WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 623 - Jason Segel

Episode Date: July 26, 2015

Jason Segel was drawn to acting because of a quote from The Muppets. Now that he’s been on a hit TV series, starred in several successful movies, and helped resurrect those very Muppets, what’s next? Jason talks to Marc about the changes in his life, the debt he owes Judd Apatow and the challenge of playing David Foster Wallace. 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.

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. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die we control nothing beyond that

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Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckineers? This is Mark Maron. This is WTF. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for being here. It's my show. I host it in my garage in Highland Park, California, here at the Cat Ranch. There are several cats around. Right now, scaredy cat, wild cat, been feeding for a decade, just finished up eating and not talking to me. As usual, not having anything to do with me. After 10 fucking years of feeding that guy, you'd think maybe a, yeah, come on over, touch me a little bit. Just a little touch on the head, be nice, nothing.

Let me say hello to my friends across the pond and tell them that I will be in Dublin September 2nd at Vicar Street. Tickets are available if you go to WTFpod.com slash calendar. There's a link there for you. September 3rd and 4th I will be at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England. Again, a link at

WTFpod.com slash calendar. And those are the only gigs coming up because I finished up the Marination tour uh this last weekend in denver and in boulder amazing shows me and del rey dean del rey boulder sold out it was tremendous what a great place that was we did the boulder theater we had a great time and on saturday night we did the paramount in Denver. Sold about $13.50.

Not bad for a guy who was me. Filled it out pretty nicely. Had a great show. Great time. I like Denver a lot. I'm back home. And now August is looking pretty empty. And I have to go back and I got to start generating again, I guess.

I have to go back to the drawing board. I've recorded this hour and a half chunk of material to get about an hour, I believe, for an epic special that will be on in December on epics called More Later. So I just looked at a director's cut for that that Bobcat Goldthwait directed, and it looks great. I'm very happy with it. I'm very happy with things. I'm very happy with it. I'm very happy with things. But the fact is, I've just done an hour and a half that I've been doing for about six months to a year. And it might be time to let it go as it goes. It's the weird thing about doing stand-up these days. You've got to turn over these hours.

And I'm not sure. I always get to this point where I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do next. Where does the material come from so maybe in August I'm going to go out and do something exciting and compelling that'll generate at least an hour's material and I think that might be jury duty because apparently I'm the only asshole that responds to those things when they come in the mail everyone I've talked to they're like why'd you open the envelope because it's my duty as a citizen of the united states of america to be on a jury of my peers or whoever shows up and and and judge uh the the problem at hand the legal issue at hand it's my responsibility i've i've called

that before and it didn't happen i've been told that it might not happen because of my mid-level celebrity status they might not want me knowing that I was back in the day perhaps a lefty political spokesperson of sorts or perhaps because I have a TV show or I appear to be cranky and

a little bit angered or perhaps because I get on the mic every twice a week and talk to you and talk to people in here. I don't know. But there's part of me that kind of wants to be on a jury. I know it can't be like the TV show. I know it's not going to be like 12 Angry Men, but maybe it will be. Who will I be? Will I be the Henry Fonda of the 12 Angry Men? Or will I be the Jack Warden? Perhaps. Come on, let's just get it. Let's get it over with.

Or will I be the Lee J. Cobb? He's guilty. He's guilty. I'm starting to think that all my impressions of men sound roughly the same. Slightly gravelly voice with a bit more intensity behind them, a bit more anger. If I'm excited about jury duty or the possibility of jury duty, I definitely have to engage on some other level of my life. I've been thinking about maybe doing some service work, doing something to get me out

in the world where I feel like I help people on a day-to-day basis, not just talk. I know the talk helps people. I had a very touching moment in Denver. A kid came up to me, said he read both my books several times and it helped him get a year's worth of sobriety he's in a year outpatient program and uh he's doing well and that shit just you know it breaks my heart and makes me feel good that that what i'm doing or how much of myself i'm putting out there makes a difference to people and helps people i know that to be true and and i'm very grateful that i have that effect but you know again if I'm excited for jury duty there's something missing because I had this moment where you're gonna have some version of this moment when you reach a certain age where me and Dean were out we're in Denver we're having a good time we go to

this place called uh Black and Red Records it's one of these old school places they have books they have records they have games there's stacks of shit all over the place there's thousands of things t-shirts posters classic place and we had a really good time i usually get overwhelmed and i can't go through record bins forever but this place had records that i'd never seen before old records i'd never seen before so we both spent some money they're going to ship us our records then we go to another place and this is where the moment happens we go to wax tracks in denver another great kind of old dirty record store it's got a lot of shit i get into this conversation with dean i found an earl slick record i'm like i know that name guitar player right who'd he play with and dean goes i think it was in bowie's last band right and i'm like i don't think so and then some dude who i look at and he's like a little taller than me

he's got a beard but it just seemed to be another version of me or the surface of me or the me that interfaces with records at a record store the me that does that for fun is it just another version of that and he goes yeah it was he was in bowie's band and i like i felt a little put off at first but i'm glad that he knew and then i look around the store there's no less than four or five dudes look exactly like me different version slight variations all approaching 50 or in their 50s or in their 40s just poking around in record bins looking to connect with some part of themselves that that had to do that because we had no choice this is poking around in record bins because that's how we travel that's how we time travel that's how we go back

so this is like some fairly common midlife event poking around in record bins looking for something that worked back when we were younger or maybe get that same feeling we got when we were younger maybe a better feeling maybe something elevated something defining i don't know i don't know what we're looking for in those record bins but i know there's no fucking end to it and then i saw this dude talking to his eight-year-old maybe not probably six-year-old daughter i just was i was at a bin and he was down a few bins for me and he's got the some girls record the rolling stones record out and he's trying to explain to this six-year-old girl why the covers are different. He told, you know, the whole story is that before they had all the faces, Lucille Ball, I think Marilyn Monroe, a bunch of women's faces in the slide out.

But they had to take them off because they didn't get rights to those faces. So I just see this father saying, Lucille Ball, they didn't pay her or ask her if they could use her face. And I was just thinking, thinking like how much of that little girl is picking that stuff at lucille ball or even making sense of it all maybe she's a bright little girl but still there was something endearing but a little a little weird about it because when dean and i are leaving he's got her over at the listening station this little girl's got the headphones on and i just see her standing there next to her dad and she's holding the sergeant peppers cover and listening.

He goes, I'm trying to get her started on the good stuff. And part of me was, well, I actually said, I said, well, try to keep her out of the rabbit hole that we're in because I don't think there's any end to it. And he laughed, and I noticed that he had a crate of about 30 or 40 records. So I guess his desperation to connect with whatever we lost was a little more intense than mine. And he's got a kid.

So maybe that's not the answer. Jason Siegel is on the show today. I'm a big fan of Jason Siegel's. I've been wanting to talk to him for a long time. I think he seems like a sweet guy. I feel like we have some things in common. I don't know. That might just be a Jewish thing that I projected onto him.

things in common? I don't know. That might just be a Jewish thing that I projected onto him. I still have that thing in my mind where I can identify and connect with almost any Jew of my ilk. And clearly I can connect with other people, but it's a weird thing. But I just like the guy and he's in a great movie that I just watched, a very interesting independent movie called The End of the Tour. And it's about David Foster Wallace. It's about this writer who wrote an article on him, played by Jesse Eisenberg. And it's about David Foster Wallace. It's about this writer who wrote an article on him, played by Jesse Eisenberg. Guy's name is David Lipsky. And it's a very subtle, kind of bizarre movie. But Jason does a great job. And it's an interesting role from him. Many of you know him from his movies. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, This is 40, the Muppet movie.

You know him from How I Met Your your mother you you know him he's very funny he's got a great way about him and i was excited to talk to him and we had a good talk and that's gonna happen in your head shortly i was just in hawaii last week very exciting i was flown out to do a scene in a movie it's called mike Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, I believe is the name of the movie. I was asked to do it by the director. And they flew me down for the day. Luxurious. Very exciting.

To fly down to Honolulu, which I've never been to for a day's work, where I played a bar owner. And I did a scene with Zac Efron and Adam Devine. And I've not done that many movies. And it's the opening scene of the movie, if all goes well. But we don't know. I don't know. I don't know where. We did some riffing.

It was fun. I had a good time for the day. I wore someone else's clothes. And I stayed at a hotel where they had dolphins in a pool. So we'll see how that goes. I got nothing to complain about, folks. It just starts up again. It's time to sort of, where am I at?

What am I doing? How do I create? How do I find some space for myself to think? I'm tired of fucking Twitter. I'm tired of engaging. So onward we go. Thank you all for being there. Right now, let's talk to Jason.

Joe, thank you all for being there. Right now, let's talk to Jason. 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 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Seagull. You look like you just got a haircut. Yeah, I got a summertime haircut. Did you go to the razor place? No, I went to my local little barber, and I embarrassingly showed them a picture of David Beckham.

You did? Yeah, I said, give me the Beckham. You want the Beckham? I wanted the Beckham. I think you're a little late on the Beckham, are you? Oh, totally. Yeah. I caught it when it's totally unhip.

Yeah. Wait, so you moved to Los Feliz? Yeah. So did you go to like Sweeney Todd or who'd you go to? No, you know what? I have a place up near Santa Barbara. Oh, really? Yeah, a little small town.

So I went over there. Is it like one of those old timey barbershops or is it just like a hair salon? It's a salon. Oh, okay. Yeah. Fine. But you're native here, right? Yeah, I grew up in the Palisades.

Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, it was a nice way to grow up i don't know if i've ever really spent any time there yeah i've seen it on television there's not totally a reason to spend time there but it's like it's just all the way west big you know i went to joan rivers's daughter's house to do the her show yeah did you ever do that in bed with joan show no you got it you just wait You sat there on her bed with Joan Rivers. Wow. She interviewed you. How did that go? It was fine. Yeah. She's a dirty old lady. Right. She was amazing. She'd talk about anything. Yeah. She'd throw anybody under the bus. Yeah. I've done that,

but never on radio or anything. Gone to someone's house and interviewed on their bed. Yeah. Just dirty old ladies talking. What was your family like? I mean, you grew up in the Palisades. That's nice. Yeah, it's nice. I have an older brother, a kid sister. You do? You have an older brother? Yeah, I have an older brother named Adam. He's the best.

He was my idol growing up. Really? And you have a little sister? Yeah. And you're all, like, you grew up Jewish? Well, it's interesting you ask. My father's Jewish. My mother is Christian.

Yeah. So I grew up going to a school called St. Matthew's during the day, and then I would walk to Hebrew school at night. so they wanted you to do both but your mom didn't want to convert but your dad wanted to have some jew in you you know what neither of them are religious sure so they made this decision that they were going to let me decide yeah which is like the it's the dumbest thing you can do for a kid right right you don't really care yeah why would you do anything unless there's something in it for you? Yeah, yeah. And I just remember, this is when you become funny. Yeah.

You know. When I was like 13, it was time for my bar mitzvah. Right. So I invited all the kids from the Christian school. Yeah. And then the headmaster came up and he said, you know, everyone is very excited about your big party, but the kids don't really know what a bar mitzvah is. Would you stand up in front of the school at communion? Jew.

Yeah, and explain what a bar mitzvah is. So then you cut to the next day, little 13-year-old Jason Segel standing there like, on Saturday, I become a man. And it's literally a direct cut to getting punched in the face. I mean, it's not how you want to do it. What, you got flack? Yeah. Oh, yeah. They didn't.

I was like an odd kid growing up in general. Yeah. Yeah. Long hair. I've been 6'4 since I was like 12. Oh, so you're like the awkward kid. Awkward, sensitive kid. Totally awkward.

Yeah. Not comfortable? No, completely uncomfortable. And then, actually, it's how I got started. My parents put me into acting class, not for acting, but because I was very shy. Therapeutic. Yeah, they thought maybe you'll meet some other weird kids. Right.

And I totally did. And there was this thing that they said, you have Fozzie Bear on your wall. Yeah, someone drew that of me interviewing Fozzie, but I can't do anything with it because it's copyrighted. So that couldn't even be published, but the artist sent it to me. That's amazing. Yeah. There was, so I was a big Muppet show fan and there is a line in one of the Muppet movies

where someone says a bunch of weirdos make a family. Yeah. And that's what I felt like when I went to acting class. Like, oh, okay. No one is making fun of me here. Let's, let's do this. Right. The theater nerds kind of.

Totally. And whose acting class was it? It was a place called the Santa Monica Playhouse. Yeah. Was there anyone else in your class that went on to do things? I don't feel like I had someone mention that before. Yeah, a lot of people went through there, but nobody really that I can think of.

Because I had Martin Starr in here. Yeah. And he started young. Yeah. And he grew up in Santa Monica, I think. Yeah. And I would imagine for similar reasons. Like Martin is a really interesting, different, unique kind of guy.

Sensitive dude. Yeah. Absolutely. So that's when it started. So how old were you? I was probably about 10 years old 11 years old so before the bar mitzvah so by the time you had the the big break explaining what a bar mitzvah was yeah yeah a little stage time i wasn't scared to get up in

front of the crowd but then i was scared when they beat me up but it's weird too as a jew or as a you know being brought up jewish you don't necessarily know exactly you know you know you're just becoming a man but you know then you got to explain the ritual and did you do the whole thing like like i have to read from the torah yeah oh wow i did the whole thing but i viewed it like a performance i went up and like really made a show of it yeah yeah um and i think i uh i was dressing really weird at the time and uh I wore like a purple suit and mustard pants. Mustard pants. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. I like mustard. I had mustard pants. You did? Yeah. Recently. Oh, cool.

I had mustard corduroys. I was very attached to them. Yeah, yeah. You don't see them too often. They looped back around, mustard pants. Yeah. I always liked that color. So they all looked at you like an oddball

yeah i i think i think at that point you just make a decision um especially you know also at at christian school you're the jewish kid and at hebrew school you're the christian kid i think that's the nature of groups you're not a real jew yeah your mom's jewish no you're not real jew right and so everyone wants to compartmentalize people and i think i decided at that point like okay it's just it's me versus the world kind of yeah yeah yeah and you saw you sought some uh comfort in the acting class and and in muppets yeah yeah totally because that's like you know who was i talking to judd i guess and uh you just you you have this reverence for the Muppets to the point where you're like, we need to

make a new Muppet movie. I mean, you made that happen. Yeah. Well, I cared a lot about it and I helped make it happen. I think that what always- Well, how does it unfold? Okay. I wrote a movie called Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Yeah. I like that movie. Oh, thanks, man. And- I saw you naked in that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Interesting decision.

Thanks. Well, at the time, it was like a very new decision. I feel like now no one bats an eye, but I thought- Well, there's actually a reason. It's the same reason that I was going to get to about the puppets, is that the thing about a romantic comedy, I think, is that you know what's going to happen. Like the guy on the poster is going to end up with the girl on the poster. Right. And some people can take pleasure in that journey.

But a lot of men, for instance, kind of roll their eyes at it. It's just not an interesting thing. So I thought that if you opened a movie where main guy is naked in the first scene, basically, you're kind of forced to let go of any expectations. Like, I don't know what's going to happen. So then the challenge is how do you end a movie like that when you know they're going to end up together? And I've been obsessed with the Muppets. And I said to Judd, like, what if we end this with a lavish puppet musical and he literally looked at me and said it's your movie man and uh yeah and and we did and I I love it it's like one of my favorite things that I've ever managed to trick people into doing and from there

you know like something goes well and you have a little bit of juice yeah so people were asking what are you going to do next and I said I'd I said, I'd like to bring back the Muppets. And everyone said, you're crazy. Why? This is a totally different thing than what we like you doing. But I just, I went in and I pitched it to Disney and they said, okay. And then I set off doing that. And you wrote it.

I wrote it. Yeah. I wrote it with my friend, Nick Stoller. I know Nick Stoller. Oh, yeah. He's the best. He was doing that. And you wrote it. I wrote it, yeah. I wrote it with my friend Nick Stoller. I know Nick Stoller. Oh yeah, he's the best. He was in here. He was? Yeah. Yeah. He's the best dude. Yeah, you guys make sense. Couple of, you're sweet guys. Yeah. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He's a good friend of yours?

Yeah, he directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That's right. Yeah, we did, he wrote Muppets with me and we did a movie called Five Year Engagement together. So we worked a lot together. But the Muppet thing was just off the, it was just out of a childhood love of the muppets yeah it was it was that and also um there hadn't been one in a while hadn't been one in a long time and i felt like one of the things the muppets did that was really unique and special is they never made fun of people they never um got laughs at other people's expense. Right. I just thought that that combined with this idea that they're so strange was a really neat thing.

They're so strange because they're puppets? No, because they're a frog and a bear and gonzos or whatever. And they all kind of come together. And I felt like you can catch a kid at a certain age and instill this idea that it's okay. Whatever you are is okay. And like in today, I don't know. I think a lot about this stuff. But in today's world, like there's so much shaming and everything's either a major win or a total fail on the internet.

Right, right, right. That some voice saying it's's okay, was important. And it was important to you. Yeah, totally. When you were a kid, because you felt out of place. Yeah, I think so. Oh, that's wild, man. So when did you, like, if you started taking

those acting classes at 10 or 11, when did it become a real thing? What does your brother do, by the way? So my brother is a money manager you know investment banker type thing um really smart uh real alpha male he was like a great athlete in high school i really wanted to be just like him and so i i like delved into basketball and became a pretty good basketball player okay uh in high school yeah and i won the state championship and stuff oh really yeah you? Yeah. Do you play now?

No, I haven't played in a long time. I'd like to start playing again. You don't just go shoot? No, but I'm going to start. I'm going to start. With some fellas. Yeah, no. Shanling used to have a game back in the day.

Yeah, I heard that. There's a lot of guys who have games. I haven't been invited to those, but I'll go. Well, maybe I'll put it out there. Yeah, put it out there. I'd love to play some basketball with some dudes. Do you do that? Do you socialize much? Yeah, I'm getting much better about it i'm making a like a

concerted effort to socialize you have to right yeah totally i like i don't like i i just realized that recently it's like no one's just gonna you know call you up yeah and like unless you're sort of like i'm available to do things you know it's interesting this is a tangent, but I feel as though the same impulses and nature that like got me to where I got to ended up kind of turning on me at some point where I'm just like I was really driven. that the only way you're going to make it is if you just make it happen and work your ass off. And so at night I would go home and write and I would watch comedy and study it and watch acting and think about it and this and that. And then at some point, like, you know, you have this idea of I need to get there. Right. But then you find out there keeps moving.

Right. And so if your impulse is I need to get there, that's never going to go away. Exactly. Yeah, it's been the past few years when I've realized like, oh, you're good. Like everything's going great and let's focus on life stuff. Well, that's interesting. How old are you?

35. Well, yeah, so it's good timing. Yeah. You haven't fucked it all away. No, thank God. No, I mean, it's good timing. Yeah. You haven't fucked it all away. No, thank God. No, I mean, it's really true, man. I have, like, if I'm lucky, I got 50 years left. Sure, man.

Of good times. Like, you know, if you can hang on to this new attitude, you might enjoy life. Yeah, and I also have, like, a hunch that we might be the first generation that gets an extra 20 years. Yeah? Yeah, like, science might help us out on this one. So you're going to go to 100? Yeah, maybe I'll go to 100. The basic question is how the genetics?

How did grandma and grandpa do age-wise? They did well. Also, my father, who is the best guy in the world, but he's like a 5 foot ten short squat jewish guy married like a beautiful five foot eleven irish woman okay and i got those genetics oh you did it seems that way oh good good so that's that's great so all right well so you're 10 or 11 and your sister they all live in town still uh my brother lives in Boston. He just bought a place in Central Coast. And my sister lives in LA, yeah.

Oh, so everyone's here. Do you do dinners and shit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get along much better now than we did in my 20s. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I think sibling relationships are tricky. And then you arrive at some... It's the same thing that happened with my feelings about my parents.

At some point you realize that everybody is just doing their best. They are, but it's hard to accept, isn't it? Yeah. Especially with parents. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when it seems like so obvious, but at some point I realized my parents were strangers who met each other. Right.

That they weren't this unit. Yeah. That had been there from the beginning of time. And they were just young people with their own insecurities and their own weirdness. Met each other, doing their best, trying to figure out how to do it. Everybody's just guessing. And they're still together. Yeah, they're still together.

That's a miracle. Yeah, it's the best. Yeah, it doesn't happen to most people. Yeah, yeah. That's what I hear. And what's your sister do? My sister's a writer as well. She's really, really funny. Oh, really? She's what I hear. And what's your sister do? My sister's a writer as well. She's really, really funny.

Oh, really? She's a comedy writer? Yeah. Has she done movies? No, she hasn't done movies yet. She's written articles and blogs and things like that, and she's writing screenplays now. Ah.

Yeah. I hope she can get those read. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, it's going to be. I don't know if she's going have a an avenue to get her stuff out there yeah they're like that day's coming buddy i i think that um i grow more and more

aware how lucky i was to meet judd apatow sure yeah he's uh he's he's kind of something else you know like i don't know where he finds all the time and and also a very giving and sweet dude on top of having a million things going on he changed my life well yeah well so let's go back to that so you're you're you're doing acting and you've studied at 10 or 11 years old so at this point i'm playing basketball in high school and i saw in school that i have um like a very good memory like right you know short-term can memorize stuff and I was doing a little bit of acting but I was focused on sports and I decided that uh I would read this play for no reason um I read this play called the zoo story yeah yeah that's right and there was like a there was like a 20 page monologue

in it yeah and I thought I'd like to see if I can memorize this. That was really my thinking at the time. And so I asked the head of the theater department, Ted Walsh, do you mind if I try putting on this play? And this is in Palisades, the high school? This is at Harvard Westlake in the Valley. Okay. Yeah. And he said, yeah, sure. You can use the small theater to do two nights. And so I put it on and this is some real la stuff but there's a woman who came to see the show who turned out to be president of casting at paramount pictures right and like a week later my parents sat me down and they said listen we need to talk we've been talking to this lady all week and if you want um she thinks that you might have a feature in acting so uh you have a big decision to make so this was a fluke like you decide you want to try to memorize this thing and the zoo story as

i recall is a lot of monologues right yeah it's a it's a guy and uh on a park bench and another guy walks up and it's just that it's two people talking she went out she reached out to your parents because you're what 15 uh i was 16 at the time yeah i reached out to my parents and i decided uh yeah i'll give it a try and so my senior year i just started auditioning and i did a couple like teen movies one we called dead man on campus like some like kind of dumb teen stuff yeah and then i did a little independent movie called slc punk it was the first kind of acting that i what was that movie i don't know that it was the first kind of acting that I. What was that movie? I don't know that movie. It was about.

But that's not unusual. It was a little niche movie about punk music in Salt Lake City in the 80s. And then this script came across. It was then was my first pilot season. Right. And the script came across my desk called Freaks and Geeks. Right. And I immediately thought, no way. this sounds like a Nickelodeon show.

Right. And they were like, no, this guy's Judd Apatow. And he had done Larry Sanders' show at that point, but he wasn't Judd yet. Yeah. And Paul Feig, right? And Paul Feig, yeah. And they said, no, you should go in for this. And so I went in, and it was my first time improv-ing.

Who did he put you with? Was it one-on-one or was he? It was me and the casting director. But I think I had the naivety of youth. I just thought, okay, I'll go do this. I'm pretty smart, you know, and whatever. So I did the, I did the thing. And then, and then next thing I knew my, like my life changed. We started doing freaks and geeks and

I was surrounded by, it was just like my first acting class and just like the Muppets, a bunch of weirdos make a family. There's no better place than freaks and geeks for it to feel that way. And then we were just in it man and and then at one point judd took me aside me and seth rogan and and all of us i'm sure but and he said if you can improv the way you can then you can write uh-huh that's what writing is you're just going to do it in a more focused like deliberate way and he literally taught me how to write yeah yeah like i can't imagine the relationship that people have with freaks and geeks and as and there was there's only what 18 of them yeah right

is it's pretty profound like i came to it much later i mean there were people that that grew up with it but i'm i'm old i'm 51 so i sort of missed it so i had my first experience with it within the last you know five or six years sure I watched the whole thing. Oh, cool. And it's interesting because knowing all of you guys as actors established, watching that, I'm like, oh, look at the kids. I know. So sweet. Yeah.

I think that one of the reasons people connect to it is everybody has this sense, no matter how good they are at faking it, that they are like different than their, than their peers, you know? Yeah. And that show is really about that. Right.

Yeah. It was really special. Everybody was kind of like digging deep into what it feels like not to feel comfortable. Yeah. And, and do you, you know,

outside of like Seth, because I have this weird thing that keeps getting shattered every time I have people who were in like important ensemble shows or movies that they just always stay in touch. Like when I see people in movies, I'm like, you must talk to that guy still. You guys are buddies on the screen. Yeah. Well, I think that we do talk, you know, less as you get older and people have their own lives and things like that. But Seth and I wrote together for a long time and, you know,

we always send each other emails wishing each other well. And same with a lot of the other people in the cast. But yeah, I think you grow apart by nature of time. Sure. It's interesting where people show up, you know, over time,

like to see what, what's her name in Mad Men. What's her name? Yeah. I mean, it was like, Hey, there she is. Yeah. She's in the, in, in like, I obviously I, to see uh what's her name in mad men yeah what's her name linda yeah i mean it was like hey there

she is yeah she's in you and and like i obviously i i've limited experience in show business but as somebody who watches shows there's that moment where you're like oh she's working that's great yeah well i think that there's also um when freaks and geese got canceled after the first year you're so young yeah that you have this idea that that's how it always goes. Right. So you're kind of like, all right, well, I'm on to the next groundbreaking show. And then you get some time. Like I plunged right into three years of being out of work.

And so then. Really? Yeah. That's when I started writing. I was all of a sudden at this age where. So you were like, what, 17, 18? No, at that point I was like 20 to 23. That age, I had no work.

Okay, so you were going to be an actor and you were an actor. And I didn't go to college in order to act. Right. And then all of a sudden I was now too old to play a kid anymore and too young to be like the doctor. Right. And Martin had that. He had a similar situation where things just changed and he had to reevaluate.

Yeah. And that's when Judd said, the only way you're going to make it is if you start writing your own material. You know, like kind of the Albert Brooks model. Right. You know, no one's banging down your door to be like the romantic lead in something.

Yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You you know so you better do it and and i just started writing what did you start writing first thing i wrote was a script called uh it was called at the time nightmares beware which i've now turned into a series of kids books that are out called nightmares yeah 10 years later um and then i how are they Yeah, they did pretty good. I don't really, it's not my main job, so I don't follow it with that kind of eye. Right, right. You were just doing it because you wanted to.

Yeah, it made the bestseller list, but I don't know what that means. I don't know if that's a thousand books or a hundred books or I don't know what it is. I think it's, well, how long did you publish them? The first one came out in September. The next one comes out this September. Oh, well, youember you'll find out yeah they'll send you the weird little things like when you do a book well it sounds like it did all right but a lot of times when you get a

deal to do a book yeah and then you know after they you get these quarterly things that basically you know show how many you've sold against your deal so for a decade i've just gotten you i still owe them money apparently. Yeah, totally. Is there a way to work it off? Well, it's just the way they frame it. You don't have to give your money back or anything, but they show you just how many units you've sold and what it is compared to what they gave you. And it's never, well, for me, it wasn't necessarily encouraging, but people got the book.

Yeah. I'd like to kind of even it up if I owe them money with like some one-man shows or i can appear at a dinner party right maybe it's still it might be selling great yeah no i think it did i think it did well i have a framed new york times bestseller list thing that's beautiful yeah but you know that wasn't really the that wasn't really why i did it but that was the first screenplay that was the first screenplay and then the next what was the what was the pitch what was the angle it's about uh a kid who's it's like roll doll style it's about a kid whose mother passes away and when his dad gets remarried he starts having terrible nightmares and uh about witches and so one night he and his friends have to uh journey into the nightmare world

each face their biggest fear in order to rescue the kid's brother huh yeah oh that's great that's cool it makes sense that it'd be a good kid's book yeah so it's for ages like like eight late enough yeah right yeah i don't know how i just nailed that no the age thing smart guy you've been doing this a long time well i just sort of like i was like okay what age would that stop being terrifying yeah totally absolutely right well i like see i think that um kids really like to be scared right and i just remember at that age i liked being pushed right to the edge where i felt like i can't believe my parents are letting me do this right right right do they know yes right totally meanwhile your parents are like having chardonnay in the living room like

they don't know they don't know they don't know something scares you till you come out of your room crying yeah totally totally right yeah so uh i was apparently scared by a lot then by the way everything everything scared me just coming out of the room if coming out of the room crying is a measure of fear i well i felt that a lot i don't know because i grew up in um you know middle class upper middle class jewish household but i did feel like um like i was too sensitive yeah you know i i don't know what that is i you know i guess my parents were okay you know but they were a little self-involved sure i don't know what you grew up in or what made you sensitive or whether you can track it but it's not everybody's and you had this brother who was just a an animal sounds like well you know i think that you find out everyone you think has it put together has their own stuff you know what i mean that's later yeah because you spend your life assuming like that guy's got he has it together yeah well when you're 12 years old you're the center of your own world

yeah yeah what i mean and that world's gonna crumble if you if that's the world you'd built for yourself yeah i don't know what made me sensitive i think i've always felt things very acutely like well i think that's what i feel like uh like that's what i feel from you when in your roles because i don't know you yeah but i always assumed like uh that guy seems like a pretty sweet guy seems like uh things hit him pretty hard somehow. Yeah, I've cried a lot in comedies. I think I've cried more in comedies. Maybe that's it. Yeah.

But what was the second thing you wrote? The second thing I wrote was a movie called Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That was it? So you wrote that when you were in your 20s? Yeah, I was 24 when I wrote that. So that hung around for a while? No, I made that movie when I was 25. It's been that long? Yeah. I think, when I wrote that. So that hung around for a while? No, I made that movie when I was 25. It's been that long? Yeah.

I think, well, seven years. I might be off by a year, but something like that. Yeah, 25, 26. But by that point, you'd already acted in some Judd movies, right? Or no? I had done Knocked Up, and then I had started my TV show, How I Met Your Mother. So we can measure it that way, actually. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was the second year of the TV show okay so that's 26

god did you have any idea that that TV show would go on as long as it did no I had I had no idea my only experience had been failed TV shows and the first three years or so we were on the bubble and constantly on the verge of being canceled. And so then it just kept, it found its legs like season four or five. And then we were just, we were going, man. You did like what, nine? Nine seasons, like 240 episodes or something like that. And that's like your made guy.

I certainly had a real safety net of knowing I had a great job. Right. Yeah. And you could save some money. Yeah. And you're going to be all right. Yeah. Can a great job. Right. Yeah. And you could save some money. Yeah, totally. And you're going to be all right. Yeah. You can get a house.

Right, yeah, totally. Live a life. The fear of not having gone to college went away. Yeah, that's interesting. But it went away fairly quickly in a way. I mean, within a decade is good because you don't want to be a decade down the line going, fuck.

Yeah. That's true. The three years, though, when I was though when i was 20 to 23 something like that really instilled this thing in me like we were talking about before where you better work your ass off well there's panic especially when when things don't work out totally like you know so i imagine after freaks and geeks you're going on auditions yeah and you're just like not getting shit yeah no totally and there is a sense that it's insurmountable right oh yeah and then you're beating up on yourself i mean what were your parents saying during that time um i didn't totally fill them in as to how scared i was i don't think

but were they like well you can go to college I think at one point that was brought up one point yeah but you know what's really funny about my mentality at that point was to me the alternatives were I'm either going to make it as an actor and a writer or I'm going to move back into my parents house like the notion of get a regular job wasn't sort of right in my you had no experience with it there was no reason for you to know that absolutely it's a weird thing about growing up in a house where you know i what your father was what he's a lawyer oh well so i mean you must have that somewhere in your head like you know you could be a lawyer yeah yeah i i guess i did i just you know what i okay what here's the thing i think that anyone who's a performer yeah is is a very unique personality type right in that you believe

somewhere that what you have to express artistically is worthy of people paying money for and being quiet and listening to. You felt that. I felt like I had something to offer. Early on. This is when you were 20. Yeah. I felt like I could do something.

I think you have to. You have a calling. Yeah. You have a calling or you have something to say or you have a unique skill. I think if you don't have that, I don't know why you're doing it. You're just getting beat up the whole time. Right. You better have this feeling that you have something to offer. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people who feel that way and turn out to be wrong. And I guess that would be a delusion. Yeah. Well, some of that is necessary in this business.

I think so. Yeah. A little bit. Too many people are trying to do it. I mean, people arrive by the busload from their town to try to make it. Well, now, arrive by the busload from their town to try to like make it. Well, now and also it's become so diversified in that. Like if you have an iPhone and you can post like there is something now where I think that that delusion, you know, without any indication of ability can be nurtured forever. Yeah, it's sort of heartbreaking in some ways, but you can't begrudge anyone for trying because who the fuck knows?

But it is a little bit, I said it on stage the other night that when you do comedy and you see all the headshots of people that you don't know, like you don't recognize, you've seen that when you go to a casting or something to see stacks of headshots

of just people like hey like me we're sort of there's a pain to it oh yeah well when you're when you're auditioning too there's this other totally demoralizing aspect of walking into this casting room with 20 other guys who look exactly like you yeah you know and the decision is not going to be made based on anything but like you know that guy looks right or like i like the way he read that line. Or it might not have anything to do with what you're really capable of. Yeah, I lived in New York for a tiny bit during that period. The three years?

Yeah, yeah, around there when I was auditioning. And it was in August. Yeah. And it was like July, August. Sweaty and hot and gross. Yeah, so I would go to these auditions. I didn't have a car, obviously. And by the time I would arrive at the audition, I would just be drenched in sweat, like looking like a monster.

And I remember thinking, like, this model is not going to work. Yeah. Well, how long did you live in New York? I only lived in New York for like a few months, like four or five months. What was that about? Was that a failed adventure? Yeah, well, I had met a girl at that age, and I went to go, I decided I was going to go try to live with her

in her apartment that had no air conditioning. And it was great in the spring. And then by the time it hit summer, it was like a Tennessee Williams play. With the fan in the window? Yeah, just you hate each other and you're dripping with sweat oh yeah talking in a weird southern accent for no reason yeah and her dad shows up disturbing relationship yeah that's right but uh so that that crumbled yeah that crumbled i came back to la ran back to la i did where that where the where the temperature is level yeah it's just

a little more moderate for a guy my size, you know? That's the reason. Yeah. But Forgetting Sarah Marshall was big, and I enjoyed that movie. I watched it a couple times. Thanks. Yeah, I've seen a lot of your movies.

I'm surprised. That doesn't always happen. Oh, that's good. That beats The Alternative. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, because sometimes you talk to people, and it's interesting when people have, and you're fairly young,

but you've done a lot of stuff, but sometimes I get musicians in here, and I like that one record when I was younger like, and you're fairly young, but you've done a lot of stuff. But, like, sometimes I get musicians in here. And, like, I like that one record when I was younger. And then you look them up and they're like, they've done 90 records. Yeah. Well, you know, I have an interesting thing where, like, a few years ago, I really removed myself from, like, entertainment news or paying attention to what was current or this and that. Yeah. Because I realized I felt better that way right and so i i have that experience a lot where i meet somebody and i'm not i don't know

what they do right oh yeah it's nicer sometimes i think so you can have them on a human level what it really comes down to for me in this in this context which is not that much different because i don't you know i i can't pretend right is that uh yeah i find that you know if you're going to meet somebody in a professional situation if they did something amazing you maybe you should know about it just out of respect right you know like you don't want to be talking to the guy that cured aids right sure and just be like so you got a dog yeah yeah right yeah so all right so after forgetting sarah marshall yeah where you were naked and that was a that was what and i don't want to get hung up on that sure but you don't see a lot of dicks on screen yeah was that a relatively sober decision or um it was a sober

decision and not a sober filming process uh-huh yeah. Yeah. What does that mean? I had to drink to get the courage to walk out there. It was a really, it was a very uncomfortable scenario for everybody, really. Yeah. First of all, there's like this makeup woman, this poor makeup woman who like has to do full body makeup on you. Yeah. Which is a really humiliating experience. And then they. How did you feel about, you know, were you confident in your dick before that that i mean were you like i'm okay this is not embarrassing well i wanted it

to be embarrassing okay i didn't want it to be sexy right i felt like that would be gross right right um i wanted it to feel very vulnerable right you know it doesn't get much more i mean in terms of like yeah well it's also during like a humiliating breakup scene right so it was like it's horrible yeah it's horrible um and so I think I think I wanted it to feel as uncomfortable as possible right I would sneak into the back of theaters to watch it and literally people like um were disgusted really yeah okay I haven't thought about this for a long time so you don't see a lot of dicks. Yeah, totally.

I mean, depending on the kind of movie you watch. Right. But in a mainstream film. So there are these test screenings they do for movies where they have like a bring in a test audience. Yeah. And then at the end, they have to answer questions. Right, right, right. So I went to the back of the first test screen, the first movie I've ever written, the first movie I've been the main guy in. Right, right, right. oh it's great oh mila kunis is so winning you know it's just everyone's saying the right things and then they finish they're like all right great well thank you any final comments and one guy yeah

raises his hand and goes yeah is nobody gonna talk about this guy's weird dick it's like the one guy had to ruin had thing. His weird dick. Yeah. Test audiences always have that. We did a test audience. What did he mean? Who knows? I don't know what he's used to seeing. Did it make you look at your dick differently? I guess.

What is weird about my dick? At Muppet's test screening, they showed it to a bunch of kids. Yeah. And had them fill out questionnaires at the end. My character's name was Gary. And so the questionnairesnaires they framed one for me like an eight-year-old kid and they said what did you like about the movie and he wrote muppets are funny muppets sing songs yeah what did you not like about the movie gary's face

god yeah and that kid that's a guy who grows up to be like, and no one's going to talk about his weird dick. Yeah. Yeah. Same guy. Yeah. Totally. So outside of the acting you took when you were a kid, did you work with coaches and did you continue to train at all? No, I feel like at that point I kind of felt more like on the job training and working

with Judd felt like an apprenticeship in a lot of ways. But I was paying attention and I was watching performances and feeling inspired by them. Like by who? Like you mean at home? Yeah. Because you said when you were in your ambitious, compulsive phase that you were watching actors. I remember watching Edward Norton in Primal Fear when I was young. Whoa.

Yeah. So I was like 17 when that came out or something that's where he plays the murderer yeah it's where it's his first rigid gear yeah right i remember thinking that's what i want to do serious shit yeah i just that's where i was at the time and the zoo story is a drama yeah and and then i'm incredibly lucky. I met Judd and I got swept into a comedy world. Right. And I turned out to be good at it. And so you start doing what you're good at and what people are used to seeing you as. But I think all during this period, I was starting to develop an itch that I wanted to try to do stuff that was more honest. Well, the new movie definitely is. Yeah. And, you know, we can move up to that.

So all through the comedies, like, what is it about, did you find, because, I mean, I'm a comic, and you have a very unique comic timing. That was what was interesting about the way Judd sort of, like, saw it, like, let you guys evolve in Freaks and Geeks because there's a very unique comic timing to everybody, but it is definitely comic. But he let you guys find it. He must have had a sense of it

because you and Seth and, you know, even Martin, you know, though you all played it very real, but there was a certain natural comedy to it. You know, they did something that i've never heard of before when they were casting freaks and geeks yeah they did like an international casting search uh-huh for they i mean essentially for weird kids right you know yeah and they did casting sessions in small towns and they went to canada and, you know, all these places besides just casting in L.A. And I think that they were, I think a lot of it is in the selection process and finding people.

And those improv sessions, you're either going to be good at that or you're not. You know, you can't really fake it. Right. And so I think he, it's one of the things Judd is great at. And Paul, if you watch their movies, they're just really good at finding people who can do that, who have a unique thing. Right. Well, yeah.

But did you find that, because it seems like that knocked up comedically is very different than forgetting Sarah Marshall or I Love You, Man. Yeah. So, like, it's always a hard question to answer because you're not, I don't see that you've really been typecast in any way you know you're just you find a certain a tone of a character that kind of locks into your sense of humor how do you feel that out well i appreciate that i think that

in the i i think that in the early part of my career, like when I was writing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, that was an attempt to be as uniquely my voice as I was capable of being. Yeah, you're very vulnerable, and also you're the underdog, and you're emotionally desperate in a way. Yeah, oh, totally. It's actually a very, very honest movie,

and there's like a drama underlying that movie. That is a guy who is really lost, doesn't feel good about himself, and drinking really heavily in that movie. And like trying to find his own inner strength, sort of. And then I felt like the best way to express that was through comedy. That's what I'm good at. And is that where you were at in your life? Yeah, I think I was. I think it progressed more.

I started feeling that way more as the years went on. As you got more successful. Yeah, a little bit in that I think, well, one thing that happens, I think, by nature of the business is that you start to have opportunities to do what you have done well again and again and again. Yeah. And I fell into that. At the same time, to be easy on myself, I was doing How I Met Your Mother at the time. I met your mother at the time. And so I was, you know, for nine years, I was filming a TV show during the year, writing the script that I would do that summer, and then filming a movie over the summer. And it was a real cycle where I don't think I took much time to stop and think about

what I wanted. Yeah, that makes complete sense. You know what I mean? Because you're caught up. Yeah, you're caught up. And I had this vestigial fear that it could all go away. Really? Yeah. Like if I take a summer off, will they forget me in the movie world? Right. You know, that impulse was still in me.

And so I think that, and it's my own doing, but I think that I got caught up in a cycle of, okay, I found something that works. Let's just keep doing this. And also like being under contract and having the gig in a TV show is that you've got to remain that character. And it's interesting to me because this doesn't happen in my relationship with you as an actor is that because I didn't watch that TV show, you don't live there for me. Right. Right. Totally. And I think that that ensemble was also big enough that,

and the show was sort of weird and it was its own thing. Yeah. That it doesn't seem like anybody from that cast, not to me at least, is like, how's that guy going to do anything else other than that character? Yeah. Because it seems like everyone did.

You know, you find out you're you're there's a very tricky thing about self-perception when you're working in this business because it's very much based on perception so how people see you is sort of how they're willing to cast you and i think it starts to affect your if you're not careful starts to affect how you view yourself interesting yeah and you know i think the nature of a tv show is that it's meant to be repetitive so that you can check in at every time it's meant to be comfortable you know my character is like a loving funny schlubby husband

right there's not going to be like the surprise episode where you find out i'm a cheater right you know what i mean so you kind of fall into this thing. People, the viewers want that consistency. That's what they, they love those characters. Yeah. So you can't just make them a monster all of a sudden. No, no. And there's a lot of value to that.

You know, as I've gained distance from the show and I really like road tripping. And so, you know, you travel to small towns where people come up and they say, hey,, hey, watching your TV show got me through Iraq. It's amazing. It's a really, really special thing. I think that while you're doing it and you're so artistically driven, you have this feeling of I should be pushing the limits out there. I found out there's like real value to,

you know, a sitcom. Sure. No, no, no. Like, you know,

even with this in its own way, you know, people listen to, you know, me talk about my own struggles, whether it's a, you know, a,

you know, recovery or, or my own neurotic problems and my relationship problems. It's like, I get a lot of feet, like a lot of emails. I want people like, you know,

you help me through a dark time. Yeah. And why, why isn't that enough? You know, it's got to be and it's a beautiful thing i never anticipated that and it's something when you're in your own loop you're like well i just i don't know if i'm doing a good job or if this is like a great job or if this is but then all of a sudden you realize like you have no idea how you're affecting other people in a good way that's right and it's a beautiful thing so all right i love you man i watched that movie i saw that that's a fun one it's a good movie i've done a bunch of things with rudd and uh i feel like he he and i just work well together our our sense of

humor is bounce off each other well you're both kind of you're kind of you're soft guys yeah yeah i guess so yeah you know totally uh yeah we don't have a lot We don't have a lot of machismo. Right, right. So there's something about that. Although- He's willing to get pretty vulnerable. Oh, totally. He also got really buff for Ant-Man.

Did he? Oh, I haven't seen- He's jacked. He looks like a lightweight boxer. Oh, really? I gotta get that. I gotta get a trainer. Do you work out?

You know what? I'm starting to now. I'm more fit than I've been, but my body is still like what a fit guy looked like in those ads from the 50s. You know, where like. The weird broad chest. Yeah, yeah. And like, you're allowed to be a little pot-bellied. Right, right.

And you lift your chest up a lot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, I look like I should squash nerds. Well, you're a big guy. Yeah. Sort of like you moving into these smaller movies. with, like I saw Jeff Who Lives at Home. Oh, yeah.

Duplasses, right? Yeah, totally. And that was an interesting small movie, right? I loved that movie. But that did pretty well. Yeah. I'm actually not sure how it did, but I know that I felt like there was something really special about that movie. like there's something really special about that movie um there was because the character felt like it was you know it was a compromised character and and a character in a sort of emotional struggle

yeah that kind of ends up transcending and being the hero of the story but that guy seemed very familiar yeah it's a guy we know that we know the guy like he feels like there's more to life and there's secrets around every corner and as a result he lives in his basement right you know yeah it's that guy um but in that movie turns out to be right yeah and uh i watched um the end the end of tour oh you did i did oh cool it was great you were great thank you it was uh this was the one you were hoping for? Yeah. Yeah. How did it come about, this movie, to play David Foster Wallace?

You know, okay, well, the first answer is I don't know what happens behind the walls of an agency. Sure. But my experience was the script got sent to me and they got sent to you yes it got sent to me and they asked if it's something that i felt like uh i i could do if i if i thought i could play that part and i read it and uh i read it and i really did um the themes of the movie just really resonated with me it's a lot about what we're talking about outside of the comedy about actually being the person. What happens when things are going as well as they possibly can and you still feel the same? You know, this movie takes place over the last four

days of the, it's about David Foster Wallace and it's the last four days of the Infinite Jest book tour. This book was like called The Voice of a Generation. He wrote it for years and years. It's a thousand plus pages. It came out, did as well as it could do. And he didn't feel better. Right. And in like, it's one of those books that is revered

that I have not read. Yeah, that's most people's experience with it um that i've met did you read it yeah of course uh but did you read it before you got this opportunity no absolutely not and when i when i bought it at the bookstore i bought it like a little indie bookstore and there was like a ghost world kind of girl behind the counter and i set infinite just down and she said oh infinite just every guy i've ever slept with has an unread copy on his bookshelf yeah yeah so you read that yeah i did i read it with uh with some guys who worked at the bookstore actually uh what do you mean you read it with them um we did a book club where we would each

read we would go off and we would read 100 pages and then we would get together on sundays and talk about what we had read and we and how far away were you from shooting? About, I had four months. Okay. I had four months to get ready. Uh-huh. And well, this is sort of what we were talking about, you know, the character and forgetting Sarah Marshall. And this seems to be like a perfect sort of synchronicity for you in the sense that, you know, through all these years of craving to do this deeper work as an actor, you know,

you're given the opportunity and comedically you sort of dealt with, you know, some of the, the, the issues you were dealing with, but this character, you know, how close to your experience was it?

It was at this point in my life, it felt like kismet when we started shooting. I had gotten sober. You know, I got sober two and a half years ago. So, you know, I'm like a year and a half sober at that point. And my TV show was coming to an end. And my TV show was coming to an end. And I was at a real moment of what do I do now? There's a line in the movie that is kind of verbatim what David Foster Wallace said during this interview. But he said, I have to face the reality now of being 34 years old alone in a room with a piece of paper.

And that's really what I felt like at this point. Like my safety net was gone. The fact that I had have a financial safety net didn't really apply to what I felt. It doesn't, does it? No. Right. Of course not. Yeah.

Well, not of course not. I suppose looking from outside of it, you would think not of course not i i suppose looking from outside of it you would think of course it does it it actually makes it yeah for a lot of people are sort of like what are you complaining about but the truth of the matter is is that the sad thing when you're in that position is that you do have that and then you have these feelings and they're almost compounded they're like what the because then you're like what the fuck is wrong with me i can i can eat wherever i want and buy that car if i want to this is what the movie is wrong with me? I can, I can eat wherever I want and buy that car if I want to. This is what the movie is dealing with,

in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, what the movie is, is it's basically a transcript of this interview that a guy called David Lipsky did with David Foster Wallace, where Rolling Stone sent him out and spent the last four days of the book tour with him. And, well,

it's interesting because like the one thing i'm noticed about the movie in retrospect is like who is this movie really about right like because it you know like you walk away from it and you're like was that about lipski yeah but then you sort of like you go to the other place and and it's equally about both of you i think did you feel that yeah i actually think that it is about a theme um that if you if you um treat yourself and listen to a speech that david foster wallace gave called this is water it was the kenyan commencement yeah i read that yeah yeah it is uh addressing the exact theme that we're talking about in this interview which is if you are placed where do you place your value

and what is going to address this itch that we keep trying to scratch that's telling us we're not there that we're not enough um if it's success you'll never be successful enough and if it's money you'll never have enough money right if it's talent you'll never be adored enough you have to find something else. And I just really related to that. And at the point in this movie, you don't get the sense that he necessarily did, right? Yeah, I think that right when you catch him at this point, he is a man who is doing everything he can to feel normal. I had access to the actual audio of these interviews, and he refers to them at one point as mental gymnastics,

that he is using every tool at his disposal to feel okay. Wow. Because it's such an intimate movie. Yeah. And it's a little odd in, in, in that you feel that these are transcripts like, you know,

you, cause you know that the script is taken from real conversations. Yeah. And what I imagine the challenge to be, and this is a challenge that I think that just, you know, when you talk to writers in real life is that what I found myself doing is that you know this guy's a genius, but now he's talking about Pop-Tarts.

Right. So what do you bring to that as an actor? You saw the dialogue, and there are some meaty parts where he explains his emotions and his sensibility and the sort of tension between, you know, he sees this guy who's completely insecure and and i know that lipsky guy yeah i don't know him personally no no no but i know

that characters because it's it's us five years ago right however long it is for you you know that's what i think is uh to me that's what the movie that's that was the lens I saw it through was a guy talking to himself on the beginning end of the tunnel. Lipsky is looking up at David Foster Wallace saying, God, it must be great to be you. You must feel great. You must feel terrific. What's it like to be so famous? And David Foster Wallace looking back at him saying, kid, be careful what you wish for. Trust me, if you get to where I am, you're not going to feel better.

Yeah. And that's sad. Yeah, it's sad, but it's very real. And I actually think that, I think that one of the reasons David Foster Wallace resonates with people is it is a man who had the vocabulary to express something that we feel

and maybe are too scared to talk about openly. Which is the existential loneliness that persists yeah which is that you're you're promised that by our culture that if you achieve x y or z or obtain x y or z or or watch this um marathon of real housewives that you're going to feel better and it turns out that that's not true. And people are really operating under that assumption and get to the destination and find out that it's vacant. But it's rare that a person can investigate that loneliness like he did. Like, I think that, you know, sadly, some people just percolate along with a mild feeling of dissatisfaction or anxiety that they can't pinpoint, but he decided to explore

the underpinnings of existence in relation to these expectations and the onslaught of sensations available. Infinite Jest, when I read it, it's three-pronged. There are basically three When I read it, it's three-pronged. There are basically three storylines that are interweaving. One is about recovery in Boston, about AA. One is about this entertainment that has been obtained by terrorists that is so entertaining that people who watch it basically become zombified. This is like a dystopian future. Yeah. And the third is about a tennis camp, which is achievement.

These young kids who are told, like, if you don't make it to the pros, you're nothing. That's the whole reason you're here. My brother went to that camp. Really? Yeah. Nick Boloteri's. Oh, my gosh. He's in Florida.

Okay. And he didn't, my brother didn't make it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Most people don't. So if the criteria of success is that if you don't make it you're a failure then a lot of people are walking around

feeling shitty you know what i mean and so and just medicating that one way or the other that's right or or expressing their anger in weird ways yeah because all three of those are medicating whether it's booze whether it's just plopping yourself in front of the TV, or whether it's this intense pursuit of achievement, they're all ways to kind of push off, how do I actually feel? So outside of reading the book, it's all made tragic and relevant by the fact that David Foster Wallace killed himself. That's right. And that you're looking at this movie that this this time capsule that and

you can't help but like sort of what are the indicators you know like and i imagine you as an actor you know knowing you know you know how he ended up years later you know this is part of that trajectory somehow right yeah i mean i don't know how you prepare. Well, here's the thing. Here's what I thought to myself is that if I if me five years ago saw me now, I would be unrecognizable. Why? How much were you drinking? I was drinking quite a bit. I got to the point where I felt like I was going to collapse under the weight of it. I felt very trapped.

I felt like. Isolated, you mean? Or by it i felt very trapped i felt like isolated do you mean or by the way well i felt certainly isolated um and i also i mean i would just very simply wake up in the morning and say i'm not going to drink today and you know by the midday i was drinking yeah oh so you really you had it pretty bad yeah i mean it wasn't. Yeah. So it wasn't a party. No, no, no. It was not a party in any way. Did it start as a party? Or were you always sort of- My hunch is it always starts as a party. Right?

No one's like- And then all of a sudden, I'd like you to meet the monster. Yeah. I hope you had a good time at the party. Now you're working for this guy. Yeah, no, exactly right. Well, you've lost control. And I got really lucky in that I had a real moment of clarity where I said to myself, I want to be the best version of myself.

I just got really lucky that that happened. Was it a dark day? Yeah, it was a dark day. I had something bad happen. I had not been drinking for a little while, for months. Yeah. And I decided, you know what, I'm going to drink. And so I didn't have booze in the house for myself at this point. I had a case of rosé for guests. It was summertime. And so I decided I'll have a glass of rosé. One glass. Yeah. I don't even like rosé. And so basically it turned into a weekend where by the end of it, I was surrounded by these empty bottles of rosé. And I thought to myself, this is not for pleasure. I don't like rosé. This is something else is going on. And there's no end to it.

Yeah, there's just no end to it. You know what the thing is for me that I realized about booze is that I am not going to win. They're not going to stop making booze. I can't drink at all. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for me, it's like fighting Mike Tyson.

Right. And I realized at that point the best strategy for me is not to get in the ring. Yeah. And it's weird that when you're introduced to that craving thing, that's the most fucked up thing about having a drinking problem or a drug problem is like the idea that like, yeah, okay, I can stop. Yeah. And then you stop for a little while.

But then like that day where you're like I'm gonna drink like that thing that wakes up in you were like that weird like unquenchable kind of like that when you when you meet that thing you're like this is a fucking problem yeah and you know the thing that you're not told because you don't discuss this openly. You know what I mean? Right. But if anyone out there is like suffering or has these feelings, I don't know how I'm going to stop. Once you say to yourself or just to somebody else, I need help.

Yeah. It unfolds. Yeah, it comes. Yeah. It unfolds. Just dozens of people willing to help. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, good it just unfolds. Just dozens of people willing to help. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, good for you, man. It's a great step. And how about it when that day where you got enough sober time and you realize, like, no, I don't really want it anymore. Yeah. It's a great day. Oh, man.

I can tell you what happened. So this is about two and a half years ago yeah and you know you spend like the first month two months thinking what do i do now yeah when you go when you stop drinking well just right my activities yeah yeah and you were kind of like you were out in the world being drunk yeah well i was i was good at it well can i ask you like a personal question yeah sure yeah sure i just want some validation on this i heard i was good at it well can i ask you like a personal question yeah sure yeah sure i just want some validation on this i heard i heard that that you got into the habit yeah of getting on stage and just saying is there any women that want to fuck me and giving out your

phone number is that true no that's that is a bastardization of a great comedy bit no what it was was i had written a song okay that i would open um i opened a couple concerts with i opened for maroon five and i sang it once with um with glenn hansard in the swell season okay um that was actually a very funny song so it was it was very nuanced oh okay it was a very nuanced version of that okay okay and the phone number was fake oh okay yeah it's so funny how like if i how it finally got to me was like yeah he's just fucking he's just going for it yeah it's just like putting out his phone number and just like yeah hollywood man well that was sort of the desired effect i

suppose yeah um but i'll tell you so a month into not drinking right i uh i was driving down the street. I was driving back from San Diego Comic-Con. And I was listening to the oldie station. And all of a sudden, I realized I was singing along to Rock Around the Clock. Yeah. And I was like, whoa. I feel good. I feel pretty happy. I've seen this in movies where people sing in the car in a real happy mood.

And I've never looked back. It was the best decision I ever made for myself. It's great. Yeah. Good for you. Thanks. You seem clear. I can't imagine you all foggy.

You must have been kind of a, like, how would you describe yourself as a drunk? Did people want to hang around you yeah but you surround yourself with people who want to hang around that party yeah yeah yeah you know yeah yeah i was never that i was never a like party kind of guy i was more like uh how i pictured the rat pack to be okay okay you know like all of these things are illusions that you're sort of fed from movies and tv but i was more like that i remember one time being at the improv and i remember jonah came in with a bunch of guys were you running with him no i no i don't think so not at the time okay but you guys friends yeah he's a great buddy well you get you guys both seem to have a light around you these days like when i talked to to him, he was very sort of focused and upbeat.

And I'd heard some things that he could be a little difficult, but he was like such a sweetheart. Jonah and I have talked a lot about life stuff. Well, there's very few friends that you have who are around your age who Jonah is doing amazingly. The two Academy Award nominations and things. Jonah is doing amazingly, the two Academy Award nominations and things. But where you can talk about feeling weird about stuff that's going on, about success. And celebrity. Yeah.

I can imagine it's a pretty annoying thing to have your more successful friend say, boy, it's so frustrating being successful. I have a relationship like that. Yeah. You have a limited audience of people that you can be honest with about that. That's so true. And, you know, and it takes a big heart and a good friend to show up for that guy. It's an interesting thing because, you know, I have relationships with people, obviously, a lot. I work out of my garage and, you know, I have this show. So I have a lot of I work out of my garage, and I have this show.

So I have a lot of friends who are big, who are stars. And I don't have many friends, but there are people in my life where, and I just realized this recently, that I'm pretty close friends with a guy who's pretty big. And there's very few people he can really talk to, in a way. Yeah, well, you can talk about stuff that is common ground. Right, right. But to really express, people are all the same, right? And no matter how well you're doing, you are going to have feelings of not being enough. You're going to have feelings of dissatisfaction.

And it's tough, I imagine, to find people to talk about that with if um if basically you sound like you're whining or or yeah or if you're seen as the guy that should have everything you have to have you have to have real friends yeah is basically what it is yeah well it's codified like a myth from the beginning of time sure this isn't this is a universal feeling the king feels the same way yeah yeah yeah who's going to feel bad for the king? Yeah, that's right. Fuck that guy. Yeah, exactly.

He's the king. Totally. So, well, that's a beautiful sort of thing that this role, you know, comes to you where you can sort of process these emotions through this guy. Well, I felt like sort of in the way that we're talking now, I felt like what the movie was, was a real opportunity. It's an extension to me of the themes of Infinite Jest, of this is water. Let's talk about this stuff. It is okay. I feel like when you read Infinite Jest, there is like a distress beacon going out saying, does anyone else feel this way?

It's okay. I feel this way it's okay i feel this way do you guys right and i watched the movie um and i feel like james ponsold and donald margulies the writer did an amazing job of it could just be two smart guys talking and it would be such a boring movie but it it gets at these themes and that's what resonated with me and it's interesting the way it got to those themes was by essentially not making it just two smart guys talking because a lot of the conversations were about pussy yeah and they were about you know food yeah and and you know what i mean going to like because that's what's really interesting about the movie cool is those choices of when and where the deep smart shit comes out so it doesn't overrun the movie yeah well you want you need the audience

to want to be in the back seat of that car like you have to want to be on that road trip it's a four-day road trip and it could be exhausting if it wasn't fun and you listen to the tapes and honestly like the one that i like the most that doesn't make it into the movie is Hanson. Remember Hanson, the band. Yeah. They came on the radio and you hear David Foster Wallace for about three minutes,

dissect Hanson. Yeah. And you're hearing the smartest guy, you know, of his generation talk about Hanson in a positive way. Yeah. It just in a, you know,

pop culture analyzing. Yeah. Yes. And, um, that to me is the fun of it. In a positive way? Yeah, just in a pop culture analyzing way. And that to me is the fun of it. You get to hear some really, really beautiful insight in some really mundane things. And it's interesting because Eisenberg's very intense. Yeah. And I don't like for you to kind of hold character around that.

What was it like working with him? It was the most intimate experience I've ever had acting honestly um it's a there's there's great supporting cast um but a lot of the movie is jesse and i yeah um alone together had you worked with him before no i had never met him before because he's an he's an intense character he's intense he is incredibly quick and funny we were together in our first meeting and someone asked me how i got started writing and i said uh well you know i sort of had to create my own material no one was uh knocking down my door to play captain america yeah to which jesse uh just really quietly said no but you could probably play the captain of a weaker country so So he's that smart and quick.

And he's also the most prepared actor that I've ever met. Really? Yeah. I was just astounded at how ready and thoughtful he was about the script. And so we were staying at the same motel, like a residence in, in the freezing cold. And we would drive were staying at the same motel like a residence in

in the freezing cold and we would drive together in indiana where was it shot i was shown grand rapids michigan oh michigan yeah in the heart of winter it's like negative 15 degrees or something um and we would drive together in the morning to work and go over our scenes for the day then we would act all day together for like 15 hours. And it was interesting because it paralleled the movie. We were acting with each other, but we were also acting against each other. Like each of us wanted to win the scene. Right. You know?

Right. And then we would drive home and like unwind and talk about what we had, what the characters had talked about in the movie, get like a donut at two in the morning and, and then go to bed and get together in the morning and do it all over again. It was the best. And did you feel like now you're friends? Yeah. Yeah?

Yeah, he's a great friend. He's really terrific. He also still makes fun of me. I gained quite a bit of weight for the movie because we had pictures of David Foster Wallace during that period that I just tried to match. So I was like shoveling food into my mouth. And Jesse loves old time candy here's a little fun fact for you and so i uh i sent him a video like a month ago of an old time candy shop just going through showing the candy and he sent me back a text thinking that this would be hey buddy i miss you he sent me back a text that said stop

sending me video of your colonoscopy. There's a place down right here on York that sells all the old-time candy. Isn't it the best? Yeah, like you don't even think they make it anymore. Yeah, totally. Galco's. They sell all these sodas from around the world. Yeah, it's the best.

Well, so what do you take away? Like, obviously, this is, you know, about to be seen. Yeah. What's your feelings? My feelings are I want to do more movies like this. You know? Yeah. I want to do.

And you can. Yeah, I think I can. I think that's the weird maturity to this transition you're in emotionally and lifestyle-wise. But the fact that you have made, you know, this, the amount of success you have and the freedom you have, I mean, the only thing you're up against is, is these expectations that might not even be yours. That's right. Well, it's an interesting thing because we filmed the movie, uh, you know, a year and a few months ago now, a year and change. And so I have been living career-wise a year ahead of the business. So it's been a really interesting year of trying to be patient and have some faith in the movie. After you're done. So it's been out of your hands for a year. I've just been waiting.

And what have you been doing? I've been writing. I've been writing a lot. What are you working on? I'm writing one of the new Lego movies. Oh, okay oh okay yeah so i'm writing that i'm writing my my books isn't that interesting though that like you know these uh these like childhood passions or the things you know that you know the weird kind of turn of events that drove you to a muppet movie i imagine now like you're a go-to guy for a whole different thing than you ever expected. You know, I have a part of me that hasn't changed that makes me, I think, uniquely good for that stuff. Because I now have the skills of a professional writer,

but I know what satisfies me as a 12-year-old kid. You know what I mean? I know what I want to see. That part of a 12 year old kid. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I know what I want to see. Yeah. Yeah. That part of me that's still 12. Right.

So what, so you're, the premiere's tomorrow? The premiere's tonight. I'm going to go put on a suit after this and like just. Where is it? Enjoy it. It's at the Writers Guild in Beverly Hills. And who's going? Like is Judd coming and you know, friends or?

I, I have my parents coming. Yeah. And I have some friends coming and I? I have my parents coming. Yeah. And I have some friends coming. And I have a lovely girlfriend named Alexis. She's coming. And yeah, it's a really intimate movie and experience. And to watch it with people I care about is the best. So it's not really a public premiere.

It's going to be an in-house thing? No, I think it is public. But I invented people who are very close to me to me oh it's okay to invent people that are i've done that too that ended a few years ago it's great talking to you man yeah you too thank you see that guy's a sweet guy nice guy love that Love that guy. Love talking to Jason Segel. I think we can be friends. That's what I decided. I'm going to try to be friends with Jason Segel.

I'm going to try to be friends with Adam Goldberg. I think those are appropriate friends for me. Don't you? Am I overstepping? Am I overstepping as the host of a show in my house? WTFpod.com slash calendar. Those dates are in September, early September. The 2nd, 4th, and 5th.

And there's other stuff there. I put all the artist names on all the posters. All the poster art there now has the artist names. I felt like a dick. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I'm like, why don't I put the artist names on there? What kind of bullshit is that? They're artists.

They made this art. So they're on there now. Thank you. Boomer lives! Boomer lives! 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.

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