Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - S11 Ep 9: Dan Levy

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

This guest has not only won every award under the sun, now he's had Lennie get the ring light on and quote every line of his global television phenomenon, Schitt's Creek to him! We welcome with wide, open, Jewish motherly arms the sensational Dan Levy to TM!Fresh off the back of Golden Globe wins, we natter with this Toronto mensch from his childhood home and discuss his love of Heat magazine, London and working with his family. He's not a fan of vegetables is our Dan, with a carb heavy last supper, but we forgive him as he makes us swoon over Schitt's Creek stories, his Pret order and his karaoke song choice. Now I'm desperate to set him up with Dr Alex so he can become my brother in law.Dan Levy everyone! You're absolutely welcome! X Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello and welcome to table manners i'm jessie ware and i am stressing out i don't think it shows me in a good light we've decided to raise the bar after speaking to lydia west and raise the light raise the light raise the glow especially for this guest we are really excited i'm i need to check if i've got food in my teeth me too i. I mean, we want to look our best for him. So we've brought out the glow light. He's a fashionista. You've got lipstick on your teeth,

so let's sort that out first. Okay, that's fine. We've got the glow light on. Mum's eyes look like... What did you say? They're like mint Imperials. Photos. I don't know

whether we should just be in the dark. I don't know. What's better at this stage? Should we turn this light off? Oh, I think that may look like they're about to sing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, been the star the creator of Schitt's Creek one of the most touching beautiful sitcoms on Netflix that is now sadly at an end and will not be coming back we're not going to keep on talking about that with Dan because I ended perfectly it couldn't have had a better ending oh my god I literally look like I'm having an eye test oh now my eyes look like they are that's i have contacts in because the bright light is i

look like an alien peter told me is you have it higher and tilt it down okay well let's make it higher mom yeah what about the shoe box here yeah and then tilt it down no i've still got fucking polos oh my god we're just gonna have to be blind completely directed towards you have to be blind no i can't be it's like bullseye in my eye why do people have ring light why do they have well they obviously wear contacts panel light we need the soft the boom box the beauty box anyway yeah this could be on par with getting Dolly Parton on Zoom. This is how big this is for us. Mum sobbed all the way.

She'd ring me and she'd go, just watch when they sung Simply the Best. And then just watch the behind the scenes. God, this pandemic. You're just sobbing behind the scenes. It's the best thing about coronavirus that I watched the whole of Schitt's Creek. It's the only saving grace of this year.

Well, we have a lot to talk to him about. I'm sure he's sick to death of talking about it. We won't. We'll let him lead the way, Jess. I wish I could do a really good Moira Rose imitation. No, don't. I think that must be quite irritating. Okay, I won't. Fine. You know what? I may just sack this off. I think that must be quite irritating. Okay, I won't.

Fine. You know what? I may just sack this off. I'm sacking off my glasses. I'm going to squint the whole... Anyway. Dan Levy coming up on Table Manners. Do you want to blow your nose?

Wow. Get it all out before the star arrives, Mum. I thought you were making me laugh. What am I making you blow your nose? Oh, God. You're like were making me laugh. What am I making you blow your nose? Oh, God. You're like Roland. Come on, fix up. Hi.

Hi. Okay, so listen, I'm just going to say, I'm maybe not going to be able to see you because we decided to put a glow light on for you because we really wanted to make an effort but i look like i've got fucking polos in my eye so i'm just gonna kind of squint at you oh my god damn you're here i'm so happy to be here i'm such a fan of yours stop mother or me come on clearly jesse This is so exciting. This is huge. And especially when you've had such a busy week.

I know it's early. Where are you, Los Angeles? It's actually 2pm in the afternoon. Where are you? I'm in Toronto. I'm in Canada. Is that where you live? I was born and raised here. And then I headed out to LA. And then shortly after saying goodbye to my friends in Toronto

and was like, I'm off to LA. We did our saying goodbye to my friends in Toronto and was like, I'm off to LA. We did our show, which brought us back to Toronto. So I sort of did that victory lap back with everybody, calling them back up saying, I don't have any friends here anymore. Can you please be my friend? So, uh, yeah. And then when COVID hit California, I just came home. I just, I came back to Canada Canada is that where your mom and dad are my parents left back for LA we're just playing like a ping pong game of LA and Toronto at this point is it good to have a bit of space from each other listen it was the holidays was a wonderful time and then we all separated from each other and just took a breath but it was nice it was

nice it's not I'm in my sort of childhood house right now which is weird to spend that much time back home where you were born and raised but it's inspired a lot of writing to be honest so that's good well it's funny you say that I'm in my childhood house and because if I don't record the podcast my mum and I are in a bubble and if I don't record the podcast with my when we do a zoom one my mom shouts like every old person on zoom so I'm like her sound technician um but um yeah it's very funny I don't know if I'm I don't know if I'm that inspired here to be honest but I don't know if I've written any after here I'm looked after here that's right exactly if you were left alone in the house for a long period of time, isolated with nobody but your dog,

you might start to dream. Stop. I need you to come over here. We'll look after you. You can be part of our support bubble. This is sorted. I want nothing more. All I want to do is end my days in England. Really? Why? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Tell me more. Why? I lived there for about six or seven months just out of college. Yeah. Had a tricky sort of romantic situation that I needed to take some space from. And I had always had a sort of a highly romanticized fascination with England. Notting Hill, Bridget Jones are all my favorite movies. I just felt a closeness to it.

So I finally got out there and yeah, like spent six or seven months, I can't even remember, living there and working at a talent agency. Which one? At ICM. Oh, right. Okay.

And where were you living? was living on charlotte street oh my god you were living in london oh no i know now i know now that i was living but back then i really just like and it was it was the early days of the internet i don't even know how i found this place to be perfectly honest but it was a tiny little apartment on the top floor above a restaurant on Charlotte Street. And at the time, I didn't know where I was working. I didn't know anything about the city of London other than having traveled there once before and stayed in a very, I guess it was a hostel in Bayswater, which is where I think all the hostels are. So I really kind of like, I sort of stuck a pin on a map and said, well, this apartment looks like it's somewhat central.

I see Oxford Street. I'm assuming it's a very long street, but maybe if I get somewhere close to there, it'll be somewhere downtown. Little did I know that the ICM offices were right at the like right at the corner of, I believe, like Oxford and Goodge. like Oxford and Goodge. And so I had inadvertently found a place that was a 45 second walk to where I worked, which all felt very, you know, it was a kismet sort of faded experience until I realized that, you know, everything was going great until I found out that there was a story about these tenants that lived in my apartment before me. And I'm going to avoid the gritty details of the story, but when I first got there and started to clean out my apartment, I found a sex toy. Wow, there's a lot of sex shops around there.

In the bedding of the bed. This conversation took a very strange turn. Oh my God, I love this it but there is a story about a mother-daughter situation that was happening upstairs i think they were running a very successful business out of got it i was we've never done that yet no we there's still time mother yeah something to think about but that was kind of my first introduction to like London was discovering that I was in the former like place of an incredibly sort of I don't want to say it was successful I don't know but I much appreciate their hustle I just

didn't need to see the leftovers of the business they were running oh my god that's amazing. But I had the best time and I date a lot in England. Oh yeah, I bet you clean up. And I don't date a lot in America and I don't quite know why, but I know that I have to go back there because that's where I've had my most successful dates. Oh, we can fix you up. And that's where you're going to find love. It's where I'm going to find love. I just know it in my heart.

So it's only a matter of time. I love this. It's already a rom-com. It's already like the Richard Curtis film that we all need in our lives. Or the Dan Levy film. I do have a rom-com that is very similar to that. So we're working on it at the moment and we'll see what sort of happens with it. So just base it in.

If you manifest it, maybe it maybe listen we manifested this speaking to you yeah we did my mum cried the day that we said this was confirmed we rescheduled my sister who is an actress out of this week no yeah she should have just come we could have all done it together no no yeah no she's in a new show on netflix and we were like i'm sorry i know your sister i know your whole thing i know i know all of you how because i've been i'm good i'm fans of talented people oh you're so sweet well she was fine she accepted it completely gracefully when she knew that it was you because she's going out with a canadian oh she has like an affinity with canadians so we have the reverse she's going out with a jewish canadian jewish canadian called jonah friedman okay who has this a restaurant in la called friedman's which is right

at the end of the street that i used to live on oh wow did you ever go of course i would go there all the time and they have a delicious matzo ball soup. They do very tiny matzo balls. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Because I quite like a hefty New York kind of cats is deli matzo ball. I mean, listen, if sort of forced to choose, I would obviously choose a larger matzo ball. But I do for the sake of dining. Yeah, very elegant way of consuming a matzo ball. It's less bulky. That's what she said. There's not a lot of spoonage happening that you could just sort of like soup them up. What a small world. Yeah, it was my street, my old street before I moved just in February was right up the,

like a two minute walk. So firstly, I need to know which restaurant you were above in Charlotte Street and where you ate when you're in Charlotte Street. Did you ever have Ico pizza? Every Wednesday, I would. And I mean, listen, I made a lot of friends working at ICM. I knew almost instantly that I was not cut out for agency life. I don't have that kind of it is a very specific kind of person that can thrive in that environment. And you have to be incredibly strong willed. And part of the reason why I went to London was because

this relationship that I was in really kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I was not being very kind to myself as we all can be at times when we let someone sort of take over our heart, we can kind of minimize ourself at the expense of someone else. And I was finding that I had kind of been left a shell. Wasn't necessarily his fault, parts of it were, but parts of it were the fact that I was letting it happen. And so by moving to London, I knew that if I didn't make an active choice to grow and to come out of my shell and to really find a sense of confidence that I was not experiencing back home, I probably wouldn't get through it in terms of become an adult that was social. I had a lot of social anxiety. So it really was this act of personal kind of, it was like an eat, pray, love situation where I knew that I had to make this choice to be a better person and to hopefully find a kind of peace and a kind of confidence with myself that would set me up for a better relationship or set me up for a better job because I could barely talk to people.

a better job because I could barely talk to people. So when you're put into an agency setting where you have to answer phones and not just answer phones, but the person calling is like Anthony Hopkins, it really tests it. In my case, it certainly tested that fear and that insecurity. And by the end of it, I was a changed person. I was able to pick up the phone and cold call and do all the things I was never able to do or was much more phobic of before. But it was all kind of a, it was all an experience for self betterment. So this has a point. Every Wednesday, when I knew that work was getting overwhelming, I had a ritual that made me so happy. And that ritual was, I knew that the latest issue of heat magazine came out on wednesday morning and this was like maybe 15 i'm aging myself but it was like 15 early 2000s okay so the prime of heat magazine i don't know where it's at now i haven't read it now yeah okay okay

but at the time it brought me a tremendous amount of joy. And I also didn't understand celebrity culture in England because a lot of it didn't translate over to North America. So I was finding myself almost like episodically, Wednesday after Wednesday, learning about the antics of these incredible British celebrities. So who was it at that time? I'm just trying to think. It would have been like some Big Brother contestants maybe?

It would have been Cheryl Cole. Was it Cheryl? I think it was it was Jordan. Jordan was a lot. Was Jade Goody? Yes. It was very much in the Sienna Miller Jude Law phase.

Jude Law. Nanny phase. Got it. So it was just this like incredible sort of very self-healing experience of going to ico getting my pizza then going to the tesco up the street getting my heat coming back to my now that i say it out loud it feels very sad and lonely but it was it brought me great joy and i would sit in my apartment which I had at that point completely bleached and cloroxed and done all the things that I needed to do and I would sit there and flip through the pages and eat my pizza and I was perfectly content so that was when you said I echo i was that was very much a part of my is it still there i think so yeah i think so and they do like that free uh croissant with your coffee in the morning

and stuff hannah was living in the halls of residence yeah in this charlotte street yeah the ucl halls of residence is all around there she was loads of students yeah so she was in the hall of residence just near there and i I would walk to the residence, just hoping that maybe walking past the students would amount in some kind of like casual meet cute run in. Never happened. But I did sort of walk around, around the school, just trying, like trying to reconcile with my own social anxiety. And like, maybe if I walk around a group of people like I'll meet somebody um but the great thing was that was such a formative experience that ultimately shaped the whole trajectory of my life and career after that so

so how is your social anxiety now with the fact that you are known by so many, adored by so many, and very kind of everyone's interested in you? Ironically, I've always enjoyed theatre and I've always enjoyed acting. I've always enjoyed sort of the performative aspects of the arts. In my mind, it was never tied with fame. And I know that a lot of people sort of equate acting with like a desire to be famous, which is not the case for a lot of people. I never intended to be famous. I intended to hopefully find a path where I could perform because that made me feel good to perform in front of people. I mean, in my high school experience, we didn't have, we had a lot of teacher strikes. And so my friends and I would produce and write and direct and perform all of our school plays. And it brought me so much joy. And it certainly took me out of

my shell. It was sort of one of those, again, formative elements that you kind of look back on and say, well, the connect the dotsness of all of this makes sense. But I think the fact that the show is so well-intentioned and is kind of very kind and makes people feel warm and generous themselves, that we have managed to create a kind of community or a fan base of people that have always been so respectful of me and my fellow castmates when we run into people on the street. I think for the most part, for me, show running that show over six years, I was writing the show in a writer's room. Then we were performing the show in a studio. Then we were editing the show in an edit suite. There's not a lot of time to be out with people. So I only really started to get a sense of what that was like when the show ended. And I didn't have, I wasn't confined to a small room. But it's always been, it's always been lovely. And people

have been so generous and kind and, and really open about how the show has touched their lives and how it's changed relationships within their social circles or within their lives. And yeah, I really haven't struggled with anything, nor do I think that it is a struggle. It's sort of a, it can be, I think, depending on, you know, if you're like Jennifer Lawrence in a huge movie and it becomes sort of fanatical, that's a different story. But I think for me, as a traveler, I always sort of gauged fame as the ability to enjoy travel without feeling unsafe. You know, like being able to walk down the street and not feel like weird. And that's still the case. When you started writing it, did you intend it to be about rather bad people that become good? Or did you not decide that from the outset? Because it's about people that are pretty

awful at the beginning. And then they they are darling they're mean they don't want to be there and then they become completely immersed in the community and that fantastically touching scene where your your father bumps into these old friends and they say what a horrible rest place it is and he makes the most lovely speech about how these people have treated him so well and Roland's so proud and everything but so that for me that was really a turning point in Schitt's but did you start out did you say these people are not going to be very nice people and then they're going to become wonderful people or did it evolve like that? The intention from the beginning was always to show ultimately that wealth will not leave you with a tremendous amount of satisfaction. The kind of explore, and it really stemmed from, at the time, this was six years ago, you had a lot of reality television.

You had a lot of wealth being sort of put in front of us in a way that we had never really seen before. There was an intimacy that I think we have now in terms of how wealthy people live that we had never had even 15 years ago. So playing on that collective cultural awareness of wealth and what it means and how oftentimes money can be used to solve problems by throwing gifts at people or fixing things in a very sort of surface way. Our intention was to really kind of explore what happens when the money is gone. How do you define yourself? What do your relationships look like? What does love mean?

And what is the value of love if you don't have money to sort of articulate how much you feel it or how little you feel it. So the sort of thesis was always there that these people who up until the point of moving to this town thought they had an idea of love, thought that they knew what it was, thought they knew what it meant, thought that they knew what it was valued at, and ultimately came to learn that it was nothing that they expected. It was, in fact, the entire opposite. It had nothing to do with gifts or cars or trips or schools. And rather, the true sort of substantial effects of love come, when you least expect it, interpersonally, intimately, through relationships, through real bond building experiences that you can't buy. And that I think is a really universal

theme. So yeah, we set out to tell that story. And I think for us, it was really important that that first season of the show depict these characters in lights that were not entirely flattering because you needed to lay that foundation to earn the growth. I think if we sort of softened those edges right away, we wouldn't have had the same kind of relationship with our viewership as we did in the second season, by the end of the second season. When,

as you say, that moment happens, you've lived with these people now for two full seasons before we got that gentle turn that I think led to a pretty high impact emotional response. So you've got to earn that kind of power and earn that kind of emotional change. Otherwise, I think it would feel kind of disingenuous. So a lot of people say that it takes a minute to get into the show, and that was all sort of calculated in the sense that we wanted people to know who these people were in order to cheer for them

as they become who they will be in the future and who they sort of are by the end of the show. So it was all very careful. We just hoped that we were given the time to lay it all out appropriately to be able to get to that place where at the end of the sixth season they are entirely different people and you feel that kind of love

in a way that is something, again, the whole wedding at the end of the series. Don't, I'll cry. It happened in a town hall. Like, if you were to watch watch it none of it would have been what these people would have opted for in the beginning of the series so it really was a journey of self-discovery and an understanding of of the the significance of love and how you cannot put a put a dollar value on it i you know i'm here sat next to my mother we now i guess we can call this work we work together you worked with your father and your sister how i'm sure

you've been asked this so much but i just like i want to know were there moments where your mother would like text and interrupt like a really important scene talking about what you're having for dinner or was it always very professional did you always know how to have that kind of professionalism together on set or did sometimes it just did you turn into a teenage dan yeah i feel like you are constantly battling the lifelong impulses that you have as a father and son situation. And now my mom is actually working for a production company. So we ended up involving the entire family. So it clearly worked out for the best. I think when you're in charge of in our case, you know, when you're running a show, you're dealing with hundreds of people. And you owe it to the people who are showing up who

aren't part of your family to be as professional as you possibly can be because that's none of we need to learn that take no it's you know because you don't want to put any of that stuff on them so it really was a especially in the first year it was finding out where we fit with each other. And I think what made the show work was that we really came at it from two different perspectives, two different like generations of what we find to be funny.

So it really was for us a lot of navigating and negotiating. I remember my dad read the first, the pilot script of our show that I had written. And he was concerned because it wasn't reading as many jokes a page as he was used to. And I remember saying, well, let's take it to the table read and see, because I feel like this is a show which we both agreed on was going to live in the reactions and

the actions. And what might not read as a joke on the page will read as funny on screen. And so it was navigating how much do we marry what he needs and what I need in order to make something that really satisfies us both. Because at the end of the day, it's not very satisfying if you know that one person is feeling compromised. You have to find that path through that makes both parties feel excited about what they're doing. So eventually it just became a little easier. That's not to say that you don't run into situations

where it's like, oh my God, Dad, please just- Shut up. We don't meet. He loves to talk. He's a very slow talker. You know, I have to fight my urges to be like, okay, wrap it up. We're good. We're good. We're good. But ultimately, I think he informed me in so many ways of just how to work. You know, he's been doing it for so long. And I don't think you work consistently for as long as he has. If you don't leave a good impression with people if you don't leave people wanting to work more with you and that i think was such a crucial part of of this show was just how he and katherine o'hara operated when they came to work they were

so respectful of everybody there was no ego that was brought to set. There was no screaming fights, which you hear sort of notoriously, you know, echoing through the halls of the entertainment industry. It was really just about people who were very good at their craft coming and leading and steering a ship with a tremendous amount of respect for everybody. And what that did was create an environment where everybody felt safe to experiment, to try things, to show up, to be their best selves. No one was sort of, nerves were never playing into effect because everyone felt welcome and free to be who they are. So I think you can feel that in the show. It's a very kind of loving show where we, you know,

our cast and crew became a very tight-knit family, which is why it was such an emotional goodbye at the end of it. I know that the little documentary that was put out on the making of the show, there was a lot of tears in there. Oh, Stevie Budgege she loves a tear loves a tear emily will cry at the drop of a hat it's an amazing thing emily oh love it i mean look you know this podcast is well it's about everything but i need to take it back to your childhood and food in the dinner table who was around the dinner table and what were you eating and who was cooking the food my mom always cooked it was always uh important in our family that the family be

together at dinner time that was something that my mom really tried to sort of mandate as much as she possibly could it got harder as we became teenagers and just you know your lives kind of take you in a bunch of different directions but yeah it was it was when my dad wasn't off working it was all four of us every night and my mom funnily enough used to make enchiladas which i ended up writing into the show of course um my mom used to i remember that and And when we were writing, granted, she actually made very delicious enchiladas. Moira, not so much. But yeah, it was a lot of chicken.

We would have a lot, there was a lot of chicken dinners. But occasionally we'd get some enchiladas. We would get a lasagna. I think my mom was someone who would admit that like, when she really tried, it was great. And then sometimes it was just whatever we could sort of scrap together, which is, you know, I can't make anything. I can't imagine cooking meals for a family every single night. And she managed to do it. And other than some Brussels sprouts, it was not a bad culinary experience. other than some Brussels sprouts,

it was not a bad culinary experience. So, and the Brussels sprouts was my dad. He would force me to eat them. Most of the time when my mom was away and he was just trying his best with my sister and I, whenever he took care of us, it was like very simple food. So he'd make like egg salad and tuna and make sandwiches.

That was food. And then sometime, oh, he did a canned beans and cut up hot dogs okay yeah that was another eugene lovey uh dish delicious uh and then sometimes he would prepare brussels sprouts now he is well versed in the culinary arts and can prepare like a very delicious roasted brussels sprout at the time i think he just saw my mom boiling them and did the same and i remember eating them and having such an it was such a nauseated because a really steamed brussel sprout is like not with nothing on it i think it might have had some i don't mind them

well i just kept saying you cannot have me eat these i'm going to throw up and then finally he forced me into the I think it was like the last brussel sprout and I had to run to the bathroom and it was a whole thing and then I think he actually felt guilty but I was like dad that is the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten please can we just order a pizza bloody brussel sprouts are on every bloody side dish um menu in Los Angeles, particularly. Absolutely. So would you order them now? Yeah, you need to roast them. Yes. Or you need to caramelize them in something. You need to put a sauce on them. You need to hide the taste of the Brussels sprout, basically. Yes, exactly. Exactly. That's what you need to do. Did you have a bar mitzvah? I did. What was it like?

What was the theme? And what was the entertainment like? There was no theme. What? No, there was no theme. You're so chic. Well, I, my mom is not Jewish and my dad is Jewish. And so I have always been raised as both. We sort of, I was bar mitzvahed, but we celebrate Christmas. It was a very kind of wonderfully confusing religious time that we all had together.

confusing religious time that we all had together. I was bar mitzvahed, I think, because my dad really wanted to continue on a kind of connectivity between his parents who had passed. And that was something that was important for him. So I learned Hebrew and had no, I mean, I wasn't a Sunday school kid. So I wasn't, I had a lot to learn. There was a very steep learning curve in terms of preparing that Torah portion. And then my mom planned the party. So we had like a lovely luncheon. Yeah. There was a bunch of people who came and that was it.

I didn't have a party, mainly because I think my mom was like, there's something about this that doesn't feel entirely truthful. I think because we weren't that religious. So the idea of making a whole big thing out of it wasn't necessarily respecting the process. I was very glad that I went through it. I was glad that I was able to do that for my dad. I was glad that I was able to do it for myself. But, you know, I think there was a there was a certain level of reality in the air that this was very much sort of a thing that was not going to we weren't religious. So. So I need to know where are your spots that you adore to eat in Toronto? Because Toronto's got amazing food. Also, very very nice people I've always liked the Canadians especially Toronto is my spot where do I play the Danforth the Danforth is such a beautiful venue and that like it's so cool the

people are always wicked where Megan came that's where Megan came to my show before she was a royal yeah she was filming when she was shooting suits yeah so she came backstage and she was very regal when i met her she was just like it made total sense that she ended up marrying a prince like for me she was so regal she had this like really graceful energy about her and she was very very nice and then she changed her email and then i could never get in touch with her again that's why she's not been on table manners but we had a beautiful relationship whilst it lasted um but yeah so Toronto tell me your spots that you eat in oh my god they can't go out at the moment yeah what's the food like at the moment go out nobody can go out there's a really cute great spot in Kensington

market okay which is a little part of Toronto a very sort of cozy um place that i spent a lot of my 20s running amok in and there's a restaurant there called gray gardens which is just a lovely it's a great spot for a date wouldn't know haven't taken a date there but it looks like it would be it's just a cozy the food's delicious, great atmosphere. And I believe that company, that same sort of, the owners also own, I believe, and I could be wrong, so whatever, a little cocktail bar called Cocktail Bar on Dundas, which is my favorite spot to take people from out of town because they make the most delicious cocktails. It's, again, really small and cozy, dimly lit.

I like a very kind of small, intimate. You like small things. I don't like to go too big. So that's a place that I recommend. Where did you go? I have a real soft spot for, is it Tim Hortons Coffee? Tim Hortons is a Canadian institution. I really like it.

And they do a very good biscuit sandwich or something. They do. They do an incredible grazed cruller. Oh, what's that? A cruller. I don't know what to, it's a more egg-based donut. It's like a spongy, delicious donut is i'm googling this i want to say based on the name that it might have something to do with like eastern europe or germany or something

um but it's a twisted it's a it's in the donut family and it's um oh yeah okay it's what i would recommend if you were to go and get a donut from Tim Hortons. I mean, if anybody is listening that doesn't know who Tim Hortons, like Tim Hortons is kind of like, I think an elevated McDonald's of Canadian McDonald's, right? Is it more than that? Am I really offending people saying that?

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. I think it's, I was going to say it would be like, I guess in the UK, it would be like a Pratt. Pratt, really? But less, but less. Bit cheekier like it doesn't have acai on the menu. No no no no no and like you're not getting like tuna on a baguette but it's in terms of the cultural sort of awareness. Yeah. I always equate like a pret before it became known in America as like a very British spot where you'd go and get a coffee and what was your order at

Pret? I'd always do the tuna baguettes yeah it's really delicious and then some kind of delicious baked good that was always by the cash. Did you ever get a free coffee? No. How'd you get a free coffee? It's like if they like you it's they stop no it's a thing stop it jesse my sound like to my sound man has had two free pret coffees in his lifetime i've had none i've had no but i've heard it's a thing and maybe our listeners can clarify this whether they've had a free pret coffee because i think they've got like a selected amount and i i am really friendly and cheerful when i go in there because i want that fucking free coffee i want the offer of it here's what what needs to happen. I need to come back to London and we need to,

there's a, I mean, there's a handful of things that need to happen, but it will start with us going into a Pret and seeing what happens. Yeah.

Maybe separately to see if, if one of us gets it and one of us doesn't. Well, it depends who's serving. Well, yeah,

I mean, they could be, you could get the Jesse Ware fan and I could get the Schitt's Creek fan. Do you know what I mean? Because I worked at a bakery for so long as a kid, every time I go in, and here's the thing that a lot of people don't know and why I'm super nice to people who are working in food related industries.

When people go into a bakery, a pret, a whatever, it's mainly because they're hungry, obviously. And if you think about how you act when you're hungry, it's, in my case, you're not at the top of your game and you're not the nicest person you've ever been in your life so having worked in a bakery I saw firsthand how rotten so many people are to the point where I was like it really started to dishearten me about the like human spirit because I'm thinking why is everyone so agitated and angry and ruthless and my friend who had been working at the bakery for much longer than I had said well they're all hungry this is very interesting did it ever make you react did you ever want to spit in their croissant? I didn't handle it as well as some of my co-workers. I didn't put the smile on,

so to speak. I executed my order. I gave it to them and that was it. But man, oh man, did I not. It was bad behavior is unacceptable across the board but now whenever I go in to a place that I'm whether it's a bakery or a pret or whatever it is I am like how are you how's everything are you how's your spirit are you feeling how's your heart today um because I know what it's like to work in a food service industry. It's like, it's ruthless. You're treated terribly. So that brings me on to table manners. Do you believe you have good table manners then?

If, listen, I think it's all on a spectrum. Do I think that I would be absolutely confident, you know, with the Prince of Salzburg? No. Like, I don't necessarily have, have like Downton Abbey table manners, but I'm an incredibly respectful table guest. Perfect. I try to keep my plate clean. I try to use the appropriate utensils when they are offered to me.

I'm a clean person. I like things to be clean, especially when it comes to food. He can come to the bat mitzvah. So, Dan, I'm having a bat mitzvah. She's got, yeah. Because, I know, not because I've gone very religious. Did you not have one? No, I didn't.

My mother denied me one. Well, I felt like I was too cool to have one at the time. So, I had better things to do. So, yeah, I'm having a bat mitzvah. You must come. Where are you in the process of learning your portion? I'm at the Shema and that is really, really testing. And the after Haftorah is quite testing.

I'm at the beginning. But you have got the most incredible teacher. I have the most incredible teacher who's a friend who used to be babysat by my grandma in Manchester. She's now like a feminist academic poet and academic, and we're basically doing a degree level bat mitzvah of Jewish studies.

And I find it so fascinating because culturally Judaism is part of me. It's, you know, it's my heritage, but I never understood the kind of the nitty gritty and the nuances of kind of Judaism and the way that Jewish scholars want you to discuss it and unpick it. It all now makes sense

why everyone's really chatty that's Jewish and wants to keep on going at the, they don't just settle for, it's like it's a constant debate and also the neurosis. And there's a neuroticism. Yeah. Oh yeah.

So it's really fascinating learning this. And it's fucking hard, though. Like, learning it for the sixth. Although I would love to sit there and listen to you sing it. Well, I'm really going to go for it. I'm going to be like Mariah Carey. I'm going to be like... My little 13-year-old high-pitched voice is...

I recorded it when I came home. I put a little tape in a tape deck and recorded the whole thing. Like I redid it again when I came home, just because I thought this is going to leave me. I'm not a language person. I likely will not retain anything I've learned. Um, this, you know, the spiritual offerings, sure. But the language, I don't, I just don't think it's going to happen. So somewhere in my parents' house here, I've yet to find it, but I know that it's somewhere, is a little pouch with my yarmulke and the little shawl and my tape. And I don't know where it is, but sometime somewhere we'll find it.

And it'll just be a squeaking little bird off key and you're you're in your house you may find your old bum it's for um audio which i'd love to hear so much i'd like that to be the teaser for this episode um but what are you are you allowed to talk what you're writing about um yes and no it's it's all kind of um there's an interesting thing in this industry in terms of writers and oftentimes i think people like to announce development you see a lot of like you know deadline which is this yeah you know entertainment based twitter account um we'll always have like announcements of people who are kind of developing projects. And a lot of the time, the reality is development means that you are in the very, very early stages of putting an idea together.

That idea might fall apart. It may keep going. I tend to err on the more superstitious side of like, let's actually see if there's something worth announcing before we get ahead of ourselves. Because I also don't really work well with pressure. And to know that you've sort of put something out there, and then if it doesn't follow through, then it feels like some kind of failure. In certain cases, it's needed to gain, you know, financial money for continued development. So there's a thousand and one reasons why it happens. This is not to come down on those people

who do. But, you know, I think for me, I've always sort of tried to keep the ideas as close to myself as possible until it's something worth talking about. But I'm dabbling in the world of animation at the moment, which is a whole new world, one that feels very kind of exciting and new and different from what I had done I think it was it's important to cleanse your palate a little bit when you've done six years of writing one thing I kind of thought that it would be an exciting experiment to try a different genre altogether obviously hoping to keep all the things that I loved about writing Schitt's Creek in you know continue that kind of the messages of sort of goodness and optimism and hope all of those things are are I think will follow me wherever I go but it's been a really

interesting journey I'm writing a rom-com will you star star in it? Yeah. Will you pick a really hot co-star that may be a single that you could potentially fall in love on set? Listen, if you build it, who knows? So they're all in very early stages, but those are things I think when you come out of something, and I'd be very curious to see what you think in terms of when you release an album, how the process of rebuilding a new one would be.

Because for me, I felt like I never wanted to let people's expectations dictate how I worked. And I think in our case, the show being as well received as it was, it's like you're never going to replicate that for fans. You're never going to offer them, you know, that. You're going to only be able to offer them something else that might mean something. It might not be as grand. It might not be as universal. It might be a little bit smaller. And you kind of have to be okay with knowing that if you believe in it, and if it's something that excites you and inspires you,

then hopefully the people who watch it will watch it with the same level of enthusiasm and not compare it to what you'd done previously. So that's really been my- I totally agree with how, like, it's exactly the same. It's that thing of like, why make part two of something that maybe isn't going to live up to the part one and don't feel guilty about exploring another avenue? Because hopefully those people come along for the ride with you as well, because they trust.

I don't know. They believe in you. now on to your mum because i saw the snl tweet and i freaking love your mum yeah it really reminded me of when my mum went for some people that were illegally downloading my album um on twitter and like but okay so your mum said the night that you presented SNL, Saturday Night Live, huge, huge deal, right? So fantastic. This is your mum. This goes out to the bully punks at Camp What The Fuck, who made life miserable for a certain cabin mate back in the summer of 96, just because he was different. Well, after all these years, I have just seven words to say to you. Live from New York, it's Saturday night.

I have just seven words to say to you. Live from New York, it's Saturday night. And I just, I wanted to cry when I read it, but also, were you like, mom, can you just give it a rest? This is my big night and I don't need to talk about camp. No, she is, she has been, I mean, listen, I think when you have a show that is so inclusive of sexuality and shows a family that is so embracing of their watch films where there was always a lesson attached to some kind of gay story. It's like if a gay person was falling in love, there had to be a big reason why.

And it had to be this big revelatory experience that opened people's eyes. And I was just so tired and felt like if we just never expressed or exposed any kind of homophobia on this show, wouldn't that be a form of sort of quiet protest? Wouldn't that be a way of allowing people to see people for who they were without feeling like they were being taught a lesson, but rather being able to watch a projection of their world that was sweeter, kinder, gentler, more accepting, and ultimately more successful, wouldn't that kind of force people

to ask themselves the question of why am I carrying so much hatred toward a person or a group of people who I frankly have no association with. And the most, most of the homophobic people you talk to don't know any gay people or certainly don't have any close friends that are, there's no point of relation. So to be able to sort of open a door for people and let them into the experience without judgment and allow them to see the world we were creating and the happiness and the love that exists or should exist justifiably for everybody really changed a lot of conversations. And I think for my mom to take to Twitter, where she's become a kind of like Twitter voice and

stand up for me or stand up for parents who need to accept their children for all that they are I just think it's such a wonderful thing and I think it really carries she carries on this sort of philosophy that we established in the show that

people should be loved for who they are and that's ultimately what it is. I think there's a scene when we're explaining pansexuality between Johnny and Roland, where Roland... Oh, I love that scene. And he's, and your dad says that, and he says, oh, he's into cookware.

Yeah. Is he? Yeah. And he's pansexual. Yeah, exactly. Thinks it's like a cookware fetish. And ultimately, Roland, having smoked a joint, at the end of it just says, well, you can't tell your kids who to love. And that was ultimately our show in a nutshell.

So I love that my mom is out there sort of doing her thing on Twitter and and standing up for for me and for all the kids out there who need a little extra support. This I mean, it was Golden Globes on Sunday. Lovely outfit, by the way. Outfit was fabulous. Thank you very much. Did they let you keep it? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What?

Oh, no, no, no, no. The bust. No, no, no, that was. Why? Because I was wearing, and not to sound pretentious, but I was wearing couture. I was wearing a one-of-a-kind hand-sewn. Who else is going gonna wear it though they

have to put it into fashion spreads and they have to do all the things with them that is so mean but in a situation like that i feel like when you know the care that's been put into it when you know the time that i mean couture is is an art so in a way i was kind of borrowing someone's work to wear for a night, which made me feel great, but also where else am I going to wear that? No, you're not, you know, sequined chartreuse situation is not going to, is, you know, I'm not going to wear it again. So I was just so grateful that they lent it to me. My bat mitzvah, you could maybe ask for it back. It was in it. It was valentine. I'll bring it back for you listen i got a big day um and i'm sure they would they would lend it back to me but um no it wasn't i mean and then again i mean i'm

sure as you know there's like when you wear insane designer clothing it's like you know i worked at gap kids for a long time so that was my barometer for like i always wanted to work at gap the people at gap were always really nice and i didn't work at the regular gap because i was too scared of running into anyone my own age so i thought like i was better at handling parents and kids so i worked at the i worked at gap kids and you know it's as as a fashion lover to get to try on these beautiful clothes it's just like it's such a dream come true so i was um i was very thrilled and i i was at first i saw the color and thought well we're gonna i guess we'll try and make this work and

it was uh we had a really good time with it yeah oh it looked fabulous thank you the photos were gorgeous because the backdrop was dark and it you just looked wonderful the dog really set the uh yeah the suit off so and my dog who was by my feet the entire night, was my good luck charm. So what is your last supper, Dan? You've got a starter, a main, a dessert, and a drink of choice. What's it going to be?

Because you don't cook, do you, at all? No. Well, I really started to at the beginning of quarantine. And then, you know, the optimism sort of faded. It's been a while. It's gone on quite a while. I was making my own bolognese at some point, um, which was very delicious. It was all very carb based foods. Like I did, I would do like homemade pizza doughs and pizzas. I would do, that's's very good i tried to get into smoothies i've never mastered a smoothie even though it's so easy i don't get them why do people like them

because apparently it's like you're getting nutrients in a way that you can just drink instead of eat i have no idea but i've found give me a plate of food. Okay, so last meal, nothing but carbs. So can the, okay, I'm going to make up my rules here. The starter would be a pizza. Okay, that's fine. The starter would be a pizza. That's like Jelena. You do pizzas at Jelena.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The starter would be a pizza. It would probably be a very, very fresh Little Caesars deep dish pepperoni pizza. Is Little Caesars a make? Little Caesars is a, is a, um, like a delivery chain. Okay. So we're not talking like artisanal pizza here.

We're talking like drive-through pizza. Yeah. They do a delicious deep dish pepperoni. I would do it with a little side of a garlic dipping sauce. Lovely. would do it with a little side of a garlic dipping sauce lovely drink of choice would be a very very crisp bottomless iced glass of diet coke do you not drink i do drink but if i were talking about things that would make me feel fulfilled in that moment diet coke as i don't know you know say what you will about it you love it when i When I need it, I need it.

And I pour it in a glass of ice and it makes me feel really good. I don't know what it's doing inside my body. I don't know any of that. Don't need to know. Dinner would be a hamburger, a delicious hamburger from, I've been doing a lot of, there's a food service in the US called Gold Belly. And you're able to deliver i know it because they do food from all of these different yeah they do russ and daughters you'll be able to

deliver they deliver all this food from different restaurants um the grammar c tavern in new york city does a very delicious hamburger and i have been ordering kits. They do a hamburger kit. So it would be a fresh Gramercy Tavern burger probably. Only because I've been making that recently. With a side of fries? With a side of fries, crispy fries, mayo and ketchup. I know mayo is divisive. I know it's more accepted in the UK than it is in North America. Oh, really?

Mayo with fries is not as big in america as it is in the uk in fact that's where i learned belgian thing belgium belgian yeah i learned about mayo when i was living in the uk mayo with fries you're welcome thank you and then dessert would be a very rich, moist chocolate cake with some vanilla ice cream. You're a really dirty eater, Dan. A hundred percent. Filthy. Absolutely filthy. That was not a vegetable in sight. No veggies. Not on the last meal.

Not even a salad. Well, what am I... Not even a side. I have very slim options. You've given me a starter, a main and a dessert. What are we, like, I'm going to opt for a side salad? Gorgeous, Anthony. Yeah, Anthony from Queer Eye did a whole day. A day of food.

Okay, we're starting with breakfast and I'm going to take a sip. Okay. And then we're going to go for lunch. Well, that wasn't on the table for me. And even if it was, a salad would still be not included in the day of food. Okay.

So. God. I know. Listen, not included in the day of food. God. I know. Listen, if this were the 1800s, it would have been gout and death for me. So, you know. Well, you're doing all right. You're still here. And looking gorgeous.

And looking gorgeous. Thank you very much. So are the two of you. Do you like karaoke? I love karaoke. Me too. You see, we've got so much in common jesse i knew it when i was in london there was a really fancy karaoke place that i was taken to a handful of times lucky star yeah i'm in soho maybe it was lucky star and it was the first time

that i had ever seen like private karaoke rooms and they were very polished lucky voice i think it was cool yeah i think okay lucky voice and what did you sing oh i do um do you do mariah i always do mariah yeah i'll do a one sweet day i'll do one sweet day with a friend wow yeah which is the boys to men mariah carey impossible to sing and i'm not a good singer um but i'm enthusiastic i will do purple rain oh wow that's such a good choice not a little shrinking violet then no when it comes to karaoke you go for it no if i'm gonna do it all i'm going to scream off key that is not landing. And Oasis. Ooh, which song? Oasis and Macy Gray. I think that would be the, and a Macy Gray I try.

And that's at the end of the night when you've lost your voice. Absolutely. You've got that husk. That's exactly it. Which Oasis song? I'll do a Don't Look Back in Anger. I'll do a Wonderwall, like earlier Oasis. But it really depends on the mood. it depends on the vibe of the evening it can go in a bunch of different

directions I feel like we can't take up any more of your time even though I I feel like and I feel like we're gonna be friends now this is okay now like I'm gonna call you my like this is this is a blossoming romance yeah great this is gonna work really nicely for me I think I feel like this is this is a blossoming romance yeah great this is gonna work really nicely for me i think i feel like this is and you yeah we have a whole it's a it's a very kind of symbiotic mutually beneficial situation we have going on yeah we'll eat together we'll prep together we'll um i'll watch you do karaoke to mariah i will do that as the supportive friend that i'm going to be i'm gonna be the stevie bud to you yeah i'm going to as the supportive friend that i'm going to be i'm going to be the stevie bud to you yeah i'm going to i'm going to be that person you'll just smile

and nod through the whole thing and then we'll i'll hand the mic over to you and you could take it over for the rest of the night yeah thank you so much for being here thank you so much for giving us so much time and just being such a wonderful guest everyone loves you yeah and thank you for Schitt's Creek it's the only thing that got me through Covid and being in quarantine I'm so glad what a thrill and thank you so much for your music it's played such a soundtrack to my life so I'm so

happy to be here oh Jessica do you like the new album mum stop stop it no stop chatting. Do you like the new album? Mum, stop! Calm down! Stop! Of course! No, stop! There it is. She's so annoying. For those of you that can't see what happened,

we're now, record is being presented. We have the beautiful album artwork. Oh my god. Alright, Jimmy Fallon. Jesus, chill out. Dan Levy on Table Manners that was joyful that was joyful he's such a delight

oh my goodness Jessie please be friends with him oh mum it's it's done i just loved him i loved him he was just great he was he was warm and just lovely i mean table manners the gift that keeps on giving that we can like he said manifest something you manifested this mum This is down to you. Because I concentrated hard. You concentrated hard and you moaned a lot and you hassled us to just make it happen. But he was a fan of your music, darling.

I mean, that is, that is, that's a big deal. That's the glitz. Listen, the next thing that needs to happen is that Dan is choosing one of my songs in karaoke. That needs to be the next step. No, in one of his new series, darling. Oh yeah, sorry. Yes, that too. Bollocks to the karaoke.

Dan Levy on Table Manners, what a dream. Oh, just loved him. Sweet, sweet person. So talented. And just, you know, this is, we're recording this the week of him. We didn't talk about Catherine O'Hara at all. No, we didn't talk about katherine o'hara at all we didn't talk about we didn't need to but he won a golden globe for schitt's creek he won a golden globe for

schitt's creek katherine o'hara won four best i think actress and comedy and basically they're just having a lovely lovely time and they it's so well deserved super talented guy so talented but just nice just nice and I love the fact that he used to be reading Heat on a Wednesday with his slice of pizza I used to do

I loved Heat do you remember then I went off it yeah but I mean he really got Heat in the heyday so I hope you enjoyed that we did

feel kind of a bit flushed and warm and fuzzy inside and just I guess I guess actually it would be really good to hear from you guys we did feel kind of a bit flushed and warm and fuzzy inside. And just, I guess, I guess actually it would be really good to hear from you guys to say who you want to have on the podcast.

You know, we haven't asked you for a while because maybe we can manifest that. That's my new word. Manifest. Um, Oh, lovely, lovely,

lovely, lovely. Take care of everyone. We'll see you next week. Oh, and next week is a really big one. And we're actually going to tell you who the guest is next week well i may have already given it away in the episode it's the one the one that's very good the o-n-e because everyone thinks i'm saying one because we i know chester darling so the one the one um it's on netflix

it's only hannah ware that's coming on the podcast. Finally, we've got Hannah Ware on the podcast. So we can all argue together. Now, if you don't know who Hannah Ware is, she's my older sister, has caused me grief throughout my life, but now is an international superstar who lives in Hollywood.

No, she lives in West Hollywood. She lives in the Hollywood Hills, darling. Do you mind? Darling, sorry. And she's the main star in a Netflix show, which you need to go and watch, please. And actually, it would be amazing if you want to ask my sister any questions

because she probably will take them from you rather than me because I'm her sister. It's going to be very interesting. It's going to be maybe like an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians or maybe like The Island. I don't the kardashians or maybe like the island i don't know who knows email your questions whatever you want to know about hannah ware you know there's a lot of mystique around hannah ware we haven't talked about her that much you

know she's a little bit of a the myth the legend that is well let's see if she tells all next week who knows um so email hello at table manners podcast.com and it looks fabulous it does look fabulous go and watch it um it's just come out this week and we'll see you next week to discuss it and dissect it with the main star hannah where the music you've heard on table manners is by peter duffy and pete fraser table manners is produced by alice williams