Latest / Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald / Jon Cryer, Donald's Real Best Friend

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Jon Cryer, Donald's Real Best Friend · Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Is everybody recording?
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And my question, as Donald very correctly picked up, was
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: is everybody recording?
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Is everyone recording?
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Let me let me muck bang.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We don't want your mock bang bang.
• 0:11
  Speaker 4: The people don't like it.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the people don't like It's called misophonia. They hate it.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people have mesophonia. You know what they do? Like this,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to get into a day shown what
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you're trying to do.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: I got out, You got out, I went outside.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, Donald, Donald left his home and came to an
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: epic Christa's birthday party.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Oh the photos look great. It's probably one of the
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: best parties I've been to in my life, other than
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: my wedding. Yeah.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Christa's favorite band is the Talking Heads and uh, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: they had a Talking Heads cover band and uh and
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the Shelselo's the Police. They played police songs and then
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Charlotte got up and sang rock sand by the Police,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and and.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: You're worrying the league, You're burying the fucking lead Andrew
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Watt and Will Farrell playing drums, bro.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Chad Smith Chad Smith on drums.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: Not well, No, that was.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Will Farrell playing drums. Dude, I couldn't believe it. Yo,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: did you guys know that Will Farrell could play drums
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: like that?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: You know that they did a bit on Jimmy Fallon
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: about this ton I know. It was so funny, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I thought that Will fell could actually play until I
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: was in clued in that that Questlove was playing for
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: him and he was just faking the shit out of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: it really well. Chad Smith was playing drums and he
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: was incredible. And Andrew Watt, who's just the sickest guitarist
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen in real life.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: We had one of the sickest drummers in in Creation
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: and one of the sickest guitarists in creation.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I never seen anything like it. Donald. It was
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: funny because I remember Donald on the podcast being like,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I know Andrew's like a huge producer, but you see
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a really good guitarist. Cut to Donald standing literally three
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: feet from Andrew.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Less just fucking my fuck. I was trying to fuck
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: his guitar while he was playing it. That's how good
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: this motherfucker was. You know how, you know how to
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: rock stars be jumping up and they'd be real close
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: to each other. I get it now, man, That fucking
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: music bounces off that fucking shit onto you and you're like, yeah,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: How like people in the band, like rock stars, they
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: get really close to each other and they play their
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: instruments really close to each other. Joelle, I'm telling you
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: this story. Donald knows it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Donald was kind of doing that without an instrument with
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Andrew Watt. He was kind of he was kind of
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: working his way up as close to Andrew as possible
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: as though as though he was playing like bass or something,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: but he had no instrument.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: I know, no instrument whatsoever. This motherfucker was lick it well.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know what is the word that
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: they use, like, uh.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: When he was what do you call it, Daniel, When
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: someone's doing solo riffs insanity on the guitar.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Ripping, its just just soloing, shredding, shredding, shredding.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, he was shredding Donald.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: And in terms of rock enrolled, the motherfucker was.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Shredding effortlessly, like like like like I would take a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: sip of a glass of water. He was shredding this
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: guitar like I've never seen a person do.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Well. He's one of that. Listen, I'm gonna say this.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Go Aheads, don't be Shress.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Andrew Watt M hmm are the two up close guitars
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: that I've seen in my life where I was like,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: holy shit, up close like that.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's on that level.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Well, I think Prince is the best ever to do it.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, No, no, I'm not saying he's Prince, but
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I think that I I think I Yes, I think
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: if you ask people amongst the best rock guitarists currently,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I think he's on on the list easily, easily. I've
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: never seen anything like it in my life. I wish
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I could do anything that well.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Right, if I was, if I could act that well.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think I act that well.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I don't. I know, I don't act that well. Shit, fuck,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: I know I don't act that well. No.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I think I'm a really good actor, and I think
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: i'm really some skills, and I think I'm a funny
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I think I'm a funny actor. But I don't think
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: that I'm on that I'm that good. No, he's like
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Joaquin Phoenix of actors on the.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Guitar Leo from me, He's Leo.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: He's a Leo Joaquin Phoenix guitarist he's Leo. You're as
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: good as Leo Donald.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Hell no, bro, Leo's the best in my eyes.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Bro, we got to hang with Harrison. He was funny.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: We got to Yeah, their best, the best action hero
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: in my eyes.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: All shrinking cast was there.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: That was cool.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I'm all right now, you know in your head next
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to her. I looked over and Donald was next to Harrison,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: both bopping their heads to the music. I was like,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: this guy's living his dream.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: I'm all right now, bro, I'm all right, I'm not
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I'm I can hang out with Harrison Ford and not
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: fucking shit myself.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're getting used to it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: I mean the first time there was a little shark
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: of a and a pebble of.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: First time you met him, you shouted a little bit.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: In my past, it was the oh ship, dude, keep
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: it together.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: But last night you didn't. But the other night you didn't.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Chart the other night I was I kept it together
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: and he held it together.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: To boozeise, you came in a little hot, and I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: was a little worried. But then you then you then
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: you hit the brakes.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I know my limit. Now there's it's
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: it's not it's not like it used to be where
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: I could drink and just be like I'm going to
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: just go lie down when I get drunk. Now I
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: get sick. So yeah, see you later to that.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Well, because you're so you don't go out much at all,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and so I when you first came in, you were
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: like throwing back drinks and I was like, rough row.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: But then you like I had two drinks the whole night.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: Bro.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: No, Well, I just watched you bang slam too right away,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and I was like rot row and that was our
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: walk home.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: No, and then that was it, and then and then
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: after that it was little tiny SIPs of yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Then you did good. Yeah, there was some like like
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: at any huge party, there were people that got ship faced.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: It was beautiful, though.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad that I'm not them, Like if we've
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: all been there, well at least I can say I
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: know Donald and I have m h. It's so I'm
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: so grateful to the universe. When it's like the next
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: day and everyone's telling the crazy stories about who is
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the most hammered and this crazy shit, they were saying
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: that it's not me.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not saying and then you.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I've been there and I don't do that anymore.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: And I really hated that part of my life.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: But uh, I'm so not that I hate it. It's
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: not that I hate it, and it's not that I'm sin.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of shame. No, well, no, it's
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: not a shame from when you said stupid because you
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: were drunk, I do.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Know, because it's you know, everybody said stupid shit and
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: when they're not drunk too. Look, there are a bunch
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: of sober motherfuckers talking and they say some of the
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: dumbest shit I've ever heard in my life. But I'm
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: not ashamed of it. It's the feeling of I beat
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: my body so bad at such a young age that
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, I'm sure it'll catch up to
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: me eventually. But I beat my body so bad at
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: a young age. Man in my twenties doing dumb shit, drinking.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: I still smoke weed, but drinking heavily every night, going
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: to work. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: don't know. I don't. I don't think my body's gonna
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: appreciate it. In my sixties. How about that.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: By the way, the party was so fun and then
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I woke up the next day, and I was tired,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: but I didn't feel horrible. So I was so proud
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of myself that I didn't drink like some people were drinking.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: You didn't feel a little dehydrated.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: No, I did. I had a little wine, but I waited.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: My trick was like, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna let
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: all these motherfuckers that are pounding tequila and fucking get drunk,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna have anything. I was drinking like water.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I think I got an espresso.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: An espresso.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Then around like eleven thirty when the band started rocking out,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I had like a glass of white wine or two
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that was perfect, and that was a chill. Yeah. And
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: so I was up late because I went back to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Andrews and sat around the fire pit and we had
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: some laughs. But I but I didn't. I definitely didn't
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: do what I used to do, which was fucking be
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: one of those people that just drank drinks way too much.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: The next day, hates myself the next day, is embarrassed
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: about some stupid shit. I said, I don't do that.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: No, you did very well. It was very nice to see.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Very excited about our guest.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Today.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It's Donald right it is.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I can't believe we got him.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he is a really a comedy icon legend genius,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and he's a very very very funny man. And we
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: we actually have just a weird connection. And then we
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: both went to the same theater camp that started us
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: both off, which I'm excited to talk to him about
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: a place called stage Door Manor.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: They made movies about that place, bro.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: They have the theater camp movie that that Ben Platt
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: recently made was a was inspired by that.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: But then there was one before called Camp.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was one with Anna Kendrick when she was
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a little kid, or at least when she was very young.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: There's been a couple, but none have done it justice.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: It was a very special place. Let's let let's count
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: in welcome.
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: That show we made about a bunch of don He said,
• 9:48
  Speaker 6: he's the stories Net.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: So yeah here, yeah, yes, living legend, John Cryer.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: That is a man, the myth John legend. John.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: You a professional set up over there?
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: Well, I am.
• 10:21
  Speaker 7: A professional in show business, yes, and this is what
• 10:25
  Speaker 7: I do. Uh No, it's well, it's sort of I
• 10:29
  Speaker 7: got a little light that I put on top of
• 10:31
  Speaker 7: this because you know this I gotta work this, John.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: We're so glad you're here.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: We we we we don't often get fancy guests like you,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and we're very honored that you're here.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: You know, you know what, We've had two guests. Let's
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: take it back, we've had two guests. You're our second guest.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Our first guest was Billy D Williams, and now it's you.
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: And I get grouped together all the time, as I'm
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: tired of it. You know, we're because we're both so
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: handsome and smooth, and we brought so much to black cinema.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: John, your contribution to black cinema, you can't even.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: You can't even talk about it. You talk about it.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: You were up, weren't you?
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: That?
• 11:21
  Speaker 7: I have never been not considered in the slightest for
• 11:25
  Speaker 7: any role in Star Wars Universe. Bothers me to know.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: You're speaking to the right guy. Donald Faison, he agrees
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with that sentiment.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: You and I should have been all over the Star
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Wars universe. Man, it should have been hours. It should
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: have been hours. There's no one that knows it like
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: we know it.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, John, I didn't know you were a mega fan
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: like Donald.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: I'm not.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: No Donald is, Yeah, Donald.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: His knowledge of Nerddom spans like he's he has a
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: very very uh vast knowledge of stars like his knowledge
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: is it's it's you know, Star Trek, it's it's amazing
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: lost in space.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Whereas you are just Star Wars focused mostly No I
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: got I.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Got a decent knowledge of all of that stuff too,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: But his is pretty is I have breads.
• 12:21
  Speaker 7: You have a specificity, and I have breads. That's why
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: we're better friends than you and Zach don't. That's why John,
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: That's why John, I don't have many friends.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Please don't take the only one I have.
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: That's what I'm This has all been an effort to
• 12:37
  Speaker 7: take the one friend you have left on. My whole
• 12:40
  Speaker 7: career leading up to this moment has just been an
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: effort to hurt you.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: You guys, we were very I was very bummed to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: hear about your show going away. I thought it was
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: very funny.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: You know who was more bummed? Me and Donald. See,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: because we're friends, we're closer.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, John, because you're you've you've
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: had such incredible success with half hour Comedy, and I
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: saw that the ratings for that show were so strong,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: So have you deduced why they didn't pick it up. Again,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I don't really understand why.
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: Well, you never You'll never know. It's it's always a
• 13:18
  Speaker 7: little bit of just you know, they didn't feel like
• 13:20
  Speaker 7: it for whatever reason. But in our case, they two things.
• 13:24
  Speaker 7: They they got the NBA. The NBA is coming to NBC,
• 13:27
  Speaker 7: which takes up a lot of time in the schedule,
• 13:31
  Speaker 7: so there's actually a lot less.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: Time that they have to fill.
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: But also we were sort of you end up competing
• 13:39
  Speaker 7: against the other shows for the for the half hour
• 13:42
  Speaker 7: slots that they have, and in the end, we were
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: ending up competing against George Lopez. And the Lopez Show
• 13:48
  Speaker 7: has been on for two seasons. Uh, and it is
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: produced by NBC for NBC.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's always a trick if they own it.
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And our show was produced by Lionsgate for NPC,
• 13:59
  Speaker 7: so they had a lot more incentive to keep the
• 14:02
  Speaker 7: Lopez Show on the air than they did for our show.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Got it?
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: And that that just you know, that's corporate stuff that happens.
• 14:09
  Speaker 7: The good news about that is that we can try
• 14:11
  Speaker 7: to sell at other places and we are you know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: it's it's again, it's an incredible long shot, and I
• 14:16
  Speaker 7: love the fans of the show, and and I loved
• 14:19
  Speaker 7: the show. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna go down
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: in every possible way to uh that that sounded that
• 14:26
  Speaker 7: came out wrong.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: You're gonna go down.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Every to get this show back on the air.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: I go.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I went to this party. I went to this really
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: dope party with a bunch of executives, with executives, with
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: freaking former executives, with people who are all about TV,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: and all I said, I fucking love your show. Oh
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: my god, you and John together, it's so fucking good.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: And then I have to say to him it got canceled.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: What Yes, I just had that moment like two days ago.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: It is like killing me.
• 15:01
  Speaker 7: Man.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: It's a hard business man. It's hard business because people,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: people outside of the business wouldn't know. I mean even
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I'm in the business, and I didn't know that that
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that that it came down to, like, Okay, they have
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: one slot and George Lopez has been on and they
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: own it and so then bam, you're done. It's such
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a it's it's it's it's cutthroat.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's tough.
• 15:19
  Speaker 7: I mean, on some level, my I'd really love for
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: my next show to be a streaming show because you
• 15:23
  Speaker 7: don't have to worry about time slots and you don't
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: have to you know. But but again, I'm so happy
• 15:29
  Speaker 7: for the experience. It was a it was a great experience.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 15:33
  Speaker 7: I loved working with Donald Donald is zach I did
• 15:37
  Speaker 7: you ever just sort of stand back in awe and
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: just go, Jesus, this guy can do anything.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: All the time. And in fact, you know, when we
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: make these T mobile ads recently, we you know, because
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: we haven't done scrubs a while, but when we're making
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the T mobile ads, we we just I just look
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: at him and I crack up and and and we're
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: still making shit up as we go and riffing ideas
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and everything he does makes me giggle. Yeah, no, it's
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and you guys, the joy of having him, you get
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the joy of having him in front of a live
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: audience where he really goes crazy because he really thrives
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: in front of that crowd.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, don't no, it's it's it's it's it's just stellar.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: It's unbelievable.
• 16:13
  Speaker 7: And and again, so and I'm happier you do that
• 16:15
  Speaker 7: because they love you. And I'm usually so freaked out
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: about the pages and pages of lines that I'm trying
• 16:22
  Speaker 7: to remember that.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: I'm like, they gave you. Have fun with them because
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: I can't pay attention.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: Dude, Now, was this by design? Was this what you
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: had asked for? Did you any quite ask you know
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: what I mean? Every scene it seemed like you had
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: pages and pages of descriptional dialogue.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: That was not by design at all.
• 16:48
  Speaker 7: No, we uh no, I mean, and you remember in
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: the pilot we had all the stuff that we were
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: saying to the camera and stuff, but that was quick, fun,
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: snappy dialogue. You know, I don't know why Mike, Michael
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: Maalley was our our showrunner on an extended family.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: And Mike is Mike has the He's He's Irish in
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: the best possible way.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: He does.
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: He has that wonderful gift for language and and uses it,
• 17:12
  Speaker 7: deploys it. If you've had a phone call with Mike,
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: you've had a really enjoyable half hour, even if it
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: was supposed to be five minutes.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Got a g got a gift for gat He does
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: have a gift.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: And and he does that to the characters. And he
• 17:26
  Speaker 7: decided that my character was the one, I think who
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: would speak for him uh, as much as possible. So so, Zach,
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: I don't know how many episodes you saw the show,
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: but but there were, there were. There was an episode
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: where I had a three page monologue in a in
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: a multi cameras.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I've never seen that. And I've never seen that in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a multi cameracer.
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: Nobody does that, and uh uh I you know, And
• 17:47
  Speaker 7: and I gave him, I gave him shit about it,
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: and he said, dude, you know they're they're paying you enough.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: For you to for you to learn this. Okay, fine,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: I'll do it.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Do you miss?
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I know you started the theater, right, yes?
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Do you miss?
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I mean?
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: First of all, we got to go way back because
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you and I have a connection to a very special place.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I was telling the audience briefly became before you came on.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: You went to stage Norm Manor, right, Yes? Yes, how
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: many change in my life? How many me too? How
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: many summers did you go?
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: I went for four summers from when I was when
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: I turned fourteen to when I turned seventeen, which, yeah, stage.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: George Manor doesn't have a Shakespeare like didn't you do Shakespeare?
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: No, it's see musical theater heavy. There is there are
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: some kids that do just straight plays, but for the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: most part it's focused on musical theater. Yeah, and John,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know what your experience was like, but I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: never felt like I belonged anywhere. I felt just not
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: in I don't know, I couldn't find my people. And
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that bus led out under that camp in upstate New
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: York and it was all about theater people and it
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: changed my life. It was like utopia.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I had the exact same situation where I.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: I sort of grew up backstage.
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: My parents were performers, so I had a lot of familiarity,
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: and you know, when you hang out backstage, it seems
• 19:05
  Speaker 7: like this incredible, joyful, nutty environment, you know, and you go,
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: how do people work here?
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: This is amazing?
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: When I was like twelve, I did a school play
• 19:15
  Speaker 7: or something, and then a friend of mine was going
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: to Stage dorm Manner and I said, there's a camp
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: where they teach this.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: This is amazing. And I had heard for years the
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: bus ride up to.
• 19:25
  Speaker 7: Stage dorm Manor is legendary because it's where they they
• 19:29
  Speaker 7: where all the old kids and the nubes just do
• 19:33
  Speaker 7: this crazy musical theater sing along for about three hours.
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: That is so intense that it that it has become legend,
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: because if you don't know, if you're not, if you
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: haven't memorized songs that were cut from dream Girls out
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: of Town, then you are toast on this bus ride.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Did you take the bus ride?
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: I never took it. My mom drove me so but
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: I just heard about it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I think I took the bus but didn't know the words.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: But I was very I was very shy, and I
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: was a very shy kid. So at first I was
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: just staring in awe at that this was, that this
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: place existed, because I just didn't. I was like you,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I was like, I can't believe. My dad used to
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: do community theater and he'd take me in to see Broadway,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and I just couldn't believe, Like, this is a people
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: do this for a living, this is a job you
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: can have.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I was just so go on.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: What was your experience like when you got to camp?
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I was lucky.
• 20:28
  Speaker 7: I you know, my first day, this guy, this kid
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: came up to me, who was this really ridiculous human being.
• 20:35
  Speaker 7: He used to do this thing where his name was David,
• 20:37
  Speaker 7: David Siegel and he now goes by David Quinnie had
• 20:40
  Speaker 7: to change his I know, I know, of course, you
• 20:42
  Speaker 7: know Daquin and his big thing was he'd walk around
• 20:45
  Speaker 7: shirtless and he was a little slightly overweight at the time,
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: so he would push his his breasts together and have
• 20:52
  Speaker 7: them sing songs. And he was beloved for this and
• 20:56
  Speaker 7: for many other reasons. I went up there because an
• 20:59
  Speaker 7: old friend of mine had told me about the camp
• 21:01
  Speaker 7: and he was there. But he, the other friend, was
• 21:04
  Speaker 7: just there because there were so many girls there, because
• 21:06
  Speaker 7: it was the girls to boys ratio was ridiculous.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: So if you especially when you factor in being a heterosexual,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: because there were a lot of young boys who already
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: knew that they were gay. And so if you if
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you were straight and you were there, you were kind
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of like Phonsie.
• 21:21
  Speaker 7: Yes, exactly, you were instant Phonsie. That is the perfect town.
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: You were instant Phronsie. And so you would go from
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: being the dorkiest goofball at your.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: School to instant Phonsi.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: The magic by the way, if this was a place
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: where this was a place where forget lacrosse and football,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: if you could sing and turn a joke, you were
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the coolest.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no, in fact, if you did the volleyball
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: I was like, what are you doing here?
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: They wanted nothing to.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Do with you, you know.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: So it was I told this, I think on the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: podcast before when my father when I told my father
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I was going. And don't get me wrong, he was
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: very supportive of theater. But he read about the camp
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: up and he's like, well, I guess you don't need
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to bring a mint.
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: Well, it was funny because we did have there was
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: a ah, you know, there was a camp next door
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: and that was the the camp for weight uh management
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: next door uh and and we did have occasionally have
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: softball games with them, uh and all of our their
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: campers would play our counselors because none of our actual
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: campers could play. So it's so embarrassing, and we would
• 22:34
  Speaker 7: just get hammered. We would just get absolutely hammered in
• 22:38
  Speaker 7: the softball games, you know. And it was very meatballs.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: If you call that movie.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: We've discussed this it like, wait me, Ted John, was
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it there? Did you get scouted there? How did you say?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Way then in just starting to become a professional actor.
• 23:03
  Speaker 7: No, that was still like your generation of stage dorians,
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: UH was a little bit later than mine. And that
• 23:10
  Speaker 7: was when scouts started coming up. The Scouts didn't really
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: come up yet at that point. No, my my generation
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: was the first to do the Our Time Cabaret. Now,
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: just so you understand this, to people who are not
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: familiar with.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Planing to our audience, who would have no when I
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: think about what this is, they would have no idea
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: what the hell is?
• 23:30
  Speaker 7: Our Time Cabaret was a select group of students, so
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: they would take they would take the elite, the creme
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: de la creme of the camp.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 23:38
  Speaker 7: They would teach us some musical theater numbers that were
• 23:41
  Speaker 7: incredibly pretentious for eleven year olds to be doing and
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: inappropriate frankly some of them, and then we would go
• 23:50
  Speaker 7: perform them at at local at the Pines and at Kutcher's,
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: at all the local borsch Belt hotels resorts, they have
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: resort hotels with huge theaters Terry Lodge exactly exactly. But yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 7: so what what was funny about it was the the
• 24:11
  Speaker 7: you know, it would be the elite of the elite
• 24:14
  Speaker 7: of the camp and you wanted to be a part.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Of the Our Time cab It was like making varsity
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: for those of you the sports. Yes, yes, thank you,
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: for translating to normal people.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, normal non theater geeks.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: So there was all this drama about our time caver.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: You know, it's everybody. Everybody was always jockeying to get
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: into it.
• 24:32
  Speaker 7: But the funny thing was when you actually did go
• 24:34
  Speaker 7: to perform a most of these resorts had been there
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: for a long time and were so long past their
• 24:39
  Speaker 7: heyday that the audiences were literally.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: On life support. Would we pulled up at one point
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: to the pines and there's literally an ambulance.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: You know, giveing it clear in the driveway as we're
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: pulling up.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I remember, I remember, I remember reading downstage at the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: end of a number like out of breadth, like you know,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: with my arms out wide, and a woman leans in.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: No one in the audience was under eighty, and she goes,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you're doing a wonderful job.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, oh god.
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: And it was so funny because you know, again this
• 25:17
  Speaker 7: was so sought after, but when you actually were performing,
• 25:20
  Speaker 7: you were performing for very very elderly people in sparse audiences,
• 25:25
  Speaker 7: you know, because you know, again these hotels were kind
• 25:27
  Speaker 7: of past their their prime.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Well, and also some of the people were at Bingo.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, actually the.
• 25:33
  Speaker 7: First time it was great because the very first time
• 25:36
  Speaker 7: we were sort of an experimental program. The first time
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: we did you know, the first time they invited us
• 25:40
  Speaker 7: to the Pines, they didn't have us perform in their
• 25:42
  Speaker 7: very large theater.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: They had us perform in the bar.
• 25:46
  Speaker 7: Now, you have not lived until you're huffing and puffing
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: and putting out your you know, gotta dance. And it's
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: bar patrons who are who aren't even facing you, they're
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: facing the bar, and so they every now and then
• 26:00
  Speaker 7: they'll just turn around.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Like and the outfit, by the way, was the outfit
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: was tuxedos. I don't know.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: It was black and white.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: It was black and white and like a red cumber bun.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, hold on, now, did you have to provide said tuxedo.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you had to bring a tux.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: So you had to bring a tuxedo just in case
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: in the hoods.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Yet a lot of kids brought their tuxedo, didn't make
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: varsity and brought it home.
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: So the crazy thing is, I mean, our time has
• 26:33
  Speaker 7: has remained, it's still it's still they still do they
• 26:35
  Speaker 7: still do they still do it?
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: It is still highly sought after, But do they still
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: do it at the Pines?
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: I know the pines doesn't exist any cutchers.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I think they. I think they still do it now.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: There was a documentary made about this camp. You can
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I forgot what the doc is called. Joell, maybe look
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that up for me. And then and then, I don't
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: know if you saw Ben Platt's movie John, which was
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I did inspired by Yeah.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: Which was great. It was really fun and wonderful.
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: And actually, you know, obviously it has changed since I
• 27:03
  Speaker 7: went there back in you know, nineteen seventy nine or eighty,
• 27:08
  Speaker 7: and obviously the new stuff going on is equally wild
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: and bonkers. No, there was actually another movie called Camp
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: that was done by Kendrick. Yes, Anna Kendrick. It was
• 27:20
  Speaker 7: one of her first movies.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: But those that Camp was actually made by the people
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: who created the Camp too though, wasn't it enough?
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: They went there.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: There's people that went there, got it, got it? Yeah,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: And it was shot there, and there's just and there's
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: my favorite moment in the in the camp.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Sorry, sorry to interview. Joel's telling me that the name
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of the doc is actually called Stage Door. Okay, so
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: it's easy to find. But so there's been there's been
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: three films. There's the Ben Platt recent one which is
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a spoof but inspired by Then there's one called Camp
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: with the Hanna Kendrick, and then there's a dock called
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: stage Door. I recommend you check them out. I don't
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of them actually fully captured my experience,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: although they're all they're all entertaining.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: But yes, well, what how did what? What did you
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: come away with?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Well, most importantly I came away with just knowing that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I had that I knew what I wanted to do
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: with my life. And and also I wasn't an era
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: where scouts started to come up, and so I had
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a manager. You probably remember Gene Fox.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, I absolutely heard of Gene Fox.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: And so back in the day, she was a Because
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of friends in common, like Josh
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Charles and and others who went there high. Yeah, so
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Josh was up there and Josh Gott did Poet Society
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I think around that time. So he was one of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: those people that was like, oh my god, like, look
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: what it can happen if if things line up for
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: you at stage Door. That's what happened to me is
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I started going auditions as a kid in New York
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: City at like you know, fourteen, I started to actually
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: go on real auditions. When did you How did you
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: start going on auditions?
• 28:55
  Speaker 7: I started going on auditions. You see, this is where
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: nepotism comes in. This is where we start having the nepotism.
• 29:04
  Speaker 7: I am sort of a nepo baby in that, like
• 29:07
  Speaker 7: I got I got a break. I mean, I had
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: been studying at a sage or manner over the summers
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: and during the winters, I worked as an usher at
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: a theater called Equity Library.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: Theater, which was on one hundred and third Street in
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Riverside Drive, and.
• 29:19
  Speaker 7: So I saw a million shows and I was really
• 29:22
  Speaker 7: steeped in the whole thing. But I didn't get like
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: an actual chance to audition until my mom and I
• 29:28
  Speaker 7: were walking down the street and we ran into an
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: actor named Peter Ritra who was an understudy in Torch
• 29:32
  Speaker 7: Song Trilogy, and he said, Hey, have you auditioned for
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: Torch Song Trilogy? Because there was a young actor named
• 29:40
  Speaker 7: Matthew Brodrick who had been who had who had just
• 29:44
  Speaker 7: looked the World on Fire because he was so great
• 29:45
  Speaker 7: in Torch Song Trilogy and they needed somebody to replace him.
• 29:49
  Speaker 7: And I was like, sure, I'd love to audition and
• 29:53
  Speaker 7: a friend of my mom's who was a manager. He
• 29:56
  Speaker 7: actually was a lighting designer, but he decided he wanted
• 29:59
  Speaker 7: to try to be a managed and he said, well,
• 30:01
  Speaker 7: I can get you in another audition. Let's get you
• 30:04
  Speaker 7: an audition for Brighton Beach Memoirs, which Matthew Broderick was
• 30:06
  Speaker 7: also in. And I auditioned for both of them in
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: the course of two days and out of and mostly
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: because I resembled him. I think I got both of
• 30:15
  Speaker 7: them on the same day. My god, wow, which was nuts,
• 30:18
  Speaker 7: But I honestly believe it had a lot to do
• 30:20
  Speaker 7: with that.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: I just resembled him so strongly.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Uh would even have to change minimizing it.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Dude.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Matthew Broderick at that era was the guy on the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I mean I saw all of those Neil Simon plays
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: with my father, and he was as you.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: Saw Matthew Broderick on Broadway.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I saw Matthew Broderick do those Neil Simon plays that
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: were Brighton Beach Memoirs, blocks he blues Roadway. This was
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: before he became a giant movie star. He was the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Broadway young Jewish. I don't know if he's Jewish, but
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: that's sort of he's Jewish, Jewish, young character Jewish. He
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: was here was the Leo DiCaprio of Neil Simon broad
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: But he was amazing.
• 31:03
  Speaker 7: I mean, Brighton Beach Memoirs is a as a it's
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: a really long show. I mean it's like two and
• 31:07
  Speaker 7: a half hours, and it was mostly him. It's mostly
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: told from his point of view with the he has
• 31:12
  Speaker 7: these enormous monologues and uh and and he was just
• 31:16
  Speaker 7: just incredible and uh, you know. So that was my
• 31:19
  Speaker 7: My first job was being his understudy in Brighton Beach.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: And you got to go on no, well, yes, I
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: got I got fired.
• 31:29
  Speaker 7: I was I was his understudy for six weeks and
• 31:33
  Speaker 7: understudy rehearsals.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: I don't have you have you guys understudy stuff.
• 31:38
  Speaker 7: It's it's a it's a it's a different skill because
• 31:41
  Speaker 7: you're you're trying to sort of take the person's place
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: but not you know, and make it your own, but
• 31:45
  Speaker 7: also do what the other people need to get from
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: that they get from the other guy, you know.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: So it's a little bit tricky. In my case.
• 31:54
  Speaker 7: They only rehearsed understudies twice a week. You only got
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: two days of rehearsal. So after six weeks, I was
• 32:02
  Speaker 7: still struggling because I'd only had twelve days of rehearsal.
• 32:05
  Speaker 7: It was huge part, huge part, and you didn't rehearse
• 32:09
  Speaker 7: with the main guys. You rehearse with the other understudies
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: who are sometimes doubling people, so they you know, you know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: they were you know, they would sometimes play two parts
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: or whatever. And so basically I, you know, after six weeks,
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: Matthew won the Tony for Best Actor, and I remember,
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: you know, hearing his name get announced and going, oh shit,
• 32:32
  Speaker 7: because now I was understudying a guy who like when
• 32:35
  Speaker 7: you see when whenever you go see a show and
• 32:38
  Speaker 7: you open your program and there's a blow in card
• 32:41
  Speaker 7: saying tonight the role of better but will be played
• 32:43
  Speaker 7: by blah blah blah blah, you go, oh if the
• 32:47
  Speaker 7: person that is being replaced just won the freaking Tony.
• 32:51
  Speaker 7: So I was not looking forward to that. And we
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: had my next rehearsal with Gene Sacks, the director, and
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: I had to yell line a couple of times because
• 33:00
  Speaker 7: it's an enormous part.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: It's like flipping Hamlet.
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: And the next day I get a call from my manager,
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: the guy who used to be a Lightning designer. And
• 33:07
  Speaker 7: he said, hey, instead of going to rehearsal, why don't
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: you come down to my office. And I was like, uh,
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: I have to be at rehearsal. And he said, you know,
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: you don't, Just get down here and I'll you know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 7: we'll we'll talk about it ice cream exactly. And I
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: came in and he was crying and he said, I
• 33:25
  Speaker 7: don't know how to tell you this, but they they
• 33:26
  Speaker 7: fired you, and and but crazy, crazy, crazy coincidence though,
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: that day Fisher Stevens gave them notice on Torch Song
• 33:36
  Speaker 7: that he had to leave Torch Song Trilogy.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: At that point.
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: And so I get my manager got a call saying, hey,
• 33:43
  Speaker 7: is John Crier available to take over in Torch Song?
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: Oh my god.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Wow, So so that you didn't you didn't even get
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: one day to be sad?
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: I know, I got. I managed to be sad. I
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: managed to be sad that day.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, well that's a
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: blow to your ego, right, yeah, of.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Course, what did you What did you take from that?
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: You think?
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, because that's fucking humbling as hell when you're
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: especially I mean for anyone, but especially when you're beginning.
• 34:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I took from it that that I did not
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: prepare well enough, which I really I didn't. I really
• 34:14
  Speaker 7: felt like I should have. I could have spent a
• 34:16
  Speaker 7: lot more time working on it, and I should have
• 34:20
  Speaker 7: for for that, for that run in front of the director,
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: there's no excuse for me to be yell in line ever, frankly,
• 34:27
  Speaker 7: that that's that can't happen on the night I can't
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: be you know, I got to be ready and I wasn't.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Uh and and so you know that's fair, that's fair
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: to fire me for that.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna do commercial break because we do
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: that here, and when we come back, we want to
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: talk about Pretty in Pink, one of Donald Faison's favorite films.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Dude, it's one of the things that changed my life.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: All Right, we'll be right back.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: That was amazing.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Donald, tell John how much Pretty in Pink means to you.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: You probably told him, but.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Told him tell them listen. Okay, So, as a kid,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I started going to private schools, and in private schools,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: you know, as a black dude in freaking private schools,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: you get you know, not really you know, you're not
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: necessarily the most popular kid. In school, you know what
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: I mean. And I needed an identity, you know what
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, because all of the identities that I had
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: before that worked in you know, wherever I was, it
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: wasn't working. And I saw pretty in pink, and I
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: saw Ducky and I was like, that's my fucking identity,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: So how did you adopt it? Well? Then at the
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: same time, a different world was coming on too, and
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: Dwayne Went and Ducky were kind of like the same
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: fucking character, you know what I mean, but just one
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: was black and one was white, you know what I mean.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: But both were having a hard time fitting in and
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: couldn't really figure out you know. You know, they knew
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: they loved one person, though they knew they had one
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: person that they could love and uh and so. And
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: for me, it was the arts, you know what I mean.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be an actor so bad and it
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: was to be around all of these fucking great you know.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Macaulay Culkin went to my school. Holly Marie Comb, who
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: was acting at the time, was at the school. Jerry O'Connell,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: who was the fact kid from Stand By Me, he
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: was at the school. K Malcolm Jamal Warner tippus. But
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: all these motherfuckers were at the school, right and I'm like,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I got to fit in somehow. And Ducky John was
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: the fucker that I mean, the man was the guy.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a lot of people, i mean, Donald's
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: being totally genuine. I'm sure there's a lot of kids,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: young men who who's sort of felt like they saw
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: themselves in that card. Did you have you heard that?
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure throughout your.
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: Own oh yeah, oh yeah, and it and it spans
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: the spectrum. I mean there's a lot of a lot
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: of lot of gay kids have come up to me saying, yeah,
• 37:09
  Speaker 7: that that's you know, I just assumed Ducky was gay,
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: And mostly it's somebody who has this weird, fun misplaced courage.
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 37:17
  Speaker 7: He he had this, you know, he sort of lived
• 37:20
  Speaker 7: out loud, even if you know the world didn't didn't
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: give him that respect, you know, And I think that's
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: what people gravitate to. The character that was he was
• 37:29
  Speaker 7: really the person I wanted to be in high school.
• 37:32
  Speaker 7: I was not brave enough to be Ducky in high school.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: I was not in any you know.
• 37:37
  Speaker 7: I remember once it was freezing cold, I mean New
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: York gets bitterly cold, and I used to have to
• 37:43
  Speaker 7: walk across the projects to get to the C C
• 37:46
  Speaker 7: line on the train because I used to go to
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: Bronx High School of Science and and I remember it
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: was freezing cold, and I had some leg warmers that
• 37:54
  Speaker 7: I had had from from a dance class, so I
• 37:57
  Speaker 7: put on my leg warmers because damn it, my legs
• 37:59
  Speaker 7: were freezing. I got to school with my leg warmers
• 38:01
  Speaker 7: on and they never they for for three years. I
• 38:07
  Speaker 7: was leg warmers to everybody, and so I dressed nondescript
• 38:12
  Speaker 7: for the rest of my time at that school. And
• 38:16
  Speaker 7: he was He was who I wanted to be, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 7: I think that resonated so to have the courage.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I remember there was a one that I
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: knew of, one out gay kid in my high school.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: And I think back to the incredible courage. I mean
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: this was this was ninety three to ninety seven, and
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: it was so must have been so hard for him.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: But I think back now when I go, gosh, the
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: courage that this kid had. Yeah, and that's that's kind
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: of reminding me what you're what you're talking about, just
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: being being unabashedly himself.
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: Yeah, because because the seventies and eighties were an interesting
• 38:52
  Speaker 7: period because you'd had Stonewall, so the gay community was
• 38:55
  Speaker 7: coming out and proud of it, and it was yeah,
• 38:59
  Speaker 7: and it was a big part of culture, but there
• 39:01
  Speaker 7: was still like you could see Revenge of the Nerds
• 39:03
  Speaker 7: where they clearly wanted you to to to empathize with
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: this gay character, but they're super duper making fun of
• 39:09
  Speaker 7: them at the same time, you know, and we and
• 39:12
  Speaker 7: I remember, you know, it was you know, because I
• 39:16
  Speaker 7: was in the theater, everybody you know, that was that
• 39:19
  Speaker 7: was the go to epithet when people were trying to
• 39:22
  Speaker 7: insult me. Was you know, there's some homophobic slur, you know, uh,
• 39:27
  Speaker 7: and and we and but but part of but because
• 39:30
  Speaker 7: we were in the theater, we kind of felt we
• 39:31
  Speaker 7: were of.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: Gay culture because that's gay culture is such a big
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: deal in the theater.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: By the way, I wanted to you probably have this
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: in common with me too, is that like all the
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: young people that were my mentors were all or predominantly
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: gay men, whether they be the teachers at the camp
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: or the counselors, or or older kids at the camp,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: or then you get into theater and there was so
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: so many people Michael Larson. Of course.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you grew up in New York or that
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: in the theater community, from teachers to students to best
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: friends like all this this was what you especially in
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: New York, especially in Midtown Manhattan where I grew up.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: It this was it was a part of the community
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: as well. Yeah, but you know you better not be
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: one of them.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I know it was. It retain that stigma.
• 40:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and guys, guys who weren't gay, you know, still
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: often felt the need to prove that they weren't, you know,
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: And so it was so it was an odd period
• 40:33
  Speaker 7: because I remember, you know, we would we would sort
• 40:36
  Speaker 7: of make fun of the homophobic slurs, but also you know,
• 40:40
  Speaker 7: we're we're still using them, you know. So America had
• 40:43
  Speaker 7: had had a lot of learning to do.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: So what was that like, John, when you when that
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: movie became such a hit for you, I mean, how
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: did your life change in day to day?
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: For me, it was interesting because I didn't perceive that
• 40:58
  Speaker 7: I would be super duper famous. Actually, the moment I
• 41:03
  Speaker 7: noticed that I sort of had a tiger by the
• 41:05
  Speaker 7: tail was I went to see The Breakfast Club, which
• 41:07
  Speaker 7: was which we had not started shooting pretty in pink.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: But The Breakfast Club came out and I went to
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: see it, and it was a packed.
• 41:14
  Speaker 7: Audience, and at the end, the audience just erupted in
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: this ovation and I thought, oh my gosh, I guess
• 41:23
  Speaker 7: I'm in the I'm in the next one of these things,
• 41:26
  Speaker 7: you know, And it was like no pressure.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you closed the movie so properly too, though,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: if we could get to.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: It, well, but so so I didn't.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I did love.
• 41:40
  Speaker 7: I had always been like my sister. I had always
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: admired my sister's social skills, Like she could go out
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: to a club and she knew how to get in,
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: she knew the bouncer, she talked to people.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: She you know, she had a real nightlife.
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: And I always thought, oh wow, it must be amazing
• 41:54
  Speaker 7: to have like a nightlife, have like a social life
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: that way. And so once the movie came out, I
• 41:58
  Speaker 7: was like, I can get into clubs finally, you know,
• 42:02
  Speaker 7: uh and uh. And I did like that, and I
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: did like feeling like I had a place in the world,
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: like I wasn't just like that guy in the you know,
• 42:10
  Speaker 7: because invariably you would go with a bunch of friends
• 42:12
  Speaker 7: to a club and they'd say, Okay, you could come.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: In, you can come in, but not you, and that
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: would be a big finger as me.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: And it's funny to say that because I kind of
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I kind of had a similar experience with Donald. I
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: didn't know anything about going to a nightclub or getting
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: into a nightclub. And Donald, you know, by the time
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: we did Scrubs was was dialed in and new people.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And then he brought me and I was.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Like a whole new world, don't you eyes.
• 42:42
  Speaker 7: And I did like that, you know, women were into
• 42:45
  Speaker 7: me out of nowhere, you know, which was kind of fun.
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: I remember I met this.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: One, this woman named Dawn. She worked at a casino.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: She was the baccarat dealer. But she talked really slowly.
• 43:00
  Speaker 7: And she's beautiful, and I remember I was like, oh,
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: I got a shot with Dawn and it did not
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: work out. I do remember liking that women felt they
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: knew me right away, that I had an entree with women.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: Believe me, I blew it. I blew it anyway, I wasn't.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: I still you know, it didn't didn't make me particularly
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: good at the dating thing, but but I I you know,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: I did appreciate that socially. It made me feel a
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: lot more comfortable.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: I'll never forget that feeling where the literally I had
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: been in movies before. I guess not a lot of
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: people had seen them. But I remember when Clueless came
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: out the week before, I was at this club and
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: it was called Essos. I'll never forget this, and I
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: tried to dance with this girl. I was like, you
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: want to dance and she was like, no, it turns
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: her back in everything. Oh two weeks later, I'm back
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: at Essos, Clueless has come out. Same girl comes up
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: to me, Now you want to dance, and I remember
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: being like, this is your chance to be like no,
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: but I thought she was so hot and I was like,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, let's dance. I was like, I wanted it
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: with changed. I remember thinking, this is how naive I was.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: I wanted it would change. It must be, you know,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: And it was. It was the clueless.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Do you remember when Donald Donald and I were at
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the club once And this was early on, and this
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: was in the era of I mean, I'm saying this
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: so nerdily, and this is in the era because I
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: don't go to night clubs anymore, but women were backing
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: their things up, right, Donald, Yes, so it was it
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: was an era where the woman would kind of like
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: back her booty up, and like, I don't know, I
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: haven't been to a club. I don't know, Joelle. Do
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: you know if people are still backing their things up?
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: They definitely are, Zach, they are, they're backing.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Joel, thank you.
• 44:56
  Speaker 7: I back up my desktop computer, That's what I back
• 44:58
  Speaker 7: up because I have good habits.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: We haven't been to the club in a while. I
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: just didn't know if people were still backing their things up.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: Definitely, they're, they're they're they're popping.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: It and okay, all right, So this is what happened
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: to me, Joelle. The women are coming up to me
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: and they're backing their things up to my to my
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: groin area, and I don't know what to do. And
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: I and I look over to Donald, like how do
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: you handle this?
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: What's this? This is legit, this is legit, this is real,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: this is legit.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: And I looked over to Donald and he was like
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: my coach. He was like my cool guy coach. Because
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Donald was super cool at the club.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: You can imagine at this point, clueless is like years
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: I had done remember the Titans. By this point, I'd done.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: I was well in effect mode.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: At this point, Donald was dialed in at the club
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: and knew how to handle when women back their things up.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: So I said what do I do? And he said,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: you got to swing with it.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: They said, you gotta ride it, buddy, you gotta ride.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: You need this gesture where like you like just gently
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: hold the hips and then you just ride with it.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I can't believe. But then and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: then and then and then like cut, cut, cut, till
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: like an hour later. He looks over and I'm like like,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I look, I'm doing it.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: I'm doing it.
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: Yo.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: Now Yo, I'll never forget. I'll never forget this though.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: Flash forward about six seven years into the game. We're
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: out and about I think we're at Sundance or some
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: ship like that, and he's dating a girl at the
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: time and she's backing a thing up on him and
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: he looks over at me and he's doing this thing
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: he's riding, and his face that he made is like, yeah,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: you remember where we started.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: The student has become the master.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, Donald taught me how to just ride it. Just wow,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: that's funny. Yeah, So John, I wanted to ask you too,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: because you've had, like Donald and I like so many,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Like every actor, you've had some you've had ups and downs,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: You've had, you know, shows that didn't go and then
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: of course we'll get to the fact that you've then
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: got one of the biggest sitcoms of all time, Two
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: and a half Men. You know, I'm sure we have
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of I know we have a lot of
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: actors and people in the business who listen. What is
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: your advice or anything, any thoughts you have on how
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: to ride that wave of because Donald and I have
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: experienced it some some some years everything's on some years
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: everything's on fire, and some years you're like, God, I
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: fucking suck, and then all of a sudden you get
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: two and a half Men, and your life changes forever.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, what I try to do is enjoy how stupid
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: the business is and how unfair it is, because it's ridiculous.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: You and I know we've all been there.
• 47:54
  Speaker 7: You know, we've seen you know, there was people in
• 47:57
  Speaker 7: stage where people in other you know places that I've
• 48:01
  Speaker 7: been where you just go, oh my god, that person
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: is a monstrous talent. If this business was fair in
• 48:06
  Speaker 7: any way, this person would be Daniel Da Lewis, you know,
• 48:11
  Speaker 7: and and then it just doesn't happen for some reason,
• 48:13
  Speaker 7: you know, and you're like, aw I you know, so
• 48:16
  Speaker 7: I try to enjoy how entertaining and dumb the business is.
• 48:20
  Speaker 7: I do love connecting with audiences, and I try to
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: remember that that's that's the payoff is is that you
• 48:27
  Speaker 7: get these opportunities to connect with audiences. And when you
• 48:30
  Speaker 7: get in a hit, it's just getting more people to
• 48:34
  Speaker 7: connect with, you know. And then you got to you
• 48:36
  Speaker 7: got to treat that with some respect. Like when people
• 48:38
  Speaker 7: come up to you in the supermarket, you know, this
• 48:40
  Speaker 7: is somebody who had a connection with you and felt
• 48:43
  Speaker 7: like they and you know that there that your work
• 48:45
  Speaker 7: touched them, and and you know what, respect that and
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: and and be grateful, you know. So so I I
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: try to come at everything with gratitude and and yeah,
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: you know, I had been when when Two and a
• 48:57
  Speaker 7: half Men came up, I had been through three years
• 49:00
  Speaker 7: of getting.
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: A week of work. I had had two weeks of work.
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: I did an episode of the Practice, and I think
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: I did an episode of Becker. You remember Becker, the
• 49:08
  Speaker 7: ted dance and show. So in three years, I did
• 49:12
  Speaker 7: two weeks of work total, and I and I because
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: I had done I did the famous teddy Z, which
• 49:18
  Speaker 7: was a show for CBS, which tanked after half a season.
• 49:21
  Speaker 7: I did a show called Partners for Fox, which lasted
• 49:24
  Speaker 7: a whole season and then tanked. And then I did
• 49:29
  Speaker 7: a thing called Getting Personal for Fox. Uh and and
• 49:32
  Speaker 7: that one tanked after a season. So I got known
• 49:34
  Speaker 7: as the guy who you know had his shot. But
• 49:37
  Speaker 7: but that nobody so frustrated saying do you get like
• 49:40
  Speaker 7: I do, and go, oh, I've lost it?
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I suck?
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: What am I doing? Yes?
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: And I and and you start to go, wow, I
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: have no real skills. What can I do? Can I teach?
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: You know?
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: Maybe I can know?
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: What?
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: What can I you know what? Really, I'm I got
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: to look at what where am I going to go
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: from here?
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: You know?
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: And that happened.
• 49:58
  Speaker 7: But I did an interesting thing that I that uh
• 50:02
  Speaker 7: remember there. It doesn't exist as much anymore. But there
• 50:06
  Speaker 7: was pilot season where there was just this onslaught of
• 50:09
  Speaker 7: projects and uh, and everybody was auditioning for the same stuff,
• 50:13
  Speaker 7: and you know, people were dropping right and left. You know,
• 50:15
  Speaker 7: oh he got that show, Oh he got or she
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: got that show. You know and you're and it was
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: just like a stampede. It was a stampede of actors
• 50:21
  Speaker 7: and jobs and agents and it was madness. And one
• 50:24
  Speaker 7: year I decided, after three years of you know, almost
• 50:28
  Speaker 7: no work, and it was really starting to hit me financially,
• 50:31
  Speaker 7: I decided that I would audition for everything. I was
• 50:35
  Speaker 7: auditioning for everything, whether I was right for it, whether
• 50:38
  Speaker 7: I wasn't right for it, I just said, I got
• 50:40
  Speaker 7: to get in the room with people and show them
• 50:42
  Speaker 7: I can do this and have fun with it. And
• 50:45
  Speaker 7: I auditioned, and that particular pilot season it was crazy.
• 50:50
  Speaker 7: I auditioned for like this not good science fiction show,
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: got offered a small part in it, turned it down,
• 50:58
  Speaker 7: got got offered another thing wildly inappropriate for me, but
• 51:03
  Speaker 7: got offered it, turned it down. And I and what
• 51:05
  Speaker 7: I did was I ended up getting nine offers my
• 51:09
  Speaker 7: Violet season that I just kept turning down, and the
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: last two were Two and a half Men and Battlestar Galactica.
• 51:19
  Speaker 8: Oh my gosh came a huge show which became a
• 51:22
  Speaker 8: huge hits both yes, one huge like get the fuck
• 51:26
  Speaker 8: out of here hit, like yeah shit hit, then another
• 51:29
  Speaker 8: one in its own right Man oh no, Battle Fi is.
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: One of the best science fiction television series in the
• 51:36
  Speaker 7: history of television.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: But what I love about so you did, what do
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: you think when you look back shifted because all of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: a sudden you've got nine offers.
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well what it did. What it was was I
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: started small.
• 51:47
  Speaker 7: I I just started like it was it was blood
• 51:51
  Speaker 7: in the water, because there's there's nothing sexier that they
• 51:55
  Speaker 7: can hear.
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: Then no, once you say no I don't want that,
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: they want you even more.
• 52:01
  Speaker 7: And so when I did, when there was that that
• 52:04
  Speaker 7: first little part that I said no to, They're like
• 52:06
  Speaker 7: what and they wanted to They wanted to reboot Courtship
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: of Eddie's Father, and I was like, I was like, Nope,
• 52:11
  Speaker 7: that's not for me. Well partly because the script wasn't
• 52:14
  Speaker 7: wasn't there. But I turned that down and I I
• 52:17
  Speaker 7: you know, and and there was just you know, it
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: made people excited about me again because.
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: I was turning things down and desperate.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: Bro. Yes, I didn't seem desperate.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I was desperate.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: I just didn't seem like it.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: It has so much ado with your mindset. I mean,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: I know that's that sounds obvious, but I I I
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: came out. Donald and I owned did this workshop. Not
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: the separate from each other, but we both did this workshop. No,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: the landmark form was a It was a workshop that
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Donald and I both did as young people. I did
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: in my early twenties. Anyway, it was such a powerful
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: boost for me. I came out and on the Monday,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I had four auditions, I got three call I got
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: three callbacks on them, and and nothing had changed other
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: than my mindset and and and what I was saying
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: to myself in my head and what was that?
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: What was.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: What did well? I think it was just you know,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's a great self help workshop, but
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: I was present, I was in the moment.
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: I was.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I was being so gregarious and outgoing and fun and
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: in the room, and I think I was just I remember,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: for just a tiny example, I remember always going into
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: waiting rooms and sitting there silently and looking at my
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: shoes and just being awkward and cringey. And I remember
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: that Monday engaging with everyone in the waiting room and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: talking and laughing and being like a community of actors
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: instead of antagonistically. And so I went in I went
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: into the room. By the time I got in there
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: already in a great mood, laughing as opposed to being
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: like we're in battle. Yeah, just little tiny things like that,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: but mostly just just mindset.
• 53:57
  Speaker 7: Well, you guys know that that getting anything going in
• 54:01
  Speaker 7: this business, getting a project that you're that you like getting.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: You know that positivity is so important just because it's
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: so hard. It's so hard to do this stuff. It's
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: so hard to get things going.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: It's so hard.
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: So when you walk in the room and you're positive
• 54:15
  Speaker 7: and you've got and you bring positive energy and people say,
• 54:18
  Speaker 7: you know, I need I need this from you, you say,
• 54:21
  Speaker 7: you know what, I'm going to figure out how to
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: give you that thing that you need. You know that
• 54:25
  Speaker 7: that's a mindset that that you know, people want to
• 54:28
  Speaker 7: have around you know people you know, you know, you
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: guys know you're you're you come from comedy.
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: And you know that people like that.
• 54:36
  Speaker 7: When there is a steady sort of comedic feeling just
• 54:39
  Speaker 7: sort of in the air, that comedy just comes much easier.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: It just does.
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: I really I remember the rooms where I would come
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: into auditions and everybody was laughing and having fun and
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: everything like that, and I always stood on they're trying
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: to sabotage me. They're trying to sabotage me, and I
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: would then, fucking you know, I would step away from
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: that and try to focus on on just my words
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: and everything. And I never would have a good audition
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: when I did stuff like that.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: That's exact for Scrubs. We were I remember that Zach
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: wasn't at this audition, but Sarah was. I remember we
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: were all in the room, having fun, trying to make
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: each other laugh. We all knew our lines at this point,
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Let's go fucking let's go
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: fucking you know, uh, good luck to you, good luck
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: to you. Let's go fucking try and get this job
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: because we knew how big the show was, or you know,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: at least that's what our agents had told us.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we come back.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: We won't keep you too much longer, John, but we
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: have to ask a little some two and a half
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: men questions. I'm sure audiences want to know all about that.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: And I will be staying right.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Back after these fine.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: Words, John, here, every guest, every wants to be like, hey,
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: so how you guys been.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Usually our guests, I think that we're going to take
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of commercial break in two minutes. Johnny
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: picked her right up on our fake breaks. So what
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: was the two and a half men? I mean, I
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: know there was uh, it's there was wacky anecdotes to
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: be had. Did you did you enjoy your expence?
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Start? Let's start at the beginning. Let's start start.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: At the very beginning. Chuck, Lorie, I just did a
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: I just did a small guest spot on Bookies and
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Men met Chuck for the first time. It's it's it's
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: it felt good making him laugh. He seems like a
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: very very talented man.
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: Chuck is, yeah, is wildly talented. He had you know,
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: it's funny because those still waters run kind of deep.
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: He's he's actually, you know, really thinking about the big
• 57:04
  Speaker 7: questions a lot of the time. But his sort of
• 57:07
  Speaker 7: method of putting stuff out is through you know, laughter
• 57:10
  Speaker 7: and uh uh you know. But he's a very smart
• 57:13
  Speaker 7: guy and uh and I'm you know, he's also known
• 57:17
  Speaker 7: as when when you're working on his stuff as a
• 57:19
  Speaker 7: very generous laugher, he sort of starts.
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: That saying these were fake last I'm saying, just so
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: you know, you got are super easy and but no, no,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: I'm incredibly helpful.
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: I'm I'm incredibly grateful for that, for that, because it's
• 57:36
  Speaker 7: incredibly helpful in in just figuring out your timing and
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: figuring out what works. And I had done this pilot
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: with him where he was this incredibly generous laugher all
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: the time we were doing it, and but that show
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: didn't go.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 57:48
  Speaker 7: And so when I auditioned for Two and a half Men,
• 57:52
  Speaker 7: the first thing I I, you know, was not was
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: the first time I'm.
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: Reading it is not with Charlie Sheen. It was just
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: you know, reading with a reader.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: And uh.
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: And I come in, but I'm thinking, well, at least
• 58:02
  Speaker 7: Chuck's a great laugher, so and so this is so
• 58:06
  Speaker 7: at least I got that on my on my side.
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: And I go in and silence. I got nothing from
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: And I was like, what what what happened?
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Because I had heard him laughing for other people when
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: you're in the waiting room for those of you aren't actors,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: when you're auditioning for a comedy and you're in the
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: waiting room and you hear the person crushing in the room,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: and you're like and then also all this thing like
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: oh my god, you're so funny John and all that shit,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: and then you have to go in after and then
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: you're like, I hope I get a fraction of those laughs.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: That person just crushed.
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I got. I got nothing from Chuck.
• 58:46
  Speaker 7: I mean, he was lovely and cordial and you know,
• 58:48
  Speaker 7: and and and he really liked and he made it
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: clear he really liked how the scene played out. But
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: I was like, I was really thrown by it, and
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: I get immediately, I get home and I get a
• 58:57
  Speaker 7: call from my agent saying they want you to to
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: meet Charlie tomorrow. And I was like, oh, okay, great,
• 59:03
  Speaker 7: But you know, I guess I guess I didn't blow it.
• 59:07
  Speaker 7: I come in the next day and it's like one
• 59:09
  Speaker 7: hundred and eighty degrees. Chuck is just over the top.
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: Everything is hitting, everything is perfect. And I afterwards, I
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: walked out, I said, dude, you were awfully quiet yesterday.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: What was up?
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: And he said, oh no, I was just in shock
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: because nobody got it right before. And it was very
• 59:27
  Speaker 7: late in the process. They had been they had been
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: looking for Allen's for a month and a half when
• 59:32
  Speaker 7: I finally came in, and I later found out that
• 59:36
  Speaker 7: Les Moonvez the head of CBS was not looking forward
• 59:39
  Speaker 7: to me auditioning because I think, I don't know, he didn't.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: He felt like I was a.
• 59:43
  Speaker 7: Show killer because my other shows had died, and so
• 59:48
  Speaker 7: I was thought of as kind of a spent commodity.
• 59:51
  Speaker 7: And it was funny because at the same time, I'm
• 59:53
  Speaker 7: going in on Battlestar Galactica, which is a totally different
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: part for Gaya's Baltar, which.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: Is a wonderful role of course, man great.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 7: Great where all Jimmie call has ended up planet and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 7: he's wonderful in it. And uh, but I would have
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 7: had to do a lot of that show shirtless, which
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 7: I don't think anyone wanted.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: You would have gotten ripped.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: Would maybe, but I don't know if America is ready
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: for that at any rate.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 7: But but I'm so I'm meeting with Ronald Moore on
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 7: Battlestar and I'm meeting with Chuck like on the same days.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: These things are happening, and I'm like, what the hell
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: is happening here? And I'd read the Battlestar script and
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: I loved it. And I read the Two and a
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 7: Half Men script and I loved it. Uh And so
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: uh then I went and read with with Charlie Sheen
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: and and Chuck really dug it. Then they had me
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 7: come in and meet with you know, and read with uh,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 7: read for the Warner Brothers executives, and again it went
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 7: over huge that time. And then it's all building up
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 7: to reading for CBS, reading for less Moonbez and and uh,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 7: everybody is, you know, kind of like that's not going
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 7: to happen. But we went in and uh and Less
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 7: to his credit, according to Chuck, turned around and and
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: said to Chuck, Okay, you win this one, meaning.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: He got he was allowed to cast me.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 7: And uh uh and that's and and I took that
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: one because it was basically I had to remember how
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: test deals work. I would have had to turn down
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: two and a half men in order to take Battlestar,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 7: because they when you're making your test deals at the beginning,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: just for non actors out there, the way that networks
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 7: used to do this during pilot season, would they would
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: make a test deal where they were totally pre negotiate
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: your contract before you auditioned for the network.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Because they don't want you to have they don't want
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: you to have any any power if you any leverage. What,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: so you sign your contract before they cast you. So like,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: if there's down to four people, those four people have
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: all signed completely different deals because of their level of
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: stardom or success or agents, uh ability and uh and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: so you all got like seven year contracts signed and
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: then they just pick one.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And not only but not only that, Sometimes you're like,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: you get to the testing area for a lot of actors,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: for those who, like John is saying, had two on
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: the table at the time. You know, you get to
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: the table and you're like, shit, I don't want to
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: choose now. Can't we just do Let's get a little
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: bit closer.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, and that way they both want me and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: they can both buy for my services.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: How about that? No, no, no, no, You've got to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: pick right now, and it's yeah.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: And what that means, though, is that you've got to pick.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 7: And and like, like, by picking, making my test deal
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 7: with two and a half men, that meant I couldn't
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 7: do Battlestar and there so I was like, it was
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: very possible that I could do to the two and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: a half men audition and lose it and not have
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: Battlestar and just be screwed.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: So thankfully it worked out.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 7: And and uh and I got to and a half
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 7: Men and uh oh, a little known interesting fact on
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 7: two and a half Men.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: My mother was originally played by byThe Danner. When we
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: did the first read through, she absolutely killed it.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: She was wonderful.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: What happened was we started rehearsing and Blive Danner has
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 7: this wonderful vulnerability to her, which she didn't have at
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: the reading. When we did the reading, she was just,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 7: you know, balls to the wall.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: I've worked with her, wonderful.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 7: Yeah, she's wonderful and has you know. And but when
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: we started actually putting it on its feet, that vulnerability
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: just because it came into who how she was playing
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 7: the mom and and Chuck kept trying to work with
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: her to say, you know, like understand, you got to
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 7: toss these off. If we start to feel for her
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 7: this way, this gets much darker. You know, she can't
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 7: think about what she's doing, you know. And and eventually
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 7: it just it did you know, it didn't work?
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Uh And And a lot of.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Times the show, a lot of times actors think you
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: have the part when you do the pilot, and we're
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: here to tell you that's not think of the pilot
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: as your final audition.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: The look the read through, the read through is still
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: you're still.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: That's another thing is don't go don't make sure there's
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: actors who kind of phone in the read through. Don't
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: phone in the read through.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that's that's that's my big that's my advice. If
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: you asked my advice earlier is don't phone in the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: read through.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: Not only that in your game, not only that.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: And then when you get to fucking when you get
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: to the stage, you gotta you know, especially when you're
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: brand new on it. Like There's been times where I've
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: gotten there and I'm like, I'm just gonna let my
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: merit fucking who I am fucking and then come show night,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: I'll give you. I'll give them what they want. But
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: when you're new to this thing, or you know what
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, or you're guest starring, you got to come
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: in right away. You gotta nail it, even in front
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: of even in rehearsal, even with the director. Every time
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: it's got to be nailed.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: Because still I ever did was with I did a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: guest spot on Donald I was hoping to do one
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: on your Guys show. Yeah, and set it up I
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: hope I can do it. But Donald, I did?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: What was it?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: The Exes?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: Donald? The X?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was so fun because I don't really I
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: don't have experience all my most of my experiences is scrubs,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: which is not in front of a live audience. And
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: making that audience laugh was such a joy and it's
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: so hard not to milk the hell out of it.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, it really is, It really really is.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: And yeah, and when they're yeah, and it's fun working
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 7: on new material because a lot of time you'll you'll
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: try something from the audience and maybe it doesn't work.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: So the writers are running in with new stuff and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 7: I love that. And it's a really fun atmosphere, you know.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: So what was it?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Was it overall a fun experience on two and a
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: half Men? Yeah, I mean Charlie, did you And Charlie
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: for the most part click.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: Yes, we absolutely did. Right away.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 7: We had done hot shots together that movie, and we'd
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 7: had a good time doing that. And I didn't really
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: get to know him. I mean, we were work friends,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 7: you know, we didn't have that many scenes together. But
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 7: I liked him and he was an incredibly friendly, gregarious guy,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 7: and by the time we did Two and a half Men,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 7: he was sober and so he was really on top
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 7: of it and lovely to work with. The crew loved him,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: and you know, for those first few seasons, it was
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: really smooth.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: And also it was.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 7: Really unusual because we got on the air. We were
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 7: put behind Everybody Loves Raymond, which was a huge hit
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: at that time, and then we were a huge hit
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: right out of the box. It was the last season
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 7: of Everybody Loves Raymond, and they were hoping we would
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 7: take over for them, and we did. You know, just
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 7: with this and just you know, and Donald and I
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 7: have talked about this, Scrubbs was an amazing show and
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 7: people knew.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: People got that.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 7: It was a great show the first season, but it was.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: But ratings wise, you guys were always a little bit
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 7: behind the eight ball.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: We were never a giant hit. You were a giant
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: fucking hit right off the bat. We never had a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: huge I still wonder what that. I wondered what I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: remember what clueless felt like. But to have a television
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: show where like the next like I watched Tippus Bloodsoe
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: talk about it when she was a kid and she
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: was very young and she said the day that Cosby
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: came out and they were the number one show in
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the she said the very next day she could tell
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: the chain.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: Walking walk from walking out of her door into the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: street into where everybody was. She could feel the difference.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Could you feel the difference? Like, would you like was
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: it like that?
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Was it like?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah? It was pretty I mean this was when broadcast
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 7: television was still a super big deal, you know.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: And and yeah, I could feel it.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: It was interesting though first season it wasn't like Night
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 7: and Day the first season. The second season it was
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: like I was the Beatles, you know. It was that
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 7: I don't I have no idea why that why it
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: was that way, but but I I you know, and
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 7: that was just my perception, you know. But but but no,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 7: we we It was an incredibly lucky, unusual situation. That is,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: you know, for actors out there who are listening, that
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 7: is unusual. Uh and and so I and and you know,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 7: and and and that's a lovely knowing that you have
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 7: a job, knowing that you.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: Know it's going to be predictable.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 7: Uh and you you you know, you can you can
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 7: plan vacations and you can plan your life and you
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: can have kids and you can you know that you
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 7: can have a normal life, you know, and you can
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 7: really depend on this show being this this this job,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: that that's always there for you is great. But as
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 7: Two and a Half Men was living proof of that
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 7: doesn't always last.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: Let everything must in.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: How many seasons did it go?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 7: It ended up going twelve seasons. It was eight seasons
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 7: with Charlie and four seasons with Ashton Kutcher.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: I can't believe you and Ashton did four seasons together.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: That's crazy, Like, yeah, it's crazy. It's a testament to
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: you and to Chuck. Also, like the writers.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: Were amazing on that show. The writers were amazing on
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: that show. And yeah, absolutely, Chuck, Chuck.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Of Charlie Sheen. At first, like you said, you had
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: to with him. It wasn't like he had to read
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: with you. You had to read with him. And then
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: now he's gone.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, no, it was very It was It was
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 7: really watching that show relaunch and seeing how the writers
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 7: did that was fascinating because just so, oh, here's a
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 7: fun little backstage thing.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: The original.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 7: When I first after Charlie got fired, we all assumed, okay,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: well we had eight great seasons were done, you know,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: and Charlie had gone off the you know, off the
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: deep end. He was screaming in the middle of the
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 7: night at Chuck. He was doing those crazy web rants
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 7: in the middle of the night, you know. And it
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 7: was international news. I mean it was you know, headline.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: I remember he had like Access Hollywood or one of
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: them into his house and he was talking about Tiger Blood.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Charlie, it's called I'm on something called Charlie Sheen.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, exactly. And it was bonkers.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 7: And I started getting these text messages from Chuck saying
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 7: we may not be done, and I was like, what
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 7: do we mean there? And I get this call they're
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: talking to Hugh Grant to take over for for Charlie Sheen.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 7: And I was like, what, I beg your partner, And
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 7: they said, well, you know, he's got that that teflon
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 7: charm he you know, at that you know, he'd he'd
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 7: been famous in America for getting caught with a prostitute
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 7: and then you know, but being so charming about it,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 7: you know, and I thought, you know, he's wonderful. I'm
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 7: pretty sure he's comfortable in front of an audience. You know,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 7: he'd be he'd be amazing to have and uh, I said, well,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 7: but you know, you're never going to get Hugh Grant
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: and they said, no, he's flying in tomorrow.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: We want you to be with them.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my god.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 7: So I went and met with him and they had
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 7: written this part for him that was this this guy
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 7: who was in the Diplomatic Corps, the British Diplomatic Corps.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: He was he took a spot at the US Embassy
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 7: in Los Angeles because his daughter was going to school
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 7: at u c l A. So he'd be this incredibly
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: charming debonair guy. And then through the course of the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 7: episode we find out, oh no, he's a con man.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: None of that's true. And I've now and he's renting
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: out my house.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it was super fun. It was a super fun idea.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 7: And I read with you and he was terrific. He
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: was you know, he's you Grant. He's wonderful, you know, uh,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 7: you know, yes, and the blinking and he was wonderful
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 7: and it was great and he was charming. But I
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 7: got this sense of remoteness, like I could sense that
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 7: he wasn't really sure about this whole thing. Because multi
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 7: camera sitcom is a very you know, it's a specific genre,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 7: not everybody very.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Specific skill set. Yeah, I mean it really is. Even
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: if you're a theater person, it's a different set of
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: skills that that only certain people can really crush.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: So so he he was, you know, we had a
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: great time talking with him. He went, you know, he
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: got back on a plane for for London, and the
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: next day I hear, hey, you know it's it's Peter
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: Roth saying we got some issues with negotiating his contract.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 7: Uh, you know, will you agree to this type of billing?
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 7: And I was like, sure, we'll do Lavernie Shirley billing.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: It'll be great.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: And uh uh.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 7: I get a call two hours later Hugh Grant is
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 7: co starring with you in two and a half men.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 7: The contract is signed.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: We're ready to go.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: I was like, wow, this is I gotta wow. I
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: gotta sit down.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: This has been a world second lie.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: Then an hour later, an hour later, hour, I get
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 7: a call from Chuck saying nope, he backed out of it.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: His agent said he was in and he changed his mind.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: Uh and we're like.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 5: So so so.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 7: Then I said, okay, well that was lovely, you know
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 7: thank you for that fun adventure. But Ashton didn't come
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 7: up as an even an option until until like a
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 7: couple of weeks later.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: I think that they didn't. I assumed again that we
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: were done.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know why they wouldn't. It's funny that once
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: they had traction on someone like Hugh Grant, why they
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be like, Okay, well it's gonna be something.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's what happened.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 7: I mean, basically, it went from we can't do this
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 7: show without Charlie too, Yeah, maybe we can, you know,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 7: and and he was the first phase of that. And
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 7: then Ashton was fun because Ashton, you know, at this point,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 7: you know, Ashton is very active in the tech field.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: He's he's been an investor in a lot of things,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: and he's made he's made a lot of money doing that.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: God bless him.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 7: Uh and uh and so once Chuck had had a
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 7: meeting with him and said, oh, well he's you know,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 7: he's got a lot of fun stories about to look
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 7: on Valley. You know, it's uh, you know, we could
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 7: have this guy be you know, this this tech billionaire
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 7: who's kind of you know, got you know, never really
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 7: grew up, you know, you know, and that would be
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 7: a fun thing to play off against Alan's character.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: And and he was just a breath of fresh air.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: He was.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: He was great, fun to work with. And he knew
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: the skill set. Obviously he knew the skill set. He
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: absolutely knew the skill set. He was great with the audience,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: great with timing, he.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Didn't go in the audience.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: And they got four years, Bro, they got four years.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: We're working on two.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Talking about I'm talking about doubt that that that Ashton
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Kutcher entertained the audience on the level of Donald Faison.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, I don't think so.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Man, listen, I this mom. He's gonna
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: he'll deny it. But before Ashton Kutcher was fucking mister sophisticated,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: fucking whatever. And this dude we used to do NBA
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: Basketball All Star weekends together all the time and we
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: would sit there and this dude would I'll never forget this.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: He would sit there and be like, man, I can't
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: believe we're doing this. I can't believe I'm about you know,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: do you have a dunk idea? Do you have any
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: clues on what you're gonna do? And I'd be like,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: I have no idea what I'm gonna do. Man, We're
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: just gonna go up there and they'd be like ladies
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: and gentlemen. Next up Ashton Kutcher, and he'd go from man,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: here we go to hello. And I was like this,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: and he's in He's in the stands with the ball
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: looking at the crowd. You know the guys that run
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: to the stands. You know the guys that run to
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: the stands and act like your cheering isn't enough and
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: so you need to give them more. They're not good.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: I can't hear you those guys.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: I take it back.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: He may have. He may.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: If there was a competition for who can entertain an audience,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: most you guys.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: Might it would be a battle.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: It would be a battle.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: He probably owns a T shirt cannon. He well, he's
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: not all that. He's not all that tech bro money. John,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I hope that the show gets
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: picked up and found somewhere, and I hope that I
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: can come on and do a guest spot.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: I said, you should be the owner of the Knicks.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: That's what I have said.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 7: If Donald's character is gonna be the owner of the Celtics,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 7: you're the owner of that.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: Then that would be amazing.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: It'll be amazing.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: I'm newly I newly like sports, so it'll be perfect,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: it'll be great.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: It'll be great.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: John, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate you.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: Thank you, guys. This was a blast. This was genuinely
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: fucking hilarious.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: That was so fun. What a good guess. Wow, Donald,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: thanks for knowing him so he would come on our show.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: I'm so happy. I'm so happy I know him. Man, Like,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: for real, He's such a dude. He's such a listen.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: He tells so much. Yeah, he tells stories of of
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: of of his life and everything like that. And you
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: just you just you just you root for people like him,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, because he's just a good person.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And he's an ultimate example for the for those
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: of you listening who did not have to be about
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: acting whatever you're pursuing about ups and downs. I mean,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: he had, as you heard, he had so many show
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: get canceled. He had years where he was barely working
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: and he had the head of it, he had less
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: moon best the head of CBS telling Chuck Lorie don't
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: hire him, he's a show killer. And then he gets
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: a twelve year run on one of the biggest sitcoms
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: of all time. I mean, it's it's it's very inspirational,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: very don't stop the hustle.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: Well, you can't quit, can't quit cooking. Gotta keep cooking.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you and I gotta keep cooking, baby.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: Gotta keep cooking. That's real talk. That's real talk.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: That's real talk. All right, this was so fun. Thank
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: you audience for tuning in. Joelle, anything you want to
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: say to our to our listeners.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: Come back next week and listen to it.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: We'll have somebody new next week.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: We'll see somebody new next week. And Dan want anything
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: you want to say to the audience.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: John was great. That was a lot of fun. And yeah,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: I back that up. I'm excited for what the rest
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: of the show brings. It's gonna be great.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: I have something to say.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, Donald.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: I love my wife Casey Cobb, and I love my children.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 6: Stories about show we made about a bunch of talks
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 6: and nurses in Canada. I said, here's the stories next
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 6: all s no, so yadda round you here, up, YadA,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 6: round you here, up stu me watch shows that