Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Seth Green

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Neal Brennan interviews Seth Green (‘Robot Chicken,’ ‘Family Guy,’ ‘Austin Powers,’ ‘The Italian Job,’ ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ + more) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. 🎙️ Have a Question about your Blocks for Neal? 🎙️ Email “[e-mail]” to have your question answered on a future episode.  ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 2:00 Child Actor 9:20 Relationship with Wife 37:02 Moving Too Fast 39:14 Talk More Than Listen 44:48 Work Too Much / Imposter Syndrome 50:09 Social Anxiety 52:12 Discipline with Exercise  1:04:23 What He’s Done ---------------------------------------------------------- https://nealbrennan.com for tickets Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ----------------------------------------- https://www.shopmando.com use promo code: "NEAL" for $5 off Mando Starter Pack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hi guys today's guest he's a guy who i've been aware of since i was about 10 i guess i'm gonna say what you're like and you're gonna sit there and take it producer actor i think they're both tied it's two-way tie for first um writer in there he's created the co-created the robot chicken show on adult swim which is now going into its uh 45th season um it's the longest running 15 minute claymation sketch show in tv history um and uh he was also in radio days he's a huge woody allen fan we'll get into that and he stands with him uh he was in uh austin powers which i'm getting he really didn't make any money for until the third one and myriad i'm buffy didn't see it and ken hartley way did see it and i'm sure i'm forgetting 10 better things am i forgetting 10 better things i mean i've been working yeah you never stop

working yeah that's what it looks like from the outside there's a lot in there what's what didn't i mention that you're like is like pretty good i did this tv movie called the day my parents ran away is that true yeah it is true great what year was that 95 i don't know no parents empty house credit card let's have a party 94 maybe what was the bet what's the most what's your what's your number one box office smash i think it's i mean it's probably austin powers that third one made a made a gang load of money yeah um but the italian job made a ton of money too oh you had that and you had a good joke in it a good act i'll tell you what it was i thought of it the other day oh let's hear it i just caught the holy ghost yeah got the holy spirit that was you thanks man yeah yeah they let me improv all over that movie it's seth green everybody by the way so you've been acting since you were like a tiny baby, a little kid.

Did you force your parents to let you do it? Or did they encourage you? Or you were like, I want to do this. I was like, I need to do this. You were a New Yorker here. I was in Philadelphia. Oh, right. And was able to get an audition with a manager.

I finagled my way into an on-camera training school in Philadelphia when I was six years old. My mom, this is the thing I really credit my parents with, is they let me run away and join the circus. Like my mom went with me on all these auditions, took me on all of these jobs. Like what an insane nine years we spent together doing this thing. nine years we spent together doing this thing and it's crazy for me because you think about a kid your kid saying coming to you with that level of certainty like can you even believe them okay if you had a kid hypothetically would you let them be a child actor? Well, that kind of depends on how serious they are about it. It's a weird thing to say. How do you gauge that?

I'd be optimistic that I'd raise a kid that would be comfortable telling me how they actually feel. I'd be optimistic that I would be able to encourage a kid to tell me the truth in at least with respect to what they want or how they feel and i know the moments like the catalytic moments in my life that made me certain that what i did is perform in whatever shape that takes what i do is perform if a kid if my kid came to me with that level of certainty and willingness to actually do the work to be disciplined to it's not it's not an easy fucking task but i were don't you worry about just the inherent danger of it meaning it seems like you've escaped mental illness but many child actors don't absolutely but i also intentionally set to study myself my feelings and my access to them in in tandem with becoming a more you always

yeah i'm saying when you're 10 i just think like there's something about you not only like molestation i'm just talking about yeah yeah no the being having to perform different bullets like i think about how many times it was demanded of me to engage in an adult way before i was emotionally prepared to but i don't blame anybody for that and and i also look at you know some of its luck some of its prep some of it's just like who you are. I've reflected not with a survivor's guilt, but like a like an unflinching assessment of just how close I came to dying or being poisoned or being raped. Any of these kinds of things. Like you specific incidences? Yes. Generally.

Or even or even how many like anytime someone's come forward and they're like this person raped me this person molested me or when i was young i wound up in this kind of situation i'll be like oh my god i hung out with that person i was in a car with that person i went to a an audition and spent an afternoon with this person i think and like in those moments i could reflect sort of and and assume like oh what was that and but the things that i remember were not incidents of somebody preying upon right you know but you were adjacent you were in the same venue or the same kind of crazy yeah yeah but i would do everything i could to prepare that kid for those levels of awareness. Like as fucked up as that sounds, I got exposed to tons of adult concepts, cultural things like a million different schools of thought. And all it did was make me a little more aware that those kinds of things coexisted with all of these opportunities to do good so and probably a lot of positive adult concepts like not just like no i don't even know what

the negative accelerated rate i learned about things at an earlier time so i didn't you formulate a world view that was inhibited by an ignorance of the existence of these things so your mom was taking any of these things did she also take you to did you also play soccer and all that shit no because i'm wondering what the dip because when you say you and your mom go to auditions yeah for nine years it do you think it ends up being around the same amount of soccer practices games basketball interesting i don't know we had probably more away games than the average team like yeah it's like yeah you're like yeah we're in like montreal club league yeah just not cities and states and countries oh right you'd have to go shoot for

a month or what was the months uh we were in uh oh where was that that was yeah it was all montreal a whole day my parents got away the day my parents my parents ran away i was already living alone in la i had an apartment of my own and was responsible how old 17 i moved what do you make of that looking back well it gives me a different impression of 17 year olds when i meet them as far as like I had a level of certainty and capability discipline responsibility to not just succeed but thrive at an age where no one no adult would have ordinarily given me that that level of respect but I had proven it over and over again that not only was i good at the thing but i was gonna work hard enough to be awesome at the thing and if you hired me not only am i gonna come to fucking tear this thing apart but i'm gonna do something memorable that nobody's ever seen you used to book a lot of shit like you

weren't a lot i was like oh fuck that guy niche. Affable stoner, the like kind of weird best friend. Yeah. Who's always telling you, you should try this carbonated soda. I always, when I do commercials sometimes and I, on pitches, I say like, I'm not going to have people do what I call Sonny D acting. And you're exactly the right age. Do you probably audition for it? Like Sonny D. We got soda, OJ, purple stuff, and two stuff and two guys sunny d i did a whole crush campaign

like so you couldn't do sunny day yeah but they teed me up i did their cream soda their orange soda orange crush it's got huge taste it's like massive and it was a it was a director i did their grape soda at one point and they had different flavors for different regions regions so we would do the canadian stuff the australian stuff it was crazy but i got in with this director and this uh company and whenever they needed you know the kind of accessible slacker they called me you can get a rhythm doing commercials or anything like when the casting people know you and can count on you for something and then they call you in and you give them what they're expecting everybody makes everybody look good it's very exciting yeah that's how this business runs we're

not here to talk about the business though i i try to avoid it generally speaking but we're here to talk about blocks and this kid's got some um before we get to that so when did you get married uh 13 years ago oh Oh, you've been married. Okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. 2010. Do you, because I see you socially, especially at the comedy store with Jeff Ross. Oh yeah.

And do you, are you with your wife or no? Yeah. Because I don't, I just see like a scrum. Oh yeah. Oh, sometimes she goes to the shows. No, the last several times I've been out to meet Jeff, it was just like, okay. How'd you meet her? We met in the nerdiest of ways, which is, you know,

Comic-Con? Yeah, we met in, we, well, actually, no, it was at Golden Apple. We really met at Golden Apple on Melrose. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's like a, It's like a hometown comic shop. Love it. Yeah.

Literally. Yeah, for real. So we both, independent of each other, when we moved to LA, sought out a home-based comic shop and found golden apple and became friends with the family that runs it and at one point they had a grand reopening further down the block and they invited all of their regulars to participate it was a whole big day stan lee cut the ribbon they had a lot of the uh hollywood boulevard superheroes there and they had um i got invited to sign a comic i co-created a comic book um with a buddy of mine that i grew up with

and we were signing copies of it and so claire she's um an amateur photographer loves just loves taking pictures and they were like would you take pictures of the event so when she was setting up she goes hey i'm claire i'm not weird i'm just gonna be taking pictures for the shop so if you see me taking a photo and i was like cool nice to meet you and then several months later we were in san diego in 2007 at comic-con yeah and it was starting to go south like i've been going to san diego since 94 95 and i it's almost a secret you know you have to nobody in our industry is impressed that i can recognize the independent parts of the 1982 gi joe figures like nobody gives a shit about that but i can go to comic-con i'm beyond not impressed i'm furious yeah you're

mad about it yeah but it's actually something that i can do so yeah i don't love that you know i can't uh identify states on a map but sure yeah but i've got other information so so that was the point we were hanging out there or no no we were the thing was kind of turning to shit i called a friend of mine he was having a hotel gather and i arrived right as the blunt was ending and uh claire was like we met before i was taking the pictures of the golden apple and i was like oh yeah that's great she goes do you want to smoke a bowl i was like yes i do and so everybody else in the room was ready to leave and she and i just hung out there and got high together and made that comic-con a little less shitty i always start with relationships like it's got to feel like special and like it

has to feel magical like you're robbing the bank where you're like right we were are you really are you really a comic book photographer person like when she agreed to marry me i felt like i had actually won the lottery because we we at that point we were friends so we were both seeing other people when we met and serious about those relationships and didn't have like a romantic vibe at all and it was months after i'd i'd broken up that i even reached out to her and it was my buddy um matt senrash as a matter of. He was like Facebook friends with the co-creator of Robot Chicken. He was the Facebook friends with her. And he was like, oh, you should hang out with Claire.

And I was like, I'm not trying to date anybody. Like I actually would love just somebody to get high and watch TV with. Maybe that's a thing. He's like, yeah, you should call her. Yeah, that's what the whole thing is. It seems great. Um, so I did,

I called her up and she came over and we rolled a joint, smoked it together on my balcony. And I was like, do you, are you hungry? And she was like, yeah. And I go,

we can, we can order anything or we can go to get anything. Would you like, and she's like, ah, whatever. And I go, well,

there's an in and out down the street she's like oh my god perfect thank god you said that we got there ordered the same yeah meal came back and i was like you want to watch some tv or something i put on and at the time i had tivo and all the things in my queue were the same things that she was watching except that i was watching idol and survivor because it was 2007 and that's interesting yeah but it was a year it was a year before we were going like yeah we were just hanging out like that we hung out everywhere did she have a boyfriend huh did she have a boyfriend at the time we were both single and you weren't nothing was happening either of us were trying to make this happen. And that's part of why it worked so well is we were very unguarded, very un, neither one of us concealed who we were.

We weren't trying to. Right. You weren't trying to like, it wasn't, you weren't present, you weren't performing. No, we were very trans apparently getting to know each other. And as a result, we were able to share things about each other that we wouldn't necessarily share. We were able to show acceptance for each other in areas that could feel vulnerable. Yeah, it was wild, you know, and over that period of time, just becoming such good friends and even working through. friends and even working through i can't speak for her but for me i was really scared to genuinely like push this button and commit to this because i was very aware commit to i like you i would like to yeah let's touch your boobs and stuff yeah let's beat it well we had like drunkenly hooked up enough to know that we had that kind of chemistry oh so there wasn't no hooking up no this was very late in the game like we had

already been friends for over 10 months before we had that kind of hookup and then we had to really explore whether that was day after that were you like ah what what did we do i think i had a different perspective i was not as available emotionally as i later discovered she would be in those moments right so i hadn't even thought in that moment that that was like a release of new emotion. I thought that was just like a thing that happened and we could still be friends. Oh, great. Yeah. Great. So if it sounds correctly, you were being a man. Yeah, totally. And she was. I would like to endorse a book right now that I'm reading. That's so fucking good. And I don't want to fuck up the title.

that's so fucking good i and i don't want to fuck up the title the case against the sexual revolution by louise perry the case against the sexual revolution by louise perry anyhow okay this is prying but all right so you drunkenly hook up at a certain point she go hey like this does this mean anything these hookups or does it kind of just you do it enough that you're like, eh, maybe we should do this? It was never her saying, hey, what is this? It was more, hey, I don't think I could be casual about this. And we're either friends or we're doing this. And there can't be like a blur of those lines. And then how long did you take to decide, like, well, a month maybe right a month because in that month you're like well i don't

wanna beat i'm gonna do i got shit going on you don't even know i'm not trying to like get married um and that was the truth as i felt like man if you even start a relationship with this girl you're gonna get yeah you're gonna have to marry her yeah well not you're gonna you're going to this is the girl yeah yeah yeah and so you kind of dragged your feet because you knew like once it started well i'd also just gotten out of like a multi a series of multi-year relationships that were not necessarily in my best interest you know and had to check my own meter give an example no okay um those are all real people that still exist you know what i mean but uh but you could i get yeah yeah you do well i'll give you the easiest of examples i recognize what was your tendency yeah that i was exploring um a much younger age than could offer me any kind of legitimate understanding got it and

i had someone a woman that i trust in my life say hey you know the girl you're looking for isn't going to be able to see you behind this wall of women great but it was that it was that it was like accepting that it was okay to try hard to have something that i said i always wanted and then to really do the work along the way to and you weren't bullshitting when you said you really wanted it you know i could lie and say that i liked being unattached but what i liked was um being able to have that level of physical intimacy with somebody that i didn't have to have impede the rest of my life. Right. And what I always craved was an actual partner, like an actual bestie who I really enjoy spending time with, who I feel like I could continue to evolve with and learn from and be inspired by and be surprised by

and that that experience would be worth the required effort of like being in it for real yeah and not bullshitting about it and being able to take responsibility and be like oh you know i fucked up or oh my god i came in here with an attitude and i accused you of having an attitude and it was me and i'm sorry you know what i mean yeah like being able to do that work together so were you able to fall in love quicker once you once you guys decided was it like oh we're pretty much in love seconds yeah it was i knew like it and it was kind of an amazing thing like we we had a double date that we were we had put on the books months ago with friends of ours and we me that she couldn't see me anymore like we couldn't be friends and not be together like it's actually not a comfortable thing i told her that i couldn't be without her that i didn't want to be with anybody else small world crazy right uh and was that the night you said you loved each other or it was just like

i don't remember it's funny when you're going to a formal event with a woman you're not technically it's like come on yeah like who are you kidding what was the magic castle we were having like a fun i i pictured the magic castle did you i really did i know i did for some reason i don't know why so you and your wife it sounds like it's fucking great it's work it's a lot of work we both put in the work and that's i think how much when you say the work because i think a lot of times people hear relationships are a lot of work and then they go i've stayed in relationships way too long thinking relationships are a lot of work well it's not like a lot of work like oh this slog of work but it is you gotta show up you have to be accountable and if you say you're

gonna do something you gotta do it and then if you don't do it you have to be accountable and if you say you're gonna do something you gotta do it and then if you don't do it you have to be able to say oh my god i didn't do it i'm so sorry instead of being like well fuck you you know what i mean yeah that's so that's what i mean it's a lot of work it sounds like you can't treat her like a male roommate you you have like what the fuck man no you have to control your own emotions you have to be able to govern your responses to to stimulus that's that's the biggest bit of work that i do in relationships i make sure that if i fuck up i take accountability for that you have a plan meaning do you go like hold on let me just get my let me get this together real quick or are you good because my absolutely my problem is we gotta try to take things happen so quickly yeah that what they call in the nba a bang bang play right that is a guy

and i don't know what that means it's just basically just like what right inbound what huh yeah like that so that happens emotionally where they say something you're yelling and you're like i don't even know i'm still i'm still before you yelled yeah and now we're gone so what have you done to what's the emotional hygiene yeah when i was younger i did a ton of psychedelics um did everything when i was older i did go ahead well i you know everybody comes to it at a different place i had that same realization you that i did it younger and i did ls i did it as a party younger and i did it as a as a real thing as a as in my 40s yeah like in in an effort to explore yourself yeah i just wanted to be in a better mood really and lsd i'm not lsd uh ayahuasca and mushrooms oh yeah well that's a good man that's a good i did you

have a i could talk i talk about ayahuasca so much so much it's nauseating at this point i understand well you know those um types of revelations i sought out when i was really young how young uh 16 is the first time i did ask why well uh what consciously you were like i want this knowledge yeah well it wasn't i want to grow up as much as I had done so much reading. I read like crazy when I was a kid. And so a lot of anecdotal stories about LSD. I read, you know, the Mary Prankster's story, like Ken Kesey, the electrochloric acid test. Like, I was just curious about that. And then there was a point where I wanted to do a school report on... Were you going to homeschool?

What were you doing? I graduated from a public school in Philadelphia, but I had a lot of remote education with social workers and studio teachers when I was on site. But they let me maintain a regular curriculum with my classes so that I could at least stay current yeah um and i wrote a report about the government's unredacted

experiments with lsd in the 60s i was real curious about the fact that it's just interesting how many people come to the same conclusion about what is consciousness and what is our access to it? And how do you separate yourself from all of these stimulus and all of these creative or cultural overlays of like how you are, what your parents give you in your DNA separated from like what you can be, what you can feel, what you can emote, what you can um i don't know relate to and i at a period of time when i was doing a ton of theological study i was just curious like what are the unifying factors for religions what is it that everyone's really trying to get at it's that same place of consciousness that stillness the connectivity to everything yeah right and so

acid seemed to shortcut you into that consciousness it it makes you keenly aware of the idea that well it doesn't i'm i'm gonna object to uh shortcut you did it at a party though so you're getting no i'm saying it's the only cut oh i'm saying i'm saying it's not like there's much of another way to get there i to me have you ever meditation yeah meditation but serious meditation yeah meditation heat hatha yoga it's the kind of stuff that is like you you breathe i mean it's probably what people were doing at stonehenge is putting themselves into some kind of altered state so that they can feel the divinity of unified consciousness. Totally agree. So I put even that those, I guess they're all shortcuts, but I don't know. So I think there's either that there's like 10

years or an hour. Well, you know, in a good way, I don't, I don't think they're shortcuts. Here's what I say. I appreciate that. The distinction of the classification, because it sounds like, like lazy lazy or something and it's not i definitely didn't take it like that i i you know i come from video game culture where secret doors are secret doors where your you know equipment inside this treasure chest you're gonna take it so right you you don't um issue your potential upgrades just because you got there quicker than somebody else just because you went you got that book yeah you used to be in books yeah right so with acid i was really curious about that and i

took it in earnest not it like a party but with like a here's my goal here is what i want to explore here's where i'm trying to review and i kept notes like i was time i'm taking my pulse like how do i feel i'm 30 minutes in what do i you like I was time I'm taking my pulse like how do I feel I'm 30 minutes in what do I you know I was really so it sounds like you've maybe because of the acting you didn't have a ton of friends and I don't say that it's like I mean it sounds like a young it sounds very challenging you had your own thing and you probably didn't I mean you're hanging out with adults a lot yeah and you probably just like the kids your age weren't doing it for you or they thought you were weird

or it you had a lot of my people when i moved to la and was amongst other performers that were trying to make a living at performing yeah and soon as i really committed to joining the circus it was welcoming and accessible to me but you have to do the fucking work that's the point there is no it's that great the meme you know what's the secret and then you open up it's like work hard yeah that's it so disappointing it is but it's the truth and when you when you accept that you know what i mean when you really accept that hey none of this is going to come i think about that with the industry all the time people think that talent is enough to drive you permanently you have to constantly be evolving and getting better and improving and demonstrating why you're here yes there is no

just showing up that may all right we were talking about your your emotional hygiene in your relationship so so you do that you do the acid as a kid i did it but there was a period of time where i was like hard investigating and and disciplined about it to do it on the weekends so i would work at a committed level on whatever i was doing like very intentionally and then on the tv shows or movies or whatever yeah all kinds of stuff and then and then on the weekend shows or movies or whatever, all kinds of stuff. And then, and then on the weekend, I, in a very controlled environment, do this kind of experimentation. Okay. But you mentioned it in regards to your emotional hygiene with your wife. Yeah. Well, in every capacity, like, cause there's things that you see under that influence that your, your ability to God's eye, see under that influence that your your ability to god's eye your own your identity your your ego your id to like really separate from those and say what is holding me back what am i presenting with

you know what i'm saying yeah of course that stuff so i got there at as a teenager and used all those tools to continue to build on that and it's not that wasn't like an instant right that's what i'm saying almost right so i've had i'm gonna bleep it anytime we talk about our anybody i bleep age uh and why because it's hilarious because it's funny because it's disgusting how old we are it's a crime oh we're kids don't you get it well that is kind of the revelation right is that everybody feels nobody feels like a teenager until they let's believe it um you're like what the fuck but what i was gonna say no i that's what i i don't like when people are aged you see them i remember when you were like the kid in radio days and then i see you growing up and i'm like wait i'm not fucking thankfully you still you still strike me as like

a teenager i mean that in a positive way do you know what i mean like i will never see you as what someone who's never seen you before will see you oh that's interesting i wonder they didn't see you on the fucking can't hardly wait post you know what i mean like are you wearing a hat you're wearing goggles is that you i've definitely got the swim goggles okay what i'm trying to say is so you get some enlightenment but then you spend 15 years dating the wrong kind of girl sure yeah but that's a different kind of burden right like yeah i can, I, you, you always emulate what you've witnessed. And so there was a disposability to relationships. Um, and then there was also this assumption that being married meant screaming at the top of your lungs at each other. Right. So I come out into the dating world and

I'm convinced that what I, especially when I hit LA and everybody's like you know you got to play games dude you got to like mental hijinks these women you got to like trick these girls into thinking you don't like them you got to treat them like shit all this stuff and i was like oh all right is that the way to get laid like okay i'll do my best it took me a really long time to realize that i didn't need to do any of that. You know what I mean? Yeah. To tell you the truth, the drugs helped.

It was like, why are you? The drugs that, but, so this is your drug. You continue to do hallucinogenics. Yeah. Throughout your 20s? No, no. I mean, the last time I did anything in earnest, I was like maybe 20.

Okay. All right. So what I'm just talking about after 20, the people you dated. I did anything in earnest, I was like maybe 20. Okay. All right. So what I'm just talking about after 20, I did a ton of exploration. That was kind of the point of it. I guess I'm just, it's, I guess what I'm saying, it's hard. It's hard to get everything right. 100%. I didn't do ayahuasca until just about maybe eight or nine years ago.

And I, it was not like I was saving it but i knew it's a very different type of exploration it's like i've done things like dmt and mescaline and all of those other like i mean dmt is the shortest shortcut straight guys straight to did you do bufo bufo alvarius the toad venom one no i haven't done that secretion one that's when i did that if you watch blocks on netflix the the my experience is so it was so fucking insane i did uh five meo dmt like bufo alvarius it's like the nuclear bomb of psychedelics and i think i went too far i remember you talking about that it was so fucking crazy it broke me for what i thought was about nine months it turns out it had i just

closed it like eight weeks ago no shit yeah after a year and a half but and what was it just like the trauma i was i know it had nothing to do with my anything on earth it was i went to well no i just went to what michael pollan described as before the big bang and uh you know i i don't think it's great for people to go there but i'm better off if you're able to reconcile it. Yes, but there were a couple of days there where it wasn't, we weren't going to go on. So it was insane. It was insane. So what's the emotional hygiene with your wife? And then we got to get some walks.

We check in with each other all the time. And we're forgiving of each other's moments. And I, you know, I can be really sensitive. She grew up in a household that is incredibly aggressive it's you know she's the oldest of eight kids and so she's got a catholic irish none of that she's got like uh she's born in mem and disparaging to the bone like zero to 60 go fuck yourself and i'm i've spent so long in my life pulling out of that kind of environment and creating like a quiet space for myself to feel safe and comfortable. And we challenge each other in those tempos from time to time. So what I, what we've had to do, um, in therapy is,

you know, come to understandings about what we do to differently and and then be active in catching those moments as they happen and not punishing each other for um infractions but more being like oh my god that's that thing that we're working on that's the thing we're working on and here we are here we are remember okay i know how to solve this. We've got tools. Yeah. Great. Introducing Mando. From the makers of Loom deodorant.

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It comes with a solid stick deodorant, cream tube deodorant, two free products of your choice like mini body wash and deodorant wipes, and free shipping as a special offer for my friends and listeners new customers get five dollars off a mando starter pack with code neal at shop mando.com that equates to over 40 off your starter pack when you visit shop mando.com and use code neil mando block number one that we will have blocks before this but the ones you present which i appreciate moving too fast yeah tell us about moving too fast sometimes i get very excited um i'll see the end of a very big picture at the beginning and want to get there without rigorously taking the steps towards it is this professional yeah largely yeah yeah i mean

but it can be as simple as like well i'm gonna get all this shit downstairs i'll probably put more in my hands than i can manage down the stairs just to make it like one trip that's you know what's funny about uh any just about every time you drop and break something it's because you're trying to it's the most obvious metaphor maybe on earth yeah yeah and we do it constantly yeah patience patience is uh it's it's something i really aspire towards and also something that challenges all right so it's just the thing you've had to get a grip on this need to go go go yeah did you do it with your wife you do with friends everywhere everywhere don't you get all over yeah just moving too quick yeah yeah you were half an hour early for this it's like i'm coming but you know

yeah that's true well i just want to make sure i had the parking right because yeah yeah what do you tell yourself to get over like slow down that's it take a breath all day yeah i mean it's the truth neil that's why the weed quite frankly like i'm there's there's all evidence points to the fact that I would test high for ADDHD. You know what I mean? I've never taken that test because man, I don't want. You just passed the test because you didn't even say that you said ADDHD. ADD, you said ADH. I don't know what you said, but you skipped the second ADD.

ADDHD. ADDHD. Yeah.. ADD HD, yeah. You won't even say it. You got, give him the fucking medal. He doesn't, he can't even pronounce the second AD. Yeah. Number two, I'm very guilty of this. Talk more than listen.

Yeah. Tell me about your trials with talking too much um it's pretty constant i uh and i don't even know why i don't know what is that impulse to be the one who's saying something like there's probably some inherent desire to be to just be contributive or participatory but i find myself interrupting people more often than letting them finish a thought and so it's a a thing that i work on all the time i'm right there with you and i think what i tell myself is that i do want to contribute i mean i i'm of two minds about it the errol morris who the great documentary director fog Fog of War, Thin Blue Line, etc. And Chipotle commercials, literally

directs Chipotle commercials. That's where the money is. Tell me about it. Is the voice offline? Literally the, or off camera, he's asking about, what are you telling me about the avocados? So is this stuff really fresh? Yes. It's one of the most famous documentary directors

alive. Because his movies don't make money. And so what his philosophy of documentary directing is just don't respond to people you're interviewing and they will spill the beans. Right now I'm like, because you didn't respond, I want to go like, ah. I know. And i've practiced this lack of response because i catch myself you i'm sure we watch this tape back i'm like

can't help but monologue for a while and also i'm i'm deeply tangential i get very this is the the adhd thing where i'm pretty sure it's probably i can't stay focused yeah i know i'm with you and it is you do have to train yourself and i and i also want to be entertaining so that thing you were talking about tangential some of it is like ball hogging yeah but some of it's like hey here's the thing i read i don't know it's interesting here's a i didn't need to say to read the book but it just seems like you want information from me or you want to connect you know it's like connection and information but if you overwhelm people i think it's a comedian's instinct too is when you're getting a little bit of noise you want that role you want that role and i can't help it but to like get the waves churning to the point where i get that role and i i have to it was a little bit easier when i was like working all the

time in front of the camera rather than so much behind the camera because you you excise those demons all the time like your job your task is to do this thing for this purpose you can actually you know focus all of your energy towards that expression and then go be a normal person in regular life um i find my instincts take me to this performative place like i've got an itch to scratch i have a question yeah do you think being an actor makes you think i was talking to a friend of mine who had any he had done a talk show and he was like i think i'm just talking out loud in public too much and i have no i i just like think i'm everything i say is entertaining and everything I say is magical or whatever do you think that that happens when you're act when you're successfully performing

because it is like one right now you're technically being starved of attention that's why you're like you over talk but when you're when you are being fed attention would you ever feel like i don't need yeah i don't need attention like i'm full oh my god of course yeah yeah there was a period of like several years where i was doing like two features a year and that that also meant that i was doing like a gauntlet of publicity right twice a year and when that started working in tandem with going to comic-con and doing panels and having like appearances and all the interviews and press associated with releasing something i spent several years just talking to the point where i almost get stuck in that interview mode oh i know people like that yeah of course yeah justine bateman had a really good point of view about that just about understanding your own place as a celebrity what your actual

responsibilities are when you go out in public and how many times you see people get kind of so plugged into that mode that they don't know how to actually relate to each other yeah i can tell when someone's in that mode and i just like kind of i there's a friend of mine who i just saw in new york who i spent like a lot of time with and a year ago i would have paid not to spend time with them and it's just because of where he is in a promo cycle and they just become like you know it's funny they it they're right they're doing answers for press junket and it's it's like dude just fucking talk to me i don't need and i don't need canned anecdotes that like set 40 seconds you need 40 seconds here we go so when we're on set yeah so uh yeah about Cruz, man, he really sets the bar.

Like if he's running, you got to run too. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. Um, uh, work too much. Yeah.

Don't, do you have any emotional problems? Meaning D what are your insecurities? Um, it's like an, a general imposter syndrome. You know what I mean? But,

but it, but it's, here a general imposter syndrome you know what i mean but but it but it's here's the fucked up thing man i learned so young that you have to be awesome you know what i'm saying to get on camera to be able to be a spokesperson to be trusted not just with this performance but with what this performance represents for any of these massive super corps that are putting like hundreds of millions of dollars behind a thing that rests on an element of you like i a learned real quick you can't take that personally no matter how talented you are no matter how awesome when they say no when they say no that i see a lot of celebrities get a shot where they're like all of a sudden they can do whatever they want and they

take it personally like oh this is me right i'm finally being reward rewarded for my awesomeness they get it now yeah instead of just like you've put in this hard work and this is just how the shit can go. Like you're never going to get selected if you're not top notch. They're never hiring somebody who's going to take the six months to get ready. You have to already be something for them to want to invest that time to give you the Marvel body, like whatever version of it it is. You don't get there without putting your effort in. You don't get there without putting your effort in. And so I understood that axiom so early that I never mistook any of my success for specialness.

It was, yes, I've got a quality. Yeah, I have an inherent instinct for how to make things funny. And I have a complicated enough understanding of storytelling that I recognize what my role should be in whatever presentation but not to the degree that um you think you're good at the thing i think i'm good at the thing and i also know that it takes hard work and if i stop working hard i'm less good at the thing yeah you know it's like you have to continue to run track. If you want to be quick, you want your instincts to be, it's okay to run. You, you, you have to be able to hike. You have to have the endurance constantly to be able to manage the task. And so my insecurity comes less from, oh my God, I'm not good enough. I'm not special enough. I'm not, you know, whatever.

And more from, have I worked hard enough? Have I practiced hard enough? Have I made these things so ingrained in me that I can do it without it without thinking you know what i mean yeah and success is always tied to that and then there's just the luck of the fucking draw like you you met you might be the thing or you might not there's a million things i don't look like so i'm never gonna get cast in that no matter how good an actor i am i'm not gonna get cast you so looks for guys height uh-huh is that are these issues what do you think no because if i was tall i'd have to fight against paul bettany but like my entire career it was so

clear that i wasn't gonna be the handsome guy that kissed the girl like you i immediately hard into that you immediately accepted that yeah so there was a period of time especially post radio days when i was like 14 years old about to turn 15 and could not get work like 15 at all just sort of there was a year of just not getting anything and i had come off of like um doing the spinoff of facts of life and was was hard work and i had just done can't buy me love like i was doing features for major companies and so but i looked categorically different i was not the kid from any of those things i was something else and i was like man i've gotta get in there what do i actually love and the truth is i love character actors like i'm not trying to be tom cruise or matt dylan i'm trying to be i'm young who's matt dylan

i don't know who you're talking about get the fuck out of here you know what i mean though like if i'm young that's i've never heard of matt dylan sure do you want me to cater to your audience matt damon or i don't know who they just have a conversation that's what google's for okay so so you that's great so you never yeah so when i'm insecure it's like I'm not prepared. So when I go to a party with highly successful people, if I go to an Oscar party or something like that, my insecurity comes from the fact that have I done enough? Have I been practicing enough?

Can I present myself to my peers and say out loud that I'm prepared. Prepared for a party or prepared for what do you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Prepared for any of it for a party. Yeah. What does that mean? You mean it means like being able to show up and confidently hang out without needing

to make it a spectacle on your own behalf. You can just be at ease. You got it. Well comfortable you're not like is that because are you talking about doing work at your job yeah okay you're not talking about like come on we're gonna go to this party you're not hyping yourself up for the party you're just saying like no but i work very hard like most people i have a tremendous social anxiety especially about interacting with people that i haven't seen that i see maybe once a year or once every three years and yet have a collected shared community. And what do you, how do you,

what do you do before a party like that? Cause I just, I have a thing that I do is I don't go. Yeah. We definitely do a lot of not going, which is it only, it only hurts you. Cause the truth is when you take the opportunity to socialize in an easy way with your peers and not have any pressurized performance aspect about it, it's really rewarding because you feel a little less alone. You're like, oh, my God, all these relative strangers are trying to do the same thing that I am. This means something. It's worthwhile. Yeah. I mean, there are times when I've gone and felt more alone.

Absolutely. Why though? Because I'm just very aware of like status differences, even if they're subtle. Yeah. And it bugs me out. It bugs you out.

Yeah. Do you think anybody else is thinking about those differences? Yeah. Judging you? Yep. I think it's inherent. I think it's inherent in human existence and is your

grievance that there's judgment or that there's a disparity it's not a grievance per se with them it's just like this is not a comfortable thing for me being like low status or medium status or high when i'm high status i feel bad for the what I mean? Like, I just don't like, I'm very aware of it and I, it just makes it less enjoyable. I really just like talking to one person. That's just what I like. I really conversational monogamous one. Yes. One person at a time.

Honestly, I don't like groups. I don't like, ha ha. Did I tell you about Jeff? It's Steve came by. Ha ha. You get it. Lefty. I don't like groups i don't like ha ha did i tell you about jeff and steve came by ha you get it lefty i don't like i don't enjoy that it just feels goofy it i can do it but it feels phony to me i understand that anyhow discipline with exercise yeah go on well i used to be really really good at it when i was very young i think i was about 15 when i started like going to a gym and attempting to strengthen my muscles and also improve i think

you're talking about exercising yeah exercise well it's like improve your flexibility um creative readiness especially as an actor you get asked to do all kinds of crazy shit right stuff that would not be germane to the role that you're playing and you just have to take on physical tasks that it can be anything and then on top of that you need endurance to go all day to be able to sit still for hours at a time while the shit is getting prepped and then the second they call action you gotta hit the fucking mark do the thing the rain is blowing the thing is pulling you and you might have to do it twice. So you got to be ready. I have a question, which I've never actually asked an actor.

It's something I assume. But when you go to set, especially on a TV show where you have to shoot a lot of shit in a day, do you kind of think like, I have to do this in three takes? Even if it's dialogue, I've do this in two takes. There's definitely an understanding that you might not get more than a couple takes like if the director is moving i snap a lot huh um if a director is moving quickly or they have to make a day there is a really good chance that they're gonna you're gonna have to trust that first take right yeah so well there's a bit of being prepared enough to like get it right the first time but also emotionally accept if you got

it right the first time and you don't get a second shot at it and they're like all right we're moving on to like emotionally be able to say all right we're moving on yeah because i feel bad when i'm working with like a star and then the other person in the scene and i give the star six takes and i give the other person one well you know there is a you need you as a director need to know what about this moment is important and sometimes if the person doing the line gets it right you don't need alternatives no i get that i feel bad for the actor i just feel bad and i like, hey, just so you know, I'm giving them a lot of takes and I'm giving you maybe one or two.

That's very generous of you to let them know in advance. Man, a lot of directors don't communicate and you're left thinking like, did I fuck it up? Do they just not care? Am I going to be cut? Whatever version of it.

No, I have to cater to. Yeah. Well, you bring them in on it that's very generous well i'm a fucking great person i think people learn that yeah i think over the years i think everybody there's one thing that's certain death taxes and that i'm great right everybody says that um all over the town so you basically are not disciplined anymore for exercise no it's not that's just the pandemic really made it a lot easier for me to stop doing that on the regular and i would do stuff that's as basic as like all right i'm gonna do 100 sit-ups today i'm not i'm gonna do 100 push-ups today and even if it's not um at the same time

25 at a time like four times throughout the day um committing to that every day if i do one thing i'm gonna do these push-ups right i've lost a bit of that discipline to say well i'm gonna do that so days go by without where i just don't do it do you feel worse yeah interesting i can't know things like people go you're vegan you feel better no when i'm exercising on the regular and like on a bike with my keeping my wind up and my body feels stretched and ready that's when i feel the best and i'm sure that's like kid actor shit in me just like always feeling ready you don't get hired for stuff you know what i mean no one's looking to improve you to make you right for the part you gotta be you have to be better than their expectations you're as good or better

you got to be ready for the thing is that kid actor shit probably every kid actor i know that's stuck around they have that deeply ingrained thing like me and um i'm some good friends with macaulay culkin i'm friends with sarah keller like we've all known each other years and um even brenda song you've got this thing in you that's like a willingness to work hard a willingness to put your share of effort in it is part of it just like a weird psychological thing of pleasing adults when you're a kid it they all seem like they want to please adults that's really interesting i got so attracted to storytelling at a young age and i saw an audience i got to it's my mom worked at summer camps and

i hung out with all the teenagers i was like five years old four or five years old hanging out with all the teenagers and the ones that were doing talent shows or drama program, I was just so excited by this idea, playing pretend, creating imaginary circumstances, and then convincing the audience that this is real, even for the benefit of making a joke or telling a story or relating something emotionally significant. I just was so attracted to the concept.

And I got to do this talent show with these kids and they let me improv at fucking five and then the next summer camp my mom worked in i begged the drama program to let me get on stage with them and they wouldn't um until the second term of the summer camp they let me have one line in hello dolly what was the line she's here she's here dolly is here she's here she's here dolly's here dolly's here and then everybody comes in hello everybody and they do the hello dolly like the whole review and i always say about musicals they could have just left it at hello dolly right they don't have to sing right everybody said hello right what are you doing yeah you get the vibe

tell me what you need me to know i don't need a song about somebody entering i feel that way about lame ms like lame ms is the is the the ultimate man somebody's gotta speak something you don't know somebody please say something no say something like a like speak song because everything is hello neil i cannot help but notice you have a toffee kill me you're a dangerous man nothing that i prefer more than a cold you know what i'm saying that makes me crazy i hate that shit uh i like the carol king musical because she's a songwriter so the reason they would sing is because she she go hey i wrote a song today and then she'd play a fucking excellent song and then her husband was also a

songwriter and he go i wrote one and it was fucking great because it made sense why they were singing it wasn't just this weird reality with people saying yeah yeah okay so the people pleasing thing yeah for me it was always just the excitement of putting on a show like i really very positive in a way that i find amor like i i envy in that you go into investigations of ideas wanting to come to some positive conclusion it seems like i like understanding things but because there's a reason there's a root origin for whatever this thing is. And I like getting to the bottom of that. But I feel like you're more apt to give it, come to a positive conclusion than I am. I believe deeply in the inherent goodness of people. Even though I'm constantly witness to the absolute worst. Why?

Because I've seen it, man. I've seen it also. I'm saying. You've seen it. You've felt it also i'm saying you've seen it you felt it you've had those moments of like real connection with somebody even if it's a hug you knew saget saget man he made you feel loved and seen and i aspire to that that's that's like a good way to look no there are people there is that sort of like that we're all in this together sagat was great with that sagat rock said dude sagat loved being a comedian yeah like he was openly loved being a comedian were you there the night

that that robin williams died there was like an emergency get together at the comstar i ran into to bob there and we were like sitting in a booth together and just trying to deal with it and i can't remember who went up might have been norm went up and and bob was just like the second norm was like he was into two jokes and bob was like i gotta i gotta go i gotta go and he went up on stage just went right up and like crushed just crushed yeah like made us all roll about it like cry and laugh and i was like man that is your superpower yeah i don't have that superpower i don't either but i knew it early but i i like that me i mean well what i'm saying is that's a that's a good mood helper i'm betting is that your if your mo mo is to kind of see the good yeah it's so much better than me looking for like well

i'll tell you why i've been there though i've spent years i spent years in that headspace and it you know didn't make anybody feel good especially not me so it's that same thing about like is this going to change or am I going to change? Right. I'm going to change it by making fun of it. That's my. Absolutely. That's my.

Yeah, man. When I'm at a funeral, I'm going to have the best zingers because that shit's hard to take. Yes. I think that's the thing. You know, Bob, Robin, comedians like that. You just, you know how hard it is. You know how hard it can really be and the opportunity to make somebody smile instead of frown is so precious i almost feel hearing about it like being a person is hard or funerals are hard life is fucking hard dude it is hard being

a person growing up being a kid being a person being an adult being somebody's kid somebody's parent all of it is hard all of it is so hard and we really are all in it together everybody's having the same experience just your version of it you know yeah i mean a part of me had the thought that it's easier if you're funny. Definitely helps. But I feel like my comedy was something that I nurtured because I loved making people laugh. Right. I love being able to change the vibe, to take something that was like sour and then give it a boost where everybody lets off a little steam.

Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was inspired to that very, very young. I don't think it was because I had, like I hear Stern talk about how he could never get his dad's attention except for being on the radio. Cause the radio was the only thing that his dad cared about.

I don't remember any incident where I was like, Oh my mom, my parents are upset and angry and I have to like, so it sounds like your parents were sort of pretty tempestuous. I mean, they not a great connection between them. You know, they were both teachers.

And I think the best assessment is here's two people that had kids. Like they didn't, they're not experts. They're not superheroes. They certainly didn't have great um instructions themselves they're they're the examples they had of parenting were pretty intense too so i don't know me making peace with the fact that they split up and that's okay sometimes people just get together for this moment and that's all right yeah yeah i got to that when I was like 17 years old. So it definitely helped me build upon that.

After you'd moved far, far away from them. I did. Literally across the country. I got away from them. Oh, yeah. We've got just two struggling kids that I absolutely needed to get away from. That's what, but Claire and I, we both talk about that, that we left the house when we were 16 years old.

And probably because of the fact that our lives weren't there. You know what I mean? Yeah. And we both knew it with some certainty that this is not my life. Yeah. I, I waited till I was 17, but yeah,

to go to NYU, it was like when I got the letter, it was like, it was like my freedom papers. It was like fucking wow. Um, all right. With that in mind, because you've told me the

things you did to get sort of better at some of your mental health or personal was therapy and uh and psychedelics anything else that made your life better for you there was a there was a period of time where i was going to the um meditation center in um palisades the self-realization fellowship scientology i'm kidding no it's you know the thing about it's tough and it's part of why i stopped like attending in person it um you can't help who else is attracted to community i betterment. Yeah. And I found myself just by being recognizable in a kind of compromised position to have a similarity of experience. Yeah. But I attended a bunch of sermons and got a lot of really helpful instruction about meditation and um super basic

sun salutation kind of shit like keep keep a pot start your day with intent rather than just waking up in pain or in discomfort look at your phone was that part of the yeah oh the second yeah like wake up yeah reach for my phone and like what's in there twitter um oh everybody's pissed i should get pissed let me wake up angry let me brush my teeth and get pissed yeah let's get ready um seth green everybody can you believe it? After all this time, Seth Green, still here. Still making, putting in the work, preparing. Still selling fake doors. Still selling fake doors. God bless. Bye.