Speaker 1: Before I became professional writer, I thought, oh, these writers
Speaker 1: are They're so lucky. They're so lucky that they get
Speaker 1: to do this. And then when I became one and
Speaker 1: I was like, it's all talent, lucky, has nothing new
Speaker 1: with it. I'm just that talented. And now I realize
Speaker 1: I'm back to the lucky part. There's talent, for sure,
Speaker 1: but there's so much luck involved. There's just things you
Speaker 1: can't control. That we got on the show, that it
Speaker 1: went as long as it did, that we met these
Speaker 1: maybe these connections and met these people. It just it's,
Speaker 1: you know, things are a lot of our hands, and
Speaker 1: I feel so lucky. I feel so lucky. My name
Speaker 1: is Jeans Stibnitsky and I've been fired from every assistant
Speaker 1: job I've ever held.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, and welcome to another I would call glorious
Speaker 2: episode of Off the Beat. It's me as always your host,
Speaker 2: Brian Baumgartner. Do you like to show the office? Have
Speaker 2: you ever of it? Well? If you do, my guest
Speaker 2: today is one of the many reasons why here with
Speaker 2: me is the brilliant head twisted Jean Stepnitski. Jean wrote
Speaker 2: on the show for three seasons and he is fifty percent,
Speaker 2: responsible for some of the greatest and cringiest episodes, including
Speaker 2: Scott's Totts and Dinner Party. Now why fifty percent? Well,
Speaker 2: his other half, I mean his writing partner Lee Eisenberg.
Speaker 2: The two of them, in addition to writing on the Office,
Speaker 2: also responsible for shows and films including Bad Teacher, Trophy Wife,
Speaker 2: Good Boys, and the innovative and hilarious recent Emmy nominee
Speaker 2: Jury Duty. Yeah Yeah, leave it to Jean and Lee
Speaker 2: to mastermind an elaborate prank like bringing someone to a
Speaker 2: fake jury duty, convincing them that it's real, pulling crazy
Speaker 2: shenanigans in the courtroom, then turning it into comedic yet
Speaker 2: heartfelt television gold, brilliant and twisted, just like I said.
Speaker 2: But which one is brilliant and which one is twisted?
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll find out today. Gene is also responsible for
Speaker 2: the breakout hit No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, is on its way to being the
Speaker 2: highest grossing R rated comedy of the decade. He's a
Speaker 2: great friend, He's an hilarious dude. He's a fantastic writer.
Speaker 2: I am so thankful and feel so lucky that he
Speaker 2: agreed to hang out with me and you well, to
Speaker 2: tell us how he became so incredible. Let's get started.
Speaker 2: The One and Only Jeene Stipnitzky.
Speaker 1: Bubble and Squeak.
Speaker 2: I love it, Bubble and Squeagana.
Speaker 1: Quaker cooking every more.
Speaker 2: Lift over from the nay boat. What's up, Jet Ryan? Good?
Speaker 2: I'm so good. It's been so long, my friend, while
Speaker 2: it really has God, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 2: You're in Massachusetts. I am Are you summering in Massachusetts?
Speaker 2: Are you striking in Massachusetts?
Speaker 1: I'm I was striking and now I'm I'm summering. You
Speaker 1: know how the lead the Hollywood elite do it.
Speaker 2: That's right, I mean you if there if there is
Speaker 2: one thing you are at this point, it's Hollywood elite.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's elite. It's a very it's a lower tier.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's true too. I'm so it's just so
Speaker 2: good to see your face, and I can't wait to
Speaker 2: talk about everything that's been going on now. But I
Speaker 2: want to go back in your life to when you
Speaker 2: were born. You were born in Kiev in Ukrainian Soviet
Speaker 2: Union and moved to the United States very young, like
Speaker 2: nine months. So first off, what what brought your family?
Speaker 2: Obviously you had no choice. What brought your family to
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 1: I didn't move. I was moved. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: a better life. It's that old immigrant story they you know,
Speaker 1: there was was not good for the Jews there, and
Speaker 1: it was just not good for anyone really, and we
Speaker 1: had some family members that had It's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: There was like a split in the family where like
Speaker 1: some of the family moved to the US in like
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen, and then some of the family moved in
Speaker 1: like so like my dad's one of my dad's brothers
Speaker 1: moved here like a year earlier, six months or earlier,
Speaker 1: to Chicago, and then we kind of followed suit. And
Speaker 1: so this was the late seventies and yeah, kind of
Speaker 1: set up in the city and then moved out to
Speaker 1: the suburbs. Yeah, so my earliest memories are in Chicago, right,
Speaker 1: But I you know, we did go back recently, not
Speaker 1: that recently, twenty ten kind of, so I got the
Speaker 1: tour of like, you know, where I was, where my
Speaker 1: parents lived, where I was born, probably where I was conceived,
Speaker 1: and I think about it, you know, when they went
Speaker 1: to school and that all that and I'm just, you know,
Speaker 1: very thankful that we left and they came here and
Speaker 1: gave me and my sister this better life. Although you
Speaker 1: know my sister was born here.
Speaker 2: Right do you how do you think that that affected
Speaker 2: your childhood being and being having immigrant parents.
Speaker 1: I mean, in fact, you know, there's this quote I
Speaker 1: always think about. I don't know who it was either.
Speaker 1: I've seen it attributed to Carl Young and to WILLIAMS. Wordsworth.
Speaker 1: I don't know who've said it, but the child is
Speaker 1: the father of the man. So you know, the five
Speaker 1: year old version of Brian has been around much longer
Speaker 1: than the current version of Brian and the things that
Speaker 1: you know, if you're five and you find a dead
Speaker 1: body on the street, that probably affects you more than
Speaker 1: Look if I found if I saw a dead body,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't love it, but I don't think it would
Speaker 1: actually change me in any significant way or any any
Speaker 1: of these events that kind of really can form your personality.
Speaker 1: So being an immigrant, I definitely you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: learn English, so that was six, and I have this
Speaker 1: memory of going to school and just panicking, not understanding
Speaker 1: because we grew up in you know, we were all
Speaker 1: speaking Russian. I grew up like this. Russian was my
Speaker 1: Russian grandparent or Ukrainian grandparents, speaking Russian, culturally Russian. And
Speaker 1: suddenly we moved to the suburbs and I'm just dropped
Speaker 1: in this school and I don't understand anything, and I'm scared.
Speaker 1: And that is one of my earlier, earliest memories. And
Speaker 1: you know, I know that I'm probably some of the
Speaker 1: line never want to feel that way again. So there
Speaker 1: are probably things I did that I'm not even fully
Speaker 1: aware of to make sure I didn't feel that way.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, I was an immigrant, so on
Speaker 1: some level I was an outsider. So I was an observer.
Speaker 1: So and I think, you know, with comedy writing, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of you know, a few comedy writers
Speaker 1: are probably like the high school quarterback, right. I know
Speaker 1: I wasn't, but I was a quarterback. No, I wasn't
Speaker 1: been a big high school A lot of great athletes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, do you I mean, I have
Speaker 2: to ask, now, because of what's going on in the world,
Speaker 2: do you still have family in the Ukraine And how
Speaker 2: does this now, what's going on now affect you or
Speaker 2: what do you think about when you think about where
Speaker 2: you came from and what's happening over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't have family. My dad's childhood best friend
Speaker 1: lives in Kiev.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Like many words, it's a pointless war. It's truly. I
Speaker 1: don't I can't get my head around it. I don't
Speaker 1: understand why it's happening. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: feel that way. There are a lot of geopolitical arguments
Speaker 1: of why Russia invaded. I don't really care about those.
Speaker 1: I just know there's just there's been mass casualties and
Speaker 1: it makes me very, very sad. And it's the you know,
Speaker 1: all those halfway around the world. I do feel connected
Speaker 1: to it, and you know, it is on simil it
Speaker 1: is personal. Though I see myself as an American, I
Speaker 1: still my heart goes out to these people who are
Speaker 1: being invaded and fighting in this war for survival.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's interesting hearing you talk that you grew up
Speaker 2: culturally Russian, you spoke Russian though you're from this city,
Speaker 2: and the people that are Ukrainian and got their independence
Speaker 2: after you were gone. It must just be very confusing.
Speaker 1: It's very confusing. So growing up people, you know, what
Speaker 1: are you know? I would say I was Russian, right,
Speaker 1: and because in the Soviet Union it was all culturally Russian.
Speaker 1: There was no Belarusan. There was Ukraine there, but it
Speaker 1: was all everyone spoke Russian. And then so I grew up,
Speaker 1: you know, my parents spoke Russian, and then when I
Speaker 1: went back in twenty ten, I didn't understand Ukrainian at all.
Speaker 1: It was truly a foreign language, and my parents kind
Speaker 1: of got it, kind of understood it. It was very
Speaker 1: strange because I think once Sovie Union collapsed, you know,
Speaker 1: countries kind of went back to their roots and became
Speaker 1: more nationalistic, and you know, Ukrainians booke Ukrainian again and
Speaker 1: Russian stuff being taught in school or maybe it was that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, everything changed in ninety one
Speaker 1: when so Union collapsed. So but that was not that
Speaker 1: was not the Ukraine that my parents were raised.
Speaker 2: In, right. Yeah, you brought up being an observer and
Speaker 2: potentially giving you, I mean, it seems clear to me,
Speaker 2: giving you potentially greater insight into what you do now,
Speaker 2: which is really studying the human condition, or at least
Speaker 2: that's what I think about it. You know, you observe
Speaker 2: human and you find humans and you find comedy within
Speaker 2: that you. You have said that some of your early
Speaker 2: influences were Bill Murray and Jim Carrey. Interesting those two
Speaker 2: because to me, they see that's what that's what I
Speaker 2: was told. I don't think no, what about Bill Bill Murray?
Speaker 1: Look, probably no human beings made me laugh more than
Speaker 1: Bill Murray right over.
Speaker 2: The roundhog Day you've seen that more than favorite comedy.
Speaker 1: Day is my favorite comedy.
Speaker 2: Well, what was it about Bill Murray that that drew
Speaker 2: you in?
Speaker 1: Probably harl Ramus on some level. It was those early
Speaker 1: Bill Murray movies, you know, And I didn't see them
Speaker 1: when they came out. I was I was kind of
Speaker 1: too young for those early eighties ones. But and like
Speaker 1: you know, my immigrant dad wasn't showing them to me,
Speaker 1: as he was probably like a lot of kids. But
Speaker 1: when I found them, there's something about Bill Murray that
Speaker 1: the character of Bill Murray, not I don't know the person,
Speaker 1: but the character he played, this kind of rebel, a
Speaker 1: route the reverend, didn't take anything too seriously. That really
Speaker 1: appealed to me. You know, those early Herald Ramis movies
Speaker 1: were anti institutional comedies, you know, against the country club
Speaker 1: in the Catashack, against the university, in Animal House against
Speaker 1: government bureaucracy and Ghostbusters, and I think those there's something
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's the guy going up against the system.
Speaker 1: That appealed to me. And then later on those kind
Speaker 1: of self discovery comedies that he made at Groundhog Day
Speaker 1: Multiplicity that was more you know, that was not bu
Speaker 1: Murray but Groundhog Day. Really you know, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can change, you can grow, you can learn. Even
Speaker 1: in your forties, you know, it's not too late, right
Speaker 1: to make a change. And I think that affected me.
Speaker 2: When did you start writing? And is that what you
Speaker 2: wanted to be a writer?
Speaker 1: I want to be the NBA And that became very
Speaker 1: quickly apparent that that was just not going to happen, right,
Speaker 1: no matter how many dribbling drills I did. There's just
Speaker 1: I think when I graduated high school, I was like
Speaker 1: five to seven. I had a grossport in college, but
Speaker 1: it just wasn't gonna happen for me.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be the first basement for the Atlanta Braves.
Speaker 2: So no, I get you. And then at a certain
Speaker 2: point you changed. But was this something you were interested
Speaker 2: in early on?
Speaker 1: No, Initially I wanted to be a film critic, because
Speaker 1: being from Chicago, I didn't know anyone that you know,
Speaker 1: made movies or TV. But I knew Cisco and Ebert.
Speaker 1: I knew they were from Chicago. I was like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: So I studied film criticism and film theory, and I
Speaker 1: was a critic in my college newspaper, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's why I do it. And then eventually I thought, well,
Speaker 1: am I writing about it? Maybe I should just do it,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's the way to do it. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a director initially at first. And someone
Speaker 1: said to me, you know, no one's going to give
Speaker 1: you forty million dollars to make a movie, but if
Speaker 1: you can write, that will help. And I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: So then I kind of but you know, I, without
Speaker 1: fully realizing, I loved comedy and write. You know, I
Speaker 1: was SNL watching SNL, watching Seinfeld, you know, watching all
Speaker 1: those seminal comedies and and probably just soaking it up
Speaker 1: on some cellular level that I wasn't fully aware of.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I mean the goal was just so
Speaker 1: go change from being a director to being just a
Speaker 1: comedy writers, getting a job on a sitcom.
Speaker 2: Right. You went to the university of Iowa. Isn't there
Speaker 2: a big playwriting program there at the University of Iowa.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is a Yeah, there's a writing creative writing program,
Speaker 1: I think the best in the country. But I did
Speaker 1: not go to that. I went to the undergraduate school.
Speaker 1: But I got all the kind of like the you know,
Speaker 1: like some of my teachers were like like Dan Wise,
Speaker 1: who could create a Game of Thrones? Ye taught me,
Speaker 1: and you know I got so we were we had access.
Speaker 1: If you were writing undergrad, you had access to these
Speaker 1: brilliant writers.
Speaker 2: What made you decide to move to l A.
Speaker 1: Well, once I decided I want to do it, it
Speaker 1: was obvious there was no other move. I mean I
Speaker 1: was very scared to go, but uh, you know, if
Speaker 1: I had any chance of doing it at that time,
Speaker 1: you had to kind of move to LA I don't
Speaker 1: know if that if that applies today the same way,
Speaker 1: but everything, all the business was there, so I was
Speaker 1: going to go.
Speaker 2: So for me, I took my time. You know, I
Speaker 2: did theater for a long time. I felt like I
Speaker 2: needed to have certain boxes checked before moving to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I mean it seems like you were like, I just
Speaker 2: I need to be there. Were there people that you
Speaker 2: knew or or or places that you wanted to either
Speaker 2: study or sign with. Did you have an agent when
Speaker 2: you went out or were you just like f it,
Speaker 2: I'm going and I'm going to make this happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just like I'm going. I didn't know anyone.
Speaker 1: I knew one person from college kind of and I
Speaker 1: knew I knew Dan, who was my teacher who could
Speaker 1: not CoCreate a Game of Thrones yet it was and
Speaker 1: uh and I had In turn, I got an in.
Speaker 1: Harold Ramis was a Chicago guy, and I got an
Speaker 1: internship with him in the suburbs there, and then he
Speaker 1: was making be Dazzled Us two thousand when I moved
Speaker 1: out to so I got an internship working Friday mornings
Speaker 1: and the Fox lot. I didn't really do much, but
Speaker 1: it ended up being, you know, the most significant thing
Speaker 1: ever happened to me, because that's where I met le Eisenberg.
Speaker 1: It was a PA on b Dazzled in office PA,
Speaker 1: and I was working in Harold's kind of bungalow on
Speaker 1: the Fox lot and our copyer broke and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: go to the Dazel production offices on the other side
Speaker 1: of the lot and I went there and there and
Speaker 1: I was like, I need to make copies, and they're like,
Speaker 1: lead the copy boy will help you, and so they
Speaker 1: Lee became my first friend in la.
Speaker 2: I did not know that. I didn't know that you
Speaker 2: both before everything happened. Both worked for Harold that early.
Speaker 2: How did you get in? I wait, was it because
Speaker 2: you came from Chicago that you've got this internship? Did you?
Speaker 2: Had you met him?
Speaker 1: So no, I never met him. What happened was I'd come.
Speaker 1: I feel like I was supposed to, like go somewm
Speaker 1: for spring break with my girlfriend. We broke up. I
Speaker 1: came home. I was like home for spring break. And
Speaker 1: there's a magazine that no longer justiss called north Shore Magazine.
Speaker 1: My family that keeps ten year old magazines lying around.
Speaker 1: This is like ninety six, the magazines from ninety six.
Speaker 1: But I read in nineteen ninety nine and said, Harold
Speaker 1: Ramis returns. He was on the cover and he was
Speaker 1: coming back to And I read the article and like
Speaker 1: said he had an office in Island Park, Illinois, which
Speaker 1: was near me. I said, oh my god, So so
Speaker 1: I called his office. I talked to Laurel Ward, who
Speaker 1: was his assistant at the time later became a producing
Speaker 1: partner of his, and she said, we need someone with
Speaker 1: a truck because at that summer in Chicago, they made
Speaker 1: these like I don't know if they were like ceramic cows,
Speaker 1: kind of put them all over the city, and I like,
Speaker 1: bring some, and I was like, I have a truck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I got a truck, which I didn't have,
Speaker 1: so I'd like kind of scramble and find a truck
Speaker 1: to bring these cows from Chicago to his house. And
Speaker 1: that's I think probably what got me the internship is
Speaker 1: that I lied and said there's any lesson to take away.
Speaker 1: It's a lie. I figure it out later, And yeah,
Speaker 1: so I didn't know him. I had no family connection
Speaker 1: to him, but I got to know a little bit.
Speaker 1: And then so when I moved, so this and I
Speaker 1: went back. I did one more I was a college
Speaker 1: for four and a half years, did one more semester,
Speaker 1: and then moved in January, and someone in his orbits
Speaker 1: said you can intern here. So I went. And really
Speaker 1: what happened was that his you know, ISO tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like a Harold's nanny, because what
Speaker 1: happened was his wife yeah, like hang out with the
Speaker 1: kids and she's like, do you want to come with
Speaker 1: us on vacation? And they had like a real nanny.
Speaker 1: I was like the fake nanny. I didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: I was a terrible nanny and if I stopped, I
Speaker 1: didn't let the kids die. I mean that was my
Speaker 1: big right.
Speaker 2: Well, and they probably had fun with you too, right
Speaker 2: was it more like summer camp?
Speaker 1: Like come on, that's fun. They had fun and you know,
Speaker 1: we were like played sports, we hung out. But I
Speaker 1: was also like a petty too, so they'd be like Daniel,
Speaker 1: who actually worked on no hard feelings as an ap
Speaker 1: uh as a sociate producer. To come full circle, but
Speaker 1: I was looking after him when he was like six.
Speaker 1: He was a little smart ass and he I remember
Speaker 1: one time he said something just really just a little
Speaker 1: made a sassy comment and then went to the water
Speaker 1: and then took us the waterfound I just shoved a
Speaker 1: stad in the water fountain, and he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell my dad my mom what you did. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh god, I'm being sent home because it
Speaker 1: was great. It was fun. But I got to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time with Harold, got to know him
Speaker 1: and it was just like, you know, it's such huge
Speaker 1: e fact on my life in so many ways, and
Speaker 1: I'm just really I feel very lucky that I.
Speaker 3: Knew him for those years and that I did.
Speaker 2: You started writing jokes for stand up comedians. Is this
Speaker 2: something that you're told to do to start honing your
Speaker 2: comedic timing or is this how did that come about?
Speaker 1: It's very old timy.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's what it seems to me, Like, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's not. Yeah, it's not like I'm sure there maybe
Speaker 1: in the fifties that was like a thing. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some Lee was working somewhere. I was unemployed a lot.
Speaker 1: I just was a terrible I was always getting fired.
Speaker 1: It was a terrible assistant. So but like Lee had
Speaker 1: was working somewhere a medic comedian. It was like, oh,
Speaker 1: the guy buys jokes. I was like, oh, I'd never
Speaker 1: really written a joke, but I started writing for him,
Speaker 1: and then I started writing for someone else. It was
Speaker 1: never lucrative or enough to pay my rent or anything,
Speaker 1: but it was it forced me to kind of sit
Speaker 1: down and think about jokes and joke structure and practice
Speaker 1: and practice and yes, so that was that was the
Speaker 1: first thing I ever got paid for, right, I think
Speaker 1: it's like fifty hours a joke or something.
Speaker 2: So you bring up Lee again. So you meet him.
Speaker 2: He's making copies for you. I bedazzled, not so much
Speaker 2: for me, but well with you. Yes, the two of
Speaker 2: you are making copies together. You become friends. Now, how
Speaker 2: soon do you decide this that I want him to
Speaker 2: be my partner? That? Did you have the same comedic sensibility?
Speaker 2: Did you share the same interest? Did you just were
Speaker 2: you just friends?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: How did how did that come to be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were friends before we became partners. That old story, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were just friends. We had the same we want
Speaker 1: to be a drama writer, okay, and was writing drama spackscripts.
Speaker 2: It makes sense because he's not funny.
Speaker 1: He's not funny at all. No, he's probably person I
Speaker 1: ever met, which it's so funny now to think about
Speaker 1: it that he was writing dramas. But he's also you know,
Speaker 1: he's doing it again. But he's obviously a hilarious person.
Speaker 1: He's a great comedy writer. So but yeah, at the
Speaker 1: time he was he was writing drama and we were
Speaker 1: just friends. He was my first friend and we that
Speaker 1: was two thousand and like in two thousand and three
Speaker 1: we moved in together and he was temping at HBO
Speaker 1: and I was temping at Nick Junior not even the
Speaker 1: real Nickelodeon, Okay, Nick Junior younger Nickelodeon.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that seems like the absolute worst
Speaker 2: placement for you. Yeah, I mean, no offense, but like,
Speaker 2: if there were two people, you being one of them
Speaker 2: who like writes the most cringiest of comedies in the history,
Speaker 2: like that you're writing for the not just kids, but
Speaker 2: like the three to five year old kids.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Yeah, I don't have nothing to say to these
Speaker 1: I have nothing to say to this. I wasn't writing
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 2: I was like, no, I know, yeah, you were just
Speaker 2: working there, Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the market. I think it was like marketing or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we ended up writing some stuff for Tribber Enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: We had heard they were looking for ideas and we
Speaker 1: ended up selling somebody. And after that we're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a good we kind of have
Speaker 1: the same comedic sensibility, and we ended up writing spec
Speaker 1: comedy script that was sold to Fox, and then we
Speaker 1: kind of constrated writing together and that led to you
Speaker 1: know we wrote the spec. It was really about us
Speaker 1: on some level, was it or was it a pilot? Sorry,
Speaker 1: we sold the pilot. We wrote the spec, we told
Speaker 1: of the spec didn't get made, but those thirty pages
Speaker 1: ended up being, you know, really the most important things
Speaker 1: we would ever write, because it got us on the office,
Speaker 1: It got us writing for Harold Ramis on a movie.
Speaker 1: It got us it really opened all the doors for us.
Speaker 2: The pilot you mentioned got the attention of Greg Daniels.
Speaker 2: You have a meeting with him. What are your thoughts
Speaker 2: going in to the meeting with Greg about coming on
Speaker 2: the office.
Speaker 1: I was told, we were told Greg does a long meeting,
Speaker 1: so don't read into that it's not good or bad.
Speaker 1: He just in my mind, I only knew, you know,
Speaker 1: I knew his name, and I knew he did King
Speaker 1: of the Hill, and I was in my mind I
Speaker 1: was expecting someone to walk in with a cowboy hat
Speaker 1: and cowboy boots, man with glasses and a little little bag,
Speaker 1: and very quiet and thoughtful. And we had a prossim
Speaker 1: and talked to him for two hours, A lot of
Speaker 1: long pauses we did not fill them. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: had a meeting that we could not tell I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell you how it went. We had no you know,
Speaker 1: his poker face. We didn't know like does he hate us?
Speaker 1: Does he like us?
Speaker 2: Does he you know?
Speaker 1: I think what he was really thinking was like, I
Speaker 1: can get two for one with these guys the writing team,
Speaker 1: two for the price of one. You know, he's probably
Speaker 1: coming at it from that place. But yeah, eventually we
Speaker 1: got a call. We got I think we got three offers.
Speaker 1: We got an offer for an animated show, those twenty
Speaker 1: two episodes, We got an offer for thirteen for another
Speaker 1: show episodes, and then we got offer of a script
Speaker 1: on the American Office. Because at that time, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember, like you don't know if you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a season two you've got it was like
Speaker 1: six scripts, right, All we were guarantee were scripts, and
Speaker 1: we although we didn't have any money, We're just like,
Speaker 1: we'd rather work on the office and take our chances
Speaker 1: and nothing happening than the guaranteed money of the twenty
Speaker 1: two episodes or the thirteen episodes.
Speaker 2: So we did was that because of greg Or? Was
Speaker 2: that because it was we had.
Speaker 1: Seen season one, We had seen those six episodes where
Speaker 1: this is brilliant. We were just huge. I mean we were
Speaker 1: huge hands of the British show. And then we're like
Speaker 1: when they announced the America and when we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is good. How are they going to fuck this up?
Speaker 1: And we saw it. We were just it was riveting.
Speaker 1: We just couldn't believe how good it was. It's all
Speaker 1: we wanted to do. I mean, we literally got to
Speaker 1: live our dream. Like that's all we wanted was to
Speaker 1: work on the Office. Just from those six episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was the greatest thing that happened to us ever.
Speaker 1: You know, it was just amazing.
Speaker 2: You were pretty young at this point that you come in.
Speaker 2: I was eleven were you were eleven?
Speaker 1: Child?
Speaker 2: By the way, here's the thing spoiler alert, I was
Speaker 2: really young too, do you know where the show was?
Speaker 1: Funny when I see the show now, I'm like, how
Speaker 1: old is Corell? This? Is he older? Younger than I'm
Speaker 1: always trying to do the math of like how old
Speaker 1: was Stephen this? How old was rain Right? How it
Speaker 1: was Brian? Like I'm always just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm older than Correl was in season one?
Speaker 2: What you know, No, you come in pretty young. I
Speaker 2: mean certainly there were quite a few young people on
Speaker 2: the season back then, Mindy and BJ.
Speaker 1: I have to have this unlike so one of the
Speaker 1: things that separated Lee and I from everyone everyone, like
Speaker 1: a lot of those a lot of the staff went
Speaker 1: to Harvard. They were all kind of like it was
Speaker 1: almost their birthright to write the sitcoms. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I was from Chicago, is from Boston, and I had
Speaker 1: just five years of just nothing. I was, like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm just getting fired a lot. I was terrible at everything.
Speaker 1: So not a good assistant, not a good PA, just
Speaker 1: a huge fuck up. Really just a history of failure
Speaker 1: in many ways. So there was no like we didn't
Speaker 1: expect to anything. We weren't didn't feel like we should
Speaker 1: be there. But yes we got I think were I
Speaker 1: was maybe twenty six or twenty seven. Yeah started.
Speaker 2: What do you think you and Lee, both of you,
Speaker 2: what do you think your greatest contribution to the show
Speaker 2: was or how do you feel like you helped? Oh? Wow,
Speaker 2: what are you most proud of?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there are certain jokes that I'm really
Speaker 1: proud of that I remember writing. That feeling you get
Speaker 1: when you just you're like this is this is this
Speaker 1: feels like it could be really good. So I have
Speaker 1: those moments in my mind of just remember writing certain
Speaker 1: jokes and they were weren't even always from my episodes,
Speaker 1: but like they're just jokes that I'm proud of. It
Speaker 1: feels so weird. This is when the imposter syndrome really
Speaker 1: kicks in when you start talking about stuff like this.
Speaker 1: But I think maybe we kind of subverted. I think
Speaker 1: we like, you know, we did things like when Jim
Speaker 1: kind of became like not the greatest partner every He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got to I gotta leave, I gotta go the
Speaker 1: houses on fire or flood and you know, trying to
Speaker 1: leave camp like you would really piss Officer and a
Speaker 1: segment of the audience. But just things like that, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think we probably wrote everyone had their own,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like Mike Shure wrote like Michael it
Speaker 1: is almost most noble in a way, like the best
Speaker 1: version of Michael version personally I like a lot, and
Speaker 1: like everyone had like a different version. But I think
Speaker 1: we probably wrote like the the most biggest British version
Speaker 1: of the show in a way. Okay, maybe some of
Speaker 1: the darker.
Speaker 2: Stuff, well that that was sort of where I was going.
Speaker 2: I mean, the two episodes that you guys were responsible for, Scott's,
Speaker 2: Todd's and Dinner Party, unquestionably considered the most cringiest of
Speaker 2: episodes in the history of the show. Were those your
Speaker 2: ideas or did you execute them? And what I mean
Speaker 2: by that for those of you listening who don't know,
Speaker 2: Sometimes there are stories that are decided collectively in the
Speaker 2: writer's room and then you're assigned a script to write.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about sort of the Jena for either one
Speaker 2: or both of those episodes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, yeah, it's true. So like writers will come
Speaker 1: in with ideas after we'll have like time off in
Speaker 1: between seasons, were coming with new ideas, and the ideas
Speaker 1: who come in come in with aren't always the ones
Speaker 1: that you end up writing. Sometimes other writers write them,
Speaker 1: and you write other writers' ideas. Neither one was our
Speaker 1: idea Dinner Party. It might have been Greg's idea. I
Speaker 1: don't actually remember whose idea that was, but I remember
Speaker 1: feeling very I knew how to write that episode, and
Speaker 1: I remember Greg assigned it to Mindy, who like, wasn't
Speaker 1: that I don't I didn't think she wants to write
Speaker 1: a different episode. I think At the time it was
Speaker 1: called like Who's Afraid of John Levinson Gold? But Scott's
Speaker 1: Tots was a Paul Lieberstein original that we were assigned.
Speaker 2: Ok, you make your acting debut in the office correct
Speaker 2: on television? On television, Yes, Yes, on television. Leo and
Speaker 2: Gino the delivery guys. Was this something you were excited
Speaker 2: about doing or was this just fun for the run?
Speaker 1: I did not enjoy it at all, and it was
Speaker 1: really the other writers kind of. I think Greg thought
Speaker 1: it was funny, and the other writers, like I thought
Speaker 1: it would be funny to force us to act. I
Speaker 1: hated it, didn't want to do it, fought against it,
Speaker 1: but if we were going to do it, we did.
Speaker 1: Lee and I did think it was funny for him
Speaker 1: to play Geno and me to play Leo, which was
Speaker 1: just really confused some of the people work on the show.
Speaker 1: You know what our names was? What our names were
Speaker 1: anyway at the beginning. I think by the end we're
Speaker 1: really confused. And sometimes if I felt someone didn't like,
Speaker 1: if I knew someone wasn't sure, if I was leader,
Speaker 1: Gene and Lee would walk by and be like, hey
Speaker 1: Gene to Lee, I would call him Gene which would
Speaker 1: just doubly confuse them and they think they finally have
Speaker 1: to haven't figured out, and then I would just continue confusing.
Speaker 2: That's so good. I mean, look the show, the show
Speaker 2: gave all of us so much. I mean, for you, your
Speaker 2: first job in a writer's room, your acting career on Delvion,
Speaker 2: whether you liked it or not, your directorial debut. When
Speaker 2: you look back on that time, what feelings do you have.
Speaker 1: I mean, I owe so much. It was my film school.
Speaker 1: You know, I owe so much to the show. It
Speaker 1: because you know, easily you can easily get on a
Speaker 1: show that last six episodes, and then you get on
Speaker 1: another show and it kind of you know, gets canceled
Speaker 1: or it's I mean, we got so lucky being hired
Speaker 1: on the show, to be on a show that went
Speaker 1: as long as it did, and we didn't stay the
Speaker 1: whole time, but it changed our lives, met a lot
Speaker 1: of amazing people. We learned so much. We learned how
Speaker 1: to become showrunners and how to write, and how to
Speaker 1: run a room, and kind of one of the things
Speaker 1: in the Writer's Strike that we talk about is just
Speaker 1: and I know Mike Scohn record talking about this just
Speaker 1: true as like, you know, for the next genre. You know,
Speaker 1: we learned from Greg how to do these things, and
Speaker 1: a lot a lot of people are aren't learning that anymore.
Speaker 1: But we just completely change our lives, can change the
Speaker 1: trajectory of our careers. I remember thinking before it became
Speaker 1: preessional writer, I thought, oh, these writers are They're so lucky,
Speaker 1: They're so lucky that they get to do this. And
Speaker 1: then when I became one and I was like, it's
Speaker 1: all talent, luckys, nothing with it. I'm just that talented.
Speaker 1: Now I realized I'm back to the lucky part. There's talent,
Speaker 1: for sure, but there's so much luck involved. There's just
Speaker 1: things you can't control that we got on the show
Speaker 1: that it went as long as it did, that we
Speaker 1: met these made these connections and met these people. It
Speaker 1: just you know things, there's a lot of our hands
Speaker 1: and I feel so lucky. I feel so lucky.
Speaker 2: I remember talking to both Lee and you at the time.
Speaker 2: My impression was you were in a really difficult but
Speaker 2: amazing situation because I recall you saying like this was
Speaker 2: all we wanted to do was to be writers on
Speaker 2: the office and to continue to work. But you begin
Speaker 2: to get because you are so talented despite your jokes,
Speaker 2: a bunch of other opportunities, and it's you decide it's
Speaker 2: time to go. That's a difficult decision for you.
Speaker 1: Well, at the time, I remember our last year and
Speaker 1: I were like, we're just going to coast through this.
Speaker 1: We're just going to coast, you know, we're making we
Speaker 1: wrote a movie that's going to production, and we're going
Speaker 1: to just kind of take it easy. And then they
Speaker 1: asked us to be the head writers. And we're like,
Speaker 1: does that come with more money? They're like no, does
Speaker 1: that come with a title? Bunth like no, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: and so yeah. So by the end of the I
Speaker 1: think it was season six or so, last season, we
Speaker 1: were on fumes. So in a sense, it wasn't that
Speaker 1: hard because we were I have never been more exhausted.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were just kind of at the end
Speaker 1: at the end there, we were so tired all the time.
Speaker 1: So we just needed a break. We were so burnt out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: For those five years, we work Monday through Friday on
Speaker 1: the office, and Saturday and Sunday we were writing movies, right,
Speaker 1: so we were working seven days a week for five years.
Speaker 1: That's it. We just wanted a better quality of life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we were so tired. But it was not easy.
Speaker 2: It was scary, right, sure, well right out of the gate,
Speaker 2: you go, you leave to go work on year one
Speaker 2: with both Lee and the aforementioned Harold Ramis. Was that
Speaker 2: a dream come true for you?
Speaker 1: Yes, so yere one was. Actually we got high in
Speaker 1: year one. I think like two weeks after getting heir
Speaker 1: in the office.
Speaker 2: That's okay, So you're working on it the whole time.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're like working on it, Yeah, after work on
Speaker 1: the weekends. So you know, Harold had started writing it already,
Speaker 1: and so we would help out when we could. And
Speaker 1: then by the end, I think we're doing a Bad Teacher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're leaving in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was pretty exhausting.
Speaker 2: Well, in twenty thirteen, you get on a list, the
Speaker 2: Overachiever's List. This is Deadline Hollywood's pilot season overachievers list.
Speaker 2: That year, you and Lee were behind ABC's Pulling, ABC's
Speaker 2: Trophy Wife and CBS's Bad Teacher adaptation of the movie,
Speaker 2: and your comedy pilot with Stephen Merchant. Hello, ladies on
Speaker 2: HBO got picked up. You've got to be feeling really
Speaker 2: good about you yourself at this time, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Feeling good, also feeling very scared about the amount of
Speaker 1: work so bad, teacher. We didn't really have anything to
Speaker 1: do with other than doing the movie, and we were execution.
Speaker 1: The great thing about Hollywood is you can be an
Speaker 1: executi producer and actually do nothing. It's pretty amazing. It's
Speaker 1: a great gig. And Pulling was a pilot, but he
Speaker 1: didn't get picked up the serious so we were doing
Speaker 1: Trophy Wife and Hell of Ladies simultaneously. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: bouncing back and forth.
Speaker 2: What was it like working with Steven who obviously you
Speaker 2: hadn't Stephen didn't do a whole lot on the Office,
Speaker 2: but obviously going back and working with him on you know,
Speaker 2: someone that you had admired from the original British version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he was someone that we were a
Speaker 1: fan of and then got to become friends with. It
Speaker 1: was really cool and we became friends and he asked
Speaker 1: us to produce Hello Ladies, and then we're like okay,
Speaker 1: and then we start talking about and then he's like,
Speaker 1: why do you guys just write up with me? Great
Speaker 1: up with me? And we did. But it was so fun.
Speaker 1: He lived with me for like eight months. It was great.
Speaker 1: It was so fun I mean, he is one of
Speaker 1: the funniest people ever. And one of the great things
Speaker 1: about doing this job is you're like, I've been surrounded
Speaker 1: by some of the funniest people in the world. I
Speaker 1: always think, like my friends, I have the funniest friends,
Speaker 1: and he's you know, he's one of them. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's so many people DJ and I know so
Speaker 1: many funny people, and I love it. It makes life
Speaker 1: so much better.
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you it impossible to answer question.
Speaker 2: I know, I'm curious, how do you decide whether you
Speaker 2: are going to work with Lee on a particular project
Speaker 2: or if it's something that you are going to go
Speaker 2: out and do on your own a process, and how
Speaker 2: how have you managed to negotiate bad feelings on either
Speaker 2: side of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no bad feelings. There's no like rhyme or reason.
Speaker 1: It's just like, you know, we I think some things,
Speaker 1: we're kind of doing different things. Sometimes we do the
Speaker 1: same thing, so there's a to imagine event diagram, and
Speaker 1: there's some things that we both want to do, like
Speaker 1: jury duty or you know, he's doing his drama stuff
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm doing directing, So it just depends
Speaker 1: what it's really a project by project.
Speaker 2: Okay, are you discussing it with each other or not?
Speaker 1: Sometimes? Okay, sometimes it's.
Speaker 2: An impossible question. But it is fascinating because you guys
Speaker 2: have had so much success together. Though you're not exclusively together.
Speaker 1: We date other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you date around.
Speaker 1: We did around.
Speaker 2: Speaking of which something that you date solo? I don't
Speaker 2: know that was a terrible transition. Good good boys. Your
Speaker 2: feature film directorial debut with Lee writing, but you directed.
Speaker 1: Well, no, we both directed it.
Speaker 2: You both directed it.
Speaker 1: We both directed it, but the director's guild would not
Speaker 1: give us a waiver and their infinite wisdom would not
Speaker 1: give us a waiver.
Speaker 2: So, oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been so like on the Office. You know,
Speaker 1: we I direct an episode, he directed one, but we
Speaker 1: both directed both of them. Right, They just would not
Speaker 1: give us a waiver to make a directing team, so
Speaker 1: we put our name on it.
Speaker 2: I never mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's you know, he ended up. He was a producer.
Speaker 1: I was a director. But we both did the same.
Speaker 1: You know, we both wrote it and then we both
Speaker 1: did the same producing and directing.
Speaker 2: What was it like working with actual kids. I mean
Speaker 2: we were sort of childlike on the office, but actual
Speaker 2: twelve year old actors. And was it difficult for you
Speaker 2: to finesse the subject matter? Obviously are rated comedy with
Speaker 2: the kids? Are they understanding what's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You know, I mean, look, the parents wrote the script.
Speaker 1: There are no surprises here, right, you know, you know
Speaker 1: you're getting into right. Sometimes the kid would you know,
Speaker 1: the kids would ask me and I'd be like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe go ask your mom, right, And
Speaker 1: like I love the kids. The kids were so great
Speaker 1: and so funny, and you know at that age where
Speaker 1: just they want to know everything right, and so if
Speaker 1: like Leon and I were whispering sometimes they walk near us,
Speaker 1: I'm like, got out of here. So for example, there
Speaker 1: was a scene when they're when they find porn on
Speaker 1: the computer, Like I set it up so like you
Speaker 1: know those things where you're like you're watching a video
Speaker 1: and like something jumps out and scares you. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it would be like that. It'd be like a like
Speaker 1: a zombie just jump on the screen right at you
Speaker 1: and scream, you know, things like that. So you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't really know that much. And I've tried to
Speaker 1: keep as much as possible away from them, right, but uh,
Speaker 1: I loved working them because you can actually give them
Speaker 1: line readings, like say it like this, right, say it
Speaker 1: like and.
Speaker 2: You know that sounds like what you would like.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you're kidding. I think every director actually
Speaker 1: if you, if they were being honest, they would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: every writer director actually wants to give line readings.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But here's the thing you need to understand. If
Speaker 2: you write something brilliant, it can only get better. Oh
Speaker 2: someone else to interpret it.
Speaker 1: You can get worse too, well, get worse. So I
Speaker 1: will say on the Office, we were lucky that, Yes,
Speaker 1: it did get better on the Office was virtually always
Speaker 1: better on the Office. However, you don't always get to
Speaker 1: work with the actors of the Office. Sometimes you work
Speaker 1: with other actors and it's it's.
Speaker 2: Different, cringiest moment for you working with the kids with
Speaker 2: the subject matter.
Speaker 1: There's in the reshoots, they're like, you know, you do
Speaker 1: all jokes right, as we all know. We have alts
Speaker 1: and I had to do oh god, also for one
Speaker 1: of the one of the not one of the main kids,
Speaker 1: but just a different child. And we're just like having
Speaker 1: to tell her them, and she would just do one
Speaker 1: after another, and like the whole crew is just staring
Speaker 1: at me, like you piece of shit, making her saying
Speaker 1: things that she clearly doesn't know what she's saying, and
Speaker 1: I feel terrible, and I was like, oh god, I'm
Speaker 1: just like at a certain point, I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm just not going to do anymore of these. This
Speaker 1: is not I feel weird, but you know, hey, that's entertainment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got to talk about Jerry Duty. I mean,
Speaker 2: it is so fascinating. Well, whose idea was it?
Speaker 1: It was an amalgam of you know. We so in
Speaker 1: like two thousand and I want to say fourteen, we
Speaker 1: wrote a script wheneverro script Cultjury Duty for HBO. I
Speaker 1: think we wrote for Will Ferrell. Did not go anywhere.
Speaker 1: He didn't do it, they didn't pick it up. Nothing
Speaker 1: really happened from it. So we just kind of had
Speaker 1: this failed pilot. And then two producers, Dave bernad a
Speaker 1: Front of Ours and Todd Shulman came to us. So
Speaker 1: they want to do a prank show I believe about
Speaker 1: a lawyer. Like, well, we have this jury idea. We
Speaker 1: kind of combined ideas and that's kind of how the
Speaker 1: show is born.
Speaker 2: But it's a it is sort of a prank show,
Speaker 2: but he's not the butt of any jokes. That's what's
Speaker 2: so beautiful about it too.
Speaker 1: That's the first they say, the first feel good prank show.
Speaker 1: That was always the idea that it wouldn't be mean spirited,
Speaker 1: that he would it would be he He was never
Speaker 1: made to be the butt of the joke, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, is really hard because then that makes him
Speaker 1: in a way. Our fear was that he wouldn't be active,
Speaker 1: you know, he would just be outside the action, watching,
Speaker 1: And it kind of worked out somehow, just pure luck,
Speaker 1: I mean part of it just you know, you get the.
Speaker 2: Right guy, right. I wanted to talk to him for
Speaker 2: the podcast here about it because it seems like you
Speaker 2: just chose the right guy.
Speaker 1: I didn't choose him.
Speaker 2: Well, but you collectively.
Speaker 1: So we actually did the show of three different people
Speaker 1: who shot up three times two and a half times,
Speaker 1: and shows you know, he was the one that we
Speaker 1: did it with. But uh yeah, we didn't know, and
Speaker 1: you know, we were talking how like we didn't know
Speaker 1: if we would even have a show to give them.
Speaker 1: He might figure it out halfway through then there's no show.
Speaker 1: It just wasted a lot of money. Huge Amazon is
Speaker 1: a rounding error, but still they may not have anything.
Speaker 1: So and also I think in the middle of the
Speaker 1: development process, first we told to Amazon, like, Okay, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be an Amazon. They're like, it's gonna be an IMDbTV.
Speaker 1: We're like, what is that. I'mdb we just bought IMDbTV.
Speaker 1: It's the thing show's gonna be like okay. Then a
Speaker 1: little bit later like okay, so i'm DBTV is gone.
Speaker 1: It's not called freeb you're gonna be in free Like
Speaker 1: what is a free v Uh? No one's gonna see
Speaker 1: this thing. It's a disaster. Yeah, it's all like just
Speaker 1: the stars. Sometimes the stars aligned, sometimes the stars aligned.
Speaker 2: I started hearing about this show. It's one of the
Speaker 2: what was one of those shows that it just kept growing,
Speaker 2: It just kept growing, and I kept hearing about it,
Speaker 2: and you know, part of my cynical brain heard reality
Speaker 2: or whatever, and I just sort of and then I
Speaker 2: heard about it again, and then some people I respect,
Speaker 2: and then I found out that you guys were doing
Speaker 2: and I was like, all right, well I got to
Speaker 2: sit my eyes down and give it a watch. What
Speaker 2: you just said that you shot it three times. What
Speaker 2: are the other two people think who weren't chosen. That's
Speaker 2: a good question, That's what I want to know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I actually don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: it took it took a lot of people to pull
Speaker 1: this off. We just had a small part of this.
Speaker 1: There was like a lot of people doing this and
Speaker 1: making it work that are not namely in Gene.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they because
Speaker 1: you know, the same they recognize their fellow jurors as
Speaker 1: the people they served with, because you know, they were
Speaker 1: told it was for a documentary about the American judicial system.
Speaker 1: This is just a small part of it. Yes, So
Speaker 1: they didn't you know, they didn't think there would be that.
Speaker 1: They didn't understand, you know, what what we were actually doing.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, here's the thing that I don't understand. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you talked about waste a lot of money. What
Speaker 2: happens at the end If Ronald says you don't have
Speaker 2: permission to show this, what happens, it dies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there are things you can do to make
Speaker 1: sure someone says, yes, I give them a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Right. I noticed that in the last episode. Yes, spoiler alert,
Speaker 2: he does get Yeah, he does get paid. But still
Speaker 2: like there is a there's a risk there, right, I mean.
Speaker 1: Look, there's always a chance. There's always a chance. But
Speaker 1: you know you kind of pre screen. You know there's
Speaker 1: PaperWorks that's signed, and you kind of pre screen for
Speaker 1: what's that what is that psychological trait? Agreeability?
Speaker 2: Okay, you've screened for it.
Speaker 1: Always talk about like a sociopaths and serial killers have
Speaker 1: a very low level of agreeability, right, So you want
Speaker 1: people with a high level of agreeability to be on
Speaker 1: jury duty because they can kind of go with the flow.
Speaker 1: They see some weird behavior that's funny, but they kind
Speaker 1: of accept it and they try and make the best
Speaker 1: of it, including being told that everything is fake and
Speaker 1: they were in the Truman Show and still signing off
Speaker 1: and you know it could yes, it could have been
Speaker 1: a disaster.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well. I mean it's helpful also that he comes
Speaker 2: off incredibly well. It is not the butt of the joke.
Speaker 2: It's just similar to reality television. Obviously, there's not multiple takes, right,
Speaker 2: You kind of get one shot at it, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, and no, Okay, so dirty little secret is you
Speaker 1: know we shot this three times, so you know, we
Speaker 1: are also taking our actors' reactions from other uh germs,
Speaker 1: fake real jurors, the other Ronalds who aren't in the
Speaker 1: show and using that not a lot necessarily, but it happens.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you only get Ronald's reaction for last ones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: interesting trip. It's a whole other way of doing doing things.
Speaker 2: Can you do it again?
Speaker 1: Not not in the as a.
Speaker 2: Not a jersey.
Speaker 1: You cannot do it as jury duty, but you can
Speaker 1: you can probably do it again as a different social experiment.
Speaker 2: Right because it became so it became so successful that
Speaker 2: you can't do it again.
Speaker 1: I mean you can try making a court I would
Speaker 1: never want to. I feel like we did that. Let's
Speaker 1: do let's try something else, or let's not try something else.
Speaker 1: But I don't you can't do it in a court
Speaker 1: room again.
Speaker 2: I don't think what for you? What is the most
Speaker 2: fortuitous plot point that Ronald made happen on.
Speaker 1: His own the I think the the racism thing, because
Speaker 1: that was in the script that we wrote, you know,
Speaker 1: and like the geniuses who were day to day on
Speaker 1: that show got him. Basically, he had seen a Family Guy,
Speaker 1: a Family Guy episode and got him to say that,
Speaker 1: and kind of we're just all like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe this worked out. And because we had
Speaker 1: a whole bit about him saying he was racism then
Speaker 1: saying he wasn't racist, and it just it was like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it worked out. It just cannot.
Speaker 2: Well, congratulations. I thought it was. I thought it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: I thought it was it was feel good but also
Speaker 2: very funny and super cool. I mean, something that has
Speaker 2: never been done before. A Brank show extended for such
Speaker 2: a long period of time. And how long were they
Speaker 2: were they isolated?
Speaker 1: Well, I have to give credit to Joe Shmo. Did
Speaker 1: you watch the Josh Moo show this? I love the
Speaker 1: Josh Moo Show. I cannot say it. I love that show.
Speaker 1: I think it's so funny. The guyss A Deadpool created it.
Speaker 1: And as they say, Josh Moo walked so jury duty
Speaker 1: could run. They were they were doing that like in
Speaker 1: like two thousand and one a version of this.
Speaker 2: It's different, it's different.
Speaker 1: There's some overlaps, some similarities.
Speaker 2: How long was he confined? Confined sounds like he's in prison.
Speaker 2: I know, three weeks? Yeah, three weeks were the actors
Speaker 2: there too, or did they leave.
Speaker 1: They were there? I think Marsden left, Parson went home, right,
Speaker 1: but I think the other actor I think they stayed there.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, you go to bed at night,
Speaker 1: come back in the morning.
Speaker 2: Right, Awesome, Well, your other major project out now, no
Speaker 2: hard feelings with Jennifer Lawrence. How did you know that
Speaker 2: Jennifer Lawrence was right for the part?
Speaker 1: Well? I didn't really. I mean I knew she was funny,
Speaker 1: I knew she was witty. I knew she had this
Speaker 1: whole skill set that we hadn't really seen, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know. So it was written for her John Phillips,
Speaker 1: my co writer on the movie, and I wrote it
Speaker 1: for her. But we know she would do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if she wants to do it, she's right
Speaker 1: for the part, any part she's going to do it.
Speaker 1: As a director, you're just like, oh, should be so
Speaker 1: lucky and hopefully she wants to do it.
Speaker 2: Right. The movie based off of a real Craigslist ad
Speaker 2: that you were set by the film's producers, I understand.
Speaker 1: So, just to bring it full circle, it was found
Speaker 1: by Naomi Odenkirk. Oh. Yeah, I think Jenna's.
Speaker 2: Manager Jenna's manager.
Speaker 1: Yes, and Mark Provazio, who was the agent who got
Speaker 1: me and Lee on the Office Wow the first place,
Speaker 1: and in fact I was talking about with him recently
Speaker 1: how after about three weeks on the show, we called
Speaker 1: him and we're like, can you get us off the show?
Speaker 1: He's like what, He's like, we don't like it here.
Speaker 1: Everyone's mean and weird and the time about the writers,
Speaker 1: not the actors, right, and we just don't feel like we,
Speaker 1: you know, we belong here. And in a very nice way,
Speaker 1: he was like, shut the fuck up. You don't understand
Speaker 1: what your what how lucky you are, and just I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pretend. I'm gonna pretend I'm gonna listen to you
Speaker 1: and then not do anything, which in his infinite wisdom
Speaker 1: was the right choice, you know, because we got there.
Speaker 1: Like You're like, some of these people aren't that well
Speaker 1: coming of our of our genius, but they see how
Speaker 1: brilliant we are, and so you know, it's like all
Speaker 1: the people that I love. Now I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't like any of these people and no close
Speaker 1: friends of mine. But at the time I was like,
Speaker 1: this is I don't want to be here, and he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I don't either, but he's anyways, so yes.
Speaker 1: So I was in LA for the premiere of Good
Speaker 1: Boys that week and I had dinner with Mark and
Speaker 1: he told me about this idea that Naomi had found
Speaker 1: and he sent it to me, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: this could be like who's the woman that answers this ad?
Speaker 1: Like what's going on in her life? Were the parents
Speaker 1: that put this out? What's what is this? And I
Speaker 1: thought this could be really good for Jennifer Lawrence and
Speaker 1: hopefully she'll do it. You know, she's working with obviously
Speaker 1: major filmmakers, but she saw Good Boys and she was
Speaker 1: a fan of that, and and so I picture this
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, yes, it looks funny. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to read a script. I was like, yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: perf nce. And so two years later came back to
Speaker 1: with a script and yeah, we did it.
Speaker 2: The movie now on its way to being the highest
Speaker 2: grossing original R rated comedy of this decade. What is
Speaker 2: it about R rated comedies? Why one do you keep
Speaker 2: coming back to it? And two? Why do you feel
Speaker 2: like there has been you know, there was sort of
Speaker 2: a resurgence right around the early two thousands two thousand,
Speaker 2: two thousand and six ish, and they've kind of fallen away.
Speaker 2: Seems like studios feel like they're not going to make
Speaker 2: money or something. What what do you feel like? Well,
Speaker 2: what keeps bringing you back? Your sensibility?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my sensibility, you know, I just comedy
Speaker 1: is my first love. I don't know if that'll always
Speaker 1: do comedy, but I think everything I do will have
Speaker 1: some comedy in it. I can't imagine working on something
Speaker 1: that no comedy. You know, a lot of strangely, a
Speaker 1: lot of very successful community filmmakers leave comedy, you know,
Speaker 1: the Adam McKay's, the God Phillips, the jay Roaches, they
Speaker 1: go off. They'll you know, move on to dramas. And
Speaker 1: I understand that impulse, you know, part of me wants
Speaker 1: to do that as well. But yeah, studios I think
Speaker 1: are a little bit gunshy making them. They don't do
Speaker 1: super well internationally. You know, comedy is oftentimes in some
Speaker 1: ways regional or provincial. You know, what's funny in France
Speaker 1: is not funny in Germany.
Speaker 2: Right and all that, unless it's mister Bean and that's
Speaker 2: just funny. That's just funny everywhere.
Speaker 1: Funny everywhere but yeah, I don't know. I mean, they
Speaker 1: make way fewer comedies. I think it's cyclical. I think
Speaker 1: it'll come back. But also a lot of genres kind
Speaker 1: of you know, superhero movies now have comedy in them.
Speaker 1: There's horror comedies. So I feel like comedy has kind
Speaker 1: of been bisected and dissected and kind of put in
Speaker 1: these other genres. So the straight R rated straight comedy
Speaker 1: is becoming a rare thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, congratulations to you on its success. Congratulations on
Speaker 2: jury I mean, you're you know, some people say they're
Speaker 2: television people and the summer film people. You just you
Speaker 2: just dominate across all platforms.
Speaker 1: I think we can say after this, I'm also a
Speaker 1: podcast person.
Speaker 2: I mean, are you dominate here? For sure?
Speaker 1: I dominated you in this podcast.
Speaker 2: You dominate, you dominated me. Uh, congratulations, man, I'm so
Speaker 2: happy for you. I was so yeah. I mean again
Speaker 2: that that Jury Duty. It was just I don't know
Speaker 2: if this happens to you anymore, if you just read
Speaker 2: too much about who's doing what, but it was it
Speaker 2: was so fun for me to have this show that
Speaker 2: everybody literally is talking about Jury Duty, and then to
Speaker 2: hear it with you guys. I was just I was
Speaker 2: just so happy for you. And then I watched it
Speaker 2: and I mean, I can't even joke. I thought it
Speaker 2: was fantastic. So congratulations, and uh, what's what's next? We're
Speaker 2: striking for a little while longer and then we figure
Speaker 2: it out, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess podcasts, Brian podcast in my future? Can
Speaker 1: we do one together? Can we have a lot of
Speaker 1: thoughts on a lot of things?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could be the new Lee in the podcast world.
Speaker 2: Do we have to run it by him though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh we could, we could. We can give him
Speaker 1: you give me an associate producer. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: just uh yeah, you know, we're on strike for a while,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I don't know what the future holds.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a strange time.
Speaker 2: I don't either. I mean, again, you said it once,
Speaker 2: I'll say it again to bring it full circle. The
Speaker 2: last time we were sitting here two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: the strike interrupted shooting the aforementioned episode, Dinner Party. We
Speaker 2: started on it for one day, half a day, and stopped,
Speaker 2: and one hundred days later we went back to it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that's true. We were picking our own episode.
Speaker 1: It was weird because we're so excited that table read
Speaker 1: was like, I think that the table read of Dinner
Speaker 1: Party was the best thing I've ever experienced in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Was the euphoria, It was the same. I was so
Speaker 1: happy that almost lasted a full day. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: I was so happy and like I was on top
Speaker 1: of the world. I've never felt that good. And then
Speaker 1: the strike happened and we found ourselves picketing our own
Speaker 1: episode is so bizarre. Yeah, sometimes it has to.
Speaker 2: Happen, and sometimes it has to happen. We're back there now. Well,
Speaker 2: here's to being back soon with with some positive, much
Speaker 2: needed results. So cheers, my friend.
Speaker 4: Great to see you, Thank you you too, buddy, Jean.
Speaker 2: Great to talking to you today, my friend, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much. I look forward to seeing what you do next,
Speaker 2: and what you and Lee do next. Who knows? Me
Speaker 2: and Jean's new podcast, did Gino and Brian Oh Show
Speaker 2: premiering on iHeartRadio soon. I'm sure listeners, if you haven't
Speaker 2: already watched do It Jury Duty and No Hard Feelings.
Speaker 2: I think people in the comedy world are going to
Speaker 2: be talking about both of these for a very very
Speaker 2: long time. And trust me on this, you're going to
Speaker 2: want to be in on that conversation, so go check
Speaker 2: them out. Thank you for listening today. Until next time,
Speaker 2: have a great week and we will see you soon.
Speaker 2: Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced by me
Speaker 2: Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executivecer Ling Lee. Our senior producer
Speaker 2: is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris,
Speaker 2: and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary
Speaker 2: and our intern is Thomas Olsen. Our theme song Bubble
Speaker 2: and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton.