Speaker 1: You're listening to playback a Variety podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Variety Awards Editor Chris Tapley, my guest today. Somehow finds
Speaker 1: time to star in film, television, perform stand up, host
Speaker 1: podcasts and awards shows, and write a very personal film
Speaker 1: that took Sundance by storm earlier this year. The Big
Speaker 1: Sick tells the extraordinary story of how he met his
Speaker 1: wife in the medical crisis that transformed that story into
Speaker 1: an emotional romance that hit screens later this month. And
Speaker 1: here he is, the star of my favorite TV show.
Speaker 1: Come on, non Johnny, thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, And I mean that. It's my favorite show.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. It's it's the best thing on TV. I'm
Speaker 1: all caught up with the brand new season to like
Speaker 1: eight episodes into it, how many they've given us access
Speaker 1: to have watched them immediately when they're ready. I'm behind
Speaker 1: a couple episodes behind. I amn't been traveling to I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to see him. It's it's so far, so
Speaker 1: good man. Was the season four? Is this season four?
Speaker 1: You know? We just got picked up for season five.
Speaker 1: That's very, very exciting. It's just good too. It's hard
Speaker 1: to have a job, and then it's almost impossible to
Speaker 1: have a job on a show that you actually can
Speaker 1: be proud of and like and you'd watch even if
Speaker 1: you weren't on it. So it's really I feel very grateful.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about that later. Um, but let's start
Speaker 1: with the big sick. Obviously, I want to talk about confidence. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just talk to me about the confidence to
Speaker 1: put a very personal story into the world. The confidence
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, have the drive an initiative, initiative
Speaker 1: to make it happen, to to put together the team
Speaker 1: to do it. What is that journey of confidence been
Speaker 1: like on this particular project. Um, well, for me, since
Speaker 1: when it first started stand, I never felt I never
Speaker 1: felt like I was confident. Like part of my thing
Speaker 1: is I don't I don't think too far ahead. So
Speaker 1: the bad thing is I don't plan. But the good
Speaker 1: thing is I don't really think of possible negative consequences.
Speaker 1: You know. So if if I want to like do something,
Speaker 1: I'll just kind of start doing it and not consider
Speaker 1: what if it doesn't happen. I'll just kind of do
Speaker 1: it until it does or doesn't. So with this movie, UM,
Speaker 1: that's kind of how it was. I started, we started
Speaker 1: working on it, and I've never considered that we wouldn't
Speaker 1: get to make it, even though I understand it's it's
Speaker 1: so rare that anybody gets to make a movie, let
Speaker 1: alone starring someone who hasn't started a movie before. UM,
Speaker 1: So I didn't really think of the negative consequences. And
Speaker 1: also when you have you know, Judge working with you,
Speaker 1: he gives you a lot of confidence in just being like,
Speaker 1: I've never been the lead of a movie and actually
Speaker 1: never done anything but comedic acting. I hadn't done any
Speaker 1: dramatic acting. And he was the one who was like, no,
Speaker 1: you can do it. It's going to be you. You
Speaker 1: write it, then you'll start and it you just have too.
Speaker 1: From the beginning, sort of the deal with Judd was
Speaker 1: if you can write a really good script, then I'll
Speaker 1: help you. I'll make this movie with you. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of on you to work on it and
Speaker 1: write a really good script. So it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where like we wrote the script for three years
Speaker 1: when finally Jed was like, all right, I think we
Speaker 1: can start moving on. And at that point it's sort
Speaker 1: of a ball rolling down the hill. You just um,
Speaker 1: just sort of working in in isolation for for a
Speaker 1: long time, and then suddenly the wheel start moving and
Speaker 1: you just kind of like swept up in the journey.
Speaker 1: You know, how driven mobilized were you to to do it?
Speaker 1: If say, you weren't able to find the directors, like
Speaker 1: would you were you prepared to get behind the camera
Speaker 1: yourself and put this out there? Or I really didn't
Speaker 1: want to direct this movie. I would like to direct
Speaker 1: at some point. I just knew that being the lead
Speaker 1: of a movie that we had written that was about
Speaker 1: our lives was going to be so challenging that I
Speaker 1: really wanted to focus on my performance. Um. When it
Speaker 1: game time to shoot the movie, UM, Mike, the director,
Speaker 1: Michael Showalter, was very, very very UM. He was very
Speaker 1: involved with us for the last year of prep, and
Speaker 1: he was very very collaborative. So I got to sort
Speaker 1: of learn a little bit of how directing works and
Speaker 1: how much work it is. It's a lot of work, um,
Speaker 1: And so for this movie, definitely wanted someone else to
Speaker 1: to directed so that I could I could focus on
Speaker 1: just the performance. Once he started rolling, What did Michael
Speaker 1: bring to the table that made you feel like he
Speaker 1: was a guy he could do this. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't Michael, because I had written for him for
Speaker 1: a show called Michael Michael Have Issues, which lasted six episodes.
Speaker 1: You know how some shows last six seasons. This last
Speaker 1: six episodes. He was the So he gave me this,
Speaker 1: He gave me that job. So I've known him for
Speaker 1: those two names. I've known him for like a few
Speaker 1: years at that point, and had a small part in
Speaker 1: his movie Hello, my Name is Doris, which I thought
Speaker 1: was really fantastic. So what Michael brought to it was
Speaker 1: Michael has a great sense of story. Michael is really
Speaker 1: great at structure stuff. So he read the script, liked that,
Speaker 1: came in and pitched to us and Jet his take
Speaker 1: and then his his whole thing was, um, just how
Speaker 1: to focus the story, And he was like in the script,
Speaker 1: he was like this specific scene. All I know is
Speaker 1: that this scene comes right in the middle of the movie.
Speaker 1: So everything else, you guys sort of build around that,
Speaker 1: like movie scenes around whatever you gotta do, But this
Speaker 1: is the middle of the movie. That's what I know.
Speaker 1: So he really brought that. And he's a really emotional guy,
Speaker 1: and he's really good at emotional stuff. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of comedy people sort of shy away from emotions. He
Speaker 1: really doesn't. Um, So he brought a lot of story,
Speaker 1: just skilllet telling a story, skillet plum plumbing the depths
Speaker 1: of emotions. He's great with actors with that. And also
Speaker 1: he is just really funny, like he's just done a
Speaker 1: lot of comedy stuff, so um. He also just was
Speaker 1: like a really funny guy to have around and you know,
Speaker 1: pitch jokes and stuff while we were shooting. And this
Speaker 1: probably gets back to that idea of confidence. But what
Speaker 1: was it like just to share this super personal story.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is obviously a very private element of
Speaker 1: your life that is now forever public, that's forever immortalized.
Speaker 1: And that's a unique perspective not all of us have,
Speaker 1: you know, So now you have this intensely private element
Speaker 1: of your life that's writ large. So what does that
Speaker 1: feel like? Well, you know, as a stand up, at
Speaker 1: some point I started taking personal stories and porton experiences
Speaker 1: and talking about them on stage. So I had a
Speaker 1: little bit of experience being personal and sort of giving
Speaker 1: of myself in little ways. This is sort of the deal.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this earlier today or last night
Speaker 1: when I couldn't sleep. You know, there is a little
Speaker 1: bit of you lose. A lot of people see your vulnerability, right,
Speaker 1: but a little bit I think that's sort of the
Speaker 1: deal with the devil you have to make to do.
Speaker 1: What I get to do, Like, what you get is
Speaker 1: you get to live your dreams and tell your stories
Speaker 1: and it's really exciting. But what the price of that
Speaker 1: a little bit is that you are giving a piece
Speaker 1: of yourself for everyone to analyze and judge. Um. But
Speaker 1: I knew, like a few years after these the events
Speaker 1: of the movie had happened, I knew that I wanted
Speaker 1: to like do something with it, like either do a
Speaker 1: show about it or something, because it felt like this
Speaker 1: very specific emotional thing that had happened. And I knew
Speaker 1: that nobody else had this story, and that only Emily
Speaker 1: and I were the ones who would be able to
Speaker 1: tell this story, like kind of if we didn't tell
Speaker 1: the story, this story would just not get told. Nobody
Speaker 1: else has this so um And And I really think
Speaker 1: for me, writing and I think the best writing is
Speaker 1: sort of you're trying to deal with your concerns and
Speaker 1: tackle stuff that's complicated and messy for you. And part
Speaker 1: of it's a little bit of like self therapy working
Speaker 1: on something like this. So I knew that this sort
Speaker 1: of story I wanted to tell Emily took a little
Speaker 1: bit more convincing. I knew this was a story I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell because thinking about it would like paralyze me.
Speaker 1: And I knew that I had a lot of like
Speaker 1: stuff floating around inside this black box that I hadn't opened.
Speaker 1: And I knew that in in order to be able
Speaker 1: to move on from this kind of crazy event and
Speaker 1: have to write about it and really get into it
Speaker 1: and and and sort of figure out how I felt
Speaker 1: about it, you know. And it's very easy to be like, well,
Speaker 1: that was a tough time when you actually opened the
Speaker 1: box and think about like what did I do this day?
Speaker 1: And then this happened, and this happened. That is how
Speaker 1: that made me feel. Like going through all the events
Speaker 1: piece by piece is it's very difficult, but I think
Speaker 1: it's also allowed us to get a handle on this big,
Speaker 1: big part of our life. Did you get swept up
Speaker 1: in any kind of emotion, like in the moment in
Speaker 1: a scene that would obviously remind you of this very
Speaker 1: emotional moment in your life. There are some scenes that
Speaker 1: I cried when I wrote them, I cried when I
Speaker 1: rewrote them, I cried when I rehearsed them, and and
Speaker 1: then shooting them was the same thing. I was surprised
Speaker 1: at how much of it actually felt like going through
Speaker 1: the real thing. Part of it is, I mean more
Speaker 1: of the hospital stuff, because when you were in a hospital.
Speaker 1: This wasn't a set we shot in a real hospital.
Speaker 1: The sense memory of being in a hospital, and I
Speaker 1: hadn't that, it had been about nine years since that
Speaker 1: stuff happened. Just the lighting, the smell of tape, the
Speaker 1: smell of medicine, the sterility, yeah, the weird beeps you hear,
Speaker 1: all that stuff, the sounds of wheels on um little
Speaker 1: him or whatever it is. All that stuff took me
Speaker 1: back immediately, me and Emily, both of us like immediately.
Speaker 1: So it was actually more of a struggle to not
Speaker 1: uh go back into that really sad space. It was
Speaker 1: actually more of a star struggle to not do that
Speaker 1: than it was to like get into it, you know,
Speaker 1: like like waiting in the waiting room or all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I hadn't been in a hospital really since all that
Speaker 1: stuff happened to us, and going back into it and
Speaker 1: shooting it there. It was very very It was very intense,
Speaker 1: and it was very intense for Emily. It's about ten
Speaker 1: years ago, right two seven. You said she took a
Speaker 1: little more convincing Emily did, So what do you think
Speaker 1: what did it take to get her there? I think
Speaker 1: so I met with Judd and I had spoken to
Speaker 1: him about doing this, and I sort of started writing
Speaker 1: it and I told her. I was like, Hey, I
Speaker 1: want to write about this event from from my perspective.
Speaker 1: And she was very understanding of that, and she was like,
Speaker 1: of course, that's you're right. But as I was writing it,
Speaker 1: I just felt like it wasn't going to be good
Speaker 1: unless both perspectives were in there, so I just had
Speaker 1: to read. I think what happened was I wrote a
Speaker 1: very rough version of the script from my perspective. She
Speaker 1: read it and she understood a little bit how it
Speaker 1: was for me to go through it, and she knew that.
Speaker 1: I think that was a little bit exciting to her too,
Speaker 1: was to see things through my eyes. And but she
Speaker 1: also knew, like, listen, if you're going to do the story,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be complete unless we have both
Speaker 1: these perspectives. So I think she jumped on one because, um,
Speaker 1: she realized the sort of there is a joy and
Speaker 1: even um telling a story about something that's very painful,
Speaker 1: there is a joint and I think, and there's an
Speaker 1: excitement in it. And I think she she she sort
Speaker 1: of got that, and she just knew that it was
Speaker 1: going to be good for our relationship because I realized
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't understand these events from her perspective,
Speaker 1: and she didn't understand them from my perspective. So she
Speaker 1: started writing, we started writing together. She assumed it was
Speaker 1: never going to get made, so for her it was
Speaker 1: I think, more system, get it out of your system,
Speaker 1: a little bit of therapy, let's get to know each other,
Speaker 1: let's figure this out. She'd written a couple of things
Speaker 1: about it, but nothing really so so I think she
Speaker 1: jumped on being like this will never get made and
Speaker 1: will just be like a great thing that we get
Speaker 1: to do together for us and for each other. Was
Speaker 1: her potentially playing herself, I just out of the question
Speaker 1: from the beginning. Yeah, I mean, she's not an actress
Speaker 1: and she didn't want to do that. From the very beginning,
Speaker 1: you know, the plan was always like I'll play me
Speaker 1: and we'll get a really hopefully a really great actress
Speaker 1: to play Emily, which we which we were able to. Um.
Speaker 1: Emily never wanted to play herself. She has all interest
Speaker 1: in performance or anything. She's a writer. She used to be.
Speaker 1: She wasn't practicing therapist, she's not anymore. But she's a writer,
Speaker 1: and you know that's what she definitely wanted to do
Speaker 1: with it. She didn't she didn't want to act in
Speaker 1: the Yeah, I don't want to get in front of
Speaker 1: any cameras either. They're trying to get me to do
Speaker 1: it here all the time, though you were what like
Speaker 1: six months were moved from Sundance. Now, that must have
Speaker 1: been just a dream come true, right, Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: crazy because you know, we were at that point very
Speaker 1: proud of the movie we've made, and we really liked it.
Speaker 1: But the people who really have been working on it,
Speaker 1: it was a very small group of people that really
Speaker 1: had been working on it, and they're all the people
Speaker 1: who obviously had the highest stakes and it we were like,
Speaker 1: we're the least objective people. We think we did a
Speaker 1: good job, but who knows, you know. Um, So, Emily
Speaker 1: and I when we were sitting at Sundance it's very
Speaker 1: you know, we were excited to get in and we
Speaker 1: we started watching it with the crowd, and there was
Speaker 1: acific point, like a few minutes into the movie where
Speaker 1: I could feel like, Oh, they they liked this movie now.
Speaker 1: Because there's always like, especially at Sundance, I think there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of like in the beginning, you're like,
Speaker 1: what is this Do I like it? I want to
Speaker 1: be on board? Am I going to check out? You're
Speaker 1: evaluating it? But there was a specific point in the
Speaker 1: movie fairly early on where I just felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: they they want to see this movie now. Uh. And
Speaker 1: from then on it was just sort of Actually, the
Speaker 1: first screening was definitely a little bit deer in headlights
Speaker 1: from me. I could put the Ecles. It was at
Speaker 1: the The first screening was at the end. The first
Speaker 1: two screenings were at the Eccles. So for the first screening,
Speaker 1: it was just like I was like, Oh, here it
Speaker 1: comes this. I hope this goes well. I hope this
Speaker 1: joke lines, Oh, I hope this works and uh, and
Speaker 1: I could tell it went really well and the reviews
Speaker 1: were really good. But it was the next morning. We
Speaker 1: had another screening at nine am. The next day. So
Speaker 1: we were lucky in that we had a screening at
Speaker 1: six thirty pm, and so we've got a lot of
Speaker 1: reviews from that, and then we had to meet a
Speaker 1: screening immediately afterwards so that people could would continue talking
Speaker 1: about it. So we had another screening at nine am
Speaker 1: the next day, and that I watched and actually enjoyed
Speaker 1: watching it. Um Uh, it was I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of felt like Emith and I were saying,
Speaker 1: it kind of felt like it was our wedding or something.
Speaker 1: Because you walk around and everybody knows, even if people
Speaker 1: haven't seen the movie, they know you're the guys who
Speaker 1: wrote this movie that like sold for whatever to you know,
Speaker 1: because that becomes a big part of the story too.
Speaker 1: So it was exciting. It was mostly just exciting to
Speaker 1: have so many people connect with it, um and come
Speaker 1: up to us and tell us what parts of the
Speaker 1: movie they really felt like, Um, just connected to you know,
Speaker 1: Gray romantic gets me the whole time. He's so amazing.
Speaker 1: Did you guys have like, obviously you're picturing yourselves when
Speaker 1: in the real people whenever you're writing the script, But
Speaker 1: did casting ideas pop into your head? Where did you
Speaker 1: say of someone like Holly Hunter or like great Maman.
Speaker 1: And when you're writing the script, well, for for instance,
Speaker 1: for my dad character, I always wrote it. We always
Speaker 1: wrote it for that actor under don't care. He the
Speaker 1: Bollywood legends, so for him, from the very beginning, it
Speaker 1: was my dad's voice. It helps it my dad and
Speaker 1: the guy playing my dad look alike to um, so,
Speaker 1: so with him certainly written in his voice. Um Holly
Speaker 1: was the first, the second person cast after Zoe, And
Speaker 1: what we did was we'd sort of written it with
Speaker 1: these characters in mind, and we sort of had Holly
Speaker 1: Hunter in mind writing for Emily's mom a few months
Speaker 1: before we started casting it. So we rewrote it for
Speaker 1: Holly Hunter hoping that she would do it. And that
Speaker 1: was the person we really wanted to get for Emily's mom,
Speaker 1: so so we did write it with her in mind.
Speaker 1: At some point we were like, once we um got
Speaker 1: a director, we were like, Holly Hunter will be the
Speaker 1: best for this. Let's let's just try and write it
Speaker 1: to her with Ray Romano. That was Judd's idea. Judd
Speaker 1: was like, I think Holly Hunter and Ray Romano would
Speaker 1: make a good pairing and they don't make sense in
Speaker 1: the same way that the central couple kind of doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. Like when you see these two people together,
Speaker 1: it's like interesting. They're not people that you would imagine
Speaker 1: being together, like me and Zoe together, Like we just
Speaker 1: look so different, it's interesting. And then Ray and Holly
Speaker 1: look so different. It's interesting, and they have such different
Speaker 1: energies in the New York and North Carolina vibe exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, the exactly where Holly's from actually, but just
Speaker 1: the southern She's from North Carolina in thee in the
Speaker 1: movie she's from North Carolina, but I think she's actually
Speaker 1: from West Virginia. Okay, um so yes, exactly. So we
Speaker 1: wanted to mirror that relationship with our relationship a little bit.
Speaker 1: And that was you know, Judd was friends with Ray
Speaker 1: and had worked with them on Funny People, and Ray
Speaker 1: has a quick, funny, very funny scene and he was like,
Speaker 1: he's such a great actor and people haven't really seen
Speaker 1: that yet. Um so I was you know, I've been
Speaker 1: I've been a big fan of Race for a long time,
Speaker 1: from like stand up to his show. So we were like,
Speaker 1: I knew he was going to be really good because
Speaker 1: even when he did everybody loves Raymond, which was like
Speaker 1: sort of a broad multiicam sitcom. His performance is always
Speaker 1: so grounded. This I've always found this like a melancholy
Speaker 1: to him, no matter what he does, even when he's
Speaker 1: doing stand when he's really funny, there's like a really appealing,
Speaker 1: like sad sadness to him that I think. I think
Speaker 1: that like sadness and comedy go really well together, which
Speaker 1: is what a lot of our movie is. I think
Speaker 1: they can really deepen each other. I think really funny
Speaker 1: stuff can really set up sad stuff really well, and
Speaker 1: I think really emotional stuff stuff sets up funny stuff
Speaker 1: really well. So so we were like already we had
Speaker 1: no doubt. We did not dish him or anything obviously,
Speaker 1: we were just like we just asked him if he
Speaker 1: if he wanted to do it, and just knew that
Speaker 1: he was going to be fantastic. Yeah. Um, speaking in
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Emily grew up in or did she grew
Speaker 1: up in Weston Salem? Yes? You did. I went to
Speaker 1: college in Weston Salem. No you did? Yeah, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I mean I grew up in North Carolina, grew up
Speaker 1: in Salisbury. Really, She's from Kaye, Vegas in Cornersville they
Speaker 1: called it. Yeah, I know it well actually, uh and
Speaker 1: she she went to school in Greensboro too, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't see Greensboro. She won't go down there often.
Speaker 1: I go down there all the time. You think in
Speaker 1: North Carolina, you know, in the beginning, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: was like, because I'm a city guy. I grew up
Speaker 1: in city. So at the beginning when I would go back,
Speaker 1: I would be like, it was so alien to me.
Speaker 1: I've never really been in the South that much. But
Speaker 1: but I really have grown to love it. I think
Speaker 1: the people are so nice and it's sort of tough
Speaker 1: to reconcile that, you know. I had the eMate this
Speaker 1: image of the South in my head before I went,
Speaker 1: and when I was going there, I was like putting
Speaker 1: that like filter on top of everything. But I really
Speaker 1: love it. I think it's really gorgeous. I think the
Speaker 1: people are really Yes, I think for the most most part,
Speaker 1: they're really genuine. And it's also like the people who
Speaker 1: are cool. I found like so like if you're in
Speaker 1: New York, right, the hipsters, there's like the tattoo hipsters,
Speaker 1: there's like the hat hipsters. There's like the punk hipsters
Speaker 1: are all different. In North Carolina, there's so few of
Speaker 1: them that they're all the types s mushed together. So
Speaker 1: you have a person who's like the tattoo hipster and
Speaker 1: the punk hipster and the like the rockabilly hipster, all
Speaker 1: smushed into one. And I think Emily had this experience
Speaker 1: growing up where she was like all the weird kids
Speaker 1: had to hang out together. So it was like, because
Speaker 1: Emily was like a goth and the goth kids hung
Speaker 1: out with, the gay kids hung out with like the
Speaker 1: black kids, you know, so like whoever was sort of
Speaker 1: an outsider, they all hung out together, so like the
Speaker 1: Hispanic kids, you know. And so it's really neat when
Speaker 1: I go back and go to where she used to
Speaker 1: go and hang out with their friends. It's like a
Speaker 1: very diverse group of people because they all had to
Speaker 1: sort of find solace and each other's otherness, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you go? Is it once in Salem that you
Speaker 1: go to whenever? Yeah, we go to with his Salem.
Speaker 1: Some good bars. They're on Art for art Sake Boulevard
Speaker 1: that name is not trying too hard. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: Are you talking about like Single Brothers and Silver Moon Saloon,
Speaker 1: Silverman Salon, And what's that place from the corner of
Speaker 1: warehouse or garage? What's the garage? The garage a place
Speaker 1: called the garage, I think. And then there's like First
Speaker 1: Street draft House, and if you ever make it over
Speaker 1: to uh, what's called Opera House? Shared in operase not
Speaker 1: shared in that's until you're right, there's a place called
Speaker 1: the Opera House. It's like another bar, but lots of
Speaker 1: lots of good bars in Western Salem. Is a new
Speaker 1: one called the Black Lodge. Have you been to that,
Speaker 1: like Twin Peaks that really have that kind of a
Speaker 1: vibe or something? Well, I think the best off that
Speaker 1: it's not like licensed selling little toys. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: a big Is it called the Black Lodge? I don't
Speaker 1: want to messin that. I'm not a huge Twin Peaks guy,
Speaker 1: Emily is. I think it's called the I literally am
Speaker 1: watching the show now and I can't remember it is
Speaker 1: the Something Lodge. And I'm sure a lot of listeners
Speaker 1: are yelling at us right now. It's called this, Yeah
Speaker 1: you can, but anyway, but yeah, So we've hit up
Speaker 1: all those all those places, and I know, like you know,
Speaker 1: we go to like the small restaurants that they love
Speaker 1: that are one of us, and I think it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Do you like North Carolina? I do. I go back.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll run into you there one day. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we go back, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I used to
Speaker 1: do a show there every New Year, Christmas Eve Eve.
Speaker 1: We didn't do one last year, but I used to
Speaker 1: do a show at like the UH Local The Cat's
Speaker 1: Cradle Do you know that? Yes, Yeah, that's in uh
Speaker 1: isn't that in Chappel Hill? That's in Chappel Hill? And
Speaker 1: then also the local four one on what's it called
Speaker 1: the three something? Yeah, some of these venues, there's so many, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's cool. You know, we obviously have a
Speaker 1: lunatic legislature in North Carolina right now, but you know
Speaker 1: with all of the what have you, Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of what have you happening right now? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: do you think about this kind of boom lately? And
Speaker 1: maybe it's a boom, maybe it's not, but stand up
Speaker 1: centric projects, I mean there's elements of it in your film. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there's the Showtime show I'm Dying up here, there's h
Speaker 1: Pete Home Show Crashing. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's obviously fertile territory to to mine
Speaker 1: and play with. But yeah, and does Maron and Louie
Speaker 1: and I mean, I think at its most basic, it
Speaker 1: comes out of people who are comedians wanting to write
Speaker 1: about what they know, right, I mean, Louis Marin Pete,
Speaker 1: all that is pretty It sort of makes sense on
Speaker 1: its sound. I was honestly a little worried that our movie.
Speaker 1: I just didn't want our movie to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's one of the stand up things. Like Babilia has
Speaker 1: done great stuff about comedy, you know, he did Uh
Speaker 1: Don't Think Twice and Sleepwalk with Me, which is about
Speaker 1: stand up. So I was I was honestly a little
Speaker 1: concerned where I was like, there's so many things that
Speaker 1: are about the world of comedy. Um, I hope people
Speaker 1: don't think that this is another one that's really about that,
Speaker 1: because that the stand up aspect of our movie really
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty small. And this was interesting. So the
Speaker 1: movie has kind of like five storylines, right, So it's
Speaker 1: me and Emily, Emily sickness, me and my parents, me
Speaker 1: and Emily's parents, and then the stand up. And we
Speaker 1: realized in editing that the first four stories intertwined and
Speaker 1: bump against each other and enrich each other and complicate
Speaker 1: each other and sort of like have a ripple effect.
Speaker 1: The stand up storyline end of it is on its own,
Speaker 1: doesn't really it's only way to illustrate what's going on
Speaker 1: in the other four storylines. It doesn't really complicate anything
Speaker 1: in there. So we ended up actually cutting out a
Speaker 1: lot of the stand up storyline. There were a lot
Speaker 1: more stand up scenes, Like David Allen Greer had a
Speaker 1: bigger part in the movie, and he was fantastic, Like
Speaker 1: doing scenes with him was awesome. But unfortunately, just you're
Speaker 1: watching it and you realize, like, okay, so it's the
Speaker 1: stakes are this woman could die, or these intergenerational conflicts
Speaker 1: or these intercultural conflicts, and then whether I'm going to
Speaker 1: get into the Montreal Comedy Festival. It just seems the
Speaker 1: stakes seems so much lower than all the others. We
Speaker 1: also realized making this movie, like so we built in
Speaker 1: a lot of stand up stuff as sort of a
Speaker 1: pressure valve, so like if the main storyline got got
Speaker 1: really intense, we could always go and get some laughs.
Speaker 1: But in seeing the movie and showing it to people,
Speaker 1: we realize people don't want to leave the main storyline
Speaker 1: people want to watch, Like, if you're not dealing with
Speaker 1: those four things, people are like, go back to that.
Speaker 1: Who who gives a shit about your your audition? You know? Um,
Speaker 1: So we ended up cutting back on it a lot.
Speaker 1: I think I think the stand up world is an
Speaker 1: interesting place to show sort of people trying to you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a David versus Goliath thing, right, like
Speaker 1: when you're like Pizza Show, for instance, what it does
Speaker 1: so well is it's it's open mic, and there's this
Speaker 1: big machine, and there's all these people caught up in this,
Speaker 1: in this machine trying to make it, and so few
Speaker 1: people make it. And I think that's very compelling to see,
Speaker 1: like sort of the ins and outs of a subculture
Speaker 1: that a lot of people, a lot of people know
Speaker 1: the service of the culture of the subculture, but people
Speaker 1: don't know what the politics of it are. So I
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting way to show like the rat
Speaker 1: race and the rigamarole of trying to become a successful
Speaker 1: stand up I think that's sort of the fun of it.
Speaker 1: I think that's sort of the fun of Pizza. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen him dying up here yet. But I know
Speaker 1: it's based on like the seventies comedy store scene. It's
Speaker 1: pretty pretty good. I've seen a couple of episodes. Um,
Speaker 1: what are some of your who are some of your
Speaker 1: comedy inspirations? Well, when I was starting, you know, I
Speaker 1: loved when I was just sort of before I started
Speaker 1: stand up, I was, I got obsessed with stand up
Speaker 1: and I loved, um, Jerry Seinfeld. I really loved Woody
Speaker 1: Allen's or at least stand up from like the sixties. Um.
Speaker 1: I really loved Zach Alfanakis. I thought was a really
Speaker 1: really really funny stand up doing a lot of like
Speaker 1: North Carolina, North Carolina, right of course, Um, a lot
Speaker 1: of North Carolina people. Emily always knows everybody who's like,
Speaker 1: oh North Carolina, North Carolina. Like she knows like, oh
Speaker 1: bred Gelman and John Daily went to you and c
Speaker 1: Are Um, Um you know Jodie Hell and Danny McBride
Speaker 1: and everybody Tom Holtz from Um. Yeah, I went to
Speaker 1: my Uh, I went to North Carolina school the arts
Speaker 1: and went to Salem. So he was in the art
Speaker 1: school or the acting school there. Really. Yeah, yes, everybody
Speaker 1: from North Carolina knows all the people from North Carolina
Speaker 1: who are in the industry doesn't. Emily has a lot
Speaker 1: of North Carolina pride um. But so I really liked
Speaker 1: those guys. I thought I thought they were super funny.
Speaker 1: And I'm Conan and Andy honestly, like I watched their
Speaker 1: show all the time before I ever started doing stand up,
Speaker 1: and I just like, I've never seen that kind of weird,
Speaker 1: off the wall, strange comedy like masturbating Bear and stuff.
Speaker 1: I missed that so much. I wish that the whole
Speaker 1: thing with the Tonight show hadn't happened. And he just
Speaker 1: I mean, I know it was his dream. It's every
Speaker 1: comic stream, I guess, but like, I'm miss him at
Speaker 1: twelve thirty. I missed him in that spot. There was
Speaker 1: such a unique show. You know, Yeah, it's still He's still.
Speaker 1: It's still a very funny show. I always miss always
Speaker 1: forget it's on TBS and he's still He's still. Him
Speaker 1: and Andy are still so funny, and and I do
Speaker 1: that show and like I always have to be like,
Speaker 1: don't freak out that you're doing code and don't freak
Speaker 1: out um, and then the TV shows like, ah, I
Speaker 1: really really, it's also amazing that you know, I get
Speaker 1: to work with Mike Judge because Beavis and butt Head
Speaker 1: and Office Space or like my favorite favorite comedies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: First of all, what is Mike Judge like? Because I
Speaker 1: love that guy so much. I love his voice, as
Speaker 1: you say, Bevis and Budded, King of the Hill, Office Space.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like stuff I grew up loving,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, and like I said that, the
Speaker 1: new show is my favorite show. So just what's Mike like.
Speaker 1: He's great, He's a really he's from Texas, so he's
Speaker 1: really kind of like a dude. He's he's sort of
Speaker 1: like a beer and steak kind of guy. You know.
Speaker 1: He's like, uh, he's fun. He's super super nice and
Speaker 1: super super grounded, like he gets how ridiculous Hollywood can
Speaker 1: be and stuff. Um, he's just like a really normal
Speaker 1: nice Like if you met him, if you didn't know
Speaker 1: what he looked like, you'd be shocked. If someone was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's comedic genius Mike Judge, You're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: He's just like a nice, normal dude. But I think
Speaker 1: Mike's big thing is Mike really really has an affinity
Speaker 1: for people. But he really thinks that sort of structures
Speaker 1: are really funny, Like he sees the ridiculousness of big machines.
Speaker 1: That's what office space is about. And I really think
Speaker 1: he loves like people that don't fit into those machines.
Speaker 1: So I can Silicon Valley all of our Ultimately, the
Speaker 1: tension of that show is Silicon Valleys. This big machine.
Speaker 1: That's the way certain things are done. There's a way
Speaker 1: success is achieved. And all our characters don't fit into that.
Speaker 1: We don't work in that machine. Even though we're smart,
Speaker 1: even though we we want to succeed, we have the drive,
Speaker 1: we just don't fit into that machine. And us not
Speaker 1: fitting into that machine highlights the absurdity of the machine,
Speaker 1: which is sort of what office spaces. You know. It's
Speaker 1: a guy who's a coggan a machine, who has the
Speaker 1: hypnot hypnotized thing happened to him and he realized like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't fit in and you just see the absurdity
Speaker 1: of it. That's that's exactly what idiocracy is. A guy
Speaker 1: who doesn't an outsider coming into that world and and
Speaker 1: be with and butt Head is just about two guys
Speaker 1: who are complete, complete outcasts. Of society who do not
Speaker 1: fit into the world, you know. So I think that's
Speaker 1: Mike's like real true genius um And it's not like
Speaker 1: I think he thinks organizations are so stupid. I think
Speaker 1: he thinks it's so funny and he just you know,
Speaker 1: that's the stuff he sees and is able to articulate.
Speaker 1: What are those sets like, Like, do you guys crack
Speaker 1: each other up? Is it? You know? I mean, just
Speaker 1: what's it like a normal day when you're shooting Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: I think shooting Silicon Valley is always barely, barely controlled
Speaker 1: chaos because all of us are comedians and all of
Speaker 1: us are fairly high energy people. So sometimes it all
Speaker 1: aligns and we're all high energy together and it's chaos
Speaker 1: in good way. And then sometimes the two people are
Speaker 1: high energy and other people are low energy. So it's
Speaker 1: like it's like pretty different every day. It's always fun.
Speaker 1: What helps is because we're all sort of comedians. If
Speaker 1: you have a long day, like a fourteen hour day,
Speaker 1: towards the end of the day, there is someone who
Speaker 1: has energy who makes sure that everybody starts spinning too,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's a really really fun set because
Speaker 1: everybody on that show is I'm really good friends with everyone,
Speaker 1: Like we're all super close. We hang out all the time.
Speaker 1: I just thought Thomas yesterday, you know. I mean it's
Speaker 1: kind of its kind of grows how much we like
Speaker 1: hang out and we're just really fans of each other
Speaker 1: and we think each other as I think, we all
Speaker 1: think the other person is so funny. So it's a
Speaker 1: very generous set too, because we we improvise, but we
Speaker 1: want to give room to the other people just because
Speaker 1: we want to see what they're gonna say. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody's like trying to hog the limelight. It's it's it
Speaker 1: truly is beginning to end talk to bottom a dream job.
Speaker 1: It's kind of it's amazing we're you guys film that
Speaker 1: and then the last thing just want to bring it
Speaker 1: back to the big sick. You know, we're in this uh,
Speaker 1: this place where the importance of representation is resonating for people.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the idea that people are beginning
Speaker 1: to understand that underserved voices, UH, seeing their their their
Speaker 1: voices on screen, their stories on screen, is very vital.
Speaker 1: It's something that makes Moonlight's best picture when so wonderful
Speaker 1: so you know, you've made this film about a guy
Speaker 1: who questions his faith, who is struggling with having you know,
Speaker 1: I guess, for lack of a better word, being Americanized
Speaker 1: in a family who is holding onto custom And I
Speaker 1: have no doubt. I mean, growing up, my best friend
Speaker 1: was an Indian boy and and I saw him struggle
Speaker 1: with some of these things as well. So I have
Speaker 1: no doubt that there will be some kid out there
Speaker 1: who sees his story in this and really moved by that.
Speaker 1: So how important is that aspect of this film for you? Well?
Speaker 1: For me, I certainly. The people connect to the story
Speaker 1: many different ways. And my favorite is when it's exactly
Speaker 1: like your friend, When people are like, I have the
Speaker 1: same story, um like second generation and I feel disconnected
Speaker 1: from my parents and and it's the first time I've
Speaker 1: seen something that really speaks to my experience. So that's
Speaker 1: my favorite reaction. You know, whenever we do a screening,
Speaker 1: will do a Q and and there will always be
Speaker 1: somebody who says like, I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: I saw myself on screen, which is very very it's
Speaker 1: very exciting, and it's a really pretty great side effect
Speaker 1: of us doing our story. You know, We didn't do
Speaker 1: our story because we were like, this would be a
Speaker 1: good social point to raise, so this will be a
Speaker 1: good political statement or anything. Really not at all. We
Speaker 1: just wanted to tell our story, which is a love story.
Speaker 1: But because it's a love story between a Pakistani man
Speaker 1: and a woman from North Carolina, it's inherently politicized, right,
Speaker 1: Like people see it. People see our love as being
Speaker 1: a statement um, which is just a side effect. It's
Speaker 1: not what we intend, but it's also unaffordable. I will
Speaker 1: say two things about representation that I've thought about quite
Speaker 1: a lot recently. I was watching I watched Rogue one,
Speaker 1: and I seeing Riz on screen being an action star.
Speaker 1: I had this like really intense emotional experience to it
Speaker 1: because I hadn't since I was I hadn't really seen
Speaker 1: in Hollywood my people being action stars. Right, you don't
Speaker 1: You don't see that. You still don't see that. So
Speaker 1: so to me, representation is important because of two things. One,
Speaker 1: it's important, I think for people and children to see
Speaker 1: themselves on the screen. I think that's very very important.
Speaker 1: The other thing is what you said is not just
Speaker 1: not just seeing representation on screen, but seeing different voices
Speaker 1: represented in the stories is important. Um, you mentioned Moonlight,
Speaker 1: that's a great example. I think get Out is another
Speaker 1: fantastic example of that, and Wonder Woman too. We don't
Speaker 1: see many female lead superhero movies directed by a female director.
Speaker 1: I could say, any I think this is the first one, right,
Speaker 1: isn't it? So, So what I'm saying is everything is
Speaker 1: important for people to see themselves, and I think that's
Speaker 1: good for society. But also I think people actually want
Speaker 1: to see these stories to all from different perspectives. So
Speaker 1: so you're not making these movies to make any because
Speaker 1: because it's good for society. You're making these movies because
Speaker 1: there's there's money in it. Get Out is tremendously successful,
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman is huge. People want to see stories told
Speaker 1: from different points of view, So I guess that's that's
Speaker 1: the exciting thing, is that it's actually financially a good
Speaker 1: thing to have different voices tell their stories. Um. I
Speaker 1: think that's the most I think that's the most exciting thing,
Speaker 1: and people are catching on. It's like, you know, in
Speaker 1: Hollywood there has been sort of this thing where like
Speaker 1: people don't want to see protagonists of certain ethnicities or whatever.
Speaker 1: I think people do. I think people just I think
Speaker 1: it's novel. Like our movie is sort of a romantic comedy,
Speaker 1: but because it's told from a different perspective, it's inherently novel,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, And I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 1: many people are going to see our movie, but get
Speaker 1: Out Wonder Woman, Moonlight. People want to see stories from
Speaker 1: from perspective. Well, I was just gonna say, everybody helped
Speaker 1: continue to break that mold and go see the Big Sick. Uh.
Speaker 1: It opens limited release the twenty three of June, right,
Speaker 1: and then I guess it goes wider a week or
Speaker 1: two later. It sort of goes wide for four weeks
Speaker 1: in July fourteen. That's when it goes everywhere. Everybody will
Speaker 1: be able to see it on July fourteen to check
Speaker 1: it out. Come hel thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me and fun
Speaker 1: Fair