Will Forte

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They turn from Teddy to Ted or from Willie to Will.

Right.

But how is Mary not Mare?

Mary not Mare.

Welcome back to Everybody Knows Your Name.

I am so, so happy to have my, well, the darling of my life here for today's episode.

And by that, I mean my wife, Mary Steenbergen, and not you, Woody, although you are a close second.

Mary and I thought it'd be fun to team up this week since our guest is someone we both know and love, and that would be Will Forte.

You know Will from Saturday Night Live, McGruber, The Last Man on Earth.

He's a tremendously gifted actor, writer, and comedian.

I know this gets tossed around, but he also is...

He's truly one of the sweetest, most thoughtful guys in the business.

And this time I need it.

Not so much the other times.

Anyway, so excited for you to hear them together.

Mary Steenburgen, Will Forte.

Is it already started?

Yeah.

The walk-in is the.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

This all counts.

Oh, great.

Okay.

So

one minute down.

Oh, wait.

We started right at 11, too.

Yeah.

I am five hours into my day, which is because a little baby girl woke you up?

No, I woke up earlier than that to go exercise this morning.

What was the exercise?

I did a rowing machine and it's all about my,

yeah, my, my morning schedule, which is riveting.

I'm, I'm on the edge of my seat.

So you, do you woke up?

I down to coffee,

wrote it up, and then

got the girls up and did the morning routine with them.

And, and then I'm the person who drops off Zoe at school.

She's at a

oh my God, school.

Yeah.

And they

say,

have the parent that the child loves less drop them off so it's easier for them to say goodbye.

I've never heard that.

No, Zoe.

It's that no school.

Or I'd be paraphrasing.

Yeah.

But that's essentially what I heard when I was told that I was the drop off.

Oh my gosh.

And did she fuss when you dropped her off?

No, she's now we're about a month and a half in.

So the first couple days are very

tricky.

I mean, you guys have

heart-wrenching.

And now we get to have a version of it with our granddaughters.

Oh, yeah.

The drop-off, you're the bad guy.

You're like, okay, although she loves, she does love school.

But then I don't get to do the hero part where I pick her up.

Right.

My wife takes that part.

So it's like, I.

Oh, thank God, mom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's just, we're not going to bounce all the way back, but let's bounce back to at least you and Mary meeting.

Did you on Last Men on Earth, did you, did you?

That's actually where I met her.

I met both of you for the very first time at the,

it was an award.

It was 2013.

Oh, Nebraska.

The AARP awards.

Oh.

And we were at the

red carpet.

And we met.

I was there for Nebraska and you guys were there.

You were nominated for

singing

the song for best song.

And I think you won, right?

You won for,

oh my God, I'm

that must have been Melissa Manchester song.

I'm not sure.

But I thought I met you at a screening of Nebraska.

No?

I just remember.

I don't think so.

Okay.

I just remember being blown away by how good that anyone that could be as funny as you.

And we can talk about it later, but you do make, you do, you make Ted jealous because you make me laugh so hard.

It's true.

Yeah.

He's not jealous of people who,

you know, are like...

Crazy.

Yeah.

He just gets jealous when people make me laugh hard.

Because there's nothing better than making Mary laugh.

You're the king.

You're the king and you're the queen.

Like in our

world.

Cheers is definitely my all-time favorite

show.

Well, maybe I should pause and not run over it.

Sink that in.

Sorry, what did you say again?

I said cheers is my all-time favorite show.

In fact, we were talking about it last night before the group that we were eating dinner with even knew that I was coming in to do your podcast.

We were just talking about how amazing it is that you can a show like that where you're just in the bar.

I mean, every once in a while you go into the office or you go into the

pool room in the back.

And

every once in a, once in a, once in a while, you go to, you know, somebody's like Carla's apartment or something.

And,

but like, you're, for the most part, just on that one set and it's riveting.

Like it's never boring.

You just, you, it's those writers.

I mean, obviously the performers, but,

you know, as I started out as a writer, so like just to, to, to be able to write stuff that's that funny and interesting and can and doesn't need all the moves to different locations and stuff.

Yeah, it's just amazing.

That was a hell of a group.

Well, I want to thank you for that little plug because you just satisfied the little cheers nod.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

Now, let's go back to you and Mary meeting as far as Last Man on Earth.

Did she audition?

Oh, no.

No.

No way.

We.

So, how did you know that was going to work?

Thanks for asking, Ted.

I was just, uh,

I was, excuse me, I'll be right back.

She, she was, we have the same agent, Joe Yao.

Yeah.

And, and I was, I knew this character was coming up and Joe pitched Mary.

And I was like, Mary Steenbergen would never do this.

I'm like, this, I wasn't even thinking that.

I just, and I'm like, do you think she would do it?

And she said, well, I can ask her.

And, and so that was, that was how that started.

We, everyone was just couldn't believe that that was even a possibility.

So we were very excited.

Well, what happened was she and I went to a screening room somewhere and they started screening the pilot.

And about,

I think maybe two to three minutes in, I leaned over and said, I don't care who the character is.

I want to do this.

Cause it was so.

It was a brilliant, it was so wonderful and so it's your cheers,

it is for me.

I did it for a whole year,

you have no, it, but it is my kind of humor.

It's so, well, cheers.

I was a massive cheers fan, so much so I married you, but I

know I thought it was it's it's so weird, and I do like weird, and I, it, it was so um

nine-year-old,

boy that it lives so strongly inside of me was so happy to be on that set every day for four years.

I mean, that was, it was, I look back now and it is a magical period, but it also was, it was, it was very

tough going through it just because it was

you did.

I had never really, I started out as a writer, but it was, I started acting before I had gotten too far up the writing chain.

So I didn't really know all the responsibilities that came with the, you know, being up at the upper level stuff.

And it was just a crazy amount of work.

So, so I would, I think I turned into a little bit of a crazy person.

I was definitely drinking too much.

You were very sleep deprived.

Very sleep deprived.

We almost did an intervention, not about your drinking, but about your lack of sleep and your fatigue.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, the drinking was more more just like you'd get to the end of the day

and

it'd be like midnight.

And I knew I had to wake up at six, but you're just, you've been going so hard that you, you're like, how do I go to sleep?

How do I go to sleep?

So I, you know, take a shot of whiskey or two and, and just go to sleep.

And then it became, you needed that to, that was just the way it became routine.

So, and then, then it became routine in other ways, which were

not great.

But anyway, he's very healthy now to all the people who love him.

He's doing just great.

Just morning drinking, I think.

Yeah.

It's just a little bit of that and a little bit of midday and brunch drinking and afternoon drinking.

Isn't that first cup of coffee like, oh my God, this probably is illegal.

It makes me feel so good.

Ted and I accidentally got locked in our bedroom the other night.

How did that happen?

It's too long a story, but it was pretty, we were intensely locked in there like we were trying we just spent about half an hour trying to get out and we couldn't get out and um i don't think we were stoned either but go on and and we were not worried about anything except we were we were frantic about tomorrow morning's coffee and how do we get to it

we figured somebody would find us around noon the next day but we wake up so early we're like what will we this was in your in your

own house

kind of iron sliding door things with you know ripply glass and stuff and so it has this an old-fashioned little thing that you had to turn but it somehow broke and we saw something scary on tv

and i locked us in and i thought i could open it but we

we couldn't and we were so freaked out about our coffee situation and then finally we McGrubered.

We McGrubered it.

I looked at it and I said, there's two screws here.

Let's fashion a screwdriver.

And we did that.

Fashion went out of my tweezers and we were off and running.

Yeah, we together, it took both of us.

Teds and we got ourselves out of there.

Now, how did this become a listener?

I'm going to go back to you.

When you said that

Last Man on Earth was Mary's Cheers, it literally was in that

camaraderie of the group, the laughter, the funniness, the right upper alley sense of humor-wise.

But the fact that how many years later, we can't wait to have game night or travel with you.

Olivia is like this dream boat that we adore.

You know, so that comes out of four years of something very special.

Let me put it that way.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I loved, I loved everyone on that show.

That was such a great cast of wonderful, crazy wackos.

And

it was just, it was so

we, the, the read-throughs, and this may be a failing on your part.

We never got the scripts ahead of time.

So the read-throughs,

literally, the pages were hot when you would get them.

And you, it was a cold reading for each of us.

And I would get so tickled.

during the read-throughs that I had to wait a few seconds to compose myself before I could continue.

I remember specifically one time when it was revealed that your middle name was Tandy and

that we were going to call you Tandy from then on.

And

I don't know why, but that just set me off for quite a long time.

She's a terrible giggler.

He is.

He knows that.

Oh, yeah.

And you're not.

You're a very serious five person.

You're a non-breaker.

Yeah, I never saw you break.

I never did see you break.

But the one she talks about the most was you tuning your guitar to sing a song for the group, and you tuned it for probably two and a half minutes airtime, right?

Yeah, your character, Tandy, took a long time to tune that guitar to play this song you'd written called Closure.

Yes.

And then you launched into it, and all you did was rap the guitar with your knuckles.

You never played it.

Never touched the strings.

And that, that, like,

I, I remember us filming that and me like trying so hard to at least make the camera was behind me.

And I thought, well, just don't shake your freaking shoulders and maybe you won't ruin the scene.

And then finally, I've started bargaining with you to get out.

I said, couldn't Gail go,

you know, pour herself some wine and

be not be in this scene, you know?

But

the biggest bummer about the.

the tuning is, yeah, we, ideally, if, if we were on a, like a streaming platform, we could have played the, because it was, that was one of my favorite things was just taking forever to, to tune the guitar and then never even strumming anything, just using it as a, as a drum.

But, but then, you know, on Fox, you have to edit it down to 21 minutes, 39 seconds and 18 frames or whatever it is.

And, and.

You'd try to keep a long version of the tuning in as long as you could.

And then you're like, you just got to, it would, you would have to, you would have to take little bits of time.

And then soon it was just like 10 seconds when ideally it would be two minutes.

Oh my God, it was so great.

That was that.

Yes, that was.

And it was usually my fault for the scripts being in so late.

But it was just, it's crazy because like you're,

it is the amount of, you know, what

they're like, oh, you need to edit this at the, all at once, it'd it'd be, we need to get a, a cut of this in.

Writers are waiting to finish the outline.

You have to do music.

So it's like, there are three things that all need to be done right now.

How do I, how do I do it?

So something would, that's why I would always have to stay up super late because there just wasn't enough time.

So somebody was always waiting around for me.

But I will also say that when you talk about this special group of people, like all this, I was driving myself crazy and getting very little sleep, but the stuff that all made it really fun was just when I'd go, get to go down and just have the day acting with all you guys.

That was the, just the really fun part that got me through everything was just like hanging out with you guys and, and

getting that, you know, it was a little family we had.

Our obviously our

cast, but then that crew and just, you know, Mary and Kia and Curtis and Sandra.

And, you know, it was just a delightful group we got to be with.

I've never heard, just, you know, any stories coming home with Mary about you being grumpy, for real.

About you being tired and exhausted and having terrible flatulence, but never

the flatulence was

a whole other story.

That was.

That was a good morning, Mary.

It was,

it felt like your weird way of giving me a tribute every day.

That was, there was, now, I don't remember exactly how we started it.

I do remember it from my.

From your butt, dude.

It was started from my butt, but like there was a challenge

where, where it was, it was, I think, even a challenge.

At some point, I had farted and I'm like, I'm so sorry.

That was,

you know, it's, you're, you're tired.

You're snacking all the time to

get energy.

And

I'd put on like 20, 25 pounds during the whole season.

But like you, that's, it goes in and to, you know, it's like exhaust coming out of a car.

You just got to go somewhere.

And, and you said, oh, don't worry about it.

The, you know, the, I don't want to out you here, but you said, you know, our family was big on farts.

You cannot phase me with farts.

And it turned into a,

like a challenge, like,

I challenge you to fart in front of me every day or something like that.

Or, or I can't remember who

instituted the challenge.

This is

the thing.

And so it was always very fun when I'd come up to Mary and just say, Mary,

I have to talk to you over here.

She knew what was coming.

No, sadly, I fell for it so many times.

It's embarrassing how many times I,

because you're such a good actor, in addition to great control of your butt, clearly.

But I fell for it every time.

And in your defense, it was mostly just audibly shocking, not, you know.

I didn't want to put you through the smell

side of it.

And you didn't.

I would take you there.

Usually, we'd get it out of the way.

It was like very perfunctory, very business-like.

Yeah.

And then we'd get back and get to work.

We would.

PG farts.

PG farts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you'll be happy to know that, like, I'm, I'm eating better

and farting less.

I'll verify that with Olivia.

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At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

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hey while we're still here on this before we go backwards in your life

was it bizarre and did you get a lot of feedback from fans that the end of

the

story,

you're leaving people hanging because you didn't know whether you were coming back or not.

But the whole world shutting down because people, no, being wiped out because of a virus that started in what year, 2020, in your story?

Wasn't it the exact same time

that COVID started as far as dates?

It was.

There were a lot of things we got pretty close.

You know, I look forward to the,

I look at the Kristen Wigg episodes where, you know, each time we'd bring in a special guest, we'd jump backwards in time.

And with her, we would see the virus kind of slowly creeping in.

I guess we'd see that with everybody, but with her, there was...

the you know the moment where everybody's walking with masks on the street which now you'd look at and it'd be like oh yeah but not not not a huge deal.

That's the way it was.

But back then, it just seemed like, oh, this is over the top.

And then she had to go shopping and she made her own,

you know, her own basically PPE

gear.

And,

you know, we wrote it as a joke.

She's in a bunch of garbage bags.

And then you saw in some of those hospitals,

that was kind of what they did.

So

it was very interesting.

And there are even people that I've talked to.

Like, I went to a high school reunion the other day, and this guy came up and said that his brother, who I also went to high school with, and

brother's friend, think that I have something to do with the virus.

Like,

they actually do believe this.

It's not like a fun thing.

Oh, wow.

They are convinced that I am, you know, was part of this conspiracy to bring about the virus, which is,

I guess I can come out and say I did not have anything to do with this virus.

This was just a,

yeah, a fun little show.

Crazy world we live in.

It is a pretty crazy world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I recommend everyone go back and watch this, you know, binge it again or see it for the first time.

It really is

unlike any other show.

And let me say, give you more compliments on this, that

Mike Schur,

who is a fan of yours, but Mike Schur created all these wonderful shows, including The Good Place.

And The Good Place was kind of far out and different

than any other show on TV.

And he credits watching.

Last Man on Earth and going, oh, wait a minute, on network TV, you can take an audience to a new place and it's okay.

So you did have an impact on him.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I was at SNL when he was there.

I mean, he was just the smartest.

He's so smart.

So, so funny.

So smart.

Northern California, born and raised, right?

Yep.

You guys are

both named after your dad.

Sorry to interject.

I see you're the fourth.

So you were named after your

great-grandmother.

Forte the fourth.

And wait, you're Edward Bridge.

You're the third.

yeah

yeah it doesn't have the same

weight behind it that it did in the 50s but uh now it's just annoying have you been ted your whole life were you teddy yeah i was teddy i was teddy yeah please when did you switch to to ted from teddy I i was I think I was always introduced myself as Ted, but my mom, who loved me, called me Teddy.

And so my childhood friends all called me Teddy.

But yeah.

It's interesting that like

when

men get to a certain age,

they turn from Teddy to Ted or from Willie to Will.

Right.

But how is Mary not Mare?

Mary not Mary.

Well, I do get

called Mare a lot.

But you went from Mary Nell

to Mary.

I was Mary Nell.

That's my middle name.

Oh, I know.

Oh, you know.

Okay, here's my question, a kind of broad question.

How, how, looking back at those early

pre-teen or early teens, can you spot or see that Will or Willie

as

you saw that, could you see, sorry, that you would someday be Will Forte, Saturday Night Live, Last Man on Earth.

Where did you, when did you start to go, oh, I'm funny, or let me make use of funny?

When did you become that person?

I was always energetic and loud.

And I was very

extroverted and would, would have no problem with

doing things that other people wouldn't do.

Like if you dared me to do anything, I would do it.

And

I don't know that, and I was, I guess I was funny, but I don't know.

But back then, I was a huge fan of comedy and I would watch a ton of comedy and you would think, oh, that'd be fun.

Oh, these people get to do that for a living.

But it just seemed so far away.

You know, you're like, oh, but I'm going to do whatever I do, you know, but, but wow, what, how about these people who get to do that?

And I was just a fan of all that comedy, you know, grew up watching those early Lettermans and big fan of SNL, obviously, and Monty Python.

And Steve Martin was my hero back then.

And,

just all the SNL casts, just everybody.

So I went to UCLA.

So then you're down in the area, and you're still, you're thinking, oh, this is,

you know, this is just something other people do.

You know,

I also wasn't in drama class, theater class.

I was just a history major.

But every once in a while, I would have friends who were trying to act and they would

like say, oh, we're,

I have to

go in an audition.

They said to bring a couple of friends.

So then I would go, I'd be one of the friends that you would pick, and then I'd go and I would get the audition.

And then I went on an open casting call for a Coke commercial once.

And I got the, and I booked, so I was two for two for commercials.

And then I was just thinking, oh, I mean,

maybe it just kind of happens like that.

i'll just be walking down the street and somebody will

discover me it's like that doesn't happen for schlebby you know 19 year olds so so it's after as i graduated from college

that was i was trying to do what my dad did at first and i was working at this uh

this brokerage firm cold doing cold calls for for this guy and uh Bret Satchilev, who

is a delightful man, but but I was just realizing, oh, this is not making me happy.

And somebody had told me about the Groundlings and I just thought,

why not just take a shot?

That's, you know, see, see what happens.

And

that was

from the second I went to the Groundlings, I knew that I had found the right place and that I was doing the right thing.

Cause it was even even if no success had ever come from it, it was just,

I felt so differently being in that place.

And I was just happy all the time as opposed to hating life.

Did you develop characters before you went there and then did an audition with those characters?

Or how did you even get into the grandlings?

It's a, you do have to audition to go in, but it's, but it's like an improv audition.

So you, you don't really develop stuff.

It's funny because

I don't know anything about anything back at that time.

I mean, it's questionable whether I do know anything about anything now.

But back then, you just think,

I have to audition for this place.

I have to go through four levels of classes.

Can't I just go up to the

front of the line?

The final level.

And yeah, it's like, they must know I'm, you know, and, but it's

how, how little I knew about the process and every single step of the way, I needed that process.

And you're learning all these different things.

And I had never been on a stage really before.

I had, you know, one

scene in a drama class, my sophomore year of high school.

And then

I emceed a talent show my senior year of high school.

And that was it, basically.

So,

but then, you know,

I think like, oh, I can just go straight to,

I don't know.

So anyway, I went through that process and loved it while you were still doing your day job though I read that you wrote a script a film script so writing was our well I

while I started at the Groundlings I started also trying to write and I was writing with this uh really good friend of mine and Blendon at the time Hutchinson now

and uh

and I started writing stuff while I was at the Groundlings and then

one of the

things got an agent through these things I wrote, who's still my agent, Matt Rice, who I went to UCLA with.

And then one of the sketches that I wrote at the Groundlings got me a job at the Jenny McCarthy sketch show.

So that was my first

job.

That happened as I finally made it into the performing

company of the Groundlings.

So I'm starting to perform and writing on the side.

And then I went to Letterman, got to write for one of my heroes for nine months,

came back and started working on sitcoms, the Army Show, this show called Action,

and then went to

Third Rock from the Sun, and then 70 Show from there.

And during that period, right before Third Rock from the Sun, I had written this thing called

Dos Hermanos,

which was about these two

dipshit brothers.

And then when 70 show,

when I was still performing at the Groundlings during hiatus periods for the sitcom and got the SNL job and Carcy Werner, my bosses

for

70s show, said, we'll let you go, but you have to write a movie for us.

Wow.

I was like, oh my God, that's great.

I get a,

this is

that didn't seem like punishment at all.

And they they said,

what, what about turning Dos Hermanos into a movie?

So I worked my butt off to to

write

that

up into a script.

And then it turned into the brothers Solomon.

Right before you came, we watched the trailer and dying to watch it.

That's a

was it received well?

It looked very funny.

I don't know that I've ever done anything that was received well, except for Nebraska.

Right.

And Last Man on Earth, I feel like was received from Magruber.

Come on.

I mean, Magruber is, to me,

my favorite thing I've ever done.

It's, it's, uh,

it sounds weird because, I mean, Nebraska is right up next to it.

I've been to have gotten a chance to have done something like that.

Like, endlessly grateful to Alexander Payne.

And there's, it's like,

it's apples and oranges, but, but there's, there was something about that magruber movie that we just

somehow loved very dearly and we were very proud of um

and uh

because brother solomon was

an experience the first experience i had so i didn't know when to you know you try to pick your battles and and just that was an experience of like losing control of something and

and it just kind of turned out differently than you thought.

And then, but Magruber

was

Lauren

really like just protected us and built this wall around us and said,

do, you know, basically do whatever you want.

And, you know, the people who let us make the movie, you know, Lauren and then the company that let us do it were very good about just letting us

make all the decisions.

And we had to fight for some, but usually they let us win those things.

So this was,

you know, something that

we we actually got to control pretty much from beginning to end and certainly there were things that we wish were a little different but they but like budgetary stuff where oh you can't do this so you got to

do

this instead and a lot of times those

you know some of those changes that we were forced to do were things that we think probably were even better than what we would have done had we had a bunch of money.

So so, but that, that was why it's such a great experience because it's like,

you know, it's, it's tough when something,

when you

cave in on things

and then the movie comes out and it doesn't do well.

And you just think, oh, what could have been?

But this was one it still didn't do well, but it didn't.

It was like, oh, there's such a different feeling when you know that the movie was exactly what you wanted it to be.

Yeah.

When it doesn't do well, you, you really can kind of rest.

um

it's your it's your child it was completely your yeah yeah

can we go back to uh

nebraska yeah because i knew you uh not knew you but i knew your work before nebraska

so i was first kind of startled that you were in it and then i was right

as were we all but but blown away by how effortlessly really really good you were you were

amazing naturally to me it's so nice I mean, you're very talented.

I see.

You were amazing in that.

And actually, it's a great movie.

I love that movie.

Bruce Stern is so magnificent in that movie.

Everybody is.

And your relationship with him off-screen was pretty important for you at that moment, too, right?

Oh, yeah.

I mean,

no, I mean, I made a joke.

It was a terrifying experience because,

I I mean, it's hard to go from the groundlings to SNL because you're,

you know, faces you make on stage, you probably

ham it up just because you're trying to get it across to people in the back row.

Well, at TV, you got to learn to like, oh, you can be a little more subtle with that stuff.

So you're constantly learning.

And then you, you get to the end of

SNL and you're like, okay, I think I kind of have this down.

And then, and then it's like, you get a shot to be, you know, okay, let me, let me step this out just a teeny bit more.

If that's our, no, I want to know how you got it and what that was.

So the end of SNL was we had in 2009 made

Magruber

at the end of the season, 2010.

The end of that season, the, the movie was coming out a week later.

So the movie came out and just shit the bed, just did tremendously badly.

And

it was tough for a couple of weeks.

And then me and John and Yorma, the, you know, my other buddies who made the movie,

we all made the movie together, they, we all just got together and said, you know, we're proud of this thing.

Effett, there's no,

you know, at some point, let's,

we got to try to do another chapter of this.

And whether it's on our iPhones.

or whatever, we just got to, we can't let this be the end of it.

And

then over the next couple of weeks, I just realized

i with the help of my agents and manager they said look you can go back to snl

but like you're not gonna get to make another snl movie that's just not gonna happen so like at some point you're gonna have to leave um

we think this is probably a good time to leave and i'm like right

after laying a major egg at a in the movies.

And they're like,

yeah, we think, I mean, it's always going to be,

you know, you're, you're just going to have to do it at some point.

And it, it started making sense.

I was, I had just turned 40.

And I thought,

yeah, okay, I guess, I guess they're right.

And I, I wanted to be closer to my, my sister had just had her first kid.

And, and so I decided to

leave SNL.

Lauren was awesome about it.

And

he's fantastic.

And, and,

and, but the plan was like,

try to just see if you can get small supporting parts in comedies and see if you can kind of make your way back up to a point where you could maybe get a kind of a bigger role in a comedy movie.

And so, for, so I

just didn't do anything for about a year and a half.

Um,

and then Adam Sandler and Andy Sandberg reached out about being in That's My Boy.

And that was a thrill because I was like, you know, there was part of me that was like, I may never work again, which was fine because I love writing.

And so I was thinking I can go back and write if I'd need to.

But there's part of me that wanted to act.

For sure.

It was really fun doing it.

And

so that was a big deal when they gave me that job, that that meant a lot.

And that gave me a little, a little hope.

And then right after that, Akiva was directing the movie, which became The Watch.

And

they, I got to do a part in that.

So that was also a big deal.

And then it was like, okay, I'll just try to keep doing some kind of small supporting roles.

And then this Nebraska came up and it's like, all of a sudden, sudden, I got a chance to be in a movie that was kind of more on the dramatic side and be one of the main people.

And it was just came out of nowhere.

It was

something I thought would never happen or take 30 years to do.

And it just, I mean, it was,

I still don't know how it happened.

And I thank my lucky stars.

It was just out of nowhere.

I would have never expected it.

I still,

I mean, everything in your life kind of makes sense when you look back.

But at the time, it was like,

this is going to be taken away from me at some point.

Like I, up until even after the first week of shooting, I'm like, are they going to bring in somebody?

Are they going to fire me and just reshoot the first week?

And then by the time we were like halfway through,

I started feeling like they were too financially invested to turn back.

But like that whole experience was just terrifying.

Like, like, you know, I mentioned having to retrain yourself to make faces on us, you know, more subtle faces for SNL.

And then, then I got to do this thing I've never really done before

with for one of the best directors

out there.

And with Bruce Dern, it was terrifying.

So, so, um, you know, Bruce Dern just was

the best.

He was a constant

teacher.

He wouldn't say, hey, do it like this.

He would just say, you know what, it's all about.

He'd just say little, little

things like, hey, just, you know, you're looking for the truth of the scene.

That's it.

Or, you know, just be honest.

And a lot of, a lot of times I would, in the early going, I'd go like, sounds like some, you know, mumbo jumbo

acting

philosophy stuff.

And, and it really sunk in in later that it was like, oh, that really is kind of all it is.

It's like, that's what you're doing for any acting.

Like, even for the, you know, weird, absurd comedy stuff, you're like finding whatever the truth of that particular character, that crazy, zany person is.

Well, for this, it's just like, oh, you're trying to like

authentically be

this

more subtle person.

I don't know.

It all made sense, but more than anything, he just

would tell me all these fun stories, and we became friends, and that relaxed me.

And he was just a

very

giving

person.

And I mean, everybody on that set was, but like, he's, I'm spending every day just in a car next to him, and we became tight.

And you know what?

I haven't talked to him in a while, and I think about him all the time.

And this is reminding me that I just want to reach out to him because he was, it was a very special relationship.

I saw June Squibb, my mom, from that.

I went to dinner with her now a couple, a couple of months ago now,

but I really want to reach back out to him because he, I mean, that was, yeah, that was the experience of a lifetime.

He's kind of an actor's actor.

He's really is.

You know, everyone respects.

Yeah.

His daughter is one of our dearest friends and the best.

And we're the godparents to her son so um yeah they're they're all special people her mom is uh

well

um

so

you know that was that was a great person for you to encounter because he knows what he's talking about and he's not he's not pretentious about acting he's just

really yeah

such a great truthful actor both of them diane ladder and bruce you know they're both come from that

tradition where acting is genuinely a noble profession and they care about it and take it very seriously.

Oh, yeah.

No, oh my God.

He has the best stories.

They're so fun to listen to his stories.

And Laura actually came toward the very end.

I think she came a couple of times, but at the very end,

you're at the end of the shoot and

so

the end of our production schedule.

All the acting scenes and the dialogue scenes are done.

And the end of it, Alexander Payne had bought the RV from that Jack Nicholson drives around in about Schmidt.

So for a week

after all the dialogue scenes were done,

We got into the car.

Bruce and I were driving.

We simulated the road trip that we were doing in the movie, driving from

Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska.

And

they followed us.

They mounted a camera to the front of the car on a crane, and they just followed us and would pull up next to us and just film us.

for this whole time and just grab these beautiful scenery shots.

And this was the best way to end this experience because you've become friends with all these people, and all the pressure is off, and you just got to enjoy these people for a solid week without any stress.

And we're stopping in a new place every night, and you're just making this beautiful trip with these wonderful people.

And Laura was part of that, that journey.

So, we, it was a really amazing way to end that.

That is cool.

Yeah,

yeah, very cool.

And you are not going to to believe this.

I did not fart in that car even once.

You know?

So

I can analyze what this means about me and what that means about Laura and Bruce and how you've hold me.

I'll think about it later.

I'm going to think about it too.

That trying to make my wife laugh with your farts.

That's just, by the way, I do the same.

Do you know what?

I would not, if I was in a car with you.

Yeah.

Don't say, don't say you wouldn't.

Unless given express permission, I would not flatulate in a car.

Will

that's such a lie?

I want any person that I part around to have an escape zone, unless it is like my sister.

I want her to stew in it.

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I've been on the road, so basically I've been eating in restaurants for the last month.

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Okay, we're going to jump around.

Let's talk about, this is me, and this is probably, shouldn't even say, but it's like when I met you, I went, oh, I'm not sure he'll get married and have kids.

And then you get get married and you have kids with the most brilliant woman, and it was the most natural.

You know, I now look at you and it's like, I can't imagine you not married without kids,

but I still can't imagine you married to anyone else, by the way.

Yeah, that's true, other than Olivia.

You really, really did.

She is amazing.

Um,

and um, and she

totally adores and celebrates you and doesn't put up with any nonsense.

She's very patient.

Very patient.

She's amazing.

And we were honored to be at your wedding, which was in Albuquerque.

And I was so excited you came.

It was so much fun.

It was a

kind of surprise way.

Oh, yeah.

It was very last minute.

Well, look, I was, I had gotten to the point

late, late 40s, right?

i uh

i just thought oh maybe that maybe that thing that i've always heard that love is maybe that just doesn't exist like i've met met i've uh

did a lot of wonderful people but but it just i don't know it just maybe i was

bad timing bad whatever it just i just it would was never really the right thing.

And then I was just thinking, maybe it's just not out there.

Maybe it's, maybe it's,

you know, maybe I, maybe I won't have kids.

I always thought that I have kids early.

And then she came along and it just all of us, it's crazy how quickly it can happen.

Like it just,

it just was, you know, you hear how from people who it's happened to how easy it's supposed to be.

And, and that was just the way it was.

It was like, oh, this is, oh, it's not, I don't even have to, you don't even have to think about it.

It's like, oh, this is the person I'm supposed to be with.

It's so obvious.

And

I mean, sure, there's hard times throughout it, but like

it's just, there's never any part of me that's like, oh, I'm supposed to be with somebody else or not be with their, you know, so it's just like so natural.

And having these kids

is so,

it's the, it's the best.

I know.

Can you imagine now having your life without those two little girls?

Oh Oh my God.

It's nuts.

It's, yeah, it's, it's, uh,

it's just, it's, it's almost an out-of-body experience.

Like,

it's crazy.

You're like, wait, this is,

I created this little

angel devil.

Yeah, it's, it's crazy.

So it, it, uh, I, I got really lucky.

It's just another thing.

I'm, I'm very,

uh

I've just been, I'm a very lucky person.

So I, I,

you are very thankful.

You are.

We all are.

Yeah.

You all are.

Does it change your creativeness in any way?

Have you, now that you're a father or,

you know, happily married and all of that, does that,

is your creative process any different?

Is it less important, more important, the same?

Has it had any impact that way?

Well, I mean, you're, I'm more tired so it's harder to find times to do it because it's you everything's about your windows like okay now now it's i know i'm gonna wake up at seven in the morning every morning we're lucky that our kids sleep till then amazing yeah i know that's gonna happen and then i drop off zoe at school and i get home at nine and then and then usually my

daughter Cecilia, that's around her nap time.

So I know I've got probably probably an hour and a half there to get done with, you know, either exercise or

do some writing, but usually it's like just cleaning up.

It's everything's every window of time gets cleaned up.

So if then she gets up and then you're kind of with her until the next nap.

And then you have a little bit of time.

And then Zoe gets home from school and they're both up until you put them to bed.

So you, you're just in it until, you know, 7.30 or 8 o'clock.

And then you're, you're like, okay, I can write or I can go exercise if I haven't done that yet.

But you just are like, or I can do the dishes in the laundry and then sit around and watch TV because you're exhausted.

So it's, it's, I'm trying to, that's why this morning was the first time I'm like, I'm going to try a new schedule, try to get, be more

on task.

but like in terms of

uh has it changed my creativity in in terms of like do i want to do things that my kids can watch i don't really care

i you know by the way you can't never want to watch your stuff yeah we can't get our kids to watch our stuff exactly so you're safe she's it's it's really fun introducing her to new music but i mean yes it would be fun if i could do something they could watch that's great but you know at some point they'll be adults and they'll, you know, watch the more risque stuff and be

either way, they're going to be embarrassed of their dad.

And welcome to the harsh critic of his artwork.

There's no way around it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's funny.

Yeah.

She's, it's so fun getting into the

like introducing them to

I mean, introducing them into to anything is fun, but it's, we've been, she's really into the Beatles right now because I'm a huge Beatles fan.

And we're just getting her into it.

She's just hitting some Diana Ross stuff and loving, she loves upside down right now.

She's just upside down, you're turning me.

Give me love instinctively.

She's loving that.

And it's just fun, but it's also like, oh, there's an owl.

Or moons, you know, the moon, what's the moon all about?

Or it just, everything is just so fun to to look at the world through their eyes and go, That's right.

I didn't know what the friggin moon was for a long time.

And I still just kind of know it's up there and it affects the tides.

And I got to brush up on my moon.

Yeah, brush up on my moon.

It kind of makes me a smarter person.

It makes me realize just how little I do know.

Because when you have to explain it to a kid, you're like, Yeah, I know.

I've been taking a lot of stuff for granted.

I know.

They do open up the world to you, make it more intense and more

questions, more curiosity.

It's

really amazing.

Have you ever remembered?

I was at Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Do you remember that book where somebody goes back to, you know, all the way back hundreds of years?

You sometimes I fantasize, boy, if I knew what I know now, but I was living in the 1600s.

Can you imagine?

Then I realized, yeah, electricity.

Ah, sorry, no idea.

Gunpowder.

Nope, got nothing.

You know, it's like.

I mean, in a lot of ways, that's what Last Man on Earth was.

Yeah.

It was one of our things was like, what if the world ends

except for a couple of people, but nobody knows how to do anything?

Right.

Because

it's like most of my friends would have no idea how to do anything.

But yeah, it's all that.

That's my, it's Mark Twain, right?

I must have read that way back in the day.

But

yeah, I mean, I love thinking about that.

Just how do

dumbasses

come together and figure stuff out?

Or just, you know, my character had to perform surgery and emergency appendectomy, which she totally was completely.

Why, what, I can't even remember why I was chosen.

Was it because I was a chef?

You had,

I think you had like.

You

had to give somebody stitches.

Oh,

and you were.

And I was pretty good at that.

Yeah.

You were the, you just were like, oh, F it.

I'll do it.

You know, and so you,

you did it and you just kind of became, you were the closest thing to a doctor because nobody knew anything.

So you had to do it.

Yeah.

And

yeah, I mean, all that stuff.

Excuse me.

Cause I think back to like

caveman days and like, What would you do when you have a toothache?

Like now, that's the worst.

That's the worst pain, but you can go get a root canal and you back then what do you what do you do you probably didn't have to worry about it because your lifespan was about what 18 years old was that it was that no i don't know i'm making that up

hey could we switch i know you're uh and this i don't know when the podcast will come out and all about

and i know we're doing something together with you uh fundraiser oh yes like we did the you want to talk about

is it the boys and girls club of america boys and girls club i've for years and years,

gone to this fundraiser every year for the Boys and Girls Club of Venice.

My friend Katie Tucker was big up in

the organization.

And so we'd always go there and

to their dinners.

And then when I met Olivia, my now wife, she

was blown away by it and said, I want to get involved.

So she has now become

really instrumental in the fundraisers and and this gala

um and is raising all this money so last year you guys came uh to you were you we had such a good time you were the hit of the entire event um who wrote our material i wrote your material but you delivered it i mean but that was the joke of it was i was getting this this uh

honor for this

for my work with the boys and girls club of venice this was the conceit the conceit of it was that was not a conceit that was actual that was an actual you know i did get an award

i was honored

um but but you agreed to introduce me and so the conceit of the bit then was that you wanted to write stuff for me but i said no don't worry i don't want you to go you know put yourselves out um and you said no no it's not we you know it's no trouble we'll do it i said no no no I will write your speech for you.

And so, and then you, and then I seal it up in an envelope

so that you can't change it.

And we open it in front of the audience and begin to read what you wrote for your own introduction.

Discovering it as we go.

Yeah, which was highly insulting of us, actually, in its own way.

You didn't even mention our lovemaking or

your love making, something.

Hey, you you guys that was your introduction oh so you guys were so funny give a plug though what why why are you doing this tell me about boys and girls club a little bit

the real impact it has well i mean it is it just gives a place for for kids to go um

you know, in the community after school or, or it's, you know, it's, it's just amazing.

You can do sports there.

You can do art.

You can do music.

And it's just a place to go.

If kids don't have a place to go after school, it's a really great, safe place to go where these wonderful mentors are there looking after them and helping them learn stuff or just be with them.

And, you know, everyone who works there is

really impressive.

Fantastic.

It's such a great organization.

And it was such a fun night.

And it's such a great gala.

And the two actors in us dined off of that moment for the longest time.

Yeah.

It was good material.

It was really funny.

It was good material.

Talk about how funny you guys were.

It was great material.

Well,

hopefully we can catch lightning in a bottle again.

But this year will be really fun because Jason Sudeikis is coming out and Shawl is going to do something.

Oh, great.

Kristen Shaw.

And then a special surprise guest.

Really?

Where I'm not, I can't.

I'll tell you guys after, but I can't.

Surprise.

Unless this comes out.

When do you think this would come out?

Not before February, March.

Weird Al.

Weird Al is coming out.

Oh, right.

Oh, so I can say the whole thing.

So I'm in the process of writing that.

So I haven't written your thing yet because I

know that's just going to be in the envelope and that will be, you know, I can, I can do that after.

This is like going to have singing involved and,

you know, I just need to get the OKs on all this stuff.

Yeah, your stuff is like, you know, pretty, pretty

easy to wrangle.

So I'll, you know, probably

does not involve an accordion in front of Weird Al.

I am not.

No, it does not.

Okay.

It does not.

Unless you wanted to

do that.

I don't.

I'm a little curious why she mentioned it.

No.

Because I don't trust him.

And because you made me play the accordion a lot of times when I wasn't prepared.

What was the song?

Reformer?

Inform.

Reformer.

But it wasn't.

You know, daddy misnomi, I'm going to blame him.

I like it.

No.

Detective money says.

No, what is it?

Detective Manny says.

Oh, fuck it.

I forgot it.

But I could do it for the longest time.

I cannot believe that you remembered that

much of the song.

Well, that's the least of it.

I had to figure out how to play that on the accordion, and you gave me like 24 hours' notice.

Weirdo.

She You did cuss every once in a while.

I did complain about you a lot.

But the truth is,

you are a magical being, Lil Forte.

I have to say,

you are.

You are one of the most

bizarrely, like, you'll go anywhere.

You'll remove any part of your clothing.

You will shave half your beard and your eyebrows, and God knows what else.

I thankfully don't know.

Like, and we, and then we went to like the People's Choice awards and you had half a beard and only eyebrows on one side and half your head was shaved.

And,

you know, you're,

you will go anywhere and do anything.

And you are also

the person that has to say hello to every single person in the makeup trailer in the morning.

Then you don't leave the makeup trailer until you've said goodbye to each of those people.

And you're unfailingly kind.

And even though you're also unfailingly weird, you're

just one of the most remarkable people I've ever known.

And every single second I spent

working with you, I treasure.

I treasure it because you're just, there's no one like you remotely.

So there.

That's a good, that's a good outro.

That's amazing.

Taught that sucker.

By the way, no, all I will say is

one of the

great joys of my life has been

knowing you guys.

Like I look at you guys and you're, I tell everybody, you know, ask anybody, I say, coolest couple in the world.

I mean, you're the coolest individuals.

You remove yourselves from your couple,

from your couplehood, and you're the coolest individually.

And then together, you're just the best couple out there.

So it's a real, it's a real lesson to me.

Like, you know, before when I was like, oh, am I going to find the right person?

It was like that.

What I wanted was what you guys have, you know, and how you treat people and how, you know, so

and you did.

And that's what you're doing.

I got love.

Were you 40, really, when when you met her?

No, I was, God, I was 49, probably.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I was 40 when I met Ted, but I had said,

I guess I'm not good at love.

I guess I'm not good at this.

And I, I have two amazing kids and I, I'm, I'm done.

I'm done.

I'm good.

I'm not going to forget it.

And then that's when I met him.

So sometimes, like you almost described giving up, you know, that it's just not going to, I guess it's not going to happen.

Sometimes that's when it does happen, you know, but anyway.

Lovely is like some stuff, some stuff is, but, you know, it's just meant to be.

Yep.

It just, you know, you could,

I feel like,

you know, you hear about sliding doors.

And I've not seen the movie.

So I just, what I think sliding doors is, is like, you make one little choice and your life is completely different.

But I think there are some things that like, you're just,

the, you know, everything's going to work itself back to the same place.

It's like my, I went to a heart doctor the other day just, just to, you know, generally check up on it.

And he said something about like if your,

your heart, your stuff is pretty amazing in there, your veins and I don't know, he's, he's did a better job of describing this, but there's, it is amazing how if you have like a little blockage,

your heart kind of just finds another way around it and can kind of just, it's, you know, obviously people have heart attacks and stuff.

So, you know, but, but like, there is, it just reminded me of what life can be.

It's like, you just like, it's going to go to that place.

It just might sometimes arc around a little clot and get back in there.

I like that.

See, Mary doesn't know what you're talking about because she doesn't think about her body.

But I like that.

But you think about her body all the time.

I do.

All right.

Now, now we'll go out on that weird note.

Really?

No, we'll cut it right after he gave that amazing compliment to us.

We'll go cut.

Hey, love you.

Thank you.

Love you

for coming in.

Well, thank you in advance for coming to support the Boys and Girls Club and anything for you guys.

Thank you so much to Mary and Will for joining me this week.

I love you both in very different

but equally special ways.

That's all for this week's show.

Thanks to our friends at Team Cocoa.

If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to a loved one.

Just a reminder, you can watch us on YouTube by visiting youtube.com/slash teamcoco.

As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

That is, if you want to be on the right side of history, we can cut that later.

No, keep it.

No, cut it.

Cut it.

But maybe keep it.

We'll have more for you next week, where everybody knows your name.

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Dance and Woody Harrelson.

Sometimes.

The show is produced by me, Nick Leow.

Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself.

Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer.

Our senior producer is Matt Apodaka.

Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel, with support from Eduardo Perez.

Research by Alyssa Grawl.

Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.

Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.

We'll have more for you next time for everybody knows your name.

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