THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.27 - BILL HADER

Episode Date: August 11, 2016

Adam talks to American actor, comedian and writer Bill Hader about life as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, what he learned from his time working at Pixar studios, panic attacks and more! Plus, news of an upcoming live podcast! Thanks to Matt Lamont for edit assistance and Seamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yes, there will be some swearing. There will be some swearing today! I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats?

Adam Buxton here. And the sound you might be able to hear in the background is a combine harvester. Rose, you don't go chase the combine because they don't agree with dogs. So stay on the path. Good girl. What exactly does a combine harvester combine? It combines the excitement of a tractor with the cutting action of a knife. I don't think that's exactly what it combines. I could probably look it up, but I just can't be bothered. The result, though, is like an episode of Happy Days.

There's heee everywhere. Anyway, so listen, sorry about the happy days thing. Welcome to podcast number 27, which features a conversation with American comedian, actor and writer Bill Hader. I'll tell you a bit more about Bill in a moment, but first, here's a super brief news blast. Here's a super brief news blast. I'm doing a live podcast at the End of the Road Festival in Dorset on Saturday, the 3rd of September 2016. That's not far. And I've also got a couple more Bug Bowie shows lined up.

In addition to the one at the Regentents park open air theater um in september uh let's see we've got brighton on the 8th of september and worthing on the 13th of october i'll go into more detail about all of those at the end of the podcast. And of course, you can find details of my upcoming live shows at my poorly maintained blog, adam-buxton.co.uk. But now, Bill Hader. Let me hit you with some Bill facts. Bill shares the same birthday as I do, 7th of June. Though he is nearly 10 years younger than I, he has done around 30 years more stuff. What's that all about? He recently starred alongside Amy Schumer in Trainwreck, which I enjoyed very much. He was excellent in it. And he starred alongside Kristen Wiig in a film called The Skeleton Twins, which I do urge you to seek out. We talk about it a bit in the podcast. I thought it was great. And he has popped up in films like Superbad, Paul, Tropic Thunder, etc, etc.

Tropic Thunder, etc, etc But he's probably best known from American comedy institution Saturday Night Live Or SNL A show which has previously incubated many Of America's biggest comedy talents John Belushi, Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy To Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon And Amy Poehler

and the aforementioned Kristen Wiig. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. He was on SNL for eight years from 2005, during which time he received three Emmy nominations. That's more than me. Way more than me, in fact. He has also, though we didn't go into it, Way more than me, in fact.

He has also, though we didn't go into it, been a script consultant on the animated show South Park since about 2008. He's busy and he's a very talented man. Rosie, where have you gone? Rosie, where are you? Don't go into the woods. Didn't you see Meryl Streep and James Corden singing about it? There you go. Good.

So I spoke to Bill via a Skype link to Los Angeles, California, and he told me a bit about his time as Arnold Schwarzenegger's PA. He told me about the technical demands of performing sketches on live TV. He told me about some of the insights he gained into story structure from his time working on the Pixar film Inside Out. And there was various other ramble tangents that we took. And when I spoke to Bill, I hadn't seen this show that he does with Fred Armisen called Documentary Now which I think started airing last year in America and it's a series of parodies of various classic

docs and documentary styles including some very entertaining spoofs of the film Grey Gardens. That's a documentary classic that has inspired many comedians. And they also take off that Eagles documentary, if you've seen that. They do a good spoof of that. You should track it down. Documentary now. It's great. But right now... Ramble Chat Hey, I can hear you. Hey, now you won't be able to see me because that's future technology. That hasn't reached East Anglia yet.

Do I sound okay on your end? You sound delightful. Oh, great. Not roomy. I mean, you know, roomy in a very good way, not in an unpleasant way. I really appreciate you doing this, Bill, and thanks for… I appreciate you doing this, Bill. And thanks for... I appreciate you doing this. This is the first time I've ever wrote a fan letter in hopes of like, can that guy interview me?

Wow, that's nice. How come you became aware of the podcast? Through Edgar, right? Yes. And how do you know Edgar? I've known Edgar for about 10 years. He came to an SNL. He was friends with Amy Poehler and Will Arnett. And he showed up to an SNL taping and he and I just started talking about movies and hit it off. And now, yeah, we're really close. Have you actually been in one of Edgar's films?

I am the voice of Scott Pilgrim. I'm the voice in the movie. I've never appeared in one of his movies, but I'm the video game voice of the movie. Right. And how so? So you're at your office. I'm in my office on the Sony lot. OK, what are you doing there? If'm i am writing a hbo show uh that just got picked up called barry congratulations thank you are you allowed to say what that's about yes i play a uh ex marine who uh works as a um hitman a low rent hitman in the Midwest. And I have to go to Los Angeles to kill someone. And I follow the guy I'm supposed to kill to his acting class. And I decide that I want to take the class. And this complicates a lot of things. So this is a TV show. It's a TV show. Yes.

So you're not snobbish about like because i get the feeling with some actors they reach a certain level they start doing movies and then they feel as if uh to do tv again would be to take a step backwards but maybe that's not the case anymore i don't think that is the case anymore i mean i love movies i think movies will always be the thing i love the most but after things like sopranos and breaking bad and and a lot of the stuff but to be honest a lot of things for me and my friends a lot of stuff that it comes out of the uk um outside of not just the office but you know stuff that edgar did but mighty boosh and Garth Marenghe and Alan Partridge and all these things. We're always kind of amazed at, you know, on the comedy level, what people are doing.

And go, God, I want to try something like that. You know, got six episodes. That's so nice. You know, I mean, you hear that a lot in meetings and stuff. Yeah. Like, can we do it British-wide? Like just six episodes, you know i mean you hear that a lot in meetings and stuff yeah like can we do it british-wide like just six episodes you know it's always um but then the the reason that most british shows get made that way is because there are less people working on them yeah i know often it's just like one person writing the whole series. You'd like to have more episodes. Yeah, yeah, well, exactly.

And I think everyone's very envious of the American model. And we imagine big teams of writers all sat around a big table loaded with bagels and cakes. And everyone's having a good time and laughing and laughing. To be honest, those big writer tables, it's really awkward because no one knows who's in charge. And there's usually one or usually it's a big table and like four people are talking at most. Right. And then the other one, I know, I mean, you'll meet sometimes people

who just you look at the resume and you go, wow, they've written on all these amazing shows. And then you get them in the room and you go, oh no, they were in the room on those shows. They weren't really saying much. And then they just cruise from one project to the next. Yeah, yeah. A lot of times they're the coolest looking person, you know? When someone walks into a meeting, you're like, wow, you're cool. Yeah, we should have you in the room, you know when someone walks into a meeting you're like wow you're cool yeah we should have you in the room you know and then they just kind of sit there so you uh were you always a performer or did you ever go into those writers rooms yourself no i never went

i mean my whole kind of um start and any of this was on sat Night Live. So it was writing, performing. It was a great training ground to learn everything, directing, set design, costumes, hair and makeup, everything, you know, because if you wrote a piece or a sketch, piece is a pretty freaking snobbish thing to say, a sketch, you were in charge of everything. You started off in a little sketch troupe though, right? Yes, yes, yes I did. And we played backyards and stuff like that, yeah.

So that would have been towards the beginning of the noughties? Yes, that was 2003. And that was after you had served time as arnold schwarzenegger's pa yeah i was arnold's pa and i was a pa on like the first spider-man movie and like i loved movies yeah that was my thing so i wanted to get into movies somehow. And so I ended up going through just kind of moving to Los Angeles with a couple of friends. And we were production assistants. So we were on low, low budget movies, shooting in the valley, you know, to big budget movies like the first Spider-Man movie and then Collateral Damage. That was the movie that I kind of was on from beginning to end of production, as I've documented on a lot of

American talk shows. That's an extraordinary job to get though, as a young man, you were like 21 or something? Yeah, I was 21. And I was like the PA. So he had assistants and stuff. But I was 21 and I was like the PA so he had assistants and stuff but I was the person on the production team that was in base camp you know where all the actors are and stuff and so I was kind of running around getting the other actors ready and stuff but then Arnold was kind of my you know my job to get him to set and to make sure he was happy and stuff. And where you were shooting out on location, right? Yeah, we were in Jalapa, Mexico, where they shot Predator, which he liked to remind us of.

This is where we shot Predator. Oh, good. But you presumably you were a fan of those movies, weren't you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. My gosh. So quite exciting to be at his beck and call. He was very intimidating, as you would imagine. The first time I met him, he came up to me and he said, where is Jeff and Peter? Those are his hair and makeup guys. And I said, I'll find them for you, sir. I'll find them. And he went, find them. Show me your leadership capabilities.

And did he say it with a bit of a smile or? No, he had a cigar in his mouth, kind of like it was it was the pumping iron Arnold, you know, like that kind of like antagonizing you. Yeah. Let's see what you're made of, guy. What was the what was the worst thing that he did to you while you were his PA? Probably the day that we, there was a scene where there was, they really needed him on set, and it was a scene where he was arriving in a helicopter. So the shot, it was, you know,

seven cameras rolling in this village that they built out in the middle of the jungle. And they needed him to get in the helicopter. And he was playing chess with his acting coach. And I was like, Arnold, they're ready for you. And he just was sitting there smoking a cigar like this playing chess. smoking a cigar, like this playing chess. And so I went over and I wrote on a letter, you know, I wrote on a piece of paper, lose. And I handed it to his acting coach and he went, okay, thanks. Yeah.

You know, I was like, you need to lose so we can go. And Arnold grabbed the note. He saw through my plan and grabbed a note saw it and he goes we play another game oh my god and did he actually play another game he did play another game and i called the ad and i went he's gonna play another game and i i all right everybody's cut cut cut cut you know it was let's wait and everyone waited while he played a game of chess oh my god was he like a producer on the film or something how was he allowed to behave that way no he wasn't but that was like i will also say for the record that was very odd he wasn't usually

that kind of callous or he's just i think he was just like, can I just have a moment where I can play chess? Why am I constantly having to work? You know, you see this a lot with especially big movie stars where they're being pulled into so many directions or whatever, where they just go. No, this is for me. Everybody, you know, fuck off. I need this right now. Yeah. You know, and I don't care if everybody has to wait.

He was at a breaking point or something. And so we all just stepped off, let him finish his game. And then he got in the helicopter and was fine. But that, it was not like every day was like that. Yes. Usually he was very, very professional and, you know. 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, Yes. Usually he was very, very professional. Let's get back to you and apologies for sort of shambling through this. I'm not the worst. Oh my God, are you kidding? I feel like, I will say, I thought your Johnny Greenwood interview

was so good, man. Thanks. That's one of the best interviews I think I've ever heard. Well, I'm delighted that you enjoyed it. I mean, I listen to quite a lot of podcasts and I do, you know, I've come to really appreciate the people

that do get a lot out of their interviewees. And I suppose Mark Maron is the one that I keep on coming back to. And I do admire how good he is. I mean, I was listening to a podcast he did with Jeff Goldblum yesterday. And it's fantastic. I mean, talking about his family. I mean, it was almost like a monologue that had been written beforehand. It was so dramatic. It was amazing.

I've done Mark before, Mark thing, and you go into his house, you know. Yeah. There is this very interesting thing where you go into this back room in his house and it's this little garage and you sit down. It's just the two of you and it is very, it's like going into a therapist's office or something. You know, the door closes, and it's like all the air just goes out of the room. You're kind of in this hyper-sealed little room, and you feel, yeah, almost compelled to just talk about whatever. But for me, he just wants to know

he just want to know about snl because he's obsessed with lauren michaels because he interviewed for the show and didn't get it that's right yeah and then did you listen to the one he did with lauren michaels finally trying to tie up all the loose ends yeah i didn't hear it he went into lauren's office, which makes total sense. Yes, he just continued to talk to him about the job interview. And he just hasn't been able to get over it at all. Yeah. And was deconstructing every single thing that Lorne Michaels said in an effort to try and understand why he was passed over for this job. And Lorne probably doesn't even remember it. He's like, I have 20 of those a week.

Yeah. He just sort of said, yeah, I remember you were quite good. And I think we were just looking for someone a little bit different at the time. And that was it, really. And you know what? That's probably true. So much mystique has been put around Lauren.

But when you hang out with him and see him, he really is just a guy trying to keep his you know the show moving it's a thing that's been happening for 40 years you know and it's constantly reinventing itself so he's constantly trying to find what's the best mix of people and what do people like now and what's new and what's interesting and what have we not done before? And what, you know, that if they had seen me when Jimmy Fallon was still on the show, I'm sure I wouldn't have been hired. You know what I mean? They would have been like, oh, we have a guy that kind of looks like that or whatever, is that type and has a dozen impressions and things like that.

So we don't really need that right now, you know. and does impressions and things like that. So we don't really need that right now, you know. But I showed up at a time where they didn't have that and they didn't have someone young who did impressions or music. And so it was like Andy Samberg and I were, you know, it was kind of a good time to show up. Actually, I came in with Andy, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis, all four of us in the same year. And they just,

it was great. Yeah. So it was kind of sometimes getting on that show is what I'm saying is just good timing and luck that, hey, you're great for what we need at this exact moment, you know? Yeah, well, that's a pretty extraordinary lineup of people. I mean, I think Kristen Wiig might be one of the funniest people alive at the moment. She's so incredibly versatile as well. It's kind of effortlessly, effortlessly funny. It's gotten quite closer. We did a movie together called The Skeleton Twins. We watched it last night.

Oh, really? Oh, good. It was great. Yeah, she's great. You know, she and Fred Armisen and all those people are just, it's effortless working with them. They have an ability, kind of like a jazz musician or something, where they kind of see what you're doing and they can kind of like appropriate it and kind of make the whole piece sound right. You know what I mean? Uh-huh. make the whole piece sound right you know what i mean and it was also a thing which she found funny and what the show found funny and what the audience likes and that show were like the same

thing we're usually you know it's like a venn diagram of like i showed up and i went well here's what me and my friends find funny and then you show up at snl and it's like another thing well here's what we find funny and there's like a little overlay of like, you know, where you guys meet up, you know what I mean? And as you're there longer, it kind of grows. You kind of start to understand that audience better. You understand, uh, the room better. You, you know, like for instance, I figured out very quickly that hipster stuff didn't work. Low energy things did not work. But then you had people like Kristen Wiig who just showed up.

And it's like what she just actually legitimately found funny. She personally found funny was exactly what the show found funny. And that was interesting. And I learned a lot watching her, especially on Update, the news thing we would do. She would act, Laura Michaels would talk about you never act on Saturday Night Live, you perform.

You're performing for a live audience. That's why Justin Timberlake was such a good host, because he came from the Mickey Mouse Club and knew how to hit his mark and perform out and play out and perform. Whereas sometimes you would have these amazing actors come in and the stuff just wouldn't pop because they would be internal and just want to do crazy things like look at us while we perform. You know, we never are looking at each other. We're playing

to the cue cards. Everything's being constantly rewritten. We get a lot of shit for it, but I'm like, come and do it a week at the show. You'll see you'll need cue cards because, you know, as you're walking out to do the sketch, they'll go, hey, your bit's completely different now. Just read it off the cards.

Oh, my God. So where are the cards? Because what you're referring to is something that um uh obviously people notice i guess if they're not familiar with saturday night live and they aren't familiar with that way of making tv we don't have anything like that in the uk there's not a live comedy show that goes out in that way because it's genuinely live right saturday night it is live It is a genuinely live show on Saturday. And so when you watch, if you watch clips on YouTube and you're not familiar with that kind of show,

you are struck by the fact that the performers have this look in their eye, which is slightly distracted and you realize that they are reading cue cards. Yeah, for the first time. Yeah, a are reading cue cards yeah for the first time yeah a lot of the not always the first time that's kind of rare but you know you're playing to the cue cards yeah yeah it's a hard thing to do and people all the time would say just memorize your lines and it's like i don't know what my lines are you You know, between dress and air, they'll say, hey, we cut this, we cut this. And the guy, our director, Don in the booth is just following along with the script. You know what I mean? So he's waiting for you to say a certain line so we can cut to the other person. Right. So it's not an option for you to just say, fuck this. I'm just going to say

whatever I want. Yeah. You can't even approximate your lines do you know what i mean you can't it has to be word for word what's written or the boot like the cuttings fucked everything's fucked you know like i would do this character of vinnie vadecchi who's like it was like an italian talk show host and i just spoke in gibberish the whole most of the time like Italian gibberish yeah like all this stuff and um so how we figured out the cutting points was I would you know when I put out my cigarette at a certain point that was a cue to like cut to a wider shot you know like all these visual cues that i would give or mostly it was me just gesturing to somebody and they would cut to the other thing um because they were like we can't follow along with this um but as i was saying before you would see actors come in and they

would really try to act and looking at the cue cards would throw them off like it would anybody. Yeah. And it was like, no, no, no, you're performing. And Kristen Wiig was the first person I saw who would go on update and she would act, you know, because she knew, like, oh, it's just me and the camera, and it was this kind of, there's something, you're very vulnerable, it's just you looking right into camera. And she knew, like, like oh I can be smaller

and so that's when I started doing stuff like that you know I started taking that risk and going well I'm gonna play this just a little bit more nuanced which is kind of my thing anyway I would rather just do that anyway you know yeah and um and had much you know it was very fun it was terrifying because you have no place to hide you know but it was so much fun it was very exhilarating but that all comes from kristin she was the first person i ever saw do that um and the thing that stands out i suppose about people like yourself and kristin and um and andy sandberg i mean i've heard interviews with all of you and you all seem like fairly straightforwardly nice people

on the surface, at least. Yeah. Monsters. Yeah. But, well, I was sort of wondering if that is the case to some degree, like if everyone just keeps it under wraps a bit more, because obviously the cast of Saturday Night Live

in the 70s and in the 80s that was much more of a volatile yeah volatile exactly and either demented on drugs or just uh monstrous personalities of some kind and it felt like that was the only way if you wanted to be really funny then you had to be an incredibly dysfunctional person yeah and now it doesn't seem that that's the case so much anymore yeah i kind of feel like that's everywhere you know i just watched the documentary about peter cook and it was a similar thing of like wow he was like such a funny guy but you know this crazy person and and i always wonder if that's like a generational thing of like you know there's a whole generation of writers who are alcoholics like you had to be an alcoholic to be a great writer you know what I mean yeah some sort of weird masculinity thing

but yeah it feels like it's maybe it's a generational thing, but everyone in our group, when I showed up, it was very much like, it was Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers who were really kind of the seniors. And they really, I read all the books. I was fully ready to just get hazed and to get shit on or whatever. Yes, to be the victim of elaborate political maneuverings. Yeah, you're going to get fucked with a lot, you know, and I was just ready for it. And instead what I found were, I remember my audition right when I first thing I did,

you know, they tell you, hey, during your audition, they don't laugh. It's a big table of people. And with Lauren and all the writers your audition, they don't laugh. It's a big table of people. And with Lauren and all the writers and people, they don't laugh. And on purpose, just to make you sweat it out. And the first thing I did, Tina Fey started laughing. And I always felt like it wasn't that funny of a thing, but she was doing it to calm me down and to kind of lighten the mood in the room because it's tense. Yeah. And, uh, I always appreciated that. Amy Poehler would do

very similar things. My very first table read, the first thing I did was a Al Pacino impression was the first time I spoke at the table and Amy Poehler started laughing really hard. And I went, Oh wow. Oh man. Everyone, you know what I mean? It was like, Hey, like new guys trying stuff, guys, come on, let's, let's be cool. And it was very sweet. And Amy Poehler took Andy Sandberg and I out to dinner on my first day and just said, Hey, you have any questions? What do you what do you want to know? And was so welcoming and so open. And then I continued that I would take the new people out to dinner and now after I left I think Taron Killam now does it when new people come in he takes them

out to dinner and says what do you want to know because no one tells you you have no idea what's going on you don't know where you finish a script on a Tuesday night and you go where does this go you know what I mean yeah how does this get into the packet for read-through and all these things? But they were so welcoming and they were so much like an ensemble. Like, I remember I just felt from Seth and Amy that they kind of said, look, the DNA of this place is to be competitive. But that doesn't mean we have to be competitive with each other. You know what I mean?

And I thought that was, um, such a relief. And I think it's a generational thing. You know, I remember at the SNL 40th, you could, at the time of SNL 40th, Rolling Stone came out with like a, they rated the top SNL performers of all time or something. And I felt like my group and a lot of the people just could give a shit. I don't even think a lot of us read it. We were like, that's not or whatever,

you know? And, but some of the older people did read it and were like, what the fuck? Fucking bullshit. You know, at this point, myself and Bill started to talk about Jim Belushi.

You may know that he had a brother called John. Well, Jim Belushi had a more sustained and productive movie career than his brother. Yes. He was in the movie The Principal. That's right. I watched a lot growing up. I watched The Principal a lot. I don't know if I've seen The Principal. He was in the movie Filofax. That's all. I watched a lot growing up. I watched The Principal a lot. I don't know if I've seen The Principal. He was in the movie Filofax. That's all I know.

Oh, yeah. Wait, what movie? Filofax. Oh, maybe they called it something else in the States. Oh, wow. Filofax. I don't know what that is. It was a film based around the vogue at the time for personal organizers.

In the pre-digital age. What? It was a film. Hang on, I'm going to look it up. I'm looking it up now. Oh, my God, no. Philo Facts. Yeah.

Taking Care of Business is what it was called in the United States. There you go. I do remember this movie. You know who that movie was written by? No. J.J. Abrams. No way. Was it really?

Filofax. Yeah. What a weird name. Well, that was the biggest brand of personal organizer in the UK, you see. That's fascinating. Yeah. So they thought. Oh, my God.

Taking Care of Business was called Filofax. They thought. Now, the Brits they're not going to understand taking care of business they don't understand the concept of taking care of business

we've got to make it a little more we've got to reposition it somehow for the British audience I know file effects yeah

I'm sure there's some place yeah there was a conversation at one point it was like train spotting's not going to make sense here in the United States let's call it looking at trains i'm on drugs and i'm looking at trains

here's a little tangent you of course have worked with jj abrams now right yeah yeah i'm in star wars on star wars the force awakens what did you do for that i was one of the people who helped uh on the voice of bbh okay he gave me a vocal consultant credit as well as ben schwartz but i know all i did was i came in and i initially did a voice and i had this great day where i got to walk in to JJ's office and they had, basically I just did ADR, which, you know, I just looped in. Yeah, dialogue replacement. Dialogue to BB-8 while watching the movie live. Like I'd never seen it before.

Oh, okay. That was how I saw Star Wars was they just played it and I just kind of spoke and the robot would show up and I would do a weird kind of like this weird thing. And they were going to – Gary Reistrom was going to manipulate it and stuff. And so we tried that and it even – it was like one of those things you're leaving and you go, that didn't really work. But hey, I got to see star wars and hang out with jj that was cool i got to meet gary riestrom who's like a genius and and then jj called me up like right before the movie came out and said uh hey you know we figured it out come in and do the bba boys and what he had done was he took a tube like the talking tube, the Peter Frampton talk box.

Yes. And hooked it to an iPad. And he had an app on an iPad that made those like, just made these weird noises. And so I talked through the talk box, and he played this app. So he would go, and then I'd go, like that. Yeah that yeah and that's how bb8 that voice was made but not anybody could do that it was like looking through the camera on a shot and he gave me a visual consultant credit you know what i mean it was yeah it was uh he was being very he he was

just being very nice i think you've done a lot of voice work, of course. Your voice is one of your killer weapons in your arsenal. What's your favorite voice to do? This is a good question. I'm sure you've never been asked this. My favorite voice to do? Yeah. I've actually never been asked that question. I'm being totally honest.

I've never been asked that question. No one's ever sunk that low. No, no one's ever. I've only been asked that by my mother-in-law. You were asked that by a drunk who then mugged you. Hey, man, what's your favorite voice to do? Give me your wallet. Dollar money.

funny um uh i you know i enjoyed on angry birds i was the bad guy in angry birds that was fun because i played my old gym teacher oh yes guy guy kind of talk like that um but usually you know you go in and they just you try a bunch of things. And then it's always like, can we just just you just play yourself? You know what I mean? Or a version of yourself or, you know, I was fear and inside out. And I was just kind of a hyped up version of my own voice. And yeah, that's usually how it goes. But which voice do you do in Finding dory or which character do you play i was i'm at the very beginning kate mckinnon and i are uh two uh fish that help little dory um in a flashback scene okay so now you're a veteran of two pixar movies yeah have you had a tour of their legendary

offices i've worked there have you got to work there, yeah. Actually, that's how I got involved with Inside Out was I actually went and just hung out in the writer's room. I met Pete Docter and Jonas Vera, the producer, and just said, can I come and watch how you guys do your stuff? Because I think you're geniuses at story. Yeah. And at Saturday Night Live live we wrote sketches and i was interested in

learning how to write just good stories and and story structure and i think that's really when i got into like comic books you'll see with saga brian cave on and some of those guys are so great at you know the economy of this comic book how they can get across such a compelling story. And I thought Pixar was great at it and South Park was great at it. And so I kind of weaseled my way into both of those rooms. And so I started in on Inside Out as a writer. I kind of hung out for a couple of weeks

and then it was almost like an afterthought. They said, hey, do you want to play Fear? And I said, yeah, sure. At what stage did you join them then in the story writing process? Five years before the movie came out. So quite early days. Yeah, yeah.

And it was 2010, maybe? Maybe, you know what? I take that back. It was four years, 2011. It was the summer of 2011. I came in and it really was i don't want to give the idea that i was like responsible for any of that great movie it was it was more just hanging out and hanging especially with the head of story this guy josh cooley who's really smart

and uh and he's now co-directing the new toy story movie know, and kind of just learning, really. So what was a typical day like then? You walk in and it's, you know, it's kind of like that movie Real Genius. You walk by and two guys are building a robot over in a beautiful field. A bunch of nerds running around. But no, it's great. You walk in walk in have breakfast and then you would sit in a room and pete doctor would kind of say the director would say uh so here's where we're at now and and he did a thing that was really interesting where he would just kind of walk you through

the movie so it's about a little girl and then you know and and then when he would get tripped up on something he would be like i think this is the area we need to work on. Like how to joy. And initially it was joy and fear that got shot out of headquarters. And then I remember coming back and I go, we figured out it's better if it was sadness. Joy and sadness are more polar opposite. And I go, oh, that's great. So it was interesting seeing them make those leaps, you know i would i would come every year for about a

week a week or two and just hang out and coming back and then excitingly they go look we got this new character called bing bong it's her watch this you know and and i went oh this is fantastic and then pete was like and then he dies i was like oh my god uh and i remember uh very vividly trying to talk pete out of doing the personality islands which i was dead wrong on and i remember when the movie came out i wrote him an email saying i clearly was wrong about the personality islands what was your what was your objection to them that they were just sort of too um esoteric an idea yeah i i just didn't felt like a i didn't i didn't understand what it what i thought it was a bit of a lateral move and a bit yeah i just didn't understand what it

gave you and and i remember pete saying we need something big it was almost like aesthetic of like we need something big to crumble to show the deterioration of the little girl so I need and that it's monumental just her kind of a shifting in her eyes isn't enough for me for inside it needs to be like a city is falling apart and I just could not wrap my head around it and i remember just driving to his house and he'd be like yeah man i just don't know and he just very patiently listening to me going yeah yeah well i like to try it then i went to go see the movie when the first personality island crumbled the people behind me were going oh no yep he was. Don't listen to me. Yes, so I saw, I saw

the skeleton twins yesterday. Yeah, so I saw the skeleton twins yesterday. And I really enjoyed it. It was great. I was like, oh, I hope this is not one of these indie movies

that is just not very well put together and just wants to coast on quirky charm um for people who haven't seen the skeleton twins yet can you do a quick synopsis for them it's a kristen wick and i play uh twins who who tried to commit suicide on the same day. Hilarious. And I ended up living with her and her husband, Luke Wilson. We have major history and we used to be very close and then this one thing happened in our past that kind of broke us up and it's kind of us dealing with that. I was a little worried that it was going to be really bleak yeah because of the subject matter of course

and it is there's lots of very sad moments and poignant moments but it is um it's not unremittingly bleak at all it's there's lots of very funny parts in there as well and the relationship that you have with kristin's with your sister, is totally believable. And there's one great scene where they actually rediscover how much they enjoy each other's company. And you get high on nitrous oxide in there because she's a dental, she's a hygienist. That was a great scene. I mean, that felt so real. Was that written or improvised or? Some of it was improvised. But yeah, I mean, I think that Craig Johnson, who directed that, did a great job of kind of playing off the fact that Kristen and I had worked with each other pretty much every day for

eight years. Yeah. You know, it was just trying to make it feel real. Yeah. Well, it felt very real. And it was good because it was it was two people sort of making each other laugh. And you were also sort of a bit high. So those two things can go wrong so easily and seem so forced. Yes. People pretending to be high and pretending to find something funny usually induces the opposite effect in the viewer. Yeah. um it was

great and my but my wife said at the end of the scene i'm really enjoying this but i don't understand why they wouldn't have talked to each other for 10 years and then in the very next scene we um we find out so it was uh it was great i was able to um give my wife a a nonverbal in your face. Those are the best moments where you're like, see, I told you this would work. Exactly. You didn't even need to raise the problem. All you needed to do was continue to watch the film and trust it. My wife does that too.

She'll say, well, you know, why didn't this happen? And I'm like, the credits aren't even over yet. We can't learn what the title of the film is. Yeah, I mean, I think I understand it because she's been let down before. We've all been let down by various films that don't do their job. And there are questions

that are not satisfactorily answered. But, you know, usually I'm still so hopeful. I'm like, listen, they know what they're doing. They'll answer all your questions. Relax. When you watch films with children as well, they do the same thing. Oh my gosh, yeah.

Why is that man, why is he taking that away from there? I'm like, just watch the film. You'll find out. Why is he so mean? My daughters watched Home Alone and they were loving the movie. And I go, wait till you see the end. It's so funny. And then when the guys started getting hurt, they didn't like it. They were like, oh, no, I got caught on fire. Is he OK? That's right. Oh, my gosh. No. Oh, my God. And they started the three year old started crying and all. Oh, it's a dream. You're not evil bastards yet. All right.

Wait till you see the first real person get hit square in the face with a full pot of paint. Yes. Then you'll laugh. We're moving from one subject to a different one. This is a conversation and we're having talking fun. You occasionally get panic attacks, is that right? Yeah, yeah. And what sort of thing will set those off, or is it not something you can predict?

Usually it's when I feel like I'm out of, it's a couple of factors. On Saturday Night Live, especially, and in moments in my career when I've had them, it's a combination of being incredibly tired and feeling underprepared. I would get very nervous before SNL episodes. I get very, very nervous. Oddly enough, I don't find it comfortable performing in front of people

and live i much i like um pre-tapes and and shooting movies and tv shows where you have you can have a second take and you can kind of work on it and stuff but going out in front of a live group of people um is very very nerve-wracking for me oh mate but you look um cool as a cucumber though on the talk shows that i've seen you on that's hilarious because i'm very nervous i i can't stop pacing every time i'm on a talk show i wake up in the morning going fuck i have to be on okay i'm doing a talk show what are my stories what are the things i'm gonna say when you know yeah that was the one thing i learned though and it made me happy being on saturday night live is you get to see all these great geniuses come through there and you could pick up things from them and i remember watching

steve martin would just relentlessly rehearse alone he would just rehearse his thing and he would just get it down to like the beats and just was very pragmatic about going through it and i went oh you're allowed to do that i kind of always thought these people just kind of riffed and just it came out you know what i mean and um he just was so uh i would peek into his dressing room and he would be running his monologue alone you know i mean it might seem like no shit to most people but to me i thought that was kind of an aha moment and then martin short was another person who would just i go god marty you're so confident with you when you perform how do you do he goes well this is so much fun

you know and i was like fun and you go bill you gotta remember to have fun and i was oh yeah but i'm getting better i'm getting better i am yeah well that's amazing i mean i had there's no um indication of that from the outside looking in before we wrap things up what would your fallback job be if you couldn't be doing what you're doing now? I would love to, I mean, it's not like, I always really admired life of writers. You know, you would read a thing, like the idea of just waking up and going to your office and writing for a couple hours, and then you could take your kids to school and pick them up and then come back and write. Wow, that's the life, man. That's the

hardest thing for me has been travel. Yes, because you have three young children, right? I have three daughters, yeah, six, three and one. And oh, my God, you're in the tunnel guy. Yeah, I know. And when I'm traveling, it's just it's yeah, it could be difficult. You know, I just I know for the train wreck, I was in that movie and we did so much press for that movie where we went all over Europe and we went to Australia. And and I didn't even go to all the dates. I kind of did the minimum amount. And even that for me was tough. You know, I don't like being a dad on Skype, you know,

and they only know me from a little face on mom's laptop. Yeah. That's hard for me to kind of deal with at times. Yes, and technology in some ways has brought people closer together and given them the opportunity to actually look at each other when they're separated by long distances. But it's still very hard to have a conversation when you're not, you know, I would rather that you and I were sat in a room together. It is, it's tricky when you're separated by technology. And it's very hard as well i mean that the the long distance wife call is one of the trickiest things in the world i find i don't like it i'm not i mean you know obviously not i'm not

just talking about people who are married like anyone who's in a relationship and you and you make that call when you're away it's you just it's so hard to say what you want to say like throughout the day you're missing that person and you're thinking about them and smiling at memories of them or wanting to talk about certain things and then you actually get on the call and it all just evaporates yeah and it just kind of turns into like so so what happened today yeah good oh how'd that call go with so-and-so? Oh, who'd you meet with? Oh, that's cool.

All right. But I always, I don't know about you, every time I get done with those calls or Skype or whatever, I get really depressed. Yeah. I get really sad because I just want to be with them. I don't think I'm built to be on locations and stuff like that. I kind of would have to take them with me or you know yes figure that out um and having said all that though are there moments that stand out in your professional life where the sort of fantasy that most people have of what it might be like to do that kind of job actually matches up with the reality of it? Oh, yeah. One moment that was cool was one time at an SNL after party

I sat with Steve Martin and Lorne Michaels, and we talked about our favorite comedy albums. Right. And that was cool. Oh, wow. Again, I think I really relate to that, where you get back to just, like Steve Martin saying, okay, here's the

early lenny bruce albums you should get you know early lenny bruce really funny or evening you know evening with uh nichols and may and then to the same extent i met um bill murray once and we just talked about phil hendry do you know who phil hendry is yes yes who did the phone calls in character unbelievable those are my favorite moments of sitting with larry david and and i would you know we would do the bob and ray komodo dragon sketch to each other and just laugh crazy hard and you go oh man this everyone at the at the base you know it's all um you're just fans you know you heard something and you saw something and you went gosh i want you know it's all um you're just fans you know you heard something and you saw something and you went gosh you know that inspired you to try it yourself you know yeah those are those moments that i always kind of cherish it's the same as hanging with musicians and asking them about their

favorite albums and stuff i just can't get enough of that yes i know i'm the same because it just feels like you're in the cafeteria with your friends again and you're just talking about comedy or music you know or movies or whatever it is you know yeah exactly and um why you got into it is in the forefront you know that's why it's i like you know kind of going back to like that comic book thing with you and johnny greenwood i i get into the same thing where you know, kind of going back to like that comic book thing with you and Johnny Greenwood. I get into the same thing where, you know, I have a friend who's this great musician who's really into reggae. And I'm like, I don't really know reggae. I always kind of just put it up with, you know, my stoner friends and Bob Marley legend and, you know, that kind of thing.

And he went, no, no, no, no, no. You know, and so he's been giving me all these records and it's fantastic oh yeah it's wonderful when someone great creates a little roadmap for you i love it um i'll give you a good recommendation that i got recently have you got any steel pulse no handsworth revolution by steel pulse it's. And actually, that was another one that I listened to because I think the anniversary of that album was recently and it was a very political album at the time and sounds very prescient now and so tuneful and interesting and unusual. Handsworth Revolution? Handsworth Revolution. Yeah.

Oh, great. I got it right here. That right there, that moment we just have, that's what I live for. Oh, great. I got it right here. That right there, that moment we just have, that's what I live for. Yeah, it's fun. And it's better. It's my whole relationship with Edgar Wright, usually. But it was just calling and emailing about movies. Have you seen this? I just saw this. That's the best. Yeah. And it's better coming from another human being rather than an algorithm. Yes, I agree. I 100% agree. sometimes the algorithm bumps you out it does even if it's really accurate even if it's like fuck they got it completely right i am interested in that band but i'm not going to listen to it on principle because i don't want to take any recommendations from an algorithm robots i'm a robot racist and i'm not going to listen to anything

that robot has to say oh well this is an advert for Squarespace every time I visit your website I see success This is an advert for Squarespace. I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace.

Love success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. So there we go. Thanks very much indeed to the delightful Bill Hader. Very nice to talk to him. I hope that won't be the last time. And thanks a lot to Edgar Wright as well, because it was Edgar, of course,

that advised Bill to listen to this podcast in the first place. So thanks, Edgar. I'm hoping to lure Edgar into the pod web at some point in the not-too-distant future. So listen, before I say a final goodbye, a few more details about those live dates, which, as I said, are on my blog. Here's the blog jingle. I've got a blog, I've got a blog. Rooty, rooty, spooty, rooty blog, blog, blog. I've got a blog. Here's the address, here's the address. It's adam-bugston.co.uk, so check it out.

Yeah, I know some people think there's too many jingles on this podcast already, but I think probably you're going to have to deal with it. Yeah, so I'm going to be doing a live podcast at the End of the Road Festival, which takes place between the 2nd and the 4th of September. I've never been to the End of the Road Festival, but it looks really good. And it's got a lot of bands there that I'm excited to see live. You know, it's a nice small festival. It's about 11,000 people attend it, I believe. And so it's manageable. You know, if you want to see a band, you just go and walk to the stage and see the band. You don't have to visit a travel agent and plan your journey to the

killing fields about a month in advance, which you do at some larger festivals. They've got Cat Power there, Joanna Newsome, The Shins, Eleanor Friedberger, she's amazing, Steve Mason, formerly of the Beater Band, of course. Teenage Fan Club, Animal Collective, Savages. Oh, they're supposed to be very good live. Ezra Furman, who's great. The OCs, Mark Reilly's favourite band. And many more. There's good comedy there as well. Bridget Christie, Andy Zaltzman, Josie Long, Stuart Lee, Joanna Neary, Pappies, Arthur

Smith, Adam Bloom, and many more. So I'm looking forward to going there. And the deal is that the idea is that I'm going to be doing a live, you know, ramble chat with someone, and they haven't completely 100% confirmed yet, so i can't say who it is yet but someone good and i will be talking to them on i think saturday afternoon saturday the third sometime in the late afternoon you know before all the big music acts get going i mean i did the conversation with louis at latitude a few weeks ago, and I spoke about that on the podcast. It was a bit of a bun fight because the tent was very full. And so this, I think, will be a different sort of a thing. We'll be sat out in the woods on toadstools.

It'll be just lots of people like me, gnomes of a certain age with indie band t-shirts stroking their beards. And yeah, check out my blog for further details. What else? Yes, thanks to people who got in touch about merchandise, which I mentioned, I think, on the last podcast, or the one before, maybe. So some people very kindly got in touch with offers of help and collaboration in that department. And I hope that I will get something together in the next few months. Apologies if I haven't replied directly to one of those messages or any kind of message that you may have sent me. Chances are I will probably have read most of the things that are directed at me, especially via my SoundCloud page, which seems to be a good way to send a nice long message. But I mean, I'm not good at replying to my personal email, let alone email from people I haven't met before.

It's all very much appreciated, so thanks a lot. Anyway, I think that's it. Thanks, podcats, for listening this far. The faithful. Apparently, according to statistics, most people tune out of podcasts, not just mine, let me say, all sorts of podcasts, no matter how good, they tune out after about the first 10 minutes. So all this stuff, I mean, there's probably about five or six of you actually listening to this very last bit here. You're the hardcore. I've got to think of a proper name for you guys.

I mean, I don't have to, obviously. I mean, we're not six anymore, are we? We are at heart, though, yes? Until next time, we're together. Please, please be careful. Combine's coming back, Rosie. It's combining farming with deadly danger. So we have to escape. I love you. Bye! Oh, the combine farmer guy. I thought that was directed at him.

Not you. Just doing a podcast. Everyone's got one. You got one? Combine pod. Combino pod. Bino compod. Combino pod. Combine pod. Harvest a pod. Harbour.

Fuck off. Thank you.