Ben Platt

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

[1] Hi, Monica Padman.

[2] Hi, Dak Shepard.

[3] Today we have a very talented young man, one of our youngest guests.

[4] Yeah, he's a prodigy, one would say.

[5] He's a prodigy.

[6] I'd say.

[7] I'd say a 25 -year -old prodigy.

[8] Yeah.

[9] You and I had not accomplished virtually anything at 25.

[10] No, no, just some farts.

[11] Have you, had you been in your mermaid commercial at 25?

[12] No. Not even your mermaid.

[13] Oh, maybe.

[14] I can't remember.

[15] Okay, too far back.

[16] Our guest is Ben Platt.

[17] Now, Ben Platt is an act.

[18] actor and a singer and a songwriter.

[19] He came into wide prominence in the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hanson, which he won the Tony for.

[20] Well deserved.

[21] I saw it on Broadway.

[22] It was unbelievable.

[23] Very moved, you were.

[24] Oh, my God.

[25] Yeah.

[26] Impossible not to be.

[27] You flew there just to see that.

[28] I did.

[29] And then I almost didn't get in because the ticket.

[30] You had to print the ticket and I didn't have the ticket printed and I was panicked.

[31] You had to go to a hotel to use their printer.

[32] Yes, and I was running through the city, like a movie.

[33] Yeah, and even with that amount of post -traumatic stress, he's still a great memory.

[34] That's how good it was.

[35] He also was in the Book of Mormon, very popular musical.

[36] So good.

[37] The hit franchise, Pitch Perfect.

[38] Oh, I love all these things.

[39] They're all great.

[40] He has an album out right now called Sing to Me Instead.

[41] And then lastly, he has a new show called The Politician that will be on Netflix on September 27th.

[42] It sounds like a delicious Ryan Murphy show.

[43] And I hope everyone will check that out.

[44] And I hope everyone will enjoy Ben Platt.

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[48] Okay.

[49] It's fucking party time.

[50] I've been Platt.

[51] Hello, Dad.

[52] Welcome to Armchair Expert.

[53] We're in a unique situation right now.

[54] Okay.

[55] To bring the listeners up to speed.

[56] Yes.

[57] We don't know each other from Shy Nola.

[58] Right.

[59] It was Kristen's birthday party yesterday.

[60] And I cold tweeted you.

[61] Just I DM'd you.

[62] I can't even explain how flat it was.

[63] You followed me. Of course.

[64] So that right there I was already feeling confident.

[65] And then I DM'd you and said it's someone's birthday on Sunday.

[66] And I think the biggest present I could possibly.

[67] get would be your presence at the party.

[68] And in my mind, I hate sending something like that.

[69] I'm like, oh, God, how annoying.

[70] And then you wrote back, absolutely, what time?

[71] Can I bring a friend?

[72] I was like, oh, my goodness.

[73] And then you came yesterday.

[74] Well, first of all, let's go through the tweet.

[75] When you first saw that, were you like, oh boy.

[76] Do you get invited to a lot of birthday parties?

[77] Not really.

[78] You don't.

[79] And I met Kristen at my show at the Dolby afterwards.

[80] Yes.

[81] She couldn't have been more lovely and complimentary.

[82] And she also did hair at the Hollywood with my brother Jonah, so I'd already heard wonderful things about her.

[83] And I'm also a fan of yours, hence that I followed you.

[84] Oh, my goodness.

[85] Parenthood is a big deal in my household.

[86] It is.

[87] Very big deal.

[88] Oh, that's really nice to hear.

[89] One of the only shows that we've all enjoyed together.

[90] Oh, really?

[91] Mm -hmm.

[92] Oh, that's nice.

[93] And I'm trying to think, because you're 25 right now?

[94] Yes.

[95] You're 25.

[96] So, what, 16 that came out or something?

[97] Like late high school, into college years.

[98] I didn't go to college, but into that time.

[99] Well, didn't you do six weeks at Columbia?

[100] I did.

[101] Yeah, so don't say you didn't go to college.

[102] I mean, you didn't do much at college, but you did go.

[103] I weirdly also did a production of hair while I was there.

[104] Yes.

[105] One thing I accomplished, and then I pieced out.

[106] Yeah, yeah.

[107] So when you met Kristen, I assume she came backstage after your concert.

[108] She came, we had a little after thing, and she came by that.

[109] Okay.

[110] And you couldn't have possibly been viewing it because you were on stage, but she was Instagram storing.

[111] I saw after the fact.

[112] Okay, you did.

[113] So you saw the effect you had on her.

[114] I did.

[115] I wish so bad I could have the effect.

[116] on her that you do.

[117] I mean, if I, even half the effect.

[118] I would guess you have other effects on her that I don't, so maybe it balances out.

[119] They ran out of steam a decade ago, but your stuff is really right now, because she, I think, cried for 75 of the 90 minutes from what I observed.

[120] And I think, I can only think of a couple people she's really had this reaction to and you and then Lynn Manuel.

[121] Who also ended up arriving at the birthday, right?

[122] Which is so crazy.

[123] No way.

[124] And I assume you must know each other.

[125] Yes, we collaborated on the March for Our Lives, a song together.

[126] Yes.

[127] So, yeah, you know, she really had a horseshoe up her ass.

[128] It was the best birthday.

[129] Anyone could have given her.

[130] Also, speaking of it, it's been such a long time coming because I tried to give the gift of you to her two Christmases ago, I think.

[131] The gift of you.

[132] Yes.

[133] And it's, what method did you try?

[134] I didn't have a direct context.

[135] I probably spoke to one of these people at some point.

[136] I don't know.

[137] I was trying everything, but you were not in town.

[138] So it was a lot of scheduling.

[139] Alas.

[140] I'm usually in NYC.

[141] Yeah.

[142] Do you live there?

[143] Yes.

[144] You do.

[145] I do.

[146] And having grown up here, tell me why you like it there and tell me if you think you'll stay there.

[147] I do think that I will stay there.

[148] I've always sort of vibed better with there, I think.

[149] I'm generally a very frenetic and anxious person.

[150] I'd sort of type a quick movie.

[151] stuff and so I think when the place around me is also doing that it's a nice match you might think that something that's a little bit more sort of laid back and spread out the way that this is would have like a positive effect but to me it sort of does the opposite makes me kind of more frustrated and anxious it does and also I think anywhere that's your hometown just kind of gets a bad rap like I revert to my teenage self because I grew up here whenever I come home and I feel like I'm sort of stunted whenever I'm back here so yeah well you can love where you're from and love the people and also at a certain point in your life decided, I'm leaving there and becoming someone different, and this is my case leaving in Detroit, and coming here and going, I'm going to become a different person, or I'm going to pursue this other side of myself.

[152] So then when I go back, it inadvertently reminds me of the old role I used to play and the one I tried to escape.

[153] It feels like a couple steps backward.

[154] Right.

[155] And also just by virtue, like in the most superficial sense, Broadway's in New York, and live theater lives in New York, and that's always my home base.

[156] So this is never going to be really a theater town.

[157] So we've a couple of different.

[158] different times worked there and had to stay for extended periods of time there.

[159] And always the first two months there, I'm like, this is the greatest thing in the world.

[160] We must live here before we die.

[161] And then about month three, I start feeling like Algernon in the maze.

[162] And I don't see daylight half the day because it's only peeking through that.

[163] And I start getting real cagey.

[164] Do you get claustrophobic ever there?

[165] Not really.

[166] I think there's enough reprieve areas.

[167] Like I live right next Central Park, so I frequent there quite a bit.

[168] And also probably Aspect Park is really beautiful, and I find that I can decide on any given day if I want to feel like entirely anonymous and solo and alone, or if I want to feel like surrounded by people and lost in a lot of stuff.

[169] Yeah.

[170] So you were born the year I graduated high school.

[171] And as I warned you in the driveway, I'm going to covet and resent your youth throughout this interview.

[172] Good.

[173] But yes, I graduated in 93.

[174] You were born in 93.

[175] You were just a tiny little baby.

[176] Only for the second half of 93, too.

[177] Right, right, late in 93.

[178] September's 24th.

[179] Okay, so that's when I'll be returning the favor and doing a chip strip teas or something.

[180] At my birthday?

[181] Yes, good, good, good.

[182] Yeah, I just want to know when I need to be like camera ready.

[183] Yes, that's the time.

[184] Okay, I'll start dieting.

[185] And you can bring as many new ribbons as possible.

[186] Okay, great.

[187] So, you grew up here, and your father is Mark Platt.

[188] First of all, do you love or hate that any interview that you'll love or do will involve your father?

[189] Is that good or bad?

[190] Love, at this point, it's good.

[191] At the beginning, it was a challenge because industry -wise, people assume the worst and they think you've only gotten the opportunities that you've gotten because of where you come from and you've cut the line and you've taken shortcuts.

[192] And while I certainly learned a lot from my dad and, of course, was in rooms as a kid where I got to just be familiar with the way that things work and with the logistics of everything and the business and stuff, I think at this point it's at least clear that I've got my own chops.

[193] Your dad can't get you, Tony.

[194] Yeah, I don't think so.

[195] Right.

[196] But for people who don't know, your father produced the movie Legally Blonde, La La Land, Mary Poppins Returns, but probably most significantly in your life, I would imagine, is wicked.

[197] Yes.

[198] Right?

[199] Which I've seen now 29 times.

[200] You've seen it 29 times.

[201] I have.

[202] I've seen it in London, Costa Mesa, Chicago, Australia, Broadway, a bunch of times.

[203] And you were about 10 when that debuted?

[204] I was 10, yeah.

[205] Okay.

[206] And did you immediately live?

[207] love it or did it represent something that was taking your father's attention away from you?

[208] Oh, no, I loved it.

[209] I also grew up loving the Wizard of Oz.

[210] I'll take like an ounce of credit for my dad's interest in that book in the first place.

[211] But like kids that young, I think is like kind of the target.

[212] I mean, Wicked has something for everyone, but that is sort of the target of like awe inspiring reaction to that show.

[213] And I think I was just floored by it and couldn't believe that my dad made it and also was dying to be in that community and in that scene.

[214] So I think it was very aspirational to see that young.

[215] Yeah.

[216] And I assume, You got to be around Kristen Chenowah with.

[217] Of course, yeah.

[218] Well, my first job before even Wicked was when I was nine, I did the music man at the Hollywood Bowl.

[219] Before she had done Glinda and she was marrying the librarians, I played her little brother.

[220] So I already knew and loved her very much.

[221] One of the most likable human beings on the planet.

[222] It's hard not to be obsessed.

[223] And you could really underestimate her.

[224] And then she opens up her mouth and then fucking roaring thunder comes out.

[225] Like six different sounds of roaring thunder.

[226] Yes.

[227] It has like four people in there.

[228] Yes.

[229] So you were around that.

[230] You just pointed out that you had actually done a play.

[231] when you were nine.

[232] So when did it start?

[233] Well, I started doing theater at like a kids program called the Adderly School where all my siblings before me went.

[234] I have three older siblings, one younger.

[235] All three older ones had gone.

[236] I started going when I was like six years old and like Cinderella and Oliver and like little kid shows and loved it not necessarily in a very discernible way from all the other kids loving it until I was nine and the Hollywood Bowl inquired to my program and was like, we have a need a bunch of kids for the band and for the music man and for Winthrop and all that.

[237] And can you send some kids in and my teacher Janet sent me in.

[238] She thought I had a knack for it and I really didn't want to go.

[239] I got really scared and I was crying a lot with my parents and I was like, I don't want to do this.

[240] And I think that they could sense how much I would love it if I just kind of threw myself off the ledge.

[241] And as soon as I walked in the room, I was bit by the bug and I felt completely at home.

[242] You bring up the very hardest part about parenting.

[243] They want to do something.

[244] You sign them up or you schedule the whole thing and then a day before they decide they don't want to do.

[245] Yes.

[246] And you're like, at what point do I push them?

[247] It's an instinct thing.

[248] I think.

[249] My parents generally have done a pretty good job of knowing when to put the...

[250] That's kind of the only time they even really needed to put the pet along because once I...

[251] Once you got a taste of that sweet heroin out there.

[252] It's like, everybody's looking at me and wanting to hear what I have to say and sing, and they can't believe that I can carry a tune.

[253] Uh -huh.

[254] This is the easiest thing I do.

[255] For the first time to be on stage in public to be at the Hollywood Bowl, it's pretty incredible, right?

[256] It's 20 ,000 people or something.

[257] It was nice.

[258] But I think that it's almost less scary for me. Places like that always has been.

[259] It's like less personal because it's such a...

[260] faceless blob rather than 20 people up in your face.

[261] Right.

[262] So I think it was kind of a good icebreaker of just like, if I can do this here, I can do it anywhere.

[263] Yeah, later in this interview, when you perform Evan Hanson in its entirety in front of just us four, it's going to feel pretty rough.

[264] Oh my God.

[265] Yeah.

[266] You did that, and then you went to a performing art school.

[267] I think you just mentioned the name of it.

[268] Atterly school, yeah, I was doing that program all through.

[269] Well, I went to Jewish Day School for proper, like, for like, K through eighth grade, but always I was doing the after school program at the Adderly School.

[270] And then when I went to high school at Harvard West, like, In Studio City, they have a fantastic arts and theater program, and that's kind of where it got solidified.

[271] And it's also where I made all of my best friends that I still have.

[272] So you loved that school?

[273] Loved, loved, loved high school.

[274] Everything about it, every minute of it.

[275] Really?

[276] I would go back.

[277] For me, Harvard Westlake is like, oh, it must have been so intimidating.

[278] There's, like, billionaires there.

[279] People are going on family vacations, like, on a jet to a mansion on top of a mountain, and how do you behave in that situation?

[280] All those things.

[281] Like, that's immediately where mine goes.

[282] But you didn't have that experience.

[283] Not really.

[284] To me, it was just all of these like -minded people who all thought it was so cool to have talent and be interested in art and be committed to the art and were as geeky about musical theater as I was.

[285] And there was a classical choir and an improv group and a playwrights festival with student written plays every year.

[286] And I just, it was like a kid in a candy store.

[287] Like, I just loved that everybody took it as seriously as I did.

[288] And of course, the reason we were able to have a program like that is because the school has a lot of money.

[289] So I certainly take that for granted, of course.

[290] Right, right.

[291] Well, I think you're right, at least at my school.

[292] had about six dedicated theater folks and then three that weren't sure while they were in there but they were there so yeah much different vibe at my school yeah did your school have then the conventional jocks and stoners and so no i mean there was like you know the like popular girls ish and there was athletes were treated very well and there was definitely like football players but it was like a comically progressive place in the sense that it was very cool to be gay or like very cool to have a buddy that's gay.

[293] Uh -huh.

[294] You know, there was not really like a bullying situation, really.

[295] And, like, even the kids that are, like, you know, quote -unquote nerdy sort of social pariah kids all have their own group.

[296] Right.

[297] So were you out in high school?

[298] Yes.

[299] You are.

[300] The whole ride.

[301] Mm -hmm.

[302] Yeah.

[303] I've been out since I was 12.

[304] That's incredible.

[305] I'm locked into a point of view where I grew up in the 80s where it was very, very life -threatening to be openly gay.

[306] Sure.

[307] There are still parts of the country where it is, which is the shittiest.

[308] Yeah.

[309] Because I saw a very ugly part of it, by my comparison in 2019, I'm like, this is looking pretty good.

[310] And then because of that, I'm not Uber aware of what stuff still left.

[311] I guess in the same way that some people are like, oh, we have a black president, no more racism in America, we fixed it.

[312] So, you know, in some way I'm like, oh, everyone get married now, we're good.

[313] Or kids can be openly gay in high school.

[314] We got there, right?

[315] But probably not.

[316] I'm right, I'm a little delusional?

[317] I mean, relatively it's not in day, of course, because everybody can get married and there's a lot more protection as far as discrimination in jobs.

[318] And there's definitely like big leaps forward.

[319] But I also have only ever spent, you know, significant amounts of time in liberal bubbles.

[320] So I don't know what it's like still to be in Arkansas or Mississippi and there are still kids, you know, experimenting with self -harm because of it or feeling like they can't tell their parent being disowned because of it.

[321] And particularly, like, the trans community, you know, getting murdered all of it.

[322] Like, it's just, there's definitely not all the way there.

[323] Right, right, right.

[324] But, I mean, we're farther than we've been, got Buttigieg up there on the stage, which is cool.

[325] And, you know, I'll take it.

[326] There'll be a gay president in your lifetime, I'm certain.

[327] Knock on wood, that'd be great.

[328] Yeah.

[329] I mean, we've probably already had a gay president.

[330] But just openly.

[331] We've probably had a gay everything.

[332] Yeah, 100%.

[333] You're the fourth oldest of five.

[334] Yes.

[335] That's real middley, middle child.

[336] Was there any?

[337] attention for you?

[338] Were you cravings a spotlight?

[339] No, I think I always had my own lane just because I was working since I was a kid.

[340] I was in my world while I was rehearsing things and very much happy doing my thing or doing shows in my backyard or enlisting one or two of my siblings to do them with me. And then I let the moments where I had performances be like, here's my moment.

[341] Yeah.

[342] We can go back to everybody else.

[343] Yeah, I guess you had an outlet from a pretty young age to go get some of that tasty attention.

[344] Totally.

[345] And all my siblings and I and parents love singing in theater.

[346] and it's something that we always bond over.

[347] So that's kind of always been our bread and butter of like being in the car and singing along to cast albums or whenever someone has a bar mitzvah or wedding will like rewrite a theater song to be about them.

[348] Uh -huh.

[349] That's always our mode of communication.

[350] From an outside, it sounds like a really fun family to have grown up.

[351] I'm jealous.

[352] Yeah.

[353] I'll also add, I think I told you yesterday when you came over that, I had a couple meetings with your father.

[354] And generally when you go take general meetings with really huge producers, which your father is one of the biggest producers.

[355] Sure.

[356] I think Wicked is the second biggest musical of all time behind Lion King.

[357] It's a Goliath.

[358] Totally fucking normal guy.

[359] He stuck out as someone.

[360] I'm like, he's a very cool normal dude.

[361] He is.

[362] I've always been very in awe of the levels that he is able to reach while maintaining like a lot of integrity and not making any enemies and just being like himself.

[363] I tried to emulate that as much as possible.

[364] I'll apply to him this kind of thing that John Stewart introduced me to on Howard Stern, which is this rabbinical approach where it's like you're able to listen and actually just listen.

[365] Yeah.

[366] Rubinical is a good word for him.

[367] Okay, good.

[368] I nailed it.

[369] All right.

[370] So do you come out to your siblings first?

[371] No. So I called my parents.

[372] I was on a school trip and there was some sort of scuffle where like there was like a misunderstanding about this kid making a comment about me being gay.

[373] Essentially like it was being interpreted as a bullying thing, but like really the kid was just stating a fact and like he was my buddy.

[374] Okay.

[375] And so I didn't want my parents to hear about that through the grapevine because of like our chaperones and stuff so i was like let me just get up ahead of this so i called them from the trip and there was a very like a lack of surprise a real just we know and you know my mom saying i have a lot of books that i've been trying to read and now i'm going to read them and you know just kind of the dream response exactly which i've of course taken for granted but i think that's part of the blessing is the ability to take it for granted is like not making that become a traumatic or like an impediment kind of a moment yeah it's just like a moment.

[376] I guess, too, there's a potentially awkward moment in that moment, which is, we knew, sweetie.

[377] And so for me, I would be a little triggered by like, you can't presume to know everything about me. Even though they would be right, I'd be a little bit like, oh, did you knew?

[378] I mean, I spent most of my childhood trust as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

[379] Yeah, but I carried a purse around for like three years.

[380] It was a real useful utility bag I had.

[381] I do always just wonder, like, if either of my children appeared to be gay, if I would be tempted.

[382] to de broach the subject with them just to take the load off their plate and then what if I was wrong and blah blah blah blah blah blah what would you think about that just let the kid I really liked that they let me come to them first although I think that I had the luxury of them making it very clear in other ways that it wouldn't be not a big deal in the sense that they were gay men in my whole life because my dad works in the theater and so like everybody who works in the theater is a gay man. Yeah it's a pretty high percentage before it was even like a sexualized thing like when I was a kid before I understood any of that It was more of like a ring of keys, a fun home situation where I was like, I'm like that guy.

[383] Like, I recognize that.

[384] So I think it's a nice thing to just make sure it's like in the air that that's cool and we're cool.

[385] And we have having people around that are in the queer community.

[386] But I don't necessarily think it's like, you know, if you are gay, sweetie, you can tell me. Yeah.

[387] That's maybe it would make somebody recoil.

[388] I'm not encouraging any parents out there to go lasso a gay gentleman and incorporate them into your life.

[389] But I will say your actions speak a lot louder than your words.

[390] So if you're saying, no, we love everyone.

[391] Yet you look around the friendship circle and there's no one in there except for other straight white males.

[392] It says a lot probably.

[393] Yeah.

[394] Yeah.

[395] So that was a luxury.

[396] I had a very wide range of folks hanging around.

[397] And then your brothers and sisters, I'm sure they felt similarly.

[398] Yes.

[399] That one took a little longer just because it's like they're your buddies and so it's always a little bit weird.

[400] By the time I was in high school, I told all of them.

[401] And my little brother's gay too.

[402] So we've been able to sort of bond over that and have a very similar kind of sense of humor.

[403] It's really nice.

[404] two of five, 40%.

[405] 40%.

[406] Okay.

[407] Now, when you're 19, you go to college for six weeks.

[408] Yes, so basically I finished high school and was supposed to go to college that following fall at Columbia, and then I booked Pitch Perfect the film like two weeks before I'm supposed to leave.

[409] So I just took my duffles to Louisiana instead to shoot and deferred for a year.

[410] And then did a bunch of plays to fill out the rest of that year, and then I started properly the following fall with plans to go and lasted about six weeks.

[411] And then in the middle of October, I got Book of Mormon.

[412] and left and never.

[413] Okay.

[414] And were parents fully supportive of you pursuing film and television?

[415] Very much so.

[416] I mean, I think the pitch perfect thing was not a big decision.

[417] It was sort of like it was great studio film, great opportunity.

[418] A lot of my friends were taking gap years anyway.

[419] So that was an easy one.

[420] It was more the leaving in the second place.

[421] That was a discussion.

[422] Right.

[423] When you were at that age, were you singularly focused on Broadway?

[424] Was that where you wanted to go?

[425] Or were you just as open to like starting to act in movies?

[426] I think Broadway was and always has sort of been my like passion project in the sense that I don't think anything is like as ingrained in me as that just because that's what I was raised on and that's what I feel like the most personal connection to.

[427] I certainly was interested in doing as a wide variety of stuff as possible, whether that's original music or film or anything.

[428] But I think I didn't have nearly the confidence in my ability to be in that arena.

[429] And so pitch perfect because there was like a musical element to it and because Jason Moore was directing it who comes from the theater as well, it was a really nice bridge of like, oh, this is a world that I can feel comfortable.

[430] And I started to love it just as much, but for obviously very different reasons.

[431] It's such different muscle.

[432] So now I often contemplate what effect having money will have on my children.

[433] I feel like in the best version possible, they just won't be that motivated by money.

[434] I guess is when I'm kind of hoping happens because I was only motivated by money.

[435] Still, to this day, I'm only motivated by money.

[436] Sure.

[437] So when you have a family with money, when you take pitch perfect, are you aware of the fact like, oh, that'll be great.

[438] I'll go make seven grand a week or whatever the SAG thing is at that point in your career.

[439] Are you going like, ooh, I'm going to get my own money or you don't even give a shit?

[440] You're just going there because you want to be in it.

[441] Not quite yet.

[442] I think I was still in like a very teenage mindset of like, this is a great career opportunity and this can open doors and lead to other things.

[443] I think more so now as I've like started to live on my own and paid for my own home and things like that, I've started to take that into account.

[444] I mean, I still obviously have the blessing and the luxury of getting to lead with my creative foot rather than just with that.

[445] but I think I would love to be able to provide for my family the life that my family provided for me. And so I'm certainly trying to keep that in the back of my mind.

[446] But at that point, I think it was more just about, I want to go do a musical movie with Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson.

[447] Right.

[448] But it is still a self -esteem checkmark for you, like, oh, I made my own means, I paid for my own way, I completely pass something onto my children, that kind of thing, still, you still have that desire.

[449] 100%, particularly now with projects like Politician, which is what I'm doing on Netflix, where I'm an EP on it and I feel some ownership over it.

[450] And I feel like it's more of even like a principal thing to be properly compensated.

[451] Like it feels more like an arrival point.

[452] Yeah, knowing your value.

[453] Exactly.

[454] So you get Book of Mormon and it's a Chicago production at first, right?

[455] Yes.

[456] We opened the production in Chicago from scratch, which was nice because we got to have like a whole rehearsal process with the creative team and kind of start from the beginning as opposed to entering a already moving machine.

[457] Yeah.

[458] And so I think the reason that my parents were okay with me going and doing that was because we would be.

[459] reviewed, and it would be its own production, and it was a lot more effective than just going right to replacing.

[460] Yeah, so just quickly for the non -Broadway nerds in the audience, which I'm in that sector.

[461] So generally, when there's a successful play on Broadway, they just kind of pick it up and move it somewhere, and how does it normally work?

[462] So something runs long enough and they want to start opening other productions.

[463] They'll use the same creative team, same staging, same production, same costumes.

[464] It's a reproduction of the show with just a new cast.

[465] But the The upside of that is if you're starting a new company, then especially if it's in a major city like Chicago or Los Angeles, you get reviewed by a lot of people and it's much more of a sort of public...

[466] It's kind of a new take on it, right?

[467] Exactly.

[468] You get more of an opportunity to reinvent than if you're just replacing on Broadway, because in Broadway, you know, one or two actors are leaving at a time and you're rehearsing, you know, during the day in the theater when the cast is not there with like a stage manager and maybe like an associate director, just learning the track so that you can slot right in when that person leaves, as opposed to feeling like you're building a whole show from the ground up with a whole new group of people.

[469] So I think because I got to do that first and then go and replace in New York, it gave me much more of a lane to recreate the character for myself because I was also replacing Josh Gad, who you know very well.

[470] And he was a crazy standout in that.

[471] Unbelievable and, you know, kicked off his whole ginormous career, but I think it was very clear from the get -go that I am not Josh Gad and I'm not going to do that version.

[472] So I don't know that I would have had the opportunity to really build my own if I had gone right into the New York cast.

[473] So you had obviously seen the musical on Broadway.

[474] And you had to have loved it, right?

[475] Loved it.

[476] Me and my best friend, Beanie used to listen to it on the way to school all the time.

[477] We loved it.

[478] Yeah, one of only two musicals I've ever enjoyed.

[479] Really?

[480] Yes.

[481] What's the second?

[482] Hamilton.

[483] All right.

[484] Those are good, too.

[485] It had enough history.

[486] And I didn't see, dear Evan Hanson.

[487] So I just want to say, it's not that I'm saying, I didn't like that.

[488] I have heard, dear Evan Hansen upwards of 10 million times in my household.

[489] And I've watched my wife with a blank look on her face, just sing every word.

[490] of it to me, as if I'm not even there.

[491] But you're going to point out Beanie.

[492] Beanie's coming on tomorrow or Wednesday?

[493] She's coming in this week.

[494] Yeah, she's the best.

[495] Did you meet her at that Harvard Westlake school?

[496] I did.

[497] Well, I met her in middle school.

[498] We both went to see a production of company at Harvard Westlake when we were in seventh grade.

[499] We met and had this weird spark together.

[500] But then it was before like cell phones or anything or Facebook even.

[501] And so we just sort of said like, hope I see you again.

[502] Right, right.

[503] And then at the first day of ninth grade, we were like, I remember you.

[504] I remember you.

[505] What's your lunch period?

[506] Seventh, mine, two.

[507] And then a love affair that won't be stopped.

[508] Exactly.

[509] So you had seen it with Beanie and you obviously were pretty blown away.

[510] Yes.

[511] Yeah, yeah.

[512] I mean, it's one of the funniest shows you'll ever see.

[513] And it's just like a nonstop belly laughing.

[514] It's hard to breathe.

[515] It's just really, really.

[516] I mean, it's Trey and Matt.

[517] So they're absolutely brilliant.

[518] And there's a line in there that got me in trouble on this podcast because there's a line that goes, did you know that Jesus was born here in the USA?

[519] And I said that.

[520] Worse lines than that in there that you could.

[521] Yes, but it just, Mormons do not believe that he was born there, just that he came through here.

[522] But at any rate, I digress.

[523] So when you got to make it your own, and did you feel, ultimately, do you feel great about it?

[524] Like, oh, I found a whole different thing to do, and it's working?

[525] Totally.

[526] When I was auditioning, I thought it was just a way to get in front of Casey Nicola and Trey and Matt because it was everybody in the whole room was like mid -30s, bigger guys looked just like Josh.

[527] glasses of curly hair and then just me every time there was a callback I just kind of kept sticking around and I was like this is nice that they're humoring me and letting me kind of figure this out and then when I got it I was kind of determined to make my version work because they had taken such a risk letting me because when a formula works and you're just trying to reproduce it it's rare that they'll go in a different direction of any kind yeah I don't want to order a Big Mac and get fucking taco meat on top that's not what I'm expecting exactly but I made the taco meat really work and the kind of burger.

[528] Thank God they put this taco meat on here.

[529] And yeah, it was really fun to get to have that middle step of working within a preconceived box, but still having room within that to do my own stuff.

[530] So that by the time I got to Evan and I'm doing something completely from scratch, it felt like a natural progression to that.

[531] Yeah.

[532] So when you did the Chicago production, did you think I will end up doing this now on Broadway?

[533] Was that like in the stars?

[534] It was the hope.

[535] I think once it was received well and once it was clear that my version of it really worked, and particularly with my co -star Nick Rulow, who created Elder Price, which is the other co -star with me in Chicago, I think it was clear that the two of us had a good thing going.

[536] So I think the hope was always that they bring us over there together, which they did.

[537] Right.

[538] And then so that is your Broadway debut, right?

[539] What is that night like?

[540] Really surreal.

[541] It's just the little things that I remember, like, there's like always a chart in the lobby of all the cast members in alphabetical order.

[542] Every Broadway theater you go into and just having my little slide a card in there was like a very weird thing to see and seeing my name in a playbill.

[543] And like, I don't even really remember the show.

[544] that night, but I just remember those little, like, having my mic waiting for me in, like, a little pouch outside my dressing room door, like, all those things that I had always seen and hoped to be part of and hearing, like, the half -hour call on the intercom.

[545] I was just like, this is heading in the right direction.

[546] Yeah, and now, because I think this more pertains to Dear Evan Hanson, but there is a tradition that when other actors come see a musical or a play on Broadway, I assume they have to have some level of status to get over this barrier of entry, but it's tradition that they will come backstage after the show, right?

[547] So whenever I've been with Kristen, because she eat, Breeze, sleeps, Broadway.

[548] She knows all the traditions.

[549] She's like, well, we got to go backstage.

[550] In my mind, I'm like, this person just put on a show for two hours, an exhausting show.

[551] The last thing I would want to do is have to have small talk with people I don't know.

[552] Please tell me what your thoughts are on that tradition.

[553] Well, the lion share of my experience with that tradition is Evan Hanson.

[554] And I would say in that particular scenario, it was an incredibly draining show to do and really exhausting and difficult to keep recreating and so to me it was like a beautiful relief to have people get affected by it every time and want to come back and share that because usually people at the end of Evan Hansen are very emotionally raw and very vulnerable and they want to just sort of hug and tell you their life story and I think like that was very motivating and sort of helps to separate the shows when they're running together and you're doing it like hundreds and hundreds of times.

[555] Yeah.

[556] So I always really appreciate it.

[557] I would say if the show that you saw didn't really move you or you didn't really care for it that much, then I don't think you need to feel like a service of coming back and, like, pretending that you did?

[558] Well, let me ask you this.

[559] Did they ever come and go like, and just P .S. Tom Hanks is in the audience?

[560] Yes.

[561] Well, when I was in Evan Hanson, I got a list every night before the show of all of the people that were there because it came quite a, you know, thing to go and see.

[562] Especially within the industry.

[563] Exactly.

[564] My character spends a lot of time looking out at the audience, and so I would naturally spot people and I did not want to come upon people that I didn't know where there.

[565] Like if Merrill was in the crowd, like spotted Merrill.

[566] I didn't want that.

[567] You'd take you out.

[568] of your rhythm.

[569] My cast did not agree, so I would get my own list and just know this is who's here, and then expect that those would be the people that would come back.

[570] But we had, you know, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton and Mindy Patinkin.

[571] Oh.

[572] A lot of heroes.

[573] And did, um, Queen Bee come backstage afterwards?

[574] She did come back.

[575] She did.

[576] There's photo evidence.

[577] Oh my goodness.

[578] So yeah, so people come back and they're like, oh, great show, and you're like, how do you take compliments?

[579] I'm horrible at it.

[580] I just look at the ground and like hold my hands and it's a hard balancing act.

[581] I mean, by a few months, Once in, I was sort of like, okay, yes, I like what I'm doing in the show, and I'm happy to say that.

[582] For me, I would rather a long, satisfying hug than like a deep conversation about how much you loved it.

[583] Yes, it's just hard to respond to that kind of feedback.

[584] It's like, yeah, I know it's sad, right?

[585] The show is really sad.

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

[587] We've all been there.

[588] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable.

[589] pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[590] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[591] 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.

[592] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[593] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[594] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[595] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[596] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[597] What's up, guys?

[598] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[599] And I'm diving into the brains of Entertainment's Best and Brightest.

[600] Okay.

[601] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[602] And I don't mean just friends.

[603] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[604] The list goes on.

[605] So follow, watch and listen to Baby.

[606] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[607] So Queen Bee came back.

[608] Was there anyone that came to that show that you were just a diehard fan of growing up?

[609] Well, be honest day, it was number one because I freak out for her.

[610] I like got a haircut that day and like I did an extra voice lesson.

[611] And like, oh, wow.

[612] But other than that, Mandy Patinkin, my favorite musical of all times called Sunny the Park with George.

[613] And he was the original George in that.

[614] And I used to watch the PBS taping of that growing up all the time.

[615] And he's very much my idol and very much an inspiration of why I wanted to do a musical theater in the first place.

[616] So for people that aren't super into theater again, Mani Patinkin probably most famously was in Princess Bride.

[617] Yes, and is on Homeland.

[618] Yeah.

[619] Oh, yeah.

[620] And then Homeland.

[621] Yeah.

[622] So when I started watching Homeland with Kristen, I was like, oh, it's the guy from Princess Bride.

[623] She's like, no. What?

[624] No, no, that is Mandy, but in the same shit you just said, like, what was it?

[625] Sunday in the park with George.

[626] Okay, yeah.

[627] And he was the original Che Guevara and Avita.

[628] He's like the Brad Pitt of Broadway.

[629] Exactly.

[630] He's a musical theater legend, for sure.

[631] Right.

[632] So, yeah, I was just very floored by that.

[633] What was it about his stage persona that you liked so much?

[634] There's not a lot of roles in musical theater where men are given the opportunity to be vulnerable.

[635] I think that there's a lot of, like, very gravitas -filled, leading men and a lot of roles that have, for women that have, for women that have, a bit more like emotional complexity which is another reason the musical theater is an amazing place because like I think they've always been way ahead of the game as far as portraying women but I think when I saw him there was such a complexity and a sadness and like a real like fully formed human to his performance where I was like oh the fact that this is possible in the context of a musical and it's not just like I'm here to save the day exactly right which there's room for that you know Les Mis is great yeah but like it was just very human and also Stevenson time in musical so and he's sort of the end -all be -all of writing complicated.

[636] He's like the Shakespeare of him.

[637] Well, let's call him the Michael Jordan of it.

[638] Of giving actors like tons of complexity to work with.

[639] And I think I was just really moved by that.

[640] And also by the piece Sunday in the park of George in general, because it's sort of in a meta sense very much about what do you sacrifice to be an artist and what do you give up to love what you do and to always live somewhat in your mind in what you're doing.

[641] Let a piece of you always be taken by that.

[642] And how does that affect your relationships?

[643] And I think from a very young age, I knew that it was going to be a big part of my life.

[644] And so I think I always I was conscious of that.

[645] And so when you meet Mandy, what's your approach?

[646] Because you want him to love you, right?

[647] You want him to say, you're the next me, and I love you.

[648] Badly.

[649] Yeah.

[650] We had this thing called the quote -unquote blue room, because blue was like the color of Evan Hanson, which basically just a green room where people would come and meet and all the cast couldn't find their way there after we've taken off our makeup and stuff.

[651] So I went there, and I knew who's going to be there.

[652] There's always like a pretty annoyingly large crowd in there after the show.

[653] And he was really quiet, and I went over to him and introduced myself, shook my hand.

[654] He didn't really say anything.

[655] And I was getting very nervous.

[656] I was like, he hated it.

[657] He hated it so much.

[658] He didn't like me all.

[659] He thinks that the pop music and it is like bogus.

[660] Sacrilege.

[661] And then like four or five minutes later he tasked me in the show and he's like, do you mind if we go somewhere private?

[662] It was like, um, wherever you want.

[663] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[664] I'll go to the sunken place.

[665] So he went to my dressing room and he just was like, you know, I'm floored by what you did and I'd like to follow whatever you do after this.

[666] Oh, wow.

[667] It just was really, really very pitched myself.

[668] I wrote a lot of journaling that evening.

[669] Uh -huh.

[670] It was really everything I hope for.

[671] He and Bay.

[672] were the two that really will stick with me. They really.

[673] And Kristen Bell.

[674] I don't know that I met her when she came back.

[675] Oh, really?

[676] Yeah, I don't think so.

[677] She might have taken the weird approach that Monica and I stand by, which is we ignore the people we love in hopes that they'll eventually come to us.

[678] I do too.

[679] Or when I'm too scared.

[680] I sometimes don't approach.

[681] Like I saw Hunter Schaefer on the street.

[682] Do you watch Ruforia on HBO?

[683] She's like this unbelievably gorgeous, brilliant trans actress.

[684] And I just loved her on the show so much.

[685] And I saw her on the street.

[686] And I was like, I'm going to go up and say something.

[687] And then I was like, you know what?

[688] I'm too afraid.

[689] I can't.

[690] And also maybe she'll think it's cooler if I don't.

[691] Yeah.

[692] But then I saw her again and I did say something.

[693] I mean, I always think it's hit or miss because I personally, there are versions of it, I'm sure you get this too, versions of being recognized and bothered that are great and versions that are like soul -crushing.

[694] So I always want to live in the first category.

[695] Also, there's a difference between coming up and trying to explain that you've been moved by something or something's affected your life and just coming up and like really wanting that pick for your other people.

[696] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[697] Which is my favorites are the ones that kind of and just want to chat, and that's the end of it.

[698] That's what I always say.

[699] I'd way rather talk to you for three minutes than take a 30 -second picture with you.

[700] Exactly.

[701] Unless I'm at a very intimate dinner with my family, in which case, maybe not.

[702] Without saying name, we're not going to say any names.

[703] Okay.

[704] But can you think of the weirdest thing someone that was famous came backstage and said to you?

[705] Okay, good, good.

[706] 100%.

[707] I won't name her name.

[708] She said to me, she came backstage.

[709] She liked the show.

[710] She was crying.

[711] And then she asked me, you know, what do you do to decompress?

[712] afterwards and I was like oh I go home and order seamless and I watch like Parks and Rec or something funny and light and just get back in the group and she's like yeah I know like after I work sometimes when I'm in a hotel I'll just like order a bunch of chicken wings and I really love to leave the bones of the chicken wings under the bed for the maid to find if I try to freak her out oh no what?

[713] Oh man it was very nice to meet you and then I'd shit in the pillowcase and it just really tear the place out I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.

[714] I wonder if when she slides those chicken wings under the bed, like she feels a sense of decompression and relief and she just falls into a quick slumber.

[715] But again, a tradition like that to put chicken wings under the bed of a hotel room, how does that even develop?

[716] Like, did she's like one time she left them just at the end of the bed?

[717] And she's like, I feel a little bit better just having the chicken wings there.

[718] And then it progresses.

[719] They spill one time.

[720] Did she knock the plate off the bed and then kicked them under the bed?

[721] And then she had the best night of her sleep.

[722] Like, how on earth did she come up with that, I wonder.

[723] I got the hell out of there as soon as the bones were brought up.

[724] And do you think in any way, growing up around people helped you keep that experience somewhat right -sized?

[725] Yes, for sure.

[726] Yeah.

[727] Because I had like, you know, because Legally Blonde and stuff, like, Reese and her family were coming over for like Shabbat when I was 9 and 10.

[728] Right.

[729] They always felt like normal human beings to me rather than these like, I mean, people like Beyonce will always be, you know.

[730] As she should, remain in the room she enters.

[731] but generally it allowed me more of a comfortability of trying to just like person to person connected to people.

[732] Yeah, because the dangerous thing for me has been, so I grew up, you know, worshiping Burt Reynolds, smoking the band, it's my favorite movie.

[733] I do a movie with him when I'm 29 and he comes to like me a lot and invites me to lunch and stuff at his house.

[734] And while that's happening, I feel spectacular.

[735] But then the next morning when I wake up, I'm still seeing the exact same version of myself that I've assessed to be.

[736] good or bad or, you know, lacking in some way.

[737] Like, it just doesn't have any residual effect for me. Right.

[738] As much as I want it to.

[739] Like, you want to hear, like, if Beyonce loves you, you should feel fantastic the remaining days of your life.

[740] That's true.

[741] It just doesn't really have that potency, does it?

[742] No. I mean, Evan Hansen was a very particular experience because I was, like, really working myself to the bone doing it.

[743] And, like, I kind of put the volume down on everything else around me in life just to be doing it.

[744] So I felt like that made me feel the feeling of like accomplishment and like I'm doing what I can and it's a successful thing more so than the people that I admire saying like it was a great performance, blah, blah, blah.

[745] So let's get right into Deer Evan Hanson.

[746] So this, you started basically in 2014, right?

[747] You start, you're a part of workshops in table reads.

[748] Tell me how early you entered that process.

[749] So the first kind of beat of it is that I was 17 before any of this and I auditioned for dogfight, which was the musical that Pasquin Paul wrote.

[750] before Evan Hansen, and I was told I was too young, but I went in anyway because I just love Paskin -Paul, and I was like, why would I not give us a shot?

[751] So I went in and I sang this very esoteric musical theater song and went really well.

[752] Of course, too young, didn't get it.

[753] I got a Facebook message from Benj and Passick, who's the lyricist of the show, and he said, we love your audition, we think you're great.

[754] We would love to work with you in the future.

[755] We have this thing down the pike that's like, we're interested in like stay tuned.

[756] And I was like, that's really nice, but there's no way in hell.

[757] Like, there's no way.

[758] And so I didn't hear anything for a while.

[759] then when I was in Book of Mormon both of them reached out to me and they were like can we come see you in the show and they did and after the show was talking to them and they're like well we have our first reading of this piece and we'd love for you to come and do like a cold and just see how the fit is like and I was like oh great what's it about what's the character nobody would tell me anything they didn't want me to have any information for all I knew I was like playing like a southern like drug addict white nationalist I was like I hope I have whatever accent is necessary and it was the first time they'd ever open it up with actors and read it and so we went in a room and we had like a three day, very short first reading.

[760] And I think just immediately there was a real synergy between me and the character and also just the rhythm of Stephen Levinson's writing, who's the book writer of the piece.

[761] And then progressively over the course of the next two years every month or so, we'd have a slightly more involved reading, whether that was a little bit more of a cast, or now we'd stand with music stands and perform for a few people, and now we do like a little bit of blocking.

[762] And then we did a production in Washington, D .C. to give it a shot.

[763] And then we did a production off Broadway, and then finally on Broadway.

[764] Yeah, so throughout that process, have any anxiety like oh god they're using me to kind of shape this thing and then who knows they'll recast me or did they early on promise you like oh well we're going to do all this with you was there any part of it that felt like an extended audition for it as soon as we got to the dc workshop and then the dc show it or at least i was like contracted to if no matter where it moves from here forward i'm i'm doing it i think the first reading certainly felt like one big audition for everyone but i think it was just really apparent to me and to everyone that it was a perfect match.

[765] I didn't really feel any kind of fear about that.

[766] And also the writing kept shaping around me and around my interpretation of the character and focusing in more and more structurally on Evan and also sort of literally and comedically on me. And playing to your strengths and stuff.

[767] So I could feel that I was becoming like a part of the fabric of the piece and I didn't feel worried about it.

[768] Well, that was going to be a question I asked because you were young.

[769] How old were you then?

[770] 21.

[771] Yeah, like 20, 21.

[772] Okay.

[773] So how comfortable were you at that point being vocal about what direction it was all taking?

[774] By year two, by like the fourth or fifth round of workshops and reading stuff, I did feel that I had like a voice.

[775] I mean, I wasn't on the creative team necessarily.

[776] So at a certain point, you have to take the changes and do what you will.

[777] But I felt very heard and respect.

[778] And I also think that they knew that I had a very particular understanding of the character in a way that no one else did just because I'd been the only person to ever inhabit him and felt that I understood what would feel honest coming out of his mouth.

[779] So if I ever had like a real, glaring issue, they would listen, which I really appreciated a lot and made me want to only do projects after that where I felt like I had a seat at the table as far as a collaborator.

[780] And I always wondered if in theater, because there's so often these plays have already been done before, the text is the fucking text, it's now biblical, you know, what latitude actors have.

[781] I think more when you're creating a piece from scratch, because, I mean, when you're replacing in something, there's nothing.

[782] You're doing the thing, you got to do what you got to do.

[783] but when you're creating a new piece of musical theater particularly one that's not based on any other previous material you really have a voice I think particularly in this situation it was like a chamber musical so there's only eight actors there was no big ensemble there's no dance numbers it's just eight characters and so I think they would really hear us out as far as like this doesn't feel honest or this feels overwrought or this feels saccharine yes and to you know to a degree at a certain point it's like they have to look at the piece as a whole and you might lose some monologue you really love because it just doesn't work in the rhythm of the show But I think the best stuff, I think part of the reason that Evan Hansen turned out so well and felt and feels so authentic is that it was built around particular human beings because by like the third workshop or so we had seven of the eight of us in it.

[784] And we have been in it at the whole time.

[785] Right.

[786] So we, they really built it for and around us.

[787] And it's a super emotional way, right?

[788] As my wife has explained it to me, she's like, I don't know how he can cry and sing the way he does because you're basically not supposed to be able to do both at the same.

[789] same time.

[790] Like, she'll even point out when we're watching like award shows where someone will be singing one of their songs, but they got emotional just because of the moment of it.

[791] And then your voice stops working in the way you, it becomes unpredictable a bit, right?

[792] So how did you navigate that?

[793] It became like a muscle memory thing by the end.

[794] I worked a lot with my voice teacher.

[795] Her name's Liz Kaplan, who I still work with all the time on any original music stuff.

[796] And on my tour, I just did.

[797] She was with me the whole time.

[798] And yeah, I think it's, I mean, in like a very graphic, literal sense it's all about like when do you drain the mucus that's created by the crying and finding the times to do that so that doesn't get in the way of the sound you're making and stuff like that but like theoretically when you cry and your everything is draining you're creating all of this like resonating space up in your old passages okay so it's actually a not a terrible time to sing high belty's songs when you've just cried because there's all this cleared out it's like you just did a netty pot you know right so what i don't know that everyone recognizes is the schedule i would never do it.

[799] I just would never do it.

[800] Not for a billion dollars.

[801] I wouldn't recommend that unless you're dying to do it.

[802] Yeah.

[803] I mean, you got to have this.

[804] It's like an Olympic dream.

[805] Sacrifice all things for this one single moment.

[806] One million percent.

[807] You're living in service of the two hours each night.

[808] Your whole day is about those two hours, right?

[809] And your whole week is because you do what eight shows a week?

[810] Eight shows a week.

[811] Tuesday, two Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, two Saturday, Sunday.

[812] Then you have Mondays off.

[813] You have Mondays off.

[814] So my friend Sean Hayes, was in a musical.

[815] I should have said I liked that one, too.

[816] Promise is.

[817] Yes, promises.

[818] So funny.

[819] He was fucking, yes, charismatic and cute, and I loved it.

[820] But, you know, I hung out with him a couple different times while he was doing that.

[821] A, he was a human zombie.

[822] I mean, he just had zero energy when he wasn't doing that.

[823] And then just protecting his voice at all times, which I would find, as a blabber mouth would be the hardest part.

[824] I'd have to, like, put my fucking personality in a vault for a year.

[825] Exactly.

[826] That's why it's not really a sustainable thing to do always, which is why I've been really happy to be able to put my foot into the pool of film and TV and original music and other things.

[827] It just takes over your whole life and you can't, you know, you have to sleep a certain amount and take supplements and physical therapy and voice lessons and your diet changes and you can't go out and you can't drink and you can't.

[828] Is there a team of people helping you do all that stuff?

[829] Yes.

[830] I had a physical therapist, a voice teacher.

[831] I had like a nutritionist.

[832] I had a E &T on call at all times to help with like, uh -oh, I feel like I have a sinus infection.

[833] Let's get an antibiotic.

[834] Yeah, and you must be living in a constant panic that you'll get sick, right?

[835] Deep fear.

[836] I'm a hypochondriacal, like, anxious person all the time.

[837] Like, that's one of my biggest sort of hurdles.

[838] So it was exacerbated by, like, every morning just being like, mm -hmm, mm. You know, just first thing you do when you wake up is just like, am I phonating?

[839] Does it sound good?

[840] And so, like, the morning after Evan Hansen finished, to wake up and, like, hear that my voice was shot and be like, oh, I don't give a fuck.

[841] The best feeling ever.

[842] Oh, yeah, that's got to be so liberating.

[843] That's why I'd love to do a straight play, because it's like you get all the joy of that experience and like the theater and doing the show and having the live gratification but then you can go have a drink and scream it doesn't matter because it was talking right and now what what is the nutritionist doing he like no dairy is he is it dairy no gluten no acids how long before the show should i eat like how long before bed is it okay to eat like oh in what kind did you did you develop any habits that you were able to take on into your yeah i don't really eat dairy anymore at all okay it just was creating so much mucus and i also just found that like as a jew my stomach was happy without it.

[844] Right.

[845] I try to avoid it whenever possible.

[846] Okay.

[847] But I brought everything else back.

[848] I mean, I couldn't say goodbye to like tomato sauce forever.

[849] Right, right.

[850] That's hard.

[851] Did you find it interesting because you saw it, right?

[852] I saw it.

[853] Kristen sent me to New York to see you.

[854] I think, I think, yeah, she liked it so much.

[855] She got home and said, Monica, you're going to New York just to see this.

[856] Yeah.

[857] And it was maybe like your last week or two weeks.

[858] It was the very, very tail end.

[859] I got in at the tail end.

[860] Intense energy, then.

[861] Yeah.

[862] I'm not going to tell you how much I loved it because you told me we're not supposed to do that.

[863] Tell me. It was.

[864] It was.

[865] Okay.

[866] It was life -shattering.

[867] She just created a blur.

[868] It really was.

[869] I did.

[870] No, it was unbelievable.

[871] And I did feel like how, how can he be doing this every day multiple times a day?

[872] It was astonishing.

[873] But when you were developing the character, clearly this character has gone through a vastly different high school experience than you.

[874] Very.

[875] Very.

[876] But you still felt super connected.

[877] Definitely.

[878] There was a lot of ways in to him for me. He's a very anxious person.

[879] I'm a very anxious person.

[880] I think he's a lot of trouble connecting, which like obviously on the surface I do not, given that I'm performing all the time.

[881] But I do feel that like outside the realm of performing and acting and singing my own music, I do have trouble sort of opening up to people so I could very much relate to that.

[882] And then as far as like him as a particular kid, I definitely drew on like kids that I knew from high school who had a similar energy and similar.

[883] walk and wore like sad gray new balance shoes sure yeah that kind of stuff but I had definitely ways in and also the sort of best and worst part of a musical is that you get to sing so much because like obviously like we're saying that affects your life very much but also in any other art form there it gives you like a different window into the soul of the character like the way that's of character sounds and sings is like another dimension to them so I felt like it's like the way that he sounded was like kind of the last layer of the cake of like knowing who he was And does, because we've talked a bit on here to the boredom of the listeners who aren't actors, the different ways to get into being emotional while working.

[884] And some people work physically in, right?

[885] There's some people that will just start mimicking crying.

[886] And then the physical cues of that will actually elicit the real emotional response, right?

[887] Or you can work backwards and try to get emotionally first.

[888] So was some of it helpful that like the structure was there and the muscle memory was there and the singing and this part of the song is emotional.

[889] Did that work that way for you?

[890] For sure.

[891] I had to be emotional a few times in the politician and the TV show that I just made and that was, for me, a lot more challenging because you're just picking up in the middle of a given day and having to place yourself in the middle of a story in a very particular spot when you've done.

[892] You could have just filmed the birthday scene, the scene before.

[893] The same was like me walking down the hall, like talking, making jokes.

[894] And then the next day was like me sobbing and my mom like walking away from me. For moments like that, it's a lot more to me about like listening to music and like getting myself in a headspace.

[895] But the luxury of a musical or any piece of theater is that, like, you're living in chronology and you get to go through the journey and your body gets used to, like, the peaks and valleys of that.

[896] Yeah, you're telling the story in sequence.

[897] Exactly.

[898] So, like, both my mind and my muscles knew exactly where in the story we were at all times.

[899] And on top of that, you have the luxury of, like, a very beautiful string section playing very emotional music and bringing things.

[900] Well, and the audience is probably reflecting the emotion.

[901] That, for sure, also, because I, you know, in that very sort of emotional section of the show, I'm looking at, a family that's finding out this horrible truth that I'm having to tell them.

[902] So I'm watching this mother and father and this girl that I'm seeing in the show all, you know, completely break down because of what I've done.

[903] So that helps too.

[904] There was all sorts of layer.

[905] I mean, any given day you have, depending on how sort of in the zone you are, sort of how dropped into the story you are, you have to pull a little bit more on like personal things or a little bit more on the muscle feelings of it.

[906] I think it kind of varies day by day, but generally it became like clockwork.

[907] How many performances do you end up doing?

[908] Between the three productions combined 700 -some Jesus Christ I'm gonna be crude I don't want to get 706 blow jobs from a hot person There's nothing I want to do 706 times There's a lot of times Were there ever rides back to your apartment Where you're like hmm Well I'm glad Queen Bee wasn't at that one Of course there were times when I felt like that was a piece of shit And I hated that but when you're doing something that many times Like the smallest variation to you can feel like earth shattering Oh that laughed in land or like that there wasn't as much of a pin drop silence in that moment, and you're just like, oh, it sucked.

[909] But like any other person coming and seeing it for the first time, I was like, I have nothing to compare this to.

[910] This was great.

[911] Yeah, you probably can't help but start comparing every audience to the very best one that you ever had.

[912] Million percent.

[913] I would imagine if you're doing the show on a day that the stock market crashed, you know, X, Y, or Z things happening in the zeitgeist that obviously people bring that into the theater with them, don't they?

[914] Certainly.

[915] I mean, even if it's like raining outside or like everything is affecting.

[916] And if it's a matinee in the afternoon and, like, the energy is always...

[917] But that's also the nice thing about theater is that it's, like, malleable and changing and...

[918] Does that help prevent with boredom?

[919] Because did you get bored?

[920] For sure.

[921] And with that piece, never bored?

[922] Because there's just, like, too much to do and too much to bite off.

[923] It was more so, like, I don't want to do this today.

[924] It was like, how do I get myself up the hill today?

[925] What was the hardest snafu that happened in these 700 shows to overcome?

[926] I'll tell you right now.

[927] One of the worst moments of my whole life.

[928] We were in D .C., it was opening night in D .C., and the New York Times, critic was there first time we're being reviewed and you know new york times review makes or breaks whether we're coming to broadway or not okay show is going really well we get to the scene where there's this big dinner scene like in the middle of act one where the show really kind of takes off and like sets in emotion it's where evan starts to lie to the family and it's this big song and the whole show takes place on these discs that fly in and out and the disc is coming out for the dinner and it like stutter steps and then breaks and like a bunch of cups fall in water spills oh no and we had to The stage manager comes over things.

[929] Like, we're having technical difficulties.

[930] We had to walk off stage, wait for them to reset.

[931] I was literally, like, banging the wall of the theater.

[932] I have my castmates, like, rubbing my back to him.

[933] Like, it's okay.

[934] It's going to be fun.

[935] I'm like, this is the worst day I'm alive.

[936] And then, of course, for the whole rest of the show, it's over.

[937] He hated it.

[938] It was the worst thing ever.

[939] The show was great.

[940] The review was fine.

[941] Right.

[942] But it was awful.

[943] After the show, we were like, no more moving fucking pieces.

[944] Let's get this fucking thing.

[945] Wait, I went to the direction.

[946] I was like, are they going to fucking work on that tomorrow?

[947] afternoon?

[948] Are we running?

[949] Are we going to run those discs?

[950] Yeah, I mean, in my very limited experience with just doing sketch comedy on stage, I lived for when some fucking calamity happened because now everyone's got to like truly improvise and pull this thing off.

[951] Again, the role you had maybe didn't allow for this, but I have certainly been in the middle of a sketch that I've done a hundred times where I'm like, fuck, I didn't put money in the meter.

[952] I wonder if by the sketch I can run out there and put, you know, like I'll actually be thinking about something else while.

[953] saying my lines.

[954] There's always the danger of getting on autopilot.

[955] And the few times that I've ever had like a flub or like I've gone blank, it's because I've been in autopilot and then suddenly come back to where I was and I'm like, wait a minute, what did I just say?

[956] What do I say next?

[957] And then it's just a white room for a second and you're like, oh, I've done this a million times.

[958] What do I fucking say?

[959] Why is she looking at me like I'm supposed to say something?

[960] Yeah.

[961] But it's so hard not.

[962] I mean, especially when you're doing it over and over again, like your mind.

[963] Especially that second show on the day, I would imagine is like, oh God, here we go again.

[964] Now, when you said you also had a physical therapist, what was that person helping you with?

[965] So, Evan is super, like, hunched over and, like, kind of the opposite of what's healthy posture for singing.

[966] So she would help me kind of realign twice a week, a lot of, like, cups and acupuncture and, like.

[967] Any adjustments, cracking at all?

[968] Oh, yeah.

[969] Oh, wonderful.

[970] A little neck cracking, a little back crack.

[971] Did you love those?

[972] You loved.

[973] Because it felt like a real reset, because then your body feels, like, kind of disheveled by the end.

[974] So it was a nice back to the top.

[975] Now, while you're doing that, does it take away your interest in going to see stuff?

[976] No. I mean, my favorite activity in the world is to see theater.

[977] I try to see everything that possibly can.

[978] What it takes away is the opportunity to see stuff because you can only see things that have a varied schedule from you.

[979] And like 90 % of Broadway shows have the exact same schedule.

[980] So I could only see things that would have Sunday night or that like had like a special like Actors Fund performance on a Monday night or something that I could catch.

[981] So that was the worst part was not getting to see other things.

[982] But anytime I'm not in a show, I try to see every show in the season.

[983] Right.

[984] And now, after the show, would you go to these bars where the other actors go?

[985] No. You don't?

[986] Because you got to be on vocal rest.

[987] Yeah.

[988] Like in Brooklyn, Mormon, I used to go out because it wasn't a strenuous of a part.

[989] But not, in Evan Hanson, I wouldn't even go to the stage door.

[990] I would sneak out the lobby, get right in the car and go home.

[991] Were you in a relationship during that?

[992] No. I mean, I dated around, but not, no, nothing of, there was no room for like a...

[993] Because you can't, right?

[994] Yeah.

[995] Unless I had already been in one and that was established, there's no room.

[996] If you did have a partner, it would be someone with such low self -esteem that they were happy with the fucking.

[997] leftovers of you and that really wouldn't be an equal partner i mean yeah that's always been the biggest challenge i mean that's kind of the most intense version of you know my experience with that but always i think for me the hardest thing is to find people that are okay with the fact that like i put the work and like the investment in that in the same realm as like spending time with people that i love or like seeing my family right right it's that's like a piece of the brain that people that have no relation to the arts who can't really understand yes like but you always just should pick the human beings and it's like certainly at the end of the day yes but There are times when to make myself a happy person and you to invest in when I'm doing.

[998] Yeah.

[999] And I don't necessarily think it's so unique to this profession.

[1000] There's lawyers that like, yeah.

[1001] So, and I bet this is where you have the perfect dad for this, I would have guess.

[1002] Perfect dad for most things.

[1003] Yeah.

[1004] You're young and you're at 25, you probably should just be singularly focused on climbing whatever mountain.

[1005] But do you feel the lack of roots in your life?

[1006] Does that ever come to bear on you?

[1007] Do you have periods where you're like, oh my God, that's great and fulfilling.

[1008] But now that I'm here sitting still, I'm like, I don't know what the fuck I am.

[1009] Yes and no. Yes, as far as like I don't love that I've chosen this profession where like the longest I've ever known what's going to happen is like a year in advance.

[1010] Like I just don't know what life looks like anywhere past that.

[1011] So that scares me a lot.

[1012] I think the nice thing about my family is that they're all here in L .A. And they're all together.

[1013] It's a very grounding thing to know that they're all here.

[1014] And that helps me feel like I do have, at the end, like, if anything were to get upended or something horrible, you know what I mean?

[1015] Like, I always have that as like a home base.

[1016] And I'm also very blessed in that being in our group from Harvard Westlake of best friends is all in New York together.

[1017] And we've really stayed sort of very close and had each other's back.

[1018] And we are each other's sort of community within all of the ups and downs that everybody's on their own paths.

[1019] Yeah, that's really nice.

[1020] And it's also lucky that happens to be mostly other artists.

[1021] And, I mean, a lot of them are actors, a couple directors, playwrights.

[1022] So you're all understanding of each other's lack of attention at times?

[1023] Exactly.

[1024] At least other's lack of attention.

[1025] We're all understanding, in fact, like, in any given month, someone can be riding high and someone can be, like, questioning whether they even want to do this.

[1026] Like, we've been in all the places.

[1027] Stay tuned for more armchair experts, if you dare.

[1028] Have you considered, again, I think you're too young still for this, so I don't want you to consider it.

[1029] this.

[1030] But have you thought, wow, at what age will I maybe pick someone over the work?

[1031] No. I more so have thought about when will I choose the children over the work.

[1032] Right.

[1033] I mean, I would obviously like anyone would like to find my companion, but I also think even more so than that I definitely would like to have some children.

[1034] So I think if it gets to a certain point, I just would make room for that.

[1035] Yeah.

[1036] But I'd also like to still believe in my rose -colored glasses, 25 -year -old mine that like whoever I find, if they are the right person, they'll be on board for a year of me being around 24 -7 and a year of me being completely out of sight.

[1037] Like, I think hopefully that person would understand.

[1038] Yeah, I'm a little worried that that person doesn't have their own life.

[1039] I disagree with you about that.

[1040] You tell, please.

[1041] Because it's like you in motorcycles.

[1042] Like, Kristen is going to let you go do that because it's part of your identity.

[1043] Who he is is that.

[1044] That would be removing him from his identity.

[1045] Yes, but you did just compare three weekends a year to a whole.

[1046] whole year.

[1047] Yeah, I know.

[1048] But I just mean, whoever his person is is going to have to get on board with that because it's his whole being.

[1049] I think that other person's also going to have to have a Broadway play running at the exact same time so that neither of you want to be bothered.

[1050] Well, yes.

[1051] Or at least definitely have something that they're equally passionate about.

[1052] Because I don't think I'd ever be deeply attracted to someone that didn't have something.

[1053] Well, that's kind of what I'm getting at is like someone who can just go along for that ride.

[1054] I'm not into that.

[1055] Right.

[1056] That's what.

[1057] it's a uniquely hard dynamic, I think.

[1058] Because you want an equal, and an equal generally isn't going to be like, yeah, cool.

[1059] So I'll be with you this year, not next year, then the year after, you know.

[1060] They've got to have their own life too.

[1061] Once there's kids, I think that they're allowed to hold me accountable, that's for sure.

[1062] But I think they should also understand the way that you've pointed out.

[1063] It's like, particularly if I'm meeting them now or in the next couple years of like, this is the time to invest in this kind of thing and to be as selfish as possible.

[1064] Yes.

[1065] Because eventually I'd like to not be.

[1066] I think you're doing it absolutely right.

[1067] So for Dear Evan Hanson, you won a Tony.

[1068] You won 2017 best actor in a musical.

[1069] How did you take that?

[1070] Well, I grabbed it from Tina Fey.

[1071] Okay, that's great.

[1072] All I wanted to know is just the actual logistics of taking possession of it.

[1073] No, but were you able to go like, I deserve this?

[1074] It did feel earned in the sense that I felt like I really gave my all and sacrificed a lot to do it.

[1075] Deserve is hard because awards are so arbitrary and there's so much politics involved.

[1076] and I've seen projects of my fathers that not happen for reasons completely irrelevant.

[1077] So it's like, I think more so than caring about getting the award, I cared that the community felt that it would have been crazy if I didn't.

[1078] You know what I mean?

[1079] Yes.

[1080] If they would have been like, what the hell, why not?

[1081] That made me feel great.

[1082] That it's like everybody understands that I care a lot about this and that this was a good match of character to me and that this was the right moment.

[1083] So then the winning, it was just like cherry on top.

[1084] Yeah, and now I assume that it's still going on that musical.

[1085] And it's been recast.

[1086] Many times, yeah.

[1087] Many times.

[1088] I think they're on their fourth, Evan.

[1089] And have you gone and see any of them?

[1090] Well, both the two immediate successors were two very close friends of mine, Noah Galvin and Taylor Trench.

[1091] So I went and saw them both.

[1092] None of them were understudies, though.

[1093] No, they know.

[1094] They're each kind of very illustrious theater careers of their own.

[1095] Did you ever miss a show?

[1096] Yes, I didn't miss for the first like six months until April.

[1097] We opened in November, and I went straight through to April because I was putting a lot of pressure myself never to miss. And then about a week before the Tony Awards, or like on the Wednesday when the Tony's were on a Sunday.

[1098] The Tony season is completely impossible because you're doing eight shows a week and then in the daytimes you're doing like morning shows and you're singing on the today show and you're doing like Broadway .com press and you're like campaigning while doing the piece itself at night and that's just not sustainable on any body or voice.

[1099] And so I have vocal hemorrhage during a show on the Wednesday before the Tony's.

[1100] That means something tore.

[1101] It means you get like a little polyp, like a blister that looks like a little like a leave liquid gel like right on your vocal board.

[1102] I should take a lot of those.

[1103] I'm glad you use that as a, reference.

[1104] So I had to be out for the rest of that week and go totally silent and take a lot of steroids and trying to take down the inflammation in time to sing on TV on Sunday.

[1105] Have you ever gotten the shot in your vocal cords?

[1106] You have.

[1107] Well, like, I'm in my butt.

[1108] That's where you get it.

[1109] Hydrochortisone right up there.

[1110] Which it works, but it's not healthy to do more than an emergency situation.

[1111] So I missed some then and then in the fall, just overtime fatigue going so long, I injured the same poll up again and was out for 10 days and did the total silence for 10 days and then when I came back they correctly adjusted the role to be a sick show a week role which it now in perpetuity is so anyone else that's played the role in any company never does two shows in one day which probably should have been from the beginning I'm glad that I was able to have the experience of going crazy but I'm glad that it's that's the case what was the 10 days of complete silence like who's awesome I mean it was scary for the first couple days because I'm like, will I ever sing again?

[1112] But it weirdly made me, obviously, a lot more observational and, like, lean in a lot more to things that I would kind of glaze over if I were talking.

[1113] And I was also, I feel like it was the universe's way of, like, forcing me to, like, process the moment that I was in.

[1114] And all these people were coming to see the show.

[1115] And it was, like, this big pinnacle career moment of all you can do right now is sit in silence and, like, think about what's happened.

[1116] Yeah.

[1117] So I sort of think it was a blessing in disguise.

[1118] And thankfully, knock on wood, it was healed.

[1119] But it was, I liked it.

[1120] I whiteboarded around.

[1121] And to, like, notice weird things about my friends that.

[1122] I've never noticed and like the way people talk and listen.

[1123] Oh yeah.

[1124] I don't even know if I could do it for any amount of money.

[1125] I just talk so incessantly.

[1126] I think about it all the time.

[1127] These people would do like three months silent retreats and stuff.

[1128] Oh my God, I could never.

[1129] Only out of sheer necessity could I do it.

[1130] Okay.

[1131] So after that ended, you're doing so well in that lane.

[1132] Sure.

[1133] Is it tempting to just roll right into the next one?

[1134] You know?

[1135] No for several reasons.

[1136] Firstly, I just think like practically my body was like we cannot do eight shows a week for another couple years.

[1137] And then, on the other hand, Evan Hanson was like the pinnacle of like the most fulfilling, exposing, vulnerable, scary.

[1138] Like, I got to use every tool in my belt, challenged me in every possible way, got what I had dreamed of getting as a kid, finished, end of story.

[1139] So it felt like the only way to feel any kind of similar excitement would be to like switch lanes and do something that felt way more uncomfortable and different and less familiar to me. Right.

[1140] Which was to start trying to really earnestly write original music.

[1141] Yeah, and had you had any experience with writing stuff?

[1142] I grew up, like I said, with my family rewriting other pre -existing songs, so I was always fascinated by like scan and rhyme and like the cleverness of that and also had witnessed a lot of new musical theater being written, so watched Benj and Justin work and kind of had beat it around the bush my whole life, but had never sat down on the piano and been like, what if my own earnest perspective, what does that sound like?

[1143] Yeah.

[1144] And so Atlantic Records was where we made the cast album for Evan Hansen, and they were the ones who were like, would you ever be interested in doing your own record and have you ever tried songwriting and that was sort of the impetus for me to be like why don't I see if I have this muscle?

[1145] But you did already play the piano?

[1146] Yes, already played the piano.

[1147] I already loved to accompany myself on like preexisting songs.

[1148] It sort of felt like a natural.

[1149] Out of ten, what would you give your piano skills?

[1150] Like a six.

[1151] Oh, okay, that's great.

[1152] That's great.

[1153] I can't read like complicated parts.

[1154] Can't play classical music, but I can like mess my way around any popper theater.

[1155] So I play the drums and I give myself a three.

[1156] Just let you know where I'm at.

[1157] ever want to jam with a three.

[1158] I'm at your disposal.

[1159] I'm at a zero for every other instrument.

[1160] Okay.

[1161] No guitar.

[1162] You don't fuck with the guitar.

[1163] I've tried and I get frustrated and I hurts my fingers and I throw it around.

[1164] It does take a toll on your fingertips.

[1165] So how long did it take you to write your album?

[1166] We wrote 40 or so songs over the course of about a year in a little bit in LA, a little bit in New York, a little bit in London with a bunch of different co -writers and trying different combos of people and finding the ones I connected with.

[1167] And then kind of sat down, regrouped, and narrowed it to like the 12 strongest.

[1168] All sat and done about a year from starting to write it to being done with it.

[1169] And I'm releasing it was another six months after that.

[1170] And did you enjoy the process or were you just consume with the anxiety of it having to be good?

[1171] I really loved the process.

[1172] I think the anxiety only came in when it was like time to release and I was starting to think like, oh, this is going to really happen.

[1173] Yeah.

[1174] But I love the process also because I knew that the politician was happening, the Netflix show.

[1175] So I didn't feel like a lot of pressure to be like spending time tending to the garden of like the acting of everything.

[1176] I know something great's coming and I've got something to do so I get to really just like focus up on this and I just loved the culture of like which was very new to me of like meeting someone or a couple of people on a morning in a random studio and that same day like making a piece with them like just creating something with them and sometimes that's a train wreck or sometimes it's mediocre and sometimes it's just magically great so that was always really exciting and every day was different which was nice.

[1177] Yeah that is a uniquely fun thing that music at least can be built.

[1178] you can build name the Beatles song in a day if you choose right you know that's pretty incredible all the chemistry is like right and yeah lucky for someone like me who loves instant gratification it seems appealing diddo yeah to like show up in the morning drive home that night and be like oh shit wrote a hit today that's fucking awesome the best that's why it's like when at the end of a session when someone like bounces it to you like so you have a file of it it's like the most frustrating thing ever to write one and have the person who's like either the engineer or their producer, like, really, like, dragged their feet and sending it.

[1179] You're like, I really got to hear what we just made.

[1180] Like, come on, you got to send it to me. Like, it's in my head.

[1181] Yeah.

[1182] I'm going to forget how much I like it if you don't send it to me. Yeah.

[1183] So you keep saying the politician.

[1184] Mm -hmm.

[1185] The politician is on Netflix?

[1186] Yes.

[1187] When, is it out?

[1188] It'll come out September 27th.

[1189] Oh, okay, great.

[1190] Because I was like, how are we missing the politician?

[1191] I'm in on the title.

[1192] Yeah, it's on the fall.

[1193] It's a Ryan Murphy show.

[1194] It's his first show for Netflix.

[1195] Oh, okay.

[1196] And I'm EPing it with him and Brad and Ian Brennan.

[1197] And it's basically about this kid who's somewhat egomaniacal, like borderline sociopathic, very one -track -minded ones.

[1198] Like a Ben Platt type.

[1199] Exactly.

[1200] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1201] It was based on my childhood.

[1202] And it really just wants to be president of the United States.

[1203] That's his goal.

[1204] That's all he wants.

[1205] And so each season, theoretically, we have started with two.

[1206] We have a second one that we're going to make in the fall.

[1207] Uh -huh.

[1208] Is about a different political situation election on his way to accomplishing that.

[1209] So the whole first season is about his high school election for senior class president.

[1210] You're the lead of it?

[1211] Is he a good guy or a bad guy?

[1212] Is it an anti -hero story?

[1213] It is up to the audience, I think.

[1214] I mean, obviously, I think he's great because I'm him and I love him.

[1215] But he's certainly challenging in that way, which is why I think coming off of Evan Hansen, that it was really attractive to me. And I think it was smart of Ryan to sort of pitch it to me in this way.

[1216] It was very sort of, you've just played this sweet, innocent, sort of easily lovable guy.

[1217] Like, why don't we play someone that's going to really challenge people to get on your side?

[1218] And that was very attractive to me. Yeah.

[1219] And it's also a very kind of heightened, serbic like sardonic black humor kind of a tone which I really love a lot yeah it's fun to play bad isn't it really fun particularly when there's some pathos underneath and like it gets to peek through then when you're going out on a limb of like the worst stuff it feels so fun because you're like well I know that later there's going to be this very sweet scene with me with like my mother and I so I get to really dig into this person right now yeah it's it's interesting because I have enjoyed when I've got to do it because there's like some pleasure in that some cathartic pleasure during getting to actually vocalize evil thought you have?

[1220] A million percent.

[1221] And just in like having unbridled ego, which is like my worst nightmare.

[1222] But it's like so fun to just have an excuse to do it.

[1223] Yeah.

[1224] In like nice suits.

[1225] That sounds amazing.

[1226] That comes out September...

[1227] September 27th.

[1228] The politician.

[1229] Yes.

[1230] And we've got a crazy crew of people that are in it as well as Gweneth Paltrow and...

[1231] Oh, I wasn't sure if she was going to act anymore.

[1232] She graced us with...

[1233] Oh, wait.

[1234] Is her husband one of the writers?

[1235] Yes, Brad.

[1236] Brad.

[1237] So I met that dude once at a party.

[1238] and I fucking loved him.

[1239] He's awesome.

[1240] Yeah, really cool guy.

[1241] It also looks like Prince Charming.

[1242] Yes, he's gorgeous.

[1243] And then within like six minutes, I was telling him like my most embarrassing stories.

[1244] I'm like, oh, he's got a real way of getting people.

[1245] Yeah.

[1246] Oh, that's fantastic.

[1247] I really look forward to that.

[1248] So you're touring, right?

[1249] Yes, I just finished my first sort of mini U .S. tour.

[1250] I did like 13 shows and one in London as well.

[1251] And then the kind of button on that is we're doing Radio City in the fall.

[1252] Oh, fun.

[1253] How back to back were these?

[1254] Was it like every weekend?

[1255] A couple times, two in a row, like, day after the other, but a lot of times, one or two days between.

[1256] So anything compared to Evan now feels like very doable.

[1257] Right.

[1258] And did you have any anxiety about, like, will people come buy tickets for this?

[1259] One million percent manager, and everybody around me was saying, like, it's going great, it's going to be sold out, it's going to be full, like, everyone's very happy and there's no worries.

[1260] And the whole time, I was like, that's not true.

[1261] No one's going to, like, who the fuck knows who I am in Detroit.

[1262] Yes.

[1263] And then you show up and there's just a room full of people and who are singing the words to these songs that I put out a couple months ago.

[1264] It was a very, very surreal.

[1265] Yeah, Kristen Bell's having an out -of -body experience, sobbing like a newborn.

[1266] And sharing it with the social media universe.

[1267] Uh -huh.

[1268] At any point were you like, oh, this is its own kind of exhausting, like having to fly and all that stuff?

[1269] Yeah, I'm a bad flyer.

[1270] I'm a super anxious flyer.

[1271] Oh, you are.

[1272] But we tried to avoid planes at all costs.

[1273] I did a lot of driving.

[1274] On a tour bus.

[1275] Mm -hmm.

[1276] Which is...

[1277] Ferrari, Tescarosa.

[1278] In the back of like a Chevy Tahr.

[1279] Okay.

[1280] But, yeah, the travel is the only part of it that was stressful.

[1281] And the logic doesn't come into play here, right?

[1282] You don't go like, oh, this is five times more dangerous driving in the car.

[1283] As many times, I read every article there is.

[1284] I've, like, looked at flight simulators.

[1285] Like, I always introduce myself to the pilot.

[1286] I've read all the statistics.

[1287] But no matter what happens when I'm up in the air and there's turbulence and I'm like, I can't do anything.

[1288] Like, if you go down, I can't do anything.

[1289] That's how I talk myself out of it is I can't do anything.

[1290] It's a waste of my thought.

[1291] I should only be thinking and worrying about things.

[1292] and I have some sway over the outcome.

[1293] That's a really good point.

[1294] It's just trying to turn that thought around rather than think a different thought.

[1295] Right.

[1296] It's just like, yeah, I have nothing to do with this equation.

[1297] Maybe you just cracked my flightings on.

[1298] Have you ever taken beta blockers to fly?

[1299] No, just Xanax.

[1300] Zanax, yeah, yeah.

[1301] That's probably the best way to it.

[1302] Yeah, that'll, and you have a little cocktail in there to turbo charge that Xanax.

[1303] Yes, no matter what the time of day, there's always an appropriate cocktail.

[1304] Yes, and at some point you're like, bring it down.

[1305] Let's just see.

[1306] I feel like I'm going to be the one that walks out of this thing.

[1307] well again a trillion thanks for you you really made great i don't think she's ever thanked me enough i'm so happy to come and i got to hear delta sing one of my songs to me when you were done was she the youngest person to sing one of your songs to you yet certainly that knows all the words yeah i was very impressed and she made your sister hannah leave her bedroom she did she made hannah and also jacky tone who was in there she said i just wanted to be me ben platte and mom well and on that point really quick I don't think this was your motivation.

[1308] I think it's just in yourselves, but it would be interesting to have a dad whose life has largely been dedicated to Broadway and to become a Broadway star.

[1309] Obviously, if you wanted dad's approval, like you really, you couldn't have bull's -eyed his heart probably more.

[1310] Of course, but I think at the end of the day, you know, here comes the Hallmark card.

[1311] Like, I think he cares much more about, like, the people that I've worked with, what do they have to say about what kind of a person I am more than, like, did I win the Tony or, you know?

[1312] Right.

[1313] What's your character?

[1314] like not your accolade exactly he's always told me that like a decent human being comes for decent artists so i've i've always tried to put that up front i mean can this be true what you're telling me are you going to have a breakdown at 31 and go no i think because i i worship my mom it sounds like in the same way you worship your dad and i think both of them but we just haven't julie julie is a whole other podcast julie's a whole other podcast and obviously somehow she took care of five kids which i i can't do there's no i certainly never will right But, yeah, with my own mother who I kind of put on a pedestal, I'm like, there's probably some investigation to be done.

[1315] You know, I just, that's one rock I've refused to turn over.

[1316] I'm like, no, no, she's an angel imperfect in my definition of perfection.

[1317] Yeah, other than like, you know, them irritating me and like us, budding heads as family, I just, I can never find a downside to either of them.

[1318] I'm not interested in finding one, but I just can't.

[1319] You even wrote a song about them on your new album, right?

[1320] It did.

[1321] It is called Runaway.

[1322] That's the one that Delta sang for me. Oh, okay.

[1323] And Kristen has explained.

[1324] it to me. Like, I mean, there's nothing I hate more.

[1325] And I like you.

[1326] You're a nice person and your music's great.

[1327] But like, we were on vacation in Michigan, all of us recently.

[1328] And someone dared bring up your concert.

[1329] And I'm like, buckle up, motherfuckers.

[1330] We're going to hear about every single song and what it means.

[1331] It just, it's a masterclass every time someone mentions your name.

[1332] A dissertation.

[1333] Yes.

[1334] I think I could actually teach it.

[1335] I'd love a voice note of it.

[1336] You're a beautiful man. You're hyper talented.

[1337] I'm very happy for all your success.

[1338] You also seem like a very kind person and again you made my wife's birthday party which ultimately i think you've tied the sloth for the greatest gift that i've ever given her so iconic a million thanks i wish you luck we're looking forward to watching the politician so good luck with that and um stay nice thanks for having me and now my favorite part of the show the fact check with my soulmate monica padman i don't really have a full song but hot town summer in the city back of my neck's getting dirty and gritty, cool now, isn't it a pity?

[1339] No, I had figured out a way to say facts in there.

[1340] And I've already forgotten while I was working out.

[1341] Well, it's still a good song.

[1342] Well, it's so hot.

[1343] I was thinking it's so hot we should reflect that in our song today.

[1344] It is so hot.

[1345] Is the back of your neck, sweaty and gritty?

[1346] A little bit.

[1347] We've had a couple of barn burners here in a row.

[1348] Yesterday, I asked you and I appreciate you doing so.

[1349] you felt my shirt when we were done interviewing.

[1350] Yeah.

[1351] And it was nothing short of very damp.

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] Should I say what else happened or no?

[1354] Tell me. We had a guest and the guest endured this horrible heat for us.

[1355] And then I sat in that guest's seat to do ads and they were soaked.

[1356] Right.

[1357] And the headphones were damp.

[1358] Did you feel any dampness on your back?

[1359] Because I got to imagine that's where the bulk.

[1360] Good question.

[1361] I didn't.

[1362] I mean, I was pretty disturbed by the headphones, so I don't think I was paying too much attention to the back.

[1363] It's on your face.

[1364] It's like the worst probably place to feel someone else's...

[1365] Really close to your mouth, actually.

[1366] A stranger's sweat.

[1367] But my headphones did not get sweaty throughout that, but my shirt was absolutely drenched.

[1368] So imagine what the guest's shirt was like.

[1369] Okay?

[1370] That wasn't nice what we did to them, that person.

[1371] He, her.

[1372] yeah she or him them yeah them's so Benjamin Platt yeah so we had Ben Platt he came to the birthday party and then he came in here and he was wonderful and I said this on the show but I had been trying to get him as a present for so long for Kristen yeah and it was a kind of disaster when it happened which was two years ago yeah I emailed the age of or something, and I was like, I'd like to do this.

[1373] And they were like, yeah, for sure.

[1374] Oh.

[1375] And I got, like, a confirmation.

[1376] So then I told her.

[1377] Oh, boy.

[1378] Can I ask why you told her?

[1379] Regret of my line.

[1380] When you made that decision, you just were so excited you had to tell her.

[1381] Well, I was like, so your present is.

[1382] I'm going to schedule this.

[1383] I would have had to include her into the scheduling of this whole thing.

[1384] So it was like, okay, Merry Christmas.

[1385] This is your present.

[1386] Right.

[1387] And then.

[1388] Now, I'm on the fence about whether this whole string of events with us trying to get famous people to Kristen's parties.

[1389] Is that something that you would listen to and go like, these people are disgusting?

[1390] Or do you go like, oh, they're just like me. If I had an opportunity to get Brent Reynolds to come to my birthday party, I would.

[1391] I'm on the fence.

[1392] Yeah.

[1393] We needed to do one of those surveys.

[1394] I think it was cute until also Lynn Manuel Miranda came.

[1395] When there were two Broadway stars, the biggest ones, I mean, that was absurd.

[1396] I couldn't agree more.

[1397] It was, like, cute and endearing for the folks at the party.

[1398] Like, oh, Kristen's going to be spending some time talking to Ben.

[1399] This is kind of her present.

[1400] Everyone's cool of that.

[1401] And then when fucking Lynn rolls in, now you're like, well, who's next?

[1402] Sondheim is he coming from the other side?

[1403] We're going to have a medium come and communicate with, am I even saying that correctly?

[1404] Sondheim, yeah.

[1405] Sondheim.

[1406] Sondheim.

[1407] Oh, I got really self -conscious because we were talking about how good Danny McBride's new show is, The Righteous Gemstones.

[1408] Uh -huh.

[1409] So I watched episode three last night, and his wife is, she's like what you would expect her to be.

[1410] In the show?

[1411] In the show.

[1412] Oh, okay.

[1413] You know, a rich white trash person.

[1414] Big hair.

[1415] Yeah, the whole thing, you know.

[1416] By the way, she's fantastic.

[1417] But at one point, she says, Why don't you all take that mating down in a theater?

[1418] And I was like, oh, my God.

[1419] The way I say theater is the punchline in this show.

[1420] And then I thought, wow, is it time to really commit with a vocal coach and a speech therapist to learn how to say theater correctly?

[1421] Wow.

[1422] Well, I'm glad something happened because we've been telling you and you have not wanted to budge on that.

[1423] Well, but here's in my defense, here's what I thought, yeah, I'm saying it wrong.

[1424] But it's not like it's putting me in the category of a Nazi or.

[1425] or something.

[1426] Of course.

[1427] Nor does this.

[1428] But just when I now see it's a punchline to say it that way, and let me give you a better example.

[1429] Okay.

[1430] So let's say I always said, oh, that's too much information for me. And then you said, I don't say that, you know, and I go, okay, well, I do.

[1431] But then if I found out, it's the most cliche, worn out, embarrassing thing to be saying all the time.

[1432] That's a different holes.

[1433] Right.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] Okay.

[1436] Literally too much information.

[1437] Like, what have I said that all the time?

[1438] Okay.

[1439] Well, I wouldn't be like, I don't say that.

[1440] You're right.

[1441] I would just be like, oh, that's something he says.

[1442] I wouldn't say that's wrong.

[1443] Well, the Ater is wrong.

[1444] It's by all accounts wrong.

[1445] So I have to correct you and so does the world on that because it's just wrong.

[1446] Can we use a more innocuous example that I say bagel?

[1447] Oh, right.

[1448] Right.

[1449] So I say bagel.

[1450] And that's wrong.

[1451] Yep.

[1452] But I don't know that there's a whole sect of people saying bagel where I would be embarrassed to be associated.

[1453] Okay.

[1454] I guess I get it.

[1455] And let me be clear.

[1456] I'm actually not embarrassed to be associated with what I'm calling white trash because I like that I'm white trash in some level.

[1457] So it's all very convoluted.

[1458] I guess I'm just code switching all the time.

[1459] No. No, you're not.

[1460] No, you're not.

[1461] I don't know why.

[1462] Will you tell me why, if you know something's wrong?

[1463] Mm -hmm.

[1464] Well, I guess, like, I do it with Neanderthal.

[1465] Yeah, there you go.

[1466] Or orangutan.

[1467] That's not the same because the percentage of people who say it like me is the majority.

[1468] Like, most people do not say Neanderthal or orangutan.

[1469] Most people that are not in the know, you're right.

[1470] Okay, so then you're putting in the know, like 2 % of people.

[1471] Outside of academia, yeah.

[1472] Specific academia.

[1473] Damia, if you asked a bunch of professors how they say it, I would guess 80 % of professors working would say Neanderthal.

[1474] Oh, you think?

[1475] Yeah, but the ones working in that specific industry would not.

[1476] Right.

[1477] Well, but can I tell you, I really do code switch?

[1478] I can tell you the word.

[1479] I would say that the roof is dirty or that the roof needs new shingles.

[1480] When I'm about to say roof, if I'm around fancy people, I stop and I say, roof and I make a meal of it and I have to actually like be conscious of how I'm saying it plan how I'm going to say and then execute okay it's laborious so well and when I'm just at home in Michigan it's straight back to roof because everyone says it that way anyway so sure who cares yeah so that's a part where I'm actually consciously code switching now I can't say theater the way you want me to okay so if that's the reason that's fine if you just like physically can't it, then I mean, fine with that.

[1481] And I can concede that I probably physically can do it.

[1482] I have all the right instruments to make those noises.

[1483] Yeah.

[1484] I'm making all the other noises.

[1485] I can't even, now it sounds, I know, I don't even know how to say it.

[1486] Theeter.

[1487] Theatious theater.

[1488] Yeah.

[1489] It sounded to me like you said Panthage's theater.

[1490] No. The difference is you're saying A. Uh -huh.

[1491] You're doing a hard A. sound no one else is doing that you bet i am theater like we're like how would you spell it phonetically how about let's start there t h that's a given t h the t h e go on he e probably hmm theater thee theater theater that's it that's it t h e t -e -t -r theater well oh no don't know right Theater.

[1492] No, exactly.

[1493] I knew that was bad news.

[1494] Terrible direction.

[1495] Just forget about the A. I think if you say quickly, theater.

[1496] If I just pretend it's spelled T -H -E -T -E -R.

[1497] Yeah.

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] Oh, good.

[1500] We just hacked it.

[1501] Theater.

[1502] You know, we have a home theater.

[1503] Yes.

[1504] Oh, wow.

[1505] Good job.

[1506] I'm proud of you.

[1507] Oh, wow.

[1508] We're really growing here today, real time.

[1509] I'm happy to change something I do, too.

[1510] I like that you're being stubborn about those things.

[1511] That's it, though.

[1512] Remember incongruous and incongruous?

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] We were saying it wrong.

[1515] Continue to.

[1516] We got it corrected.

[1517] Sometimes I say it wrong because I don't remember what's the right one and what's the wrong one.

[1518] But I want to say it right.

[1519] Right, right.

[1520] You want to say incongruous.

[1521] I don't like that.

[1522] Incongruous.

[1523] Yeah.

[1524] I like incongruous.

[1525] Yeah.

[1526] do you say applicable or applicable applicable applicable that's not applicable that's app that's not applicable no no thank you i think i do that you do but it's wrong oh it is i think oh thank goodness generally when you bring these things up i assume that it's aversive way to point out another thing i'm saying incorrectly one time in high school theater class theater class god it sounds beautiful when you're saying it.

[1527] I love it.

[1528] One time I said prevailing.

[1529] Prevalent.

[1530] Instead of prevalent.

[1531] Oh, yeah.

[1532] And people called me out on that.

[1533] And I've never forgotten it.

[1534] Well, you know, my example is Mr. Davio's science class and I read, I was supposed to read out loud and I was bad at reading out loud.

[1535] And I read organism and I said, you know that story.

[1536] I said orgasm and I always think of it.

[1537] And I went home and I was seeing my dad that weekend.

[1538] I thought, well, he's a guy.

[1539] He can point me in the right direction.

[1540] And I said, what does that mean?

[1541] Oh, you didn't know what it meant?

[1542] No, I didn't.

[1543] Not at the beginning of sixth grade.

[1544] And then everyone laughed?

[1545] Mind you, I had sex a year later, which is weird.

[1546] Yeah, yikes.

[1547] Everyone laughed.

[1548] Like, they knew it was a naughty word.

[1549] Like, I knew it was a sexual word as I think all my classmates knew.

[1550] But they didn't know.

[1551] No one had experienced one yet.

[1552] Or maybe a handful of the kids.

[1553] I hadn't.

[1554] And so I asked my dad.

[1555] you know, what is an orgasm?

[1556] And his answer was, you ever play with yourself?

[1557] And then I assumed he met, oh, orgasms masturbation.

[1558] Yes.

[1559] And I go, oh, which now in retrospect makes it seem like I was saying, yes, I've played with myself.

[1560] Oh, and that explosion is orgas.

[1561] So then I got doubly embarrassed years later when I realized, oh, my God, my dad thinks I was saying, yes, I play with myself, which by the way, I shouldn't have been embarrassed about.

[1562] But I was.

[1563] I was ashamed of it.

[1564] Well, he was asking you as if, like, you know what that is.

[1565] Right, if you ever play with yourself, okay, well, you know, at the end, when you...

[1566] But he didn't say that far.

[1567] No, because I go, oh.

[1568] Right, like, oh, I get it.

[1569] It was miscommunication, like in a sitcom.

[1570] Sure, sure.

[1571] Farse.

[1572] Mm -hmm.

[1573] I think I would have thought when he said, do you ever play with yourself?

[1574] I would think, like, yeah, I play with my toys.

[1575] Oh, see, I knew playing with yourself was like...

[1576] About penis.

[1577] You're playing with your bird tugging on it and whatever.

[1578] So you knew a lot.

[1579] It was weird.

[1580] I knew something.

[1581] things and not other things.

[1582] Isn't that all of us all the time?

[1583] All right.

[1584] Well, speaking of some of this pronunciation, or pronunciation.

[1585] Yeah.

[1586] Well, I was at dinner the other night with some friends and one of my friends' sisters was in town.

[1587] She teaches English to Spanish -speaking children.

[1588] English as a second language.

[1589] Yeah, in Costa Rica.

[1590] Okay.

[1591] Okay.

[1592] So she was saying, which was interesting, these fillers, like English fillers are um.

[1593] Like?

[1594] Yeah, mainly um and uh.

[1595] Okay.

[1596] And other languages have different ones.

[1597] Oh.

[1598] Which is interesting that that's all still learned.

[1599] Mm -hmm.

[1600] But just feels like a natural just sound coming out of your body.

[1601] I don't speak Italian, nor do I understand it.

[1602] But I know one of their fillers, right?

[1603] Because I've heard Italian people speak enough where they're like, eh, but there's is a. Yeah, that's similar to Spanish.

[1604] Oh, it is.

[1605] Yeah.

[1606] That makes sense.

[1607] Me gusto mantar caballo.

[1608] Yeah.

[1609] It's kind of like an a, a. But it's just weird that they're different, you know.

[1610] Do you think there's any people that listen to the podcast, well, they're telling someone like, oh, you don't listen to armchair expert?

[1611] I listen just to learn about how to pronounce words.

[1612] why I think 1 % I got a funny tweet from someone that said look I don't have misophonia But I have something where you guys were describing the smells of something And I almost threw up What was it?

[1613] I don't know but then it made me wonder if there's some kind of Was it something stinky?

[1614] Yeah I think we were telling a story about something stinky And stinking real bad And then the person almost threw up And then I thought is there a thing like misophonia Where if you hear the smells described you get sick?

[1615] Well, I think it's just like we're being very descriptive and they can kind of get there in their brain.

[1616] Oh, that's great.

[1617] You're taking it as a compliment.

[1618] Oh, yeah.

[1619] We were so effective in our adjectives.

[1620] They felt like they were there.

[1621] Okay.

[1622] So Ben was 16 years old when parenthood came out.

[1623] He couldn't remember or you couldn't remember.

[1624] Right.

[1625] He loves that show.

[1626] Okay.

[1627] So I guess that was 10 years ago then, you know, roughly nine and change.

[1628] 2010, March 2nd.

[1629] Yeah.

[1630] Okay, so nine and a half years ago.

[1631] Huh.

[1632] That's interesting to compute.

[1633] Yeah, isn't that crazy how quick time goes by?

[1634] Like I already mentioned, 25th anniversary of Friends.

[1635] 25th, 10 years since Parenthood.

[1636] That's a long time.

[1637] That's a long time.

[1638] Now, a 25th anniversary from Friends debut or going off the air?

[1639] Debut.

[1640] Debut.

[1641] And then it ran for, what, eight or nine years?

[1642] Ten seasons.

[1643] Ten seasons.

[1644] Good for them.

[1645] 24, 240 episodes, big old paychecks.

[1646] Well, they had some truncated seasons towards the end.

[1647] Oh, they did to accommodate different people's acting schedules, maybe.

[1648] Probably, and I think they just didn't really want to do it anymore, probably.

[1649] But they wanted that million -dollar -an -episode paycheck, of course.

[1650] Of course, 24 million a year.

[1651] It's wonderful.

[1652] I think people read some of those and they get a little bit appalled.

[1653] Oh, numbers.

[1654] Yeah, and particularly they seem to get appalled by athletes.

[1655] salaries you know i'll hear people bitching about like he's getting a hundred and then my thought is always like do you want the white old dude getting all the money when the the show is that person like the show is shekeel o 'neill right this show's not fucking jerry bus who owns the lakers yeah i agree and the friend's thing was a billion dollar plus empire right that one to me the athlete one is more even pure yeah because there's not a show Runner.

[1656] Writers and things that are contributing in a real way.

[1657] Yes.

[1658] And I'm like, good for these people with this talent and work ethic.

[1659] Why shouldn't they get paid to?

[1660] They're the show.

[1661] People are jealous.

[1662] Well, they're going, I roof houses all day for $42 ,000 a year.

[1663] Of course.

[1664] And this person plays twice a week for an hour and a half.

[1665] I know.

[1666] So they're comparing it to how hard they're working for what they're getting versus how hard that person's working, which is great.

[1667] I think that's where they're starting from and it makes sense.

[1668] But then when you just go like, well, hey, someone's going to get this money, who should get it?

[1669] Then I think you would go, no, not the owner that inherited the team.

[1670] Yeah.

[1671] I mean, he should get some of the money or she should get some of the money.

[1672] But certainly a lion share should go to the people putting on the show.

[1673] Yeah.

[1674] I understand that feeling, but it's a very victimy feeling to have that everyone around you has more than you and has better opportunity or whatever you think.

[1675] You know, you just have to be, like, realistic about the world.

[1676] That person has a commodity that you don't have.

[1677] That's right.

[1678] And we live in a marketplace where if only one person can do it, then they're going to get paid more.

[1679] Yeah.

[1680] Supply and demand.

[1681] Yeah.

[1682] Econ.

[1683] Economics or economics?

[1684] Okay.

[1685] Yeah.

[1686] Okay.

[1687] How many people does the Hollywood Bowl seat?

[1688] You said 20 ,000, 17 ,500.

[1689] Very close.

[1690] Yeah.

[1691] So I'm trying to cut you off less, which is very hard for me. Thank you.

[1692] But I wanted you to let me guess a little bit.

[1693] And weirdly, my guest today was going to be 17.

[1694] Oh, good.

[1695] You don't buy it.

[1696] See, I had done it before.

[1697] Like, right when you go Hollywood Bowl, I'm like, I think that there's like 17 ,000.

[1698] Right.

[1699] Sure, sure, sure.

[1700] Well, thank you for not cutting me off.

[1701] I appreciate that.

[1702] It was worth not impressing you to not anger you.

[1703] Yeah.

[1704] I think that's the right answer.

[1705] Is Wicked the second biggest biggest?

[1706] I didn't get any sleep last night.

[1707] Yeah, we both had a rough night, right?

[1708] We found out.

[1709] So you woke up at 1 .30.

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] What woke you up?

[1712] I don't know what.

[1713] I just woke up and then I peed.

[1714] In the bed?

[1715] No, this time in the toilet.

[1716] Okay.

[1717] And I felt kind of gross.

[1718] Like my stomach kind of hurt.

[1719] and I think I'd accidentally drank some chemicals that my cleaning lady put on my Brita.

[1720] Okay.

[1721] And that was your theory.

[1722] Yeah.

[1723] And then I could not turn my brain off and it was just spiraling and spiraling for two hours.

[1724] And then I was like, should I, like, do work?

[1725] I was like, maybe I should do work instead of just sitting here thinking about stuff.

[1726] Well, as someone who wrestles a lot in the past with insomnia, I would not recommend working, but I would recommend.

[1727] at a certain point that it's like I'll wrestle for an hour and I'll go you know what you're fucked why don't you watch a TV show you like at least you'll be not thinking about your madness yeah and then often when I surrender to it and turn on a TV show then I get sleeping in like 20 minutes my thing was I was woken up by I mean this is the worst thing you get woken up by we have a ton of coyotes where we live I'd say once every three months they kill something yeah and then they all start going crazy they scream it sounds like hyenas they're out they're calling in the canyons like come get some of the shit i guess yeah and they're like you know and it's just like hundreds of screams and i always immediately go fucking lola's being eating on the patio sure i got to get out there and fight off some of these coyotes and save lola it's never lola yeah but it gets me up and out on the patio yeah and then i do have to correct you that that's not the worst way to be woken up no i'm just thinking of sounds to be woken up like screeching Well, you feel like you're getting attacked by a pack of hyenas.

[1728] Right.

[1729] Or your family is.

[1730] You are in the safety of your home.

[1731] Yeah, but they might be, they might have.

[1732] Oh, you think they made their way in?

[1733] Yep.

[1734] The perimeter, what they do?

[1735] Circle the perimeter?

[1736] No, they, not impregnated.

[1737] Oh.

[1738] Inifiltrated?

[1739] The infiltrated.

[1740] Penetrated.

[1741] I think they penetrated the, penetrated.

[1742] I said impregnated.

[1743] Well, because.

[1744] I was thinking of impregnable, right?

[1745] Impregnable, we got to stop talking about words, but when something's impregnable, you can't break through it, right?

[1746] Yeah.

[1747] Yeah, like the, the walls were impregnable.

[1748] Okay.

[1749] That's not a word I've ever used.

[1750] Oh, I talk about warfare a lot more than you.

[1751] Impregnable.

[1752] There's no way it's pronounced that way.

[1753] Great.

[1754] Let's hear how the person says it.

[1755] You love doing that.

[1756] I love doing that.

[1757] Impregnable.

[1758] Exactly right.

[1759] Nailing it.

[1760] Exactly.

[1761] Wonderful.

[1762] Do you want to see how they say theater?

[1763] Oh, yeah.

[1764] It does not give me that little thing.

[1765] It's not?

[1766] No. Let me do it.

[1767] Okay.

[1768] You know how to do it better.

[1769] Yeah.

[1770] An expert of this.

[1771] Yeah, when I type in just the word theater, we got July 16th, Miss Saigon will be in town, July 27th, Chicago, July 16th, Friends, the musical parody.

[1772] Oh, I know.

[1773] Someone just told me about this.

[1774] You got to go.

[1775] I know.

[1776] It's in town from July.

[1777] 16th, August 4th at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City.

[1778] I know.

[1779] I do got to go.

[1780] Oh, wow.

[1781] I'm nervous to play this.

[1782] All right, play it.

[1783] I'm nervous.

[1784] Theater.

[1785] Oh, thank God.

[1786] She said it right.

[1787] Theater.

[1788] Wouldn't it be amazing about vindicated hundreds of people telling me it was wrong?

[1789] I really got scared for a second.

[1790] There was a lot on the line for that.

[1791] Oh, man. Okay.

[1792] So speaking of, is Wicked the second biggest musical of all time after the Lion King?

[1793] That's what you said.

[1794] Yes, second most popular, meaning most successful and lucrative.

[1795] Over a billion bucks.

[1796] Yeah.

[1797] 1190774 -930.

[1798] Ooh, 1 .2 billion.

[1799] I'm going to just round up that last 10 million.

[1800] And Lion King.

[1801] Oh, where are we at with that?

[1802] 1 .4.

[1803] Oh, 1 .5.

[1804] 1 .4.

[1805] 1 .5.

[1806] 1 .4.

[1807] What would you do with that money?

[1808] If I gave you $1 billion, I know the first thing you'd buy a nice, huge house.

[1809] It wouldn't be huge.

[1810] Well, you've said that you like big, huge house.

[1811] And not by myself.

[1812] Oh, okay.

[1813] But I would get one that had a pool.

[1814] Right.

[1815] And a wrapping paper room.

[1816] And a theater.

[1817] And a theater and a gym.

[1818] Okay.

[1819] And one bedroom.

[1820] No. Ideally for me, three, four bedrooms.

[1821] Four bedrooms.

[1822] Four bedrooms.

[1823] How many toilets?

[1824] Five, six.

[1825] Toilets, four.

[1826] Yeah, you don't pee often.

[1827] It's a higher priority for me to never be more than 20 feet from a turtlet.

[1828] No, four is perfect, but I need a tub, claw foot, preferably.

[1829] Okay, claw foot tub.

[1830] Cloth foot tub is on my list big time.

[1831] Hopefully with the big picture window behind it.

[1832] Yeah.

[1833] Isn't it interesting because there's so much built around the tub experience for you?

[1834] I love it.

[1835] Like, the warm water is a constant.

[1836] Like, you get in the warm water, the feeling is what it is.

[1837] Yeah.

[1838] You know what I'm saying?

[1839] Well, hold on, though.

[1840] I'm suggesting that you've layered on a lot of things on top of that.

[1841] Okay.

[1842] Go on.

[1843] Because the water has a feeling on your skin.

[1844] We agree to that.

[1845] It doesn't really matter.

[1846] It's different when you're submerged than when you're, like, in the shower, though.

[1847] Oh, of course.

[1848] But I'm just saying if you're submerged in warm water, that feeling's constant.

[1849] Sure.

[1850] But I know that you fill in if that thing was aesthetically pleasing before you got in it.

[1851] Oh, I see.

[1852] And if there's a picture window behind you, now all of a sudden, the very constant feeling of water on your skin is now changed dramatically.

[1853] Well, the experience has changed, which is everything.

[1854] All your senses are taking in something different.

[1855] But that's a great example of culture.

[1856] That is the cultural layer that added all that stuff to what is just warm water over your body.

[1857] Let's say the interior is identical in all the options.

[1858] But one of them is like wooden and rusty and it's got urine stains on it from the side.

[1859] I mean, there's no smell, but you can visually see there's stains on the wood.

[1860] Okay.

[1861] That's disgusting.

[1862] Then you get in, but the interior is the exact same and the water temp's the exact same.

[1863] You won't enjoy it the same.

[1864] And that is your mind.

[1865] Yeah, it's my mind.

[1866] But everything is your mind.

[1867] I know.

[1868] Experience on Earth is a mind.

[1869] It's just rare that one is.

[1870] so as such an obvious example of the culture layer as this one.

[1871] Culture is such an interesting word to put on it.

[1872] Culture is all the information that is specific to where you live, your environment, you know, what society you're in, what culture you're in.

[1873] So the way we grew up here in the U .S., whatever magazines you looked at as a kid, all that stuff is all culture.

[1874] And then you have now, you have an ideal bathtub and an ideal bath tub and an ideal bathtub experience.

[1875] It doesn't have an intrinsic value or definition.

[1876] It's not like on Mars it holds up.

[1877] This was in an episode of Sam Harris.

[1878] His first debate with Jonathan.

[1879] Hi.

[1880] Yeah.

[1881] Hi.

[1882] Right.

[1883] Well, so we all agree paper money is just paper money.

[1884] We've all bought into this notion that it has a value.

[1885] It doesn't really have a value.

[1886] But then you could go, well, gold has a value.

[1887] But even gold doesn't have a value.

[1888] We decided of all the metals on planet earth this one is valuable because it's finite there could be another planet where there's a group of people and gold is like granite and it wouldn't have value so it doesn't it doesn't have a value that extends beyond the people deciding its value supply and demand we just talked supply and demand but even interestingly though there are things that are on the supply side very scarce and we just didn't value them for some reason you know like titanium I think there's probably, you know, or, well, platinum did end up being valuable.

[1889] But when platinum was just being put in Cadillac converters and not being worn as jewelry, it didn't have this value.

[1890] But we decided it has this aesthetic value and then it raised the whole, you know.

[1891] Yeah.

[1892] I mean, I think that the bathtub on Mars, if there's a picture window, you're going to enjoy that experience more than if there's not a picture window.

[1893] Unless the planet you live on has huge taradactyl.

[1894] that fly around and you don't want to be seen by them.

[1895] Okay.

[1896] And then so you really would never desire to look outside.

[1897] Right.

[1898] I think I'm out on a limb here, but I think this is the environment you're living and you're probably not taking luxurious baths.

[1899] It's hard to know.

[1900] It's really hard to know.

[1901] It's hard to know.

[1902] I'm going to go ahead and assume.

[1903] Well, there's a lot of people that would like to posit that any life force in the universe would be a carbon -based life form.

[1904] There's a lot.

[1905] Most scientists, I think.

[1906] believe that so then you get into they'd have some kind of predictable evolution and then they probably you could say they would all need a bath but not this kind of bath they just need to splash some water on they need to clean up yeah their penis they're rotting yes yes they pull their foreskin back and keep that clean anyway okay you said flying is five times more dangerous than riding in a car no no riding in a car is five times is dangerous yes Exactly.

[1907] Thank you.

[1908] In absolute numbers, driving is more dangerous with more than 5 million accidents compared to 20 accidents in flying.

[1909] A more direct comparison per 100 million miles per driving, 1 .27 fatalities and 80 injuries against flying's lack of deaths and almost no injuries, which again shows air travel to be safer.

[1910] Right.

[1911] Now, the people who don't like that argument will be quick to point out that when you, you do get in a crash in an airplane, generally you're dead.

[1912] But it says the U .S. airline accidents recorded by the National Transportation Safety Board.

[1913] In 2015, preliminary statistics revealed a total of 27 total accidents, zero of which was fatal.

[1914] That must not be a big crash.

[1915] Like, an accident might mean landing in a cornfield of single -engine Cessna.

[1916] Right.

[1917] or selling it, landing on the water.

[1918] Or both pilots incapacitated show a hands.

[1919] They got D. Shep up in the cockpit and he set it down without any injury.

[1920] It's still an incident, but not a fatal one.

[1921] Oh, God.

[1922] Do you want to tell everyone publicly what happened?

[1923] I think you should.

[1924] Oh, wow.

[1925] Okay, I will.

[1926] I'm trying to show my integrity here.

[1927] Good job.

[1928] So if our listeners remember, you declared fully that you are infallible in the car.

[1929] That's right.

[1930] And then we were in the Chrysler Pacifica.

[1931] Well, yeah.

[1932] I'm sorry.

[1933] I'm sorry.

[1934] The Chrysler Pacifica the other day.

[1935] And you pointed out that there was a snafu with your side mirror and I looked and it was just demolished.

[1936] Well, not the housing, but yes, the glass had shattered.

[1937] Shattered to pieces.

[1938] And there was some rope sticking out of it.

[1939] Well, it looked crazy.

[1940] There's some wires, yeah.

[1941] You're being very big to note that you are not infallible, although you're still kind of saying you are.

[1942] Yeah, a little bit.

[1943] I heard you say it even after the fact, which is even worse.

[1944] I know.

[1945] I don't think I'm willing to count that as an accident yet.

[1946] Also, I fixed it so quickly.

[1947] But it wasn't even an accident.

[1948] Like, that was not the word.

[1949] Right.

[1950] The word was infallible.

[1951] true.

[1952] I definitely failed.

[1953] You did.

[1954] I did.

[1955] But what a nice job I did fix it.

[1956] Right.

[1957] You did a very nice job.

[1958] Fairly tell it ever happened, Chrysler.

[1959] Speaking of the Pacifica, you know, I've been driving it so much lately.

[1960] I have a very nice car.

[1961] I've talked about here a lot.

[1962] I've had it for four years.

[1963] I love it.

[1964] A twin turbo station wagon Mercedes.

[1965] Yeah.

[1966] You know, I have not been driving the car so much because I've been driving the Pacific.

[1967] The fucking battery went dead.

[1968] You notice outside, I got a battery charger on the car.

[1969] That's because I've been driving it because I can't get out of the...

[1970] Oh.

[1971] cockpit of the Pacific.

[1972] Yeah, that's a testament to the Pacific.

[1973] Well, I'm proud of you.

[1974] No, thank you.

[1975] Thank you.

[1976] And that's all.

[1977] That was all.

[1978] Yeah.

[1979] Okay, well, this was a real masterclass in how to say words, I think.

[1980] I know.

[1981] You're welcome, everyone.

[1982] Yeah, and it's really led by you.

[1983] So I appreciate it.

[1984] Because you're really, you're not infallible, but you're not even close.

[1985] But you're much higher percentage of success than I have.

[1986] Well, it depends on what.

[1987] what we're talking about.

[1988] Just pronouncing words.

[1989] You have a higher percentage than you.

[1990] In the 90s.

[1991] I don't know.

[1992] What about prevailing and?

[1993] Well, those are isolated.

[1994] Don't you think those were standalone mixups?

[1995] Yeah, they were.

[1996] That's not how you say prevailing.

[1997] No, no, no. I thought that's how you said it.

[1998] Oh, okay.

[1999] Now that is a check.

[2000] Yeah.

[2001] Okay, that is a failing.

[2002] I thought it was just you mispronounced it one time.

[2003] because you were garbled in your mouth?

[2004] No, it wasn't a garble.

[2005] It was a mistake.

[2006] It was your full intention to say it that way.

[2007] Yep.

[2008] Okay.

[2009] Well, that, yeah.

[2010] I was only 15.

[2011] I'm going to figure out what you're infallible at.

[2012] You have something.

[2013] Everything.

[2014] Well, hold on.

[2015] You can't be mad at me that I'm saying I'm infallible at driving.

[2016] I've only claimed one infallibility.

[2017] Oh, sorry, when I said everything, I meant I'm fallible with everything.

[2018] I garbled that.

[2019] Oh, wow.

[2020] How ironic.

[2021] Look, exactly, Exhibit A. Also my lack of sleep.

[2022] Yeah, that's true.

[2023] Yeah.

[2024] I love you.

[2025] Bye.

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