WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 979 - Topher Grace

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

Topher Grace is at a point where he’s only going to make what he wants to make. Not all actors can afford that luxury, but Topher tells Marc that working on That '70s Show for seven years taught him more about acting than any school, working with Ashton Kutcher taught him about being fully committed to everything you do, and working with auteurs like Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan and most recently Spike Lee taught him you don’t have to compromise your vision. Topher and Marc also talk about the difficulty of playing a person for whom you have no empathy, as was the case with David Duke in BlacKkKlansman. This episode is sponsored by Stand-Up Month on Comedy Central, Squarespace, SimpliSafe, and Carnival Cruise Line. 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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To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18-plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf tonight is Christmas Eve. It's nice and quiet. I wonder what you're doing. I'm recording this obviously a little earlier than Christmas Eve. Not much. Maybe yesterday, maybe. Yesterday I maybe recorded this, but I have an early morning flight and I feel like I should

have left last night. So I probably should have camped out. Probably should have just been one of those people that finds an awkward place to sleep at the airport. The people sleeping on the floor at the airport. I don't think I've ever been a person sleeping on the floor at the airport. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's time at 55 years old to do something new, to sleep on the floor uncomfortably at the airport where people walk by and they wonder what happened to that guy's life. Why is he sleeping here?

Does he have a flight? Did he miss a flight? Is there trouble? Is there trouble at home? Does he have a home? I guess that doesn't really happen. I don't think you judge people like that. What am I talking about?

Topher Grace is on the show. Topher Grace. He's in Black Klansman, which uh now available to buy or rent on digital blu-ray or dvd so i talked to tofer about a lot of stuff coming up okay so i i've got a confession i think uh that i have to make embrace yourselves because this is only going to mean something to eight people and it's not even people that are involved in the confession. It's just one of these things. You know, I'm a middle-aged dude.

I enjoy music. I talk about music a lot. I'm a record guy. I'm not as vocal about that as I used to be because it just is what it is. It was the middle of the night last night i did comedy at the comedy store had a good set came home was late you know i had a you know i got a pack but i just started watching like i i don't even remember why i rented casino but i did you know

i've seen that movie so many times i think i rented it to do some research for the vegas season of glow that i'm involved in right now. And I hear this song, you know, because Scorsese is so great at layering the songs. And I'm like, who the fuck? I mean, I've heard that thing before, but I don't think I've ever really identified who's playing guitar and what group is doing ain't superstitious in the background of one of the casino scenes. I've heard it before, but I don't think I have it. Why don't I have it? Why can't I identify who it is?

Is it Eric Clapton? Is it the Yardbirds? No, it's Jeff Beck Group, and the album is Truth. Now, I'm not, as a grown-upper, have I ever been a Jeff Beck guy. I don't know why. There's something about instrumentals that I don't love, but this is Jeff Beck Group.

This is Rod Stewart singing, which threw me me because i knew it wasn't the faces but i went and i listened to the entire 1968 album truth by the jeff beck group and i'm and my confession is uh yesterday was the first time i ever listened to that record. I know, I know. For those eight people that are like, are you fucking kidding me, man? You don't know fucking Beck shit? I mean, that guy's a monster on guitar. He is.

He is, and I'm sorry. On the other side, I still don't love Jeff Beck, but that Truth album is a, that's a fucking monster monster wild guitar record. So that's my confession. I don't know who to apologize to. I don't feel bad about it. This is the beautiful thing about music is that you find that the parameters of your musical tastes

were usually guided by radio, parents, friends, trying to be accepted, and whatever those parameters are, whatever that road is, there are so many more. So you can just, there's no late to the party. I'm happy that I've heard it and I've processed it and integrated some of the possibilities into my own fingers. And that's that. No big deal. And another thing I learned, there's very few things I can't watch. I can usually let things into my head and take it. But when they put that guy's head in the vice in Casino, can't watch it.

Can't do it. I just cannot. Just can't fucking do it. So there's two confessions. I just listened to Jeff Beck's truth, and I'm incapable of watching the scene where Joe Pesci has a guy's head in a vice to casino. And I'm fairly proud about both of those. I think I'm a better person for both

of those things. Isn't that what confessions are about? It's off me now. I've unloaded. My burden has been lifted. The other thing I did last night at three in the morning is I decided that I smelled something burning in my house, and there was nothing burning in my house. Then I thought maybe I was having a stroke, but I wasn't having a stroke. And then I went outside naked because I seem to do that occasionally to see if anything was burning outside. There was nothing burning outside. And then I didn't know whether or not I locked the garage, so I'm wandering around.

I think I hear a noise. I think I hear music. I think I hear maybe someone's outside my out inside my house and I'm out there naked I'm protected by a gate and I'm checking the door and I sort of panic and I think maybe I lock myself out of my house naked and I and I'm not paying attention and I smash my head into a light fixture on the outside of the door so i have a big scratch on my forehead for the holidays and i think i'm getting a cold so that's an update oh my god president baby man ruined christmas for so many people so many people doesn't give a fuck. Zero fucks the monster in the oval, King Baby. But interesting that I think an interesting thing happened.

I'll share it with you. I did talk about politics with my father and it was kind of one sided. And there's a twist to this. You know, he my father is not a political guy. He's not that bright when it twist to this. You know, he, my father is not a political guy. He's not that bright when it comes to politics. I don't think he knows literally anything, which is, I think, par for the course for a lot of people, certainly Trump voters, which he was. And, but, you know, he watches a lot of Fox News and he says things like, you know, that Hannity seems to know what he's talking about. Sure. Okay. So do I.

So, but I don't know what it was, whether it was firing of Mattis or pulling the troops out or the shutdown. I'm not sure what it was, but my dad called me, kind of vulnerable in his voice. He's like, yeah, you know, I guess you were right. I guess you were right about Trump. And I'm like, uh-huh. He goes, I don't know.

I guess people just don't know until they know. And I'm like, no. I said, a lot of people did know. They knew. Like more than half the country knew. We knew. I knew. You didn't know, but I knew.

He's like, yeah, I guess so. I guess you're right. This might be it. Might be the end. Might be the, yeah, I guess so. I guess you're right. This might be it. Might be the end. Might be the big one. The big one. That generation uses that. The big one.

They're going to drop the big one. And I said, yep, that could happen. It certainly could. But hopefully it won't happen before I see you on Christmas Day. Okay? He said, yeah, okay. I love you. I love you, love you too so we'll see maybe it's going to be the big one for christmas i don't know if that would make my dad satisfied or happy or i'm

not sure it's it's hard to hard to tell with narcissistic people whether they just they you know they especially as they get older which is what concerns me about the diaper president is that, you know, he you know, he's he's the most successful narcissist ever. He's literally been able and I've said this before to make everything about him. I mean, globally. And that's that's the envy of the narcissist community. But the fact that he's old and pissed off, I have a feeling that the end game for narcissism is like, everything ends with me. And when you have a narcissist of the capacity of this president, everything ends with him.

This is not a good prognosis for the future of the species. Yeah, remember the species, folks. As you're aggressively mindful, don't mindful yourself out of principle. Could you? Yeah, remember the species, folks, as you as you're you know, you're aggressively mindful. Don't mindful yourself out of principle. Could you not? I don't I'm not saying that principle mindfulness. I mean, don't self-center and ground yourself mindfully to the point where you give zero fucks about others. We have a species here and it might behoove us all to think in terms of it. I'm not being condescending, not virtue just realize i'm a selfish fuck but at some point something's gonna happen

we're gonna have to think about the survival of the human race should we probably should have been on it to be quite honest with you so all right tofer grace is uh here he i talked to him he's uh featured in black Klansman. He plays David Duke, actually. It's now available on digital or Blu-ray or DVD. You can buy it or rent it. And we had a nice conversation. I really didn't know what to expect.

This is me talking to Topher Grace. 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. 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. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your

policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zinsurance, mind your business. Yeah, like moving out here, like I was living in, you know, a tiny ass place for a long time and I no longer understood why. Do you know what I mean? It's sort of like, I saved some money.

Why am I still in this fucking place? Yeah, well, I mean. So I moved. I didn't. I had a woman come into my life and be like, Oh, she did it? Why the fuck are you living in this place? Where were you?

I was up in the hills. Tucked away? I had such a great, like, I had a whole system with the cleaning lady that was like, I mean, I had someone come once a week. Right. And I only really ate cereal. That's how much of a bachelor I was. whole system with the cleaning lady that was like i mean i had someone come once right and i only really ate cereal and this is how much of a bachelor i was there was just a like a uh sink

full of yeah like you know cereal bowls had a little bit of milk in them yeah just the last part yeah and maybe one or two pieces of cereal i fake plants that i bought at some like set dressing store so i didn't i would go away for like you know eight months to shoot something i come home go right back into it like it all worked yeah and uh and by the way this i mean i'm sure she's not listening but this cleaning lady was um did you just start to whisper if not uh yeah i'm sorry ilana but i uh she we had this thing worked out where she would she was kind of like a terrible cleaning lady

but she would do the dishes which I'm honestly not sure I knew how to do yeah and then she would

there was like a chair that I put all my clothes on and that was it but I was like look I really don't need the place to be that clean

you know it's like clean enough please tell me what I need is like do the dishes and please put my clothes away put the shirts away

please tell me it was like a six bedroom house no no no that's like no that's Put the shirts away. Please tell me it was like a six-bedroom house. No, no, no. That's like, no, that's such an L.A. thing. No, it was just like, you know, the problem is I went from, you know, I did like one year of college and I went to the show and, you know,

you don't start looking at the prices on the menus and you just go. And so my wife was a wonderful um breath of uh influence and influence and i don't want to say fresh air is more like responsibility but well that's a weird thing like when i moved out after even after four years of college and i came out here the first time i had no fucking idea how to do anything i mean i like i mean the fact that i got a bed frame for my futon i got a futon on the floor you know i've been there man and you know you have no excuse after like women are coming home with you who are like yeah come on yeah i'm doing this because you're on television yeah you know what i mean yeah would you act like you're on television please and you're in your real life character seems to have it together

so but really so you only finished one year of college? Yeah, I had a weird, I had the weirdest story I've ever heard in terms of being discovered. Where'd you grow up though? I grew up in Connecticut. What part? Darien, Connecticut. I kind of know, I knew someone from Darien, Connecticut. I was familiar with Connecticut, like because I went to college back there, so I'd drive up and down.

I went to BU. Oh, BU's great. Yeah. Yeah. So like I would drive and even when I started doing comedy, I just know that run from New went to college back there so i'd drive up and down i went to bu but it was great yeah so like i would drive and even when i started doing comedy i just know that run from new york to boston you know that's what i did i went up to massachusetts to a pre-prep which goes through ninth grade and then i went to another prep school in new hampshire so i just kept going up which prep school in new hampshire uh brewster academy yeah but i mean, why prep schools? I mean, you seem like a little prep school-ish, but I mean. I know.

I mean, like you kind of, like it doesn't surprise me, but like how does one. What surprises me is that you went to college. Oh, really? No, no, I'm just kidding. I went for five years even. I stayed undergrad as long as I could. But I mean, like what was your family? What'd your dad do and shit?

My situation- Darien, Connecticut. Again, I'm pretty sure no one's listening in Darien, Connecticut, right? I don't know. You can talk shit about Darien, Connecticut. It's okay. I knew one woman who I went to college. It's just one of those towns.

I don't have a sense of it. But my folks are still there. Oh, okay. But I will say this. I don't think anyone would be surprised it's very myopic and uh i went to camp one year you know when something's so myopic you think it's you yeah of course i mean that's like everything like wherever you grow up you're surprised when you leave well hopefully you know what i mean like it would be bad as if you have

no surprise and you kind of love you know right it's really kind of like myopic town. But when I went to camp, I met a Jewish kid. And that was a surprise? Fucking great. I was like, I got to get the fuck out of here. So I literally went home to my folks and said, I just, I don't think this is for me. What, Connecticut? Yeah, well, that part of Connecticut is like very, the Stanford Wives. Oh. It was shot there. Oh, really?

Like, you ever see the ice storm? Yeah. That's there. I mean, that was shot there, and that's where it takes place. But they, so there were no Jews in Darien? Is that the moral of the story? No, no, no. You had to go to camp to meet a Jew?

There's no anything in Darien. I just met someone who was different like a jewish kid from long island or something and he was oh my god i was like i mean he's still a friend of mine like i was i was so what i thought is like how do i get diverse and sadly like a rich prep school it's like way more diverse than where i was from And it was great, I loved it What was the camp though that you went to? That was called Interlochen And it wasn't like A crazy diverse place anyway

But I kept trying to The reason I came to LA is I just There are a lot of people I grew up with who still want to live there And that is not what I want to do Okay, so you're growing up there, you got siblings? Yeah, younger sister, she's out here too Oh, they both left And your dad's like, what do people do in darien what was his business well he was in advertising and then brand identity but he um he's a copywriter yeah he was

uh no no he was in like he worked at gray advertising when i was younger and in the city yeah he was a lot of guys are bankers. So he was a little different, a little more creative, which was cool. But he got on the train every day. Yeah. And that's what it, it's actually been very hard for me later in life to, I knew no artists when I was younger. And what did your mom do? She was a homemaker and then now she works at a local school there. Yeah, so no, like when did you start?

I mean, for all your listeners i've listened to so many awesome episodes of this show yeah this is so boring my life i'm so sorry don't pressure yourself we maybe just like start later no we're gonna get there no but i know but i it's not boring there is something about you know growing up in in a place that is so set and kind of like creepy because it's so not well when everyone's a swan and you're a duck yeah right you go like i'm an ugly piece of shit yeah and uh you know everyone was so good at sports and my dad he coached a lot of these intramural teams so you tried to do sports yeah i'd be like dad good news i got the lead joseph of the amazing technicolor dream coat you

know he's like okay like and god bless him they i mean my parents even for living there were really really supportive of something that they truly had no information about so you were a theater kid i you do it at high school a little bit but i was so my grades were so bad that i couldn't even really do the plays i mean it was like really they wouldn't let you do plays because your grades were so bad that I couldn't even really do the plays. I mean, it was like- Really? They wouldn't let you do plays because your grades were bad? Sometimes, yeah. I was just not feeling... When I started going to boarding school, I started to work a little harder and then I got a- Is that why they sent you to boarding school? Maybe without my knowledge. I thought I wanted to go, but maybe they were like,

we got to get this kid out of here. Because he's going down. It was a little bit like, it just wasn't't I was wanting to do stuff with my video camera right did you? well a lot of the time it was like well if you finish your homework

you can then you know and then you're like you were stuck man yeah I really was stuck and God bless my parents for uh for letting me

kind of get out and be whatever I was going to be and they were so tell me by the way they ordered a variety

when I got 70 show they ordered variety came like eight days late oh really too but that's how supportive they are they they wanted to be in the loop yeah my mom would call me and say like you know they're uh i don't know if you missed it they're renegotiating your deal no no no it was like they're doing a jurassic park movie you know jurassic park three and i'd be like i well you know i'm sure my agent's aware of that but anyway the weird part of the story is yeah my last year boarding school I had the lead in the school play and Bonnie and Terry Turner you know we did like they were on SNL and they did Wayne's World yeah Tommy Boy and they were they just won the Golden Globe for Third Rock right

they uh their daughter did the sets of this play and You went to school with her. Yeah. When I came to LA to go to USC for that one year, they called me up and said, do you want to come try it? So that's my first audition. That's the crazy story. So they remembered you from the play? Well, I knew their daughter too. I remember seeing them,

hello, Mr. and Mrs. Turner, on Parents Weekend and stuff. And the play was very weird. The drama teacher didn't show up a lot. Yeah. So we added... By the way, it was bad, but it was... Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoach?

No, I played like a bush in that thing. This was a funny thing that happened with the forum. And the drama teacher was sort of AWOL most of the time and you guys just riffed? Yeah. And I'm sure most of it sucked, but I'm sure some of these great comedy writers who happened in the audience were like, well, we're not going to find that in LA. This kid is weird. We were doing some weird stuff.

Yeah? We didn't think that was funny enough. Right. Like Sondheim. Yeah. So we wanted to- Update? Yeah, like add the Macarena or whatever it was like.

Oh, you did that kind of stuff? Pop culture. Yeah. But it was so weird that I think they- Made an impression. They also probably ran through everyone in LA and didn't find someone who was enough of a nerd. Well, you don't have to. I mean, maybe.

Why don't we just assume that you were the guy? No, I actually know that for a fact. Oh. I know that for a fact. They've seen a lot of people. But- Well, let's go back because I didn't go to boarding school and I need to know just who you were in that environment. This will be so boring, but-

What do you mean? What are we going to do? We already told your origin story, the 70s story. I mean, what are you going to go home now? You know, you are right though. Everyone usually just wants to hear that part of it. Boarding school- No, but I mean, you got to go because you're spir know, you are right, though. Everyone usually just wants to hear that part of it. Boarding school. No, but I mean, you've got to go because you're spiraling.

You're not doing well in school. You're no good at sports. Am I picturing it? You're dead on. And what, do you have friends? Do you have friends? No. I had one or two friends who I'd say, let's make a my video camera. Yeah. And they'd be like, what, man?

Let's- Let's smoke weed and kill an animal. I don't know what they wanted to do. Let's play lacrosse or something. Yeah. It was pre-that. That stuff was when I was at boarding school. It was like-

That's what I figured. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So, your parents sent you to boarding school. What grade? Well, so I begged to go to boarding school. I think they had to, like, I mean, they were doing fine, but it's-

Right. You know, to say, like, you're going to start paying for college now right and then pay for college you know it's like i really uh i owe them one but uh well you can pay them back you don't have to owe them no not that much you know just a lot of thank yous but uh they um they uh sent me and what i realized right away is that the kids who want to go to boarding school, which is about 5% of the class, love it. It's co-ed. Everyone thinks it's dead poet society, but it's like miniature college. It's great. But the other 95% are sent there by their parents and they're the first to get kicked out. Like fucked up rich kids.

Yep. But I always bonded with the kids who like me knew how lucky they were to be there and it's a it was it was great it was like i was talking to girls years before i would have yeah and it just gets you out of that small town dynamic where everyone knows each other and you're all kind of doomed i to be honest and this will really surprise you yeah i still wasn't that popular but i was able to do my thing. Yeah. And people really appreciated, like I made a video yearbook, and I was in the plays and stuff, and I felt like even if they thought I was weird, all right, cool, there's kind of room to do your thing.

Well, it's weird because most of your characters are the ones that are most memorable. They're either earnest or weirdly confident and maybe a little slimy. The slimy thing, for sure, yeah. Yeah, and you're not really like that, it seems. Well, that's nice of you to say. I think the Traffic, which was the first movie I was in, and I've done this.

I just did it with Spike Lee recently where I'm in the room with the director. In that case, it was Steven Soderbergh. I know these kids like i grew up with these kids like please let me play oh in traffic yeah for sure that's just kind of same thing in black landsman like i you didn't grow up with those people did you no but uh i no i didn't grow up with anyone who i think is the kkk but i did grow up with people who were kind of weirdly confident and kind of, you know, David Dukes, he was actually a politician,

but before that he was a politician. And there's something I really like about that falseness. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. So in these prep schools, though, were you dealing with – what level prep school was it? Were there Kennedys there? Who was there? I'm trying to think.

Major families, like heirs? No, that's where I was from. Chloe Sevigny was my babysitter. Chloe Sevigny was your babysitter? Yeah. Did her folks live there? Yeah. Really?

She's from there? We were in plays together. She was the tin man and I was the, I was the tin man. She was a scarecrow. Really? She's from there? We were in plays together. She was the Tin Man and I was the... I was the Tin Man. She was a scarecrow. Really? Yeah. And Jamie Vanderbilt, who wrote Truth, this Cate Blanchett movie I did.

Yeah. He actually wrote a movie that closed in Zodiac. He was like the wizard. Really? So that town was more kind of like that. And then the boarding schools I chose were great, but they more uh like a liberal arts but it seems like there was obviously it did nurture some arts because chloe you just assume was this like kind of like product of new york weirdness i know like and she seems like she's been that way since she was seven yeah well there

was okay my chloe's story is which i think you'll like is she babysat for us it's a huge crush on her of course you have her kisses behind her back so she turned back I broke I mean I was young yeah um and then she shaved off all her hair yeah and moved to New York right and then when I was at boarding school I think senior year someone said hey uh there's this kids movie yeah Chloe Seveny's in it I thought she's in like a kids movie yeah like this guy has such a crush. This is like my hot babysitter from when I was young.

And so I went to watch the movie and if you didn't know anyone that was raped by a guy with AIDS at the end of that film, it's disturbing. But then knowing the person who does get, I was like,

I mean, I didn't think about sex for like four days. Yeah. Which was a record amount of time at that time. Yeah, because she's a very odd and unique talent, that person. She's great. Are you friends with her?

I saw her at Cannes when we went to Cannes with this thing. And she's so cool. She's making her own short films. And I'm sure she felt what I was talking about with the ugly duckling thing times a thousand. But are you guys still friends? Or were you like the- Well, we were never really friends as adults, but I see, yeah, I still, you know, it's not weird. I still pay her to come over and babysit.

You know, it just makes me sleep better. It's nice that she's open to that. Well, yeah. So when, okay, so you're in boarding school, you're, you're, you're feeling better about yourself. You're doing, what kind of plays are you doing there? Just for the. Well, sometimes if you did the sports, you could, you only had, could do a small part.

Yeah. So I mostly like small parts. And then I got a, I sprained my ankle doing tennis. I got on varsity tennis, which is a big deal just for me too. Cause I was like, I can't believe I'm going to get a letter. Can you still play? No, no a big deal, just for me too. You did it. Because I was like, I can't believe I'm going to get a letter. Can you still play? No. No? I mean, maybe a little bit.

Yeah. And then I sprained my ankle and I said, fuck it, I'm going to try out for this play. And there was a kid everyone really thought was going to get it. The lead? He boycotted the show once I got the lead. The kid did? Yeah. Wow.

And how long did that rivalry last probably still going on i don't know i feel bad still but uh well especially because he's probably thinking if i'd only done that lead i'd be starring in black klansman or something you know what play was it that was that was a funny thing i believe for him oh okay that was that was your that was the game-changing show. That was your big break. That was everything. That play at that boarding school. Was this at Brewster?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really was. And then what it really was was when Bonnie Turner called me in college, which I had gone to for film school and then didn't get in. I was thrice rejected. From USC? From USC.

But I was going to usc general admission i thought what am i even doing out here and then i think i was like i was high and i mean just hanging out in the dorm and someone called on the phone you know you didn't have cells then she called me in the hallway no no it was in we had him in our room oh and she said hey it's Bonnie and I said Bonnie like ran Saturday Night Live for a while like very impressive yeah

I said Bonnie who she said Bonnie Turner and I didn't I said like did we fuck something like that like some kind of

and she's no it's Lindsay's mom I was like oh my god like hey paranoid out of my mind why are you calling me and then she said that we're doing this show. And she told me the whole plot of the show.

Yeah. And I said, oh, like, I was thinking in my mind, like, I don't want to be her assistant. Yeah, right. Even though it's a great deal. You know what I mean? It'd be great to go be her assistant. It doesn't feel right.

And then she said, why don't you come try out for the lead? And I went like, whoa. Like, I guess I'm not doing anything else and but you you really weren't planning on being an actor at all no i was truly when they say undecided because i'd been rejected from the film squad no idea you wanted to be a director i guess at the time when i thought i knew what the definition of director was then yes but now that i know what it is absolutely not but so you're pretty lost guy usually yeah and then uh i mean i would give anyone the advice to be lost at that age it's like

the best time sure be open to whatever yeah and uh when she called me i remember getting it and you'll understand this how something good turns crappy so quickly oh yeah like it happened already happened today yeah with this interview right yeah this is going terrible no she uh i got it i mean i they made me audition like 200 times because i think they thought are we really going to give this kid who went to school with our daughter but it was something they were doing kind of across the board yeah ashton never acted, but at least like he was a top model at the time or like. He was? Yeah.

Wow. But they thought we're really going to give this kid this role. And then they did. And I came back to the dorm and it was spring break. So like no one was even there. I had to stay there to go to the final audition. And I walked in, there was like no one in this huge dorm.

And then I was watching like TV like tv you know it was echoing through the whole place yeah and i saw an ad for the x files we were going to come on right before the x files yeah like turn to the camera and said i don't know whatever the you know the fox is number one yeah and i immediately had a headache for a month because i went what am i doing like i never dreamed that much whatever happened to me and then but then when we started uh working on it a month later then i felt better because it was so tough way tough how oh my i remember the director saying to me during the pilot like um great job on that take you didn't face the cameras

you didn't know what you're doing. I mean, I had no idea. And the fact that some of those are rerunning like right now. Yeah. It's like crazy to me. But who was the creator? Mark Brazil. Mark Brazil also. Yeah, there was a three of them really.

Yeah, Brazil. I did comedy briefly. I just met him, I think, for the first time recently. He's great. I just saw him a couple months ago. They were so, all of us are so grateful. All the kids on that show had very little experience. Mila had some experience.

Ashton and who were the other ones? Danny had, he'd been on some sitcoms for Percy Warner, but Laura had never acted. Right. Ashton never acted. I mean, Wilmer barely spoke English. Yeah. And we are, every year that goes by

I realize more and more how lucky I was with that situation I mean I knew at the time I was lucky but you know it's like

just to be with those kind of adults who are taking care of you yeah and to end it honestly to get famous with other people yeah

not alone I worked with Don Stark did an episode of my show he's great man yeah He's great, man. Yeah, he's great. He's so fucking good. Yeah, he's funny. He's solid.

He's a nice little guy. Everyone there was like a, I mean, the people who weren't heavy hitters were us at the beginning. Who was the guy who played your dad? Kurtwoods. He did an episode of my show too, actually. What's going on, man?

It seems like kind of personal that you've hired everyone on the show except for me. My show's gone, and you wouldn't have done it. It was on IFC. I know my buddy, my best friend, Richie Keen, he directed some episodes. Yeah, he did. Yeah.

He's your best friend? Yeah. He's a nice guy. He's a great guy, yeah. He did a good job. He loves you, too, yeah. Oh, does he? Yeah.

So did you ever take any acting or did you just learn all of it? Can you believe it? No, no. No. No, no. I think you all of it? Can you believe it? No, no. No. No, no. I think you're good. But I mean, it's like, it's one of those things where, because I talk to a lot of actors now, and especially now that I'm acting a bit, I like talking to actors because-

Yeah. No, I listen to your show. I love how you talk about the process of, first of all, only now do I understand how different standup is from acting. Right. Just because I didn't understand what standup was. And I have some friends who do standup. And I think like-

Who? No one. No one good. No one that I know. But I do understand how tough it is. And I love how you've talked about how different a thing it is. I actually think it's,

I think it's easier than standup. That's where I've- Acting? Oh, for sure it is. Yeah, because you can do this. Like, can we do that again? Right. I mean, just that question.

Also, when I've seen what it takes, the work, you can kind of, I think Seinfeld says something about this, which is kind of shitting on some of those people in his cast who are very talented. But it's true. Like, you can walk in the door like I did and just start acting. Yeah. And maybe you kind of have a skill for it. You cannot start doing stand-up. That's true.

But the weird thing is is that if somebody's a funny actor, like, especially on his show, like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, I mean, she's a fucking genius. She is. And there's nothing that Seinfeld will ever do out of his own brain as comedy

that will ever be even a little bit as funny as Julia Louis-Giuffre is doing anything. That's so interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I actually. I mean, he can talk for 10 hours. I would say, though, what she has is a learned over a long period of time skill, too. Like she didn't. You can't drop in and be like she was.

But not unlike you, there's something about comedic acting that I don't think stand-ups necessarily get. You watch most stand-ups do acting. They're pretty good at being serious. Yeah, that's so funny. That's so true.

You know? That's so true. That's actually what you want. If you look at the weak link in the cast of Seinfeld, it's definitely Jerry Seinfeld. In terms of acting. Yeah.

Well, I didn't think I'd shit on Jerry Seinfeld. Probably the greatest sitcom of all time. No, we're not shitting on him. I'm just, I'm answering his commentary. Yeah. I mean, there is people who act who have a natural ability.

And I think, and what I've grown to learn after talking to a lot of actors is that for some people, that's a huge part of it. I mean, you can't explain it. I mean, there are classically trained people that are amazing and do all these things. But people who just show up and do the task at hand in one character, they can nail it. But there's no crime in that. Well, I'll tell you two things were my school, which is one, I took a class at the Groundlings in that month that I didn't know what to do. Whether you were going to get it or not?

No, no. I had it. I just had to wait like a month and a half before we started working on it yeah so like terrified did somebody recommend you do that i know i think will ferrell was on snl and i said you know we didn't have the internet then i was like how did he right led me there and i'm glad i did because it wasn't an acting class it was an improv class and those skills aren't uh someone imposing something on you right like some method right it's just like oh if i go off script i have the ability to uh there's something within me that'll create something so that was really helpful give you

a little confidence yeah and then you know the school really was it like doing it uh yeah every day you're getting up. You got to do the whole process of makeup, sit there, get your lines in your head. Whenever I hear a young person shit on being a sitcom, I think, what an idiot. Yeah. Like it is the greatest school,

like a bootcamp or like graduate school or whatever you want to call it for acting. There's a filmic element. So you learn that. There's a live audience. So there's kind of like a theater element. Yeah. you suck which you do especially like me if you've never acted before yeah you get back up next week you do another show yeah and and over i mean i think everyone on that show would tell you that that over like yeah four or five years we got good and you yeah

you all became very defined characters i mean if i'm not if i'm remembering correctly you were sort of the straight man right to a lot of the that was hard for me to learn how to be funny within that yeah there is a humor but it's like uh there's moments where you're just setting other people up yeah but all of it was like god it was like uh if you leave liberal arts college and you go to work at a blacksmith. Yeah. Like, and you're just making horseshoes. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, yeah, your first 80 horseshoes are going to suck. And then, you know. But were you like working around somebody like Kurt Wood who's like, you know, he's a real deal. I mean, he does. I'll tell you something Kurt Wood told me. Yeah. Just recently we had lunch and he is not only one of the great actors, he's also just a really great guy.

Yeah. And he said the first week, I mean, I'm so ashamed of this, but he was so wonderful when he told me this story. Because I never worked with actors either. So it's not just that, like in my audition I brought like, they said bring a picture and a resume. Yeah. I said like, what is that?

And they said, you know, like a picture of you so we can see what you look like and it was like me and my friends at six flags that's what i brought and they were like who is this kid and the the resume was like you know dunkin donuts and suncoast video and whatever you worked at suncoast video and dunkin donuts and fox knows about it now because i brought that resume and. And then the first week, so I was like bad at that stuff, but it was charming. But then we were doing it. There's a way, as you know,

to talk to actors. And that's a skill that you're learning in tandem with being an actor. Yeah. Is also you're only as good as kind of how you communicate with the other actors.

You mean off screen or on screen? Off screen. Oh, yeah. And so the first week, I i mean i didn't even remember this kurt would said that he came in and did his line you know this rehearsal we still have like five days until we're gonna tape it yeah he said his line and i go oh sorry man that's not how i saw you saying it when i read this in my head last night this guy already worked for 25 30 years it's a robocop and dead poet society like tons of shakespeare and here's this kid who's like in a teen yeah he's like that's not how it was in my

and he remembered it that's what that that's uh i mean for anyone listening you're like tell that is the worst thing you could say to another actor is like that's not how it was in my head yeah what does that even mean like yeah I mean yeah it is what if I came up to you on the set and I gave you a line reading that's like illegal but yeah

but you don't think like looking back on it that that was really your intent you were just surprised because you had planned your thing a different way so instead of saying like

yeah that's right I wasn't telling him what to do but I was like that's not going to jive with what I have prepared right and Kerwood

this just shows what a wonderful man he is. Yeah. And he really was a real father figure on that show. He said, when we went and had lunch and I sat there like, oh, Kerwood, I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say. It's like, dude, what is it, 20 years later? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. He goes, hey, man, you were so good. Yeah. It was really nice of him. Because there was a quality that I knew I was doing good, but then I'm sure i was doing so many things wrong i just feel bad for but like when you were on the set like i mean because i i guess like just working you know just doing it and and getting a chemistry going but when i do things now like i still because i've i haven't done that much tv and i'm doing i did did my show and I'm doing Glow.

But like, I really do, I'm still getting the, I don't know when my coverage is happening. I'm still not, like I'm still not hip to, like I'm putting, I'm going all in every time

and then someone has to come up to me and go, the camera's not on yet. Oh, okay. So I'll just, ease up a little bit. Those are tricks. You know,

I agree with you. There's either a core thing you have or you don't. I know people who are allergic to acting and it will never, no matter how hard they could work at it, you either kind of understand it or not. But then to the point you made about Julia Louis-Dreyfus or anyone on that show,

because they all had a lot of experience. They had gotten to that place over a long period of time and those were pros and you never went back to uh you never trained at all no uh i always feel like that sounds terrible when i say i you know the other thing i did that was amazing is when after the show ended yeah i went and did a show in new york uh that paul weitz wrote who i did a paul weitz movie but he wrote a show and that was its own kind of I've never been the same yeah yeah I've never done one you know outside of high school and that was like a school too because I learned about the way I prepare now like for this movie

I just did like I take months work on the character yeah oh yeah and get so off book and i've rehearsed it myself before i go into rehearsal you know how long were you did the 70s show for like a million years right for seven years seven and you're doing like 23 a year right yeah there was one year because of the strike or an impending strike that we did 29 or so they were really uh we didn't know how to say no right we did the most you could do. Did you get to a point, like at what point were you like, what happens after this?

Is this the life for me? Because a lot of people don't survive television. The sitcom thing, yeah. Especially the sitcom thing. Yeah. Yeah, the first year, some people went to do movies. Yeah.

And I read a bunch of, you know, Titanic had come out like two years before. Yeah. So there was kind of a lot of teen. Well, how old were you then? Fair. I was 18 or 19. Yeah. I was 18 during the pilot.

Yeah. And so there was a lot of like teen stuff. Yeah. And you'd get paid and it looked fun. You know, you'd go up to Canada and you're in some hotel with a bunch of people your age

and who knows what happens but I'd read these scripts and just think I mean granted I'd never read scripts before yeah I was like

this just doesn't seem good yeah I'm bad at reading scripts they never seem good well you know most of them aren't good oh is that true in my experience

yeah so they're kind of like something else yeah but I thought Well, you know, most of them aren't good. Oh, is that true? In my experience, yeah. So, they're kind of like something else. But I thought, so I sat out the first summer. After the first year of 70 Show. Yeah, and I came back. You know, it really is like there's a summertime, and you come back for fall semester of 70 Show or whatever. And everyone had done these movies, and I went, oh, man, maybe I kind of made a mistake. Well, now you've got to wait a year.

Like, you know, if you're on a Netflix show oh you have time off yeah like it's like a year like we shoot 10 you guys are shooting 23 everyone wants the gig you have right now I like Julie Roberts wants that gig you know what I mean like everyone wants that gig

so congrats thank you thank you very much so when did you finally kind of break out and do something i think i made a deal with myself that i just wouldn't do anything that i like i'd rather just not be an actor at the end of the experience because i hadn't wanted to be an act i wasn't one of those kids who had like a yeah my speech wasn't planned in the shower right yeah speech or whatever yeah so i just, maybe I'll just kind of like not act after this. And who knew when it was going to end either, you know, in the beginning part.

But you guys were doing good by the second or third season. You were making some money. Yeah, but I don't, I know by the time, basically it was all the things I said no to that I credit. Not when I got traffic, it was like, oh, well, obviously I'm credit not when i got traffic it was like oh well obviously i'm gonna do this yeah so that wasn't hard it was saying no to a bunch of kind of seductive things and and no i remember at that time we weren't we were like picked up but the show you know the show really didn't hit until like the fifth season really it was like on yeah uh but i credit two things which is one we got better as actors you know took a while and two uh ashton really blew up yeah and uh and that brought just the

right you know just like the it was the tipping point for us ashton is like i learned a lot from that guy yeah and you know he had as much experience as I had when we started, which is zero. But he is the king of commitment. Yeah. Like I'm not even sure if someone who had more experience could teach you this lesson because I think people would be wary if they've been in the business longer. Right. That guy, no matter what it was, the writers were great on that show.

Yeah. But once in a while there's something maybe you don't want to do yeah ashton would not only do it he'd do it at like an a thousand yeah and the audience would be i'd go this is not even a good joke and the audience is rolling around like and he'd do everything like it was great i really all in yeah yeah he was really and that's an important lesson to learn especially in comedy like right away sure commit all the way

yeah you know that's I think the big fear like certainly as a comic where you don't have much say in it necessarily and you know

you know like no this joke's horrible I'd love to see you on the set of Glow how does this go down when you don't like something no they kind of

the character is kind of built around me. In the sense that it's not inherently a comedy. It's not a joke to joke show. No, no, but let's say you just don't like something you're doing. How does that? Oh, I'll say that. Oh, I'm not surprised. But then how does it go? Well, I mean, usually it doesn't happen that often because it's a big cast, and usually my scenes are pretty tight. And after the first season, even after the first few scripts, they were able to kind of write my voice and stuff.

That's the most wonderful thing about television. That's like the miracle of television is that these writers are in this symbiotic thing with you. So it's really, it comes down to character issues. And if it's a word or a line, I mean, I'll just say it different. And then the writer will come up to me and go like, okay, that's good. But can you say the one that. And then what do you say? Well, I give them all the versions, you know, because I don't.

You know, right? Yeah, because I don't, what do I know? I mean, I know how to write for myself. Right. But sometimes, like, maybe it's not, it's very important to me in that moment, but you got to assume that they know what they're doing. Yes, that's the whole end game of the thing for me has been, like, just working with the right people. Yeah. Because it's full trust either way.

Right. And it's like a lot of times, unless it's like a real character thing where I'm like, this guy wouldn't do that. And I think they can miss that. And I imagine in a broader sitcom, that probably happens a lot where it's just sort of like, it's a joke for a joke's sake. Compared to other shows that had young people in it. Yeah. In terms of playing ball. Like, you know, I think a lot of, I think about other shows that were on at the time, but a lot of these younger casts will kind of, I think they're scared.

Yeah. Like they're coming from a place that they'll look foolish or something. And the good thing about that whole cast is no one minded looking foolish, which is, you know, you're halfway there. And I knew that. I mean, I grew up in that time.

So it wasn't, it was nostalgia for me, but I knew, like, I was kind of familiar with well now imagine everyone i grew up with people saying that to me because i was on the show but now i have people saying like man i grew up on that show on that show yeah didn't they do an 80s show too they did that how long that you know glenn howerton yeah he was the star of that 80s show. Oh. He was like my counterpart on that show, yeah. I didn't realize that. I didn't watch it. Was it on a while?

Nope. So, like with movies, so that Traffic was your first movie? Yeah, so that experience was, like it was, I kind of was hovering around like I want to do something better, but then to get something that's that good with a director that's that – I mean, talk about having trust in a director. I can't even imagine. He does a lot of different things. He's very good. I have no sense of what he's like as a person.

That's great. But he certainly takes risks. He's so easygoing, though. You'd think – I have the same thing with Chris Nolan. I thought before I went to work with him, I thought, oh, my gosh, this guy's going to like so intense because the material is so good. And it's just the opposite. It's so loose.

And traffic was like, you know, he operates the camera. Oh, he does. And he does these kind of jump cuts. So he'll kind of, I mean, you know, when someone's yelling at you from Video Village, like, you know, be happier or whatever. This guy, he'll just like pop the camera off his shoulder for a second and say like, yeah, do that again and try to, you know, put the cocaine on top of the thing. Yeah, yeah. And man, it was, I was really spoiled by that. I just work with a director who has a mic at Video Village.

Like there's loudspeakers on the set. I would say I don't like that. I'd say that is the opposite. Why don't you have someone who's just at home and Yeah. And just kind of Skyping in, you know? I'm sure it's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's only a matter of time.

But like that, your part in that story, that was so menacing and horrible. That's a disturbing bit of business, that movie. Well, I'll tell you something that happened after that was, because I cut my hair, which had grown long for the 70s. Yeah. I went to the Golden Globes with Erica Christensen, who was the girl in it.

Yeah. And everyone was coming up. She was the one who got strung out? Yeah. And everyone's like, you're great. And she'd say, and Topher's in it.

And they're like, what part did you play? Because my hair was long and for the show. And I was like, what part? And I was like, no one's going to know

because these things are too different. I should have done like a wacky comedy that's kind of like set. And only, like, you know, five or six years later i'm like oh my god this is great yeah like i should totally do shit that doesn't you know it's not good for money yeah that's what i've learned like it's not good for money to do things that are totally different because no one

can get no one can monetize it because you're typecast and they think that they're not going to be you're not if you're typecast then you make money you're not going to be. Well, if you're typecast, then you make money. Because you go, oh, that's what I expect from this person. Well, that's what I mean, right. But if you do something that's way outside of what they expect out of you, then they think you're taking it. Well, they can't even track it. They go, what is this? And, you know, I'm still doing it. So you just went back to the 70s show and you felt like no one noticed your performance?

Yeah, this is like horrible. Like no one knows I was even in that movie. And the truth is, yeah, the people traffic we're not watching that 70s show but over a long period of time it's the way i get i get it up doing lots of different you know what i mean like yeah for sure well i mean that scene like that was some heavy you know i mean i just talked to michael douglas and he's like he's like uh he's a heavy actor really no matter what kind of casual kind of you know happy-go-lucky guy he seems. No, no, no, no.

You don't even know, man. That first day, the first day I had ever on film. I never shot something outside of a studio. Yeah. So I never shot outdoors before. We're in this car, and I have this speech where I'm telling him off. Yeah. I mean, he's got an Oscar already.

You know what I mean? And I'm like, listen to me, you piece of shit, or whatever my speech is to him. And I guess the third take, because Steve doesn't do a lot of takes, the third take, he goes, just lose it on this kid. Just for his reaction, just lose it on him. You didn't know he said that to him? I mean, you can't play it back now, but I have a very strange reaction at the end of the speech I give him, where I go from a full smile into like I'm about to cry yeah and i it's from that he lost it on me in this car we're sitting

in this car yeah this that part wasn't used in the movie right right but he loses on me so hardcore and i thought like i mean no idea what was happening was it did it seem personal oh beyond i mean i didn't know what was going on in the moment and then you know afterwards they both came to me and said hey rock star you're fucking awesome and i was like whoa where am i i did like a photo shoot with him a couple years ago like i love michael and that was my your baptism cherry yeah yeah what was he yelling at you you know i now realize it was improvised but he was like you know i'm like really telling i don't have to remember the scene but i'm really telling him off yeah which is so ironic because i'm like i got his daughter hooked on smack but i'm telling him about the um how drugs affect different neighborhoods

yeah yeah yeah and he's like the drug czar right yeah he's the drug czar of america so he started yelling at me and he's not fucking around you're right when. When he turns on the Douglas, which, you know, it runs in the family. You know, he just, he lost on me. And then when they said cut, he kind of grabbed me and went like, that was great. And I went like, where am I? After he just abused you, almost made you cry? And some of that stuff was so hardcore. Before it, I kind of made a promise to myself,

like I want to do good stuff. But when I finished that film and then saw it later that year, I went, that's it. I just have to be in good things. I don't care if I ever get paid. I don't care what... Or at the very least, I have to be in the pursuit of being in something that I believe in.

Yeah, and the experience is good. Do you like doing films? Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I love it. And playing different things. Yeah, I mean, I saw, like, I really like that movie In Good Company. Oh, man, me too. Yeah, Paul Weitz is.

That's the guy you did the play with too? Yeah, Paul and Chris wrote and directed American Pie and then About a Boy. And that was Paul's first time directing alone. Yeah. And they've had so much success. I just thought it was a sweet movie. And you got to work with Quaid, who's like another- He was in Traffic.

I actually knew him from Traffic. Oh, that's great. That was great because he was sort of a slimy lawyer. And he was actually in Truth, this Cate Blanchett movie I did two years ago. And it's like, we've worked together a lot. Wait, that was the one with Robert Redford.

Yeah. Oh, that's right. But he, he's another guy. It's got like really surprising range, but I tell you a lot of what I'm talking about. Yeah.

Feels very strongly about like trying different things. And yeah, the more you go into, go at it that way, the more you meet people who are like that, who, yeah, you know, are willing to take. I mean, that guy, he's taking some really cool risks.

He'll be on the Amy Schumer show. You know what I mean? He'll just be doing stuff you don't. I went and did Workaholics because he said, I'm going to do Workaholics. Oh, really? Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. Which movie did you do with Nolan? I have a small part in Interstellar.

Oh, that's right. That's a crazy movie. I did, you know, I'm talking about it now like it's all one chunk, but I've been acting for so long. Like, to be honest, there was a period where I did more romantic comedies than I, you know, I did get into a little bit of a rut for me. Which ones? I don't know valentine's day

that would be one of them but i did have a thing with gary marshall stop stop gary marshall i loved gary i mean i look that's one of the better ones because you're doing a rom-com it's like opposite anne hathaway and gary marshall's directing and if you're gonna do one it's look at everybody in that movie oh my god but i had a thing where after a period there i went like i i said to my agents kind of a similar thing which was i i want to try different stuff yeah uh interstellar was the first of like the new stuff by the way i'm no longer with those agents they were like no oh really yeah but i uh i just i said i want i don't want to do that.

And they kind of say, okay, so one more for the money. And then it's like. Oh, that's what they, did they say it? And I said, no, no, zero more for the money. Like, I really want to, this was kind of from Interstellar on, I've really been working on stuff that I really did. Do you have stuff that, like, I mean, is there stuff out there that you're like, oh, I'm embarrassed about?

No, nothing I'm embarrassed about. That's good about because I went into everything with the best of intentions. I just, you know what it was? You start going, wait, I've done all these moves before. Right. And it's, I'm not having a good day on set. This might even be a hit as Valentine's Day was. It was a huge hit. But like, you know, when I go to set, that's not an exciting day.

Yeah. You know, I'm thinking about the result instead of just what it is for me and a lot of this stuff like truth i don't know if you saw war machine but like david i think is an amazing director yeah and also being able to work with brad pitt and you know yeah kate blanchett and stuff like those that was i was like every day i was coming from and some of those movies didn't work truth didn't really i saw truth it i thought that was good i didn't work. Truth didn't really hit that hard. I saw Truth. I thought that was good. I didn't see War Machine. But I loved it too. I loved every day of those movies. I mean,

Interstellar, being on that set. I was like, I don't even care if this comes out just to watch Chris Nolan direct for like three weeks. I just sat around watching Kubrick do his thing. So to me now what it's about, I didn't think Black Klansman would hit as hard as it did.

I just wanted to work with Spike Lee. And I was like, this part's amazing. Well, I mean, I think that's a good move. I mean, if you can afford to make that move, why not do it? I mean, you only live once, right? I did have a thing. It's funny, I just turned 40. And I did have a thing where I had met my wife.

Yeah. Or the woman who's going to become my wife. And I was like, I feel pretty, like, what am I doing this for? Yeah. I'm just going to die. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Sure.

Like, how many more years do I, you know, hopefully a bunch, but like, why don't I just do exactly what I want to do? And luckily I have a manager who was like, just keep going. One of them will hit. Right. Like, just do what you are really proud of. And I just want to work with these great auteurs, you know,

that are like, it's inspiring. That's great. I mean, and, and so like, how did the Spike Lee part happen? I,

I just read a lot now. I read a ton of scripts, you know, and I said, send me the new, you know, anyone I like and Spike's one of them, you know,

who's a great auteur. I said, you know, send me their stuff. And, uh, he, if he's got a auteur, you know, send me their stuff. And he... If he's got a thing coming out, that kind of thing? Yeah, but when I read it, my people, there's nothing in it for you.

And I said, no, no, I think I have a take on David Duke. There was just like silence on the other end of the phone. Your agents? Yeah, I don't think they were against it, but they were like, whoa, huh? And they said, you're gonna, they talked to him. him they said you're gonna have to go in and like audition because uh no one's seen you you know do anything like that yeah absolutely uh you know you got it it's on you it's a proof of concept or something so what'd you do what'd you do to prepare the The night before, I was reading these sides alone in my office at home.

Like my wife had gone to bed. And I couldn't say some of the words out loud. I'm sure you have the comedian friends who have figured out a way to use certain words. They're trying to find the humor in the word or something. Right. Yeah. I mean, you at some point say them alone just to disarm them or yeah you can i don't know what it is you know there's people i'm not one of the people i never tried to use

certain words ever well no you don't definitely you usually don't want to integrate them into conversation but conversations have been had certainly sometimes yeah i'm one of those people like i'm just a boy scout about it i i couldn't find the humor in it or the so you had to say what the n-word a bunch of different words yeah and then it's offensive on a because he's kind of an intellect which is bizarre in that world you know what I mean so like yeah they're they're the dangerous ones the ones rewriting history and oh I mean we're telling his future like yeah really so done as much research as I could on him you know I only had a couple days because you're watching

tapes of him talking and stuff oh yeah but it pales in comparison to what I was doing once I got the role which was like just the most depressing it was like the worst month of my life it was like really terrible the shooting of it was really fun but all the stuff leading up to it once I got it was like you know I read his autobiography which is um oh here I see it on your bookshelf. No, it's just research, man. That's what I would have to tell someone. By the way, I would read it on a plane and then I'd be like, Oh shit, I can't bring this on a plane. So I'd put a dust jacket of like something else on it. And still the person looking over me like, what the fuck is this book about? This guy's reading. I mean, it's just, you have to read it

alone. So it's a, is it a racist manifesto? Yeah. It's his mind comp. It's like, it's just you have to read it alone so it's a is it a racist manifesto basically yeah it's his mind comp yeah it's like it's kind of his autobiography i guess but it's more like it's horrible you feel complicit yeah reading the words you know like and then i was watching these film scenes that they sent to me from the 70s and then listening to a bunch of his radio show for his voice because that doesn't age really and then the best was i was still on radio still doing yeah oh i've heard his i mean i shouldn't say this on the air but i've heard his thing about the about the movie oh really i mean imagine watching fox news but it's about you yeah do you know what i mean like

because he was talking about having his reactions and people were asking me in press they're like did you did you meet him and i was like the fuck no i'm not gonna do you know what i mean like i don't want to meet this guy like yeah everyone have a conversation with him but the the best thing was he responded he reacted to the movie yeah he tweeted about it my wife was like you know wake up like david dude just tweeted about you oh what do you say you know all of his stuff is the reason i say fox news is because it's like uh like you're looking at the same story that you know but you feel like it's really twisted in this weird way um like his tweet was what did i say i said to an interviewer around when it came out in can i said this long interview about how evil he was and how i tried to you know when you're playing a bad guy you try

to see their point of view i really couldn't so i just played kind of evil i just went on about how much i didn't like him that you couldn't you couldn't take on uh the way he thought yeah i think you're supposed to as an actor most maybe fictional villains say like well here's why i think the joker is the way he you know i see it compassionately from his side but it has such ramifications on politics today i mean the news we were watching at the time that i was doing it that i i couldn't i couldn't go there with him so i gave this whole interview about how i thought he was terrible and one of the things i said is i watched a lot of donahue because he was on donahue and he had sway with the crowd i mean they were booing him at first and then he he was so good with them it

really showed me how evil he was that he could kind of work the crowd a little bit and uh and that i noticed he said make america great again and america first those are like and they really stand out i don't know who's watching donahue episodes now it was in the early 80s oh in the early 80s but i but to hear them now you know it was like crazy and we worked into the film and uh so when i was talking when i was I don't know, this article came out, I guess. And he said in his tweet, this is how twisted this guy is. He goes, thank you, Topher. I agree that Donald Trump ripped off those quotes.

I'm with you. I was like, wait. Oh, no. So now you got to deal with that? Your pal, your new friend? I mean, I was like, I couldn't have been more clear, you know. Sure. No, he just appropriated it.

He just absorbed you into his darkness. Yeah, it was really. How'd you handle it? I didn't do anything on Twitter because I'm not very active on that. And I didn't want to be in a conversation with him. So I guess I talked about it on like Nightline or something. A sad side effect of it is that it does put some light on him, which is, you know, what he kind of feeds on.

Right. But I hope that it more shows you what an idiot he is. The good side of it is that it means that it is affecting people. You know, it really, I mean, that's what's great about being in a movie by Spike is that you actually, you know,

it's such a frustrating time to be anybody. I mean, what kind of voice does anyone have? Yeah. But it was like, oh yeah,

we can kind of, we're on a national level. We're kind of saying something. I mean, Spike's saying something. We're helping him say something. You know, we put that America First thing

and that wasn't in the script. And, it pops too. And know, we put that America first thing, and that wasn't in the script. And it pops, too. And, yeah, it was in the trailer. I was like, you know, did Trump see this? Yeah. I mean, I know he watches TV. Yeah. He probably did.

That's crazy. You haven't heard from Trump yet on Twitter? No, I know that Focus was really hoping for, like, a tweet. It would have been. Oh, yeah. They were hoping, hoping like just a little that's another 10 million dollars if we just get a little negative press from the president something great but yeah but uh oh so that's interesting though you know you know in your process as you

say that you engage it you couldn't find empathy for the guy well it's really because uh we just had a daughter and it was our first and i was like watching the news this is before i got the part and you're like how do you uh you know how can you i mean everyone has this problem right now no one knows what to do and then how do you how do you how do you guide your new child yeah like what kind of world am i bringing this person into and then getting the project was cathartic because you're like oh wow i have a way to kind of process this um but and it was great when we were in can and spike was speaking and you felt like the world was really listening yeah you went i'm so proud to be a part of this yeah i'm not sure valentine's day had the same effect on the world no

what was it like working with Spike as a director on your tour of auteurs how did he work with you how was he's like I mean if you ever

get the chance man okay I'll put a call in Topher said I should try to get a chance I'll let my mom tell you when the variety comes that says that Spike's

I'll give you I'll give you my number she's Spike is I mean like the greatest it was like that says that spike's i'll give you i'll give you my number she's uh you know spike is um i mean i'd like the greatest it was like the tone of that movie is so interesting tone i mean like i didn't i didn't think we got it on the set i knew i really trusted spike and he's great but i was like how is this possible to have this much uh funny stuff in it and yeah and then when i saw it i went this is why you got to work with guys like this i in it and yeah and then when i saw it i went

this is why you got to work with guys like this i mean he is anyway and he was great i'd get a little we did all the um clan stuff in one week and that week was like really rough for me yeah we'd be improvising stuff and he'd come up like hey so like give the nazi salute yell white power and then i'm gonna have these 300 people behind you start yelling white power. And I was like, okay. He's like,

also, we're going to run a birth of a nation in front of you, but we're new to the lynching scene. Like I was like, Oh my God. Like, and then you're doing it and you know how it is. You're doing five takes.

And I just was so, I'm not, I'm not a method guy. Like I'm not someone who like brings it home with me. Yeah. Yeah. But I'd kind of be in the corner and he's so good at coming up to you and being like hey man like don't worry I'm Spike Lee yeah this is gonna be fun like I know this feels bad but yeah it's gonna be cut with other stuff yeah you're serving my message and and uh and he was

right when I saw it I went oh man but that's a lot of trust i was saying to someone in can like i don't want to play david duke like that wasn't like i want to play david duke in a spike lee joint right i don't want to be david duke in like the david duke tv movie right right whatever right even if he's portrayed as a total bad guy yeah you know i only want to do it i honestly don't know another director I could do it with. And how's the feedback been? My experience was that I believe it's because I did a good job. But when we were in Cannes, the first time we saw it, and it was, you know, it's in front of like 2,000 people.

Yeah. And it got a 10-minute standing ovation. And they can boo you over there. Yeah. Have you been to Cannes? No. I'd never been before. So you walk up this red carpet and it's all different it's like a mile long red carpet and people are cheering you and then you go into the theater and they can boo afterwards

too so it's not like they're definitely gonna share and this film hit so hard i mean it's like so of the moment uh what they didn't tell me is at the end they bring out a video camera and they put it on your face yeah so like you know like the credits end yeah and then there's a picture of like adam driver's face on the screen i was like oh my god we're live yeah and the whole audience is applauding and yelling french you know like you know fantastic super cool and they're you know then it goes to john david washington everyone's cheering and then it comes over for my close-up and just kind of stops. It wasn't negative, but people were standing just kind of not applauding. And then it went over to Laura.

And they start throwing roses and applauding again. And I was like, I think it's because I was good. You know what I mean? But you can't applaud that guy after the... That's right, yeah. But that's kind of what people have been coming in interviews. And they're like, good job. yeah like i guess you felt very comfortable with it that's i think that's good but it's you know what i mean but it's part of the i guess it's part

of um playing somebody like that i'll tell you i knew because we were talking about 70s which i you know i rarely do this long form stuff like i knew going into it um the amount of uh what would you call it like the real estate i had of like good guyness yeah that character yeah and certainly playing other characters have been a little sliming i've been happy to do but i thought yeah i'm gonna turn up to 11 and like it's gonna be it'd be confusing if richie cunningham sure play that character yeah you know what i mean it'd just be really uh it would feel about as evil to me as the character should feel so i really i dug that part of it where people are a little confused yeah it's it's nice it's nice to dirty

up uh one of america's good guys i'm talking about you tover right not talking about david duke yeah do you know what i mean like people know you as a certain way but you've but you've evolved i mean people have seen you in enough things where you i don't think they were crazy i mean i don't think it's one of those like putting the rug out in front of you but i think it is a little bit uh yeah whatever that feeling that queasiness i think is good for that's exciting so what what was this other one that you just got done that you said you had to immerse yourself in oh that, that wasn't, I do it for everything now. That was a total opposite.

I play a preacher. It's like, it couldn't be the more, I just love doing the opposite of whatever the last thing is I do. But I just rehearse the shit out of it now.

I never, I used to kind of show up on set, you know, you're looking at the sides and. Put it in your head. Yeah, and I wasn't, I mean, these aren't movies

I'm ashamed of, but ever since I did that play, I'm not fucking around. Like, I hire someone to come to my house. And run with you oh not first run lines and then rehearse and what an acting coach no this is a guy who actually doesn't act he just is i asked my wife to do it once or twice and she was like you gotta hire someone like i'm not gonna oh so like sit here and run lines for you know hours and hours so he doesn't act you just want you just want to run the

line yeah i actually don't want to act towards the end i'm kind of starting to try my stuff but you don't want to lock in a performance because you know that might not be what it's going to be but i want to be so ready now but you know what i learned is that there's like an epidemic yeah i don't know if you have this on glow which is probably not a lot of great acts but maybe with like some guest cast or something like people really don't know if you have this on glow, which is probably not a lot of great acts, but maybe it was like some guest cast or something like people really don't know their lines. I know, dude. Yeah. Maybe.

But is that you've seen that change since you've been in the game? No. Oh, it's always been that way. I always knew my lines. I just didn't know them. You can go as deep as you want. I always knew my lines. I just didn't know them, you can go as deep as you want.

And my thing now is like, I don't ask for someone else's permission. I'm like really doing the work beforehand. So what I hate about when someone doesn't know their lines isn't that they don't get it. Because you can get it or they can sew it together with editing by cutting to someone else. They'll figure it out. It's that that was the only take that worked right like if you got five takes yeah your first take if you're if you know your lines and you got an opinion about it yeah can be good and then you can be trying other stuff and your performance is going to be better because the editor has all this right you know clay to work with some of these people i've worked with by the way i've worked a

lot of people who are great but uh there's nothing worse too when it when it's for me when it's like a young person who comes in it's just kind of like this is day one i just i get so yeah bummed because they knew they had the part they had the script and they didn't do it well it's just to their own detriment yeah yeah i mean i i've known i've seen that a couple of times where, like, I'm pretty good at memorizing lines, and I'll get them pretty good in my head, but like, you're inspiring me to maybe go more with it. But I think the reason people get lazy, especially with movies or television,

is that you're doing these two-minute chunks, and you're gonna spend four hours on that. Yeah. So like, I think the laziness. You can get it. So why do the work? And the answer is, I guarantee you. It'll be better.

Well, I guarantee you that Tom Hanks is doing work before he comes to the set. Of course. It's just not a coincidence. All these people that I really respect are you know what i heard this is a i mean i don't know if anyone would care about this but i it really like changed how i approach things that when meryl streep is offered a film she i don't even know if this is true i mean i didn't hear it from her but like i think she is a makeup person and a hair person on retainer in New York. Yeah.

And she, so when they offered her Margaret Thatcher or whatever. Yeah. She doesn't say yes to the offer yet. She goes, puts on all the makeup, gets with the dialect person, puts on the hair. I mean, she's not a magician. Yeah. I mean, she needs to work like everyone else, right? I mean, look, she's better than probably anyone else on the planet.

But like. Yeah. She still does all of it. Then she films herself doing it, doing a couple scenes. Yeah. And then if she sees it and she likes it, she says, yeah. So that's why she wins an Oscar every time. It's because she's already did the whole process and goes like-

I can be that person. Yeah. And then when she shows up on set, you go, she's magic. Yeah. But it's probably just a ton of hard work. Oh, yeah. No, I- Plus she's

the best ever to live you know but i agree with you i i think that i think that there are people that either because they've been at it a long time or because they got in it to get away with it uh yeah yeah oh man you can see that in people's eyes too you know i feel the same way about working with these auteurs that's what really changed it for me through osmosis kind of around them when i uh did you go to the kubrick exhibit here oh yeah i did i did yeah i did yeah so i'm working with these auteurs. That's what really changed it for me through osmosis kind of around them. When I, did you go to the Kubrick exhibit here? Oh yeah, I did.

I did. I did. Yeah. So I'm looking at all these props. This is right before I went to do Interstellar. And it was like, do you see all the research you've done on Napoleon? Which he never even made,

by the way. Yeah. It was crazy. But the chair from 2001, I think I knew I had Interstellar. So it was like, I was like, oh man,

I'm about to go do a 2001 type movie. chair had this whole story next to it which i by the way i still remembered from the movie yeah that uh probably because he did so much work on it he got with the biggest chair maker at the time or the best chair maker and they spent months saying what would a chair be like if it was in zero gravity i mean he did that much work on just the fucking chair. Yeah. And of course, yeah, I still remember it. It's not just like, yeah, that chair looks futuristic. Right, right.

So he did that much work on just that one chair. And you have to imagine on every dial and knob that's in 2001, that's why it feels real. So I go on the set of Interstellar and I open up, you know, that house, most of my scenes were in that house, Jessica Chastain. I open up the cabinets and it's got like corn puffs and corn syrup and corn flakes and microwavable popcorn. And I was like, hey, Chris, like what's your obsession with, like what's going on here? Like why so much corn? Like, what's going on here? Like, why so much corn? And he told me this story for like half an hour about how he got with a futurist. And they thought, well, the country's reliance on corn syrup right now is such that we'll only have corn products by the year or whatever. And that never played.

They never showed someone. I mean, maybe if you open the cabinet and zoom in, you can see that they're all corn products. Yeah. But it wasn't like he showed shots of everyone using corn all the time you know a bunch of cornfields i guess and i thought oh this is like the same thing as kubrick like he's he went that deep into this when you're going through a black hole you're going i think that's what it might be like yeah right right exactly that obviously will make things better but it's also that's a real artist who's going to go that deep. Right? You've got to have that almost obsessive kind of need to have all these things just right.

Well, I mean, look, they're all the films that we like. Yeah. Ultimately, is when someone's gone for us. Right? You don't have to fill in the edges yourself. Yeah, but even if you don't even open the cabinet. And there's a version of acting, I haven't hit it,

but there's a version of acting that's like that where, I mean, look at Daniel Day-Lewis. I mean, that guy's not fucking around. Yeah. He does two years. Guess what? Like, he is the guy. Yeah, yeah.

He's still Lincoln, I heard. He's still Lincoln. I had a friend who did wardrobe on that. He never came out. And he couldn't give it to him on hangers because...

They didn't have hangers. Because they didn't have hangers, yeah. Now, does that impress you or make you go like... Not for me. You know,

like, I probably am not going to be playing, you know, David Duke might be the extent of things that are far away from me. Well,

I appreciate you talking like you have because it sort of made me be like, you i gotta work harder i can't hurt i mean like uh you know i actually i guess maybe you have to police yourself it can hurt i've seen people where they go in such a direction that's unnecessary i think it's only to the point at which um that it's helping well i mean when I think that like really knowing the lines, like so you don't have to worry about it anymore is liberating.

Yes. Because then you can do not the lines, right? It opens you up to the other work, you know, like to, you know, whatever choices you want in place or figuring out exactly how this guy is at, where are we at the timeline? That's my biggest problem. When you shoot

shit out of order it's like what just happened i'm not real good at a lot of it for me is reading the script scenes i'm not in just reading it through like a book i try to do that a couple times yeah which is yeah i started to realize i mean i don't want to point out which ones there's certain films from like oh i didn't play that right right like early on do you know what i mean we're like yeah oh i'm like too excited that came came right off of that scene. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'm not great. Like I have to tell directors, I'm like, make sure you tell me what happened before. Well, if you're doing that, that's really it, man.

I mean, like just saying like, so where are we? Like that's, I've heard a lot of great actors say that at the beginning of scenes, you know, like, so wait, where are we? Yeah. Yeah. Cause like I just, cause like you said with editing, you can get away with murder, really. I mean, I've worked with people, people like you said, who don't know their lines at all. And you have to tell them to them before each take.

We'll cut up okay if they can hold the screen. You don't even mean between each take. You mean before each line of theirs. Right. Someone says it, they kind of repeat it. Right. Oh my God, when people have that stuff in their ear. Have you ever worked with someone like that?

No. I'm not gonna say who, but I have. Yeah, yeah. It is so, first of all, you're not even in a scene with somebody when they've got one of those. They're being told the lines before they say them. They say, the guy I was with was like,

I like hearing some music so I get a vibe of the scene, but then you can hear someone's feeding them their lines from their trailer. Yeah. And you go like, they're like glazed over. I mean, it kind of works in the film, I guess, but you're not connected with them, you know? Well, I think that's the thing when you have these actors who have been around forever that they can sort of,

it's not even a matter of resting on their laurels. It's like when they show up on screen, they own it in such a way historically that the work that... I don't know. Man, I hate it. I can't... I'm not apologizing for it,

but I mean, that's what happens. That's why they get to that point. Oh, they can get away with it. Right. Like you're saying, you could get away with before every one of my lines because it's edited,

just saying the line and I'll repeat it back to you. Yeah. But the great thing that happened... I'm going to come off like such an acting nerd in this. I'm sorry, but I am an acting nerd.

It's okay. I am an acting nerd. I'm glad you're an acting nerd. I've become more of an acting nerd. Yeah, no, that's what we're learning. But what I,

and I will never move back to Darianne. Yeah. They didn't like me then. Yeah, they're going to hate you now. They're going to fucking hate me, yeah. Your cleaning lady's going to come after you.

It's a lot of things going on. What I've learned also in rehearsing is not only are you learning the lines, can hate me yeah you cleaning lady's gonna come after you it's a lot of things going on um uh what i what i've learned also in rehearsing is not only are you learning the lines but you're learning deeper meanings every time you say it oh yeah so you can i mean that's what i learned doing that play yeah i did but you know paul wrote this play and a hundred performances in i was like i think i'm seeing connections that paul didn't know. Oh yeah. You know, like, or you're connecting them. And, and,

and they don't have to know about it. I mean, if they, you're right. But, but it doesn't, when people are watching it, even if it doesn't connect exactly,

that's what I mean. There's an intention there. Yeah. That's, that's part of your work, you know? I mean, I've,

I've learned that from talking to people that like, you know, it's probably better to keep that to yourself. And, and yeah, I probably shouldn't have gone on such an acting jet. No, no, no, no. I'm saying like on set like you know it's probably better to keep that to yourself and yeah i probably shouldn't have uh gone on such an acting no no no no i'm saying like on set yeah you know you don't want to come up to the director and go like i don't know if you really know what's happening here but there's a deeper it's a deeper thing i'm gonna play i've certainly worked with that

actor too who's like my wife is an acting coach and uh last night she let me know that my character was raped at the age of three. And you go like, all right. That's your work. Yeah, I know. I use it, I guess. But, you know, we don't have to. I don't think even we would know about that in the scene. Yeah. Sadly, I think what I've noticed lately, having not had that much experience,

is that a lot of times it is sort of a selfish pursuit, even though you're working with people especially with film and television is that your relationship a lot of times it seems uh for some is with the camera and selfish is the wrong word dude i think it's more solo i think it's just sadly solo i i had a real realization over the last 20 years that it is not uh you know yeah i'm alone with this guy rehearsing the thing. I show up. I mean, I loved working with Adam Driver and John David Washington,

but, but at the end of the day, like I'm doing my thing. They're doing their, you're right. It all comes together. We can all go to the party. Yeah.

But that's why I like when, but you've experienced this too because I work, you know, my emotional connection on Glow is with Alison Brie. Yeah.

And we get there. mean i you know i can feel it and it's tangible and you can see it she's a fucking great actress but like great actress yeah and and that you know that makes a difference i mean we're we're oh you're saying when you don't have that with someone else it feels when you're working with somebody else and it's sort of like oh he doesn't care if i'm here or not. You know, like, I could be anybody. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I haven't had that huge a part.

I haven't had done any heavy lifting. Wait, when are you going to admit, I mean, it doesn't have to be now, but at what point will you have done enough that you go, yeah, I'm like a seasoned actor now? I think when, like, I don't know. I don't know. Do you think there is even a time? Sure.

I mean, but seasoned is weird. So I did four seasons of my own show. So that's like, we did 49 episodes of Marin. So that's a lot of stage. And that was sort of my training on how to be on camera. Actually, so now you're on this hit show. We're on the third season of Glow. And my part-

Maybe like by your eighth hit show. Well, I mean, we're where i think it's the more challenges i had like the i don't know i you're right i'm i don't know but you should at some point you should because you're great on it you should just like why don't i there's still so much i'm learning but that shouldn't stop me from saying i'm an actor yeah yeah all right yeah it doesn't have to be now but at at some point you should do it for yourself. I think it's going to happen is when I do something like you've done

where I do something that is not totally within my wheelhouse. Okay, yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah, you took a leap and you got there. Yeah, to challenge myself to do something where that the choices I would have to make would be alien to me. Like so far, I haven't really experienced that.

Where I had, like I've had to taper who I am or shut off parts of me, but I haven't had to make choices that, you know, through my vulnerability are inherently not really like me. You know, you've had Bob Owen Kirk on this, right? Yeah. Did you watch those new Mr. Show, or they weren't called Mr. Show.

Oh, yeah, I watched some of them, yeah. I thought they were great. But, like, his acting in the, I mean, look, his acting on Better Call Saul is great. But his acting in these, like, basically Mr. Show episodes. That's what you're talking about. Like, he did what you did, like, probably first felt the way you're feeling. Then, you know, got on top of it and like, you know, got it. And then he's taking these leaps.

He's like clearly went away and did so much acting work, but then came back to the same thing. And his acting is like insane on it. It's so great. I got to watch that and pay more attention. He has become a very good actor. Yeah, but I think it's probably, I think it's probably you're in that process of like,

at some point you'll go, yeah, I want to try. And I've never even done really broad characters like that. I have a hard, like I was trying to think about that. Watch. I can't remember what I was watching. I think I was watching a standup, uh,

Fahim Anwar, uh, where, you know, you just sort of embody a character that isn't you with confidence. Like I have this weird insecurity about singing or becoming some like, like, cause I'm so self-conscious sometimes that if I'm doing

like, that can be the key too, is you're playing someone who isn't, you know what I mean? Right. Right. Like I'm really weird. Like I've never really inhabited. I think I have such a struggle just inhabiting me as a character in life. But wouldn't you say, I've been a fan of yours for a long time. Wouldn't you say that's evolving too? Yeah. No, it is. Yeah. Yeah. But I do need to challenge myself as an actor. And I think then I'll be able to maybe say what you want me to say. It'll happen though. I think the way it happened with Bob, like, you know, cause I remember talking to him

at the, I know him a little bit at the beginning of that, uh, breaking bad process. And he was kind of like, I don't know, man, I never watched it. And, you know, and then he owned it. And then to watch him go back to Mr. Show and own it, the same thing. Oh, he was great in The Post. Oh, fuck, yeah, The Post. He had a really kind of a pivotal part. And he was quiet, which is maybe the hardest thing to do.

You know, like, God, he's great. And I was just like. The fact that David's in that too. Yeah, yeah. It's very different. I would put it on a freeze frame because I watched it at home the post and like

I was like wow you know in the context of a Frozen you know seeing them together I was like this is a sketch

but then when you hit play it's like you know John Williams music and shit yeah alright buddy

well it was good talking to you great talking to you I thought it was good it was as fun as I thought it would be oh thank god it was

I'm happy we talked about acting too yeah thanks for having me that was better than we all thought i'm not in i i'm just saying that like i enjoy talking to him all right i'll play guitar i'll just do it no thinking about it just doing it and happy holidays be careful okay all right now i'll play guitar Thank you. Boomer lives! 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.