Jenna Fischer

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Speaker 2 David Jenna Fisher.

Speaker 1 Jenna Fisher, the lovely Jenna Fisher, who is pretty universally liked out there. I mean, very sweet, very talented, very fun and charming.

Speaker 2 Famous for the office. She's done a lot of movies and a lot of other things, but she was Pam

Speaker 2 on the Office, the SMASH.

Speaker 1 For all 98 seasons. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That show just kept grinding it out.

Speaker 1 There's a spin-off now we talk about.

Speaker 1 We don't only talk about the office, of course.

Speaker 1 She does plays. She's doing a new one we're talking about.
She talks about, I asked her about Nick Swartz and about Will Farrell. She loves SNL.

Speaker 1 And I hit her up after the interview. And, you know, I think she had what we had.
She's always like, she's like exactly what we say. Did we ask the right questions? Was I interesting? Was I fun?

Speaker 1 And we always finish and going, I think we did that wrong, whatever.

Speaker 1 But she's very sweet about it. She wanted to do a good job.
She listens to the show. She has her own show.

Speaker 2 The office ladies.

Speaker 2 Um, and she uh, she tells some really funny stories, interesting stories about her struggles before she got on the office.

Speaker 2 And there's a whole arc of story involving Molly Shannon, and that's a very

Speaker 2 and sometimes when that we finish the podcast, we keep our laptop open. So, I ended up talking with her for a half hour afterwards.

Speaker 2 She's very easy. Well, she's easy to chat to.
So, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one.

Speaker 1 Jana Fisher.

Speaker 2 I was just asked by our producer, and it's a profound question. When you're driving around,

Speaker 2 a long drive, two-hour drive, whatever,

Speaker 2 what's your entertainment? XM news, music, podcasting,

Speaker 2 or

Speaker 1 just rap.

Speaker 2 Phone calls to pay back.

Speaker 2 You have 10 seconds.

Speaker 12 oh it's

Speaker 12 it's not music i do not listen to music

Speaker 12 um

Speaker 12 my first car did not have a working radio and i just got used to driving in silence and it's my preference

Speaker 12 but now i would say um news podcasts or phone calls so

Speaker 2 i love the idea that you literally could go like just the silence two hours three hours just

Speaker 2 silence

Speaker 1 Jesus, it's chasing me.

Speaker 12 By the way,

Speaker 12 I don't know. I drove from St.
Louis, Missouri, all the way to California with no radio. Just open windows, also.

Speaker 12 My first car was really just, it just moved you from one place to another. There was no luxury in the car.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah.

Speaker 1 What year of car?

Speaker 12 I don't remember. I think it was like an 86.
I mean, it had originally when it was built had these features.

Speaker 2 They just didn't work anymore. So you do the office all those years and then you buy a used Buick from 1988? I mean, I'll talk to Corell if I have to.
Or

Speaker 12 to call Grand Families.

Speaker 2 Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 12 My, no, no, no. I, so I had a Mazda 323 hatchback.
Sweet. And that was the car I drove across the country.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 12 And then I upgraded to a Volkswagen Jetta, which was my favorite car maybe I've ever had. It was awesome.

Speaker 12 But then when I got my big office paycheck,

Speaker 12 I got a stupid car.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 12 It was, I walked into a Mercedes dealership and they had a little sedan. They only made like seven of these, and it had like the engine of a race car, but in like the body of like a C-class Mercedes.

Speaker 12 So it was like cute and compact, but it, I was

Speaker 12 a hundred percent an asshole driver. Like, because I could cut around anyone.
I could, it was, oh, it was great.

Speaker 2 Did you keep it?

Speaker 12 I leased it and I gave it up after the lease. Lease.
And I went more practical.

Speaker 2 We all have that story. You want me to go first, David? Because it's similar to yours.
Okay, got a little money, some movie, whatever, got some extra money, went to a Mercedes dealership, bought a

Speaker 2 convertible little Mercedes coupe. Like, oh, wow, this is awesome.
Drove it for three or four days and realized when I had the canopy up, I was looking through a plastic windshield in the back.

Speaker 2 So took it back, traded in for a SLE or a big, a 420 SLE.

Speaker 2 And then I started getting people paying attention to me. I lived in the valley when I would go to like 7-Eleven or a gas station.
So then I went to Honda. I just wanted a lo-fi car.
That's my story.

Speaker 12 Well, the problem with LA

Speaker 12 is that you get this awesome car and then you can only go like 32 miles an hour in it because you're always stuck in traffic so it's kind of like after a few years i was like oh the best i can do is like whip down the on-ramp yeah 300 horsepower and you're just and then that's exactly

Speaker 2 yeah

Speaker 2 yeah

Speaker 1 when i moved out i got something when i first paid check and i went

Speaker 1 And I had no car. So I got a car.
Dana knows this story. $6,000 Honda.
I didn't go flashy. I only had six.

Speaker 1 And then I drove it to the Improv, and then I brought it out. I brought my buddy out to show him, and it was stolen.

Speaker 12 What?

Speaker 12 How long?

Speaker 2 You had it for like a night?

Speaker 12 One day.

Speaker 2 You went one place.

Speaker 2 And Kevin Newland drove a car eerily similar to that. I'm not saying he had anything to do with the robbery, but it was kind of weird.

Speaker 2 But my first car was a Volkswagen bug. Are you going to go to first car or first car when you got an extra paycheck?

Speaker 12 Me?

Speaker 2 No, but you are. We know your story.
We know my story.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 2 David, you got it.

Speaker 1 Oh, I had my fair share because I do like cars, but

Speaker 1 my neck gives me trouble. So every time I get a car, I love, it just starts, it's just too painful.

Speaker 1 And like Jenna said, when you're starting and stopping all day, it's not like you live in the Midwest and you can floor it and there's big parking lots.

Speaker 1 Like when you go to Wendy's in Arizona, there's like 300 parking spots. And when you go here, there's one at Kmart.
And you go, are we all sharing this?

Speaker 1 You can't believe when you get to LA how little there's some businesses have absolutely no parking. So I don't know what we're supposed to do.
So that kind of threw me.

Speaker 1 And I realized I didn't need big fancy cars. I could just tell people I had them.
I didn't really need them.

Speaker 12 My first car was also a manual transmission. Oh, boy.
And my left foot would like truly ache.

Speaker 12 at the end of like driving all day in LA because there was, you were constantly just going like in and out of third and fourth gear. There was like, you never made it to fifth gear in this car.

Speaker 1 God, no one has a stick anymore.

Speaker 12 No, it's it's a, you know, this was the cheapest car. Like the manual transmission was the cheapest car.
My dad's very practical. He was like, you'll get this car

Speaker 2 teach you how to drive it. Firm, but it's all you need.
You don't need any frills. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, St. Louis.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 12 So do you, you've been to St. Louis, I bet?

Speaker 1 I'm going to St. Louis to do a show.

Speaker 2 Have you had

Speaker 2 pizza in St.

Speaker 12 Louis?

Speaker 2 Emo's Pizza in St. Louis? No.
But

Speaker 2 I like it as a town. I like walking around.
I like the stadiums are really close in.

Speaker 1 Not Jenna. Do you know what Chesterfield is?

Speaker 12 Chesterfield is where I grew up.

Speaker 2 Oh, is it really?

Speaker 12 Chesterfield is where my family lives now. Uh-oh.
Yeah. I actually grew up in like Manchester/slash Chesterfield in an unincorporated area.
But yeah, Chesterfield, for sure. Why?

Speaker 1 Because that's where I'm going for my tour. And they said, I was with Nikki

Speaker 1 Glazer this weekend, and she's from St. Louis.
And she goes, why don't they put on your tour St. Louis? No one's Chesterfield.
I go, oh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I don't even know where.

Speaker 12 I mean, if you're from St. Louis, you know what Chesterfield is.

Speaker 1 You'll know. Okay.

Speaker 12 Yeah. It's not like, yeah, it's not downtown.
I mean, St. Louis is downtown.
You're going to be in the burbs. You're in the suburbs.

Speaker 1 That's fine with me. And I think it's a great place.
I've been there before. I think it's new.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we'll set up comps for everyone you know from high school.

Speaker 2 Other than that, great.

Speaker 2 Great.

Speaker 1 You know, Dana.

Speaker 12 I'm going to know what you say. My high school ladies are going to come out for your show.

Speaker 1 It's super fun.

Speaker 1 Dana and I had a question. First of all, I'll tell Dana a little pre-question that you don't know.
All right.

Speaker 2 Let's try that when I keep our guests off balance, like with questions she's not asked all the time. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 We're here here to we want to surprise you she's going to come out here digital love it so great everyone loves that in an interview i thought of doing this with dana and then i called jenna right jenna do you remember this yes of course yes and you were very sweet you took the call and you kind of walked me through how it works and what you did And it really gave me a little boost to say this might be fun.

Speaker 1 And if it has to be a Dana, it has to be. That's fine.
Whatever.

Speaker 1 And so, and then Dana had a question of,

Speaker 2 do you really need a part?

Speaker 2 Has it ever gone through your mind?

Speaker 2 I could have done this by myself. And then the money doubles.
Has that ever gone through your mind?

Speaker 2 Or

Speaker 2 maybe Angela. But

Speaker 1 that. Dana and I think about that all day, every day.

Speaker 2 People always ask us forever, why? You know, why us? Why now? Are you really friends? Do you get that? I mean, you guys are famously really close friends. But with Spade and I was like, what?

Speaker 2 The Tommy Boy guy and the Waynesworld guy?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Well, I mean, also because Angela and I were frenemies on the office, our characters were not friends.
And people are always very surprised to learn that we are best friends in real life.

Speaker 12 I could not have done the podcast without her. I am all like.
structure and order and spreadsheets. My version of Office Ladies Podcast would be very informative, but also way less entertaining.

Speaker 12 So Angela brings all of the like

Speaker 12 funny and all of the quirky and all of like the weird observations. So we're actually, we're a pretty good pair.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's smart that you did that because there is kind of safety in numbers.

Speaker 1 Dana is way better at this. And I don't think I could do it myself.
I think Dana really, really drives it and makes it easier to do it for me.

Speaker 1 But jokingly, it's fun to joke around with him too because he's a funny guy, obviously. And we have a good time with that.
And I think you guys have a real friendship. So

Speaker 1 people like to hear that you're friends, even though it doesn't seem like it on the show.

Speaker 12 You guys, I love your podcast. Like, you have no idea how excited I am to be on

Speaker 12 your podcast right now. I listen to you guys.
I think you are so good together.

Speaker 12 Dana, I can't believe you're talking to me right now.

Speaker 12 That's kind of blowing my mind. I'm a huge Saturday Night Live nerd.
The greatest part about being on the office and being on NBC was that I got to breathe the same air as Saturday Night Live people.

Speaker 12 This is like that we would have to be at the same corporate parties together.

Speaker 12 And I was a total groupie. That is who I gravitated toward.
It was just the coolest. And, but that's going way back.
I actually have a crazy story from my very early days in LA.

Speaker 2 Let's hear it.

Speaker 12 And Saturday Night Live. Okay, so I made my living when I landed in LA as a typist and a transcriber.
And you know how you'd have to go to those events?

Speaker 12 They're called like the Television Critics Association, and you would sit on a panel as a cast and you would introduce new cast members. This would be for any show.

Speaker 12 Well, my job was to go and sit in that room and take notes and then go back to a hotel room, a hot hotel room filled with like 12 people and 12 computers and then listen to audio and transcribe these

Speaker 12 like press events.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 These conversations. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 12 And if we got our work done on time, by that evening, we were allowed to go to the quote unquote parties, which, as you know, are really just cast members of TV shows mingling with reporters who are trying to get sound bites.

Speaker 12 But we would get to go, we'd get to eat the food, drink the drinks, and just watch all the famous people. Well, all I wanted more than anything was to go to the Saturday night live party.

Speaker 12 I wanted it more than my little new heart in LA could stand it. And so

Speaker 12 I knew what night it was coming up and I started planting the seed the day before. I started pretending like I didn't feel good

Speaker 12 because I was going to make an excuse that I was sick so that I could get off work on time and then sneak into this party.

Speaker 12 But I, I had, I needed the hours, you know, so I planted that seed. The next day, I was like, Man, I'm still not feeling good.
At three o'clock, I'm like, I'm so sorry. I gotta go.
I gotta go home.

Speaker 12 The guy was like, fine. I had planted a change of clothes in my car.
I went, I changed into a cocktail dress. I sneak into the party.
And I can't even tell you, it was amazing.

Speaker 12 Norm McDonald, I'm looking at him in the flesh. I can't, my mind is blown.
Then I see Molly Shannon and I think, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go say hi to Molly Shannon.
And I walk up to her.

Speaker 12 She's giving sound bites to the press. And I say, Molly Shannon, I am a new actress in LA and I just admire you so much.
And I just wanted to tell you

Speaker 12 just what you mean to me. You know, the stuff you say.
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 12 She looked at me,

Speaker 12 took me by the shoulders, looked me deep in the eyes, and said,

Speaker 12 don't give up. Whatever you do, don't give up.
It took me 10 years to get on Saturday Night Live. And my best advice to you is just know it'll happen eventually if you just stick with it.
Okay.

Speaker 2 You guys.

Speaker 2 Sounds like the Molly we know.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I was about to say that.
Right.

Speaker 2 Amazing.

Speaker 12 And I went and I like, I had this encounter with her. And then I turn around

Speaker 12 and my boss from the transcription room is standing there along with everybody else who got off work on time and they came to this party.

Speaker 12 And I was like,

Speaker 12 Am I fired? And he goes, You are fired.

Speaker 2 I was like, Okay.

Speaker 12 He fired me, but it was fine, guys, because I met Molly Shannon and she gave me that advice.

Speaker 12 And I went home and I told my mom. And every time I had a hard day for the next 10 years, my mom would say to me, Jenna, don't you forget what Molly Shannon told you.
She said, don't give up.

Speaker 12 She said it took you, it took her 10 years.

Speaker 12 You guys wait for it. 10 years later, I'm at the premiere of Walk Hard, the movie Walk Hard that I did with John C.
Riley. Yeah.
I shit you not.

Speaker 12 Guess who's at that party?

Speaker 2 Molly Shannon.

Speaker 12 Molly Shannon. Your boss.
And I got to go up to her and I got to say, Molly Shannon, here's this story. You told me 10 years.
And she was like, Look, it's 10 years later. And here you are.

Speaker 12 And I got a picture with her. I made the photographer come over and like take a picture of us.
Is that the greatest thing ever?

Speaker 2 Does Molly know

Speaker 2 as she heard this story? Or did you just?

Speaker 12 Yes, I told her that night at the Walkard Premiere.

Speaker 2 Wow. Unbelievable.
But now you're going to be able to do that.

Speaker 12 Yes, and I wrote about, I wrote a book, and I wrote that story in the book, and I have a picture in the book, too.

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Speaker 2 Well, when I met David, he was 19. I said, you hang with this.
And in six months, don't give up. Cause in six months, no, David was out of the blocks fast.
If it was a sprinter, he was like, boom.

Speaker 1 Dana said, you're going to move to L.A. and in six months, you'll get crabs.

Speaker 2 And I go, okay. Police Academy.
Hello.

Speaker 2 He got a movie.

Speaker 2 I got a movie early on.

Speaker 1 That's the police guy movie that I

Speaker 1 made. I had $6,000 to buy the car that got stolen.
So I was back to zero.

Speaker 2 Wow. Yeah, great story.

Speaker 1 You still type 85 words per minute. That's nothing to sneeze at.

Speaker 12 I do.

Speaker 1 I do. 90% accuracy.

Speaker 12 It's all in the accuracy. Anyone can type garbage.

Speaker 1 You're 90%, right?

Speaker 12 Yeah. I mean, right? You want to type words.
Anyone can just type

Speaker 2 my father was

Speaker 2 high school through

Speaker 2 teaching,

Speaker 2 a typing teacher, my father, for decades.

Speaker 12 Can you type? Can you guys type with all your fingers, or are you like two-finger typers?

Speaker 2 I can't do anything. If you see a non-taught young person, like in their 20s,

Speaker 2 they're really fast. And I don't know if it's technically using all their fingers, but

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 we picked it up later. But I'm fast,

Speaker 2 but I don't.

Speaker 1 Jenna, I have a good question that ties into Tiny Live.

Speaker 1 When you did Blades of Glory, you wound up getting to have sex with Will Farrell, right?

Speaker 12 Yes, that's right.

Speaker 2 I had a sex scene with Will.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. That's one of the best all-time goats of SNL.

Speaker 2 For sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 12 That was nuts. But also, by the way, Amy Poehler was in that movie.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's right.

Speaker 12 So just playing my sister. Wowie.
And Will Arnett was in that movie.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 12 that was.

Speaker 12 That was terrifying. That was terrifying.
And Will was so polite when we shot that scene scene because he had to like grab my boobs like several times.

Speaker 12 But what was crazy about it was I probably had on more clothes in that scene where I look like I'm just in like a nighty than I normally wear.

Speaker 12 Like they, cause they put you in like spanks and then a corset and then a thing and they painted my body with makeup. I mean, I felt like so covered.
It was crazy.

Speaker 1 He has a go and grab your boobs through your stuff, but it's like that kind of thing. You can't even feel it because you've got 18 layers of.

Speaker 12 Yeah, it's like I was wearing body armor. So I was kind of like, maybe like wink when you grab them because I can feel nothing.

Speaker 2 Just nudge me. Pre-dates intimacy coordinators.
There was no one there.

Speaker 12 There was no.

Speaker 12 There was just, okay.

Speaker 1 It was just like your assistant director going, let's do this.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 Was Swartzen in that? Do you know Nick Schwartzen, that little fool?

Speaker 12 Yes. Yes, he was.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 we are friends with nick and you know it's a real roller coaster jenna i'll tell you it is i found him lovely on the film but what do i know no he's great he's so funny hall pass

Speaker 2 we haven't even gotten to the goddang uh office look i have a question about the

Speaker 2 office

Speaker 2 what is it the question is is for you and your partner uh re-watching all these episodes and talking about them. Yeah.
What, how is your perception, if it at all, changed about the show?

Speaker 2 Or what did you learn about the show or if anything? Because it is now officially a phenomenon in the way it travels around and then explodes again. It's evergreen and it's a it's a unique show.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 yesterday I was watching

Speaker 2 the office with Ricky Gervais. Very different.
I mean, you know, you say it came from that office, but it went, it has its own complete original thing.

Speaker 2 Greg Daniels, one of the great writers so what did you guys what what do you feel about that thing after doing hundreds of podcasts did you did you go through every episode at some point yeah every single episode all 201 episodes um and then a lot of um interviews with cast and crew

Speaker 12 um

Speaker 12 writers writers exactly um my biggest takeaway from having re-watched it was that it's really good the whole time Because I think there was this lore, especially among the cast and the creatives, that maybe we like hit our peak in season three or season four.

Speaker 12 And also, this belief that like the two seasons after Steve left, we were just treading water and maybe they weren't as good.

Speaker 12 But when I watched everything, like some of my favorite episodes were in seasons eight and nine after Steve had left. Like there were still these amazing storylines.

Speaker 12 And also, I have to say now, when I look back, my, some of my favorite episodes were also in seasons four through six, like Dinner Party was season four.

Speaker 12 Michael Scott Paper Company, that whole arc was in season five. And that, like, just great TV.

Speaker 12 And, um,

Speaker 12 but yeah, I think, you know, some of the award nominations stopped after season three. So I think maybe we got in our heads and thought, oh, I guess we're not creating as great.

Speaker 1 I think that just happens no matter what.

Speaker 2 That's yeah you're not the new shiny object anymore exactly and that's kind of slow down I mean when you're watching yourself and you're watching a thing and then you come on and stuff and it's something you did years ago do you ever sometimes because you sound like you're a normal actor comedian that's sort of like a little self-critical how was I do you ever kind of look at yourself in a scene and go damn I nailed that why did I feel insecure or or what's that like um i mean i have both reactions sometimes i watch it and i'm like i'll never do work that good again shit that was great um but then there's other scenes where i just cringe where i'm like oh god i i remember how i struggled with that and i couldn't do it and now here it is for everyone to see and i guess i just have to move on so i've had both reactions and i i don't know the the complete specifics of this but you it

Speaker 2 First of all, it is always an ensemble. How great Corel is in that part is, you know, everybody knows that.
But it always was an ensemble.

Speaker 2 And And so many people came out of it and now have these long careers.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it's,

Speaker 2 I forgot my train of thought. Sorry.

Speaker 2 Do you ever see something? I'm not a corral in my head.

Speaker 1 Jenna, when you can watch it and say, I was in the pocket because sometimes you watch it and you go.

Speaker 1 You're just in the pocket of going, this is a great scene. This whole idea of this episode is working.

Speaker 1 And when they whip the camera back, get a great look, whip back to you, perfect timing get a great look and when you see it you go because you know you can only feel the camera when you're shooting and you don't really know and then you go god they nailed that boom boom edited well everything about this is just that's why people really get

Speaker 1 uh enchanted by i mean and also just your face is so part of the office and it's so cute and they always cut to you and you all and you have these little storylines it's really i see why people get hooked on it no matter when you turn it on you can just grab any episode i remember what i forgot which is was how much, if any, improvisation was there?

Speaker 2 Because it comes off very improvisational in totem. But I know there wasn't completely improvised.
I know that's a pretty cool word, right?

Speaker 2 So were you allowed to kind of go, you guys, could I try this? You know, do you mind if I do, you know, that kind of stuff?

Speaker 12 Yeah, it was really collaborative. And,

Speaker 12 you know, so many of the writers were also actors on the show. So they were with us and they would be sometimes pitching alternate jokes right there on the set.

Speaker 2 That was kind of fun.

Speaker 12 So that was neat. And we did a lot of improvising, but I don't know how much of it actually made the cut.

Speaker 12 We got to play and have fun, but I would say like 90% of what you see on the screen was written on the page down to like,

Speaker 12 they would write in ellipses for our speech. Like, so you knew to kind of pause because they knew they were going to whip the camera during that pause and so they could get back to you.

Speaker 12 So there was a very elaborate choreography of whipping the camera a little too late so that it seemed, you know, you'd have to give handles.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so it seemed like they didn't quite do it right. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yes, exactly. And so a lot of times when we would do a rehearsal, they would say, Jenna, will you give a handle before your next line to, so we have time for that camera whip?

Speaker 12 So that would be, we would add things like, um,

Speaker 1 well, they'd find you.

Speaker 12 So that they could find you

Speaker 12 like in the right timing. But, um, so great.

Speaker 1 It also seems very real.

Speaker 2 A lot of the non-verbal acting and those cutaways to a character that isn't saying a line, but just sort of non-verbally doing some kind of attitude and stuff.

Speaker 2 It was immediately just felt so new. I'm not going to say fresh.
David would use that word a lot, but immediately, I think for comedians as well, watching it going, this looks cool. This looks fun.

Speaker 2 This looks different and really funny. It doesn't push at all.
You know, it's the.

Speaker 12 We had two camera operators with cameras on their shoulders, and both of these guys were from Survivor. So these guys had like walked through the

Speaker 12 whatever, the wilderness with the survivor people capturing survivor. So this is where they came from in the documentary world.

Speaker 12 And camera A, Randall Einhorn, who was also our cinematographer, who went on to be a director and is now, you know, the executive producer of Abbott Elementary and all those things.

Speaker 12 Randall was our A camera and his job was to get all of the dialogue.

Speaker 12 And then Matt Sohn,

Speaker 12 he was our B camera. And then his job was to get all of those things you're talking about, Dana, all of the acting that was happening in the background.

Speaker 12 So whenever a scene was happening, we were all in the background of each other's scenes all day long on set, the full 12 hours, Steve Carell included.

Speaker 12 I can't tell you how many times Steve Carell had to sit in Michael Scott's office just to be in the background of Jim and Pam looking at each other.

Speaker 2 A piece of them.

Speaker 12 Yeah, because

Speaker 2 we're going to see a piece of you is like something we can put on a mug.

Speaker 12 That'd be actually be a great cast gift.

Speaker 12 Yeah. And so he would grab and push in on all of the, you know, anyone who was in the background of a scene and get their reactions in real time.
It was such a cool way to work.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And you have have to stay alive, though.

Speaker 2 You do. Every scene.
But it keeps your energy up. Yeah.

Speaker 12 You know, because that's the hardest thing for me about acting in movies is like the long amounts of downtime between when you're actually acting. It's just like, oh, God, I got to ramp up again.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And it's just, you know, I don't know if this is the correct way to say it, but if you feel like if you.
you're discovering something new in the moment, it's really nice.

Speaker 2 It does keep your brain alive. And in traditional movies, what I was doing, you know, you do the three masters at seven or eight a.m.
or whatever.

Speaker 2 And then by five or six o'clock, you start and, well, don't. You, in the master, eight hours ago, your left elbow was up and you opened the cup door at this point.

Speaker 2 It's the antithesis of what you guys had, at least the way it felt. It popped.
It felt real.

Speaker 12 For sure. And we did not have marks.
You know, those

Speaker 12 for people out there, like you put tape on the ground and then you have to stand on it because that's how you're going to be in focus. But we had no marks.

Speaker 12 And if the boom dipped in shot, we just kept it in because, you know, it worked in the world. And

Speaker 12 when I finished, when I, you know, going back to Blades of Glory, Blades of Glory was the first big movie I did after being cast on the office. And I repeatedly kept.

Speaker 12 um looking down the barrel of the camera like i would do a scene

Speaker 12 with will and amy and then i would like give a look to camera i'd be like i can't do that And also, I suddenly had to hit a mark, and I was,

Speaker 12 I was so stiff, it was really stressful because I'd been in this other world.

Speaker 1 You can watch when people on movies, sometimes if you ever watch, someone looks down when they walk in, look for their mark, and they look up.

Speaker 2 I love it. So horrifying.

Speaker 1 I want to say also,

Speaker 1 I was going to say the show is fresh, but it's funny that the term fresh is stale.

Speaker 1 But also, it's a problem.

Speaker 2 I'm going to bring it back.

Speaker 2 The office was fresh, and the new one called The Paper

Speaker 2 on Peacock. Have you seen that? Do you know much about it?

Speaker 12 Okay, I haven't seen it, but I got to go to the set. Angela and I got special access to the set and got to talk to all the actors.
We got to see it.

Speaker 2 It's really cool, but we're not allowed to say anything.

Speaker 12 Oh, yeah, I think that it's in the can. Like they finished it.
It comes out in September.

Speaker 2 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 I was talking September on where.

Speaker 2 Peacock. I don't know.

Speaker 12 Peacock, right? Peacock.

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Speaker 2 So, with John Krasinski, like the Jim and Pam narrative became such a big thing. I talked to some people in the early 20s today, told them I was going to interview you and on the office.

Speaker 2 They go, I go, she was Pam. Oh, Pam.
You know, this is like a famous character.

Speaker 2 And Jim and Pam. I'm just kind of curious because John Krasinski,

Speaker 2 I find it really, really interesting how he came up with that horror film, The Quiet. What was it? The quiet.
A quiet place. A quiet place.

Speaker 2 And it's interesting when actors just all of a sudden you see them and like,

Speaker 2 wow, this guy can really direct. And did you see any seeds of that in him intellectually or just the way he was around? Was that a surprise to you when he came out directing?

Speaker 12 It was a surprise to none of us.

Speaker 12 I didn't think so. John, I would always say to John, I think you're going to be like our Tom Hanks.
Like, remember how Tom Hanks did Bosom Buddies? And he was like a very famous, successful TV show.

Speaker 12 But, like, when you think of Tom Hanks, you don't think of bosom buddies. You think of everything else Tom Hanks has done.

Speaker 12 And I was like, I think the office is going to be your bosom buddies, like, your going places. It's very clear.

Speaker 2 And did he look down at his, at the ground and go, oh, shucks, Gina? Or how did he? He did.

Speaker 12 He did. He's very, yes, he's very humble in that way.
You know, like, that would be, if I say that to him, that's very embarrassing to him.

Speaker 12 You know, like, he doesn't want to be like fussed over like that. It's just.
But I was like, no, it's true, mister.

Speaker 2 Well, it's a Herculean task to direct a movie. I mean, just physically and mentally.

Speaker 1 But Dana fusses over me all the time.

Speaker 2 Fusses?

Speaker 1 Yeah, you fuss over me. I want to hear more about you being a telephone psychic when you got.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That was.

Speaker 1 She worked as a car wash.

Speaker 12 I did work at a car for three summers, and that was my best

Speaker 12 job. I worked at Long John Silver's.
That was my first job.

Speaker 12 I worked at an ice creamery serving ice cream, and then I got the job at the car wash. All of those were on this road called Manchester Road on

Speaker 12 in St. Louis, out in the suburbs.
And I got, I got fired from Long John Silver's. I got fired from the ice creamery.

Speaker 12 And my dad would say, oh, you're just looking to get fired from every business on Manchester road i guess

Speaker 12 um but the car wash stuck and that was great there was great money i was outside just drying off the cars you know how big are simple in that world because i try to tip well but okay this is like jenna yeah like back then well and by the way they would always make me give the gentlemen back their cars.

Speaker 12 Oh, yeah. You have to like,

Speaker 12 yeah, you got to stand at the car and wave. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. You know, in your little shorts and your little cutoff shirt and like, your car's ready.

Speaker 12 And I would,

Speaker 12 I would, I'm not, you know, not to brag, but I would get a five sometimes. I get five plus.

Speaker 2 Fiverr.

Speaker 12 But then I had to put it in like the gold bucket.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Cooling tips.

Speaker 12 Pooling tips. Yeah.
You're in your. I mean, a few of them made it into my pocket.
I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 1 what percentage of you is really a psychic? Do you think some of you?

Speaker 12 I would say zero

Speaker 2 Do you believe in

Speaker 2 the potentiality of psychics at all? Or do you think it's all just?

Speaker 12 They creep me out. Like, I don't want a psychic to tell me what's going to happen to me.
I like to believe I have free will.

Speaker 2 You know, I don't want to have

Speaker 2 that.

Speaker 12 That just will give me nightmares.

Speaker 12 I saw one psychic one time and it still haunts me.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It will change what you'll do. The second they tell you something, you'll make a different decision.
That's what I feel. Like,

Speaker 1 you will do this and this. They go, okay.
They'll say, oh, random example. You'll get married within the next 10 years.

Speaker 1 So you meet someone and maybe you give them a different chance than you would before. You're like, I think this is the guy I'm going to marry.

Speaker 2 You know, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 It's weird. You change every little thing changed a little bit.
So you can't really get the same outcome, it feels.

Speaker 12 I went to a psychic in college. And my big question for her was, am I going to marry this guy I have a crush on? Because I was obsessed with him.
Am I going to marry him? I can marry him.

Speaker 12 She said, No, you're not. You're not going to marry him.
She said, But you're going to be famous one day. I said, I am.
I want to be an actress. I'm going to be famous.

Speaker 12 She said, You're not going to be famous for acting. You're going to be famous in the world of religion.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 12 She said, I was going to be a famous religious leader.

Speaker 2 Well, she had it with acting. She says, Here's a review.
Here's a review that I brought. Office ladies is a religious experience.
This was from the St. Louis Dispatcher.
No, I made that Dispatch.

Speaker 2 Dispatcher.

Speaker 2 If you want to have fun.

Speaker 2 You have a play, by the way.

Speaker 1 You've done plays. It looks like from your prep here, you've done plays, but you have another one coming up Ashland Avenue?

Speaker 12 Ashland Avenue, World Premiere at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Yeah, I'm heading out there in August for rehearsals, and then the play opens in September.

Speaker 1 Tickets go on sale in June on 27th. Now, doing a play, Dane and I were just talking about this before you came on.
Doing a play,

Speaker 1 is it more exciting or is it just something that I couldn't even imagine getting you wrapping my head around the full script that you have to memorize? Does that take days, weeks?

Speaker 1 Are you good at that?

Speaker 12 It takes weeks.

Speaker 12 I think I'm okay at it.

Speaker 12 Plays are my favorite thing. I was a theater major.

Speaker 12 There's no money in doing theater.

Speaker 12 but it's where my heart is. And what I love is that you get to tell the whole story and go on the character's complete journey every night.

Speaker 12 You don't have to like prepare it and then you shoot it out of order. And, and I also just love that it like it lives and breathes with the audience.
And each play can only be seen one time.

Speaker 12 Like each performance is slightly different.

Speaker 12 And you have it and then just like only the people who were there got to see it. It just is like really magical to me.
And I love it. It's all I want to do moving forward.

Speaker 12 I want to just be a theater actress.

Speaker 2 It's interesting. I've gotten more into plays the last 10 years, just in London.
I'm not an intellectual in New York and stuff. And it's interesting the curtain call.

Speaker 2 And then they stand and there's a standing ovation. And then you can tell by their body language how they felt, especially when they're walking off.

Speaker 2 Like sometimes they're slumping and sometimes you see someone literally. twirl around almost like we or high five females.

Speaker 1 You know that you saw one that had that chemistry like you said they're not always at that level that's why you have right they're like fingerprints dana you i think you'll agree stand-up is um you know i go on the road going mostly to places jenna lived but uh when i go on the road uh you do a show and everyone goes oh i saw your show i saw your show but you remember that city and you go oh that one went pretty well even though it's just microscopically different yeah but you know sometimes you get off and you go i could not get it going perfectly and some nights you're like from the second i went out it was perfect i said everything right.

Speaker 1 I had the right attitude. And so plays are like that, where whoever comes is going to see that night's experience, and it will be a hair day.

Speaker 2 The audience is the partner in many ways. Is it comedy? A drama,

Speaker 2 or is it a pure drama?

Speaker 12 It is a comedy, but it will also break your heart into a million pieces. So, what it's about is

Speaker 12 it's about a guy who owns an old

Speaker 12 TV shop in Chicago on Ashland Avenue. And he's a guy who used to have a dozen TV shops in Chicago, but you know, mom and pop shops have gone away for the big box, you know, places.
And so

Speaker 12 and so he's being honored by the city of Chicago for being a small business owner. I play his daughter.
And basically it's a play about this man dealing with

Speaker 12 being in his 70s. And basically life is kind of telling him, we don't, we don't really need what you have to offer anymore.
He's like dealing with his own relevancy.

Speaker 12 Like the thing that he's good at is owning this TV shop and selling people TVs. But it's like, man, you know what? We don't need that anymore.

Speaker 12 And so what do you do with that when the world is kind of done with your skill? And so it's kind of heartbreaking, but it. it's also a comedy.

Speaker 12 And then as his daughter, who has grown up just being in this TV shop as well, and it looks like it's going away, away.

Speaker 12 Like, I have to decide, well, I'm kind of getting a chance here to do something else with my life and strike out on my own. And what does that mean to me?

Speaker 2 Do you, do you feel like they, uh, the audience is obviously they're familiar who you are from the office and then they want to come see you. And so, how different is this character compared to Pam?

Speaker 12 This character is, is different from Pam, for sure. Um,

Speaker 12 and that's something like, you know, know,

Speaker 12 that's my whole career since Pam is that most people just want to see more Pam.

Speaker 12 It doesn't totally bother me.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 12 I think I'm going to be, I think you'll be able to go on this journey even, you know, I think it'll be okay.

Speaker 2 I always say, you know, because

Speaker 2 an audience, I'm doing stand-up, they do want to see characters that I did on SNL. And I just totally,

Speaker 2 of course, I'll do them. They're my hits.
The only thing worse than not, than having hits or a hit show is not having a hit show. So

Speaker 12 there it is. That's right.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So it's a good problem to have.
And I think that from reading your prep, guest prep, you know, you've just done a lot of stuff since the office. So it certainly was a starting point for you.

Speaker 2 Do you still just love it? Do you just love performing?

Speaker 12 Like, like you used to do. I do.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 12 I do. I do.
You know, I think I'm a mom now. I have two kids.
And one of the things that was really hard, though, was

Speaker 12 just the amount of focus and frankly, like self-involvement that is necessary to be an actor or a performance artist.

Speaker 12 You know, but it's true. Like, like you, you, you don't want to go all the way into narcissism because that's a real bummer.

Speaker 12 But there is a, there is a type of selfishness and self-involvement that is necessary for being an artist because that's how you create. That's how you get in the space to create.
And,

Speaker 12 but that is, that lane is not compatible with the kind of parent I want to be.

Speaker 12 I want to be a, you know, a kid-focused, kid-centered type of parent.

Speaker 12 And so I have changed the things I've said yes to or the things I do acting-wise since I had kids, mostly so that they were, that they were kind of like more softballs, you know, like things I could do without getting too dark or self-involved or selfish.

Speaker 12 Things that I could completely leave at work.

Speaker 12 I wasn't bringing anything home with me that was going to like bleed into their lives.

Speaker 2 Oldest time, old as show business, all those kind of conflicts.

Speaker 2 And one thing that occurred to me recently, why it's sort of emotional or personal, like I have a lot of good friends who may be real estate agents or different type of jobs, but we are our product, our physicality, our voice, who we are.

Speaker 2 And so it's a personal thing. You're out there doing the play.
And if you're, if it's not going well, you didn't feel you had enough time to prep, it's just personal.

Speaker 2 So I think it is really common and difficult to balance the emotion with the family versus just how personal it is as a performer and artist. It's like.

Speaker 1 And when kids come along, you're just now suddenly it's their world and you're, you can't even help it. It just goes away.
You're like, now I'm lasered on this and I can't be like I was. You know,

Speaker 12 that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 That's like in part of your life where it changes.

Speaker 2 There are some people in showbiz. I think Beyonce has her daughter touring with her, who's like 12.
There are some people who just take,

Speaker 2 do that kind of lifestyle. But who's richer than me? That's different than giving

Speaker 2 your kids kind of a stable, old-fashioned lifestyle.

Speaker 12 Well, I remember I talked to a family therapist like early on because I like therapy.

Speaker 12 And I was talking about wanting to have kids and trying to figure out how am I going to balance that with, you know, being an actor. And she said something that really stuck with me.

Speaker 12 She said, well, there's kind of two types of families. You can have parent-centered homes or child-centered homes.
And she's like, and there's no,

Speaker 12 there's no judgment which one you want to pick. But in a parent-centered home, if you have a career, your children will orbit around you and your career.

Speaker 12 And if you go to a movie, you bring them with you and you have tutors and, and they sort of like just go into your life. She's like, but in a child-centered home, know,

Speaker 12 you center it around the children. And if you need to go do a project, she was like, imagine like your family is flowing like a river.

Speaker 12 And rather than diverting the whole river to the movie, you just, you take a little stream by yourself. You do the movie and then you rejoin the river later.

Speaker 12 But the goal is to keep the river.

Speaker 12 doing its thing. And I really liked that.
And I thought, yeah, I want to do that one.

Speaker 2 Could you, I don't know if you want to do it publicly, but could I get the number of that therapist? Or

Speaker 1 she gave us solid bullet points.

Speaker 2 That was a pretty good little help.

Speaker 2 What do you call that?

Speaker 2 An analogy, a metaphor? I know. It's one of those things.

Speaker 12 It was great. It was great.

Speaker 12 She also said, like, you know, something that's hard, though, is she said, when you, she said, when you pick the person you want to have kids with, she's like, you're going to want a person who agrees with you

Speaker 12 because there's nothing worse than one parent who wants a parent-centered home and another parent who wants a child parents, you know, a child-centered home.

Speaker 12 And then she also said, People who have grown up in parent-centered homes have a very hard time creating kid-centered homes because they're like, hey, wait a second, I'm the adult now. It's my turn.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 12 So it's

Speaker 12 right. Like you grew up like revolving around your parent.
And then if you revolve around your kid, you're like, when was my shot?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 12 I thought that was, it was just so much to chew on, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, the 60s was so different, you know.

Speaker 2 I guess it was a parent-centric, it was, you just were so much more independent. Like I was walking to school at age five, you know, and there were no helmets, you know, for sure.

Speaker 2 And so it's become very child-centric, you know. It used to be children should be seen but not heard.
And now it's adults should keep their mouths shut when we're watching, you know.

Speaker 1 And Dana, you wear a helmet now, though, when you go to the mailbox.

Speaker 1 But that's his own choice.

Speaker 2 That's my own choice.

Speaker 1 It's a fashion choice.

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Speaker 1 Jenna,

Speaker 1 two more things before we let you go.

Speaker 1 But one, I thought when you do a play, I think of this when I do stand-up on the road, when you do a play, I think what would scare me is you have to feel good every day.

Speaker 1 Like you have to go there and prep yourself. It sounds stupid, but to stand, to sit, to go through, to be fully alert for those two hours or whatever, that's kind of a hard thing.

Speaker 1 Does it ever even cross your mind or are you always just kind of popped to it?

Speaker 12 No, I mean, I have a bunch of like rituals and superstitions that I do.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, you do.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Do you guys? I have like, I have like a vocal warm-up.

Speaker 2 I have like a body warm-up.

Speaker 12 I have a meal that I like to eat because I know that it's not going to make me feel too full or too hungry.

Speaker 1 Or sick or anything. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 Stomachache. No, I'm definitely not experimenting with any kind of new food.
Yep.

Speaker 2 Yep. Do you have that?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, Dana and I were just talking last week.
Like before we went on stage, I get an eyelash in my eye once in a while. It happened last week again, Dana.

Speaker 1 And anything can happen right before you walk out and you're like, I can't pee. I can't eat.
I can't do anything. I have to feel good for the next hour straight.
There can be no distractions.

Speaker 1 And it's very weird because your life, you can always poke at your phone. You can look at this.
You can go restroom and you go this. And it plays even longer.

Speaker 1 And just to feel like you got a grumbly stomach or your back hurts or something, you're like, oh shit, can I do this? Do I call in somebody? You know, so weird.

Speaker 2 I had a shooting pain in my left leg, kind of inside my left leg. Like, and so all of a sudden my left leg was inoperable.

Speaker 2 I was playing in front of 2,000 people and I was, you know, and I'm like, okay,

Speaker 2 got to go with this, you know, incorporated into the act, you know, and then it worked itself out. What I was interested in also, besides, we all do that.
And I think it's great.

Speaker 2 You You have the certain show day prep. But the gentleman who is playing your father, what is his name?

Speaker 12 Fran Guinen.

Speaker 2 So Larry David was just talking about when he does, usually whatever he's doing. I don't know if he does stand up or whatever.
It's just the fatigue goes away once there's the audience, you know?

Speaker 2 And then I think in a play, you're holding on to him. He's holding on to you.
And that connection. can hopefully make the part of your brain going, how am I doing? How's it going?

Speaker 2 All that go away at times, right that's the electricity of it if you get so involved in the scene with your partner yeah that it feels exhilarating right when you know you're connecting and the audience is with you that's what you live for right

Speaker 2 yeah i mean that's the dope yeah of the the whole thing of live performance i mean that's the thing we're chasing that's the high you're chasing it right every time and even if your prep doesn't go as well as you want or you ate too much you still always have that that possibility of that happening.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes. And also, if they get something wrong, the audience doesn't know this.
They could misalign you cover form.

Speaker 1 There's little things that are like teamwork things that are fun to do that you get to the end and someone's like, hey, you saved me. I spaced out.

Speaker 1 And the audience doesn't really know what's going on, but you guys, you forgot a prop. There's little things that keep it alive.

Speaker 1 That's kind of the fun teamwork of it all, like in a show also.

Speaker 12 That happened to me during a show.

Speaker 2 The

Speaker 12 I did a show off Broadway and me and this other actress were on stage and we're only on stage for like four lines because we don't like each other. And we're waiting for the same guy.

Speaker 12 We like the same guy and we're waiting for him to walk in and break the tension. And he didn't come on stage.
He didn't come. He just missed his entrance.
And we're, and so I started.

Speaker 12 improvising, which then the playwright was like, oh my God, I can't believe people thought I wrote those lines. That was just like terrible.

Speaker 2 Improvisation.

Speaker 12 I'm like, what were we supposed to do? We're just sitting there. No one was coming on.

Speaker 1 It's an art piece if you sit in silence for 12 minutes waiting while they find the guy at the deli next to them.

Speaker 2 I like it when someone has silence their phone or is talking to the phone, and then the actor in the Broadway show breaks character. He's in some kind of clown suit or dresses a bear.
I don't

Speaker 2 kill you, motherfucker. You know, I don't, you know, just that clown suit.
It's

Speaker 1 Yeah. Now, Jana,

Speaker 1 my last thing for you is I like that when you auditioned for

Speaker 1 the office,

Speaker 1 Allison Jones, who's a casting director, we probably all three have run into along the way.

Speaker 2 The best.

Speaker 1 Said, dare to bore me. I think that's interesting.

Speaker 2 I read that.

Speaker 1 I like that. Because

Speaker 1 most people are trying to give you the biggest pizzazz of a lifetime in an audition.

Speaker 12 Well, I had been auditioning for Allison for about five years before the office i got my first speaking role on a television show it was spin city um the charlie sheen years

Speaker 12 and uh i had three lines as a waitress and then i would she would bring me in for other little things um

Speaker 12 and finally when it was time for her to cast the office, I had a good enough relationship with her that I could say, hey, Allison, do you have any advice? I really want this one.

Speaker 12 And she said, yeah, my advice is don't come in looking hot. Like don't come in all done up.
And by the way, usually the note was, okay, you're playing a pediatric nurse, but like hot.

Speaker 12 Or like you're playing a school teacher, but like really hot. So like usually the note was look hot.

Speaker 1 Mortician, but hot.

Speaker 12 But super hot. Like she's really, really hot.
And I'm like, okay. So she was like, don't come in.
like looking hot. Don't come in with a bunch of makeup.

Speaker 2 Overdone. Yeah.

Speaker 12 We want real people. And then she said, Uh, we're gonna have you improvise during the audition.
And my advice is dare to bore me.

Speaker 12 And I was like, Okay, great. So I went in and I read the scene.
And then Greg Daniels said, Okay, we're gonna improvise. I'm gonna just ask you some questions as if I'm a documentary filmmaker.

Speaker 12 Um, and I had that note in my head, and he said, Um, do you like being a receptionist here?

Speaker 12 And I just paused and I said, nothing.

Speaker 12 And then I said,

Speaker 12 no.

Speaker 12 And that's all I said. That's funny.
Because I thought it would be funnier to watch me think of all the things I wasn't going to say than to say any of them.

Speaker 12 And then also, though, she's like a deeply honest person. So she can't lie and say she does like it, but she's also not going to say any more.
Wow. And I I think that's what got me the job.

Speaker 12 Greg told me that's what got me the job.

Speaker 2 That is so cool. Dare to bore me.
That was dare to bore me.

Speaker 12 It was so scary. It's so scary.

Speaker 1 Because you want to just go for the fence. I know.

Speaker 12 It's so hard to just have restraint. That's like, for me, the hardest thing about acting is just

Speaker 2 holding inside yourself.

Speaker 1 So you really are working with people that are all doing it and it's so fucking funny.

Speaker 12 It's amazing. It's just an amazing, amazing thing to have been a part of.
It just, I still can't believe it. And just what it means to people too.
Like, that's so cool.

Speaker 12 I know that the office has gotten people through hard times in their lives. And,

Speaker 12 you know, once in

Speaker 2 long ago,

Speaker 12 I fell down a set of stairs in New York at Boudicon. It was during like an NBC event.
I was there with Fred Armison, actually. And

Speaker 12 I fell down this set of stairs and I broke my back in four places. Oh, geez.
And

Speaker 12 while I was recovering,

Speaker 12 I watched the Larry Sanders show.

Speaker 12 And it was like better than any pain medicine. So, like, the fact that I can, like, I can be part of something that is that for other people.

Speaker 12 Like, I know what it means to have a thing that like gets you through something. It's really cool.

Speaker 2 Wow, that's full circle because I believe that Ricky Gervais felt like he was influenced by the Larry Sanders show.

Speaker 2 And then he does the British office, and then you go to the American office, and then you break your back, and then you're watching Larry Sanders.

Speaker 2 I don't know where this keeps going, but there's something kind of cool about that.

Speaker 2 That was a show.

Speaker 2 Magic, we were both on it. Were you on it, David?

Speaker 1 We were on Larry Sanders. Also, we all worked with Greg Daniels,

Speaker 1 who is a shout out to him, who's a great writer, that obviously SNL.

Speaker 2 I remember when Greg Daniels and Conan O'Brien walked into the offices.

Speaker 2 and SNL, fresh out of Harvard, looked like they were sophomores in high school, little haircuts, kind of nervous, looking around. Yeah, great.

Speaker 12 And they were roommates. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I know. It's amazing, really.
And

Speaker 1 those SNL years you liked, it's like we were propped up by guys like that and and Bob Odenkirk and Smigel and Downey and Frank. Yeah.
There's so many good writers there.

Speaker 2 It's kind of nice when, and I'm sure you just do this.

Speaker 2 You're not trying to get kudos about it, but if someone says to you later, because not everyone is really friendly when you walk into an environment like that, and they'd say, oh, you were so nice to us.

Speaker 2 I go, really? I was? I think I was just like, how are you guys doing? Or something. But some people are like, more competition.
We don't need you. You know,

Speaker 2 it can be a little cold at SNL. No one's really telling you where you should stand or what you should even do.
That's what we learned.

Speaker 2 A lot of people are like, they didn't even know, no one told them anything, you know, about the show.

Speaker 12 and they just had to figure it out for themselves but anyway well it's an interesting environment i got to um be on the show as part of steve curl's right monologue once

Speaker 12 i remember and um

Speaker 12 and i was i mean again like i told you i'm a saturday night live groupie nerd and so This was, I don't even remember what I had going on. I got like 24 hours notice.
Do you want to come fly in?

Speaker 12 And I was like, yes. I came in on a red eye.
I was like anything. And to be in the bowels, to like get to be there for the rehearsal.

Speaker 12 And then how like, oh my God, it really does change from the rehearsal. That was nuts.
And just, it was so scary. And my line changed.
And then the cue card changed.

Speaker 12 And then how we went, all went into Lauren's office and you're like sitting on the floor, like waiting to hear like what things made it and what didn't. And I couldn't believe I was invited.

Speaker 12 I was like, I'm just the, I just have like one sentence in the opening monologue, but I was like privy to all of the inner workings. It was so awesome.
It is.

Speaker 12 And then that night at the after party, I,

Speaker 12 I held Lauren Michaels focus for 30 solid minutes.

Speaker 2 Whoa.

Speaker 12 And I

Speaker 12 still to this day, it is one of my, my best. like small talk moments ever

Speaker 12 because I'd met him many times.

Speaker 12 I had come and I saw when Christina Applegate hosted and when John Hamm hosted, I came as our guest and I would sit and I would run into him and shake his hand and all this sort of stuff. And

Speaker 12 but for whatever reason, at this particular after party, I

Speaker 12 got in a whole chat with him about how I like to prep for the apocalypse. And he was very interested in this topic.
And we spoke for like a solid 25 minutes.

Speaker 12 And I wanted to keep talking to him. I wanted to keep going, but I knew that I had to say goodbye.

Speaker 12 And I did it. I left at the right time.

Speaker 12 And I'm so proud of myself. That's it.
And now I never want to speak to him again. I will never speak to him again.
I will not ruin it.

Speaker 1 Six years there, I didn't get 30 total. It was,

Speaker 12 I'm telling you, I'll never, I'm never, ever want to run into him again.

Speaker 2 That was a good subject matter for him, something that he would be like, just doesn't talk about every day. You first have to make sure that you procure a fair amount of

Speaker 2 in the event of an apocalypse.

Speaker 1 I put Triskush.

Speaker 2 I mean, did he respond at all? I mean, you really talked about your preparation for the apocalypse like for 30 minutes straight.

Speaker 12 For a good amount of time, but then we also talked about the movie The Edge, which is my favorite movie. And, you know, it's a survivalist movie.

Speaker 2 I love movies where people have to survive things. I've seen it at least five times.
And that's a movie. We told Alec Baldwin that, that friends come over, relatives, oh, let's watch a movie.

Speaker 2 And once in a while, I go, have you seen the edge? They go, no. I go, it's just kind of a surefire, great

Speaker 2 entertaining film. No one can not lie.

Speaker 12 Dano, what one man can do, another can do.

Speaker 12 That's from the movie. What one man can do, another can do.
I'm telling you, that's gotten me through like big life moments. I love this movie.

Speaker 12 And so we talked about the edge, which ended up leading into survivalist stuff

Speaker 12 into prepping. And

Speaker 12 he was really interested in my currency plans. Like, what were my plans for currency during the apocalypse? Did I have gold bars? Like, and you know what? To be honest, I hadn't thought of it.

Speaker 12 I hadn't gotten as far as currency.

Speaker 2 That was shiny. It's funny.
When I was there in the fall doing Biden, just behind his decks, I saw this whole...

Speaker 2 duffel bag you know it's really big you know and then when he lets it go to the bathroom it was just all the survival stuff in there he goes by and he pushes a wall and it spins around and disappears out of sleep to be ready.

Speaker 12 He was influenced by my prep.

Speaker 2 Tony Hopkins had that line, right? What one man can do, another man can do. Is that Tony Hopkins? Yes, correct.
And Al

Speaker 2 Baldwin.

Speaker 1 That was Al Baldwin.

Speaker 2 Baldwin was great in that. So was Tony.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 People change names. Jen Jen was great on our.

Speaker 1 Jen Fisher. Does anyone call you Jen?

Speaker 12 No, no one's ever called me Jen.

Speaker 2 Well, get ready for it because we have a lot of followers. By the way, people may not know, we're on the same network.
It's almost like television now.

Speaker 2 So that's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 This is Jerry Duty for Jenny.

Speaker 2 And I, just for people who are watching this or might want to see it. So are you in a studio somewhere?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 12 I'm at your New York

Speaker 12 studios. Yeah, I'm here in New York this week.
And so I came into the New York studio.

Speaker 2 And are you and Angela usually in different places when you do the podcast and sometimes together or always?

Speaker 12 No, we're usually together.

Speaker 12 odyssey our company that we both work for um has a studio in hollywood and we usually record there in person together and you guys are all set up at home like you guys have cool setups but we sometimes go in person we've been going in person i i kind of feel like i like in person

Speaker 2 or something it changes a lot when i was uh doing s and o i was just in a hotel room doing it that's one of the advantages of this is that you can do it remotely if you know but david has a little studio

Speaker 1 yeah i just have this stupid mansion yeah um but jenna thank you for joining us tell angela hello and uh we appreciate your time

Speaker 12 oh guys i don't want it to end i love you i love you both i love your podcast

Speaker 12 this is so cool this was a highlight for me Oh, well, everybody.

Speaker 1 Well, that's really nice.

Speaker 2 I just enjoyed talking to you. I just find I'm not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're always sweet and fun and just like you would think.

Speaker 2 Podcasters, actresses, and all kinds of things you do. But if you do this, well, I think you do get a little more

Speaker 2 adept at doing it, you know, conversing and letting it go where it needs to go and asking questions. So usually we have a podcaster on, it's an easy show, you know.

Speaker 12 Yeah, right. Because you know what you're hoping to get when you're doing it yourself.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And it doesn't have to be electric every moment.
You don't have to push it. It just, it just is what it is, you know.

Speaker 1 So if we seem seem rusty, it's because we've only done 2,000 of these.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Ashlyn Avenue.

Speaker 1 Ashlyn Avenue is the play, and she's doing it in Chicago.

Speaker 2 In Chicago.

Speaker 1 Tickets on sale, June 27th. And it starts, what, in August, you said?

Speaker 12 I think a September 15th.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. September 15th.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much. Bye, sweetheart.
Very much. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 2 Don't hang up.

Speaker 1 This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all the stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Fly in the Wall is executive and produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.