Speaker 1: That's that's okay, becaus no one.
Speaker 2: Here is hello and welcome back to teen Beat.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Danielle Fischel, back again, ready to interview
Speaker 3: interesting people who have done interesting things, all about their childhoods.
Speaker 3: I've realized that you can't know where you're going without
Speaker 3: remembering where you've been.
Speaker 2: That's not only a saying you.
Speaker 3: Can buy on an embroidered throw pillow at hobby lobby.
Speaker 2: It is also the truth. I see it this way.
Speaker 2: I gave you my childhood. It's time we hear yours.
Speaker 3: And this week I am thrilled to dig a little
Speaker 3: deeper with a very special guest. It's impossible to recount
Speaker 3: the pop culture landscape of the two thousands without this
Speaker 3: Man's dance Solo, a cinematic moment that captured a nation,
Speaker 3: turning a micro budget indie movie into a worldwide phenomenon.
Speaker 3: Thanks to his legendary portrayal of Pedro's campaign manager, moviegoers
Speaker 3: fell in love with him somehow, turning one of the
Speaker 3: most ridiculous characters of the decade into also the most
Speaker 3: earnest and heartfelt. He went on to star in movies
Speaker 3: like Benchwarmers, Blades of Glory, and surfs up. Constantly working
Speaker 3: since he first stumbled into the spotlight when a college
Speaker 3: friend asked him to star in a short film, and
Speaker 3: now he's sort of returning to academia in the form
Speaker 3: of Fox's new reality hit Nation's Dumbest. He's competing in
Speaker 3: brain challenging games and physical challenges to find out if
Speaker 3: he's smarter than fellow celebs like Carmen Electra or Mattleinert.
Speaker 3: But you can form your own opinion right now, because
Speaker 3: this week on teen Beat, it's a man with great skills. John, John,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for hanging out with me on
Speaker 3: teen Beat.
Speaker 2: We have never met.
Speaker 3: Yet I feel a very special connection to you because
Speaker 3: we are two people who will forever be called by
Speaker 3: our character names. You know, Tapanga and Napoleon will be
Speaker 3: mentioned first in our obituaries, and that is a special bond.
Speaker 3: What do you think the ratio is between John and
Speaker 3: Napoleon When people yell at you in airports?
Speaker 4: Oh boy, I avoid the airports. I just take boat. Now.
Speaker 4: It's hard, it's much longer I have.
Speaker 2: To know, But you avoid being yelled at?
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, you know when I it's I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: the older we get the more cantankerous old man I become.
Speaker 5: I don't get you know, I never I would never yell,
Speaker 5: but you know, sometimes I play, I.
Speaker 4: Play the game game, I play the game. If someone
Speaker 4: is someone obnoxious, will just yell out Napoleon. Sometimes I
Speaker 4: just pretend I don't hear or anything. And then especially
Speaker 4: if they're younger, if it's like like a teenager kid
Speaker 4: that come up, like I was like, oh you mean John,
Speaker 4: you know? Or me? Are you talking to me? You
Speaker 4: know kind of thing, or if they're far enough in
Speaker 4: an airport, I just like, I always have my headphones
Speaker 4: on it. I pretend I don't hear. Half the times
Speaker 4: I probably don't hear exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like, never mind.
Speaker 3: You're also an identical twin, which is the second identical
Speaker 3: twin I have interviewed on our podcast.
Speaker 2: We had Nikki and Bribella on the podcast.
Speaker 3: Does your brother hate being mistaken as both John and Napoleon?
Speaker 4: That's funny. No, he doesn't mind getting mistaken as as
Speaker 4: I guess me, meaning like he grew up his whole life,
Speaker 4: We both grew up getting called His name is Dan,
Speaker 4: so we'd always joke like, well, my name is John,
Speaker 4: but I'm also known as Dan and Vice. He would
Speaker 4: say the same thing. So we always had that and
Speaker 4: then you know, he just doesn't go to airport.
Speaker 2: He just truly.
Speaker 4: He's saying he's he doesn't get it as much, but
Speaker 4: he would still you know, you get that look or
Speaker 4: someone would know, or more and more people are starting
Speaker 4: to become aware that I have a twin brother, so
Speaker 4: they can kind of, oh, yeah, he's the the lame
Speaker 4: man's he's the layman's job. We tell we could tell you.
Speaker 2: Guys have lots of identities.
Speaker 3: Did you ever participate in twin Shenanigans Switcher Roose? Did
Speaker 3: it ever benefit you in any way?
Speaker 4: Benefit anything? Everything had to be funny to me. Everything
Speaker 4: had to do, you know, entertain me. And that's when
Speaker 4: I thought, that's how I you know, taking comedies or
Speaker 4: if I think something good, it's got to be good
Speaker 4: to me. I don't care about the audience. If I
Speaker 4: think it's good, I do care about the audience. But yeah,
Speaker 4: we uh, for sure, when we we were much younger,
Speaker 4: we had when I remember in like kindergarten, we had
Speaker 4: shirts that I think like an aunt made for us
Speaker 4: when it had like a little hand that said like
Speaker 4: I'm Jonathan, he's Dan, and he had the opposite one
Speaker 4: with a hand pointing the other way. But we also
Speaker 4: had belts, and I remember my I don't remember if
Speaker 4: my parents bought the belts, but our belts had our
Speaker 4: names on it, and they did it for the benefit
Speaker 4: of like our teachers. So we on purpose would switch belts.
Speaker 4: And this was like you know, kindergarten. But even up
Speaker 4: until I remember, the biggest one we ever did, because
Speaker 4: we knew it was probably the end of that era,
Speaker 4: was sixth grade. We we just decided the whole day
Speaker 4: we would switch places, even so much like on the
Speaker 4: bus I had to go there was a girl I
Speaker 4: was going out with.
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, which you said, next to her on
Speaker 2: the bus.
Speaker 4: Exactly, that was the rule. Of course, she's sitting next
Speaker 4: to the bus and we had switched that day, so
Speaker 4: he was already sitting down. She sat down next him,
Speaker 4: took her a hot second before she was like oh,
Speaker 4: she screamed. It was so funny. And then we like
Speaker 4: switched for our classes the whole day, and his teacher
Speaker 4: was in on it. He got it. But my teacher
Speaker 4: was this older woman and she was like completely close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was just like, Okay, this looks normal to me.
Speaker 3: So you got away with it that time.
Speaker 4: I got it with it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: In addition to your twin brother Daniel, you have four
Speaker 3: other siblings. As a kid, how loud and chaotick.
Speaker 4: Three year I have? I was like, wait a second round.
Speaker 2: Wow, you had to count your siblings. That's a lot
Speaker 2: of siblings.
Speaker 4: I'm so used to say I have four, four brothers
Speaker 4: and one sister.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, So how loud and chaotic was your house?
Speaker 4: It was? It was pretty loud in Kaotok. There was
Speaker 4: especially since my parents had a girl first, and she was,
Speaker 4: you know, the princess, and she was, you know, your
Speaker 4: very typical all American girl, and she was sweet. And
Speaker 4: then after that it was just five boys in a
Speaker 4: row right to them being twins, which is already kind
Speaker 4: of mayhem in itself. But we were a tight knit
Speaker 4: group and so we had absolute love and respect for
Speaker 4: our parents. But my poor sweet mother, you know who
Speaker 4: I adore, she had to deal with it. And we
Speaker 4: could tell we knew that when it was mom yelling time,
Speaker 4: and there was a lot of yelling from Mom, we
Speaker 4: knew half the time. I think in our hearts we
Speaker 4: kind of make fun of it, and we were like, Okay,
Speaker 4: she's yelling at us again. But any think, deep down
Speaker 4: we knew it's like she's yelling a so that she
Speaker 4: can we can hear her simply. It's not just it's
Speaker 4: not abuse, it's not anger. It's just like.
Speaker 2: Trually, I have to get my voice over theres I
Speaker 2: have to.
Speaker 4: Get I have to beat them to it. I have
Speaker 4: to get that. And we were always like, yeah, messing
Speaker 4: around and stuff like that, and so, but you know,
Speaker 4: when it came time to do chores, we would eventually
Speaker 4: by days and get the chores done. Maybe not when
Speaker 4: we were exactly when we were supposed to, but I
Speaker 4: was like, no, you guys, come on, like, let's get
Speaker 4: let's cut moms of slack.
Speaker 2: We love her, let's let's be a little kinder to her.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about your professional acting origin story.
Speaker 3: You go to BYU and you meet a fellow film student,
Speaker 3: Jared Hess, who is shooting a short film on sixteen
Speaker 3: milimeter with a budget of under five hundred dollars, and
Speaker 3: this becomes the birth of Napoleon Dynamite.
Speaker 2: Where did the character come from?
Speaker 3: For you?
Speaker 2: It is so specific, so.
Speaker 3: Unique, and yet we all knew a Napoleon dynamite.
Speaker 4: That's yeah. Jared came to me and he had yeah,
Speaker 4: he had this like eight page script okay, and it
Speaker 4: was and I read it and I just was like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, yeah, this is like I get this guy. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I know this. And at the time, I remember thinking,
Speaker 4: you know, this is a short film. We were just
Speaker 4: film students. We weren't We didn't have like delusions of
Speaker 4: grandeur or anything like that. But I still remember thinking,
Speaker 4: no one has seen this character yet. Yeah. We've had
Speaker 4: oddball misfits. We've had like a couple nerd movies, but
Speaker 4: nothing that where we showcased this kind of awkwardness in teendom,
Speaker 4: you know, in the teen years, like kind of a nerd.
Speaker 4: But there's something besides just your typical nerds. It's not
Speaker 4: that he's books smart. There's a social awkwardness. I mean,
Speaker 4: nowadays I could probably just say, oh, go back in time.
Speaker 4: At the time I didn't think about it, but going
Speaker 4: but going now, I could have been like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: we've never had a movie or show where an autistic kid.
Speaker 2: Was a kid on the spectrum, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, kid on the spectrum. One hundred percent. But you know,
Speaker 4: I don't even think I was that aware of it
Speaker 4: back then. I didn't even think about it. It wasn't until
Speaker 4: years later people started coming up to me, either like
Speaker 4: my son or myself huge fan of how we connected.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my gosh, that clicked. That clicked,
Speaker 4: as it makes sense, But yeah, I knew I knew
Speaker 4: some kids who were kind of like that, but not
Speaker 4: like pictured one hundred percent. It was. It wasn't all
Speaker 4: on the page, the curly hair and the glasses and
Speaker 4: the moon boots. I don't even think we're in the
Speaker 4: script yet. It was just kind of the voice, and
Speaker 4: Jared you know, did his version of the voice, and
Speaker 4: then I was just like, yeah, this is kind of
Speaker 4: how I used to talk when I was a kid,
Speaker 4: and my younger brothers especially talked a lot like this.
Speaker 4: And so that's when Jared and I, you know, were like, Okay, well,
Speaker 4: so what's he gonna wear. His wife was like, oh,
Speaker 4: and I think we should get you a perm So
Speaker 4: that all the imagery of it, how he looked was
Speaker 4: kind of born out of First first came like the
Speaker 4: voice in the compos and stuff like that, and then
Speaker 4: it came like the physicality came next.
Speaker 3: Did you have any acting aspirations before this project?
Speaker 4: I had done my Like acting was kind of big
Speaker 4: in my family, which was weird. My dad was a doctor,
Speaker 4: my mom had no acting experience. But my older siblings,
Speaker 4: my older brother and my sister, we were always put
Speaker 4: in like the local you know, kid acting summer camps
Speaker 4: and it was just became a thing every year, and
Speaker 4: they did really well. Especially my older brother was cast
Speaker 4: like as the lead in most of the high school plays,
Speaker 4: and so it just felt like, wow, we got to
Speaker 4: do some theater education. Yeah, and I always thought it
Speaker 4: was cool. And there's of course that feeling as a kid,
Speaker 4: like do I that would be so rad if I
Speaker 4: was a lead in that play or if I got
Speaker 4: to do that. But I didn't really I could be goofy,
Speaker 4: but I didn't know how to pitch my voice or
Speaker 4: to really you know, be myself. I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 4: understand that. And then in high school I started making
Speaker 4: a lot of videos. I got really into video production,
Speaker 4: like I guess you'd say filmmaking, but you know, we
Speaker 4: had video cam. It was like the right like the
Speaker 4: birth of handicams, and you had you could take cameras anywhere,
Speaker 4: drop them there fine, And so I just became obsessed
Speaker 4: with that, and that's when I knew I wanted to
Speaker 4: make film. And because of that, you know, you have
Speaker 4: to act in your own videos. You don't go to
Speaker 4: a local casting agency, you know, in high school. So
Speaker 4: I would be in my own videos. And that was
Speaker 4: the beginning I would say of like Okay, stepping outside
Speaker 4: in my shell a little bit, getting a little bit
Speaker 4: more comfortable, but not understanding the principles at all. And
Speaker 4: then it was at b YU. It was at college
Speaker 4: when I studied film, and because of that, I had
Speaker 4: to take you know, require classes, one of them being acting.
Speaker 4: And that really was the first time I took an
Speaker 4: acting class where I was it opened my eyes. I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, it's everything fell into place. I was like,
Speaker 4: now I get it, Now I get just you know
Speaker 4: some of the simple principles. You're like, that makes sense
Speaker 4: to me, That's that totally makes sense. So I really
Speaker 4: I loved it. I enjoyed it. I started like auditioning
Speaker 4: for student films, ok, for student plays. I never I
Speaker 4: didn't get an agent, I didn't had no major aspirations,
Speaker 4: but it kept you know. I did pay Luca was
Speaker 4: the name of the short film I did with Jared
Speaker 4: has and I had done that, and then, like I said,
Speaker 4: I got cast in a couple other student films. So
Speaker 4: I kept thinking, you know, they keep casting me, maybe
Speaker 4: there's something there, But I don't know. I can't see
Speaker 4: myself of ever going to LA. And I saw myself
Speaker 4: going to LA, but I was gonna I was on
Speaker 4: an animation track. I was going to be an animator.
Speaker 4: I was studying animation. I was big into art, and
Speaker 4: so it was still filmmaking to a certain degree, and
Speaker 4: I thought, yeah, maybe I'll go to LA, but but
Speaker 4: for that reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not for this reason.
Speaker 3: So you finished the project for with Jared after it wraps,
Speaker 3: do you ever expect it to go anywhere.
Speaker 4: When we when we shot the short film. No, not
Speaker 4: the short film, because short films don't go anywhere normally.
Speaker 4: And I mean, as a student, I knew that. I
Speaker 4: was aware that. All right, okay, I know sometimes you
Speaker 4: can use a short film to help you a for
Speaker 4: the director kind of conceive and understand like, all right,
Speaker 4: this makes sense. This helps me. I know that you
Speaker 4: can get them into film festivals and maybe get eyes
Speaker 4: on it, but we didn't really use it for you know,
Speaker 4: it was all financial. The feature film was financially produced.
Speaker 4: It was financed by one guy, basically okay, and it
Speaker 4: wasn't through you know, festivals. It was a friend of
Speaker 4: ours brother. It was his older brother who knew about it.
Speaker 4: So no, I had no I remember thinking the short
Speaker 4: film was great, and it wasn't until Jared said, hey,
Speaker 4: I want to make a feature length version of it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And this was probably like, you know, like three months
Speaker 4: later after the short film that he said that. But again,
Speaker 4: it was gonna be like another year, year and a
Speaker 4: half before we shot the feature. So he's like, I
Speaker 4: just want you to know I want to make a feature.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be a while. You know, we got to
Speaker 4: write the script, we got to figure out funding. So yeah,
Speaker 4: but even even then, it's like I wasn't really thinking
Speaker 4: big picture. I'm just thinking rad Of course, that makes sense,
Speaker 4: and maybe maybe when you have something, when you have
Speaker 4: a film, someone's gonna see this. Someone We're gonna get
Speaker 4: more than just my extended family watching this movie, even
Speaker 4: if it's in a couple film festivals, and you get
Speaker 4: those kind of filmgoers who like weird, quirky independent films. Yes,
Speaker 4: that's kind of what I said. That's where that's where
Speaker 4: my expectations were lying at that moment.
Speaker 3: So that time passes, that year, year and a half,
Speaker 3: you get you guys get the funding just under half
Speaker 3: a million dollars, and it's now going to be a
Speaker 3: feature film. It's now a month long shoot and there
Speaker 3: are you know, real cameras and a real cast. Dedrich Bader,
Speaker 3: Hillary Duff's sister.
Speaker 4: Were you nervous, Oh no, no, I wasn't nervous. I
Speaker 4: was excited. I still felt like this was It felt
Speaker 4: like a student project the whole time. You even know,
Speaker 4: I knew it wasn't officially a student project, but all
Speaker 4: the crew were. I knew all the crew because they
Speaker 4: were just buddy like film student buddies and stuff, a
Speaker 4: few gradualies. We were like, oh, they've worked in the local
Speaker 4: Utah film commit for a couple of years. We got
Speaker 4: we're legit. But you know what legitimized? It was like
Speaker 4: you said the other actors. I was like, well, we
Speaker 4: got TJ. Payter, John Grice, we got Tinami Gerino. I
Speaker 4: was like, okay, so that's cool, that's really cool. But
Speaker 4: I still was. I understood. I had been studying film.
Speaker 4: I understood like, this is a small this is an
Speaker 4: independent film. I don't think they're getting paid very much.
Speaker 4: I just agreed to this weird project. And uh, but yeah,
Speaker 4: I wasn't really nervous. I was you know, I get
Speaker 4: along with people great, and it was like and plus
Speaker 4: I knew it wasn't Maybe if I had I probably
Speaker 4: would have been more nervous. If I played a small
Speaker 4: role cast in like a Hollywood feature. Something was like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is legit, and if I could get fired if
Speaker 4: I don't do this right. I was like Jared and I.
Speaker 4: Jared was at the Helm and Jared and I were
Speaker 4: very similar, and he was just like yeah, Jared john
Speaker 4: his directions like, yeah, you know what you did in
Speaker 4: the short film, Just do more.
Speaker 2: Of that, Just do that for longer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I knew I had the job.
Speaker 4: I wasn't nervous like I was gonna get fired or
Speaker 4: anything like that. And we felt so confident in what
Speaker 4: we were bringing to the table, him and I in
Speaker 4: terms of because it's like this is the main character.
Speaker 4: We've got that down and this is the story in
Speaker 4: his world, and so it's really I think I remember,
Speaker 4: you know, John and Efrid more so e Frin who
Speaker 4: plays pedro Y and Tina. I think they were a
Speaker 4: little bit more nervous because e Frin has you know,
Speaker 4: I've worked in Hollywood a little bit, but he wasn't
Speaker 4: a name and this was his biggest role today. And
Speaker 4: Tina major Reno, who was like a child actor but
Speaker 4: hadn't done anything in her quote unquote adult years. This
Speaker 4: is she was eighteen, so she wanted to come back
Speaker 4: and say, all right, I want to do a movie.
Speaker 4: Now it's no longer cutesy little team in Majorino. I
Speaker 4: want to do a little bit more of it sounds weird,
Speaker 4: more of an adult role, but yes, a little bit
Speaker 4: more mature. So I think there's nerves coming from that
Speaker 4: other end, and we were all just sitting back like
Speaker 4: let's do what you got, let's see what you got.
Speaker 3: There is so much silence in the movie, like long
Speaker 3: beats for jokes, and it is really one of the
Speaker 3: first instances of this kind of anti comedy that's become
Speaker 3: the norm now. But for me, I realized in sitcoms
Speaker 3: where silence is like death. Do you remember Jared Editing
Speaker 3: in those pauses or were they always in the script?
Speaker 2: But it is so good?
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, there, it was always there. That was I
Speaker 4: think it was firmly get go when we did pay Luca,
Speaker 4: and I could see Jared had a very specific cadence
Speaker 4: and timing to what he thought was funny and it
Speaker 4: made sense immediately anybody who got it, Yeah, anybody who
Speaker 4: got it, and most people would get it right away like, oh,
Speaker 4: I get this is a real life kind of thing.
Speaker 4: This is kind of how it's his vision of because
Speaker 4: he grew up in that area in Preston, Idaho, and
Speaker 4: that went to that high school and everything. So it's
Speaker 4: just I it was very observational. I just he his
Speaker 4: approach was like, we're taking a step back, and this
Speaker 4: is a portrait. I want you, I want my audience
Speaker 4: to kind of see this portrait of these weird, kind
Speaker 4: of awkward characters. And because of that, everybody, pretty much
Speaker 4: all the actors, after reading the script but also seeing
Speaker 4: us film just a few scenes, immediately, oh, I see
Speaker 4: this is not the kind of film or we're going
Speaker 4: to fill it in with improv. We're going to try
Speaker 4: to throw in our own lines. Every line is exactly
Speaker 4: to the script mostly because we want the pauses and
Speaker 4: that breath in between all the moments were so important,
Speaker 4: and that was that's what helped make each of those
Speaker 4: little lines stand out and be really funny and work.
Speaker 4: And so everybody's smart, like they got it.
Speaker 2: How did you stay grounded?
Speaker 3: Then after this movie comes out, a lot of people
Speaker 3: are kind of plucked from outside Hollywood thrown into a
Speaker 3: once in a generation Cinderella story and then they get
Speaker 3: into some real trouble.
Speaker 2: How did you avoid the true Hollywood story?
Speaker 4: I wasn't super young. That helped. I was already married, Okay,
Speaker 4: that helps, Yeah, freshly married, that helped. Yeah, just having
Speaker 4: some of that kind of like grounding that I was like,
Speaker 4: all right, I know what kind of per Not so
Speaker 4: much actor, but I knew what kind of person I
Speaker 4: wanted to be and how I conduct myself and how
Speaker 4: the kind of people I you know, you know, work with,
Speaker 4: and who I want to associate myself with, and just
Speaker 4: kind of already had that built in a little bit.
Speaker 4: And so and you know, I was aware of that story.
Speaker 4: I think I think truly it was the age, you know,
Speaker 4: when I shot this, I was twenty five, twenty four
Speaker 4: twenty five when I shot it. So I was already
Speaker 4: in my mid twenties, and I was like not that.
Speaker 4: I was like, so I was still a baby to
Speaker 4: the industry, but at least too you know who I was,
Speaker 4: and again, yeah, kind of knowing what kind of person
Speaker 4: I want to be. I was just like, yeah, there
Speaker 4: was a grounding there. Yeah, And I was like going
Speaker 4: in headfirst into this industry not knowing, you know, exactly
Speaker 4: how it worked. But at least I was like, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna that that's going to be the part
Speaker 4: that I'm going to maybe make some stupid decisions like
Speaker 4: turning down this project or saying yes to this project,
Speaker 4: but that's going to be extent of that who I,
Speaker 4: you know, deal with or getting having you know, getting
Speaker 4: into whether it's parties or drugs or I don't know,
Speaker 4: dark alleyways.
Speaker 2: Right, that had already been decided, you had already decided.
Speaker 4: It didn't interest me at all. I was like I
Speaker 4: was always from the get go, like I don't need
Speaker 4: to go to a party, do I? Yeah, And if
Speaker 4: anything seems shady or weird, you know, I just walk away. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just yeah, I've always been shocked that there
Speaker 3: was no Napoleon Dynamite too, with that kind of success.
Speaker 3: But I did want to know if you saw the
Speaker 3: Minecraft movie. It's directed by Jared and there are so
Speaker 3: many homages to Napoleon Dynamite, and at.
Speaker 2: Times it kind of felt like a reinterpretation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I saw it. I saw, and of course,
Speaker 4: you know, seeing I'm like just knowing Jared as like,
Speaker 4: oh wow, it takes place in Idaho, but you know,
Speaker 4: that's just who he is, that's where he's from. And
Speaker 4: there was a tot men. I think there's something like
Speaker 4: a top factory or something. I remember that. I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: it's doing a little couple of nuns. Yeah, we you know,
Speaker 4: with the whole the sequel thing. Yeah. I just the
Speaker 4: simple answer is just like you never know. I mean,
Speaker 4: I suppose something could still happen. They could still happen,
Speaker 4: but I you know, it's like this is I'm very
Speaker 4: you know, precious and respectful, like this is to Jared's
Speaker 4: and Jared and Jerusha's, this is their baby, this is
Speaker 4: their creation. I helped create it, but it's not my call.
Speaker 4: And I'm you know, I'm not saying whether or not
Speaker 4: I would. I agreed right away. You know, Fox was
Speaker 4: very much like let's make you know, let's make a sequel,
Speaker 4: and Jared's like, I want to do other things. I
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, that totally makes sense. So right fine,
Speaker 4: and so we'll see, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: We'll see what happens. I like that answer. I do.
Speaker 2: I love that answer.
Speaker 3: Your next projects that you go into are Benchwarmers, School
Speaker 3: for Scoundrels, and Blades of Glory co starring David Spade,
Speaker 3: Billy Bob Thornton, and Will Ferrell. Basically three movies in
Speaker 3: two years with legends.
Speaker 2: Did you ever sleep?
Speaker 4: I slept great? I ate even better.
Speaker 2: Oh I love it.
Speaker 4: That was That was a change doing doing studio films
Speaker 4: and like, oh, this is what craft services is, like,
Speaker 4: this is what catering supposed to be. Like I think
Speaker 4: a Benchwarmers I gained I swear I gain like fifteen pounds.
Speaker 4: Really yeah, I didn't. I didn't know how to like
Speaker 4: because the difference was is like you got I shot
Speaker 4: Ben George's what was I shot before Blades the Glory?
Speaker 4: It was one of the first ones I shot, and
Speaker 4: that truly was like and I was there for the
Speaker 4: long haul. I shot like a couple other studio films
Speaker 4: right before, but it was like day player kind of
Speaker 4: thing and coming in for a few days, not really
Speaker 4: experiencing the whole thing. But first bigger role, I guess,
Speaker 4: you know Benors, but it was Benros, you know, produced
Speaker 4: by Sandlers, Adam Sandler's. They were known for like just
Speaker 4: catering to the nines and and so I was there
Speaker 4: and we shot for like three months. We don't have
Speaker 4: to do anything. I'm not training because my character is
Speaker 4: supposed to stink at baseball. So they're like, no, you
Speaker 4: don't how to train Rabim Schneider. We'll put him in
Speaker 4: the in the batting cages all day long. He's got
Speaker 4: to be good. But you guys can just eat and
Speaker 4: talk and relax and relax. And that's what we did.
Speaker 4: But then, of course, I guess when Blades of Glory
Speaker 4: came around, I had to, Uh, this is the first
Speaker 4: one I did where I was like, oh, you got
Speaker 4: to train, you got to train skating, you got to
Speaker 4: get in shape. You've got a regiment of like what
Speaker 4: we were eating. So I was like it was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: polar opposite. So like I got there, and yeah, they
Speaker 4: had amazing catering. But I had an assistant who was like,
Speaker 4: bring me.
Speaker 2: My meals salmon.
Speaker 4: Exactly, and the salads and the fish and everything. I
Speaker 4: was like, okay, whatever, I'll do it. I had a blast,
Speaker 4: but it was yeah, completely different experience. Yeah it was,
Speaker 4: but there was a that was a crazy time. That
Speaker 4: was a crazy time. When you say no sleep. It
Speaker 4: was like I to me that those like first couple years,
Speaker 4: first three years was all about my Thomas guide and me.
Speaker 4: And if you remember the Thomas guy I had, we
Speaker 4: didn't have phones, we didn't have smartphones, and so I
Speaker 4: just had to learn la, learn la and drive meetings
Speaker 4: beyond meetings, meeting casting agents, casting directors, producers, agents, actors, writers, everyone,
Speaker 4: And so it was it was less about the no
Speaker 4: sleep and more about like the mileage I put in
Speaker 4: my car.
Speaker 2: Yes, think of all the time we wasted back then
Speaker 2: of sitting in traffic. You know, now we just drop
Speaker 2: onto a zoom.
Speaker 3: It's like it's not an hour drive to Cia for
Speaker 3: forty I know.
Speaker 4: I loved exploring in my car and getting to know
Speaker 4: the canyons in all the different free ways.
Speaker 3: When I first started driving, that was My number one
Speaker 3: most exciting thought was I can't wait to drive the canyons.
Speaker 2: Like this is everything, and.
Speaker 4: No amount of exploring those canyons and doing the freeways
Speaker 4: where you still like none of this makes sense, Like
Speaker 4: what this is the worst layout, like right, so now
Speaker 4: I gotta go here and it's always bad. It's it
Speaker 4: was crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know, unlike New York that's a real
Speaker 3: grid system. There's no rhyme or reason to Los Angeles
Speaker 3: streets or even freeways.
Speaker 2: So people love Blades of Glory.
Speaker 3: I think it has only grown in popularity and cult
Speaker 3: status over the years. What is your other than the
Speaker 3: diet and workout regimen. What do you remember most from
Speaker 3: making that movie.
Speaker 4: I think it was the It was the the cold,
Speaker 4: the weather. It was the cold, difference between a lot
Speaker 4: of the other projects, not just it was the It
Speaker 4: was the apex of my film experience in terms of like,
Speaker 4: this is the biggest one yet, this is so night
Speaker 4: and day from coming from small independent film Napoleon, coming
Speaker 4: to big budget Hollywood movie. You've got the biggest start,
Speaker 4: Will Ferrell. Yeah, you've got huge crew, special effects teams,
Speaker 4: you got double I mean, it was just it was
Speaker 4: so different, And that's really what I remember the most
Speaker 4: was just how different, but also that the skating Will
Speaker 4: and skating Will and skating were like the two things
Speaker 4: I remember the most because you know, it was Will Ferrell.
Speaker 4: That was a dream come true. It was like it
Speaker 4: was a dream. I always say, it's like it's unrealized
Speaker 4: dream come true. Like I didn't I didn't know I
Speaker 4: had dreamt of that.
Speaker 2: Right, You didn't even know you could dream of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. It's not like I thought, oh, maybe one
Speaker 4: day I'll get to do a movie with Will. It was,
Speaker 4: it was, it was actually it was you know, the
Speaker 4: quick version was it was Ben Stiller who was first
Speaker 4: cast in that role. He came to me about doing this.
Speaker 4: Him and I and his his team produced it, but
Speaker 4: scheduling conflicts came up a little just a little bit
Speaker 4: later and he couldn't do it. But he was like,
Speaker 4: don't worry him, So making this movie, we'll get some
Speaker 4: good And then that's when they cast Will and I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, oh, okay, well that's a pretty good replacement.
Speaker 4: I didn't do better, and so it was very I
Speaker 4: was like, really Will, like seriously, So it was very
Speaker 4: much pinch myself moment. He was extremely wonderful to work with.
Speaker 4: I mean he was like what you would hope for
Speaker 4: and you know, dream of, like in a person like him,
Speaker 4: down to earth, very kind and sweet and professional, but
Speaker 4: also extremely funny, just like he was the cool kid,
Speaker 4: you know, show me around the digs and let me
Speaker 4: hang out with the other cool kids. But then the skating,
Speaker 4: and then skating was you know, I loved the skating.
Speaker 4: I wasn't like a skater before. I had gone a
Speaker 4: couple of times growing up as a kid, you know,
Speaker 4: but I and I remember thinking, oh, yeah, you guys.
Speaker 4: When they asked like, do you have experience, I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I've got experience. And then of course we hit the
Speaker 4: ice and I'm like, oh man, this is like relearning
Speaker 4: the bicycle. And I took to it and I loved
Speaker 4: it and it was so much fun, and getting to
Speaker 4: do that that was a big thing. I loved learning
Speaker 4: a craft for a food. That was really fun.
Speaker 2: Have you skated since?
Speaker 4: I have skated since, And it's not it's not like
Speaker 4: riding a bike, right. I can still pull off the stuff,
Speaker 4: but it's it feels like riding a bike that every
Speaker 4: time you get on that bike. No, even if you
Speaker 4: rode it two days before and it was serviced and
Speaker 4: it was oiled and it was in working condition, it's
Speaker 4: like you can get on that bike, but immediately like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is rusty, this is old, Like I got to
Speaker 4: fix it. It's like that's what it feels like. Get every
Speaker 4: even when we're training every day, get on the ice
Speaker 4: like I have to relearn it. It's yeah, because it's
Speaker 4: just a different beast. So I can still do some
Speaker 4: of the same stuff, but it is it's not an
Speaker 4: easy hobby to just keep going. You gotta it's it's yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't get to go ice skating all the time,
Speaker 4: and once I do, I'm like, oh, I feel like eyes.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I've gotta I've got to show it. I've
Speaker 4: got to perform. Yeah, I don't know if I could
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 3: I needed a solid hour of just warming up. I
Speaker 3: feel very much the same way about dance when I
Speaker 3: when I'm dancing every day for four hours a day,
Speaker 3: you are oiled up.
Speaker 2: You're in the mode.
Speaker 3: But then after any sort of break, even if it's
Speaker 3: just a few days to a week, the minute you
Speaker 3: get back into it, you're like what am I? How
Speaker 3: do I I've got to get the all of this
Speaker 3: back into back into place.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, yeah, same thing.
Speaker 3: Well, in our house, you are not Napoleon Dynamite. You
Speaker 3: are Skull from Monster House, which is a favorite of
Speaker 3: my five and seven year olds.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: You have four beautiful kids. Do they have a favorite
Speaker 3: of your movies?
Speaker 4: I would say deeper cut here right now, they've all
Speaker 4: gone through phases, but the blanket statement is no, they
Speaker 4: don't care that much about my movies.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, Like my kids feel the same way about me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they're like but like, you know, they went
Speaker 4: through My youngest, my nine year old, she's definitely into
Speaker 4: she likes Napoleon. She does like Napoleon, but that's mostly
Speaker 4: what she's seen. I have not. There's a couple others
Speaker 4: I haven't shown her yet, you know. And a couple
Speaker 4: of them have seen the other ones, but they're like, uh,
Speaker 4: but I think the one project I've done that for
Speaker 4: the first time when it first came out that we
Speaker 4: all sat down as a family, every single one watched
Speaker 4: it and laughed our butts off. Was Pickle and Peanut
Speaker 4: and and not a lot of people know about it,
Speaker 4: but I'm always putting the word out. It was a
Speaker 4: Disney cartoon. It's a Disney show. We did for two seasons, okay,
Speaker 4: and it's like it's it was. It felt the most
Speaker 4: irreverent Disney ever got. But it was like kind of
Speaker 4: SpongeBob square Pants and meets Red and Stimpy. It's just
Speaker 4: about a pickle and a peanut and they're two friends,
Speaker 4: like high school buddies who live in Reno, Nevada, and
Speaker 4: they just get up to nonsense and it's totally crazy
Speaker 4: and wild and it's it was so much fun to
Speaker 4: do that voice work, uh, kind of from with the
Speaker 4: creators creating each episode and then and yeah, we would.
Speaker 4: We just sit around and we're rewatching it now with
Speaker 4: my nine year old because she did. She was too
Speaker 4: young when ye first came out, and so and she's
Speaker 4: loving it. She's loving it. And so that of all
Speaker 4: my projects.
Speaker 3: Back to your original love, back to the thing you
Speaker 3: thought you were going to move to le and do.
Speaker 4: It's easier. I think the animated stuff, like they really
Speaker 4: liked the We did an animated Napoleon series for like,
Speaker 4: you know, six episodes, and she they the kids really
Speaker 4: like that as well, because I think because it's when
Speaker 4: it's voiceover, they're not seeing dad, they're saying they're seeing
Speaker 4: a pickle, or they're seeing some animated character that they yeah,
Speaker 4: there's that's true. Now I think about there's I did
Speaker 4: this character on Star Versus the Forces of Evil. Yes,
Speaker 4: great cartoon, and they that was probably they would say, oh,
Speaker 4: that's my favorite thing you've done. And they respected and
Speaker 4: loved it because again they're not seeing me, They're just
Speaker 4: hearing their voice and they've Yeah, a cool project.
Speaker 2: You know, that's so great.
Speaker 3: I want to talk to you about Nation's Dumbest before
Speaker 3: you go, yeah you are. You have some fellow contestants
Speaker 3: including Iced Tea, my pal, Jojo Siwa, doctor Drew who
Speaker 3: felt like real competition until he was eliminated in week one,
Speaker 3: Carmen Electra.
Speaker 2: And Laria Baldwin.
Speaker 3: And I'm not asking for any spoilers, but did you
Speaker 3: all get along the entire time?
Speaker 4: Oh? We got on great?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: I think what really helped is a nobody knew who
Speaker 4: was going to be the other contestants until we were
Speaker 4: introduced each other on camera. They wanted to keep it secret,
Speaker 4: and so when we show it, the first day in
Speaker 4: the classroom, which was like, you know, the main hub.
Speaker 4: I'm seeing everybody for the first time, and I'm so
Speaker 4: like some of them, I'm not quite sure who they are,
Speaker 4: but you know, I'm still recognizing some faces. But I
Speaker 4: think what really helps in those Yes, it is an
Speaker 4: individual competition where each person is competing against the other
Speaker 4: to try to get off first. We wanted you to
Speaker 4: get off before the others, to get eliminated first. However,
Speaker 4: we're all we all know the nature of the show.
Speaker 4: It's called Nation's Dumbest. You know you could be the winner.
Speaker 4: So there is automatically a sense of not just empathy
Speaker 4: but like camaraderie that we're all feeling like a we're
Speaker 4: all we've all agreed to make fun of ourselves for
Speaker 4: the next X amount of episodes whatever, and we get it,
Speaker 4: and we all know how that feels when you look
Speaker 4: dumb on camera. But that's gonna be the whole premise
Speaker 4: and the selling point of the show is watching the
Speaker 4: dumb we look and have moments of you know, victory
Speaker 4: and for sure where it feels good. But we all
Speaker 4: knew that there was going to be the chance and
Speaker 4: there was guaranteed to be moments where we look stupid,
Speaker 4: where we get a question wrong. So I think that
Speaker 4: helped us bond a little bit more. So we got
Speaker 4: along great. It was never like I'm taking you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know if like maybe that's how it is
Speaker 4: in Survivor or other reality competition shows. But we we
Speaker 4: were like because there's nothing we could do to prepare really,
Speaker 4: I mean we were just like, well, you could start studying,
Speaker 4: but you have no idea they're gonna I remember there
Speaker 4: was one thing I was like. I remember telling my
Speaker 4: teammates because I was like, I know they're gonna ask
Speaker 4: this question, you guys, because they asked lots of random stuff.
Speaker 4: Don't forget that the Democratic Party is donkeys, No, yeah, donkeys,
Speaker 4: and the Republican Party is elephants and they are blue
Speaker 4: and the donkeys are no, sorry, the donkeys are blue.
Speaker 4: See now I'm forgetting.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, Democrats are blue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Democrats are blue, and the so are red. And
Speaker 4: I was like that seems simple enough, but that's something
Speaker 4: they're so going to test us on. They never asked
Speaker 4: that question, but that was the only thing I remember
Speaker 4: telling the other team. I would saying, it's like Okay,
Speaker 4: you guys, we would go over a couple things. I'd like,
Speaker 4: just geography. Things are like, okay, don't forget like simple things.
Speaker 4: Let's go over.
Speaker 2: How many states are there?
Speaker 4: Give? Yeah. We had a couple of contestants who, no
Speaker 4: matter what, if they were asked a kids question, anything
Speaker 4: to do with nursery rhymes, TV shows, like kids shows anything,
Speaker 4: they were just burn and fails. So sometimes we sat
Speaker 4: there kind of reviewing, all right, here's all the Doctor
Speaker 4: Seuss books. Yeah, here is what's on Nickelodeon right now,
Speaker 4: or you know or was on Nickelodeon and you know
Speaker 4: in the eighties or something, or you know some of
Speaker 4: or like even like nursery rhymes, just stuff like that.
Speaker 4: It was that was the extent of our study going in.
Speaker 3: Did you feel like you had any specific educational strengths.
Speaker 4: Uh? I. I was like, okay, I was a good student.
Speaker 4: I can follow directions well, and that's I think gonna help.
Speaker 4: I was always pretty good at math, English spell. This
Speaker 4: isn't a spoiler because they already had the episode where
Speaker 4: we had the spelling b I remember thinking, yes, I
Speaker 4: got this, and then you know, you find out it's
Speaker 4: a team challenge. And you're only as good as your team.
Speaker 4: And so I'm like, oh, I don't got this.
Speaker 2: I don't got it.
Speaker 4: I mean maybe I got it, I don't know. Do
Speaker 4: you guys got you guys? Do you have it? Do
Speaker 4: you have it? No? And I get shake shaking heads,
Speaker 4: like that's one thing. A lot of people are like, dude,
Speaker 4: I'm smart, but I can't spell very well. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: There was uh like elements of geography. I'm good at,
Speaker 4: other elements I stink at, you know.
Speaker 2: So what would you say an educational weakness was? For
Speaker 2: you sports?
Speaker 4: And I don't even call that an education. But I
Speaker 4: remember going in thinking this, A lot of this is
Speaker 4: based on trivia and a lot like trivia, like if
Speaker 4: you remember that game Trivia Pursuit. They're going to have
Speaker 4: all these different categories. But I was like, if they
Speaker 4: asked questions of sports, I'm gonna fail. And they did
Speaker 4: ask some, and I got the ones that were about like,
Speaker 4: which sport involves this kind of you know, uh uh
Speaker 4: these kinds of balls or something, or these kinds of equipment.
Speaker 4: I was like, that I could do, But if it's
Speaker 4: going to be about players, stats, years, teams stuff like that,
Speaker 4: I was like I'm out. I remember thinking that, and
Speaker 4: then like pop culture I'm really good at up to
Speaker 4: a certain years and specific things like movies. I've got movies,
Speaker 4: I got most television music I'm really good at up
Speaker 4: until like like the two thousand and then I'm pretty
Speaker 4: good with certain genres, but like other things with like yeah,
Speaker 4: and then pop culture, tell there was certain That's where
Speaker 4: I lost the most. Was just like things that I
Speaker 4: didn't feel stupid about. I was just like, oh, I
Speaker 4: just yea culture exactly like certain certain things. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, you can watch Nation's Dumbest every Wednesday night on
Speaker 3: Fox at nine pm, or the next day on Hulu,
Speaker 3: Disney Plus or t B. John, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for chatting with me. It was a pleasure talking with
Speaker 3: you and meeting with you today.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. It was as well for me.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Have a great day you too. Bye.
Speaker 3: Teen Beat is an iHeart podcast produced and hosted by
Speaker 3: Danielle Fischel, Executive producers Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive
Speaker 3: in charge of production Danielle Romo, producer and editor Tara Sudbosch.
Speaker 2: The theme song is.
Speaker 3: By Mark Coppus. Yes that Mark Coppus. Follow us on
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