Cristin Milioti

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.

I'm Dak Shepard, and I'm joined by Monica Padman.

Hi.

Today we have Kristen Miliotti on.

She's a star.

She's a star.

She's hyper-talented.

She's a force of nature.

She's been in everything.

She's been in everything.

Incredible career.

Palm Springs, How I Met Your Mother, Black Mirror, Made for Love, The Resort,

and her incredibly standout work on the penguin,

which we are here to talk at length about.

She's so good on that.

And we're going to announce our Armchair Anonymous prompts.

Okay, great.

Okay.

So get out your pen and paper.

Get ready to submit.

Tell us about a crazy jury duty experience.

I'm so excited for this.

Yeah.

My friend Tim Lovestead texted me and said, hey, I want to tell a jury story.

Oh, great.

Yeah.

So we're going to have a friend on for that one.

Tell us a crazy story about finding a foreign object in a patient's butt.

You can be a nurse, you can be a doctor, you can be a.

Can you be a civilian?

Sure.

Yeah.

All right.

Tell us about a crazy 4th of July disaster.

Hold on, the butt one.

I bet we're going to get some moms.

Oh, it's kids putting items in their butt, maybe.

Just keep it like,

make sure you ask your kids' permission, actually.

Don't

just don't say their name.

Okay.

Tell us about a crazy Fourth of July disaster.

Tell us about a crazy sleepwalking experience.

This is a part two.

We had a really exciting episode previously.

Tell us a crazy cop story.

Woo, woo, woo.

Wild card.

This is, you know, everyone collects these.

Yeah, we love the wild cards.

We love wild cards, so tell us a crazy wild card story.

Ah, without further ado, please enjoy Kristen Miliotti.

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He's an alternative.

You want a coffee or anything?

No, I've like very caffeinated.

Caffeine to the hilt?

I'm caffeine to the hilt.

What's your sweet spot of caffeine intake where it's productive, it's helpful, and then it's destructive?

Do we know the cutoff?

I've yet to find it.

I still, after all this time alive, haven't been able to find the line.

So you do go too far somewhere.

Oh, all the time.

Oh, one more time.

Yeah, I did it this morning.

You did?

Yeah.

And what was that intake?

Well, I had a canned latte from the hotel mini bar.

Oh, great.

Because I don't live here.

And then I walked to Erewhon.

I'm like a moth to a flame, unfortunately, with that, because we don't have anything like that in New York.

And then I got a regular coffee.

I don't go there, but I did go in there one time because a friend of mine who's also sober was like, you got to go get this smoothie there.

It's cocaine and it's not a relapse.

I can't remember, but it was like a 21.

Beaver.

Probably Beaver.

Yeah, they're all like that.

You are aware that you're being actively bamboozled, but but it's a little bit like I feel when I walk in there.

I'm in agreement with it.

You're bamboozling me.

It's a casino for health food.

You're going to give me a great juice.

I know you're hosing me.

Yes, you're bending me over.

And I'm going to just buy it because I do want the taste right now.

It reminds me of like an FAO Schwartz because I know all the sections and I get excited.

Now, back to your coffee, though, the thing I'm going to say about it is it's a little bit like taking hot brownies before everything was legalized and you knew what was in them, where it was Russian roulette.

You don't really know.

You're going to get the brownie with like 100 milligrams of THC or one.

Because Erewhon's like a single batch from this mountain.

Ecuadorian.

It could be

like 6x the caffeine you're expecting.

But that's the gamble.

That's the fun.

That's the ride.

I think one time we went on Postmates and went to Erewhon and was creating the most expensive smoothie we could.

We didn't order it, but we just wanted to see what could you get to because there's all these add-ons you can do.

And I think we got to like $43.

Yeah.

Sounds about right.

So I'm going to say of the many people I've researched over 800 at this point, I've never gone to the early life and not one word about the parents.

Oh, really?

Are you parentless?

No.

Okay.

Oh my God, not at all.

I'm so relieved.

No, no.

Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Of course, when I think of New Jersey, I immediately go, oh, it's going to be a suburb of New York.

But no, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Suburb of Philadelphia.

And I don't know how much time you've spent in New Jersey.

We get kind of like a weird rap.

I think most people, and this is very much in our blood, they associate us with the Sopranos or with the Jersey Shore.

And that element is definitely there.

But I couldn't wait to get out of New Jersey when I was growing up there.

And now, as an adult, I realize what a special place.

There's like something in the water there.

It's very spooky and mystical.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of big emotions there.

And we have the Pine Barrens, but then we also have the ocean.

What's the Pine Barrens?

The Pine Barrens is where the Jersey Devil allegedly lives.

The Pine Barrens, it's in the Sopranos.

They go kill people there.

The Russian.

They take the Russian there, and then they get lost.

Yes.

A lot of schools in New Jersey take you there to teach you about the land you're on.

You go through these swamps and bogs, and it's really legitimately like the forest and beauty and the beast, where he can choose one of the two roads, and he's like, the spooky one.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's really cool.

Okay, so what did mom and dad do?

My mom, she's a banker, and then my dad works in IT.

He handles tech for small businesses.

Okay.

Siblings?

Younger brother.

How much younger?

Seven years.

I have an eight-year gap.

Were you cruel to him like Monica was to Neil?

I think I was early on.

Because seven years is you're two different generations.

You were an only child.

Right.

But he is one of my favorite people in the entire universe.

Okay, he grew into someone.

He's just fabulous.

Do you think he benefited from having an older sister?

As I've seen many boys who had older sisters turned out better.

Maybe.

He's like a golden human being, but I don't know how much I had to do with that.

You should take him.

Yeah, you're allowed to take credit.

I'll be afraid.

The big fun turn in your life happens at Long Lake Campbell.

Wow, you guys dove deep.

And now, this is an East Coast thing.

Monica and I are always perplexed by anytime we interview someone from the East Coast.

Camp life.

Are you West Coast?

No, Detroit, Atlanta.

Yeah, the South.

So many of my cousins, I grew up going to like Kennesaw.

Oh, for sure.

Christmas.

What's Kennesaw?

What's the vibe there?

It's a little more rural there, I would say.

Marietta, too.

That's more suburban, like where I grew up.

Did they introduce you to any weird country shit when you were there?

No, not that I can recall, but I just love the accents down there.

They're like a warm bath.

Yeah.

But were they setting fires and stuff more?

No, there was no fires.

No ATVs.

No, no ATVs.

You have an ATV out there.

Several.

Very well stocked with ATVs.

All over the country.

But not around L.A.

Yeah.

We have the best sand dunes in the world outside of Dubai and the Middle East in Glamis, California on the border of Mexico.

400 square miles of huge sand dunes.

But no, he doesn't drive it down Lows Fields.

Yeah, that's what I was calling.

He just did the RS1 last week.

He actually just got back from getting the turbo.

Can you get pulled over?

Is it illegal?

Yes, highly illegal.

But this city, I don't know if you've noticed this is happening in New York, where everyone rides dirt bikes on the street now with no helmet.

They're doing wheelies.

There's been some movement, and everyone's just like, we're just not going to deal with it.

We have every now and then at an intersection, like eight tricked out.

They're not motorcycles, but they're not dirt bikes.

Four-wheelers.

But then sometimes there's just one long wheel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They'll take over an intersection and do their own.

They'll be like,

rear up and then they'll disappear.

When you see that, what is your thought?

And you're not allowed to use the word horny.

That's the only word you're not allowed to do.

You're allowed?

Don't worry, that word doesn't come to mind when you see that.

Okay, so do you think it's cool?

When I see that, I have a little bit of like a, oh.

Okay, you have some pity.

Like, you feel bad for the boys trying to be manly.

But I also get it.

Whenever I've done like a go-kart somewhere, I feel like the king of the world.

Yeah.

And so I also can imagine what it must be like.

I'm a real fan of pedicabs in New York.

Pedicabs?

How do they do that?

They're only in Times Square.

It's the bicycle with the they're like $10 a minute.

It's a really poor investment, but they let you choose the music and they blast the music and they ride through all the taxis and it's like thrilling.

Yes.

And obviously that's a gentler version of riding an ATV through Times Square.

Yeah.

But I do get it.

It's the loudness that I don't like.

It's only the volume.

Things are moving into the electric space.

I just am getting my very first electric dirt bike.

It's in route right now.

But you've kind kind of nailed it, the appeal.

Two things.

So both of my daughters ride motorcycles.

The youngest one just recently actually got into it in the way that you need to get into it.

We were riding in the neighborhood and she was like riding next to me and she goes, oh my God, dad, I get it.

What's so cool is you're in total control.

And I'm like, yes, that is the whole thing.

I tell it to do this and it does that.

Then there's also, it's a break from the given reality.

Like you're on a street, you're supposed to make a left turn.

It's in a grid.

And then you have this thing with suspension.

You can drive on the sidewalk.

You can split between the traffic.

So it does feel like a superpower as well.

That's a part of the appeal.

I've never explored this topic as in depth.

It is just the noise that bothers me.

It is intrusive.

It's obnoxious.

And yet, I live in New York.

I'm surrounded by loud noise, but there's something about that like.

Because everything else, I'm like, oh, I would love this.

And it feels probably a little toxic.

It's a little aggressive.

It's the scary side of maleness, maybe.

That part of it seems so unnecessary.

And it scares dogs and it scares kids.

It sets off car alarms.

It feels like

it feels selfish.

It's like you like this thing so much that you don't care that this is bothering the entire city with your noise.

But I rode a moped in Paris once.

It was like living inside of a song.

This is so transportative and it's such a precious memory.

So I get it, but mopeds aren't loud.

The experience of traveling briskly is just taken for granted.

And in a car, you're kind of removed from the sensation.

But when you're on two wheels with nothing around you, it's as close as you get to riding a a horse somewhere.

Yeah, I bet.

You're very aware of this neat gift we've gotten where we can go places quicker than we would otherwise be able to.

Hey, I've never ridden on a motorcycle.

Well, after this interview, we're gonna

hop on.

Yeah.

But it would scare me here just because of how everyone's texting and driving.

Sure, watching movies, smoking weed.

I see guys watching pornography on the way home and I just think,

my God, it's that bad.

We've really rotted.

Yes, I've really taken a turn.

I have a really good glimpse of this city because of lane splitting and just seeing what everyone's doing in their cars all the time.

And very few people are driving.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

That porn one really got you.

Yeah, it did.

Well, because it hurt my soul a little bit.

More chimpanzees that are in mechanized machines.

I know.

So that's why I would be afraid to ride a motorcycle in front of us.

Okay, back to Long Lake Camp.

So that's kind of a thing we didn't experience.

I'm very envious of it.

I know.

Right?

It was cool.

How did you end up there?

Something my parents suggested, and I didn't have a lot of friends.

I don't know this for a fact, but I think they were like, we're gonna just make you be social.

And I was bullied a lot during that time in my life, but at camp, I was there with a lot of other kids that I think were also experiencing that.

And I was king of camp.

It was run by hippies.

And I was only there for, I think, two weeks.

It became this beacon where I, for those two weeks, was fully accepted and so confident and my full strange self.

Was it an arts camp?

It was.

they did sports as well, but it was mostly artsy.

It was just really special.

Well, first of all, I want to know what your explanation is for why that was all happening in public school.

But then also, yes, just to visit some place and go, oh, okay, so there will be places I will fit in has got to be the most optimistic thing that could happen.

It's such a helpful thing.

It buys you hope.

It gave me these little bursts of confidence too, where I was deserving of not being shoved into a wall or something.

Okay, so why wasn't it working?

It actually kind of all happened at the same time.

I definitely had friends.

I was a soccer player and I was just like a regular kid in a New Jersey suburban elementary school, but I had different pop culture references.

I just didn't totally fit in.

And then I went to this camp for the first year, had this incredible awakening where I felt like I was king of camp and the hottest girl.

at camp that summer was from Venezuela.

She was 16 and she shaved her head at camp.

And it was like the coolest thing that had ever happened and the entire camp was like oh and she had a nose ring no makeup it was like shinead o'connor yes yes yes yes so then i got home from those couple weeks and i shaved my head rob

what

oh yeah you have it okay you have it so you do okay so she was

among the cutest photos i've ever seen of a human on the planet

that's a week into a new middle school sixth grade seventh i don't know a lot of the kids i'm stressed do you know what i mean yes i think this is really really sweet and so cute and i have almost because you know exactly what happened when that kid walks in the door of a middle school with 2 000 other kids right the high school you ultimately graduated from was cherry hill east which implies there's a west

right so this is like a huge district giant sprawling suburb okay so for the listener who can't see it's a buzz cut it's not safe is not yeah it was a buzz cut because my mom took me, and to my mom's credit and my dad's credit, I didn't do this myself.

I came home and was like, hey, I want this.

And they were like, okay.

It felt really mean, but I did want to say, you can't tell when you said I didn't do this myself.

I know, you can't tell.

Picture Day is halfway through the year.

Maybe a couple months in.

Grown out a little.

I love you.

That makes me so sad about it.

And I want our listeners to really think about this.

All of our middle school listeners.

No, no, our adult listeners.

When I I see that, I know me as a middle schooler.

Everyone's just trying to survive middle school and make it through without getting shoved in a locker.

Yes.

That I know, and this is so regrettable and sad, that if this sweet, sweet child walked in, I would turn.

I can't be friends.

Oh, absolutely.

I'm saying that with heartbreak.

No, and you know that.

They're doing something you're afraid to do in a way that's scary.

I mean, you can see my eyes.

I was like a tender.

Yeah, you're a little bambi.

Yeah.

Now, here's what's deeply unfair about the world.

So I, too, in seventh grade, I had a mohawk, but because I'm a boy and it was so not what you were supposed to do.

Yeah, sure.

Girls were like, oh, this guy is so confident in a man or a boy, that kind of, quote, bravery.

was rewarded.

I was like, he's bad.

That's cool.

And that's unfair, but I'm promising you right now, I would have 100% been friends with you.

Really?

Oh, absolutely.

I would have been drawn to this like a moth to a friend.

I would have seen what you were up to and I was doing a similar thing and I would have been like, all right, I'm going to pass you notes in class and we're going to get through this.

Well, it was such a 180 of feeling so good for those few weeks over the summer and then coming in and I was like silent for months.

I was like afraid to talk.

You were reminded of the other world.

Tenfold, because at least before I had long hair, I could kind of blend.

Blend.

And I, of course, was aware of the social situation too of that age.

It does feel like Lord of the Flies.

If you think I'm stupid, look over there.

I get it.

It's sad that that's how humans are.

I know.

Yeah.

Well, I love her.

I do too.

This picture made me so happy when I saw it.

And you should have been absolutely rewarded.

You should have skyrocketed to number one.

I really did not.

What's the opposite of skyrocketing?

Plummeting

to the Mariana Trench.

Was it girls who were mainly both?

It was both.

That was the other thing.

The boys thought I was a young boy.

So they would truly like throw me into the wall and then be like, oh, oh, you have girl parts.

It was both sides.

I truly was a unifier in terms of people.

You got to experience what unfortunately the smallest boy in a class experiences, which just any kid trying to earn his stripes is going to shove him randomly.

Exactly.

Oh boy.

Yeah.

Did it level off?

Did you find a sweet spot in your schooling?

The way that it leveled off was that the only kids that were nice to me were the drama kids.

There were like a couple girls in the middle school theater department, which, oh my God, what I wouldn't give for the footage of the plays that we did.

But they were like, you can hang with us.

And I started going to these rehearsals and drama classes.

And I was like, oh, I love this.

I can have fun and disappear probably.

Also, these kids are nice to me.

And it was like a version of camp.

You're right.

There was a little tiny safe space.

In the cafeteria where we would rehearse after school, I felt this grand relief and that I could giggle again.

It just was a respite.

And so it was a really actually fortuitous way to find myself in acting.

A famously stable industry.

Yeah, yeah.

Full of mentally well people.

Where success will heal all those wounds magically.

And then you went to NYU.

Yes.

Right out of high school?

Right out of high school.

Okay.

Now you shared this in common with Kristen.

I think she left.

Maybe you left a little earlier than her.

I left halfway through my sophomore year.

To go do theater?

No, just to take a leap.

Get the fuck.

I was like, get me out of here.

Yeah, what didn't you enjoy about it?

I wrote down the quote you said about it.

Wildly unhappy.

I was like, oh God, what have I said?

Sometimes interviews make me really nervous because things are read back to me.

And I'm like, I don't feel that way anymore.

And it's very strange to adhere to, and also who cares?

No one's thinking about it that much, but it's sometimes an odd sensation to be like, oh, oh, God, I did?

Huh.

When did I say that?

I agree with you.

I think it would be easy for people that read interviews to think the answer that was given was one that was well thought out, as opposed to, I'm obliged to answer this in some way immediately.

Yes.

And so I'm going to do my best at it.

And it's not necessarily your walking opinion of totally.

It's me trying to figure something out in the moment.

Plus, you can evolve.

The way you think about things changes.

Totally.

But wildly unhappy.

I wasn't wrong.

I just say that in this one.

It's actually like pretty accurate.

I knew that I was accruing debt and I was in a musical theater program.

I was at Tish.

I was in CAP21.

That's Kristen as well.

Really?

I didn't know that.

Yes.

I don't know what her experience was, but I was doing some stuff every day that I thought was cool, like tap dancing class.

But then I would be like in the middle of tap dancing and I'd be like, I'm going into debt.

To learn to tap dance.

I'm never going to tap dance.

I'm not good at this.

I love this as like an experience, but I'm not going to be in anything goes.

And then we would do scenes from Chekhov.

This sounds so theater student-y, but I was like, oh, I love this.

And then they'd be like, well, that was the 20 minutes we gave to Chekhov.

So now we go to ballet.

And I get what they were doing, but I felt like a square pegging around hole a little bit.

Were you lonely?

Going to New York, even though that's where i've like wanted to live always and i will never not live there was overwhelming for an 18 year old i also wasn't a great student and i didn't understand that nyu is like a liberal arts program so you have to take regular classes i thought it was a conservatory imagine my surprise also why didn't i research that but i just wanted to be an actor in new york and i showed up and they were like okay you have top dancing class on thursday and then on friday you have to study french history And I was like, oh, sorry, I didn't want to do that.

And they were like, well, that's the program.

And I was like, huh, interesting.

I didn't realize that.

Yeah, you're going to take some biology.

So I think that was part of it too.

And I was like, this is not what I thought it was.

And so then I left.

Were mom and dad at all disappointed or scared?

They were really supportive.

They were definitely like, listen, you've made this decision.

We support it, but you have to now go.

support yourself.

Last question on that.

Is it also possible that you had had an expectation or a fantasy that it was going to be like camp?

You were going to land in your group and be seen.

And then you got there and it was like, no, I'm lonely here.

Music has always been a huge part of my life.

And I love musical theater so much, but I didn't quite fit into that world.

I've done a couple musicals, but they've all been not

at all.

Yeah, they're not like Thurley Modern Millie.

And I say that as a huge fan of Thurley Modern Millie.

They're different.

I sound different.

So I think I also just felt like I was in the wrong place.

Yeah, I don't know how to say what you're saying without it being a pejorative.

But yes, there's a kind of type of musical theater performer.

It's a very specific kind of thing that works really well.

Which I also love.

Like Fiona Apple's not going to be...

And that's my girl.

That's right.

And they're not, by the way, going to end up on Sopranos.

Sure, sure.

Okay, so yes, in 06, shortly after you've left NYU.

Now, I can't imagine anything more exciting for a girl from New Jersey to be on Sopranos.

Clearly, everyone in your family's watching it.

No, we couldn't afford HBO.

So I had never seen it.

I just watched The Sopranos for the first time two years ago.

It was wasted on me, but thank God.

The best show ever, the the best performance by an actor of all time.

I resisted it because I was like, certainly it can't live up to the expectations of being the greatest show of all time.

It is the greatest show of all time.

And thank God I didn't

know.

Because for me, I just was like, whoa.

I knew who they were.

The most exciting part of that experience for me was that Steve Bascemi directed it.

I grew up watching the Cone Brothers films with my dad.

We would watch a lot of movies together, him and I, and certainly movies that I probably shouldn't have been seeing.

Sure, sure.

That's how it should be.

Yeah.

And so so I was like a huge Steve Buscemi fan.

And that was actually the part that I would start shaking.

Yeah.

Did you see him in the studio?

Are you watching the studio?

Yes.

Buscemi.

Yeah, he's so wonderful, but he's just wonderful in everything.

And he was so kind to me.

How old were you?

19.

It was your first job.

Yeah.

First time on TV and Sopranos.

Yeah.

And like really not knowing.

Missing it.

Like missing it.

No, not completely.

I knew it was a big deal intellectually where I was like, I see the posters on this show on buses.

I know, of course, who all these people are.

If you cared, you wouldn't have booked it.

At that age, when you walk in, you're brand new, and you're obsessed with the thing, it wouldn't have happened.

Yeah.

I watched a clip of it today.

You did?

I'm not good on it.

Yeah, you are.

You're really good.

When I watched it, not that I had forgotten that I was on it.

Oh, right, right, right.

No, when you were on it.

When I was re-watching it, like that episode started, and I was like, wait, why have I seen that before?

And then I was like, oh my God, I'm about to appear on the screen.

And it took me a second.

And then I appear and I'm so young and I'm such a little baby.

And I'm like holding that cigarette and I'm yelling my lines like I'm in a theater.

But it works.

What do you play?

I'm like a mob boss's daughter.

Ironically, ironically, yes.

But I pop in my show up in a later episode too.

You did three, right?

With a shaved head.

I don't know that.

Your life is really full circle.

Okay, so I did Sopranos.

I didn't work for the long time and I did a bunch of odd jobs.

And then I booked this Martin McDonough play called The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

And I was an understudy in it.

It's how I got my equity card in the play.

The character has a buzzed head.

They buzzed my hair and I only went on one time in like an eight-month run.

I was just going to say, as the understudy, couldn't you be like, well, let's wait.

It doesn't take long to buzz my hair.

It's also the power of a good agent.

My agent at the time was like, oh yeah, just buzz your way.

She'll do it.

And I would have and did.

But as I was in the middle of that, we filmed a third episode and I showed up and they were like, your hair's gone.

Surprise.

When I got to that episode, when I was watching it, I was like, no one knew that you were his daughter.

I'm so random.

I'm in a room with a buzzed head.

Well, they didn't put a wig on you.

They didn't put a wig on me.

And I'm sitting, I don't want to give anything away on the edge of his bed.

And I was like, wow.

What a delight, though, for you to later watch this thing and go, that's cool.

I was in the greatest show I ever made.

I was in the greatest show I ever made.

You're in like the godfather of TV.

Kind of sim.

But I did a play, also a Martin McDonough play, The Pillow Man.

One of my favorite plays.

And I loved it so much.

Me and these two other girls kind of played these ghost type characters.

Yeah, the ones that are in the terrifying part.

Yes.

She had this whole vision of us.

And she was like, whoever books these parts is going to have to shave their head.

And I was like, sure, I'll say that, but I'm not really going to do it.

And then I booked it.

And me and this other girl were like, we're not shaving our head.

And we had this huge conversation with the director.

And she was so pissed, obviously.

But I was like, I'm in.

college.

This is for one play here.

Those parts don't require it.

It was her vision.

In the lieutenant of Inishmore, it's because she's militant.

Yeah, she's supposed to.

She has like a gun and she's got the aviators and the shaved head.

That's just artistic liberty.

It was.

But I also was like, am I going to be able to do this as an actor?

I'm not even willing to do this.

Yeah.

We ended up doing bod caps and acts.

I bet they look great.

I don't love them.

You don't love getting scared?

Theater.

Theater?

I don't.

But you've seen great theater.

You haven't seen many straight plays.

You get dragged.

I'm not saying the least

favorite.

When theater is great, for me, there's nothing like it.

But when when it's bad, there's nothing like it.

Yes, yes.

I feel like it's fish, like people who love fish.

Yeah, yes.

And they're like, no, no, you got to get the right, the possibility of failure is so high with fish and with theater.

And then you're really there.

Anyways, I respect it.

My issue is, are we pretending we're seeing this or are we acknowledging there's people in front of us doing it?

Interesting.

I can't get into the paradigm of it.

I've never thought about it that way.

I went to Lion King with an ex-girlfriend's family in Seattle, and everyone was so delighted.

And I was like, I'm confused.

Is Is everyone buying into the animals are talking and they're not in front of us?

Or are they going,

what a cool production?

It's so beautiful.

And look what the humans can do live.

That would be one way to view it.

And I'm caught between, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

I really find that so fascinating.

I would think that if you were watching the animated version, too, where you're like, am I supposed to believe Zazu's real?

Yeah, why is the movie better?

Because the movie is very removed and it has this filter over it, which is the screen.

And so, yes, I can buy into like, I'm watching Godfather and I can believe this world exists.

I can't touch it.

Do you know what I wonder?

Or I don't know.

I'm just turning this on.

You'll get quoted later that this was your permanent opinion.

Yeah, like this is not necessarily how I'll feel.

In a week, I kind of like in theater, and I can't reiterate enough when it's bad.

There's nothing like it in terms of.

a torturous experience.

And I'm someone who's also been in some awful plays.

And when you are in an awful play and you can like hear the seats going up as people leave you can just feel it and it's just excruciating it's why you do it though because those are the stakes those are the stakes you know if it didn't have that yeah then when it works it wouldn't have the elation when theater is great it reminds me of i'm a very avid concert goer i see everything and you cry through most performances i do cry when you saw joni mitchell you cried for three hours i cried for three hours where did i share that

yeah it's really emotional and i think it reminds me of a place of worship

where i can be in communion with an experience that is so individual to that one moment in time with the people who I'm seated next to and the people who are also communing things.

I wasn't raised with any organized religion, and I have wondered if that's what that at its best is supposed to offer.

That there are things moving through us that are bigger than us that unite us.

And I think when theater is good, my own heart and memory and life is in communion with a stranger's and with strangers in a dark room like we've gone to pray or something.

I'm being so lofty at all.

No lofty at all.

But it's good.

It's cool to believe that.

And I think that's maybe sometimes easier to do with a concert, especially because that music is something you listen to in private moments.

That's what makes those things so gorgeous and emotional, but you're feeling it.

You know, when I saw that got me?

The Fleetwood Mac one.

Stereophonic.

Beautiful.

That was fucking radical.

You begin to feel like a fly on the wall.

You know what?

I get what you mean.

Maybe I have just a, because I've been inside of them too, and I just really like theater as an art form.

I am really being lofty.

No, you're not.

Stop self-policing yourself.

Yeah.

Be who you are.

You're loved and you're valued and you're excellent.

I do think the fly on the wallness is also what I like about theater.

You can feel like you're in the experience with them.

Again, if it's really good, it's the difference when we do this show in person.

The people in it.

If somebody was a live show versus if they are.

watching it on YouTube or when we did Zoom interviews.

That was still great, but the electricity that's happening between people, you can't feel.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now I've talked way too long to you about the theater, but oh, six year in Sopranos.

And then without discrediting anything, it seems like the next moment for you is once.

Yeah.

You were in it for two years?

I was in it for a year and a half.

Is that kind of a record?

Sometimes people are in things for like five years.

Oh, really?

10 years.

Oh.

It was like a year and a half when all of a sudden done between doing it out of town, doing it downtown, and then doing it on Broadway.

I performed it over 500 times.

Wow.

And you got nominated for a Tony.

Okay, that's so thrilling.

And you won a Grammy for it?

I did.

Oh my God.

Well, that's so exciting.

And I get an egot.

This is so exciting.

You're halfway there when you're.

And then you are on Glenn Hansard's album.

Yes.

Okay, so he was on an episode of Parenthood.

He came and recorded at the Luncheonette, which was a studio we had on this fake world.

What a sweet dude to spend a week with.

Did you love him?

He was lovely.

And that music, I'd never seen the movie before I did the musical.

Intentionally?

At that point, I hadn't seen it.

And then it became intentional.

You know what?

I'm going to just do my own thing.

And the play was different in a lot of ways, but getting to sing that music night after night, it was a really magical experience.

Yeah.

Well, I wish I would have seen that.

Okay, now we go to TV, 2013.

You play mother on How I Met Your Mother.

Yep.

Big reveal.

Another show I'd never seen.

Oh.

I'm in that camp with you.

I hadn't seen it.

I loved it.

I had never seen it.

I am glad that I hadn't.

I don't think I understood the weight.

I didn't understand the weight.

And I don't.

So tell me.

The show's called that.

And I guess I'm learning today if you appeared on season eight and then nine.

I'm in it for like six episodes.

Yeah.

The premise of the show is he's telling his kids about how he met their mother.

And he goes back in time at the beginning of his story to tell it.

So you don't know throughout the whole series who the mother is.

And new people are coming in and out, new girlfriends.

And it's like, oh, it's probably Robin, the best friend.

And then turns out it's not.

It's Kristen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you didn't know.

She comes in at the end.

I burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid man.

And I go, oh, yeah.

And then the show ends.

I'm glad you didn't know.

Because that is stressful.

Because I bet, I mean, you'll tell us, people had strong reactions to that.

They surely did.

And, you know, I...

am pretty good about staying very far away from the internet.

It's not a good place for a human brain to be.

Agree.

I also was pretty good at sheltering myself from that as well, but I definitely didn't understand the weight.

Yeah, because people are like, what?

We don't even know our

very famously contested finale.

Stay tuned for more armchair experts,

if you dare.

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Okay, now this is where I become aware of you: Fargo.

Oh, yeah.

Betsy.

She has cancer.

Yep.

And she's Papa Ted's daughter.

I love Ted Danson.

What a man.

You racked up pretty quickly some pretty significant co-stars because you also did Wolf of Wall Street.

Yeah.

Being opposite Leo.

Do you get nervous?

I did then and I do now.

Okay.

I get nervous with like any job.

I go immediately to a place of I'm going to fail or something.

Imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome.

Yeah.

But I was certainly so nervous on that set.

That was such a huge set.

It's a great test of an actor.

Like, if you can be in scenes with Leo and you're just as captivating.

Thank you.

That's a tall order.

People need to think about it a little bit like you're playing one-on-one with Jordan.

This person is going to be riveting.

That's why they're who they are.

And you're going to have to carry your side up.

Oh, I've never thought about it like that.

That's very kind of you.

But it's true.

It can also be a help.

Because if they're that good.

He's an extraordinary actor.

Yeah, you can sometimes get carried into their bubble.

I've been carried into people's bubbles.

I wish I'd been less afraid in the beginning.

Yeah.

I mean, I'd never been on something that big.

Yeah.

And then, just by way of the energy of those sets, and you're working with people who are at the top of their game.

They already work together.

Yeah.

But it's actually quite intimate.

But the first two weeks, I mean, I was not in my body.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not even remotely.

When we talk about missing the Sopranos, I mean, that's probably what you really missed.

Being able to be like, wow, I'm really doing it because you're so sorry.

I'm with one of the best structures to ever live.

Yes.

With one of the best actors to ever live.

It's very wild to be in those situations.

It can be a disassociated experience.

It can be, but obviously this is like a huge understatement.

It's so profound and it continues to be profound when I find myself in spaces with people whose work meant so much to me growing up.

Every time I am so shocked.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now we're just going to zip to so Fargo, you were great.

I loved you and Fargo.

I love that show very much.

Okay.

Palm Springs.

Love that as well.

The next show I watched was Made for Love.

Oh, you watched it?

I did.

Okay.

I loved it.

Not everyone did.

I have such a warm spot for that show, especially because the cast is so outrageous.

So much of what we explored in that show is now reality.

You had an implant in you

from a tech billionaire.

I was like married to like an Elon Musk and it really examined that whole thing, as well as having a very complicated father-daughter relationship with the astonishing Ray Romano.

There was so much in there.

And you know, it's just sitting in a vault.

Why?

We were part of the tax write-off that warner brothers did where remember they ripped a bunch of stuff off the platform oh they did and just counted it as a loss as a loss it was like us westworld that was the whole coyote acme what is that movie and like bat girl we were part of that so you can't even watch it oh no you're kidding me we cannot watch it can you not watch westworld i think you can finally watch westworld but i know you can't find made for love and it's such a bummer okay so i'm a little bit aware of this strategy i used to work for general motors and so they have a fleet of cars that they loan to journalists so they can review them.

And then this fleet of cars, when it's done being lent out, they can't really sell it because it would be a liability.

It's been driven on racetracks.

I used to drive these cars to the crusher.

They just crushed it.

Like brand new Corvette ZR ones.

I was 16.

I was like, oh my God, how do I get this car not

so cool?

But yeah, they would crush it because then it's a total write-off.

I don't know if they still do this, but that's what they used to do.

But yes, it's a complete write-off of the full value of the car.

And now the car doesn't exist.

I didn't realize they could do that with movies and TV shows.

That's heartbreaking.

Did you want to make sure your fucking work vanish?

Well, yeah, we worked on that show for three years.

Wow.

It's two full seasons.

That's the most you'd ever been given, clearly, right?

I mean, that show is you.

I'm going through a ton.

I just had never seen like a world like that either.

There's so much that exists in that hub where it's all virtual reality.

They just were exploring stuff.

There's also stuff on it that is just such a big swing.

I don't know if you watched season two.

There's a character that has an affair with a dolphin.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

It's really out there.

I loved it.

It's going there too.

That's where our tech's going to go.

It's like AI is going to let us talk to dolphins.

People are going to fall in love with dolphins.

This is like what it was exploring.

We've done more content on human dolphin affairs than any other show in

the world.

We're talking a lot about dolphin love.

We've got a whole conclusion.

Well, then you're going to want to petition to get

back in the chat.

We decided the only ethical version is a male dolphin is allowed to date a female human.

You don't

trust a male human.

Oh, I certainly don't trust you.

You trust a female dolphins in love.

But a dolphin male is going to decide whether they they are.

I don't like the collab.

Yeah, I get that.

Yeah, I would just prefer sex.

To keep it.

Think of the laugh you and your dolphin husband will have in 20 years when you're listening back to this interview.

We had an armchair listener ride in and tell us about his experience.

He fell in love with this dolphin at an aquarium.

They had like a moment.

Yeah, but he was like, it was real.

I knew this dolphin.

It knew me.

We had a real connection.

He didn't seem crazy.

I really believed him.

I can get behind that.

I can't totally get behind like sex part.

Yeah, obviously.

I understand I even feel that with my dog where I'm like, oh, we're really connected.

And you were found on the street.

That's wild.

Do you think maybe you knew your dog before?

I don't know.

No, I'm really asking.

I'm starting to really take on that theory.

Yeah.

But we've known some of us.

I do believe that.

I think it's real you don't well it's okay you don't have to i'm happy for you and love that you're open to astrology and you're open to that notion that makes life more fun and interesting i'm almost envious it's not necessarily lovers it's like the dog where you're just like this is not the first time totally it's just like how people find each other how do you find each other on this big planet it would make sense to be like we've met before i don't think there's enough wow i'm really gonna go out and limb here atoms to go around isn't there like a whole whole thing with like quote or atoms and molecules that you can't get rid of them?

Yeah, energy can't be created or destroyed.

So like we've shared atoms anyway.

Sure, sure.

They're forming and reforming.

Yeah.

I can't tell if you're glazing over.

No, not at all.

I have kids.

The closest thing I can experience spirituality is through the children, in that I very much agree with the very common cliche, which is when you have kids, it feels like they've existed forever.

Yes.

And that very much feels like there's no way these two little girls didn't always exist.

They also kind of did.

They lived in their mom that lived in the grandma.

It's very cool.

It's cool.

There's some spiritual stuff going on.

I'm coming to, yes, embrace that notion of you think of it as so split between my father and I, but there's no split.

It has the illusion of a boundary, his body and my body, but they're so the same thing.

I'm open to that part.

But not open to astrology.

Not at all.

No.

Where do you land on astrology?

Where do I land on astrology?

I can understand that the time of year we're born can affect us.

I don't put a ton of stock in it.

That's fair.

But I also sometimes will read about traits.

I'm a Leo.

Okay.

And I'll read the trait of being a Leo and I'll be like, oh, that's me.

Nailed it.

You nailed it.

And in a way, I think that sometimes makes me feel less judgmental of myself.

Yeah, yeah, forgiving.

Yeah.

Where I'm like, oh, okay.

That's very Leo to do that.

Yeah, when I read the Capricorn description, I'm like, yeah, that's spot on.

But I also think if I read any description, you told me it was mine.

I would have to do it.

You can completely do that.

Yours is so spot on.

You're like a triple cat.

What are you?

A Virgo, and I'm double Virgo.

I'm laughing.

It's so important.

I know.

But sometimes I love those conversations, too.

I'm going to have authorized biography of you, and there's going to be chapters.

One's going to be The Pit.

Oh, have you watched The Pit?

I haven't watched The Pit, but I keep hearing about The Pit.

It's great.

I'm going to bring up the resort simply because I just want to say William Jackson Harper is like the the sweetest loyalty.

We've played husband and wife twice.

You have?

Yes, in a play,

which I don't know if you would have seen.

We have played a married couple on the brink of divorce twice.

And he's one of my favorite people on the planet, one of my favorite actors.

Yes.

I love working with him.

America will know him as Cheeti.

Yes.

You watch The Good Place.

I just love him.

Okay.

Alas, we have landed at the Penguins.

So how did you get this role?

No.

yes.

I also want to hear the Wicked Audition story, which is

fantastic.

They reached out to me and asked if I would meet with Lauren LaFranc, our showrunner, Matt Reeves, who did the movie, Craig Zobel, who directed our first three episodes.

And they sent me just the first episode, and I sat with them on Zoom for two hours because I'm a huge Batman fan.

Oh, you are?

Okay.

Yeah, huge.

How would we define huge?

As a kid, I had posters and outfits.

I was like a real disciple of Batman Returns.

Oh, no.

Were you in your cape while you had your shaved head?

A cape would have really made it.

Put a ball on it.

Yeah, no, I didn't have a cape then.

But Batman really attracts outcasts.

When I look back on why would I have loved that so much as a kid.

Not that I want to analyze it too much, because I also loved Beetlejuice.

I really love big worlds.

And, you know, that Tim Burton Batman Returns, you're like inside of a painting.

Yeah.

Michelle Pfeiffer, it is truly like, I'll show everyone who's ever bullied me.

Yeah.

That is kind of the vibe.

But like Superman's the jock in high school.

You're gorgeous.

But Batman, it's almost like Will Hunting too.

He is an outcast, but he has superpowers and he's got all this wealth.

Wait, what's Will Hunting?

Goodwill Hunting.

Never seen it.

Sorry.

You gotta end it.

You gotta end it.

Sorry.

I can't continue on.

Never seen it.

But I've seen a couple scenes where they're like, who did this problem on the board?

Oh, no.

Our notion is that we're different, but we're special.

It's a very appealing archetype.

I'm not terribly familiar with the Marvel universe, but I think that there's a real good versus evil in that, in the way that Superman is.

And in Batman, it's like really blurry

because he's going out.

Yes, Batman himself is on the right side of justice, but he's also going out dressed in a costume.

He's so traumatized and he's looking.

to put himself in these dangerous situations to right a wrong that was done to him.

And so are the villains.

And because none of them have superpowers, interestingly, with your relationship to theater, like I wish I could fly and I would love to.

And I think it's so cool.

But now we're in a completely different reality.

Batman seemingly could exist in reality and so could Iron Man seemingly.

It's like why I think, oh my God, get ready for this.

X-Men.

I was always like, yeah, because I was like, I could see you could fill someone with an exoskeleton.

There was like something around it.

Not that I need to be 100% believing something.

But yeah, Batman seemed like it could happen.

We're living in a world run by villains, it feels like sometimes right now.

They may not have capes or specific layers.

Yeah, layers.

Although I think they all do have layers.

They kind of have

layers.

But it seemed real.

And did you you have to read at any point for them?

Yeah, I had to test with Colin.

And was he in the full garb?

He was not.

We read a scene together, the scene in the first episode where we have lunch and martinis and it's this long sit-down.

And I was incredibly nervous.

And then I found out a couple days later.

But he's a sweetheart too, right?

He was probably helpful.

Salt of the earth.

Sweetest.

Very Irish.

I've really lucked out with co-stars.

Have all been really golden hearts.

He is an extraordinary actor and an extraordinary human being.

First time you saw him in the suit, the penguin character.

It was surreal.

It was at a camera test.

That makeup is so incredible.

But like I'd watched the movies.

It was sort of like, oh, the guy from the movie.

Right.

I didn't see the movie.

It's really, really great.

Who's our Batman?

Robert Pattinson.

I love his interpretation because he really leans into the blurring of the line between someone who's so damaged going out looking to feel things.

Hurt themselves.

Yes.

It's a great movie.

hearing that description of batman which i think is right i'm really surprised you aren't more into batman i do love batman and there's no reason i haven't seen the recent one other than my kids probably wouldn't have watched it at the time and i get to see very few movies 10 and 12.

it's dark yeah because of the other thing matt did so brilliantly burton is very heightened and you're almost in an art deco matt's film feels like it's right now darker than nolan because nolan went dark too those nolan went dark too no i would say they're of a world they're different but they both feel like you're in New York current day.

Yeah, and you're scared.

Okay, so you play Sophia Falcone, and you're the daughter of my boss, Carmine.

You've spent 10 years in Arkham.

You're in there for 10 years.

You're tortured.

Yes.

And you've got a...

pretty sizable axe to grind.

Yeah.

Wrongfully imprisoned.

Okay, and I hate to have to always, and if I were you, I would kind of be annoyed by this because you got to talk about Colin every time we talk about this, which is, I think, in a weird way unfair to you.

I don't know that Colin has to talk about about you every interview he does.

So that part feels unfair.

But I'm going to bring him up only to say, A,

he's insanely talented.

He is one of the greats.

And he has the benefit of this enormous artifice, this huge prosthetic everything.

So it's a very attention-grabbing scene partner you have.

But I want to say this, it's such a testament to you.

You don't have nearly that amount of stuff to work with, and you're blasting him in scenes.

Like you're just so fucking powerful and terrifying and subtle and plain opposite.

I mean, you're the one everyone has been talking about since the show came out.

I mean, even though he's him, everyone's talking about your performance.

That's very crazy.

And I just think it's harder because you're up against a force of nature in a huge costume and you're just blasting and

scaring all of us.

And it's so impressive.

Would you be afraid to say you're proud?

Are you proud of that?

I am proud of it.

Good.

I feel like I am proud of so many of the things i've been in which is different than being like i did a good job whenever i've watched things i've done i've been like i would have done that differently you can tinker with it forever but i'm certainly very proud of that experience and of that character i love that character so much i mean it's a real two-hander in a sense the upside is 10 12 years ago this show would have been about the son of carmel yeah one of the other things i'm really proud of with this show and this is a real testament to our showrunner lauren is that i've had a lot of interactions with people about sophia and it's with people who would not usually be part of the demo of watching a show that's in the batman universe like the old woman at the yes like an older woman actually women

say women that's been really profound and it is because she is such an outsider and she does this thing she'd been very hurt we like that yeah and then she lets everybody have it there's a real escapism and obviously because you understand what she's been through but to see her absolutely annihilate everyone who's ever wronged her.

And that she's in this world that keeps telling her that she's crazy and that she's not worth anything.

And so I think that has reached a lot of people, which is very profound.

It's very of the moment.

Or that you're in a sub-dom relationship with the doctor.

Yeah.

So twisted.

And I kind of love it.

I did too.

Even Colin and I, I haven't seen a relationship like that.

There's a real chemistry there, but what is that chemistry?

It's like the only other person can feel each other's pain.

Yes, and knows how to twist the knife, but I don't know how you would categorize the chemistry of those two characters.

They should get married.

Well, yeah, that is what

the most intimate partner does have that ability to know your weaknesses.

It feels like familial.

It's a kindred spirits, is how I would describe it.

Yeah, it's just two very weak

people.

Knew each other in another life.

Yeah, sure, sure.

I mean, I guess we're circling back

with the doctor, too.

How do you quantify?

I thought Lauren did that so beautifully.

There's like these relationships where you're like, what is this?

And not in a way where you're like, oh, and this is this and this is that.

Ambiguous.

It's ambiguous.

There'll be season two, right?

We don't know.

How could you not know?

It's a big hit.

What are they waiting for?

I don't know.

Wasn't it a huge hit?

You got to get on the phone.

I'm going to call somebody.

Not that that shoot wasn't a challenge.

It's like the middle of winter in New York, all nights, really intense material.

But I got to say, it was such a golden experience.

Our crew was incredible.

The cast was incredible.

From people who would come in for a day to like recurring, we all really loved it and believed in it.

It must have taken a long time to shoot because it looks impeccable.

We also were shut down with the strikes for the six months in between.

So it was eight months total or something.

So it was like four months, then six months off, then four months.

Okay.

For eight episodes.

Yeah, long.

Yeah, I just love it because again, yeah, I'm not a big into superheroes.

This is like a mob show to me.

Yeah.

It's like a mixture of both, which I really like.

Cause then there are these moments where you're like, oh my God, I'm in Gotham.

It's Batman.

That's like what I loved about a lot of the the arkham stuff for me as a fan i was like oh my god the uniform oh my god we're back some of the other characters in arkham in the comics go on to be other villains it's a breeding ground yeah it's so cool okay you got nominated for a golden globe you got nominated for a sag award you got nominated for critics choice award and then when do they nominate emmy people soon i think soon soon

okay will you please tell us this wicked story is so funny oh god you don't have to no i will i just feel like i've told it so much okay then you don't have to.

Now I want to know.

Basically, you've auditioned.

There's nothing more embarrassing.

It's really something.

And sometimes you go in on these things.

I knew I couldn't hit that note.

Do you know Wicked?

Yeah.

The movie and the play.

Yeah.

Are you talking about the play?

No, no, no.

The John Chu movie and four Alphabas.

So she's got to.

You got to hit this.

You know the one.

Good, good, good.

I can't do it.

I refuse that riff at the end when she transcends.

SN's and transcends, actually.

I knew there was no way I was going to hit it, but you have have to say yes to the opportunity.

Absolutely.

And do you start working with a vocal coach or anything to try to get yourself?

This was deep in COVID.

Okay.

So, like, no.

And was it on showing them?

No, it was in person.

For John.

Yeah, who was so lovely.

Yeah.

Oh, what a sweetheart.

Oh, God.

And is it one of those you're in the waiting room?

You're like hearing

people crying.

Break glass.

Yeah.

Yeah, break glass.

And you're like,

oh, you know, nightmare.

I spent so many years auditioning for musicals before once, and once matched the way i sing yep but before that i would be in these waiting rooms for years going in on these big musicals and just hearing through the door chris and chenowith exactly that type of voice and then i would go in and i'd be like i'm singing a bob dylan song yeah i would sing oh darling by the beatles oh my gosh that's sweet i used to sing carbon monoxide by regina specter do you know that song

i know her i don't know if i know that one it to me sounded musical theory but it's about like killing yourself oh wow and i would go in because i was like oh i could give them like a journey or something and so i would be hearing glass breaking from behind the door and then i would come in and i'd be like i will be singing carbon monoxide by regina specter you would just sort of slowly see them yeah

i mean i tried and it eventually worked yeah exactly i've heard her tell it she's just haunted by the

for weeks for weeks that's all i could think about because i know it so well and she goes in and she said the noise that came out tight tight vocally tight oh go through any youtube compilation of national anthems gone wrong

and it's like that when they try to get to like and the rocket like but they started it too high

oh god yeah they started at the very top of their range when you can hear in a national anthem when someone's like oh say and you're like no no no no no no no no no no no no you're not gonna get there you're not gonna get there and it's that i knew there was no world in which were you like can i start over

and

again again and again.

Oh, I'm so

proud of you for putting yourself through that.

Yeah.

You got to keep doing it.

I remember I auditioned a bunch of times for girls.

Oh, okay.

New York actors.

I could see.

Yeah.

Every 23-year-old girl in New York City was gunning for that incredible show.

And I auditioned a couple times for it.

And then I remember watching it and I was like, oh my God, I was way off tone-wise.

I don't know what I thought it was.

Sex in the City.

I just saw Sex in the City for the first time.

I had also not seen Sex in the City until recently.

Another one of the greatest shows I ever made.

It's such a cool thing.

God, what was I doing?

I was remembering going back and thinking about my audition, and I was playing it a real, like, Will, what do you wear like four gals in New York?

And I watched it and I was like, oh my God, Kristen.

Lappery.

Yeah, I guess, which is like totally

what it is, or just like four girls in New York just to kind of get around or whatever.

And then I watched it and I was like, oh my God, I really

dance movie.

Yeah, like, no wonder.

I have to say, I'm impressed that you went in for for Wicked at this stage in your career, knowing this is going to be hard for me.

Because I think so many actors and actresses, once they hit a certain level, are not like, you got to.

They're like, I can't, and I don't want to embarrass myself.

And now the stakes are like hot.

Things are going well.

I was like, I can sing a lot of these songs.

You do this delusional deal making with yourself where you're like, well, I love that musical so much.

I knew that was in no way, shape, or form a reality, but I was like, I'm going to try.

Yeah, good for you.

I think that's great.

It's such a strange part of our jobs.

Sometimes there's a comfort in it because sometimes I'll do jobs where they've just offered it to me.

Very blessed to be in that position, but then you show up and you're like, hope you like what I've been working on.

I remember there was a, oh my God, this is so embarrassing.

I did an indie film when I was 25.

And it was like the first time I'd been offered something without having to audition.

And this woman had seen me do an episode of 30 Rock where I play this really big character.

And it was like a small part of two or three scenes in this movie.

And she was like, I'm giving you free reign to be a character.

And I was like, oh my God, this is my dream.

For weeks with these three scenes, I was like, okay, she's going to be this pill addled sort of stumbling on heels.

I was going for Catherine O'Hara crossing the field on Best in Show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I got there and we did the first scene and I began and she was like, stop.

What are you

doing?

And I was like, what am I doing?

Like, great.

Yeah,

I feel like, and like, I'd watched clips of Anna Nicole Smith.

She was supposed to be this party girl that always said a loud thing at a party.

Like a Samantha type.

Not even Samantha's more together.

Just really out of it.

But I'd really missed the mark.

And so they held for a second while she took me aside and she was like, yeah, I don't think you can do that.

Can you just do a southern accent?

And I was like, yeah, okay, yes, absolutely.

A southern accent.

Sure.

A region or you're so humiliated.

And then I was like, yeah, give me five minutes.

Yeah, exactly.

And then I like ran to my honeywork.

I'm going to cry for four of them.

Cry for four four of them for a minute i'm gonna just try to be like well we gotta bury the body we gotta bury the body and also people aren't stupid it was a group scene it was a group scene of a dance at someone's house too where my character walks onto the dance floor to no music everyone doing that like horrible shuffle and i walk in to be like hey such and such heard about the thing and then they were like

so also everyone else is now gonna see me do take two

with an accent

So anyway, deeply humbling.

What an endeavor.

Well, this segues perfectly into my last question, which is you're being thoroughly recognized as you deserve, but it's happening 20 years into your career.

You turned 40 this year?

Yes.

I guess my question is, do you have gratitude that it was delayed?

Immense.

Tell me, how would 25-year-old you or 30-year-old you have handled?

I'm immensely grateful that it's happened in stages.

I've gotten to be a part of things that I have genuinely believed in and would watch and worked with people.

And it's been a long but steady ride.

When I look at the pressure on people in their early 20s who get recognized in a way you've been to award shows, they are really intense.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There are many things at once.

You're seeing people that you haven't.

seen in a while who are friends and it's very joyful, but you're being filmed the whole time.

You're wearing clothes that you wouldn't wear, that you're not comfortable in, but that you feel fabulous in.

Everything has a dichotomy to it, every step of the way.

To stand on a red carpet and get your name screamed by 80 people is extremely unnatural.

And every time it happens, I walk away being like, huh, I feel that feeling when like your car goes over a hill.

It feels dangerous a little bit.

Yes.

And then each time I have to be like, oh yeah, that's not.

natural.

Not a position you would normally find yourself in.

Yeah, like it's okay to not get used to that.

Yes.

If I were in those situations when I was younger, it's pressure.

I'm so glad that I got to be in my early 20s in New York, just messing up.

And I think I also understand too more in a way that I may not have when I was younger, the chaos of it all and the beauty of it all and the machine of it all.

I've peeked behind some curtains at this point.

And that doesn't make me any less grateful for those curtains.

Yeah, yeah.

Back then when it was happening, when you were in all these things, but you weren't necessarily on the cover of all these things.

Sure.

Did you have resentment then?

Where you're like, why am I not?

I'm in all these things.

I'm working all the time.

No, I had that when I was working really consistently in huge off-Broadway, you know, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theater Workshop, institutions in New York, and I was broke.

I couldn't afford an AC unit.

I couldn't afford my cell phone.

And I couldn't understand how I was working, but starving.

And I remember feeling real frustrated at being like, but I don't know what else to do.

And certainly when I would lose out on certain jobs, I would audition in pilot season for anything from like a sorority sister to dead body and trunk.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't get them.

Yeah.

And I would be like, what am I doing wrong?

Why isn't this not even happening in a why aren't I such and such?

But just why can't I afford a cell phone?

Right.

And yet I'm getting the validation of being in all these plays and working with like these incredible people.

So that I would say

that was very frustrating.

Yeah.

I'm very grateful that I've been able to take the time that I have.

It's kind of the theme of the year a little bit, like Goggins.

I was about to say so Walt and Goggins.

Yeah, it's very Walton and Goggins where it's just like, oh right i now remember that this guy's been great for the last 20 years exactly

he's been in everything and been great in everything and now people are really starting to say his name one years old he's on the cover of everything i also forget this is not the first time i've been asked this you've been at this for a while and maybe that's a layer of the imposter syndrome or something but i consistently think i've only been at this for a couple years oh okay it's so odd and then it's only when it's presented to me yeah how do you hear that observation i'm so touched by it i think it's that thing of in my head i always feel like i'm maybe 27.

right right right i don't know what that thing is called is that called being alive always four years ago right that all feels very fresh still i constantly forget that i'm 39.

yeah yeah always i'm like oh me no yeah way till you're 50.

Well this has been a delight and you've so earned all this attention and fanfare.

You're fucking crazy talented.

So I'm really happy for you.

Thank you.

We're happy for that little girl.

Yeah, I am too.

I am too.

You should go to the Emmys and recreate that exact look.

They've even got reverse Invisaligns.

Now, the irony, because you do have a ton of status, everyone would be like, oh, she's so cool.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

She gave herself an uneven selection.

Wow,

I know.

I wonder where she is now.

Yeah.

Well, Kristen, delightful meeting you.

So nice to meet you.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me.

Everyone, watch the penguin if you haven't already.

I didn't spoil anything, even though I wanted to.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

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Give your memories the showcase they deserve.

I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs.

Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.

What?

Nothing.

Talk to me.

No, nothing.

Off the record, talk to me.

No, everything's great.

Everything's golden.

It's just busy.

Busy.

Yeah, you had to not come to a movie last night.

I know.

Was it great?

Yeah, it was great.

It was great.

I'm sad about that.

It was the right decision.

I will say that.

But,

but I do really want to see it, but I'll just see it in the movie Theatre.

I wonder if you'll see it earlier than that.

But yes, you would.

Well, let me ask you.

No, I can't ask you because then we.

Yeah, we don't want to give it away, but we have a guest coming up that we are.

People are kind of guessing.

Whatever.

Okay.

We are.

We're so excited about.

Yeah.

And

it has been a long time coming and is a scowy one.

Scowy.

And we were invited to see a movie that she's in.

We were invited to see a project early.

And

I

the timing was great because my brother and sister-in-law are visiting and I got to seem like a real shooter.

Like, hey, do you want to come to the screen with me?

It's a movie they're dying to see.

So I felt like I was so cool.

You're the cool brother.

I felt cool for those two and a half hours.

Yeah.

But I had to miss it because of work.

Yes, just a busy week.

We're heading into the summer.

Have I publicly thanked you already about editing?

I mean, I tried to occasionally, but

I'm in a wave right now of really having renewed gratitude.

Right.

Because I'm editing and it's miserable.

Editing is miserable.

It's absolutely miserable.

There are days.

So yesterday I was going to edit two.

Uh-huh.

And I was in one and I started at 1:30 and I ended at 6.

And I was like, oh,

I actually, like, I can't do it.

I can't do another.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't think if you haven't edited, you don't understand that.

It's like, well, you could have, you could have pushed yourself and you could have, but your brain will shut down.

Well, I'll add to, and you have this experience?

So I'll do these chunks on days off we don't have, I try to do two episodes in those days.

Yeah.

And it's like seven, eight hours of editing.

Yeah.

And what happens is for me, I slowly start hating everything I hear.

Mm-hmm.

Like it's just like, I don't know towards the end, I'm like, just cut everything.

I don't want to hear anyone ever talk again.

And so like you're wondering if your decisions you're making are the same at the end of the episodes they were at the beginning.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, you probably don't have that because you're you do it so much.

Yeah.

I don't I don't have that because there is no um there's no end, right?

Like like you're editing a project that's yeah, I'm doing 12.

You're doing 12.

And there's an end in sight.

There's an end in sight.

So I could, I could almost see that being in some ways worse because it's like, I just, I got to be done with I haven't accepted that I have to do this.

Yes.

Yeah.

There's still that like, yeah.

But I am, it is funny that you brought that up and we're talking about it because

I'm also, as I warned you on the last fact check, I think, I am PMSing this week.

This week?

I thought that was next week.

Nope, this week.

Okay, so right here.

This period will start hopefully on Friday.

You have your Nixies.

I have my Nixies.

You got your Nixies.

You have your Nixies ready to go.

They're laid out like a Flatman.

They're just stacked up ready to go.

Yeah, they're prepped and ready, folded.

They're on deck.

Yeah, but along with the Ziploc baggies.

You got to have them.

No, I don't want to be on the record saying I don't do that because I don't need it.

I did, though.

But it's great for people.

So it was a very polarizing debate and people landed on all sides of it.

Some people agreed with me.

Most people agreed with you.

Why did they agree with you?

What did they say?

Like,

I would be way more embarrassed about Andy's falling out than Tampons, which some people are like, fuck no.

You know, it's much more.

But

a lot of people were like, yeah, I flow heavier than Monica.

Like, I gotta, I can't get get away with.

I understand that.

I've heard that as an explanation for why you should use the cup.

If you got a ton of.

Just, yeah.

So anyway.

I would see that as a sign of great health.

Just my proclivities.

I wonder how I would deal with having a menstrual cycle because

my greatest days are like.

a day and one just happened where it's like I go number two.

Oh my God.

And it's so robust.

Of course.

Where I go, oh, I must not have been going the last couple days.

This is like, where did all this come from?

I love that.

Or a big booger.

Okay.

Listen, part of that's the because then you feel better after.

Like you feel lighter.

You feel, that doesn't happen on a period.

It's not like you had a heavy flow and now you feel better.

But I will say, so thank you for bringing this up.

I do struggle mentally sometimes with with a light flow.

Like, I'm like, oh, my head, I'm done.

Like, this is a sign of perimenopause.

Like, I'm definitely in perimenopause.

I'm probably like about to hit menopause.

The eggs are out.

Now the blood's out.

Exactly.

And we're done now.

Like, we're heading towards no period.

But that's my hypochondriacal inclination.

And I don't want that.

So don't

reinforce that line of thinking.

Last night, I thought maybe I had also a new disease.

Oh, what new disease?

Because my foot, sometimes my foot has like

kind of this numb, like the side of my foot here.

Yeah, the inside.

The inside.

Where you're going to step in?

Has a numbness or like a weird tingly feeling.

A weird feeling.

Some kind of neuropathy.

Yeah.

So yesterday I was starting to slip into, oh, I think it's.

And you started Googling.

I didn't Google.

Oh.

But I was like, oh, I have ALS.

Oh, that you went straight to neurological disorder.

Yes.

But then I immediately thought, if I think it, I'll get it.

So I can't think it.

That's right.

Can't get psychosomatic.

But then that's, you know, that's its own thing.

So I put socks on and I ignored it.

Oh, great.

That's a ding, ding, ding.

I have entered,

and I think this is a real period of life.

Period, ding, ding, ding.

Period.

Pun intended.

I have, and I've embarked on my slipper phase of my life.

Whoa.

Yeah, I got a pair of like,

I just like, I was recently feeling there's all these times I want to run out to grab food from the driveway or whatever.

And I don't want to put on my tight shoes.

Yes.

Seemed like I was time and I got a pair of really comfortable slippers.

And I'm realizing, oh, this is a whole era of your life.

Once you start walking around in slippers, it's a wow.

I'm

shook a little bit.

Like, it's a, it is a real indicator of.

It's an end to an era, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I'm prioritizing my comfort.

Wow.

I just.

And I hate bending over to put shoes on so I can just slide these on.

Like, it's definitely.

a harbinger of probably bad things to come, but also I kind of love it.

Well, I'm glad you're like, I played volleyball on my slippers.

What?

Hurt my shoulder.

Yeah, that's not good for volleyball.

No, but it was, I was in them, and they're comfortable.

Dad, can you practice?

And then I'm just playing in my slippers.

Yeah, but slippers can be slippery.

They are slippery.

So you definitely should not play volleyball.

Okay.

Okay.

And then additionally, as I said, my brother and my sister-in-law are, and she's been in her slipper phase for seven or eight years.

Oh, wow.

Postmenopause.

Or middle of my, I don't know, probably maybe related.

Okay, yeah.

But

I

realized like, oh, she's really knows how to do it.

The second we get home, like anything post-lunch,

if she gets home, those slippers are on immediately.

So she packs her slippers

on trips.

Full center of her slipper face.

And so I'm finding I'm with her at like 5.30 in the evening.

She has her slippers on.

I have my shoes on.

And she's like, you should already have your slippers on.

And I'm like, I know.

I'm teaching you.

I'm not fully like, I haven't learned the lifestyle all the way yet.

The lifestyle.

I'm not putting them on early enough.

You know, the lifestyle is swinging.

You know, yeah, that's my lifestyler move.

Is I wear slippers.

I may start wearing them in here on days that we don't have a

how do you feel about that?

Okay, I have a question about slippers.

Now, your house is tricky because, even though you hate to admit it, it's large and made of tons of houses, actually.

Okay.

So you have to walk outside to get to places, to get like to your gym or to whatever.

My garage.

Yes.

The studio, exactly.

So for me, if a slipper touches the outside,

it's thrown in the garbage.

That makes sense.

It's a house slipper.

It is meant for inside the house, specifically so that you aren't dragging in stuff.

Yeah.

And so you're outing me, but yes, I'll own it.

We are a shoes on in the house family.

Yeah.

Some people will think that's disgusting.

Sure.

But I, what's funny is I'm actually having a harder time wrapping my head around.

I might want Nashville to be a shoes off house.

Whoa.

Because I'm thinking there's going to be kids there endlessly, a yard to really play in and get dirty.

Okay.

And do I want this whole brand new house to be filthy outdoor stuff?

And then I'm like, we're so not a shoes off people.

I can't even like what that's challenging to my identity is way bigger than it should be.

Because it's like the white Christmas side.

It is.

It's like snooty and fancy.

Yep.

And what do you take your shoes off?

What are you talking about?

Yeah, why do you need to fucking take your shoes off your shoes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel that.

I want that.

I want shoes off at Nashville, and I'm afraid to declare that.

Well, it's comfortable.

When you come over this summer and I say to you, hey.

Shoes by the door.

I got to figure out something cute.

Yeah, I think you're going to need some sort of cute phrase.

Don't let our shoes get lonely.

Put your your shoes with them.

That needs some work.

But what would be your first thought when you heard me say you can't wear your shoes in the house?

If we hadn't had this pre-talk,

I would have laughed.

Yeah.

At you.

Like,

who are you?

Yeah.

Well, and then for me, that triggers my own stuff.

He's changing.

I don't know.

Yeah, he's changing.

He, I knew it.

I knew that this money would infect him and

destroy this southern life like oh you would chalk it up to just a lot of southern just like oh he has this extra house now so white and and he's extra white in the south and he's hoity toity in the south all the people that made me feel brown yeah now he's like he's one of them one of them and i thought i knew him but i don't even know him anymore and then i would cry you're teasing and you're not and it's really it's true people just assign whatever previous baggage they had to any situation that's the explanation.

Like you, you got like a handful of explanations in your life, me, all people.

Yeah.

And then no matter what situation, you're like, oh, it's that thing that I already figured out when I was 12.

No, but not really.

It depends on who it is.

Like if I go to a random house and they say shoes off, I don't think that.

I'm not like, oh, hoity toy.

I don't have that.

I'm like, oh, they just don't want dirt.

But with you, because I've been around you so many times where you wear shoes in your bed.

Okay.

So the fact that,

well, I've seen it.

That

I would be like,

what?

Just to be clear on that.

On top of your bed.

On top.

I have on top of my bed.

And I very rarely, but there's occasions.

I've got like my cleaner vans on.

And I'm like, I'm not going to put my head at the bottom there at any point.

See, even this, even this, you're even getting self-conscious about

you used to not care at all.

I'm changing.

I'm becoming

becoming an old white man who wears slippers.

With you, I want you to wear slippers outside because it's keeping you still kind of dirty.

Shithead.

Yeah, shitbird.

You're not elite.

But I have a friend who's also very famous.

So anytime anyone who's really famous does something, I'm quick to associate it with them being so famous.

I think that's really normal.

Okay.

Like something's different.

And then you go, your brain just just quickly catalogs what else is really different about them.

And may so that might well likely be the explanation.

Like

you know your friends are Orthodox Jews and you're at their house and they say, could you please

hang the towel on a certain, you know, just something that's different.

And you go, oh, I bet it's about them being Orthodox.

It's like anything you don't understand.

And then you know there's this one thing different about them.

You're like, oh, that's probably part of being Orthodox.

I guess that's true.

I think it's a little different with religions because there are like rules and stuff than being famous, which is just you're still a person.

But there's also just cultural stuff.

Like, I would, if something happened in your family house that was abnormal to me, I would probably go, it's probably because they're Indian.

Oh, I would.

I would think it's from like something that your parents did, you know?

Still, you'd be a high-probability guess.

Oh my God.

I think that's different than racism.

It's stereotypes.

Well, it is.

I don't understand this custom.

This custom wasn't around me where I grew up.

And I know that he's from India.

This custom must come from India.

Even though I grew up in the United States.

No, this is

not your house.

I would never be at that point.

Well, I know at my parents' house.

But if I was at your parents' house

and your dad only ate toast out of a cereal bowl, let's say.

Okay.

I go, so nobody eats toast out of a cereal bowl.

That must be.

What could explain it?

Okay.

I bet bet in India they eat their toast in a cereal bowl.

Don't you think that would be like the highest probability guess?

But this is what I am actively against.

I'm fighting this.

I know.

Yeah, that you just make not you, the royal you, but you.

You're calling yourself out for this.

Not the TV show you, which you also talk a lot about now.

That anything a little different is associated with being a different type of a different ethnicity is bad.

Anything.

So if I go to a nuclear physicist's house and there's something different, I go, oh, I bet this is something the engineer, I figure out the thing that I don't share in common with them and I explain the other thing I don't share in common with them as the explanation.

Okay, but how come with if my dad is eating toast out of a cereal bowl, you're not saying, oh, it's because he's an engineer.

Okay, so I might, but I'm going probabilistically.

I'm first going, well, he's from a totally different country.

There's 23 years of his life in a country that I don't know any of the customs on.

And if I said, oh, Ashok, I noticed you're eating your toast out of a cereal bowl.

That's unique.

Is that an Indian thing?

And he would go, no.

Then I would go, okay, what's the next thing I know is he and I don't have any overlapping.

I think what I would love

is, let me coach you.

Okay.

First of all, let's never say.

Is that an Indian thing?

You think your dad wouldn't like that?

I don't like it.

I know you don't.

I don't like it on behalf of him.

Yeah, I know, but, and I would never say to you, is that an Indian thing?

I don't want you to say it to him.

If I overheard that, you'd

be in trouble.

I know.

I would.

I know that and you're and I know that would happen and I wouldn't do it in front of you.

Is it possible, though, that your dad wouldn't care about that?

And that

Pari wouldn't care about that?

It's about the very specific phrasing.

I guess you could say, first of all, my dad doesn't care about anything.

So yes, you could, you could say whatever the fuck you want.

He's not precious about anything to maybe detriment.

But I think

if you were going to say it in a way that I would feel comfortable,

did you grow up eating

a cereal bowl?

I've never seen that before.

And so, yeah, I would have phrased it right.

Like that would be the correct way to phrase it.

But all the other stuff really just happened because it's very logical.

It bums me out.

Maybe because I'm in my luteal phase, but well, I understand why it bums you up because that's an inane example of it.

And then there's really bad examples of it.

Okay, hold on.

It's inane to you.

It's not a nane to me who's been othered by that my whole life.

It's not a nane to you.

So let me think it might be a nane to your dad.

We can't use him.

He is, he is not a good, he is not a good measure.

He's not a good man.

No, he's too good of a man.

He's too good, really.

Now,

how about this?

If I

was at your house

and you

ate your steak with your hand, you like picked up the steak.

Like it were a potato chip.

Yeah, exactly.

No, like more like a hamburger.

Like you picked up the steak with two hands and bit into it and ate it.

Yeah.

And I'd be like, whoa, I've never seen that.

Is that something that happens in trailer parks?

Well, first of all, I don't mind that question.

Okay, what if I asked Aaron?

Yeah, he wouldn't mind either.

You would mind if I saw Aaron do something.

And you said that to him.

And I said, oh, is that like a trailer park thing?

Yes.

True.

Point received, but would you agree?

Trailer park is never used in a positive way.

It's only a burn.

And you have a gut feeling of any questions about India are implicitly negative.

Whereas I don't associate, is that an Indian thing?

Isn't is that a trailer park thing?

To me, there is

a hierarchy of judgment in, is that a trailer park thing or is that an Indian thing?

Indian thinks it's like a cultural national thing.

Because you, that you know, people who were judged for living in trailer parks.

I don't.

Right.

So I know people who are very insecure about being, yeah, from a trailer park.

It's the same thing.

But I think for you, it is because you're insecure about that, rightly so.

But I don't think your dad is.

Like, I don't think it's an insecurity of your dad's to talk about stuff that was normal in India and different here.

I know, but you're using him as such.

I'm hanging a lot on him, but I would also hang a lot on Pari.

I wouldn't feel comfortable with you being that open with Pari.

Like, is that an Indian thing?

We don't know him well enough.

I don't know his whole relationship

to being Indian.

Obviously, he likes talking about it and he's comfortable.

He's comfortable with it, but it's these things are complicated.

They are complicated.

But it does start with what is your own feeling about the topic being brought up.

It should be the person who's experienced it that gets to dictate it.

Absolutely.

Which is why I am conceding and saying I wouldn't ever ask you that.

Oh my God.

I am making a prediction of how I think your dad would take it, which maybe is right or wrong.

So how do you think Aaron would take it?

I don't think he'd mind.

Okay, but you would mind.

I would be nervous.

Well, not around you.

No, if I said it.

Yeah, if you said it, we're fine.

Because Aaron knows you.

Yeah.

And he knows you want the best for him and you don't think poorly of him or that he's a low life.

No.

But wouldn't you be like, what the fuck is she doing?

You would.

And you should.

Me having, knowing your background, knowing his background, knowing.

that those things have been used against him, it would be so insensitive for me to be like, hey, is that a trailer park thing?

I don't understand, just because I don't understand it.

And that's the different thing about us.

For sure.

And also,

there are some stuff you can say about trailer parks.

I mean, there is a reality in the world, as I've said before, like the

average

level of intoxication.

on a weekday afternoon in Aaron's trailer park was much different than the average intoxication rate elsewhere.

Right.

You know, that is also a reality of it.

So it's like you're kind of, I think you're, what you're trying to do is be honest about the world you live in and not hurt people's feelings.

And sometimes those things are

against one another, if that makes sense.

If you're curious,

you can ask it in a way that's not implying that it's something so like if I saw him eat a steak with two hands yeah maybe i'd be like

actually i mean i know me i would just be like well that's how he eats it

no let this guy go when you do grow up as a minority everything's different like so you don't have the luxury of being like oh, that must be different because of this.

Or that must be, it's like, yeah,

it's all different.

Everything's different.

Now, let me ask you this, though.

If you walked into, like, you had had your experience of living with other girls a lot as roommates.

And I even went to your old apartment where you had a bunch of female roommates.

And, like, you guys would, like, cook dinners together sometimes.

And there's just all kinds of stuff that's kind of predictable in that scenario.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

And I'm sure if you walked into an apartment that four dudes lived in

and you're like, oh, wow, X, Y, and Z is different.

There's a bong on the table.

There's dishes in the sink.

Your brain would logically, and rightly so, I think, go, well, this is a much different scenario in here.

What's different?

And it would be right for you to go, like, oh, yeah, this is boys.

Yeah.

Right?

Like, there's an explanation for it.

And I think you would be right and logical to start with what's the biggest difference between you and your three

roommates and these four people.

Well, this is four dudes and that's four.

But the difference is that's correct.

uh-huh the the toast out of the bowl and the eating the steak with two hands are not because of what you're we don't know though well i do know that that's not an indian tradition well i know because it was made up he doesn't do it yeah either is eating steak with two hands but the whole point is like wait because what you're bringing up is something that you really don't understand you're like oh that's new Seeing a bong in a basically a frat house isn't new.

Right, but if it's just trashed inside and you're trying to figure out why why these people live in a trash place and you and your friends don't, I think it would be right of you, if your life depended on it, to make a prediction of why it's different to assume it's because they're boys and you're girls.

I think if you came into my parents' house and they had a picture of

Krishna on the wall,

I think you could probably

and definitely deduce that that's because they're Indian.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I don't think you can see like

a bouncy ball in water on the counter and say, oh, that must be Indian too.

For sure.

I think what both things are true

and absolutely legitimate is A,

you should treat people as they're an individual and the thing that you're experiencing could be their own individual idiosyncraticness.

That would be the fairest way to treat everyone.

And that's valid and I agree.

Also, groups of people have patterns.

Also a reality.

They do.

But for the most part, we know those already.

Like we've been taught those and told those already.

So like, yes, if my mom is making curry.

Yeah.

Yeah,

you could say to yourself, like, like, it would be reasonable to think, yeah, that's because she's Indian and she grew up eating curry and that's an Indian dish.

All that makes sense.

And I'm, and those are stereotypes, so that's tricky, but it's real.

That's real.

Yeah, it's just, yeah.

That's normal.

I'm, I'm fine with that.

I'm just not fine with arbitrary.

That's different.

So it must be because of.

I understand your objection to that.

Okay.

But do you also agree that that might be the highest probability explanation just across the board?

No, I don't.

Like, I had to be friends with lots of Jewish people before it went from, I noticed one friend had this thing hanging in his doorframe and he touched it every time he went in his house.

At first, that was just, oh, John has a thing he's hung up that he touches.

Sure.

Then four other

Jewish friends along the way who have it.

And then I go like, oh, yeah, that's a Jewish thing.

Yes.

So I think that's the right train of thought.

You see it and you assume.

that it's actually individual to the person.

That's John's thing.

Yes.

And then over time, when you see a pattern, then over time, you're like, oh,

this is this is cultural.

But that's the correct order, not the other way around.

Yeah.

Sometimes life's moving really fast and you got like one stab at it.

No, you don't.

And you kind of go the highest probability.

No, you don't.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

The joke, I love you.

I love you, dad.

And everything you do, I love.

And if I saw something I didn't understand, I would still love it.

I just would be curious if that was

his own unique invention or if that's like he's fourth generation of toasts and abolishments.

Well, look, here's an interesting thing.

So, a lot of Indians do they eat with their hands.

Okay.

So, they eat like rice with their hands.

And they got the non, yeah, going to they're scooping with some bread, they get their fingers in there, yeah.

Depending, sometimes there's non, there's, um, but sometimes not like they're they're eating with their hands.

That's a very common way to eat in India um my grandparents did that that's how they ate well they did yes and that and my dad

too although I haven't seen that in years now really quick so when you were over there and you noticed oh grandma and grandpa eat with their hands

were you like grandma and grandpa interesting or were you like oh it's got to be an Indian thing I mean, I was so little, there's no way for me to know that.

So anyway, I guess I would hope that you would have seen it a couple times before you assumed it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's it.

This is an interesting one because it's true.

You know, it's real.

That's a cultural difference.

Yeah, that's right.

And that's what you're trying to

beat out in your head and figure out what, you know, I think your impulse is to like explain stuff.

I mean, I think, well, let's start with like things we agree on.

Everyone's impulse is making sense of reality around them.

Yeah.

Like that's just your number one

job from the second you wake up.

It's like, oh, I came in this room and this is going on.

Why is this going on?

I need to, you know.

I think approaching it with like true curiosity that doesn't have any judgment or otherness around it.

Like I do think phrasing it as, did you grow up eating toast in a bowl?

Yeah.

Or did you grow up eating with your hands is different than is that a group insert group thing?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Just for anyone who wants to practice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a lot.

Look, life is a lot of phrasing.

It's a lot of judgment calls.

It's a lot of how you phrase things.

Yes.

It makes a huge difference.

Yeah.

And I'm just trying to be honest about acknowledging what the real process is in my head.

Like I'm trying to be honest about the fact that when I see something that I've never seen before,

my

100th of a second, right?

Like I'm not even, the frontal lobe's not even involved.

It went, huh, that's different.

What could explain it?

What's the other thing I know about us that's different?

Maybe that's the explanation.

That is like from almost the moment I see it, that math happens.

Yeah.

And then the frontal lobe goes, Well, is that a stereotype?

Is that offensive?

Is that this?

Is it that?

And then you hope to land with a high percentage that you are on the right side.

Well, hopefully, you just keep your mouth shut until the second part of your brain has done the other thing.

That's the goal.

The space between your emotions and your actual initial thought.

We can't control the initial thought.

That's all I'm trying to cop to.

I have no, I have no, um,

there's nothing we can do about our initial thoughts.

Okay, great.

I get a little scared that I even like my initial thoughts are offensive, and then I'm kind of just a bad person.

Like, you think I'm a bad person?

We all do this.

I commit to like working through all the other steps.

Yeah, yeah, that's all that's being asked in any of these, like, racism or stereotypes or any of these things.

Like, you can't help your initial thought, you have it, and then you think, is that right?

Yeah,

and that's how you get to having, I think, those thoughts less

over time.

Yeah.

Anyway, I think when you and I talk about race openly, it's wonderful.

Me too.

Yeah.

We can because there's trust.

Yeah.

And I, and I think hopefully it's good for people to hear because

it's hard to find someone you trust to talk about race with because there's a lot of explosive.

It also, again, it's so

much of where you come from.

It's like Joy grew up with her people.

And like, so she loves to talk about it.

She'll, she's happy to engage in it with pretty much anyone, whether or not she's even earned that.

Yeah.

And it's simply, so what you'd be inclined to think is like, there's something predictable about being a minority in this country.

Well, no, there's something predictable if you're a minority in this country and you're surrounded by the hegemonic group.

Yeah.

And there's something to be said if you, you know.

Yeah.

But also she, if she was talking to certain people,

I mean, she, the way Joy talks about it, she does, she's with you, there's like fun and it's funny and stuff, but she can get very serious about it.

Oh, she's dead serious about the inequity.

Exactly.

And she is not going to be afraid.

She likes to because she's so skilled at pointing these things out.

But yeah, she's, but she's never, seemingly.

She's never triggered in some inferiority way.

Right.

She's like, oh, you you think that that's broken?

And I can't wait to, you know, there's like, she doesn't seem

to.

But I'm not going to.

But she got to grow up with her people.

She did, but she's also lived a lot.

She went to an Ivy League school.

She lived a life where she was around

a lot of white people.

Yeah.

She did a boarding school.

I'm sure.

I'm sure there's elements.

There's some complication for sure.

Yeah.

I don't think you can be a minority in this country and not have some level of like.

It is just fun to think about what your homeostasis would be if you grew up with all the Indians in your neighborhood.

And what would my homeostasis be like if I was the only white person in all Indians or all black people or whatever?

It's just, I think it proves the point that we are always saying, which is like, you're not

you, you're a product of

so many things.

Yeah.

Yes, I agree.

Okay.

But real quick,

speaking of cultures,

Callie, Max and I went to Dantana's,

which is a rest, an institutional restaurant in Los Angeles, which I've talked about a bunch on here because I like to go with Nate.

Yeah, and what did you think?

I loved it, you did, yeah, I loved it.

Okay, I'm gonna, I need to know more because what I like about it, as I've told you, is it is time traveling, it is, it's old school Italian, it has mob energy, it's super Hollywood 80s, yes.

I mean, the steaks are named after

famous actors.

You got the Debney steak.

You got the.

I thought, oh, I didn't notice that.

Did you not notice all the

meats?

I didn't look at the meat.

Oh, you didn't?

No, because it's an Italian place.

I'm getting pasta.

They're kind of known for their,

what's the thing that people are against eating at cow?

It's

veal.

And there's like...

eight or ten veals on the menu, but all with different movie stars' names.

And famously, James Woods was was behind us eating the James Woods.

Oh, that's yeah, that's right.

That was, I thought that was a Musu and Frank.

No, that was Dantana's.

Oh, fun.

But you liked it.

I loved it.

Were there any 85-year-old men with 21-year-old women?

Oh, shoot.

Because that's still thriving there, which is so fascinating to see.

I didn't notice, but at some point in the night,

a group came in that was dressed like to the nines looking mob, kind of mob bossy.

And then our server, who obviously had been sort of like a lifetime server, there, he was giving us the intel that they come at like nine or between nine and ten every night.

And they order the same thing and they get fettuccine for the table.

Love it.

I know.

It was really, really fun.

Did you have a cool cocktail?

Because that bar...

I had it at Martini House.

Maybe the coolest bar in all of LA.

I mean, more shit has happened at that bar than probably any other bar in LA.

It was so fun.

And

one bad thing happened.

He'll probably be mad at me for sharing this because it was a blunder.

Okay.

Thy guy?

Yeah, Thigh Guy Max.

He's kind of like

you, I think, in a, I'm worried things are going to run out.

Sure, sure.

So I guess last time

they got a Caesar.

Uh-huh.

And he was like, this is

not enough, Caesar.

Scary.

Yeah.

I can feel it.

So for his entree, he got double double Caesar salad.

Okay.

And Callie and I got individual Caesars as our starters.

So they bring our starters.

And I look at this and I think Max is getting

two of these.

Because it was huge.

It was huge.

And then he had trapped himself because he was like,

it is that that wasn't the size of it last time.

And the Caesar that arrived was

so.

like a large pizza.

It was enormous.

It piled up so high.

And he couldn't really wait for his, like he was like too hungry.

So we had some of mine and some of Callie's before his enormous Caesar arrived.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

And then he really painted himself in the sky.

He did, because then he was like, I.

I have to eat it.

Like, I've made this crazy mistake.

Yeah.

And it looks crazy if I don't.

Like, the people are going to be pissed.

Oh, I love that we think that as if they're thinking at all about it.

Well, no, then our server came because he said, is this the size it was?

And he said, yeah, that's always been the size.

Yeah, the guy in the back was like, two?

Okay, so they are.

Yeah, they're judging.

Anyway, he ate pretty much all of it.

He had to leave a little bit, but when you factor in the fact that he had some of mine and Callie's, he had more than two Caesars.

And what did he have for an entree?

That was his entree.

He didn't go a steak either.

No, he didn't.

We got some appetizers, but okay.

I'm so glad.

When was this?

Last night?

Oh, it was.

A couple months ago?

Yeah.

It was Sunday.

It was Sunday.

Yeah.

Okay.

It was really fun.

Yeah, that's a fun place.

I need to be better at

not

like I want to go back tonight.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I want to go back in five more days.

Like, I've been doing that with Sunset Tower.

I've been going a little, like, a lot.

Okay, yeah.

And I ordered, I order an interesting martini.

I order one with a lemon twist and an orange twist.

Unconventional.

I invented it.

Okay.

And so never been done.

So when I went last time and I ordered that, he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you.

Oh, now he's got you.

Yeah.

And he was like,

yeah, when were you here?

Like two weeks ago?

And I was like, yeah.

But really, it was like.

Five days ago.

Yeah.

I had to lie.

Is he a suitor now?

No.

Sounds like he's a suitor.

No, he's not.

He's not.

He was a nice man, but no.

Anywho,

I guess that's it.

I do have a maybe an update.

I haven't decided if I'm going to share it, so that's TBD.

Keep listening.

Sure, sure.

All right, let's do some facts.

Yes.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert,

if you dare.

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Okay, facts for Kristen.

It's so weird that her name's Kristen.

Is it weird for you?

Well, because it's spelled the way it is, there's a lot of leeway in the way people are spelling Kristen.

I don't think of her as Kristen because of the way it's spelled.

Right.

But then when we were saying her name, I was like, oh, yeah.

And is that?

That's a dumb story.

No, it's a good one.

But Kristen, C-R-I-S-T-N.

I know what you mean.

I think the same exact thing.

I didn't realize it was even pronounced Kristen.

Yeah.

Yeah, C-R-I-S-T-I-N.

Now, this goes this my ex-girlfriend, Brie, too.

She had a very novel spelling of Brie.

Yeah, how'd she spell it?

B-R-still does.

B-R-I-E-G-H.

B-R-I-E-G-H.

Yeah.

Everyone gets to, you know, do it however they want.

Parents get like funky when they're making spellings up.

I know.

Yeah, it's an interesting impulse.

It's like, I'm going to give them a name that a lot of people have, but I'm going to spell it uniquely.

Yeah, you know what's funny?

Well, Callie has that a little bit.

She always has to say Callie with a K.

And an I.

Well, so.

Uh-oh.

So

now's a great time to tell you.

Actually, I think it's a little bit of a test.

I have stress stress every time I text you about Callie.

I'm like, is it K-H?

Is it K-H-E?

Yeah, it's a, look, it's a hard name.

Yeah.

I actually find it very endearing because I think it has to do with your dyslexia.

Okay.

But because you always spell it K-A-L-I, and you're so close.

Oh, what do I need?

It's K-A-L-I-E.

Oh, easy.

I can.

But I always think it's funny because

you do it and then I'll respond back with her name kind of on purpose.

Yeah, spelled correctly.

Yes, try to gently tell me.

Yeah, like, oh, I think one day he'll see that he has been doing that wrong.

And then

I was with Callie instead of saying I was with Callie.

Yeah, Callie said this.

Yeah.

And then, and then you haven't noticed that.

But

so I guess now the cat's out of the cow.

I noticed it, and then I don't remember it.

Yeah, that's fair.

Like a month later when I want to text about Callie,

I don't try to go back and find it.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think this will be the learning moment where I get it.

I.E., I can handle that.

I have this same issue with Seth's wife, Claire.

Every time I seem to write Claire, I pick the wrong one.

How does she?

Well, because you could go C-L-A-I-R or C-L-A-R-E.

Oh.

And it's one of those two, and I generally get it wrong.

C-L-A-R-E is unconventional.

That's hers.

That's hers.

Okay, so she's unconventional.

Yeah, and Seth will, he doesn't say, he doesn't do what you do.

He's even more direct.

He's like, it is like he corrects.

He gets upset, do you think?

I just think he's defensive.

No, I think he's a very like respectful integrity person.

And he wants to correct you if you're not spelling his wife's name right.

Wow.

Okay.

Two sides of two different coins, I guess, because I feel like I'm being respectful by not telling you because I don't want to hurt your feelings.

I think they're both valid,

they're valid points of view.

Okay, what is interesting about the way people spell names is sometimes the spelling does make me like the name in a way that I didn't previously like it.

Sure, in fact, Claire being one.

I really like the spelling C-L-A-R-E.

That changes it for you.

Now I love it.

Yeah.

Maybe I'll name your daughter Claire.

We spell Calvin weird.

How do you spell it?

C-A-L-V-I-G-H-N.

No, you don't.

That's a lie.

Robin is

lies.

He tells so many lies.

And I've been, and when I'm watching you, there's so many lies to juggle.

Oh, so you're

swimming in deception.

Yes.

Yeah.

Speaking of when I asked if he's protective, Seth,

the guy in you, he's so protective that he has to murder.

Oh, too protective.

Yeah, I could see you like sliding down that scale.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I kind of want you to watch it to see if you kind of can relate.

We had an expert.

He's coming up.

And

it's really fucked up the whole way I process the world.

And I'm frustrated by it.

And I know it's the right thing to do.

But a guy,

we're having an expert on about rage addiction.

Yeah.

And once it's, once it's fully framed for you, what's going on in your head and the science behind it, it's a bummer.

Cause I do like

the right.

there's some level of vigilanteism I like.

Look, we all do.

We all love the story of like Robin Hood a little bit.

But again, this circles back to our other fact check.

In reality,

no,

like no.

Revenge is bad and it's a poison.

Yep.

And forgiveness is.

Very good for your brain.

Yeah.

It stops this back and forth cycle.

Yes.

It's just the right thing.

And I kind of hate it.

It's taking the fun out of, you know, like these movies that are just great.

It's like you kidnap Leon Neeson's daughter and he's going to fucking kill you.

And we love that.

That's so clean.

You should get killed if you kidnap someone's daughter.

When I was home for Mother's Day, I was watching Dateline, obviously, with my parents because

they just can't get enough of that.

Are they particularly into

Keith Morrison the way we are?

Do they not have anything?

No, there's no preference.

Oh, wow.

just I don't like that as much as they can consume, they will.

In fact, I probably can't say this, but there was something happened.

There's something happening in the family-ish, a good thing, but

that my mom was like, Well, you got to be careful because

people can get really crazy.

And she like devised this whole plan in her head of how someone would get murdered.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It could lead you to believe there's more murders going on than there are.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was a man who killed a girl, like a 18-year-old or whatever, who killed another 18-year-old.

Okay.

And, or maybe he was 19 or something, whatever.

He killed someone.

And like, you know, he's up for her.

He's up to get out a lot, but the mom and the sister keep going in and basically making sure he stays in jail.

Yeah.

And I respect, I understand.

Of course, I understand.

But there was a part of me, you know, and I was like, I mean, maybe it's time to let him out.

And I was saying that, and my mom was so disturbed by me saying that.

And I was like, mom, his brain wasn't even developed.

It's not developed till you're 25.

And she's like, well, if you were the sister, and I was like, of course, of course.

If I'm the sister, I want that person to rot in jail.

That's right.

So I get it.

Yeah.

But it's been taking the fun out of some normal fantasies I play with.

Yeah, like having like empathy, having empathy kind of ruins vigilanteism.

Yeah.

Just owning what's going on in my brain.

Can you give an example?

Well, just I think of all these scenarios all the time.

I just, that's what I fantasize about.

Killing?

No, but like

protecting

forcing someone to apologize, you know, all these just like

taking care of everyone and sheriffing.

Right.

And so I have all these bizarre fantasies.

And then I just have to now go like,

right.

So you're hurt or someone else is hurt.

And your inclination is not to soothe.

It's to hurt.

Right.

And that that'll somehow erase the hurt.

And it just, it doesn't and it won't.

And it's, it's no less fun, my imagination now.

And I'm kind of angry.

Kind of like I kind of

yeah, like I kind of, I had to, there's so many things I've had to stop doing on the show.

Like be disparaging about BDP people,

be disparaging, right?

Even the sociopath, we had a sociopath on.

I am like, fuck, I kind of feel bad for sociopaths.

I don't like it.

I mean, I like it.

I think it's good.

It's a good direction, but I also.

I've been thinking about this a lot.

I think this show has fundamentally made me a fully different person.

I was so, I was so, yes, that person needs to rot it.

Like, I would never have ever thought for a second, like, maybe it's time to let that guy out.

What's our goal?

Are we do we want to

punish or keep people safe?

Yeah, and I think it has to do with the amount of stories we've heard and the amount of people we've gotten to talk to.

Uh,

yeah, I wonder who I'd be without it.

It annoyed my mom and brother, we were at dinner and I was doing this about somebody or something, and they were like, Oh,

you always see the best in people.

Like, they were saying it kind of annoyed.

Yeah, like you're naive or

yeah, or just like, we know you want to look at that perspective.

Yeah.

But this is what we want to talk about, the bad thing.

And I

would

never,

I,

I am not someone who was born thinking the best of people.

Right, right, right, right.

So that's something new and I'm grateful for it.

So I wouldn't even say mine is that I now think the best of people.

It's that I much more understand,

or I think I understand

how bad the person had it to begin with that ended them there.

Yes, that's like I still think they're bad, but I think there's, you know, I think they're, well, I'm not bad in quotes, but.

Well, yeah, I guess that's that's the lesson.

Like, I don't think people are bad.

I think you become

who you become based on experience and things you can't control.

Yep.

So

it's hard after you know that.

Yeah, I feel like I can only be like ethically judgmental of someone that's got the exact same scenario as me.

Like I'm free to say, no, you should be doing better with this set of circumstances.

But beyond that, I really have no business saying what someone should, what level they have

should have risen to.

Yeah, and that applies to everyone.

That applies to the person whose family was hurt.

They've been through something that causes them to act the way they act.

Anyway,

okay, so some facts.

What is the Jersey Devil?

What is the Jersey Devil?

In South Jersey and Philadelphia, folklore in the U.S., the Jersey Devil, also known as the Leeds Devil, a legendary creature or cryptid, said to inhabit the forests of the Pine Barrens in South Jersey.

The creature is often described as a flying biped.

It looks kind of cute, actually.

It has hooves, but there are many variations.

yeah it looks kind of like a smiling reptile but with ram horns and chicken legs and dragon wings yeah bat like wings it says yeah um the origin of the legend though a woman named leeds was giving birth to her 13th child and exclaimed let the child be the devil the child though born normally immediately grew wings tail and claws and flew out of the pine barrens That's all you got to do is say let him be the devil and that you can convert your if you're Mrs.

Leeds.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

How much is a pedicab ride in New York-ish?

Through Times Square, a short ride within Times Square might cost $15 to $30, while a more extensive tour could range from $40 to $150 per person.

It's kind of steep.

Pricey way to get around town.

Yeah, but fast.

Super fast.

Because you get to go in between.

Right.

Record for how long someone was in a Broadway show.

The record for the longest time spent by an actor in a single Broadway show is held by George Lee Andrews, who performed the Phantom of the Opera for 23 years.

Oh, my lord.

From 1987 to 2011.

Whoa.

He performed a total of 9,382 performances.

Oh, my God.

During his tenure, he played multiple roles, including ensemble members and the roles of Monsieur Fermoumin and Monsieur Andre.

9,000 performances?

Yeah.

I'm like

still so proud of us for 900 episodes and now I feel like a weakling.

Yeah.

And do you think it's one of those things when you've done something so much that if like he forgets a line in his 7,000th performance, he's probably so afraid of dementia.

Oh.

He's like, how could I, I've been doing this 7,000 percent performance.

I bet he could most certainly do that role

soup to nuts and never once be present on stage.

Yeah.

Like it completely in his mind, thinking about other stuff.

I'm sure his subconscious could do that performance.

Yeah.

And he's just probably in la-la land for two hours.

But he loves the theater.

Or he's addicted to that cheddar.

I don't think that's what he's addicted to.

I think he's addicted to cheddar.

Much money.

But that reminds me, sometimes I forget the gate code to your house.

And I think every time I forget, I think like, oh, I'm ill, like something's wrong.

How could I possibly forget this thing I do every day?

I then have to look it up.

Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah.

Isn't that scary?

Yeah.

I get scared like that.

Yeah.

And that stuff happens to me.

Does it?

Yeah.

And now we're being monitored.

So it's like, I have the thought.

It's like, I cannot think of a name of someone I know very well.

Yeah.

And then I go, well, I guess the next

cognition test we have for our Alzheimer's thing is just going to show that, yes, I am indeed.

Decline.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's weird.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know if it's comforting or not comforting that we will find out.

I can't decide that.

Like, normally you'd just be having these thoughts in a vacuum, and then you'd probably convince yourself later that you're, you know, you'd be thinking sharp that day and be like, oh, no, nothing's going on.

But we're going to be told.

Well, unless we don't decline.

Correct.

Which is the goal is to be doing all these other things.

I mean, we're going to decline.

But not to a scary, hopefully not too scary level.

Some days it feels like it's happening at a scary pace.

I think it's when it's like gloomy out.

And that's when you

it's more weather-based.

Um,

okay, this vault, this Warner Brothers situation where there are shows that are gone.

Yeah.

Um, is true.

And yeah, you can't watch Westworld.

I looked on Max today.

You can't find, it's not there.

You can like go to Amazon Prime and buy it.

You can.

Yeah.

But you can't watch it on Max.

That's so weird.

I know.

Also, now it's HBO Max again.

Did you hear this?

No.

They are.

Now they've gone back to.

Yes.

By the way, I always said HBO is the crown jewel, not Max.

I don't know why they didn't.

Exactly.

I think, well, I heard it was just some guy's idea who had power, and then they did it.

And then obviously it never worked.

Like, people wouldn't say it right.

still say it's on HBO.

Yeah, people would say HBO.

And so

it's HBO Max again.

And if we have to re-download that shit, I'm going to be pissed.

But it would be like Mercedes buying Dodge and then deciding to rename all this Mercedes Dodge.

That makes no sense.

You would, you would.

You want to stick with your most prestigious name.

I know.

Home box office.

I think maybe they got excited that Max sounds like the maximum amount of content.

Well, they didn't want it to just be hbo obviously because there's more there right but hbo max seems good to me tj max but it was hbo then hbo max then max right hbo go hbo go oh yeah oh my god john oliver does a whole bit on the last episode of all that

really funny i they are having fun with it though they have like obviously some like gen z person running their social media because they're like putting funny

burning themselves yeah okay that's good.

But it's been making me sign in a lot lately, and I wonder if that's related to this name change.

It's been challenging.

Probably.

Do we have to download another fucking app or are they just going to update the current app?

That's what I was just said.

We're so intolerant.

Used to be like you had to catch the show live or you didn't see it.

Now it's like you have to

sign in.

I know.

Okay, I was going to play just a teeny, teeny clip of her on 30 Rock.

She mentions a character she plays that's like wild.

It is wild.

I knew I smelled sausage.

Yes.

Abby, I'm Liz.

Liz!

Thank you.

Our nips just touched.

Mine are so hard.

Mine are different sizes.

Okay, that's all I'll play.

But yeah, she's a very silly.

That 30 Rock is such a fucking good show.

Yeah, it's almost like

in some ways underappreciated.

Yeah.

There she is.

Oh, yeah.

Our nips just touched.

Is that what she said?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a great show.

Ting the Fey, one of the great talents of all time.

Okay, I found this weird thing.

She said,

what's it called when you feel forever 27?

Mm-hmm.

That has a name.

So then I looked it up and it said, the phenomenon of feeling forever 27 or experiencing a fascination with the idea of never aging beyond a certain age is often connected to the 27 club, a cultural concept referencing celebrities who died at the age of 27

the idea while rooted in tragedy has also become a symbol of a certain rebellious energy and a desire to hold on to youth

live fast and die young i guess i guess who's the list hendricks janice joplin amy winehouse jim morrison janice joplin jimi hendrix

Well, we know that

Belushi and Chris Farley made it to 33, the age of Jesus.

So they're not on here.

That's good.

Yeah.

Okay.

We did talk about astrology, so I did real quick, want to just real quick

to

today's astrology.

Postar is the app I use.

Let's see what it says today.

Oh, one hour ago.

You don't have high standards.

You just want someone who,

Capricorn, will discreetly tell you if you have food stuck in your teeth.

Wouldn't everyone like that?

You'd like that, right?

No, I'll be embarrassed.

I do want to take it.

Would you rather have food stuck in the teeth?

No, I don't.

I want it, but

I don't want it either.

Okay.

You don't want the solution to it.

You don't have high standards.

You just want someone who, me, Virgo, reliably uses the correct there, there, there.

Oh,

sure.

Okay, that adds up.

Wait, Rob, what are you?

Gemini, I think.

Uh-oh.

Rob, actually, that makes total sense.

Oh, yeah.

That makes total sense that you're a Gemini.

The twins.

One's a rascal.

Oh.

Aren't they the twins?

I think they are.

You don't have high standards.

You just want someone who shares the passwords to all their streaming accounts.

I think people tell me I'm more of a cancer than a Gemini because I'm running the edge.

Okay.

You don't have high standards.

You just want someone who can listen without sharing a tangentially related story.

Who can listen without

sharing?

I don't think so.

I don't know many people like that.

Kristen's a cancer.

She only tells tangential.

But she wants, no, so this is saying she wants to be able to tell you a story and you not go on a tangent with your own story.

Basically everything we do here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I don't think that's true.

I don't know if that's true of Aaron either, but maybe.

I'll ask him.

I think he likes a tangential story as well.

I'll ask Anna.

I'll ask my mom.

So many cancers.

I do have a lot of July and August, big, big birthday months.

Yeah, they are.

Coming up.

That's right around the corner.

All right, that's it.

That's it?

Yeah.

That's it for Kristen.

Yeah, that's it for Kristen.

Love you.

Love you.

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