Speaker 1: Let's talk about ross for a second. How far did
Speaker 1: you get in that process? I got to the studio okay,
Speaker 1: and I had I guess it had to. They moved
Speaker 1: me up quickly to the studio level. I didn't make
Speaker 1: it past that. Years later, when I was working with
Speaker 1: Jim Burrows on Will and Grace, he directed the first
Speaker 1: twelve episodes of Friends, and I said, you know, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I never got to meet you,
Speaker 1: but pretty far along there on the Friends casting, he said, oh, honey,
Speaker 1: you were wasting your time. They wrote the part for
Speaker 1: Schwimmer and that was the end of That was the
Speaker 1: end of that dream. Hi, I'm Eric McCormack, and I
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed. Hello, Hello everybody, and welcome back to
Speaker 1: Off the Beat. I am, as always, your host, Brian Baumgartner,
Speaker 1: and you just heard from my guest today, the incredible
Speaker 1: and incredibly funny looking Eric McCormack. You might know him
Speaker 1: from his tenure playing the groundbreaking Will Truman on Will
Speaker 1: and Grace, for which he earned an Emmy for Outstanding
Speaker 1: Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and a star on
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Or maybe you know him
Speaker 1: from his time traveling show Travelers, or his crime drama perception.
Speaker 1: Eric has well, he's done it all. And as they
Speaker 1: said during the dedication of his Walk of Fame star,
Speaker 1: he's a national treasure even though he's Canadian and it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to argue with that. No, Eric is he
Speaker 1: is indeed a treasure in the US and Canada all
Speaker 1: over the world. I have gotten to know him working
Speaker 1: on our new show The Other Black Girl down in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to dig into his life with all of
Speaker 1: you here, from his background as a theater actor to
Speaker 1: his amazing friendship with Elton John. You're in for a
Speaker 1: treat today. I'm not gonna make you wait one moment longer.
Speaker 1: My new bestie and soon to be yours, Eric McCormack,
Speaker 1: Bubble and Squeak. I love Bubble and Squeak. Bubble and
Speaker 1: Squeaker cook at every month, left over from the night before. Well, well,
Speaker 1: well how are you? I mean, you know, I'm good?
Speaker 1: How are you? I mean? My little crappy I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta figure out how to the only place in
Speaker 1: my home that this kind of thing works, podcasting and
Speaker 1: all of that is in like crappy little office which
Speaker 1: I have not updated in years, and it's just messy
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm the gimp when I'm down here,
Speaker 1: like I've been locked down here, and let me upstairs eventually. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't really want the visual image of
Speaker 1: you being a gimp in your office, but it's there now,
Speaker 1: so sorry. Uh Well, first of all, Happy new Year,
Speaker 1: Happy new year to you, buddy. What a strange little
Speaker 1: little Am I going to see you again in the
Speaker 1: new year? I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess you know better than I what we can
Speaker 1: say to people. But Eric and I are working on
Speaker 1: a new show together out in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I will see I guess. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: a very I'm excited. It's based on a book called
Speaker 1: The Other Black Girl, and we're keeping the title, which
Speaker 1: of course is a white guy is always gonna be
Speaker 1: a very embarrassing title to what are you working on?
Speaker 1: What the other the Other Black Girl? It's it's a book,
Speaker 1: it's based on a book and award winning books. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's ays. It's a great ten episode half
Speaker 1: hour the three young women starring in a great uh,
Speaker 1: and Brian and I have some fun stuff to do,
Speaker 1: but we're not sure if Ryan's UH back in the
Speaker 1: next couple of episodes. We're not sure. Yeah, we're not sure.
Speaker 1: We probably shouldn't say I don't. I always feel like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get in trouble anytime before something is out
Speaker 1: to say anything. But I can officially say that I
Speaker 1: am working and have gotten to know you in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: which has been delightful. Indeed, we've had a couple of
Speaker 1: great dinners together. Yeah. Um, well, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to end there, but I want to go back now.
Speaker 1: As we have discussed, and as my research has confirmed,
Speaker 1: you're originally from Canada. I asked. I'm a Toronto boy,
Speaker 1: and in fact, my family's Toronto for about four generations.
Speaker 1: And uh, my parents grew up in the east side
Speaker 1: of town, and I grew up in the suburbs and
Speaker 1: and didn't really make it out of there until I
Speaker 1: was almost thirty, and that was and just and that
Speaker 1: was to go west to Vancouver. I didn't really come
Speaker 1: to to l A until Yeah, I was about my
Speaker 1: thirties birthday. And you you were primarily doing theater early
Speaker 1: on correct yeah, I was. I mean years later I
Speaker 1: would hear about actors that had started pre med or
Speaker 1: or may or maybe they just discovered acting in their
Speaker 1: twice like what. I've been acting since I was five
Speaker 1: years old. And you know, I wasn't the child's are
Speaker 1: or anything. I was just that was I knew from
Speaker 1: the age of about six that's what I was gonna do,
Speaker 1: and was in every school play and uh went to
Speaker 1: theater school in in Toronto and then left a little
Speaker 1: early to apprentice at a Shakespeare company. And so my
Speaker 1: twenties were spent almost entirely in Canadian theater. Wait, but
Speaker 1: six years old, I understand you were inspired by mel Blanc,
Speaker 1: Yes for sure, who voiced all the Looney Tunes, Don
Speaker 1: Adams in Smart and Woody Allen. This is a collection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't the big Woody Allen fan at six. That
Speaker 1: came a little bit later. But you know, another big
Speaker 1: one that only Canadians would really know, uh sort of.
Speaker 1: The Canadian version of Mr Rogers was a wonderful character
Speaker 1: named Mr. Dress Up who was played by an actor
Speaker 1: named Ernie Coombs, and he literally had what he called
Speaker 1: a tickle trunk. Every morning, every kid would watch this
Speaker 1: show across Canada and he would costumes out of a
Speaker 1: trunk and become that character. I swear that is is
Speaker 1: my earliest influence. But then, yeah, Mel Blank is a
Speaker 1: big one for me. I'm sure a lot of actors
Speaker 1: would say the same that when I realized because at
Speaker 1: the end of Loony Tunes were much bigger for my
Speaker 1: family than Disney. I would watch Loony Tunes every day
Speaker 1: and at the end of it, as you're watching those
Speaker 1: very speedy credits that go by, there would say voice
Speaker 1: characterization Mel Blank, and I thought, what the hell does
Speaker 1: that even mean? And then I discovered that it was
Speaker 1: one guy doing all of it, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is this is a living somehow. Well, but isn't
Speaker 1: that crazy, right, Like I go through that with my kids.
Speaker 1: It's a complicated thing, right to understand that this is
Speaker 1: done by a person, the animated voices. This is very complicated.
Speaker 1: I've done very little. I did one kids thing which
Speaker 1: was called Pound Puppies. It did three seasons of Pound Pupas.
Speaker 1: But by that point my kid was already twelve or something,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't aware of that particular work. But it
Speaker 1: is interesting once once in a Blue Moon guy's coming
Speaker 1: to me in the street with his little kid, and
Speaker 1: he's pointed at me and said, honey, that's Lucky. That's
Speaker 1: Lucky the dog. And yeah, the look on the face
Speaker 1: is like, now, that is definitely not lucky that. Now.
Speaker 1: Did you have a trunk that you would take costumes
Speaker 1: out of? Oh? Yeah, absolutely, I mean I just I
Speaker 1: said that my mother very early on. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: of course, what it was filled with was my dad's
Speaker 1: old shirts, you know, But that's okay. I made the
Speaker 1: hats my you know, and anybody that disposed to the
Speaker 1: hats was was mine. You're just like different versions of
Speaker 1: your dad, isn't that true? Though? Of all this king
Speaker 1: dad mowing the lawn, this is Dad. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: Dad is a gangster m Yeah. That was a huge
Speaker 1: I mean I was that traditional kind of long kid.
Speaker 1: I had one best friend through my through my elementary years.
Speaker 1: But luckily he played along. I always thought he was
Speaker 1: like fifty with me and this. It wasn't til years
Speaker 1: later when I was talking about the games we would
Speaker 1: play in, the crazy characters and the stories we'd create
Speaker 1: in the imagination, You'd be like, dude, that was you.
Speaker 1: I just I just trying to keep up with I
Speaker 1: don't know what the hell you were doing, because I
Speaker 1: was say and it was a lot of stealing things
Speaker 1: from TV. You know. I'd watch mash or All in
Speaker 1: the Family with my dad, or some more serious stuff
Speaker 1: like crime solving stuff with my mom, and I would
Speaker 1: just the next day That's what I would act out
Speaker 1: all the time. So I think while so many actors
Speaker 1: were so influenced by SAVE films, my earliest influence is
Speaker 1: definitely all all television. How are your parents? Were they supportive? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know the story I tell when I tried to
Speaker 1: shorten at this time coach By. But basically, my father
Speaker 1: was a traditional suburban dad that gotten the bus every
Speaker 1: day and went to a job as a financial analyst
Speaker 1: for Shell Oil. And when I started to get deeply
Speaker 1: into the musicals I was doing and wearing my rainbow
Speaker 1: suspenders from God's Spell all the time, and he put
Speaker 1: up with it, did he? He said, let's go all
Speaker 1: you're very well done. Well done. I got into a
Speaker 1: college called Ryerson, which was the theater program there, and
Speaker 1: they were supportive. That's about it until second year I
Speaker 1: found I was looking in my parents attic. I found
Speaker 1: a photo album of my father's years at Ryerson as
Speaker 1: an actor. He had that was his dream. And he
Speaker 1: graduated fifty two and then just stopped one day and
Speaker 1: didn't and just went back to school for accounting and
Speaker 1: never look back to the point where he never told
Speaker 1: me a wow. And I tried to pick his brain
Speaker 1: by this point as world of in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, oh, well, you know, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't as serious as you are. And and but
Speaker 1: he clearly had just made a very kind of early
Speaker 1: fifties decision that there's you know, there's a there's food
Speaker 1: to be put on the table, and and your dreams
Speaker 1: are are not real, and you've got to look at reality.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that I've sort of got something
Speaker 1: um from him that he wouldn't even really admit to
Speaker 1: until years later he come to Will and Grace Tapings
Speaker 1: and you'd get have a Martinian going. I taught him
Speaker 1: everything you knew, but he never met when you went,
Speaker 1: he never mentioned, oh I went there. We had a
Speaker 1: teacher in common, the late Jack McAllister, taught me speech,
Speaker 1: and he, thirty years earlier, had taught my father. And
Speaker 1: of course he never made the connections, and certainly I didn't,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so they were very very supportive and they
Speaker 1: got a great thrill out of it as the years
Speaker 1: went by, But that always hung. There is a great mystery.
Speaker 1: They're they're both gone now and I just will never
Speaker 1: fully solve why not why you don't pursue that dream,
Speaker 1: but why you don't even mention it ever as your
Speaker 1: son is deep in the heart of it, I'll never know. Um,
Speaker 1: after you left Ryerson, you accepted a position at the
Speaker 1: Stratford Shakespeare Festival. So were you you were doing the
Speaker 1: whole Shakespeare ensemble doing in various shows. Is that My
Speaker 1: theater school was very classical, so I was very prepared
Speaker 1: for this and got an apprenticeship. And there are people
Speaker 1: that the Stratford Festival in Canada, just outside of Toronto
Speaker 1: is the biggest in North America, and it is. It's fantastic,
Speaker 1: and there are people that stay there their whole lives.
Speaker 1: And I ended up there for five seasons, which is
Speaker 1: nine months of the year, so it was five full
Speaker 1: years of my life, and in the winters I would
Speaker 1: go to other theaters in Canada to do whatever I get.
Speaker 1: Um that there was no television for the longest, longest time,
Speaker 1: and uh, but I did. I ended up doing in
Speaker 1: that period of time about half the cannon, about seventeen
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare's place, and I was an apprentice and a
Speaker 1: lot of them I was just carrying a spear or understudy.
Speaker 1: But then I got a few good parts, and by
Speaker 1: the end of it, but it was eighty nine, I
Speaker 1: just sort of was starting to get the feeling that
Speaker 1: that's not my destiny. Okay, So let's talk about that
Speaker 1: for a second. Was was there, because you and I
Speaker 1: have talked about I started off in theater as well.
Speaker 1: Was there a period of time where you thought, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned, many people were there, they were life or there.
Speaker 1: What did you think that was your path? Early you said,
Speaker 1: there's a moment you decided no. But yeah, I I
Speaker 1: was so such a theater geek at that point and
Speaker 1: making okay money as theater goes that all the the
Speaker 1: dreams that I had had as a kid of you know,
Speaker 1: watching television and the idea of being on a television
Speaker 1: show or anything that kind of went away. I wanted.
Speaker 1: I wanted the respect and wanted the sort of the
Speaker 1: high flue life of being a poor theater actor. But
Speaker 1: I also started to realize that I had a This
Speaker 1: goes back to the Woody Allen reference. I my style
Speaker 1: was not intrinsically here Elizabethan I was. I was starting
Speaker 1: to get more and more sort of urban Jewish in
Speaker 1: my delivery. And the directors, literally John John Neville, who
Speaker 1: who was directing a production of Three Sisters. At one point,
Speaker 1: I was playing Baron Tuzenbach, and he stopped me in
Speaker 1: the middle of a run and said, right, Eric, he's
Speaker 1: a Russian baron. Is not the Allen because I just
Speaker 1: hands with my pockets and I was trying to find
Speaker 1: the modern sort of and I couldn't stop it. And
Speaker 1: I played Demetrius the same way. And it's like I
Speaker 1: eventually let go for being to sitcomy eight years before
Speaker 1: Will embarras so interesting. I played two Zimbox. Did you really?
Speaker 1: I love that part. It's a great love that role.
Speaker 1: It's a great part. The relationship with Arena beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you? And he plays the piano in the first act?
Speaker 1: Did you play? No? I didn't, but they What I
Speaker 1: loved is that, because of the nature of the stage,
Speaker 1: they had to get rid of that piano quickly. How
Speaker 1: do you do that? So they had built a piano
Speaker 1: that looked like a baby grand from the audience. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was incredible, but you could lift it with one hand.
Speaker 1: It was a complete fake with the thinnest plywood. But
Speaker 1: I because I spent my whole adolescence in my bedroom
Speaker 1: pretending to be Freddie Mercury, So I just the idea
Speaker 1: that I could sit there and recite my lines and
Speaker 1: talking to Arena and act like I'm playing this music.
Speaker 1: I just maybe so happy. So you have a moment
Speaker 1: where you're at Stratford and you start thinking that maybe
Speaker 1: you want to switch gears? Do you consider it at
Speaker 1: this moment? Because I did, By the way, spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: I'll answer my own question before I ask it. Did
Speaker 1: you consider it changing careers? Well, at this point, I'm
Speaker 1: still basically Toronto based, and there really was there. There
Speaker 1: were some actors that got some Canadian series that didn't
Speaker 1: do a whole lot of theater at a lot of theater,
Speaker 1: actors that couldn't get in at the CBC. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, there was a lot of bleed over
Speaker 1: because it was a limited acting pool. So it didn't
Speaker 1: seem like I had to fully change careers, but I
Speaker 1: was pretty aware that I had to change something, that
Speaker 1: whenever this sort of flamboyant theatricality that I enjoyed for years,
Speaker 1: something was going to change. And it wasn't landing much
Speaker 1: in Toronto. And then in ninety two, a couple of
Speaker 1: years later, I flew because somebody told me there was
Speaker 1: so much more television going on in Vancouver, Canadian and
Speaker 1: a lot of American stuff. So I flew out there
Speaker 1: and slept on my friend's couch and and started auditioning.
Speaker 1: And the big lesson came when I auditioned for the
Speaker 1: original The X Files. They'd already started, they shot the pilot,
Speaker 1: they were starting to shoot episodes, and I was auditioning
Speaker 1: for a guest star for Chris Carter and I did
Speaker 1: my scene and he said, okay, just that, just one
Speaker 1: more time, just do less. So okay, I tried, did
Speaker 1: it again. He said yeah, less, really okay, And now
Speaker 1: I'm I'm practically whispering and I'm trying not to move anything,
Speaker 1: and he said one more time, he said less, And
Speaker 1: I said, if I do less, I won't be doing
Speaker 1: anything at all. And he said, yeah, that's kind of
Speaker 1: what we're going for and I did. I simply couldn't
Speaker 1: understand until I saw, you know, the pilot, and I went, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta learn how to do that. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to not do things with my eyes and move
Speaker 1: my hands. And it is so it is in a
Speaker 1: way to your question, it is a new kind of skill.
Speaker 1: It's a new career in a way. Yeah, you get
Speaker 1: your first break on street just this. Yes, Car Carl
Speaker 1: Weathers and I Carl Weathers and I solving crimes. But
Speaker 1: this is drama now, which I guess makes sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're doing lear, but my guess is not a ton
Speaker 1: of theatricality in that or in Lonesome Dove, which comes
Speaker 1: shortly after that. Yeah, The Lonesome Lonesome Dove was the
Speaker 1: big change for me because I was doing like, like
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that were in Vancouver round that time,
Speaker 1: that one Jump Street time. It was a lot of young,
Speaker 1: good looking guys. We're all vying for the same parts,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the television was badly written. It
Speaker 1: was no great that this was The Lonesome Dove. And
Speaker 1: ninety four was the spinoff of the miniseries, and it
Speaker 1: was to play this I hesitate to use the word macho,
Speaker 1: but this this sort of tough Confederate colonel with the accent,
Speaker 1: and I had my hair was kind of long at
Speaker 1: the time, and I grew a beard, and it was
Speaker 1: so not me. It was so the opposite of everything
Speaker 1: I've ever done. So getting it was pretty awesome, and
Speaker 1: it really in my brain, I thought, this is what
Speaker 1: I will be. I didn't think that necessarily this show
Speaker 1: is going to make me famous, but I thought this
Speaker 1: is how I'll be perceived now in the business. Because
Speaker 1: I was thirty one, I'll be my thirties. I'll be
Speaker 1: right rides horses and shoots guns and and that's what
Speaker 1: I'll be until I'm a gay lawyer, I guess southern
Speaker 1: Southern Confederate soldier. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's exactly what I
Speaker 1: think of you. I know. So you're doing these dramas.
Speaker 1: Is there a thought in your head about comedy, about
Speaker 1: wanting that or feeling that like that's where you should
Speaker 1: be or were you just auditioning and trying to get something? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean both both those things are true. Is definitely
Speaker 1: auditioning and trying to get something. And you know, to
Speaker 1: go back to the tickle trunk. I mean, whatever costume
Speaker 1: might pull out. It could be funny, but it could
Speaker 1: be serious. I loved I love playing in my backyard.
Speaker 1: It was a kid. I'd play cops and I decided
Speaker 1: that they were divorced, so they were angry, and I always,
Speaker 1: you know, there was there was a dramatic side to
Speaker 1: me that also needed to be fed, and a lot
Speaker 1: of theater school was was that. But what was happening
Speaker 1: I was doing lonesome job. I was playing this incredibly
Speaker 1: serious part. But when I'd go home, I'm watching Seinfeld
Speaker 1: and I'm watching Friends, and I'd grown up on Cheers,
Speaker 1: and It's like like there was a big part of
Speaker 1: me that was going kind damn it because I got
Speaker 1: Lonesome Dove, having only weeks earlier auditioned for Ross on Friends,
Speaker 1: I've done my first pilot season and nothing had come
Speaker 1: of it, and I Lonesome Dove was a result of
Speaker 1: a Canadian audition, so that I was very aware now
Speaker 1: of what was happening on television that I loved, which
Speaker 1: was the great sort of SEETV stuff on our network.
Speaker 1: All right, well, wait, let's talk about Ross for a second.
Speaker 1: How far did you get in that process. I got
Speaker 1: to the studio and I had I guess it had to.
Speaker 1: They moved me up quickly to the studio level. I
Speaker 1: didn't make it past that. Years later, when I was
Speaker 1: working with Jim Burrows on Will and Grace, he directed
Speaker 1: the first twelve episodes of Friends, and I said, you know, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I never got to meet you,
Speaker 1: but I got pretty far along there on the Friends
Speaker 1: casting and he said, oh, honey, were wasting your time.
Speaker 1: They wrote the park for schwim Mark and that was
Speaker 1: the end of that. At the end of that dream,
Speaker 1: talk to me about Will and Grace. Was this just
Speaker 1: an audition? This was an opportunity? Did you know any
Speaker 1: of the players involved? I didn't know anybody. Tracy Lillian
Speaker 1: phild had cast it, and she had had tried to
Speaker 1: cast me in one or two other things, so she
Speaker 1: was definitely got me in the room. I was not
Speaker 1: a known fact at that time. I was reading Matthew
Speaker 1: Perry's book and it reminded me that in that sort
Speaker 1: of period through the nineties and pilot season, everybody sort
Speaker 1: of knew seemed to know everybody, and if you know,
Speaker 1: if you didn't get this one. You're gonna get that one.
Speaker 1: And and I don't think I was in that pool.
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of being at that pool. I was
Speaker 1: just down from Canada. I didn't know that many people.
Speaker 1: But if a casting director sees you and believes in you,
Speaker 1: they'll get you in. And that's that's what happened there.
Speaker 1: And I read this guy. I knew but because this
Speaker 1: by this point, it's nineties seven and it's and friends
Speaker 1: and mad about you, and they're all like gigantic shows
Speaker 1: Seinfeld of course, so I knew. With the pond, I
Speaker 1: was trying to swim in and I knew a good
Speaker 1: script when I saw it, and it was a great
Speaker 1: pilot script, and I just I went in. I was
Speaker 1: my hair was quite long, and I was wearing this
Speaker 1: odd sweater. I looked back down and going was I thinking?
Speaker 1: But but I went in and I just did this
Speaker 1: one scene. It was on a park bench with with Grace,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that scene never made it to
Speaker 1: the show. But I did that one scene. And Max
Speaker 1: much Nick, was the the gay one of the two
Speaker 1: that created the show, just jumped out of his seat
Speaker 1: and said, okay, just so you know, you never have
Speaker 1: to be more gay than that, and I went, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: that's good, that's good, right, thank you. I don't know,
Speaker 1: because even they were trying to find that balance of
Speaker 1: you know, because they knew that they could with Jack,
Speaker 1: they could go crazy, but the will what is that balance?
Speaker 1: And so I was just gay enough. But but that
Speaker 1: was one of I'm pretty sure six auditions. And what
Speaker 1: was weird is that I kind of felt like I
Speaker 1: had it in that room. I just I could see
Speaker 1: it in Max and David's eyes. But of course there's
Speaker 1: all these other levels, there's all these other people to please.
Speaker 1: And then it was a strange, little weird period of
Speaker 1: time was this, which is before Christmas, a period of
Speaker 1: time over Christmas where I had this other opportunity in
Speaker 1: Canada and I just wasn't sure. And I kind of
Speaker 1: said to them, I'm going to pull myself out of
Speaker 1: this for a while. And Max called me at my
Speaker 1: home in Vancouver. It says, Max, Muchnick, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: He said what I said, I'm just not sure. There's
Speaker 1: a whole lot of all these scripts to to sort
Speaker 1: of consider. It's pilot season. He said, if you pass
Speaker 1: on this, you were making the biggest mistake of your life.
Speaker 1: And he was right, and I came back and I
Speaker 1: woke up one morning in Vancouver, January second third, and
Speaker 1: I just turned to my wife and I said, I
Speaker 1: think I've made a terrible mistake, and she said, yeah, maybe,
Speaker 1: so I called. Un Luckily they hadn't cast it yet,
Speaker 1: so but it turned out later that all four of
Speaker 1: us had some version of that story that all four
Speaker 1: of us, unbeknownst to us, it was kind of our
Speaker 1: part too, and we all kind of almost blew it.
Speaker 1: What were they waiting? What were they waiting on? What
Speaker 1: do you mean in terms of well, like like you
Speaker 1: you were all sitting like over Christmas. They just they
Speaker 1: wouldn't pull the trigger, and they they they weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: gonna pull the trigger before Christmas because it was afterwards
Speaker 1: that you'd go to network. And then I hadn't met Burrowsie,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know Jimmy was directing. I don't think
Speaker 1: I would have dropped out of now, but it was
Speaker 1: just very early in the process. It was one of
Speaker 1: those scripts that got considered early, an auditioned for early
Speaker 1: because they knew But as an actor, you by that
Speaker 1: point you've been trained to think, well, you know, let's
Speaker 1: get to late February suddenly, I mean demand, which is
Speaker 1: just a dumb, dumb game to play. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, not every television show was great, and you're thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, what if I sign up for the for
Speaker 1: this one and then e Er comes up. But I mean,
Speaker 1: looking back, honestly, between you and I, you were talking
Speaker 1: with drama and comedy, like, I don't think I could
Speaker 1: have done e Er and been happy. It was genius
Speaker 1: And know while he's become a good friend, but I
Speaker 1: know that from my destination was was going to be sitcom.
Speaker 1: I just I just know it was. The show is
Speaker 1: a huge success. How early did you realize what it
Speaker 1: was going to be for the LBG t Q community.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there had been Ellen, there had been
Speaker 1: a few other shows, but you know, completely centering on
Speaker 1: same sex relationships. Will and Grace definitely the first and
Speaker 1: most prominent of those shows. At what point did you
Speaker 1: realize that what you were doing was significant? In another way,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting question because you think the answer would be, oh,
Speaker 1: we knew. We didn't know at all, because that's not
Speaker 1: what the writers were trying to do. They were trying
Speaker 1: to write a funny show, but and they've been encouraged.
Speaker 1: Their initial pilot scripts, Will and Grace were like the
Speaker 1: fifth and sixth characters in a kind of friends like
Speaker 1: otherwise straight show, and it was or Little Field at
Speaker 1: was running NBC that said, I've seen that before, dude,
Speaker 1: what about these two characters? And then of course they
Speaker 1: went on to Craig Jack and Karen, who were even crazier.
Speaker 1: So it's there was never a political agenda. It was
Speaker 1: almost the opposite. At first, it was like, how do
Speaker 1: we do this? How do we make these two men
Speaker 1: as gay as they are and not apologize for it
Speaker 1: and not hide behind things. Some of the advertising early
Speaker 1: on was a little soft soap, was a little sort
Speaker 1: of friendship is the most important thing in life. But
Speaker 1: by the end of the first season, when we had
Speaker 1: been unapologetically out in every episode, there's very few episodes
Speaker 1: that didn't have a number of bantery situations, which particularly
Speaker 1: between Jack and Will. But even into the second third,
Speaker 1: fourth season, when Glad was was supporting us, we still weren't.
Speaker 1: It didn't occur to us that we might be having
Speaker 1: an effect. We had the approval of the gay community,
Speaker 1: didn't occur to us that we were having an effect
Speaker 1: beyond that. It really didn't. And it really almost was
Speaker 1: almost in years later. It was almost when the show
Speaker 1: was off the air, because we got to a point
Speaker 1: where I want to say, season six, I had I
Speaker 1: got married. We'll got married to Tay Diggs. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was not only having um that wasn't marriage at
Speaker 1: the time. What was that domestic partner? Domestic partnership. We
Speaker 1: had a domestic partnership in my apartment. Paul and Oates
Speaker 1: performed in partner that's our marriage digs. And then you
Speaker 1: know that I kissed that, I kissed the groom. You know,
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm kissing a black man, a white man
Speaker 1: kissing a black men on television. And there was almost
Speaker 1: zero hoop love because at that point we've been so
Speaker 1: Will and Grace for so long that it's almost like
Speaker 1: us getting any sort of credit for doing something socially
Speaker 1: important had come and gone. We were just that silly
Speaker 1: show that had so many guest stars all the time.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until later like in it was after
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was on Meet the Press ten years ago
Speaker 1: and they were talking about marriage equality, and he said
Speaker 1: he said, I think will Engrace did more for to
Speaker 1: push that agenda and spread that word than in any
Speaker 1: other And we all called each other and what did
Speaker 1: did you just hear that? Because we hadn't even then,
Speaker 1: even six years after the show was off the air,
Speaker 1: I thought of ourselves that way. It was only around
Speaker 1: that time that a lot of young people, and as
Speaker 1: gay marriage became law, young people or couples that have
Speaker 1: been together for thirty years started to approach all of
Speaker 1: us in the street and say that made a big
Speaker 1: difference in my life. Incredible. You talked about the parade
Speaker 1: of guest stars that you had. You and I talked
Speaker 1: about it at dinner. You guys basically just anointed Emmy
Speaker 1: winners year after year. Leslie Jordan's obviously was more than
Speaker 1: just a guest star, was a significant recurring character on
Speaker 1: the show. How was it like working with with Leslie
Speaker 1: and and all these other stars? Well, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: Leslie was one of a few that was wasn't even
Speaker 1: just recurring. They became a fabric of the show. We
Speaker 1: always looked forward to that because the writers knew how
Speaker 1: to had a right for someone like Leslie from the
Speaker 1: moment he he appeared well, well, well I think that's
Speaker 1: how you began broadcast today. Well, we um he was
Speaker 1: always just Joy and and and some of our other
Speaker 1: tim bag lades that the guys that would come back.
Speaker 1: It was always nice to have that that family because
Speaker 1: you got on your show. You guys had such a
Speaker 1: big family to start with episode. Yeah, that's right. I
Speaker 1: never thought about that. Actually, I don't think we talked
Speaker 1: about that. Really was really just the four of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and of course there'd be and that people
Speaker 1: that my parents sudden I had great parents and Grace
Speaker 1: had great parents. But we we got to a point
Speaker 1: with with guest stars because people loved to come on
Speaker 1: the show, and the word got out there it's a
Speaker 1: it's a fun week, we should go on will and
Speaker 1: great that we would go to. We begged the writers
Speaker 1: by season four be like, can we just have one?
Speaker 1: Just one was just the U And once in a
Speaker 1: while we'd have that and it was and it was
Speaker 1: great fun because it felt like a little play. But
Speaker 1: most of the time it was an event because we'd
Speaker 1: say goodbye to Matt Damon and Michael Douglas would come
Speaker 1: on the show, and so it was this other thing.
Speaker 1: And sometimes depending on the person. If it was somethenly
Speaker 1: like Madonna, it's like who's who's servicing who here? Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole week became about Madonna's here suppost? Well,
Speaker 1: what stories are we telling? What are the characters doing?
Speaker 1: Can't change everything from from Madonna's schedule, but it did
Speaker 1: become that after a while. Well, it's funny and I
Speaker 1: never thought about this, but in some ways, there was
Speaker 1: a period of time there where it was almost like SNL. Right,
Speaker 1: it was like there would there would be an ad
Speaker 1: for who was you know, Will Ferrell's guest hosting SNL,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, Matt Damon is on, will agree, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it went from like why, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: look at this one special? But you know, and suddenly,
Speaker 1: well it was one episode. We had John Clice, uh,
Speaker 1: Gina Davis and somebody else. I mean, it was like
Speaker 1: three in the same episode. It's incredible. Yeah. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we were in a lot of ways with the opposite.
Speaker 1: We're a paper company in Scranton. Why would Matt Damon
Speaker 1: show up? Exactly it's distracting to a degree on Will
Speaker 1: and Grace, but it would be more distracting and scranting.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean, you'd be very aware of it.
Speaker 1: So maybe that was the logic. I know, because you
Speaker 1: guys all were so real and there were so many
Speaker 1: of you being so real for so long that that's
Speaker 1: a that's a different fabric. You don't want to necessarily
Speaker 1: funk with um. Talk to me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the decision for you guys to be done. Was this
Speaker 1: your decision, the cast decision? Now it was It was
Speaker 1: mutual in that nearing the end of season seven, we
Speaker 1: were all we were all making that sort of mistake
Speaker 1: that happens where you you just think there's so much else,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of done with this, I've done this, I've
Speaker 1: done this, let's move on. Let's move on. I say
Speaker 1: mistake because the you know, we could have the writers
Speaker 1: wanted to do we all wanted to do it. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, we didn't want to go out badly.
Speaker 1: We didn't want the numbers to start to drop below
Speaker 1: a certain thing, and we didn't want to repeat ourselves.
Speaker 1: So there was a decision made that season eight was
Speaker 1: our last. And so I liked that in retrospect because
Speaker 1: we went out with our heads high, and but it
Speaker 1: was also once it was done there was definitely a
Speaker 1: period of tie. Can't speak for the others, I know
Speaker 1: for myself it was it was a few years before
Speaker 1: I realized that I was searching and I wasn't. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to do the Matt Blanc Joey thing. I
Speaker 1: was going to dive into another sitcom and and in
Speaker 1: fact I found started to find dramas after that, But
Speaker 1: it still took me a couple of years, a little theater,
Speaker 1: a little this to sort of get not just Will,
Speaker 1: but the whole experience, though, is it's you're spoiled, rotten spoil.
Speaker 1: I lived close to the stage. We worked twenty two
Speaker 1: hours a week. It was a pretty great life that
Speaker 1: we all eventually took for granted. I think you received
Speaker 1: four Emmy nominations, one win as Outstanding Lead Actor in
Speaker 1: a Comedy Series for Will and Grace. What do you
Speaker 1: value more that or being named one of People Magazine's
Speaker 1: fifty most Beautiful People. I mean, it is neck and neck,
Speaker 1: my friend, it is. It is a toss up. Um,
Speaker 1: talk to me about the talker. Talk to me about um.
Speaker 1: By the way, I didn't mention double double boil in
Speaker 1: trouble yet. Talk to me about that Emmy win. I mean,
Speaker 1: to win that award and to receive that that validation
Speaker 1: from the Academy. What was that for you? It was
Speaker 1: really huge for mean, you know, the for one thing,
Speaker 1: the only knowledge I had of that particular award, not
Speaker 1: the Emmy in general, but that specific award, is that
Speaker 1: that's what on Adams one and famously got so drunk
Speaker 1: with Don Riggles that he fell on the wings, the
Speaker 1: pointy pointy wings of the Emmy and made himself bleed
Speaker 1: like a vampire, which I don't know if it's apocryphal.
Speaker 1: I don't want to know. I love it, um, but
Speaker 1: it meant a lot to me because I always felt
Speaker 1: like I was on the outside coming in because I
Speaker 1: was Canadian. I think possibly you know, I was coming
Speaker 1: from another country, coming from from the theater. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of friends in l A when I
Speaker 1: even when I got the job, I was still I
Speaker 1: really didn't know anybody. So it felt like approval for
Speaker 1: the actual work. And it was for an episode that
Speaker 1: I was really proud of. It was for the sort
Speaker 1: of flashback to when Will comes out to Grace. It
Speaker 1: was beautifully written episode by Jeff Greenstein, and I just thought,
Speaker 1: if it was ever I'm ever going to get this is.
Speaker 1: If there is ever a reality, it'll be this one.
Speaker 1: It was just not. It was nice for that, in
Speaker 1: that one moment to know that I was what's the
Speaker 1: word we use all the time now, seen, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt seen, like, yes, we see you, you can
Speaker 1: do this. And so it's it's it sits on my piano.
Speaker 1: I it doesn't matter to me. And you know the people,
Speaker 1: you know, people's most beautiful. I've got framed over my bed,
Speaker 1: so they're they're really I don't. I have it framed
Speaker 1: over my son's bed, just to remind me, to remind him, yes,
Speaker 1: to drive him forward. You talk about your piano. You
Speaker 1: told me an amazing story. I have to bring him.
Speaker 1: Before you went to Ryerson Theater School, you went to
Speaker 1: Sir John A. McDonald Collegiate Institute UM with a few
Speaker 1: other notable people, Mike Myers being one. Mikeae was there.
Speaker 1: David Furnish. David Furnish, Yes, David Furnish and I were
Speaker 1: in a theater class together ten eleventh and twelfth grade
Speaker 1: and part of a real little clak of of UM.
Speaker 1: Three guys and my and my friend Helga and we
Speaker 1: did Godspell and Pippen and the Fantastics together, and eventually
Speaker 1: he moved. We kept in touch a little bit, then
Speaker 1: he moved to London, we lost touch, and when we
Speaker 1: finally sort of reconnected again, I was just starting to
Speaker 1: date my wife and he was just starting to date
Speaker 1: Elton John uh like mid nineties, and then shortly thereafter
Speaker 1: Will and Grace happened and they were the first. Elton
Speaker 1: and David were the first people, I think in the
Speaker 1: UK to see it because it didn't exist there yet,
Speaker 1: and I'd sent him a bunch of videotapes of season one,
Speaker 1: which they quite enjoyed, which led eventually to Elton being
Speaker 1: on the show. Um, my favorite story that I'll tell
Speaker 1: to lie Dies is just that Elton asked me to
Speaker 1: host an event for Yamaha, and Yamaha's payment to me
Speaker 1: they paid me in piano, so I was given a
Speaker 1: maybe grand piano that sits in the senator in the
Speaker 1: living room to this day. And shortly thereafter and we've
Speaker 1: only ever seen David and Elton in the world at
Speaker 1: a restaurant and David called us that he was in town,
Speaker 1: and Janet and my wife stand and said, well, tell
Speaker 1: David to come home for He said, well, why don't
Speaker 1: you just come over and see the house. He said, sure,
Speaker 1: We'll be over at eight and I said, Janet, he
Speaker 1: said we he said we, did not say I. He
Speaker 1: said we. So sure enough, Elton and David came over
Speaker 1: for dinner. My son was six months old at the time,
Speaker 1: and I eventually just said, Elton, you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to christen the piano. Without a second thought, got up,
Speaker 1: walked into the living room, sat down at the piano,
Speaker 1: looked up at me. He's wearing a sweatshirt, like a
Speaker 1: vlor sweat outfit, and he said, what was you like
Speaker 1: me to play? And I thought, this is it. This
Speaker 1: is my chance, is my chance to show him that
Speaker 1: I'm serious here. I know my ship. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say rocket I'm not gonna say Rocket band like some schmucks.
Speaker 1: So I I said, okay, I've seen that movie Toom
Speaker 1: Goodbye Yellow Bick Road, and he looked up at me
Speaker 1: and said, oh, fuck off, I don't remember that song.
Speaker 1: And remember the moment, Feeling incensed as a fan, I
Speaker 1: was like, you don't remember that. You're supposed to know
Speaker 1: every song you wrote it. You wrote it. So he
Speaker 1: didn't play that song. But I tell that story and
Speaker 1: my act occasionally and do and then I do. I've
Speaker 1: seen that movie to which people don't remember, which is
Speaker 1: a great song. What did he play? He played, Actually,
Speaker 1: he played another obscure song for me because my son
Speaker 1: was there as a beautiful song called the Greatest Discovery.
Speaker 1: It's about a little boy waking up and hearing all
Speaker 1: this commotion and realizing that he has a brand new
Speaker 1: baby brother, and it's it's I feel like it's it's
Speaker 1: an impossible song to hear in that cry at the end,
Speaker 1: it's just so. It's Bernie Tuppas greatest lyrics, I think,
Speaker 1: and I do that. I've seen that one occasionally too.
Speaker 1: But he sang that song at the piano. And then
Speaker 1: the next day I saw my neighbor Thomas, and he
Speaker 1: was aware we had this new piano. We didn't know
Speaker 1: each other that well at the time, but he's seeing
Speaker 1: the piano right when he said, I couldn't help. But
Speaker 1: over here last night, you're you're getting pretty good. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Uh um. You mentioned after Well and Grace you had
Speaker 1: some time and you started exploring other things. One of
Speaker 1: those being Travelers the show playing Traveler four UM and
Speaker 1: you also produced and you directed and episode for that show.
Speaker 1: How was How was that for you? Travelers was a
Speaker 1: real There's been a couple that had come before where
Speaker 1: I did a show for a year called Trust Me
Speaker 1: with Tom Kavanaugh, and then I did a show for
Speaker 1: three years called Perception where I played a neuroscience professor
Speaker 1: and I had produced on that one too, and eventually
Speaker 1: directed one episode and and so it was a very
Speaker 1: much a learning curve slowly through that through the early
Speaker 1: tens that what we call them UM. So by the
Speaker 1: time there was two thousand fifteen came along to the
Speaker 1: top of sixteen that I got this offer, and being
Speaker 1: a producer was included H. Brad Wright, who created the show,
Speaker 1: which it was just really really wanted to make me
Speaker 1: a part of it, to be a partner with me
Speaker 1: and bring me along. And I learned a lot from
Speaker 1: the directors in that show. So then I finally got
Speaker 1: to direct a few episodes of it. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic, and I I've come to associate directing
Speaker 1: with directing everyone that you you know that knowing the crew,
Speaker 1: did you direct some offices I can't remember you did, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's I mean, what was your experience? For me?
Speaker 1: It was so comfortable, even though it was new and
Speaker 1: it was a sci fi show not in exactly my area,
Speaker 1: but I knew everybody and I knew they would have
Speaker 1: my back. That's exactly right, Yes, I knew I could.
Speaker 1: I could for me to screw up, the episode could
Speaker 1: still be great because of the other people involved and
Speaker 1: that they would support me in whatever way, and then
Speaker 1: if it was especially good, then that would only serve.
Speaker 1: It was like I couldn't fail per se. And because
Speaker 1: the style of I mean, most shows have a style
Speaker 1: that you can't be here too much from the the
Speaker 1: office style, which I don't remember everyone anyone doing before
Speaker 1: that constant, the constant motion of the camera just going
Speaker 1: to the one person and so they can give a
Speaker 1: quick look to the camera going away. It was so
Speaker 1: unique and so its own thing that I imagine that
Speaker 1: that that deciding what the camera work is going to
Speaker 1: be is the joke you know, you you know where
Speaker 1: was with the sitcom. You have to make sure the
Speaker 1: camera's pointed in the right way, but it's it's more
Speaker 1: in the editing that you make sure you have the joke,
Speaker 1: but in your show, the joke was often what the
Speaker 1: camera was doing and who it was landing on. That's right,
Speaker 1: And and to what degree were people aware that they
Speaker 1: were being filmed yet at any given moment? Was it
Speaker 1: a spy? Was it not? Was the camera there? Or
Speaker 1: how much are you interacting with that camera? Are they
Speaker 1: on your team? Are you hiding from it? You know,
Speaker 1: all of those. Yeah, so it happens much more outside
Speaker 1: of the editing room in that in that regard, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: The Travelers really was when I hoped would go a
Speaker 1: little longer. Three seasons still on Netflix, Still something I
Speaker 1: recommend people check out. Yeah, around this time you say
Speaker 1: you wanted it to go a little longer. Around this
Speaker 1: time you start having discussions with Max and the folks
Speaker 1: at Will and Grace about coming back. Were you surprised
Speaker 1: about this? Was this something that had been discussed? No,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, the word reboot was pretty
Speaker 1: new to the lexicon at that point, and we had
Speaker 1: to be finished in two thousands six, I mean eleven years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was over. Yeah, what changed it? I do love
Speaker 1: this story is that Max had sent the entire set
Speaker 1: complete with all the set dressing to Emerson College, his
Speaker 1: alma mater, and it was set up there for ten
Speaker 1: years in the library as the thing that people would
Speaker 1: look at. And eventually they needed space, and they happened
Speaker 1: to be in two thousands sixteen, the spring of sixteen
Speaker 1: that they called it. Look, we're gonna spend ten years.
Speaker 1: Can you take your setback? And as opposed to this
Speaker 1: being like an oh ship, what am I gonna do
Speaker 1: with this? He flew setback on his own time, had
Speaker 1: it set up secretly in the basement one of the
Speaker 1: basements of the studios at Radford, and called us and said,
Speaker 1: would you do a little would you come back into
Speaker 1: a little video? Um basically, I mean it was called
Speaker 1: just get out of the Vote, but really it was
Speaker 1: for Hillary. It was for trying to stave off everything
Speaker 1: that happened. And we all said, god, sure, okay. They
Speaker 1: wrote this very funny little ten minute YouTube script and
Speaker 1: the amazing thing we came back together and somehow, like
Speaker 1: none of us had changed that much, we kind of
Speaker 1: pulled it off. We looked like slightly older versions of
Speaker 1: how we finished and it worked so well, this little
Speaker 1: ten and a bit that we just dropped on the internet.
Speaker 1: That NBC called us and said, let's talk about this.
Speaker 1: So miraculously it happened at all, but particularly for me,
Speaker 1: it happened in tandem with Travelers, and I had two
Speaker 1: years to this, seventeen and eighteen where I was doing
Speaker 1: both shows in two different countries, and it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: I was never been happier. Wow. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: the characters changed. The intent was that the fee all
Speaker 1: of the show, the look of the show would not change.
Speaker 1: That it would be like, oh my god, Will and
Speaker 1: Grace hasn't gone anywhere, but that we the writers would
Speaker 1: write to our age, you know, whether it be needing
Speaker 1: classes or not understanding the young people. And so I
Speaker 1: think it was it was a mix of both. For me,
Speaker 1: what I had to get my head around it was
Speaker 1: we we finished in two thousand and six with the
Speaker 1: idea that I was married and Grace was married. And
Speaker 1: they came up with this notion in the very first
Speaker 1: scene of the of the new episode back where that
Speaker 1: was all just a dream, kind of like what's his
Speaker 1: name in the shower on Dallas Um And I'm just
Speaker 1: glad they did because it wouldn't have been the show
Speaker 1: if we just were trying to tell Will and Grace
Speaker 1: plus children, it wouldn't have. So I like that we
Speaker 1: were that the story we were telling. Now is there
Speaker 1: freaking fifty and still single, And that was a different
Speaker 1: demographic to talk to because there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there single a fifty or forced or whatever, so
Speaker 1: that it's it was nice to just show what that is.
Speaker 1: You're not just running around like sex in the city
Speaker 1: and everyone's thirty two. It's um, now we have a
Speaker 1: higher states. Were you proud of it? I was proud
Speaker 1: of the reboot. First of all, every department head came back, everybody.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. It really was. So there was definitely a
Speaker 1: feeling of this is ours we have. This isn't commerce.
Speaker 1: This is hopefully the converse down the road for people,
Speaker 1: but right now this is us taking ownership of our
Speaker 1: thing and not somebody else rebooting it down the road.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there was a lot of pride in that.
Speaker 1: It felt to me like a chapter of a novel,
Speaker 1: like's I guess when I when a sequel comes along
Speaker 1: or something and you think that movie doesn't need a sequel,
Speaker 1: that movie is fine just as it is, and then
Speaker 1: you love the sequel. You Yeah, that's pretty good. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I'm glad we had a chance to be them again,
Speaker 1: even if it was just for a few years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you and Sean have a new podcast coming out, just
Speaker 1: Jack and Will rewatch podcast with Will and Grace. Have
Speaker 1: you guys started recording those yet? Not yet? Not yet.
Speaker 1: I've been, um, I've actually been doing a podcast that
Speaker 1: is about to launch with Stephen Webber where we're talking.
Speaker 1: We're just actors eating and talking, and I would love
Speaker 1: to have you on that. Yeah, so we'll just have
Speaker 1: each other just podcast with each other for the rest
Speaker 1: of you. Nobody ever has to hire it, but Deshan.
Speaker 1: I I'm excided that Sean came to me and said,
Speaker 1: look this any referenced the office ladies, you know, your
Speaker 1: your pals just looking at episodes and remembering, and it's
Speaker 1: just such a there's such a market in it now.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of in our day. There was
Speaker 1: a show while it was on the air, would have reruns,
Speaker 1: you know during the summer. That's kind of gone. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know who watches this show again the
Speaker 1: same time. But the idea that shows are being discovered
Speaker 1: your show friends really really reads ever by a whole
Speaker 1: different generation because of streaming, has just created a whole
Speaker 1: different thirst for for talking about them and referencing them.
Speaker 1: And so what I discovered I had lunch with Sean
Speaker 1: then ongoing, and I confess that if it's on, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna watch it. It's gonna watch our show. And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I never have. He said, I've never seen any of
Speaker 1: the episodes except for maybe the first time they aired
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. I said, you were joking, Well, then
Speaker 1: that's the show. The show is you seeing the show
Speaker 1: really for the first time through new eyes and me
Speaker 1: knowing it too too. Well, Well, first of all, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you did this when back in
Speaker 1: the day. Again, I don't. This doesn't happen anymore with streaming.
Speaker 1: But there were the DVDs. Yeah, and we used to
Speaker 1: get called in the summer when the DVD when they
Speaker 1: were because they were looking for basically, they didn't want
Speaker 1: the DVD to say this is episodes one through six.
Speaker 1: They wanted bonus material away, and so then we would
Speaker 1: do some you know, basically commentary while the episode was
Speaker 1: happening on that Here's what I always found. It was
Speaker 1: a mess because they would get like eight people and
Speaker 1: everybody would be talking over each other and it would
Speaker 1: last twenty one at minutes and then it would be done.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anybody learned anything, but this really
Speaker 1: gives an opportunity to talk about what was going on
Speaker 1: behind the scene. So good for you. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think it'll be fun. And also, I just my
Speaker 1: favorite thing is bloopers. I've been following off the office
Speaker 1: bloopers on Instagram and at least twice a day. There's
Speaker 1: something that just because you guys would break each other up, yes,
Speaker 1: so much, So I don't I don't love bloopers that
Speaker 1: are just people forgetting their lines. I like when people
Speaker 1: remember their lines and it's they're so funny that the
Speaker 1: other promotion just can't keep a straight place. And that
Speaker 1: was your show was so often well yeah, well basically
Speaker 1: it was a secret, hidden competition to try to get
Speaker 1: the other person to laugh. Did you guys have that
Speaker 1: or were you more restrained and well behaved? Because there
Speaker 1: was there was not so much because Jimmy brows like,
Speaker 1: we would shoot the whole thing in front of one
Speaker 1: live audience and that better not be over four hours
Speaker 1: or were it's gonna so you you you messed around
Speaker 1: a little, for sure, and we do have some great bloopers,
Speaker 1: but you couldn't make it go on and on. Whereas
Speaker 1: I sensed with you guys that I like, I saw
Speaker 1: him in a day where um, Steve was he clearly
Speaker 1: done his sheet, said what he had to say, but
Speaker 1: he just kept going and no one was gonna yell
Speaker 1: cut just to see who was going to break And
Speaker 1: it was so much fun. Fun. It was so much
Speaker 1: fun because he would often break himself up, which, really, sure,
Speaker 1: that's the greatest. Where do you think Will and Gray
Speaker 1: stands in that line of great musty TV shows? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's such a stupid question, right, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: It's only stupid that it's not for me to decide,
Speaker 1: but it's it's um for me. I think that's unlike Friends,
Speaker 1: it was not an instant hit. It didn't burst out
Speaker 1: of Monday Nights at nine thirty and change the world.
Speaker 1: It's it was a slow burn and I feel like
Speaker 1: you know, you see these days, I know it's like
Speaker 1: this past year there was a top one dst Important
Speaker 1: Shows of all time thing. We didn't make it, but
Speaker 1: you know, a show from last year. Maybe it's like, well,
Speaker 1: sure and we'll we'll see, we'll see. It's a test
Speaker 1: of time thing. I don't know. I think that the
Speaker 1: that's uh, not every episode, but there are certain episodes
Speaker 1: of Willing Grace that will stand among the best stuff
Speaker 1: for a long time. That's that's my feal. Well, you
Speaker 1: didn't say it, but I'll say it. I talked to
Speaker 1: you about the Emmy before and yeah, you know, there's
Speaker 1: certain things you're supposed to say, and it's just an
Speaker 1: award and it's a really about the work or blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But here's the thing to me that's really
Speaker 1: cool about yours is, yeah, you mentioned that will head
Speaker 1: quirks and finding those idiosyncrasies as season two, et cetera
Speaker 1: went along. But I think one of the hardest things
Speaker 1: in comedy is to be that character that may haam
Speaker 1: happens around right. It's like, and on your show there
Speaker 1: were certainly two and a half swirling tornadoes that were
Speaker 1: happening around you at all times. But what that means
Speaker 1: is you have to be you have to steer the
Speaker 1: ship and it only is funny in relation to everybody else,
Speaker 1: and you stayed so you were just so strong staying
Speaker 1: in the middle of those hurricanes, tornadoes or whatever that
Speaker 1: your work was just so at I've always admired your
Speaker 1: work and appreciated you and uh and and you're role
Speaker 1: on that show, So congratulations on all the success. I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to see your new show, The Other Black Girl,
Speaker 1: our new show, you your other news show. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: excited to see it. I um, it'll be very interesting.
Speaker 1: The tone again, without giving anything away, the tone is
Speaker 1: very different, but I'm used to that, so we'll see
Speaker 1: how it goes. But it's been such a pleasure to
Speaker 1: work with you and to get to know you too,
Speaker 1: and and uh and just great yaks on this. Thank you.
Speaker 1: How many of these you've done, and how many people
Speaker 1: are listening? Well, thank you. I want to sit down
Speaker 1: with you and Stephen Webber soon. What is the name
Speaker 1: of that podcast at this point, we're calling it because
Speaker 1: because it's about it's about dining, we call it Eating
Speaker 1: Out with American Stephen Eating Out. I'm gonna let that sit. Um. So,
Speaker 1: but we've done about ten You've got some great people
Speaker 1: on and we just wanted we just love mixing and
Speaker 1: matching actors and actresses and and this, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of this. It's just I love. I'll never get tired
Speaker 1: of hearing the stories of people in in high school, college, whatever,
Speaker 1: it was bad stories that the worst, the worst experience
Speaker 1: you ever had, the actors that were terrible to you,
Speaker 1: never retforded. Thank you so much. I will see you
Speaker 1: in Hotlanta. Okay, brother, very soon, Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 1: Bye ry Eric, thank you so much for stopping by today.
Speaker 1: It's been so great getting to know you. I'm glad
Speaker 1: that the cats finally out of the bag with the
Speaker 1: other black girl coming to a theater set near you
Speaker 1: very soon. It's been awesome working with you. I look
Speaker 1: forward to our next meal. Listeners, thanks for tuning in
Speaker 1: to another episode of Off the Beat next week. Well,
Speaker 1: we've got another new friend of mine coming on. Let's
Speaker 1: just say she has some political power. Until then, have
Speaker 1: a fantastic week. Off the Beat is hosted an executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes,
Speaker 1: Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan,
Speaker 1: Papa Zachary and our intern is Sammy Cats. Our theme
Speaker 1: song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and Only
Speaker 1: Creed Brandon M