The Always Sunny Podcast - Acting (Without Rob)
Episode Date: February 6, 2023When you're acting, carbs are your enemy....
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Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.
Dumb.
How are we doing?
Are we rolling, Beggen?
We are rolling, yes.
Rolling?
We've been shooting all day.
We've been shooting the show.
It's been a joy.
I've been in my, you know, no spoiler here,
but I've been in my American Flag bandana all day.
This is a lot of fun just.
Or as we've started referring to it,
I think you came up with this.
Started referring to it as his Americas.
No, Charlie.
I thought that was you.
No, no, yeah, he's got his Americas on.
I just put it in the script
because I thought it was funny to refer to that.
My Americas.
Is it the jacket?
Like you have a like a jean jacket, what's the look?
I got some really good sweatshirts this year.
So Charlie picked up some new Americas.
You should take those home, man.
I will not, I would say I get a few like side glances
from people that are like, oh, you're one of those guys.
Well, so we were talking about this today in the van.
I don't appreciate that I feel like patriotism
has been co-opted by one, you know, half of the country.
And it's like-
It's a whole party, yeah.
Everyone's an American.
But I can already hear the outrage for you.
I'm a patriot.
I mean, I was telling you the story the other day
when my son had his friends over to the house
and we were going to watch the USA Netherlands game,
the World Cup USA Netherlands game.
And Miles, my oldest son, his two buddies,
I won't name them.
We're like, yeah, we're going to go for the Netherlands.
And I was like, wait, what?
What do you mean you're going for the Netherlands?
So they're like, yeah, we want to go for the Netherlands.
I'm like, right, but you're Americans.
I mean, you live in the United States.
I get, yeah, we just want to go for the Netherlands.
And I found myself getting genuinely pissed off.
Well, yeah.
Have we talked about this on the podcast?
No, no, no, we haven't.
Because it's a bunch of crap.
First of all, kid, it was, I was getting pissed off.
I don't know if it was-
You're not from, tell me one thing about the Netherlands.
Put your Netherlands on a map.
We'll see.
Okay, so that was the point I was making.
Yeah, exactly, right?
Here's a map, kid.
And by the way, he probably pointed it right out.
It was probably the Netherlands.
I would have pointed it right out.
They're still in geography class.
They're so much smarter than we are.
That's what I'm saying.
Like, they're in geography right now.
Oh, shit.
I bet you they would.
Anyway, whatever.
Yes, but that was the thing that upset me.
I'm like, do you have, that's what I asked them.
I said, do you have some kind of a tie with the Netherlands?
Like, are you from there?
Are you from?
I was family there.
Any connection to the Netherlands at all.
Spell Netherlands.
And I can, and they were like, no, and I just was fucking
pissed, man.
I was like, Mr. Hatterton, I don't like rooting for a loser.
And I think statistically, America's not, get out of my
ass.
It was so much jockey.
I'm with you.
Well, yeah, right.
He's jockey.
It was jockey.
It was very jockey.
It was all over.
You're like, oh no, we're probably gonna lose.
I don't want to root for the loser.
They didn't say that, but you're probably right.
That's what's behind it.
Well, listen, that's what's behind it.
I'm a GD patriot, okay?
I am a patriot.
And so I took it very personally.
And I was surprised at how personally I was taking it,
but it made me, in some ways, it made me feel good
because it made me feel like, wow, I really do care a lot
more about this country than I even maybe realized.
I had a moment wearing my Americas today,
aside from all the sideways glances I was getting
from extras who were like, is he safe?
Where?
Well, the bandana.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the bandana is a strong choice.
But I had a bit of a Rob Justice,
to speak about our absentee friend here,
but I had a moment where I was looking at a guy on set
and I was like, this guy does not work here.
Now, he looked like a grip.
He just looked like a grip.
He had a big beard.
He was a big guy, had on a kind of a ruddy baseball hat.
He had an army backpack.
He had a couple of things hanging off the army backpack.
He was looking at his cell phone
and he was just kind of hanging around like one of the tents.
But I was like, where's two things I noticed.
I'm like, where's this dude's walkie, right?
Cause all the guys on set have a walkie.
And why in this motherfucker working?
Like everybody around here is working,
like we're set, like someone's bringing the pipe over here
and pulling the backpack for.
And what's the backpack?
Why still this late into the day?
Like, sure, you bring it back,
but you drop it off somewhere and then you're working.
And it was just kind of lingering around and lingering around.
And I was like, I was watching them.
I was like, he keeps looking at his phone.
And then I talked to Zandra, who's a second 80.
Yeah.
Yeah, second 80.
And I said, hey, do you recognize this guy here?
And look, there's hundreds of people on the set, right?
So it could be, I could be day playing.
You could be working for the day.
Sure, sure.
And she's like, no, I don't, I don't.
And she's like, where's his walkie?
I'm like, where's the man's walkie?
Now, he never actually looks at us.
Like noticing this,
but he starts to kind of drift his way off the set.
And then she asks like one of the teamsters
and then he like walks off and he...
Did anybody check his backpack?
No, like, well, he took his backpack with him, but...
No, that's what I'm saying.
Whether it belonged to someone else.
Or if he like took shit and put it in the backpack.
He definitely drifted on the set,
was looking to steal something.
No, yeah.
But like, you also don't want to like stop some guy
who's in the electric department and be like,
hey man, do you work here? But like...
There's also like, you get a weird spidey sense
where you're like, oh man,
like get some vibes off this guy.
And I don't know what he was doing, but...
Something about your America's also like,
had you fired up.
Did you go America all over his ass?
Yeah, did you think about going America all over?
If I had to, I would have.
But I didn't have to.
He sensed the America in me.
Yeah, I didn't want to go to war with you.
And he thought, you know what?
I'm not going to war with this guy.
This guy spends a lot on defense.
I can't try it on this guy.
I can't try it on this guy.
He's too free.
He's too free.
I mean.
["The Last Two Episodes"]
Other than security risks,
do you guys having fun on set?
I'm like sad that I haven't really...
I stopped by set the other day for like two seconds.
Well, you're directing an episode.
We're two episodes?
I'm going to direct two episodes.
Yeah.
Coming up.
Which we'll see a lot of each other really soon,
but right now,
you're really picking up the slack for us
on the last two episodes,
which still need writing.
And you've been with the room
and leading everyone on the charge
of how to get them good.
And I know they will be good
because you're very good at your job.
Oh, well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
And if they're not, I'm going to scream at you.
Yeah, I'm going to yell.
Go buy America's back on.
Get it, get it.
Just have a backpack just like on or down.
No, it's been fun.
The last two days, actually,
we have a script that we're sending to you guys today.
So we wrote the script out in two days.
And I really like it.
That's the way I can say.
Well, I know which one it is.
Maybe we should, Rob's not here.
He doesn't care about spoilers.
And it was really great.
And I think your favorite part about the script, though,
is that it's 25 pages long.
We do like that.
I think you guys are going to like that.
We do like that because it means we can improv.
We can fatten it up on the day.
One thing I think we did really well this season was
just getting in a pinch of like,
okay, time was getting tight.
And we're like, okay, let's,
we got to work fast on some of these.
What's a funny location and who are funny characters?
And just like, you know,
bringing the mothers back and Uncle Jack and, you know,
we were working with Andrew Freeman today.
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
And he is so funny.
He's fantastic.
He's so funny.
Yeah.
He look at the guy, everything he says is like comedy gold.
And we're like, it's also like, I don't know,
everybody we work with this is so lovely too.
What is that?
Do we just track lovely people?
Because when they're not,
they don't come back.
I'm like, hey, I want to bring them back.
Although we really like,
it hasn't happened though.
No, it hasn't happened.
We've not had a single,
I think there's something about making a comedy too,
where I've noticed that even like,
if you work with someone who has a reputation,
everyone wants to be on their best behavior
because they don't want to kill the joy.
But it starts at the top too.
It starts at the top.
Like if the vibe on set,
because I think there are some people who can be
Yes.
Awful when they're in a situation
where their heckles are up,
or their egos being threatened in some way,
and then they can go on the offensive.
But when they feel like they're in a happy place
with happy people who are excited to see
what you have to bring to the table,
open to what you have to bring to the table,
open your ideas.
In the movie that I just did,
I worked with an actor who's a very, very well respected,
very well known actor on this film.
And when he first showed up, I could tell he was like,
he was like, what kind of bullshit
am I going to be dealing with here?
You know what I mean?
But everybody on that set was great,
including myself.
I tend to be, I'm friendly.
I'm a nice guy.
Yeah, you're great.
And he just, I just watched him,
over the course of the first day of shooting with him,
just I just watched him melt.
And then by the end of it,
he was like, this was amazing.
Like he was like, we're best friends and it was great.
But he came in like, you don't know what you're going to get.
Like, am I going to be dealing with a bunch of assholes?
Is the guy I'm going to be acting with a dick?
Yeah, people can have their guards up.
I was just the most exciting part of the process
of this movie I directed, directed Fool's Paradise.
Coming out soon.
Coming out May 12th.
Coming out May 12th in theaters.
You get to go see a fun movie in theaters.
I may or may not be in this movie.
You are most definitely in the movie
and most definitely fantastic in the movie.
But John Bryan, who did the score for
Punch Drop Love and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
had been doing the score
when we had a full orchestra the other day.
And it was one of the most exciting things
I've ever been a part of.
I was there thinking, okay, if I'll chime in.
I had to do nothing but sit back
and watch this man do his magic.
But to hear a full orchestra of musicians scoring a film
and then to know you're in the same room
that they recorded Wizard of Oz.
At one point, John's like, get up there
and hit that gong chime
because that's the same one they use in Wizard of Oz.
I was like, you want me to do it?
I also think I got the timing wrong like three times.
I was like, it's fine, we can edit it.
But that was just a magic experience.
But on that movie, I got to work with Ray Liotta
who has sadly passed away.
And he would always kind of call me
over the many years that I was kept tinkering in post
and rewriting and reshooting things.
And he'd be like, you know, when's it coming out?
And he was proud of his own performance in the movie.
He gets to be in a comedy, he gets to do,
you don't see the guy do a lot of comedy, he's very funny.
And I saw a transition in him from like day one or two
where he's like, all right, what's the vibe here?
A lot of questions, not sure about everyone
to just really sinking in.
Leaning in and just.
Oh, you're gonna let me be a little free.
Have fun.
Yeah, and like, I think people really respond to that.
The greatest lesson I had on this movie
was that just get the most talented people I can
and then let them free, you know?
Like working with John and then you and Ray
and Leslie Jones who came in and did an edit, Tim Roach,
you know, who started out with Leslie Jones
who also cut punch drunk love
and like thin red line and amazing movies.
Just sometimes a big part of the process
is just finding people and staying out of their way.
But there's a long way of talking about my movie,
which I'm very excited to talk about,
to go back to like good and bad behavior on set.
I find that in comedies, like in horrible bosses,
of course, we all know there are some people
who have gotten in trouble since that movie has come out
and might have had reputations of being difficult on set.
But like when people are with comedy people,
they don't often bring that energy,
but you've worked on a show
and seen some really bad behavior.
Yeah, there's fun.
And it's always tough because just for what Glenn's
talking about, it's like you ruin the mood
and like comedy can't really exist in like a,
or it can, but it's like you have to work so much harder
for it.
I think one of the things that you guys do,
you guys move so quick that it doesn't have time
to become like really boring and stale
and like it stays fun and joyous.
And I have more of the experience on Sonny of like,
oh no, it's over when we're done with the scene.
Like even directing, I'm like, oh, I don't get to, okay.
We're always cross shooting the way we are right now.
There's a camera here, there's a camera there.
So when I'm talking to you and Sonny or you,
it's all in real time.
By the way, Danny, today we were talking about that
because Heath said, you know, can you not look at,
Heath Collins is a great director,
but the way we were blocking a scene with Andrew Freeman,
I said, can you actually not look at Andrew?
It's going to be better if your eye line is,
and you know, we were saying,
are you sure it's not passable
because the chemistry is going to be better
if I'm actually looking at Andrew?
And he's like, no, no, it's fine.
It's, I'm like being picky.
And the beauty of the show is that we do that.
And Danny was like, you know, Milo Shformin
was always like that.
He goes, this one is Chris Cross, Chris Cross.
Oh, you mean meaning your eye line is supposed to be not?
No, no, meaning that there's always two cameras.
But to do that, you sometimes sacrifice the eye line
because you see the other camera.
Yeah, you can't get, you can't get your eyes as close
to the lens because you've got another camera pointed,
you know, where you've got a camera right next,
or, you know, near you.
Yeah, and looking at perfect world, you always have,
you have time to do all sorts of different things.
You do the Chris Cross and then you can get
within the two actors.
Well, you have to decide on what the priority
of that particular show is,
what the vibe of that particular show is.
But I think that's one of the really fun things
about the show is that often there are multiple characters
on camera at the same time.
So you can watch an episode multiple times
and never have noticed like that person's reactions
while the other person was talking, you know.
All my favorite movies are that way.
Are the ones that I can go back to over and over again
and pull something out of.
Pull something new out of it.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, speaking of episodes, we're not talking about one day.
Well, I don't like to talk about recap
any of the ones when you guys aren't all here.
Yeah.
So we can't talk about an episode today
because Rob is somewhere.
We don't know.
No, but that's okay.
That's okay.
I thought, you know, we're coming out
this little half-cocked, totally unprepared.
Totally unprepared.
We're making this up on the fly.
We are, but...
And podcasts aren't that way usually, right?
They're pretty...
Yeah, they're really tightly scripted, yeah.
But I thought it would be really fun
since Rob's not here
to get into a conversation about acting.
Oh, man.
Oh, that's a dig.
It's not even a failed dig.
I'll tell you what, though.
Rob yesterday on set had me in stitches.
And I know he doesn't sometimes think of himself
as actor first, you know, if you put it in order or whatever.
But, man, like, when he taps into something...
Well, when you have something specific,
he's playing something very specific right now.
He's doing a very specific gag on the show
that was, you know, in much the same way
that he was doing when he gained all that weight.
Because, you know...
To be clear, just for one episode,
it's like one episode where something is happening
to his character, which...
It alters him physically.
It alters him physically in the way he sounds.
And I remember having a lot of fun breaking that
because I was like, you know, this is probably exciting
because it gives him something to do.
I know I'd be excited if it was my storyline in the episode.
It's always fun to be like, oh, I'm going to get to...
Yeah.
Just do something different than I'm normally doing.
And he is nailing it.
Yeah, I went to the makeup trailer
to pitch him the re-break of the story
that we were writing this week.
And he was getting the prosthesis on.
So that was fun.
Like, I saw it happening as I was trying
to pitch this story to him.
And it was really...
But you could tell he was, like, delighted.
He was like, look, look, look, you know?
He was like, a kid in a candy store is good.
Yeah, he really clicks into something
when you give him something,
especially when you give him something
very specific to play, you know?
And especially when it's different
than when he's used to playing.
I mean, I think we're all the same way.
But we could do in-depth acting,
our approach to acting.
I just thought it'd be a good opportunity.
And, you know, this might get a little actor nerdy, possibly.
Okay, with that?
I'm okay with that.
But, you know, just to kind of almost interview each other.
The key would be take your own insecurities out, right?
You hate to, like, talk about your process of acting.
Oh, no, I love to talk about it.
When Joaquin Phoenix exists in the world, right?
Like, so you're like, oh, why am I?
But that's not a good way
to approach your life or your work.
You should be serious about your craft.
I'm interested because I'm a non-actor.
So you can explain to me
how acting works.
Yeah, well, and then at some point,
I'd love for you to explain to me how writing works.
Because I do it, but I still don't get it.
Does anyone know?
I don't really have that.
No, no one knows.
But nobody knows how to act.
No one knows how, yeah, yeah.
It's just, you know.
Writing, I can only do if I'm, like,
hammering carbs the entire time, apparently,
because that's what I've been doing
in the writer's room all week.
I'm standing up the whole time in pacing,
but also just, like, hammering pretzels for some reason.
I think it's just like,
you need a little treat while you're working.
I can eat a little something.
Brain needs fuel, your brain needs fuel.
You're draining your brain.
Yeah, yeah, you need that extra, you know,
that extra get up and go.
But when you're acting, carbs are your enemy.
Yeah, you guys.
Yeah, that's right.
It's the Hollywood rule number 101.
Well, so I would start by just asking you.
Okay, you're gonna hit me first.
What was the first, what was the very first
acting thing that you do wanna say?
And I don't mean, like, professional.
I mean, like, what was the first time you performed?
Maybe you didn't even realize that you were acting,
but you were performing.
No, I was doing plays as a child, like in-
How young?
Well, I think the first, like,
play-play was third grade, you know?
I think-
Really?
Yeah, I think in first grade or kindergarten,
I did a thing where I, like, walked on
and held, like, the intermission sign.
And I remember holding it upside down
and everyone being like, oh, that's so cute.
He got it backwards.
But little me was like, oh, no,
I knew that was gonna be funny.
And I did that on purpose.
And it was, I remember being, like, scared
that I did it on purpose.
But like, oh, man, they don't know
that I did this on purpose.
Like, so I was already trying to get laughs,
like, from day one.
That was your only role in that play?
It was hold the intermission sign.
Yeah, come out to be, like, intermission.
And you figured out how to make it about you.
Yeah, because my mom was the, like,
yeah, that's the sign of a real actor.
Yeah, that's the sign of a friend, right?
That bodes very well.
I figured out how to steal the scene from others.
But like, I, you know, my mom's the kindergarten
through eighth grade music teacher.
So they did like school plays at the school.
Yeah.
And usually plays had music.
And so, but, oh, no, it was second grade that we did,
we did James and the Giant Peach.
Okay, so the first time you performed in something,
it was an actual play.
I played James, buddy.
I had the lead.
Whoa, right out the gate.
Right out the gate.
Well, you know what?
My teacher saw something in me.
First, she saw that I was gonna have to do second grade twice.
That was her first observation.
She's like, first of all, this kid's way too young
and falling behind.
A repeat performance of second grade.
Yeah, there you go.
But then she's like, secondly, she's like,
he's such a clown.
I'm like, why not like try?
Were you a clown?
Were you kind of class clown-ish?
I think, yeah, I think probably.
You were always making your friends laugh
and Clow trying to at least, yeah.
Yeah, energetic and probably looking for attention.
And, but, you know, we did James and the Giant Peach
and I had to sing,
smile though your heart is breaking.
And I remember like having like work on the song,
which was new, like having to work on a song.
But I remember being like, oh yeah, this is right.
And she was like, you should send him to like auditions
and things like that.
But my parents thankfully were like, no, no,
he's just going to be a kid.
You're happy about that though.
You didn't want to go the child star route.
No, I wasn't really thinking about it as a career.
You know, I was just like, huh, that's just the thing I did.
Yeah, and you were,
I think you and I were maybe similar in that way.
Like, because you were doing other things too.
You were into sports and.
Yeah, I did, I did play again in fourth grade.
And then I didn't do anything until my senior year
of high school.
What?
Wait a minute.
So from fourth grade to senior year of high school,
you didn't do a unit perform at all?
Nope.
Nope.
Sports and stuff?
Yeah, I started getting more into sports with my.
Baseball, right?
Yeah, my good buddies in Rhode Island.
And super into baseball, that was the main thing.
And then a wanting to do a play.
I remember in high school, like seeing the plays
in high school and being like,
oh, that looks like so much fun.
But not knowing how to juggle that
and not having the confidence to just go sign up.
Right?
Just being like, I don't know.
I don't know those kids in that world.
And then my senior, by the time you're a senior
in high school, you feel much more confident
about yourself and school.
And so I did it then.
But then, yeah, then it was, I went to high college
and was still very into baseball.
And then very quickly realized like,
oh, my baseball career is over.
And took like theater one and theater two,
which was all my college offer,
but they had like an acting club.
And very quickly fell into it.
Being like, oh, this is the right fit for me.
And it always was.
And I should have realized that.
Art, the timing was great.
I'm glad I didn't do much before.
And then someone while I was there,
was like, hey, go check out the Williamstown Theater Festival,
which is like a summer theater festival.
It was a pretty prestigious thing in Western Massachusetts.
And you can intern there.
And if you do well, you can rise to the ranks.
And that just, I went that,
I went to summer of my junior year and never look back,
never stopped doing acting stuff.
All your friends there too, right?
Yeah, all the friends you know here.
Yeah, you know, half the people we know on the show.
Now Glenn, I'm gonna throw it right back at you.
Where did it all begin?
For me, honestly, I think it was
sort of a natural progression from like,
I don't know that I was,
I mean, I was, I think I was a little bit class clownish,
a little bit, but definitely I was always a little weird.
Like in the sense that I was always doing like voices.
And you know what I mean?
Like just being, yeah, kind of silly and goofy.
Yeah, definitely trying to make my friends laugh.
Was always like playing characters at home.
You know, when I would watch a movie,
I would play, I would just start doing the character.
You know, it's like, I didn't know what I was doing.
I thought for all I knew every kid did that.
You know what I mean?
It made sense to me.
And then they're like, so nervous.
They're like, what is he doing?
What is this weirdo doing?
He just likes to inhabit other bodies.
You know, like you were just in that space.
You could be a psycho, might be an actor.
Glenn, just watch, don't act along.
What, just watch.
Not possible.
No, but I can see that, right?
You're having those feelings that are like,
I want to be-
I just wanted to do it.
You know what I mean?
Be performing in some way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love watching movies, but I wanted to do it.
And, but I didn't know, you know, that that was a thing
or that that was an avenue.
I wanted to go down or anything.
But my parents actually had the opposite reaction.
They watched it and they were like,
this guy wants to do this, you know what I mean?
Like clearly.
And by the time I got to like, I think it was fifth grade
and I started doing like, I hadn't done a play
or anything like that, but I was doing sketches,
like comedy sketches at school.
Like whenever there was an opportunity to do something,
I would do something like that.
And then my parents, there was in my hometown
in Montgomery, Alabama, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival
is this great, really, really awesome regional theater,
like right smack dab in the middle of Montgomery, Alabama.
And we would see plays there all the time.
I grew up watching theater too.
Like my dad, even though he was in the Air Force
and his dad was in the Air Force,
I think I've mentioned this before,
but his dad was a jazz musician.
He played trumpet, he played piano
and his mom and my dad's mom was a dancer.
So he grew up around, like very similar to the way
I grew up, like both super academic,
but also like in the arts.
The arts were appreciated.
Yeah, yeah.
So we would go see theater all the time.
And so anyway, there was an actor from
the Alabama Shakespeare Festival who was teaching
an acting class for kids.
And my parents were like, do you wanna go do that?
And I was like, yeah, definitely.
So I was taking this acting class.
And then from there, the guy was like,
hey, they need a kid just like you to play a kid
in one of the plays at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
Would you be interested in doing that?
And I was like, yes, absolutely.
I mean, I'd grown up watching Shakespeare,
watching classical theater, watching,
we lived in England for a short time
and we would go to Stratford-upon-Avon
and watch the Royal Shakespeare Company do their thing.
And I just was enthralled by it.
I thought it was amazing.
And so the very first play I did was a play
called A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev.
So it was like a Russian, very Chicovian kind of thing.
And then that was it, I was hooked.
What you say you got hooked, like what was it?
Was it like the crowd feedback?
Was it just the experience of doing the acting?
Like what was the thing that was like,
now I could do this for the rest of my life?
Yeah, even then I wasn't thinking of it.
I wasn't thinking I was gonna make a profession out of it.
I just loved it.
I loved every aspect of it.
I love the community.
I love the people.
I love the world.
I just, I loved being on stage.
I felt so comfortable on stage.
There's a thing too where, I'm sure you probably felt
this way, where making a career out of it
doesn't even cross your mind because you don't know
anyone as a professional actor.
You're not growing up in Hollywood where,
so-and-so's uncle does it like, or dad.
It's just, it's like a foreign world.
They're not real people on the screen.
You know, they're not real people.
So, it just seems, it doesn't even cross your mind.
Wasn't until, yeah, it wasn't until Williamstown
that I saw professional actors who weren't famous
that I thought, oh right, you don't have to grow up to be,
Tom Cruise, you could, you know, you can be this guy
and this person's, it is mid-60s and has been working
forever and I don't know, like, I've never heard of him,
but he has a career, so.
That's all I ever wanted, you know, like,
and I didn't really figure it out until,
and I kept doing plays all through junior high school
at my school and high school and then,
but I still didn't know I wanted to be an actor
because I was doing the same thing as you.
I was playing basketball, I was playing football.
I was super into, weirdly, super into math and science
and I was gonna go to Auburn University
to be an aeronautical engineer.
I was signed up for classes.
I had a place to live with my friends.
I was going to Auburn to be an aeronautical engineer
and then I got a scholarship to this school in Miami.
Yeah, what's that school called?
New World School of the Arts.
Right, and you were there for two years?
I was there for two years.
They had offered me a full scholarship
and I distinctly remember my mom coming to me and saying,
and this is such a rare thing to happen,
but it was actually my mom who came to me and said,
hey, do you think that if you don't go and try
to be an actor that you're gonna regret it one day?
Wow, that's a weighty question for a kid.
Yeah, because she was like,
because if there's any part of you
that thinks you wanna do this, you should do it
because it's a full scholarship.
It's not gonna cost us a lot of money.
And if you wanna quit after a couple of years
and go be an aeronautical engineer,
you can do that later, you know?
All right, so.
And I was like, done.
Right, so then you're there, you're in college for acting
and the bug has bit you full on bite.
When does Juilliard start to get on your radar?
That it's an option, that you want to audition for it?
And in addition to that, did you audition
for all the other big schools?
Did you audition for Yale and NYU and Carnegie Mellon?
Yeah, I auditioned for a bunch of them.
I didn't audition for those schools out of high school.
So I just took the scholarship, went to New World and then,
but my roommate, Chris Romero, shout out.
Chris Romero's good buddy, he was from New York
and his good friend, they had gone to a performing arts
high school together and his good friend,
his best friend in New York was going to Juilliard.
So he was like, after our second year,
he's like, I think I'm gonna go audition for Juilliard.
And I was like, yeah, let's do it.
And so I went with him.
How nervous were you for the auditions?
Honestly, man, like not that nervous.
Really?
I had such a degree of confidence in myself
that was based on, I don't know what, I just, I just...
That's great though.
I mean, I thought, I thought at the time,
I remember, I actually remember sitting in the room
in one of the rooms is like filled with actors,
filled with people.
And I remember sitting there and thinking like,
I'm better than all these people.
You know what I mean?
But it wasn't like a vain thing.
It was like a confidence thing.
No, I know what you're talking about.
Like you, I was like, I can do, I just felt like,
it is a profession of diluting yourself.
Oh, totally.
Like you have to, you don't necessarily have to say,
I'm the best at everything, but at that young age,
it's very useful to walk into an audition room
and be like, no, I'm the best.
It's a really useful tool, just cause then you walk
into that room of that confidence.
And then when you start of a career,
you have to develop the skill of believing
you're another person for at least the few seconds
between action and cut if it's on film.
But, all right, so you do the audition,
you're feeling confident, you're feeling it goes well.
What, how long between the audition
and when you hear you got in and did you hear
from all the schools, did you get into them all?
Did you only get into Juilliard?
What happened there?
Yeah, I got into a few.
I don't remember which ones.
I auditioned in the morning and then I had to wait
a couple of hours to find out who they,
who was gonna get called back.
And they only called back like five people
out of like 500 that were there that day.
And they auditioned people all over the,
all over the country or whatever.
So there's only five people when I got called back.
So I was like, okay.
And that was a huge, and when that happened,
then I was like, I got this.
I just knew it.
And now I could just as easily have not gotten it.
But for some reason in my mind, I was like, I got this.
Cause what that was, is that was like,
okay, I did something right.
So then, so then for the callback,
I kind of had the now is the callback
was in front of the entire faculty.
So like before it was in front of like, you know,
maybe three or four faculty members,
they called me back, then there was the entire faculty,
like all of the faculty of Juilliard,
like theoretically very intimidating.
But in my mind, I was like, I don't know.
I just, I was like, okay, if I got called back,
that means they liked what I did.
So it gave me even more confidence to lean even further
into what I felt like I was capable of.
So I had even more confidence.
I was even less nervous in the callback.
I mean, I was nervous.
Don't get me wrong.
I was definitely nervous, but like, I don't know.
It was like- You felt capable of like delivering
on this thing. Yeah.
There was an excitement. Did you do the same monologue?
Like, is it a monologue that you deliver
for the audition? Yeah, we had to do,
yeah, we had to do a classical monologue
and a contemporary monologue.
And then, and then in the callback,
I did both the monologues and then they asked me to do
like some improv stuff and like-
And did you do comedy stuff or drama?
I did. One was like a, the classical piece was like a,
from genre scenes, fedra, and it was not comedy,
like very, very serious.
And then the, and then the contemporary was comedic.
Yeah. If I had an edge over other actors,
I do remember thinking at the time, like,
cause I would watch other actors do their monologues.
I'd seen what they do.
And I was like, the one thing that's missing from,
from almost all these people that I noticed right away
was like, they've forgotten that this is supposed to be fun
and entertaining.
You know what I mean? They're forgetting to entertain.
It's like, it's not about squeezing tears out of your eyes
and making people think like, oh, wow,
he's such an amazing actor.
It's like fucking entertain people.
You know what I mean?
If you look like you're having fun up there,
everybody kind of relaxes and goes, oh, this is, this is fun.
And they, so then they want to watch you
because you make them feel good.
It's not about you, it's about them.
Similar experiences was later after I was starting to work
at Williamstown a lot, but they would like,
we would every now and then do like showcase in New York.
And I remember like, yeah, people do like six
really serious monologues.
And I come out there and do something funny
that like Eric Gosean wrote.
And then it's like, oh, that just gets everyone's attention.
Yep. That's exactly what I did upon graduating from Juilliard.
I did, we had to do two, you know,
I had to do like a showcase or whatever.
We did two, two things.
And I chose comedies for both.
Cause I was like, every single person in my class
is doing these like ultra serious, like deep, heavy.
And I was like, I'm going to fucking entertain the shit
out of people.
Yeah. And stand out.
Cause like, why not?
See what happens.
Rob's not here.
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What do you mean who I got?
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Oh, you're not taking the Eagles, Glenn?
Oh, I don't bet against Brady.
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Okay, one, remember when the Eagles beat him?
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No, he just didn't make it.
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Thanks, Rob.
So I went one summer as an intern to Williamstown,
and then you can audition to get in.
I remember being so nervous about the audition.
And I was like, I went across the street
to get a beer to, like, calm down.
Nice.
You know, I was like 21, I think, maybe 22 already.
But, like, I'm in the audition and I'm doing
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, I think he was.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And I'm saying my line, and he's, like,
this kind of, like, brooding guy.
It's, like, before I only did comedy shit.
Like, I'm playing, like, a blue collar,
kind of, brooding guy.
And I kind of, like, punched the air conditioner,
like, not hard, but just, like, a little, like, you know,
like, yeah, whatever the line is.
The thing, like, the front of it comes off the wall
and crashes.
And I just quickly improv, like,
see everything I touch turns to shit.
And then I just keep going on with the monologue.
Nice.
And apparently, someone pulled me aside
after I'd gotten in and been like,
that's what, for us, all of us said, like,
oh, he's, he's an actor, because he's in it.
Like, he's in it.
Yeah, yeah, he wasn't thrown by that.
He wasn't.
He wasn't thrown by it, right?
Which is, you never know, like,
what little moment is going to happen.
Well, I learned very quickly, I'm, like,
the lesson of, like, oh, people only get uncomfortable
if you're uncomfortable.
Sure.
You know what I mean?
So if you fuck up, you know, like, and I,
well, that's the big, like, when you watch people
host SNL, if they seem like they're having fun,
it's a great episode.
Yeah.
If they seem like they're nervous up there.
Ooh, but you get nervous.
Yeah, the audience is, like, feels bad for them.
And so I always notice it's like,
the audience doesn't want to make any noise,
almost because they, they're too worried
to make noise one way or the other
for, like, the person, then it gets,
but yeah, when you come out and you're like,
I got this, like, don't worry.
Yeah, you exude that.
But I don't know that you can fake that.
I think, like, you really have to be feeling like,
I tried to do stand up for a while
when I first started comedy in New York and, like,
I just wasn't enjoying myself on stage.
So I could write funny jokes, but, like,
you could just tell when I was up there
that I wasn't liking it.
And so then the audience, like, didn't, like,
they just, like, I don't know.
Do you feel as though you've gotten more comfortable
with the concept of being a performer
just from doing this podcast?
No, I just...
Yeah, that's a good question.
I thought about that too.
I'm like, are you weirdly becoming, like,
more comfortable on camera and more at ease performing?
No, it's still really hard for me
to watch the edits of these.
And I, like, am irritated.
I don't enjoy watching it,
but I don't think of this as a performance.
I think of this as just talking to you guys,
which I enjoy doing and which I've gotten comfortable doing
because we're in the room.
So to the extent that I perform in front of you
because I pitch you guys stuff
and, like, try to entertain you and make you laugh,
I feel comfortable doing that.
But I don't really just, like, in my mind
think of this going out anywhere.
I know that it does.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Honestly.
If you're uncomfortable with, like,
seeing yourself on camera,
you're the same as every performer in the history of shows.
Is this, like...
Yeah, totally.
But it's amazing you guys can watch yourselves
perform as much as you do
because you're in the edit bay,
watching it all the time,
and not have that, like, weirdly...
I tell you what, it's a good way of just, like,
just getting over it.
Yeah.
Because, like, you just do it for so many years.
You're like, I guess that's what I look and sound like.
You know, like...
I thought I was completely over it
after spending years and years in the edit on the show.
And then I watched, you know,
a cut of the...
I think I can tell.
Yeah, the Blackberry movie.
I was like, can I talk about this yet?
Yeah.
And I was like, oh.
And I thought the movie was great,
but I just, I was like, God,
this is really hard to watch myself.
Oh, really?
Yeah, and I just...
You're acting the way you looked.
No, no, not the way I looked.
No, my acting.
Oh, well, that's different.
It was, in this role, I will say,
I am exploiting a side of myself that I don't like.
That's there that I repress because it's not,
because it's ugly and I don't like it.
I don't like it as,
I don't like people that are like that.
And it, the role requires me to,
required me to be a person that I don't like.
And so when I watch it, I'm like, I don't like that person.
Oh, okay.
Well, that's different than not liking your acting, I think.
That's like, you like your acting so much.
I know, I know.
Yeah, no, I know, I know.
All right, so you go through a Juilliard,
you get an agent from a Juilliard showcase,
and then you're pretty much off to the races.
I did exactly what they told us not to do.
And they were like, don't sign with somebody
until you do the showcases.
But by the time we do the showcases,
we're going to be on the show.
Well, we had this conversation the other day
in the van to set where somehow we were talking
about that time of our lives.
And I was saying, you know, I had around that time,
I would thought, oh boy, it'd be nice to go to
an acting conservatory and get that training.
But I also had through Williamstown, got an agent,
was starting to get auditions, was starting to get roles.
So I was like, well, that feels like a step backwards.
Totally.
And I also was like, I have a lot of confidence
and I don't want to spend four years having someone
break me down to be like, hey, your voice is too high
and scratchy, you know, or like whatever it is.
So I was like, ah, fuck it.
And it's a good instinct.
Yeah, I think I dodged a bullet there.
But, and I was saying, you know, was it tough
to survive that?
And you said a really funny thing about,
and I think it's the absolute right advice,
which is that you learn to just ignore the acting advice,
which is to say, I think you're right,
which is saying, you're not not listening.
You're listening to what they have to say.
And if something you like from it, you'll use it.
Otherwise, you'll ignore it.
You know, it's funny.
The part of that story that I didn't tell
was that in my rebellion against what I was being taught,
I learned that I hadn't really been listening before
and I started actually listening because I gave up
on trying to, I think when you go to such a prestigious
institution like Juilliard,
because it's got this like stigma attached to it,
albeit a positive one, I guess,
but is you just, you have so much deference
for the teachers there, right?
And I saw, I realized at a certain point in my,
this was actually the beginning of my third year there,
that I got some really bad feedback in a play
and it pissed me off so bad that I just went,
fuck this shit, I'm not gonna listen
to anything else these people say.
I fuck it, I'm just gonna, I was like,
I've forgotten what it was like to enjoy acting,
I'm gonna go back to that,
I'm not gonna do anything they tell me to do,
I'm just gonna have fun.
And in that, what I learned was I was like,
oh, I've been doing, and so much, many of us,
had been doing the program in order to please the teachers.
In order to make them be like, you're getting it,
yes, yes, yes, you know.
And then I realized I was like,
I was like, why am I doing this for them?
I'm the one who's spending all the money to go here,
this is for me, I'm like, they're there to serve me,
to serve as my needs.
That's why I'm wise, you know, for your age,
because you're young, you're vulnerable, you want,
like that's around the age where you said,
okay, I'm committing to acting, so you want it bad, right?
Like, and yeah, you're so impressionable, is the right word.
I was so lucky because my parents were so loving
and supportive that I felt like I had a foundation
of love and support, so it was like,
in some ways, the love and support of the teachers
became less important to me because I was like,
I have that, I don't need that shit,
I need you to teach me how to act.
And if you don't like what I'm doing,
I don't give a shit, I don't give a shit.
You're not the fucking audience,
you're not the fucking audience, you're my teacher,
teach me how to act.
If you don't like something, let's fix it,
let's work on it, that's fine,
but don't try and fucking berate me,
don't try to tear me down, don't try and-
There's not a science and there's no one way
that's gonna work for everyone.
Everyone has a different method of how they get to do it
and then everyone has different opinions
on whether or not they're doing it well.
You can teach someone how to fly a plane
and you better be pretty damn exact about that.
But you know, like-
Yeah, you don't wanna get too artsy-fartsy
about flying an airplane, right?
But I do think the way that you-
What are you feeling?
I'm feeling bad.
Where do I feel?
Fuck them, they don't know me.
I'm flying this plane for me.
How do I feel like landing today?
What's your motivation here?
Not killing everyone on the plane.
Yeah, yeah.
Post-World Music
There was much good advice that I got.
I also got a lot of bad advice,
and still to this day, I get bad advice.
Even on this movie that I'm finally getting out there,
like, you know, when I was trying to retool it
and re-edit it and work on scripts,
I sent it to one writer friend who was like,
you've got a great acting career.
Just give up and move on.
I'm like, give up.
We're talking, I love this thing.
This is great.
I'm talking about making changes.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, if you have a passion and a vision,
you have to, and like, if you want to be an actor or a writer
and you are passionate, you have a vision,
you have to like go all, all go, all, all coins in.
All in, all guns blazing, I didn't want to say guns.
There's really no like good ideas that aren't ideas
that someone saw through to the end of being like,
nothing just is so good that it kind of moves itself.
Like a person pushed that boulder up that hill.
Almost every single time somebody had to push.
Really, and you only, in getting to the end,
realized that it was a good idea at the end of it.
But like, it's not that I've had this with scripts,
like the scripts that end up really great
and the scripts that end up horrible
were equally as hard to make, you know?
And you just have to keep pushing through to the end
to see whether it's gonna like work or not.
We've all known those people too who were just like,
how do I become a professional writer?
You're like, well, first of all, if you,
what have you written?
Oh, well, nothing.
Well, then you're fucked.
And you know right away, you're like,
you're never gonna, you are never gonna work.
Try it out, see if you like it.
You're never gonna work.
Same thing with like, I would have actors,
like actor friends, you know, come to me and be like,
how do I get an agent?
And I'm like, well, are you doing anything right now?
No, like, well, why aren't you doing a play?
Oh, yeah, I don't know.
I'm like, are you in an acting class?
No, I'm like, you're not doing anything.
You're not like, I'm just waiting for somebody
to give you a job and sort of building your skills
that can get you that job.
Yes.
And then once you get the job,
you know how to do the job.
You know how to do the job because you've been practicing.
I mean, I was listening to an interview
with Scorsese and DeNiro.
I was just like flipping through what like podcasts
have been dealing with a lot of traffic working on this lot.
So I was like, all right.
I was like, oh, wow, this is an old interview
of these guys from Tribe Back Film Festival
talking about their movies.
And it was so interesting to hear
how many of the movies they did,
DeNiro was bringing to Scorsese.
I mean, like we should do this one.
We should do text.
We should do, I think it was Raging Bull.
We should do Casino.
And you're like, right, he's not just waiting.
He's like, come on, man.
And these are some of his most iconic film roles.
So yeah, you can't.
You think that a lot of like really, really famous actors
are just sitting back and accepting offers.
But the truth is, if you really want to get the things
that you're passionate about,
that you're actually excited about, not just work.
You know, you have to, yeah, you got to continue to hustle.
Yeah, I mean, the phone is ringing
for so very few people.
And what's interesting is like, you get to a certain point.
The calls you get are the movies where you'll help them.
Where it's like, hey, we can't get the money,
but you'll help us.
That's right, yeah.
But you don't get the calls where it will help you.
That's exactly right.
That's a really good point.
Unless you're lucky, then every now and then.
No, you're 100% right.
Yeah, or you're bringing to the table
like you wrote the movie.
Like you wrote the movie?
Yeah.
So you get to be the lead of it.
And then you get to cast like really amazing.
And even then, it's like a constant battle
even to get it done and get it sold.
And like then you get stuck because you want it to be great.
And, you know, I fortunately got to call Guillermo.
And Guillermo wasn't like, hey, give up.
He was like, put everything into making it as good as you can.
And he was like, thank God I did.
Guillermo, of course, being most famous
for playing Captain McCoyle.
For Pabby McCoyle.
Yeah, that's what he's known for.
That's what he's most known for, yeah.
Well, that's how you guys started doing it.
Why are you still doing it?
Still doing what? Acting?
Acting, yeah.
I love it so much.
I have often, you know, just,
I've said so many times, I just want to be an actor.
I just want to be an actor.
I don't want to write, I don't want to produce.
And yet I can't seem to stay away
from all the other stuff too.
I don't know, it's like, I can't,
I think I just can't, I don't have really,
I'm not good at just sitting back
and waiting for things to happen.
So I inevitably end up getting involved in something.
And I mean, God knows, I've tried to write
and produce so many things that didn't,
haven't gotten made.
Sure.
But, you know, yeah.
But the, it's still like all of it,
it all feels, I have imposter syndrome
when it comes to almost everything
other than just being an actor.
I've been writing on Sunny for 16 years,
since the very, very beginning.
And, you know, when people refer to me as a writer,
I'm like, nope, I don't know what you're talking about.
I don't, I have no idea how to write.
Which is ridiculous.
Yeah.
Ridiculous, you know what I mean?
I still struggle with identifying
as anything other than an actor.
Well, going back to the, you know,
whether or not so much shit or shit pursue acting,
I don't know any, by this point in our lives,
we know people who started out
and have sort of given it up.
I don't know a single person that's,
that who gave it up,
who regrets the time that they did it.
Sure.
Right?
Like, I don't know anyone who was like,
oh man, I really regretted doing those three movies
or doing those plays or doing that television series
or whatever it was.
So I think there is value.
If it is something that you really
feel as though you love and you want to do.
Yeah.
Give it a shot.
Give it a shot.