WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 582 - Rob McElhenney

Episode Date: March 4, 2015

Rob McElhenney was fed up with being a struggling actor, so he grabbed a couple friends and made a TV show. Marc talks with Rob about the unlikely success of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and how Rob is now on the cusp of once again redirecting the course of his career, this time as the director of his own big budget Hollywood film. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what the fuckaholics what the fucking avians and what the fuckadelics that's enough i am mark maron this is wtf welcome to my show

where are we at what day is it it's thursday what is it the 5th march 5th hey look let's let's stick with some practical stuff i can tell you this a second show has been added in seattle for the marination tour i know a second show has been added in toronto i know a second show has been added in boston as well uh friday may may 8th though there's a late show at the neptune in seattle now okay and at the bloom appell in toronto on april 19th there is now a second show added there and at the wilbur Appel in Toronto on April 19th. There is now a second show added there and at the Wilbur on April 11th. So I just wanted to let those people know because clearly in those areas,

tickets are selling good. But I'm excited. I think I'll be funny. I'm staying in shape. You know, I'm going out on weekends. I'm doing the standup. But boy, I am fried today, man. I am fried. I did doing the stand-up. But boy, I am fried today, man. I am fried.

I did pieces of three different episodes today. A friend of mine told me that's how they shoot porn. And she's actually in the porn industry. So I think I have a right to tell you that my pussy is a little exhausted. Yeah, it was a long day, you guys. But I was thinking about what I was talking about on Monday. Because I think I'm understanding something. Like I talked about not really giving a fuck anymore.

And I don't know that that's necessarily the way to phrase it because i started to realize something that there is an outside chance that i may be just growing the fuck up i know it's surprising but i might just be growing the fuck up maybe things aren't going to work out exactly how i want them to maybe things don't always feel as good as you want them to. And sometimes even when you reward yourself or expect a reward that may not come. All those things. And I know I've paid lip service about to this before, you know, that like, you know, if you're looking for the world or everybody in your life to parent you or even your job

to to take care of you in a way that that you wanted your parents to it's just not going to happen and i think what's finally happening naturally is uh i truly realize this there's a sort of deadening inside there's a part of your heart that just withers because it realizes that it is not going to get what it wants but that's okay you should add closure on that thing a long time ago so eventually it just has to to wither you have to kind of beat it up a bit there's just a little part of your heart that's sort of like come on i just give me give me everything i want i want and if i can't have it i'm gonna be i'm gonna be angry and that part eventually goes i'm not angry anymore because it's just not gonna work out the way i want it and if I can't have it I'm gonna be I'm gonna be angry and that part eventually goes I'm

not angry anymore because it's just not gonna work out the way I want it to and then eventually it's like I don't really doesn't matter I'm okay doesn't matter I'm okay no I understand I'm okay that is being a grown-up I understand I'm okay yeah it's a little disappointing i'm okay yeah no i'll be okay that's horrible uh but i'm okay i can handle it just that that that instinct that that little that little switch oh my god this is whatever it is, but I'm okay. As opposed to, oh, my God, this is shitty, and I'm going to make it shittier by reacting in this tone. I feel like I've graduated to adulthood, and it only took me 51 years and two marriages and no children on earth to get there. And it's a little painful. It's a little cruel, it's a little painful. It's a little cruel,

to be honest with you. Did I mention that Rob McElhaney is on the show today, the creator of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is currently in its 10th season. It's on FXX Wednesday nights and the season finale is on March 18th.

It's been a while since we tried to talk a while back and finally got it to happen. So that's exciting. I just feel so grown up. Can you feel the grown upness? I guess what I've been talking about is the heartbreak of being a grown up. grown-up that i get i think i knew it intellectually but uh but i think the biggest lesson you can learn it's after a certain point is uh you're gonna have to suck it up a little bit i'm not talking a tough love thing i just mean if you don't want to walk around feeling depressed and injured and wounded and like an open wound for your entire life, which I believe is possible.

You're going to have to just deaden that part of your heart that's infantile. Just anesthetize it with the rationalization or something. Quiet that fucker down. All right. I do hope you're having a good day. And let's talk to Rob Mechel. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, How a cannabis company competes with big corporations. How a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category. And what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at torontorock.com. Blaney.

Does anyone ever track you down? And that's the guy. No, but very recently I had an incident right outside of our house. Yeah. There was like five or six cars parked out there with young dudes with cameras. Right. And they're all just kind of staking out. Yeah.

And I got my kids out there, and so I put my kids inside, and I walk out, and I say, hey, can I help you? Yeah. And the guy goes, yeah, you live next to some famous people. And I was like, oh, man, all right. So they were just general paparazzi? Yeah, not there for me, not there for us, but we have a couple of famous neighbors.

Oh, really? And so they were there to shoot them. So you were ready for battle? I flew right under their radar, which we're happy about. And even when you were right to their face, nothing? Nothing. Isn't that great? It's great.

That you have that type of fame where it's just the people that know you know you and everybody else, fuck them. It's kind of perfect. Yeah. It's kind of perfect. So now, all right, you want to talk about this possible move and this concern? Well, yes. We're building a house in Brentwood, California. You want to talk about how big?

I'd rather not. A good-sized house. Yeah. Sure, man. It's a good size house yeah it's a it's a good size house i mean it's like you know when you're building your own house you get to choose you know you get you get to build everything you would ever want in a house so are you like uh but are you are you crazy or are you reasonable a little bit of both yeah yeah i mean uh yeah it's gonna be a baseball field? No baseball field. There will be a gym with mats for grappling, things like that.

Wrestling, hands-on stuff. Wrestling, jujitsu. Yeah, why not? Why not? You're going to start teaching classes? Yeah, because we haven't... I'm about 15 years off from that. Okay.

But maybe I'll bring teachers in and we'll invite kids from the neighborhood that'd be good yeah but you know I always wanted a movie theater in my house

yeah and so I wanted to build that that's probably our biggest excess you can do that now who does I just

I mean like you do that with you can do it right through your computer really I mean you don't need to are you gonna put a film theater in

not a film but you know with a projector right yeah your computer really. I mean, you don't need to, are you going to put a film theater in? Not a film, but with a projector. Right, yeah, yeah. Who was that? I was at Louie's house and he's got like a setup where it's like hanging from the ceiling. Yeah. And you can do it right off the-

Apple TV. Apple TV, yeah. Or whatever, through the computer. Yeah, and the studios have this system too that you have to pay some exorbitant amount of money, but you can get onto this circuit where you can watch the first run movies, the weekends that they come out.

Really? Mm-hmm. You can do that through like a, is it like all the studios movies through one area? Yeah, you have to sign up with each individual studio and then you pay them some obscene amount of money. That's like a secret service. Yeah.

Where'd you learn about that one? I have connections. Yeah, I guess. I have connections. Yeah, I guess. I have connections. So that's what I'm looking forward to probably most. But yeah, it's a little scary for me to move into that environment. Well, you have two kids. Two kids, two boys.

And you grew up like in a scrappy neighborhood? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Well, Philly- It was pretty scrappy. Well, I mean, I've been to Philly a few times. You ever go to John's Roast Pork?

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty scrappy. Well, I mean, I've been to Philly a few times. You ever go to John's Roast Pork? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I mean, roast pork is the, so cheesesteaks are what the city, unfortunately, is most famous for. Right, I never, I go to the roast pork. I go to the roast pork, too. I mean, I can barely muscle down one of those cheesesteaks anymore. I think it's just my.

Do you have an allegiance to one or the other? You don't give a shit. No, I mean, the neighborhood that I grew up in was very close to Gino's and Pat's, which is like the big... Right. Those are the two ones. Yeah. I was always partial to Jim's, which is on South Street.

Yeah. Though I find it so sad that whenever I talk about Philadelphia, the first thing that comes up is my allegiance to some cheese steak. Sandwich? To a sandwich as opposed to it being you know the birthplace of our nation what's the birthplace of a sandwich too I mean it's hard to you know it's hard to figure out what's more important sometimes isn't it well I mean one I'm thank God for one and now we have the other to talk about one allowed

the other exactly yeah to sort of well it's weird because you go see the Liberty Bell I mean you do that i go and i went and i'm like yeah there it is i don't know if i do you feel uh more yeah uh no not necessarily i mean as an adult now when i go back i i do but um but no not necessarily i don't think i feel any more or less patriotic than the average man i wish i knew more do you i mean could you like walk your kid around and kind of lay out the birth of our nation i could but that's only because i got i got really into american history like long after i left school and just started reading up as much as i could on it and now every time i go back i i like to take those historical walks much to the

chagrin of my spouse she doesn't like it no? No. No. She'd rather have a sandwich? No, she's from Oregon, so she's like the... To me, Oregon growing up didn't really exist. No, that's where everyone ran away to, to avoid everything. And California, too. I mean, I never really thought of California

as a real place. Right. Well, there's something about the East Coast where it's so densely populated and it feels like all the history is there and there's a type of person that's there that isn't anywhere else like there's something about like uh philadelphia boston new york long island rhode island there's just a type of townie or sort of city mentality it's nowhere else and i can't help it i i feel most home when I go back, even though I never-

You lock right in. Yeah. Your accent probably changes. Oh, without a doubt. Like immediately? Yeah, almost immediately. I mean, it depends on how much I'm drinking or how much I'm arguing. But like Philadelphia is one of those places I didn't really know.

I never was there when it was rough or bad, but it seems like it's one of those cities where they did a little bit of that renewal business in the downtown area and it sort of worked. It's kind of fun to walk around and shit. And it's like, it's a great city. It's a great city. I love going back. The neighborhood I grew up in is still a great neighborhood. It was just, I think in the 80s, it was kind of rough.

Rough in what way? You know, it was just lower middle class. I mean, great people, but I think- White, Irish, black, white. A little bit of mixture of everything. There were still enclaves of- Italian, too, right? Yeah, Italian and Irish.

Even some of my great aunts and grandmothers and things, they were prejudiced in a way, but not in the most obvious ways. They were nervous about Italians. The Irish were. Which don't really see you know a lot now because they were they were irish and you know it was like the the blacks they didn't really think about too much it was italians they didn't trust right um and because of it i i didn't really learn how to ride a bike till i was like 13 or 14 out of fear of italians no no. I don't know. I was just told you are not, you are not riding your bike. Yeah. Not getting off a block. Yeah. Not getting off the, I think we were allowed to migrate maybe three blocks in any direction. So how big of a family did you come

from, Irish? My immediate family. My father came from 10 and my mother came from nine. Oh my God. Massive, massive family. And you got brothers and sisters? Yeah, yeah. I have a younger, an older stepsister, a younger sister, and younger brother, and a youngest half-brother. So that's four or so? That was, yeah, or so. It depends on what year.

Different years I had different siblings. Because you have a half-brother on your dad's side? Yeah, my father's child from his second marriage. How many times has he been married? He's working on three. Oh, that's good. Yeah. This one's happy.

Oh, yeah, this one. This one's happy. He leveled off? I think so. So who did you grow up mainly with? My dad. Yeah? Yeah.

Yeah, but we saw my mom on weekends. It started every other weekend. Usually it's the other way. It was. My mom had to find herself. Defined herself? Had to find herself. And how'd that pan out?

It panned out really well. But it was rough there for a little while. Not drugs? No, no, no. She's gay. But she didn't... I guess she always knew that, but it was really difficult in South Philadelphia to be gay. And I think on top of that, she wanted a family and she went to Catholic school and it was probably whipped into her that that was bad. So she tried to stuff it down, get rid of it. Tried to stuff it down, get rid of it.

Yep. And so she did that by getting married, having three kids. And then actually was pregnant with a fourth and they had a late term miscarriage. And so, you know, she was, I think up until that point in her mind, living the dream, living in Philly and raising kids. And then it just kind of came crashing down. Just within her? I think, yeah, I think she was just unhappy.

I think she realized that it was, she was living something that was a lie, even though she loved us and she loved our family. She certainly loved my dad, but it just wasn't working. Wow. That's a big change. Big change, yeah. I remember them sitting us down. I think I was seven or eight and it was not fully explained to us. That she was gay? No, right, exactly. It was just that mom needs to leave for a while. That was it. I've heard that once or twice before, the vague sort of like, she's got some things. Yeah, well, we were eight,

I think we were eight, six, and five or something like that. How do you even wrap your brain around that? We couldn't. I mean, I don't know. You know, you just go, oh, I guess that's the way it's going to be. And of course it was, you know, you adapt. I mean, children, you know, you adapt, but it was a bummer. I mean, I can look back on it now and I have such compassion and respect for her to make that decision in probably the most difficult time of her life. You know, but as a

kid, I didn't get it. But did she just move across town? Yeah. I mean, I remember there was a period in the beginning where we didn't see her for a little while. And in my mind, I project that to be years. But I think it was only a few weeks or maybe a few months. But relative to my life experience at that point, it was a really long time. And I think she was just sort of figuring out who she was. Right. And she found a partner very quickly. And they've been together now for over 30 years.

Wow. Yeah. So that's like your second mom. This is my second mother, yeah. I'm lousy with moms. Really? I got tons of moms. I got so many mothers.

That's kind of a beautiful story. Yeah. And my dad, I mean, my dad was, uh, really, he's just an amazing guy. He, he recognized, you know, when my mom came back and said, you know, let's, let's figure this out. He said, I get it. Let's figure it out. Um, you know, she said, I want to have a relationship with my children. He said, you absolutely should. And they figured it out. They figured it out. And, and, and we're so close and continue to be so close that when my father went through, he got remarried after this, he went through a second divorce.

There was some financial issues and he was going to lose the house. And he moved in with my mother and Mary for an extended period of time. Really? And they lived together in New Jersey. Yeah. That's touching. Yeah. And they all still get along? They do. Yeah. New Jersey? Yeah. South Jersey. Yeah. That's touching. Yeah. And they all still get along?

They do. Yeah. New Jersey? Yeah, South Jersey. That's the other, that's right by Philly, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's a suburb.

Jersey's the other place. That's where my family's from, Jersey. There's nothing like that area. No, it's the best. I know, it really is. Well, that's a great story and everybody's good. Everybody's pretty good.

And your brothers and sisters took to it and everything? Yeah, yeah. It was was it wasn't as difficult looking back on it even at the time yeah i never felt like it was that difficult and i think that was an extension of how my friends reacted to it um but also your dad too i mean like it's yeah i imagine those things can be difficult if your dad would have been like fuck her i can't you know what i mean but yeah no that's not my in my father's nature yeah but like i think that's what causes the I imagine those things can be difficult if your dad would have been like, fuck her, I can't, you know what I mean? Yeah. No, that's not in my father's nature. Yeah.

But I think that's what causes the weirdness is if a parent freaks out. But how did your friends react? Yeah, none of that happened. My friends were always super supportive. I mean, I remember really coming to terms with it when I was probably maybe in eighth grade, you know, or 13 or 14. You know, I probably always knew, but didn't want to admit it to myself. That your mom was gay?

Yeah. And I remember, you know, maybe pulling aside one of my friends at one point and saying, hey, you know, I think my mom's gay. And he's like, yeah, no shit. And it turned out that all of my friends kind of already knew because she was living with a woman

for as long as they had known her, almost for as long as I had known her. Right. And nobody cared. Right. Yeah, nobody, nobody, I don't ever remember having any altercation or issue with it amongst my peers. Yeah.

Well, it's weird that Catholic thing really zaps your head. I don't know. And it also seems like when things go weird within a Catholic community, that eventually if they just stay kind of like if people are committed to the whatever they might consider weird within Catholicism, eventually it just levels off. And they're like, well, that's just the way that is. Yeah. Yeah.

How Catholic were you brought up? Super Catholic. I mean, I went to Catholic school all through my, I mean, through grade school, kindergarten grade school. You had to wear an outfit oh yeah yeah the whole deal tie suit and tie and your dad your dad was your church my dad's pretty yeah he still he still is he still is my mother it was really fascinating because we were with my mother on weekends and you know she would she lived across the street from a church and so we had to go you know every sunday meanwhile we're like what the fuck no one she's sending

us across and she's saying you have to go but she's not going of course and my dad was she not going because she didn't believe her she was ashamed or what i don't know i think it was probably a little bit of a little bit of both right i think it was a little bit of both yeah um but i uh i actually really loved catholic school yeah i went to a single-sex catholic school all boys all boys yeah all dudes so you liked it because it was uh it gave you a good I actually really loved Catholic school. Yeah? I went to a single-sex Catholic school. All boys? All boys. Yeah. All dudes. So you liked it because it gave you a good competitive spirit, discipline?

Yeah, a little bit of that. Yeah, I think there was a tremendous amount of discipline, but also compassion. You know, this was the 90s. It wasn't the 50s. Right. So I went to a Jesuit school, and their whole thing is just, you know, continually question authority, which is, you know, a really empowering thing to teach a 14 year old boy, you know, and dangerous. I would think from a scholastic perspective, you know, they're trying to corral these hormones. Well, that was part of the, that's the idea of the Jesuits?

It's a huge part of it. Yeah, they're constantly challenging you to question everything. Well, that sort of defines the way you've approached your whole life in a way, huh? My life? Yeah, after a certain point. Oh, yeah. Well, I credit my high school as having a major, major impact on my life and the way that I see the world. Was there a teacher in particular?

There was a few. Yeah? There was a few. Yeah, I had this one, this nun. Yeah. Sister Kate, Sister Kate Woody. And she, you know, she was tough. But I remember one time, you know,

I had some discipline problems when I was a freshman. How did those manifest? I was super obnoxious and I was really small. I didn't hit puberty till like way late in life, like 16 or something like that. So I was a wrestler my freshman year and I remember my exact weight class, my exact weight because I was a wrestler. So the lowest weight class was 103. Yeah. But as a freshman, I wrestled the 103 in the 103 pound category, but I was 87 pounds.

So 87 pounds is a 13 year old boy is yeah you know tiny tiny tiny yeah and all my friends were you know developing uh body hair and uh oh you were late on growing oh late on everything yeah it's worse in the locker room yeah brutal what's going on man yeah yeah so. Yeah. So you learn, you know, you learn how to deal with, you learn how to deal with, you know, things in various ways. And one of them. Keep your towel on. Yeah.

One of them was just to get like as obnoxious as possible. Right. And belligerent and ready to fight. Right. And, you know, those kinds of things. And so it would manifest. Right. In that way.

My grades were always really good, but I was always getting detention. Right. You know, suspended. So what did the sister teach lay on you? One day I was in a big fight with one of the teachers, and he called me a pain in the ass, and I probably was, but then I kind of jumped, you know, I kind of continued that fight. And then a kid got involved, and then it got physical, and I got pulled away. And the disciplinarian came and pulled me and pulled me into his office and he gave me a lecture

and the the another teacher came in they gave me a lecture and they're like you're fucked up what are you doing you know what is this behavior we're we're going to suspend you we're going to expel you and uh then sister kate comes in and she's like macklehenny come with me so she pulls me into her office i'm like oh man your man, you're such a cute little girl. She slams the door and she goes, you know, most people, just remember this. Most people in your life don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Get out. And that was it. And I left and my head exploded. What did that mean? Because she, I think what she, subsequently we had many conversations about it, but I think she was basically like laying a level of compassion on me that I couldn't quite comprehend. But it was like, look, you're going to be surrounded by people who are telling you what to do, how to do it, when to do it all the time. But they don't really know, they're just as lost as you are right

and so some of your behavior and again I don't think she was excusing my behavior but I think she was you know sometimes when you're when you're 14 year old boy you don't need to be told what to do all the time you just want somebody to tell you that you're not bad right and I think that's kind of what she was saying and I took that and Wow so I had a teacher telling me that I was surrounded by people who oftentimes are just as lost as I am and don't know what the fuck they're talking about. And that's true at every age. Yeah. Yeah.

And I took that and it could have been really destructive. But they also had a community that sort of fostered discipline with that. So it wasn't just empowering insofar as, hey, do whatever you want. It was, okay, now take that attitude, but refine it with a certain level of scholastic enterprise or just discipline. And empathy too. Oh, absolutely. In order to not take that the way of like, well, fuck just got to sort of like well that just means we're all human

yeah and there's room for discussion and and and and respect and yeah yeah and so that that kind of molded my entire experience through through that high school and then um and then after that i i think there's still aspects of that conversation that i remember yeah did you go to college no no in fact it was a prep school and i was the only person. Did you go to college? No. No. In fact, it was a prep school and I was the only person that didn't go to college, but that was never my intention. I just wanted to take a little time off after I graduated and, uh, and I did. And then I just started like visiting my friends at various schools to see which one I liked

and was just going to apply, you know, a little bit later that year, next semester. And I noticed that all my friends were, they were just getting fucked up. So, which was great. It was a lot of fun, but they weren't, they were going, kind of going to class, but kind of not. They were racking up insane amounts of debt. And- So you were just hanging out at colleges?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I did like the full college tour. Because I know a guy knew you at Fordham. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I lived at Fordham.

Right. I lived in the dorms at Fordham. You know, he said that, you know, you were sort of around this group of people that he hung out with and they're all sort of rooting for you. You're just the guy that, you know, wasn't enrolled, but would kind of hang out and go to class sometimes. Yeah. Well, once I decided that I didn't want to go to college because I just felt like, in a lot of respects, I was too immature. Like, I wasn't really ready for it. I think there was like a certain level of social conditioning that's important in college. But also, you know, I just didn't have the yearning to sit in a classroom again for a while. But I thought eventually that would come back. Yeah. So I thought, well, let me just take a year off.

And then in that year, I just saw, I don't know, it just seemed like a big waste of time to me. And a waste of money. Yeah. And it didn't seem like anybody was learning anything. They were just preparing. In my mind, they were just preparing themselves for a lifetime of debt and maybe, I don't know, secondary schooling after that. Or if they had very specific goals, which I didn't find that anybody did, whether it was like med school or law school or anything

like that. With your crew. With my particular crew. Right. Yeah. And so I just thought, well, I don't know, maybe I won't go. So I moved to New York and that's when I lived at Fordham in the dorm. I got an ID and everything.

You did? Yeah. How'd you do that? I wound up talking, I got an ID and everything. You did? Yeah. How'd you do that? I wound up talking, I got a meal plan. I wound up talking to one of the guys there and he hated the food,

but his parents had bought him this meal plan. So I made this deal with him where I would give him, whatever the meal plan was, a couple grand or something. I would just give him like a hundred bucks cash,

which didn't cost him anything because his parents were paying for it. I would take all of his information. I would go to the registrar, and they would write me up like a new ID application. I would go to the ID, the security office. They would just, no questions asked, take the picture. So I had this ID that not only got me everywhere on campus, including the dorms and the security gates,

but got me a meal plan. So I was, for all intents and purposes, a student at Fordham. And I would go to class sometimes. I would audit classes. I was a non-matriculating student, but I would go and I would sit in some of the classes that interested me.

Like what? Well, that's when I kind of got into American history. So I started going to some of the classes that interested me like what uh well that's when i kind of got into american history so i started um going to some of the history classes you're just like you're going to college without paying and you got free food and free room and board yeah but you're sweeping on people's floors right i was yeah actually they lived in eight men's suites so um one of my buddies from high school they had he had seven men in one suite and he had an extra bed in his room. So for eight months, I mean, an entire school year, their entire sophomore school year, I lived at Fordham as a non-student resident. And they didn't know.

I lived in the Bronx. No. You know how they found out? They found out because there was a play. Yeah. how they found out they found out because uh there was a play yeah and i had the uh looking back on it was a really dumb move but i was making lots of dumb moves at that point because i had a good thing going yeah yeah and it was angels in america right and uh i auditioned for the play right because everybody thought that i was a you know a student so i auditioned for the

play i get the part right and. Which part? Like the husband? Yeah, the husband. And Joe? Yeah, I think so, yeah. And so I get the part, and I'm super excited, and I get to the first day of rehearsals, and the director's like,

he's a student, you know, he's fine, he's cool. But then there's like this older woman, and she's clearly in like an administrative role or something like that. She comes, hey, can I talk to you for a second? was like oh fuck no i knew right away yeah so it turned out that the that the kid who was also up for the role but didn't get the role uh rightfully right rightfully yeah

because the truth is it was a student production it should be all students he i think he ratted me out and so they were like who are you what are you are you doing here? And I said, oh, I just, I'm a friend and I was interested in the play. And luckily they didn't, they started to sniff around. And by that point, the school year had ended and I moved out. Got out. I got out. They really couldn't, what were they, they couldn't charge you with anything? Maybe falsifying something?

They definitely take security very seriously up there because it's in kind of a rough section of the Bronx. So the fact that a person was able to just- They probably wanted you just to go away. Yeah, they wanted to just kind of forget about it. That's hilarious. And that's kind of what happened. Was that where you first started doing the acting?

No, no. I started in school. In high school? Actually, in grade school, I started doing musicals and plays, mostly because I just saw that i was not a good athlete and i want i wanted to be yeah i tried to play every sport and nothing really took i think my size had a lot to do with that heartbreaking yeah devastating devastating i mean it was all my all my friends you know were able to were able to compete in in some athletic endeavor and i'm i wasn't and so uh but then i found this and this was a great way to meet girls.

That was it. To do musicals? Well, not as a grown up but when you're in eighth and ninth grade and so then because I went to an all boys school we had sister schools all girls schools and they would do these

plays and they would need guys to do the plays. So I would just go and do those plays and that was it so you had to go to the girl school every day to rehearse and I had so much fun it was just a great way it was just something that I was kind of good at

and it was a great way to meet girls and a great way to have something to do do you remember your first play? Sound of Music really? I play? Sound of Music. Really? Mm-hmm. I did the Sound of Music twice and played both, like once I played the younger kid

and then years later I played the older kid. And did you do drama and everything? Mm-hmm. All the way through high school? Not all the way through. I sort of tapered off my senior year just because I wanted to get drunk and hang out with my friends. But then, and it never occurred to me that it could be a profession. No?

No, I mean, California was, until that first year when I was- At Fordham? Yeah. Well, before that, when I was just kind of coming back and forth and then I realized like, oh, wow, like people I met a professional actor and I was like, oh, yeah, that's an actual profession. It was just a guy who auditioned for commercials and stuff. Yeah. And so he introduced me to an agent. I wind up because I looked so so now one of like my one of my like greatest sources of of stress in my life was that I always looked so young and small. Now, it was something great because I would get hired

to play really young. So, as actors, you know, you only get, I think, six hours with a kid under 18 or whatever it is. So, they were always looking for kids who were 18 to play younger. We just used one in my show. There you go. A girl, 18, she looked 15.

Yeah, so when I was 18, 19, I looked 12, 13. I'm serious. I would get roles as like a 13-year-old. And it was somewhat humiliating, but at the same time, I was like, fuck it, I'm working. I don't care. So you got this agent from this guy who referred you, and they were like, oh, my God, we got one.

We got like a man-child. Yeah. Yeah, and that was kind of it. So I was living in the Bronx. I moved to New York with like, oh my God, we got one. We got like a man child. Yeah. Yeah. And that was kind of it. And then I was, so I was living in the Bronx. I moved to New York, you know, with like a couple hundred bucks, but I was lucky because I had the meal plan and the room and board I'll take care of. And I was working, I wound up getting a job

working at a bar on the Upper West Side, but then I was just taking the subway down for auditions and I started doing commercials. Really? Like a lot of them? I did a bunch. And as of them? I did a bunch. And as a kid? I did a bunch.

Yeah. I mean, as a 19 year old, I did a ton of commercials. So you're making a living. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at one point I made enough that I could quit the bar. I got my own apartment and I thought, oh, this is great. In New York.

I had my first acting job, my first like professional acting uh outside of commercials was for a movie called the devil's own and it was harrison ford and brad pitt yeah i remember that was like the westies or something or some was sort of yeah he plays uh he plays like an irish uh an ira hitman oh right right okay so um so i i i mean i had only lived in new New York City for two months and I had already gotten this job. And Julia Stiles was the actress. I played her boyfriend. And I had a scene with Brad Pitt and a scene with Harrison Ford and a scene with Julia Stiles. And I made some money.

And I was like, oh, wow, this is never going to end. So, a year goes by. The movie comes out. I get completely cut out of it. As if I'm not even, like, not even as an extra. And, of course, I told my family and my friends and everybody's there. We're all sitting there watching the movie

and fucking I'm not in it. And I quit my job. I mean, to me, it was all going to be roses. Gravy. From there. And then, you know, I started to look a little bit older. Now I look 19 or 20 or 21 and now I was competing against other 20, 21 year olds.

Right. And then I didn't work for two years. I had to go back to the restaurant or the bar and start bar back and bar tanning again. Oh my God. Yeah. You brought the family out. Oh, everybody. I mean, everybody.

You got no word on that. No. They don't give you the heads up. That's happened to me twice actually. And the second time I got a letter from the director which was really nice what was the second one Wonder Boys

which was Michael Douglas yeah Michael Douglas and Katie Holmes and again I played somebody's boyfriend I played the love interest of Katie Holmes with lines

it was like a minor yeah oh yeah yeah it was a minor again it was a minor role like four or five scenes or something like that but

this was after The Devil's Own yeah and I'd already learned my lesson, so I was like, all right, well, we'll see what happens. But again, it was a big,

it was a high-profile movie. Curtis Hanson was the director who I loved from L.A. Confidential. And, you know, like a month out- Was that after L.A. Confidential? This was after L.A. Confidential. It was like right after. Right, right.

And he was so cool to me. We were staying in Pittsburgh and I had dinner with him, just me and him, and he was talking about to me we were staying in pittsburgh and i had dinner with him just me and him and he was talking about all that confidential and and uh then like a month before the movie comes out i get a letter in a letter you're lucky you talked to him i know yeah and he said hey look man it's got nothing to do with you and of course of course it has something to do with me but either way uh you know it it didn't make it in the movie and so i was just happy and glad that i i got the heads up yeah yeah that's nice yeah sorry so now you're back after your big movie

breaks you're you're bartending you're in bar backing yep and what were you living in brooklyn oh in brooklyn yeah i moved from the bronx to brooklyn were you were you getting discouraged how old were you 20 21 so what happens then 122 uh then i was just like i was depressed and i wasn't working at all and so um then complaining but not discouraged no depressed well i was discouraged but i i wasn't ready to like pack it right in that never entered my mind uh and then i was complaining and so my my my manager was like sick of me complaining about all the things i was who's your manager nick frankel who's one of the producers of my show now yeah he he said look if you want to if you if you want to read something that you like why don't you write something so you're 20 i think

it was 20 or 21 my point maybe 20 or 21 and so uh i wrote something um it was super dark i mean i was never i never considered myself um funny and i was never going out for uh comedic roles first that was the first script that was the first script i wrote yeah yeah yeah and um i i i don't know i thought it was pretty good but you know uh you need to get other opinions and so i um i gave it to nick and he thought it was pretty good and we we wound up sending it out not a comedy not a comedy yeah no no like a dark um people dying it yeah yeah like uh yeah it was like kind of like a scorsese ripoff and um we wound up uh i wound up optioning it uh to a company um and then then uh paul schrader the uh oh yeah the director director he signed on to direct it wow so i so must have been dark it was super dark yeah and that was well i mean and that was the the place of my that's where i was in my life at that point i mean um just the

life i was living i was working until you know working at the bar until four or five o'clock in the morning and um sleeping day. Sleeping all day. The worst. Yeah. I mean, it was both the worst. It would oscillate between the worst and the greatest. Sure. Because I was still 20 years old living in New York City on my own. There's something about that sunrise that kind of like sometimes it's like, oh, it's

the worst. And other times it's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it depends. If I was on drugs, it would be the worst. But if I was coming out of that club having worked an entire night and I had a sock full of...

I had to keep my money in my sock because I took the D train back to... What club were you working at? I worked at a bunch. I worked at a bar called Bourbon Street on the Upper West Side, a club called Venue, and then a couple of restaurants up there. But you would get out at 4.30. They would close at 4 and then you wouldn't get out after cleaning up till 4 30 or 5 right so i love that when i would have a sock full of money yeah and i would see people up and like going to do their day it felt like i accomplished something you just won that war

that they didn't understand yeah yeah yeah all right so schrader signs on so schrader signs on and um it was it so i and when i got that call that um paul schrader was was going to direct this movie that i wrote and it was the first script that i that i had written i i i i was so so excited you know i mean this is going to be like such an amazing experience to learn from him and to and to figure out um what my place is in in the industry yeah because at that point I was really confused like well maybe this is what I want to do right and then I proceeded to have the the worst the worst experience for a little over a year with him yeah but it wasn't

necessarily because of him although he's a he's a strange guy but he's also a really interesting guy yeah brilliant guy yeah I learned quite a bit from him, but you know, he, he wasn't looking at it like, Hey, let me take on this, this young apprentice, which I was kind of hoping for, you know, it was more like, look, do this and do that, do this. And then I'll just take it over. Oh, fix the script. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Yeah. And, and meanwhile, um, the op, I learned the difference between an option and a sale, which is when they option, it means that they're just buying the rights to it and they're not going to give you very much money. So really I wound up optioning it for very little money and the company was kind of shady

and it didn't, they, it was like they were supposed to pay me by a certain date. It didn't come and then weeks would go by. And meanwhile, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm working at a fucking bar. Like I want to quit and be a professional something writer, actor. And, uh, so I wasn't able, I wasn't able to do that for, for almost the entire run of that year. And then Paul wanted to go in a different direction that, you know, I was doing it because it was Paul and I was like, yeah, sure.

Whatever. Tell me what to write and I'll write it. And I would write it and it wasn't good and it wasn't good and it wasn't good, but he was seemed happy with it. And, um, but it was taking it in a direction that I didn't like and by the end of it so the the options up and um Paul had just signed on to do autofocus which was that great yeah that bizarre movie you like it I loved it fucking great yeah I loved it I love pretty much everything that Paul oh my god that scene where they're just both sitting there on the couch jerking off not looking at you just talking yeah I remember that much everything that Paul does. Oh, my God. That scene where they're just both sitting there on the couch jerking off, not looking

at you, just talking. Yeah, I remember that one. So that's kind of like, now you understand my experience for the better part of a year with him. It's like, he wants me to write things like that. Yeah. Which is, you know, which was challenging, but fun. I wound up at the end of the year with this movie that was not mine anymore.

Not, you know, it just, it didn't feel right to me but i thought oh well i did my job right you know paul you'll go make this movie and that'll be a great you know great thing for me and and they'll buy the movie and so i get this call and they say well paul just signed on to autofocus so it's going to be at least another two years and we don't know if we're going to buy this eventually so maybe we'll just hold off so after a fucking year of yes with no really no money and not a great creative experience and he just had you butcher your script yeah and i and i wound up with nothing except a great learning experience and no resentment towards paul schrader no no i mean because i didn't have that great of a person i also i i realized that i i did it at every point i had the decision I didn't have that great of a person. Also, I realized that I did it. At every point, I had the decision.

I didn't have to do it. Yeah. I could have said no. But you also wanted to learn in the way that sort of like, well, maybe he'll make me see something a different way. And then after a certain point, you're like, no, that's just not any good. It's just not.

And by the way, it's not doing it for him either or the studio who eventually passed on it. So at the end of it, he was like, well, I don't know. We'll see. And that was it. So a year of that. Did you ever, have you met him since? I have not seen him since no so okay so that's a year i doubt he would remember me at all right so okay so you do a year of that and then what happens yeah and then

i was like well that i don't want to do i'll just go back to being an actor and just auditioning because that just seemed like a miserable miserable experience when did you make the move then i moved in uh 2002 to la to la that was so this i'm really gonna do it that's your just that's your decision like no that was me getting away from an ex-girlfriend oh really yeah yeah i was like miserable and terrible i was just in a really bad place and i was just doing a ton of drugs and drinking a lot in new york yeah and staying up all night and i had a little bit of money, so I was- Doing the blow talking a lot? Mm-hmm. Hanging out?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was so interesting. What conversations. I was so interesting. I bet. Oh, man. I mean, you can get a gram of cocaine in here, and I'm the most interesting man.

Oh, man. You got all the answers. Yeah. I figured it out. We're going to make so many plans tonight. Yeah. Yeah. And when that sun comes up, we'll be on that boat to Staten Island. Yeah, yeah.

You know? Yeah. Because that's the plan. Staten Island. Mm-hmm. We're going to go see the Statue of Liberty. You know, we're not going to let this... We're not going to let that coke hammer hit us over the head tomorrow.

Right. We got a day. We got a day plan. We got it all figured out. We got it all figured out. And I remember having real problems when the dealer, because in Manhattan it was so great and easy, you just call the dealer, he would come to you. So the dealer would come to the house and one day he came to the house and we realized

like, oh, he's late, he's late. What's going on? And we look at the time and it's 9.30 in the morning. Right. And we fucking called like an ecstasy dealer or something time and it's 9 30 in the morning right and we fucking called in like an ecstasy dealer or something to come at 9 30 in the morning and that's when i realized like this is this is not this is not good and you've been up all night and you're like what the fuck man where the fuck yeah my third ecstasy pill is finally wearing off and i need i need him

to get here i don't understand and i know it's light out but i'm hoping it's like you know six you know i could still justify putting that last you can't have the worst and the best yeah i know that's the worst that's that's that's the yeah well you do get to that point of exhaustion where you you're you become so removed from anything that looks like a life yeah and you're so insulated with the three people that you hang out with yeah and you know you you know enough and you've read enough and you see enough to recognize that it's all careening towards something inevitable but doesn't end it doesn't end with like i got it yeah i figured it out i'm the guy that figured it out that's not the way that story ends no so you ran you ran away. Yeah, I got out of there.

Did you get out dramatically? Like, I've got to go tomorrow. Well, there was one. There was one. Almost. There was one night where my... But we were all hopped up on something. And we decided, well, this is the night we're going to move.

And me and my roommate packed. I had a minivan. I had a fucking minivan. It was my first car I bought in Brooklyn. Yeah. And we packed all of our shit into this minivan i had a i had a fucking minivan it was my first car i bought in brooklyn yeah and uh we packed all of our shit into this minivan hi oh yeah and like a coke fueled haze frenzy and we're ready to rock we're ready to go we and and and he drove and we got through the tunnel and we're on our way you know like to la and and to la yeah and uh he just pulled over and he's like man we want to he's like, I got to go to sleep.

I'm like, that's fine. When we wake up, we're on, we keep going west. We don't go east. Right. We keep going west. We don't go east, right? Yep. Okay, great.

We wake up. He's sitting on the edge of his bed. I get up. I'm like, we're going east. He goes, yeah, we got to go east. Temprate the fuck back around and go back east. And it was so humiliating because we had like, we had friends in he goes yeah we gotta go east attempt right to fuck back around and go back east and it was so humiliating because we had like

we had friends in the building and we had like written them letters you know like goodbye letters and you know like fashioning ourselves like Hunter Thomas

you know like sure man yeah you know yeah so we're writing these like these fucking you know poems

you know like we're gonna go we're gonna go we're gonna go west young men yeah and then we came back and they're like they wake up

they see us there of course we're sleeping you know because it's four o'clock in the afternoon what else will we be doing and they look at these letters and they're like

what is this like all of our belongings are in garbage bags in our apartment that we had packed up, ready to go. Just pathetic. Oh, man. Did you have to explain it to them?

Yeah. Did you have an idea? Yeah. And luckily they were all, you know, they were at the same point in their lives. So they're like, oh, we get it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they got it. So, okay.

So how long after that did you finally go? Then it was another year. I think that was like around 2001 i wound up coming out 2002 and you were just you had no real plan other than to audition and but yeah yeah and i got a job um waiting tables were you going on auditions and i was working a little bit here and there you know bit parts tv shows things like that but uh you know nothing bit parts, TV shows, things like that, but, uh, you know, nothing, um, nothing really major. And then, and then that's when, um, I just had this idea that I wanted to write something else, but I didn't want to go through the same process that I went through before. I want to make it. So what was the, what was the whole, the beat, you know, beat it out for me? You just, you're like, I'm going to write this thing.

Yeah. I was living in this garage, uh, in West Hollywood and, um, A garage? I was living in a garage. Yeah. Much like this one. Oh, behind someone's house. Yeah. Beside write this thing. Yeah, I was living in this garage in West Hollywood. A garage? I was living in a garage. Yeah, much like this one. Oh, behind someone's house. Yeah, beside someone's house. And it had a kitchen and everything. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I just had this idea for a short film about two incredibly self-centered, almost like sociopaths. And, uh, and I wrote this scene, uh, where one of them comes over to the other one's house for, uh, sugar for this coffee that he had made. And when he gets there, it's a guy kind of knows, but not, doesn't really know that well. And the guy's like upset. And, and, uh, and while he's there, he says, um, you know, I, I just found out I have cancer.

And the other guys, all he's trying to do is just get the sugar and get out of the room. The last thing he wants to hear is that this guy's got cancer. And I thought, that's really fucking dark. And like, that's a really dramatic scene. But I wonder if I told it from the guy's point of view, who's just trying to get out of the room, could we make it really funny? And so I just wrote it. And then i thought it was kind of funny so i wrote it like a script for it that night um and i just worked all night until i wrote the script uh and i thought there would be funny if there was a third character when this guy comes out of that scene with the sugar yeah when he gets he gets home to his roommate, he says, hey, by the way, did you know that Charlie has cancer?

And the third roommate, the guy's roommate, realized that Charlie didn't tell him and why wouldn't he confide in him when he confided in you? Right. And he becomes obsessed with the fact that you must be better friends with Charlie.

And I thought, well, that's an interesting dynamic, something I hadn't seen before. Like nothing about the cancer. Just that, like, why would he tell you? Why would he tell you and not me? Like, that's,

I thought we were friends. I didn't even know you knew him that well. Like, sort of becoming obsessed with that. Yeah. I know I thought that that level of neuroses I hadn't seen in a comedy before, it executed quite like that. Yeah. Where the characters were just, you know, total assholes. Like, completely the antithesis of what a network note would be,

which is to try to make them more likable. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to make something where you were, as writers, almost, like, actively trying to get people to root against them. Yeah. And so I brought it to Glenn and Charlie, and they thought it was... They were my friends, and they thought it was really funny, so... How'd you know them?

I met Charlie doing a really bad um movie yeah uh like a horror movie in new york yeah and so i've known charlie about because he was like the real actor guy well both of them actually both of them um glenn went to juilliard right so he's sort of the higher end yeah yeah and charlie would did like a williamstown right right yeah they were real actors and i was just sort of like a scumbag waiter. And so... So how did you meet Glenn then? I met Glenn through our manager, Nick Frankel. When I was first moving out, I didn't know anybody.

And I came out with a buddy, and it was just me and him. Who was that guy? His name's Chris Backus, who's also an actor. Although within, I think, six months of us moving out here together, and so who was that guy his name's Chris Backus yeah who's also an actor yeah although within I think six months of us moving out here together we lived in this apartment in the valley

and we had a fucking blast he's like this really tall handsome like charismatic guy fucking great guy so one night we go to a party like a Hollywood party

he meets Mira Sorvino yeah at the party yeah they hit it off within two weeks he's moving out, moves in with Mira. Yeah.

Within the year, they're married. Are they still married? They're still married. Oh, that's nice. Four kids. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a good story.

It's a great story. And does he work a lot? But he was my roommate. Yeah. And my only friend. That was two weeks. Yeah. And he moved up to Malibu without me.

Yeah. And so now I was all alone. And so Glenn came around and and we and we hit it off so that when when I brought

the the script to them yeah they they got it and we just started making I had sent the script

to a couple of people just to see what they nobody really understood why it was funny right but I knew Glenn and Charlie would and so that's what we did and then we got a couple of cameras together and learned Final Cut and figured it out from there.

And you shot a half hour piece? Yeah. It was like a short film. We never thought of it as a TV show. It was just a short film. And it was mostly because I didn't want to, I wanted to see it all the way through to the end. Right. One episode.

I didn't want somebody to fuck it up. Yeah. One short film. Right. You know, I just wanted to be done, have it be a DVD in my hand at the end. And I fully realized it. And where was it set? LA.

Because that's where we lived. But was it set in a bar or was it just- No, no, no. It was just, it was actually actors. The characters were actors. That makes sense. Yeah. Because it was the easiest.

We were just looking for the easiest way to shoot it. So to have us be actors living in Los Angeles, it was just really easy to shoot. So now you have this, and this is the cancer piece. Yeah, Charlie Has Cancer was the name of it. And you did an episode with that too, didn't you? Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we shot that, we made that,

and then we thought, this is pretty funny, but let's do another one. Because we think this could maybe be a TV series, and we know the first thing that people are going to ask is well okay this is episode one what's episode two and more importantly we see that you executed this but we could prove not only to everybody else but also to ourselves that we could execute this again so we did a second episode and what was that one about that was about me uh falling in love with a a beautiful transgender woman yeah yeah and what was the problem well the problem uh was was that i i couldn't get over the fact that she was she was she was pre-op trans transgender so she was this beautiful woman but

she still had a penis and i considered myself straight but i was falling in love with right uh oh that was an episode two man yes yeah yeah that was one's one's one's up being an episode two yeah so anyway we had both of them and and that's what we went out with i showed it to nick our manager and he said well this could be a tv show and and then what happens then we shopped it uh we had you know we had an agent set up um uh two days of of pitching yeah um and we went to all the all the networks and we had we didn't go to you know places like cbs or abc where we knew it wouldn't quite work point but we went to fox yeah uh we went to uh fx comedy central hbo showtime yeah vh1 was doing original content then mtv yeah and we had offers offers from almost all of them. Really? They loved it. Yeah, everybody except for Fox. I think

that Fox just sat there stone-faced and I think they were just run by morons at the time. Not that this was so funny, it was just that they were looking for young, they were looking for this exact kind of show. They told me this is the kind of show we're looking for and then they just didn't get it at all. But it ends up on FX? Yeah. So we had offers from a couple of different places, but FX was the place that, you know, because most of the places said, well, we have conditions.

We said we want to buy it, but we have some conditions. Yeah. And we were like, well, what are the conditions? And they're like, well, we want to bring in a director and we want to bring in a showrunner. And our feeling was, well, do you like it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, then why do you want to change it? Well, it's not that we want to bring in a showrunner and we bring it and our feeling was well we if do you like it yeah yeah well then why do you want to why do you want to change it well it's not that we want to change it we want to make sure that you can continue it i'm like but we we just did two of them so if you liked it and we did two of them why would you not believe that we

could do a third and a fourth and uh you know the fx was the only one that said you know you do whatever you want. Yeah. Because we had our own conditions, which is we're not going to do it unless, you know, I'm the showrunner and Charlie and Glenn are executive producers and we write the show and we act in the show. And then FX commissioned a pilot. Right. So we shot that pilot.

Right. But I had learned my lesson. I didn't quit my job at the restaurant. So I was waiting tables. After you shot it. During, while I was shooting. Well, when did you conceive of the bar and everything else? Oh, yeah.

So FX said, hey, we really love this. The only thing that we would suggest is Entourage was coming. It had just come out. Right. And the show Joey, which was the spinoff of Friends. There was a Lisa Kudrow show that were all taking, Kirby Enthusiasm. They were all taking place in LA. They were all revolving around the entertainment industry.

And they just said, look, to us, the core of this, the tone of this has nothing to do with the entertainment industry. And I was like, yeah, that's right. It's just, it's about abhorrent people who have time on their hands. So actors could fall into that category. And so could people who just run a particular business maybe at night so they have their days free. So they said, okay, could you come up with another place to put them?

And so I thought, well, I know Philadelphia. Maybe I'll go with that. And a bar. And a bar because it was a job that you didn't have to account for. They could all kind of own it. It's so funny because- It's a great meeting place.

Right, and it's just funny because it is sort of, like the characters float above the business. Yeah. It doesn't, you know, you're never worried about how the bar is doing. Yeah. The business is irrelevant until it's not, until we figure, well, let's do an episode about it because we need to, we've done 114 of these. Let's figure, we got to figure something out.

Yeah. We got a story in the bar. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. So, but okay. So you do the pilot like that. You don't quit

your job and then no no i was nervous because i i had just seen so many so many things had fallen apart you know when did you quit your job after we got picked up to the um for the first season oh okay yeah once we got picked up for the first season i i i was able i felt more comfortable there you write all of them just did you hire a staff? Yeah, so not in the first season, but in the second season, we hired a few writers and now we've got a pretty good staff. Yeah? Yeah, we got a pretty good staff.

Well, it's sort of like one of those ones where I imagine it's got such a specific and loyal following that the people that you would find as writers gotta love the show. And they're like, I wanna write for these guys. Yeah, that's helpful. Also, we went on a mission this year to find people uh younger people just that that grew up watching the show which is kind of sad but how many years has it been on 10 that's insane this

is our 10th season yeah how many have you made 114 so that was a real number yeah that's a real number yeah and that allows us to i you know most, if they're in their 10th season, they've done 240 because they're doing 22 to 24 episodes a season. So we're only doing 10. So that makes it a lot, it makes it a lot easier for us. But also was that, does that mean this was that you were just able to sell it into syndication? At a hundred? No, I think we sold it three years ago. Oh yeah?

Into syndication. Yeah. Because they had, they had already commissioned two more years. So we, we got, usually get picked up picked up in blocks of two or three seasons. Oh, so you were able to sell it under 100 because they knew you were going to do 100. Yeah. And they could start running them. Yeah.

Wow, that's great. It runs on Comedy Central and FX and on network late night. That's great, man. Yeah, it's the best. It's the greatest job. It's my dream. So what was the issue, though? What was the story with...

Was the show in trouble after the first season? Yeah. Well, nobody watched it. greatest job it's my dream so what what was the issue though like what was the story with was the show in trouble after the first season yeah well nobody watched it so that that's trouble that would put in trouble nobody very few and and and what was going to happen one person watched it that we knew of which was very important that was danny danny devita so he okay so but so after the first season the um john langrath you know called me and said, look, we love the show. At FX. At FX, yeah. He runs it.

We love the show. Nobody's watching it. We don't have a ton of money for marketing. Right. But we feel like if we bring in somebody of stature, that we could generate a certain level of PR and maybe people will find it. Yeah. So we were like, well, we don't know who that is,

and who's that going to be? And he said, well, I know that Danny DeVito watches the show. Would you be interested in it? And, you know, we thought long and hard about it, and we were like, we don't want to do that. It might fuck with the chemistry. He might be a maniac. Right.

Were you a fan? Yeah, of course. Yeah, right, taxi or whatever. Of course, yeah, yeah. But we had our own thing, and we didn't want, we didn't know? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Right. Taxi or whatever. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. But, but we had our own thing and we didn't want, we didn't know. You just never know. How, oh, like if he was going to swallow it.

Yeah. Right. Or it would, it would, it would, you know, mess with the chemistry or that, you know, one of the things that's really important to us is that we create a really fun working experience. I had done enough in the past where you go to these sets and people are yelling at each other

and everybody's fucking pissed off. And I just thought, well, if I ever get to run a show, we'll never do that. We'll just, no yelling on the set. Everybody's here to have fun. We'll work hard, but it's a comedy. So let's figure out

what's the best environment to laugh. But if you bring in some nut job and the next thing you know, it can crumble. So they could just become a cancer in the set. Right. I know a lot of successful shows that people hate going to work every day

because it's fucking miserable. That's sad. Sad. Now I got to like, yeah, I got to pay attention to that in my own life. Yeah. Just like. Well, you remember that it stinks from the head down.

Right. You know, so whatever mood you come in to work every day with, that's going to permeate through the entire crew. Right, right. So I think about that a lot. I think about our, you know, our grips and our caterers and our, you know, people who have been with us for 10 years and they're like our family.

And I know that if I come to work in a bad mood, it has an effect on their lives too. Right. And so we try to keep that in check good that's a good policy yeah i mean we don't always achieve it but we try yeah it's all right so devito you you think long and hard about it and then what what's that first meeting like oh well we well we said first we said to john nothing against danny we love danny but i don't think we want to do it and he said all right well i don't think you have a show. So we were like, well,

you know what? I think we want to do it. You know, I, I, Hey, sounds great. Let's make it work.

Yeah. So I go over to Danny's house and he was certainly the most famous person, you know, that I had ever, I had ever spent that much time. Yeah. Been to his house. And it was a surreal experience because he's exactly,

he's the greatest guy. Like he's exactly what you expect him to be. The guy you see on screen is pretty much Danny. Right. And so we hung out for an hour and I kind of pitched him a character that I just made up.

We didn't really discuss too much about it. And on the way home, he called and said, I want to do it. So then we knew we had a show. Wow. So then we made the second season and nobody watched it. With Danny. With Danny.

With Danny. But was it fun working with him? Yeah. Because he's so fucking funny. Yeah, he's the best. And now he's, you know, a part of the family. And, you know, I mean, that's, he's just been a great role model to have around.

He's got great kids who were raised, you know, here in L.A. And it's great to ask him questions and talk to them about how he did it. And, you know, certainly with such affluence and fame. In terms of raising kids. Yeah. It's a real concern of yours. Like it's hanging over you. Major.

Because you don't want to have like shitty kids. Yeah. Pretty much. How are you going to solve that? Well, it seems to me like the common denominator, I mean, look, there are asshole fuck-ups that cross through all socioeconomic barriers. I think the one common denominator amongst really good people is that their parents paid attention to them and loved them unconditionally and gave them boundaries and just gave a shit.

Showed up every day and made sure that their lives were important to them. Right. And didn't let them get too far away. Yeah. Yeah. Drift off. Yeah. Yeah, drift off. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm going to make,

certainly my wife is, and I'm going to make a concerted effort to do my best in that. Right, and I guess the other trick is not spoiling them too much. Well, yeah, that's... That's the tricky one, I think. Yeah, that's the trick.

Well, that's where the discipline comes in. Right, and drawing a line on the boundaries. What we, I always had the, I think my parents in some way, they would never look at it this way, but my dad had the luxury of saying, you can't have that because we can't afford it. And so it's, so that puts you on the same team. Right. Right. Like we're in this together. Right. Whereas now it's- Neither one of us can have it. Yeah, exactly. You can't, you don't get to do that, but we don't get to do that.

Therefore it brings us closer together. Right, yeah. And so, and so now when, if I, you know, my oldest son's Axel, it's like if he, if he wants something and I say, no, what I'm saying to him is you can't have it because I said so. And you'll learn later why it's important.

Well, he isn't. Hopefully. Hopefully. But he doesn't understand that. And it doesn't bring us any closer together. right right you know so that's the that's the yeah because now you're just this withholding guy yeah i mean i could have yeah i'm holding the key to your you know in whatever you want your gratification yeah your instant gratification i'm not giving it to you and you'll maybe when you're 25 look back and understand why it happened but you

can't right now and it's not drawing us closer together yeah i mean i grew up by you know i always worked but my you know my dad he was a doctor he had money like i didn't you know it's weird i didn't turn out great so yeah i mean i'm careful with that you don't think you turned out great no i honestly and i've said this before i don't think that i was ever taught like it seems like whatever happened in Catholic school for you was important. I mean, to be taught, you know, to have a healthy sense of competition and that, like, you know, winning and losing is not life-threatening.

There's something about sports and about understanding, you know, your limitations in some ways around certain things when you're younger, which would be boundaries, and also about healthy competition. I think that just really helps you throughout your entire life because you know if you if you're not careful you can go through life emotionally like a child you know with entitlement and not really having a sense of winning and losing or taking the hit in a dignified way that's important shit learning how to lose with a certain amount of dignity yeah is that's that's paramount i think that was paramount to my high school

experience which because i was constantly getting my ass whooped physically, in sport, and also emotionally like anybody is at 15 or 16 years old. And what they were teaching you how to do was to get your ass whooped and then just keep getting up and learning from it and moving on, but recognizing that their job isn't to teach you how to win. Their job is to teach you how to lose with dignity and grace and to continue on. Right. That's really important.

That's, you know. That's the whole thing. That's the whole thing. Because your whole life is going to be a series of defeats. And struggles and victories. But just the fact that, you know, if you're not emotionally fortified, that, you know, how you're going to buckle under the first series of losses yeah could really define your life you can make some

big mistakes yeah yeah you know yeah and i think we see you see that a lot i mean i know with like young people that we hire now you they come out being told that yeah you know they're the greatest and and and i understand that from a parent's perspective. You want to encourage your child and tell them that they're the greatest over and over and over again. But once you, when you're 23 years old and you're out looking for a job and you've been told you're the greatest all the way up until this point. And someone says, hey, you know what? You're not the greatest. Yeah. And you watch people fucking crumble.

Yeah. Do you say that to them in auditions? No. Auditions? Oh, God. That's the hardest. Ititions no auditions oh god that's the hard that's the hardest like it's horrifying i never but no but i think you're right and it's it's sort of interesting too like certainly in in certain fields like i would you would you tell your kid to like i don't know what danny's kids do but i think he must have been a role model on a

lot a lot of levels you know just in sort of you know surviving in show business period you know i mean he is like this there's nobody like him do you know what i mean yeah oh i look to him all the time i mean he's got he's got a career that spanned 35 years he was in fucking cuckoo's nest yeah it's great yeah uh and he survived it and he nurtured it and he you know and he handled it like he kept getting opportunities. Yeah. There's really nobody like him. No. Yeah. No. I mean, he, he, he certainly transcends generations, which, which I think dramatically is, is easier

to do than comedically, you know, cause comedy is a hard thing to, to, to stay relevant. Yeah. To stay, to stay relevant. And he's able, he's been able to do that. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he seeks out younger people. I mean, he says that to us all the time. Like, what's funny? What do you think is funny?

Because I'll do that. Yeah. Because his sense of humor, while it lines up with ours very often, you know, he still recognizes that he's a 70-year-old man. But he's also like, he's an archetype almost. Like, he's specifically Daddy DeVito. So you're like, if you just fill him up with something, he's going like he's an archetype almost like he's specifically daddy devito so you're like if you just fill him up with something he's going to give you that thing yeah like you know whether he's he knows what the comedy is or not he's naturally going to be hilarious yeah

well yeah and that yes i've learned that over and over again when you see people like charlie um or danny who are just naturally funny. Yeah. And you can't teach that and you can't learn how to do it. Nope. Yeah. It doesn't matter how hard you work. Like some people can be clever, funny,

but there are people that like just can't help but be, like I just work with Andy Dick on my show. You can't stop it. Yeah. You know, it may be annoying sometimes, but you're not going to. Yeah. That's why it was so fascinating to me to hear uh danny mc i heard the podcast for danny mcbride because to me danny mcbride is maybe he's another one maybe the funniest person on earth it's crazy

and the fact that he didn't really know that for so long it's confusing that he wasn't uh that he wasn't a performer he never thought of himself as a performer i don't know that unless you get in front of people and like i know you but he's in front of people his entire life i know but like there's a there's that jump between like being the funny guy among people and then being the funny guy for a job yeah it's different but to be so funny he's so fucking funny have you worked with him no well you ought to oh sure i will ought to yeah sure you know when i would go home sometimes i still go home to philly and my my uncle be you know like hey hey

robert come here yeah yeah you know yeah you know who you should work with yeah tom cruise that guy's good man that guy's really good i'm like okay thank you they think that there's some sort of like entertainment syndicate that my dad's like that too yeah you should call bill maher he seems to be doing all right he says that to me maybe you should call Bill Maher he seems to be doing alright he says that to me maybe you should give Bill Maher a call like they don't ever

recognize your success yeah cause it doesn't match up with the type of success in movie star land yeah that they relate to

well I get a lot of that oh it's a movie star oh here's a movie star now meanwhile I'm on television right right but that doesn't that doesn't matter

but they must think you're a rock star in Philly uh yeah it goes really well in Philly Philly But that doesn't matter. But they must think you're a rock star in Philly. Yeah, it goes really well in Philly. Philly's been fantastic. They must fucking love you. They love it. Because it's one of those overlooked cities

in terms of just recognition, period. Yeah. So just by virtue of the title alone, they must be like, yay. Yeah, Philly's a city with a chip on its shoulder and one that they're proud of. And I think the show has a bit of a chip on its shoulder i think they respect i love it so you go back and you get free food everywhere oh yeah yeah it's pretty great i mean this way i got

the key to the city one year yeah it's pretty great yeah it's it's been pretty great so i guess what i was going to ask you though would like would you stifle how old are your kids four and two oh so you got you don't have to make this decision in a while. But they're like, you know, I want to be an actor. What would you say? I would never allow them to be a professional actor until they're old enough to make, until they're 18. Right.

But I wouldn't discourage that. I would encourage them to, you know, to get involved in plays and to learn, you know, and to learn you know and to express themselves creatively but but not as a not as a profession right i don't think that there's necessarily anything inherently wrong with that either i it's just not it wouldn't it wouldn't i never thought it was like i never knew but i when i like like i just i didn't know comedian was really a job yeah i. When was that moment? Well, I knew that you got paid at comedy clubs and stuff,

but I never saw it as this thing you had to focus on. When I was younger, I never really understood show business. Were you funny? Yeah, I mean, I was funny. I was quick. I was clever. But I think that with comedy, I really saw it as a way to say what I wanted to say.

Like whether it was funny or not, I didn't give a shit. Like I just wanted the space to do it. And I had a tremendous respect for comedy. And I spent a lot of years doing stuff that was aggravated and angry and not funny. Arguably, I don't know how many people like me as a comic now, but there was definitely a lot of years where I realized like, I'm just trying to,

you know, own myself up here. You know, I'm not an entertainer. I'm just going to put you through some shit. Cause I got to go through it. Yeah, exactly.

So I'm going to put it up. I'm going to drag you guys through it. You know, I'm getting paid to too. When I was a kid, my father, we didn't have HBO, but my,

but my dad came home with like three vhs full of uh george carlin's hbo specials yeah and that that blew my mind oh yeah that was the first time i'd ever i was probably like 12 years old like that was the first time i'd ever really seen a stand-up comic i think right right and here was this guy like oh yeah it i mean talk about authentic and and oh yeah you know and tight and tight yeah no fucking around man and yeah and what he was saying i was like what why am i laughing at this like this is mind-blowing yeah and as a catholic too i mean some of that stuff like if you listen to class clown jesus yeah as a catholic person that must have been awesome yeah so but you're working with

Bill Burr now yeah I just directed a pilot uh with uh with Bill Burr as a star that we that we created well he's a great comic were you a fan of his I was actually these two brothers um who work for me uh Dave and John Chernin they they love Bill Burr and they they write for Sonny and they were like hey there's this comedian you got to see and I'd always heard of heard about him um but i didn't really know him very well and they took me out to a show of his and you know he's like one of the best in the business so funny and then we met him afterwards he's such a nice guy and we thought well this could be some interesting alchemy so uh we knocked around a couple of different ideas for the better part of a year until we finally landed on something we really liked and the guys went and executed a script

and it was it was really funny bill thought it guys went and executed a script, and it was really funny. Bill thought it was funny, and we made it. How'd it come out? Really good. And it's for FX? It's for FX. We just delivered on Friday. We'll see.

You never know. But it's a great cast, and Bill's great. What is this other thing you got going? The movie? Yeah. Yeah, I'm doing a movie. But that just happened, right? It just happened, yeah.

Yeah, I just sold it a few months ago. But like that, the way you sold it is similar to, like, you know, you just take things in your own hands. How did that go? How did that go from idea to? Yeah, the movie is very different from Sonny. Right. It's not a comedy.

It's a family action movie, sci-fi. And I knew, and I wrote it, and I knew it would be a difficult sell. How long ago did you write it? About a year ago. Why would it be a difficult sell? It wouldn't be a difficult sell. It would be a difficult sell to have me direct it. Right.

Just because there's a lot, it's just a big, big in scope, very expensive movie. And I'm known more for small in scope comedy. Dark comedy. Yeah, dark comedy. What's the pitch? What's the one-liner? I don't think I'm really allowed to small in scope comedy. Dark comedy. Yeah, dark comedy. What's the pitch? What's the one-liner? I don't think I'm really allowed to talk about it since I sold it.

Yeah. I mean, before I could talk about it a lot, but now I'm like signing NDAs and all sorts of shit. Oh, okay. But it's a big family. It's just like a big scary family. I should have called you a couple months ago. I know.

I know. Well, you know what? I've been avoiding you for three years. I know. I know. I understand. Yeah. But it had to happen eventually. So how did you sell it? I took a scene from it and I went out and shot it and I called in a bunch of favors. I mean, one of the great things about employing people for the better part of a decade is that they're, and also treating them well and fairly they're willing to pitch in when you have a project that won't pay them in the in the present but you know hopefully we'll will become work down down the road and so a lot of people jumped in and and

helped me out so over a weekend I shot a scene from the movie I hired a kid actor and I had this company up in uh northern california that did all the cg and they were because they were big sunny fans and they also liked the script yeah and um you know now we're going to use them to do all the cg in the movie so you did a big monster movie so a big cg trailer yeah like yeah yeah like how much did that cost not very much because of the friends yeah because because of the friends and because uh because of the amount of work that was put in from everybody across the board. Right. It didn't really cost very much at all.

So that's exciting. Yeah. So now you're going to direct a big movie. Yeah. Is that where you see your career going? I think so. Is that what you'd like to do? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think a lot of it is sort of what we were talking about earlier about how people just have this thing, like some people just have this thing. And I think even with dramatic actors, it's the same thing. Like, you know, Sean Penn is just a great actor. He was born that way. He just has that presence. He has that charisma and that gift. And Tom Hanks, Charlie Day, Danny, Glenn, Caitlin, all the people on my show

they just have this thing and I just don't think that I have that and that's not even being self-deprecating or even practical it's being practical

knowing your limitations it's recognizing my limitations absolutely which I think is a big thing when as you grow up that you have to recognize that you know

you can't do everything and that's okay I need to stop comparing myself to people you know that that do this thing because I can't do that thing. Well, that's that thing we were talking about earlier. That's like, that's a healthy thing. Yeah. Learning to be able to accept that stuff and really kind of sit yourself down and go like, I can't. Yeah.

It's the way it is. Yeah. And you find, I find myself doing it, still doing it all the time where you compare yourself to certain people. You know, it's like, people. It's a fucking nightmare. You look at Tom Brady and you're like, why the fuck is this guy so fucking handsome and he's such a good football player? Why can't I be that handsome?

Why can't I be a good football player? Can't I have one thing? And then I'm looking at the TV and I'm like, can't I have one fucking thing? And my wife's like, what? What more could you want? Isn't this what you wanted to do? Like, what more could you want? Like, isn't this what you, this is what you wanted to do. Yeah, but he's playing football.

And look at his chin. You're like a child. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like a child. Using someone else's success. It's not even in your wheelhouse at all. Just beat yourself up with.

And it's so, that doesn't mean that I can't have a really great career, but I'm never going to have the, you know, I'm never going to be. But you're a specific type. I mean, you've defined this thing for yourself. You are who you are. People know, like, your sense of comedy is very specific. Yeah. As an actor and as, you know, and as a writer and, you know, a director.

Because, I mean, you do other stuff. I mean, I don't know. Why do you do Mindy's show? Why? Just for fun? Yeah. Well, we became friends just through those showrunner circuits. And she said, hey, I have something for you.

And I said, oh, I don't really know. I don't love to act or I don't like to do this kind of stuff and guest starring. Yeah. And she sent me the script and it was so funny. Yeah. And I know some of those people over there like Ike Barinholtz is so funny. Right. And Mindy's so funny. And they have some directors that are really great. it was so funny. Yeah. And I know some of those people over there like Ike, Baron Holtz is so funny and Mindy's so funny and they have some directors

that are really great and it's just fun. Yeah. Chris Messina's great and they had just, they create a great, fun environment. It's just fun.

And then what about with Lost? Oh, Lost, that came about because Damon Lindelof and a couple of the other writers, Eddie and Adam, were really good. They were fans of Sonny and they became friends.

And one day they called me and said, hey, we wrote this thing for you. Would you want to do it? And that's a free first class trip to Hawaii. Right. To be on the biggest show on television. Why wouldn't you do that? That's a no brainer. And so how long have you been married now?

Five years. And you met her on the show just i hired her you hired her and that yeah how i hired her when did you know you're falling in love with her season two yeah yeah we didn't we didn't really uh she had a boyfriend at the time and uh yeah but but but i just thought of her as a friend and and and uh an employee yeah and then uh they broke up and then i don't't know, something just started to click. I mean, to me, you know, I got the great, I mean, I closed the circle. It's like the greatest woman I could ever.

To me, she's the funniest woman working in show business. I mean, I. It's nice that you respect her. Oh, yeah. I respect her. I respect her. I love her. I mean, as a, as a, as a comedic actress, I think she's like brilliant. Like maybe the funniest person on TV.

But as a, as a mom, she's like the greatest mother I could ever met. Everybody should have a mother like Caitlin. Oh, that's so fucking sweet. Yeah, man. You're living it. I'm living it. It really feels to me like early on you were kind of given a fairly good framework to kind of move through. And you pulled yourself back from getting too fucking lost.

Yeah. I had a lot of help, but yeah. Yeah? A lot of help? Well, I mean, my parents and my school and my friends. But I mean, it didn't seem like you ever drifted too far into drugs to not be able to get yourself out. No, I think my, I think my ambition was, we would not allow that to happen, I think.

It becomes weird and hard. I mean, it seems like directing is the right way to go. And if you can get into that world and, you know, if you pull off this big one, it'd be great. Seems like you'd be a made guy with that thing. But acting's hard with movies. Making the jump from TV with established characters into films, it's tricky.

Well, you also find that you hit a certain point and you go, well, when does it start to just happen for me? And you realize that it never does. You just have to keep, I mean, very few people just get offers for things and sit around and read scripts and just get offers and then and even when they do that lasts for three four years and then it's over everybody's struggling everybody's got to be proactive everybody you know the the people

you see that are working for 20 years they're out there hustling you know but could like theoretically you could probably retire right now if you weren't building a house in Brentwood, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you guys are comfortable, but you want to keep working. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, comfortable is great.

I like being comfortable, but it's, like, just a very thin line to complacent, and that frightens me. Right. just a very thin line to complacent. And that frightens me. So when I'm comfortable, that's a positive thing, but I feel like it's so close to being complacent and I feel like that level of stasis is the end. Not only creatively, but yeah. But theoretically, I mean, you could just take a decade off

and just hang out with your kids. Yeah, of course, of course. But you have more you want to do. Yeah, and I just want to do different things. So I did the TV show and that was great. Now you're going to do a sci-fi movie. Yeah, I just keep doing something different. Do you ever think you're going to get back to a movie

like the one you wrote for Schrader? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to do, I like to just do different things. I mean, like when you look at somebody like Paul Thomas Anderson, how do you define that guy? You can't. I talked to him for two hours. Yeah, that was really one of the most frustrating interviews I've ever heard,

only because you want to believe that there's some insight that he's going to drop on you that's going to make it all click in your head or you're going to go, how does he do it? And he seems such like a dude. Yeah.'re like no no no you need to be more this the guy that makes those movies needs to be more aloof and he needs to have a certain thing he doesn't he's just like a guy making movies and you realize like it's so it's so inherent like his instincts are just you can't teach that. He's not, it's not a level.

He commits to his vision. Yeah. And he doesn't have an answer for it. No. The Coen brothers are the same way. You ever try to read anything about their opinions of the movies they make? They're just like, no, no. We just shot it this way because we like it.

And there's no meeting. It just kind of is what it is. And why did you choose this particular angle uh because that's where we were with the camera and we just shot it that way so i don't know if they're like purposely deflecting or if they really their instincts are are are that specific and honed that they just do it it just happened it just happens it's like a part of the flow it's weird because that's their vision i mean when you got guys who work at that level and you've got people like me and you and film critics who are reading all this other stuff into it yeah projecting yeah projecting our own bullshit like i am so hung up on like there was this like i went to some class about you know semi semiotics class or something or i don't remember what it was but it was years ago and it was in the godfather the first godfather so in the scene

where so lots of is meeting with the dawn you know so let's so is right yeah so they're shooting so and in the frame you see a green potted plant he's wearing new clothes he's clean he's fresh he's young and then he cut over here to uh to uh you know to brando and he's like wearing a kind of drab suit he He looks older. There's old pictures behind him. Like who's responsible for loading up the frame like that? Did Coppola say like, no, I need more pictures. Was it a set director?

Was it a group think? Like who the hell knows how that happens? But it is a commitment to the vision. Yeah. Like they can't answer all those questions. Would you respect a guy that said, the reason we did that is we thought that if we saw up angle, that it would imply, you know, an entire history of bullshit that I'm about to lay on you.

Well, there's the professional in me that yearns for him to say that so I can kind of get some insight as to how he does it. But then there's the person in me that's like, ah, fuck that guy. Right. You know? Right. Yeah, there's nothing worse than hearing an actor talk about his or her process it's like it's so it's just irritating and

i think it's irritating the general public and yet you love and respect those performances you know what i mean yeah and yet you also want to feel like it's effortless well well i think it is for some people i think that's the weird thing about acting after talking so many actors it's like you can't you explain it just really the best way it is for some people. I think that's the weird thing about acting after talking to so many actors. It's like you can't, you explained it just really the best way. It's like some people are just born, they're just good at that. Yeah, and you can hone it. You can get better at it. It's like, it's not just about creating a believable moment because lots of people can do that.

It's how, are you compelling on a moment to moment basis? Yeah. You know, Denzel Washington is compelling on a moment to moment basis. I don't know why he just is. Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman. Wow. Gene Hackman. I don't know why he just is. Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman. Wow, Gene Hackman. I don't know why he always comes in the moment.

Sterling Hayden. I mean, you know, like, you just take, like, you just, you can go back for the last 150 years, and for whatever reason, it doesn't necessarily need to be the best-looking people. It doesn't need to be even the greatest actor. They're just compelling to watch. Well, yeah, and also getting back to the director thing. It's like, did you ever see that documentary about the Kubrick fanatics? The people that read into The Shining?

It's amazing. These people that have all these basically conspiracy theories in a way about their interpretations of The Shining. Yeah. And they're also kind of like well thought out and a little crazy but like you start to realize like could kubrick have managed to have all that in his head yes but the the trick is though or the i think what we have to accept is that he might not have known it everything just comes together that's because they're honoring their vision yeah you know whatever their whole life is brought to them to that moment, just like an actor.

And that's what they're loading it up with. Yeah. Doesn't mean they can't explain it. Yeah. It's just, it's intrinsically a part of them. It's just their instinct and they're just doing it. So you can be able to do that? I don't fucking know.

I'm going to try. All right, man. It was good talking to you. Great talking to you. Thank you for having me alright that's it that's our show that was a I thought that was

a great conversation he's a good guy sharp guy solid dude and again it's always sunny in Philadelphia it's currently

in it's 10th season it's on FXX Wednesday nights and the season finale is on March 18th. Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod related business. The marination tour dates are there. Merch is there.

There's going to be a lot more merch I got after the tour. There's going to be a lot of posters in there. I think I got to work on some new t-shirt designs. I will do that. JustCoffee.coop is available at wtfpod.com and you can check the calendar uh i already said that get the app the app the app the free app upgrade you can listen to all the episodes oh man i'm punchy Thank you. Boomer lives! It's a night for the whole family.

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