- 3 days ago
The Comedy Actor Roundtable brings together Jim Carrey, Henry Winkler, Ted Danson, Don Cheadle, Sacha Baron Cohen and Timothy Simons. THR Roundtables air every Sunday on SundanceTV.
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00:00:00Hi and welcome to Close Up with the Hollywood Reporter, comedy actors. I'm your host, Lacey
00:00:13Rose, and I'm here with Timothy Simons, Sacha Baron Cohen, Henry Winkler, Don Cheadle, Jim
00:00:20Carey, and Ted Danson. Dive right into this. Okay, we're going to start with...
00:00:24Hi, Lacey.
00:00:25Hi, Jim.
00:00:25Hi, Lacey.
00:00:26How are you?
00:00:27I'm good.
00:00:28How are you got points?
00:00:29No, really.
00:00:30How are you?
00:00:31You have a beautiful home.
00:00:34Great.
00:00:35All right.
00:00:36Complete this sentence.
00:00:37I act because...
00:00:39I love it so much, I don't know what else to do.
00:00:43Starting with Timothy.
00:00:45Um, because there is no ceiling to the amount of attention I need, positive or negative,
00:00:53and this is a business that provides that.
00:00:55Pretty good.
00:00:56Because I can do nothing else?
00:00:58Really?
00:00:59Nothing else?
00:01:00Not really.
00:01:01You write.
00:01:02Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:01:03Apart from writing.
00:01:04And direct, you direct?
00:01:05Cage, very running.
00:01:06Yeah.
00:01:07Apart from writing and directing.
00:01:08You guys?
00:01:09I act because if you did what we do anywhere other than a place where they pay you to do
00:01:16it, they would arrest you.
00:01:17Fair.
00:01:18I act because I'm broken in a lot of pieces.
00:01:24And acting gives me a chance to reconfigure those pieces into a thousand different things
00:01:31that are positive for people to watch.
00:01:33And eventually I will be ground down into a fine powder.
00:01:37And snort it?
00:01:38Is that how you want to go out?
00:01:39Snort it.
00:01:40For those of you who are watching, there is a guide that you will get in the mail for Jim's answer.
00:01:45No, that was clear.
00:01:46This is an act.
00:01:47Remarkably truthful.
00:01:48Yeah.
00:01:49Wow.
00:01:50We're all broken.
00:01:51Let's finish it.
00:01:52Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:01:53That's why we're here.
00:01:54Why are you looking late?
00:01:55I don't know.
00:01:56The mice.
00:01:57I was looking through you, actually.
00:01:58What about you, Tim?
00:01:59I'm with everyone else.
00:02:00A little bit broken.
00:02:02And wouldn't know what else to do.
00:02:04Literally.
00:02:05I'd be a butler.
00:02:06Maybe.
00:02:07But other than that, I have no other real talent.
00:02:09I would be a child psychologist.
00:02:11I'd be a child.
00:02:12And you two would have.
00:02:14That's right.
00:02:15I think it's begun already.
00:02:16I have a car.
00:02:17I have a car.
00:02:18Beforehand, everybody's going, oh, what should we talk about?
00:02:20What should we talk about?
00:02:21A noble fucking profession.
00:02:23I love actors.
00:02:25I love writers, directors.
00:02:27I love going to work through a studio.
00:02:29I do think we're curing cancer.
00:02:31And it's an amazing thing to make people laugh.
00:02:34So it's a great profession.
00:02:36For sure, we illuminate life.
00:02:38I mean, that's the reason that we do what we do.
00:02:40Is that we hold a mirror up to the rest of society.
00:02:44So I want to talk a little bit about, you guys have had tremendous success in this industry.
00:02:51And the fame that comes with that.
00:02:53What do you guys wish you knew about navigating fame and success when you were first starting out?
00:02:57I wish that someone had told us about how much of it has to do with that.
00:03:05Navigating the business of it.
00:03:07And how much you have to do to get to the point where you get to do the thing that you love to do.
00:03:11How to manage your time.
00:03:13How to manage your relationships and your family.
00:03:16And how to do all the things that you need to do to stay a whole person while you're trying to continue to give all of that out.
00:03:23When you're on a set, it's a lot to do.
00:03:26And I think we just take it for granted.
00:03:29We look at it and go, wow, that's so exciting.
00:03:32I want to play these different people and these different characters.
00:03:34And you're like, what's all this other stuff?
00:03:36And it's a lot of other stuff.
00:03:37I'm sorry, man.
00:03:38I went blank halfway through that.
00:03:39Can you?
00:03:40Yeah.
00:03:41Which part?
00:03:42I?
00:03:43Did it start at I?
00:03:44I said I, you were like, yeah, I.
00:03:48I, me.
00:03:49What about for the rest of you guys?
00:03:51I wish I knew how to not worry as much.
00:03:55To navigate to where I wanted to go, where I dreamt of going without eating myself alive from the inside.
00:04:02What were you worried about?
00:04:03I was worried about everything.
00:04:05About losing it, about not getting it.
00:04:07About not being good enough.
00:04:09What about you guys?
00:04:10Sam Malone, cheers.
00:04:12It's so big.
00:04:13It's, it's.
00:04:14Whatever the comfort level I've gotten either because I'm 71 or some degree of success or whatever it is.
00:04:21I like that I'm actually having fun at a table like this.
00:04:24Whereas years ago I wouldn't have.
00:04:26I would have been too full of ego, full of embarrassment or full of.
00:04:30I'm now finally enough to be able to sit at a table like this and enjoy people.
00:04:35When did that happen?
00:04:36A couple years ago.
00:04:39Almost literally.
00:04:40When people started calling me Mr. Danson.
00:04:42Uh huh.
00:04:43It was like, hello.
00:04:44All right.
00:04:45So what do you wish somebody had told you earlier on?
00:04:48Relax and enjoy it.
00:04:49This is an amazing ride.
00:04:51He said that he was afraid before we went on the air that people would be watching reruns of Cheers and then they will tune into this and be frightened.
00:04:59What the.
00:05:00What the.
00:05:01Half of you.
00:05:02You face.
00:05:03I want.
00:05:04I want.
00:05:05Scared.
00:05:06Someone scared him.
00:05:07Shock white.
00:05:08Bam.
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00:05:54in England so for a few years no one actually knew what I looked like so
00:05:59basically I was able to have the success without any of the can I call it hassle
00:06:06yeah because I couldn't really see the great upside other than if you were
00:06:10single as a guy you would generally be able to date girls that were better
00:06:14looking then you should have been able to do that I couldn't really see the
00:06:19great benefit of being famous but I think so I I got away with not being
00:06:24famous for many years I think that fame thing is a tricky thing I mean I'm
00:06:29I still struggle with it absolutely yeah it's a weird thing yeah I'm telling
00:06:35your kids don't come to Hollywood your cameras there I mean you had it I mean
00:06:43on such a grand scale all of a sudden you were the biggest movie star in the
00:06:47world and and and your paychecks and and all of it were were public and I
00:06:52imagine getting out of a car it was being swarmed with a 90 percent myth as
00:06:58well so that's a tough thing to deal what does that feel like people create
00:07:02your life yeah they take elements right that are true and they put it in an
00:07:06article so the article looks looks legit and yet there's so much of the article
00:07:11that isn't true so that's something to kind of teach you that hey you know what
00:07:16in order to go forward I have to let go of what this creation is and I ultimately
00:07:22found that even the me I created wasn't real so that left me in an odd
00:07:28precarious situation and I've been writing and creating about that for a very long
00:07:33time huh many of the things I do are have to do with the disappointment of
00:07:37creating a winning personality in the world and then eventually you know for your
00:07:42own sanity and freedom letting it go you know is there's the Fonz sitting right
00:07:49here yeah speak to that right okay don't look at me but what you're saying is
00:07:55exactly right and it's not only what is written people come to you thinking you
00:08:01are other than you are and you just have to remember because it is so it's like a
00:08:07drug you want to believe them you want to believe you can walk on water and you
00:08:13have to just hold on and realize you are not any taller you don't know mass any
00:08:19better you are not smarter because people think you are wonderful on
00:08:24television or in the movies I've seen some parts of the bad version of it but
00:08:28you know mostly it's somebody stopping me at the grocery store to tell me they
00:08:31like the thing I'm like oh cool like I'm not jealous of you yet you can go ahead
00:08:37of me yeah the thing that I think that I've sort of struggled with over the
00:08:42last couple years is like where I grew up I grew up in a really small town one
00:08:45of the things I didn't like about that is the fact that everybody kind of knows
00:08:48your business and so when I was a kid all I wanted to do was get to a city and
00:08:52get to anonymity and then I started doing this and at the same time that I got a
00:08:57job that I absolutely loved and I get to be in this experience with people that I
00:09:01admire part of that is sacrificing anonymity and that's a really weird thing no one
00:09:06understands it's a it is like that is it's like walking on the moon you can
00:09:10want to walk on the moon all you want but then you get up there and there's no
00:09:13you know there's any gravity no air no one can't live there and yeah so if you if
00:09:20you have if you if you guys had anonymity for a day what would you do oh yeah I
00:09:25I pass out basically I am so used to you know that it'd be like I went down the Amazon once with my
00:09:36family I've been lying at a restaurant yeah yeah and almost passed out Mary leaves me
00:09:40being faint from no one recognizing me I did something smart early on during the
00:09:46Cheers years that I I took all the fame because fame is and is like being a five-year-old
00:09:53kid surrounded by adults and all focusing on you you can drive that five-year-old
00:09:58kid to bounce off the walls and I learned to take that hey cheers and go thank you
00:10:04so much I'd like to I'd like to introduce you yeah look over here biologists that I'm
00:10:09I'm I think has a really important thing to say about oceans and so I would use
00:10:14that energy and so I've actually really enjoyed making use of myself my fame you know
00:10:23just like other people might I get to use it too and I use it that way and it's very effective
00:10:28what would you guys do with anonymity for a day what's the thing I mean I mean I think it I feel
00:10:34like I kind of have it you do you have it when I sleep yeah yours is a little tricky even my dog
00:10:42makes a big deal about it what would you do he's home he's home if you had a day where nobody would
00:10:47recognize you I don't think I'd be that different honestly I I operate I I dropped the whole trying
00:10:54to be something for somebody a long time ago so I I pretty much walk through the world except when
00:10:59I want to be funnier I want to do something outrageous you know kind of tip the boat you
00:11:04know I don't have any trouble being myself and I don't have any trouble saying no when I mean no
00:11:09I don't feel there is a you know pressing uh responsibility to please everyone I'm not
00:11:17unkind to people I love people I would much prefer saying hello and who are you and what are you doing
00:11:24today than giving a selfie because selfies stop the world you know they stop life you then go
00:11:31like yeah and it's going on Instagram uh to give people a false sense of relevance I picture Steve
00:11:40Jobs sometimes everybody's so gaga about Steve Jobs I picture him in hell running from demons who want
00:11:48a selfie and uh that's that's that's something I have to kind of live with it's you know nothing to
00:11:55do with the person that comes up because they're programmed to react to celebrity that way yeah they
00:12:00don't even think of another way I see it completely differently when people come up and you look
00:12:05them in the eye and you look them in the eye for three seconds presence they believe that they are
00:12:11with you yeah and when they meet me and I'm really now calm enough to be present they are very happy
00:12:20because of something I've done I've made them laugh they sat with their grandmother they sat with their
00:12:25dad they sat with the family they were whatever it is and that is a lovely thing so but if they
00:12:33want to take the picture I would that's not what I want to say at all I think you're very interesting
00:12:42but if you say but if you say no to the selfie or no or like I just don't want to take in do are they
00:12:49because I would I've done that that's what I thought I get that and I get the like it's good
00:12:53because I was going through because I always tell them why I say you know what I would love to but I
00:12:58cannot take it in this restaurant because when you walk away everybody saw you do it and I will
00:13:05never finish my meal so thank you so much for asking I get an eye roll if I say something like
00:13:10that I've just gone on if I'll look at whatever I will go with you and I will be your friend
00:13:14it was my birthday well if they come up with an iPhone I say oh I have a contract with Samsung
00:13:20I would love to oh I'm using that's good I like that let's throw it down and dance on that
00:13:25a lot of you have played these these really sort of indelible roles on iconic projects I'm looking
00:13:31at you but you I mean there's many of you at this table what are the sort of unexpected pieces of
00:13:36of the moving on process I was on happy days for 10 years wow I committed hubris
00:13:43I thought not that I was great but that it was such a big show and it was so international
00:13:50it was everywhere that I was going to go from mountaintop to mountaintop I was going to beat
00:13:55the system yep I looked down and there were grass stains on the knees of my jeans because I slid
00:14:01right into the valley it was very difficult to get hired as an actor and I had no plan b I was seven
00:14:09years old I dreamt of doing this thing I did it and I did it with an explosion now it's over and
00:14:17I had no idea how or what to do next was the show being so syndicated everywhere on all the time
00:14:25was that a reminder for you no was that a feeling of like I mean I'm sure you felt blessed by it I was
00:14:32blessed by it but but at the same time it's reminding you no they they did a good job of
00:14:37reminding me all on their own no thank you so much it was a big reminder because it was
00:14:43didn't need a rerun it was ubiquitous Sunday Monday happy days Tuesday Wednesday happy days
00:14:48okay what about for you I was lucky because my character's job was to look at the
00:14:58the the crazy wonderful extreme characters around me I was the audience's way into the show Sam was
00:15:06so I wasn't playing such an iconic character that allowed me to move on I wasn't wacky Sam
00:15:14not that you were wacky but you were iconic I was the eyes in so it was it was easier I think for me
00:15:22Hollywood likes to sort of lock people in lanes they want something a specific thing from you
00:15:27most often it's because it's you've given it to them before what are the things that you get
00:15:33approached for that you just say oh not this again I I'm grateful for every opportunity but
00:15:39I will tell you I have turned down a bunch of offers and or auditions for things that are just
00:15:44bad versions of the thing that I'm doing already like I know like if there's just too much of an
00:15:48diagram overlap I would I do somewhat reject it out of hand oh here's like a sort of gangly guy who's
00:15:52going to say sexually inappropriate stuff in an office and he's going to wear it so like okay well I'm
00:15:56I'm doing that already and also this version of it is not as funny so like I do like I I mean
00:16:02like I'm sure we all try I've done several of the parts you turned down you know I mean there is
00:16:10that there is that thing of like I do although it does involve like saying no to work which I never
00:16:16ever thought I would be in a position to do I have tried to be cognizant of it since the beginning of
00:16:22the show do you know what I mean absolutely yeah yeah I think I went through a period of getting
00:16:27multi-character ideas so there'd be films where hey Sasha here's your idea which you're going to
00:16:33play 10 characters I get 10 characters one of them is Eddie Murphy yeah exactly okay this takes a long
00:16:39time you know so there were there was a period where you know multiple character movies and I think
00:16:44there was no understanding that it takes time and obviously some are going to work and some aren't
00:16:49and then weirdly enough that at one point I think after Borat because Borat was the first
00:16:53openly anti-semitic character that I suddenly started getting Jewish characters as if suddenly
00:17:00I was the only Jew in Hollywood so there was a lot of you know will you play this Jewish character
00:17:04or this Jewish character I think somehow Borat being anti-semitic made me appear that I'd be very
00:17:11good at all of a sudden you were really I was missed a Jew yeah yeah yeah you killed it man
00:17:17can I ask amazing I love that movie so much and I love you I love your approach to uncomfortable
00:17:25people and subjects and the way you scaring the crap out of us you just lay bare the people who are
00:17:32supposed to be in control and aren't and I love it very thank you very much what would you like to
00:17:39play what I mean you're in your fantasy what would you like to play probably things I'd like to play I
00:17:45probably wouldn't be very good at playing but I don't know I think something that is when I was at
00:17:52university because obviously that you're not in a box there I I would play in the amateur dramatic stuff
00:17:59I would play this genre that was called tragedy comedy which is something like Cyrano de Bergerac or
00:18:05even like Fiddler on the Roof you have the character starts off as really funny the audience love them
00:18:12and then the second half tragedy happens right and then you because the audience love you and are
00:18:19engaged with you more because you've made them laugh they transition really quickly into getting sad and
00:18:25crying so my eyesight's not very good and I remember playing Cyrano de Bergerac and I didn't know what
00:18:30these white I'd see bits of white coming up and I go what are they they were tissues people were
00:18:37starting to cry but it's a genre that you don't really see much anymore which obviously existed
00:18:42back then which is the idea of funny people who can then because you've kind of got the audience by
00:18:49the kishkas you can then turn it around and get them crying yeah so I think something like that
00:18:55would be can I coin a phrase please calamity that's what I look at it as yeah that's my show
00:19:02is calamity yeah it's about a calamity is there and it's it's uh handled with humor yes and levity
00:19:11uh and pretty much that's what I do yeah you know every uh trauma and I could you know build the ladder
00:19:20to the stars with the things that have happened or the things that I've had to endure but they've
00:19:26all turned into something really creative you know the worst injury I've ever had I went to the art
00:19:33studio and I made a painting you know and I sat there and I went I wish people could be here to see
00:19:41what that process is what happens to an artist when they get hurt you know they don't try to lash out
00:19:48most of the time they try to turn it into a bouquet of flowers that's what I want to do I want to
00:19:55turn it into something that you know I think that's a good answer probably to some degree for all of us
00:20:00here that you do get to work through yeah your life and your emotions and through your art it's pretty
00:20:06cool yeah that's what I meant by we are a mirror yeah because the more you are I mean I finally defined
00:20:14cool by cool as being authentic and the more authentic we are as the character we play everybody's
00:20:22no matter man woman child they all say oh my god I see myself because we are all the same
00:20:29yeah and uh so that really is positive that you take all of that pain and make it into an art that
00:20:37people then can um thrive yeah I think I'd say that the show that I just did here's America
00:20:42a guy called Donald Trump got elected and I was upset by it and that anger and disappointment and
00:20:51revulsion I was expressing it by sort of sending friends emails you know sharing articles look at
00:20:58this and this and then in the end I felt I was so angry I felt I actually have to channel that into
00:21:04some characters right aimed at who could sit with some of those people you know because I wanted to
00:21:12sit with those people who were his friends right you know and that was actually you know what you
00:21:19sometimes do through other artistic means I was like it was strange because I come out of a period of
00:21:24doing a bunch of movies like I have to go back to this old style of comedy that's
00:21:29you know difficult for me to do but I have to do it because I'm so upset you know yeah so that was
00:21:37my it was like a way I actually didn't really care how the show went down I mean I showed I'm going to
00:21:45be upset about this but I said to them okay I'm not doing any publicity because I just had to
00:21:50I had to get it out of my system you know today we're going to teach you how you can stop these
00:21:55naughty men and have them take a long nap that's right and that's why you're going to meet a friend
00:22:02of mine his name is Puppy Pistol now Philip will you show us how to feed Puppy Pistol to feed him take
00:22:12his lunch box and push it into his tummy like this just remember to point Puppy Pistol's mouth
00:22:19right at the middle of the bad man I'm curious you're sitting with the the various people you
00:22:24sat with when did you know that you had that you had struck gold I mean I know in the case of Sarah
00:22:30Palin you felt like you didn't have it what made you realize okay in this one got it what were you
00:22:35looking for what was what was success you feel it in the room I mean the difference of kind of doing
00:22:43stuff on stage and stuff that we do is we kind of know when it's funny because people aren't allowed
00:22:48to laugh around us otherwise they ruin the take now obviously you know I'm there's no one else
00:22:53around there's just the cameraman but you instinctively know if it's funny and also if you've got a
00:23:00enough but is funny the goal or is exposing somebody to go what's there's two of them it has to be
00:23:07for me I love being funny so it has to be funny and then if I can get something that interests me
00:23:13then that's you know I'm very satisfied with that I wouldn't say happy but um you know if a politician
00:23:23drops his underpants and it's unbelievable it's unbelievable what you are able to do and how you
00:23:31are able to get people to or maybe it's not unbelievable because these people are just waiting
00:23:36for an opportunity to share their truth at the stage but that the that the amount of truth the
00:23:44amount of you know touching the nerve that you're able to do that we can watch at home I'm just
00:23:48cringing when I watch your show in a great way yeah thank you yeah laughing and cringing and yet you've
00:23:53said and you get OJ Simpson sitting across from you and you're disappointed that he doesn't confess
00:23:58to murder I didn't say I was disappointed but no I I had an absurdly ambitious uh aim
00:24:07which was to get OJ to a Perry Mason video I mean it was I shot that right at the end of the show
00:24:17and I had achieved some things that I was surprised by so I didn't I never thought that a politician
00:24:22would get his buttocks out and charge I never I was surprised by the art dealer with the pubic hair
00:24:27oh my god okay so I do like the idea that a bunch of people would like has anybody just asked OJ if
00:24:33he did it has anybody just asked him like that's why I thought I go could I just get him wrecked
00:24:39well could I yeah shit face just well he can't get wrecked because once he gets wrecked then he's
00:24:44violating the terms of his parole oh so I did try to yeah but uh I still trained up with an FBI
00:24:50interrogator oh wow because I thought and again I this is you know reaching
00:24:56too high but I thought let me try it yeah uh because it was hidden camera
00:25:03and I thought would he you know if he's ever going to admit it it would be in a hotel room
00:25:07where he thinks he's going to earn a lot of money and so I trained up with supposedly the greatest FBI
00:25:14interrogator and eventually he goes well who's this for and I go it's for OJ he goes that's going to be
00:25:20tough but okay and then he sort of trained me up but I wasn't managed to didn't manage to get him to
00:25:25confess to the he's not in your ear he's no earwig you went in and just did it well they have the FBI
00:25:31have a way with uh people who are finding it hard to confess to actually get them to wow to give it
00:25:39to connect to stuff so there is a there is a sequence that I'd memorize to try and
00:25:45get OJ to but it failed you know that you'd gone through that much because it doesn't look like
00:25:51that that's the other thing it doesn't look like wow he's checking off a bunch of boxes it just looks
00:25:56like you're having a conversation yeah but it's it's clearly a a real skill because these people just
00:26:03very with no you know very fastly just move into these places where you're like I would never say
00:26:09anything I would never say any of this well obviously um uh the sequence is you just say come on
00:26:15like come on yeah that was based on part of the thing part of the thing was you know he said I didn't
00:26:25kill her yeah come on I didn't do my wife either she just got really depressed walked into the body
00:26:30bag zipped herself up and threw herself up the yacht you know and then um so part of it is being
00:26:37blase about the murder and then part of it is there's a kind of incremental uh series of questions
00:26:45where you say you know how did you get away with what you did that night and then you go how did you
00:26:52get away with what you did to them that night and then how it's sort of an incremental ask but
00:26:57uh you never admit them i'm really sort of nervous now to be sitting around the table
00:27:01i know i know we're going to start asking Sasha
00:27:05i'm hoping you'll tear me open i can't live with this anymore
00:27:15when was the last time you guys were genuinely nervous to to tell a story or maybe it's how the
00:27:22story would be received yes yes i mean yeah if you're really going to be honest and truthful
00:27:31i think you're so when was when was stuff out there give me an example of of when that was
00:27:36do you mean like real life or or work-wise work-wise work-wise okay i've only ever been disappointed when i
00:27:42wasn't authentic when i had reached for something that was uh not based in some authenticity even if
00:27:51it's a wildly animated character what did that look like based in in some sort of reality then i feel
00:27:59i've raped myself uh which is painful yes it's difficult yeah for some uh but you know that's that's when i
00:28:08feel really uh uncomfortable when i'm on a track that isn't authentic but it took it takes a while to
00:28:15yeah to get to that realization i've never been disappointed ever with authenticity right and i
00:28:21was really frightened about it you know until a few years ago when i started kind of sharing how i feel
00:28:27about things and my truth and uh there was a voice telling me that if i actually didn't score if i didn't
00:28:35hit a funny line every at least 30 seconds they would think i was pompous and they would they
00:28:42would turn against me and say who the do you think you are and i've never had that reaction ever i'd
00:28:48like to ask question actually which is that you your style of performance was completely unique like
00:28:54you've never seen somebody give i mean first it was absolutely roll on the floor funny but you've never
00:29:00seen anyone give as put as much energy into performance or physical i mean physical vote
00:29:07i mean it was like seeing a you know electricity somehow unleashed so i'm interested in when you
00:29:15were in the middle of performance were you were wet did you did your state change what was the feeling
00:29:22was like a fugue state really it's like a fugue state but i you know like a what like a fugue state
00:29:28uh like you wake up afterwards yeah you know and go that's what it looked like but it was
00:29:35you know ace ventura was was a way to rip down arrogance and that uh you know the the powers that be
00:29:45in any case and uh at the same time it's pure love there's so much love in it uh in that mocking
00:29:56except for the one i'm mocking necessarily yeah but even them i just want to go you know this is
00:30:02bullshit right yeah i know you're full of it you know and and and the but the performance is love
00:30:08it's a dance for me and i i i loved actors who employed every bit of their instrument you know i mean you
00:30:15look james dean this is a man who was expressing everything with every you know he didn't just get
00:30:23emotional he was he was emotion it was tearing him apart you know and it was everything was in it
00:30:30and i love that kind of thing so i i always think of myself as a it's a kind of painting you know and
00:30:36uh it's a an abstract painting a lot of times so i i know the method uh i know stanislavski and i know
00:30:46meisner and i know what's good from them for me is is i use it and uh at the same time i'm painting
00:30:55so don't tell me the eyes can't both be on this side of the head i think unlike any other comic
00:31:01performance i think i think in television film history i've never really seen that kind of
00:31:08energy exuded and i mean it's hilarious but i think it's completely completely unique it was so for me it
00:31:15was so unique that when i first saw it i went oh no no no no turn it off and then i came back and
00:31:20went turn it on i got oh yeah i mean it literally took me a while to go oh this can't happen
00:31:32i had the most wonderful experience before ace came out i was in chicago doing a live gig
00:31:39my manager sat me down at a restaurant in chicago and they said we got kind of bad news
00:31:44siskel and ebert killed you and uh don't know what what's next from here
00:31:51this is before ace ventura before three days before it came out they had the uh the words on
00:31:56a page and i just looked and it said the worst movie ever made the actor ever ever made this is the
00:32:05end this is whatever it was completely original no one had seen it it was so scathing i mean i've been
00:32:11disappointed so many times in my career i have an automatic downshift i go well okay don't know how
00:32:17it's gonna happen but i'm gonna i'm gonna have to break a basement window or something and uh what
00:32:23happened to my just absolute delight was that by the time i had done truman's show siskel and ebert did
00:32:32an entire episode just about me and called it jim carrey clown with class yeah and i get emotional
00:32:40thinking about it it was uh it was incredible like they just said we were wrong and i've never seen
00:32:47a critic say that both of them said we were wrong we didn't know what we were seeing and that's just a
00:32:53wonderful thing so i had asked about you know what makes you nervous i'm curious sort of in in your case
00:32:58i mean you took on i guess it's the antidote to the me too movement with with the not me movement
00:33:05but i am curious within that and i believe that started on some level as as your idea do you get
00:33:11nervous do you think about sort of where that line is what is that navigation well i mean i think like
00:33:17sort of specifically to the show i've never worried only because the writers involved are so good at
00:33:22handling those kinds of things and always making sure that the joke is on the right person so i never
00:33:28i think having a backstop of talent like like like is in our writers room is is incredible but as a
00:33:35performer i never really have gotten nervous about it just because ultimately the joke is never on any
00:33:41of the people that he is saying terrible things about it's always on he's how he how terrible of a
00:33:47person he is yeah thank you all so much my joanie he just swept me off my feet and i know that when
00:34:05he's elected president he's gonna sweep all the dirt out of washington so we're just gonna need
00:34:11to find a room that's tall enough for him i just want to make it clear that she does do all the house
00:34:18work because it's politics and not only u.s politics but then world politics there is not a single
00:34:23thing under the sun that we can't be cynical about and moving forward like i think i will miss that a
00:34:29little bit there's no side to it either yeah everybody's on the frying in the front right
00:34:34everybody everybody is in there i will miss that level of cynicism but at the same time i am looking
00:34:40forward to not being so cynical about every single thing that you come to contact but yeah i do think
00:34:45that like nobody in making a like the not me joke wants to have the joke on the victims you know like
00:34:51nobody would think that was funny so i do think that like from the beginning it's just like oh they
00:34:56found a really good way to do that i just had like a dumb i was like in my backyard i was raking and i was
00:35:02like i had a dumb pitch and i called up our showrunner and pitched him like the very beginning of it
00:35:07and then they built it out into what it became ballsy with you i've heard you say that your
00:35:12showrunners sort of take storylines or jokes and they take it as far as you could possibly go and
00:35:17then you sort of rein them in and you say yeah you you can say that if you're on camera you can say
00:35:21that joke you want to come in and do that one i gotta walk around in the face of that no i'm not
00:35:27doing that i mean can you can you give us some examples of that and and where your line is
00:35:32and ruin it right now yeah let's get rid of certain evidence yeah set your career on fire
00:35:36no um they just push hard and i think they do it because you don't really know where the line is
00:35:41sometimes until you step over it and then you go oh that was that was the line i guess we're over here
00:35:46now but i think that the protection is always that the joke is always on the people that are saying the
00:35:52line it's not we're not making fun of the people that are uh the subject of it it's that these people
00:35:57are so blind to they have no self-awareness that they they are hilarious because they're trying to
00:36:05process this through their prism of blindness and that's why they are hilarious you know
00:36:10they're the people who are the joke both of the writers are jewish and they like to throw in
00:36:14some anti-semitic jokes and i'm like i'm not doing that you can say that one i'll make up the black joke
00:36:22another thing that happens in in your show is a tremendous amount of drugs of cocaine and i remember
00:36:28hearing uh seth rogan one of your producers say that cocaine in the 80s is is much funnier than
00:36:34cocaine today correct a why and b what are the sort of unexpected challenges of playing high and
00:36:42i'm guessing there's other people at this table who have oh yeah i'm so blasted right now
00:36:47i didn't mean now i did you're freaking me the fuck out can we move on you look like a talking sponge
00:36:56that's why this came up yeah yeah sorry no it's it's um yeah i think i think it's it's funny then because
00:37:03because we're now because we're here and we can see where it's headed and going that's not going
00:37:08to work out well for you i know you think now that this is brilliant juice and but it's not going to
00:37:14work out it drove the industry exactly i mean i know people that were when i started i'm not going
00:37:19to say who in the show but they were getting their per diem and coke yeah the prop truck was where you
00:37:26could go yeah of course what absolutely i'm not trying to be a square but my god i i feel like
00:37:33i have a half a glass of wine and i worry about call the next morning like i'm such a loser it was
00:37:38just the culture you've got to be deep into the addiction to actually be able to handle it yeah
00:37:43that's you know it's you're kind of wired already uh and the b12 doing it over and over again it can
00:38:02kind of get you on a that's what you take approximating that's what it is yeah it's be or
00:38:07coke like jim said if you're already there and your tolerance is so high that you need a little
00:38:12help powdered elephant tusk exactly that line you were talking about that's the line oh i just stepped
00:38:19over back there and it's about that thick and it's a rail it's not actually yeah jim was talking a
00:38:26bit about the sort of validation of hearing um from from the people who perhaps earlier in your
00:38:31career didn't have uh the same things to say about you i'm curious you got on stage having won the
00:38:36emmy you pulled out of your pocket a speech that was one that you had written sort of decades ago
00:38:43how much of that was career validation for you i loved winning it it sits on my dining room table
00:38:51which is directly opposite the front door so when the man delivers my lipitor he gets to see
00:38:59but that's it i never thought oh i deserve it i never thought oh it took so long i thought okay
00:39:10in this moment i've won it i'll tell you what is what i was not prepared for when you're nominated you
00:39:17think that is great everybody says oh my gosh i just be nominated it's an honor which only lasts until
00:39:23your tush hits the seat and that went and then you won it but people treat you differently when you
00:39:32have won it that you i don't know they literally treat you different oh my god and i'm talking about
00:39:39on the street in the industry when you are an emmy winner there is something a patina they put on you
00:39:48that i i thought this is this is strange did you get a car huh i didn't get a car oh i had i had a
00:39:59different i i was nominated nine times in a row before i won right and uh when i when i won people
00:40:08would say well you have like what ten of them right right people don't know right yeah people don't in my
00:40:14experience it was like they didn't know you didn't win before yeah and i use the mantle of you were
00:40:19robbed was taken from me when i won and you were robbed was kind of a nice tiring no i don't know the
00:40:28you were robbed thing is a little bit tiresome yeah you know what i yeah you don't enter this business
00:40:35for awards some other boy tonight that you were robbed but i can't use that anymore i never felt
00:40:41robbed i was just happy that i won when i won yep and when i turned around and i could feel the warmth
00:40:51and the pressure of having almost no time to give the speech and the only thing that i wrote 43 years
00:40:58ago was kids you can go to bed now and of course the kids are now 35 and 40 and 47. they didn't they're
00:41:05already in bed yeah exactly i was there that night i was robbed
00:41:12in these characters that you are currently inhabiting what are the pieces of of yourselves
00:41:17consciously or not that you have sort of infused into them the demon that i played the eternal demon
00:41:25yes that one that seems like a one-to-one yeah just having this for a few times yeah where's the
00:41:29performance when people ask you know what's your process nowadays i try the words on over and over
00:41:35and over and over again and slowly if the words are really well written words which i've been blessed
00:41:40with the words start to inform me it becomes a dance that comes out of doing the words enough time that
00:41:46you then perform i get to play the this character michael and if i do the words well then some sort of
00:41:54character comes out and i'm enjoying it in the moment so i guess i'm there in the moment but
00:42:01i can't say that i there are pieces of you in it because i just found out this week that underneath
00:42:06my human skin suit that i have made to make myself more palatable to the humans yep i'm a two-story fiery
00:42:13squid so you know what draws you to that role what why do you what do you see it wasn't the role
00:42:23we signed on to mike shore's idea he literally talked to us for two hours in a room there was no
00:42:28script and we went okay and i'm really glad i did because it's about something it's about decency
00:42:35it's about there are ripple effects you know that there are consequences to your actions
00:42:40and in this kind of day and age it's really it's a lovely it's disguised in nine-year-old fart humor
00:42:47and lots of visual magic but we are talking about something that that's uh that matters
00:42:53who are you really all right all right fine just just give me one more second one serious question
00:43:01should we kill them what it might work we kill them go back through the door somehow grab them
00:43:07before they get to the bad place and regroup from there i could kill them right now you know it would
00:43:12be easy their bodies are very poorly made they're mostly goo and juice you just take the juice out
00:43:18and then they're dead jim you've said if the jeff pickles role were presented a few years before it
00:43:22ultimately was you wouldn't have been ready for it why not and what made you ready when it was
00:43:28the struggle to maintain your innocence maintain that wonder and that divine spark in a world that's
00:43:38seemingly cruel and out of control also the grief aspect of it the uh how do you keep
00:43:46that together when you've been hit by a freight train and uh you know i have and i know what that's
00:43:53like i don't believe that any actor can really do a part unless that part finds them you don't find
00:44:02parts they find you when you're ready to do them and when you're informed and and you have those
00:44:07feelings i want to do a show about death something special i don't think we want to do a show about
00:44:14passing on no not passing on death i don't want to say my son is off cloud surfing or hula hooping
00:44:21with a halo i want to say death well it's brave of you but i don't think you're ready to talk about
00:44:27this i don't think i'm not ready like you think i'm not ready i think we need to heal who's we what about
00:44:34you taking on this role what was it about this guy uh i love him i've only taught four or five times
00:44:44and i have thoroughly enjoyed it it is written so well that i don't know what to do um and again
00:44:54everything is we are blessed with wonderful writers because if it's not on the page it ain't on the stage
00:45:02i love the people that i work with they are an incredible ensemble that make me better
00:45:11and i am i just thoroughly love going to work every day excuse me hey private pile how you doing oh
00:45:19let's not call me that this story just an idea there is an embellishment called the dennehy balloon
00:45:28actually it's a colostomy bag filled with blood that brian dennehy used during death trap when he
00:45:32was shot he would to to piggyback on what everyone has said and that you will then ape and act like
00:45:40you came up with it you know it's it's true you cannot there's you are bringing yourself to these roles
00:45:51we don't we don't completely shut off and then you know we're not there we're we're there and you're
00:45:56you're you're you're exercising and you're accessing different parts of your your personality different
00:46:01parts of your pain different parts of your joy and and trying to find where you and this character
00:46:07meet and sometimes you're reaching for things that are out there beyond you that you're trying to
00:46:12scaffold to and other times you're like that's a little too close can we not can we not do that beat
00:46:17right now but if you're really um honest and i think all of us probably have a good relationship
00:46:22with the writers that we're working with that you know you can you're in a you're in a conversation
00:46:27it's not just like they stick it all on the page and go say all of that you know you're always in a
00:46:32conversation and when you're in that conversation you're trying to get to the best iteration of what
00:46:36that thing is so you are bringing yourself to these moments and that's when it's that's when it sings i mean
00:46:43my writers are perfectly happy for me to improv a scene and they go that's good that was better
00:46:48move on you know best answer wins i'm gonna call an ambulance
00:46:55what kind of car you drive kid oh because i drive a honda and you drive a porsche i don't drive
00:46:59shit i get driven in a lamborghini limousine aka a lambo limo aka a limbo so you get none of the speed
00:47:08of a lamborghini and none of the comfort of a limousine yeah but it costs twice as much as both
00:47:12obviously this guy's not a car guy you're not a car guy i don't like your you don't know
00:47:16shit about cracks who are you faff who are you what were the moments when it's it's too close
00:47:23and it's i don't know well you know it's it's funny i've done i've done it and it's in talking
00:47:28about the too closeness is not just there's other people that it affects so sometimes i don't talk
00:47:33about it because it's very personal but i have had more than one instance uh in jobs that i'm working on
00:47:39where you're like why is this storyline happening that's also happening in my life that these people
00:47:44didn't know anything about oh you know this is something that's that i'm getting to work through
00:47:50and getting to play with these other great collaborators around me that's really something
00:47:54that i'm dealing with in my personal life and there is yeah it it very very often happens to me i've
00:48:00found in my work and you're going what am i pulling toward me you know it's not just that
00:48:05things are out there for you to go get a lot of times these things are kind of coalescing around
00:48:09you and you're like wow did i pull that in so that i could work through this in some way and it
00:48:14it just feels like that a lot of times so i always feel like there's a lot of me in whatever
00:48:18what you're doing whatever i'm doing
00:48:25sasha i have to ask you what are the sort of wildest circumstances under which you secured or perhaps
00:48:32didn't secure uh an interview for the show in some cases you're undercover for a while as you're
00:48:37trying to get it in some cases uh you're trying to sort of pass through major security yeah to get
00:48:43in the room with the person is already a terrible ordeal so we we were we managed to secure an interview
00:48:51with ben carson but it was at the um at a hotel in dc i'd been living undercover for three weeks in dc
00:48:59because i didn't want to have any sightings of me because if somebody interested yeah yeah what
00:49:05does that look like then what what is living undercover it means that no one can see your
00:49:10face peeing in jars and stuff like that is it masks wigs or is it just staying inside i don't
00:49:17want to go into what i was wearing but it's mainly staying inside and you're never going through you're
00:49:22trying to avoid being seen okay um or you can't use your credit card or anything for as long as you're
00:49:28undercover because the first person we interviewed when we got into dc was bernie sanders they were
00:49:35concerned his team actually were great great because they immediately called up the channel
00:49:41and they said what's going on but the channel didn't know that we were making the show so they
00:49:44actually honestly said well you know it's fine they then they then said well how do we know this
00:49:50isn't a terrorist group that are trying to you know attack uh politicians and we might have a
00:49:56congressional hearing so there was a game of cat mouth so i knew i had to kind of stay undercover
00:50:01but then uh we said with ben carson we managed to get an interview and the hotel that we picked
00:50:10there was a problem because there was a conference of other politicians
00:50:14and uh there was condolisa rice there and a bunch of other kind of high-end politicians
00:50:18and the place was full of secret service so me even getting to the room
00:50:23was a kind of huge problem because there's because you had to be sasha with your id
00:50:30yeah well no you don't have to present your id at a at a um hotel but yes he came with his own
00:50:36secret service i'm in the other room saying you know and there were probably about 50 60 secret
00:50:41service there he comes with two secret service but you know we'd made a mistake we'd gone to the
00:50:47worst hotel ever to interview him where all these other secret service are around to make sure nothing
00:50:52happens right and by the way the secret service there it sounds like complete paranoia but some of
00:50:59them disguise themselves as staff and i'm obviously disguised wow oh my god and so so i'm in the other
00:51:08room and i realize he's got his own secret service and i get on the phone to my lawyer and i go what
00:51:13happens if they ask to see id yeah yeah like if they go and see my id and they find out it's me
00:51:19i'm blasted you know i said listen i've got fake id can i present my fake id and i go no you get in
00:51:24the phone he goes now you're going to go to jail yeah exactly what happens if the fake id falls on the
00:51:28floor and their secret service pick it up you're not actually presenting it okay yes and he goes all
00:51:33right there may be a league there may be a way out of it but he goes but you might get arrested so
00:51:38you're going into a scene knowing that you're trying to work out the percentage of something bad
00:51:44happening right and then we booked another room which was in case we got busted by the secret
00:51:50service that i would go to so we kind of there his team i made one slip up this is this is the kind of
00:51:58this is the problem of the stuff that i do which is that you make one mistake and the scene is dead
00:52:04right so it was it was tragic for me because he was a you know so high up but ben carlson literally
00:52:11his foot was stepping on set and the white house press secretary pulled the interview
00:52:18because i was playing this finnish unboxing character and i had these kids toys and he said
00:52:24why have you got all those kids toys and well you know we're going to do some unboxing and he said
00:52:29unboxing why and he suddenly realizes that a member of the cabinet is coming into
00:52:34unbox and he had great instincts this guy and pulled it so the secret surf secret service pulled ben
00:52:40carson but then the rest of the secret service in the building are alerted to the fact that something's
00:52:47happening and obviously they have to treat it as a serious thing so i then i then go to the second
00:52:53room that is booked under a different name oh my god but then we have an ex-secret service bodyguard
00:52:58and he's like they're listening in i'm going i actually thought that the bodyguard was paranoid
00:53:04but it turned out that he was right and then we're playing cat and mouse with the secret
00:53:08service they're trying to find you and you're yes they don't know who i am because they have
00:53:11to treat it as this crazy crazy oh my god and then we're trying to work out how do we get
00:53:16oh it's the comedian dude yeah and then also you're trying to keep it undercover off you're
00:53:25even there so then it's how do i get me out of we know that the secret service in the building
00:53:29are looking for this guy right this finnish guy they don't know what's happened but somebody's
00:53:35trying to do something to get out to a cabinet minister and then we're working out how to get out
00:53:39the hotel and you know we've got a back route we always have escape routes but then actually said
00:53:45there that we know you're going to get the end then we find out they're at the escape route what are
00:53:49the escape route they're at the escape route so we ended up going through the front main entrance
00:53:54and the guy with me he said if anyone comes towards you i'm going to stop them i go what does that mean
00:54:00he goes i'm going to stop my goes that legal he goes yes and he goes you just have to get from
00:54:04here from the elevator to that car and so a lot of you know eighty percent of what i do is this
00:54:12getting in and getting out wow off situation you get nervous i'm terrified i'm absolutely terrified
00:54:18and yet you keep you go back for more and more and more junkie i don't know yeah i don't know what
00:54:24it is it becomes addictive i mean we did this scene where i pitched building a mega mosque in this town and
00:54:31they um we knew they'd be upset but you have you know that's what you have the other stuff really
00:54:37yeah they're really upset but then you're you're in this situation where you say okay we want to make
00:54:42sure that even when they get upset we know they're probably going to get upset because they probably
00:54:47hate the idea of muslims coming into their town we want to make sure that nobody's going to pull a gun
00:54:53and so we had a security guard there and he he said listen you know the great thing is i've you're
00:54:59right because i've i had like a clipboard he goes i've made you a bulletproof clipboard
00:55:04and i go what do you make you're wonderful someone pulls a gun you know someone snuck in a gun
00:55:09and they're going to try and shoot you pull out use the clipboard and just you know cover yourself
00:55:14yeah just deflect the bullet it's this big i go what do i put it over like their heart or their head
00:55:19door they usually go yeah he goes i don't know because that's a cyclical that i was tossed so
00:55:26again it's not really an effect choice so we had like a scene like that and it got
00:55:32fairly aggressive at the end and somebody threat he said you know you know it got nearly violent
00:55:39because i accused somebody of being a muslim i said excuse me sir are you a muslim and they go you say
00:55:43that again yeah he said i'm gonna kill you yeah that's on camera yeah and then so you know you seem
00:55:49you're a muslim you know which and they got very offended and it became confrontational actually
00:55:54and what's going through your head i'm going to risk this and i got my clipboard i go deep into
00:55:58character at that point if it feels like it's going to get violent then i you can't the the worst thing
00:56:04you can do is crack and then realize that you're playing a character it's gonna go hey oh i just want
00:56:10to mock you and expose your racism then you're really in trouble and then we're what i'm doing in my
00:56:16head and again i'm english not really fully aware of what's going on but i'm trying to edit the scene
00:56:22so i'm trying to i know the beginning of the setup to the joke the joke the following joke and then
00:56:29i need the out how do you get out yeah and then i need the out the shot fired is probably
00:56:33i want to get out that's the end on there i want to get it out before that's a step before you can't
00:56:42i have fucked up so many scenes where the only threat was like rolling into lunch
00:56:51my biggest problem is overhead lighting
00:56:53i'm 57 man it's crazy it's interesting in a scene like that so we we then go okay let's do
00:56:59the scene again and we know that it's gotten the guy at the end he goes you know now i know why you
00:57:03took your guns off us because we took their guns off them weapons off them before they got on a
00:57:09bus that took them to the room then we knew that the next group that were coming into the room because
00:57:14we wanted to do this scene again do another take we have to get another they would have their cars
00:57:20outside the hall and we were concerned that they would go out get upset get their guns and bring
00:57:26them in sure and so at that point you've got to act as the producer and so i had a meeting with
00:57:31everyone i just said listen we're now aware of how angry people are getting i want you to opt
00:57:39in to the next scene in other words i'm assuming everyone's going home unless you say now i'm going
00:57:46to stay because we're aware that you know we can't guarantee that we're not going to be stuck in
00:57:52this hall and everyone with their guns outside and not letting us out you know so we had it was a kind
00:57:59of i mean how many stay how many go in the end i forced quite a lot of people to go home you know yes
00:58:06because everyone said we're staying and i said no actually you guys are going you know and obviously
00:58:10you have an escape route ever but we at the end of the day we're in a situation where violence has been
00:58:15threatened we know that then most people had their own weapons and we knew that it was a possibility
00:58:21that we might be on lockdown we might have to stay in the building how do you deal with people
00:58:27do people have to sign off yeah that i can't get into but okay well that scares you come on
00:58:33come on do the fbi because your your faces as he's telling these stories is
00:58:38it's wonderful but it is that comedy is dangerous yeah it is comedy is dangerous it truly is i mean there
00:58:45were many nights at the comedy store where i ended up on someone's table with a broken beer bottle
00:58:49you know i mean i mean it got crazy you know i'm sure oh absolutely you have the
00:58:55or drove the entire audience out because i stayed up too long when they hated me yeah i would go at
00:59:01them it was not it was not okay you don't like what i'm doing there was there was one particular
00:59:08night in fact right stayed up for two hours because the audience hated me so i just made it an
00:59:14exercise in self-punishment and punishment for them but what drives that why i uh just anti-authority
00:59:23you know i'm that way and and uh i'd rather get hit than back down wow and uh i dropped to the floor
00:59:31so long that chairs were flying through the air it was like new year's eve there was swizzle sticks
00:59:41and whatever and glass and wow things like that and then i said well i guess the comedy store it was a
00:59:47saturday night in the main room 250 people paying top dollar and whatever and it became a war
00:59:52and uh well i'll tell you how the war ended so so i finally got off stage to huge applause just
01:00:07because i mentioned that i was going to leave the stage like that and uh and i left the stage
01:00:15then i crawled through the audience on hands and knees popped up behind the piano during the hosts
01:00:22part and uh started banging on the keys and singing i hate you all you gave me cancer
01:00:28and it was an entire improvised song no they got up one at a time the tables got up did you write it
01:00:35on the spot yeah yes it was just yeah i was just uh blaming them for the cancer cells that were being
01:00:39formed and uh and so i you know i did that until the entire audience left literally the entire audience
01:00:48except for five people who stood around the piano and when i was done in a sweat uh they said this
01:00:56is the greatest thing we've ever seen in our lives yeah yeah and then i got in the car and i cried all the
01:01:03way home wow yeah wow because i don't want to make people unhappy i'm here to make people happy yeah but
01:01:09i do have a rebellious nature so sometimes that gets out of hand this is a bit of a left turn um but i
01:01:18want to ask why do you guys do comedy you have a thing in you where it literally pushes you to say the
01:01:27joke either at a party or on the sound stage you literally have timing you cannot teach it you you can't
01:01:35you can't read about it in a book uh it is in you or it isn't and that's just the truth it is more
01:01:42difficult than uh i think than doing uh just straight drama and uh we get uh less um respect
01:01:52for because it looks so easy and much less respect all to tonight
01:01:58i know but it's like being a surfer it's like being a surfer you're in the water and there's a wave
01:02:02that's coming and it's an opportunity to be funny and if you have that instinct you're sitting there
01:02:08going am i going to ride this wave it's a bit dangerous but am i going to ride it i don't know
01:02:13that you make the decision i the the image is exactly right here comes the wave and i don't think
01:02:19well for me anyway i don't think sometimes i have the choice yeah i think that wave is coming and
01:02:26i'm on that board well maybe i'm kidding myself but i always feel like especially if you're saying
01:02:31something that's slightly dangerous there's that cliffs of acapulco acapulco moment right where
01:02:37the the the tide has come in you either dive or you don't right and if you don't dive it's gone
01:02:43forever but you know most of the time you gotta go yeah you gotta go even and i also think it's
01:02:50something that to piggyback on something that sasha said it breaks down walls and it's immediately it
01:02:56hits people and when you know when people feel like something's funny and even if they don't want to
01:03:00laugh you're like no that one got you yeah and once you're in there then you can turn it and you
01:03:05can make poignant moments and you can make them feel things deeply because they're unguarded they've
01:03:10let down their defenses and you're in there and you're you can move around in there and it's easy
01:03:15but you've excelled in both spheres i mean it's uh i i i guess i mean it just i never saw a separation
01:03:23between it when i was coming up which is where we all probably it's still that you're still that kid
01:03:29eight nine ten whatever years old it was like oh this is cool i can play this character and
01:03:33people laugh and then people are sad and then it's still kind of that although in 55 years it's still
01:03:38the same thing except it's more disarming for me i feel when you come at it from a comedy standpoint
01:03:46because i don't know hotel rwanda i remember just that being so impactful you know you however much we
01:03:52can do in comedy i mean that really changes your mindset yes and even in that i mean and even in
01:03:59that at the beginning it we really he was disarming the character was telling jokes and yeah cabulian
01:04:06messing around and cracking jokes you get in with him because you're like oh i like this person this
01:04:12person makes me feel comfortable my guard is down and once your guard is down now you can take people
01:04:18everywhere to me i think comedy is like not always the the end game you know people like bill maher
01:04:25and and cobert and they're attacking this subject in a comedic way but i do believe that when it comes
01:04:33down to it and the wolf is at the door there ain't nothing funny about that and and if you give them a
01:04:40joke about it that's fine it it heals in that moment but it also is an out for the audience and for
01:04:50the enemy and the enemy goes it's just a joke i want people to know how serious i am about the threat
01:04:57that faces us you know and if i make it a joke i can that's part of it but if i make it a joke it's not
01:05:05as as serious okay well i i watch stephen colbert at the uh and and seth at the end of the night
01:05:12because uh it is like an antidote for the day and let me just say underneath those jokes they are
01:05:20serious well there's no joke unless you're on the nerve of the thing anyway you know if it's just
01:05:25frivolous and that's something we talk about on the show it has to really be about something that's
01:05:28grounded and that's that's impactful or the joke so there you go you are completely correct when it
01:05:34is frivolous you are so right then you're missing the the the whole opportunity but boy when you
01:05:41walk that edge it's right on the nerve yeah yes but i think there's a time to say things straight
01:05:47so they know what you mean i just feel like i don't know that i had much of a choice in the matter like
01:05:51i i have always been somebody like i think from when i was a kid like was able to see the serious
01:05:57things i just have only ever been able to deal with them through this lens and they're like this lens of
01:06:03like oh well i need to make myself comfortable in this by by look by coming at it sideways and
01:06:07there is i don't know if you guys do i had a conversation with a friend of mine about this
01:06:11recently that like it's like sometimes when like stuff comes up with your family i don't know like
01:06:15if you're a bomb thrower like sometimes throwing bombs sometimes they explode but it just i don't
01:06:22know when it happened but just ever since i was a kid in whatever situation it was it was like all
01:06:27right well i'm just gonna put this in here and see how that goes like it is fun and i do feel like
01:06:31you're taking that risk is great there is a risk there but like the reward sometimes is like this
01:06:36is an impenetrable person right and you got in with that yeah right that is a really amazing thing
01:06:42right and whether or not it's able you can get to it a different way certainly possible but my way
01:06:47into it has always been for that let's complete this sentence i knew i made it in hollywood when
01:06:52i wasn't dead yet interesting when you weren't dead yet kind of i mean really people ask that
01:07:02question i really feel like they say well your career is i'm like well let me get let me look
01:07:07back when i'm done and go okay i did that i felt good about that i felt good about yeah careers are
01:07:12something you look back at yeah i mean i i feel like all of us you know there's a bit of imposter
01:07:18syndrome i think that comes up for for many of us and you're like at some point they're just going
01:07:21to go yeah we we've had that flavor we're thank you next guy i feel like everybody that i've met like
01:07:28you like outwardly you look you look at them and you think oh well that person that person's fine like
01:07:32they're they're they're perfect they're sailing like they're never going to have to hustle and then
01:07:36you meet them and they still hustle you guys still after it and it doesn't matter and so that feeling of
01:07:41like i've made it in hollywood i don't know that that actually okay but you do have your sort of
01:07:46first dose of success and feeling like oh i can make a career of this but it's flipping i did get
01:07:51to be at a party one time and i will fucking tell you that was amazing that was that was some great
01:07:57shit right there i love it i knew that people were watching happy days when i went for my first
01:08:02personal appearance i got off the plane at 11 30 and there were 3 000 people in 50s clothes and i
01:08:10thought it was a party and the stewardess said no i think that's for you and i went oh people are
01:08:16watching yeah okay so the rest of us have not made it yeah well we just discovered a lot of times it's
01:08:24the people you meet the people you get to yeah you get to hang with i mean you know i grew up with dick
01:08:29van dyke and i was a complete lunatic for dick van dyke and i've been able to meet dick van dyke and he
01:08:36wants to hang out and and uh them saying that they love what you do is really meaningful yeah
01:08:42uh i just drew him a cartoon that i sent to him uh of of uh uh rca television from 1969 and a black
01:08:53and white uh version of the opening credits uh for the dick van dyke where show where he trips over the
01:08:59ottoman and i'm in front and i did a cartoon of myself tripping over the ottoman in front of the
01:09:04television and those are the types of things that that it keep happening to me they i'm constantly
01:09:11being reminded oh i made it oh my gosh that's wonderful and the the first time i think and
01:09:17living color was huge was a huge thing for me and it was like they planted me you know my seedling in
01:09:23the garden and i had a chance to bloom on that show so i got a taste of it there and uh that time in
01:09:31chicago when siskel and ebert hated my movie and then friday happened and it was a giant hit
01:09:38and uh the hotel staff where i was staying put a dog bowl in my room with candies in it oh
01:09:47did it yeah never gonna be the same i think it's a balancing act for me to
01:09:53to to because careers if you celebrate your career in the moment then it feels like you're slowing
01:10:01down so you're always looking for what's next or what what can i do better or one of these days
01:10:07literally i'm going to be good you know that kind of thinking you know as opposed to celebrating but
01:10:13you also don't want to be a schmo and not go thank you thank you look at this thank you but it is a
01:10:18delicate balance at a certain point you have to you have to pick up the crown and wear it well
01:10:23absolutely you know that whatever that crown is that wherever your place of fame is it's like there's
01:10:29two choices you you reject it you push it away you don't think you deserve it or you go you know what
01:10:35i'm going to wear this as well as i can right it's usually in the eye of the beholder fame is not
01:10:40you know you don't sit around going fame right someone comes up and says you're famous and you you
01:10:45are gracious right and you meet them at whatever level they're talking about but was there a pinch
01:10:50me moment for you no but i'm gonna have one i swear by the time i'm through it can i go back and
01:10:58celebrate dick van dyke for a second because i grew up with no television in the country i'm still doing
01:11:04his stuff oh by the way sonic is coming out and i've got moves in there that i can't wait for him to see
01:11:10that's one um i so the first thing i i got a black and white tv stanford university freshman
01:11:18and it was my first tv literally ever i tapped into a teacher's cable crawled out of thing and
01:11:24turned it on and it was 11 o'clock in the morning and it was a rerun of dick van dyke and that was my
01:11:29first and i fell madly in love with dick van dyke and then years later on becker he played my father
01:11:37and it was just this full circle thing of judgment yeah he was my hero my my physical
01:11:44there was one time where paul mccartney in like a twitter question and answer session somebody asked
01:11:49him like what were his two favorite shows and one i think was just like a uk reality show and then he
01:11:54mentioned our show in this like those are my two favorite shows and i do think there was a moment of
01:11:59quiet in the room it was interesting to know in that moment that you were a part of something that a
01:12:04beetle noticed like that seemed like a gigantic thing it didn't mean that we get to take the rest
01:12:09of the day off but there was the thing like i grew up i lived my entire life and it came to this moment
01:12:15and a beetle knew something that i did and that seems in itself insurmountable like that was a moment
01:12:21that was cool john cleese for me when he knew cheers and who really what's the moment for you all those guys
01:12:29there were a lot of moments i mean connected with this table i used to do a character called ali g i
01:12:34was shooting in la and then i met jimmy miller who was jim's manager and he said jim loves your stuff
01:12:43he wants you to come over to his house at that time in england there was an assumption that no one would
01:12:49ever get to hollywood you know it had been 30 years since sellers or 25 years since python there was just
01:12:58an assumption that english comedy will never travel across the pond and i remember the next
01:13:03night i turned up at jim's house i was invited i wasn't just i broke in and i i molested
01:13:12and he opened the door and you know it was the biggest movie star in the world and obviously
01:13:17brilliantly talented and hilarious and he knew what i was doing and my other hero was there gary shandling
01:13:23who unfortunately passed away yeah i couldn't believe that i was there and i was completely
01:13:28terrified because i remember jim and gary started making jokes and at one point you made a joke you
01:13:34won't remember any of this did a really funny joke you went like this and i thought oh my god at some
01:13:39point they're going to expect me to get on the board but that was an amazing moment for this guy who'd grown
01:13:48grown up in a suburb of london who never thought you know i thought i was going to be a you know a
01:13:54lawyer or something like that i never thought i could actually get a career out of being funny you
01:13:59yeah i had two choices with you admiration or jealousy and i chose admiration but if that is i assume that
01:14:07is a navigation you make and those are two yeah when a new voice comes along and you've been the voice
01:14:13right and and you go oh there's a part of you that goes wow you know have you lost your place or
01:14:20something like that but it wasn't that i've always tried to make the choice of like what's you know
01:14:25what's this person doing that that is making me feel uncomfortable and and and and laugh my ass off
01:14:33and and and it's admiration and and it's the only way to go two two things this is i guess knowing that
01:14:42you're whatever you want to call it you've made it is is who you get to hang with who you get to meet
01:14:48you know who are playing at relatively the same level is really exciting do you remember the people
01:14:53magazine who's hot and who's not i never was who's hot and i was always on who's not
01:15:02i kept thinking well don't didn't i have to be hot at one point
01:15:06you're not yeah i never got to be hot i'm just not you're really blowing apart the
01:15:13logic of this people magazine thank you guys so much for being in this conversation
01:15:36so
01:15:43you
01:15:43you
01:15:43you
01:15:43you
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