Speaker 1: Ian wasn't like, that's my guy, right, He was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the people in here think he's the guy you this way?
Speaker 1: Did you get to it again with less of your instincts?
Speaker 1: Is there any way to do that with a different
Speaker 1: voice and a different face. Hi, I'm Jake Johnson and
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk to Brian after the Packers choking
Speaker 1: the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, one and all, Welcome back to another episode
Speaker 2: of Off the Beat. It's me everybody. Brian Baumgartner with
Speaker 2: me today. As you just heard, is a fantastic and
Speaker 2: very funny man, Jake john and he started out as
Speaker 2: a writer, as a production assistant and slowly moved in
Speaker 2: front of the camera to become the actor that everybody
Speaker 2: knows today. Of course, Jake played Nick Miller on New Girl,
Speaker 2: Gray on Stumptown, Doug on Minx. He is silly, he
Speaker 2: is shady, he is sleazy. He really does it all.
Speaker 2: And he has a podcast too, We're Here to Help,
Speaker 2: very funny podcast with his friend Gareth Reynolds. They give
Speaker 2: sage advice to listeners who call in with questions they
Speaker 2: need help with, and he sometimes hosts super handsome celebrity
Speaker 2: guests like me or actually me. See, I was just
Speaker 2: on an episode. I had an amazing time. I answered
Speaker 2: a question from a listener that I promise you this
Speaker 2: you do not want to miss, so go check it out.
Speaker 2: We're Here to Help with Jake, with Gareth and well
Speaker 2: with me. So now that I've been on his podcast,
Speaker 2: it's only right that he comes on mine and shares
Speaker 2: his stories with all of us. Jake is a great guy,
Speaker 2: very thoughtful, very smart, very funny. It's my pleasure to
Speaker 2: have gotten to know him. Here he is Jake Johnson,
Speaker 2: Bubble and Squeak. I love it. Bubble and Squeak. I
Speaker 2: know Bubble and Squeak. I could get every mo lift
Speaker 2: over from the night before. What's up, Jake?
Speaker 1: Hey man, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm great? How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing awesome.
Speaker 2: It's good to see you again. I mean, look at this.
Speaker 2: It's been it was years, and now it's like twice in.
Speaker 1: A row, the podcast era of.
Speaker 2: I have been thinking about it all day. For those
Speaker 2: of you who don't know, I was just on the
Speaker 2: We're Here to Help podcast with my new good friend
Speaker 2: Jake and Gareth. I have to ask you, has there
Speaker 2: been any follow up on the question that we got
Speaker 2: asked on the podcast brief set up, they ask their
Speaker 2: listeners we give advice there on the We're here to
Speaker 2: help podcasts, and someone came in and asked a question
Speaker 2: about a potential pornographic tape that she believed her parents
Speaker 2: had made and no one had looked at. Did they
Speaker 2: send you the tape? Have you reviewed it?
Speaker 1: They have sent the tape. Okay, we are reviewing, I
Speaker 1: believe next week because Kevin is getting it switched over
Speaker 1: right now so we could review it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The show is a call in advice show, and we've
Speaker 1: kind of found the more ridiculous the calls, the more
Speaker 1: fun for us and for the audience. And this one
Speaker 1: was a woman found a tape in the attic of
Speaker 1: her parents that said, you know, I think it was
Speaker 1: you remember more than me, Brian, But it was like
Speaker 1: wedding come a porno or sex or something that was
Speaker 1: like it was like.
Speaker 2: An eight her eighty year old grandmother's like birthday party.
Speaker 2: But then there was a note that said X rated.
Speaker 1: X rated That's what it was. Yeah, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: be watching it next week. The follow ups have been
Speaker 1: the key for fun for us to the longevity for
Speaker 1: it because the callers become characters that we care about,
Speaker 1: and we talked. We've now talked to certain people like
Speaker 1: five times, and when they call in, we're like, you know, hey, Connor,
Speaker 1: how are you what's going.
Speaker 2: On with the roommate?
Speaker 1: And he'll be like, let me tell you, it's been
Speaker 1: mad at Florida. Fun.
Speaker 2: Man, Oh that was that was very surprising, but a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. If you haven't checked out, we're here
Speaker 2: to help, or specifically, I mean me, we're here to help.
Speaker 2: Legendary episode. I some someone said it was the best
Speaker 2: episode ever. I don't know if that was you.
Speaker 1: I think all of us, it was all the fans.
Speaker 2: It could have been my publicist, the studio. Well, let's
Speaker 2: talk about you today. My most favorite subject you you. Uh,
Speaker 2: we didn't talk about this too much when we talked
Speaker 2: on your program there, but you do hail from Chicago born, raised,
Speaker 2: big Chicago sports fan. I'll right, we've got a bear
Speaker 2: smug you.
Speaker 1: Remember that on our show we were talking you. I
Speaker 1: was asking you questions about the office. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: talking about like the inner personal dynamics and who you
Speaker 1: hit the hardest with. And Gareth goes, yeah, I've got
Speaker 1: something interesting, and I was like, don't turn change the
Speaker 1: subject because you know, as a guy who like you know,
Speaker 1: honest sitcom and love sitcoms, I love the insider baseball
Speaker 1: of it, right. I find those dynamics so fun, and
Speaker 1: as an actor, it's great. But what he told me
Speaker 1: off air was that you and Aaron Rodgers are good boy.
Speaker 1: He's like, you guys are buddies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I'm a Packers guy. He and I
Speaker 2: play some golf together. How do you feel about the
Speaker 2: Bears this year? Do you let me ask you this?
Speaker 2: Because I love I love to destroy hope. How are
Speaker 2: you feeling hopeful now about the Bears? Very?
Speaker 1: Very Arry?
Speaker 2: Very oh very I thought you said Barry.
Speaker 1: No Chicago, Barry. I'll tell you why I am. Okay,
Speaker 1: I am so Ryan Poles our gm uh huh he.
Speaker 1: At first I was not sure. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you always poach, and you go like, well, look at
Speaker 1: what they did with the Chiefs, look at what they
Speaker 1: did with this other team, and you go, we all
Speaker 1: know the way businesses work. There's like one or two
Speaker 1: people making the decisions and there's nine other people getting
Speaker 1: the credit. And I'm like, look, because you had the
Speaker 1: logo of AT and T didn't mean to create the eight,
Speaker 1: and so he came over. I was not overly excited.
Speaker 1: He made a couple moves that I thought, like, all right,
Speaker 1: we got rid of Mac. We got Chase Claypool for
Speaker 1: our second round. I was like, I'm not loving it.
Speaker 1: That Carolina Panthers trade is going to go down as
Speaker 1: one of the greatest trades in the last few decades
Speaker 1: because we had Justin Fields and he's a quarterback. I like, so,
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of trash on him, but he's
Speaker 1: he's a very good quarterback. He's really fun to watch. Yes,
Speaker 1: we kept him for a year, which I think was smart.
Speaker 1: We traded the number one, which no Bryce Young' school.
Speaker 1: But I'll take Caleb Williams over him. And then we
Speaker 1: got everything else we got, including Dj Moore, including you
Speaker 1: know Durrell right, including Tyreek Stevenson the cornerback, including next year.
Speaker 1: Second I'm like, ooh, Ryan Poles, let him cook. And
Speaker 1: if you have a great GM, and now you've got
Speaker 1: a top ten defense, and now you got wide receivers,
Speaker 1: and now you got Caleb Williams, who's a potential star.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Brian Where do you finish this year?
Speaker 1: I think this year we sneak into the playoffs. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I think we could wildcard it in. I think we
Speaker 1: go for a run. Caleb Williams has to learn a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's his first year. I think Rome Dunes
Speaker 1: is going to be a stud, but this is his
Speaker 1: first year. I think Keenan Allen, our wide receiver, will
Speaker 1: be a one and done. But I think we will
Speaker 1: figure it out. Our defense will take a step forward.
Speaker 1: We're gonna win some big games. We're gonna go on
Speaker 1: a run in the middle of the season where we
Speaker 1: win like three in a row. Okay, and then I
Speaker 1: think we sneak into the playoffs and we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens there.
Speaker 2: So in the North, yeah, do you beat out the Lions?
Speaker 1: Well, we split with the Lions last year.
Speaker 2: That's not wasn't my question.
Speaker 1: Uh, I would say, I don't. I don't fear the
Speaker 1: Lions as a Bears fan.
Speaker 2: Do you finish ahead of the Packers?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, But wait a second. At the beginning of
Speaker 2: this conversation, you already we were saying you're gonna sneak
Speaker 2: in as a wild card. So you're Minnesota you scared.
Speaker 2: You're scared of Minnesota. J J.
Speaker 1: McCarthy.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just trying. Well now, I'm trying. Now I'm confused.
Speaker 2: You sound like a Bears fan. I love this so much.
Speaker 1: I love Okay, I don't think the Vikings. I like
Speaker 1: their head coach. I think what they're doing is interesting.
Speaker 1: I love Brian Flores. I think he's a great coordinator.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know about Sam Darnold. I don't know if
Speaker 1: JJ is the guy, and if he is for a while.
Speaker 1: I think Jordan Love is good. I think he's a
Speaker 1: little overhyped. I think the way Packers fans, what I
Speaker 1: say to Gareth is there the team that the belief
Speaker 1: with the Packers is the goal is is to go
Speaker 1: far but not win at all. So they're always really good,
Speaker 1: but they're not like a top tier team.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: But the goal with the Packers is to go far
Speaker 1: and then lose the big games.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the goal. I think that's I
Speaker 2: think that's what what it maybe has happened a few
Speaker 2: too many times. I don't I disagree that that's the goal.
Speaker 1: No, I always say that that's what Gareth Reynolds my partner,
Speaker 1: you're here to help. Who has a Packers tattoo? Okay
Speaker 1: literally said, well, we're text.
Speaker 2: What is his tattoo? Is it just a G? Please
Speaker 2: tell me it's just a G? It's just a G.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would be better if it was like
Speaker 1: a G with like him holding it up. But we
Speaker 1: were texting and being mean to each other the way
Speaker 1: we are when the season goes on, where we just
Speaker 1: abuse each other.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: One of the things he said is because I was
Speaker 1: getting at them about how you guys do notoriously choke
Speaker 1: against the great teams in the playoffs. You do great
Speaker 1: in the regular season. You guys are regular season killers.
Speaker 1: And then when it gets tight, you know, you bet
Speaker 1: against the Packers. And he said the goal of it
Speaker 1: is to go far. And I thought, you just summed
Speaker 1: up the Packers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I disagree with that. By the way, if you
Speaker 2: bet on the Packers last year in their last game,
Speaker 2: you win. By the way, you think they choked in
Speaker 2: their last game last year, I think they missed a
Speaker 2: field goal. Yeah, not choking, No, I don't think.
Speaker 1: I think when I'm talking more of the choking. It
Speaker 1: was every year leading up to that, in the last
Speaker 1: few years where every year during the regular season, the
Speaker 1: Packers looked unbeatable. And now the forty nine ers are
Speaker 1: just a better tea. They're just now better teams than
Speaker 1: the Packers. But there were years where I didn't see
Speaker 1: a better team in the NFC than that, and then
Speaker 1: they would get to the playoffs and then you would
Speaker 1: see a better team. But last year, you know, when
Speaker 1: they beat the Cowboys, I didn't expect that. And then
Speaker 1: who they lose to? They lost to the forty nine ers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they should have won. Yeah, but the.
Speaker 1: Forty nine ers were just a better team. And so
Speaker 1: oh I remember that game. Yeah, they did choke. They
Speaker 1: were kicking ass until the last six minutes of the games.
Speaker 2: The field goal, Yeah, but.
Speaker 1: Then Jordan Loved threw that like dog shit pass across
Speaker 1: the field where he just got nervous and weirded out.
Speaker 1: He just packered it. He just went like the game
Speaker 1: was going great and then he just went.
Speaker 2: Like the goal is to go far and went, I
Speaker 2: loes you see, you think that this bothers me, But
Speaker 2: let me tell you something. The fact that you have
Speaker 2: hope this year. I love, I love. What do you think?
Speaker 1: What do you think?
Speaker 2: You know? Just like the song says, the Bears still suck.
Speaker 2: The Bears still suck.
Speaker 1: And so what do you think in terms of this
Speaker 1: team if you actually look at their roster.
Speaker 2: I think that you don't know until until you get there. Yes,
Speaker 2: you said Caleb Williams, there's potential huge, But what is that?
Speaker 2: What is that we haven't seen him play a game yet?
Speaker 2: I agree? I mean what our situation last year it
Speaker 2: kind of wasn't close Stroud and Bryce, yes, and who
Speaker 2: became the star?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I'm not disagreeing that we haven't seen him play,
Speaker 1: but as a betting man, I'm betting that Caleb Williams
Speaker 1: is going to do pretty well.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the Bears win the division.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's going to be close. Look
Speaker 1: when I said I'm not scared of the Lions we
Speaker 1: split last year, I don't know they you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be a three team race, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think, and.
Speaker 2: Honestly, with congratulations for getting into the race, congratulations.
Speaker 1: But I think in terms of what's going to happen
Speaker 1: with the NFC North, the truth is with the Vikings,
Speaker 1: if we're being totally honest, they don't scare me. But
Speaker 1: they have a good head coach and they have a
Speaker 1: great defense, and Brian Flores is a real like I
Speaker 1: liked him as our head coach when he was available,
Speaker 1: we went Fluse. So I'm just starting to kind of
Speaker 1: wrap my head around because he seems to be a
Speaker 1: culture guy, and Florence seems to be less of a
Speaker 1: culture guy more of a confuse your offense guy. And
Speaker 1: he seemed meaner, and he seemed more Chicago, and I
Speaker 1: was interested, okay, And so what he's done in Minnesota
Speaker 1: is really fun on defense. So I think there's a
Speaker 1: chance we could all beat each other up in the North,
Speaker 1: and if we don't win the division, we could sneak
Speaker 1: into the wild Card. I could see any of the
Speaker 1: four teams getting in, and I could see any of
Speaker 1: the four teams having a real dog shit turn.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't fully, but I don't think anybody from the
Speaker 1: NFC North is going to the super Bowl.
Speaker 2: There you go, you've heard it, hot take here on
Speaker 2: off the beat. No NFC North team is going to
Speaker 2: the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: What do you think of that? Brian? You think the
Speaker 1: Packers are going to the super Bowl?
Speaker 2: I think their schedule is very difficult.
Speaker 1: Do you think they're better than the forty nine Ers. No,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't. Tough to say means not a chance.
Speaker 2: It's tough to say because they're not.
Speaker 1: It's tough to say the truth they're not.
Speaker 2: It's tough to say. It's tough to say.
Speaker 1: You think the Packers are better than the Chiefs if
Speaker 1: they get there.
Speaker 2: I think it is sort of an obvious argument that too.
Speaker 2: Potentially there's that word again. Two of the best three
Speaker 2: teams in the NFC are in the North. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you you're a big So you like the Lions
Speaker 1: a lot, you like the Packers a lot, and you
Speaker 1: usually don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I'm not saying who. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: what I like. But I think in terms of the
Speaker 2: roster and the construction and the teams that are out there,
Speaker 2: I mean, who knows, Philly's probably going to be way
Speaker 2: better this year than that.
Speaker 1: I was just about to say, you've missed out Phi.
Speaker 1: I think it's a yeah, okay, I think Philly and
Speaker 1: the forty nine ers are just roster wize and obviously
Speaker 1: we all see once the season starts, you could build
Speaker 1: a dream team. It's the same with our business. You
Speaker 1: can get an unthinkably great cast with a great cool
Speaker 1: director and a great script, and that movie and that
Speaker 1: show is dog shit and I don't know what. And
Speaker 1: by the way, it wasn't because anybody was like a
Speaker 1: locker room cancer. It just didn't work. Yeah, so there
Speaker 1: has to be whatever that magic is to work, and
Speaker 1: that you don't know because every single season is different.
Speaker 1: But constructra wise, the North is all pretty deep. But
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's top tier. I think construction wise,
Speaker 1: I go Egles forty nine ers, but I think the
Speaker 1: forty nine ers are better, and I don't think anybody's
Speaker 1: even near the Chiefs, which leads me back to the
Speaker 1: Packers goal. The goal was just to go far.
Speaker 2: Well that's Garret's comment. That's not okay, fair enough? All right, Well,
Speaker 2: there you go, it'll be exciting, it's coming.
Speaker 1: Oh what do you think about your buddy's jets.
Speaker 2: I think they got a chance.
Speaker 1: And what do you think about him not going to
Speaker 1: Mini Caamp.
Speaker 2: I think he had something to do. Now you know,
Speaker 2: I try not to get on my soapbox here, and
Speaker 2: this is with no insider information. He was there every
Speaker 2: single day of voluntary camp. Every single day he didn't
Speaker 2: miss a day. He had something he needed to do.
Speaker 2: What he had to do is quite frankly, not anybody's business.
Speaker 2: So that's very overplayed as far as I'm concerned. I mean,
Speaker 2: he literally was there every day. Yeah, and everybody knew
Speaker 2: that he wasn't going to be there. It doesn't it's
Speaker 2: not like he didn't show up.
Speaker 1: Not a surprise. I got the media made it seem
Speaker 1: like a surprise, but it's not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And what did you think about the way your Green
Speaker 1: Bay Packers treated Hall of Fame and your personal friend
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 2: I think it was time for a parting of the relationship.
Speaker 2: I think it just and by the way, I mean
Speaker 2: the Jordan Love situation triggered it multiple years before it
Speaker 2: because he was playing so so well. That's why it
Speaker 2: didn't happen sooner. And look, you know, he let them
Speaker 2: know that he wanted to stay there, and I think
Speaker 2: he would have enjoyed to stay there. I don't want
Speaker 2: to speak for him. I think he's been pretty clear
Speaker 2: about that and it was signaled that that wasn't going
Speaker 2: to happen. So I think a restart for him for
Speaker 2: them probably as well worked out for the best, and
Speaker 2: you know, look, he had a tragic, tragic situation on the.
Speaker 1: New turf of the new stadium because he was kicked
Speaker 1: out of his home by your team, Cora's achilles at
Speaker 1: the moment of his career where he should be celebrated
Speaker 1: and put on the shoulders of the fan base, but
Speaker 1: instead he's kicked.
Speaker 2: To the curb. I'll tell you something. This is not
Speaker 2: a joke. I know you're making jokes. I was there
Speaker 2: that game on September eleventh, and I am telling you
Speaker 2: before it happened, I have had the great, great fortune
Speaker 2: of being at a lot of fantastic sporting events. It
Speaker 2: was the most excited, energy filled stadium that I have
Speaker 2: ever experienced, September eleventh, New York, after a whole knocks,
Speaker 2: hard knocks, all the press, the hope, yeah, and then
Speaker 2: it was one of.
Speaker 1: Those I'm an old Cubs fan, so we grew up
Speaker 1: with this idea of a jinx. Yeah, And I don't
Speaker 1: really believe in the jinks. I'm not deep into. I
Speaker 1: find it fun to talk about jinxes and think certain
Speaker 1: people are jinxes and organizations have the black cloud. I
Speaker 1: was cheering for the Jets because of hard knocks. It
Speaker 1: was just so fun. I like that coach, I like
Speaker 1: the feeling I would I like whatever. That DB's name
Speaker 1: is Sauce Gardner.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And I kind of.
Speaker 1: Wanted to see Aaron Rodgers because I did not like
Speaker 1: I don't like the way qbs are treated, and I
Speaker 1: don't like the way veterans are treated in the NFL. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you make an organization so much money that the guy
Speaker 1: finish his career. If he's got two more years, he's
Speaker 1: playing at an MVP level. I'm excited to see him
Speaker 1: have a great year. I still thought the Chiefs would
Speaker 1: probably beat him in the end, but like I thought
Speaker 1: it was gonna be a lot of fun. That first
Speaker 1: play or second play injury almost felt like it wasn't real.
Speaker 1: I was like this camp in New York, and you
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't like a sprain. You were like, nah,
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers is pretty tough. This is just to go like,
Speaker 1: oh as an organization, as a fan, but I did
Speaker 1: feel like that one. You guys got a little bit
Speaker 1: of a.
Speaker 2: Jinks on you. Yeah. Look, I think their roster is
Speaker 2: better this year. I think their schedule is you know,
Speaker 2: it's not easy with a lot of the primetime games
Speaker 2: that they have, but in terms of at least how
Speaker 2: the teams were the last year, how maybe they're expected
Speaker 2: to be. They've got an advantageous schedule. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: tough not to see eleven twelve wins there and we'll
Speaker 2: see what happened.
Speaker 1: If the problem with the NFL right now, and I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan, I really like it, but it reminds
Speaker 1: me of the Jordan era of basketball, where you go like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I could definitely see eleven wins. I could see twelve wins,
Speaker 1: but I cannot see them beating the Chiefs in Arrowhead
Speaker 1: in the snow. Yeah, you go like all those teams,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, the Trailblazers are looking good. They are stacked,
Speaker 1: and they are gonna run through all the teams they play,
Speaker 1: and then they're gonna see a guy named Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: has a good buddy pit. They're not gonna do any
Speaker 1: and you would go, oh, I think we are in
Speaker 1: the And it's not like I'm saying a huge statement,
Speaker 1: but we are obviously in the Patrick Mahomes era in
Speaker 1: the NFL. They just keep loading up, they keep getting better.
Speaker 1: They know how to win. I'm like, I don't see
Speaker 1: any of these teams knocking them off.
Speaker 2: No one's ever won three in a row. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean the Steelers, Yeah, never won three in a row.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: The Cowboys never one three in a row. I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, in the.
Speaker 1: Old Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're talking about when guys could
Speaker 1: like rip cigarettes on the sidelines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're talking about there was a salary cap. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well you're talking about a guy who was a lineman
Speaker 1: and in the off season was a legit carpenter. You know,
Speaker 1: when sports were just the greatest. How about with Jim
Speaker 1: Leland of the Pirates used to rip SIGs in the
Speaker 1: dugout and I remember it. It was the nineties where you'd
Speaker 1: be like, used to smoke these like cigar cigarettes, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Now now they're not supposed to have HBBA even chewing tobacco, said,
Speaker 2: bubble gup.
Speaker 1: The world has changed to the point of we would
Speaker 1: use have a cup of coffee in the morning at
Speaker 1: an afternoon game, rip some stags. Now they're all putting,
Speaker 1: dipping and pretending it's bubble ishoes. You're like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: still see.
Speaker 2: It, guys, all right, well, that's sports with Jake and Brian.
Speaker 2: We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Traffic on the nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about you a little bit. Chicago. You
Speaker 2: grew up there, now I heard read you know, we've
Speaker 2: got an amazing research team here on off the beat.
Speaker 2: You went to school for writing. Yeah, University of Iowa, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, I know this is no joke, a
Speaker 2: excellent writing program. What's it called the I actually know.
Speaker 2: I spent a summer there.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean I don't. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: ever the extual name of it. But the great writing
Speaker 1: program was the graduate program. No, no, no, at uh
Speaker 1: oh at Iowa. So then the undergrad had a good
Speaker 1: ye were taught by the graduate students. But the graduate
Speaker 1: creative writing program at Iowa, it is like, was like
Speaker 1: we created novelists, you know, every year famous.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So you wanted to be a writer, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I started off. You know, we were talking a
Speaker 1: little bit of this on ours. But like the pursuit
Speaker 1: of acting, what it used to be, what the whole
Speaker 1: goal was. I didn't have a way in to understand
Speaker 1: what it was, or really what the goal was. I
Speaker 1: grew up outside Chicago, so we had the second city.
Speaker 1: You know, Bill Murray and the Murray family was raised
Speaker 1: in the town right next to ours, so everybody knew,
Speaker 1: like where the Murray house was, the golf course. They
Speaker 1: created Caddyshack out of John Cusack was from the same town.
Speaker 1: So you had enough people who had broke through, but
Speaker 1: I didn't quite have a clear path at it. And
Speaker 1: then in high school plays kind of started, and it
Speaker 1: was the beginning of like theater and then what's kind
Speaker 1: of cool about theater? And that's when like the David
Speaker 1: Mammets and the Sam Shepherds and the John Patrick Shanley's.
Speaker 1: I started reading those plays and I just thought they
Speaker 1: were so cool, and I thought I could write one
Speaker 1: of these and do these. I can't write and do
Speaker 1: TV or movies that felt too you got to go
Speaker 1: to Hollywood and you need some producer in a big
Speaker 1: studio to give you a bucket of cash, right, and
Speaker 1: I could put on a play. And so I just
Speaker 1: started writing plays, and then we were all putting them
Speaker 1: on and that became the beginning of it.
Speaker 2: What was performing of interest to you.
Speaker 1: Always but always, but acting acting never really was okay.
Speaker 1: So it was performing in terms of getting laughs and
Speaker 1: getting the story out. But the dream of being like
Speaker 1: a chameleon actor and doing Shakespeare in the Park and
Speaker 1: the craft of acting was never as exciting as storytelling
Speaker 1: and being in it and the energy of a crowd
Speaker 1: and hitting a moment. So it felt like as I
Speaker 1: got older and met more and more actor actors, I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, that's a different skill set you have
Speaker 1: that I respect, But that was never my main passion.
Speaker 2: Is it now?
Speaker 1: No, it's still all the same. It's the I love
Speaker 1: being in an ensemble. I love having when you were
Speaker 1: talking about the office and you'd say, like, the people
Speaker 1: near your seats you form bits with. I love finding
Speaker 1: rhythms and bits, and I love being on a team
Speaker 1: and feeling like as a goal, we're all trying to
Speaker 1: hit this. But I never if I get sent scripts
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking of taking a job, I never think
Speaker 1: too much about the character. First. I think to the
Speaker 1: whole project, the whole story, and everybody else around. I've
Speaker 1: never had to talk with my agents of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in playing a serial killer. That's the last thought.
Speaker 1: And it took me years to realize, like, oh, everybody
Speaker 1: doesn't do it this way, right, I felt like, Oh,
Speaker 1: because they're more pure actors and it's a different animal, right,
Speaker 1: because you're you started off as an actor, act like
Speaker 1: you were doing you were saying you were doing theater
Speaker 1: in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're Yeah, we're totally different in that way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so much so in fact that I yeah, even
Speaker 2: the idea and you talk and I guess that that
Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know, when
Speaker 2: you're a kid, then slightly older, Yeah, I mean Cusack,
Speaker 2: Bill Murray and then the theater scene there in Chicago
Speaker 2: with Steppenwolf and Shepherd and Mammot and all the guys
Speaker 2: you mentioned, I guess maybe, and being in Chicago as well.
Speaker 2: And now it's changed. You know. I grew up in Atlanta. Honestly,
Speaker 2: the idea of movies and television and that it was
Speaker 2: not there was not any no, it wasn't even like, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't achieve it. I just didn't even think about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a part of my consciousness. I loved, yeah,
Speaker 2: creating characters and thought that's what I would do in
Speaker 2: the theater for the rest of my life. Yeah. Interesting,
Speaker 2: I read you in New York. You went to NYU,
Speaker 2: and you had a sketch comedy group called the Midwesterners
Speaker 2: by the way, awesome name, thank you. Was that something
Speaker 2: that was important for you and your development getting on
Speaker 2: stage working with them.
Speaker 1: So the Midwesterners we called ourself sketch comedy because we
Speaker 1: didn't know what else to call it. Okay, at first
Speaker 1: called it sketchy comedy because the beginning of it was
Speaker 1: we were going to fringe festivals. We ended up at UCV,
Speaker 1: but we weren't playing, and that wasn't the goal. The
Speaker 1: goal was write a play, and the arc of the
Speaker 1: play has a bunch of different characters who get you there,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of small scenes, and me and him,
Speaker 1: my buddy Oliver and I we're just playing all the characters.
Speaker 1: So we viewed it more like a one act play,
Speaker 1: that it was a thirty minute play with five scenes
Speaker 1: or five little acts. And while we were doing it,
Speaker 1: we would rent little theaters in the Lower East Side
Speaker 1: of New York like Pink Pony or Collective Unconscious or
Speaker 1: all these like cool little spots in the late nineties
Speaker 1: or Surf Reality. And as we were putting it done,
Speaker 1: our audience were friends of ours and friends of friends,
Speaker 1: so it was a young group of people in their
Speaker 1: early twenties, and we would do a scene that would
Speaker 1: be heavy and everyone would hate it, and then we
Speaker 1: would do a scene that was funny and everybody would
Speaker 1: love it, and then we would all go to a
Speaker 1: bar afterwards and you would hear the feedback. So with
Speaker 1: each show it just got more and more and more comedic,
Speaker 1: and it became what it was. And then somebody from
Speaker 1: UCB saw it and gave us a run. And when
Speaker 1: we were at UCB, we were like, oh, we are
Speaker 1: just doing sketch sketch now because all the stuff that
Speaker 1: used to work at a fringe festival that was celebrated there.
Speaker 1: And that's a weird transition. A scene that might not
Speaker 1: have as many jokes per page, but you're actually acting
Speaker 1: a little bit, and you're creating moments, and you're creating tension,
Speaker 1: and you're playing with the theater that wasn't as celebrated
Speaker 1: UCB was. It's funny, those are good characters. How many
Speaker 1: jokes can you get? And so that we kind of
Speaker 1: were changing what we were doing with the audience.
Speaker 2: But it's very interesting in a way. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is probably reductive to what you were trying to accomplish.
Speaker 2: But if you think about I don't know a lot
Speaker 2: of Tarantino's work. I mean, there's others where it feels
Speaker 2: like I've never talked to him specifically about how he
Speaker 2: constructs an overall movie. But the idea of creating sort
Speaker 2: of set pieces, right, a set piece meaning like I'm
Speaker 2: speaking for some people listening, like a set piece might
Speaker 2: be an extended scene that exists. And then I feel
Speaker 2: like what a lot of people attempt to do is
Speaker 2: find that connective tissue which brings you from scene to scene.
Speaker 2: But there's something almost yeah, like some of Tarantino's work
Speaker 2: where it's just like, Nope, that's the scene. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then the next one is something totally different with totally
Speaker 2: different characters. And then by the time we get to
Speaker 2: the end, we've got some callbacks, we've got some references
Speaker 2: to that. That's a very interesting way to me of
Speaker 2: creating a piece of theater.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it was also we were really young, was
Speaker 1: also really excited, and it was very inexpensive because we
Speaker 1: weren't building sets right, So the whole changes were the
Speaker 1: small costumes we put on and our performances. But I
Speaker 1: think my buddy who ended up going to Berlin to
Speaker 1: do a Kenneth Laundergren play and I ended up going
Speaker 1: out to LA. Was we realized we were loving different stuff, okay,
Speaker 1: And what I was loving is we can create something
Speaker 1: that can affect this audience, and we as like a room,
Speaker 1: are one thing and we all kind of it all
Speaker 1: peaked at this one moment together. But the details of
Speaker 1: how we got there, I think are interchangeable. And so
Speaker 1: to me, the meat and potatoes and the thing that
Speaker 1: was really exciting was not like I entered this character
Speaker 1: and I lost myself and I really understood what we
Speaker 1: were trying to say by doing the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over and really nailing it, which I see the
Speaker 1: art and I think it's really cool. To me is
Speaker 1: it was? There was a weird magic in this room
Speaker 1: and everything went a little different than expected and we
Speaker 1: didn't even know, but they were part of it too, right,
Speaker 1: Ben finishes and You're like, wow, that was I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's what I got addicted to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you moved to LA and you were working as
Speaker 2: a writer and a PA. Yeah were you pursuing writing? Yes?
Speaker 1: So when I what, I moved out so I I'd
Speaker 1: done a my buddy Bill and I. We'd created a
Speaker 1: low budget documentary type thing. It was two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of before the reality TV explosion. What
Speaker 1: we had created was just a reality show. We just
Speaker 1: didn't know it. I'd gotten some money from a random
Speaker 1: guy in Oklahoma. I was there writing a script with somebody,
Speaker 1: and the guy, my writing partner's uncle, took us out
Speaker 1: and he was just flexing on us all night about
Speaker 1: how rich he was, how successful he was, and how
Speaker 1: we have to work harder and just not like smoke
Speaker 1: weed and drink beer pretend to be writers.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: Because he was buying the dinner, we had to take it.
Speaker 1: But at one point I said to him, well, I've
Speaker 1: gone a project. That's all set, we just don't have money,
Speaker 1: and I kind of improvised pitch to him an idea
Speaker 1: called Project Joke. And the reason it was called Project
Speaker 1: Joke was because the whole thing was a joke. I
Speaker 1: was making it up as I went. But that is
Speaker 1: Bill and I were going to travel the Midwest and
Speaker 1: we were going to write a sketch show as we went,
Speaker 1: And so every night we were going to perform in
Speaker 1: a different venue, either a sketch venue or a stand
Speaker 1: up you. We were going to interview people of what
Speaker 1: they wanted in the sketch show, and then on the
Speaker 1: last day, we were going to perform in Chicago to
Speaker 1: a sold out audience, and you were going to see
Speaker 1: how a show is written, and you were going to
Speaker 1: feel how much an audience at the Funny Bone in
Speaker 1: Omaha hates us because they did. And you know, Jerry
Speaker 1: Seinfeld did Comedian where he was showing what it's like
Speaker 1: on the road, but he was Seinfeld. And when you
Speaker 1: were totally unknown, audiences hate you in a different way, right,
Speaker 1: and audiences hated me. And I was like, I would
Speaker 1: go up there and I would try something new. If
Speaker 1: you did something you knew was going to work, they
Speaker 1: liked you. But once you start failing and you're you know,
Speaker 1: you keep pushing, they hate you for it. And I
Speaker 1: get it. And so he said, what do you need
Speaker 1: to make this happen? And I said, our budget's ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and he wrote me a check for ten
Speaker 1: grand and so I kind.
Speaker 2: Of at least said twenty if.
Speaker 1: I honestly, Brian, I had no idea about budgets. I
Speaker 1: had no concept of money.
Speaker 2: I could have had a hot house and to travel
Speaker 2: the Midwest. That seems slow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whoa it was. It was a very uncomfortable trip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was very poorly planned. So anyway, we went and
Speaker 1: we did the trip, and we performed every night. We
Speaker 1: interviewed like the mayor of Saint Paul, We interviewed kids,
Speaker 1: We went to a library, and like, we did everything
Speaker 1: we could to make it happen. And I moved out
Speaker 1: to LA with the raw footage of that, hoping to
Speaker 1: find an editor, hoping to like make it work and
Speaker 1: have Round Howard by it and say, wait a second,
Speaker 1: you're a star kid. This isn't project joke, this is
Speaker 1: project Hollywood. You're and you know it didn't happen, But
Speaker 1: I like met a group of friends who I then
Speaker 1: ended up working with the people I showed the stuff too.
Speaker 1: We ended up writing a show that we sold that
Speaker 1: new show to NBC. Then I got agents and managers
Speaker 1: and started acting. And then the writing kind of faded
Speaker 1: with the acting jobs because actings faster, you get paid
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: It works. Has anyone seen this? No? It's still is
Speaker 2: it sitting unedited? Still?
Speaker 1: You know? I had I had edited like a forty
Speaker 1: minute version of it at one point, and then the
Speaker 1: tapes which were those like you know those old school
Speaker 1: little Cassetts, they were.
Speaker 2: In shell out whether garage.
Speaker 1: Well, I said, yeah, something happened with them. Where my
Speaker 1: buddy And after I got a new girl, I had
Speaker 1: some money and I called my buddy and I'm like,
Speaker 1: let's just hire someone to cut it together. And we
Speaker 1: were in touch with somebody, and then there was something
Speaker 1: that was happening where the footage was didn't melt, but
Speaker 1: like they were having a hard time converting it, and
Speaker 1: my buddy wasn't passionate about it, and I thought like,
Speaker 1: why am I still beating this weird drum? What am I?
Speaker 1: What's my point? What's my goal here? I'm the only
Speaker 1: one going like wait a second. I was like, haven't
Speaker 1: I done that enough in my life?
Speaker 2: Eventually you got a role on Derek and Simon in
Speaker 2: the show Director Pirk by Bob Odenkirk. Now I understand
Speaker 2: The Midwesterners was inspired in part by Bob and David
Speaker 2: Cross's show, Mister Show. Was that just then amazing to
Speaker 2: be able to work with him on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that started. When I moved to LA I
Speaker 1: was at the Lost Palmas and Hollywood right by, like
Speaker 1: the old cat in the Fiddle.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I was living with a roommate and there was a
Speaker 1: guy in the building who was just a legend and
Speaker 1: you know, six foot six, three hundred pounds, always wore
Speaker 1: a fridge. Jersey was driving an old Seabring convertible and
Speaker 1: just ran that place. And he came knocking on my
Speaker 1: door one day and was like, hey, man, want to
Speaker 1: take some pills and go get some Hamburgers. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I do. And that guy turned out to be the
Speaker 1: great actor Eric Edelstein, and so wow, Instantly I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just in his car. We're driving around in some
Speaker 1: convertible and he's telling a million stories. He won his
Speaker 1: car on a game show. He was hosting something for
Speaker 1: some TBS show where he's like, I'll buy you shirts, man,
Speaker 1: I got money, and I was like, you're the funniest
Speaker 1: guy I've ever read.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 1: And he and I started deciding to do a show together,
Speaker 1: which we ended up doing called This is My Friend,
Speaker 1: and he was in a crew and in that crew,
Speaker 1: Derek Waters was in it, Simon Helberg was in it,
Speaker 1: and they were all at the Second City. Okay, through Eric,
Speaker 1: that group came in and Derek put me in that,
Speaker 1: I think because I was Eric's buddy.
Speaker 2: Okay, you mentioned Waters. Is this true? You were the muse,
Speaker 2: you were the inspiration behind drunk History.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my god. Yeah, but josephs mused is the
Speaker 1: right word, Brian, because it's not you know who was
Speaker 1: that woman who said, h Dana Fox, who was the
Speaker 1: muse for uh that great like me where she said
Speaker 1: she was the muse for uncut gems? Right, and you
Speaker 1: know you're like, but you weren't in the creative discussion, right,
Speaker 1: It wasn't partners. You guys were maybe hanging. I was
Speaker 1: the equivalent of that. I just got drunk and told
Speaker 1: a long winded story and Derek thought of the whole
Speaker 1: show as I was talking.
Speaker 2: That's and that's true.
Speaker 1: We were.
Speaker 2: It was about Otis Redding's death, yes, which, by the
Speaker 2: way I looked this morning at what his death was,
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem that complicated.
Speaker 1: It was a fine crash.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's kind of it. Right.
Speaker 1: So the story I heard from the same guy Bill,
Speaker 1: who I did project joke with. Okay, when we were
Speaker 1: growing up in the nineties, pre internet, which means a
Speaker 1: good story, you're not going to the library and looking
Speaker 1: it up. You trust the narrator.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a it's a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: St Well, these days we would call it that. Back
Speaker 1: in the day, it would just be totally called a
Speaker 1: great story. Okay, you remember when conspiracy theories were cool.
Speaker 1: I do. Now it's different. They used to be cool.
Speaker 1: But he told me the story when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: and that is Otis Redding and his wife used to
Speaker 1: write the songs together. She wasn't very credited because it
Speaker 1: was back in the day, and you know, the sexism
Speaker 1: or what have you. The day he died, they were
Speaker 1: driving to the airport. She drops him off. He gets
Speaker 1: out of the car, he stops, He comes back out,
Speaker 1: and he says, promise me, no matter what happens, you'll
Speaker 1: always be true. She goes, you're crazy. He says, promise me.
Speaker 1: They do, They give each other a big kiss. He
Speaker 1: gets on the plane. He dies. I told that story
Speaker 1: and with the alcohol, it took forty five minutes, and
Speaker 1: I was doing everybody's voices. And the way Derek was
Speaker 1: looking at me during it, my thought was his mind
Speaker 1: is just blown by a great American storyteller, an all
Speaker 1: time banger. And that wasn't the case he had imagined.
Speaker 1: As I was telling it, Otis reading standing behind me,
Speaker 1: going like, man, would you shut the fuck? None of
Speaker 1: them happened you drunk? So he said, can I The
Speaker 1: next day he called and he said, can I come
Speaker 1: over with Jeremy Connor, another friend of ours, and can
Speaker 1: we get you drunk and film you telling that story?
Speaker 1: And I said why.
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, you said absolutely, why of course?
Speaker 1: And then the dust settled of them, of course, And
Speaker 1: I said why and he said, because I want to
Speaker 1: get actors to reenact it, and I want Otis to
Speaker 1: be in the room with you and whenever you lie
Speaker 1: and like look at camera. And then at the time
Speaker 1: I was a commercial actor, did you start doing commercials
Speaker 1: with your career? No, you just started booking because you
Speaker 1: were doing theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I did the commercial thing. You did the
Speaker 2: commercials I mean, I mean when I when I finally
Speaker 2: moved to LA so we.
Speaker 1: Do that run and getting the auditions are so important.
Speaker 1: Having your commercial agent think like now that's a good actor.
Speaker 1: That really matters, right right. What I think about my
Speaker 1: commercial agent thinking is like this guy who's not in
Speaker 1: the union is for sure a drunk hobo. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: you got to think of me as like a serious
Speaker 1: actor who's not getting black out drunk on a Tuesday
Speaker 1: and line about it is reading.
Speaker 2: In the morning in the morning on a Tuesday.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, no, no, I'm professional. I will be
Speaker 1: at that TJ Max commercial at eight am, right, I'm reliable.
Speaker 1: I told Derek. I was like, no, man, I'm not
Speaker 1: your guy. And then he was like, ah, come on.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I can't get drunk on a video, man.
Speaker 1: And then he got another one of our friends, Mark
Speaker 1: to do it and then called me up and said,
Speaker 1: will you be in it and play Aaron or with
Speaker 1: Mike Sarah and Mike Sarah At the day it was
Speaker 1: pretty super bad. He was just in our group as well,
Speaker 1: and he and I did the first one together where
Speaker 1: we did like a duel, and then that one blew
Speaker 1: up on YouTube and Derek got really started wow, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was fun to watch it. Derek is such
Speaker 1: a fun ideas guy, so to this day, whenever he calls,
Speaker 1: he'll pitch like five ideas and one of them I'm like, Derek,
Speaker 1: that's one of the best ideas I've heard. Man, he
Speaker 1: still got it.
Speaker 2: We got to talk about New Girl.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Now you had worked with Elizabeth Merriweather on film No
Speaker 2: Strings Attached. Did she approach you about this or was
Speaker 2: this like a straight audition situation?
Speaker 1: You know we had. I don't remember the origins. I
Speaker 1: think she was working with Max Winkler on a movie
Speaker 1: because he and I had done a movie called Ceremony together.
Speaker 1: And I believe she was with Max and had seen
Speaker 1: either Daois or something, because when uh, No Strings Attached
Speaker 1: came along, I was auditioning for it with Ivan, rightman,
Speaker 1: and she you know, when somebody in the room wants
Speaker 1: you yes, Ivan for sure was not sure.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Ivan wasn't like that's my guy. He was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the people in here think he's the guy.
Speaker 2: You do.
Speaker 1: It again with less of your instincts. Is there any
Speaker 1: way to do that with a different voice and a
Speaker 1: different face.
Speaker 2: Let me walk you through a bit by moment by moment,
Speaker 2: how I want you to say every word?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're great, I'm happy you're here. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to go like that, and I'm gonna have somebody
Speaker 1: else do it. In ADR, but Liz was the big
Speaker 1: champion for me. Okay, so when we did that movie,
Speaker 1: she and I had a lot of fun and she's brilliant.
Speaker 1: She's so funny. And what I love the most about her,
Speaker 1: going back to the Midwesterners, is I like knowing what
Speaker 1: the audience is. Some artists actors are really pure and
Speaker 1: they do not think of the audience, and if they
Speaker 1: think about the audience, they think that makes them hack.
Speaker 1: They're just thinking about what they're doing and they really
Speaker 1: hope the audience connects. I don't feel that way. I
Speaker 1: like thinking about the audience. I like knowing where the
Speaker 1: zone is. And the beauty of Liz for me is
Speaker 1: she is such a clear, confident sense of humor that
Speaker 1: she knows exactly what she likes and when she gets it,
Speaker 1: she laughs right. So I was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what the point of this scene is, what the
Speaker 1: director wants, what the producer wants with paramounts, I don't
Speaker 1: know all those answers, but I really want Liz to
Speaker 1: be happy. And so when Liz and I would find
Speaker 1: a group, she and I could text each other pitches
Speaker 1: and she would say something like really funny. She was like,
Speaker 1: I was really hoping there was gonna be like whale
Speaker 1: sounds during the sex scene. I'd be like, you're insane,
Speaker 1: but everything became we became buds. And so when that
Speaker 1: movie opened, Fox picked up a new girl, which was
Speaker 1: called Chicks and Dicks at the time, and she said,
Speaker 1: I can't offer it to you per the networking studio,
Speaker 1: but if you'd be willing to audition, I would love
Speaker 1: you to do it. We'd love to talk to you
Speaker 1: about it. And so she was a real champion and
Speaker 1: really helped nice. Yeah, really quick to you though, how'd
Speaker 1: the walk me through the office again?
Speaker 2: Well, I just landed into town. My line was, I
Speaker 2: mean I identified the show. I was a fan of
Speaker 2: the British version. I knew the sensibility. I got it,
Speaker 2: and I said, they're looking for unknown people. And my
Speaker 2: agent at the time her line to me was, well,
Speaker 2: they're looking for unknown people, but not you unknown, not
Speaker 2: like like not totally unknown. And now, of course I
Speaker 2: totally know. At the time, I was like, what are
Speaker 2: you talking? Now I get it. It's like they were
Speaker 2: looking for you know, I don't even know if it's
Speaker 2: true about him or not or whatever, but like Keckner
Speaker 2: or someone like who had been in a thousand times
Speaker 2: and just hadn't landed something that nobody in America knew
Speaker 2: who they were, but there was like there fan base
Speaker 2: in the Yeah, exactly do.
Speaker 1: You remember who you do? You remember who you were
Speaker 1: going against?
Speaker 2: I do. That's another So when Steve left the show,
Speaker 2: Neilson Jones, casting director, came to me, I'll never forget
Speaker 2: this and said, so, I've been looking. She keeps everything.
Speaker 2: She's like a pack rat in the greatest way, like
Speaker 2: every piece of paper that's ever been written on sign
Speaker 2: in sheets, all that, And she said, I was looking
Speaker 2: for something to give to Steve, like from the audition.
Speaker 2: I didn't really find anything, but I thought you would
Speaker 2: be interested in this and it was just a singular
Speaker 2: piece of paper. I still haven't And there were three
Speaker 2: names Mine, Eric stone Street, and Jorge Garcia interesting, so
Speaker 2: it kind of worked out for everybody, which is why
Speaker 2: it's a good story to tell.
Speaker 1: It's a great story. Yeah, but that's those are really
Speaker 1: an interesting three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which would have been all would have been totally different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but also totally it would have been a totally different.
Speaker 2: Show totally, And that's a good example of like, in
Speaker 2: our world of acting, it's not all like who's the best,
Speaker 2: it's like who offers something that fits kind of what
Speaker 2: we were talking about before, It fits into this ensemble
Speaker 2: in a specific Well, that's what.
Speaker 1: I was loving the most about when you were telling
Speaker 1: me on Mine about the insider baseball of doing those
Speaker 1: bits together. Because if you go back to New Girl,
Speaker 1: once it kind of started and we started to build
Speaker 1: a little bit early on, we were still trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what it was right, and then they're just
Speaker 1: we had we did such long hours, which you guys said,
Speaker 1: you guys did too, Yeah, that we were always there.
Speaker 1: I can pretend to be a professional actor who's serious
Speaker 1: and ready to be there. I can do like nine hours.
Speaker 1: And then when you start getting to like your fourteenth
Speaker 1: hour on your third day, you're like, I'm nine years
Speaker 1: old again.
Speaker 2: And I was a bad student.
Speaker 1: And you go like, now we're just cracking jokes, and
Speaker 1: then the crew's joking with you, and then cast members.
Speaker 1: Everyone's getting slap happy, and then the shit you're laughing
Speaker 1: at off camera gets dumber and dumber, right, and then
Speaker 1: there's a rhythm that somebody does, if it's an actor
Speaker 1: or a crew member. We have this guy Joey Perla,
Speaker 1: who was in wardrobe, who was just the funniest guy
Speaker 1: on our set. Yeah, and the more tired we would get,
Speaker 1: he would do something where he would walk over and
Speaker 1: tell you about your shirt not being tucked in right,
Speaker 1: and you know, Max and I would die laughing. And
Speaker 1: then thirty seconds later they're calling action, but we still
Speaker 1: have tears in our eyes. Right, And because it's running late,
Speaker 1: everyone's going like, all right, let's go, let's go. So
Speaker 1: you're going like all right, and then you're saying to
Speaker 1: each other like shut up, shut up, like don't say
Speaker 1: anything besides your lines, and then this scene starts and
Speaker 1: instantly one of you says one thing and you're both
Speaker 1: biting your tongues and you really want to laugh, and
Speaker 1: then it creates a whole new rhythm.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And for what was lucky about us with that show,
Speaker 1: which is why when I'm looking for something that piece
Speaker 1: is important, is Liz was never mad at that. As
Speaker 1: long as the material was funny, she was happy. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't say like, hey, you missed this one line that
Speaker 1: the writer did, asshole, pull your shit together. This is
Speaker 1: your job as a professional actor. Which it is. And
Speaker 1: if somebody says that they're right, but what she would
Speaker 1: do is she'd be like, good, then she would yell
Speaker 1: out say this instead, and then the whole crew would
Speaker 1: laugh and you'd be like, now we're all just finding
Speaker 1: it and this is the audience while we're part of it.
Speaker 1: And you would have moments where you would go like,
Speaker 1: we'd finish the scene and video Village would be laughing,
Speaker 1: the crew would be laughing. We would be laughing, and
Speaker 1: you would know that's gonna cut together.
Speaker 2: That is funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when it happens like that, which is very rare,
Speaker 1: that to me makes it like, oh man, this like
Speaker 1: weird group all formed the crew, the vibe the right
Speaker 1: you're like, it just becomes perfect. And if it's not
Speaker 1: that I've realized now I don't like to play the
Speaker 1: game as much. It feels like, if it's sports, it's
Speaker 1: not always just basketball. If you have the wrong coach
Speaker 1: and the wrong offense, it's that much fun to play basketball.
Speaker 1: But if you can play in the right offense right,
Speaker 1: it's like just the best game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One hundred and forty six episodes, seven seasons. Your
Speaker 2: first time you're playing the same character Yes, for an
Speaker 2: extended period of time. You know, your world, your interest,
Speaker 2: your focus coming from sketch where you're changing characters mid show.
Speaker 2: Was this something that you enjoyed the longevity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the character changed. Okay, when I started the show,
Speaker 1: my character, the description was the smartest guy in the room,
Speaker 1: but two insecure to say it never been described as
Speaker 1: that in my life. Comedically, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: My character was. He passed, he got his law degree,
Speaker 1: but the law of the land just didn't hould him in.
Speaker 1: So he just went internal. Don't get that guy. What
Speaker 1: I'm in new is conspiracy theories, so like, for example,
Speaker 1: on that show. And I've told this before, but Zoe
Speaker 1: was really funny from the start. She knew exactly who
Speaker 1: Jess was. The writer knew Zoe's character. Max Greenfield as Schmidt,
Speaker 1: was very clean comedically from the start. He knew tonally
Speaker 1: he was going to be different. Lamorne was as lost
Speaker 1: as me. We didn't know what we were doing. We
Speaker 1: were just happy to be there. My character was kind
Speaker 1: of the straight guy a lot where a lot of
Speaker 1: it I was like looking at somebody, especially Zoe and
Speaker 1: being like, God, damn, you're perfect and having like one
Speaker 1: line of like you did what well? Your dress looks great?
Speaker 1: And so I thought it'd be really funny if my
Speaker 1: character had a best friend who was essentially like just
Speaker 1: a random dude in the park, and it was discovered
Speaker 1: by the roommates that I would be hanging out with
Speaker 1: this old guy in a park and having full conversation
Speaker 1: and it's later revealed the guy never talks. So you
Speaker 1: just see like Nick hanging out with this older guy
Speaker 1: who's his best friend, right, and then Nick thinks he
Speaker 1: got like great advice and it's later revealed the guy
Speaker 1: doesn't speak, and so you just then go like that
Speaker 1: person's crazy. I fitched it to Liz, and to her credit,
Speaker 1: she's like yes. And then to the writer's credit, they
Speaker 1: did this whole arc where he like takes me to
Speaker 1: this bath and he like cradles me in his arms.
Speaker 1: But the character Tran became Nick's like best friend. He
Speaker 1: never speaks in the show, but when my character would
Speaker 1: have like a big conflict, I'd like go to the
Speaker 1: park and be sitting on a bench and be talking
Speaker 1: to him. That ability to change a character and grow
Speaker 1: with him, and then have to do a scene where
Speaker 1: Zoe walks in and I'm holding a rose and I
Speaker 1: go like, you're as pretty as this. I'm like, I know,
Speaker 1: but the scene before you saw me talking to a
Speaker 1: guy in a park who doesn't speak, and that, to
Speaker 1: me is when TV gets to do that. That is
Speaker 1: really fun acting. But the idea of saying like this
Speaker 1: thing was written eighty years ago and your job is
Speaker 1: just to put your interpretation of these words. I thought like, well,
Speaker 1: that's never what I thought acting was. I just realized
Speaker 1: as I got older, everybody else disagrees.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. I mean I love that perspective and also
Speaker 2: your ability to make your own imprint. I mean it
Speaker 2: sounds like Liz and the writing team not only allowed
Speaker 2: you because sometimes you're not allowed.
Speaker 1: Most of my career is not allowed. Yeah, Or they'll
Speaker 1: go like, I love it so great, here's what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do. We're gonna do the scene, but we're not
Speaker 1: gonna have the weird guy in the park who doesn't
Speaker 1: talk right, And then they're just appeasing you. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you're first starting up, then shut your mouth and
Speaker 1: do your thing. But then there is a point of
Speaker 1: your career where you go, I don't want to run
Speaker 1: the story. That's your job. I don't want to give
Speaker 1: notes on other characters. That's your job. But let's have
Speaker 1: a discussion about this so that I can give you
Speaker 1: the best of what I can do and you can
Speaker 1: get the best out of your show because it's yours, right.
Speaker 1: But that's not everybody, And that's a credit to Liz.
Speaker 1: I didn't really appreciate her enough while we were doing
Speaker 1: it because I didn't realize other people weren't like her.
Speaker 2: Did you think that it was time for the show
Speaker 2: to end when.
Speaker 1: It ended, Well, no, we were going to get Our
Speaker 1: show wasn't like The Office in that I know you
Speaker 1: guys started slow and then you exploded. We didn't explode.
Speaker 1: We exploded during the pandemic. So we never had the ratings.
Speaker 1: We were never a popular show. La never loved the
Speaker 1: show when we finished, Conan didn't have us all on
Speaker 1: in director's chairs, you know, like there was no late
Speaker 1: show where everyone's like, God, the public's gonna miss you.
Speaker 1: It was We weren't that show, and we knew it right.
Speaker 1: So season six, the show was gonna get canceled by Fox.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't like a mean cancelation. It was like
Speaker 1: you guys, we were good for the network. I know
Speaker 1: they were like launching shows off us. At the beginning,
Speaker 1: we had like a Tuesday night lineup, and so they
Speaker 1: were like, I think Liz wrote to Zobe nine and said,
Speaker 1: just respect, just so you guys know, they're probably going
Speaker 1: to cancel it simply because the numbers are terrible. But
Speaker 1: if we all wrote letters to Dana Walden, she does
Speaker 1: she wants.
Speaker 2: To be cool.
Speaker 1: So we all wrote personal letters saying, can we at
Speaker 1: least finish the season or the show? And then they
Speaker 1: gave us like we had to like contractually sign something
Speaker 1: because the guarantee is thirteen episodes and I think they're like,
Speaker 1: we can give you eight, right, And so we finished
Speaker 1: it them so by the end it was time to go.
Speaker 1: But we knew it was like a ship with a
Speaker 1: big hole in it, and that was that whole was ratings.
Speaker 2: You mentioned it during the pandemic. You Exploded became extremely
Speaker 2: successful in streaming. Now with this new rabid fan base
Speaker 2: for the show, I'll ask you the question that is
Speaker 2: super annoying that everyone asks me every forty five seconds.
Speaker 2: Would you return to it in some form if the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Rose, you know I've really honestly, first of all, what
Speaker 1: would you do?
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like your feelings about Liz are my
Speaker 2: feelings about Greg. That if Greg got an idea around
Speaker 2: it and he was a part of it, then it
Speaker 2: would probably be an easy yes for me.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly it. If Liz called and said, are
Speaker 1: you ready to enter back into insanity, We're going to
Speaker 1: do it as like a movie or whatever. Let's just
Speaker 1: weird out. Let's go back to the huge hours, Let's
Speaker 1: go back who it's like dating an old girlfriend. You're like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot great, but like you know, things got
Speaker 1: really weird and you know, let's go back to that
Speaker 1: phase of life. If she's like, I fully get how
Speaker 1: to make it work, and Zoe called and Max called
Speaker 1: the morning Hannah and everyone's like, I'm in. If you
Speaker 1: guys are in, I for sure would not be like
Speaker 1: I will never revisit like sure, but it would have
Speaker 1: to be. It couldn't start with an executive at like
Speaker 1: Roku being like we have a way to do a
Speaker 1: special on Roku and we're gonna throw buckets of money
Speaker 1: at you. You go like, now, I don't want to
Speaker 1: ruin the good thing. Nobody in that show. If you
Speaker 1: do TV long enough, you don't need the paycheck. So no,
Speaker 1: we can't just cash out and ruin for the audience
Speaker 1: or take anything away. There was a loyalty to that
Speaker 1: show from the base. We appreciate it. If it's going
Speaker 1: to ever come back, it's got to be because create
Speaker 1: Liz really feels like this is a story I gotta tell, right,
Speaker 1: and then I would love to go back and be
Speaker 1: texting all the time about Nick and battling stuff out
Speaker 1: and figuring it out and going back to how we
Speaker 1: shoot it and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 2: I love that. I Uh, I literally could talk to
Speaker 2: you forever. I have so many pages here that we
Speaker 2: haven't even touched. I of course do want to mention
Speaker 2: we're here to help. The podcast that you're there very
Speaker 2: close to me appeared in literally me. It is a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. Everybody check it out. Well, let me
Speaker 2: ask you about the Penis Show really quickly.
Speaker 1: Through me for a second.
Speaker 2: I heard your kids called the Penis Show. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Is it going to have a life somewhere else? No?
Speaker 1: I think it's dead. I dead, Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: was honestly one of those Llen our showrunner It was
Speaker 1: fucking brilliant. Rachel Goldenberg our director of the pilot, and
Speaker 1: the one of our EPs was great. Ben Carland was great,
Speaker 1: one of the writers. The cast was awesome. The premise
Speaker 1: was so fun. It took place in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: It was around a smut magazine. It was essentially the
Speaker 1: first playgirl. Yeah, and it was I played a smut
Speaker 1: publisher what's that bag who realized that there's an entire
Speaker 1: market in porn that hasn't been tapped into, and that is,
Speaker 1: let's show some hogs. Yeah, And I thought, what fun?
Speaker 1: And I thought the writing was fun. We were on
Speaker 1: HBO Max and then we were part of those tax
Speaker 1: cuts where that ear where a bunch got cut off
Speaker 1: and we were canceled, I think, and season two I
Speaker 1: can't remember all the deed we were shooting the show.
Speaker 1: We were just about done with two when we got
Speaker 1: canceled and they hadn't even seen the creative And then
Speaker 1: Stars bought us and we went there and we couldn't
Speaker 1: promote because it came out during the strake and I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, at a certain point, you just
Speaker 1: gotta go. This one's not meant.
Speaker 2: To be everything.
Speaker 1: But they're like, okay, so you can you can't promote it,
Speaker 1: but what you can do? And I was like, everything's
Speaker 1: got to stop, everybody, this is madness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had one of those two. It was incredibly frustrating,
Speaker 2: like you just got it's like, okay, here's a brand
Speaker 2: new show, very different that nobody can talk about. Good luck, okay,
Speaker 2: good luck.
Speaker 1: And then but then the beauty of our business in
Speaker 1: my opinion, in this era, and it's slightly changing now
Speaker 1: post strike, but we were in a great era where
Speaker 1: there was so much being made so that like if
Speaker 1: you wanted to play this game, you could, and you
Speaker 1: could experiment around and if people didn't see it and
Speaker 1: it didn't work, because of that, there was enough to
Speaker 1: be had. And so I was sad about that one.
Speaker 1: But also once the strike happened, I was like, you
Speaker 1: know when the cast is like should we all get together,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, guys, it's over, Like there's nothing. You
Speaker 1: cannot promote it and it's on a new street, the
Speaker 1: union rules, we got emails, it is.
Speaker 2: What it is. Well, I know that you're going to
Speaker 2: be creating more content one way or the other, writing, directing,
Speaker 2: come back on. We'll talk we'll talk. Well, actually, we
Speaker 2: should make a day to talk after the season, really,
Speaker 2: just because I want to see your tears. I want
Speaker 2: to see your tears. And I'm guessing now, based on
Speaker 2: this conversation, a whole hell of a lot of excuses.
Speaker 2: That's really, that's what I'm predicting.
Speaker 1: After the Packers lose to the forty nine Ers in
Speaker 1: the playoffs and I go, well, be I'm lot of
Speaker 1: the team, as you go, No, no, it was a
Speaker 1: missed field goal.
Speaker 2: Jake Johnson, thank you so much. It's always good to
Speaker 2: see you. Let's do it. Let's do it soon. I
Speaker 2: love it all right, Thanks Jake, that was great. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for coming on today. And as I
Speaker 2: said before, it has been a pleasure getting to know you. Listeners,
Speaker 2: go listen to my episode of We're Here to Help,
Speaker 2: and then listen to all the other episodes too. That
Speaker 2: should give you plenty to do until next Tuesday, when
Speaker 2: you're going to come back here with me. Understood. Awesome.
Speaker 2: Until then, everybody, have a great week off. The Beat
Speaker 2: is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside
Speaker 2: our executive producer Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia.
Speaker 2: Our producers are Emily Carr and seth Olanski, and our
Speaker 2: talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary. Our theme song Bubble
Speaker 2: and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Breadth