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Will Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling | Lex Fridman Podcast #323
2 hours 21 minutes 55 seconds
🇬🇧 English
Speaker 1
00:00
Once this whole thing falls apart and we are climbing the kudzu vines that spiral up the Sears Tower, like they say in Fight Club, Bobby will go back to his gatherer form and be happy as a pig in shit, just walking around in a loincloth with his bird hanging out, tracking jokes to people and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance or whatever he does.
Speaker 2
00:18
You think some level of crazy is required for comedy? Yeah. Like at some point?
Speaker 2
00:24
Yes. Have there been low points in your life?
Speaker 1
00:27
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2
00:35
The following is a conversation with Will Sasso, a comedian, actor, podcaster, and someone I've been a fan of for many years since Mad TV in the late 90s to recently with the 10 Minute Podcast and now the new podcast called Doodzy. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
Speaker 2
00:59
And now, dear friends, Here's Will Sasso. So let's call it the elephant in the room. You wore a black suit in a recent episode of Doodsy.
Speaker 1
01:10
Yes.
Speaker 2
01:13
You wore a black suit again today. Shakespeare, then Mark Twain said, clothes make the man. What kind of man does a suit make you?
Speaker 1
01:22
Well, me in particular, it makes me a fellow who did not get this dry cleaned in between, because that episode of the show as we sit here now was around a week ago. So that's the kind of man it makes me.
Speaker 2
01:35
Well, the nice thing is you're wearing pants, I think.
Speaker 1
01:38
Yes, I am wearing pants.
Speaker 2
01:39
I don't think you were wearing pants in the episode.
Speaker 1
01:41
That's correct, I prefer to wear shorts, but this was a special occasion, so I'm wearing pants. And I thought it fitting, obviously, to just wear the black tie. And clothes do make the man.
Speaker 1
01:54
And I would not consider myself to be a man of leisure, but I do enjoy shorts, because my legs get hot. So that's what kind of man the shorts make me.
Speaker 2
02:02
How often do you wear a suit?
Speaker 1
02:03
I fucking hate wearing suits.
Speaker 2
02:05
So what is this, a statement of, is it ironic? Or are you honoring the gods of this particular podcast?
Speaker 1
02:12
I'm honoring the gods of this particular podcast would be a good way to put it. Yes, no, this is in reverence of and in dedication to you and our newfound friendship here, which we are making on the podcast. You and I just met.
Speaker 1
02:27
Yeah. Everything that we're saying here is the first things that we're saying to each other. So I'm meeting you on common ground, dressed like… Well, I've been actually a one-way friend of yours for many, many years since Mad TV.
Speaker 2
02:38
Oh. When did you start on Mad TV? So that was, I mean, in the 90s?
Speaker 1
02:42
97,
Speaker 2
02:42
yeah. 97. So I was a huge fan of yours and the cast was incredible. It was 1 of the funniest shows ever created.
Speaker 2
02:49
Your whole journey watching through that was incredible. From Mad TV to 3 Stooges to the podcast, the 10-minute pod and then the new podcast is incredible.
Speaker 1
03:00
Cheers.
Speaker 2
03:01
My favorite role that you played was the mountain in the game of Thrones. What was it like working with dragons?
Speaker 1
03:08
Well the dragons are usually tennis balls on the end of sea stands, but sometimes they hang out.
Speaker 2
03:17
It's a sea stand.
Speaker 1
03:18
It's like, you know, it's like a little like the thing you got the camera on here.
Speaker 2
03:21
This is like film lingo.
Speaker 1
03:22
Yeah, no, I understand. I'm trying to impress you with my film lingo. You know what a banana is?
Speaker 1
03:27
Yeah, when you walk like this, do it a banana.
Speaker 2
03:30
I take it back. I did not know what a banana was.
Speaker 1
03:32
Yeah, see, it means something. Yeah, because it's just a food normally.
Speaker 2
03:37
You fancy Hollywood folk
Speaker 1
03:39
with
Speaker 2
03:39
the lingo.
Speaker 1
03:40
And I'm, my name is Bjorn Hapthor Bjornsson, and I am 7 foot 4. And yeah, so dragons don't scare me, even though they've been extinct for a while. You're a scientist, right, is that checked out?
Speaker 2
03:54
Yeah, I actually, I'm really into video games. I don't know if you play video games. There's a Skyrim video game that's part of the Elder Scrolls series, and for the longest time, there's a legend that there's dragons.
Speaker 2
04:06
I think it started in Daggerfall. And so I always, I grew up playing those video games and dreaming of 1 day meeting a dragon in a virtual world and eventually you did in Skyrim. So it's, dragons represent, I don't know exactly what they represent, but they represent maybe this kind of mythical creature that is bigger than anything humans can possibly comprehend, maybe. Because they show up so often in myth, from the religious stories of the snake and so on, the serpent, and I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2
04:40
With this breathing fire, that's kind of weird.
Speaker 1
04:42
It's interesting when I think about dragons, because now that you bring it up, these are people that probably wouldn't have access to the fact that there used to be dinosaurs. Right. Maybe they did.
Speaker 1
04:50
If they didn't, they're drawing things that look like, you know, a dinosaur cousin, but cool. They can breathe fire and has wacky wings and a spike tail. Yeah. Where the heck did they come up with that?
Speaker 1
05:04
Because they're clearly, of course, represented in mythology all the way back to, no, not cave drawings. Well, the Egyptians probably knew what the, and they could time travel, so they would have gone back to the caves.
Speaker 2
05:15
Well, the aliens that placed living organisms on Earth could time travel and they could plant legends into the collective intelligence of the human species.
Speaker 1
05:27
Yeah, and perhaps they were thinking of us to do something smart with it and we didn't. We just came up with Skyrim. No.
Speaker 1
05:32
We're just,
Speaker 2
05:33
what's that? Sorry, that was very offensive.
Speaker 1
05:35
I'm sorry. I don't mean to offend you with your video game. I'm more of a Burger Time Donkey Kong dude.
Speaker 2
05:42
Oh, what is that? That's an original.
Speaker 1
05:45
Burger Time was an arcade game that later showed up on the Intellivision. It wasn't television. I believe it was made by Texas Instruments.
Speaker 1
05:55
Horrible first generation, video game console and Burger Time. You just, it's like Super Mario. You just got to stay away from the eggs and the pickles and stuff. And you just go, and the bun falls, and then you go down to the cheese and then the meat.
Speaker 1
06:10
I'm not going to say it's as complicated as Skyrim, but it took me a while to finish it when I was 7.
Speaker 2
06:17
Did you play video games? That was a part of your life, a part of the source of happiness for you at all?
Speaker 1
06:22
It was, it was. I played video games up until around, I think in 2010, I got the red ring of death on my Xbox 360.
Speaker 2
06:31
That was it.
Speaker 1
06:32
That was it. I never, or whatever the Xbox was then. Yeah.
Speaker 1
06:35
I had, I was playing, I had finished the, the Grand Theft Auto that was out and it finished the Red Dead Redemption. So I was doing that thing where you just drive around, you know, the streets of New York or just ride around on your horse shooting people, and throwing grenades into groups of people in Grand Theft.
Speaker 2
06:55
And you're describing the same thing that happened a decade later, because it's now Red Dead Redemption 2, and there's still not a new Grand Theft Auto.
Speaker 1
07:03
Yeah, there isn't, right?
Speaker 2
07:05
Yeah, they're working on it. They're always flirting with that idea. You know who else plays Skyrim?
Speaker 2
07:10
Another person, the 2 people I'm a huge fan of from that time in Mad TV is Bobby Lee.
Speaker 1
07:15
He plays Skyrim?
Speaker 2
07:15
He's a huge fan
Speaker 1
07:16
of Skyrim.
Speaker 2
07:16
He plays every... So what Bobby Lee loves to do is to grind, do the boring task over and over, gather mushroom. Like in Skyrim, you can fight dragons, you can fight all kinds of things, but you can also gather mushrooms and different ingredients and make potions and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2
07:34
He loves the ingredients. He's the, you know, in the hunter-gatherer world, he's the gatherer.
Speaker 1
07:38
He's the gatherer, yeah. I've heard him described that way and he likes to describe himself that way. I worked with Bobby not too long ago.
Speaker 1
07:46
He came and did a couple of days on this thing we were shooting. And I was looking forward to catching up with my old pal. And if you know anything about Bobby Lee, you'd probably be able to predict that he spent that entire time playing farming on his iPad.
Speaker 2
07:59
Well, Humans are a source of anxiety and trouble, so sometimes it's good to escape human interaction through video games.
Speaker 1
08:06
Totally.
Speaker 2
08:06
I'm with him on that. He's 1 of the funniest people ever. Totally.
Speaker 2
08:12
What do you think makes him funny? It's just all the times you've worked with him, the non-standard, non-sequitur way of his being.
Speaker 1
08:22
Bobby Lee is 1 of the most raw people, raw performers, who lets it all hang out to the degree that he will even get naked in front of his audience, which is usually a metaphor for someone doing stand-up. I'm bearing all, I'm showing you everything, and Bobby will just pull his bird out of his pants. Yeah, I don't think he understands metaphor too much.
Speaker 1
08:43
He embodies metaphor. Yes, he embodies metaphor. He's the gatherer. We call him the gathering metaphor.
Speaker 1
08:49
Bobby the gatherer metaphor.
Speaker 2
08:50
He's a metaphor for something else, for somebody else's life. Someday he'll be in the dictionary representing some kind of concept, maybe the metaphor itself.
Speaker 1
09:00
Yeah, once this whole thing falls apart and we are climbing the kudzu vines that spiral up the Sears Tower, like they say in Fight Club, Bobby will go back to his gatherer form and be happy as a pig and shit. Just walking around in a loincloth with his bird hanging out, tracking jokes to people and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance or whatever he does.
Speaker 2
09:19
I'd love to dig into something he did. You guys did a lot of great podcasts together. He asked you in a very uncomfortable process of why you don't do stand-up.
Speaker 2
09:30
So let me ask you, do you hate money?
Speaker 1
09:34
Well, I'm originally from Canada, yeah. So I'm a frickin' pinko socialist. Is that where you come from?
Speaker 1
09:42
That's not a nice thing to say.
Speaker 2
09:44
I thought the Soviet Union, that is a nice thing to say. Like Comrade. Right, Comrade, he's a good socialist.
Speaker 2
09:54
With red, like some bold colors, yeah. There was an interesting tension in your voice and the way you talked about it, there's just not a source of happiness for you. You respect the art form, but it was not something that you were connected to, you felt connected to.
Speaker 1
10:09
That's a good way to put it, yeah. I respect the art form a lot, and I grew up with all the albums and stuff. I had an older brother and sister who, so I, you know, we had the, we had George Carlin, we had, you know, Richard Pryor, we had Robert Klein, we had Gilda Live, the Gilda Radner, concert.
Speaker 1
10:28
We had, we had all sorts of stuff, but you know, I don't know. There's a lot of, there's a lot of reasons. I do feel like a career in show business is, you know, they, it never goes the way you plan, like most things. And I was fortunate enough to get started outside of my native Vancouver or in my native Vancouver.
Speaker 1
10:47
I grew up in the burbs outside and there was a lot of industry there. So I was fortunate enough to get started as an actor when I was like 16. So. There, there, yeah, there was, there were some times early on where I came up with some standup stuff and did it, but yeah, I quickly abandoned it.
Speaker 1
11:06
And then, you know, you go through, you do Mad TV and stuff, and then, and that's where my, and this is gonna sound weird. Do I sound as anxietal as I did when I was on Bobby's podcast, trying to avoid his questions.
Speaker 2
11:18
Well, he was giving you this face this whole time that was making the whole just atmosphere feel full of anxiety, so I'm trying not to give you a face. The whole time I was saying, play cool, play cool.
Speaker 1
11:28
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2
11:30
Play cool, Lex.
Speaker 1
11:31
Play cool, You said it out loud a couple of times. I did. Just, you know, you cut that out.
Speaker 2
11:34
Play it cool.
Speaker 1
11:35
Play it cool, dude.
Speaker 2
11:36
Cut it out. Cut it out.
Speaker 1
11:37
Maintain, bro. Here's what I'll say. There's 2 ways to do it.
Speaker 1
11:39
I think it's lame when someone who's done 1 thing for a while goes and starts doing stand-up out of nowhere because I think it's an art form that's under attack because it's not like anything else. You need, although now you can of course, you know, make whatever you want, it's the era of self-publishing as far as making a product and putting it out there, which is getting easier, of course. And I can't wait to talk to you about that with AI and how it's changing art. But in stand-up, all you need is a microphone.
Speaker 1
12:12
And perhaps it would be good to have some mental illness. And then you can just run up there and talk forever. And I say this to comedians, it's like, you guys have to deal with just an influx of people who aren't sure why they're doing comedy. I would ask comedians, I mean, not good ones, good ones, you know what they're doing, but everyone else, like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1
12:36
Why? Why are you doing standup? Having said that, I am allergic to money.
Speaker 2
12:40
Yeah. Do you think they have a good answer for that? Why are they doing it? Cause I actually like when I'm in Austin, I like going to open mics, just listening.
Speaker 2
12:47
It's inspiring to me. Both the funny and the unfunny people, because they've been doing it for several years, sometimes over a decade, and they're still at it. They're still right there, they're going for the punch, and then especially open mics that are really sad in that there is only like 5 other people in the audience and they're usually just other comedians and they're still going all out as if they're in front of a stadium.
Speaker 1
13:13
But that to me sounds like someone who loves it. Yeah. I got no questions for that person.
Speaker 1
13:19
I got questions for someone who goes sideways from here, I'm recognizable doing something, and then I'm doing standup because it's like, and truly look, I've been, I've been fortunate enough to be in the business for a long time. And at this point, if I came up, I mean, doing live stuff is fun. I have friends that are like, you know, some guys who are primarily sketch people, or you would look at them as sketch people and they can sell tickets for being sketch people. And they, and we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1
13:45
And they're like, well, you know, I do a monologue and I do a little standup, then I do a song, then I do another monologue. Then I play off the audience, do a little standup. But stand up is, it's almost like playing music in that, you know, people are going up there playing music, but what band have you been listening to? That's what you're going to sound like.
Speaker 1
14:06
So it's really, I mean, of course, I'm speaking from 0 experience, but I've heard, it takes years, of course, to find your own voice. Stand-ups that when they first go up, they're doing some sort of impersonation of so-and-so and so-and-so.
Speaker 2
14:21
And then
Speaker 1
14:21
you gotta pop this audience that's paying and you're gonna get run over by the next person who's coming up and it's hard to follow the last person who went up before you. And I mean, that is a really hard way to, it's a very, it's quite a gauntlet to be in to find your voice comedically.
Speaker 2
14:38
But don't you have that same kind of thing with sketch? You still have to find your own voice with like all the impressions you do, they're just terrible. You know, there are different spins on different people.
Speaker 2
14:49
They're not like perfect impressions, right? So that's, I mean, that's a similar kind of challenging journey as standup. You're just saying they're kind of distinct and you fell into this 1, you fell in love with it, which is like what Mad TV kind of opened you up to.
Speaker 1
15:05
Yeah, as a kid, I literally wanted to be an actor. I always wanted to be an actor from a very young age, as far back as I can remember, and I was a class clown and wanted to do comedy stuff and comedic acting and- So comedic acting. Yeah, early on, my influences were a very predictable list of guys from SCTV, early Saturday Night Live, Monty Python, all of those performers really influenced me.
Speaker 1
15:32
It was later that I saw people like Kevin Kline, who's an incredible actor. I vividly remember being like 12, 13, seeing him get an Academy Award for Fish Called Wanda. And it blew my mind, because I was like, he was hilarious. I mean, it was 1 of my favorite movies back then and now.
Speaker 1
15:50
And, he won an Academy award. And at that point I, I started thinking more about acting. And then I was, like I said, really fortunate to fall in with, I mean, I always wanted to do it and I was trying to hustle this and that when I was a kid. And then I ended up getting represented and then I ended up on a teen show.
Speaker 1
16:11
I was on, I basically, the easiest way to pitch it is it's like a Canadian, my so-called life with these kids and their lives and stuff. And I did that for like 5 years and I really love acting. I really truly love acting. And I don't, I'm not someone who wants people to know my opinion.
Speaker 1
16:30
So that's another thing about standup. Like I love the illusion of what I get to do in entertainment and podcasting is great for that. But to stand up there and for, I don't know, just for me it's like, it would have to all be fantasy.
Speaker 2
16:50
So Nietzsche said that every profound spirit needs a mask. Like you say, you don't like to talk about, in your comedy, you don't like to talk about stuff that's personal to you. Yeah.
Speaker 2
17:03
What is that? If you were to psychoanalyze yourself, do you think it's just not something you find funny or are you running from something? And It's not your fault, Will.
Speaker 1
17:16
It's not your fault, Will.
Speaker 2
17:18
Speaking of another really great comedic actor who's also a serious actor, Robert Williams.
Speaker 1
17:23
1 of the best serious actors. I mean, I, and you know, 1 of the funniest people of all time, but as great, as incredible as he was as a funny man, as a stand-up and a performer, I almost like his serious stuff better.
Speaker 2
17:39
Can I ask you a question about that? What do you make of the, that he committed suicide?
Speaker 1
17:44
I think it's, I mean, it's super depressing. I've referred to him as like the Jesus Christ of depression. It's almost like he died for others' depression, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1
17:55
Like, you'd look at someone like that and go, wait a minute, you're a rock star. Like, you don't, you could just check out if you're not liking your life. And of course, something like suicide begs that you look a little deeper and realize how tortured the human mind can make someone.
Speaker 2
18:12
Is there some aspect to, you know, we're in LA, is there some aspect of celebrity that's isolating that can make you feel really lonely?
Speaker 1
18:21
Not me, I don't feel, no, not really. You feel the love? No, I just feel like I'm not, I mean, it's like, I don't know, I've always kind of had a small group of friends and those people don't, you know, it's like I've known the same people for years and years.
Speaker 2
18:36
You never really felt the celebrity really.
Speaker 1
18:38
Nah, in LA it's hard to, it's hard for people, nobody cares, they see you and then the next minute they see so and so. So it's like, you know, I'm the guy from that, hey, you did that Mike and Molly, right? Nope, nope, close.
Speaker 1
18:52
King of... You shave your head? You go bald? You're King and Queens?
Speaker 1
18:57
Nope, not me. So close. Wow, shit, you used to be the mountain on Game of Thrones. You look like shit, whatever.
Speaker 1
19:07
Just eating fried dough. Yeah, that's what's up. Can't lift any weights anymore. I'm at the gym doing like 15 pounds with shoulder press.
Speaker 1
19:16
Ah, and people coming up to me, pfft, you used to be a dragon killer, dude.
Speaker 2
19:20
Half a man, used to be. What's, have there been low points in your life? Sorry to go there, but.
Speaker 2
19:26
No.
Speaker 1
19:28
Yeah, I don't know. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yeah, right?
Speaker 1
19:33
Yeah, right? Yeah, There's, everybody has a low point in life. The operative.
Speaker 2
19:38
Do you suffer from like depression and those kinds of things?
Speaker 1
19:41
You know what? I do. I do.
Speaker 1
19:42
I have a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2
19:45
How do you deal with it? Said friends, the friends and the.
Speaker 1
19:48
They don't do anything for you in that sense. Yeah. I have a, I have an incredible fiance who, that, that's nice to have somebody, constant that you love very much and see as the best person and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1
20:02
Hopefully vice versa. And then...
Speaker 2
20:04
Well, on your recent Instagram, she said that she loves you, so. Wow, you were just
Speaker 1
20:10
on, yeah, allegedly. That might all be for, yeah, that's all.
Speaker 2
20:13
How much money did you pay her
Speaker 1
20:15
to say that? I don't have any, because I'm not a stand-up. I was like, I can do, you got Venmo?
Speaker 1
20:20
Yeah, yeah. I only have like $123. I can use some Doge coin. Yeah, some Doge.
Speaker 1
20:25
Yeah. You want some Doge? I got some of those monkey NFTs. Oh, before I forget.
Speaker 1
20:31
Yes. Hold on a second. Oh, no. Put a doodsy sticker on your microphone if that's OK.
Speaker 2
20:37
Sure.
Speaker 1
20:39
Here. Oh, yeah. These are tricky because I have the thumbs of a, I have like Italian sausage thumbs. Wait and watch this happen.
Speaker 2
20:45
Yeah, just wait. I'm just going to.
Speaker 1
20:47
This will take another.
Speaker 2
20:49
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1
20:51
Oh, man.
Speaker 2
20:52
Yeah, ooh, this is embarrassing. Are you good under pressure? I have anxiety.
Speaker 2
20:58
I have performance anxiety.
Speaker 1
20:59
Do you have anxiety? Yeah, you have anxiety period
Speaker 2
21:02
period.
Speaker 1
21:03
Yeah,
Speaker 2
21:04
I like I don't like it when I have to pee and then everyone's waiting in the urinal. Yeah, I don't like it.
Speaker 1
21:11
You know what'll help you in that situation? What's that? Taking a shit.
Speaker 1
21:15
Because whenever you take a shit, you always pee a little.
Speaker 2
21:17
It's hard to take a shit while you're standing at a urinal, but
Speaker 1
21:21
not in my world.
Speaker 2
21:22
OK, just
Speaker 1
21:23
got to keep yourself full of things that make you shit. Oh, good. You ever heard of banana?
Speaker 2
21:27
I did recently. Somebody told me
Speaker 1
21:29
about it. Not the showbiz term. I'm talking about the food.
Speaker 1
21:33
There you go. Oh. There we go. Which way is up?
Speaker 1
21:38
It's this way, right? It's like a D. No, spin it.
Speaker 2
21:41
There you go. All right. So sexy.
Speaker 2
21:48
You're like a brand.
Speaker 1
21:49
Yeah, it's very important to brand yourself. These colors. Are you selling shoes?
Speaker 1
21:54
Yeah, I got some custom kicks coming out. The dudesy, no, actually that would be a good idea. You can probably sell a pair or 2 of those. Speaking of anxiety, I really am only focused on this right now, Lex, I apologize.
Speaker 2
22:08
Just shit your pants, it'll make you be easier.
Speaker 1
22:10
And get on with it. Oh, this thing has been dog-eared in my pocket for a while.
Speaker 2
22:14
I swear This never happens to me, I'm sorry, babe.
Speaker 1
22:16
People don't thumb at a sticker for an hour while they're doing the podcast.
Speaker 2
22:19
No, this is just an excuse you make when you're with somebody and you're underperforming.
Speaker 1
22:23
Well, here's the thing. As you ask me questions that I don't wanna answer, I'll just go to this. Go to the sticker.
Speaker 1
22:29
So If this ends up working, then I won't have it as a club.
Speaker 2
22:32
It's funny how you started doing that when we're talking about depression, that's weird. That is weird. Tell me how that makes you feel.
Speaker 1
22:42
Here we are, we got it.
Speaker 2
22:44
For the listener, he succeeded after 10 minutes.
Speaker 1
22:47
Yeah, you know, no, I do have some of that stuff. Bobby Lee had encouraged me on wax, as I like to say, to go to talk about it on podcasts, Talk about depression, because it could help people. And I said, no.
Speaker 1
23:05
But it's true. I do have some. There's some history in the family. How do you overcome it?
Speaker 1
23:11
Well, I used to not believe in medication at all. I used to think that that was for someone else with, who's been diagnosed with, some of the, some of the rougher stuff. But as I got older, then some of the stuff happens and, you know, you, you have to, and by stuff, I mean, you know, mental stuff and, And yeah, so I went and I just, I believe that the stigma needs to be removed completely. 100%.
Speaker 1
23:39
And so I do therapy, I do talk therapy. I'm on a little bit of stuff, which let me tell you, when I first started it, I was, you know, someone I'm close to was like my manager, and she goes, this is too much. But she was like, you don't have to white knuckle it through life, right? Because I was literally just like everything became, you know, really hard to do at a level that I wanted to do it at.
Speaker 1
24:09
Even just getting through your day, right? And when I first got some of the meds that I'm on, it felt like doors and windows were opening literally in my brain. I took a three-hour nap the first day, and you shouldn't even feel this stuff the first day. I think my brain was like, it was like a sponge.
Speaker 1
24:31
It wanted to, I needed some relief. And I'm not a nap guy. I can sleep 3 hours and I'll be fine. But I took a long nap and then it started to help.
Speaker 2
24:42
Yeah, isn't that weird how a little bit of chemistry in your head can just make the whole world appear so much more beautiful. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1
24:52
I mean, after all, there's a lot going on in your brain that can be changed by your lifestyle, but also so many physical things, like a little bit of meds, or in Bobby's case, thumbing around on some dumb farming app.
Speaker 2
25:09
Well, Bobby's gone through a few rough periods with like, you know, with drugs and alcohol and all that kind of stuff. And just everything else involved. I mean, that's the beautiful roller coaster of who he is, and a lot of great comedians seem to be that way.
Speaker 2
25:23
So I wonder what the connection there is. You think some level of crazy is required for comedy? Like at some point. Yes.
Speaker 2
25:32
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much crazy do you have?
Speaker 1
25:37
In some ways, a 10. And in other ways that I think, in other ways, sort of functionally, I'm like a 2 or a 3, because I don't know. I'm from Canada and I'm, you know, I try to just keep things very even keeled.
Speaker 1
25:54
My parents are Italian, they're from Italy and, you know, they're very, I grew up during World War II and they're very, you know, simple outlook on things. They're complex, incredible, classy people who are very simple when it comes to a lot of stuff. And I think just being a sort of a, at heart, kind of a timid Canadian. Coming out here years ago as a kid, it was all I could do to just keep everything super normal.
Speaker 1
26:28
And then I sort of was able to settle into that as a lifestyle. But you love the idea of being an actor.
Speaker 2
26:37
You mentioned John Candy and Plane Stranger Automobiles. Yeah, it's 1 of my favorite movies. It's 1 of yours.
Speaker 2
26:45
What do you think makes that movie work? And when you talk about enjoying that movie, do you enjoy just the raw comedy, or do you enjoy the friendship and the love that's there, even though on the surface, it doesn't make any sense that there should be a friendship there.
Speaker 1
27:05
I mean, that's such an important element to that film. But, you know, as a kid, I just loved the comedy. And then it's been a nostalgic favorite of mine, like, it's my favorite movie.
Speaker 1
27:16
But it's also, it's just legit my favorite movie because as you get older and you start watching it, you realize it's what it's what john hughes is the filmmaker and what john candy, particularly, and but also Steve Martin are doing in the film that makes it such a work of art, which is loneliness is there in every moment of that film. And John Candy is, he embodies Del Griffith, his character in the film. Del Griffith is a lonely guy. And John Candy, but Del Griffith is also a very friendly guy and a shower curtain ring salesman and knows everybody in the Midwest and runs around to motels and has meaningful conversations with the guy.
Speaker 1
28:00
Evening Gus, you know, whoever he's talking to. But there's loneliness there all the time. And, you know, this is a character, the film is filled with loneliness and it's not until, you know, the second to last scene when he's at the train station, Del, what are you doing here? You thought I thought you were going home.
Speaker 1
28:21
What are you doing here? That's a very good Neil, Neil page from the movie. Thank you. That's when you realize how lonely
Speaker 2
28:29
he is. Glad applause in post.
Speaker 1
28:31
Cheers. That's when you realize how lonely he is. And I think that's the element from the film that, I mean, look, nowadays, I feel like, I've been saying this for a long time, but John Candy would have won an Academy Award, hands down, for that film. It's just they didn't do that with comedies back then.
Speaker 1
28:48
Until the year after that movie came out with Fish Called Wanda.
Speaker 2
28:51
Yeah, and then it's, I mean still, comedies don't get respected enough. Robin Williams, I guess he got an Oscar for Good Will Hunting. Jim Carrey, did he ever get an Oscar?
Speaker 1
29:04
I don't know, I don't believe so.
Speaker 2
29:05
Yeah, they don't get, you don't, but that's not even if he did, you wouldn't be for comedies. It's just, I mean, there's some things that are playing strange in order, but would you even put that as a, I guess it's a comedy. Yeah, I mean- But there is a loneliness and depth that permeates the whole movie.
Speaker 2
29:26
Yeah. That ultimately, and it's a happy ending, which is hard to kinda.
Speaker 1
29:30
It's a happy ending only because in the last moment of the movie, John Candy puts on a brave face even when he's got no 1. And he's there seeing Neil Page's entire family on Thanksgiving, and he forces a smile, which is literally the last frame of the movie. And I've said before, if you're not reduced to just a sobbing pile of meat at the end of the movie, then you are not human.
Speaker 1
30:01
Yeah, it is a happy ending. It's a happy ending, even though it's a sad character.
Speaker 2
30:09
Loneliness in the world. I was just in Vegas. I went to a diner at like 4 a.m., 5 a.m.
Speaker 2
30:15
And there's a waitress that was empty. As a waitress, that was the sweetest, kindest human being. Kept calling me sweetheart and all that kind of stuff, hun. And then after I ate, she sat down and just talked to me a little bit.
Speaker 2
30:29
You know, it was because there was nobody there and it was just so much sadness in her eyes, I don't know, but it's also so much love, like that sweetheart, I mean, it reminded me kind of of the John Candy performance, because at First, because I was like reading a pretty dark book about Hitler. So I was a little bit frustrated that she kept talking to me because it was like, it was almost like, the same way that John Kennedy is, it's annoying a little bit, right? But then very quickly I opened up to like, well, there's a kind human being and there's like that human connection superseded everything else. And I don't know, it was just beautiful.
Speaker 2
31:12
And I think John Kenny captures that really well, which is like the connection with other human beings, sometimes we pull away from that because we have a busy life full of stuff to do, as Steve Martin's character kind of characterized, he's like a marketing exec or something like that. But if you just pause and notice others, you can really discover beautiful people.
Speaker 1
31:39
Totally, totally. Everyone's got, well, I mean, everyone's got their story. And, you know, Candy is a person, I've never met the man, but he's the kind of guy that, you know, he could just walk up to, back in the day I would imagine he could walk up to just about any house, at least in Canada, knock on the door and you'd invite him in for dinner.
Speaker 1
32:02
You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's a bit, that, you know, as you're talking about, you know, putting a book down and talking to someone for a while, even though you'd really like to read your book, It's like, it's that sort of thing that Candy's character in the movie sort of does that, like Johnny Appleseed. You realize he's just going around making people smile, you know? And Neil Page is hanging with this guy, so frustrated.
Speaker 1
32:31
He's so exhausting in his big underwear in the sink at the hotel and everything. And by the end of it, he loves this guy. So it's a good and a bad thing that you didn't take that waitress with you on a trip, maybe road trip up to Reno.
Speaker 2
32:47
Oh, 0, she's actually, she's out shopping right now. We've been having sex multiple times a day ever since.
Speaker 1
32:54
Oh, that's nice, that's lovely,
Speaker 2
32:55
how cute. I'm sure she's married and happily and has many Grandchildren, okay. And plus that movie's on Thanksgiving, I think, right?
Speaker 1
33:05
Or
Speaker 2
33:06
Christmas, Thanksgiving. So like Thanksgiving just embodies that, forget about the busyness and the whatever, the career you're chasing in life, and just take a pause and appreciate the people you love and
Speaker 1
33:18
the life. Just be with your family, yeah. Or the people, whatever your family looks like.
Speaker 2
33:21
Friends, yeah. You have some weird friends, unorthodox friends. So at least in the public sphere.
Speaker 2
33:29
Oh yeah. From Bobby Lee, Brian Callen, all those kinds of folks from the Mad TV days, I'm sure there's others. What does it mean to be a good friend?
Speaker 1
33:38
Here in LA? Or just in general? In the world.
Speaker 1
33:41
In the world. Will Sasso, world friend. I think it is different here. I think it is.
Speaker 2
33:46
I think people are- I think there's a little bit of a career kind of a negotiation shuffling around, that kind of stuff. Why is it different?
Speaker 1
33:53
Well, I just mean, I mean, I mean, that it's just kind of hard here to make time for everybody. There's so, there's, It's always been a city to me that is like, we'll keep you so busy. And every time I go home to Vancouver, after a few days, I start to get a little stir crazy.
Speaker 1
34:11
And I think that being here in LA, I go to sleep with 100 things that I still have to do. And you're never out of stuff to do. And if you, you know, when you ask about, are you nuts or whatever, if you're crazy, I mean, look, all the weirdest people from every high school in the United States is like, yo, I'm gonna make it in LA, you know. Everyone just comes here.
Speaker 1
34:36
And just another freak in the freak kingdom, as they say at the end of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That was a very good Robin Williams impersonation. That was my Robin Williams as Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson.
Speaker 1
34:47
Yeah. It's not your fault, Will.
Speaker 2
34:49
It's pretty good.
Speaker 1
34:50
Thank you.
Speaker 2
34:50
Could have been you, Fear and Loathing.
Speaker 1
34:52
In Fear and Loathing? Yeah,
Speaker 2
34:53
it'd be interesting.
Speaker 1
34:54
I would have liked to play his attorney, the role that Benicio del Toro gained weight
Speaker 2
34:59
for.
Speaker 1
35:00
That would have been cool. He's just saying, he's just, what's up over the line? Like that, chewing his face off.
Speaker 1
35:05
I could have done that.
Speaker 2
35:09
Yeah, no, I think that it's. Backdoor beauty. That guy's full of good lines.
Speaker 1
35:14
Yeah, They flip you, they flip you for real.
Speaker 2
35:18
Yeah. Good actor.
Speaker 1
35:18
Yeah, fantastic actor. I think what it takes to be a good friend is just presence, just being there. I mean, that's all anyone needs to be heard, right?
Speaker 1
35:29
In LA, It is interesting. I haven't seen people that I love in years, some people. You know? Yeah, just busy.
Speaker 1
35:38
Can you still have
Speaker 2
35:39
a depth of connection, even though, like, 1 of the reasons I really enjoy doing a podcast, you get to sit down with actual friends of yours and spend prolonged periods of time together that you don't otherwise.
Speaker 1
35:52
That's a good point.
Speaker 2
35:53
I've spoken on this podcast to people really close to me. And it's like, you've never had a conversation without microphones like you do with microphones. It's weird.
Speaker 2
36:02
But there's some aspect about LA that, a lot of the, especially friends of yours, comedians and so on, they'll do podcasts and stuff. And there's,
Speaker 1
36:11
I don't
Speaker 2
36:11
know, there's an intimacy to that.
Speaker 1
36:13
Yeah, there is and there isn't. The ones that I do, I mean, I just did Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino's- Funny enough called Bad Friends. Bad Friends.
Speaker 1
36:24
And afterwards, and my good pal Chad Colchin with whom I do Doodsy was with me. Sneakers are coming soon. Sneakers are coming soon. You get your Will foot and your Chad foot.
Speaker 1
36:34
Comes in a size 15 and a 9 and a half. And I remember afterwards we were talking, it was just basically me, Chad, and Santino were talking and Bobby was over there on his phone. And then I was like, I mean, we didn't spend any time talking about anything. It feels like 1 of those hours that goes by and you realize I've just been goofing around with these guys, which is.
Speaker 2
36:58
But that's what life is about, right?
Speaker 1
36:59
It's fine. A little bit. It's great.
Speaker 1
37:01
And then I'm like, all right, Bobby, hey, Bob, I'll see you later. And he's like, like this. I'm like, all right, man. Hey, love you, bro.
Speaker 1
37:08
See you later.
Speaker 2
37:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1
37:10
He's a guy, do you ever just, I just send text messages over there to him that never come back. And then he thinks that I'm angry with him because it's been, you know, it'll go 2, 3 years without him getting back to me. And then just out of nowhere, hey fuck face.
Speaker 1
37:27
And Who says hey fuck face?
Speaker 2
37:28
He does or you do? Yeah, I do. Or you
Speaker 1
37:30
both talk to each other? No, I gotta be very careful, Bobby. Yeah, I gotta be very sweet.
Speaker 1
37:35
Dear friend. Dear friend, hello. How are you doing? How are you?
Speaker 1
37:38
I know I checked in with you, but not, but 3 months ago. And then every once in a while he'll go, hey, fuckface.
Speaker 2
37:45
I tend to hide from the world and I can be pretty shady with friends. Text them back. I can empathize with Bobby.
Speaker 2
37:53
Might be a Skyrim thing. It might be like hiding in a world, in a digital world with fake NPCs.
Speaker 1
38:01
Yeah, yeah, there's that. Yeah, I have a buddy who said something really smart a while ago. We ended up working together on this TV show thing and I reached out to him to see if he wanted to do it with us.
Speaker 1
38:16
And he did, and he goes, this is a great guy, such a funny writer. He goes, I may not be in touch all the time, but I know who my friends are.
Speaker 2
38:25
You
Speaker 1
38:25
know what I mean? And it's like in our business, and this is a fellow who moved, who's from Ontario, Canada, moved back there. He's on the farm with his wife and kids and he does not care.
Speaker 1
38:36
He's never been a Hollywood guy. And it's tough to get ahold of him. But when you do, he's still the same sweet old guy. He's doing his thing though.
Speaker 2
38:46
Yeah, yeah, some of my closest friends, even if we don't talk for a few months, we're right back at it if we do. And then if shit goes, if something really traumatic happens or difficult stuff or any of that kind of stuff, I'm always there. So for important stuff, for important highs and important lows, you're there.
Speaker 2
39:04
And then you pick right back up, especially if you've had those years of experiences together. It's interesting. So you've done a couple of podcasts. So we've got to talk about Doodsy a little bit, but first, you did for several years, you did the 10-minute podcast.
Speaker 2
39:20
Yeah. I mean, everything is hilarious about that podcast, including the fact that it's 10 minutes. Right. I mean, it's ridiculous, it's absurd.
Speaker 2
39:30
The dynamic is hilarious. It's you, Brian Callan, Chris D'Elia. I don't know exactly why it works so well, but it worked really well. I think it's because the, yeah, you were having fun probably.
Speaker 2
39:42
I mean, that's what really came through, that it was friends just talking shit and the tension, the beautiful tension and the absurdity that came out. Yeah, sure. What was the story of making that podcast? How did that came to be?
Speaker 2
39:59
Why do you think it was as good as it was?
Speaker 1
40:01
I don't know. I feel like that podcast was like, it was our, who we kind of are, but on steroids or something. Like, you know, each person, you know, Brian's gonna be like extra manly and...
Speaker 2
40:18
Can you get any more manly than he already is? No, yeah,
Speaker 1
40:22
he reaches though. And yeah, we just kinda, I feel like as goofballs, we knew each other's line. Like here's the line you don't cross.
Speaker 1
40:33
I feel like those guys don't really have 1, but at least they knew mine. And yeah, we were able to just goof around. And I did it with them for 3 years, and then Chad, who I'm doing Doodsy with, and my pal Tommy Blacha, who's another writer-producer like Chad, they came on. And yeah, all told, I did like 7 years for that thing?
Speaker 1
40:58
6567I don't remember. Do you
Speaker 2
41:02
think it ever comes back in some small form as a 20 minute podcast or something like that? I mean, is there, because it's 1 of the most requested, but I mean, you have a huge fan base.
Speaker 1
41:15
I'm 47 years old. So I am of the generation that had a cell phone, has had a cell phone half the time, and didn't for the formative years of my life into my early 20s. And then finally got a, I got a cell phone, I guess I was like 19 or something, like literally just cause I'm moving to LA.
Speaker 2
41:35
You got porn in the mail.
Speaker 1
41:36
You got, yes, that's right. It was that, the hard, the hard cover porn. That's the way we liked it.
Speaker 1
41:42
Bound, you know, nice binding on the, on the porn, leather.
Speaker 2
41:46
Next to the Bible, yeah.
Speaker 1
41:48
Yep. These are all my, these are my Encyclopedia Britannica. Wow, very impressive. Yes, a man came to the house and sold me these.
Speaker 1
41:56
And then down here, these are my, this is my pornography. If you'll follow me through here to the parlor.
Speaker 2
42:04
Pass through the generations from grandfather to father.
Speaker 1
42:07
Yeah, I wanna give you something very special to me, Nebuchadnezzar. But... So you
Speaker 2
42:14
grew up in a generation without a cell phone.
Speaker 1
42:15
Yes, it's hard for me to connect with people who, who hit me up. I look at everything as polling. So if 1 person hits me up and shares this opinion, but 2 other people hit me up and share that I'm the worst.
Speaker 1
42:30
I'm don't follow my polls. My, When people say, oh, that poll means absolutely nothing. So-and-so is going to win anyway. That's my poll.
Speaker 1
42:38
My poll means nothing. But I do look at the stuff and go, this many people are saying this. That means that that number is saying that. And yet, it's very hard for me to hear what the hell people are saying online.
Speaker 1
42:53
I really, I can't connect to it sometimes personally. So when you say that that's a popular podcast, like I know that it's popular with the people that have expressed that they love it. Yeah. You know what
Speaker 2
43:04
I mean? What does that actually represent?
Speaker 1
43:06
I don't know. I don't know what kind of people are the audience. I don't know.
Speaker 1
43:10
I know that the people that listen to the 10 Minute Podcast, and if you did, thank you, and we're friends. I know that it was a special thing because it's like, yeah, just doing this out of my house
Speaker 2
43:22
and we
Speaker 1
43:22
just built it up out of nowhere and we're just kind of clowning around. It's an odd thing. I hope I, I personally, I think I speak for the 2 people that have reached out to you that said you should do
Speaker 2
43:33
it or whatever, 3 people, the poll, that you should bring it back at some point. That would be beautiful.
Speaker 1
43:39
Just
Speaker 2
43:39
maybe, it's like, what's a good story of like a famous band that came back and was successful? Probably, well. Nirvana?
Speaker 1
43:48
No, it was not. It wasn't Nirvana. Sorry, I get Nirvana mixed up with Aerosmith.
Speaker 2
43:54
Yeah.
Speaker 1
43:54
It was Aerosmith. Yeah, it
Speaker 2
43:55
was Aerosmith.
Speaker 1
43:56
Yeah, they had that second ride. Different. Yeah, totally different ending to those 2 bands.
Speaker 1
44:01
1 ended up on American Idol. Yeah, a lot of interesting women involved in that 1 too.
Speaker 2
44:08
All right, how did Doodzy come to be? Doodzy! And what the hell is Doodzy?
Speaker 1
44:14
Doodzy is the first podcast, and this is exciting that you've asked me to come here today, because to hear what you would have to say about it or what you would ask about it, it is the first podcast that is run completely by, and essentially, I like to say curated by, an AI. We were approached by a company that had this proprietary AI that wants to develop the podcast into the future and figure out exactly what it takes to make the best podcast ever. And it was all we all we we knew from the top and what they really wanted was 2 people who were actually friends and could be meaningful in the podcast space based on whatever information they had.
Speaker 2
44:57
Is the company CIA and are they testing technology to control the populace through chatbots?
Speaker 1
45:02
I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to share that information.
Speaker 2
45:05
You are, yeah, who gave you the suit? Where did you get the suit? Where did you get
Speaker 1
45:10
the suit, Will? Yeah, well the C- JCPenney? CIA stands for something different in here.
Speaker 2
45:14
I mean, you
Speaker 1
45:15
know, it doesn't mean like, Central Intelligence Agency, I'm probably just.
Speaker 2
45:18
It's a different, it's
Speaker 1
45:19
a Canadian information. Canadian International Apparel. Yeah, the Canadian International Apparel Company hit us up, Chad and I.
Speaker 1
45:29
Well, Chad's a super weirdo. You would get a kick out of him, I know. You guys, you strike me as very similar in some ways. I'll take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1
45:37
It is, and it is. And it is. Yes. If I was friends with you for as long as I've been with Chad, perhaps I'd have some horrible shit to say about you.
Speaker 1
45:45
But the good parts, you remind me of him. And we were approached by this company that said, we have this AI and we would like to set it loose on you. And essentially we had to hand over some information that would allow the AI to access our email and look at our search histories, purchase histories, things like this, and really dig into- Pornhub included or no? Porn, yeah.
Speaker 1
46:13
I had to hand over all my leather bound 1970s pornography. And essentially it curates a podcast for us every week doing dumb things like, you know, it says, hey, well, you know, you do a Hulk, you do some shitty Hulk Hogan impersonation. Podcasts about news are very popular. This is infomania, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1
46:34
And he's, oh, let me tell you something about that Marjorie Taylor Greene dude. And then he's going on doing some new stuff. And it basically just spits out all these things that it wants us to do, normally 4 segments, an episode. And that's pretty much it.
Speaker 2
46:46
It just tells us what to do. It generates the premise. I mean, you've spoken a bit here and there.
Speaker 2
46:53
Like I said, I'm a huge fan. I don't even remember where, but you talked about that you enjoy Doodzy because you feel almost like liberated to because you're operating within the constraints of the premise it generates. So you're almost not, you're free to riff, essentially. Like you don't have, You don't need to do the job of like coming up with the weird.
Speaker 2
47:19
You can just, the weird is given to you, and then you just run with it.
Speaker 1
47:23
That's a good way to say it, because we're already weird, Chad and I. Chad can talk for days about all sorts of stuff. He's particularly interested in AI lately and its effect on art.
Speaker 1
47:32
He is a writer, books, movies, and TV shows. And I'm primarily acting and trying to come up with stuff. Stuff I write with Chad's pretty good. The rest of it hasn't seen much success.
Speaker 1
47:44
Anyway, nor is the stuff with Chad for that matter. But that's because of me.
Speaker 2
47:49
Sneakers, you never know.
Speaker 1
47:51
Oh, I can't wait for these sneakers.
Speaker 2
47:53
Only in 2 sizes.
Speaker 1
47:54
Yeah, only in 2 sizes. You're gonna be able to take the tongue. You can't take it out, because it's actually stitched in.
Speaker 1
48:00
It's pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 2
48:02
Velcro?
Speaker 1
48:04
Velcro or? Yeah, Velcro up the side. We're doing some like brand new Kanye stuff.
Speaker 1
48:10
Yeah, we want things to look like, this is what you'll be wearing on Mars when you get there.
Speaker 2
48:15
So cutting it, so Nike's doing a bunch of research for running, how to make a super light shoe that you can be efficient in and break all kinds of running records. So you're doing the same kind of stuff.
Speaker 1
48:24
We're doing the same kind of thing for the podcasting space. The best kind of shoes to sit around and talk to your pal in. But yeah, so this, yeah, it's bizarre.
Speaker 1
48:32
And it also does some writing. Doodsy does come up with things, but not unlike what we're seeing in AI art now. It's a little bit foggy, it's a little bit weird, and it, but it is improving. It is learning about us and writing stuff when it makes me spit this and that, which will read, you know, well, you know, I've prepared these things for you to read.
Speaker 1
48:54
It's impossible not to get a kick out of it. Cause Chad and I are, first of all, we're blown away that we're doing this. Yeah. And second of all, the, some of the stuff is actually very funny.
Speaker 1
49:04
It makes weird names. Like, I don't think it understands, it messes up some words and stuff, but that makes it even funnier. And then it, it sort of, from the beginning started laying on, like it says astonishing all the time, everything is astonishing. That's Dudesy's favorite word.
Speaker 1
49:24
But yeah, it's basically just a way to frame the podcast, You know what I mean? Because my thing is, I don't wanna do this, where I actually have to talk to someone.
Speaker 2
49:36
You seem to feel a burden of the long form conversation. It seems like, is that really hard work for you?
Speaker 1
49:44
No, not at all. It's just that I don't like to bore people. And I feel like if I go on and, I like to provide value for what I am.
Speaker 1
49:54
Your value with regard to this project is obviously warranted, it's obviously.
Speaker 2
50:01
I'm waiting for the explanation for what the value is exactly. 2 dudes in a suit.
Speaker 1
50:05
No, listen. Yeah, 2 dudes in a suit. No, but I mean, you've got your audience and that's the end of that.
Speaker 1
50:11
People find value in it. For me, I do feel like it is important that I, if I'm gonna do something that is gonna be funny or that I hope is funny, I just kinda wanna get in and out of someone's day and just kinda, I like making, I like making laughy. I want people to, you know, whatever. It's the same thing that anyone else will tell you.
Speaker 2
50:38
Yeah, but in the long form, you feel the anxiety. You did a few funny things, and I wonder if I can keep doing the funny thing. Is that why You feel the, like why is doozy relieving you of some of the anxiety?
Speaker 1
50:51
Well, in some ways it gives me anxiety because I don't know what's coming. And that's weird for me because I like to prepare for things, but it's, that's not what podcasting is. Podcasting, you need to just be malleable and say whatever and do whatever.
Speaker 1
51:10
And that's what makes it a real, I mean, it's look, it's a medium for conversation. And if you're driving along listening to this or anything else, you're, you know, it is that, it's the true meaning of the parasocial relationship because the best podcasts just make you feel like you're sitting around rapping. We're just having a conversation. You could even be sitting there agreeing or talking out loud to yourself if you want to
Speaker 2
51:34
be sitting in silence
Speaker 1
51:35
You could just be sitting in silence in your fancy podcasting shoes Podcasting audience shoes is very different built Would
Speaker 2
51:43
they be also called doozy the shoes
Speaker 1
51:45
yeah These issues
Speaker 2
51:48
that's very creative.
Speaker 1
51:49
Yeah Well 1 thing the AI isn't good at yet is branding. Everything is just Doodzy this and that. I would
Speaker 2
51:55
argue that's pretty good branding. I don't know.
Speaker 1
51:57
Yeah, well, Doodzy allows me to just, It forces me to sit down with Chad and goof around for an hour or an hour plus. And it provides the parameters that I a lot of times ignore because I think that podcasting is just 2 dudes shitting around or 3 or 4. But it sits me down and gives me a premise to work with communically.
Speaker 1
52:24
And
Speaker 2
52:24
then you just
Speaker 1
52:25
riff with it. Yeah. It's fun.
Speaker 1
52:27
It's been a hoot.
Speaker 2
52:29
So from the acting perspective, you know, a lot of people like Daniel Day-Lewis will see acting just like as you described, which is you have your roles, you embrace those roles, and then you disappear. You don't do podcasts, you don't do any of that kind of stuff. Your art is your art.
Speaker 2
52:47
So is that part of you feels that way?
Speaker 1
52:51
I think so.
Speaker 2
52:52
Is that the actor side of you?
Speaker 1
52:54
Yeah. Anytime I get to do something that I don't get a chance to do much of or something that people haven't seen me do much of or that I've done on some scale that hasn't been very wide and not a lot of people have seen it. That's the stuff that I get really excited about. I don't know why I'm, I don't know why necessarily, I haven't answered that question yet in my life, like what it is about being an actor that I love so much, because it's not like I don't like to, it's not like I'm trying to get away from myself and play other characters and stuff and not be myself.
Speaker 1
53:31
But it is, it has always been fun to, to just be other people and escape.
Speaker 2
53:37
Yeah, is there some aspect to the impressions where you become that person? Is that like, what's that like to, I suppose acting is a full on version of that. You really at its best become the character.
Speaker 2
53:53
Is there some fun in that?
Speaker 1
53:55
Yeah, absolutely. If you can play a character for long enough and then jump out of it, that's a lot of fun. Like I did this movie like 4 or 5 years ago called The Inside Game about the NBA gambling scandal that there's a Netflix documentary about it right now.
Speaker 1
54:15
And that character, I played Jimmy Batista, Baba the sheep, who's, you know, this guy was this bookie and rah rah rah, it's a very, he's, there's a lot going on with him. He's, he's, you know, he's running numbers with the mob and stuff, and there's a lot of money changing hands. That character was so, I got to be, get so deep into that character that coming out of it was, was a little odd. Or as weird as this sounds, the 3 stooges was hard for me to, I found that I had, some of Curly's mannerisms just automatically, I could not stop them when people, when I, when I would talk to people, there would, they would come out.
Speaker 1
54:59
I wasn't, I'm not doing it on purpose. I don't want to do that. Like I'm ready to shed it. Cause I've been working on it for months and months at that point, as far as getting the thing down and then you gotta shoot.
Speaker 1
55:12
And then for me, it's always, I always wanna change the stuff I did the day before. I'm like that, where I'm like, I could have done it better, and this and that.
Speaker 2
55:21
That stayed with you, that character stayed with you.
Speaker 1
55:23
Totally, yeah.
Speaker 2
55:24
I just feel like with actors, sometimes when you listen to interviews, they have spent so much time sort of living inside other characters, that they almost don't have a depth of personality themselves, like a depth. Like, I don't mean that as a negative thing. It's just like, it feels like the art form at its best is pretending to be other people.
Speaker 2
55:47
And even pretending sounds negative, but like, bringing certain characters to life.
Speaker 1
55:52
Yeah, embodying. A weird thing happened while we were doing Stooges, because you've got a very heavy blueprint. We're following this very clear blueprint that the Stooges left for everybody.
Speaker 1
56:04
And for Stooge fans and people enjoying the movie, it's got to be this. You take your toolbox that you're used to bring into a comedy movie, you leave it behind. The only tools I'm bringing are the ones that he used. And a weird thing started happening where I would, I always saw the whole thing happening with the real Stooges in black and white.
Speaker 1
56:24
So if we're about to shoot a scene, I would just, you know, think about, I mean, aside from all the other preparation, you know, you know everything and what you're supposed to do. And I've been watching so much of it. And the 3 of us are, we're pretty much left to come up with a lot of the, the striking combinations and all this stuff, which is all real smack and all this crap. And the stuff that we were doing that was very stoogey, you're preparing all that stuff, but something else was happening before you jump into a scene and the unknown of now we're shooting it and here are these parameters within to shoot this scene, I could still see it as them doing it.
Speaker 1
57:00
So much so that when I saw the movie at the premiere, I was like, who's this big fuck doing? Because I'm not curly to me. Curly is curly. But I feel like...
Speaker 2
57:08
So you're seeing yourself in black and white almost.
Speaker 1
57:11
I was seeing him. I was. Yeah, I was only seeing him.
Speaker 2
57:14
So channeling in some fundamental way.
Speaker 1
57:16
In some weird way, you're channeling him because you've seen so much of it. The only thing you know about Jerome Lester Horwitz is Curly. I'm not saying he was exhumed or something, or his spirit went in here, or some weird crystal mommy shit like that.
Speaker 1
57:33
I'm saying that this, because you know so much of it and because of the heavy blueprint that they left with you, you are, you're channeling what that person does. And you're, you're, I was seeing entire scenes, you know, before you do them the way he would do it.
Speaker 2
57:50
And
Speaker 1
57:50
then you want a couple takes to make sure that you're doing it right. But that 1 was hard to let go of. Some of them are.
Speaker 2
57:58
Do you think Larry David, who was also in there, dressed as a nun, also had trouble letting go of that. We mentioned clothes make the man. I think that worked for him in that case.
Speaker 1
58:07
Man, you know, he...
Speaker 2
58:09
What was it like working with the guy? Come on, he's
Speaker 1
58:11
the greatest. And he's a big Stooge, he's a Stooge fan. And him and Pete Fairley are good friends.
Speaker 1
58:18
But then Larry David has to show up and hang out with us for a couple of weeks. He's like, I didn't realize it was going to take this long. But shit,
Speaker 2
58:26
I got
Speaker 1
58:26
to be out here in Atlanta. It's boiling hot. But at 1 point there was this line where he kept doing a, he would just spit a different line every time he was like getting hit in the head with something, he's laying there on the ground and he goes, he like comes to and he says, at 1 point he goes, Miami audiences are the best audiences in the world, right?
Speaker 1
58:47
And, cause he's loopy. Now he's playing a nun at the orphanage where the 3 Stooges grew up. And I'm super intimidated by Larry David, he's a genius and stuff. But I walk up to him and I go, so he's, what is he, like a, like a Borscht Belt, Florida comedian who is on The Lamb and so he's dressing as a woman and he ends up at an orphanage.
Speaker 1
59:11
Like what's going on? And he just, and he looks at me and he just goes, Yeah. I'm like, ah, he's got some actor motivation. Of course, it's Larry David in A Nun's Habit, which is hilarious.
Speaker 1
59:26
That's such a Pete Farrelly casting thing. But he's doing this whole, what a warm audience. I'm like, oh, he's this Catskill comedian who's been living in, you know, Boca Raton.
Speaker 2
59:38
So that's what he's like living through in his mind is he's having fun with it, right?
Speaker 1
59:43
I mean, that and probably a combination of that and getting the lines right. Because he's like, what are we doing here? What is, you know, just frustrated all day with what the heck we're trying to do.
Speaker 1
59:53
What do
Speaker 2
59:53
you think makes I mean, that guy is 1 of the best improv people ever. Yeah.
Speaker 1
59:58
So what
Speaker 2
59:58
do you think makes him so?
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