The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Lauren Lapkus

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

Comedian and actress Lauren Lapkus talks with Andy Richter about her oddest odd job, how UCB helped to launch her career, working with David Spade on The Wrong Missy, and braving the Star Wars saga with Nicole Byer on her podcast Newcomers.

Hello, you're listening to The Three Questions. I'm Andy Richter, as usual. I'm Andy Richter, I am here today with a woman who is on fire, a woman whose comedy career is stratospheric. It's Lauren Lapkus. Hi, Lauren. Wow. Thank you. That was a really nice intro. You are. All of Hollywood is talking, is whispering your name.

Oh, my God. They're afraid to say it too loud. No, thanks for doing this although i do i must say every time i go to earwolf which is you know where that we where if i do in normal times i record a lot of these podcasts i always see you there you must be there i mean or you must have been there when in normal times a lot yeah yeah i've clocked a lot of hours at earwolf for sure it's kind of interesting doing it all from home now um because i the i think my biggest complaint about going anywhere is just being stuck in traffic and how like doing a podcast means you have to like drive for 40 minutes then drive 40 minutes home

and it just makes it just a long thing so now I just, you know, stumble from my bedroom over here and do it, which is kind of nice. Put a top on. Yeah. Well, you are, you are a Midwesterner. Are you not? Yeah. You're, you're from Evanston. Is that right? Yes. I'm from Evanston, Illinois, right outside of Chicago. And is that where you. And have you lived there your whole life? Yeah, yeah. I was born in Chicago, but then my family moved to Evanston when I was a baby, and I grew up there. It's a great place. You spent time in Chicago, so, I mean, are you familiar?

Oh, no, I'm from Yorkville, which is out by Aurora. We're both Illinoisans. Oh, okay. I mean, I was born in Michigan or something, but my mom's family hometown is Yorkville, Illinois, and that's where I grew up. After my folks split up, my mom got divorced, we moved back home with my grandparents, and then I grew up there. I grew up in Yorkville. Where is Yorkville? Straight west of Chicago. You know where Aurora is?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you just keep going straight west, yeah. Okay. But why Evanston? Were you folks involved at Northwestern or something? No, I think it was just that it was a cool suburb. As far as suburbs go, it was like a seemingly great place to live. Good schools.

It's a beautiful town. Yeah, good public schools for kids. And yeah, they just, it was kind of a, I don't think there was too much planning going into it, but they found a house there and just moved. But yeah, my mom hadn't seen the house when they moved. My dad called her on the phone and like saw the house and was like, I found a good house. And he like described it and she was like, okay.

That's trust. Yeah. What did your folks do? What do your folks do for? My dad's an architect. So that's part of the trust there is that you can trust that he's picking a good house. But my mom was a preschool teacher for 40 years.

She's retired, but she also taught first grade for a while in there. So, yeah. Yeah. And are you the are you an only kid? No, I have an older brother and he's in real estate and he has two kids. And so that's like you know all happening over there that they all get to hang out all the time and i i don't i'm very jealous you're the weirdo that ran away yes do you do you i mean do you miss living in the midway do you ever have like

go back to chicago fantasies at some point i do and i i actually think i had a dream last night about this. Not that I'm going to bore you with my dream, but I was thinking about how I in my dream, I was saying, I really wish we could live here. I just love being there. I love being I love being in Chicago. I love the weather. I love the memories that I have there. Like I miss it so much. But I think I mean, there's so much to love out here, and I think moving out here was so scary because when you're from the Midwest, there's so many preconceived notions about LA

that just that it's going to be a horrible shithole with superficial assholes, I think, is kind of the vibe. And it can be. To be fair to the Midwest, that can be your experience. Yes, that is true. But I think of course we you know we find

our people out here and so it's not like that all the time but um but thinking back to just like my days doing improv in chicago it's just a sort of nice existence with uh low stakes drama which is great yeah yeah were you a funny kid like were always kind of, and were you rewarded for being funny? You know, I mean, sometimes little girls being funny is not such a, it's not. Yeah, I think, I think of myself as like being a really shy kid when I was growing up. And I often would panic about different types of things. Like I remember in kindergarten, we had to make stone soup, which is from a book. And it's like a thing where you make the soup and everyone puts in like weird

shit and then you eat it. And I really panicked and I went home crying. Like I feel like I was doing stuff like that in my mind as a kid, like a lot, just panicking about situations I didn't want to be in and not knowing how to deal. And I started to develop like a sense of humor more and more as I was getting older. And I mean, watching, I watched so much TV. So, so much develop a sense of humor more and more as I was getting older. And I mean, I watched so much TV. So, so much of my sense of humor comes from watching SNL and every Comedy Central Premium Blend episode that ever existed. I've seen them all. But I feel like that kind of helped me start to see what I was into.

And I became more of a class clown as i was growing up and in school so i think people saw me that way as i was in middle school and high school and stuff but and it was a it was a funny house yeah i mean i think my family's really funny but i don't want them to hear this um but they are then they'll try too hard or my my family i think my mom is very um sure that i my sense of humor is like entirely from her um which i think is partly true but i think my brother is very funny and i get a lot of it from him and uh my dad is my dad has a good sense of humor but i wouldn't say he's he's hilarious, but he knows what is funny. So there was a lot of humor around, and I feel like I was definitely encouraged to pursue doing plays and things that I found enjoyable. Yeah, there was an appreciation for the arts.

And your parents are still together. That's a rarity in show business. Yeah. Or it's a rarity in anything you know yeah it is yeah yeah they've been together for like i don't know something like 40 years close to that maybe yeah yeah and uh and where did they meet did they meet they were both chicagoans i take it my dad grew up on the south side of my mom is from Indiana and they met, they lived in apartments that were right next to each other. And so my mom like saw my dad and

made it her mission to go on a date with him. So. Oh, wow. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Well, so you, you started, I mean, you said you became a class clown you started in high school like going and taking improv classes and what was the decision making with that how did you know and didn't your parents know what a what a den of sex and drugs those places are those improv studio they probably did to some extent because they used to go um when lived in Chicago before they moved to the suburbs, they would go to Second City and watch all the classic people from the in the 70s and 80s who were doing it. But I I got into it because I was it was really like out of failure at other things. I was trying to get into every school play and I auditioned for every single play. We had tons of plays at my school and the competition is pretty fierce there, I would say.

It's funny to think back on it because, I don't know, I always think about high schoolers doing a streetcar named Desire or something and how when you're in high school, it seems so moving. But if you're like 25 or older, it's like the goofiest thing ever. What, to see kids doing it? Yeah. Doing, yeah. doing yeah like doing like dramatic adult yelling yeah yeah but i was so sad because i couldn't get into any show and it would always i mean i would i would audition for everything and just end up crying

and i would get into the yearly sketch show at my school which was called yamo which was like a take on what northwestern did they had a version of that that we kind of co-opted. And I would get into that every year. And it was like where I would shine. And then I had a teacher who suggested that I take improv classes. And he was like, you should go do I.O. because they don't have an age limit for the adult classes. But Second City, you would be in the teen classes. So just go to IO. And so I did because I was like, oh, great. This is like the direction I've been waiting for. Yeah.

But yeah. And I started going my senior year when I was 18. I started doing it every Saturday and going to two classes with like adults. And it was very intimidating, but cool. Was it something you like? Did you think like think like okay this is what i want to do i mean because it's really i mean i would be if i would have been fucking terrified you know i just would have been so you know i wasn't comfortable in my own skin till i was 48 years old so yeah i mean i think i was definitely in my peak uncomfortableness.

But it helped me so much with like growing up and getting to know who I am and like finding my voice. But it was it was there were a lot of growing pains there. And I definitely was really nervous. But I did know that's what I wanted to do. I mean, I had read like, every book I get my hands on about SNL. And, and I loved TV so much that I didn't know that improv was a direct line to it necessarily. But I started to see that as I was doing it more and more that you would see people slowly get those jobs and you could start to make sense of the path. But at the time, it was really just a way to get to perform. So I'm kind of grateful that at least I was young enough that I wasn't only doing improv for the sole purpose of becoming an actor. It was really just like, I want to do comedy and I don't know how you do comedy.

Like this is the only way that I could figure out to do it is like taking these classes. And I think there was such a like, I had a perfect window to just explore that without the pressure of needing to make money as an actor or something was this while you're in high school or was it after you got out like the summer you got out this was while i was in high school it's my senior year of high school i spent doing that yeah and and you stayed local too didn't you for college i did yeah i went to depaul in chicago solely to keep doing improv so it was really like that's what i was gonna ask like was it yeah because yeah yeah and i mean i uh look back at that and i'm like that's very privileged and annoying to say to go to an

expensive school so you can do improv on the side yeah i definitely see how that's annoying but um it was what i did yeah yeah yeah well you got you know your parents need you to go to college you know that they did pick somewhere and you know you know and it was really important to everyone and it was important to me to get a college degree and my mom went to depaul so there was like kind of already this feeling of oh that's like a school i should go to like yeah without your legacy or whatever they call yeah i think i applied to three schools and um and i just didn't really care what happened like i really was just like we'll just see i don't know i didn't like a lot of my friends were doing like really diligent like you know applying to multiple

schools that they really were passionate about and they had visited them and like i just i didn't know anything i just i don't think i visited depaul leading up to it i just went yeah i yeah that's i was kind of i mean not because i was wanted to take improv but like having just had a my son go through the college process and apply to like fucking 10 of them or something like yeah just like a zillion of them and i in i was asked at one of the college nights, like, how many schools did you apply to? And I was like, one? U of I, the one I got into? Yeah, I think I applied to U of I and Iowa and DePaul. And I was like, I did early decision to DePaul and that was part of it too. So by November, I knew where I was going. So I was

really like one foot out the door at school. If you do that early decision thing, you don't care at all what happens the rest of the year. Did you move out of the house or did you stay home and commute? I moved out and I moved into a dorm and I had a roommate. And I look back at that time and I'm so annoyed at myself because I had friends who would have their best friend as their roommate. And I was like, they're not trying to grow. They need to be with a stranger. And then I had friends who like would get a have like their best friend as their roommate and I was like they're not trying to grow like they need to like be with a stranger and then I like had a stranger who was a roommate and like didn't become friends and it was just a tiny room that I was sharing with a stranger like it's just like the expectation to be friends with this random person you're

paired with are just ridiculous oh it's yeah no it's a real kind of crapshoot, you know, that can really be a disaster, you know. Is your son, well, I guess now with coronavirus and everything, it's different, but did he have a roommate or what is the whole plan for that? He did. He had, there were four boys in a suite. like two uh two in a bedroom in each bedroom and then the bedroom was connected uh with a like a kitchen and a and a oh that's nice bathroom yeah which the only like the one i could like i would rather like the the thought of like four 18 year old boys sharing one bathroom i just thought oh that's the grossest thing in the like i there should a communal bathroom would have been less probably yeah we i had to share with um two other girls or we had a bathroom that shared that was like connected and i don't think

anyone cleaned it i don't remember cleaning it like I don't think that was part of the deal. Well, that was – this is at Parsons School of Design in New York City. So it's an art school. So everybody's kind of – you know, they're all weirdos anyway. But he was the only one who ever cleaned. And that was like – and he's not particularly fastidious anyway. He just happened to be the most clean of these. Yeah. And he actually switched roommates, but it was right before the world ended.

Yeah. And now he's going to stay going to school out here. He didn't like New York city and so he wants to go here and he supplied desi in a couple places but now with you know the fact that school isn't going to start in the fall i think he's like i know why should i go to art school over the internet i know it's so weird i saw that harvard is going to be all virtual now this fall. And it's like, that sucks. Like you go into Harvard and then you have to just like sit here on Zoom.

Yeah. I don't know. And that's, you know, and that's, I mean, he's considering taking time off and I don't blame him because it is like, it's a lot of money. You know, it's a lot of money. I think so. a lot of money you know it's a lot of money i'm not saying because i don't want to pay for it because frankly he's got like we put away enough money you know where i'm lucky enough to have made enough money throughout his childhood that he's got a college fund it's pretty healthy so it's like it's not like it's coming out of my pocket right now yeah i think but i just i i just feel like yeah go ahead take it I think that's good.

I feel like this is such a weird time for everyone. And it's kind of nice to be able to take a step back if you're in college and just, I don't know, not get, it's so like, I feel like college is such a direct line from high school where people, people do suggest taking that year off anyway,

to like get to know yourself or to like volunteer or do something that's like interesting to you. And this would be the perfect time to do that. I don't know. Just have a little reflection and make sure you're doing exactly what you want when you go back. Take that year off and stay home. Yeah. Don't do anything helpful to anyone.

Yeah, yeah. Just stay home with your mom. That's what every college kid should do. Yeah, just take some time off to spend more time with your mother. Although I'm sure a lot of moms are really happy right now to get that extra time with their kids. Well, up to a point. And then they're like, all right, enough. Now, since you were in college and you're doing these improv classes, like, does that kind of give you, like, you must have then had two circles of friends.

You must have had kind of grown-up improv friends. Yeah, that was my main group. I really had like two friends at school. And then everyone else was like my improv friends who were in their 20s or 30s. There were those people who I was hanging out with who were way older than me, which is weird, I guess. But at the time, it didn't seem weird at all. And then I quickly moved out of the dorm after my first year to move in with some improv friends and get an apartment. than me which is weird i guess but um at the time didn't seem weird at all and then i yeah i moved out i quickly like moved out of the dorm after my first year to like move in with some improv

friends and get an apartment and have that like experience which was so much better for me and i just was able to you know be myself so much more and you were 18 and how old were the people you moved in with um at that point i was 19 and the people were like 24 I want to say um yeah maybe one of them was around my age she was in college too so yeah the roommates were like rotating through the years we kind of had one of those apartments where people were coming and going but it was I mean you know it was one of those Chicago apartments that was just like it's it was massive we each paid 500 bucks a month it It was amazing. And we had parties all the time with everyone in the improv community.

We'd post online on the improv message board. Everyone's invited. And it was just the best. I was suddenly living my best life. It was so fun. In a party house? Yes. Wow.

That's amazing. And your parents are okay with this? They don't, you know? They were. I think they understood that I would be much happier living with people I was actually friends with than some random person that I was assigned. And I tried it. I think that was part of it for them was like, I tried the dorm. I did the college lifestyle and it's really not for me. I remember like the, one of the first days I met the other two girls who were sharing my suite and they asked me if I wanted to go to church with them that Sunday. And then I said, no. And then they never talked to me again. So it was like kind of a weird environment. Is your family religious at all? Not particularly. I mean, I i think my dad my dad grew

up going to catholic school and my mom my mom's side of the family is like greek orthodox would be the religion we would you know say we are but i feel like i only went to church on easter and christmas and yeah it was never really a huge part of my childhood. Yeah. And, but DePaul's a Catholic school, right? That's, that is that. Yes, it is. And that's part of, I think, why when I said I didn't go to church, they were like, probably really confused about like who I am and why I'm there and what's happening. And why you're there, yeah.

Is it, does it feel real Catholic while you're there? It doesn't. I don't, I don't really remember that as being like a huge part of my experience. I think there's definitely the... I mean, it is a Catholic school, but it's not something that's mentioned in any classes or anything. I mean, the classes I was taking, I was an English major. It didn't really get... I never took religious classes, so I don't know.

Maybe there was religious studies where you would be feeling that a lot more. Yeah. I stayed away. Now, do you feel like, you know, because I, I, I mean, I look back on my kind of improv training and really how it really does kind of, and it's hard to, you know, the knowledge that you get on how to do this thing, it, it slowly accumulates and it's not like you can really explain it to people, but you do get to a point where you realize like, oh yeah, I can do this, you know? And like,

and you do find yourself going in front of people on a regular basis for 60 to 90 minutes and doing comedy and not having an idea, any idea what you're going to say before you get up there. And I mean, when does it settle in? When are you comfortable with that? And. Yeah, I mean, it is it's a that's it's such a crazy thing to slowly realize you are willing to do. Yeah, because when you start, it's so intimidating and even just getting up, excuse me, getting up in class is like so scary because you're you are like feeling like you're just on display for your peers and it's just like so nerve-wracking and then suddenly you're doing it for audiences of people like anywhere from five

to a hundred people i mean there were definitely times i did shows for two people um which that's i guess that's good training um but yeah, I think it's really just like, I think for me, it was once I got onto a team at IO, after I graduated the classes and was put onto a team, there was this feeling of like, you can do it. Like they've approved you or something. And so you have this group that you're working with. And so much of it is like the trust with your teammates too,

that if you really like and trust the people that you're performing with it's way less scary than it would be if you're performing with strangers and you're new to this or um or people who are you know gonna do things that throw you under the bus which i definitely had a lot of people like that too where they would there was one wild card kind of guy who comes to mind who would you know i remember wearing a dress for a show and then he got on the floor and like looked up my skirt during the show. And it's like there's just people like who are nuts and mess with you during on stage. And when you're like young and trying to figure out how to react to these things, I don't even know what I would have done. I mean, there were so many moments in these shows where people do things that are just straight up offensive or wrong.

things that are just straight up offensive or wrong and you have and i was like 19 you know trying to be like just still be funny through it or something which i'm sure wasn't possible um so i don't know there's like definitely that blind confidence that goes into it to let you get through those moments and think you should keep going i don't know does that answer the question i feel like i went on a tangent but no that's all right yeah we gotta fill up some time here um yeah no i it is and i'm and i remember too the i remember because when you when you are playing when you have less control over who you're playing with you know like in the early days when you kind of are getting on stage with people that you barely know, people get tossed in with you that, and I do remember there being moments of, especially because usually, I mean, I don't know how it was back then, but usually there's only one or two women per group tops, you know in fact i think sharna halpern who runs io she has to i mean i know like

i say i don't know what it is anymore but the women have to kind of get spread out in order yeah you know it's not just a sausage party every time somebody gets on stage yeah that was still true for me i mean that was 15 years ago. And there were more women probably than years before that. I mean, there were teams made up entirely of women that I was watching and admiring and stuff. And so I had some good role models. But it is true that on each team, on each house team, there were probably two women. And that's the thing too. I feel like now looking back, when I think of the times where I was uncomfortable or something, that's the thing too like when you i feel like now like looking back when i think of the times where like i was uncomfortable or something like that's an element of it for sure that like as being one of two women you know you're and finding your voice

and i was young it's just there it's hard to totally um protect yourself in certain moments but right um not that that was like my entire experience but it does that's something i'm thinking about when thinking back to like starting at that young age and being around these older people and trying to figure out like what my boundaries are in. Yeah, because there is like. Sexist choices that are made that puts a pall over the hall performance. And then the burden is on you to scold somebody yes and you have to and you're at so you not only have to like i was always and the the women that were good at it were amazing you know they learned sort of coping mechanisms

um you know like i learned i learned uh i mean this isn mean, this is in a separate category from sexism, but like I found, I was with a group at the Annoyance Theater, had this very kind of very much in the spirit of experimentation and kind of anything goes. Basically, if you wanted to get on stage at the Annoyance, you could. Yeah. So what that meant was there was a lot of people that were not that great and you would have these like you would have such a wide array of like amazingly talented and then like should not be there kind of oh yeah oh yeah and it isn't to be a dick it's just to be honest you know well and at this point now a professional you know yeah

well i did some stuff with the annoyance too and i it wasn't i wasn't there that much but the vibe is so much more like anarchy like whatever like anything goes um like type of stuff you know i mean i can think of disturbing disgusting things that i saw there that are fine you know, whatever. Everyone can do whatever they want on stage. But it was definitely the place for that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. And when you're, like, when you're surrounded by people who don't know what they're doing, that can be really, that can feel really, like, dangerous.

Yeah. Like, it's just, like. Especially as young as you were. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, there was part of me that thought it was fun and exciting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there was part of me that thought it was fun and exciting, but I look back and I'm like, oh, some of those people were like actually being mean or like, you know, just like different things that I look back. I'm like, oh, I think I understand that differently now that I'm older and I don't think that was cool or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But well, they're also too at the annoyance.

They're like one of the sports, one of the team sports that people would play was mind fuckery. Like they were, you know, there was a lot of behind the scenes, sort of just, you know, people that liked to manipulate and people that like to, you know, and I'm not saying I'm not even like, you know, this isn't like I'm not, you know, speaking of one particular person, there was just like a lot of drama and it was a sport, you know, speaking of one particular person, there was just like a lot of drama and it was a sport. Oh yeah, for sure. And I think people too, being like really drunk a lot of the time or really high or whatever. And then you add that to that. There's like tons of drama. Like I definitely remember people like sitting on the floor in the bar crying and like, you know, just that's like a

Tuesday. I don't know. Yeah. Well, what I was what I was bringing up is like the coping mechanisms that you learn is that I realized because we would we we did these like improvised plays. That was the you know, that was the form that our long form took. And I think we started with the title. And there was a woman on the team that was just, she was a lovely person, but she just was not a great improviser. But she was super gung-ho. She was up for anything. So we would, she, I would say. Such a good combination.

90% of the time, she was the first one on stage. And it got to the point where the other group members, because I just always ended up going out there with her like you know like just yeah and it got to the point where we'd start and if she went out on stage and you know like then there was kind of like a lag people backstage would literally look at me like you're gonna handle this right they're gonna go out there oh my god that's so familiar that feeling of like those sort of patterns you get into with the people on your team who are just not fully there or not up to not up to par with everyone else there's just there is always that pattern of like one person who's willing to like throw themselves right down for the cause like

like like oh i gotta work now you know but i found what the way that i ended up dealing with with that particular situation and then in any other situation where there was sort of iffy improv is to really push on agreement you know like to go go out and you set up a premise you know like uh you know, like, you know, like something like, you know, the dentist will be right in. And then she would do things like pretty weird that there's a dentist at a car, a car dealership. Oh, God. You know, and I would just have to agree with her and say, like, oh, yes, that's a part of our you know like that's and i mean i'm just making this shit up but it's like oh yes that's a that's a new promotion we've got

you know buy a car and and get you know get your teeth drilled at the same time but that just like aggressive agreeing with somebody that disagrees with you and i there were women that had sort of like the sexism version of that that they could sort of like but it was just always such an was asking so much work of the women totally well yeah i mean not just be funny but also handle this dope you know yeah and i definitely admire those women who are so good at that who can make it funny still and put someone in their place and kind of call out what's weird about it but it is work and it's like well they don't even get to do the scene they want to do now because they had to like deal

with this idiot the whole time reaction yeah yeah yeah actually eliza skinner posted a really um interesting clip of her on i think it was Shaquille O'Neal's show I don't know some sort of talk show did you happen to see this clip I did see that clip there was like a another co-host of the show who was like making sexist remarks to her and she had to like she was I mean her comebacks were amazing like she was just like fucking dunking on him the whole time but it sucks because it's like she had to sit there and like do that like that's not like why she was there you know she had she's it's like lucky that she's so funny she was able to manipulate the situation and make it funny and handle it but it's just so shitty to have to be put in that position yeah yeah yeah i think the guy was like the whole hilarious joke was that

she had slept her way into the job yeah that. That was the funny, funny, funny premise. Yeah. Yeah. It's just. Just sucks. Yeah. It's unbelievable. But I was very impressed watching that and just thinking like, I don't know if I could have done that as well in that moment, in that situation.

Yeah. Yeah. can't you tell my loves are growing so is it continuous are you continuously doing improv through this entire through like basically all all the way through college yeah so i kept doing that all through college and then i moved to new york um right and I did like UCB and stuff there. So I was really continuing it. But at the point in Chicago, it was interesting for me because it really just was about doing improv. There was no career opportunity coming my way at all. I don't know if you had that experience when you were there. Were you getting any auditions for anything? I did one audition for this new discount furniture company called Ikea that was from Sweden. And basically, yeah. And basically they, uh, well, we'd never heard of it,

but basically, they basically had, uh, men and I went with a friend of mine, uh, Betty Cahill and I did it audition together. And they just basically, it was like one of the worst. They basically said like, you're a young, hip couple. You don't have a lot of money, but it's important what you spend. All this ad speak bullshit about who we were. And then they're like, okay, go. Like, go?

You don't even know what to do. like and and yeah and there was just no parameters so we start to improv we're trying to find something we're talking about like the couch we're sitting on we don't even know what the fucking furniture is and i was and we're kind of like you know it's it takes a little bit it's not like 20 seconds and they're asking us basically to write which is another thing like that's so annoying too that happens so often with commercial people getting paid to write this commercial and their idea is bring in funny people and have them say funny things i know although i just remembered i got one commercial audition in chicago and it was for coke uh coca-cola and i was so excited and i like i remember what i wore and i went to the

audition and i was sitting there in this room full of like 20 people and then they just canceled Coca-Cola. And I was so excited. And I remember what I wore. And I went to the audition. And I was sitting there in this room full of like 20 people. And then they just canceled it before they even got to me. They were like, we got it. I got so sad. I went home. It sucked. And that was your only Chicago edition? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This one was when we were in the middle of still trying to find out where we were. This, I don't remember who she was, but the casting woman and she was a big casting woman you're supposed to impress and really get her to bring you back but we're just improvising kind of maybe finding something that's

kind of funny and then this woman just get in the middle of our audition just yells resolve it oh my Oh, my God. Okay. We'll buy this one. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, I, you know, someone has to murder someone or something like that. That's a resolution of a kind. But, yeah, no, I never had anything in Chicago. And I had no idea what I was going to do with myself. I mean, I was taking improv classes and I knew like, oh, there's something in here.

But I didn't have any, like, I didn't think I'm going to be on SNL. And I took improv classes with people that were like, I'm going to be on SNL. That's my goal. And I was like, I don't know. I'm just kind of, this is fun, you know? Yeah.

I mean, I think I thought that I would be on SNL and that there was this like higher, like, you know, bigger thing that was going to happen, but I had no sense of how you got from point A to point B, but it was like, I know that this is like a step, but I, there was like no understanding of like how you got an audition, how you put together an audition, like how, how does it, how do they even find you like it just felt like that'll happen somehow down the line but i don't understand yeah and so i think there was something good about that though like i i mean i wonder if you agree with that but like there's something kind of nice about not having any clue how it works when you're doing it because you're able to just enjoy this time like i don't know i was i

wasn't feeling like the pressure of like i have to get on snl by the time i'm 24 or something you know there wasn't that like feeling yeah well no i didn't know anything i knew there were agents and i knew the idea was just supposed to get casting agents and agent agents to come there to you know to see your improv show and we would be aware when there would be a casting person and they would come in like seasonally to do things yeah i remember uh friends of mine auditioning for snl and and lauren michaels lauren michaels seeing a show at the annoyance theater called the miss vagina pageant which was a it was a all-female cast and it was uh it was a it was Jill Soloway and her sister Faith produced it.

And it was like a parody of the beauty pageants. And it got a lot of attention because there's a lot of really funny women in the show. And Lorne Michaels came to see it and brought along Quincy Jones. That's crazy in Chicago though. Something like that happening is like unreal. It was unbelievable. We couldn't, you know, it was, yeah, it was like, you know, like space aliens had come to visit us and they were sitting in the house.

That's nuts. But did that Brady Bunch show you did get attention like that though? Wasn't that a really popular show? Yeah, there was a show we did in Chicago called The Real Life Brady Bunch show you did get attention like that, though? Because wasn't that a really popular show? Yeah, there was a show we did in Chicago called The Real Live Brady Bunch that, again, Jill and Faith Soloway produced. Reenactments of the Brady Bunch. Were you there when we were doing that? No, but I knew all about it. Like, it was like lore, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the Annoyanceance theater was a theater a weird little theater devoted they had a long-running show called uh co-ed prison sluts which was um that did the group of the original people had come together with this kind of you know like prison exploitation kind of musical that was absolutely filthy and it you know But it did very well. It was a very funny show, very talented people in it. And then we filled out the rest of the week with different kind of experimental improv-y kind of things.

A lot of stuff of what the Annoyance did was we'd get a cast together. Rather than rehearse a written text, they would rehearse improvising a play. So the group would sort of, as rehearse improvising a play so the group would would sort of as a group write a play together and then they would the text would just kind of be held in their heads together you know in their collective head and then they would do plays but jill and faith had this idea of doing real you know reenactments of the Brady Bunch.

And there was a political divide, too. It was like Jill was a usurper coming in and trying to take over and trying to control things. And it went crazy. control things and and the it it went crazy it was it was like it it coincided with the 70s disco nostalgia that was happening at the time which was you know this is like 1989 something like yeah and uh well it seems like it was really ahead of its time too because now that's that's a much more common thing to do to reenact something like that or whatever. But like at the time, that must have been really funny and crazy. But like it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I thought I thought it was really dumb.

And I saw the first one like I just was. And I could just kind of started getting in there like it just started taking classes there. And it was the funniest thing I ever saw. And then we all did. We all pitched in, there was a game show that preceded it, that filled out the night and we would do commercials in the game show that were for local businesses.

Oh, fun. And that, you know, like the liquor store down the street would give us some money. And then two of us would get together and come up with a commercial for them. And, you know,

and so all of us would pitch in and we did, they did two shows a night on Tuesdays and that was the Brady Bunch night. And it was huge. It was like, it really, you know, injected a huge, I mean, amount of money, first of all, into the theater. And then just got people kind of, you know, interested in seeing it. And it's what got me out of town. I mean, they took it to New York and I, the guy that was playing Mike Brady, couldn't go. And so I went to New York.

Oh, wow. And that's where I got an agent. We did it at the Village Gate. That's so lucky. Yeah, no. I mean, it's really, I mean, my particular path is, is there's like just so much dumbness to it because I get, I get involved. I'm Mike Brady in this real life Brady bunch, which is like, who gives a shit about Mike Brady? Yeah, sure.

Like it's honey, I'm home, you know, casting agent comes to New York and, you know, and it gets all this attention and it's like all we're doing so much other work possibly can you could easily consider better work in whether we're doing improv or these other shows that we've written ourselves that aren't this dope thing but this is what gets attention casting agent comes at call you know and i was used to casting agents come to the brady bunch but she can't and then she said she waited for me and somebody's like there's a casting agent for you and i was like really and this woman was like you were really great and you know you should meet this agent here in new york and i was like oh okay i guess i mean you could tell from you know honey i'm home that i you know you've got it and i went and I went and had, you know, I got an agent in New York city and went and met with her and sat across from her for, I've told

this story before, sat across from her, just chatting for probably 45 minutes. And then she gets on, she goes like, I'm going to call some of these casting people, network people here. Cause there are network casting people in New York, but they're not like, they're sort of like satellite casting people, but I'm sitting across from from her she's talking me up to these people all made up shit like he can do it all he can do drama he can do whatever i'm like how the fuck do you know that is amazing bullshit i get it well this is you're reminding me i had a meeting with an agent in new york when i moved, and I don't know who connected me. There was this manager who like saw me and my sketch partner in Chicago, and she kind

of, we were kind of influenced by her to move to New York instead of LA, but it was also because my partner wanted to move to New York because her family was from there. So we moved there. Who's your partner? This was my sketch partner back in the day, Candy Lawrence. She's a stand-up. But we did sketch when we were in Chicago, and we we had a group called the money kids and we this this manager saw us at a um festival or something in chicago and she started talking to us and it was like huge for us but it ended up leading nowhere we ended up going to new york

and trying to like get her to work with us but it didn't happen she did have us hand out flyers in Times Square once uh for like an HBO comedy showcase so that was almost a cool gig um but we I got a meeting with an agent and I went to the agency and again like I mean I think every time I had anything like this I was like extremely nervous it was like a huge deal to me I went I got there I went the office was like really dark like it was really dimly lit and i sat down on this couch in front of her desk like right in front of it and it was really low so i was like way lower than her yeah and then she was on the phone while meeting with me and then um looking at my resume that i had made which just had like all my you know theater credits and stuff and she's like you're really 5'10 and I was like yeah and she was like you're taller than that I was like I couldn't understand why someone would

say they were shorter so I didn't even understand what she was trying to get at but I guess as a woman I might want to say I'm shorter than six feet if I was I mean I'm really 5'10 but she just basically challenged me on my height and then sent me on my way. Like, I was like, that was it. That was the whole meeting. She's like, you're not 5'10". You're taller than that. All right, bye. Like, it was like, and she was on the phone. It was just like crazy. Yeah. So, I eventually got a commercial agent in New York who would send me out like once every couple months and I got callbacks for a few commercials, but never booked anything. So, it was really just just like I was really just doing UCB that whole I was there for like a year and a half doing that. And yeah, it was great, though.

I mean, I think the improv community is like such an amazing way to get to make friends as you move to new cities. Because I was completely lonely and didn't know anyone. And suddenly I had, you know, at least 10 friends right off. Yeah. So it's nice. What were you what were you doing to make a living during this early time? I was a babysitter. And that's basically the only job I've ever had that was not acting related that I didn't quit within a few days. I've tried to have other jobs, but it doesn't work.

What were the ones you tried? In Chicago, I worked on Navy Pier as a caller for a boat company where you stand on the dock and you yell about the boat. It was called Shoreline Sightseeing. And I stood out in a red polo and khakis and yelled, boat rides, 30 minutes on the lake, 60 minutes on the river. And I was horrible at it. And the other guys who worked there were all like improviser dudes, but they were older than me and and i didn't know them and they were not nice to me and they all like hazed me i was there for i was i was there for like a couple days but they made me do all the hard stuff like you're supposed to throw this giant giant rope off the dock onto the boat so the boat can take off

and i couldn't throw it because it was really heavy and i would they just like watched me like try to throw it up you know they're just making fun of me. Like I look back. I'm like, that was so dumb. I wouldn't have been like if I could be there now and just like, fuck you, you do it like that sucks. I didn't have the confidence to fight back. But I quit. I dreaded going there so much that I quit over the phone. And then I went in and picked up my hundred dollar check a couple days later, which no one was happy to give me. picked up my $100 check a couple days later, which no one was happy to give me. And then in New York, I worked as a barista, quote unquote. I've never had a sip of coffee. I don't even know what it is, basically. But I worked at a coffee shop. I was so determined to get a job right away when I got there. And I was living with my roommate, Candy, and then her girlfriend and we were in like a small two-bedroom apartment That was still like really expensive and I had to get a job right away So I had a friend who worked at this coffee shop and he hooked me up and I actually got this job Which probably would be hard to get in general, but I got it

It was horrible because you had to get up at like four o'clock in the morning and take the train into manhattan and like Open the gate and do it's just awful for me i mean i'm like i don't i don't get up early i mean i guess i do now for acting work but not for a job like that and had to go in there and try to make coffee for like new yorkers who know exactly what they want which is very intimidating just like fast lines of people who come in there every day and i was like f. I remember I had to serve a guy a bagel once. And I mean, that's like a really easy thing to do.

I had to like toast a bagel and like put butter on it and bring it over to him. And I was walking and it just flew off the plate and landed face down. And then there were no more bagels. And he was like pissed. Like I just, I had like horrible little interactions and I was so stressed out and I quit after a few days and so then it was all babysitting i was like i'm only gonna

i've done that since i was 10 years old i know what that is i know how to interact with people in this way i like the one-on-one of a child you know it's much easier for me than like customers yeah um so i got jobs on i used like called SitterCity.com and like connected with moms and dads and started babysitting for a lot of different families. And that was how I did it. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it was a way to like have my day free in case I got one audition ever, which I never did. Or so I can go do shows at night. And so it's kind of the sweet spot. And then when I moved to LA, I did that. And I also picked kids up or took kids to school in the morning. So I babysat this girl at like 5am and then her mom had to go to work. And then at eight 8 I would drive her to school and then I'd go home and then I could do

my have my whole day um but it was not um a lot of money I mean I was definitely like just scraping by all the time but I was really proud that I was able to do it myself so sure yeah yeah did and what are the I mean what you said it was about a year and a half before you actually sort of got anything, any paying gig, right? Yeah, I mean, I was in New York for a year and a half, and then I moved to LA. And I was about nine months into being in LA when I got, started getting work. So that started to pay off quickly. What did you, was the LA move because you just kind of felt like it wasn't happening in New York or? Well, I had planned my candy and I were going to move to L.A. originally.

And then at the last minute, she was like, let's go to New York. And I just had always wanted to live there. So it's kind of a whim. And then we I gave it a year. So I stayed a little over a year. But the plan was always to be there for that long and then move to L.A. because I was dating someone long distance in L.A. at the time. And so there was this feeling of like, I'm going to end up there eventually. I'll have this time

in New York to like try that out and then I'll move to LA. And so once I did that, I feel like things started to fall into place more, but it was also from all that experience that I had of not getting stuff that I started to see, you know, like when a good opportunity comes, you, you know. getting stuff that I started to see, you know, like when a good opportunity comes, you know. Yeah. Yeah. We are right. So were you and I mean, you talked a little bit about like how feeling L.A. wasn't that bad. What were you all amped for it or was there some hesitation on your. I was really excited at that point. And because I had had this mark in my head of like, I'll move there in a year. By the time it was like over a year that I was in New York I was dying to move I was like so excited to go partly because of my relationship and partly because I was like I think this will be

better for me like yeah there's so much about it that is easier than living in New York cost of living for one thing yeah it's probably getting to be more comparable now, but at the time, my apartment in North Hollywood was $900 for a one bedroom that I was splitting with my boyfriend. So like, it was really cheap compared to what I was paying in New York. Was the boyfriend from New York

or from previous to New York? We met in Chicago, but then he is from LA LA so he moved back to LA and I we started our whole relationship was long distance from the start oh wow yeah which is dumb I would say if anyone's thinking about doing that they shouldn't well it's hard to like just go you know sorry bye you moved you moved on me. Well, did you have any kind of, I mean, you obviously had the UCB. There was a UCB out here. So you had that to do.

Yeah. And I got on a team right away when I was coming out here and looking for an apartment with him. The auditions for the teams were right at the same time and I got on. So that was also like really amazing because I hadn't been on a team in New York. I was just doing classes there. So then to get on a team and have that built in when I was moving, like, Oh, I'm going to move here. And I have this team ready to go. It was like a really comforting thing. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And, and so did, did representation come from that? How did, because that's really from UCB people that don't know that's, you know, you don't, you don't start making a

living until you get an agent to come in yeah yeah and i got a manager saw me at ucb and that's how i got my career going the though the first thing i ever got was through improv actually it was um molly mcnerny who's married to um is that her last name who's married to Jimmy Kimmel yeah yeah um she yeah she uh was an improviser at IO and I was doing stuff at IO West as well and she like I got a connection through her to go like audition to do a bit on Jimmy Kimmel and I ended up getting to do this like 10 minute improvised scene with Ryan Reynolds and Jimmy Kimmel, which was like amazing for me. It was my first TV job ever. And that I like, I got to be on TV. So that was like before I had a manager, even I think there was like this moment of like, oh, I got to like improvise on TV. It was so cool. It was amazing. What was the bit?

The bit was that I was Ryan Reynolds' biggest fan and Jimmy Kimmel and I worked for Jimmy Kimmel and he wanted to fire me, but he wanted to have ryan do it so it would soften the blow and so ryan came over and i just cried to him and screamed at him and stuff and it was fun was it was it supposed to seem real like were you supposed to seem like it yeah yeah yeah and i yeah i definitely looked real oh that's good. Look that up, people. That sounds like a good one. Oh, yeah, it's on there. It's on there.

And so then you get the manager and you're auditioning and you're all set. You're here. You're living with someone. You've got the world by the short end at that point. And it just kind of continues from there i guess right yeah i mean yeah i mean my first the characters was that was that one of the first that was a bit later no uh my first thing was a uh my first pilot season i booked a pilot that got picked up and it was called are you there chelsea it was on um nbc it was chelsea handlers sitcom that laura preton starred in and i played the dumb roommate ali wong was on that show it was actually

a really great cast um but that was that was insane for me because i literally was auditioning for a few pilots i got this pilot and then it got picked up like i remember sitting in my little apartment like refreshing deadline to see if it got picked up and then it did it was insane like i had never i had never expected something like that so i think it's so funny to look back at because in it's ultimately like a failed show it's like a failed sitcom that went 13 episodes and got canceled and no one thinks about it but for me it was like that's my first job like this was crazy so it was like amazing well it's i mean the whole notion of success and failure is so weird here because you know like i was number one on the call sheet for three different network sitcoms but none of them

worked so like it's easy for me at times to go like, oh, none of them worked. Yeah, but you still got to do it. No, but then, yeah, but the thing is, is like I fucking got to, you know, coming from where I came from, I got to star in three network television shows. And I think that's the thing. I've been on TV for a zillion years, you know.

People get so jaded so quickly about that. And like, you can just say like oh that was a failure but like it's so hard to get anything on the air and as an actor it's so hard to get the role in the first place but like to have a show that is on that people saw is like a huge success right so many things don't even get past the first stage so like it's just i i still like i i feel so grateful for those opportunities that i had to be on things that were quote-unquote failures because that it's like you make a whole career out of that like it's it's it's not a bad thing and so much of it is just

being there so much of like being a professional at anything is just learning how to be there and and that's the only way i mean with acting like on set there is no class i mean maybe there is but i never heard of one and you don't know how to do anything you don't know what a camera is and how it moves and where it goes and what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to turn and like so much of it is you have to just do it to understand absolutely and so for me it was such a training ground to like get to be on this it was a multi-cam show which kind of was a natural progression for me coming from performing on stage and getting to perform in front of an audience and like have these you know learn on my feet and have people who are really supportive of me because everyone knew it was my first thing

so there was like there was a understanding you know vibe coming from people towards me i think yeah right they yeah they didn't expect me to know everything yeah they probably childproof things soft rubber corners on all the coffee tables how old were you at that point um i was 20 let see, I was like 26. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's, but yeah, that's still pretty young for a first gig. I mean, you know, for a first gig when you're, if you're not like somebody that's been a child actor or something like that.

Totally, totally. And it's, I think that was like a really cool experience. I mean, getting to perform with these other actors who had been doing it for a long time. Laura Prepon has been acting for a very long time and she's a pro. So like to be kind of watching someone like that while you're trying to figure out how it works, it's like so beneficial. I went to film school, and I worked in production in Chicago. That's what I did. Oh, okay. Aside from waiting tables and working for a moving company,

I got out of film school thinking I was going to work on commercials or industrials or whatever in Chicago, the occasional feature that would come through. And I was on my way to being a prop guy basically in Chicago. And, uh, and so I'd been on sets. I knew how to be on sets. I knew how to memorize lines and stuff, but my, the first thing I got was, uh, it was when we were doing the Brady Bunch out here and it was a Holly Hunter movie called uh the the positively true or alleged allegedly true adventures of the Texas cheerleader murdering mom wow it was based on a real story where a woman tried to hire a hitman to kill the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival oh okay it was like some trashy story

and there were a couple of TV movies made out of it. But I got a part as like a young cop and I had a little scene with Swoozie Kurtz and Bo Bridges. And it's really, I mean, aside from industrial gigs where, you know, you do, you know, like you do improv for a group of Jewish singles, you know, out on the night or, you know Jewish singles, you know, out on the night or, or, you know, or, you know, just like little one-off gigs like that, college gigs, things

like that. This is my first like paid legit kind of job. And like I said, I don't know, like, where do I go? Well, how do I have to, I stick around like, you know, and then I just, you know, I went to a little dressing, you know, a trailer, you know, like I had a little room in a trailer and I just kind of sit there and wait. And then I just, you know, we shot their side of it, you know, because typically the way you shoot things is a wide angle and then you do the singles and they waited to do my coverage last and when they're like you know like when they said like turning around which means putting the camera on the other side of the room to shoot the other half of the scene i was like i don't know what

that yeah i don't know what that means like where do i go and you don't really want to say to somebody i've never done this before where do i go I don't know what this workplace is. That's the thing. So much of it is just pretending you know what's going on because you don't want to, I don't know why, but there's just a feeling you don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing. And the it is life, basically. So much of it. Yeah, that's pretty much it. That is true. And probably people are doing that in every field. But with this, it's like you just you just hear turning around enough times that you go oh it means when they come to get my thing oh okay that's not okay oh i started to figure out what these words mean um but yeah it's it's totally

intimidating at first and i mean i'm sure i was doing things that showed how little i knew you know what i mean like you probably were doing something that people were like, he doesn't know what turning around means. You start spinning around like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and it felt, and it's like you said, that felt like I won a contest. You know, like.

Yeah. I went, shot this thing, was done in a few hours, came back home, you know, to my fiance at the time and was like,

wow, I just was in a movie that's amazing yeah it was crazy um crazy so the i think the first thing i ever saw you in was the was the characters uh oh yeah that you did on comedy central and how does that happen i mean yeah it was a netflix series this was like a um so that was like in 2015 those came out so i think leading up to that i had a few meetings with um with a woman who was working at netflix and this was like when it was a few years into net, you know, creating their original content. And she had sort of softly pitched this idea to me, like probably in like 2013, like, oh, I want to do a series of like, alternative comedians getting to do their own thing for their own episode. And so there would be like eight episodes and each person can do whatever they want with the time. they want with the time and um it evolved to be all like sketch comedians who do characters and so we were given our own 30-minute netflix special i mean it was truly like really awesome to get to do because we got to write our own thing star in it come up with every little detail um it was really really cool and i had been doing a lot of sketch like leading up to that point. So, and I was performing sketch live

at a lot of different places. I don't really do that anymore, but not as much. So I was kind of known for doing characters in that way. I think now I'm known much more through podcasting for doing characters. So it's kind of interesting how it all evolves. And I don't really want to go do like a random two minute bit at like a 10 hour show you know

it's nice to have podcasts where we can like you know get to explore a little more um but yeah they really just came through knowing this this woman who um she was an agent and then she moved to Netflix and um she ended up putting it all together and so it's like me and John Early, Kate Berlant, Henry Zebrowski, Doc Brown, Natasha Rothwell, Tim Robinson and Paul Downs. So it's like all I mean, people who are all killing it. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy to get to do it. It was really fun. And yeah, I got to be on Conan after that.

So that's probably why you saw it at the time. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I may have seen, I may have seen you. I, I, I feel like I may have also seen you at UCB in a women's improv group, but I don't.

Oh yeah. Wild horses. Wild horses. That's yeah. We eventually had Conan on, which was really fun, but we, we do like a show where we really,

was it? He doesn't listen. Okay. To be honest, it was actually really rough. Um, no, it was great. And he, he shared like a lot of really great stories. Um, but we, we do a show where we like interview a guest for like a, a long period. We'll do like 45 minute dinner party conversation, kind of interview with them. And then we do improv inspired by the conversation. yeah um yeah i was doing i've been doing that for like six years that specific group yeah but yeah um so uh this recent thing well i mean and when did i do you are you doing podcasts right away when Earwolf start? I mean, is it just kind of, did you know Scott Aukerman? Is that kind of?

No. I actually met Scott doing ASCAT at UCB. He was a monologist and he came one night and I was in the cast. And he later asked me, after meeting me there, he asked me to do a character on Comedy Bang Bang, which I had never heard of. Don't tell him. He won't listen to this either. Don't worry. a character on Comedy Bang Bang, which I had never heard of. Don't tell him. He won't listen to this either. Don't worry. And I didn't know what it was, but that was definitely in the point

of my life where I was just agreeing to do anything no matter if I knew what it was or not. And I signed up, did it, and had a great time. And I started recurring on Comedy Bang Bang, which then led to Jeff Ulrich, who was one of the Earwolf CEOs, or I don't know what his exact title is at this point. But at the time, he was in charge of helping people get shows. And he offered me my own podcast. This was a couple years into guesting on things. And so I created my podcast with special guest Lauren Lapkus, which is the premise is that the guest is the host and I'm the guest. So's just an improvised show where they can do the guest does whatever they want um and so that's kind of where I started really getting into the podcasting world like then suddenly I'm like I have this podcast and at that time people

really weren't sure what podcasts were and you know I mean there's like a it's not that long ago but I feel like the conversation around podcasting has changed so much just the last few years yeah it's kind of crazy like at the time i feel like i was like i have a podcast and like if 50 of people would know what that was if you were talking about it yeah and now everyone has a podcast so it's weird if you don't have one yeah no no here here we are yeah yeah but it's like such an amazing platform because i feel like over the time like i've gotten to do a handful of my own podcasts on Earwolf and HeadGum, which is another network. And like it as an improviser, it's so amazing because you really don't have the same opportunity that a standup would have to go tour the country, get fans this way, have people know your style of humor and get to know you outside of any sort of tv or film job that you have there's no way to like share your personality as an improviser unless the people

live in la and could come to the show so it's been so amazing to like reach people on this bigger level and and then tour with with comedy bang bang and stuff like get to go to other countries where people are excited to come to the show and they know all the dumb bits we do and it's just it's like kind of crazy yeah especially at the time when i was like no one knows what the fuck this is did you ever do a stand-up at all no i think i tried it one time at an open mic in chicago and like i like bailed midway through my thing and like turn it into a character i was like i don't even know what's going it was just like embarrassing you then i never really wanted to do it again but sometimes i think i could try now more than i ever could before because i know my point of view a lot more than i ever did from podcasting i mean like from like talking

at length as myself which was something i never did before i always did characters i'm like oh i think i i know what I would do if I had to do standup. But it's, is it, I mean, is it ever coming back? If I was forced court mandated that I got out, go to,

did you ever do it? I, I was in that, I was in a boat of, you know, like sometimes, you know, and when you have kids and even as much, you know, like sometimes, you know, when you have kids and even as much, you know, I've made a nice living or stuff, but you never know where things are coming from. Yeah.

So when you get kids, you start to think like, what can I earn when somebody's not calling me on the phone and saying, come over here and earn some money? So I had this thought like, and I have friends, you know, I have friends that are like, like David Koechner goes and does stand up and Tim Meadows started to go do stand up. And I, and they did it basically because they could, they had a name and they, if they got together, you know, a certain amount of time of, of material, they could go and they could, time of material, they could go and they could headline it, a stand-up club in St. Louis or Seattle or wherever. And so I thought, I'll try this. And then I just, I didn't like it. I realized I just did not like being on stage by myself.

Yeah. It's a whole different thing. I mean, it's definitely, coming from, I mean, doing improv and then going into that it's like you you really have the feeling of it's on me to fix this yeah well i also i also from like an improv macho standpoint once i was doing comedy that was improvised i was like i don't want to go around and say the same thing all the time. I have that same problem. And I think it's such a like, it's like a part of your brain. It feels like you're cheating after doing improv forever to then like write something down and repeat it many times. I'm like, that is that's not funny anymore. Like, I don't know. I love stand up.

I love watching stand up. So it's not even a slight against stand-up. It's more about myself doing it where I'm like, this doesn't feel right that I'm repeating this. Yeah. I don't know. I would do the same when I started having to do press for things like being in a show or in a movie or whatever and having to go, especially like for movies, for junkets. You've had to do junkets. Yeah. Where you go and like for two days, you're hotel conference rooms and there's – this is for people. Some of it is just sitting like those weird interviews of people sitting in a black void with just – on a director's chair with just the name of the movie behind them.

And there's God knows where, and you see them on HBO and flip past them because no one ever sees them. They do those. And you sit in a room and they're, you know, you for hours and different people come in and interview you for four minutes. So you have to, they ask you the same questions. You have to say the same shit. And when I started doing that, if I said something something funny i felt like initially like well i can't say that i mean that was a good i know that was a good joke answer for that for that question but i can't say it again just out of you know out of my own sense of pride and then after a while you're like who fucking cares whether i say this to byron allen and the person from you know

i don't know you know from, from the Santa Barbara NBC affiliate. It's so true because there is that feeling of wanting to be original with everyone and have like a genuine interaction. But they're asking you the same question over and over again. And it's not creative. So there's no there's no desire to like keep it going on your end to like make it interesting. Like you start to get so numb very quickly because it's the same it just feels like you're in groundhog's day like over and over just like a new person comes in they ask you the same four questions they leave and that's it and then no one ever sees it like you said like where do these videos go yeah i don't know i did i did a junket from zoom during this quarantine right the wrong missy and it was the weirdest i was just

like sitting in my house just like sweating my ass off answering the same questions and then i got up and like did laundry one millisecond later like it's just a very weird yeah yeah yeah yeah but did uh was that the wrong missy is the biggest, which you were really, really great in that movie. Oh, thank you. You're so funny in that movie. Thanks. And I watched it because you're in it. Thanks.

We'll cut that out. No, we won't. But because I really was excited about the notion of you just getting to go big throughout an entire movie, you know? And it's so rare that you get a chance to do that oh yeah anybody gets a chance to do that no it was it's totally true it was so crazy for me to get to like play a role this big and get to improvise a lot within it and just have a lot of fun and be completely silly just you know for a good time like i think the movie is just a good time that it's not trying to like make some statement and change the world. It's just a fun, silly, funny movie. And that

was like a dream come true. Like just getting to like mess around and have fun. It was amazing. And I love David. I think he's so funny. So I was really excited to get to work with him. How did that come about? How did, I mean, what was the process of getting that job? Like it just came through my agent. It was just like a regular audition that came in. And I, you know, go out on auditions all the time and don't get things. So it was just a random thing that I went out for. And I really went because David was already attached to it. And I was like, I just think he's great.

Like, I've always liked him my whole life. So I was really excited to get to potentially meet him, which didn't happen at the audition. Of course, I knew it wouldn't. But I still went in with the like, oh, that would be cool. I don't really care if I don't get it because that's the attitude you have to have about movies and auditioning and everything. And I thought I had a good audition and I left and felt good about it, but then just kind of forgot about it.

And then soon after i got the part so it was really just one of those standard ways of getting something yeah um but it was very exciting for me to get to go to hawaii and live in the four seasons for a month and yeah yeah it was cool i could i didn't i mean, because I follow you on, I don't know whether it was Twitter or Instagram or both, but I just kept, I just remember thinking, because I think you had gotten married not too long before that, correct? Yeah. Yeah. I got married in October 2018. And I was like, how fucking long is her honeymoon? She's been in hawaii

for a year just like jesus christ what i know it was it was really nice uh to get to go there and i had done like a small role in an adam sandler movie years ago called blended i had a very small role in that um which was really exciting for me at the time. And so it was really cool because I got to work with a lot of the same people again. And I just I mean, it was really like, you know, most people didn't remember me from that movie. So it's kind of weird because I had this like distinct memory of like being there since it was so important to me, but I have two lines, you know, and then being in this position. But yeah, getting to be in Hawaii, it's like so beautiful. And I wish I could live live there it's like the most idyllic place ever especially when you're at a nice hotel i mean i i've never had that experience in my life yeah no i always i always like the the most look

you know like the most luxurious things i've ever experienced were all like when i was not paying for it right because I cannot afford it's like it's like when I fly coach and somebody will be like what are you doing back here it's like I'm paying for the ticket yeah that's what I'm doing right here I'm not gonna pay thousands of dollars to sit four rows ahead I'm not gonna I'm not gonna spend literally five times what this costs just for a little elbow room yeah I know um was it on oahu were you shooting on oahu or it was that's a big i honestly get confused every time i talk about hawaii i need to like study a map of hawaii it was honolulu yeah yeah yeah okay yeah because they're and the big island

is called hawaii and that's that's okay a different one that's that's a different one okay i was on oahu um and a month to find this out you could have like paid a little bit of attention this is truly it's embarrassing because i've been to hawaii like four times uh one other time was for work and then uh two times for for pleasure and i was confused every time i have no way of justifying my confusion about where I have been and why on Hawaii islands. I get confused. I just don't know. It's something I can't keep straight.

There's not that many. It's not confusing. It's not confusing. It's just something I have a problem with. Yeah, yeah. Was your husband able to come with you? He did come out for like a weekend to hang out for a little bit. Yeah, it was really nice. But it's weird. I mean mean because this was the biggest role i've ever had in something so

i was very busy and um working so hard which i really enjoyed but didn't get to you know it wouldn't have made as much sense to have him out there for a long time but it was nice to have a little weekend there was i i you know i tend to i've been through a lot of therapy so i tend to psychologize a lot of stuff but like one thing i noticed in that movie is like well you kind of end up you know like winning or whatever you know what i mean you know what i mean like you yeah there is a happy ending it's like that movie dumped so much shit on you literally like you were so often like i was soaking wet doused covered in mud yeah and i mean is that weird do you start to feel like this movie

doesn't like me like you know yes yes i mean it was every turn it was funny but it's and i mean i enjoy getting to play someone who is an idiot who's getting like you know shit on basically literally the entire time it's like it's fun yeah and i've gotten to play it a lot yeah it's very fun um but yeah you know you have to keep your, like, um, that, that complaining part of you just has to like, shut up. Like, I mean, I truly was like, I'm not going to complain. I think I barely complained, but there's that, that part of your brain is screaming like I'm freezing.

Oh my God. But you know, it's like, you, no one wants to be around someone who's like complaining about the job the entire time. And I'm like, I am lucky to be there. It's, it was a big role for me. So it's it was a big role for me so it's awesome but there was a point where we had to use um fish guts to there I get fish guts thrown in my face and they were real fish guts because the fake ones didn't arrive in time and so they were throwing like actual stinky fish and bones into my hair and face and mouth and then I had

to throw up over the side of the boat with like cold soup in my mouth which we just kept doing over and over again and like that actually makes you want to really throw up like it's just like you know sitting on a boat where i'm getting seasick and and people are like combing fish bones out of my hair and then doing it again one minute later it's like it's a lot but also really fun i don't know yeah yeah very weird have you ever had to say no to a bit um with this i didn't i truly was i don't mean in that movie particularly yeah because i was just down for whatever was happening really but um in general i i don't know that I really have had to say no. Maybe there were, I mean, I think over the years, I've pushed myself to try everything as much as I can, like to the best of my ability with stunt related things like that,

that like you, I think if it got to a point where I was genuinely in pain or something, I would say no. But like for the most part i'm willing to try stuff like i remember doing a web series when i first moved to la and they wanted me to like you know shoot a gun while like flying onto a mat like sideways really hard to do um you have to be strong to do that and i was not at all and i still tried it even though it was like a waste of everyone's time but i think now i might go oh I know I can't do that. And with this movie, like there were plenty of things

that like physically I wouldn't be able to do. Like I had three stunt doubles who did amazing work, like jumping off the side of the boat into the water. And like, I'm not a good swimmer. So that stuff freaks me out

and I would never try. And so there was a girl who was amazing and did that. And I mean, I think I know my limits with certain things, but I'm still, I still push myself. my limits with certain things like but i'm still i still push myself and even with swimming like and going underwater it's not something i'm comfortable with but i had to do it a lot during that movie because my character like goes underwater and comes up being character and like i didn't want to even share that i was

uncomfortable because sometimes like doing i knew that i still had to achieve the goal and so if i share that i'm uncomfortable then suddenly everyone's aware that I hate this or that this is hard for me. And then it makes me feel like crying. So I think there's just the feeling of like, I'm just going to shut up and do this, even though I get nervous going underwater and then just get through it. But how very Illinois of you. I think that's a, I think that's a huge thing. It's like you are taught. That's probably true. You get that, especially from Chicago Improv.

Nobody's more important than the group. Yeah. Say yes, do everything. But then eventually you do. There's times when you have to say no to stuff. And I've said no to things where there's times when you have to say no to stuff and there's, and there's, and I've said no to things where like, there's like jokes that are just so fucking clammy and awful that I don't want to do them.

You have to get to a point where you can do that, where you can say that. But I think that's definitely like a part of growing through your career where you're able to go, Oh, I don't want to say that thing. Or like, that doesn't,

that joke doesn't like that. That's something I don't want to say that thing. Or like that doesn't, that joke doesn't, like that's something that doesn't speak to me or whatever. Like people will listen to you a lot more, the more work you've done, the more you've proven yourself and people are more willing to be collaborative with you at that point. But I think there is a feeling when you're coming up that like it's not really my place to criticize this or to question this or you know there's that that definitely is a a growing pain i think of of this type of career where you get to a point of comfort to be able to say i'm not going to do this or that but um it's cool to like be getting there i feel like i'm getting there. So I'm excited about that.

Yeah. I mean, I've told this, I've told a story before about, I mean, one, one that I remember was, it was one of the times I was on Arrested Development when it was still on Fox and I play quintuplets, which was an insult. Like I was on a show called quintuplets. So when they hired when they wrote me into the show they're like oh by the way you're you're quintuplets that's hilarious you're one of the many quintuplets and they just because they knew that it was they just had to

reference that i was on the show quintuplets that is hilarious but there i go to i'm playing myself you know which i was like willing to like play a showbiz loser in the thing you know like i'm go to i go to visit my brother who runs the school and there was a line that like okay i'm talking to jason bateman and i say like if you see my brother tell him i'm in the cafeteria and because earlier in the thing like I asked and I asked him he wants me to do this fundraiser and I'm like is there a dinner and he says yeah and then I say okay and I was doing those lines as if I was a showbiz loser whereas they wanted me to do them as if I was really obsessed with food I would do anything for food like i'm a fucking like you know like i'm like i'm wimpy and there's a cheeseburger so i'm gonna crawl across the volcano and i just i said i i didn't

even understand what they were asking me because they kept going like we want you to read it different you know like and i just was like i finally was i finally was like oh do you mean i just want to go to cafeteria because i I just am so crazy about eating food? And they were like, yeah. I said, oh, so you mean Fatty loves to eat? Like Fatty can't control himself. Fatty would do anything just to get that food in his fat fucking mouth. Is that what you mean?

And they're like, yeah. I was like, no, I'm not going to do it that way. I'm not going to do it that way. I just am not. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, no, I'm not going to do it that way. I'm not going to do it that way. I just do not. That's great. Yeah. And they were, you know, the director actually said, like, I've never had an actor just flat out tell me no. Yeah. It's really rare. I think it's really... And that actually made me sound proud. Like, okay, yeah.

Yeah. You know? But that's part of it. It's like we're kind of conditioned to have the idea that we don't have a say yeah like you know and i mean especially when you're that feels much more true when you're younger nervous it's your first jobs whatever like you don't know what's going on of course i'm not going to argue about this line with someone i'm just going to try to say it properly yeah um but yeah i think that's like it's like you have to like get so confident with yourself to be able to say that. I don't know.

It's an interesting thing. You know, well, yeah, it does. I think you just get used to it where you're like, and you just feel like, I also feel like I know the difference between me being unreasonable and me going, well, I just don't want to do that. That is very true. I don't want to serve that. Yeah. And then there've been other things that are just like, not even artistic things. Like I, I hosted a game show and they wanted that. I saw the people that were working on the game show over filming something like doing like a, you know, a testimonial into the camera.

And then they came to get me and they said, here, this is what you're going to do here is you're going to say hi to the exec. It's the birthday of the executive that's going to green light this show. And we just want you to tell her how much you hope she likes the show. And, and, and she, you know, you hope that she picks up the show and wish her a happy birthday. I was like, no. Yeah. It feels so sad it's so gross it's so groveling i was that is it's like and there's a video of you begging for her to pick it up yeah i hope you like me did you like it happy birthday like that just feels crazy it's like no i was like and if that's the difference between this show getting picked up and not getting picked up this this show should not get picked up. Well, and that's sad on that person's part that they need a video for their birthday asking for it to get picked up for them to like see the value in it.

And it tells you something about the person. Like people wouldn't be doing that unless that person was susceptible to that kind of bullshit, you know? Well, and you must, over the years, like through working on a talk show, you must have seen like so many things like that over the years of just the ways in which people are needy or expect certain things, I'm guessing. Oh, yeah, no. Well, Jen, it really is rare that you get like, you know, complete fucking assholes about stuff. I mean, it's just, nobody has the energy and usually people that are going to be that bad don't work. They end up not getting work. So, you know, the people who are established, they at least know how to, you know the people who are established they at least know how to you know they always have someone else do the dirty work of yeah get that fucking guy out of here or whatever you know you know or there's you know i mean there's ones like uh you know

tommy lasorda loudly farting in front of everyone oh my god and everyone's going like what and then going and then his reaction was what a guy's gotta fight oh my god okay all right tommy does a guy i don't feel like they have to i mean eventually but not right now. So what do you got coming up? I mean, I know tonight you're doing a podcast. I am doing a live show on a live stream. I mean, don't,

don't, it'll be over by the time this is over. So don't even try to figure it out. It was, yeah, I have a podcast. I have a podcast called newcomers that I host when the coal buyer, where we watch star Wars for the first time and we just had our season finale and we just announced that we'll be doing

lord of the rings for the next one we both never seen lord of the rings and i'm not excited and we just watched all of star wars and let me tell you it's a lot of content so if anyone's curious to hear how we felt about it how many star wars are there we watched okay i think there's 10 or 11 movies and then we we did 20 episodes so we filled them with like tv shows and toys and different topics related um that is a lot it was a lot and the movies are all like two and a half hours long which is just very long um and then i have a patreon where i'm doing um improv and other podcasts like watch alongs where you can sync me up with like TV or movies. And it's like an audio commentary.

And then I'm also doing a podcast on that Patreon about the Babysitter's Club series that just came to Netflix because I love it. And I'm so excited about it. So I'm talking about that with really funny people. And it's been great. But yeah, I mean, like, you know, it's quarantine. So I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen next. I had jobs lined up and I was in the middle of shooting a couple of things

right when it shut down. So like, I don't know if those will come back or like if I'll get to do any of this stuff. I was supposed to like host something that got pushed. So I'm curious if it'll ever happen. I'm kind of in that zone right now where I just, I'm just trying to take it day by day and just do my little things to take it day by day and

just do my little things from home that i can control and not have any expectation because i it was so exciting to have the movie come out during this time when you know it was like a really weird disappointment to be stuck at home during it but also it was cool because i feel like people watched it because they were bored at home so it was kind of nice but there's not this like tangible feeling of like work leading to other work that you might typically feel i was gonna say i bet you kind of feel because that is such a showcase that movie is such a showcase for you yeah that you were the kind of thing where you hope like okay somebody's gonna see this and i'm gonna get something even better yeah that's

the hope and like i've been having like meetings and stuff and like talking to people about things but it's all very um you know hypothetical so yeah i'm just um it's kind of weird to like have a moment during this weird time where of course i'm also like depressed and scared and anxious most of the time as well but also like hopeful a little bit of hopefulness mixed in there so that i'm thankful i'm like holding on to that pretty tightly but um i don't know what to expect and i'm kind of scared about people going back to work on sets and being like you know exposed i just think it's um dangerous and i'm seeing that certain productions have started up and i just i don't know i don't

want to get in there too soon. That's how I feel. I mean, how have you held up emotionally? Has it been rough? I mean, have you? I think I'm doing okay. And I have been going to therapy on Zoom, which has been really great. I didn't do it for the first couple months. I took a step back from going to therapy and then I started again. And I've been so glad because it's just so nice to have a place to vent and cry and not feel like you're being annoying to anyone. Yes. No, no, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So that's been great. That's kind of been controlling me a bit. I think kind of keeping me at an even keel for most of the other times of the week. But I have moments of complete panic. I think one thing I've sort of developed

during this time is like a bit of a hypochondriac tendency that I didn't have before, where I'm, I can feel everything in my body at all times. And like, I'm like, I have a, I have a cramp. Like, you know, I'm like very like aware, my breathing's tight, like every little thing. And that's, I think kind of forming from my anxiety within this moment. And thinking that you had, yeah that's, I think, kind of forming from my anxiety within this moment.

And thinking that you had, yeah, no, I mean, every kind of like moment that I've had allergy related post nasal drip. I'm like, well, there's the COVID. It's over. I got the COVID. How have you been handling it? I mean, are your kids with you during some of this or? I mean, they split time i live both my wife and i live in my ex-wife and i live in burbank and oh that's nice so the kids come and go i mean and i actually sort of get the uh i have their they they stay

with me they each have a bedroom in my house but they don't stay with me as much as obviously that they stay in their home, which has been their home like. Yeah. You know, for years and years. So I also don't get I think my ex-wife gets the short end of the stick just in terms of the overexposure. Yeah. I mean, I think my kids and I would be fighting a lot more if they stayed with me. Yeah. Just because you got it.

And I mean, and so much of it. And then, you know, because I still get pulled into sometimes to mediate these disputes and to be a part of these disputes. And so much of it is just a loud primal scream of argh. You know, I'm tired of your face. I'm tired of this place. I'm tired of your face i'm tired of this place i'm tired of everything yeah i know it's really crazy too with like being stuck in your house and like just feeling like you get sick of every square inch it's like yeah i just hate it here what were you gonna say the thing that i'm coping with now is that i was i really worked hard in the first

and i mean it's crazy how many months you talk about it that you know you're like in the first three months like what it's i know but i i was really pretty good about you know just keeping like keeping things neat just generally like throughout my whole life keeping things neat and after a while i just was like what who gives a shit if the dishes aren't done who gives a shit if like yeah no yeah i see that pile of dog hair in the corner of the room it's yeah it's it'll be there tomorrow too and i'll eventually document but i just you know i just i just don't it's like what's the point of of that's so funny there's like we have um two two bathrooms and one of them we never

really use like i mean we use the toilet but not the tub in that one it's just a worse tub we just don't use it yeah and there's i noticed these little bugs like like little teeny winged bugs i don't know what they are, but they were, there were like three of them dead in the tub. And then I didn't do anything about it. And then like the next day I went in there and I was like, oh, they're still there. Like I did, there was just this feeling of like, oh, they're still there. And then by the way, I don't have like a cleaning lady ever or something like it's up to me to get rid of them at all times. But then I said to my husband, like, did you notice there's like those little bugs? He and i was like and you don't pick them up and he's like no and i was like meaning

we had this conversation about how we both just haven't reached in and just gotten them out of there we just like have looked at them every day for a week and i don't know there's just like this despondence despondent sort of like feeling that comes into play of like it just doesn't matter i don't really i don't have anyone coming over. It's not embarrassing that there's a bug that's dead right there. I don't care. I see it for 30 seconds and then leave the room. It's just weird though, because that's like not how I am,

but you start to just not care. Well, yeah. I mean, it is like, well, what difference does it make? Like what difference does it make that, you know, I need a haircut that, you know, my hair is long and it's driving me crazy and getting in my eye. I'm like, I don't care, you know, like I know I got nothing. Anybody's going to see it. Um, but yeah, it's, it, it's, it is, you do need, I mean, I don't know. I mean, you know, the notion that you're supposed to kind of, everything is supposed to be self-motivated and that like, you know, you find, you know, like you have your mission statement in your mind of what life, what you want out of life and what you're going to do and that you just, you know, upkeep yourself just because it's good to upkeep yourself. And I just realized, oh, no, I live completely for other people. I live completely, you know, like the only reason. It's all about the external forces.

The only, well, yeah. It's like I receive my kind of, I mean, not all of it, but like most of my activation comes from other people because it's like when other people say, you know, what's wrong with you? Why are you so grumpy? I realize, oh, I'm kind of being an asshole. And when they seem happy to see me, then I realize, oh, no, I'm being a good person now. You know, like I'm okay. And I just, you know, like those bugs in the tub. There's bugs in my, you know, I have the same thing. I have two bathrooms.

There's bugs in the tub. What are you going to do? Who cares? No one's going to see it. There are bugs in the tub. No one's going to do? Who cares? No one's going to see it. There are bugs in the tub. No one's going to see it. And if I don't use this bathroom, I won't see them. Exactly.

And I mean, I've been noticing that with myself with like clothing that I just don't, I wear the same three t-shirts over and over again. I don't care. And these are the best ones. And I might as well just get rid of everything else because no one sees me i don't want to wear my uncomfortable clothes that look nice or whatever like i'm just i just don't but there's something kind of comforting about that too like it's not totally depressing i think there's something about it where i'm like no i'm just kind of leaning into like what feels true like i don't need to put on a fancy outfit i'll just put on this same t-shirt

and jeans every single day not even jeans i wouldn't do that in quarantine but like sweatpants or shorts or whatever and just be comfortable and just get my shit done and then just have another day like i don't know it's like to me that's there's something okay about that it doesn't feel like giving up it feels kind of just like accepting the reality that we're in and feeling okay about it. I think I'm depressed that we have to go through this. And I am really sad that this is happening. And I'm devastated that this is so real and people are dying. But I'm also trying to go like, I can control my day to a certain extent and make it as full and good as i possibly can by just you know doing a podcast or like watching something i enjoy trying to read a book going for a walk it's all very

simple but like it does help me when i have a busy day like the other day on the fourth of july i did nothing but binge watch search party all day which is a great show but i watched it for 10 hours and then i was like i don't feel good about myself like i like i'm like i can't do this every day like this is not okay i have to go i have to have some sense of normalcy yeah but do you um i mean let's kind of in, in summing up and kind of, you know, looking back because the third question of this is, you know, uh, what have you learned? And kind of on that, I want to ask you, like, do you feel like you made mistakes that you wish you had done differently? Yes.

I feel like I've made plenty. yes i feel like i've made plenty um i think i mean so many of them are like relationship based or like um friendship based but i think like that's that's what comes to mind initially um i was married before so like i have that sort of in my past as like, oh, that was all, all handled wrong for various reasons without getting into like my personal life or whatever. But like, I look back and think like,

oh, if I had known more, I could have done it differently. I could have handled that differently or all these different things along the road, getting to that point. And I think, you know,

for me, I was not married very long. So it's not it's okay, whatever. I mean, like that I wouldn't I when I look at someone like you and what you went through, I think of that as like a successful marriage, because you had so many years and created like an amazing family. And like, I think that's like, that's a success. And I don't know if you see it that same way. But I do. Yeah. And thank you for saying that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I think that that's really amazing. What ways are you proud of yourself? I mean, what are sort of things that you feel like I did that right or, you know, or that you feel proud of yourself just in sort of like where you stand in your life and, you know,

your personal life and your and your professional life? i feel proud of myself for building my career like i had no um family connection or anything that would have like shown me how to do this and it really was self-motivated to pursue all of this all of these dreams um and thankfully i had a support system it's not to say they didn't help, but that they there was nobody explaining how to do it. And so I'm really proud of myself for like being scared and still pursuing all of this and like and putting myself into like situations that were like beyond me in so many ways. even just in all my regrets and all of my mistakes and things that I look back on and feel were the hardest parts of my life beyond just that experience with that relationship, but just the many other mistakes I've made. I feel like I'm proud of myself for the growth that I've had and for going to therapy, which I think is so important, but I didn't start doing that until I was in my 30s. And that was amazing for and and just to have a place to talk things out um safely

so i'm proud of myself for doing that because that's not something that i've seen you know in my personal life it's just from my being inspired by friends and people around me that i um feel like i've been able to grow and i feel proud of myself for for trying to make myself better as much as i can so yeah so your folks nobody in your family ever went to therapy or anything no it's not it's not common in my extended family i would say but really um i think i even the mid i think it's kind of a midwest thing i don't know if you would agree with that but i don't know anyone who was doing that when i was growing up yeah it was not common so it's not even like

it's not even like oh my parents didn't try that it's like that no one's doing that like i don't yeah it wasn't like i was hearing about it all the time and like maybe they're just perfect and happy yeah they're everyone's perfect so we don't need to go to therapy we don't just talk anything out yeah sorry why break why fix something that isn't broken uh yeah no actually i mean my mom one thing she did great was that she uh always was open to professional help even from when i was a kid and you know like she had a new marriage and I think that's when we, and we, the adjustment between having a stepdad and, you know, like that caused some issues. And we, as a family actually went to like some kind of, you know, counselor to kind

of talk it out. So. That's nice. But yeah, no therapies like the, it's, I mean, I've said it before. It's like it take, for for me it takes the place i mean it makes me understand what religion does for people in terms of oh yeah giving you a sense a sense of progress and a sense like just a reason for things yeah you know yeah and and a sense of hopefulness that they're going to get better. Like, you know, that situation used to fuck me up a lot worse than it does now.

And I'm learning to deal with it. And that being like such a huge relief compared to just feeling like, oh, no, I'm just going to keep eating the same pile of shit over and over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, that's something where I think like, oh, if I had started that in my twenties, I probably would have been more self-aware and able to make proper decisions in my life. Um, you know, and relationships. Like, I think when I like think about everything I've, I've talked about in therapy and worked on it, things just come up. So, so strangely in therapy, like, I feel like you go in thinking you don't have anything to say and then there's so much and it goes all these different ways and there's always something new and like i mean i often don't want to go i don't want to most of the time i don't want to do it and i tell her that like every time i'm like i didn't want to go but i'm glad i came here and talked about this and whatever um but it's so it's so i think it's like it is it does take a lot of like self-motivation to go to therapy but i I think if anyone's listening and they've been thinking about

it, you should try it. Cause it's, it's especially maybe on zoom. It's even better. I don't know. It's less intimidating. Cause you're not going to like some weird office. Yeah, no. I mean, it does seem like, yeah, this would be a pretty good time to start therapy for

quite for most everyone. We're all going through horrible shit. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for taking some time and breaking out the pink curtain. You've got a nice pink curtain up behind you, which no one on the podcast can see. I just like to think it's hiding a hoarder house behind there. Honestly, I was thinking the same thing. If I pulled this back and there was just like piles of cereal boxes and newspapers. Right, right.

Just garbage, like old TV trays. Like I mentioned the three bugs in my tub, but that's actually like the cleanest part of my whole house. Yeah, the bugs escaped to there to get away from the mess. Yeah, the bugs escaped to there to get away from the mess. Well, is there anything you want to let people know that's coming up? Anything you got to plug? I mean, you already mentioned your podcasts and stuff. Yeah, follow my Patreon.

You know, that's where I'm doing. I'm making a lot of content, keeping everyone entertained as much as I can during the trying time. So follow me. Do you do that for yourself mostly, you think? I mean, are you someone that needs to be busy? On one hand, yes. I mean, I started this in November, so it wasn't just because of being in the quarantine, but I started the Patreon

because I really wanted to have a space where I could do different things from week to week. Like I've been doing so many serialized podcasts for the last few years that I wanted to be able to week to week. Like I've been doing so many serialized podcasts for the last few years that I wanted to be able to change it and do whatever I want. So that was the decision behind it. But it is interesting to,

when you ask that question, I'm like, maybe partly it is for me because it's a relatively small base that I'm reaching because it's a subscription platform as opposed to like a podcast that is free where you get tens of thousands of listeners or whatever that there's um maybe an element of it that is for me but i i don't know yeah yeah well no that's i like the community the community is really nice on patreon because it's people who are signing on to like follow you specifically. And so it's people who want to engage and they're like, nice. So I really like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like

Reddit. Yeah. And you do, and you do feel like, well, they already like me. So I can, I imagine it, it lends itself to some experimentation, you know, totally. Yeah. I'll try this. Cause who cares? Every, you know, it's a safe space yeah it's fun well again thank you and good luck and I hope to see you someday on campus when school opens again me too and again

Lauren Lapkus thank you and thank you all at home for listening and check out her Patreon yes please it's such a funny word that's the three questions and check out her Patreon. Yes, please. It's such a funny word. All right. That's the three questions.

We're done. See you next time. Thanks. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco and Earwolf production. It's produced by me, Kevin Bartelt, executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair,

associate produced by Jen Samples and Galit Sahayek, and engineered by Will Becton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. My loves are growing. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.