'm not. And he goes, oh, you're from The Daily Show. And I go, I'm not from The Daily Show. I just, here's my hotel key. It's my kink. I want you to fuck my wife.

And I just made, everything I said after that was completely apolitical. I said nothing political at all. And I think it maybe hits harder when you watch it. But then I jumped off stage and kind of got roughed up. Bodyguards were coming after you or no? We had one bodyguard, but he was kind of deep in the background.

I don't think he was paying attention. I didn't think it was get that heated so quickly, but you should really watch it. I don't think I'm doing it service. Sorry, I will. Well, I mean, I'm not giving you a homework assignment, but I mean, it's more effective if you watch it. But that was a little bit sketchy because it was an open carry state, so all those guys are like armed to the T.

So, you know. So you didn't grow up in Indiana. I grew up in florida boca raton florida woof yeah oof yeah and i read that you and your dad and your sister were like the only african-american people of color i mean i mean it wasn't the most diverse place in the world to grow up. I don't think we were the only ones, but we were, yeah, we were not. We were, we were, uh, in a cul-de-sac. And your mom was, was she there? My mom's a Jew from New York.

And, and not down in Florida with you? Did you? No, yeah, she was, they, they were, my dad was from Haiti. They met in New York. My mom's from Manhattan. They got married in the 70s. They moved to Miami in the 80s. Then they moved up to Boca Raton.

And they were together. They got divorced when I was like 12. But they were always there. My mom's still down there. Yeah. And what was your pre-teenage years like? I mean, I was Arizona jumping on horses and doing that kind of thing. I wasn't jumping on horses.

I was very, I was always a class clown. I was very nerdy and academic. But then I realized when I could act out and misbehave, when I could get laughs from misbehaving, then it was all over. Then I was very hyperactive. I was very, believe it or not, I was very hyperactive. I was very, believe it or not, I was very ADD and hyperactive. And, uh, I just, um, constantly got in trouble. I got straight A's in school, but I would always get in trouble. I would always like, that must have been confusing for them. I would always have like parent teacher conferences

because it was constantly getting in trouble and they would drag my parents in and all the teachers would be like, Oh, his grades are fine. His grades are fine. He just won't, he won't shut the fuck up. And I would, I was bad. I was really bad. I would like, I got suspended for mooning my friends. I got suspended for going to school barefoot.

I one time, you know, the glass enclosure where the fire hose is right that the fireman has to access in case of an emergency one time i like purposely bashed my head through it to like make my friend laugh and the glass is made to break so the glass broke i leaned back all this glass sliced my head and my hands open i was bleeding out of my head and my hands and i didn't want to like blow the joke so i just turned to my friend and I went stigmata. I'm the second coming of Jesus. I bled all the way to the other building and they made me go to the hospital. But I was bad. I was poorly behaved. When did you first have like an outlet other than amusing your friends and stuff for that energy.

I was always playing music and I was always in shitty bands. And I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Upright Bass. For Upright Bass. I went to jazz school. Yeah. And how did that come about? I mean, why music?

Why? I was just obsessed with music. I still am. I just was obsessed with music. So I knew I wanted to do something creative. As a pre-teenager? I was playing piano since I was just obsessed with music. I still am. I just was obsessed with music. So I knew I wanted to do something creative. As a pre-teenager? I was playing piano since I was five. And I played tuba in band in middle school. And then I played cello and bass. I played cello for about three years.

Really? Yeah. Yo, yo, ma. Yeah. I don't have music in me. I, like, memorized the notes, and I knew that that meant this finger here. But I never had music running through my soul kind of thing. So I kind of gave up. I started... My parents bought me my first little guitar because I put the cello on my lap.

Yeah. I tried to play it that way. Well, how did you pivot into acting? Wanted to be a basketball player. That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't answer my question. Sure, I pivoted. That doesn't make any sense.

Are you even listening? No. Dad? Actually, I'm not. Where am I? Just constant fear there's going to be a prank coming my way. No, I wouldn't tell you like that. I went from, yeah, cello was, I was just trying to identify with you in music.

Cello was nothing. That was a blip. That was a blip. Basketball was my passion. And you went to college for basketball? No. I thought that I went to a prep school in Connecticut and played basketball. And we won our league champions.

Nice. But as I said, like any high school of like 1,200 kids or something would have cleaned our clock. We were a very small school. Then I went to— What year? The mid-60s? 66, yeah. Were you part of a counter-cultural revolution?

Were you smoking weed at halftime? No, man. I missed the 60s completely. How literally? You weren't doing acid and shooting three-pointers? No, and I went to Stanford, so I was in San Francisco land in the 60s and missed it completely.

How? How is it possible? Were you immersed in it? I might just be from Arizona. I don't know what. I was so didn't know. I was faking my way through school. I was so unacademic that I thought I'd have basketball,

but that was the same year that Lou Alcindor, Kareem, was a freshman at UCLA. And it was just like, oh, well, fuck, I'm not. This is not for me. And I was very sad, disappointed. But then I found acting my sophomore year at Stanford, and then the light bulb went off. And life made sense. And I transferred to Carnegie Mellon and then New York. And continued to study acting.

Yeah. Yeah. Where did you graduate in New York? No, no. Graduated from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, then went to New York to look for work. And you started in theater? Yeah. How long?

What was the gap between finishing school and Cheers? What were like those years? Were you doing plays or were you acting? I was doing plays, commercials, soap operas, anything. Were you waiting tables in the background too? No, I always managed to get a job. Squeak by. Yeah, and back then in New York, you could get, if you worked on a commercial on Tuesday,

you couldn't collect your unemployment for that day, but they let you collect it for the rest of the week, so you could kind of scrape by. And this is in the 70s? Yeah, went to New York in 72, left in 78.

So it was a little less expensive than it is now. Yeah. You can afford a place. It was also a little crazier. It was very dangerous. Did you see some... My mom had to worry about Son of Sam in the 70s. She had to cut her hair short. Yeah.

It was just a nightmare. Where was Son of Sam? In what borough was that happening? Do you remember? I don't know. She lived in Harlem. And then she moved to Queens. She didn't move to Queens until she had my sister.

I think it was Queens. It wasn't Manhattan. I remember that. Oh, I don't know. Yeah. But where'd you live in Manhattan? West side, upper west side. It was kind of bombed out back then.

Really? Amsterdam and 90th. Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. But I was acting, so I didn't care. Uh-huh. But I was acting, so I didn't care. Yeah.

I was taking classes. I was auditioning. It didn't matter. Hey, what a cool time to be doing that there. Yeah. Yeah. How old are you?

40. So, New York to you? So, you were what? 80s? You were coming of age kind of thing? I was born in 83. 83.

Yeah. I saw New York when I was six years old. I went to the top of the World Trade Center, and I saw when they had graffiti on the trains. I caught like the last sliver of like... Was Times Square, had that been gentrified? It was dodgy, but I don't really have memories of that um i have the earliest memories of times square i have was kind of in the gentrification stage right okay so you

get to boston you get to berkeley yeah school of music are you still pranking your friends or yeah i was still being a fucker i was still being a nuisance i was was being a nuisance. I would wear a tuxedo for no reason and skateboard around the hallways on the carpet. And in your mind, just going for the laugh today? Just going for the laugh. I had nothing to do with that. I didn't want anything to do with comedy professionally. I just thought it was too hard and intimidating.

But you thought about it? Is that why you thought it was too hard? For like a millisecond, I had great admiration for stand-up comics, but I was like, I could never do that. That seems like a nightmare. And then as I was finishing school, the music industry was kind of falling apart

because Napster and peer-to-peer file sharing and stuff was fucking everything up. So, like, you know, the records of the 70s, the cassette tapes of the 80s, the CDs of the 90s were all irrelevant because they started to... Like streaming today. Yeah, the technology was deteriorating, so we're being replaced.

So, and my friend, Brian Moskin, he was just like, you're so funny, you've got to try. And Boston's a very comedy-rich town. There's comedy clubs everywhere. And my band, at the time, we would play these open mics and all the venues I would play at these open mics would always have like an open mic comedy night. You know, we'd play on a Monday and then be like, come back Tuesday for the comedy night. And was that the first time you stood up?

That's when I started trying it. Yeah, that's when I started trying stand-up and I fell in love with it instantly. And I also, I loved it also out of convenience because I had to schlep my upright bass everywhere my whole college, you know, all four years of college. And then when I started doing stand-up, I was like, I don't have to haul any equipment anywhere. I can just show up and there's a microphone already there. So it was out of like laziness and convenience, I started doing stand-up. And would you write your material? Oh, yeah, yeah.

And what was it, the same kind of attitude? It was very loud and hyperactive and hyperbolic and psychedelic and absurdist. And it was, yeah, it was like the beginning of like my figuring out my point of view. Are you getting paid at this point or no? In Boston, no, not was like the beginning of like my figuring out my point of view. Are you getting paid at this point or no? In Boston, no, not a dime.

Not a dime for like the first decade of comedy. But you had a following. Did people? I only did my first year in Boston. Then I moved to New York and I started doing stand-up. But I was like working day jobs and it really took like a decade of of uh just crawling through the sewer before i made any money doing it or had any following right yeah it was a decade of just uh the the doldrums i was like oh shit i'm not close enough to my microphone actually could you back off your mic just a bit but yeah it was a decade of poverty and where i'm

sorry that was i only did one year in boston then i moved to new york yeah for five years then i moved to la after i finally like got an agent and a manager. When did you go? It was kind of working. A little success is coming my way. When did you? Little teeny. The very first thing I booked when I moved to Los Angeles was Curb Your Enthusiasm. And I got two lines. I said two lines to Larry.

It was the episode where he thinks his ex-wife is cheating on him with Jason Alexander. Cheryl Hines. He thinks Cheryl is cheating on him with Jason Alexander. Cheryl Hines. He thinks Cheryl is cheating on him with Jason Alexander. It was the Seinfeld reunion. Oh, wow. So he thinks, so he gets paranoid. I don't totally remember the premise.

He gets paranoid that they're having an affair. And I played a PA on the set of the Seinfeld reunion. And he's kind of asking me for, I had no, no, no laughs. It was just, I was just delivering exposition.

Right. And he was just asking me, but I had two little lines that I was like, Oh yeah. And it was, and it was like one of the first auditions I had when I moved here. So I was like, I'm going to fucking make it.

And then after that, I didn't book shit for like years. I couldn't, I would fall apart in auditions. I would just so, so nervous. I would clam up. Um um but that was one of the first uh gigs i booked and then i would kind of scrape by on commercials and stuff like that did you audition for scripted shows when you fell apart yeah i was auditioning i was auditioning for whatever, anything, anything and everything.

And I kind of, like when I was in New York, I would scrape by on commercial work and some stand-up gigs. But I had various day jobs that I termed. And then I moved to LA, same thing, and I scraped by on little. Then I started really focusing on acting in a way that I had in New York when I was just focusing on stand-up. By doing what? By taking classes. Oh, yeah?

And actually reading and rehearsing. Who did you study with? I studied with Leslie Kahn and John Rosenfeld, and they whipped me into shape because I knew nothing. And then just educating myself, I read that Joanna Merlin book, Auditioning. Is it Auditioning or Audition?

I just had to like demystify the process for myself because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I read Uta Hagen's book. Yeah. I never read Stanislavski or Strasberg,

but after reading Uta Hagen, it felt like I was like, I think I need to learn by doing more than continuing to read. So Stanislavski, it felt like I was like, I think I need to learn by doing more than continuing to read. So Stanislavski, I think that book is like 112 years old or something like that. Easily. Might not be totally relevant.

But you know what you do so well, which not all stand-ups do, is you throw the ball back and forth. A lot of stand-ups will go, I got the ball. Yeah. Let me run with it. Yeah. Let me run with it. Yeah. Whereas you really are bouncing off of people and impacting them and allowing yourself to be impacted. Yeah.

That's really cool. Well, I also feel like that's where comedy lives. You've got to, like, be in the moment and experiment, and it gives it an element of danger and suspense and surprise. You've got to almost surprise yourself. Why make life harder than it needs to be? With Consumer Cellular, you get the same fast, reliable nationwide coverage as big wireless, but without the cost of big wireless.

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That's a good stress test being in a canyon. Yeah. Like literally a canyon. Literally. You're at the bottom of this huge. Not huge, but you know, big enough to, are you trying to get me to tell you where I live? Can you post the address on the screen? Let's, yeah.

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i think my mom got it my mom's american so she got it right away my dad it took him a while to figure out is this all right for you to be doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, my dad was, he escaped a third world country, then like put himself through med school and became a doctor. So he didn't want me to do it. That takes some seriousness. Yeah, he didn't want me to be in Korea. He'd be like, go to law school or med school,

go to med school. And I was like, I don't want to fucking, I don't want to go to med school. So I think, and you know, comedy is cultural and I'm doing a very, uh, very specific nuanced, uh, corner of comedy. Describe it. If somebody, if somebody who you cared about asked you, just describe your comedy, what would you say? I would say it's very loud and bombastic and hyperactive and gonzo and absurdist and psychedelic. Those are all the adjectives I got for you. Right.

But also you're talking about stuff. I mean, obviously, I keep going back to that movie because I literally just watched it. And I'm not over-exaggerating. I have never laughed so hard and enjoyed it. I was so tickled to meet you after seeing that. Thank you. But there's a point of view. There's a world point of view of caring about you.

In my mind, you're almost saying, without saying it, you know, America's a pretty cool place. Yeah. You know, and people of color are some compassionate. Right. You know, they've seen it all. Right. Had it all done to them. And look how compassionate they

still are. We showed the movie an early cut. We went to Sacha Baron Cohen's house and we showed him an early cut of the movie because we needed help. The movie was in shambles in the beginning. But he said, he goes, the win for your movie, he goes, my movies are showing,

try to show off how shitty and hypocritical politicians are and the people in power. Because your movie, The Victory, is showing how people of color and working class people are like good and good Samaritans and the humanity and the working class in America.

Because I think like the news doesn't cover and social media doesn't cover people being nice and people being philanthropic and good Samaritans. You know, the news and social media just covers the extremes in humanity and chaos and violence. And if you had done a straight movie, meaning a narrative dialogue,

all of that was scripted, it would have felt like a bit of a lecture. It's a tough thing to put that out in the world. If you did a pure news interview 60-minute segment, you know, not. But when you combined it with the danger of pranks, it really was impactful. Yeah, thanks.

Pretty cool. Thanks. Appreciate it. So what kind of toll... I've heard you talk about anxiety. Yeah. Is that, was that from, you know. It never ends.

As a kid? Always. When did you know, oh, wait, this is something I have. I think always, but I didn't know it was, how punishing it was until I started going to therapy. At age, if I may ask. Is this okay to talk about? Yeah, I'm an open book. 25, 26, I started doing therapy.

Because something stopped working or the toll was too great? It was around when I couldn't book an audition to save my life, when I was having fall-down panic attacks in audition. And you know what? Auditioning is nerve wracking. I need to like give 25 year old me some credit.

Like it's a nerve wracking experience. You know how many auditions Steve Martin has been on? How many? One. He went on one once. Somebody saw him do stand up

and they're like, oh my God, you'd be great for this role. It was like in the 70s, early 70s. Right. You got to come in on audition and he went in the room. We went in the waiting room and he saw like eight guys that looked like him

and he he botched the audition and he was like i i there's no what world am i going to be able to compete against 10 guys that look like me and give this performance in this nerve-wracking situation where i'm gonna beat out the competition all the time. He goes, it just seems, he's like, I don't like this. I'm shittily paraphrasing. I remember reading his book and feeling like, okay, I'm not alone. Auditions are nerve-wracking. Especially if you're broke, especially if you need it.

Yeah, when you need it and you're broke and you just come. And I was like, just got to LA fresh off the turnip truck. And I just didn't know what the process was. I didn't understand it. It all seemed just like this intimidating, confusing thing to me. I needed to demystify the process a little bit.

Were you doing stand-up at the time? I was doing stand-up at the time. Here in L.A.? Yeah, I would do stand-up at the time in L.A. and I would hit the road. But also, I just had the wrong... I was doing everything wrong. I didn't really know.

I think stand-up is its own craft and acting is its own craft. I just needed to put in the work. That's when I started going to therapy because I was like, I can't function. I'm pursuing a career that I need to. My nerves are just through the roof.

That's a bold move. A lot of people go don't. They turn to other things that don't work. I've definitely done a shot of vodka before an audition. Not every audition I've ever done, I've been sober. I understand the shot. I could never understand smoking dope before an audition. Hell no.

No, that would be a nightmare. Weed has never hit me right. No. Weed is advertised like it's soothing and calming. For me, the opposite. Every insecurity just bubbles to the forefront of my mind. It just puts me into a panic. So who told you to go to therapy?

Or did you see somebody you knew? I think I just knew it was time. I don't think anybody needed to tell me. I think I was like, let me just give it a shot. And I'm also surrounded by comedians and writers all day, so I'm surrounded by people obsessed with therapy. Who are deeply wounded and deeply funny. Deeply wounded, deeply

funny, and therapized. So, it just seemed to make sense. And then when I started therapy, my first therapist told me about meditation and I started doing meditation daily, TM, yeah, twice a day. And then right when I started therapy and doing TM, that's when I started booking auditions and feeling like, oh, I had some agency over my anxiety. But it's like it never ends, anxiety. It's just part of the neurochemicals I inherited from my parents.

So, I just. And anxiety is, I don't have what you have, but I have had paralyzing anxiety attacks. During a performance? I used to have them maybe once every year. Yeah. While performing, but performing not live or something like that, but on a TV show or something. Yeah. And it would be just mind-numbing. It's horrible.

You couldn't put sentences and words together. You're completely out of body. Yeah. So disassociated. Yeah. And it felt like high school and... That's horrible. Here comes my line and I have no idea.

Should I cry? Yeah. Should I... I have no... You know, just immobilizing. Yeah. Sometimes I go, why did I pick this career choice in those moments? I'm like, why am I doing this?

Why am I... This is a nightmare. And you feel all alone. Everybody has stage fright. Anybody that doesn't have stage fright, I think they're sociopathic. Like there's no way you don't, you, you learn to cope with it and it eventually becomes quieter as you, uh, as your career grows, your confidence grows and you, you know, but, uh, I remember, I did a cartoon, animated movie with, Reese Witherspoon,

Reese Witherspoon was in the cast, and, to me, Reese Witherspoon is this, all-star, you know, she is, yeah,

yeah, uh, veteran actor, you know, she's done a million movies, television shows, and even her, she was like,

uh, backstage, she was saying something, she was like, uh, oh, I was telling her I went to a million movies, television shows. And even her, she was like, backstage, she was saying something. She's like, I was telling her I went to a hypnotist. I was trying to stop eating sugar. She's like, I've been to a hypnotist once, but it was to work on my stage fright. I have crippling stage fright. And I was like, why don't you have a shelf full of Emmys and Oscars and whatever, anything else? So we're all going through it, but you just feel alone.

You feel alone. When you're having bad anxiety, you feel alone. You feel like you're the only one on earth experiencing that, but everybody... I had a scare on stage, you know, 15 years ago. I don't know that I will ever... I shouldn't say never, but if somebody said you want to do a theater it's like no never again no i had so much fear and adrenaline pumping my i was we were doing these um the atlantic theater is this great theater that feeds into broadway and their

friends and they asked me if i would like to come in and do this one week of, it's like a 20-minute, my piece was a 20-minute monologue. It was the 25th anniversary and they had 25 writers and they told them, write anything you want, opera play, monologue, whatever. And then they would celebrate the theater's history by doing five of these you know each week yeah and so there's very little rehearsal right and uh i watched somebody a few days before i was to do my week of this uh go up on a line because very little rehearsal and i thought well somebody will whisper it from the wings no from the back of the house in the lighting booth over a microphone where line is you know

i better think of something at least be clever if you have to ask for a line and it was an 18 minute monologue oh my god so stupid on my part and it was brilliantly written, but I psyched myself out. Totally. Oh, no. I walked in the dark, you know, to my place. The lights come up and probably 10 seconds in. Oh, no. Total blank. And it's like sticking your finger in a light socket. It was like

horrible feeling. Am I going to cry? Fuck, I can't believe this. My daughter's in the audience. Shit. Do I apologize? Shit. All within a second, you know. fuck i can't believe this my daughter's in the audience shit do i say do i apologize shit all within a second you know and then you ask for the line and i said darcy um what happens next thinking how clever and i got the line but darcy had just sat down on the lighting booth you know with a cup of coffee and didn't have any fucking idea what my line was. Oh, no.

So it just got worse and worse. Oh, my God. My daughter had to walk me around the block in New York like four or five times drinking gallons of water. I had so much adrenaline. And then my sweet friend, sorry, I'll shorten this. Director said, hey, Ted, why don't we meet at the uh theater of a half hour hour before the show he was so sweet and he got me there and we just ran it over and over and over again but literally every time i got to that line my body freaked yeah yeah and froze yeah but he

had me saying so much that that night night when my body freaked out, my mouth kept flapping and I got past it. Yeah. It was horrible. It was horrible. Yeah. I do this thing I got from music school. I have to, I'll type my lines out. So it's just my lines so that there's no stage directions or anything else from the script. I'll just, it's a, it's just my lines so that there's no stage directions or anything else from the script. It's a line memorization exercise where I just, I'll type my lines. When I memorize them,

if I can't say them out loud five times in a row without fucking up, I don't have a memorize. So even if I get to the fourth time, if I mess up, I go back, I start back at one.

I need to say it out loud five times in a row. And I say it like very monotone. Yeah. Just like da-da-da-da-da-da. So I don't get trapped into a line reading or like. Yeah. So I just say very monotone.

And I have to do it five times in a row. And then I feel confident enough to go to set and know, even if I have a fall-down panic attack, I at least have the muscle memory where I can just poop the line out of my mouth until my anxiety calms back down and get to the line and come back to earth and then just be in the scene. Do you think any part of you would,

I know this is going to sound stupid, would miss your anxiety as a performer if you stood up and there was no anxiety? Yeah, I think the anxiety helps. I think it can hurt if it's a full blown panic attack, but

it only helps because I have done stand-up shows where the room is lightly packed. I don't have any new jokes I'm excited about and I don't feel any anxiety jokes i'm excited about and i don't feel any anxiety i'm gonna i feel bored then you're fucked and then you bomb yeah then you're just like man yeah you're phoning it in yeah and that's when i bomb you really you have to have a little bit of pre-show jitters it's just about like managing the full-blown panic attacks yeah i

don't usually i find myself find myself like in a car on a set being driven to the set by a teamster or whatever. Sometimes I don't put my safety belt on because I'm in Hollywood. Everything's fine. Everything's taken care of. I'm in my little bubble. Or if I walk around in a dangerous neighborhood, but

we're shooting and I'm in a bubble. Everything's fine. You go into a situation and some guy for real chases you out with a knife. Are you thinking though, oh, it's okay though. I'm in my bubble. Or are you literally, oh, this could go really bad. I'm thinking two things. I'm thinking, oh, this could go really bad in the moment.

But I'm also fast forwarding ahead to the editing bay where I'm like, I'm so glad I got a great reaction. This is so high stakes. We have footage. We have usable footage. So I usually am more in a positive state of mind, ironically, when people are attacking me because I'm like, well, that's something to watch.

But it doesn't always mean, just because a Marx reaction is violent doesn't always equate to comedy. Sometimes it's just dark. Sometimes it's just like, there are scenes in the movie, this one guy was going to like break a bottle over my head. And we used a little bit of him. At the bar.

At the bar, yeah. And you cut out just as he started to move around the bar. to yeah we used a little bit of him in the credit scroll but he was really intense and gnarly and we it was in the body of the movie and it just was it was just it never got a laugh at any of the test screenings and we just kind of sometimes it's just too like it's more each than laugh out loud so so it doesn't always equ. But at least you know you get people are reacting. And you got to see the guy with the knife, I do believe, in the credit scroll where when he saw him, realized what was going on.

Or am I making that up? I don't know if we showed his full reveal, the knife guy. We showed the guy that was going to break a bottle over me um right but or whatever he was going to do he's going to punch me or something but i do remember he took a shot when he decided i need to punch this guy he did do a shot of jim beam and he got up and yeah yeah that's what i yell popcorn this is going bad yeah i can't remember how you cut out of it but it it was clearly a good time to cut out. It was a good time.

Yeah. I think I was urinating next to him. It wasn't real urine, but he... You can understand why someone might get pissed off at you. He's a little bit upset. Did you ever get anxiety during the filming of that? Because... Every day.

Really? That's a nightmare. That's a nightmare. anxiety during the filming of that because every day really because it's like the real I find usually my anxiety is it's not really based on something real it's not like it's not like it's kind of both I have like this generalized anxiety that's not that's based on just fiction

and my overactive brain. And then I have like real fear like, oh, I might get punched during this bit. And you only have one take a lot of times. Like the, I think the hanging off the roof thing, we only had one take. The honky-tonk, the cowboy bar, we only had one take. So you spend all this time and money and energy and writing but that's not anxiety to my mind that's fear that's concern that's that's real uh-huh you should be fearful of this right that's true for me anxiety usually is like it's your mind looking it's my mind looking

for trouble i don't get anxious if you know if some if i cut myself badly i don't get anxious if I cut myself badly. I don't get anxious. But I can get anxious about the thought of. Right. That's a good distinction. I think that's a good distinction. Can I keep on this part? Because I'm such a neurotic mess that

I find this very interesting. You seem like a cool summer breeze. I have psoriasis everywhere just because I... From stress? Yeah. No. Yeah.

You don't have psoriasis everywhere? Not anymore. Because they have these wonderful little biologics, they're called, where you can take a shot of something. Is it like an eczema? Yeah, but then it becomes something that gets into your bones and stuff. And so psoriatic arthritis becomes a problem. You had it your whole life or recently? Right after, seriously, right after the 25-year-old who auditioned for the doctors.

That's when it started. And took Valium. So it was a stress reaction. Yeah, I do believe. I think you have a propensity, and I think diet and a lot of stuff can contribute to it. But I do believe it's stress. You ever read those John Sarno books, Healing Back Pain? Yes. Those books saved my life.

I had back pain for years. Until you recognize, oh, this is. Oh, it's a stress reaction. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, to the point where I was going to get back surgery and I read those books. I did a movie. I know so many people who cured

themselves. That guy's a saint. Those books saved my life. I recommend them to everybody. Do you think you have fear on top of anger or just fear? Like internal rage? Yeah, I think it's a your id Like internal rage. Yeah, I think it's a...

Your id resents the pressure you put on yourself as an adult. Your childlike id. It's a battle between your id and your superego. Some Freudian shit. Yeah. It's just the pressure. And also, a lot of the people in the book with a lot of the symptoms

had like high pressure jobs. One was like, I watched like a 60 minute documentary about it first before I read the book and it was like a television producer, a lawyer,

people like that really put a tremendous amount of pressure. Or people going through like big fundamental family changes like their father just died and they had to take over the company. Right.

Or there was one patient he talked about where they were in a failing, their marriage was failing, and they literally got a rash under their wedding ring in the shape of a wedding ring, which is pretty poetic. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So I totally believe that stress manifests in the body. Like, how could you not believe that, you know? Have you done, somebody told me that you had talked about it, so I feel okay asking about it. Sure. And I don't even know, MDMA? I have done MDMA, yeah. And microdosing, I mean.

I've done macrodosing as well. But that's self-treatment. Have you done it under a guided? Yes, I've done MDMA therapy. Is that the same things that they try with vets who have post-traumatic stress? Yeah, big time. And can I ask, because I've never done it, but I'm really curious. Well, now's the time I put it in your water.

That's the prank. So far, it makes me want to pee. I was going to do more than that, brother. So, can I ask what that is like? So, you take it and you become in a whatever state that that drug makes you in, and then you talk to your therapist? Well, you do a bunch of talk sessions first without the medicine, without the psychedelic. It's a psychedelic amphetamine. So you do a bunch of talk sessions first.

So you just talk about whatever issues are bothering you. But the doctor is really kind of paving a pathway so that by the time you do the session with the MDMA, you kind of get right to it. So you do a bunch of talk sessions in his office. Then when you do the MDMA, he comes over to your house. You put on headphones. You put on a sleep mask. Oh, wow.

You get comfy. You get on your sofa with a blanket and in your pajamas you take the mdba start playing music and then you just kind of sit there and you only kind of i only kind of like peek through the sleep mask and chime in where i'm like oh uh remind me to tell you about when that kid pushed me off of a bicycle when i was seven or something you know what i mean like something will up, but you're really kind of just going through and how I can, I'll break it down. A doctor can break it down better than I can.

But you know, you store trauma in your amygdala. There's an almond shaped gland on your brain called the amygdala where trauma is stored. And usually when you have trauma, that trauma gets triggered if you try to access it when you have trauma, that trauma gets triggered if you try to access it when you're sober. Let's say if you got bit by a snake when you were a kid, every time you saw something snake-like,

you see a garden hose out of the side of your vision. That, your amygdala gets triggered. So what the MDMA does, or they do psilocybin therapy, they're doing all these psychedelic therapies. It allows you to access your trauma in a way that you can't access it while you're sober and actually reroute your neural pathways around the trauma so that you can process the trauma and alleviate the triggering symptoms that happen from the PTSD response. Because without the drug, you may be… It's too painful. Right. It's too painful to because without the drug you may be it's too it's too uh it's too painful right

it's too painful to access without the drug rewire especially you know veterans with ptsd there's nothing more there's not a deeper trauma so like yeah so it allows it allows you uh it allows you to enter that all those old traumas in a way that you can't while you're while you're is it meant to be a one-off, or do you do this for weeks or months or however long? I've only done it, I've probably had like 30 or 40 talk sessions with him, and I've only done it,

done the MDMA with him twice. And how did it feel afterwards? Incredible. Amazing. And relevatory? Relevatory, yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Like shook up major things that needed to be rearranged. Yeah. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. Isn't it now? I mean, now it's a full-on fda goes yes or somebody's going yes let's experiment with this yeah it's on the precipice of being legalized i mean there are places like oregon has decriminalized all drugs it just needs

to happen on like a federal right yeah yeah and did that happen i saw a meme recently it said i like the war on drugs because drugs won Where did your moral, whatever, guiding principle or spoken or unspoken come from? How do you know what's good and bad? How do you behave in life and where did that come from? I guess my parents. I guess my mom has been like a civil rights activist her entire life. She marched on Washington. When she was 18, she saw Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech.

And she's always been into like political activism for marginalized people. And my parents are both very kind. They're neurodivergent, but they're very sweet. Almost to a fault, though. They're a little bit

they're so people-pleasing that they fall into codependency. But yeah, I guess from my parents. My mother was, you know, my parents,

I got unconditional love, which right off the bat is one of the biggest gifts you can give to your kids. Yeah. But my mother was really good at dealing with the positive side to life you know enthusiasm creativity encouragement joy happiness willingness all of those things but anything petty or angry uh was to be suppressed you know no, no, no, don't dwell on that. So that I grew up, I didn't have a choice to be nice. I had to be nice. And that is kind of bogus because you can only really be as nice as you can be shitty.

Right. You know, and once you start seeing, oh, yeah, I actually am really shitty and I am really mean spirit. I can have all of these things. Then I can choose to be nice in a situation yeah and that took me a long time to figure out yeah yeah my parents uh didn't my mom's alive my dad passed away but my parents were very like they're not they they they're very academic and egg egghead types very like bookworms, but they lacked emotional intelligence.

But they're very sweet. But I also was born and came into consciousness at the back half of their marriage as they started drifting apart. So that was tough. They were married for almost 25 years. So my sister was born in 1974. I was born in 83. So she kind of got the ascension. Right.

And I got the decline. And when they got divorced, she was 20 years old. She was already in college. And I was like 11 turning 12, which is awkward. That's tough. Awkward coming of age. And they were not good at explaining that they were getting divorced either.

I had to like put it together. My dad was just like, oh, I'm going to live somewhere else for a little bit. And I was like, well, what does that mean? And they never fought either. So it was very strange

when they got divorced. I was like, he's going to live somewhere else. Okay. And then I had to be like, well, you're not getting divorced, are you? And then later, a few they got divorced it was like he's gonna live somewhere else okay and then i had to be like wait you're not getting divorced are you and then later a few few months later i was like are you guys getting divorced what the fuck is going on and they were like uh uh yeah that was their speech that's how they let me know they were getting divorced i cried my eyes out you didn't know they had no capacity to be like, son, we love you very much.

Yeah. This has nothing to do with you. This has nothing to do with you. We're both going to be there for you 110%. We still love each other, but our love for each other has changed. I'm no longer going to live here, but I'm still going to be close and I'm going to be in your life. None of that. And my dad was a psychiatrist he should know how to fucking what the what the ramifications are just going uh i'm gonna live uh somewhere else uh and then me

at 12 year old having to put it together and ask them yeah i had to like i had to like drag it out of them to like what's going on here and that's the time in life especially then when you should have all you know gentle focus coming your way to see so you can develop into who you are as opposed to have to take care of your parents. No, it was not great. And I resented them for that forever. But then I realized they just didn't have the capacity to communicate what they needed to communicate in that moment. They just are both on their own parts of the spectrum and they just don't have,

they just, they don't possess the qualities to communicate. It's such a good place to be when you finally realize, oh, my parents are just these really nice folks who are doing the best they can. Yeah, they're human. Yeah. Everyone's flawed. Nobody's perfect.

It's a relief when you realize that. But you, I did resent them for that for a long time. And I love them. I mean, it wasn't like I hated them at all. I love, I love my dad to the end and I love my mom very much.

But my dad passed away last year. My mom's alive. My dad, my dad had cancer. He had cancer. Were you around him? Towards the end, yeah.

All the time, towards the end, yeah. It doesn't matter how old you are, man. You cannot prepare yourself for losing a parent. I know. It's unbelievably painful. In a way, I was like,

God, I didn't know how much I loved my dad until he started dying. Yeah, yeah. But it was miserable. I mean, it's fucking miserable. It's really miserable. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But it was miserable. I mean, it's fucking miserable. It's really miserable. But you know what? All this stuff came out

and he died slow enough that we got to have talk and have closure and bring up stuff that he always avoided. My dad was very avoidant. Very aloof. Very avoidant.

Very, like, avoided any kind of, like, emotional vulnerability his whole life. And he's just from a different world. He's from the Caribbean. He's raised Catholic. And he's neurodivergent. So he's like this bookworm from this like repressive Catholic, old school, third world Caribbean culture.

It's like we're just from two different universes. I'm from the suburbs of Florida. So it's very hard to pull out emotion out of him and vulnerability. So we just like, I was like, this is it. If I don't get, it's very awkward to bring some of this stuff up, but I just have to. I just have to. And he was willing. And he was willing.

And he was willing. He was as responsive as I've ever seen him because he kind of knew he had to get some of this stuff out. And he told me, he never told me he loved me my entire life. I always knew he loved me, but he never said I love you until like a few days before he died. And he just eked it out. It was like with his like, kind of his last breaths and it came out of nowhere. He was sitting and it was like right before we started, we did hospice at the house. It's right before hospice started. And he was constantly watching TV and I would just sit next to him in his bed.

And then I just turned off the TV and I looked at him. I was like, I don't want the TV on. Let's just like talk. I don't even know if it's awkward. And out of nowhere, he was just like, and he looked skeletal at this point. He was at the very end. And he had no energy. And he just, out of nowhere, he went, I love you. And I was like, what? Like the words I've been waiting to hear my whole life.

I was like, what? What do you mean? Wait, wait, what'd you say? It was like, what? I didn't say I love you back whole life. I was like, what? What do you mean? Wait, wait. What'd you say? It was like, what? I didn't say I love you back right away. I was like, what? And he goes, I love you. I never meant to upset you.

Oh, wow. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. And I started bawling, crying. Oh, my God. Bawling, crying.

I have goosebumps telling this story. And then he looked at me like I'm bawling crying. And he goes, can you ask for my nurse? So I go, okay. I go, Angela. I go, Angela, my dad needs you for a second. And he was very almost like childlike in this stage. And his nurse came in and he turned to his nurse. He goes, why is my son crying when I'm telling him I love him?

I'm like, because I love you too, dad. I love you you too i've been waiting my whole life for you to tell me that and we just started bawling crying oh my bawling crying and then the eerie part was he looked at the foot of his bed and he goes my two friends are here and i was like well and it's just me and his nurse and and i was like what and he goes my two friends my two friends from my my child are here and i go dad it's just me and angela it's just me and your nurse and in your room and he looked at me like oh shit like it's the end kind of you know and my friend is a um a death doula she's like an end- life care she does hospitals brilliant she told me it's common that um when people are dying they'll see two people from their past like somewhere in the

room or something like that i'm like really she's like that's a really common thing like i hear like oh i saw two men right before or my dad or my mom said they saw two men before they did so and then the the next day i think like yeah i think it was like the next day hospice started and he's just kind of a zombie yeah yeah and he would he would kind of say be lucid every now and again but not really it's just like you know did any of this change your anxiety and your performance stuff or is a little bit because i think i was always i was always seeking my father's approval because he was so aloof in my um childhood um so i didn't realize how much that motivated me so now he's dead i'm like i felt you know it's recent too i felt like a lack of not a lack of motivation but like trying to find

motivation and inspiration from elsewhere i didn't realize how much that was an engine died yeah after he died yeah he died in december he died recently so oh it's been a real yeah it hasn't even been a year. It's like pretty recent. Also, everyone's on strike this year. So it was like, it's just been a bizarre year. But it was actually like a forced sabbatical. I traveled a lot. I went to like Africa for the first time. And I traveled, you know, I went to Peru and I did Ayahuasca. I went to Ghana and Morocco and bopped all over Europe.

So I took it as an opportunity to self-reflect and find new motivation. Yeah, it is a big bizarre spiritual shake up it also feels like when your dad dies as a guy I'm like oh I'm an adult now I felt like oh I'm an adult I'm in charge

I still feel like a kid but now I'm not now I'm an adult now I'm in I'm not. Now I'm an adult. Now I'm in charge. A kind of, I'm not in charge of really anything. Besides like,

you know, paying my bills. But, um, yeah, it's a very, it's a big existential shakeup. It's strange.

Yeah. It's real. Yeah. I don't know where we are time-wise, but I have... It's three in the morning. It feels... I gave you MDMA. I have so much respect for you as an artist. Thanks.

And watching your film today really was a highlight. Oh, thanks so much. But I really enjoyed talking about the emotional stuff cool to me that's what connects me to people and all that so i'm thank you for sharing all that i really appreciate it thanks for having me yeah i appreciate it do we get to like hug when we see each other in the street anytime you can anytime. You can hug me, you can tackle me. Thanks, man. Thank you. Eric Andre, everybody.

Please check out his book with Dan Curry called Dumb Ideas, a behind-the-scenes expose on making pranks and other stupid creative endeavors and how you can also too. That's it for this week's show. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to a friend or an enemy, whatever. If you haven't

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