- 4 months ago
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00:00I'm so excited to talk about the new season of King of the Hill.
00:03This is the second season since its revival last summer.
00:07I'm curious, though, take me back to what it was like receiving that call to return to the show
00:12and what your immediate reactions were.
00:14It was, it's a tough one because we were all still sad about Johnny passing away.
00:22And it's, as sad as we were, we, I think Greg and Mike and Saladin Patterson kind of decided,
00:29you know, interiorly that I could do the voice.
00:33And I did it at a couple of read-throughs and they said, yeah, I know how to work.
00:37And I said, do you want to do it?
00:38Of course I want to do it.
00:40Because he was an old friend and a sweet guy and really weirdly talented.
00:47He was a nut, but he was our lovely nut and we loved him.
00:51He was great.
00:52Definitely.
00:52And taking on, taking over the role of Dale Gribble from the late Johnny Hardwick,
00:57did you feel like you could infuse kind of your own touches or your own twist on the role?
01:01Or have you felt like you're completely trying to pay homage to the original voice?
01:06Well, it's interesting because it's a little bit of a fine line I have to walk
01:09because I don't want to change it too much because what Johnny made was so great.
01:13I mean, they had a drawing and had some lines and Johnny came up with everything of that dude.
01:19So then they started writing for what Johnny voiced.
01:22So I don't want to mess with that.
01:24All I'm trying to do is stay in his world.
01:26I'll add my things now and again, but it's not out of Dale's world.
01:30That's all I want to do is stay there because his world fit perfectly in the context of the bigger
01:36Arlen, Texas, King of the Hill world.
01:38Definitely.
01:39And I saw in an interview of yours last year, you were saying like you felt like you could kind
01:44of
01:45take on the role because when you did the original run of the show, you guys would record together
01:51and sometimes fill in for each other when someone was out.
01:54Has that recording structure or process changed at all?
01:57Is it more individualized now?
01:58Yeah, you know, it's all individualized now.
02:01We're not together in the same room as much as we used to be, which was really fun because we
02:06were all
02:07younger and starting out and we had this little show.
02:09So we'd drive to Fox and we'd all show up at 10 and we'd have a read through.
02:12Then we'd go to record it.
02:14And it was just fun.
02:16And we were watching each other grow up and people had husbands and wives.
02:20They got married and they got divorced and they had kids.
02:22It was great.
02:23But that really cemented a lifelong friendship with all of us.
02:27So I think coming back and even though we can't be in the room, the same room at the same
02:31time all the time,
02:32we still have such a connection with each other.
02:35Yeah, like Stephen's in town.
02:37I'll see him and his wife tomorrow.
02:39And yeah.
02:41That's awesome.
02:42Yeah.
02:42I know one place some of you got to reunite was at Comic-Con last summer.
02:47Yeah, yeah.
02:47Will you be back this year?
02:49I'm going this year too.
02:50You know, I've never been to one of those things.
02:52It's nuts.
02:53Them nerds is crazy.
02:55Right?
02:56Isn't that the phrase they use?
02:57Them nerds is nuts.
02:59It was fun.
03:00I'd never been to any Comic-Con before, but that was really something else.
03:05That was great.
03:06Yeah.
03:07It was pretty fun.
03:09Last year was my first too and it was an experience.
03:11How did you find it?
03:12It was nuts, right?
03:13Yes.
03:13Did you have guys sneaking around looking around pillars at you?
03:16Because I did now and again.
03:18Like they'd be looking at me and they'd be like, is that the guy?
03:21They'd look again, maybe you had a hat on or something and they didn't know.
03:24And then they'd sort of slowly crawl up to you.
03:28It was interesting.
03:29It was pretty funny.
03:30I hadn't been around that for a while.
03:32Well, this season of King of the Hill kind of spoofs Comic-Con a little bit in one of
03:36the episodes at a sci-fi convention, which I thought was fun.
03:40What was it like kind of getting to voice that episode after being at your first Comic-Con
03:45last summer?
03:45Well, it's certainly hard to spoof a Comic-Con, isn't it?
03:49It's really hard to spoof a thing that's so wonderfully spoofable.
03:54That's great.
03:55Those are, but those are your fans.
03:57You know, those are the guys that have been with us since the beginning.
04:00You know, and they grew up with this group of people in Ireland.
04:04And I think aging it up, you know, aging the people up was such a great idea and also a
04:09really difficult idea.
04:11I don't think people realize because like, I don't want to see Rick and Morty older.
04:16That's awful.
04:17I don't want to see an older Morty.
04:19Who cares about old Morty?
04:21But they were somehow able to take Bobby and make Bobby a little bit older.
04:26And people, they kind of took to it pretty quickly.
04:29And Dale's older.
04:30Everybody's older.
04:30But it's a really interesting, it's a hard thing to pull off, I think, with Mike and
04:36Greg and Saladin especially.
04:38I mean, he really had to sort of walk this very fine line.
04:44And he did it.
04:45He did a great job.
04:46Completely.
04:47Yeah.
04:48And this series has stood out among a slew of recent revivals as one that's more than
04:54worthy of a return.
04:55What do you think it was about the series that makes it so timeless?
04:59Well, it's about, you know, at the end of the day, there's nothing mean in that show.
05:06And it's about kindness.
05:10And nothing is ironic in that show.
05:12It's very sincere.
05:13And it's not a political show.
05:15And it's not a political show.
05:15They rarely make a political point on anything.
05:19So it's about a family.
05:20And it's about them being kind to each other and understanding each other.
05:24And at its heart, nobody gets to be mean.
05:27No one's mean on that show to each other.
05:29If you watch it, Dale might do something awful, but he's Dale.
05:33And you kind of forgive him.
05:34And he understands it as much as he can in his own Dale-like way at the end of the
05:38episode.
05:38But they're not mean people.
05:41So you get to have a respite from the kind of polarized nature of this country sometimes.
05:47And you get to watch these people not be mean to each other and struggle and find their
05:51way through life and love on each other a little bit.
05:55It's nice.
05:55And something that I love about this revival is that it does pay homage to the original
06:00run so well and continuing these original storylines.
06:03And one of the ones that gets continued is Nancy infamously having an affair with John
06:10Redcorn and Dale being completely unaware.
06:13Sure.
06:13However, that affair may have finally come to an end, though, in this season, though
06:18Dale still has no knowledge, do you think he'll ever find out?
06:22I think there's a wonderful part of Dale that I think honestly believes that no one would
06:29ever stray from him, that there's no way Nancy would have something else.
06:32Even if he saw some guy, which he probably did, I don't remember exactly, but he probably
06:36saw John Redcorn walking out of his front door at one point in the morning and just went,
06:41hey, John, didn't know it was, didn't think anything twice about it.
06:45So there's something wonderfully blind about Dale and there's something wonderfully blind
06:49about a lot of the characters in there, which is this sweet, people are blind.
06:55We walk around, you know, you've got a bunch of blind spots.
06:57I hate to tell you.
06:59So do I.
07:00We all have little weird blind spots that we can't see, we can't access.
07:04And Dale's that dude.
07:05I don't think he's, he ever thinks that Nancy would step out on him.
07:10Completely.
07:10And like King of the Hill, you've been in some of the years most talked about shows,
07:15one of them being Widow's Bay.
07:17Yeah.
07:17What a fun one that was, right?
07:19I have to ask.
07:20What can you share about that experience in working with Matthew Reese on this series?
07:24He's really wonderful.
07:25He's really great.
07:26And Hiro, the director, was really great and everybody on there was top notch and really
07:34fun.
07:35And you could say a line now and again that wasn't in the script and they didn't care,
07:39you could improvise something.
07:40They were great.
07:41And Steven Root, of course, was killer in that.
07:44It's time to load him up with a couple Emmys here and there now.
07:47He was just great in that.
07:49And it was so fun to hang out with all those guys.
07:52Totally.
07:52And Steven received an Emmy nomination for the series.
07:57Yeah, man.
07:57And the series got 19 Emmy nominations in total.
08:01Have you been in touch with him or any of the cast about this or since the nominations
08:05were announced?
08:05Oh, of course.
08:06Yes.
08:06Steve gets a nod.
08:07You got to yell at him, at least in a text.
08:09It'd be a nice Emmy winner.
08:10Wouldn't that be nice?
08:11I think.
08:11Has he won one yet?
08:13I don't know.
08:14Maybe for animation.
08:15I don't know if he's won a live action one yet.
08:17He was nominated for Barry, I think.
08:19But enough about Steven Root, all right?
08:21We're not here for Steven Root, are we?
08:24Cheat ladies, please.
08:27And another show you appeared in this past year, Chad Powers, playing Glenn Powell's
08:34dad.
08:34Have you heard anything about season two or when production might start?
08:38Well, we did see, we already wrapped season two, so that's done.
08:42Yeah.
08:44More shenanigans, more shenanigans with makeup.
08:46I don't think you'll be able to, you might be able to recognize me in a big scene.
08:52Probably not.
08:54See, more shenanigans with the old, yeah, Glenn Powell.
08:59He's fun.
09:00Another series that you've appeared in both seasons, the four seasons on Netflix, that's
09:06hopefully going to start production soon as well.
09:08Have you gotten a call about potentially returning to season three?
09:11No, I haven't.
09:12You know, whatever they decide is great by me, but they're the greatest.
09:19It's great to watch Tina Fey in that because she's doing, I think she's doing everything
09:23she wants to do with this show and it's so brilliant.
09:25And the actors are so good in that.
09:28You know, great to see Kerry Kenny Silver come up and really inhabit a place that she
09:33hasn't been able to do yet.
09:34So she's wonderful and Will Forte's an old buddy and, yeah, it's, and Coleman's wonderful
09:41and Marco is, it's just, it couldn't be better, man.
09:43Completely.
09:44It's so fun.
09:45Oh, you know, you watch that thing, don't you?
09:47Mm-hmm.
09:47Come on.
09:49Yeah.
09:49It's another show where, where there's a, there's a humanity to it like King of the Hill.
09:54There's a kindness, you know, even though those people might really get contentious,
09:58God, they love each other and that's what families do and they're a real family on that show.
10:01It's a family they chose and the ones in Ireland, you know, are the family that we chose too
10:06and some of them are a real family and, you know, they're the Hills and then the family
10:10they chose and Dale's, for whatever reason, is a wonderful part of that wacky family.
10:15I mean, that story.
10:15.
10:15.
10:16.
10:16.