Jason Katims

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.

[2] Yay!

[3] She's here, finally.

[4] You rang glasses today.

[5] Well, yes, this is the portion of our program where I do a little bit of reading off my phone.

[6] Yes.

[7] And it's no longer possible to do that without these spectacles.

[8] Yeah.

[9] Yeah.

[10] I wore them all day today.

[11] You did.

[12] And I'm getting it, man. I'm really getting it.

[13] Sometimes I'm like, what parts?

[14] description and what parts of what everything's just in focus but i do have to dance around a little bit okay there she be listen we've got an expert today that's so close to my heart yeah jason katoms he is an emmy award winning writer showrunner and producer of course friday night lights best show ever fn l uh parenthood as we see it roswell about a boy and he's got a new beautiful show out right now on Apple TV Plus called Dear Edward with our good friend and ex -guest Connie Boney B. Listen, Tammy.

[15] It's always so fun when we have parenthood people.

[16] It's special.

[17] It's very special.

[18] And this is no exception.

[19] This one didn't disappoint.

[20] I will say it's a little curious.

[21] This has happened one other time.

[22] I interviewed someone who had directed me in a movie.

[23] And that relationship is so specific and hierarchical that it was weird to have him on the show and flip that kind of role.

[24] Oh, sure.

[25] And so in some weird way, this was a little interesting for me to talk to him as a peer.

[26] I've always talked to him as one of the actors on his show.

[27] Yeah, and I have a lot of reverie for him.

[28] Reverence, yeah.

[29] A lot of reverence for him.

[30] Very deferential.

[31] And he's my boss.

[32] Yeah.

[33] And someone's my boss.

[34] I'm like, I think you've observed it.

[35] Like, I know my place.

[36] I'm good at giving it up to the boss.

[37] I don't know why I'm telling you that other than to say that It was a big role reversal You're saying it because I'm not You're saying it because I'm not I think you're saying it This has gone so off the rails If you want to hear more about bosses Oh man stick around for the fact check If you want to hear Monica read Every human being that ever worked on parenthood In any capacity if you dropped off pizza to the set She'll read that name It's really, really interesting.

[38] Okay.

[39] Please enjoy my friend.

[40] Emboss, Jason Catam's.

[41] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[42] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[43] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[44] Okay.

[45] Do you do this?

[46] One of my six.

[47] Matt did a fun trick to me today.

[48] What did he do?

[49] He said, what material is that?

[50] And I said, I think it's velvet.

[51] And he said, now it's felt.

[52] Oh, he...

[53] Playing words, he felt it.

[54] Oh.

[55] Yeah.

[56] And I think that...

[57] Right.

[58] Matt's a smooth operator.

[59] Oh, my God, he's like raw.

[60] Yeah, puns.

[61] Oh, did you get a cool hat?

[62] Yeah.

[63] Yeah, so, okay, you're going to have to wade through, Jason, all the fillins.

[64] So I just launched a Formula One podcast, and we have a betting pool every race for 10th place.

[65] 10th place.

[66] Yeah, right?

[67] Very random.

[68] First is known in this sport.

[69] It's going to be max for stepping, so it's not worth betting on.

[70] Ten is really hard.

[71] Right.

[72] So whoever wins the pool gets their photograph in that hat there, first place, Pirelli hat.

[73] And then you hold the money.

[74] Huge honor.

[75] Wow.

[76] Guys, I'm not to get you two.

[77] suspensed up, but it was a carryover.

[78] No one won this week.

[79] So next week's pot will be $800.

[80] Wow.

[81] Yeah.

[82] Wow.

[83] You guys want to get in?

[84] I want it.

[85] You're paying for this?

[86] Everyone has thrown $100.

[87] Oh, no, I don't want to pay.

[88] And if no one wins, I'll float you.

[89] Jesus, your time.

[90] I don't want to pay for that.

[91] Isn't it worth the $100 or wear that hat?

[92] I'm going to wear it when you leave.

[93] Did you drive over here?

[94] I drove, yes.

[95] And how was the commute?

[96] Because as we know, you and I might actually be close friends if it not.

[97] where we both live.

[98] That's right.

[99] Yes.

[100] Because it's never going to happen.

[101] This is a place I never usually come.

[102] Yeah.

[103] When's the last time you're this deep east?

[104] A while.

[105] I've only been to your house one time in my life.

[106] Right.

[107] And this is your first time at my house.

[108] And we are going now as I looked up the beginning of parenthood.

[109] It's kind of scary.

[110] Yeah.

[111] We're talking about 11, 12 years ago.

[112] Oh my God.

[113] Yeah.

[114] God time will get you on it.

[115] Does it freak you out as much as it freaks me out?

[116] Yeah.

[117] Yeah, that does not feel like over a decade ago.

[118] No, it doesn't.

[119] But suffice to say, you and I adore each other, and I think if we lived closer, I would come over and, you know, noodle around on the guitar.

[120] That would be nice.

[121] Yeah.

[122] That would be nice.

[123] You're always looking for someone to play, too.

[124] We could do it.

[125] I could play the drums along, is what I would have to do.

[126] I love that.

[127] How long have you been playing guitar?

[128] I haven't really played that much lately, but I started playing when I was a teenager.

[129] I had a friend who had a guitar in his apartment.

[130] It was like the cheapest guitar you could have.

[131] And I borrowed it, and I just taught myself to pay.

[132] play.

[133] My older brother is a musician.

[134] He was playing, so I would hear him.

[135] And you want to be like him?

[136] I want to be like him.

[137] What's the age gap?

[138] Three years.

[139] You have an older sister as well.

[140] My sister is six years older.

[141] Yeah, so the older brother, pretty much whatever they do is establishes baseline cool.

[142] That's right.

[143] Yes.

[144] Yeah.

[145] Yeah.

[146] Like I'll try to say to Monica like, oh yeah, I would go see the exploited and the Dead Kennedys at 11, 12 years old, these punk shows that were terrifying, you know?

[147] Everyone had Mohawks and studs in their Doc Martins and stuff.

[148] Doesn't seem appropriate.

[149] Yeah.

[150] She's like, That seems like a weird place for an 11 -year -old to be.

[151] And I'm like, yeah, but my older brother was there.

[152] No matter what it was, I was like, yeah, yeah, this is cool.

[153] He likes it, so I'm going.

[154] This is now my thing where I'm scared to death.

[155] Right.

[156] So I grew up in Brooklyn.

[157] I think it's worth saying, too, 60s and 70s.

[158] This is a much different Brooklyn than the one that's in people's mind right now.

[159] I grew up in Brooklyn before Brooklyn was Brooklyn.

[160] Real Brooklyn.

[161] I grew up in Brooklyn before anybody would ever want to come visit Brooklyn.

[162] I grew up in Midwood, in a. very sort of suburban kind of Brooklyn community.

[163] But weirdly, two blocks from us, there was a television studio.

[164] Oh, wow.

[165] It was an NBC studio where they filmed soap operas.

[166] And it was such an interesting thing because I had nothing to do with television.

[167] But it was fascinating to me always.

[168] And I used to walk past that studio.

[169] When I would walk to my friend's house, I would walk around like a different route to get there just to go past it.

[170] And I would always, like, try the door.

[171] Oh.

[172] On the back.

[173] Just in case.

[174] I would always try the door.

[175] Door is always locked.

[176] And one day, one time, it was open.

[177] And I opened and I walked in.

[178] And it was dark because I was probably on the weekend.

[179] Somebody left the door open.

[180] I walked in and it was like this magical moment because I just walked in.

[181] I was looking around all the sets.

[182] How terrified were you anxiety -wise about the breaking and entering out of all?

[183] Yeah, yeah.

[184] Oh, yeah, I was scared.

[185] I was really scared.

[186] I was a kid doing something very wrong.

[187] Yeah.

[188] And I remember I opened.

[189] in the refrigerator and the freezer.

[190] The most magical moment of all was in the freezer, there was, you know how they have those frozen concentrated orange juice?

[191] Yes.

[192] Frozen things that you would pour in.

[193] It's a big ice cube of orange concentrate.

[194] Right, right, right.

[195] And so they had one in the freezer, and I lifted up, and it was sealed and yet empty.

[196] Oh.

[197] And to me, that was like, it was movie magic.

[198] But it was just so weird to me that I grew up a block and a half from an NBC studio and have spent all those years doing shows at NBC.

[199] But in any case, one year, there was a short period of time where they shot SNL because they were redoing the studio, so they were shooting it there.

[200] They were taking it there, I should say, in Brooklyn.

[201] And my brother said to me, come with me right now, we're going to go there, and we're going to get online and try to get into the rehearsal.

[202] And we went that night, and it was very, very early on in the life of Saturday Night Live, original cast.

[203] But the thing that was amazing about that was the band was playing.

[204] My brother was saying, the band's playing.

[205] And I didn't know who the band was.

[206] The band, the band.

[207] The band, the band.

[208] Yes.

[209] Dinalini.

[210] Deneene.

[211] That's them?

[212] Yeah, that's them.

[213] Yeah, yeah.

[214] And so we were waiting on the line, and my brother would say, oh, my God, that's Robbie Robertson coming in.

[215] And that's this one.

[216] And he knew all the people.

[217] I had no idea who they were.

[218] And then we got in, and we watched the rehearsal.

[219] And then when the band came on, and the band was known as one of the most amazing bands for musicianship, just the people loved them.

[220] They started playing, and it was a life -changing moment for me. It was just so beautiful.

[221] And, of course, we were there with this incredible sound because you're sitting there in the audience with a couple of hundred people.

[222] You're getting a private concert.

[223] You're having a private concert, and they had horns.

[224] They had the whole deal with them.

[225] It was like one of those moments where I'll forever remember that.

[226] It's very romantic.

[227] Yeah.

[228] My brother, I don't know how he knew about it.

[229] I don't know why he chose to bring me along.

[230] Uh -huh.

[231] I was not necessarily that popular with him.

[232] Right.

[233] Just a lightball moment for me. Yeah, it takes this incredibly exotic thing and then it puts it in your actual world.

[234] In your worldview, you, like, can touch it and it's real and it doesn't exist just on TV.

[235] Yeah, that's incredible.

[236] Were they the musical guest or were they playing?

[237] No, no, they were the guest.

[238] Okay.

[239] G .E. Smith was the house band.

[240] G .E. Smith, I don't know if he was back then.

[241] Okay.

[242] Maybe he was.

[243] My whole childhood, he was the music.

[244] I've lost a button, and I don't want to tempt, Jason.

[245] Oh, this happens.

[246] In this room sometimes closed this one.

[247] It's all intentional.

[248] I know, you know.

[249] Nothing's accidental.

[250] This coincidentally happened when I was auditioning in the book.

[251] I've heard about this.

[252] It's a very Crosby thing to happen.

[253] Did they record any of those, for instance, my father loved dancing, and there was a dance show that filmed in Detroit, and he would go stand in line and try to get on this show to dance on TV.

[254] Did they film any of those, like, it was really popular in the late 60s and early 70s, Oh, film any of that stuff there?

[255] No. They filmed these two soap operas.

[256] I can't remember what they were now.

[257] Like an as the world turns or something.

[258] I think that might have been one of them.

[259] Or another world or something like, but they went on for decades and decades and decades.

[260] You know, I never watched them, so I didn't know what they were.

[261] Yeah, there's one actress who had been nominated like 36 times for, I don't know, I forget her name.

[262] Susan Lucci.

[263] Yeah, there you go.

[264] Just came to me. God, well done.

[265] Yeah.

[266] Yeah, like, if you bump into her at a party, you're like, yeah, I have an Emmy.

[267] And she's like, yeah, I got like fucking.

[268] three dozen of them.

[269] I don't even know what to do with it.

[270] What was the sense of safety in the 60s and 70s in Brooklyn?

[271] Like obviously you were just wandering around on the streets.

[272] You're walking to school, I imagine, and all that kind of stuff.

[273] In my little neighborhood, I was very safe.

[274] I used to love to go places.

[275] And one of the things I used to do was I would go with a friend and walk to Coney Island.

[276] Ill advised.

[277] Not a good idea.

[278] I would walk down.

[279] You can walk to I thought you had to take a ferry or something.

[280] No, no, you could walk there.

[281] You can.

[282] But, you know, you shouldn't walk by yourself as a little kid to going on the island.

[283] You know, it was a tough neighborhood.

[284] But I did it.

[285] I never really had that big of a problem.

[286] But I did have the experience of getting mugged when I was a kid.

[287] Like a what age?

[288] Okay.

[289] By older guys or just older classmates?

[290] Not like classmates.

[291] You know, a little older than me. Scary folks.

[292] Yeah, yeah.

[293] It's scared when somebody comes up to you and there's a knife.

[294] Yes, yes.

[295] That's scary.

[296] And you remember that.

[297] But little things like that.

[298] And there were a few of them that happened.

[299] And it wasn't that often, but, you know, it stays with you.

[300] Yeah.

[301] Like, to this day, I remember it, you know.

[302] Yeah.

[303] It doesn't happen to most people.

[304] Right.

[305] You throw all your stuff at them.

[306] Like, what happens?

[307] Do you go into fight or fight?

[308] In this case, well, this happened to me one time.

[309] What I did was I definitely gave them what they wanted.

[310] And I ran.

[311] I wasn't like a little.

[312] I wasn't going to be fighting.

[313] Yeah.

[314] Okay.

[315] But you would have.

[316] I have an actual story.

[317] Okay.

[318] Oh, yeah.

[319] A whole story.

[320] I don't really want to tell them.

[321] Oh.

[322] Well, while I was at UCLA, three in the morning, Santa Monica, back when I was an alcoholic, go to get a pack of cigarettes, walking home, dude comes up behind me. He's in this gang, the Santa Monica Trace, who operate out of the alley that I live in front of.

[323] He says, hey, you got any money?

[324] And I'm like, no, I ain't getting any money.

[325] And then he's like, well, then give me them fucking cigarettes.

[326] And then went for a gun, violence ensued.

[327] Cops came.

[328] They tried to break my door down.

[329] I had a shotgun out.

[330] I have all these police photos.

[331] It broke my hand.

[332] I didn't have insurance.

[333] I had to go to UCLA in the morning to go to the school.

[334] medic and my hand was shattered still you were missing this knuckle still i hate just saying it it sounds like a braggy like tough guy story but i ended up writing a thing about it that i didn't end up trying to publish or anything but it was virtually like i've had friends go how fucking stupid you're going to die over a pack of cigarettes and that's true that's really a logical true statement but if your history in your childhood is when you give something that you don't want to give somebody and you know that's step one to many more steps that are coming that ultimately will make you give something that you can't live with.

[335] For me, I'm scarred in that the first step can't be given ever.

[336] It looks to you like, oh, stupid, you die over cigarettes.

[337] To me, it looks like I give him cigarettes, and then he goes, well, fuck, what else could I get from this guy?

[338] I will never be in that situation again.

[339] So it's so stupid, and yet I know where it comes from.

[340] Right.

[341] That's why I think people trauma, everything feels existential.

[342] Bad example, and I don't know the whole story, but I will just say, Let's presume that Will Smith's mother got beat, as he said.

[343] And step one in that process, as I've witnessed, is you started insulting my mom, and then hitting comes next.

[344] Well, so if I'm the kid of that, guess what?

[345] At insulting my wife, I'm hitting.

[346] I'm not letting the next step come.

[347] That got crazy deep, but that's my moving story.

[348] I'm a little less judgmental of people when they have these kind of really outsized reactions to things.

[349] It's good to share that because I do think a lot of people would say the cigarette thing immediately.

[350] They'd be technically right.

[351] That would be very stupid for me to have died over a pack of cigarettes, clearly.

[352] It sounds like it wasn't a decision.

[353] It was just something that you did, something that happened.

[354] That's right.

[355] I saw someone go on their waistband and I didn't want to see what came next.

[356] When you wrote about it, what was it?

[357] How telling that story has evolved over the years as I've gotten further from that event.

[358] When it happened and I was 21 years old and I shared that story in the police photos with my friends from Detroit, I was a hero and I loved it.

[359] It gave me tremendous pride that I wouldn't have let someone take something for me. And my friendship circles changed over the years.

[360] I've been sober for 20 years.

[361] I don't have the same friends that all have high ACE scores like I used to.

[362] Most of my friends had pretty good families.

[363] And that story I realized over the years, if I tell the whole gory details of that story, it makes people uncomfortable and scared and scared to love me because they think I'm someone who might end my life for no reason out of nowhere.

[364] And I've just watched that evolve and been curious about what has changed so dramatically.

[365] Why does that story that was my favorite story to tell now kind of embarrasses me?

[366] And what's the process that led to that?

[367] And then what's the explanation of why I was that way to even begin with?

[368] I think that was kind of the point of this thing I wrote.

[369] Yeah.

[370] I know we're not necessarily here to talk about this one story, but I have one more question.

[371] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[372] Do you feel like you're still the person who would do that?

[373] Yeah.

[374] But now there's new guardrails, right?

[375] So in front of my family, no, unless they were at risk.

[376] Yeah, in general, would I get violent?

[377] Yes.

[378] Over the cigarettes?

[379] I like to think not.

[380] I got to not be in jail.

[381] I got to not be bad.

[382] Having kids now has really changed.

[383] But I've also found myself a little angrier than I should be at times in interacting with people in a way that I would have thought I wouldn't have with kids.

[384] So I don't know.

[385] I think it's improved dramatically, but I also have blundered.

[386] Interesting.

[387] Yeah.

[388] Yeah.

[389] Your dad was an actor and a salesman?

[390] So my father was an actor before I was around.

[391] Uh -huh.

[392] Then was a salesman.

[393] So when I was growing up, my dad was a salesman.

[394] He sold law books.

[395] One day, I was in the basement of my house.

[396] We wound up going through some old boxes of papers and stuff, and I found these newspaper clippings, and they were reviews of my father on stage.

[397] I didn't know that he was an actor.

[398] Really?

[399] Yeah.

[400] So my father was an actor as a young man in New York City, where he grew up and was in that off -broadway world in the 50s and did off -broadway plays and went to the actor's studio and did all these incredible things that James Dean did and all those people.

[401] Paul Newman and he never said anything about it.

[402] What's your explanation for that?

[403] He was unresolved that he felt like he gave up something that it was his dream to do.

[404] So for him maybe it felt like a failure he'd be acknowledging you instead of bragging about the accomplishment?

[405] But then he decided to become an actor again.

[406] He decided to retire sort of early from selling law books.

[407] I was in college, so I guess he felt like he was done.

[408] He was good on that.

[409] And he started acting again.

[410] And lo and behold, he became an actor.

[411] He became a character actor.

[412] No way.

[413] Did a lot of things.

[414] I at the same time was starting to write plays.

[415] And that's how I got started before I wrote television.

[416] And I would write plays and I would cast him in the plays.

[417] And then when I did the first show that I did, I cast him in the show.

[418] Really quick.

[419] Was that an easy working arrangement, or did it have its challenges?

[420] The first show that I created was this show called Relativity.

[421] He was the grandfather in the show.

[422] He was Richard Schiff's father.

[423] The script supervisor came up to me and said, oh, you know, your father sang a line.

[424] And he was doing a couple of words out of order.

[425] And as you know, Dax, I don't really care.

[426] I'm like so loose on the order of words or if the words are the words.

[427] I just like wanted to work.

[428] Yeah, yeah.

[429] And he was like shifting like a tiny little shift.

[430] in the sentence.

[431] And normally I would be like, I don't care and I would be like, wait a second, you're telling me you can go up to my father and tell him to say exactly as I would want it said.

[432] Word for word.

[433] Tell him to say it as written.

[434] It was great working with my father.

[435] But, you know, it was also weird because after a show would air, he would come over for dinner.

[436] We didn't want to, with our kids, do a lot of Hollywood talk.

[437] So he would come over and he'd just seen an episode.

[438] He'd said, oh, you know, the editors.

[439] The editors screwed that up.

[440] Of course it was like, the editor's me. I'm there like.

[441] Oh, man. That's a really juicy zone that we might as well drop into now.

[442] I would have maybe held it for later.

[443] But we had a guest on that it was on Euphoria and then left.

[444] And I feel like I can really hear this saga from both perspectives and really relate to both.

[445] I know what it's like to be an actor and I know what it's also like to be the creator and director of something.

[446] There's going to be an inherent bit of friction, I think, in the simplest terms I would maybe say is like, the creator, director, that role has the entire story in their sights.

[447] For you in particular, if we had a 20 episode season of parenthood, it's a puzzle for you, and it all is going to arc beautifully and land over the course of 20 hours.

[448] And then the actor's inherent job is to make each moment realistic to them.

[449] And those are going to be at odds.

[450] They're just going to be at odds.

[451] There's times where an actor is going to have to service the overall story, even if it doesn't feel correct.

[452] So there's going to be a natural friction there.

[453] Right.

[454] Is that for you disheartening?

[455] Do you accept it?

[456] Is it easy?

[457] How does that land on your plate?

[458] One of the things that I've come to over the course of doing this has been to embrace the collaborative nature of what we're.

[459] do.

[460] If I didn't want to collaborate, I could write a book.

[461] I chose this.

[462] You know, I can blame myself for it.

[463] But when I started, I had this thought that if I could say every line exactly the way I heard it.

[464] And if I could have every shot be exactly as I saw it, that would be the best version of it.

[465] And then I came to realize that's wrongheaded.

[466] It's not true.

[467] By the way, every showrunner has our own way of doing it.

[468] I wouldn't pretend to say there's like a right and wrong.

[469] But for me, when I'm sitting in the editing room and watching a cut of the show, My goal is that what I see is better than anything I could have imagined when I wrote the script.

[470] So, like, if you take that as what the goal is, then you start to think of how do I embrace working with all of these artists.

[471] And it's not just actors.

[472] People like to talk about actors because that's who we see on the screen.

[473] But it's everybody.

[474] It's the director.

[475] It's the camera operators.

[476] It's the composer.

[477] It's the editors.

[478] So my job is really clarity.

[479] The more clarity I can provide for everybody.

[480] This is what the scene is about.

[481] This is what this episode is about.

[482] Then you have all the information.

[483] So I don't like tell you this is how to say it or what you do or what to say, but I tell you this is where it's going.

[484] And by the way, if then the actor says, well, I don't know if that's the right place for it to be going.

[485] I'm open to that too.

[486] It's a collaborative form and that's a beautiful thing.

[487] Because a lot of times like a knee -jerk response is, as you said, you have 20 episodes planned out.

[488] And then somebody's saying something, oh my God, they're going to be saying that or doing that in episode 17.

[489] they've nowhere to go.

[490] They're unraveling the...

[491] You get terrified.

[492] Right.

[493] Over time, you get calmer about it.

[494] You're like, okay, well, they don't know that or they're not aware of that.

[495] Let me tell them it's a conversation.

[496] You know, I enjoy that process.

[497] I'm not to say there aren't at times problems.

[498] Sure, yeah.

[499] Actors have bad ideas, occasionally.

[500] Occasionally.

[501] Occasionally have bad ideas.

[502] Also, let me just own, too, something that happens to us is that as we play the person longer, they become infused in our own identity.

[503] It's very weird.

[504] You would know intellectually that's not the case.

[505] But because it's part of your identity and you fucking care, you are protective of how you're represented as you would be in real life.

[506] Right.

[507] So it's very weird to bring it into your body and then ultimately have someone else making decisions for you and your character that you're going to look bad.

[508] And by the way, that's the point of story is we look bad.

[509] We make mistakes.

[510] We fuck up.

[511] That's true and that is, I think, a tension.

[512] Because I think a lot of actors are protecting sort of their persona, they look outside of the character they're playing.

[513] And that's a different conversation because I think that actually is potentially problematic because you have to sign on to saying, I'm going to do what's true to this character as an actor.

[514] You have to know that's your job.

[515] You've kind of signed up to play out a story that's been written.

[516] But people will get mad at you on the street.

[517] It's not just you.

[518] You know, people, I'm sure people were mad when you cheated on Jasmine.

[519] People on Twitter are like, they hated me. Yeah, so you're bringing in that too of, oh no. You fucking cheater.

[520] Right.

[521] I'm sorry.

[522] No, no, no. That's a great storyline.

[523] A lot of engine there.

[524] It took us a few seasons to unravel that mess.

[525] That blunder.

[526] There's different layers, and I guess that's also what you have to get good at, is identifying, is this the protectiveness over their character?

[527] Do they have a legitimate story concern here?

[528] I've gone to a place where almost every time an actor has an issue, whether it's with a scene or story or even like a line.

[529] I've gotten to the point of being they're probably right.

[530] Because of what you said, they walk through that character's soul.

[531] Yeah, I don't know that your body knows the difference when you're walking through the emotional journey of this character and you're acting it out.

[532] I don't know that the body is smart enough to know.

[533] That's not an actual heightened emotional hour of your life.

[534] It's like when you have those big crazy screaming breakup scenes and you get back to your trailer, you feel like you just had a big, big screaming breakup scene.

[535] It's not like you feel like, oh, yeah, that was a pretend.

[536] Well, if you're a good, if you're a good actor.

[537] But I think actors are different, especially in the type of shows I usually do.

[538] You're asking to do a lot of emotional stuff.

[539] You're asking them to go to places that are hard to go to.

[540] So you want to put them in a place where they're able to do that.

[541] And every actor is different.

[542] Their approach is different.

[543] You can't just say, here's how to work with an actor.

[544] You have to understand what's their process.

[545] How do they do it and try to make an environment for them.

[546] where they can really go to those places that you're asking them to.

[547] It's a really admirable way of looking at work in general, even take it out of show business.

[548] It feels like you don't have such a stronghold on the reins.

[549] Like you've given up some control.

[550] You've embraced the fact that everyone has something to offer.

[551] I think if you're the boss of anyone or anything, that's such a good approach.

[552] And obviously, you have so much success.

[553] I mean, you have a million things to show as a result of that.

[554] Right.

[555] It does take a ton of confidence.

[556] I think.

[557] When would you say you actually clicked into full embracing of this?

[558] Friday Night Lights was a game changer for me, not only creatively, but the process of making the show.

[559] The process was very different.

[560] I was not involved in the pilot of the show.

[561] I came on after the pilot.

[562] Explain that because that's very weird.

[563] Prior to that, yeah, you had created relativity.

[564] Relativity in Roswell and worked on my so -called life.

[565] And so this one, well, A, it was a movie.

[566] Well, A, it was a book.

[567] Then it was a movie.

[568] And then the director of the movie, Pete Burke, goes and directs the pilot.

[569] And so you've not written the pilot.

[570] You weren't there on set.

[571] Right.

[572] They just show it to you and say, we'd like you to show run this.

[573] That's right.

[574] So that's what happened.

[575] Right.

[576] So that's a little scary at that point.

[577] Right.

[578] And I was walking on something that was a beloved book, a beloved movie, was a beautiful pilot.

[579] Yeah.

[580] Nobody had seen yet, but I knew.

[581] I saw it.

[582] I'm like a Jewish boy from Brooklyn who's into baseball, not football.

[583] Right.

[584] And so I was walking into something that was very new.

[585] to me. I wound up using it as my way into the story.

[586] At some point I realized that there was a connection between me coming onto the show with high expectation of a property that people loved and coach coming to Dillon, Texas, and expected to win state when his quarterback just got paralyzed, you know?

[587] Yes.

[588] Just like an actor needs to weigh into a character.

[589] As a writer, you need to way into the story.

[590] So even though this world is very new to me, that's easy.

[591] You can research.

[592] You could go to Texas.

[593] which I did, and you could go to high school football games.

[594] The first thing I did was, like, football for dummies.

[595] I went to Barnes & Noble and got football for dummies.

[596] I actually did.

[597] You were in line with, like, 12 wives trying to make their marriage a little better.

[598] Like, fuck, I'll give it a shot.

[599] Yeah.

[600] So you can learn that stuff, but you need to find, like, an emotional way in.

[601] And so that was my way in.

[602] We should add for context that you're at Upfronts, and they're showing the teaser for the pilot, and there are actual executives saying to you on the sideline, Like, the planet's great, but I just don't know where it goes.

[603] Like, I don't know.

[604] That's right.

[605] One executive pulled me aside and said to me, Jason, are you going to be able to do this?

[606] You're going to do this?

[607] Literally, I was like, oh, my God.

[608] It's like, she's Buddy Garrity.

[609] I'm like, you know, I'm in a scene from Friday Night.

[610] Oh, Buddy Gary.

[611] Great pitch or great peck.

[612] Great pick.

[613] Favorite line of Buddy Gary.

[614] What a show.

[615] Now, you're really good at sharing credit.

[616] I don't know if that's easy for you or you're just smart enough to be good at it.

[617] I don't know.

[618] that is.

[619] But my hunch was Pete Berg is a blessing in the way that he shot the pilot, that it was real handheld, messy, chaotic, two cameras running at the same time.

[620] This whole architecture of how he worked, which of course we also had on Parenthood, to some degree.

[621] Yes.

[622] I have to imagine that that opened up the reality of incorporating the voices of the actors even more.

[623] That architecture of the way he shot minimally must have helped you explore this route that you've been on.

[624] Right.

[625] So when I came into Friday Night's, I watched the pilot and Imagine and David Nevins, who was the executive for Imagine at the time, brought me in and said, I want you to see this.

[626] At first, I didn't want to take on a show that was somebody else's show.

[627] That wasn't what I was looking to do.

[628] And you know better than to go see something that you like because it's going to change your mind.

[629] Right.

[630] I watched this pilot.

[631] I was alone.

[632] in the room.

[633] The end end in and I'm like, oh, shit, you know.

[634] I'm kind of like, what am I going to write that's going to be more exciting right now than this?

[635] Really, there were two questions.

[636] The first question was, are we going to be able to shoot this in Texas?

[637] Because I knew that's where the pilot was shot.

[638] And the second question was, what happens to Jason Street?

[639] Because if it was going to be like we'd have to try to make the show in L .A., which is usually at the time what would happen, I wasn't going to do it because there was no way I could do it.

[640] And if Jason Street had to have some miraculous recovery.

[641] and I had to try to make that work I didn't think I could do that either so the answer was their intention was to shoot in Texas and Jason Street whatever you think should happen should happen and so at that point it became a question of how to not screw it up and I knew there were lots of things I needed to do for the show creatively that were crucial for the show working but there were so many things that were already so beautiful and working so well that it was like how do I learn this process and then by embracing the process that Pete started and modifying it 70 % of how we made Friday Lights is how we made Parenthood and how I've made every show since then.

[642] I always remember when we started shooting Parenthood, the series.

[643] We were on a stage at Universal and Monica Potter and Peter Krauser were doing a scene.

[644] And I remember watching the scene, Larry Trilling was directing.

[645] At the end of the scene, Monica had this look on her face and I was so curious what she was going to say and they said, cut.

[646] And I came up to her and I was like, Monica, I was so curious.

[647] Why didn't you say anything?

[648] And she's like, why didn't I say anything?

[649] Like, nothing was written.

[650] And I was like, oh, Larry, come in.

[651] I just want, what I want you to do is like, don't cut and just let her say what she's going to say.

[652] Only because I wanted to know.

[653] Yeah, yeah.

[654] Your own curiosity.

[655] But it began this process on parenthood, which was not as extreme as Friday Night's where there was the ability for actors to take ownership of their characters and to not abandon the scripts.

[656] You know, like the scripts are really good.

[657] Like, that's the only one thing I want to say about all of the conversations about.

[658] Improv and all that stuff.

[659] It's not improv in terms of like Kirby enthusiasm where you're coming in with a story.

[660] Right.

[661] The scripts are really good.

[662] But there's so much room for wanting to find the juzes and find the nuance, right?

[663] Like of what's going on between people and letting those moments come out and letting humor come out.

[664] What it allows the two actors to do is to create a rhythm that's unique to the relationship, which becomes really fun.

[665] I know in acting in the show, I'd get so excited.

[666] Like, if Peter and I had seven scenes in a day, I'd be like, oh, this is going to be fucking great.

[667] Anyone that I had a rhythm with, it's like, he and I could get in a scene and it just was going to work.

[668] And, yeah, we had the latitude to find this weird rhythm.

[669] Each little pairing had its own signature thumbprint, like a real relationship, which I think is cool and really hard to write because there's like biochemical shit going on between you and I right now.

[670] It's unknown, and it creates a reaction.

[671] action in one another that is unforeseeable and just allowing space for all that to exist is really, you know, I mean, I will get into how joyous it was.

[672] Well, another aspect of it is also because we shot both sides at once, before I did Friday Night's, I never did it.

[673] I didn't know to do it.

[674] So in other words, if you're on a scene with Peter and some cool, magical thing happens between.

[675] He drops what he's holding.

[676] Yeah.

[677] You don't have to try to reproduce it to get the other side.

[678] And that's, I think, the thing that makes it so freeing for an actor.

[679] You're really given this opportunity to actually play with each other in the moment.

[680] Let's assume the worst about human beings.

[681] It also just incentivizes the other actor when they're not on camera.

[682] Conventionally, you'd shoot the Y, then they'd shoot Peter first, and I'm not on camera.

[683] So I might not even have my tie done up because it was uncomfortable.

[684] I might have my jacket off because it's hot in the scene.

[685] A lot of things might be happening that I'm not actually doing now because I have the freedom to do it.

[686] But when you're both on camera, you're both assured to be giving it 100 % and it kind of neutralizes that aspect of it as well.

[687] Right.

[688] On Friday Lights, they would call the camera operators snipers because they never really knew where they were.

[689] Yes.

[690] So you never really knew when you were on, when you were off, what size, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff that actors love to be able to do.

[691] They love to, like, come back and look at the monitors like, okay, what size are the thing they're acting.

[692] You can't do it.

[693] It's off the table.

[694] Yes.

[695] Nobody knows.

[696] Yes.

[697] The director doesn't even know half the time.

[698] It's all very fluid.

[699] Yeah.

[700] And you're figuring it out in the moment.

[701] And the two secret weapons in making television, in my mind, are the camera operators and the editors.

[702] Yes.

[703] People like, nobody really ever speaks about what they bring.

[704] But operators, when they're given, like on parenthood.

[705] Oh, my God, like Andy Graham.

[706] Yeah, and they're given this responsibility to find the moments.

[707] Their directors in behind their back, when you have three cameras going, saying, go from here to go to there.

[708] If they're seeing one of us do something interesting with our hands, they were deputized to tilt down and see what we were doing with our hands.

[709] And then if that lost their interest, then they'd return to whatever.

[710] Like they were almost voyeurs in the way the audience might be.

[711] Some of the most emotional moments are because of a pan, going from one character to the other in the perfect moment.

[712] And that's something that those operators did.

[713] Yeah, I would say Andy and Arthur and Josh, all these guys, they definitely became your scene partners.

[714] It's as creative as the other elements.

[715] I think that's what people don't know.

[716] Yeah.

[717] And in fact, Andy and I had this code.

[718] If ever there was a timing thing, because he was so unpredictable, you didn't know where he's going to be.

[719] But if something had to be nailed, I would say, if I was off camera, to Andy, party time.

[720] Party time was get in position.

[721] And we had so much fun with party time.

[722] I love that.

[723] Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

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[728] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

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[734] So Friday Night Lights, that was my hunch, that it kind of really solidifies the approach you're going to take moving forward.

[735] It's so fucking good.

[736] I'll just speak personally.

[737] I, for people don't already know this story, and I love your version of it.

[738] My version of the Parenthood story is David Nevins, the aforementioned David Nevins, who was then at Imagine, was producing something I had written.

[739] So I'm in a script session with Robin and Nevins.

[740] they kind of just look at each other in the middle.

[741] Like they both had the same thought at the same time.

[742] And they were like, hey, would you read for this other show we're producing called Parenthood?

[743] And I was like, sure.

[744] That moment in my life, I wasn't pursuing acting.

[745] I was like, I'm going back to writing.

[746] All my movies have failed.

[747] We're now a writer again.

[748] You know, I took that hat on and off the shelf a dozen times in 20 years.

[749] So I was like, I'm a writer.

[750] But they said that.

[751] And I was like, okay, I didn't really have a ton of interest in being on a TV show.

[752] I didn't know you yet.

[753] I go and I read, I end up in the show.

[754] Pretty shortly after that, we go up to the Bay Area to shoot the pilot, and it's there that I bring with me the DVDs of Friday Night Lights because I decide I want to learn what you've done.

[755] And I am growing more and more enthusiastic about this job I have that I don't even know.

[756] I'm watching Friday Night's.

[757] I'm like, this is the best show I've ever seen.

[758] It's the realest acting I've ever seen on TV.

[759] The amount of storylines that are being juggled that I'm interested in every one of every single time we go to one of the characters, I can't wait to find out what they're up to.

[760] Like the magic of that ensemble and the freedom and the reality and all of it, I'm like, I can't believe I'm in this guy's show.

[761] But that was like, while we were shooting, it was a very fun experience.

[762] Oh, that's great.

[763] You've been traded to the Bulls.

[764] You've never heard of Michael Jordan.

[765] And you start playing, you're like, this guy's pretty good.

[766] And then in game four, you're like, this guy might be the best player all of my time.

[767] Brand new.

[768] Yeah.

[769] So new.

[770] Oh, so wonderful.

[771] And it just made me so excited.

[772] And Erica, too.

[773] Christensen was watching it with Kristen and I at the same time.

[774] Yes, I remember when you and Erica would come up.

[775] And we'd come to work and just fucking harangue about details about Friday Night's.

[776] It's like, we were just the biggest fans ever.

[777] I remember that.

[778] That was fun.

[779] And I remember for some reason a very clear memory of you walking into audition for parenthood.

[780] And I was like, oh, that's Crosby.

[781] Isn't that what you kind of live for when you're fasting something?

[782] Yes.

[783] I think Nevins had called me and said, oh, Dax is coming in, and so I was waiting to meet you.

[784] Yeah, so I read for you and Tommy Shlami, and I can't remember who else was in the room, but I, too, was at your office.

[785] And I left there, and I knew Bradley Cooper was friends with Tommy Shalami.

[786] And so I think I was in a grocery store, like an hour after that reading.

[787] And Cooper called me, because on my behalf, Cooper had called Shlami and said, how did Dax do?

[788] And then Shlami told Cooper, don't tell anyone, but he's the guy.

[789] I was like, Cooper basically told him.

[790] And then he hung up and called you.

[791] Do you remember the scene?

[792] I'm pretty certain it was the scene about the sperm and the freezer.

[793] Oh, wow.

[794] I think that's what it was.

[795] And then weirdly, what had happened to me just prior to that that you wouldn't have known about is I had just come off of a movie that was entirely improv.

[796] Because it was entirely improvved, maybe I just thought it was best that I don't do a camera.

[797] character.

[798] Like, I'm not going to be able to write a story real time as another person whose mind I'm trying to occupy.

[799] Whatever.

[800] I just decided, I'm going to have to be me. This whole thing's improv, which I had never really done.

[801] And then that thing went to Sundance and people loved it.

[802] That paved the way for me to come in the room and do whatever I did on that day and then be who I was in the series, which is like, I'm just going to be me. I'm enough.

[803] So it was a big turning point for me. The timing is very suspicious universally when you think of all the little steps that would add up to you and I working together for six years.

[804] The fact that I've returned to writing, I just did this movie right.

[805] I don't know, it's all very interesting.

[806] Yeah.

[807] Okay, we got to pop into parenthood.

[808] Got to.

[809] You know, I had Connie on.

[810] I've had a lot of the parenthood cast members on.

[811] I hope it delights you to hear that universally when any of us get together, any ex -Katom's soldiers, we all go, greatest experience of our life, in Roon Show business for the rest of it.

[812] I mean, truly, it'll ruin show.

[813] It'll ruin show business for you, in the best, most complimentary way.

[814] Right.

[815] So I hope that fills you with a lot of pride because it's so true.

[816] We all think that.

[817] Thank you.

[818] So here was my thought this morning that I never thought to ask you.

[819] The level of intimacy that develops on a set in six years is the most non -familial intimacy I've ever really experienced.

[820] You're with each other nonstop.

[821] You're doing something creative.

[822] You're doing something emotionally scary.

[823] Whatever all the many different reasons, but you become so close.

[824] Like, my love for Larry Trilling knows no bounds.

[825] I love this man so much.

[826] I loved Dylan and Tahini and Schaefer and Matt Sheets and all these people.

[827] And I wonder, would you walk in and feel at all like, God, I created this whole thing.

[828] But these people are together nonstop.

[829] They have this level of intimacy.

[830] Were you ever jealous of the level of intimacy?

[831] That's a great question.

[832] And one that's nobody's ever asked me before.

[833] There's a little bit of being a showrunner where you're involved with everybody but not as involved with anybody as everybody else is.

[834] One of the shows I'm doing, I'm still doing a virtual writer's room.

[835] They come into the Zoom and I have this thing where as soon as my face comes up on Zoom, everybody stops talking.

[836] And it's like, please don't do that.

[837] You know what I mean?

[838] Everybody's talking and they're laughing.

[839] I was like, oh, Jason's here.

[840] It's like, oh, it's work time.

[841] I feel like by virtue of the fact that I have to be in the writer's room, I have to be in the editing room, I have to be on set, casting, new roles.

[842] I'm the main point person with the network, the studio.

[843] So there's so many things that by nature I'm not able to be on set.

[844] That's why the thing that was great for me about directing was I had to shut off everything else for that time.

[845] You get in the director bubble.

[846] Yeah, I had to be there and think, okay, So today, I have these three scenes I'm going to do, and that's the only thing I can think about today.

[847] And you can't even think about the other two scenes, in fact.

[848] Right.

[849] I'm glad you did it as often as you did, because that was our only time to be with you and to share it with you.

[850] But there's some kind of allegory here in that, like, a writer creates a world.

[851] I guess there's a bunch of reasons you might.

[852] It's just the story you want to tell.

[853] For me, I really was most drawn to the control of writing, that the world's going to abide by the rules.

[854] I sat in a childhood without a lot of control that felt very appealing.

[855] It was like everything goes the way I want here.

[856] But it's a curious thing because you sit down and you create an imaginary world which becomes the script and then you cast it and then it exists like it comes to life yet the writer can never be inside their story and it must be even doubly weird that other stories physically in the real realm and I'm not in it either.

[857] Not in it meaning You're too busy doing all the other stuff.

[858] You're not sitting on set like the rest of us, just enjoying the world you created.

[859] Right.

[860] You're Oz.

[861] Oz can't be on the Golden Brick Road.

[862] Right.

[863] Oz is busy.

[864] Oz is busy as a motherfucker.

[865] One of my paper hanger.

[866] Yeah.

[867] Minka and I had this great moment when she was on Parenthood.

[868] We had lunch together, and I'm saying to her, yeah, but you were on the best Katham show of all time, Friday Night's.

[869] And she's going, no, no, parenthood's way better than Friday.

[870] I'm like, no, Parenthood doesn't hold a candle to Frighted Lights.

[871] We're having a literal argument over what shows better.

[872] And after the fact I realized, you know what's happening is I can't consume Parenthood the way she can, nor could she consume Frient Lights the way I can.

[873] I'm an audience member of Frighted Lights.

[874] I'm not on the inside of it.

[875] And something about being on the inside of it does deprive you of the pleasure.

[876] I'm so intimately connected to these shows.

[877] I'm not somebody who sits on set a lot because when things are going well, which they are almost always, I'm a very passive presence on set.

[878] I've made this 40 and slip a lot of times where I would come to set, I'd be hanging out, be talking to you guys, and then I'd be like, oh, I have to get back to work.

[879] Because there's so many things I have to do.

[880] Like, you guys have to have a fucking script, right?

[881] Like, when I was a teenager, I used to love diners.

[882] I used to love sitting at the counter and watching the shorter to cook.

[883] And I was thinking, man, that's what job I want.

[884] And my wife, Kathy, who you know, child and sweetheart, is now my wife.

[885] Righter herself.

[886] After I became a showrunner, she said, you got your wish.

[887] You're a shorter to cook, you know, and even like you have that thing where you have so many things.

[888] And I do love that about what I do.

[889] Yes.

[890] But I do feel so intimately connected to everybody, all the actors.

[891] And I feel like there's such an interesting relationship that forms over time between the showrunner and the actor or the writer and the actor, that's beyond the actual talking about the role or talking about the story.

[892] You'll get the script, and then I'll see the cut, and the next time I write a script, I'm going to be informed by the cut.

[893] So what you're doing is informing the character, and that's, I think, the deepest relationship, to me, in television, is the actor and the writer of what's not ever stated.

[894] I'm kind of going off of what you're doing, and you're going off of what I'm doing.

[895] It's like an improv game, like build a sentence.

[896] Right.

[897] I remember seeing an episode when we first introduced Ray Romano, and I remember watching in the editing room, he and Max Berkholder.

[898] They didn't have any lines together in the scene.

[899] There was something I saw, I said, I want to write for them.

[900] Yes.

[901] And that became a whole story.

[902] You would watch the chemical stuff that would happen between people.

[903] And so I feel like it's an incredibly intimate relationship, and yet it's not necessarily one where I'm in the trenches every day.

[904] You're right.

[905] It's really intimate and interactive without necessarily being conscious of it.

[906] Do you know Monica, that's one of Monica's very favorite show.

[907] Both.

[908] Both of those shows.

[909] Oh, my God.

[910] Yeah, I was obsessed with it before I even started working for them, so it was really...

[911] She kept it really under her lid, though.

[912] I'll never forget the first time Peter came over and I was like doing dishes or something.

[913] in the house and he came in the back door at their old house and I just looked over and I was like oh hi I'm Monica and I was like oh my God freaking out I was freaking out but I played it really cool and then Dax came in and was like oh Monica are you so excited I was doing such a good job we should have had an impromptu fight over the direction of the luncheonette just to give you a real I know and I got a mug I got a lunch net mug Guys.

[914] Oh my God.

[915] I love that show.

[916] And I also love Friday Night Lights so much.

[917] It was my ringtone for a long time.

[918] So special.

[919] Okay.

[920] One thing that's curious to me about you, I think it's obvious to you how much I respect you as a writer.

[921] I hope that's very clear.

[922] So what I think most fascinates me is when you do things that are so different from how my nature is.

[923] So the fact that you've at least now locked into a pretty consistent pattern of, working off of source material is so interesting to me. And I think it probably is a bit of a clue why you're so comfortable with allowing it to be as collaborative as you do.

[924] You're not threatened by the fact someone had the idea before they pass the ball to you.

[925] I, for some reason, am like, oh, I got to create this whole thing in my mind or it's not something.

[926] Do you have thoughts on that?

[927] Because Front In Lights was, as we said, it was a book, then a movie, then parents.

[928] Parenthood was a movie, then a show, then a show, as we see it.

[929] Israeli show.

[930] And now, Dear Edward, a very popular book.

[931] Yeah.

[932] So is that something you're conscious of or no?

[933] You know, when I was going to do Parenthood, the first thing I had to do was come up with an idea for it and then go and pitch it to Ron Howard and Brian Grazer.

[934] It was this movie that was an incredible movie.

[935] Yeah.

[936] And it was a movie that I know was a very important movie to Ron personally.

[937] So I was trying to be very respectful of the movie when I pitched the show.

[938] And after the pitch, he said to me, that sounds exciting.

[939] But I just want to let you know that of all the stuff that you just pitched, the stuff that was new and was not in the movie was the stuff that was most interesting to me. In every instance, it's about making it true to me. Whether it's original or comes from any kind of source material, you have to make it your own.

[940] And in parenthood, the most significant thing in that was Max's storyline.

[941] I have a son who's on the spectrum.

[942] At the time that I was coming up with the idea for the pilot, there was an uncomfortable overlap between what was happening in my personal life and that story.

[943] And there was a time when I took it out in the development process, before I wrote the script.

[944] But when I was still doing outlines, I changed it.

[945] And once again, David Evans comes up where I gave them the new version.

[946] And David said, well, why did you?

[947] change that story.

[948] My answer was, I thought it would take over.

[949] And I know NBC, at the beginning, they were thinking of it as a very light one -hour show, which of course it was really not.

[950] I was concerned about that.

[951] And David said, well, why don't you just make it less than what you thought it was going to be?

[952] But put it in, because I missed that.

[953] Yeah.

[954] And so I said, okay, knowing that it wasn't going to be less.

[955] I mean, it was like, so when you put that in there, it's going to be big.

[956] Because at the time, nobody talked about autism on broadcast television.

[957] To me, that storyline was the story that really launched the show.

[958] It defined the show, yeah.

[959] There was something about that story at the beginning of the show that was sort of working on a different plane, and then the rest of the show would catch up to it.

[960] So in any case, when I'm taking something on, a lot of it is just, is it resonating for me?

[961] And is there something for me to tell here that feels like it's not just doing what the source material did?

[962] Is there something that I could bring to it that would keep me sort of engaged and interested, but also be entertaining for me. people yeah you know i would imagine when the max storyline is first talked about thought about the instinct would be to say that this is such a small percentage experience that it'll be non -relatable but i think obviously what made it entirely relatable and now that i have kids i know it better is like you don't need to have a kid on the spectrum to be terrified about your kids future right That that's actually probably the most universal feeling as a parent.

[963] You're like, God, I love this little person.

[964] I pray that they're going to be okay.

[965] Right.

[966] And one of the things I learned from doing that story on parenthood was how many people have something.

[967] Exactly.

[968] It doesn't have to be autism or anything else, but something that they are dealing with or their children are dealing with.

[969] And that was one of the things that was most moving about that whole experience was how many people connected to that story for all different reasons.

[970] They came out of from different ways.

[971] So Robert Schmeichael has this autism fundraiser and people can call in.

[972] Celebrities are picking up the phone.

[973] And I was asked to do it, again, I think, because my association with parenthood, and on the stage, I can't even remember who it was, but I know it was like George Clooney, you know, 18 megastars in me. And I was so self -conscious answering these phones because I'm like, oh my God, people are going to be so bummed out.

[974] Like they've got their thousand bucks they're willing to spend to talk to a movie star.

[975] I'm calling back.

[976] They're getting me. So as my bit, I would answer the phone and I go, hello, I'm so sorry.

[977] This is Dech Shepherd, but I'm so close to George Clooney.

[978] And I would say this over and over again.

[979] And I promise you, not just some of them, the majority of people said, oh my God, you're who I wanted to talk to.

[980] Because I have a kid with autism.

[981] I'm obsessed with parenthood.

[982] And pretty universally people were pumped that they got me, in spite of the fact there were much bigger.

[983] I love that.

[984] I love that.

[985] Okay.

[986] Last question about that source material thing.

[987] Do you have the type of brain that when you consume something, that's what starts the creative gears.

[988] Like you're reading Dear Edward and it gets you.

[989] Yes.

[990] And then that is actually what turns on the whole machine.

[991] Well, dear Edward, it was a unique situation for me creatively because I read the book and I was incredibly moved by the book and I thought it was so beautiful.

[992] Anapolitano who's the author who, I I actually just wrote a new book that's amazing, too.

[993] Is that the show we're doing together?

[994] We'll talk about, yeah, I want to get you out of retirement.

[995] I was, that was one of the things I was going to, that's why I'm here.

[996] We'll get to that.

[997] But I read the book and I feel like a lot of novels are written now to be adapted as a television show.

[998] And hers really wasn't.

[999] And it was one of the things I really loved about it.

[1000] It was very literary.

[1001] And it wasn't immediately apparent what the show was.

[1002] And so I talked to Anne about it.

[1003] and I said how much I loved her book.

[1004] And I was like, if it's going to be a show, I got to figure out how to make it into a show and is it okay if I change things?

[1005] And she said, really the only thing is I want it to be a beautiful show.

[1006] Other than that, I'm not tied to anything.

[1007] And so with that show, I wanted to create sort of like in parenthood and in Friday and Lights, how you have this sort of large ensemble of people.

[1008] And I thought that was what was going to be really powerful about this because it's a show about grief and dealing with grief and about loss.

[1009] and it's full of life and it's aspirational.

[1010] I don't want to make it sound too depressing.

[1011] I thought it would be so interesting to come at it from different angles.

[1012] We have the story of this 12 -year -old boy who's the sole survivor of the plane crash, and that's the dear Edward story from the novel, but there's also the deity character who Connie Britton plays, who's not in the novel, but is such a life force in the show.

[1013] And a lot of the rest of the ensemble were characters that were not in the book, that I had to find myself in doing it.

[1014] So it was very exciting for me to try to find, how do I tell this story that's not really meant to be a show?

[1015] It's written beautifully as a novel.

[1016] How do I do it in a way that I think would really bring people in?

[1017] So it was like its own unique challenge.

[1018] There's such a deep connection with these people.

[1019] It's about this community of people who unexpectedly find each other.

[1020] Yeah, people who have found each other, but they didn't know each other before.

[1021] And people that never would have met before.

[1022] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1023] And there was just something about that.

[1024] You're right.

[1025] There's a few devices where you could bring together eight different people from completely different socio -economic, racial, all these backgrounds and make it believable.

[1026] And they wind up not only knowing each other, but having a connection that's so deep and so powerful.

[1027] And what's beautiful about the show is you're watching these people also reinvent themselves and discover things about themselves that they were not really investigating.

[1028] Yeah, yeah.

[1029] That now, over circumstances, they're forced to.

[1030] Connie's character, D .D. They go out at the beginning.

[1031] It's the daughter's birthday.

[1032] They're going to have this great meal and go on the shopping spree.

[1033] The daughter's clearly kind of outgrown this.

[1034] And the daughter just says, what's going on with you and dad?

[1035] And Connie just kind of brushes that under the rug.

[1036] And you don't know when you leave the pilot.

[1037] Like, I don't know, is the daughter hip to something or whatever?

[1038] And then, of course, Dee -D is now learning about the reality of her husband through his death.

[1039] Right.

[1040] Might not have ever known financial problems.

[1041] He's got a place in L .A. Yeah.

[1042] And suddenly she has to turn the way.

[1043] the light on herself, though.

[1044] Yeah, it's not just that her husband died, it's that her entire identity as she knew it and her story has been a lie.

[1045] So she's confronting, like, a couple major things.

[1046] Right.

[1047] And of course, it's Connie Brynn, so it's unbelievable.

[1048] I mean, she's so good.

[1049] Yeah.

[1050] And what's so great about what she did in the show is she embraced the larger -than -life -ness of this character.

[1051] The rich, New York.

[1052] The humor in her.

[1053] And she's so much fun, the show is a heavy subject matter.

[1054] So every time she comes on screen, it's like you smile.

[1055] It's so beautiful.

[1056] Okay, so we gloss over one thing that was going to be.

[1057] The other signature part of your career is the ensemble.

[1058] You embrace the ensemble so much.

[1059] And for so many reasons, that's challenging.

[1060] I'll just lay a couple out.

[1061] For everyone who's watched many shows, as we all have, the pilot's always the hardest because you're introducing us and asking us to care about strangers.

[1062] That's the task of the pilot.

[1063] It's hard enough to establish two people that you're going to care about within that hour to take them on the ride.

[1064] Much less you're going to establish like 10 people.

[1065] Or more.

[1066] Yeah.

[1067] And so the efficiency you have to have as a writer, the skill set to be like landing on people, giving you something you lock onto that feels real, and then giving them some emotional struggle that's so salient that you're hooked.

[1068] That's a really unique skill and clearly the one that appeals to you most.

[1069] Could you articulate?

[1070] Why?

[1071] Do you like having all the options?

[1072] That's a big challenge.

[1073] So you're taking on a lot of risk and a lot of struggle, and my curiosity is what is it about it that's worth it?

[1074] I mean, again, I go back to Friday Lights that made me really fall in love with the large ensemble.

[1075] This ensemble was so large, because, you know, you take any of these characters.

[1076] Michael B. Jordan, all of a sudden.

[1077] Michael B. Jordan.

[1078] I got to know about this kid, yeah.

[1079] We're like Landry.

[1080] Landry.

[1081] Yeah.

[1082] Billy Riggins.

[1083] They're all these people who are, if you watched a pilot, supporting characters, Annie Policki's character.

[1084] You just don't know that much about her.

[1085] But by the time you get to the third season of the show, she's a lead for a while.

[1086] And same thing with Landry.

[1087] There was something about that show.

[1088] I still don't know why exactly.

[1089] It contains so much.

[1090] We could do seven, eight, nine storylines.

[1091] And I think we did that really successfully with Parenthood.

[1092] You know, we had lots of stories going.

[1093] We had a lot of characters.

[1094] There's other reasons it's hard.

[1095] Aside from the creative challenge, trying to convince a network that you're going to have to have 18 series regulars.

[1096] That's not easy.

[1097] All of it's harder.

[1098] Now you need 18 trailers.

[1099] Now you've got 18 people coming to your office saying like, what am I doing this season?

[1100] You know.

[1101] It's a lot of head.

[1102] I know.

[1103] I know.

[1104] My next show, you're right.

[1105] And my next show is going to be one guy.

[1106] Shipwrecked.

[1107] They may castaway.

[1108] Yeah, there you go.

[1109] That's a series.

[1110] Yeah.

[1111] There's something about watching different storylines when the show is working and you cut to every storyline.

[1112] It informs the one before it.

[1113] And there's something.

[1114] so beautiful about it.

[1115] It's challenging, but what's forgiving about it is you have a lot of flexibility editorially.

[1116] A lot of times in both Fridaylights and Parenthood, you're in the editing room and you're like, well, all these scenes are great, but the story's not getting launched.

[1117] And so sometimes I would be able to take a scene that was on page 23 of the script and open the episode with it.

[1118] And that's all it took.

[1119] And then you're like, okay, you're in.

[1120] It gives you choice.

[1121] The other thing that you're saying about the pilot's so true, I feel like there's a pattern in the shows that I've done, you know, I love them all, right?

[1122] I love them from the first episode.

[1123] Yeah.

[1124] But I find that there's a pattern that when you get to episode 4, 5, 6, there's a certain point where they really, like, kick into gear.

[1125] Because it takes a while.

[1126] You can't know everybody.

[1127] Like, you know, and I think there were 16 series regulars.

[1128] Priolites, I don't know how many characters there were.

[1129] Yeah.

[1130] 150.

[1131] Dear Edward, I think there's 16 series, right?

[1132] You know, there's like a lot of people.

[1133] It might take a little more time to get invested, but once you do get invested, I feel like I've gotten a lot of response from people on these shows, like on Dear Edward, on Friday Nightlights, on Parenthood, about how much they are connected to these characters.

[1134] So many people have said they're like, oh, yeah, I have to remind myself, like, I don't know them.

[1135] So many people have said, we watch it with our family.

[1136] It's like part of our family.

[1137] Yes.

[1138] And I think that's because there's lots of ways in.

[1139] You're going to find someone that you relate to.

[1140] Right.

[1141] becomes you in the story.

[1142] Right.

[1143] The pilot of Dear Edward is fantastic.

[1144] There's not even a moment where it feels laborious like you're introducing more character.

[1145] It's like it's really beautifully done it.

[1146] Who directed the pilot?

[1147] Fisher Stevens directed the pilot.

[1148] He did an incredible job.

[1149] It's great.

[1150] And I'll say, yes, heavy topic, playing crash.

[1151] But what I like the most about the way you execute everything you make is at least for me, it very much mirrors real life, which is I get the dreaded call in 2012 Dax.

[1152] I have cancer.

[1153] It's my dad.

[1154] And so there's that initial punch.

[1155] But then as you walk through it, 95 % of it was us laughing.

[1156] I get there.

[1157] Now he's a fucking baby.

[1158] I'm changing diapers.

[1159] It all becomes hilarious.

[1160] I'm seeing relatives I haven't seen in a while.

[1161] It's like my fear of the situation is an 11.

[1162] But then when walking through life, I'm never actually experiencing an 11.

[1163] There's always room for some irreverence.

[1164] some comedy.

[1165] And so I think my favorite part of your tone is that it's never saccharine.

[1166] It's never cheap.

[1167] You're never scoring it to wring the most out of it.

[1168] You let the situation be powerful.

[1169] And then you let everyone within that, I think, act very close to real life.

[1170] So that's why I think you naturally are very nervous about asking people to see a show about a bunch of people dying on a plane.

[1171] It's like a cancer movie or anything else.

[1172] But I'm here to say it's not heavy -handed and it's often quite light.

[1173] Thank you, yes.

[1174] There's beautiful love stories throughout the show.

[1175] I mean, not just romantic stories.

[1176] You know, stories about an uncle and his niece or all these things that are really life -affirming and quite beautiful.

[1177] In the simplest way, it's like when we meet all these people, they're all broken before this fracture.

[1178] And then ironically, this huge break ends up probably instigating some healing and growth.

[1179] Yes.

[1180] You don't mean anyone, they're in the end zone of life.

[1181] Right.

[1182] Yeah.

[1183] Everyone's got some shit going on.

[1184] before the big thing drops.

[1185] Where can we watch it?

[1186] It's on Apple Plus.

[1187] It's out right now, and it's incredible.

[1188] I love it.

[1189] I've only watched the first two episodes, but I cannot wait to watch more.

[1190] The little boy in it is just, I don't know how you keep finding these kids.

[1191] Colin O 'Brien, beautiful actor.

[1192] The cast is amazing all throughout.

[1193] Yeah.

[1194] Carter Hudson, he's playing my role when I watch the show.

[1195] I'm like, yeah, that's the role I would have probably been.

[1196] I know.

[1197] I got to get you out of it.

[1198] retirement he's doing a great job got to get you out of retirement tax he's doing a really good job who's this fucking guy that i shouldn't plan yeah he's pretty damn good yeah oh my god this guy's natural as hell yeah he did it again sounds like you have an opening it's so good i hope everyone watches it there's also some growth here it's different than your previous shows oh thank you it has its own DNA to it it does it does sort of the idea of all these people in new york connecting people who would have never known each other who are sort of connecting these ways.

[1199] I've always wanted to tell a story like that.

[1200] I've tried to tell a story like that.

[1201] And this gave me the opportunity to do that.

[1202] Well, it does mirror what happens in New York when I think all of us love about visiting New York is like in L .A., you're stuck in your pocket of your silo.

[1203] It's like you get in your car, you go to a restaurant where other people of your socioeconomic group eat, you go to a school and drop your kids off with other parents that are similar.

[1204] New York, you walk out your hotel and you're on the street with every single person.

[1205] And it's wonderful.

[1206] This show has that vibe where it's like, oh, yeah, everyone's going to intersect as they do, which is not true in a lot of places.

[1207] It's one of the things I love about New York.

[1208] It is spectacular.

[1209] Well, Jason, I love you so much.

[1210] I do.

[1211] Let me tell you from the bottom of my heart, not just best work experience of my life, truly, it was.

[1212] The most heartwarming experience of my life.

[1213] And also, I think, opened up a whole world of opportunity to me that I didn't have before it.

[1214] So I have to imagine one of your greatest prides is watching all the people you've worked with go on to do fun stuff.

[1215] I know for me it's the thing I like the most when I work with people and I see, oh, God, good for them.

[1216] And you gave that to me for sure.

[1217] And so I thank you for that.

[1218] Oh, that's so kind.

[1219] Yeah, yeah.

[1220] Well, thank you.

[1221] You know, I got to say this has been such a pleasure to get to talk to you.

[1222] Every time you come up, you come up often because you know everybody.

[1223] I love getting to talk about how much I love you.

[1224] and what a joy it was to get to do a show with you and work with you and just what an incredible human being you are.

[1225] Oh, thank you.

[1226] And we had a damn riot last year at this time.

[1227] About a year ago now we were on stage at ATX.

[1228] Yes, that was fun.

[1229] We did this parenthood reunion at this theater in Austin together, and we had eight or nine of us from the show on stage, and it was pretty full house.

[1230] The audience was super into it.

[1231] Oh, they were having a riot, yeah.

[1232] And, you know, I'd answer some questions.

[1233] And at a certain point, I just started watching Dax and being like, how is he able to do this?

[1234] He just basically, like, made everybody better on stage.

[1235] Everybody loved him in the audience.

[1236] It's a skill.

[1237] That's why you're doing what you're doing here.

[1238] Thank you.

[1239] It was so fun.

[1240] It was so fun.

[1241] Anytime I can publicly state how much I love you.

[1242] Well, I hope everyone watches Dear Edward.

[1243] It's on Apple Plus right now.

[1244] It's absolutely fantastic.

[1245] As mentioned, Connie Britton is fucking full -fledged Connie Britton.

[1246] Everything you love about her is on display in this.

[1247] And I hope everyone checks it out.

[1248] It's beautiful and really interesting and really original.

[1249] And I'm so happy for you.

[1250] And I adore you.

[1251] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1252] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1253] Hello.

[1254] Your shoes, although attractive, look very uncomfortable.

[1255] I worry about you.

[1256] They are.

[1257] They hush puppies?

[1258] No, they're Prada.

[1259] But I...

[1260] I walked to Broom Street and backing them.

[1261] I, like, took a legit walk in them, and they were totally fine.

[1262] How far is Broomstick away?

[1263] A Broom Street is 21 -minute walk.

[1264] It is.

[1265] Yeah.

[1266] So probably a mile and a half?

[1267] Probably.

[1268] No, I think it's two.

[1269] Two?

[1270] You're walking 10 -minute miles?

[1271] No, that's not bad at all.

[1272] right let's see what's your address hold on I've got it I'm gonna guess one point four miles it's probably one mile 1 .1 by car let me see walking yeah 1 .1 miles it's not very much 1 .1 miles well it depends you could get 1 .2 miles if you go a certain route I walk fast you're on a mission I am and I really don't like getting behind people who are walking has happened yesterday I walk back first you hated joggers let's just go through the timeline No, no, no. I'm fine with joggers.

[1273] It's dog walkers.

[1274] Oh, is that what it was?

[1275] I thought joggers are coming at you and they don't move to the side.

[1276] Wasn't that one of your original grievances?

[1277] I'm jogging.

[1278] Wait, you're jogging to Broomster?

[1279] No, no, no, but in the, in the grievance.

[1280] In the grievance.

[1281] Correct.

[1282] In the grievance, I'm jogging.

[1283] It's like when I'm jogging that I notice this the most.

[1284] Oh.

[1285] Because I'm exerting a lot of effort to be doing this.

[1286] Yeah.

[1287] And then people are just walking leisurely.

[1288] Yes.

[1289] Down the middle of the middle of the way.

[1290] the street sidewalk or worst case they have a dog and the deletious you know taking up the whole they're taking up the whole entire sidewalk between them and their dog and they're not moving their dog closer the whole environment really i hate it and i hate it when people are walking in a three and don't adjust when somebody else is i just yeah i think it's the first thing you have to teach your children.

[1291] I have not taught my kids yet.

[1292] Lincoln instinctually does it.

[1293] She's mindful.

[1294] Delta's blasting into people all the time.

[1295] She doesn't look at all where she's going and she changes directions often.

[1296] She's like a gazelle running from a predator.

[1297] I do think I've walked with her and said, okay, let's stay out of people's way.

[1298] Right.

[1299] On a walk to Broom Street a couple days ago.

[1300] Anna did?

[1301] On my walk to Broom Street a couple of days.

[1302] I go every day, pretty much.

[1303] Yeah.

[1304] And it's a store, right?

[1305] Yeah, that's why I go.

[1306] Okay.

[1307] Well, I go to get, there's, it's also a coffee shop.

[1308] Mm -hmm.

[1309] And a store.

[1310] Ooh.

[1311] I know.

[1312] Veritable Borders.

[1313] Borders books.

[1314] But this is a cooler store than Borders.

[1315] I doubt it.

[1316] Hard to believe.

[1317] Borders?

[1318] Are we talking about the same thing?

[1319] Yeah.

[1320] Are you talking about Borders or Barnes and Noble?

[1321] Borders.

[1322] You are?

[1323] You know me I'm working class.

[1324] Oh, my God.

[1325] Borders is so working class.

[1326] It's out of, it's out.

[1327] Out of order.

[1328] It's chapter 11.

[1329] Yeah.

[1330] So working class, it's out of class.

[1331] I also think Chapter 11 was also a bookstore.

[1332] Oh, really?

[1333] Yes, it was.

[1334] Oh, my God, that's bad luck.

[1335] It's like really funny.

[1336] Yeah.

[1337] I'm going to name a company bankruptcy.

[1338] In fact, my next corporation is going to be called Bankruptcy Incorporated.

[1339] Chapter 11, bookstore.

[1340] It was a thing.

[1341] It did file for Chapter 11, though.

[1342] Yeah, exactly.

[1343] It's not a thing anymore.

[1344] Yeah.

[1345] But anywho, Barnes & Noble, I love Barnes & Noble.

[1346] You think it's that much better than borders?

[1347] Um, yes.

[1348] Really?

[1349] Yes.

[1350] What is better about it?

[1351] It's like Vons versus Gelson's.

[1352] What does, I understand that you think there's a big gap.

[1353] I'm asking what are some of the things that make it better?

[1354] It stinks in there.

[1355] Well, in the hall about.

[1356] If you walk into Vons, it stinks.

[1357] No, no. I get the difference between Vons and Gelsons.

[1358] Yeah, yeah, I'm very clear on that.

[1359] Okay.

[1360] What is it that you think Barnes & Noble is doing better, has differently?

[1361] They're both huge.

[1362] Great smell.

[1363] Vacuous voluminous gigantic warehouses with rows of books in a cafe how could it be that different?

[1364] It's a vibe Signage I guess signage they got a Starbucks in Barnes & Noble's usually no it didn't have Starbucks and probably had coffee bean Like everything about it careful careful careful I don't have to be careful that's my opinion Coffee beans oh and Starbucks is yeah yeah so That's where I go to get my hand jobs.

[1365] Don't you remember the movie I was in?

[1366] Idiocry Occam's me. Ew.

[1367] Now he's bragging about him being in a...

[1368] He wasn't...

[1369] That's your asshole, I am.

[1370] Ew.

[1371] I'm a bragger.

[1372] That's how you get all the checks.

[1373] Bragg.

[1374] Okay, sorry.

[1375] Listen, do you remember in the movie?

[1376] Joe says, let's stop for a latte.

[1377] And I said, we don't have time for a hand job, Joe.

[1378] Because in the future, Starbucks is a brussel.

[1379] I find that confusing because he's not he's not in the mood like this is messing with my reality well no because the movie's a documentary as you recall most people now recognize it as a documentary right okay you're right earlier today you did the robot and I got so jazzed like I just got giddy in my body I showed up at an interview the guest didn't know who they were talking to we had to explain we have a robot yeah and he's so nice i just like him so all right we're back let's talk about a store we agree upon that we can just clear the slate okay okay on the count of three three two one emily's i got panicked yeah i'm sorry because because what i was about to say was Macy's.

[1380] Oh.

[1381] But I don't like Macy's.

[1382] You don't stand by that.

[1383] For the same reason as Borders and Vons.

[1384] There's a smell.

[1385] Oh my God, no. You cannot take on the Macy's Corporation.

[1386] I'm going to have to stop you.

[1387] We do have a business.

[1388] Okay.

[1389] You know what else sucks Ford and Coca -Cola.

[1390] Oh, actually, speaking of ding, ding, ding, Coke.

[1391] I was looking online yesterday for a vintage Coca -Cola sweatshirt.

[1392] Oh.

[1393] Because I am very pro -colle.

[1394] Of course.

[1395] It's my birthright.

[1396] That's right.

[1397] I couldn't find one.

[1398] I heard a trick.

[1399] What?

[1400] Friends of ours have a teenage daughter.

[1401] Okay.

[1402] Teenage daughter and her girlfriends were laughing around upstairs.

[1403] They had just gone to the store, like unsupervised.

[1404] They came back and then they were upstairs laughing.

[1405] And then they came downstairs and they said, you know, one of the girls, you know, Cindy's pregnant.

[1406] Oh, I was there for this.

[1407] Oh, you were?

[1408] Yes.

[1409] Oh, great.

[1410] And they showed a positive pregnancy test.

[1411] which turns out you can get that result by pouring Coca -Cola over it.

[1412] That's a fun track.

[1413] Coke can do so much.

[1414] It can make your pregnancy stick positive.

[1415] It can clean a chalkboard unlike any other substance in the whole world.

[1416] It neutralizes the build -up on a battery terminal.

[1417] When you get that gunk, that green gun, you're supposed to take a toothbrush and Coke -Cola and clean it with that.

[1418] Coca -Cola.

[1419] And it has a very good taste Oh my God, nothing better The diet version Well, I like the regs Yeah What about zero?

[1420] How do you feel about zero?

[1421] Have you tried the cherry zero?

[1422] No, I haven't tried it Oh, it's really good Rags I liked I've never seen you drink a rags Yeah, if I'm gonna get Coke Which one?

[1423] How many decades ago was that?

[1424] I got Coke the Fuck I got, yes I did I got Coke the other day at in and out But I got diet And I only, and it was weird.

[1425] It just came out of my mouth.

[1426] And I hate to admit this to you.

[1427] Oh, Eric.

[1428] It's going to hurt.

[1429] It's going to hurt me. Sure.

[1430] It's because you guys drink Diet Coke so much.

[1431] You and Eric, and now Charlie drinks it.

[1432] And it's like nonstop.

[1433] You always have Diet Coke.

[1434] And I thought...

[1435] It's our sacrament.

[1436] Exactly.

[1437] I thought...

[1438] Maybe I'll get into Diet Coke, too.

[1439] Maybe I'll like it.

[1440] And I ordered it.

[1441] Instead of being mad that it's us, how about think about that Bill Gates, it's his favorite.

[1442] Right.

[1443] That's a better way for me to click in.

[1444] Yeah.

[1445] But when I drank it, I said I should have just got Coke.

[1446] I like it better.

[1447] Oh, you do.

[1448] I taste the asper tame.

[1449] Yeah, I grew up on diet.

[1450] So that's the only thing.

[1451] If there was ever a soda in my house, it was Tab.

[1452] Oh, wow.

[1453] Yeah.

[1454] I'm not even going to say anything because, you know, that's not my style.

[1455] But I'm not going to say anything about TAE, we should tell you a lot about what I It has a bad smell, like Macy's, borders, Vons.

[1456] Microsoft, Apple, Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota.

[1457] I was going to, I wanted to talk about something, and I forgot to write it down.

[1458] I made meatballs last night.

[1459] How did it go, and what was the recipe?

[1460] Alison Roman, duh.

[1461] The meatballs.

[1462] Goodbye meatballs is what they're called.

[1463] Oh, goodbye meatballs.

[1464] Yeah.

[1465] Oh, you were supposed to bring me some.

[1466] I just now remembered.

[1467] Yep.

[1468] There's a reason I didn't.

[1469] I thought about it.

[1470] Okay.

[1471] I want to make them again.

[1472] Second chance.

[1473] Yeah.

[1474] This is why.

[1475] They taste it terrible.

[1476] I don't want to talk to him about this because this is vulnerable.

[1477] Okay.

[1478] Can you tell me something?

[1479] Yeah.

[1480] What is...

[1481] I'm afraid to say it.

[1482] What is ground chuck?

[1483] It's ground beef.

[1484] It is, right?

[1485] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1486] Is it regular ground beef?

[1487] Or is something else...

[1488] going on.

[1489] Let me think on this.

[1490] Let me think on this.

[1491] Chuck is short for the Charles slice of meat.

[1492] No, I don't know what.

[1493] It's usually made from leaner cuts.

[1494] Oh, it is?

[1495] So it's beefier flavor with a juicier texture.

[1496] Okay, so I disagree with Chuck.

[1497] I think you always want to go for a you want to go high fat when you're going to grow.

[1498] Okay, so I'm now I'm all twisted.

[1499] Yeah, because I got from McCall's and so it It calls for it, McCall's a pork.

[1500] The recipe calls for one pound pork, ground pork, and one pound ground beef.

[1501] Yeah.

[1502] So I ordered it.

[1503] I didn't go in.

[1504] I ordered it.

[1505] You can order from McCall?

[1506] Yeah, Mercado app.

[1507] It's exciting.

[1508] I didn't see ground beef.

[1509] I only saw a ground chuck.

[1510] And then their burger blend, but I didn't want to get the burger blend.

[1511] I only get the burger blend, continue.

[1512] For your burgers.

[1513] Everything for my sloppy joys for my taco.

[1514] Oh shit, really?

[1515] But not meatballs, maybe.

[1516] No, I would definitely use it for me. It's super fatty, and to me that's what makes ground beef so delicious.

[1517] Okay.

[1518] Well, pork is extremely fatty.

[1519] It is already fatty.

[1520] Yes, you could go with a leaner thing if you're mixing it with pork.

[1521] But I'm confused, but okay, so I got the thing.

[1522] I made the meatballs.

[1523] They're so good, but they do taste and the sauce taste very meaty in a way that I thought, oh fuck is that because it was ground chuck is ground chuck more meaty and now it sounds like maybe it's not because it's leaner yeah it's 9010 versus 8020 now what would be curious to me is if you think the meaty taste is actually the taste of the meat or if you're referring to the taste of the fat because i don't find like i i used to eat low fat and so i used to get like the leanest beef possible like 90, 10.

[1524] And then when you cook it and you drain some, it's, most of the flavor is gone.

[1525] It's not very flavorful when you get that low fat ground beef.

[1526] It's not flavorful at all.

[1527] I'm saying the opposite.

[1528] I'm saying it was so flavorful.

[1529] Too much flavor.

[1530] Only slightly, but yeah, like a little bit too much meaty flavor.

[1531] I'm just confused.

[1532] So I want to test it with a few other blends.

[1533] Okay, imperfect it.

[1534] Perfect it before I bring any to you.

[1535] I feel really nervous to bring food to you.

[1536] Why?

[1537] I just do.

[1538] I want it to be perfect.

[1539] Well, that's very nice.

[1540] I think the bar has gotten so high.

[1541] Like, everyone talks about how good I am of a cook.

[1542] I know.

[1543] I hear about it almost weekly.

[1544] I know.

[1545] And that's only caused.

[1546] A lot of the burden of being a great stress.

[1547] Yeah.

[1548] I know.

[1549] That's why I feel about being so good at driving.

[1550] It's like, oh, everyone's going to want me to drive.

[1551] Exactly how it is.

[1552] Yeah, because I had a girls' night recently and I made a really yummy buffalo chicken tender salad, which sounds kind of boring.

[1553] No, it does not.

[1554] It does not.

[1555] When you say buffalo, we know that this is a flavor profile that's going to deliver.

[1556] And I, you know, had to fry the cutlet.

[1557] Sure.

[1558] Did you use a red hot for the?

[1559] I did, Franks.

[1560] Yeah, Franks, love it, trusted brain.

[1561] I'll tell you about it.

[1562] First of all, you take a boneless chicken breast and you cut it in half, so it's thinner.

[1563] Then you do...

[1564] Medial.

[1565] You go across the median of it.

[1566] That's right.

[1567] Yeah.

[1568] Not like cut it right in the middle into two parts.

[1569] No, no, right.

[1570] Correct.

[1571] Then you do a dip of flour.

[1572] Yeah.

[1573] Then a mixture of Frank's redhot.

[1574] egg, but you've mixed all that together.

[1575] You've whisked all that together in a pan.

[1576] So then flour, egg and Franks.

[1577] I'm sure you don't do the Franks first?

[1578] I am sure.

[1579] Okay.

[1580] Actually, no, I'm wrong.

[1581] Okay, yeah, because generally you want the egg on the chicken so that the flour sticks to the chicken.

[1582] No. No. Because the third mixture is Panko and sesame seed, and you need that to stick.

[1583] So I actually, I think it's, I think it's.

[1584] It has flour and pink going?

[1585] It does.

[1586] Oh, yeah.

[1587] Oh, extra crispy.

[1588] It is.

[1589] It's so good.

[1590] It's so good.

[1591] And then you quick pickle some carrot and celery and Persian cucumbers.

[1592] Do a quick pickle.

[1593] Yeah.

[1594] Yeah.

[1595] And little gem.

[1596] And then you make.

[1597] That's what they used to call me in junior high.

[1598] Little gem?

[1599] The quick pickle.

[1600] Oh.

[1601] Oh, my gosh.

[1602] It would have been better if they called you Little Jam.

[1603] Yeah, both suck.

[1604] Little's not what you want to hear as a boy on any level.

[1605] And then also Quick is not a word you want to hear as a boy either.

[1606] One of the most popular kids and our popular boys in our middle school was Little.

[1607] He was a little gem.

[1608] I don't doubt that he was.

[1609] But if you asked him, do you like when people call you little?

[1610] I bet my life on the fact that he, that he, that was.

[1611] wasn't his favorite adjective.

[1612] I think you're right.

[1613] Do you want to be called Little Girl?

[1614] No. I wouldn't want to be called Little Girl either.

[1615] Why is that Little Missy?

[1616] Ew.

[1617] That's so demeaning.

[1618] Little Missy.

[1619] Oh, I had a disposal issue and I just got fixed.

[1620] I just got an email saying.

[1621] This is a computer thing?

[1622] No, disposal.

[1623] My kitchen disposal.

[1624] Oh, your garbage disposal.

[1625] Yeah.

[1626] Every few months, this happens.

[1627] Okay.

[1628] Well, we don't know if it's a Sincorator.

[1629] That's a very trusted brand.

[1630] Go ahead.

[1631] Oh, I don't even know.

[1632] I didn't even know what that was.

[1633] It obviously is not that.

[1634] It's some old ass.

[1635] Jaloppy?

[1636] Yes.

[1637] Why don't they put a new one in there?

[1638] Not expensive.

[1639] Exactly.

[1640] Just put a new one in.

[1641] No, what happens?

[1642] You turn the switch on and nothing happens?

[1643] Oh, does that?

[1644] So I got two things for you that cures, in this for any listener out there with a garbage disposal.

[1645] Yeah.

[1646] There are two things that are going to cure 97 % of your car.

[1647] garbage.

[1648] Okay.

[1649] Whatever it's called.

[1650] Issues.

[1651] Number one, if you click the switch and nothing happens, if you go under your sink and look at the disposal and you reach your hands around, you should be able to see it, but it could be on the back.

[1652] There is a little red reset button on all garbage disposal.

[1653] So it has a self.

[1654] Oh, my God.

[1655] It has its own circuit breaker, basically, but you can reset it by hitting the button.

[1656] So that's number one.

[1657] That's if you hear no noise when you turn it out.

[1658] That's definitely what's been fixing it.

[1659] Number two is you turn it on and you hear it.

[1660] but it's not spinning.

[1661] Turn it off.

[1662] Take a plunger.

[1663] Put the handle in the garbage disposal and start rotating it.

[1664] Get the handle to stick on one of the blades.

[1665] And then you rotate it around your sink and start manually turning it.

[1666] Usually something's bound in there and you can spin it the other way and it'll become free and then it'll move.

[1667] I then, no, fuck, I resist even saying this because I don't think you should.

[1668] ever, ever do this.

[1669] I then put my hand in the disposal when it's off after I've freed it and generally I'll feel what piece of metal got in there or something.

[1670] But that might not be your jam.

[1671] Also, nobody, nobody ever put your hand in the garbage disposal.

[1672] Do not do that.

[1673] Yeah, but I do do that.

[1674] I did that yesterday.

[1675] But don't do it.

[1676] Don't do it.

[1677] But anyways, those two hacks on a garbage disposal are going to cure almost every problem.

[1678] I knew something shady was going on because, listen, for the past like four times this has happened they fix it in one second yes and they're obviously doing that button thing yeah yeah probably and i said i's even said it that was so fast last time to the plumber i said that was so fast is that something i could do ah and he said no no no it's too complicated for you little girl a little missy he said no he said no but i know that what he Because he wants the work, which I want him to have the work.

[1679] Yeah.

[1680] So really I wanted to tell him, look, just tell me what it is.

[1681] We'll still call you, but I can just fix it when I need to fix it.

[1682] And then you don't even need to show up.

[1683] Right.

[1684] Yeah, this is the hack I do with my stunt guy friends.

[1685] I act like I won't do a certain stunt.

[1686] And also you should call someone in.

[1687] And then when they get there, I do it.

[1688] But then you got to make them do it once to get paid.

[1689] There's all these hacks.

[1690] It's fine.

[1691] All make.

[1692] He can still come and...

[1693] Do something else maybe, freshen up the flowers or check the water and the vases.

[1694] He could just come, but it's when I need it in the moment.

[1695] Come home.

[1696] Yeah, watch Netflix.

[1697] The problem is when I am in the middle of cooking all this bullshit and I have pans built up, I need it in the moment.

[1698] Yes, you do.

[1699] You need an immediate fix.

[1700] That's what you do with a garbage disposal.

[1701] Okay, this is great to know.

[1702] All right.

[1703] This is for catams.

[1704] Oh, wonderful.

[1705] Parenthood.

[1706] We watch an episode.

[1707] last night like the kids requested it's so fun that's so nice i watched one in prep for this which one did you watch i watched the minka kelly one oh i can't wait to get to that one i keep telling the girl they want me to spoil stuff and i won't spoil anything but every time they show her i say someone let a panther in the hen house and they are constantly like what is panther in the henhouse i'm not telling you just a panther is not ready well she's the behavioral late in season one oh it Happens, is that early?

[1708] Yeah, yeah.

[1709] She comes in, like, episode four or five, early.

[1710] Adam sees her out at a bar, clubbing.

[1711] All in season one.

[1712] Mm -hmm.

[1713] I told you, Lincoln told me I'm a bad kisser when she saw.

[1714] No. I didn't tell you this.

[1715] No. Oh, my God.

[1716] Yeah, the first.

[1717] What?

[1718] What?

[1719] It's so funny.

[1720] Yeah, it's the first time I kiss joy, Jasmine, yeah, out in front of Erica's Julia's house.

[1721] Yeah.

[1722] We're watching that scene And then Lincoln goes You are bad at that You don't look good When you're kissing on screen Oh my God Tell the truth Did it hurt your feeling?

[1723] I'll tell you two things A, she was kind of right In that, listen I have a huge bottom lip right And in real kissing That bottom lip In real life kissing That bottom lip It feels great if it goes everywhere Uh huh You follow me But that's not visually necessarily what you want to see interesting what do you mean goes everywhere like well my fucking bottom lip is just the size of a beach ball so is it i come in and i'm if i catch if you i got your lower lip in my mouth my now lower big old buoyancy compensator yeah it's hanging out the bottom yeah it's hanging everywhere it looks like i'm like it does look like i'm gonna swallow the person so a she's right she was kind of right and and by the way when i saw that scene I said, I got to tighten up these big old lips.

[1724] You did?

[1725] No, what, okay, by the way, nobody says that.

[1726] People like big lips.

[1727] Well, they, yes, but this photographed weird.

[1728] I'll acknowledge, okay, so an adjustment was made going forward.

[1729] I'll say that.

[1730] Well, like now in 2023 after she gave the - On camera.

[1731] So, but who told, how'd you adjust?

[1732] I'm telling you, I watched that episode.

[1733] Oh, way back when?

[1734] Yeah, when it was airing.

[1735] Oh.

[1736] And I was like, oh, wow, your huge lip looks crazy if you're kissing, like, I kiss in real life.

[1737] Wow.

[1738] So I'm like, okay, I'm going to do like more of a TV kiss here, I guess, going forward, which I did.

[1739] So anyway, so A, she caught it.

[1740] How do you even, like, suck in your?

[1741] I just tighten things up.

[1742] Like, I don't let it go as wild as I would in real life.

[1743] I don't cut loose.

[1744] So since I had already kind of observed that myself 13 years ago.

[1745] It's funny that...

[1746] It is.

[1747] Confirming we're the same person.

[1748] Yes.

[1749] But here's where I did get defensive.

[1750] This is so stupid.

[1751] So many things ego -wise, I can totally let go.

[1752] When they shit on me, it doesn't bother.

[1753] I'm like, yeah, I'm the dad.

[1754] That's my role.

[1755] They're right.

[1756] This thing I didn't like.

[1757] Okay.

[1758] And I said, well, you know, it's interesting, Lincoln, what sometimes looks visually pretty and what physically feels the best can be two different things.

[1759] Yeah.

[1760] Like, you might visually, like someone with a six -pack abs, but you may find that the most sensual part of lovemaking is someone's little belly.

[1761] You told her that?

[1762] Wait, did you?

[1763] No. No, no, no, no. I left it at what is visually stimulating may differ from what is sensorily or physically stimulating.

[1764] I had this thought the other day.

[1765] Okay, tell me. Okay?

[1766] Shoot.

[1767] I don't want anyone in here.

[1768] I don't want anyone to get self -conscientious.

[1769] No, I don't want them to get self -conscious.

[1770] What it feels like to hug a person.

[1771] Right.

[1772] The body feel.

[1773] Yeah, like hugs feel differently.

[1774] Absolutely, which is so cool about that.

[1775] It is.

[1776] Well, this is a line from Pulp Fiction.

[1777] She says, I'm going to grow a pot.

[1778] And he says, if you grow a pot belly, I'm going to punch you in it.

[1779] And she said, no, don't punch my pot.

[1780] Oh, my God.

[1781] And she said, you know, often what is pleasing to the eye is not what's pleasing to the touch.

[1782] And that's really what we're saying.

[1783] Yes, it is.

[1784] And she was right.

[1785] Yeah.

[1786] She was going to grow a pot.

[1787] Oh, my God.

[1788] She was so cute that actor.

[1789] All right.

[1790] So you said that and then what did she say?

[1791] She didn't buy that.

[1792] She's just like, no, you suck at it.

[1793] Wow.

[1794] Yeah, they let it rip.

[1795] You know, they let it rip.

[1796] Oh, my.

[1797] That's really funny.

[1798] Wait until she sees.

[1799] My other embarrassing moment on the series, oh, this is perfect for Catam's.

[1800] This one I can almost not say out loud.

[1801] I know what you're going to say.

[1802] Yeah, I bet you do.

[1803] I think we've talked about it, yeah.

[1804] But not on here.

[1805] Drumming?

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] I think you have said it.

[1808] Oh, my God.

[1809] Yeah, so I didn't know.

[1810] Why would I know?

[1811] I've never played drums in front of a mirror.

[1812] Yeah.

[1813] I don't think anyone has.

[1814] No. And I've never been in a big enough band that photos and video were taken over.

[1815] So I have to play the drums on the show, which I'm like, great.

[1816] This is finally an instrument that I play.

[1817] Yes.

[1818] I'm faking the piano all the time on that show.

[1819] Faking this in that.

[1820] And I'm like, oh, this is great.

[1821] And I remember loving getting to play the drums.

[1822] And then two weeks later, that episode came out.

[1823] And I was like, oh, my God.

[1824] The fucking face I make when I'm playing the drums is so ugly and unattractive.

[1825] It's insane.

[1826] It's like if I was trying to repel people that pass me on the street, I would make the face I'm making when I play the drums.

[1827] And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[1828] Whoa, that's the face they make.

[1829] B, why didn't anyone tell me, see?

[1830] Why are they on me so long?

[1831] Like, get off me. This has got to be driving everyone else is nuts.

[1832] And then so I, another thing I corrected, I played the drums again on the show a few different times, but you better believe I was really monitoring my face.

[1833] Interesting.

[1834] Okay.

[1835] People, you know, they think this acting thing, it's all gravy.

[1836] It is fucking hard.

[1837] You discover a lot of weird shit about yourself along the way.

[1838] Yeah.

[1839] Um, well, I wanted to play something.

[1840] Okay.

[1841] Friday Night Lights.

[1842] What a theme song.

[1843] So that was my ringtone for a long time.

[1844] Oh, fuck.

[1845] You just took me to high heights.

[1846] I know.

[1847] Just hearing that song, I now flip back.

[1848] Because when I was watching Parenthood this far removed from it, I actually was able to agree with Minka on some level.

[1849] I had this thought.

[1850] No, you know what?

[1851] our show was as good as Friday Night Lights.

[1852] And then I just heard that theme song.

[1853] And I realized, no, I don't think that.

[1854] What I actually think is, it's impressive how different those shows are.

[1855] Very.

[1856] They're very different.

[1857] They're not even really worth comparing.

[1858] That's the thing is, this comparing things dumb.

[1859] They're both really, really good shows, and everyone should shut up.

[1860] Yeah, they're both great fucking catams.

[1861] To have one thing in your whole career that is as good as parenthood is impossible.

[1862] but then, you know, I've had Friday night lights before that.

[1863] It's just really.

[1864] It's crazy.

[1865] Yeah, it would be the equivalent of like having Frozen and the Avengers, odds -wise.

[1866] Well, I guess it's like Scorsese has multiples.

[1867] Yeah, for sure.

[1868] Some people have multiples.

[1869] But I find, and I actually am not, I don't want to name anyone because it would make, I wouldn't want to do that.

[1870] You can look at some of our most celebrated series over the last 10 years and watch that creator.

[1871] showrunners follow -up.

[1872] Yeah.

[1873] And I've yet to see someone really duplicate their success.

[1874] Yeah.

[1875] Mike.

[1876] Yeah, yeah.

[1877] Yeah, sure.

[1878] Mike, sure.

[1879] That's good.

[1880] I don't think of the office as his.

[1881] But it ended up being.

[1882] It ended up being, but yeah.

[1883] So he created the good place.

[1884] So will Mike create anything ever is successful as the good place?

[1885] If he does, and God knows he has the talent to do so, but that would be really miraculous.

[1886] There are some producers that - No, but even not parks.

[1887] He did, he did, he did create parks.

[1888] So I stand completely corrected.

[1889] So I'm putting him in that category too then.

[1890] Yeah, he's incredible.

[1891] Ryan Murphy?

[1892] Yeah, for sure.

[1893] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1894] Okay, yes, Jason Ketams is incredible.

[1895] He is, yeah.

[1896] And very humble.

[1897] He seems so humble And I really like that Really like that energy a lot Not are you actually humble We mean a lot of people that are smart enough to act humble He's not putting it on I don't think it's occurred to him How amazing he's Yeah that he's great The house band at SNL G E Smith or G G G G G Smith So G E Smith Is G E Smith is the guitar Is the guitar holanoet's guitarist And it was called the G E Smith Band at some point See, that's the thing.

[1898] Nothing here is saying a band name except, currently, it's called the live band.

[1899] Oh, wonderful.

[1900] But then it just has a list of people who've come in and out.

[1901] And it's not really this band, then this band, then this band.

[1902] The only one I have any association with is G .E. Smith.

[1903] Okay.

[1904] Paul Schaefer.

[1905] And I think even Sandler would make fun of him occasionally.

[1906] He'd wear the same ponytail, blonde ponytail and fucking rip that guitar.

[1907] There is also the band directors that have changed and, you know, how it goes.

[1908] You know, it flips around, flip -plus.

[1909] Musical directors.

[1910] Currently, Lenny Pickett.

[1911] We would have to fact -check this.

[1912] Okay.

[1913] I know Tina Faye's husband did all the music for 30 Rock.

[1914] Yeah.

[1915] I think he might have potentially been at St. Live as a musician, too.

[1916] But I...

[1917] That sounds...

[1918] I think that does sound familiar.

[1919] But I don't know.

[1920] Definitely 30 Rock.

[1921] I'm guessing about us now.

[1922] director, or maybe he was.

[1923] He was a music director for Saturday Night Live.

[1924] What's his name?

[1925] Jeff Richmond.

[1926] Yeah.

[1927] He's not on here.

[1928] Well, he should sue.

[1929] Are you sure he was not in the bam, but not the musical director?

[1930] Are you on senty at Animals?

[1931] Yeah.

[1932] Yeah, it talks about where he worked before he became the music director for S &L.

[1933] I think he was a music director in Chicago at Second City.

[1934] Yeah, second city.

[1935] Where they met.

[1936] Yeah, cute.

[1937] Yeah, they've been together for the whole ride.

[1938] And then, yeah, S &L and then 30.

[1939] Okay, well, I'm going to tell you what I see here as musical directors listed is Howard Shore, 75 to 80, Kenny Vance, 80 to 81 to 81, 85, G .E. Smith, 80.

[1940] That's a long one.

[1941] 85 to 95.

[1942] Yeah, 10 years.

[1943] But Lenny Pickett, 95 to present.

[1944] Oh, my God, Lenny.

[1945] 28 years behind that.

[1946] Wow, that was fast math.

[1947] Thank you so much.

[1948] That was really good.

[1949] Really fast man. He's 69.

[1950] Oh, I bet he is.

[1951] Oh, my God, can I tell you something funny about Ted Seeger's beer?

[1952] Sure.

[1953] So we just got our chemistry work, our lab work done to see, like, what percent alcohol was.

[1954] You know, it's got to be below 0 .5 or whatever it is, but we're well below that.

[1955] That was great.

[1956] And our calories were 67 .6 or whatever.

[1957] We would round to 68.

[1958] Great.

[1959] That's great.

[1960] How do we get one more?

[1961] Oh.

[1962] $69 for sure.

[1963] Yeah, you gotta on your fucking Ted Zieger's beer.

[1964] The calories has to be $69.

[1965] It's so good.

[1966] Oh, my God.

[1967] Fuck is it good.

[1968] I got to figure out how to get one calorie into each can of the beer.

[1969] Okay.

[1970] A few more yeast petals or something.

[1971] Scoop a protein powder, something.

[1972] No, that's going to be hard to do to get one.

[1973] One more calorie.

[1974] I mean, it's like one grain of salt or something.

[1975] I know.

[1976] Well, we're going to fill.

[1977] We'll break the bank.

[1978] Oh, my God, do you know, okay, so this is so exciting.

[1979] When you walked in today, you wouldn't have noticed, but there was a keg -a -rater at the door.

[1980] I did notice.

[1981] You did notice.

[1982] Yeah.

[1983] Okay, so this country is going to go a little bit this way.

[1984] We get rid of that.

[1985] Oh, fuck.

[1986] What?

[1987] Yeah, we get rid of the nightstand?

[1988] The nightstand.

[1989] So now the keg -erator is the nightstand.

[1990] And you have a handle of Ted Seeger's if you want to refill your pint glass.

[1991] You can be banging Seegers back the whole interview.

[1992] It's going to be right there.

[1993] Are we going to have enough for everyone to be doing that?

[1994] Yeah, I'm getting a keg sent here next week.

[1995] Fuck.

[1996] Cool.

[1997] that great yeah yeah i'm having the handles being whittled right now in detroit fun yeah that's super cool yeah is this big t -rex head gonna fit on it whatever you'd like yes yes okay right yeah yeah whatever your preference is remember last time you went willy -nilly we ended up here with this chair yeah yeah but i love that that's great okay good good i started to think you were turning you weren't peeling it as I was rolling it off.

[1998] Well, the placement gets me anxious, but I...

[1999] But really, it's the best.

[2000] I really thought about it.

[2001] Yeah.

[2002] It served the exact same purpose of that thing.

[2003] I think it's good.

[2004] But I will miss this.

[2005] We use that for air purifying.

[2006] We do not.

[2007] It's never once been on.

[2008] It's a fucking metal nightstand.

[2009] Yeah.

[2010] It looks expensive, too, that air purifier.

[2011] You know, I always say, and you've heard it.

[2012] Whenever I'm with the kids mostly so often, we'll go like, oh, look at that one, that's big.

[2013] That's a big boy.

[2014] And I'll go, oh, that's a big boy.

[2015] That's a daddy long legs.

[2016] You know, right?

[2017] I always say, that's a day.

[2018] Yeah, you said it about vaginas.

[2019] Oh, right.

[2020] Yeah, sure.

[2021] And that's, I don't know if that's an errand.

[2022] I think that's my dad thing.

[2023] Oh.

[2024] Yeah.

[2025] That makes it sweeter.

[2026] Should have said that a long time ago before you talked about the vaginas.

[2027] Switch the order.

[2028] Okay.

[2029] Go back in time.

[2030] So we were laying in bed last night and I said, when we saw something outside that was a big, big, big daddy, big dad at long legs.

[2031] It's always a positive in our house And I said, I looked over at Delta And I said, you know, you're going to leave this house And you're going to have a boyfriend one day And you're going to be saying stuff like, Ooh, that's a big one, a big daddy long legs And I want you to know It's not going to make any sense to anybody else.

[2032] Like this is family lexicon.

[2033] What is it called?

[2034] Famalact.

[2035] Yeah, this is it.

[2036] And I'm just thinking, I was just aware of how many dumb things You leave the house with, although it doesn't sound like you did.

[2037] But I left the house with 65 weird made -up sayings.

[2038] and stuff, you know.

[2039] It's nice.

[2040] It's kind of fun.

[2041] Yeah, I didn't have that really, I don't think.

[2042] Okay.

[2043] Your dad was just trying to get the first language right.

[2044] He wasn't like dancing around an improv.

[2045] Okay, that's not right at all.

[2046] He knew full English.

[2047] 100 %.

[2048] That was bad.

[2049] He had the accent.

[2050] He knew English.

[2051] Okay, but enough to dance around.

[2052] I mean, he spoke full English.

[2053] Oh, before he moved here?

[2054] Yes.

[2055] Oh, I didn't know that.

[2056] I didn't know that.

[2057] I assumed he learned when he got here.

[2058] No. Okay, but in that world, can you see where I wouldn't think he'd be ready to be improvy weird saying?

[2059] Let's just say this.

[2060] If I moved to another country, at best I could communicate in it.

[2061] Definitely.

[2062] Would be like the top end of my goals for the rest of my lifetime.

[2063] Unless it's an English -speaking country.

[2064] That's obvious.

[2065] That would change everything.

[2066] Which this is and that was.

[2067] Okay.

[2068] What age do they, when they go to school, they learn English?

[2069] Because in the household, they were speaking.

[2070] Malayalam, but he also knew Hindi.

[2071] They spoke a lot of languages, but English is standard.

[2072] Well, they needed to, and am I wrong in that they needed to communicate within their own country?

[2073] Because they're different languages.

[2074] Different languages, yeah.

[2075] I want to say it is the actual, it might be Hindi, but I think English is the official language, I think.

[2076] That would be helpful for me. When you go there, everyone will speak English, yeah.

[2077] Oh, that's great.

[2078] is it is i'm always terrified when i'm in france honestly they speak more english in india than they do in france oh for sure 100 % what i'm saying though is that when i'm in france i have great reservation about they're speaking to one of them in english because i know they hate it right now i have no fear in germany they're not pissed off about it but the french they don't like they don't yeah so I imagine I'd have that anxiety throughout India.

[2079] Yeah.

[2080] But you won't.

[2081] But I don't need to now.

[2082] Yeah, you won't.

[2083] So now I'm clear to go.

[2084] Just got cleared.

[2085] Take off.

[2086] Let's go.

[2087] Okay.

[2088] Susan Lucci, she only won one Emmy.

[2089] How many was she nominated for?

[2090] She was nominated for 19.

[2091] But she won one.

[2092] 19.

[2093] Yeah, but you said 36.

[2094] You're right.

[2095] That's double.

[2096] Right.

[2097] But also, when you're at 19, 36, They're in the same world.

[2098] But when you hear 36 and then you read 19, what happens is you're like, oh, only 19.

[2099] Yeah, I kind of fuck that out out.

[2100] And that's not fair because 19's insane.

[2101] I overpromise and under delivered.

[2102] Yeah.

[2103] The opposite of what you should do.

[2104] We're supposed to do the opposite.

[2105] Yeah, opposite day.

[2106] Speaking of, you're wearing a wristband.

[2107] Oh, yeah.

[2108] That says do the opposite.

[2109] Yeah.

[2110] Tell me about this.

[2111] Okay.

[2112] You're supposed to read this site first.

[2113] This would be what would Ferrari do?

[2114] and then do the opposite because they're the very worst strategists in F1 in a very shockingly embarrassing way Yeah, they've lost many arrays through just terrible decision -making I was very confused, but it's like a Livestrong style Yeah, yeah, Matt made these Oh, he did, okay Because I didn't see that first part I just saw do the opposite Multiple times as you were talking today Yeah.

[2115] And I thought, of course.

[2116] This is the thing I'm wearing.

[2117] Of course.

[2118] He's leaning in.

[2119] That's his new, like, theme of life.

[2120] You're right.

[2121] That is totally within the realm.

[2122] I know.

[2123] But then I thought, oh, my God.

[2124] Now he's like, wait.

[2125] Yes, he's gone too far.

[2126] So I'm very happy to hear that.

[2127] He's proud of this now.

[2128] Right.

[2129] Right.

[2130] Oh, man. Okay.

[2131] I'm not for the record, proud of it.

[2132] Well, in some ways you are in the way that you should be, which is not do the opposite, but it's have critical thinking.

[2133] There's two different sides of me. Like, one is critical thinking, and then one is just like a rebellious, anything, authority, and that's not the good part.

[2134] Right, but the critical thinking part is.

[2135] In measures.

[2136] It is good.

[2137] Okay.

[2138] Will Smith's mother, I didn't realize that until.

[2139] you said it, that he said that his dad was abusive.

[2140] Oh, and that you have an article that confirms that?

[2141] He says he got candid about his relationship with his father revealing he once contemplated killing him to avenge alleged abuse suffered by his mother.

[2142] Oh, it's from his memoir.

[2143] Oh, before this slap.

[2144] Yeah, this was in 2021.

[2145] Yeah, so there you go.

[2146] If it came out post -slap, you might, some cynics would be like, oh, now we're finding Oh, right.

[2147] As a defense.

[2148] But I'm not happy for him that that happened.

[2149] I am relieved that that's true because that was my understanding.

[2150] And that's why I am so sympathetic to the notion that, because again, I observed it.

[2151] Like, first, the guy is verbally abusing your mother.

[2152] That's step one.

[2153] And if your commitment is to not love or see step two, you stop it immediately.

[2154] Yeah, yeah.

[2155] I mean, he shouldn't slap anyone.

[2156] No. But also, it's way more complicated than anyone wanted it to be.

[2157] Yeah, trauma.

[2158] Okay, let's see.

[2159] How many series regulars were on Friday Night Lights?

[2160] Now, there's a lot.

[2161] Well, what sucks is it's going to list all the seasons, right?

[2162] The problem is it has series cast a number, but that's not series regulars.

[2163] So I don't know.

[2164] Also, like, there was such turnover on that show.

[2165] Exactly.

[2166] There were a new group of regulars.

[2167] cast in season four.

[2168] So let's save a 90.

[2169] Wow.

[2170] That's what I'm saying to.

[2171] You saw 90?

[2172] Okay.

[2173] Got two sets eyes on.

[2174] That's all.

[2175] We need.

[2176] And then on Parenthood also so many.

[2177] Let's see.

[2178] Peter, Lauren, you, Monica, Erica, Sam, Savannah, Max, Joy, Miles, May, Bonnie, Craig, Sarah.

[2179] Poor Universal.

[2180] Someone who played Victor Graham.

[2181] I don't know how to pronounce his name.

[2182] X -O -L -O.

[2183] Oh, Sholo.

[2184] And this is amazing.

[2185] Do you remember the little boy they adopt?

[2186] Yeah.

[2187] Sholo.

[2188] Well, in this resurgence of my parenthood thing, and I've been sending some people some messages, Ritter wrote back, Holy shit, have you seen Sholo's movies the star of?

[2189] And it's this new, enormous Marvel.

[2190] movie that he's the star of.

[2191] Really?

[2192] That's amazing.

[2193] I'm really scared now I'm saying his name incorrectly, but yeah, it's...

[2194] Blue Beetle?

[2195] Blue Beetle.

[2196] Yeah, Blue Beetle.

[2197] Zolo sounds right.

[2198] Cholo.

[2199] Z -O -W -L.

[2200] Sholo.

[2201] I think it's Sholo.

[2202] I got a pronunciation right here.

[2203] Okay, Ray Romano.

[2204] We're getting to pronounce you.

[2205] Zolo Mariduania.

[2206] It's not Zolo.

[2207] I mean, it probably is technically Zolo.

[2208] That's not what his name was on set.

[2209] Okay.

[2210] Ray Romano, Mia Allen, who plays Nora Braverman.

[2211] As a little baby.

[2212] Yeah, but now she's like a kid.

[2213] A big baby?

[2214] She's a big boy, she's a daddy long legs.

[2215] She's a daddy long legs.

[2216] Oh, there's two.

[2217] Oh, because twins, obviously.

[2218] Mia and Ella.

[2219] Mm -hmm.

[2220] Jason Ritter, Matt Laria.

[2221] Oh, my God.

[2222] Lyndon Smith.

[2223] She plays Natalie.

[2224] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2225] Skylar Day.

[2226] She played Amy.

[2227] That was Miles's girlfriend.

[2228] I remember that.

[2229] Michael B. Jordan.

[2230] Tina Lifford, who played your mother -in -law.

[2231] Oh, I loved her.

[2232] Tina, Tina, Tina, Tina.

[2233] I love Tina Lifford so much.

[2234] I got to send her a little text.

[2235] I do.

[2236] Fuck.

[2237] It's been a while.

[2238] I was really good at checking in on her.

[2239] I think this is really cute.

[2240] I do.

[2241] I mean, you want to say a different word.

[2242] No, no. It is cute.

[2243] You're seeing all these.

[2244] people and you're crying and you're texting them.

[2245] Yeah, yeah.

[2246] I can't wait for this show to be over so that then you can feel sweet about me and then text me. And you'll go, did you see Rob's new project now?

[2247] He's like going to space or something.

[2248] Have you seen Robb?

[2249] He's a prime minister of New Zealand.

[2250] Bingo or did you see Bezos gave Rob Amazon?

[2251] Oh, fuck.

[2252] Okay.

[2253] Rosa Salazar.

[2254] Uh -huh.

[2255] Courtney Grosbeck, Grosbeck, she played Roby Rizzoli.

[2256] Cellist?

[2257] No, the cellist, I remember.

[2258] Oh, gotta cut all that then.

[2259] Yeah, that's a very good kissing scene.

[2260] Which one?

[2261] You and the violinist.

[2262] I mean, cellist.

[2263] Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

[2264] I'm getting her, I'm getting her instrument wrong, but.

[2265] A stringed.

[2266] She was on a stringed instrument.

[2267] I think she was a cellist.

[2268] Yeah, Courtney Ford.

[2269] Yeah, yeah.

[2270] Courtney Ford's.

[2271] No, this is a different, this is Courtney Grosbeck.

[2272] That's why I got confused.

[2273] Yes, Courtney Ford was violent.

[2274] Okay, yeah, yeah.

[2275] Okay, good.

[2276] Who is, I believe, married to one of the Superman.

[2277] Branden and Ross.

[2278] Yeah.

[2279] Sholo?

[2280] No, no, no. One of the origes.

[2281] That's right.

[2282] That's right.

[2283] Sholo.

[2284] What is she married, Victor, the baby?

[2285] The baby.

[2286] Oh, wow.

[2287] Oh, my God.

[2288] Okay.

[2289] David Denman, ding, ding, ding, the office.

[2290] Yes.

[2291] Tom.

[2292] You got to stop.

[2293] No. I got to keep going.

[2294] These are day players now.

[2295] You're in the day player.

[2296] None of these were regulars.

[2297] Yes, he played Ed.

[2298] Matt, what's his ass, wasn't even a regular.

[2299] Loria?

[2300] Yeah, he wasn't a regular.

[2301] Michael B. Jordan wasn't a regular.

[2302] They didn't make him a regular.

[2303] He was on 16 episodes.

[2304] I'm looking at it.

[2305] He was on 16 episodes.

[2306] I don't think he was ever a regular.

[2307] regular.

[2308] That's weird.

[2309] I don't think so.

[2310] We were 13 with just the family.

[2311] Okay.

[2312] I'm sticking with it.

[2313] Tom, who plays Dr. Pelican, 11.

[2314] Oh my God, ding, ding, ding.

[2315] Delta says last night, we're watching a scene with Dr. Pelican.

[2316] Mm -hmm.

[2317] See, he's a regular.

[2318] And the first season, he was in three episodes.

[2319] He's in 11 episodes total.

[2320] Okay, yeah.

[2321] Maybe three season one.

[2322] Listen, Delta would agree with, I guess, me. So we were watching it, and the scene ends, and she goes, that guy's so good.

[2323] That's not fair.

[2324] And I go, oh, it's not fair like he should have more scenes because he's so good.

[2325] She's like, yeah.

[2326] It felt unjust to her.

[2327] She loves Dr. Pelican.

[2328] She does.

[2329] You can tell her, don't worry, he is a series regular.

[2330] Well, he was never a series regular.

[2331] I can tell you that right now.

[2332] Okay, Jonathan Tucker, ding, ding, ding this show.

[2333] Not a series regular, but love him.

[2334] Yes, Bob Little, 10 episodes.

[2335] Yep, love him.

[2336] He is a, okay, maybe we're, now maybe we're outside of series regular territory, but we are still in people that everyone knows.

[2337] Recurring, yeah.

[2338] Bob Little, huge, huge.

[2339] These are all talented ones.

[2340] Listen, Michael B. Jordan and Ann Tucker are bigger stars than anyone of us that's on the show.

[2341] Michael B. Jordan is a huge movie star.

[2342] Yes, he's bigger than anyone that was on the show.

[2343] So he had worked out just fine for Michael B. Jordan.

[2344] But he was just simply not a series regular.

[2345] Oh, we have to check with Cadence.

[2346] Nope.

[2347] Okay.

[2348] Tyson Ritter.

[2349] Yes, loved him.

[2350] He plays all of her.

[2351] He's the real life singer of a very popular band.

[2352] He was a real rock star.

[2353] And he played one.

[2354] And that was one of his first acting jobs.

[2355] And he was one of my favorite people to act with.

[2356] Wow.

[2357] All American Rejects.

[2358] Yep.

[2359] He's the lead singer of All American Reject.

[2360] Okay.

[2361] John Corbett.

[2362] Yep.

[2363] That's just the pilot.

[2364] Seth, no, 10 episodes.

[2365] Oh.

[2366] Seth?

[2367] He comes in and out.

[2368] He does.

[2369] A lot.

[2370] They did a weird thing.

[2371] They did a really weird thing in season one where I think they recast him, but maybe they brought him back.

[2372] That's one weird thing I noticed in that first season.

[2373] Yeah, Kristen was like, wait, is this supposed to be the dad?

[2374] Did they recast?

[2375] And I said, well, it's very conceivable that that, because we shot the pilot so long.

[2376] before the series got picked up because we had a cast change and that whole thing.

[2377] And so there was such a huge delay that it made perfect sense that they weren't able to get him again because so much time had passed.

[2378] Well, who was the original?

[2379] Corbett.

[2380] That's what I said, Corbett.

[2381] Take the food out of your buccaneers.

[2382] Big Daddy Longlegs style.

[2383] John Corbett is a...

[2384] a huge, ding, ding, ding, Sex in the City.

[2385] Yes, big time.

[2386] Sex and the City, Aiden, best love interest on Sex and the City.

[2387] He was a key member of my favorite show.

[2388] Northern Exposure.

[2389] That's right.

[2390] And he was great on it.

[2391] He was the disc jockey in town.

[2392] Are you, okay.

[2393] Are you sure that he was in the pilot and it wasn't a different set and then now he's the set that they brought in?

[2394] because his years are 2011 to 2015, and the pilot is 2010.

[2395] Yeah, but the show didn't air to 11.

[2396] But some people have 2010, like Minka.

[2397] Oh, really?

[2398] Yeah.

[2399] Oh, then I don't know what I'm talking about.

[2400] I just know that the dad was Corbid and then Corbett, and then he wasn't in like the third episode of the show.

[2401] And then he was again.

[2402] He wasn't been yet again.

[2403] So, yeah.

[2404] Because remember he comes back and she tries to date him And then he gets drunk again, yeah.

[2405] Oh, it's bad boy.

[2406] But he does it so well.

[2407] Okay, Minka.

[2408] Okay, there's a lot more.

[2409] Yeah, it's endless.

[2410] There's so many people on this show.

[2411] Too many.

[2412] Before you even get to day players, like there's people.

[2413] I think I have a bit of a knack.

[2414] I think I have a little bit of a knack.

[2415] If I'm in a movie with you and I'm higher on the call sheet, almost any young person that was ever below me on the call sheet ended up being an enormous star.

[2416] Oh, that's fun.

[2417] I look at Zethora and it's like two of those, I'm sorry, yeah, two of the three became enormous franchise stars.

[2418] Yes.

[2419] And one of them, certainly the other one of them could have done that in one second, but him and his mom decided he wasn't going to act anymore.

[2420] And then he came back at first movie out, crazy stupid love.

[2421] Your favorite movie.

[2422] Yes.

[2423] Michael B. Jordan at that time, he was like, he was, he thought I was cool.

[2424] But he was still, he was cool at that time when they brought him in.

[2425] At that point, though, all you did, he had been in the wires of first thing he's ever in.

[2426] Yeah, huge.

[2427] And then he went to Friday Night Lights.

[2428] Yeah, huge.

[2429] Yeah.

[2430] But not a huge audience.

[2431] That's the show, you know, wasn't a hit.

[2432] I guess he was, it was cool.

[2433] When he came, it's felt totally appropriate that he was doing a reoccurring role on the show.

[2434] guess that's true and of course now you couldn't get him for any amount of money to do a reoccurring anything so this is going nowhere um okay anyway shout out oh shout out shout out peter Lauren Dax Monica Erica Sam Savannah Max Joy Miles May Bonnie Craig Tyree Sarah Sholo we're doing it all over again is we're really doing this all over why are we doing this all over why are we doing this all over again.

[2435] Because first I just said their names, now I have to give them shout -outs.

[2436] Oh, no, no, no, no. You're going to be concluding this fact check on your own if that needs to be.

[2437] Hey.

[2438] I cannot listen to that.

[2439] Don't abandon me. Well, don't force me to.

[2440] Don't abandon me like you abandoned Minka.

[2441] I did get mad at you in that.

[2442] You did.

[2443] Good.

[2444] Well, that's what you're supposed to do.

[2445] I got mad at you.

[2446] Uh -oh.

[2447] Hot take.

[2448] Well, people got, I know people got mad at you for joy.

[2449] Right.

[2450] Which, that's obvious.

[2451] We were broken up.

[2452] Well, no, that was bad.

[2453] But it was mean.

[2454] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2455] It was bad choice.

[2456] It was a bad choice.

[2457] It was a big mistake.

[2458] Uh -huh.

[2459] I think you and I are going to have the same opinion here.

[2460] Yeah, I think it was worse way you did to Minka.

[2461] I felt really bad for Minka.

[2462] Yeah.

[2463] Yeah.

[2464] I gave her the platinum package as if I was fully available.

[2465] Yeah, that's why.

[2466] No, no, I don't mean sexually, although I. I most definitely even with a platinum package.

[2467] But yes, I felt bad for her like, oh, God, she.

[2468] You lured her.

[2469] Oh, my God.

[2470] You're so judgmental.

[2471] You're not supposed to shame.

[2472] You lured her in to your web.

[2473] Uh -huh.

[2474] And then she quits.

[2475] And then you run over to her house and knock on the door and say, hey, you can't quit.

[2476] Which is like, how dare you?

[2477] She's trying to fix herself.

[2478] She's trying to, and you said, you have to go back there, and she says, I can't.

[2479] And you say, why?

[2480] And you're yelling at her.

[2481] Oh, my God, I am.

[2482] Yes.

[2483] Oh, wow.

[2484] I don't remember this.

[2485] She says, because I like you.

[2486] Oh.

[2487] Yeah.

[2488] And I was like, you fuck, you asshole.

[2489] Yeah.

[2490] Yeah.

[2491] And you said, well, we can't.

[2492] Oh.

[2493] I was like, you're evil.

[2494] That's rough.

[2495] You know, you got to do things on that show.

[2496] We talked about it.

[2497] Oh, no. Those are hard.

[2498] You get those pages and you're like, God, I'm going to be this big of a dick.

[2499] I mean, I feel weird saying this, but like I'm sure nobody felt bad for her, which is a weird...

[2500] Well, I did.

[2501] I can't imagine we were the only...

[2502] I don't know.

[2503] I think most people don't feel bad for her.

[2504] I think they're like, team, joy, and we can't really care about this person.

[2505] I think it would be higher than you would expect only because she had been she didn't she wasn't introduced to be my love interest she was an she was her own character who people really liked and could see how impactful she was in max's life and what a good woman she was so they liked her at least you know before i know but people do this right like they do this with women they're mad at you obviously but they're also like how could she do that How could she do that knowing?

[2506] Yeah.

[2507] And then they're like ready to see her leave.

[2508] Right.

[2509] Well, this was just talked about when we were discussing fatal attraction.

[2510] Ding, ding, ding, ding.

[2511] Easterine.

[2512] Yeah.

[2513] So, yeah, but it's interesting.

[2514] It's like, let's see her go.

[2515] We're ready to see her go now.

[2516] And for him to fix this with his love.

[2517] Yes.

[2518] And she says, I'll never forgive you for this.

[2519] Joy says that.

[2520] Oof.

[2521] But she does.

[2522] Spoiler.

[2523] That is a ride.

[2524] You know it's funny, too, the power of TV still cannot be underestimated.

[2525] I'll tell you why.

[2526] The kids have been in this attic 10 trillion times.

[2527] Oh, yeah.

[2528] It's their house.

[2529] It's their house.

[2530] They fucking play up here.

[2531] I was editing last night, and Lincoln was with me to learn, ostensibly, to learn how to edit.

[2532] You're going to teach her?

[2533] Well, I want her to see how it's done.

[2534] And I said, you know, minimally, if you could operate pro tools, you have a job.

[2535] Like, you can literally have a job if you have this skill.

[2536] But in any rate.

[2537] You are really feeling overwhelmed with the F1 editing.

[2538] You're handing it over to LinkedIn.

[2539] Can you imagine that would be awesome.

[2540] Oh, my God.

[2541] She was the fucking content editor.

[2542] Wow.

[2543] Okay, so anyway, she was up here.

[2544] Yes.

[2545] And all of a sudden, she was like, oh, you interview.

[2546] you joy I was like yeah oh my god and you Aunt Julia you interviewed Julia Erica well yeah and she was looking at this board of our first year of pictures and all of a sudden she was super interest that we had interviewed it's like almost the first time I've seen her care who we interview I'm like oh my god now they're characters on TV and it's I'm almost delighted it's still preserved Like that she wasn't born behind the curtain and can't enjoy that.

[2547] Yes.

[2548] Well, that's like when I saw Ben and Matt at the premiere.

[2549] And I could still click in and it's life is so much better when you can.

[2550] Yeah, absolutely.

[2551] Yeah, absolutely.

[2552] Yeah, absolutely.

[2553] Yeah, absolutely.

[2554] All right.

[2555] Well, I love you and I love Catam's and I love parenthood.

[2556] And if you want to, you know how they do overtime on like 60 minutes?

[2557] If you want to hear more of the interview, go to, 60 minutes overtime.

[2558] So if you want to hear more of Monica reading that list, pop on over to AE overtime and she's going to do the whole list three, four more time.

[2559] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2560] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

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