00:00It's a really easy one for me. I'm gonna go with broadcast news. Both the writing,
00:15James Albrooks in his prime, but also all three of those performances, William Hurt,
00:21Albert Brooks, Holly Hunter, are three of the best comic performances I've ever seen.
00:24I try to like steal it for forgetting Sarah Marshall, but one of the things that really
00:29struck me from that movie is that in a lesser movie, one of those guys turns out to be a
00:33villain. So the choice is really clear. But in that movie, everyone's just living in their
00:39full humanity and life is complicated. And so everything that we've tried to do writing-wise
00:44on shrinking and stuff I write is kind of that model.
00:47Oh, the thing that made me want to work in show business was I Love Lucy and watching
00:51Desi Arnaz's life as Ricky Ricardo, doing a show at night and having all day free before
00:58even considering comedy versus anything else or theater or film or whatever it was. I
01:02wanted to work at night in some kind of nightclub and not have anything to do during the day.
01:07And I accomplished that and then started this TV show where I have to work all day.
01:13For some reason, the movie Birth with Nicole, as in Kidman, was like incredibly captivating
01:21to me. And I weirdly reference it a lot. I feel like that era of American indie filmmaking
01:28was very seductive to me.
01:30For sure, Macaulay Culkin, Home Alone. River Phoenix ran the movie A Night in the Life of
01:34Jimmy Reardon. In Robocop 2, there is a kid about 12 years old that plays a drug kingpin
01:40that dies on a pile of money Scarface style and that performance as well.
01:44When I turned on, the first TV I ever owned at age 21, and it was the Dick Van Dyke Show,
01:52and Dick was literally tripping over the ottoman as I turned it on, is what made me want to
01:58become a actor.
01:59Honestly, it's probably Home Alone. I think it's one of the first movies I saw where
02:03like a kid was the star. It almost seemed like it was written by a kid. And I remember
02:07after I saw Home Alone is when I first started trying to write a movie. I like movies with kids
02:12beating up adults. And so I think it was my take on a kids beating up adults movie. Yeah.
02:18I have a little dog named Dash, who's my perfect boy. He's about this big. And we would be hanging
02:23out, and we'd be talking about just like how he's doing, and he'd lick my face, and then
02:29maybe we'd take a little walk.
02:30Well, if I didn't do this today, I would probably be at Michael's in Mission Viejo buying art supplies.
02:43There's been a request to make a car out of cardboard. I'm not sure exactly what it's
02:48supposed to look like, but we have an arts and crafts request from our son to make a car
02:53out of cardboard. I asked him if it should have a steering wheel, and he said no. And he got
02:56quite upset at that. The weekends are mostly driven by the kids. So, yeah, that's, you
03:02know, that's going to be a play date. That's going to be a, if you can link up with kids
03:08your kids like, as well as parents you like, that's, yeah, that's home run.
03:14When I have a day off, I am usually surrounded by Mary, at least three or four out of my four
03:23four kids, and at least three or four out of my five grandchildren. So, you know, eat,
03:29drink, be happy with them.
03:32I would hang out with my wife and my dog, and we'd maybe do pottery in our garage and watch,
03:40you know, we were watching The Valley and The Valley After Show this morning, and so we
03:44probably would have continued to do things like watch reality television throughout the day.
03:49Uh, yeah, we would hang around our house and watch reality TV and then do pottery probably.
03:54I always bring a coffee maker to every set that I'm working on because I like to leave
03:59no trace. I like, I don't like to ask people for things. I like to show up, do acting, and
04:05disappear into the night like a phantom.
04:07What's the thing I ask for in my trailer? I'm more of a wallet, keys, phone kind of person.
04:11It's not that I'm not difficult. I just, that's not how it manifests. I ask for like one sugar-free
04:17Red Bull, and then after I'm done with whatever it is, I like to drink one non-alcoholic beer.
04:24So, you know, pretty rock and roll stuff.
04:26I don't like trailers, and I don't like the idea of trailers. I think this idea that actors
04:30are like exotic animals that need to be contained, and they need to be like kept away, and like
04:36preserved. I don't like that. I feel like contractually they have to give me one, and
04:40then it ends up just being like storage. A dog would make me feel very comfortable. Other
04:44than that, no, just don't make it so cold. That's what I would say. Everyone, and that
04:48goes for hotel rooms too. It doesn't have to be 66.
04:50At the moment, what's in my trailer at work is my wife Mary Steenburgen, which is pretty
04:58cool. No one else has that in their trailer, so it makes me kind of special.
05:03I don't spend a lot of time in my trailer in general, and I sometimes go into other actors'
05:08trailers and I'm like, whoa, you got a whole thing in here. I put an espresso, I have an espresso
05:12machine in my trailer because I drink a lot of caffeine throughout the day. A little speaker
05:17where I listen to music sometimes, and that's sparkling wine. I don't have much in my trailer
05:23at all. I spend no time in my trailer. I wouldn't even get changed in my trailer. I had a little
05:26tent on set where I got changed, so I don't need much in my trailer.
05:30If I could switch jobs for a day, I would probably teach kids acting. I think over the past 25 years,
05:38I've actually acquired some skills and a way to prep and some things that I didn't know when
05:43I was a kid because I started so young. And so I would like to teach kids simple prep that I've
05:48learned that has been really helpful to me over the past decade.
05:52I always find excuses to do other things that interest me within what I do. And actually,
05:58I have a problem where I can't seem to find a hobby that is just a hobby, that I don't turn
06:04into something work-related. I think I'd be a producer and just do the same, a lot of the same
06:10stuff I do, but from a chair. Voice my opinion and not have to dance, you know?
06:13If I could no longer act, I would want to be a butler for people I liked. I love serving things
06:20that make people happy. I love making sure that the space they're in is kind of perfect in some sort
06:27of aesthetic way. I once went on a police ride-along and it was the worst, most terrifying night of my life,
06:32so not be a cop. I can tell you that much for sure. I hated it more than anything in my life.
06:40I would maybe work in like a comic book shop. That's something I've always been drawn to,
06:43a video game shop, sort of cave-like nerdy domains. If I could somehow be imbued with all the skills of
06:50an architect, I would love to be an architect. The studio, the TV show, cast. Because we're going to
06:57be seeing everybody and talking about each other's shows, and so I wanted to be as ready as possible.
07:02Besides my name, best books about Ireland. And I did it while driving. The last thing I googled
07:10was converting Vietnam currency to dollars, because I was just in Vietnam. Someone told me how much
07:17something was, and I was like, yeah. And then I was like, wait, is that expensive? It wasn't.
07:22It'd be restaurants. It's always food. I googled myself this morning. I'm cutting back on that,
07:29but I googled myself this morning just for a little pick-me-up. This is going to be the most
07:34boring answer, but on the way over here, I was listening to my lines for next week,
07:39because I record them. When I get the scripts, I record the entire script, so I can listen to it
07:43like a play. And then I do the entire script doing everybody's lines except my own, so then I can run
07:48it, like leaving gaps, and then I can run the whole show. So by the time I arrive on set, I've done,
07:53I've done the episode like a bunch of times. I started doing that on a movie I was really afraid
07:57of called The End of the Tour. I played What Would Edward Norton Do? Because I had no way to prep,
08:02like I had no training. So I just tried to imagine what a good actor would do, and I like made up a
08:07prep system. And I still use it to this day. And that's what I teach those fucking kids.
08:11If my co-stars ever heard my recordings, I think they would probably be offended, because I have to do
08:16like basically impressions of everybody on the show, so I know who's who. So yes, I've gotten,
08:20I've gotten actually pretty accurate I think at everybody, but I'm not going to do them now,
08:24don't ask. Music I listened to on the way here, I did listen to some music. Some of it that really
08:30spoke to me on the drive here, Vashti Bunyan is her name, and she's like, I think it's 60s.
08:35It's pretty eclectic and folky, but kind of mystical almost, and it's very cool. My ride over here was less
08:44than five minutes, so I listened to traffic for a little bit, and then I was here. I listened to
08:51an audio book about Ireland, just blasting it, driving in the HOV lane. My podcast,
08:59Where Everybody Knows Your Name, starring myself and Woody Harrelson, is the only thing I listened to
09:05pretty much all day. I was listening to the podcast, How Did This Get Made, with my friends,
09:10Jason Mantzoukas, Paul Scheer, and Jude David Rayfield. And I listen to it a lot, and it's funny because
09:15I'm good friends with them, but I don't think, I don't even think they know to the extent to which
09:19I like have their voices in my head. It's pretty weird. Yeah.
09:22Music
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