WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 597 - Zach Woods

Episode Date: April 26, 2015

You've seen Zach Woods in Silicon Valley, The Office, Veep and In The Loop, but Marc saw him doing improv at the UCB Theater and was blown away. Zach tells Marc why improv is the one thing in life that makes him feel truly comfortable. Zach also explains how the trajectory of his career was quite possibly altered forever by oral surgery. 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.

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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters? What the fuckadelics? What the fuckminsterfullers? I'm Mark Maron. This is my show. This is WTF. I just woke up. I'm in a hotel room in Dallas, Texas, and just did a show. Oh, wait.

I'm in Houston. Sorry. I apologize. I apologize, Texas. Does it matter? I'm in one of those older, maybe Hyatt's from the 70s, where all the balconies are lined up, so you can see they surround the lobby, but they go up like 20 floors and you can look out and it's just a stack of balconies.

When you go out to outside your door, you have a hallucinogenic experience by the strange angles and the horrible heights. And it's not pleasant, not pleasant to wake up to. I don't really have a fear of heights, but you don't have to punch me in the face with it. The glass elevators going up and down, all the angles. I'm woozy. I'm woozy. I had to go get coffee, and I felt like I was going through some sort of dreamscape. How is everybody?

I'm okay. Today, Zach Woods is on the show, who is a lovely man and an amazing comedic talent. And the guy that I'm a big fan of, it's a very odd thing with Zach. Maybe I should, it's not odd, but the guy made an impact on me somehow as an amazingly funny and talented person. Brilliant person. Just organically. Didn't even have to seek it out. brilliant person just organically didn't even have to seek it out well what happened was you know i'd seen i think i'd seen a little bit of zach's work on the office but i don't watch the office

never really watched it that much and then i watched first season of silicon valley and i saw him in that jared is the character zach woods uh plays on silicon. Also on that show, as you know, is my assistant on my show, Josh Brenner, who plays Big Head. I think he's back for a few episodes there. But he's also back for a few episodes of Marin on IFC, which premieres May 14th on IFC. If you could get IFC for even a few months, that would be nice. Because that would change the number profile of the ratings system. That would be nice because that would change the number profile of the ratings system so it would make more people watch it in relatively real time on the network it's presented on. If you could do that for me, that would be nice because there's still an old style paradigm in place for how people judge the success of television shows with those numbers. So that's my pitch. How you anyway zach wood so so i i'd

seen his work on silicon valley and uh i dug it i thought he was funny but then my my niece eden came into town i don't remember when that was and the only place i can think to take her to take the kids is the ucb because they don't have an age thing you can go in with kids so we went to see ASCAT at UCB and this guy Zach Woods was was performing in the ASCAT crew as one of the improvisers and I was like holy shit that guy's like some kind of fucking wizard and then months later when my other niece Matana came out I took her to UCB I also took her to Largo and Zach was there again just by coincidence and i'm like she fucking did it again guy's impressive and i like i sought him out

and uh and we made this happen and we had this conversation with him he's a lovely guy talented guy good conversation all right he's he was on the office he's on veep uh in the loop was a film that sort of broke him and he's currently you can see him on silicon valley did a show here's what's been going on with me and then i got big uh big tour announcements so hang in hang in for a minute and listen to me that's what we call a tease big tour announcements coming up coming up is the key word to the tease after this stay tuned right after these things all those are tricks they're tricks to keep you there so you you listen through the advertisements you listen through the advertisements oh my god after these i'm gonna say something amazing holy shit if you leave you're gonna miss something you're gonna regret so please

stay here things you don't have to do on a podcast for a hundred Alex I um I'm in Texas and every time I'm in Texas I have this uh I have this weird feeling that there has always been something in my head that has been threatened by Texas, that Texas was this huge monster of a state right next to the state I grew up in. We judged Texans, as you witnessed from my conversation with Mike Judge. But every time I come here, every time I drive here, because I rented a car again to drive Ashley and I, my opening act, Ashley Barnhill, doing a great job. We're in Austin where I rented a car, primarily to get barbecue. My're in Austin where I rented a car, primarily to get barbecue.

Like my willingness and desire to get barbecue, willingness, what a funny word. Yes, I'm willing to eat barbecue. No, I fucking need it once a year, it seems. But I rented the car primarily to get barbecue. Then I'm like, well, let's just drive the rest of these gigs. So we drove from Austin to Houston and today we're driving from Houston to Dallas. But every time I drive through the great state of texas i am amazed at its

integrity as its own fucking country uh the people in texas you're just sort of like look at they look like texans they're big strong jawed people lanky cowboy style people that look like they can handle cattle and wrestle things but uh but i'm always i find them charming more charming as each visit and i know that sounds odd but as i get older and softer in my heart and mind uh i have a a more open approach to the peoples of the world and i think i always had it i think i just had to reopen that door but so austin, Texas, the Moon Tower Comedy Festival went great. Thank you if you came out. We had almost, I think, maybe a full house at the Paramount Theater in Austin.

It was a great show, a good time. Did a nice long one for the peoples. And then the next day, I went to barbecue. Me and Nate Bargetzi, the great Nate Bargetze. He's got a special coming out in a few weeks. I should get – we should talk to him. He's one of my favorites. Me and Nate Bargetze, Todd Berry, who I go way back with, and Kurt Metzger, another guy I got to get on the show, hilarious guy, writes for Amy Schumer's show.

We made the comedian pilgrimage out to Opie's in Spicewood, Texas, where I go. That's where I go. Anyone else can go wherever they want. Stay in town. Go to Lockhart. Go to Mueller's up in Taylor. Wherever you want to go. But I go get meat at Opie's, and I brought my friends with me.

And it's weird because in Texas, a half-hour drive feels like an hour and a half. So these guys were chomping at the bit. They're like, where are we going? Then we come into Opie's. They have upped their game at that place so we all got a pile of meat i swear to god austin austin is like it's like disneyland but all the rides are meat but uh but so you know we got our meat and we shoved all that meat in our face every time i have barbecue you know there's a mixed feeling there's a feeling of like this is amazing and right after that it's like i can't ever do this again ever in my life

i can't do it anymore i you know i have high cholesterol i'm i'm 51 year old man i'm not old by any means but at some point i have to behave and eat like a fucking person that's trying to take care of themselves but the road road, man, the road. The road gets me, I'm out on the road, I can't eat well. I can't, this rationalization of the road. And granted, I'm not out here with one syringe in my arm of Coke and one syringe in my arm of heroin like Freddie King style.

I'm not out here, you know, drinking. I'm not out here drinking. I'm not out here drinking all night. What I'm doing is I'm not exercising and I'm justifying and rationalizing my desire to eat horrible food. I had chicken and waffles two nights ago. The night after a barbecue, I had chicken and waffles. Why didn't I just put a gun in my mouth? Because why do I got to do that? Why, folks? Why do we do it? I'm okay. Why can't I enjoy some bad food? Why can't I just put a gun in my mouth? Because why do I got to do that? Why, folks, why do we do it? Like, I'm okay. Why can't I enjoy some bad food? Why can't I just live with the fact

that I went out and had ice cream last night? Why does this have to be the ongoing dialogue in my heart and mind, my heart that's slowly getting clogged and my mind that no longer understands that I'm an old man? Why can't I get my heart and mind on the same page and just allow me to

eat these things and decide that it's worth dying for? It's worth it. How did he live? Well, he had barbecue once a year that he resented himself for, but I don't think that's what killed him. I don't think it was the chicken and waffles that he had twice in his life or the ice cream that he overdid sometimes, but in retrospect, in the big picture, didn't eat too much of. I don't think it was the genetic predisposition to high cholesterol. I don't think that's what killed him. What really killed him was the amount he beat himself up for engaging in things he enjoyed. It's a very, it's a sad state of affairs.

The guilt and the shame and the amount that he just made himself feel horrible for eating things that were fun is what killed this man. That's what did it. That's what did it. His heart got tired of him beating the shit out of himself. It's a very sad story. But I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. It was fun to see my friends. That's the one thing about festivals. It was great to go out and eat with those guys and talk to those guys and laugh with those guys. And I had chicken waffles with Blaine Kapach and the amazing Dana Gould. And these are people I've known for 20 years. And we don't see each other much.

And we get to hang out and eat bad food and laugh. That is the one element, and I know I've talked about this before, but the greatest thing about being a comedian is hanging out with a bunch of other brilliant motherfuckers who know how to make you laugh and have to do it instinctively. They have to do it more than communicate like regular people, and you just fucking laugh.

It's just fucking amazing. And yeah, see, I'm getting getting nostalgic i'm tearing up and also i have to say um that i went and watched maria bamford uh night before last and i hadn't seen her in a while and and still i i will stand by my belief that she is the best fucking comedian working. She's possessed by true genius. And look, I'm a jaded person. And I sat in that theater and I had to pee and I didn't go pee because I didn't want to miss her. Loved seeing her. She got married.

I think she's happier. But what she does on stage is unlike anything else. And it is inspired. She's channeling some sort of mysterious comedy wizard muse. You watch Maria Bamford, you walk out, you're like, why do I even do this? She did it all. Something. She did it.

No one's going to be as good as her. it all something she did it there's no one's gonna be as good as her so i gotta head to a dallas now and i and and i'm gonna send you back to the garage and listen to my conversation with zach calgary is an opportunity rich city home to innovators dreamers disruptors and problem solvers the city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. or look out at calgary economic development.com 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 center 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 5 p.m in rock city at torontorock.com but i've seen you a couple times that's why like uh it's funny. Like, when I first watched the show, Silicon Valley, I was like, oh, I know that guy. And I brought, for some reason,

I had brought my, one of the things that I can do with my underage nieces is take them to UCB. And I would take them to ASCAP if they came to visit me. So I brought them to, I brought the older one,

the first one to a show and you were on it and i was like oh that's that guy from and i put it together and like you know because you're very funny you're good thank you that's nice you're very funny on the show thank you uh but then i went with my other niece like months later and you were there again dog shit no no you were funny but like i was like there is he is again, that guy. Yeah. And you were very funny both times, and you seemed to be different than the most of them, the improvisers. I don't know how. You're an oddball of some kind. Yeah.

So do you love doing it? Is that why you go back and do it? Yeah, I love it so much. That was the first thing. I started doing improv before I had any aspirations towards anything else. I wanted to be a musician when I was a kid. I played trumpet. Really?

Yeah. Wait, where did you grow up? I was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and I grew up in Yardley, which is in Bucks County. It's like a suburb of Philadelphia. Philly. Yeah. I like Philadelphia. Yeah.

I never got into it, weirdly. I don't know what it was. I always found it a little depressing. Well, it is depressing. It's depressing, right? I think Pennsylvania in general is a little dark. I was just talking about that on the show recently because I've been there. I went to Pittsburgh.

I was in Philly. It's heavy, man. It feels like as a state, it's on the down slope of its existence. Its best days are behind it. Maybe. Well, they're trying to sort of, like in Philly, like the renovation and stuff downtown,

it sort of worked. They're trying. It feels vital, but it just feels like there's a dark and post-industrial vibe. It's also, Philadelphia is kind of a racist city and the sports,

I'm not like a big sports guy, but I remember when I was growing up, Santa Claus would skate onto the ice around Christmas time at flyers games and people would throw batteries at santa claus they that's not racist that's just weird anti-santa shit yeah no no that's just fucked up yeah it's so weird because also batteries like you could throw drinks or things that they have at the stadium but batteries are premeditated like you have to bring a battery why would they did you i don't make sense of it. I don't know.

Why batteries by specifically at Santa? It's a complicated combination of elements. I think maybe... I would say. Maybe it's just like, well, there's an embodiment of pure childhood joy. Yeah, kill it. Yeah, destroy it like it was destroyed in us. There's no room for that anymore. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe that is it. There's parts of Philly that are really nice, you know, but, I don't know. But Trenton, how'd you end up, why'd you, so you're sort of genetically New Jersey?

Yeah, my parents are both from Bergen County. Mine too. Yeah, really? Not Bergen County, but Morris County.

Okay, yeah, close. Wow. I like, I feel like New Jersey, I have a lot of nostalgia for Jersey,

like the Turnpike, I like really love the Turnpike, like all those old, it's hideous. The Turnstiles? Yeah. Yeah, I have a lot of nostalgia for Jersey. Like the Turnpike. I really love the Turnpike. Sure. All those old... It's hideous. The Turnstiles? Yeah.

Yeah. I like it. Remember when your grandpa used to let you throw the quarter in the basket? No, that never happened. That never happened. Am I projecting it? Oh, you mean at the... Yeah, at the tolls.

Yeah. Yeah. He's like, can I throw it in? And then you hear a click in, and then the thing would come up. No, my grandfather was disengaged, I guess. You weren't afforded that. I feel so deprived. Of that New Jersey.

So how long were you in Jersey? I was there until I was like three or four. Trenton is, you know, really not a great safe city anymore because when Martin Luther King got killed, this could be totally wrong, but this is what I remember, that there were big riots and the city kind of never recovered. So it's got all this like Victorian architecture, but then it's very, very dangerous. So it's like the set of Meet Me in St. Louis, but like then the action of The Wire or whatever,

you know, it's like, yeah. Yeah. But when you're on the train, you drive past that big sign, right? Trenton is industry. Trenton makes, yeah, this is the bridge past that big sign, right? Trenton is industry. Trenton makes, yeah, this is the bridge says, it says, Trenton makes, the world takes. It's the most indignant bridge. I think initially it meant like Trenton makes stuff and then the world takes it. But now it feels like, it's like, well, they just take and take.

I think it's all gone at this point. Yeah. What did they make there? Do you have any idea? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know what they at this point. Yeah. What did they make there? Do you have any idea? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know what they used to make. All right.

So what's your family doing outside of Philly? You know, they used to live in... My parents met in Vermont, and then they moved to Vermont. They worked in college there? They met at a mental hospital. My mother and father worked at a mental hospital. Really? Yeah, my mom was my father's supervisor.

That's better than his nurse. Yeah, right. Your mom was your dad's supervisor at a mental hospital. So your mom was a hospital administrator? Is she a doctor? No, she's a nurse practitioner. But he was like a low man on the totem pole. Maybe they were just working in the psychiatric wing of it.

No, stick with mental hospital. Yeah, it's a mental, they met in Bedlam. Yeah. And then they ended up moving to New York. My father's a shrink and so he was getting

his degree in. Oh, so he was a student or something when they met? He had to go to New York then they moved to Trenton and then when they were kids. But when they met, he was a student kind of

or an intern? I guess he had finished his undergraduate education but he was like, yeah, he was doing some, I guess he was an intern? I guess he finished his undergraduate education, but he was like, yeah, he was doing some... I guess he was an intern. I should know more about this. No, you shouldn't. So he's a psychiatrist? He's a social worker, but he does clinical therapy.

So he's a social worker, so he's noble. Yeah. Righteous. Yeah, right. Yeah, he's a do-gooder. Yeah, he didn't settle for private practice. Well, he actually did. He does run a private practice.

So, yeah. But that's his degree, CSW. Yeah, right. Oh, so you grew up with a shrink as a dad. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Do you have siblings?

I do. I have an older brother and a younger sister. Oh, and you had an older brother, too, to guide you through things. Yeah, I guess so. Did he? I don't know. You know, I never had that. I don't think we had, like, a prototypical older brother thing where he'd, like, show me how to, like, catch worms to go fishing or whatever with.

How about just check out this music? No. No. No. It wasn't. How much older? Three years. He didn't, like, turn me on to music. Did he have problems? No, he was a great guy. He is It wasn't. How much older? Three years. He didn't like turning on music.

Did he have problems? No, he was a great guy. He is a great guy. But I'm trying to think if he exposed me to it. You know, he was like, I do feel like he's an older brother in the sense like other probably more physically capable people who have brothers fight and they learn to handle themselves physically with their physically with their brother we were not you know we were too like anemic to to do that but but uh we would argue a lot you know i think we like sort of sharpened our knives on each other that way you mean literally anemic not diagnosably but just sort of in terms of a quality not not not jockey not jockey what did he end up doing? He designs healthcare policy. Oh, really?

Yeah. I don't know. What does that mean? Well, he like works. He worked at the Department of Health and Human Services. Now he works in this program where they like develop like pilot healthcare programs that they then test on. And my sister, my younger sister is studying to be a rabbi. So you're a Jew?

Yeah. Well, like the most secular Jew. Like our Seders when I was a kid were just like. Really? sister's studying to be a rabbi so you're jew yeah well like the most secular jew like our our seders when i was a kid were just like really like minstrels for judaism was like so offensive if anyone could everybody just puts on the costume once a year exactly it was like just but not conservative so like reform or nothing like whatever's like whatever's lower than reform so no bar mitzvah no bar mitzvah. Both your parents are Jewish? Yeah.

I have one grandfather who was a Lutheran who played organ in a church, but other than that. You have a grandfather who's Lutheran? Yeah. So someone's not a Jew. Yeah. Somewhere along the line. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting.

But, all right, so you're in Philadelphia, growing up. Right. Playing trumpet. Right. And then I got braces. When did that start, the trumpet? I started when I was in second grade. Could you play? Yeah, I was pretty good. Yeah?

And I was really, I really, and then I started devouring all these jazz books. I read the autobiography of Miles Davis. Did you read Art Pepper, Straight Life? I think I did read Straight Life. Crazy, that book. Chet Baker's book. I don't remember that much about Straight Life? I think I did read Straight Life. Crazy, that book. Chet Baker's book. I don't remember that much about Straight Life. It's all about jail and heroin.

It's about 350 pages about heroin. 50 pages about sex. Basically, Art Pepper's like, sex came pretty natural to me. Let's talk about Alcatraz and Narconon and heroin. Chet Baker was a rat. That was his big problem. Chet Baker was like he snitched? Yeah. Really? Chet was a snitch. I didn't a rat. That was his big problem. Chet Baker was like he like- Yeah, he called him out.

He snitched? Yeah. Really? Chet was a snitch. I didn't know that. That's what I heard. That's what, according to art- Wow.

I believe that Chet was a snitch. It's amazing to me that all these guys, you know, these like incredibly technically proficient musicians were heroin addicts. It just seems like how did they- I don't know how they lived their life. Like if I get six hours of sleep, I'm basically incapacitated.

You know, like, I can't. These guys are playing, like, the most advanced, sophisticated music. For hours. Yeah. For hours and hours and hours. And it's physical, too, you know? Takes a lot out of you. Yeah.

Strung out. Right. I know. I just read the book on Richard Pryor and just the amount of coke and booze he was doing and going into like writers meetings. I was like, what the fuck? Was it different then? I mean, I'd done drinking and drugs in my life, but I could not work at that level.

Is there a point at which, because I'm such a control freak, I haven't really done much drinking or drinks, not when I've worked like at all. And I wonder if there's sometimes I've started drinking more lately and it makes me unsurprisingly less inhibited and it made me wonder it's like maybe there is like a sweet spot where if you're just like a little drunk it's help it's helpful well that's what we're all chasing is that sweet spot in life it's like they're the worst alcoholics or they're just like there's that one time I hit it once and they spend their life trying to get back to that sweet spot. But, well, that's good. That never appealed to you, huh? That life.

Yeah, I think. Well, it's because in my very early experiences drinking, I was like, I could feel how irritating I was being. Like I could feel myself annoying people, but I didn't know how to stop. But when you get uninhibited, what does that look like? I mean, I've seen you do improv and you're pretty uninhibited in a lot of ways improv is like one of the only places where i feel sort of uh unselfconscious because i've been doing it long enough right you know that i don't i don't i'm not watching myself do it usually but you're very sharp at it and you're kind of dark natured i think probably like i'm a little uncomfortable being aggressive in real life or or being you know outwardly dark so maybe that's where it comes out am i right about that or am i

you don't i don't know it's funny i you know i've never seen myself through a show so i don't really it's interesting to hear that i i don't know it probably depends on the night too you know right yeah yeah yeah and also you have i guess sort of a your physicality you're a large tall guy and you know cadaverous cadaverous so maybe i'm just uh projecting the other part maybe you just look creepy right i just look right i look like i came out of the tv ward no no no no it's okay no i feel bad don't feel bad i don't feel bad your sister's gonna be a rabbi she's gonna be a rabbi that's bizarre what kind of rabbi cow hardcore uh reconstructionist

oh yeah those yeah the hippie jews yeah kind of like we're groovy we're young jews can be cool yeah that one yeah i think so yeah yeah i think that's who they are i think my brother was into that for a while right so you're playing trumpet trumpet. How old were you reading about Chet Baker? 12, 13? Yeah, I don't know when I started devouring jazz books, but it was through middle school. Did you listen to jazz? I did, yeah. I listened to a lot of jazz.

Yeah? To this day? Yeah, although less now, because I think some of the bebop stuff is so cerebral. Yeah. Now I'm more, I'll listen to Ella Fitzgerald or something that's kind of like- Some singing. Some nice. That's nice.

Yeah, something that doesn't feel like math problems. Math problems are like you're exhausted. Yeah, right. What kind of mood is that? I have a cousin that can't listen to bebop because it makes her anxious. Yeah, I totally get that. I totally get that. Also, because if you feel like you're naturally sort of a cerebral person and your brain's

always crowded with thoughts, bebop just seems like you're just doubling down on your... Sure. You know. It can be good background music. To me, my brain is always sort of spinning, but when I put that on, it is sort of soothing because I don't pay... A passive interaction with it kind of seems like a reasonable backdrop to my head, but depending on which bebop it is, I mean, some of it can be kind of shrill and a little bit much.

Yeah. But there's some shit that I can listen to. It's even like, you know, there's like comedy that's like math comedy. It's like the sharpest, most cerebral comedy. Community? Yeah, that's a good example. Yeah. But if it doesn't, sometimes even a show like that, like I'll objectively know like this is hilarious and brilliant.

But unless I'm in the right mood it's hard for me to watch it because i find it i don't know i'm like easily overstimulated or something well i mean 30 rock was like that too it's almost like movies from the 30s that the banter is so clip and so quick and everything is so orchestrated uh there's there's no room like you're you want you're watching something uh something so orchestrated and controlled it's hard to appreciate it on uh it's hard to just laugh yeah it's like it's i you i end up marveling right exactly wow yeah right they really put a lot into this yeah that took a lot to construct that bit and they found the perfect specific and the perfect it's like and

then the performances they like hit it just right but it yeah yeah whereas like uh you know sometimes just it's definitely not a fart joke yeah right right right so all right so what happens to the trumpet i got braces and i couldn't i couldn't play trumpet anymore because i had braces like it was that a choice that you could make or to not get braces yeah my parents took me to Wynton Marsalis' dentist in New York. A jazz dentist? His name was Dr. Chops. Was it really his name? Well, it wasn't his birth name, but yes.

Because I was so upset about it. I was like, this is going to ruin my trompe-l'oeil. So they did everything they could, but ultimately I had to get them because my teeth were going to look like a train wreck otherwise. Really? Apparently it wasn't just cosmetic it would have like actually been bad for like a medical problem well i had that but they really yeah they took the braces off they were a failure really what does that mean like they're your they were just like the teeth one my jaw issue is a jaw issue ultimately my jaw doesn't lined up so i had to have made the choice was like the braces

are going to only going to do so much we need to sort of realign your jaw break it and realign it which is not like it no i didn't do it so now my teeth are my gums are all receded and my teeth really meet in two places but i've lived that way i'm okay i'm you know my teeth aren't falling out of my head but i have an indentation in my chest like a a slope. From orthodonture? No. I didn't get that. It's a slope in my chest. And there was another, they had a procedure. They're like, we can put a metal pole behind your sternum and then snap this slope out so that it's not concave anymore. But we might hit your heart.

And I didn't do that either. Oh, my God. What happens if they hit your heart? Well, it's not great. Never good. When the pole that they're running through your rib cage hits your heart. Someone's telling me there's surgeries in Korea where they'll break women's jaws to make them look more Caucasian. It's like a cosmetic surgery.

What the fuck is wrong? It sounds really fucked up and horrible. It's harder for me to hear that stuff. Like I have a physical reaction. Like there's, apparently there's a bunch of plastic surgeons in Asia. I was about to say the Orient. Is that wrong? Is that outdated?

I don't think it's wrong if you're like a 19th century like explorer. In the Orient where they have plastic surgery to make uh people look like anime really like the women want to look like oh yeah and they get those like they make their pupils bigger dude i don't even know oh god i should look into that really is that something you might want to do i can i would look so horrifying. So you get braces and- Yeah, I couldn't play. Were you playing a lot at that point though? Yeah, I used to practice hours every day.

I was really obsessive about it. Have you picked it back up? A little bit. It doesn't hold up well to neglect though. Oh, really? Yeah. You know, it's like a muscular- Was it heartbreaking?

Yeah, I was really bummed out about it. I used to take pliers and take the wire out of the braces because I'd get so frustrated. So you could play? Yeah. Did it work? It worked, but then you had to get the wire back in, you know, as a short-term fix. So you'd go into the orthodontist without the wire? Yeah, he'd be like, what the fuck?

I had this weird orthodontist. Not Dr. Chops? No, this is the guy in my hometown. He had a life-size mural of himself on the wall putting braces on jungle animals. And then he had a picture of himself as an orthodontist putting braces on himself dressed as Superman. He had like all this weird... Neither one of those make sense to me at all. No, no.

They're both bizarre. Was he really putting braces on or they were just a painting or a drawing? It was a painting. He never actually went to the, he never actually put braces on junk animals. On safari? Yeah. Tranquilized lions that put braces on them? But it was a 3D mural.

Like he had like a wooden, I think there was a walrus too. I don't think it adhered to any sort of like actual like animal kingdom logic. It was like all these different animals had come together like predators and prey because they all wanted to get braces from so this guy he did he commission these paintings or do them himself oh god i hope he did them himself but i think he probably commissioned them and they were large huge wall size so it was like so the kids will enjoy this this is that was his angle was like there's animals i'm putting braces on animals this is for the children to look at when they come in yeah and

there's a harrowing like barely recognizable version of me putting these things on the on the putting braces on the animals like he looked weird in them you were in oh no no i wasn't that would be i wish i was in the murals yeah i was And the other one was him as Superman putting braces on himself? Yeah. It's bizarre. It was really strange. And you went to that guy for what, two, three years? Yeah.

Was he an odd guy? He was pretty weird. He'd be like, Dizzy Gillespie, man. He'd always bring up Dizzy Gillespie, and I'd always be so resentful, because I was like, you're the reason I can't. I mean, it wasn't his fault. Why do you keep rubbing it in? Right.

So you'd walk in with your wireless braces, and he'd be like, here comes the Dizzy Gilles't. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't his fault. Why do you keep rubbing it in? Right. So you'd walk in with your wireless braces. Yeah. And you'd be like, here comes the Dizzy Gillespie. Yeah, right. Let's get that wire back in there. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. That's so sad, the struggle. And your parents were just, you've got to do it, huh? Yeah. Well, I, you know, he basically said, like, you're not going to be able to,

your teeth are going to be sticking out in such a way that it'll be hard to play. Anyway, you'll be like this freak. Right, exactly. So, but you didn't think of other instruments or try other instruments? No, at that point it was like. How old were you, like 13, 14? Yeah, I guess I was probably 14 or 15.

And how much of your identity was wrapped up in the horn? All of it, all of it. I think, like, in retrospect, I think it wasn't even, I like jazz music, but I think more I like the idea of being a jazz musician. Sure, man. I think like in retrospect, I think it wasn't even, I like jazz music, but I think more I like the idea of being a jazz musician. Like I was like, that'll tell me who I am. Like I don't need to, you know, have my own tastes or preferences or beliefs. It's just like all imported all from jazz.

That's what you do. That's what we do, man. Especially as creative people. You just sort of like, you want to just backload a whole persona onto yourself. It's so weird. I used to wear a fedora. Did you? When you were 14?

Oh, I looked like such a moron. One time I was walking down the street and I was wearing this fedora in New York. My brother went to college there. And you were 14 or 15? Yeah, but I didn't have like the other clothes I wore weren't. A fedora like? Yeah, it was like just normal 14-year-old boy clothes. And a guy drove up to me, stopped stopped rolled down his passenger side window and just

went lose the hat and then just drove away and i took it off and i never wore it again was that it that was it that should be the name of your your cd yeah lose the hat it'll be on my tombstone lose the hat lose the hat oh you're so fragile then. Oh, my God. I already was like every moment I had the hat on, I was aware. Like I was thinking about the fact that I was wearing that hat. But you had to. Yeah. What do you think inspired you to wear the hat?

What made you decide that one? You know, I probably thought I was like a latter day. Because I wore fedoras too. Really? Yeah. Did you pull them off? I feel like you'd actually, you might be able to do it. Well, there's one up there someone gave me. But no, but like everything becomes, but when I was younger, like I had a large brim hat that someone had given me.

There's a period there where I bought a derby because I thought that might work. Like I went to a fancy hat store and I bought a derby. Do you remember the first time you wore the derby out? Yeah, I only wore it once or twice. It just didn't work out because it's so look at me ish that's the only problem with that is as when you start to realize that about your ego as a performer before you become a performer yeah there's so much of what you're doing is just sort of like and you don't really think of it at the time but it's

really to draw attention years Oh constantly I Halloween I used to do all this stuff that was like like looking back now I hate Halloween, I used to do all this stuff that was like, like looking back now, I hate Halloween. Like I'm too self-conscious to participate in Halloween. But as a kid, that was right before I was performing. I remember I used to, one year I learned the words to staying alive, you know, the set in an interview. And I got like four of my friends and I choreographed a dance and I got them to go they were essentially like

accessories in my costume like I bullied my friends into like being backup dancers and then I would go door to door and we would ring the door and then I would lip sync to staying alive and all my friends would do this choreographed dance behind me and but did you let them get candy as well they got candy but none of them i wasn't i was i was looking for something bigger than candy yeah yeah but you had leadership qualities clearly well i don't know it was just coercive and annoying why do you remember the logic behind that did you wear a disco outfit yeah oh okay yeah i think i just thought well people are really gonna love this

and i remember one guy he opened the door and he's like do you want candy or not shit i ain't got all night it's like yeah i just like wilted oh my god another lose the hat moment i've had a lot of lose the hat moments message received world all right so like when do you start uh the interest in in uh in the comedic arts well my brother went to college in new york and he'd been to ascat he went to columbia how old are you i'm 30 oh you're young yeah okay so he went to columbia yeah smart yeah yeah he's a smarty pants and he said he told me about ASCAT you know

oh right that's where I went to Washington yeah at the old so that was at the old space right with that converted strip club

oh yeah yeah that used to be a strip club with the weird chairs right yeah right right yeah like on 23rd

or 2nd yeah something like that someone told me that the like old I guess it used to be a strip club and they had a fairly large Hasidic clientele. So these Hasids would show up to the old UCP

and they'd think they were going to see a strip show and then they'd just have to watch alt comedy for 45 minutes. Oh, that's right. And Matt Walsh lived upstairs. Yeah, right. Okay. Right. So that era.

Right. Yeah. So I heard about that from him and then i started taking the train up uh into the city and taking classes from philly yeah from outside of philadelphia right right right so all right so you visited your brother you lost the hat yeah i lost did you throw it away or yeah and uh that's a good question i don't know i probably just buried it deep in a closet yeah it's interesting like i don't think i've ever been more confident than i was in middle school going into high school like the period that people most most people describe

as like the worst yeah i feel like i felt bulletproof i was like walking around in a hat doing disco dances and shit now i'm like but that's riddled with self-doubt. But back then I was like, that's interesting. It's an interesting idea because is that really confidence? Cause I, there's a picture of me performing, not in middle school,

but later wearing a big brimmed hat. Yeah. I'm on stage with a t-shirt and glasses that are tinted. Are you doing standup or are you playing music? Standup. Okay. Wearing a big brimmed hat. Jesus.

To me, though, I know I was cocky. Right. But I don't think I was, there was no way I was confident. It was like what you were saying is this sort of backloading a persona into yourself. You see yourself in a certain way and you sort of model yourself after these other people but you haven't really earned your personality when you would wear that stuff aren't you just kind of like loading heckler's guns for them a little bit like i didn't think about that i thought i was some sort of like you know hey man i've seen some shit that guy yeah you know yeah like like world

very like yeah i was aggressively you know i was you know, and I'd really been through it. 23-year-olds with old man affectations are the fucking worst. How is that guy? Guys who are like veterans, who like grizzled old salt 23-year-olds should just wander into the ocean. Well, but they're just trying to- Yeah, you're right. Cover up. I'm not.

Oh, no, no, no. But like, I'm just addressing the fact that you felt the most confident you were because you decided on some things, but it wasn't really confidence? No. Yeah, right. It didn't go that deep. I mean, I have to imagine, but I don't know how anyone handles it, but you seem like a sensitive guy, kind of fragile, perhaps.

Maybe. I don't know. Maybe that's just your character. But I mean, I would Maybe that's just your character. But I mean, like, I would think that going into, well, you weren't doing acting per se, but going into improv, that must have shredded whatever sense of persona that you decided upon.

Well, I was such a dick. The first class, you know, I was the youngest. I was 16 and it was mostly people in their 20s. And the first class, there's this great improviser who used to teach in New York called Billy Merritt. I know him. He's out here now. Yeah, he's terrific.

And he was my first teacher. And the first day in class, you went around the room and he said, tell everybody your name and why you're here. And I said, when it got to me, I was like, or he said, your name and what brought you here. And when it got to me, I said, my name's Zach. And what brought me here was a train i mean what a fucking moron and and he was like unbelievably gracious about it and he was like no no why why do you want to do this you're going for

the laugh yeah but jesus did you get it no thank you of course you know i mean i think i got like everybody was right yeah but um and then i was like you know i'm actually, I think I got like a courtesy laugh. Yeah. But, um, and then I was like, you know, I'm actually 30 years old, but I have a disease that causes me to look younger. And then people laughed at that because again, just to try to like ease the tension that I created with my unfunny remark.

And then, and then I was like, why are you laughing? I'm serious. And then I was like, nah, just playing y'all. And I was just like, yeah, I, I'm serious. And then I was like, nah, just playing, y'all. And I was just like, I still feel so grateful to Billy that he didn't,

he had every justification to just be like, fuck this guy. But that's a dark sensibility I was talking about. That your first words out of your mouth were lying about a disease that people actually have in the world. Oh, God. That was so, I still feel like the cringes when i think about it cocky you were a cocky teenager and going for the laugh yeah why not so billy was just sort of like okay and you did you make you get honest in that moment or didn't you yeah but he was so he was so

gentle like i feel like later when i was teaching if somebody had done that i probably would not have been as compassionate as he was what would you you have done? I don't know. I think I would have like maybe, you know, made a little speech about how, you know, it wasn't necessary. You didn't have to do a frantic tap dance for approval all the time. You could just, you know, that, that it makes other people uncomfortable. So you really are a product of UCB. Yeah. And that's why I do it now. It's my favorite thing.

It's where I feel like when a show's going well, like when it's a good improv show, it's the most sort of alive and myself that I feel. Do you feel that way with stand-up? Yeah, because I improvise a lot. Yeah. And I love doing it to the point where I'm like, when it's going really well, I'm like, I should probably do the material, right?

Like, I feel like. Oh, that's funny. It's like homework. Well, no, but I don't know if they feel like they're getting ripped off. You know, like, even though they're getting laughs, there's something about improv in the context of stand up. Yeah. Where you're sort of like, do you have jokes? Do you have things you prepared?

Or are we just going to. This is fun. But where's the. You know what I mean it's one thing to go to an improv show it's another thing it's interesting

to like because I do have like an hour hour and a half of new material but if I get on a riff and things are kind of popping

and I'm exploring I love it it's the best thing in the world for me but for the first time the other night I realized like I'd done probably

about 25 minutes of that and it was great but then I start going like okay let's start the show but hold on now the audience is reacting positively right you're laughing there yes do they care as long as it's right they couldn't yeah they have no they might not even know what's what's well one guy said some guy tweeted like uh i saw a man the other night he improvised for a half an hour, and then he did about a half an hour of his hour. So now I guess I got to go to another show to see the rest of his hour. But he was being funny, and he wasn't unhappy about it.

But for me, to improvise it for things to happen and to ride that out, I love it. But I never did improv, really. I always did it by myself with an audience. I think I would be, too. I kind of feel like uh there's something about improv where you like um yeah i guess it's shared responsibility and shared blame if it goes bad that makes it the idea of doing it by myself is just like totally although i did take a stand-up comedy class like the when i was 16 i took a improv class and a

stand-up comedy class at ucb no it was called like the american comedy institute which is just who taught that uh steven rosenfeld or something steve rosenfeld from san francisco maybe huh yeah but that i was like i felt yeah really ill at ease and then when there's other people i i can't imagine do you i'm curious about that can i ask ask you a question? With Twitter, right? I'm not on Twitter. And you strike me as probably a sensitive gentleman as well. Yeah. How do you withstand like inevitably you see things, even that, right?

That guy makes a joke. It's like a playful joke. Yeah. But like I feel like when I first started doing the office um i read comments i would read comments and i can still i could recite like mean comments that i read five years ago and i had to just be like i'm not reading anything ever again because it's just like yeah hurt my feelings like and it right but isn't twitter just like an endless stream of even positive negative feedback doesn't it just like crowd your brain yes it does to the point where i think it's making me like slightly detached from life

really yeah like a it's emotional roller coaster it's like a crack pipe you know it's like it's going good for a while and then like you just get a bad hit and some guy takes you down but that but the sensation i it's hard to understand ma'am but i used to take it really personally and i'd flame for i'd just flame out at trolls and like it was never mine but now i'm i'm actually developing a bit of a a tougher skin really i've always wanted to you know just to sort of like take a hit because a lot of times the the things the negative things people say will hit home with you if you have felt them about yourself right if they're off base you're like wrong guy right right but usually if it's within the

spectrum of things that you judge yourself harshly about which with sensitive people can be pretty broad right then it's gonna hurt so lately i've just started to realize that those people are just mean horrible people and i don't even know who would go out of their way to do that does it do nice things make you feel good or is it just the bad things make you feel bad nice things make me feel good but i don't take them in as much or in the same way they're less credible in some way right like you just feel like you're insecure in some way or you're self-hating. And also the problem is, is nice things,

like if they're really genuine, like you helped me out or like, you know, I was going through a hard time and that stuff, I can hear that stuff. But if people like, you know, I got a good laugh, I'm like, eh, that's not enough really or whatever. But the fact is, if someone hits a good insult on you, like you feel it in your guts. Like, it's so visceral.

It's horrible. It's like a physical, yeah. It is, but it's like, it is a feeling, and it is profound. So that's enough just to have an intense feeling? It's not good. Right, that's what I mean.

No, it is hard, dude, and I wouldn't recommend it necessarily if you don't find any joy in engaging with the world on that level. I kind of like it. I like the poetry of it. Yeah. I like just because I get very impulsive about Twitter.

And sometimes I throw stuff out there. It's just garbage. Like I'll just put the word nap and just tweet it. Right. Because that's what I'm going to do. Does it become kind of like a diary where you can look back at old tweets and chart your moods and your periods of your life? You're like, oh, that was...

I don't do it as much as I used to. I've been a little busy and I just... And also you burn a lot of material that way. But you find you're very sensitive to that. Yeah, I mean, you know... Everybody is. Every performer I know is. Anyone who goes to a comment section,

there's nothing good at the comments section. I saw an interview with someone, like Molly Shannon, or someone was saying that they described it as cutting. You know, like when adolescents cut. That's right. They're like, reading comments is like cutting. That's exactly right. Yeah. So I try to avoid it.

So, okay. So you're 16. You've taken Billy Merritt's class. It's funny because as somebody who is a UCB product, a product of it, I don't want to say that you're a product, though you are an entertainment, piece of entertainment product at this point.

But like, because they were all sort of Del Close people, right? They come from that Chicago school and then they built this other thing. It's just interesting that now there are definitely graduates of the ucb style of uh of improv yeah it's pretty strange how like ucb has kind of populated a generation of uh you know tv yeah it's it's it's amazing i know it's pretty peculiar because second city had done it before right and now like they kind of are the new thing. Those four people.

I remember when they were just those four people. It's interesting. Like when people go to Harvard or something and then they become, you know, a Titan of industry, it kind of makes sense. Cause it's like, well,

this is an institution that's designed with success in mind. Right. But UCB, like I said, it's like an old strip club. There's like all these used condoms, like behind the seats, you know? Yeah. They like it's like an old strip club. There's like all these used condoms like behind the seats. There are?

You know, yeah, they always find these like old condoms because I guess it was also people would have sex for money there. How long did that go on for? I would question. I think it was like an endless horrific Easter egg hunt of prophylaxis. But that place felt so loose. Like it didn't feel like, okay, these are a bunch of people who are really focused on their own ascent. I don't know if they were necessarily.

No, I don't think they were. So that's what's so strange is that that then produced all these people who. Well, that was 2001 you started going. So they were all sort of around or no. Yeah. Amy had just started on SNL, I think. Okay. So Matt and Ian and Matt were all there. Yeah. The two Matts, Ian and Amy. Right. Were teaching. sort of around or no yeah amy had just started on snl i think okay so matt and ian and and matt

were all there yeah the two mats ian and amy right we're teaching yeah i never took classes with any of them i did like workshops and stuff but but they were around you could see them perform so i used to fall asleep i used to matt besser did a one-man show called may i help you dumbass where he he had a phone number that was similar to a computer helpline. And so people would call him and he'd fuck with them. And he made a CD. They'd call him thinking he was the computer helpline and then he'd fuck with them. And I used to fall asleep to that in high school.

I would listen to Besser's one-man show as I fell asleep. Really? Yeah, it's weird. So you were locked in. So you went right from the trumpet and now you had a new thing. Yeah. So the first improv class you took was with Billy. Right.

And what happened? Like, what made you go like, oh, fuck, this is great? Yeah, that's a good question. Well, part of it is I liked having a secret comedy life in New York. Like, I didn't tell anyone I went to high school with that I was doing it.

Like, it was exciting for me to get to go to New York and hang out with all these 20-year-olds and, like, be in New York. I didn't tell anyone I went to high school with that I was doing it. It was exciting for me to get to go to New York and hang out with all these 20 year olds and be in New York and no one knew. Your parents were cool with it? They were really cool with it. Yeah, it was weird. It was just the most fun. It was like the scariest, funnest, most exciting thing. And I felt

like I, initially I felt like I was okay at it i felt like oh god i'm okay at this maybe did it feel like like did you get like at what with the trumpet were you able to improvise yeah yeah i used to play i used to that's the other thing i think like when i was wanted to be a jazz musician my fantasy of what my life would be would be like playing in basement clubs late at night improvising making not a lot of money, but like really artistically engaged. And then doing improv is not that big a leap. You know, you're in these basement clubs improvising late at night, not making any money.

It's like very similar. If you couldn't play trumpet anymore, but you wanted as close in existence to a jazz musician as you could. Were you actually involved in a very deep personal exploration that is collaborative? Yeah, exactly. Huh. It's not lonely. No, no.

But like, it is you. Like, you know, you have this support and you know that there is a structure there. Right. But you can go wherever you want to go. That's right. Right. It needs you, but you're not all there is.

Right. And that was really nice. I also think I such and also you have freedom you have so much freedom creative freedom the other thing is i think i'm such a anxious like kind of controlled controlling guy that there was something so wonderful about something um a task right improvising where if you aren't present yeah you don't sort of relinquish control, you'll be humiliated. You cannot, it is a absolute necessity that you be present

and give up your sort of preconceived notions. And you're, you know, so that to me was like the one time I could get out of my obsessive, compulsive brain and just be present. Do you have real OCD? I had some of that stuff. Like, yeah, when I was a, did you ever read The Witches by Roald Dahl?

Uh-uh. It's a kid's book, but it's about these witches. But at the beginning of the book, he says, anyone could be a witch. They don't wear a tall pointy hat. They don't ride on broomsticks. The post lady could be a witch. The old lady down the street could be a witch.

Even your teacher who's reading you this book right now could be a witch see how she smiles at the absurdity of the idea that could be a cover she could be a witch so i read that when i was a kid someone read it to me and i got into my head i was like what if my mom's a witch and uh i'd be i'd ask her i'd be like mom are you a witch and and she'd be like no i'm not a witch and i'd be like okay okay but that's what a witch would say. Right. And I would just endlessly torture myself for it. I was like, oh, fuck.

Like, what if my mom's a witch? Yeah. And I feel like I've had some version of that ever since. You know, like it obviously, I eventually realized that my mom was not in fact a witch, but that kind of like unanswerable. What did it take to prove that to you? I think it was just time. It just went away over time. Yeah. But that kind of like unanswerable. What did it take to prove that to you?

I think it was just time. It just went away over time. Yeah. There wasn't an inquisition at the house? No, I never caught her in a coven. So what is that called? Some type of thinking. Like looping thoughts. I don't know what the official diagnosis is.

Right. Oh, so you've had that. I've had lots of stuff like that. It's frustrating. Yeah. And it's because it defies logic. Like your brain wants to repeat it. It's unresolvable.

Right. It's terrifying. Like from a little kid's perspective, like what's the scariest thing? To not be able to trust or rely on the people who you have to trust and rely on. And so it's like, okay, so what if I couldn't trust her? And there's no way. you can't solve it. You can just endlessly run on that wheel. Right, but the thought of them not being trustable

or them being a witch, certainly your parents, it's that same feeling of getting insulted. It's just like it hurts your heart every time. Like, what if my mom, like, it's terrifying. Right, it's exciting. It's kind of titillating in some weird way. And terrifying. Terrifying.

Right. It's like it gives you a charge, a horrible charge. Right. But it makes you feel like. A horrible charge. That's what you get. That's what it is. Yeah.

That's that feeling of like when you see that bad tweet. A horrible charge. It's compelling. It's really compelling. That's what I'm telling you. Yeah. Right. And it wasn't, my mom was wonderful. It wasn't't like she was she didn't have witch-like attributes in any way but that's

what is the woman with the secret life of a witch would be exactly right i don't know i'd revisit you think you think i should take another look so okay so you're going in there but what do you think that is though the control thing is like because everybody has it to a certain degree but you've called yourself sort of a control freak you know several times in this how does that manifest itself i mean are you is it generally because usually it's some sort of almost innate attempt at at dealing with anxiety and fear yeah i think it was anxious yeah i think like my family is like a very talky family right like um it's like a psychologist kid right and to some extent like the degree to which you could

articulate your feelings or your opinions was the degree to which you had um you know a voice which makes sense right but i think i i ended up being sort of cerebral and and my default way of managing things was to try to sort of think them through or to narrate them. Right. You know. Did you ever need medicine? No. Or maybe.

But I never took medicine. So you dealt with it. Yeah. The improv helped. Yeah. It really helped. And everyone has their things. Sure.

Everyone has their whatever. Yeah. Their compulsions or their. So when did you start to surface as a sort of a star within the ranks over there? I mean, you were 16. No, but I mean, just in terms of like, how often were you going? And like, what happened?

So you graduated high school and you just what? Well, I started performing there when I was still in high school. So I would take the train. I wasn't sleeping a lot because I would do these shows in New York two or three times a week. And then I'd come home and then go to high school in the morning yeah i'd like be driving home from

hamilton new jersey train station and i'd turn on in the winter i'd turn on the ac roll down the windows blast music and just like scream to try to keep myself awake as i drove home because i was so tired wow um and uh so that was kind of exhausting but But then I went to college in New York. I went to NYU mostly just because I wanted to keep doing UCB stuff. Yeah. And then that just continued for years. So you finished college? Yeah, I finished college.

What did you do at college? Well, I went to this program called Gallatin at NYU, which is like this choose-your-own-adventure college. Did they actually call it that, choose-your-own-adventure? I don't know if that's in their literature, but that's the gist of it. You don't have a major. You have a colloquium, and there are all these hybrid things. So it's like a major at Gallatin would be like the intersection

of micro-gastronomy and third wave feminism. It's like these like hyper-specific combined things. So like my colloquium colloquium ended up being the relationship between Christianity and the civil rights and abolitionist movements. But it was kind of, it was kind of bullshit. I think a lot of people get a good education there, but I was just focused on UCB.

But why would you pick those two? If you were just focused on UCB, if you had everything in the world, it seemed like micro gastronomy. It's just like all these- But why did you pick the Christianity and the Civil Rights Movement? I think because I read all these jazz books when I was a kid, I was sort of interested in black history. So I just signed up for all these classes that I was interested in, and a lot of them were black history classes. And then when it came time to sort of title my major, I just was like, well, I took a lot of stuff about black history and a lot of religion courses. So I just sort of retroactively

came up with that what was the religion curiosity about um i don't know i guess i probably took less religion courses than black history course did you get a good grade in this thing do they have grades yeah i did okay but i also did like i would get internship credit for i was teaching at ucb in college so i would get like internship credit for teaching uh-huh i get i would try to get class credit for all this shit i did at ucb and they would do it because they were like an incredibly accommodating flexible but what was it what kind of degree do you get after that it's a bachelor of arts and and was that this was a special program within nyu that you had to find you sought it? You just didn't want to go to regular college? I said right before I went to college, I had a conversation with my parents because my parents paid for college.

Right. NYU is really expensive. Yeah, right. I said, you know, I think I just want to go to UCB and I think I want to pursue this. And maybe we should, you know, I could go to like CUNY City College and it'd be $5,000 and I'd still have a degree. And they were like, no, no, you should go to NYU. In retrospect, I think it would have been a good idea to go to the city college. Like it's so expensive.

College is so expensive that unless you really. So you didn't find that it did nothing for you? No, the teachers were amazing. You know, there's like smart people working there. And I met people who I, you know, still very close with a couple. But, yeah, I don't think it was worth six figures. Yeah. Yeah.

Did it give you a deeper understanding of the black community? Yeah. Like, you know, in a pinch, could you be some sort of community leader? That's just what the black community needs is me leading the charge. I think of myself as the new Al Sharpton. Good for you. Thank you. You could always do that.

I think I did have a really fucked up, inappropriate sense of like, when I was a kid, we were on a family vacation once and Louis Armstrong came on the CD player. Yeah. And in Miles Davis's autobiography, he'd called Louis Armstrong an Uncle Tom, which Louis Armstrong was not an Uncle Tom. He was like a pioneer. Right. But I just read Miles Davis's autobiography

and I was just parroting everything I'd heard Miles Davis say. So I sat in the car. I was like, you know know Louis Armstrong was an uncle Tom my father and my brother were like what the fuck you can't say that like a it's not true be like have you looked in a mirror like who are you like who do you think you are and I was insistent I was so angry I was like this is 14 I was like probably a 14 well and I just like got i like went to the fucking mats like about and sent the black community back which is the most idiotic thing you can say with miles you went with miles yeah you're on board i well you know consider yourself lucky to have a father and

a brother that were sophisticated enough to fight you oh god they were like you moron like didn't even really know what you were saying. That might have actually gotten physical. I think I might have actually struck my brother in defense of Miles Davis' unfair assessment of Louis Armstrong. That might have been one of our few fights where I was like, this requires, this has to come to blows. Did he knock your fedora off?

Yeah, right. Well, that's interesting, man. Yeah, it's pretty weird. So you ended up teaching improv where? At UCB? At UC interesting, man. So you ended up teaching improv where? At UCB? At UCB, yeah. And that's it? And then you just moved out here or what? Well, no.

I remember, you know who Katie Dippold is? She wrote The Heat and she works with Paul Feigl. And she wrote on Parks and Rec. We used to take improv classes together. But we were talking about once, years and years and years ago, she was like, what do you want to do? And I remember saying,

if I could just do improv and have a temp job during the day, I think I'd be happy. That was your big plan? Yeah, I didn't have, I never thought like, oh, I'm going to be an actor. But then I started doing commercials to help pay the bills. Well, that's interesting,

because you saw improv as a way of life and as a therapeutic way of life in a way and it's something vital that you know it wasn't something like i don't why ruin it by having it be a job yeah and it was just the happiest i ever felt it was like the most and you were teaching yeah and so and then i started doing commercials because i was like i need to you know some more money yeah and uh then that led to getting this agent and then i got a movie called in the loop and then I was from that I remember that was that with James Gandolfini yeah yeah yeah he's a military satire of some kind right yeah it's about sort of the build-up to the war in Iraq right so I did that movie and I remember thinking when I shot that movie I was like wouldn't it be amazing if Alison

Jones because I knew who Alison Jones the casting director of all these great comedies i was like what if she saw that and she liked me and she put me on something and then that happened really it was so weird how did you know her i didn't know her she saw the movie and then but you said you what if allison jones saw oh i knew her because i was obsessed with freaks and geeks so i'd i'd found out who cast it and the american office i was like i would watch that and so i just knew who she was because you're obsessed with freaks and geeks i loved freaks and geeks martin star to me was like the working with martin star now is such a weird surreal thing because martin star was like one of my favorite comedic actors really well come on bill haverjack no i love it i love talking to him about it. Yeah, there's moments in that character's arc that just kill me.

Right? Yeah, more than comedy. Oh. You must have identified with him. It's just heartbreaking. How old were you? Were you young enough? When was that on?

How did you first experience Freaks and Geeks? I saw it on DVD. A friend of mine was like, you have to watch this. When you were in high school or older? No, older, in college. So you got obsessed with Freaks and Geeks in college. Yeah college yeah totally to the point where you found out who the casting director yeah yeah and then i saw she cast all these other great things okay so she sees in the loop she saw it and i i had that fantasy i was like what if i do this movie she sees it and then she set up a meeting

with me and the producers of the office and then they gave me a part on The Office. And this is like, I had that exact fantasy. I was like, what if she saw it and then I got on The Office somehow? And it happened. How many offices did you do? Like 50 or so. I did a bunch. I mean, it was a very small part.

You know, I was like the tertiary character in the sixth season. But yeah, it's so weird. You know, they say that thing like life is what happens when you're busy making other plans or whatever but i feel like in this weird way like these plans actually panned out right and so it's has she used you in other things uh yeah i've done some movies like very small parts in movies with paul feig and uh which ones what i can't i did a tiny thing in the heat and i just

did a small thing in this movie spy that he made oh yeah yeah he's a nice guy he's wonderful he acted on my show and i've talked to him yeah yeah he's a great guy yeah it's interesting when people are that high achieving and and like warm people yeah they're not yeah they're around yeah yeah it's reassuring when you meet someone like that. And then how did you get the gig in Silicon Valley? I just auditioned. I auditioned for Mike Judge, and he put me in it. And it's all sort of bewildering. I mean, I feel so lucky.

I feel so crazy lucky. It's a great part. I mean, it's great for you. Thanks. I mean, how much of it is your conception in terms of the character? Because you're sort of doing, you're not being yourself exactly. There is a very defined sensibility to that character. How close was it to your audition?

Different. Initially, the part was this kind of more conventional business guy. And then in the second episode which was written by this guy carson mill who's this really great writer he wrote stuff that sort of pointed to him being a little bit more um i don't know if low status is the right word but but a little bit more of a gentle kind of peculiar character and then i started improvising a lot i would improvise a lot and they keep some of it but mostly I think they started to realize like okay this

is what he likes this is what he's interested in and then they would write to that and then I'd improvise based on what they'd wrote and so I suppose in some ways it was probably so you helped chisel it out I think so but also like you know they're the best the writing on that show

is pretty staggering. So I don't want to, like, take credit. The character is their idea. But I think my improvising probably helped them learn my voice. Right. Because, you know, all those elements of control freakiness. Yeah, I guess so. Right?

You know, like, in almost a codependent, you know, nurturing thing that is hyper anxious in a way. That's funny. Right? Yeah. Well, I also think because I'm not like a trained actor, I need to improvise just to get loose. Like I have to improvise in scenes just so that I can be present, you know? But I like also the idea that, you know, finding that character through what was written and

also whatever the interaction is with these other characters. Because Martin Starr is a Satanist. He's thrilled about it. His journey to where he is now is kind of daunting in terms of how show business has shook him up to the point where he abandoned it a bit. So I imagine that having to find your character the way it is is the most organic way to do it. Well, you know what else, too? I played this character on The Office who was kind of like a bit of a creepy guy,

like a little off-putting. And I really wanted to make sure that I wanted to play someone who I really loved, like I thought was essentially a sweet person. Even if they're peculiar, I wanted to play someone who I really like loved. Like I thought it was like basically essentially a sweet person, you know? Right. Even if they're peculiar, I wanted them to, yeah,

I wanted to. So you're aware of that. Yeah. I was like, I don't want to play, I don't want to just play like dark, you know, like you said,

I can, I've played the, most of the parts I got early on were these kind of dark, uh, off-putting guys. Right. Right. I was like,

I want to play, I don't mind if he's strange, but I just want him to have like his heart in the right place right yeah and and you like working with everybody i obviously you're gonna say you're gonna be everyone always says yes right but this this is the happiest professional experience i maybe have ever had it's so so good why because i like i just adore all of those guys yeah i just think they're like I've never had like a big group of male friends before yeah and this is like the first time I've had that experience like I just really like them I just find them like easy to be around I can be myself one thing that's

really nice about that show is like I don't know you'll go on sets right and sometimes you'll get the feeling that there's like seething resentment and all sorts of unexpressed anger. Yeah. What's nice is like in the instances where people have a problem on that show, like if anyone ever gets mad at each other. Yeah. We'll like fight. We'll like talk about it. Oh, really?

Like about what? Well, I don't know. Like if someone made a joke that hurt someone else's feelings or that kind of shit, someone would be like, that hurt my feelings. Like people like actually just talk about stuff and then it gets resolved it's like the healthiest working environment just among the cast it's it's so wonderful and and so there feels like there's like real affection and respect and and then the writers and the and the you know i trust those guys so much and they're so collaborative and i and the other thing is in the edits like i trust their editing so much like you can take big swings because you know they're not collaborative. And the other thing is in the edits, I trust their editing so much.

You can take big swings because you know they're not going to let you look like a prick in the edit. Right, big swings in terms of improvising? Yeah, you can try stuff. You can do weird things and they'll protect the character. How much do you improvise?

A fair amount. They let you do that? Yeah. In terms of, like, there is a script. Oh, yeah. The script is mostly what you see on the show um uh but sometimes they'll use improvised stuff and like i said it helps me just they do and do they do like a few takes and they say like have more fun with you know

just go for it you know it's the most they're they're really uh open and they're you know it's like my judge alec berg who's a writer was like rand seinfeld for a while like all these people are incredibly experienced like if i had written for as long and as well as these guys have i might be kind of proprietary about the material yeah but they're really not i mean they just it's not even like okay do our script five times and then do one fun run they're like let you improvise throughout. I think they want us to get the scripted stuff because usually that's the best version of the scene,

you know? But it's amazing how egoless the whole place feels. And how, what was your experience when you were first cast with Martin Starr, who you had these feelings about? It's weird, you know? It's weird to have the sort of fantasy version of a person replaced by the real version of the person.

It's hard for me now to think of him as the guy who played Bill Havertruck because I've had enough personal experiences with him. But when you first got there, did you... I was intimidated, you know? I was intimidated and excited and... Did you say anything? Yeah, I probably did.

I probably gushed. I'm usually not very good about playing it cool. It's hard for me to... He's a very sweet guy. He's a very sweet guy. He's such a like sensitive, kind guy. He took me out to lunch right after we started, like after we shot the pilot. Yeah.

And that was nice. Like that, it felt like... Just you two? Yeah, just the two of us. Uh-huh. And he's Buddhist. He was telling me about buddhism and yeah it seems to work for he was brought up with it yeah yeah yeah right most people who are buddhist were like became buddha i feel like most people i know who are buddhist became buddhist within the past like five weeks you know it's like always like like a recent affectation but martin's like the real deal yeah he was brought up with that that strand of it. Yeah.

It's very interesting. I must have watched the first episode because the fellow who died, what's his name again? Christopher Evan Welsh. Christopher Evan Welsh died, and they sort of recast that part with a woman who seems to be kind of playing him a little.

Yeah, it's similarly dysfunctional character yeah that must have been heavy to have that kind of uh tragedy on yeah it was weird it happened in the midst of shooting and you know this this uh i didn't know him very well because we hadn't shot a lot of stuff together but still it was like you know oh it's like heartbreaking yeah yeah he was a young guy at a young daughter. And he was, you know, I think kind of like the funniest guy on the show. He was an amazing character. Incredible. And in TV, you know, usually you see people sort of warm up into their characters.

He just came in like first episode with this fully fleshed out, like very ornate, peculiar guy. Yeah. I was blown away by it. And I have like this acting coach in new york who was asking about the show and i told her that she that uh that he was doing it and she's like him because she'd seen him in shakespeare in the park he'd done all this like heavy new york theater stuff where he'd been amazing so he's a real he's like the real deal yeah real and the whole thing is pretty fascinating i i really took to it right away. That's nice to hear, Mark.

Because the comedy ensemble is so great. Right. And the backdrop is so great that it doesn't matter really what's, you know, the idea of the startup or what's real and what isn't real. It doesn't matter because the comedy is so fucking strong. And the world is so strong for comedy. And it's just great. And you got Judge over there. Right. Everybody. It's going to go on for a while i hope so all right man was good talking yeah you too thanks for coming zach thank you that's it good talk right great guy love that guy very funny

go to wtfpod.com for all your WTFpod needs. We'll get it updated with the new tour dates as soon as the tickets go on sale. You heard it here first. Why am I saying that? Okay. Yeah, you can do other stuff at WTFpod. Get on the mailing list. I'm going to write the update right now to send out tomorrow, which will be Monday, which is not your business it's just screw up your whole time thing but you know i'm doing this on the road

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