Alex Edelman

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Speaker 1 The laugh of an audience discovering that what they're watching is actually for them is a different laugh.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Alex Edelman is a brilliant Emmy and Obie and Tony winning performer and comedian.

Speaker 1 He currently stars in the paper on Peacock, which is is a spin-off of The Office, playing the reporter Adam Cooper. He's also part of the writing team.

Speaker 1 Just a couple of nights ago, Mayer and I watched Just For Us, and it's brilliant. I'm very excited for this conversation.
So let's get into it. Here's Alex Edelman.

Speaker 1 Some of the research

Speaker 1 includes, is there a connection between me and the guest? And this was no, no connection. But I beg to differ because we do have Boston in that you are the real deal.

Speaker 1 And I am just a major disappointment of the city of Boston. No, I am.

Speaker 1 I don't know if we can curse so early on this podcast, but that's such bullshit. You are so associated with.
You're such an ambassador for the city.

Speaker 1 Yes, but okay, you know, I'll give you Boston, but not the Red Sox

Speaker 1 because I made the bad mistake of saying, oh, no, I was always picked last playing baseball. I can't play baseball.
I know nothing about Boston.

Speaker 1 You must have thrown out a first pitch at Fenway Park at some point. No.
never? Never. And the reason is because they realize I'm just a phony L.A.
actor pretending to be a big business.

Speaker 1 But here's my question. If you were invited to throw out a first pitch at Finney Park, would you go? If you could do it underhand, my shoulder's fucked.
You can do it underhand.

Speaker 1 You can do it underhand. Seriously? Yeah, you can do it.

Speaker 1 You can toss it like a, like a, I'm sure you, I'm sure you could do it underhand. Wait, how's your, what, what fucked up your shoulder?

Speaker 1 Well, all right. Born without a chest muscle on my right side, more than you want to know.
But every time I'd go up a rebound playing basketball, some bigger guy would push my shoulder the wrong way.

Speaker 1 So by now, it's just kind of bone on bone. Well, you know what?

Speaker 1 I can help with the logistics of that because I used to work there, which I'm sure is in your notes. I knew.

Speaker 1 At age 15, though, right? I mean, I was even younger than that. But yeah, I grew up, I grew up, I was the biggest Red Sox fan in the world and I loved it there.
So yeah, I got to work there.

Speaker 1 It was the coolest thing on the planet. So you went there with your dad, the heart specialist?

Speaker 1 My parents didn't really like baseball.

Speaker 1 My parents, my father, once I brought him to a ball game and he brought Tom Clancy's Hunt for the Red October with him and sat there reading.

Speaker 1 And I remember going up to the commentator's booth and

Speaker 1 I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 He had good seats because they were the employee seats.

Speaker 1 And I brought my dad to the ball game as opposed to vice versa. And

Speaker 1 they're making fun of him on the air. I remember being like, there's a guy down there reading a book.

Speaker 1 Did you feel

Speaker 1 he goes into the stretch? And

Speaker 1 he leaned the other way to get out of the two shots. Oh, my God.
I was like, dad, I got to go work. But he would sit there, read a novel.
It was hysterical. Baseball, I like it, though.

Speaker 1 It was more of a background noise thing. It's a good day out.
It's a really amazing day out.

Speaker 1 And I'm still kind of a fan, but more than anything else, I just like to go to the game and, you know, hang with my friends or whoever I'm dating. It's like a delightful thing.

Speaker 1 But, all right, so we just took it for granted, granted, not at, you know, at age 15 or earlier, and no one took you to the game. So how did you...
I would just show up. I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 Were you bussable or walkable?

Speaker 1 I'm embarrassed to say this. I would rollerblade.

Speaker 1 I would rollerblade to the park, which is, you know, what a, what a.

Speaker 1 Why is that embarrassing? I don't get that. I'm impressed.
I don't know that rollerblades have

Speaker 1 aged in the mind as well as you'd want them to, but I was a little kid and I would rollerblade, and then I would stash my rollerblade somewhere, sometimes behind a bush near the medical center, and I'd walk with my stuff the rest of the way.

Speaker 1 But now you had to have money to get in. I mean, how did how before you became known in please come up to the booth stuff?

Speaker 1 How did you, how did this all happen? So there was a guy there named Al Mooney, who was, who is, who was a security guard, there was very, um, who was old when I was, when I was a kid, and

Speaker 1 sometimes he would leave his post

Speaker 1 and I could literally sneak into the ballpark through Al Mooney's abandoned post. And one day,

Speaker 1 actually, a couple of times in a row, he caught me and he got to know my face. And

Speaker 1 I was in trouble. And

Speaker 1 there's a woman named Colleen Riley who worked at the Red Sox, who I owe so much to because I think I was like 13, 12, 13 years old. And I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 She was was leaving Fenway Park wearing an employee badge and she was identifiable as a Red Sox employee. And I think she was going to lunch.
It was daytime. And I like went, excuse me,

Speaker 1 Al Mooney won't let me into the park. Is there any chance you would like give me a tour? I'm writing an article about for my school paper.
I just felt like pulled to Fenway Park.

Speaker 1 There was something like.

Speaker 1 you know, I'm not very woo-woo, but some places have a good energy.

Speaker 1 And Fenway Park has that energy. Maybe it's because it's got the, you know, like, it's, it's the, like, whole, it's the only place Bostonians can access emotion.

Speaker 1 So maybe it's got the entire, it's got all of Boston's emotion is in one little seating bowl. And this woman brought me to Fenway Park.
And I don't want to make, I don't want to tell a story.

Speaker 1 It's too long. I do.
Want you to. Not too long.
Just perfect. Okay.
But she gives me a tour. And

Speaker 1 she brings me up to the offices for a second before she's going to release me back onto the street. And she says, wait here, don't move.

Speaker 1 And she left me outside the office of this guy named Larry Lucina, who is the president of the Red Sox.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I went into his office.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, not being asked in. You

Speaker 1 left.

Speaker 1 And I was, I don't want to say the guy's name, but I went, you got to trade.

Speaker 1 It was a relief pitcher.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 I'll tell you his name later. It won't matter, but he didn't have a long career in the big leagues, but I went, you got to trade Persky.
He's killing us. He's got no curveball.

Speaker 1 He's more of a cheerleader in the clubhouse than anything else. The guy sucks.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 and Lukino went, first of all, he's a curveball specialist. Second of all, he's induced a couple of really important double plays.
Second, and third of all, who the fuck are you?

Speaker 1 And why are you in my office?

Speaker 1 And so Colleen comes back and she's like,

Speaker 1 Colleen comes back. And my, I don't know if I've ever told this story, the full extent of the, of the bad, of my own entitlement, but but Lakina goes, who's this kid?

Speaker 1 And she's like, he just wanted a tour of the park. And he's like, okay, hysterical.
Nice to meet you. And I went, give me your business card.
Because we had a whole bunch of,

Speaker 1 and he's like, what? And I'm like, give me your business card. He went, yeah, sure.
Here's my business card. If you have any questions or complaints, you'll send me an email.

Speaker 1 And he was kidding, I think, but I took him seriously and I sent him an email with what I thought

Speaker 1 were the five most important things that new ownership should know

Speaker 1 and to his credit I think he was tickled by it and him and this guy Charles Steinberg they kept me around

Speaker 1 and literally they just found odd jobs for me and then about a year later they called me they called me at home it was like you know and Charles went we're starting a kids newsletter and do you want to write it and so I wrote this kids newsletter for a couple years and then they actually started to trust me with one or two things i wrote some speeches press releases um this is like 2003 age

Speaker 1 14 15. that's down there so and you know the funny thing is that um

Speaker 1 Boston, I think a lot of cities in America are like this or were like this. It was like, it wasn't the biggest city in the world, which made it the perfect place to grow up.

Speaker 1 Meaning you could like, I could get home at midnight. My parents were kind of okay with it.
And also like,

Speaker 1 I wish there was a book about this, but like

Speaker 1 a lot was happening in this city. Like, it was weird.
It really felt like the center of the world. Or maybe that's just because I was 14 and 15.

Speaker 1 When you're 14 and 15, everything feels like the center of the world in a medium-sized city. But like, they had the DNC.
We had a Republican governor who was very well liked before Romney ran for.

Speaker 1 president. So Republicans would come and Democrats were there.
And Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen King lived locally and were sort of the centers of their scenes. And also,

Speaker 1 in a way that is just the way narrative works, the Red Sox were on this Sisyphysian journey of trying to win a World Series, which they hadn't done for 86 years.

Speaker 1 And people would come to Funway Park for these events, like, you know, Obama. I would remember like going into the owner's box and like, Obama's in there.
And like, you know,

Speaker 1 you know, the different Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote like a college recommendation letter for me because she was just always around she was a season ticket holder so I'd see her and her husband Dick Goodwin and it was just like a great place the world would come to you there's a professor named Charles Ogletree who was sort of at the center of like uh you know the the civil rights movement and scholarship around it and so like you would just meet people you would never otherwise I sat next to Justice Stephen Breyer at a game once for an entire ball game.

Speaker 1 It was the Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, because like they,

Speaker 1 I was sitting with, with my bosses, and these guys, they really saw something in me. And I learned a lot.
And I left, and I took it really seriously. I started,

Speaker 1 I assumed I was just going to have a career in baseball.

Speaker 1 And after we won the 2007 World Series, Charles Steinberg, who was my boss, called me into his office and he said, I'm going to leave and I'm going to go to the Dodgers and you should come with me.

Speaker 1 And I was like, what are you talking about? We just won the second World Series in four years. Incredible.

Speaker 1 It's an incredible accomplishment. And he went, there's only one way to go when you're at the top of the mountain and it isn't up.
And he was, you know, he left, went to the Dodgers.

Speaker 1 But the Dodgers was a,

Speaker 1 I guess if we're being candid, it was, it was not a fun time. And

Speaker 1 for him, for you, both.

Speaker 1 For both of us. The owner was a guy from Boston named Frank McCourt, who I just didn't like very much.

Speaker 1 And his wife, Jamie, was a little more, was more sympotico, but they got a really ugly divorce and everybody got fired, including me. In the least, in the, in the least noticed firing in history.

Speaker 1 Everyone else was like, they hired like 40-something people from Boston because they were Bostonians when they bought the team.

Speaker 1 And then when they got this very messy divorce, they had to sell the team and they fired all of the Bostonians except for two or three very nice people who were still there.

Speaker 1 And I went to the Brewers for one year,

Speaker 1 but my heart wasn't in it anymore. The last thing I actually did in baseball was pretty cool.
I went back to the Red Sox in 2013, the day after the marathon bombing, and Charles and I

Speaker 1 sat there and wrote the pregame ceremony for the first game back after the bombing, which is a really big civic event because David Ortiz cursed on the air. He said, this is our fucking city.

Speaker 1 And he did it live on ESPN. I remember being like, oh, no.
And my boss was like, it's fine. People will love it.
And he was right. But that was the last, like, my last year in baseball was 2013.

Speaker 1 And the Red Sox won the World Series that year, too. So I've always loved baseball.
Sorry, it's such a long story. No, no, no, it's not.

Speaker 1 And it also demonstrates something about you that I just found, even though my knowledge of you is very superficial compared to what I'm hearing coming out of your mouth, which is you have astounding curiosity.

Speaker 1 So just backing up a second, how did you get so curious and so bright so quickly? I

Speaker 1 had amazing, amazing people

Speaker 1 that gave me a break all the time at every step.

Speaker 1 But only curious people understand that a break is coming their way. I don't.
It's not, it's not,

Speaker 1 I do think there's a little bit of

Speaker 1 privilege in being, or a lot of privilege in just showing up. Like not a lot of people know they can show up.
And also not everybody's welcome to show up. And I think if you,

Speaker 1 but also I was really, a lot of people were really annoyed by me because they were like, I'm a 20-something-year-old employee working hard at a job. I basically had a kill to get.

Speaker 1 I'm making $38,000 a year because baseball employees don't make very much. And this teenager literally just comes walking through the front door and goes in the president's office.

Speaker 1 And they're like, well, keep him. But, you know, some people, so some people were not psyched, but like

Speaker 1 people like Larry and Charles and Colleen,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 and a woman who worked at the Red Sox, who still works works there actually named Sarah McKenna, like

Speaker 1 they literally were like, Sarah pulled me aside once. She's like, do you know how to shake hands? And I was like,

Speaker 1 what do you mean? And she's like, you just hold your hand out like this. That's not how you do it.
You have to actually like, they had to teach me to shake hands and like not look at my shoes.

Speaker 1 Like sometimes

Speaker 1 Larry Lakino had a friend named Jay Emmett, who is a long, fascinating history that would take a really

Speaker 1 long time. But

Speaker 1 he was actually at some point the president of Werner Brothers in the early days.

Speaker 1 He ran the company for the Werners. And

Speaker 1 Jay Emmett once

Speaker 1 pulled me aside and he went, kid, you look at your shoes like you owe them money.

Speaker 1 It was so fucking funny. But I mean, it was it was a hysterical, it was a, it was an amazing environment.
It was an amazing place to work. It felt like you were witnessing history.

Speaker 1 And also, I was watching an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary

Speaker 1 on the 2004 Red Sox. And I paused it and I'm like,

Speaker 1 that's me. Like, I paused, like, they cut to, they cut to a crowd thing at some point.
And there's a guy there, and he's got his hands like this. He's a kid.
And I'm like, oh, man.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, wait, shit, that's me. Like, I got to be around.
I just took for granted I got to be around all this stuff. But yeah, I mean, like, I have gotten

Speaker 1 good breaks. You know, Brian Eno, the musician, Brian Eno.
He's like, he's a big producer.

Speaker 1 He produced a, he's big on like minimalist music, experimental stuff, but he's also produced a bunch of like U2 albums, I think.

Speaker 1 And he talks about this thing called Senius, which is like the genius of a scene, like where a milieu has some genius. And,

Speaker 1 you know, you like in the sort of like midnight in Paris way that like everyone who's involved sort of catches accidental stray bolts of lightning.

Speaker 1 And, and like the Red Sox, there was a bit of seniors to that. After college, when I started going into comedy in New York and London, there was some seniors to that.
Like

Speaker 1 to, I guess, to answer the question, like

Speaker 1 It was just wanting to be around certain people and witnessing their competence and brilliance that made me just keep showing up.

Speaker 1 And when people are really brilliant and competent, they're not so insecure. And they'll just like give you some patience or leeway or education.
And like, I think

Speaker 1 they recognize kindred spirits too, I think.

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Speaker 1 I want to back up on

Speaker 1 talk about myself for a second. Please.
Because I shouldn't undercut Boston or, you know,

Speaker 1 say that I don't have any claim to it in any way. You know, cheers wouldn't, I don't think, have been cheers if it weren't for Boston.

Speaker 1 Baseball clearly was a huge part of it. Sam Malone being a relief pitcher.
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1 The fact that there were colleges, the fact that Boston is this kind of melting pot that didn't exactly get stirred perfectly, I'll have to admit, especially. 1000%.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I loved your opening line.

Speaker 1 Boston thing.

Speaker 1 Anyway, But

Speaker 1 Boston, and I was conceived at Cambridge. So come on.
Wait, what? Yeah, yeah. My dad was getting a PhD in archaeology, anthropology, and there you are.
No kidding. Yeah.
I did not know that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so Boston's huge in my life.

Speaker 1 When you were doing Cheers,

Speaker 1 did they ship you out there to MEC for promotional stuff? And

Speaker 1 a lot. And we'd shoot maybe

Speaker 1 one week out of every season. We'd go there and shoot.
No kidding, walking in and out of buildings, buildings, essentially.

Speaker 1 I mean, the cheers bar on the, you know, it was one of those things. John Finch.
Yeah, of course. It was one of those things that you, everyone's like, ah, no one goes to the cheers bar.

Speaker 1 And then you'd walk in and see those same people. You're like, what? Yeah.

Speaker 1 It kind of turned into a t-shirt shop. It kind of did, but it's a really, it was really,

Speaker 1 I mean, I remember I started watching it because I was a local kid. It was kind of the done thing.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 I discovered cheers backwards. I discovered Fraser first.

Speaker 1 And then someone was like, I remember falling in love with specific jokes on Frasier. I've always loved jokes.

Speaker 1 But like, there were a couple of jokes on Frasier. And then there are a couple of jokes on cheers that are like, oh, in the Hall of Fame roster of best jokes ever.

Speaker 1 Or even like,

Speaker 1 I was in the writer's room on a show and we were discussing the we will rock you thing. Yeah, wasn't that amazing? How do you even come up with it? Like, seriously,

Speaker 1 someone comes, does someone come into the writer's room and they're like okay so so someone starts banging their glass and then somebody else starts banging their glass and then everyone starts banging their glass to the bass you know what i'm talking about to the baseline or we will rock you yeah i mean like it's a brilliant small beautifully shot beautifully i mean jimmy burrows or something like that like yeah god damn it yeah amazing what was was it the angels some baseball team used it that clip during uh games to get people you know the stadium rocking.

Speaker 1 That's great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, truly amazing. So it was amazing, and I do claim it and love it.
The talent, the talent on that show in front of the camera, behind the camera. Yeah.
Right. Jimmy shot a bunch of those.

Speaker 1 Most, all maybe except 30 or something. You know, I was.

Speaker 1 Can I give one shout out? Bob Groeder, who was the agent,

Speaker 1 manager agent of Lesson Glenn Charles and Jimmy Burroughs.

Speaker 1 The three of them created Cheers, and he just passed away a couple days ago did he he was the gentleman at the very end the last scene of cheers when somebody comes to get in and sam turns and says we're closed that was bob broder because they figured it would break his heart the most financially um anyway that is he was an amazing guy and i just wanted to say much love to the family and all that those those writers were like yeah i i i

Speaker 1 my first the first show i ever worked on was a show on cbs called the great indoors it was one season but it shared a lot with superior donuts which jimmy burrows was shooting and judd hirsh was on and i was going through i was at like a flea market and um i'm flipping through like some box and the box had clearly come off the estate of a guy who had hosted family feud

Speaker 1 or not family feud his name was dawson glenn oh yeah glenn something like that And

Speaker 1 he was

Speaker 1 what? Richard Dawson. Yeah, I think it was Richard Dawson.
And there was in there randomly was a Humanitas prize for an episode of Taxi, just like a discarded, like it was a bowling trophy.

Speaker 1 So I bought it. It was like a buck.
And I brought it down to the lot. And I'm friends with a couple people that work on Superior Donuts.

Speaker 1 And so I was like, I just dropped in and I was like, Jimmy, do you mind? Like, and it was for an episode of called Blind Date. He starts cracking up.

Speaker 1 And it's an episode, apparently, where Judd Hirsch goes on a date with a woman. This is a very old sitcom, I mean, like premise, I guess.

Speaker 1 An episode of Taxi where Judd Hirsch goes on a date with a woman. It's a blind date, and she finds out she's

Speaker 1 overweight.

Speaker 1 But lo and behold, she's still a person. That's the, you know, that's the sitcom.
And I bring it down to Jimmy Burroughs. And I'm like, you won't remember this.
He's like, oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's the first episode we shot that had three cameras instead of four. And it was a pain.
And he was like, it was a pain in the ass.

Speaker 1 And he calls Judd over. He's like, you remember this episode? And Judd goes, oh man, the first three camera ones.
Like, they both knew it. And they're like, and Jimmy goes, maybe I shouldn't say this.

Speaker 1 You can edit this out if you want. But Jimmy goes, starts laughing.
I'm like, what's so funny?

Speaker 1 He's like, ah, we told the actress she could come back if she lost 50 pounds and she only lost 48, but we let her come back anyway. And I was like, things you don't.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Gotta go back to Mike's car. But it was was really.

Speaker 1 Let's keep it in. Yeah.
Oh, my God, please. Taxi has the best.
I was talking with another comedy writer the other day. We're going back and forth with our favorite jokes, period.
I know it's...

Speaker 1 Is it

Speaker 1 not lower, but slow, slow? Dude, set it up. I can't remember it.
I can't remember. Do you guys know where it's going? Oh, my God.
It's never set a taxi.

Speaker 1 James Brooks was here just the other day and called out the exact same joke. Yeah, so tell it, tell it.

Speaker 1 So I think Christopher Lloyd's character has never taken a driving test, which is weird because he's a driver for the taxi company. They discover he's never taken the test.

Speaker 1 So he goes down and takes the written portion of the test, and everyone's there as moral support.

Speaker 1 And at some point, he looks over at them while he's taking the test, goes,

Speaker 1 and they're like, what? And he goes,

Speaker 1 what does a yellow light mean?

Speaker 1 And they go,

Speaker 1 slow down. And he goes,

Speaker 1 what

Speaker 1 does

Speaker 1 a yellow light mean?

Speaker 1 And they're like,

Speaker 1 slow down. And he goes,

Speaker 1 what

Speaker 1 does

Speaker 1 and they do it like five times. He goes slower every single time.
It's amazing. What an amazing joke.

Speaker 1 So good. Such a brilliant character.
And he, he was just astounding. I saw James Brooks.
Like, I love writers so much.

Speaker 1 Me too. I saw James Brooks walking down the street in New York the other day, and I noticed because he had a Gracie Films hat on.

Speaker 1 And I was walking with my friend Adam, who's a musician, and Adam just saw me go white. And he went, what's wrong? And I'm like, that's James Brooks.
And James Brooks went, yes.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, sorry, Mr. Brooks, just a huge fan.
And James Brooks went, comedy writer. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm a comedy.
I'm like, nice, like, five-minute chat next to my befuddled friend.

Speaker 1 But I'm like, just one of the great writers of all time. Like, we live, television is so crazy because we live in a time where they're like, to me, like

Speaker 1 people sometimes, I'm doing this, obviously, I'm doing a lot of press for the paper and people are like, what made you want to be a part of it? I'm like, Greg Daniels. Greg Daniels.

Speaker 1 Like to be a writer under Greg Daniels, like Greg Daniels were alive at the same time as Mike Schur, who's also like one of the great comedy writers of all time. I'm of course.
Best whatever.

Speaker 1 I will go anywhere with Mike Schur and I am. I mean, I discovered Mike Schur because he had a baseball last night.
Oh, my God,

Speaker 1 right. And I was a big Mike Scher fan, and he and I both love David Foster Wallace in the same way.

Speaker 1 And there's a law that if you're a white man of a certain age, you have to love David Foster Wallace.

Speaker 1 So he's, but like Mike Schur, him, I mean, like, all the different writers have written on the office, but like Jim Brooks, all the Simpsons guys, like there are so many amazing comedy writers.

Speaker 1 Bob Daly, who wrote, who wrote Frasier. I mean, like,

Speaker 1 we're alive. The fact that you got to work with the Charleses is like,

Speaker 1 don't you love that you're part of this heritage, that you're part of this lineage of funny people?

Speaker 1 It's so cool to be alive at the same time as like

Speaker 1 Melbrook.

Speaker 1 It's so cool to be alive at the same time as like, I got to Norman Lear. I hosted Norman's 100th birthday special.
I mean, not remember, but I heard that. It was like to get to meet Norman Lear.

Speaker 1 And also, like,

Speaker 1 you know, I didn't grow up around Hollywood. Right.
I grew up around academia, which is its own

Speaker 1 sort of luck. And I'm sure you had the same thing with the educated.

Speaker 1 Except my curiosity level was like zero compared to where you were. It went over my head.
What did your parents,

Speaker 1 like, did you, did you have a passion, though, that you shared with your parents? Was there a thing that you and your parents connected over intellectually and emotionally?

Speaker 1 No, I don't think so. I mean, they were so supportive of anything creative.

Speaker 1 My mother hated guns, would not allow guns in the house, would not allow toy guns. But if I carved them out of wood, that was creative, and she was all for it.
Anything creative, she celebrated. Wow.

Speaker 1 So, yes, creativity.

Speaker 1 My father was kind and wanted to make people laugh. Even though he's an archaeologist, if he laughed in a restaurant, he wanted to make sure the entire restaurant was

Speaker 1 laughing too.

Speaker 1 So there were things traits that we were similar but not

Speaker 1 were you taking passion did they take you to dig sites ever or always

Speaker 1 every summer for two for a month and a half i was scrambling at a young age in the they used to call them the trash pits where whatever tribe it was um

Speaker 1 you know 100 years back or 200 years back they would throw their broken pots or whatever in a pile sure of course that would be part of the dig but as soon as you came across an arrowhead or a piece of turquoise or a bone, you were plucked out of it.

Speaker 1 And the archaeologists, real ones, would show up. That's so cool.
Like, I was always, I loved archaeology growing up. Like, I always, I had like Sutton Who posters and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 You know, like there was a time where my like party trick was like, I could name any trove or over a certain size in a certain part. Like

Speaker 1 my parents were really big into, um, I think my, my father loved antiquities. So we always had like, um,

Speaker 1 we always had like, you know, Edith Hamilton mythology reading sessions and stuff like that. But

Speaker 1 I think the luck I had with my parents was that they told me that I was going to make my living with my brain, which was tricky because I was like one of those ADHD kids.

Speaker 1 And it's not like, oh, everyone from that generation get diagnosed with ADHD. I am like the most ADHD.
Like, it's crazy. Do you live with or medicate?

Speaker 1 I don't medicate. I should.
I know I should. I know I'd be

Speaker 1 because it would do what for you. I think I'd be more productive.
Sometimes I

Speaker 1 look at my work, my individual work, my solo stuff, and think it would be a little more.

Speaker 1 I would have done more if it, if I hadn't sort of taken this way to it and could take a way that's a little more linear. But,

Speaker 1 but yeah, I mean, I live with it.

Speaker 1 Also, sometimes I

Speaker 1 sometimes I leave my

Speaker 1 a few weeks ago, I left

Speaker 1 in New York.

Speaker 1 I split time between here in New York and in New York. I live with a couple of people, friends,

Speaker 1 who are both creatives, brilliant creatives. One's a songwriter, one's a chef.
And I get in the elevator and the songwriter went, where are your shoes? And I'm like, shit, you know, like,

Speaker 1 I'm like, can't help but a little bit of medication. I I think a little bit of medication would remember my shoes, you know? It's a crazy thing to forget.
But I speak time with lots of other

Speaker 1 creative people. So I think it may not seem so crazy, but when I'm with when I'm with non-creatives, it really makes itself clear.
You're making me want to talk about myself, which is embarrassing.

Speaker 1 You asked me something about my parents. And I mean, and I encourage, you know, did we share passions and all of that?

Speaker 1 I mean, there was human traits that we shared and they imbued in me, you know, kindness and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I realized later in life,

Speaker 1 and my father saw it in me, and I never quite knew if he really witnessed me. And one day

Speaker 1 I was in my late 30s and there had been a traumatic day where a friend of his had died while we were climbing a cliff and he was 75 and

Speaker 1 they're both the same age and we had to sit around with his body until the park service could come and get him. And so it was a really impactful day.
But where were you?

Speaker 1 In a Box Canyon, I think either northern Arizona or southern Utah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Half moon something. Anyway.

Speaker 1 So it was full of deep kind of real conversation. And he said to me once, I've always known that you wanted to know what it was like to be the other person.

Speaker 1 And I was so startled that he saw it because that is, I think, if I have anything in my brain, it's not your brain. My brain looks and goes,

Speaker 1 what makes you take? Who are you? How do you be you? And I want to be you. I want to experience what that feels like.

Speaker 1 When you're playing someone like

Speaker 1 in a role as diffuse as like Sam Malone or like

Speaker 1 the captain Band of not Band of Brothers, Saving Private Rock. Right, right.
Like, that's a fictive person, right?

Speaker 1 Like, Sam Malone, you maybe, do you, are you one of those actors who interrogates the idea of what it would like? Do you talk to old relief pitchers? Do you speak to World War II veterans? Or

Speaker 1 no, I mean,

Speaker 1 if there's something that I need to know,

Speaker 1 because how to do, if there's a doing I don't need, know how to do in real life, I will practice that till I can do it. I will do that kind of thing.
But

Speaker 1 I don't know if I'm like a particularly lazy actor, but for me, it's like now it's the written word.

Speaker 1 If you're working with somebody, if you're lucky that you're working with good writers, and I have been very lucky, you let I let the words kind of wash over me like musical notes until they start to inform me

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 1 And the doingness of that, saying those words in that way kind of informs whatever character work I see. That's so interesting.
That's a really,

Speaker 1 that's really, that's a lot of trust in the material. Yes, and which means I can be really bad in things too.
There's some, no, you can,

Speaker 1 there's some actors that make any material great. I'm not.
I will, I will,

Speaker 1 and I like, but see, you're a writer. I've got some notes on your performance in Becker now that we now that we

Speaker 1 I love that you said people who came to you you uh and watched your what is the shit I watched it two times just for just for us just for us that you would ask writers or comedians or friends I got a lot of feedback from people I would ask feedback oh yeah I would I would seek it out hunt it down you know I'm a feedback expert I love feedback I think it's a really

Speaker 1 I don't take all of it, but I think hearing it is really good because there's always a note behind a note. Even if you're witnessing the other person, right?

Speaker 1 If someone's giving you a note because of a political opinion they have or a thing in their life they have felt or a relationship to something you're talking about that they have a different relationship or the same relationship to it's it's really useful to take it but from a craft perspective if a brilliant comedian came to the show or a brilliant writer i'd be like do you have a joke for me do you have a note i mean just for us had jokes in it from like

Speaker 1 steve martin that's right steve steve uh by the way when i was like do you have anything do you have any feedback and he went and you know how laconic steve is he like, no, no.

Speaker 1 And my heart was breaking because I'm not going to push Steve Martin. He goes, I have a tag for you, though.
You want a tag? Just like a little punchline after a punchline. And I was like, please.

Speaker 1 And he gave me the tag.

Speaker 1 And the funny thing is my first thought was like, ah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's not quite right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this guy. What do you know about comedy? And then I tried it.

Speaker 1 On stage. I tried on stage a few nights later with a tweak and it was like one of the biggest laughs of the show.
I'm like, oh, maybe Steve Martin knows some shit about comedy.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, he's on my, uh, he's on my, also, by the way, being a fan of people has helped me with, like, I got to do a little bit of, I didn't sign an NDA, so I didn't even say this.

Speaker 1 I've done a little bit of work on Spaceballs 2 that Josh Gadd is shooting. Right.
And, like,

Speaker 1 when I was in that room, I was like, oh man, this is sort of the role I've been preparing my entire life for because I'm such a Mel Brooks fan that I'm just doing Mel Brooks fan fiction.

Speaker 1 So it's not that hard because it's just like, here are the jokes I wish I could put in Space Balls. It was so much fucking fun.
How many, was this at the writer's room?

Speaker 1 There's a little, there's a little writer's room. I mean, like Josh and

Speaker 1 two other brilliant writers, Benjamin and Dan, they,

Speaker 1 Sam and Hernandez, they've put together this amazing script, but they do this little table read where you get little feedback from people and getting to do that.

Speaker 1 Actors table read or writer? You do an, I mean, actors, I got to read Rick Moranis's role. I got to read.

Speaker 1 That's great. It was so cool.
It was really cool. That is public that Rick is coming back for it, right? I'm not just, I'm not breaking a huge story here, but like,

Speaker 1 but it was so cool to just like, uh, and by the way, Rick's daughter, Rachel, is my downstairs neighbor. So, like, I've only met Rick through the auspices of like, this is a weird bit of crazy trivia.

Speaker 1 On my desk on the paper, there are baby pictures, me holding uh children because my character has children. And one of the children is is uh Nina Moranis, who's rachel moranis's daughter so

Speaker 1 rick moranis's granddaughter in heavy air quotes plays one of my children on the paper i mean like it's really it's a tiny the world is so small

Speaker 1 i love that and that's so great but uh but yeah being a comedy fan was great for that because they would come and then you got to marry your love of comedy and also your practice of the craft of it so like Seinfeld gave great notes.

Speaker 1 No one gave a bigger note than Billy Crystal, which was like

Speaker 1 really interesting because I remember Billy Crystal was the first. Did you ever see 700 Sundays? No.

Speaker 1 It's this beautiful piece about his relationship to his father and baseball and jazz and growing up. And he did it on Broadway to great acclaim, deserved acclaim.
And

Speaker 1 he brought it to Boston in like October, November of 2005. And I went because I was a baseball fan and I walked out a much bigger comedy fan because it's this gorgeous piece.

Speaker 1 And Billy came to the show very early on in the downtown run because Alan's Wybel, who's another comedy writer, genius comedy writer, brought him. And Billy, I was like, can

Speaker 1 I love a note if you have it? He's like, I don't know nothing.

Speaker 1 But I knew he actually had something. He was just being polite.
And a couple of days later, Zwybell called me and he's like, do you want Billy's note? And I was like, oh, wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he's like, use a headset. And I was like, what? Because I was using a handheld.
I read that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he was right. It just opened up the shit.
I did, I really damn watching. This was on Broadway or before Broadway.
This is way before Broadway. Way before.
But Billy,

Speaker 1 Billy had a like, it was a brilliant insight. It was a thing that like, you know, you forget sometimes,

Speaker 1 sometimes people forget that

Speaker 1 famous comedians are really good at comedy.

Speaker 1 genuinely, because they become a sort of like prism through which people see other stuff, political political stuff, daily life stuff, a persona or a personality that reminds them.

Speaker 1 Like I think people behold like Sebastian Manascalco more as like,

Speaker 1 you know, an avatar for an archetype than just like a brilliant writer and performer. Do you know what I mean? Like,

Speaker 1 I can't, I'm not explaining it well, but, but at some point, famous comedians belong to audiences in a way that's a little bit depersonalizing.

Speaker 1 You can cut. No, no, no, no, no, don't, no, don't.
What do you mean by the de personalizing? Meaning people

Speaker 1 see comedians and they see the type of comedy they're doing.

Speaker 1 When people look at Nate Bargatzi, I'm just using a comic, like Nate as an example, they see like sort of clean comedy or front or sort of like an echo of frontier

Speaker 1 like southernness that characterized actually a lot of America's early comedy stuff was like Will Rogersy, Mark Twainy.

Speaker 1 And they put him in a box and don't really get the person what do you mean by they put him in

Speaker 1 they put him in a box where he when you become so massive i think it's hard for people to see

Speaker 1 the smallnesses that make brilliant comedy brilliant i think it's a real challenge not everyone struggles with it but like comedy once it elevates to arenas

Speaker 1 something is lost in enormous spaces. That's why like some comics won't play big arenas.

Speaker 1 For a comic like Nate, it would be almost irresponsible to not play big arenas because the demand is so much higher than the supply that he can provide. But like,

Speaker 1 I think with really big comedians,

Speaker 1 and I've written for a few.

Speaker 1 What that makes, sorry. Can I jump in? But at least please, please say it.
I know it's like, no, no, not at all.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like, it's probably not, but when you said it, my brain went, it's like the Beatles with everyone screaming so loud because of their fame and all of that, that you no longer hear the lyrics.

Speaker 1 thousand percent yeah they belong to like

Speaker 1 you know the funny thing is that i was reading a i was reading an article a couple months ago called frank sinatra as a cold which is this great article by a guy named gay tales about frank sinatra and in it there's some really colorful language about how sinatra felt about the beatles but like sinatra was like something was something so personal about sinatra like he was very small he was like one man and you would see sinatra in a theater and not like

Speaker 1 huge arenas because it felt like

Speaker 1 if you read reviews of Sinatra in bigger spaces, like something feels wrong.

Speaker 1 And when you imagine Sinatra, you imagine him in like a little club with smoke and a cigar, a cigarette, and like a drink of some kind. Like

Speaker 1 when you, and like, so think of the mathematical inverse of that. Like.

Speaker 1 What's Frank Sinatra like in Madison Square Garden? Like you might still get the crooner, but you're missing something really essential that makes Sinatra Sinatra.

Speaker 1 And the same thing happens to comedians.

Speaker 1 Comedians have like, and some comics can really transcend that, but like, there's a reason Jerry Seinfeld does the beacon a lot instead of doing Madison Square Garden, which he could do at will if he wanted to.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 comics

Speaker 1 communicating their, like

Speaker 1 communicating the essentialness of their craft at. at a small level and at an enormous level.
They're two different skill sets. And sometimes it can be hard to do both.
Give me your extremes.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've seen video of you in small clubs, but what's the opposite? Was Broadway the biggest? Broadway was great because it was really intimate. A theater with lots of comedy history.

Speaker 1 It's where they shot a bunch of my favorite Comedy Central presents from when I was a kid. But

Speaker 1 the biggest thing I've played is I used to open for musicians. I opened for Beck for a little while.
You know the musician Beck? Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 So I'd go on the road with Beck and sometimes crowds fucking hated it. Like I would, they, uh like they'd announce

Speaker 1 you were in the way of of back they were there to see back they're like back back back i went for for like earth wind and fire or something at a festival in scotland and the crowd was like boo boo

Speaker 1 it was like it was i think i i uh

Speaker 1 I took a sip. I brought a beer on stage with me to seem cool.
And I took a sip of it. And someone in the crowd went, have a fucking other mate.
And they just threw a beer at me.

Speaker 1 And then a whole bunch of people were throwing beers and had to be usered off stage it was like 30 seconds it was like hugging that but yeah playing big festivals um there are big festivals in england where i've where i've performed outside and those are those can be tough gigs but um but yeah opening for ricky gervais at the dolby that was a pretty uh which i did a couple of times that was that was pretty uh those were large crowds that were that were there to see ricky um but but we're actually okay i love a tough gig i know it sounds nuts but for real for real for real for real.

Speaker 1 Not that you know it's good for you. You enjoy it actively.

Speaker 1 The two are so connected. Also, you know what's weird? Some of my favorite jokes don't work in front of big audiences.
And some jokes, I have, I have like a set that I can do

Speaker 1 for 30 minutes in front of a huge crowd that's never heard of me that will do well.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 that set hasn't changed a lot in like eight years. I don't know why, but like, I think I wrote it as like a survival set.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And if I had some, if I had, if I had more guts, I think I would, would experiment with it. Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Like, I've, I wrote a 30 minutes that worked in front of, to perform in front of musicians in like 2017, and I haven't changed that set a ton. So like a

Speaker 1 better comic than me would do that. But, but yeah, I like a tough gig because it's almost the pressure is kind of off.
Yeah. Like the expected return is, is

Speaker 1 like, if you're not supposed to do well, then if you don't do well, you don't do well. And if you do do well, then like, what a result.
Like, sometimes

Speaker 1 I'll open for bands, and afterwards, he'll be like,

Speaker 1 that was great.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, well, yeah, because you expected nothing, because even you can see that this is a really, this is a really tough gig.

Speaker 1 Cause part of you is like, wait, there's a comedian opening for Beck.

Speaker 1 But like,

Speaker 1 it's when you do okay, or the first time people laugh. And

Speaker 1 I'm not famous.

Speaker 1 I'm not famous, but I have a little more notoriety now.

Speaker 1 So I don't get to perform as much for audiences that have absolutely no idea who I am.

Speaker 1 Because if I'm doing comedy clubs, it's the one place ironically people probably know who I am.

Speaker 1 But like when you the laugh of an audience discovering that what they're watching is actually for them is a different laugh than a laugh of people seeing the person they came to see.

Speaker 1 And like, they're both great laughs, but does that make any sort of sense? Like an audience being like, oh, oh, okay, we're not going to hate this because we could hate this.

Speaker 1 Like if this guy comes out and, you know, ruins our night, we don't want that. And so the first laugh where an audience realizes they're going to save hands, really fun laugh.

Speaker 1 And that can be really infectious. Like the front of the room laughing.
Sometimes you do a gig opening for musician and the front of the room. is the only part paying attention to you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But then like five minutes in, you have the whole room. And that's a totally different thing.
That's huge.

Speaker 1 that must feel very powerful it feels so great it's a really last time i opened for back was a couple months ago he was doing a show in new york right around snl's 50th thing he was just around on stage and he's like you want to open the show and i'm like sure in about 30 seconds in and i like sort of mentally put on my old armor because i haven't done it in a little while and i'm like okay let's let's see how this goes and 30 seconds in this woman in the front row faints like and they do that thing that they do at concerts which I've seen before, and it's heart-wrenching for a couple of reasons to watch from the stage where people are like, Can we get a doctor down here?

Speaker 1 Is there a doctor? And you've got to stop the show, and you just like, and I'm like, Hold on, someone's ill.

Speaker 1 And about, you know, they pulled me off stage for about 10 minutes and they brought me back on stage. And I think the audience was like, Okay, buddy, what are you going to do now?

Speaker 1 Because they know it's a tough game. You know, it's fine.
It went okay, but it's like, yeah, I don't know. It's okay.
And the lady, do we know her husband sent me a message on Instagram?

Speaker 1 He's like, She's fine she appreciated

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 i said i like i hopped in there and gave her some water or something because and he was like she appreciated that you didn't make fun of her afterwards and i was like what kind of asshole

Speaker 1 this lady forget to drink water you know what i mean come on lady hydrate

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Speaker 1 I have to back up because I'm a when it comes to talent, I'm

Speaker 1 just full-on sycophant. I just

Speaker 1 just for us

Speaker 1 is brilliant. It is so good.

Speaker 1 I was so smitten by how smart, bright,

Speaker 1 your physicality,

Speaker 1 the character you did adopt. I now sitting next to you know for a fact that you adopt this was character acting as well as was just amazing.

Speaker 1 And what happens to me when I, if I go to a museum with brilliant art or a ballet or a symphony or stand-up or whatever,

Speaker 1 I want to go be creative again. You made me feel like, oh, I have to go be creative.
I have to, you know, reinvest, reinvigorate my creativity.

Speaker 1 And that's a really lovely thing besides making people laugh you inspire them to go be creative that is so nice i mean like i'm so

Speaker 1 that blows me away i'm really i think i'm good at ending conversations this isn't the end yeah i know certain compliments just go all right no no i'm not what are we going to talk about look it's other it was a lot of other people's input genuinely i'm not being like faux humble like i had really When a thing goes for a long time and you're solicitous of feedback and you get really good people and to look at it, Mike Berbiglia, who's one of the great solo show artists ever, was one of the producers of the show.

Speaker 1 Alex Timbers, who's one of the great directors of theater and stand-up. Alex Timbers has directed me,

Speaker 1 Mulaney. He did Oh, Hello.

Speaker 1 He's done a bunch of,

Speaker 1 he did Mulan Rouge on Broadway, for which he received a Tony, did a show called Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, which is a small but dedicated following, and a bunch bunch of other stuff, Beetlejuice.

Speaker 1 And, like,

Speaker 1 at some point, I'm not going to be able to get him anymore because people will realize that everyone, everything he directs makes money or wins a bunch of awards. He did Peewee's special on Broadway.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, it's really amazing people that worked on the show. Some were really great.

Speaker 1 My best friend, Adam Brace, who is like,

Speaker 1 he was a director. Yeah, yeah.
I wrote that. When he passed, it was hard for you to go on.
Yeah, it was tough.

Speaker 1 My, my, my best, uh, one of my closest pals was a director who I worked with for like a decade.

Speaker 1 And Adam died right like two weeks before we started on Broadway. So that was pretty,

Speaker 1 that was pretty rough. But, um,

Speaker 1 but he had a huge effect on the show, huge. And he kept coming to see it.
He, Adam probably saw Just for Us like 60, 70 times, and we'd give notes after every performance.

Speaker 1 And, and Berbiglia saw it a bunch, and, and Timbers obviously did too. He stepped in after Adam passed away and directed a special.
So, like,

Speaker 1 I'm not being faux modest. And besides all the comedians that you that we've talked about giving things,

Speaker 1 when you do a thing a lot, different

Speaker 1 unsanded corners start to pop up and you sort of sand them down. And then other things pop up and you sort of sand them down.

Speaker 1 And before long, your thing's a little, it's very aerodynamic because you spend a lot of time on it by degrees by doing it again and again. So, like, I'm very proud of it.

Speaker 1 And also, part of the reason I'm super proud of it is not to steal an analogy from you. It's

Speaker 1 like a trash pile. It's like,

Speaker 1 I'll be like, oh, there's Steve Martin's joke. There's the thing that Seinfeld mentioned.
There's Adam's joke. There's my friend John, Nick, David, Morgan, Chloe.

Speaker 1 There's the thing that person said to me

Speaker 1 after a a show in San Francisco. There's like, it's got a comet's tail behind it of all these different memories and advice and feedback.

Speaker 1 And I think that sort of textured stuff to play off of stops you from getting bored and makes you a better actor. Right.
And it makes it also, there's a patina to it.

Speaker 1 There's an age to what you're doing. Yes, that's the perfect word to describe it, actually.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's a really.

Speaker 1 That is the advantage of theater that you don't get necessarily when you're on TV because you don't have a history of rehearsing it and finding moments and getting it richer.

Speaker 1 Do you ever wonder what it would be like? Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if everyone had to rehearse their movie five or six times before they did it. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like the world's better. Probably.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think so. Although maybe sometimes, you know, when I was on set for the paper, we do a thing the first time and then we do it the second and third time.
I'm like, first time was good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just because it had the newness of it, and there was the pop and weirdly, like the cold reading of it almost sort of helped. And everyone's being real and they haven't, they're not like

Speaker 1 reacting the way they think they should react. You know, like it's a really

Speaker 1 the alchemy of making that,

Speaker 1 of making like a scene work the best is something that's the best. Yeah, right.
And so cool. So let's, let's stay here for a second.
Were you hired on the paper to write?

Speaker 1 Both. But at the same time, they asked, come right back.
He's like, what do you, Greg? Was like, what do you want? I was like, well, you know, Greg's had this.

Speaker 1 Right, back up one more step. Yeah.
How did it get to the point where Greg says, what do you want? Oh, Greg. Greg Daniels, as you said earlier, is like Greg's the best.
Greg's a really cool guy.

Speaker 1 Greg, for those that are listening who don't know,

Speaker 1 Greg Daniels didn't just do the American version of The Office. He also stunned King of the Hill and Parks and Rec and a bunch of other really wonderful television shows.

Speaker 1 And underneath him, there have been many brilliant.

Speaker 1 In terms of he's a pretty good vampire, he's like bit a bunch of other people who have become big vampires. Mike Schur, my Mike Schur

Speaker 1 who did the good place, which, by the way, I won't leave here until we talk about the good place, please.

Speaker 1 The good place,

Speaker 1 Justin Spitzer, who did Sleeper Store, Mindy, Kaling, BJ, Novak. You know, he's one of a freaking collaborator with Mike Judge.
He lived with Conan when they were both young writers in New York.

Speaker 1 They both worked on SNL. They were both Harvard Lampoon.
Greg is a really brilliant individualist.

Speaker 1 And how did he find you? He saw Just For Us.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then I auditioned. I got an email from my agents being like, hey, there's an untitled Michael Coleman, Greg Daniels comedy.

Speaker 1 Michael Coleman's another television writer who's written some great, some of the best comedy last 25 years with Nathan Fielder

Speaker 1 and Conan also, actually.

Speaker 1 Just give shout outs to the building we're in.

Speaker 1 And I read the pages and they it was hysterical. And it was said in Boston.
I was like, this is great. It was like about like, it was a small town politician or something like that.

Speaker 1 They were dummy sides and I had no idea. So I auditioned and I sent it off.
And then I got an email from my agents a few days later being like, Daniels and Co want to meet you.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, holy shit. And so I went out to LA and we had brunch and they were like, we're putting this show together.
It's going to be, it's going to be like in the universe universe of the office.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, What?

Speaker 1 They're like, We're going to do something in the universe of the office, but it's not a sequel. It's not even really a spin-off.
There's one character who's coming back. I think it'll be Oscar.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 do you want to be involved? And I was like,

Speaker 1 Yes, please. And also, they were just such cool guys to be around.
They were so funny. And I was like, I want to just be around these cool guys.
And

Speaker 1 so I, but I also want to learn how to write and act from two guys who have fostered some really incredible talent. I've always been a bit of a,

Speaker 1 I've always been a bit of like a teacher seeker. Like I've, maybe that comes from my Judaism, but I've always looked for people I could learn from, even if they're peers, even if they're,

Speaker 1 even if they have mentor capacities within them. Like,

Speaker 1 and I'm an eager student. So like

Speaker 1 I've had really great,

Speaker 1 like I said, I've had really great professors and Greg and Michael are probably two of the latest, but Donald Gleason, who's on the show. Yes, he's wonderful.
He's a great actor.

Speaker 1 He's a really good actor. And Donald comes from this great Irish acting family.

Speaker 1 Brendan Gleason's his dad. Have you worked out?

Speaker 1 No, I mean, it'd be a dream come true. Oh, he's so good.
Unbelievable. Sometimes I'd sit there in my ADHD brain being like, you're not just watching Donald, you're also acting in the scene with him.

Speaker 1 You're not just like, and sometimes I remember I came in one day and I hadn't had a lot of sleep and I was a little grumpy. And

Speaker 1 I was like, oh, this is the first scene where you've really like held your own a little bit because you're not like, you're not like, oh, wow, it's Donald Gleason.

Speaker 1 You're just like, oh, I fucking, we just gotta get to lunch, you know? Yeah. Gotta get to lunch so I can nap in the trailer.
But, but yeah, it was, it was a really cool experience.

Speaker 1 And, um, and I think,

Speaker 1 I think at some point, I'm worried someone will tap me on the shoulder and be like, fantasy camp is over.

Speaker 1 You have to go home now. Like, you've been at fantasy camp for like 20 years.
You're doing this comedy thing. You're just like,

Speaker 1 you know. I love what you said.
Sorry. One of the things you said you love about the paper is you retired are ready after five years of being a solo animal to be part of a family.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It is wonderful, isn't it? I think

Speaker 1 if I'm being honest with myself,

Speaker 1 I think Adam dying had a lot to do with that, which is that

Speaker 1 I realized I was a sharper instrument with other people to sort of

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 other people as a whetstone.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 I was like, maybe I find a good whetstone. And I didn't, and I think I took it

Speaker 1 wanting other people, but I didn't expect to like them as much as I did. And so that was a nice surprise.
but i think if i'm being totally transparent

Speaker 1 i think

Speaker 1 when you do a solo show for a long time

Speaker 1 it's made much more bearable by the presence of other people and i had people after adam died dozens literally dozens of people showed up for me uh my crew my friends knowing your relationship and how much it was a loss for you you know the reason i live with those two guys I had a place in New York.

Speaker 1 I was living on my own, but after Adam died, the songwriter, Benj Pasek, who's a brilliant songwriter,

Speaker 1 Benj wrote all the music for like La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen and Greatest Showman. He's really, he basically showed up my house and was like, hey,

Speaker 1 I don't know that you can be like alone while you do this. I think you're going to need help getting through it.
So you should come stay with me for a little while. Wow.

Speaker 1 And so I had people like that in my life who I never, you know, wouldn't have, would have thought of that as a good idea.

Speaker 1 I had a place. Who gets a roommate at like 34 years old? But it was 35.
But it was really, really.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I think I was looking creative. But Benj is a songwriter.
He's not a comedian, even though he's very funny. And we got to write the Tonies together this year for Cynthia Rivo.

Speaker 1 Like, Benj is a really

Speaker 1 Benj is a very busy guy. so asking him to sit in a writer's room would not have suited.
And so I think there was such a relief of getting back to crafting stuff with people at a table and then

Speaker 1 acting that out on a set that was so different from getting moral support from people while you go on stage and do a thing by yourself.

Speaker 1 That was a really nice thing. Maybe that answer is a bit

Speaker 1 maudlin. Sorry.

Speaker 1 maybe i'm being maybe i'm being mopey or something like that but you know genuinely you mean that oh no come on that that's great i am the definition of modeling

Speaker 1 but like yeah it was very nice to be it was very nice to be on a show i mean i think that i'm maybe i i don't think i don't know if i'm a unique animal in this way or a very typical one in this way but i need a balance of

Speaker 1 stuff for myself and stuff with a group and i'm not just one or the other i can't just be making stuff by myself and I can't just be doing stuff in an ensemble. I need both.
Otherwise,

Speaker 1 also the two inform each other in a really brilliant way. Like,

Speaker 1 you know, my

Speaker 1 solo shows have gotten better because of my time in writers' rooms. Like the emphasis on story and character, things that comedians would never think of sharpened my comedy a little bit.

Speaker 1 And so like, that's a really nice side effect of it so i'm also psyched to like write a show after this and see you know what comes can i i want to read something please verbatim

Speaker 1 which i just touched me hugely um

Speaker 1 you well i'll just read the whole thing you say i always think the worst is going to happen but i always think we can do something about it but i never give up on people No one is beyond connection, no matter what.

Speaker 1 And I found myself in lots of situations I don't necessarily belong in. And

Speaker 1 I have found connection and community in those places. And

Speaker 1 I mean, that is,

Speaker 1 for me, what infuses just for us.

Speaker 1 That's what comes across. But it's also so

Speaker 1 perfectly said for this time that we're in.

Speaker 1 You know, we're doing this. Was I okay to quote that?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's like a defining,

Speaker 1 it's like a defining moral value. And I worry that

Speaker 1 for very valid reasons, it's disappearing. Like this idea of

Speaker 1 like I sometimes describe myself as like a radical centrist, like

Speaker 1 believing that

Speaker 1 not that the right answer is always in the middle of two things, but that

Speaker 1 that finding a productive result comes

Speaker 1 from

Speaker 1 a very

Speaker 1 careful calculus of

Speaker 1 empathy and accountability. And I think finding that balance comes from like listening to other people.
So, like, I've spent a lot of time in

Speaker 1 even when I was very young working at the Red Sox, like I was an Orthodox Jew, I was wearing a yarmulke,

Speaker 1 and I was going

Speaker 1 to,

Speaker 1 as you said, Boston is a melting pot that

Speaker 1 where not everything got melted.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 watching,

Speaker 1 watching the way white Bostonians and wasps and, you know, Larry Lucchino, my mentor, was like this very hard scrabble Italian who had gone to Princeton on a basketball scholarship and then Yale Law School and then ran the Orioles and the Redskins and the Padres and then the Red Sox.

Speaker 1 And along the way, he had worked for this highfalutin Washington trial or Edward Bennett Williams.

Speaker 1 And he was still always like an Italian kid with a chip on his shoulder, but he had learned upper crust so much

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 that was sort of the environment he existed in and fostered a little. So, like,

Speaker 1 early on, as someone who didn't even know how to shake a hand, I had to figure out how to like be myself, but also navigate a world where I wasn't like totally welcome.

Speaker 1 And so, like, like, and you knew that it was explained to me,

Speaker 1 but it was explained to me in ways that were like verbal and non-verbal, but like, but yeah, I mean, I spent a lot of time with people.

Speaker 1 I've spent a lot of time in environments I don't necessarily feel welcome in.

Speaker 1 Environments that are political, environments that are social, environments that are, you know,

Speaker 1 a little bit, a little bit,

Speaker 1 I'd say dangerous is too strong a a word, but like going to that meeting of white nationalists, like there is a true thing that it's based on,

Speaker 1 and then there's lots of other life experiences mixed into that. And like,

Speaker 1 and given what's gone on with like Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimmel and the political environment that's been fostered by like the Trump administration and you know, other political figures, like

Speaker 1 I don't know

Speaker 1 if people are in a

Speaker 1 in a kumbaya mood right now.

Speaker 1 So I worry, I worry all the time that like no one's going to want to listen to anyone from other environments because they have such genuine and in some cases, very deserved moral injuries.

Speaker 1 And so like, what does that do to have to ask people to listen to one another? But I also think that that's like the only way stuff gets done. So

Speaker 1 a tough, a tough thing. And I wish I could figure out a way to like,

Speaker 1 um,

Speaker 1 I figured out, I wish I could, I wish I could figure out a more concise way to put it, but Just for Us was really fun for me and really meaningful for me because I think, like you said, at the heart of that story is that message.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 I think Trojan horsing that into people's homes via comedy was like a really nice aspect of it. Sorry, it was very long-winded.
No, no, it wasn't. And that's what I'm, I'm, um,

Speaker 1 I'm not a political animal, except when it affects the work that I do

Speaker 1 for oceans and

Speaker 1 the environment. And growing up in a scientific background,

Speaker 1 I'm happy to go toe-to-toe with anybody when it's science-based. I wrote this piece about NASCAR for a magazine.

Speaker 1 I love you. I don't know.
Who are you? No, no. How did you write an article about NASCAR? Well, they didn't like the piece very much.
It got killed, but it was, but I love writing for magazines.

Speaker 1 I just wrote a review of The Oasis show in New York. You know, the band Oasis.

Speaker 1 Yes, I know I should, so I'm going to lie. You don't know.

Speaker 1 You got to know the name. It's just a review of it.

Speaker 1 I wrote a piece for Rolling Stone about this band

Speaker 1 and people feeling that they were broken up for 15 years or doing some big reunion tour. It was really special.
But I went to see this NASCAR race because I had never been interested in NASCAR.

Speaker 1 But there are millions, tens of millions of Americans, hundreds of millions even that have between a passing and fanatical interest in NASCAR. So I'm like, well, I've got to go see what that's like.

Speaker 1 And like,

Speaker 1 I went to, they do this thing called motor racing outreach. They do these, they do every Sunday and Saturday, there's church services.
And so I go to the service

Speaker 1 and it's one of those things where I could not be less. I'm not a NASCAR fan.
I barely understand what's going on. They're going in a, they're going left.
That's all I know.

Speaker 1 These guys seem to be really dedicated to going left for a long time at very high speeds. And

Speaker 1 I'm not a Christian.

Speaker 1 And also, there's something there that's funny because Reverend Billy Malden, who runs Motor Racing Outreach, is like thanking God for like Goodyear tires.

Speaker 1 And like, it'd be so easy to be like, oh, brother. But like,

Speaker 1 but also,

Speaker 1 I was there and in the front row was this guy, Joe Gibbs, who's a great old football coach and now owns a bunch of motor sports teams.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I flicked through his Wikipedia. And Joe Gibbs, it turns out, has lost quite a few friends and family members in motor racing accidents.
And

Speaker 1 actually, motor racing accidents, besides Jess Daylor and Hurt Sr., who was killed very prominently at, I think, Daytona,

Speaker 1 it's a fact of life for these people.

Speaker 1 And so it kind of makes sense that they would go sit in church and pray that the tires work and thank God for people that make sure the tires work before they race at hundreds of miles an hour around a track.

Speaker 1 And if that works for Joe Gibbs, it's both funny, but also really... serious and meaningful to that.
And like,

Speaker 1 and like, I guess maybe I should really listen when I go into the church. And like, and even though the church is literally going to be a cafeteria 20 minutes after the service ends.
And so like,

Speaker 1 I think stuff like that,

Speaker 1 that stuff that, um,

Speaker 1 that unexpected thing, that unexpected meaning or that unexpected connection feels really precious to me. Cause if I like went to like,

Speaker 1 if I, if I went to like a Holocaust memorial, that's obviously meaningful to me, my family or survivors, all that stuff. But if you find like,

Speaker 1 Norman Lear was very, very fond of saying,

Speaker 1 I'm just a different version of you.

Speaker 1 And his comedy was like, I think it really informed like Norman Lear couldn't be more different from like Sanford and Son, but there was something so human and connective.

Speaker 1 And all the best comedy comes from this like core empathy where you tap into something like really universal and big in a really different way. So like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm prattling, but you, you, do you know what I'm do you know what I'm getting at? I do. And I, but, and what we are talking about is finding a common place.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and that there is hope.

Speaker 1 You know, you've discovered you're hopeful because you've experienced it. I really, because I've been the recipient of a lot of grace, but I also like,

Speaker 1 yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I'm an optimist, but like.

Speaker 1 It's harder and harder to be an optimist for every like, but you know, you don't read a ton of good news, but like they're cleaning up the Pacific garbage patch. Like

Speaker 1 There are a lot of good news stories. Yeah.
Tons.

Speaker 1 They don't make good drama, which doesn't self, so it doesn't sell stuff. Yeah, yeah.
And there are hard stuff. There are hard things happening.
Of course, the worst. Freedom of speech

Speaker 1 is a huge thing. The Kimmel thing is so crazy.
It's like, I don't know. That's a real.

Speaker 1 I don't talk a ton about current events. because I talk about strains of current events, but not specific ones.

Speaker 1 You know, the famous thing about, they asked Cheng Kai-shek about the effects of the French Revolution on Southeastern Asia. Do you know about this?

Speaker 1 No, they asked Cheng Kai-shek, it was they asked him in the 1950s or something like that, what's the effect of the French Revolution on Southeastern Asia? And he goes, It's too soon to tell.

Speaker 1 And I'm always like, It's really funny, but it's also really true. Like, you never know what's going to be revealed or what's going to be.

Speaker 1 So, I sometimes don't know, but like, yeah, I know that's why i have trouble weighing in on stuff even science changes you know you do keep learning more but there seems yeah that's my dad's big thing too my dad's a my dad's a really my dad's a public health person in massachusetts and a really brilliant like as you mentioned earlier heart specialist cardiologist

Speaker 1 Artificial hearts or was that part of a it's part of a bit, but he does stents, which are drug-eluding stents, which is a so as I used to talk about stents and then it was hearts.

Speaker 1 I was like, yeah, artificial hearts. and the audience is like we get it

Speaker 1 i was like trying to explain what a stent was and i couldn't find a good enough joke so i was like it's artificial hearts so yeah

Speaker 1 but my dad was my dad sometimes was like some science would come out and he'd be like i don't know about that or like i remember once a famous person got neck surgery my dad's like yeah he shouldn't have done that i'm like why he's like he's at much higher risk for a stroke.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, then the guy had a stroke three years later, passed away. And I was like, dad, he's like, famous people get really bad health care sometimes because, you know, because they can

Speaker 1 afford to make big mistakes. Yes.

Speaker 1 That's a really, that's a really good way to put it. I'm going to bring that up to him.
But yeah, that's,

Speaker 1 yeah, they can afford to make big mistakes. They deviate from the playbook.
Yeah. My father sometimes says, you know who gets the worst health care? I'm like, who? He's like, poor people.

Speaker 1 He's like, you know, who gets the second worst health care? I was like, no. He went, presidents.
They get really bad healthcare. Extremely famous people get really really bad health care.

Speaker 1 The presidents have gotten some really, really awful health care.

Speaker 1 So Eisenhower had heart trouble. And

Speaker 1 his cardiologists were like, you need more time snuggling with your wife.

Speaker 1 Mamie Eisenhower,

Speaker 1 famously affectionate, you know, or something like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 1 God,

Speaker 1 Mary's father, my wife's father, had eight heart attacks when she was like. Eight heart attacks? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Eight years old on. What was his job? Lightning rod? What did he do? He was a train conductor and

Speaker 1 worked the railroads and all that. But back then, the point is back then,

Speaker 1 it was cut out everything you love. You know, don't make love.
You can have bacon.

Speaker 1 Don't get out and play golf or exercise.

Speaker 1 Just watch more TV. You know, all these things that you...

Speaker 1 Bad advice.

Speaker 1 It used to be if you had a heart attack and you went into a hospital you had a 50 chance of never coming out and now you do it you go home same day hopefully but it's a really um it's profound profound medical advancement that obviously i only um

Speaker 1 i don't know my dad was very my my dad my dad is a huge influence on me i never talk about it but he's really you know his thoughtfulness his

Speaker 1 religious and we both love the good place by the way for the

Speaker 1 it's the most brilliant brilliant show ever that show truly is i mean if i

Speaker 1 who knows that's what faith's about what it's going to be like when one passes over but it should be that i mean the best part about that show from for me from a tv writer's perspective is that every show

Speaker 1 every sitcom ultimately has character growth in it which is by the way why sitcoms are inherently like liberal action movies are inherently conservative because no one wants to see an action movie where they like talk it out yeah but like

Speaker 1 hey maybe we can get to a table and come to an agreement before we get to violence. And John Wiccan is like, you know what? It's my dog meant a lot to me.
And the guy's like, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 You know, like,

Speaker 1 but sitcoms are inherently liberal, right? No one ever, like, no one ever meets a homeless man in act one. And act three is like, you really ought to put yourself up or your bootstraps.

Speaker 1 You know, like they,

Speaker 1 but so character growth is part of.

Speaker 1 is an inherent part of every story engine. But the good place

Speaker 1 made that character growth part of the plot. So the story engine was never sweaty.
Do you know what I mean? Like they had to grow for the story to move forward. Right.

Speaker 1 So you're watching something that was so organic and so brilliant. And Mike Schur is so good.
And like his writing is so with the sense of authorship.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I'd see a joke and be like, and also like great writers on that show, like Corey Jefferson and Demi and Megan.

Speaker 1 And like, it's just the writer's room and the actors on that fucking show were so.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, I, I saw every episode of that show at least once it's so so good okay magic wand where do you go 10 years from now 15 years from now what do you want to what's your life I love to make really I know this sounds like a real cop out I love to make really

Speaker 1 weird specific stuff hopefully the paper

Speaker 1 Like, I loved working on the paper in the sense that like it's nice to do

Speaker 1 to be involved in what I think is the best version of what that could be, which is a show that's original and also has a foot and something people love. So that's been really nice.

Speaker 1 It's been picked up already. For a second season, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's, it's, you know, the funny thing is that I was obviously nervous, but not really. Like Greg and Michael were so

Speaker 1 it really, when I saw the cuts, our cuts were coming in heavy. They were coming in like

Speaker 1 close, they were coming long.

Speaker 1 And And then once Greg and Michael got into the editing room and I saw the cuts, I was like, oh, the show's going to be great. It's going to be really good.
People are going to really like it.

Speaker 1 And it just sort of smelled right. And so hopefully I get to work on stuff that is like, I'd love to write musicals.
I'm doing a little more acting, which is really fun.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be in a couple of movies and small movies and tele and like other stuff. And I'd love to act in a way that's really.

Speaker 1 I'd love to do more bizarre stuff. I like to write more bizarre stuff.
I'd like to write stuff that

Speaker 1 bizarre stuff means, oh, boy, didn't see that coming, bizarre stuff, or what do you mean? I mean, like, can I just do one more compliment?

Speaker 1 I think any audience member loves when they don't see it coming, you know. Wow, that surprised me is what delights you and makes you giggle and laugh.
You are full of wow.

Speaker 1 I want did not see that coming, but I want to make stuff that no one sees coming. Like, I've been working on,

Speaker 1 I'm, I'm working on some really weird

Speaker 1 working on a comedy about the Dalai Lama. That'll be like that's

Speaker 1 it's like the Dalai Lama, but it's Veep.

Speaker 1 It's surrounded by this really indifferent staff, and he's just like, God fucking damn it. And so, like,

Speaker 1 these types of things are their long shots. And, like, I'd love to, I'd love to do more long shots.
Like, Just for Us felt like a long shot. Yes.
It was like a thing I did for a comedy festival.

Speaker 1 I didn't think it would win an Emmy or go to Broadway. So, like,

Speaker 1 I'm really attracted to long shots that work.

Speaker 1 And so,

Speaker 1 by the way, even the paper was a little bit of a long shot. I was like, am I really going to work on a, you know, a,

Speaker 1 like a very broad, a broader, more fun comedy? But like,

Speaker 1 it feels like it paid off a little bit. I love a long shot.
I love a thing that doesn't feel like a sure thing. 15-year-old writing.
What? The 15-year-old at Fenway. Yeah.
That's a long shot.

Speaker 1 But they're the most rewarding. That's when you say, do you like a tough gig? I'm like, I like the long shots.
Like, how many years does anyone get? Right. If you're lucky,

Speaker 1 maybe you get to work for, if you're Mel Brooks, you're still working.

Speaker 1 Bar Hashem. Like, Mel Brooks gets to work.
Norman gets to work.

Speaker 1 But, like,

Speaker 1 am I really, I've got one life. So it's got to be some crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 So Magic Wand, 10 years from now, I've done like three or four more or two or three more long shots where I've made the best versions of, or I continue to do like little things where like

Speaker 1 I've been really additive. Like,

Speaker 1 I'm really proud of the Tonies this year. I wrote the, I wrote all of Cynthia's stuff for the Tony's and Benj and Justin and Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman wrote the music.

Speaker 1 But like, I'm really proud of the job we did on that. I don't know that it will mean a thing to a billion people, but like Broadway people seem to really like it.
And hopefully, I get those.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, I guess I just get more of those opportunities. I get to, to really bring something special, acting or writing.
But, like, yeah, I'd love to do more solo shows.

Speaker 1 Um, I'd love to write plays and movies and TV. I'd really love to write a big, stupid television show that's like very

Speaker 1 off-ball premise. And, like, um,

Speaker 1 and yeah, that's, I'd love to, I'd love to write a television show or a movie that feels like a long shot and really lands. That's what, that's what would be, would be really fun for me.
And,

Speaker 1 and to meet nice new collaborators. Conversation ender, but you are so good at what you do and so creative that you also stimulate other creative people to go out and, you know, be creative some more.

Speaker 1 And that, that's a lovely gift. I'm very grateful and so cool to get to do this with you because you've been such a big part of so much of the stuff that I

Speaker 1 love and feel really informed by, and

Speaker 1 also

Speaker 1 I'll admit to have listening, have listened to this podcast a bunch and

Speaker 1 watched you speak as Ted Danson. And

Speaker 1 it seems like a very big stroke of luck for me that I get to experience that one-on-one as well.

Speaker 1 So, like, thanks so much for having me. This really is like, I'm very grateful.
But thanks for having me. Much appreciation.
Please. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Alex Edelman. You can catch him in the new show, The Paper, streaming on Peacock Now.

Speaker 1 And be sure to watch his one-man show just for us on HBO Max if you haven't already. That's it for this week.
Special thanks to Team Coco.

Speaker 1 Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you like watching your podcast, all our full-length episodes are on YouTube.

Speaker 1 Visit youtube.com slash teamcoco.

Speaker 1 See you next time.

Speaker 1 Where everybody knows your name.

Speaker 3 You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Liao.

Speaker 3 Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer.
Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Speaker 3 Research by Alyssa Grahl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.
Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.

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