Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now what Okay, so you're married to me?
Speaker 2: Shall we get work off?
Speaker 1: Do you want to shout out at something about can
Speaker 1: you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Is it weird being married to me? Like I had
Speaker 1: to tell you in the beginning not to beat up paparazzi, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: what was it like in the beginning where you're like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, I'm this is a pain in the ass.
Speaker 2: No, I was never the paparazzi was alive in the
Speaker 2: early days.
Speaker 1: What do you think of like y'all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you're like, I know, no, here I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear anything, but I know.
Speaker 2: People would like into restaurants very easily.
Speaker 1: My guest today is simply my guy. He's the man
Speaker 1: of my dreams. Chris Henchy is my husband for more
Speaker 1: than twenty two years. He is a wonderful father to
Speaker 1: our two daughters, and he's quite possibly one of the
Speaker 1: funniest people on the planet. He and I met on
Speaker 1: the Warner Brothers lot back in the nineties. That's when
Speaker 1: he was working as a comedy writer and I was
Speaker 1: doing Suddenly Susan. And since then he's continued to write, direct,
Speaker 1: and produce some of the biggest films and TV shows
Speaker 1: of the past two decades, including Spin City, Entourage, I'm
Speaker 1: With Her, Impractical Jokers, The Other Guys, The Campaign, Daddy's Home.
Speaker 1: The list goes on. Chris is also one of the
Speaker 1: founders of Funnier Die and has been instrumental in helping
Speaker 1: a new generation of comedians get off the ground. I
Speaker 1: adore him, and while I am quite shocked that he
Speaker 1: agreed to do the show, I am not the least
Speaker 1: bit surprised at how great his interview was. So here
Speaker 1: is the wonderful Chris Henchy. All right, Henchy, thank you
Speaker 1: for being here.
Speaker 2: Have we started?
Speaker 1: Yeah? We started. I can't say I really did any preparation,
Speaker 1: or I can say I did twenty two plus years
Speaker 1: of preparation. I'm not quite sure years years. He hates
Speaker 1: sitting down talking about feelings. He hates sitting down talking
Speaker 1: about anything. You have the attention span of like a gnat.
Speaker 2: Well, you're the one whose glasses are flogging up.
Speaker 1: All right, I know, I get you know what. I'm
Speaker 1: around you, Henchy. You still fog my glasses up. Okay,
Speaker 1: So people have been asking all sorts of questions, so
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to start. But I remember
Speaker 1: the day we first met. Yes, take me through it.
Speaker 1: What do you remember?
Speaker 2: I was twelve, I just purchased a ticket for the lagoon, and.
Speaker 1: I have here no jokes. Tell me, seriously, before I
Speaker 1: could even say that, you started with a joke. Do
Speaker 1: you remember, seriously? What do you remember?
Speaker 2: I remember? I was I was at Warner Brothers on
Speaker 2: the lot and why I was doing intelligence show there
Speaker 2: and writing, and I went to the gym because I
Speaker 2: work out, and there was a I was working out
Speaker 2: and there was a dog in the gym, kind of
Speaker 2: running without with a leash, but no, you know, like
Speaker 2: nobody taking care of it. Real good foreshadowing. So I
Speaker 2: go to pet the dog and was at least literally
Speaker 2: went around the corner, so it was.
Speaker 1: She had the leash still around.
Speaker 2: At least she was around. She was around the corner.
Speaker 2: It was a kind of pit mix. So I started
Speaker 2: petting the dog and lo one hold around the corner.
Speaker 2: It comes Brookshields and we just started chatting. Now what
Speaker 2: I've told you once, I don't think you remember or
Speaker 2: anything like that. I so Brooke was doing our show,
Speaker 2: Suddenly Susan I was doing another sitcom. But you're on
Speaker 2: a lot and there's just a bunch of other TV
Speaker 2: riders running around, so you know, Andy, it's a small community,
Speaker 2: so you know everybody. So I think I went over
Speaker 2: to see somebody at Suddenly Susan and you were eating
Speaker 2: lunch because there was other writers over there that we know,
Speaker 2: and you guys were having Suddenly Susan cast was having
Speaker 2: their lunch on one of the sound stages, and that's
Speaker 2: where before the show on Friday night, they put a
Speaker 2: whole spread of food.
Speaker 1: And you like a good spread of food, like stray food.
Speaker 2: And I walked through and I'm looking good. I'm in
Speaker 2: shape from the gym. The hair's parted down the middle,
Speaker 2: feathered back. I got, I've got clothes came back in
Speaker 2: ninety six. I had clothes that I bought on lot
Speaker 2: at the sample store from because you know the productions
Speaker 2: when they would go out, they'd sell their clothes that
Speaker 2: there was a market there, see you by actually kind
Speaker 2: of cool clothes.
Speaker 1: Cool clothes from Secon.
Speaker 2: It's like from old from Wardrobe Wardrob. When they wasn't used,
Speaker 2: they were going to be used. They were used. Your
Speaker 2: you're buying used clothes, but they're always really.
Speaker 1: We got him as actors. We got him at half price.
Speaker 2: And then we would go buy them after that. But
Speaker 2: I was walking through, I was looking good, and you
Speaker 2: did check me out in the story.
Speaker 1: That is what you remember that you had.
Speaker 2: Curlers in your hair, and I remember you just you
Speaker 2: held the gaze. Yeah, you held the gaze for about
Speaker 2: five seconds.
Speaker 1: Really anyway, that was prior to the gym.
Speaker 2: Prior to the gym. So a month later, do the gym.
Speaker 2: You're in the dream world and then I go back
Speaker 2: to my office and that was it. So but then
Speaker 2: this was probably October like a week later, so I
Speaker 2: get a call to come and write an NBC holiday
Speaker 2: special and then they I said, who's hosting? And I
Speaker 2: they said Brook. I go, oh, tell her the guy
Speaker 2: she met at the gym a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: as the guy who's writing the show.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's like a hat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have, hopefully what you think is a funny writer.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I remember going coming back from the
Speaker 1: gym and calling my roommate from college and going, I
Speaker 1: just met a really kind of cute guy. I like,
Speaker 1: he's like a really normal guy, and I think you
Speaker 1: should date him, and she goes, oh, well, I kind
Speaker 1: of like somebody else. And so I never even knew
Speaker 1: your name until they told me you were writing the show.
Speaker 1: And then I increasingly got again foreshadowing more and more
Speaker 1: and more pissed off at you because you never gave
Speaker 1: me my material, right, and I wanted to get my
Speaker 1: material and be the nerding Brook that I am.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they didn't tell you. What I told them
Speaker 2: is I'm not going to get it till Friday. I'll
Speaker 2: start writing, but I probably won't get all until Friday.
Speaker 2: And you have Saturday's on teleprompters. You can do it.
Speaker 2: You're pro and.
Speaker 1: So I like highlighting and memorizing and underlining.
Speaker 2: You have highlighted and made notes on our life that
Speaker 2: you know I don't know.
Speaker 1: Ye, well, got ready for a book, Okay, go back.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know the answers to these, But a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know how you became a writer,
Speaker 1: what your trajectory was. You didn't plan on being a writer.
Speaker 1: You went to You were kind of an army brat, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, we moved around a lot. Uh. I was born
Speaker 2: in New York, but I went to college in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: Wanted University of New Mexico. Uh. And I wanted to
Speaker 2: be a comedy writer, but had no ties, no connections,
Speaker 2: no no anything.
Speaker 1: So I know you wanted to be a comedy I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: I just would watch sitcoms. I'd watch Started Night Live.
Speaker 2: Letterman seemed to be funny around my friends, and uh
Speaker 2: and they seem to think so. But it was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it was just let me try it. I said,
Speaker 2: let me move to New York under the guys who
Speaker 2: work on Wall Street because I didn't want to tell
Speaker 2: my parents. After four and a half years, of college,
Speaker 2: yes four and a half. Uh that I was going
Speaker 2: to go to New York and be a comedy writer,
Speaker 2: because they would just say no. So what I did
Speaker 2: was no, that's not my family. Everybody wanted. My whole
Speaker 2: thing with family was my grandmother. Everybody was get your benefits.
Speaker 2: You know your bennies, So get a job that has benefits.
Speaker 1: So I am your grandmother from Ireland, from Ireland.
Speaker 2: So I basically sort of used the Wall Street connection
Speaker 2: or job had agree in finance. I should have studied
Speaker 2: something more fun. But look, I'm here right now doing
Speaker 2: my HEARTRITI here with my wife.
Speaker 1: But I but honestly, can I just tell you, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you would be the kind of person
Speaker 1: who then study creative writing and then go that way.
Speaker 1: You're just you write the way you write, and you
Speaker 1: write it instinctually, and you write instinctively, and you don't
Speaker 1: like to.
Speaker 2: I would have gone to Santa Fe become a poet.
Speaker 1: If state seriously that would have that would have.
Speaker 2: No. So but I moved to New York and worked
Speaker 2: at a big firm that has since gone under and
Speaker 2: created a huge savings alone scandal. I had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it. But I, and it was it was
Speaker 2: a fun job, and it didn't. I wasn't made out
Speaker 2: for it. It wasn't going to last.
Speaker 1: And did you like anything about No, I hate it.
Speaker 1: I just liked the vouchers, the vouchers for.
Speaker 2: Cars we go out to afterwards. That I had fun,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't. It wasn't for me. I knew it.
Speaker 2: So when I when Drexa was going under, they offered
Speaker 2: me a job in LA which I turned down. And
Speaker 2: it was then I said, if I'm going to write,
Speaker 2: I'm getting a severance package from this company. Now is
Speaker 2: the time to go rite. And I thought the severance
Speaker 2: package would last a year. I thought it'd be six
Speaker 2: months before I got a job writing, and I thought
Speaker 2: my whole world was gonna be great. And none of
Speaker 2: that happened. Well it was, I burned through the severns
Speaker 2: in six months and no job within a year.
Speaker 1: So what happened when you told your mom and dad?
Speaker 2: I didn't tell my parents. I said, I'm gonna keep
Speaker 2: looking for a job. I remember someone got me an
Speaker 2: interview at Oppenheimer, which was a bank back then, and
Speaker 2: I was just I was just not into it. I
Speaker 2: was like, so what I my in my head was
Speaker 2: this sounds horrible, like to your parents, just string them along,
Speaker 2: just keep saying I'm looking for work. But it was
Speaker 2: a race, and like everything's a racist with me. It's like,
Speaker 2: can I can I make money writing before I have
Speaker 2: to tell them the truth? I'm at this time writing
Speaker 2: everything I can write them, learning how to write spec scripts.
Speaker 2: You know television sitcoms.
Speaker 1: Script is a script that you just write without getting paid.
Speaker 2: They call it on spec, and that has the idea
Speaker 2: that you might get paid. At my level, You're never
Speaker 2: gonna get paid. It's really just a writing sample to
Speaker 2: get an agent, to get a manager, to get anybody
Speaker 2: to look at your stuff. I was writing jokes for anything. Uh.
Speaker 2: I was writ just writing everything that was on Tellivision
Speaker 2: sketches and just constantly uh writing.
Speaker 1: And did you do any stand up at that time?
Speaker 2: I did stand up. I was. I would immerse myself.
Speaker 2: I was. I wasn't horrible, and I wish I kind
Speaker 2: of It's one of those things I wish i'd kept
Speaker 2: up because I wasn't. It was not great and bombed,
Speaker 2: but I was like, oh I could this could be fun?
Speaker 2: But it was such a I mean, every bar had
Speaker 2: open mic night every and then you'd go in there
Speaker 2: just you see the same people, and it was like
Speaker 2: ten other struggling bad comedians in a room writing jokes
Speaker 2: and writing like taking hustle that it was bad. It
Speaker 2: just wasn't great. It was, but I just figured writing
Speaker 2: might be the better way to go because the stand
Speaker 2: up world seems so flooded.
Speaker 1: So that's that era. Do you remember, did you sell
Speaker 1: your first joke in New York City before the MTV situation?
Speaker 2: Talk about so I So I would paper the city
Speaker 2: with my made up resume, just try and pad my
Speaker 2: resume with anything I did. And then I just write scripts,
Speaker 2: a Murphy Brown scrap with a little red like like
Speaker 2: it was produced what you lied? No, I wrote one.
Speaker 2: It just wasn't the never just no one ever read it.
Speaker 2: And then you know, stand up at these these four
Speaker 2: clubs and writing for a comedian that nobody knew about
Speaker 2: put anything down. But finally somebody at MTV picked up,
Speaker 2: he said, yeah, these are good, and there it was
Speaker 2: back when MTV actually had scripted content and shows. They
Speaker 2: had a show called Remote Control that Adam Sandler was
Speaker 2: a performer on it. And is this that I want
Speaker 2: that's the I want my MTV days. But remote Control
Speaker 2: was just like a Jeopardy for MTV audience. So I
Speaker 2: would write sample questions and send those to those guys,
Speaker 2: and finally they hired me to come write promos. So
Speaker 2: I would come in and write a promo once a
Speaker 2: month and sit and try to immerse myself and go, hey,
Speaker 2: can I sit while you guys produce it just as
Speaker 2: I can learn? And I made one hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 2: And then there was a show they had on at night,
Speaker 2: this kind of fake news show, and then they hired
Speaker 2: me to write and then hire me. They would buy
Speaker 2: your jokes at one hundred and fifty bucks a pop,
Speaker 2: and so you would be lucky to sell two jokes.
Speaker 2: So once a month I was making three hundred to
Speaker 2: four and fifty dollars. And that's where I was able
Speaker 2: to tell my parents, I'm a professional comedy writer. You
Speaker 2: can't tell me no. Look at these checks that are
Speaker 2: coming in.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about our beloved Gary Shandling.
Speaker 1: How did you meet him and what was that like?
Speaker 1: Was he a mentor?
Speaker 2: I through that MTV show met a bunch of people,
Speaker 2: and there wash there were three amazing basketball games in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: all run by Gary's.
Speaker 1: Pickup game, and uh, I thought that meant you went
Speaker 1: and just picked up girls.
Speaker 2: Come on. So anyway, a friend of mine said, hey,
Speaker 2: you and I was starting to you know, like meet people,
Speaker 2: and it's like, do you want to come up and
Speaker 2: play at Channey's game. I was like yeah. So I
Speaker 2: got invited to that game and it was like one
Speaker 2: of the most amazing things. And it's been written up
Speaker 2: in like ESPN dot com and stuff like that. It
Speaker 2: was you were playing, I was playing, and and and
Speaker 2: you know, I don't talk about that off because it's
Speaker 2: kind of a private game. It was a private well
Speaker 2: you had to get invited again, you had to be invited,
Speaker 2: and you had to you know, like Gary curated that
Speaker 2: list so that it was always great people, fun people,
Speaker 2: and you know, people who can weren't going to dominate
Speaker 2: the game, but just we're there to have, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: two hours of fun basketball and then hang out for
Speaker 2: two hours.
Speaker 1: But they were funny people. We had Sarah Silverman on
Speaker 1: the show and you know, she was one of the
Speaker 1: only girls asked to couple.
Speaker 2: You came and played, I didn't play.
Speaker 1: I came in babysat to Covenany's kids.
Speaker 2: You played a little there, yeah, very but but it
Speaker 2: was it was, you know, it was what kind of
Speaker 2: got me. You know, even those days I was struggling
Speaker 2: because I remember, uh, breaking up with a girlfriend and
Speaker 2: having what yeah, and having stuff and most of my
Speaker 2: stuff in the car and go and play basketball instead
Speaker 2: of trying to figuret where I was going to live
Speaker 2: insteading of his house, going you didn't place to live.
Speaker 2: I'm the only guy up here who's homeless.
Speaker 1: And so were you just living at her apartment?
Speaker 2: We were living together, but I moved out.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's good to know.
Speaker 2: And then uh uh, so I moved out, so he
Speaker 2: will move out and we'll move out, so uh and
Speaker 2: then I went to a friend's house.
Speaker 1: But then, okay, so that's like the that's the trajectory
Speaker 1: part of it. One personal thing we do all get
Speaker 1: back to. But one of the one of the things
Speaker 1: that I want to just say is I remember one
Speaker 1: of the ways that not the ways, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I was so enamored with you. First of all,
Speaker 1: on our first kind of date, it was all about
Speaker 1: SNL sketches and we just laughed so much but when
Speaker 1: you started talking to me about nanime and how you
Speaker 1: used to go take care of nanime and buy her groceries.
Speaker 2: My Irish grandmother up in Yorkville, Yeah, Yorkville. What in
Speaker 2: New York City?
Speaker 1: In New York City? Where did she?
Speaker 2: What was her?
Speaker 1: Where was her apartment?
Speaker 2: She had eighty eighth and first and then she was
Speaker 2: like a sort of housekeeper.
Speaker 1: We used to river dance.
Speaker 2: I should go, I go entertain or take her to movies. Uh,
Speaker 2: take her out to dinner every Sunday, loved or she
Speaker 2: would cook.
Speaker 1: She had odd jobs even though she so.
Speaker 2: She worked for this guy who lived further down and
Speaker 2: I would uh First Avenue and she would have me
Speaker 2: come up there and help her take curtains down to
Speaker 2: go to take me to the cleaner whatever. I'd help out.
Speaker 2: And he would also go away for most of August,
Speaker 2: and she used to watch his cat and he would
Speaker 2: leave her enough money to buy fancy feast cat food.
Speaker 2: And that's the expensive that's that's nobody uses a phrase anymore. Well,
Speaker 2: that's the Cadillac of cat foods. It's the flat mignon
Speaker 2: of cat foods. Back in the early nights. I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's much better. It was fancy feast, and he would
Speaker 2: leave you know, a dollar can. He was gone for
Speaker 2: forty days. He'd leave her forty bucks and tax. But
Speaker 2: my grandmother would go to the grocery store and buy
Speaker 2: the Grand Union Grand Union brand three four dollars and
Speaker 2: pocket the twenty five bucks. And it was a big bargain.
Speaker 2: And I would be in the living room watching television
Speaker 2: on a Sunday and she's cooking dinner. But she'd go
Speaker 2: feed the cat, and I'd hear from the kitchen and
Speaker 2: that brog that it'd be no fancy feast for you tonight.
Speaker 2: Tonight is Grand Union Jesus man trying to make a buck.
Speaker 1: That's enterprising. And in the Bible, by the way, there'll
Speaker 1: be no fancy fast for you. No, But the cat
Speaker 1: didn't know the difference.
Speaker 2: Well, the cat wouldn't be for three days, and she's
Speaker 2: like soon enough. I heard that.
Speaker 1: I was like, good God, okay, so cut to you.
Speaker 1: You start working, you start making you have you've I mean,
Speaker 1: whenever I mention you, like especially if we're like in
Speaker 1: a party situation and there's like young guys there, I'll
Speaker 1: go over to them and I'll say, like, do you
Speaker 1: know who that guy is. And they'll say like no,
Speaker 1: and I'll say, well, he ran on an entourage, she
Speaker 1: wrote Spin City, The Practical Jokers, the movie. And then
Speaker 1: then once I get to the campaign, the other guys
Speaker 1: or Daddy's home, they start like absolutely palpitating because they
Speaker 1: they they they'll come up and quote quote things about
Speaker 1: the baby punch from the campaign, or they'll start quoting.
Speaker 1: So how did you was it Gary Shanling that kind
Speaker 1: of started, you know, the.
Speaker 2: Gary Shanling and I I was lucky enough to get
Speaker 2: hired to come and write sitcoms. And then Gary David
Speaker 2: Goldberg read something, and then Gary David Goldberg, Gary David Goldberg,
Speaker 2: and he and I wrote a couple of sitcoms together
Speaker 2: that lasted this season. But he was just an unbelievable mentor.
Speaker 2: And then I went to Spin City and Gary Goldberg
Speaker 2: had the other great Hollywood basketball game. So I was
Speaker 2: playing a Gary's game on during the weekend, Challey's game
Speaker 2: on Sunday. So I was and I'm still not a
Speaker 2: great player, but fun uh, I.
Speaker 1: Was, okay, make some good screens or what.
Speaker 2: I said, screens. So you to start, well, it was interesting,
Speaker 2: like you like I never thought past writing for sitcoms,
Speaker 2: like being on staff. That was as far as my
Speaker 2: dream went. And now I was creating a couple of
Speaker 2: sitcoms I wrote. I wrote a movie land Lost, and
Speaker 2: that was finished writing that, and I'm laying in my
Speaker 2: office trying to figure what to do next. In my
Speaker 2: phone writing was my manager mentioned that Will Ferrell and
Speaker 2: Adam Kay want to start a company. And I done
Speaker 2: some punch up on a couple of other movies like Anchorman
Speaker 2: and uh Elf. And we used to do round tables
Speaker 2: where they would get a script.
Speaker 1: Play what that is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'd get a script, and before they would start shooting,
Speaker 2: they would want to bring a few comedy writers in
Speaker 2: and we'd all sit around the table. They'd throw some
Speaker 2: food into the room like we're animals and shut the
Speaker 2: door and uh and.
Speaker 1: We're all still kind.
Speaker 2: Of and we would write. We'd go through the script
Speaker 2: and give alternate jokes and stuff like that. Really, it's
Speaker 2: just a great time. And managers said they want to
Speaker 2: start a company. They keep saying somebody like CHRISSCENTI, would
Speaker 2: you consider writing less and running this company? And I said,
Speaker 2: let me talk to my.
Speaker 1: Wife, And what did I say?
Speaker 2: You said yes for sure, So I.
Speaker 1: Went and agents weren't keen on it.
Speaker 2: No, my agent wasn't too keen on it. And because
Speaker 2: he was like, it's going to take you out of
Speaker 2: the writing game, and I ended up just writing more At.
Speaker 1: The time, I said, are you nuts associated with those guys?
Speaker 1: It's it's comedy mecca and you'll kick yourself if you
Speaker 1: don't do this and like that you can't make is okay?
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this. Do you think that you
Speaker 1: can't make safe moves in Hollywood? Like do you have
Speaker 1: to risk things like that to to kind of keep moving?
Speaker 2: For me? Yeah, exactly, because you always hear the safe
Speaker 2: it's like fishing or gambling. You this. You hear the
Speaker 2: safe movies that pan out. You don't hear the safe
Speaker 2: moves that don't.
Speaker 1: I call the show now what because it's like those
Speaker 1: moments when you're like, oh, fuck, now what do I do?
Speaker 1: Like I didn't see that coming and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden something happens and you have said that Land
Speaker 1: of the Land of the Lost wasn't now what moment
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 2: Why? Well? It was, you know, it was.
Speaker 1: It was so funny.
Speaker 2: It was funny. It was the movie was like, it
Speaker 2: was just not what people wanted.
Speaker 1: But was it what you wanted?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we wrote a funny movie. Maybe another time it would.
Speaker 1: Have been now it would be really well.
Speaker 2: People do come up to you occasionally talk about how
Speaker 2: funny it is, less so than back then. But it
Speaker 2: was just it wasn't the time for it. I guess
Speaker 2: I don't know. It just wasn't what people wanted.
Speaker 1: And how do you know what people want?
Speaker 2: We took a swing and it just didn't work, and
Speaker 2: or it didn't work then I think it. I'll stand
Speaker 2: by it, and I'm proud of proud of it, and
Speaker 2: I will come beyond. I'll watch I go this is
Speaker 2: there's some funny stuff here and.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you rather take a swing at something big and
Speaker 1: kind of lose? Then?
Speaker 2: But so the crazy thing was and when you I Go.
Speaker 2: It came out the same weekend as The Hangover, and
Speaker 2: it was it was like six weeks before, you know,
Speaker 2: people start tracking movies and I remember, my age is
Speaker 2: going and I'm like I'm feeling common, like I'm so
Speaker 2: naively like this movie's gonna be great and it's gonna
Speaker 2: do great. People and love it. How they not love it,
Speaker 2: you know, And six weeks out, you know, this hangover movies.
Speaker 1: Track tracking track, it's the worst word you can hear.
Speaker 2: Its like five weeks this hangar movie is really growing.
Speaker 2: Like like three weeks out, this Hangover is gonna be
Speaker 2: a monster. And then it just was the biggest phenomenon
Speaker 2: and it's opening weekend and we I was in New
Speaker 2: Orleans writing here's the crazy. I was writing the other
Speaker 2: guys in New Orleans and working on a small movie
Speaker 2: we did down there, and just sitting in a hotel
Speaker 2: room getting hourly reports on Friday on projections, and they
Speaker 2: kept going down and hangovers kept going up, and then
Speaker 2: getting on a plane and my wife and my daughter
Speaker 2: and I'm just sitting there staring at My daughter goes,
Speaker 2: what's wrong? Dad? She's like, that is I learned a lesson? Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't tell your kids everything about your career. What's wrong? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 2: And she knew about land loss and she's probably she's
Speaker 2: like six years old. I go, well, daddy's movie is
Speaker 2: not doing so well. And she's like, oh no, why
Speaker 2: she all got super protective and upset. I was like,
Speaker 2: I stought that it was gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: The thing was because I can picture you're talking to
Speaker 1: a six years listen to the protections are the box
Speaker 1: office well, and it's underform.
Speaker 2: The worst thing was is outside of our apartment was
Speaker 2: a billboard for the Hangover.
Speaker 1: We were in downtown and soho. At that point we
Speaker 1: had two children.
Speaker 2: I was on lipstick younger, I think, and every time
Speaker 2: I got in a cab that weekend, it was it
Speaker 2: was the Sandy Canyon movie moment, and.
Speaker 1: He'd go, Sandy Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Canyon is a critic in the city.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sandy Kenyon does the TV critic, movie critic in
Speaker 1: the cabs.
Speaker 2: Right, the cabs, So you get it every time, like
Speaker 2: Sandy Kenyon with the movie, and he'd rave about the
Speaker 2: un about the Hangover, and uh uh. Then he'd go,
Speaker 2: h On the other hand, lad you you couldn't You
Speaker 2: couldn't get to that X to mute it and shut
Speaker 2: it off quick enough, kind.
Speaker 1: Of like a little bit of a loop. Even now
Speaker 1: it's hard to mute.
Speaker 2: And it was just like, oh, my first movie was
Speaker 2: a kind of a public failure.
Speaker 1: And so that happens, and how is it? And now
Speaker 1: what moment?
Speaker 2: What do you? What are you? Just like you say, wow,
Speaker 2: I am I going to get another at bat.
Speaker 1: How do you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, you get talking about this and I, like luckily
Speaker 2: was writing the other guys, and we kind of rushed
Speaker 2: that script a.
Speaker 1: Little bit and was that already going to be made?
Speaker 2: It was not green lit, and.
Speaker 1: They could have not green lit and then.
Speaker 2: Then you're under a magnifying class. But and we almost
Speaker 2: like the movie almost didn't get green lit, and they
Speaker 2: were like, you got a week to get to figure
Speaker 2: the script at out, and McKay and I knuckled down
Speaker 2: over July fourth weekend and fixed the script.
Speaker 1: Then came came the campaign then, which he wrote.
Speaker 2: Them with the campaign with Will and Zach Galvinakis, and
Speaker 2: that was a blast.
Speaker 1: One last thing about Land of the Last. Do you
Speaker 1: think that there's something about like if you're ahead of
Speaker 1: the curve, it's not good, and if you're behind, Like
Speaker 1: if you're ahead of the wave, it's not good. If
Speaker 1: you're behind the wave, it's not good. You have to
Speaker 1: be right on it, and who could know when you're right.
Speaker 2: I don't know if these days.
Speaker 1: Is it like that? Was it like that then? And
Speaker 1: not like that? No?
Speaker 2: No, it's just it wasn't a curve. It was just like, uh,
Speaker 2: it just was the wrong time, and I think it's
Speaker 2: I do think it's aged.
Speaker 1: Well, talk to me about a very very serious, very
Speaker 1: important project, bruddies, what is it? Explain what buddie's is.
Speaker 2: Uh. So I've done several movies with Ben Falcone, who
Speaker 2: I love, and Melissa McCarthy and Steve Mallory, who's were
Speaker 2: always together on a lot of movies, and Mallory and
Speaker 2: then and I just have a text shame we're working,
Speaker 2: you still have it all the time, and you're still
Speaker 2: jackasses about all all the times. And we arted with Mallory.
Speaker 1: We go, and Steve Mallory is also.
Speaker 2: So we were saying how we are very stilted texts
Speaker 2: like we are buddies and uh, and I wrote back
Speaker 2: to Ben and Malories on there, but we're not including him.
Speaker 2: I we are brothers. I go, And then we were
Speaker 2: we are more than buddies, but we're less than brothers.
Speaker 2: We are bruddies, and uh we laughed. Then we go
Speaker 2: and we told Steve, I go the show's bruddies, just
Speaker 2: go write it. He's like, what are you talking? It
Speaker 2: writes itself, bruddies. And so Steve the next day comes
Speaker 2: in with like three pages of of something. It's pretty
Speaker 2: fucking funny. It's Ben Frampton and Chris Henley, so they're
Speaker 2: slightly based on.
Speaker 1: Us, Ben Falcone and Chris Henchy.
Speaker 2: If we were badass mercenary soldiers, which just and we
Speaker 2: do a lot of eater handshakes, and I would rewrite,
Speaker 2: then Ben would write. Before long, we had like seventy
Speaker 2: pages of something called Bruddy's and we took it out
Speaker 2: and we had an animation company come with us, and
Speaker 2: like we took it into some studios and like, wait,
Speaker 2: what do you want to do? Or like they're they're
Speaker 2: eight minute scenarios. There's very little plot. It's mostly just
Speaker 2: all those scenes. It's it's a Michael Bay best of
Speaker 2: animated and it's just jackass dialogue. And and then we
Speaker 2: realized we need a little story. So we ended up
Speaker 2: like the guy, uh, the guys at Tripper, Like we
Speaker 2: kind of love this, Why don't why don't we just
Speaker 2: do it? Because they're going to start a streaming platform.
Speaker 2: We're like, all right, great, So we got paid to
Speaker 2: write Bruddies and we put together a great cast, which
Speaker 2: would be it has most of McCarthy, Ben Falcone, Joel McHale,
Speaker 2: Reno Wilson, Richard Grant, Octavia Spencer, George to Kai and
Speaker 2: you're why what oh so we are working together? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and brickshields.
Speaker 1: Can we talk a little personally?
Speaker 2: No, I gotta go.
Speaker 1: You know you're not going yet. You were talking about
Speaker 1: having lunch. So I get ten more minutes with you. God,
Speaker 1: you're you're the worst, the worst.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: We have two children, seventeen year old and a twenty
Speaker 1: year old. What do you think our biggest strengths are
Speaker 1: as parents?
Speaker 2: But but the I think we're relatively normal tradition, even
Speaker 2: though we're untraditional traditionalists, Like we what.
Speaker 1: It is traditional?
Speaker 2: Like you mean, well, we don't. Like there's certain things
Speaker 2: we do every year, you know, like are Thanksgiving generally
Speaker 2: as a tradition. And if we go on a road trip,
Speaker 2: we don't eat at a chain restaurant. My dad always
Speaker 2: drives off and sometimes it could take twenty minutes for
Speaker 2: me to find the mom and pop restaurant, and they
Speaker 2: would used to sometimes get mad, but then they were like, god,
Speaker 2: he always finds the grayst restaurant, Like like somewhere from
Speaker 2: grilled soup tomato place. I just found, like it looked like,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes I'm sneaking on my phone like yelp review,
Speaker 2: like oh here it comes a good place, it feels good.
Speaker 2: But generally were and those are things they've taken away,
Speaker 2: Like you know, you went to go see Rowan at school,
Speaker 2: and she had her her local restaurants, and that's what
Speaker 2: mom and dad avoid like and whenever we were checking in
Speaker 2: hotels for a movie or whatever, we would find our
Speaker 2: local coffee place. We'd find our you know, and and
Speaker 2: and get to know them.
Speaker 1: Food is a big food, a big big thing.
Speaker 2: I think our kids realize that Dad says hi to
Speaker 2: most bartenders and ends up becoming friends with them. And
Speaker 2: you can see that happening with our kids too.
Speaker 1: How you doing great. I love it when the bartender
Speaker 1: nurse your daughter drink a choice. I also think we
Speaker 1: have a lot of laughter we you know, food is
Speaker 1: really important to us, like that kind of around the you.
Speaker 1: I just want to go visit Rowan and Italy, where
Speaker 1: she's studying abroad. And Dad made up two trays of
Speaker 1: enchiladas that he learned how to make in New Mexico
Speaker 1: with Hatch chili green chili, and I traveled on the
Speaker 1: plane with frozen enchiladas, and it was a huge hit
Speaker 1: with all of her college friends and things like that.
Speaker 1: You know, we we do create our own traditions. But
Speaker 1: really quickly the first time that Chris asked me if
Speaker 1: the girls could be in one of his movies, was
Speaker 1: it the other the other guys? I said, oh, sure.
Speaker 1: So he brings both girls down and of course he
Speaker 1: treats them like their actual cast members, and as they were,
Speaker 1: they were actual well I know, but they had a
Speaker 1: little trailer, a little honeywagon, which never happens, and both
Speaker 1: they had hair and makeup and.
Speaker 2: They were tiny.
Speaker 1: Was three three three or.
Speaker 2: Rowing was six two thousand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so three three and six. And so they come
Speaker 1: back home and I said, oh, how'd you like it?
Speaker 1: And they said, well, they couldn't do it because they
Speaker 1: lost the light, so they had to go back. Well
Speaker 1: they went.
Speaker 2: Back full hair and makeup again, full hair.
Speaker 1: And makeup again, full outfits, little honeywagon got to go
Speaker 1: to craft services. And then at the very last minute,
Speaker 1: Greer says, well.
Speaker 2: They yeah, it was it was. I was in the scene.
Speaker 2: It was a dad and his two daughters getting in
Speaker 2: a cab and Rowan comes out smiling, ready to go,
Speaker 2: and she's got a little wardrobe bomb Greer's hair for
Speaker 2: some reason, it's real boofontie, like big, and she's got
Speaker 2: a purse and stuff like that, and she sees three
Speaker 2: she sees everybody went nope, bus and just start crying.
Speaker 2: And then Greer goes home and Mom says, how her?
Speaker 1: I said, what would you do? She because I did
Speaker 1: not do it? And I said why because I did
Speaker 1: not want to? And I said why didn't you want to?
Speaker 1: And she said I did not want to? And I said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute. I said, you went through hair, make up, wardrobe,
Speaker 1: got snacks at the craft table. I said, you never
Speaker 1: intended on doing it? Did you not want to do
Speaker 1: it from the beginning? You just wanted hair and makeup?
Speaker 1: And she said yes. So she went through hair and
Speaker 1: makeup and wardrobe, just knowing full well that she was
Speaker 1: not going to do it, but she wanted the hair
Speaker 1: and make it.
Speaker 2: She wanted to be there, but she wanted to.
Speaker 1: Be pampered and she wanted to get hair and makeup.
Speaker 1: And she's still like that anyway. What do you want
Speaker 1: to do next? What's not on the horizon for Chris
Speaker 1: Henchi next divorce.
Speaker 2: I am now, I'm just I'm out. You know, the
Speaker 2: hustle never sleeps. A couple of movies. I got a
Speaker 2: couple of movies out there and talking and to one
Speaker 2: to direct, a couple to produce, and uh.
Speaker 1: One to write, Well, Henchi, I love you, love you.
Speaker 1: That was my love, Chris, Henchi, Chris babe. Thank you
Speaker 1: for doing the show and thank you for creating such
Speaker 1: a beautiful life with me. That's it for us today,
Speaker 1: talk to you next to.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: What with Burke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our
Speaker 1: lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research
Speaker 1: and editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Vahid Fraser.