The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Glenn Howerton
Episode Date: May 16, 2023Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) joins Andy Richter to discuss the early days of Always Sunny, finding the people that make you feel funnier, his start as a drama student, and much... more.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
I want mostly me.
Yeah, I understand that.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it should be mostly you.
I mean, I'm going to hear what you say when I listen back to it.
Yeah.
Right now.
Yeah, it's just –
Why would I want to hear it?
You got a nice voice, I got to say.
Oh, thank you very much.
You do too.
Very nice voice, and it's only made better by a good microphone.
Oh, thank you.
Some good sound.
I do feel like I make a living with my voice, but every time anyone ever imitates me, it's always like Conan
will do like, I'm
Andy.
You have to
accept
when something is
repeatedly put in front of you like,
oh, here's what we, you know,
the way we feel about you
when it's repeated. You're kind of like,
I guess there must be some truth to that.
But it's the vocal equivalent of those guys that draw cartoons of you on the street.
Oh, I know.
You know what I mean?
Like it is and isn't you.
Right.
But it is.
But it is.
But it also kind of isn't.
Yeah, yeah.
No, and I mean, and I can get down here and I can get down here and, you know, I can will or net it, you know, GMC trucks.
Do you ever do that in the morning when you first wake up and just like.
Hi, baby.
Yeah.
Do like a James Earl Jones impersonation because it's the only time of day you can actually pull it off.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
Sure.
I'm very sexy right when I wake up.
Yeah.
You ask anybody.
I'm talking to Glenn Howerton.
Glenn is in here, brought whiskey.
Glenn's from It's Always Sunny and all kinds of other different things.
Juilliard.
You know, It's Always Sunny and Juilliard.
That's what people usually, the one-two punch of Howerton, right?
I can't get away from it. People, my friends are always... It is, right? It's, I can't get, yeah, I can't get away from it.
I, people, my friends are always.
It is so fucking hilarious
that one of you guys went to Juilliard.
Yeah, it is.
It's pretty fucking hilarious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I do get that.
And, but I, the thing that's,
the thing that's funny to me about it
is my friends are always making fun of me.
They're like, you're always bringing up Juilliard.
And I never bring it up.
I know, I know.
Ever.
I know.
And they know, and they're just, but like, they are the ones that bring, it's always somebody else bringing it bringing up Julia. And I never bring it up ever. I know. And they know, and they're just tight, but like, they are the ones that break. It's
always somebody else bringing it up and I can't help but laugh. It's just one of those schools.
There are two things in my life where the response is a variation of the same thing.
When I tell people where I'm from, okay. They always just repeat the word back to me.
Same with when I tell people that I went to Juilliard.
They repeat the word.
So if I say, you know, somebody asked me,
where'd you go to college?
I was like, oh, here we go.
You know, it was my first thought.
And then I'm like, oh, I went to Juilliard.
And they're like, Juilliard?
They always just have to say it back.
They have to say it back to me.
But in a, ooh. You mean the Juilliard?
Not Juilliard Technical School, you know?
Where you learn HVAC?
Right, right. The Juilliard. And thenilliard Technical School? Yes, the... Where you learn HVAC? Right, right.
Yeah.
The Juilliard.
And then the next question used to be, what instrument do you play?
And I'm like, I'm an actor.
You haven't seen any...
You're looking at it.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're looking at it.
You're listening to it right now.
You're hearing it.
Yeah.
And then the other thing was when I would tell people I'm from...
Where are you from?
I'm from Alabama. Alabama? Alabama? I know, I know. And they always do the other thing was when I would tell people I'm from, where are you from? I'm from Alabama.
Yeah.
Alabama.
I know.
I know.
And they always do the accent.
Yeah.
They're like, Alabama?
Yeah.
Like, come on.
But that's, you know, again, when you hear it so much, you know, like everybody can't
be wrong.
You know, when they, when they do that kind of like, cause yeah, it's weird.
You don't sound like you're from, I know, I've known people from Alabama.
You don't sound like you're from Alabama.
Now, I mean, what people don't know is that you were, it was an Air Force kid.
Yeah, I was an Air Force.
And you were every, you grew up all over.
Like, it's crazy how many different places you grew up.
Yeah, I was, I was kind of all over the world for the first 10 years.
Yeah.
And then that's when we moved to Alabama and my dad
decided enough is enough. And he grew up as an Air Force brat as well.
Oh, he did?
Yeah. His dad was an Air Force pilot as well.
Did he have a good enough, healthy enough childhood that he's like, you know, I'm not a mess.
This won't fuck up my kid either, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don'd have to, I don't think,
I think in some ways when you grow up that way,
certainly for me for a long time
before I realized the trauma
that had been inflicted upon me.
Sorry, dad, not your fault.
Very much.
No, it's, you know, what are you going to do?
Before I realized that it was just normal to me
to constantly be moving.
It's like you live somewhere for a couple of years,
you make really, really close friends. And then you're like, that was wonderful.
Now it's time to move on to my next group of friends and find out who they will be.
And then it wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I realized that I was almost incapable of making really, really close friends anymore.
Wow.
Because I put a guard up because it hurt too much.
Right, of course.
Of course.
I mean, I've always found, even when I've had roommates that I was not crazy about,
like to separate from them, you put two dogs together that don't really like each other
very much, they form a pack whether they want to or not.
And we do the same thing.
And I've had, you know, where I'm a roommate that lived with me for six months is moving
out and it's, you know, like, okay, there's part of me that's all good.
And then there's another part of me that's like, don't go, please, you know.
So, yeah, I can understand why you would, you know.
It's tough.
It is tough.
The toughest move for me, we moved to a small town called Felixstowe in England when I was three and lived there until I was about seven and a half.
That was the toughest.
Those are pretty big years, you know, because you go from being, you know, a baby to an actual sort of individual human being.
Yeah, it really felt like home to me.
And I just happened to live in a really cool neighborhood
where there were a ton of kids my age.
And I lived in this weird thing where we had,
our houses were all kind of in a circle.
And in the middle of that circle was a giant field.
So everybody, all I had to do was walk,
all we had to do was walk out into our backyards
and be like, hey, should we go to the field?
You know, and then we would just go into this field.
And converge.
Yeah.
Nice.
But it felt safe because we were all – to our parents, we were all right there.
So we could – I was running around outside of the house by the time I was four years old probably just free.
Wow.
And that space is probably tiny, would be tiny to me now.
But back then it may as well have been.
And also England's a lot classier than Alabama.
Well, you know.
You think of the accent you'd have right now.
And I did have an accent.
Well, I had a weird thing where I had an accent at school, but not at home.
And I didn't know what I was doing.
It's like speaking a different language or something.
I would go to school and I would have an accent with all my friends and I learned to read.
So when I would read, I had an accent, but then I would come home and speak with an American accent and I was doing
it. Wow. Yeah. It's also amazing because then from England, Virginia, then Seoul and then Montgomery,
Alabama. Yeah. So that's just, you know what? It is really good showbiz training though,
because when you work on a movie, you work on a tv show you do
it's a very compartmentalized life and you do kind of have you know there's the the cliche of like
it's like a family and it's like kinda and it is like a family not necessarily in a good way all
the time but it is you definitely are spending a consume a consumptive amount of time with these people.
Yeah.
And this probably was somewhat decent training for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is a compressed amount of time that you're spending with these people.
But in that compressed amount of time is packed a lot of intensity because you're performing together.
There has to be such a level of trust when you're performing together. There has to be such a level of
trust when you're performing with people and you are revealing yourself to them. You're revealing
parts of yourself to them if you're really going there as an actor. And so you're making yourself
vulnerable in a very short period of time. It's a little bit, you know, like I have a theory that the reason why so many amazing, amazing actors are unstable people, they started as unstable people, but it made them amazing performers because they're the kind of person that can just walk into a room and they're just, they have no filter.
They're just who they are, their most authentic self at all times to their detriment in their normal everyday life.
But it makes them incredible actors because they have no – there's no part of them that goes, oh, God, I have to do this scene with this person and they're supposed to be my mother and I just met them and she's dying of cancer and I have to cry. And how am I going to get myself to go there?
You know, and a crazy person is just like, can go there like that.
No problem.
It's just not an issue for them.
So it's an extra challenge if you're trying to be a sane person and still have access to that.
I think also, too, it's a question of like having a well-formed distinct identity of who you are because I think that's something
that a lot of like, you know, because there's healthy actors and then there's cuckoo actors,
but the cuckoo actors do really seem to be like, who do you want me to be?
Yeah, right.
There's a little bit of that.
Yeah, you know, like, oh, you want me to be this now?
Oh, right. There's a little bit of that. Yeah. You know, like, oh, you want me to be this now? Oh, okay. You know, if that's what gets me the attention that I am drawn to and repulsed by, you know, that weird combo too.
So did you feel like you were like a performer as a kid?
Like, do you think that change, all those different changes kind of made you do that yourself where you were kind of like?
I don't know.
I don't.
Because you're given the chance too to make up.
You clean the slate. You show up at a new place. Yeah. When I, when I was a little kid,
my, my parents divorced, uh, and my mom remarried and her second husband adopted me because like
legally adopted me because my mom wanted to have more kids. So they had the same, we all would have
the same last name. So I was born Richter.
Then when I was nine, she remarried and my last name became Swanson. And I was Swanson all the way through high school.
But I changed schools when I changed to Swanson.
And my name's Paul Andrew Richter.
And I thought, and it was always Andy.
That was just what they called me.
But I thought Andy Swanson didn't sound good.
So when I went to third grade, I changed it to Paul Swanson.
And I was Paul in my second, my, you know, and I just went for third and fourth grade.
Then we moved back to the old town and everyone's like, you're not Paul, you're Andy.
I remember you.
It was two years ago.
You're Andy.
And then I was, you know, and I was Andy at home and I was Paul at school.
So it was kind of a similar thing.
But it was so obvious that I was just trying to take any control over my own identity, you know.
And I think that, you know, you probably had the opportunity to do that, not necessarily with the name, but like with like, I'm going to be more assertive now or I'm going to be. Yeah, I think the awareness of being able to do that wasn't really there when I was as young as what you were talking about.
For me, it was more kind of stepping into a situation, trying to suss out what the vibe was in this particular town or in this classroom or this new school that i'm stepping
into like what is the what is celebrated what is considered cool yeah and trying to assimilate to
that um so that i wasn't a complete outcast yeah yeah you know um and i always found myself torn
between two worlds one where i had a desire to be liked and popular, but then the other side of myself, which was a little bit clownish and goofy and funny.
So then it was just a matter of figuring out how to use that in a way to make people laugh, to make people like me.
Right.
But it really was all always in service of just trying to get people to like me, just
trying to fit in so I wasn't the outsider.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so the adaptation piece was there because you had to, you know, I mean, stepping
between all these different cultures, right?
Like going to an English school with proper English kids and then going to a military school in Seoul, Korea,
where everyone was just like me. That was in many ways very-
All American kids. Yeah. And do you have siblings? I don't know that.
I do. I have an older sister. She's three and a half years older.
Okay. Yeah. And so was she helpful as you sort of navigated all these different changes or-
Yeah. For as uncomfortable as I have been getting
really, really, and I have a lot, but I don't mean to make it sound like I don't have close
friends. I do. I have some very close friends, but there's a point at which it gets uncomfortable
for me when our lives start to feel too intertwined. I start to get a little, I get a
little freaked out. But the one thing that I think that is, I mean, what are you afraid of?
But the one thing that I think that is, I mean, what are you afraid of?
I'm afraid of that.
I mean, again, it's so deep rooted at this point.
But if I had to say it's like I'm afraid of them becoming too dependent upon me and having to suddenly fill some sort of pivotal role in their lives that I'm not prepared to commit to. It was never modeled for me by my
parents. The one thing that was modeled for me was my parents are still together. So there was
always the four of us. There was always mom, dad, and Courtney. And we always had, that was the
thing. So I'm very, so I have no issues with commitment with regard to like my commitment
to my wife and my
kids. Like that part of it is very comfortable to me. That was modeled for me, but my parents
didn't have a lot of friends over to the house or friends and they had friends, but they didn't,
nobody was ever at the house. It was like, sometimes they would go play, but most of the
time it was just the four of us. So I don't know, like the idea of having other people outside of my direct family members
be such a huge part of my life is just foreign to me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can,
for different reasons, I can relate. And that's why I asked like what you're afraid of, because
I have a similar thing, but it's because middle kid, the classic middle kid thing is the keeper of morale and making sure, you know, the first kid is kind of like the test case that gets all the fuck ups, you know.
Totally.
Yeah.
And then the second kid is for a while is the baby and then a baby comes along and then it's like, i'm not the baby anymore i but i gotta keep the
peace i gotta yeah i gotta kind of be you know do you think that's where a lot of the the comedy
came from um it just does knowing how well laughter can diffuse situations definitely
definitely and i mean but also i mean there's also just like there i come from a lot of funny people. Like my dad's really, really funny.
I had an aunt.
And the reason that I exist is because my dad and my aunt, who is my mom's older sister, were best friends in high school.
Oh.
And they were both like they could have been in comedy in some way.
You know, my dad was a college professor and my aunt did a bunch of different jobs,
but she could have definitely,
like she was funny enough and enjoy.
And in addition to that,
just also, I've said this about her
and it's one of the big nicest gifts
anybody ever gave me
was that she insisted on having fun all the time,
always having fun.
So I come from funny people. So it was how I was
surrounded by people being funny, but it also, you know, when shit's tense and everybody's upset
and you're under this umbrella of depression, it's kind of like, hey, how about if I do a bit
for everybody? You know, it's like, oh, okay. Yeah. And it feels like, oh, my God, thank God the pressure got lifted for a second.
Are you like other people that I talk to in comedy where they feel like, you know, it's not that they don't think they're funny, but they feel like they have people in their lives
who don't do what we do,
who are way funnier than them.
Like, I feel like I have people.
I'm the funniest motherfucker I know.
So, no.
Okay, okay, all right.
All right, okay, fair enough.
No, I mean, no, honestly, there's not.
I mean, like you mentioned, you know, you said your dad was funny, but maybe he wasn't funny on that level.
But I feel like I've had friends in the past where I'm like, you're a thousand times funnier than I am.
I don't know why I'm doing this and you're not.
It's just not what they want to do with their lives.
Right, right.
I mean, the closest was one of my roommates, one of my best friends.
I'd gone to film school with him.
And he was dealing weed
and i got on the conan show and i was like i know the funniest guy in the world and and you know
and i didn't i it in the first go around i was like how about my friend um and his name's tommy
blatcha he and he's gone on to like he created with Brendan Small the show Metalock Loops
oh my god
he created that
and he's the voice
a couple of voices
on there
let me tell you
that show is
amazing
it's one of the funniest
things ever
I love it
Tommy was that funny
yeah
but he was
you know he didn't
he just hadn't had access
he'd been in film school
and everybody
was everybody that knew him was like – and I started doing improv.
And he actually, when I took my first improv class, he was like, hey, I think I'd like to do that.
We were roommates at the time, and there was a part of him that was like, oh, shit.
Yeah, he's going to crush you.
Oh, my God.
Everyone's going to realize he's so much better than me.
God, everyone's going to realize he's so much better than me.
But he did the class, and he was fucking hilarious and just has one of those minds that you just marvel at.
And then when it got time to actually, it was ImprovOlympic,
when it got time for Sharna Halpern to put us on stage in Chicago,
he backed out, and I was like, why?
Why don't you want to get on stage? He said,
he goes, there's a whole aspect to it that's... He goes, I don't want to do that.
He felt like a dancing monkey.
And I totally get it. Because yeah, there's a lot of like, now we're going to do a game
where you call out movie styles. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to hear, or musical styles.
Nobody wants to be in the middle of trying to do a scene and somebody goes like, hip
hop, you know, you want to just do your scene, you know, you're not like, like, okay, yeah,
now I'll do this as bluegrass, you know?
Yeah.
So he just was not interested in that.
I get that.
And continued, you know, he, you know, working around town, but, town but and i you know and i didn't get
him the job i but i said hey let my friend try and they all went oh yeah and he came in and he was
like he's the kind of guy that makes other people funny yeah oh funnier yeah like he'll be in a
writer's room and be so so disruptive and so you know okay so that's another interesting question too because i find
that there are people in my life that i feel funnier around yes like for some reason i'm
funnier around say this person yep than i am around this person and it's the same and i'm like
why that's so weird because you connect with them in a different way it's like feeding off of each
other absolutely like conan o'bBrien stumbled on each other in a way.
And we, from the first time we met, we realized, oh, we can be stupid with each other in the same way that we both delight in and that we both can do and have been doing now doing for 30 or over 30 years, you know.
And I had that sense immediately with him.
Since what?
Like, I remember you guys back in, oh my God.
We started in-
93 was the beginning.
I remember that.
I was watching from the very, very beginning.
Yeah, thank you.
I really was.
Yeah.
Am I crazy?
Did you come on after Saturday Night Live?
In my memory-
They might have replayed.
They might have been doing replays. They might have did a replay of it
after SNL
because Lorne
was the,
you know,
executive producer
of Late Night
with Conan O'Brien.
Oh, okay.
I didn't know that.
And, you know,
he was in their good graces
and he was tasked
with finding Letterman's
replacement.
I think I was watching
reruns on Saturday
after Saturday Night Live.
I don't remember if they did that, but that sounds like
something they would do. Yeah, I mean, I can't say for certain
again, it was a long time ago, but yeah,
I remember that, and I remember thinking
these guys are hilarious.
Well, and that was why I think
Conan and Robert
Smigel, who was a head writer at the time, had
the sense that I'm certainly
more funny with someone.
I think Conan's more funny with someone.
To play off of. So let's put these two together.
It's just going to be more interesting.
Right.
Which I, you know, like.
And the.
Scenes are usually more interesting than monologues.
Yeah.
Generally speaking.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Especially when they're, when the people are making it up.
It's just going to be – you've got more – there's more flavors in the stew.
Provided you're not misanthropic.
Yes. Which I get the impression that somebody like Letterman – and I don't know Letterman at all, but he seems like there's definitely a misanthropic side.
Some people don't play so well with others.
And that's a –
He's brilliant. He's a genius. It's a and it's a very brilliant it's a
genius but it's a very stand-up thing it's a very stand-up comedian oh oh oh and yeah i mean and if
you look at say like the the progression of snl there were years where it was mostly stand-ups
on that show and they it was funny but not the thing. It's not the same as when there was Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell.
They're used to playing off of each other.
And Molly Shannon, who are all – who play.
They're not – going back to your original point, I think that, yeah, there's plenty of people that you're funnier because you just – you can talk to them.
You can let your hair down.
So much of it is just like –
You feel like – yeah, that's what it is, isn't it?
Yeah.
You feel like you have your like permission to be your most authentic comedic self.
Yes.
And –
It's why you marry people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, that is very true.
Like my wife, who is not a comedian on any level, nobody makes me laugh more than her.
Yeah.
She is hilarious.
Yeah.
But like not in a way that would necessarily translate to being a performer.
It's just that she, I don't know.
It's the, it's the, it's, it's something between the two of us.
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, I'm, I'm engaged.
She's funny to her friends too.
Yeah.
But I just mean.
I'm engaged to be married now.
And congrats.
Thank you.
And my fiance isn't a comedian.
But and doesn't like when I say she's funny, she doesn't believe.
She's like, no, I'm not.
Yeah, no, no, no.
You are.
Yeah, Jill doesn't really think she's that funny either.
And I'm like, but I'm constantly laughing.
Right, right.
Do you have I mean, do you feel like you have a version of that with the Sonny cast?
And oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And was that there from the beginning?
Did it grow? It was. Yeah, it, absolutely. And was that there from the beginning? Did it grow?
It was.
Yeah.
It was.
It was just one of those miraculous things.
It just, it was like stars aligning in the most incredible way
because I think a lot of people assume or thought that we were super close friends
or that we grew up together, but we didn't.
When we started, when we shot the very
first home movie, If It's Always Sunny, I had only known Rob and Charlie really for like two years.
And was that just from out here in this sort of-
Mostly, yeah.
Actor froth.
Yes, the actor froth. Yes, definitely. We had known each other, like we'd seen each other at
auditions in New York City when we all lived there. But then the three of us moved out to LA around the same time. And just, I don't know. I mean, I remember Rob called me up and he
was like, hey, I know we don't really know each other, but we have the same manager. And me and
my other friend are moving out here. Do you want to hang out? And first of all, my first thought
was like, wow, just cold calling somebody, will you be my friend? Basically, I was like so impressed
by that. Did you think it was a sex thing? Because that's my mind to go right to that you know well you know i'm i'm open to all
possibilities why not um yeah why say no why say no yeah you're in a new town you know again another
chance to reinvent yourself exactly i couldn't even i couldn't remember what he looked like much
less what he smelled like um so i was like who knows knows? But no, no, I just was,
I'm so,
I think I've spent
so much of my youth
afraid of rejection
that for him to call me
and be like,
hey,
will you be my friend?
I was like,
that's so,
that's so,
I need to,
I want to be surrounded
by people
with that kind of confidence.
It didn't seem like
it was coming from a place of desperation as much as it was like, hey, I heard you were out here.
We met in New York.
Let's hang out.
Matter of factness.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then we became friends.
And then when the three of us started shooting things, filming stuff together, it just clicked.
Yeah.
It just clicked.
And then the same thing was the case when, because Caitlin auditioned for, we did not know Caitlin.
She auditioned for us.
And in her very first audition, I felt that.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, she gets it.
She gets what we're doing here.
And you could just feel it right away.
I was like, we were improvising with her and it just made sense.
Yeah.
No, that's.
Right away.
It's just such a wonderful feeling when that happens.
Yeah.
Had you guys all moved out here with just kind of let's see what happens?
I mean, did anybody have anything kind of lined up?
No, I did. I only moved out here because I –
so I was doing theater in New York, and I had a good agent and manager.
So it was actually auditioning for theater, film and television, like right out of college, luckily.
And every time I would-
Does that happen?
I mean, does Juilliard have that kind of like setup that where just that name gives you such a, such cachet that you can kind of-
Well, it'll only take you so far right of course um um
the what it does get you is eyeballs yeah you know people will come to the plays in the fourth
year and they will come to the showcases because they're right right um but yeah so you have access
right so people you do have access to the possibility of getting a really really great
representation and i was really lucky insofar as I got really good casting in my fourth year,
which is crazy because I did not get good casting the first three years at all.
And then suddenly they were like, have all the leads in all the plays.
And it was a variety of-
And they're good leads.
Good leads and comedies and dramas and all this juicy, juicy stuff.
And then for the showcases, which for people who don't know what that is,
juicy, juicy stuff.
And then for the showcases,
which for people who don't know what that is,
is like you get up and you do two scenes with various scene partners
in front of a bunch of people,
casting directors, managers, and agents, right?
And you're just showcasing your talent.
This is called a showcase.
And I saw that everybody there
was doing these really like heavy crying scenes
and all this kind of stuff.
And I was like,
I want to make people laugh because I think that is the thing that they're not going to be getting
from this and it'll make me stand out. Sure. And it worked. But yeah, I just, I found that like,
because I never set out to be in comedy. I always liked comedy. I always knew I wanted to do comedy,
but it was never my intention to become a comedian or a comedy actor primarily.
But I kept getting test offers to come out to L.A. to test for half-hour sitcoms.
And I kept saying no because I just was like, I want to do theater in New York.
I just, I don't, you know, and I, but then, I don't know, one came along.
It was that, so I got cast in that 80s show.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And at that point, there'd been, you know, in my mind, a three-year gap since I'd done anything.
Not true at all.
I'd probably been three months.
But to me, I was like, I haven't worked in three months.
Nobody's casting me.
These guys want me to come do this show.
I can't say no.
And it's more money than I've, like, you know, I'm used to living on $400 a week in New York City and splitting burritos in half for lunch and dinner, like that kind of shit.
Yeah.
So I was like, wow, I can actually feed myself, you know, and I thought the script was pretty funny and I felt like I could do something with it.
It also, too, was a known quantity.
Yeah.
You know how it is.
Yeah.
It's like, hey, there's this new one called the Apple cart.
And you're like, okay, great.
There's the lineage.
Yeah, whereas this was, it's like everything's intellectual property, IP now.
It's like there is.
And you figure that out really quick.
And you figure out really quickly, too, like most pilots don't go especially probably back
then i mean uh you know i'm older than you but like they used to buy so many comedy pilots
that you just every every time that you go like they'd say you they want you to be in this pilot
or go read for this pilot it's like yeah oh this thing that's that's like a baby turtle heading towards the ocean and the seagulls are swarming.
So yeah, the 80s show, that's a good bet.
That's a good one to leave LA for or leave New York for.
Yeah.
And then it got picked up and I realized that I actually really liked it out here in LA.
And it was sunny and I had more space.
And I was like, let me give this a shot for a little while.
We only ended up doing half a season of that show
before it got canceled.
But I promised myself
that I wasn't going to do anything stupid with that money.
I was so used, I had such a middle-class mentality growing up
and then a lower-class mentality as an actor that I took all that money and I just put it in the bank.
And I was like, now I have a little bit of fuck you money and I can be a little bit more choosy about what I do next.
And let me stay in L.A. for a little while and see what happens.
And, you know, got a couple guest star things and, you know, nothing huge.
But then that's when we started making It's Always Sunny.
Did the, did the agent transfer over from New York to LA?
I've had the same agent manager for 23 years.
Oh, that's great.
Since I graduated.
That's great.
That's really good.
Yeah.
It's unheard of.
Yeah, yeah.
can't you tell my loves you know to go from coming out here getting a first of all you come out here with a series uh and then and then you know you do a few guest spots and you're
you're doing okay but then you get together with some guys and create a comedy show. Were there people, like comedy people, that were furious with you guys?
You know, like UCB people or people that had been pushing comedy, comedy, comedy.
Probably.
I don't know.
I mean, maybe.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Again, I didn't come from the comedy world.
It was really weird.
I did feel like most of the people who were doing the things like what we were attempting to do were coming from the sketch comedy world or the improv comedy world because what we were doing was very improv-y and it wasn't sketchy, but it was, you know, there's definitely you're doing bits and you're, you know.
Sure. But what we thought was, you know, we want to approach this a little bit more like a drama
and just have it be that the situations are so insane that that's what makes it funny,
that we weren't trying to be overly clever or overtly funny in our performance style.
or overtly funny in our performance style.
Right.
You know, it was really, honestly,
very, very heavily influenced and spurred on by having watched The British Office
and having been watching Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Those were the two shows that made us go,
oh, it doesn't have to look that good.
You know what I mean?
It just looks very handheld
and it looks like somebody turned on a bunch of fluorescent lights,
opened the shades, and then you could roll on it
if you had funny people doing funny things.
Like a loose, naturalistic kind of feel.
Yeah, yeah.
And there was this category of prosumer cameras that were coming out,
which were somewhere between just a handheld video camera
and a professional camera.
Yeah.
That could shoot in what was at the time
a pretty high resolution that could capture a lot of light.
And so it was the perfect time to do it.
YouTube did not exist yet.
Oh, wow.
What year is it?
What year are we talking?
The first version of it we shot was,
the first version was at the end of 2003.
So almost exactly 20 years ago, which is crazy.
So it took about four or five years to get to the air, right?
It took – we ended up shooting two or three different versions of the first – of the home movie that we call it a home movie.
Right.
And then before we felt like we really got it, and then we shot a second episode as a home movie, just to kind of,
as proof of concept,
like, hey, this isn't a one-off.
They want that.
Yeah.
And this was probably in 2004.
And then we shot the,
and then when we got picked up,
or when we got the pilot order from FX,
we shot that in the fall of 2004.
So it was really pretty quick.
It was a year from the time we first picked up cameras until we were shooting with FX. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it was really pretty quick it was a year from the time
we first picked up cameras
until we were shooting
with FX
yeah yeah
so it was pretty
it was relatively quick
being in something
that you produced
and wrote yourself
was that
was that something
that surprised you
that you were doing that
yeah I never
I never thought
that I would do that
I never thought
I mean I always thought
like wow writing
directing
producing
that sounds like something I would want to do at some point, but it happened much quicker than I
thought it was going to happen. And it was really spurred on by, I mean, I got to give
McElhenney a lot of credit because he, you know, he was the one who's like, let's go, let's do this.
And that energy was so infectious to me that I was like, yeah, let's go. And we would just call
our friends. Why is that fucking guy so secure, huh?
What's he got going on that he's got the world by the ball so much?
I don't know.
You'll have to talk to him about that.
Yeah, buying soccer teams and shit.
Jesus Christ.
Take it easy, McElhaney.
No, I mean, that's fantastic.
And I mean, and it's, I think it's also really, I think it's a big ingredient of you guys' success is that there's something organic there.
You guys weren't, you're not like a boy band, you know, like the TV version of a boy band that was all cobbled together.
You know, you guys are in this sort of the same vein as, you know, kids in the hall, you know, and, you know, comedy groups that started low rent and then stuck together.
And, you know, and also, too, Jesus Christ, it's hard to keep that kind of group marriage alive, you know.
And you guys have done a pretty fantastic job of it.
Yeah.
It's always felt to me more like being in a band than being on a show.
Yeah.
it's always felt to me more like being in a band than being on a show.
Yeah.
Just because, as you know, I mean, most shows, not every show,
but most shows, the writers aren't,
maybe there's a couple of writers that act on the show, but it's not like,
they're separate.
Yeah. And the producers are not the actors and the, you know.
So the fact that we were writing our own music and performing our own songs,
it always felt like we were a band.
And so, you know, there's those moments of, look, we fought a lot in those first three
or four seasons, but we always try to keep it about the work and not about our egos.
And we got better and better throughout the years at recognizing when we were fighting
for something because our ego was hurt versus fighting for something because we really thought that it was creatively
the best choice.
That is definitely a learned skill.
Yes.
Yes.
But it took a while.
And now we've gotten to a really good place where we're happy to defer to whoever has
the strongest feelings about any given thing.
Because we're like, that might just be exhaustion that's been one of my lines uh for
years is and you know like in talking over a bit on the floor yeah and going well why not do this
and then uh and then somebody they'll you know person a will go yeah that could work but i really
think this aspect you're forgetting and person b goes you know i don't think
it'll work because and like i said i've used this line before i'm like you know and i realized i
don't care that much now like just that amount of dialogue right there realized i don't care so do
whatever yeah it doesn't matter it's just it's not you know i gotta yeah i'm hungry comedy too
and i'm sure you guys have figured this out. It's not a science. No.
It's like, you know, we need a joke here.
And then there's no, like, this is the best joke.
It's like, no, no, this is the one we're going to go with.
And, you know, and somebody might not like it, but we got to move on. I don't really want to work with people who are like, no, this is the best joke.
Yeah, no.
I don't give a fuck what they say.
Oh, I've been around some of them, and it's like, it's usually fear-based.
Yeah.
Did this kind of, because it was a bit of a divergent path to go from wanting to be a Broadway actor and then kind of go,
all right, I'll do this TV show and I'll come out here.
And then you end up being like one of the authors of the longest running comedy in television.
I mean, has that made you kind of have to restructure your idea of yourself? Yeah, a little bit. I've gone through many
identity crisis, crises over the course of doing It's Always Sunny where I'm like, you know,
both incredibly grateful and artistically satisfied while also feeling like I'm being
held back from exploring other parts of my, other sides of my creativity that, that I just simply do not have enough time or energy left over after working on the things
that I'm already working on to pursue. Um, and the resentment that comes along with that. Now,
it was never like a deep, deep, deep resentment because it was all stuff that like I talk to
people about. I would talk to my friends about it. I would talk to Robin Charlie about it and
everybody knew, you know.
So there was a lot of support there. But it was, you know, it has been tough at times in the past because there are other things that I want to do and pursue. And I'm actually, McElhenney and I do
not share this thing that he has, which is almost like boundless amounts of energy. I'm not a great multitasker.
Yeah, me neither.
I kind of need to do one thing at a time
and do it really, really well.
And the good thing is,
is I get so focused on something
and so obsessive over something
that when something interrupts me,
everything's an irritation.
Yeah.
I'm like, just, I'm trying to,
you know, even if it's an email.
Yeah.
You know, I'm like, I'm crafting this email. Shut up. You know, my phone dings. I'm like, shut the I'm trying to, you know, even if it's an email. You know, I'm like, I'm crafting this email.
Shut up.
You know, my phone dings.
I'm like, shut the fuck up.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so I, you know, it's tough for me to do multiple things.
I'm trying to get better at it.
Yeah.
Yeah, life kind of demands it after a while.
Yeah, especially, you know, you've got kids.
I've got kids.
And, you know, so you just, you kind of have to figure out how to do that.
But, you know, now we've gotten it down to where we're really only doing eight episode seasons.
So there is more time.
Yeah, yeah.
Outside of the show, too.
You know, because I do want to continue doing the show, but I do want to have time to pursue other things.
Yeah.
And, I mean, once you get to this point where you're secure, why not?
You know, why not? Yeah. Let I mean, once you get to this point where you're secure, why not? You know,
why not?
Yeah.
Let's get to the whiskey.
Well, now, okay,
so let me ask you
a couple things.
Are you a whiskey drinker?
Are you a whiskey fan?
I am a whiskey drinker,
but not scotch.
Okay.
I do not like,
and this is not scotch.
So I was very happy
that this was Irish whiskey
because I like Irish whiskey.
Well, now,
to clarify,
It's called Four Walls. It's called Four Walls.
It's called Four Walls, which is meant to represent the four walls of the bar.
Right.
Keep the good times in and the bad times out.
Like from the, you know, the George Jones song, Bartender's Blues, that James Taylor wrote for him.
I need four walls around me to hold my life.
Yeah.
To keep me from going astray.
I've never heard that.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
It's a great song.
Well, so this one is...
In a fancy box.
This one's in a fancy box.
So all we've done so far
is we put out a couple limited releases.
These two were the first limited releases.
When you say we, you just mean you, right?
Well, me me Rob and Charlie
so Rob Charlie and I are working on this
project together we've been working on it for a couple
years and
how does this start how does somebody go like
you know what we should have a whiskey
we had been talking about doing something in the
space for a while it just felt
like a liquor
actually no initially what we wanted
to do is we wanted
to do a beer uh-huh um because we thought like you know there's just so many celebrity alcohol
brands out there just felt like a crowded space and nobody's doing beer yeah and now i think
there's like a football player who has a beer or something but anyway at the time you know it was
like that seems like an untapped and felt like more like more close to who we were seen as as a show and as people.
You know, it was like, you know, the kind of thing you could crack open six of them at a barbecue and, you know, and not be completely hammered.
What we found out.
Yeah, because it is like, yeah.
You do need a beer when it's connected to Sonny.
It does need to be a beer that you can drink continually.
I think so.
All the time.
Well, also, like, I personally, as a beer drinker, do not, I'm not a big fan of IPAs.
I'm not either.
I just don't like.
I will drink cologne if I want to drink cologne, you know.
Yeah, it tastes like somebody fermented a fruit salad and then made it fizzy.
I just am not into it.
I like beer tasting beer.
Beer tasting beer.
I like a Pilsner beer.
Yeah, yeah. Yes, a lager or a Pilsner. That's what I want. So that's what I wanted to do is I wanted beer tasting beer. Beer tasting beer. I like a Pilsner beer. Yeah, yeah.
Yes, a lager or a Pilsner.
That's what I want.
So that's what I wanted to do is I wanted to do like a sunny lager and maybe I'll still do it at some point.
Yeah.
But in the meantime, you know, we partnered with this company called Spirits of the Night and, you know,
started talking about an interesting new category of whiskey called Irish American whiskey.
Of which there are very, very
few. And we thought, well, that
seems to be the most
on-brand thing we could
do as an Irish American bar, as
Irish Americans ourselves, the three of us.
Are you guys all
Irish? I mean, not
100%. Rob is pretty much.
Well, sure, of course. Yeah, he looks like
a potato with arms and legs.
Yeah.
Yeah, he is
as Irish as it gets, for sure.
And Charlie and I are large
parts, large enough parts Irish.
Right, yeah. You get grandfathered in.
Yeah, we're grandfathered. Just under the wire.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
So we thought, let's see if we can come up with a blend that would be interesting that combines Irish and American whiskey.
I'm a big rye whiskey fan.
You know, when it comes to cocktail, I like drinking rye whiskey straight or on the rocks, but I love it in a cocktail.
So we thought, what if we could create a whiskey that, like, drinks really smooth like an Irish whiskey does,
like the kind of thing where you order a shot and a beer,
or you can sip on an Irish whiskey.
It's just very, very smooth,
but still has some of the kind of bolder flavors
of a rye whiskey,
so that it holds up better in a cocktail.
What if we could create the bartender's utility whiskey
where the bartender can use it for anything?
So that is the Irish American whiskey.
And this is a very, very limited, very special 15-year Irish whiskey that we sourced to celebrate 15 seasons of sunny.
Is it coming from Ireland?
Yes.
That was not Irish American.
That one's Irish Irish.
This one is just Irish.
This is Irish as it gets.
It's cask strength, so it's got some kick to it.
Yeah.
But.
Well, I'm going to try the regular one, I'm going to try the regular one.
I'm going to try the regular one.
We brought ice in.
We also scoured – we're at the Conan Studios, and we scoured the place and found that the podcast Inside Conan, there's rocks glasses.
That's a big rocks glass.
It is.
It is.
I don't know what you're doing after this, but maybe don't fill the glass.
Listen, I—
Here, hand me that ice.
I'm going to have some of that stuff, too.
I like this.
It's good brown.
All right.
That's delicious.
It's good.
It's very good.
Yeah, yeah.
So, this is, again, the limited release, which we also just released in the UK.
The mass market—
This one is limited?
This one is also limited.
Um, the first run we did was, it was just in the U S and it was all for charity.
Um, it's a benefit like, yeah, I know.
Right.
What a waste.
We're pandering.
I get it.
I get it.
I get it.
Yeah.
You gotta get that out of the way.
It's a good look.
Right.
Right.
You gotta get it that out of the way before you like, uh, shove more money into your money
hole.
Uh, I love my money hole.
But cheers.
Cheers.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate you trying.
Not a lot of people bring booze here.
Has anybody brought booze?
I don't think so.
No?
I feel like there was one, but I don't remember what it was.
Oh, it was Aisha Tyler.
Oh, she did?
Yeah, she's got cocktails in a can.
Oh, she's great.
I love her.
And they're really good.
They're good?
Google it, people.
I don't remember the name.
I barely remember what happened yesterday.
I'm going to look it up.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, so again, what we were attempting here was to, it should have that smooth, slightly
sweet, but not syrupy Irish whiskey.
And it's got a little zing.
It's got a little bit of rye thing.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So what that does is it makes it so, because like Irish whiskey. And it's got a little zing. It's got a little bit of rye thing.
Yeah, yeah.
So what that does is it makes it so,
because like Irish whiskey, generally speaking, doesn't really hold up well in say a Manhattan
or a lot of the cocktails that are normally associated
with bourbon and rye whiskey.
Well, a lot of those cocktails,
it's like putting really good booze in a margarita.
It's like, why do you, why?
Yeah, yeah.
But this, the intention with this is really that you should be able to drink it any way that it suits you.
You can, you know, the price point.
So when we go to the mass market, the price point is going to be much lower.
And it should be the kind of thing where we want to see bottles, empty bottles of it stacked up behind the bar.
It's not, it shouldn't be precious.
I'm taking a drink of the fancy one.
Now, do me a favor.
Actually, maybe rinse that out with some water first because.
Jesus. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not going to be able to tell the difference. Now, do me a favor. Actually, maybe rinse that out with some water first because you –
Yeah, no.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're going to – I'm not going to be able to tell the difference.
Well, trust me.
You are.
This stuff is like a –
Yeah, but am I going to drink this and then go, man, that first one was dog piss compared to this?
That's my only fear.
Oh, okay.
I almost didn't bring that one for that very reason.
Yeah, and I actually got to go to Ireland because I was on Name That Tune.
Fox does a version of Name That Tune, which I like doing game shows, but I'm very insecure about that because I don't know any music past about 1984.
So I just was like oh shit they're gonna
throw some fucking Christina Aguilera at me I'm not gonna know who the hell what the hell it is
I love that that's your most modern example well yeah but exactly yeah that's the point and but
then uh they said it's in Dublin I was like okay you know and my fiance and I went and had a great time and, you know,
cause Irish whiskey was Jameson to me, you know, or, uh, Bushmills. Is that the other one? Yeah.
Yeah. It was those two. And I, and so I didn't really know that much about it, but it's like,
it's, it's delicious. And it's, and I think it was also off put because
I just thought it was probably more like scotch and And scotch to me, I don't know.
It's the peat.
You don't like the peatiness.
It's like a burnt band-aid.
You know, that's what it always, there's a burnt flavor and then something about the
way it smells like a can of band-aids to me.
So you do not like eating, consuming band-aids?
I do not like eating band-aids, whether they're burnt or not.
You know, some people.
Yeah, some people are into that.
Yeah, they can take a, you know, an unburnt Band-Aid.
Yeah.
Other people.
You don't have to swallow it, but, you know, some people like to just chew on it.
Sure, sure.
Especially if it's got like, you know, some fluid in there from a wound.
Yeah.
Delicious gravy.
All right, here we go.
Here's the fancy one.
This is the 15-year one.
Yep.
Okay, it is. It's better than the other one. This is the 15-year one. Yep. Okay, it's better than the other one.
Yeah, see, this was exactly my fear.
It was that now this one gets described as it's not that bad.
Yeah, yeah.
But what are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
GM, don't put out a Cadillac if you don't want the Buick to look like shit.
Yeah, fair enough. Well, that's why this – I mean, look, we did – You know, don't put out a Cadillac if you don't want the Buick to look like shit. You know? Yeah.
Fair enough.
Well, that's why this – I mean, look, we did, you know – I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about this, but we bought some 20-year-old casks.
We bought a bunch of 20-year-old casks. When you say a bunch, how many is that?
A bunch.
You know, that's a question.
I'm not sure exactly.
Very limited.
I think probably like five or six.
You look too good to know the kind of numbers.
I'm too pretty to have to know the specifics of it.
That's for ugly people.
My job is to be on here, talk good, and be pretty.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And by the way, you're doing fantastic.
Thanks.
You're welcome.
But we bought some 20-year stuff, and I don't know when we're going to release it.
I don't know.
I'm sure we'll do something with it at some point, but I don't know if you know this,
but Irish whiskey really is making kind of a comeback right now.
It was not a big commodity for a long time.
It had kind of gone out of favor with the exception of the usual suspects like
Jameson, for instance. So there's not a lot of 15, 20, 25-year-old Irish whiskey in the world.
Right.
It is really... So this stuff really is really, really special. Look, we sold this. This was
$1,000.
Wah, wah, wah, wah?
This was $1,000. This was $1,000.
Again,
all the money went to charity.
So don't come at me.
We gave all the money to charity.
We gave all of our money to charity.
All that booze-soaked money
went to probably
say seals or something.
I don't know.
It went to bartenders, actually.
It went to bartenders.
Yeah, bartenders.
Like a pandemic relief kind of deal?
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, that was the idea.
It was like...
Now, see, that's fine.
You're fine with that?
That's okay with me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, good.
If it was orphans or some shit, I'd be furious.
I'd throw this drink right in your face.
I don't know.
Orphans.
I mean, ever since Annie, they get all the attention.
They're constantly, it can't be that bad.
Because, I mean, think about it.
No parents?
Whoa, my God, that would be fantastic.
Yeah, they're jumping around, singing and dancing.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Got dogs with no pupils.
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
They got dogs that also function as mops.
I mean, you know, it's not to like.
It's really delicious.
Yeah, it's pretty great.
It's really, really good.
Yeah, it's good.
I mean, and you have to consider for cask strength.
I mean, it's almost 120 proof.
And regular whiskey that most people drink, buy off the shelf, is about 80 proof.
So this is like 1.5 times the strength.
So considering how strong it is, I think it's incredibly smooth personally.
Well, I mean, this is the end of three years of sobriety for me.
So it's good that it's going with something strong.
Oh, no.
Yeah, yeah.
It'll be fine.
Yeah, it's all going to be fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you feel better now than you have in the years that you were sober.
I'm myself again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have not been me for a long, long time.
Oh, no.
Oh, no, no, no.
What have I done?
No, this has been, this is like,
it's like do the podcast
and then take a little drink break in the middle.
Yeah.
And now we're going to wrap it up.
Did we even get to any of the three questions?
Well, yeah, absolutely.
Where are you from? Uh-huh, absolutely. Where are you from?
Where are you going? We're kind of talking about that in a way. And we touched on that. I mean, are there specifics about where you're going? Like, is there unfinished business? Is there
something left undone? I got a lot of unfinished business. Yeah. But is it work stuff? Is it life
stuff? Is it, you know? All of it. I've always got some thing that's like, you know, just out of my grasp, but like,
I still think I can be a professional tennis player. I just,
I just need my knees to hold out for a couple more years. I just need to learn how to play.
I, well, sorry. I'm sorry. I should have mentioned that's probably the most important thing. The
rules. What is love?
What does that mean?
Yeah, what does that mean?
What does that mean?
That's so stupid.
Zero.
No, but I'm actually only half joking.
I do really adore tennis, and it's a sport that I've taken up late in life.
And I've gotten quite ambitious about it.
I really do want to get better at it.
But is that something that you just do?
Like if you, I don't know if you paint, but like if you painted, would you need to be a really good painter or else it would bug you?
No.
Yeah, okay.
No, what I need to be able to do is play tennis with other people that are decent at it and be able to hang.
Yes.
Because the best way to play tennis is with somebody that's a little bit better than you.
Yep, that's exactly right. I still have things that I want to do as an actor. I'm working on
shifting my focus back to becoming an actor again, not as much. I mean, I'm still writing
and I'm still producing and I'll always do that, but I'm really trying to create more space in my
life for other things that I want to do, like, like the black, like Blackberry. Um, I want to
be able to do, take on more roles like that. Um, I want to take on new challenges and, um,
you know, I like to surprise myself. I like to surprise an audience. My favorite thing is as a,
as a viewer is to watch somebody who I've mostly known for comedy, do something great in the drama
space or somebody who's really known for for comedy do something great in the drama space
or somebody who's really known for being serious
and everything suddenly be hilariously funny.
Yeah.
That's so gratifying to me.
I love when someone can do that.
Because I just want to be surprised as a viewer.
I want to be, I don't know.
I want to be, you know, I'm not a big fan of the type of entertainment
that allows you to sit back and kind of just go like, oh, this is good, you know? I want to be the'm not a big fan of the type of entertainment that allows you to sit back and
kind of just go like, Oh, this is, this is good. You know, I want to be the kind of thing where
you're sitting back, you're watching it and then you go, well now, wait a minute. Yeah. And then
you start to find yourself like sitting forward. That's, you know, that's, that's the kind of
stuff that, that I want to do. So that's, that's where I'm headed. I just, and I want to work with
people that I respect and like. The third question is the what have you learned?
I mean, what do you, you know, you have had, I mean, because you've had a very sort of varied, varied youth.
You kind of started on one track and kind of went to the other.
But it's, you know, but I mean, in a holistic sense, it's all kind of part of the same thing.
And what do you want people to take away from that story?
I had a little bit of an epiphany
when I was around 30 years old.
And I don't know any other way
to put this that's not going to sound
super cliche.
But I realized that my,
if I had a superpower,
it was to just be my authentic self.
It was something that happened while we were filming It's Always Sunny.
And I'd read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now.
And I made a decision to stop constantly futurizing.
That's not a word.
No, but I know what you mean.
It's not a bad word to coin a phrase.
It's pretty good. Yeah. It's like, and the challenge became, how do I, how do I not
constantly be thinking about the result of what I'm doing and just follow my passion in the moment
or follow my impulses in the moment? But the challenge is how do you do that while not being
a completely selfish person who is not thinking at all of the consequences of their actions.
But, you know, I just realized that I'd been holding myself back for a long time because I was a people pleaser.
I wanted to please other people.
I wanted other people to like me.
And what I didn't realize was that that was the thing that was making me so insecure.
Like I felt almost insecure.
I didn't realize that I'd been insecure for a period of time.
This was something in my early 20s.
And I wasn't always like that.
Like when I was in school, I've gone through periods where I've felt that sense of like,
I'm just going to do my thing and trust that it's going to work.
And then once I became a professional actor,
after I graduated from Juilliard,
I found myself suddenly being like,
okay,
now like almost making a shift,
like,
okay,
that was great.
That was fun.
What a great experiment.
Now this is the real world.
This is,
yeah.
How do I conform to what?
The stakes are real now.
Yes.
Yeah.
Right.
So now I have to be what other people need me to be.
Otherwise I'm not going to work.
Right.
And that was the biggest mistake I could have ever made. Yeah. Yeah. You now I have to be what other people need me to be. Otherwise, I'm not going to work. Right. And that was the biggest mistake I could have ever made.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, because there is, and I truly believe it's not to get all kind of corny and cheesy,
but like there really is only one you in the entire universe.
And if you try to conform to what the world wants you to be or whatever, then you're not
being your authentic self, which means you're robbing the world of the one thing that you
have to give that no one else can give the world, which is you.
And that really kind of hammered home for me.
That was the biggest lesson that I learned as a performer, but also just as a person.
To just – but one caveat to that is while you're being your authentic self, you do have to try. I mean, I think you must pursue being a good
person. Oh, yeah. Because you don't want to be your authentic self. That's always the caveat
with everything. Like, here's, you know, do this. And then there should always be an asterisk. It's
like, but don't be a dick. Don't be a dick. Just don't be a dick, you know? Well, one version of
being your authentic self or one interpretation of that is being a dick. It's being a dick,
right? You're just like,
this is what I want
in this moment.
I'm being present.
Fuck all y'all.
And fuck all y'all.
Yeah, yeah.
There's that.
So it's not that.
Yeah.
It's not that.
You have to pursue
being a good person
and having a conscience
and ethics and morals.
Yeah.
And find your authentic self
within that thing
where you're conscious
of other people's needs
and other people's wants,
but not compromising who you are at your core. And certainly as an artist,
you know, if you weren't able to access, it's in those moments that you're with those friends that we were talking about that make you feel the funniest that you can be. It's in those moments
that you find your authentic self. So then the challenge becomes, how do I take that into my professional life?
How do I take those feelings that I feel when I feel so free with this friend who makes me feel like the funniest version of myself?
How do I take that into situations where I'm maybe not surrounded by those people and still bring that?
Well, Glenn, thank you so much for coming in.
This has really been fun.
And not just because you brought liquor.
Because it's, no, this is, you know, you're willing to go there.
Yeah, I like going there.
Yeah, I do too.
Yeah.
That's the point of this podcast is, you know, and it's a lot more fun when somebody's willing to take a moment and go, oh, let me think about that, you know.
It's kind of the only way I know how to be.
I'm not, yeah, I prefer that.
I like the longer form sort of.
Therapy?
Yeah.
Oh, I should consider that.
No, no, no.
I mean, have you been in therapy at all?
I have, yeah.
Yeah, see, but I need more.
But it's a thing.
It's a thing.
You get used to where you're not afraid to go like, why am I like that?
Yeah.
There's a lot of people that are real afraid of that.
And it's like, what are you afraid you're going to find out?
You know, like all the things that you already know.
I'm a little bit of an open book.
Yeah.
And I do think that's because I have strived to be a good person, a self-aware person.
Yeah.
So I don't mind going there because I don't think of going there as like, ooh, I'm going to expose something awful about myself.
I don't know.
I think that's what people are looking for
when they listen to a podcast like this.
They want to hear things where they're like,
oh, shit, right.
I feel that too.
Oh, that guy's a human.
He's a human.
What a terrible sin.
Well, thank you for drinking whiskey with me.
Sure, thank you.
And thank all of you for out there.
Thank all of you for out there for the listen thing.
Bye now.
We like the listen, and so bye.
Bye.
The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production.
It is produced by Sean Dougherty and engineered by Rich Garcia.
Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel.
Executive produced by Nick Liao,
Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross.
Talent booking by Paula Davis,
Gina Batista,
with assistance from Maddie Ogden.
Research by Alyssa Grahl.
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Can't you tell my love's a-growing?
Can't you feel it ain't a-showing?
Oh, you must be a-knowing.
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This has been a Team Coco production.