Episode 1094 - Ashton Kutcher
Guest:Lock the gates!
Music
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck wads?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:I am broadcasting from a hotel room in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Marc:And so far, this room is great.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:It's got a lot of charm.
Marc:It's kind of fun.
Marc:There's a record player in the room.
Marc:There's also a ukulele.
Marc:in the room uh which i've never seen before i've never been to a hotel with a ukulele in the room i feel like now that i've mentioned it i should probably pick up the uke and uh and give it a whirl hold on
Marc:I don't think it's an in-tune uke.
Marc:I should have done a little more preparing before I started the show.
Marc:So I went to Cleveland and met up with Dean Delray, and we've been fucking laying it out, doing the shows.
Marc:It's been great.
Marc:Before I get into that, maybe I should tell you that Ashton Kutcher is on the show today.
Marc:Ashton Kutcher.
Marc:He's got the final season of his show, The Ranch, streaming on Netflix.
Marc:But he's one of those guys where I'm like, everyone seems to be okay with Ashton Kutcher.
Marc:People not only are okay with Ashton Kutcher, they generally like him.
Marc:People I've talked to, his wife I spoke to, obviously she had nice things to say about him.
Marc:But everybody in general seems to like him.
Marc:And it turns out I liked him.
Marc:And you'll get to hear our conversation.
Marc:If you're looking for... There's not a lot of dirt on Ashton Kutcher.
Marc:But decent guy.
Marc:Bright guy.
Marc:Good conversation.
Marc:Coming your way.
Marc:That is happening.
Marc:Oh, there goes my timer.
Marc:Time to wake up from my nap.
Marc:So I meet Dean in Cleveland.
Marc:I rent the car.
Marc:Got a Jeep Compass.
Marc:A white one.
Marc:Head out to the hotel.
Marc:Cleveland's Cleveland.
Marc:Cleveland's a little... I don't know what you... I can't get a sense of it.
Marc:I don't want to judge it.
Marc:All I know...
Marc:is that Dino and I had a great fucking show at the Agora Theater.
Marc:Well, we went to Jonathan Sawyer's place, the greenhouse tavern, and it was fucking nuts, man.
Marc:It took me two days to recover from eating there in a good way.
Marc:I've not been able to eat all day for all three days, but the show that night was great.
Marc:And then the following night, we drove five hours.
Marc:Nice conversations.
Marc:Dean got me.
Marc:I don't know what he doesn't drink coffee.
Marc:He drinks decaf coffee.
Marc:And we're stopping at Dunkin Donuts.
Marc:And I can't resist that shit.
Marc:So I'm all fucking jacked up on Dunkin Donuts coffee.
Marc:My fucking brain is on fire.
Marc:And I'm plowing just on the road with my eyes bugging out of my head from two or three Dunkin Donuts coffees.
Marc:And this is like, I guess it was.
Marc:Yeah, this is the following day.
Marc:This is the day after the Senate chose to vote on whether or not America.
Marc:would be a minority rule authoritarian country beholden to an autocrat.
Marc:And we were all wondering how that vote would play out.
Marc:Would we, you know, on Saturday be an authoritarian country
Marc:with minority rule, beholden to an autocrat, or would democracy struggle on and try to act within the constitutional and judicial processes of a democratic country?
Marc:And we chose authoritarianism.
Marc:Not me.
Marc:But those people who chose those senators and those people who choose to be mind fucked into believing a single source of information that is limited and false and also to believe a lying sack of shit.
Marc:of presidents.
Marc:So that's where we're at now, is now this sort of slow adjustment to autocracy, authoritarian construct.
Marc:I mean, obviously many of you will get exactly what you need and what you have been getting and be okay, but
Marc:But that's where we're at.
Marc:And I'm not being condescending or glib.
Marc:But what can I do?
Marc:I'm not going to freak out.
Marc:We'll have a vote in November.
Marc:We'll see how that goes.
Marc:Perhaps it'll get even worse.
Marc:It can always get worse.
Marc:Might get better.
Marc:But I'm just trying to adjust to that without a complete spiral.
Marc:But we drove on Friday from Cleveland to Grand Rapids.
Marc:Nice drive.
Marc:Jacked on coffee, as I said.
Marc:And I was concerned about the Fountain Street Church.
Marc:Or maybe I made you guys concerned.
Marc:But we sold nicely.
Marc:Over 1,000 tickets.
Marc:A big, beautiful place.
Marc:One of the largest pipe organs I've ever seen in my life.
Marc:Apparently, many years ago, it was a Baptist church.
Marc:But for the last almost 100 years, it's been sort of a...
Marc:Unitarian situation, a kind of more a church dedicated to education and opening minds as opposed to necessarily a religious type of thing.
Marc:Liberal Christianity, kind of a broad perspective.
Marc:But also a place where speakers and bands have been coming to expand the minds of humans for decades.
Marc:I mean, the place has hosted Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Robert Frost, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy Jr.,
Marc:Angela Davis, Margaret Atwood.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Farrakhan, Christopher Hitchens, musicians like Dave Brubeck, Stan Kenton, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, B.B.
Marc:King, Frank Zappa, the MC5, Richie Havens, and Bo Burnham.
Marc:That's where it lands.
Marc:And Chris D'Elia and Tiffany Haddish.
Marc:But quite a legacy to be part of, quite a place to stand and feel the intensity of being in a large church, the nice sound bounce.
Marc:And it does make a difference.
Marc:And I definitely preached the gospel of me.
Marc:And there was definitely some religious-themed bits that kind of resonated in a deeper and more exciting way, being delivered from the pulpit.
Marc:of a large church the way it should be.
Marc:I had a very nice-sized congregation.
Marc:It was a very passionate service, and I'm glad many people came to witness and laugh, and we had a great show over there.
Marc:We drove another four hours from Grand Rapids to Milwaukee.
Marc:More Dunkin' Donuts coffee.
Marc:There are some more dates coming up I wanted to get you hip to.
Marc:Orlando, Florida, I'm at the Hard Rock Live on February 14th.
Marc:Then Tampa, Florida at the Strass Center, February 15th.
Marc:Portland, Maine at the State Theater, February 20th.
Marc:Providence, Rhode Island at Columbus Theater, February 21st.
Marc:New Haven, Connecticut at College Street Music Hall, February 22nd.
Marc:and Huntington, New York at the Paramount, February 23rd.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for links to all the venues.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right, then.
Marc:So there's something else I want to tell you.
Marc:Yeah, I think this will be more exciting for you, Marvel fans.
Marc:I got an email from somebody who is... I don't know if me telling you about this is going to ruin it.
Marc:Here, I'll just read it to you.
Marc:subject line cameo in amazing spider-man this might be a bit of an odd way to reach out as we don't actually know each other even though i see you quite a bit i'm a huge huge fan and not just of the podcast but as a front row regular at your shows here in los angeles at the comedy store dynasty typewriter and ice house you've been my favorite comedian for years and whenever you show up on
Marc:a local schedule.
Marc:My girlfriend and I are nearly always there.
Marc:I was heartbroken to be out of town for work when you did the taping at Red Cat after seeing that material getting worked on for so long and enjoying it so much.
Marc:Can't wait for the special though.
Marc:Anyhow, in addition to being a fan, I'm also the writer of the Amazing Spider-Man comic at Marvel.
Marc:And I was wondering if you'd be interested in making a cameo appearance in the book.
Marc:I know superheroes are not really your bag, so I won't bore you with the details of the story.
Marc:But basically, Spider-Man... Oh, I don't want... This is a spoiler.
Marc:This is a spoiler.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I'm not going to tell you that part.
Marc:We just need permission to use your likeness.
Marc:Apparently there's a form for that if you're up for it.
Marc:I've attached what it would look like on the page.
Marc:Like I said, I know superheroes aren't your thing, but maybe you'd see this as a fun little bit of comic book immortality.
Marc:yes i mean hey he said letterman did just let me know either way and keep up the great work uh yes nick i i i'm in i'm in i you know what i should probably email you back um so that's exciting right marvel fans right comic book fans isn't exciting that i'll be in a spider-man comic book i'm sure you're thrilled come on you've got to be thrilled and
Marc:So the last time I talked to you, I had not had my last day on the Aretha Franklin movie.
Marc:That one really, you know, something really shifted in me around acting and around doing that movie.
Marc:I have tremendous amount of respect for the director.
Marc:Lizelle Tommy, who I think is, you know, was really doing detailed work to make this thing look great and sound great and kind of pop.
Marc:And Jennifer Hudson was just such a pro and Marlon Wayans and everybody else I worked with on there.
Marc:I wasn't around enough to really feel like totally part of the family.
Marc:It was people who were shooting it day in and day out for months on end.
Marc:But certainly it was a great experience.
Marc:And the last day we shot in a big church, they recreated the Amazing Grace concert.
Marc:We had all of these background players, just a full church of people, a full congregation doing the thing that you do in a church, a black church particularly.
Marc:And it was a pretty exciting last day.
Marc:And when they wrapped, they said goodbye to me and everyone applauded.
Marc:And it felt nice.
Marc:And I immediately went and shaved my fucking face.
Marc:I shaved that Jerry Wexler beard right off of my face.
Marc:Man, do I feel better.
Marc:And I've just got my soul patch and my stash again for now and very long hair.
Marc:And the soul patch and the hair will go when we start taping Glow in March.
Marc:So Ashton Kutcher, as I mentioned, smart guy, good guy, surprising conversation.
Marc:His show, The Ranch, it's the last season, is now streaming on Netflix.
Marc:And this is me talking to Ashton.
Marc:in my house.
Marc:You want to move the mic in a little?
Marc:Do I need to move it in?
Marc:You can move towards it or whatever just so you're up on it a little.
Marc:I have a little cold, so I don't want the next guy to get in.
Marc:That's all right.
Guest:Is that okay?
Marc:Yeah, it's good.
Marc:It's a risk that we all run with a little cold.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Do you have kids?
Guest:How old's your kid?
Guest:I've got a three-year-old and a five-year-old.
Marc:Oh, so you're always sick.
Guest:It's a Petri dish in my house.
Guest:It's just insane.
Guest:And they go to the daycare, and they just throw up on each other all day, and then they come home.
Guest:And it's like, then they're just like, you know, my son legitimately, we put him to bed last night and he comes out and he's like, I threw up.
Guest:And it's just like vomit all over the carpet.
Guest:And I'm sitting there with like a Dyson vacuum cleaner trying to suck up his vomit off the carpet last night.
Guest:It's really glamorous.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:What is it?
Marc:They just throw up kids.
Guest:They just throw up and shit and pee all over the planet.
Marc:Man.
Marc:It sounds like it's easier to control a dog of some kind.
Guest:I mean, kind of.
Guest:Do you have dogs?
Guest:Yeah, but I grew up with dogs.
Guest:I'm from Iowa, so where I grew up, you keep your dogs outside.
Guest:Right, so wait, what part of Iowa?
Guest:Like around Cedar Rapids, Iowa City.
Marc:Oh yeah, so did you grow up on land?
Guest:Well, I grew up in Cedar Rapids, which is like the second biggest city.
Guest:And then my parents got divorced when I was 13 or something.
Guest:My mom moved out to the country and she's like, you're coming with me.
Guest:And so I ended up moving out to like a farm.
Marc:That's a heavy time to get the divorce news, 13.
Guest:Yeah, I have a twin brother, and he had a heart transplant around that time.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I think it was just really hard on the whole thing.
Guest:Oh, so that happened before the divorce?
Guest:Yeah, right around the same time.
Marc:How's he doing now?
Marc:He's great.
Marc:With the new heart?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:From when he was a kid?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:At the time, he was the youngest person ever to be put on an artificial heart.
Guest:It's an artificial heart?
Guest:Well, he had an artificial heart in the hospital because his heart failed.
Guest:He had a cardiomyopathy where basically it's like a virus that starts to attack the heart and break down the cardiac tissue.
Guest:And so he had holes in his heart.
Guest:And so they put him on an artificial heart.
Guest:And at the time, he was the youngest person ever to be put on an artificial heart.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then it was like...
Guest:i was in the room with him and it failed uh and they kicked me out of the room and within like in i mean he had like 12 hours to go or something and then he got moved to number one on the list for heart transplants then he got a heart and he's now i mean we're 41 and he's lives in colorado as a son really yeah he's engaged to get married yeah he's
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:But when they do that, when they get a heart for a kid that age, does the heart have to be that age?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, they don't really tell you where the heart comes from, but I think it's just about size, right?
Guest:So I think he got a heart from a woman in Florida somewhere.
Guest:That's so wild.
Guest:Yeah, it's crazy.
Marc:And does he still have to take pills for the- Anti-rejection pills.
Guest:He does.
Guest:His whole life.
Guest:His whole life, yeah.
Guest:Because basically, you've now put a foreign object in your body.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's actually really similar to a lot of autoimmune diseases, where your body sees a part of your own body as-
Guest:a foreign object and starts to attack it.
Guest:So it's virtually the same thing.
Guest:So they give them, you know.
Guest:That's wild.
Guest:That's amazing that he lived and everything's all right.
Guest:He's incredible.
Guest:And you guys are close?
Guest:We were really close when we were young.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That thing sort of took us a little bit further apart because he was in the hospital for like a year, basically.
Guest:So you were out in the country with your mom and he's in town?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, I was with my dad and I was with, you know, various people and, you know, it was like wherever they could get, have me while this was taking place, you know?
Guest:Uh, and then, and then, and then like through the years, like he moved to, I moved out, I moved to New York when I was 19.
Guest:He lives in Denver now.
Guest:We just kind of, my sister's down in Louisiana.
Guest:So our family's kind of all over the country.
Guest:How many are there?
Guest:of you guys three of us oh so that's it yeah with the kids yeah then my parents are in Iowa they're both still there yep and still divorced from each other yeah both remarried yeah they were great people but when you moved to the country was it a big scene a big farm kind of situation or what
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a little weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, I mean, I went from like, that's where we started the dogs outside.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I went from, I went from the city, uh, and then we moved to the country and, you know, and there's a little bit of, you know, when you go into that, there's a little bit of attitude of like, you know, you're not really a country kid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it was like that,
Marc:I had a car.
Guest:I drove around the city.
Guest:Yeah, you're like 14, 15, and you've got to, like, prove yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you've got to fight somebody in order to, like.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:You know, I mean, well, it's kind of, yeah, it's like, you have to, like, just get a go.
Guest:This is my dance space.
Guest:This is your dance space.
Guest:Don't come into my dance space, and I'm not coming into yours.
Marc:So you moved to the country, and what, it's the smaller school, and you just got right in there and kicked some guy's ass and said I'm here?
Guest:I started playing football, and, like, you know, just started, like, yeah, and then got in a couple fights and this and that.
Guest:Do you fight now?
Guest:I do jiu-jitsu, but I don't fight.
Marc:When was the last fist fight you got into?
Marc:Do you have that instinct in you?
Marc:Because I don't, you know, some people do.
Marc:It's not my first thought.
Guest:Yeah, my dad, when I was young, my dad was like, you know, we came from like a pretty Christian Catholic family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It turned the other cheek.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, I remember like being a kid and like getting punched and just being like, just keep walking.
Guest:And then, you know, and then you get older and you build up to enough frustration and then you fight and
Guest:For a while, I fought, and then I just realized this is stupid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, that's good.
Guest:You can really hurt somebody and get in trouble.
Guest:Yeah, there's just kind of no point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I like doing jujitsu.
Guest:I was a wrestler when I was a kid.
Guest:On a team?
Guest:Yeah, and that was my sport when I was young, and I really didn't have an outlet for that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And actually, if I'm pissed off, it's nice to go do some jujitsu, and then you feel fine afterwards.
Guest:Are you good at it?
Guest:I'm all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:I mean, I concede.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's like if somebody's like, are you better than me?
Guest:I'm like, no, you're better than me.
Guest:You win.
Guest:We don't need to fight.
Guest:You win.
Marc:So then who do you fight?
Marc:Just people who are at your level?
Guest:I mean, I spar with folks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My coach brings me people to spar with.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's no competition.
Marc:It's no competition.
Guest:No.
Guest:I don't need to do that.
Marc:All right, so here you are.
Marc:You're out on the farm.
Marc:You're growing up in Iowa.
Marc:Your brother's got problems.
Marc:Your sister, where's she?
Marc:Lost in the mix somewhere?
Guest:Yeah, my sister basically sort of lone wolfed it.
Guest:Older or younger?
Guest:Older.
Guest:She's like a couple years older than us.
Marc:Now, were you like an angry kid outside of the fighting?
Marc:Did you push back?
Marc:Did you rebel?
Marc:Did you get in trouble?
Marc:What the fuck happened?
Guest:I mean, like rebelling in Iowa is like I smoked a joint, right?
Guest:So yeah, I did that.
Guest:And then I was actually a really good student, just sort of straight and narrowed it.
Guest:And then my senior year...
Guest:My cousin and I broke into the school.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I think I read about this.
Guest:I got a deferred judgment on a felony offense for third-degree burglary.
Marc:What was the intent?
Marc:What were you going for?
Marc:I was going to steal some shit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We were just poor and wanted some money.
Guest:Like, we're going to go to the lab?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Get some bunting burners.
Guest:It's a five disc CD exchanger in there.
Guest:We can, you know, then my cousin like stabbed some scissors in a soda machine, like trying to, I'm like, what are you doing?
Guest:Did the change?
Guest:Like, what are we going for here?
Marc:You're just like half ass.
Marc:You're trying to rob a school and you get busted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We, I mean, it was, it was funny.
Guest:So, uh, well, it's not funny.
Guest:It was stupid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, but, uh,
Guest:I was dating the principal's daughter at the time.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So that's probably not good.
Guest:So this compounded the issue.
Guest:He didn't like you, right?
Guest:No, he did like me until this happened.
Guest:Because I'd come almost directly from their house, met up with my cousin, and then we went.
Guest:I knew I had to pick locks, and so I picked the lock.
Guest:It sounds like you could have just stole the fucking keys from the old man.
Marc:I just picked the lock.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Can you still do that?
No.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I haven't really kept up on my lock picking skills.
Marc:They're tougher locks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:The, I mean, if it was a digital lock, I could probably figure it out now.
Marc:You got, you've got, you've got connections.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You've got to have, you've got, you've probably invested in an app, which will pick a digital lock.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If not, I'll find one.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, so we went, um, and we got, we were in the school.
Guest:We're kind of like walking around and it, it,
Guest:honestly, we were like, you know, my cousin wanted to get his test from the next day so he could cheat on the test.
Guest:I mean, we really weren't doing anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we didn't know there were silent alarms in the school.
Guest:And I look out the window and I see a car pull into the parking lot.
Guest:It was like one in the morning or something.
Guest:And I was like, this is, that's weird.
Guest:Like, why is there a car?
Guest:And then all of a sudden my cousin sees two cop cars.
Guest:Well, he's like, cops.
Guest:And we just start running.
Guest:We bolt out of the school and there was a,
Guest:Cornfield, and on the other side of the cornfield was a crick bed.
Guest:And the crick bed led all the way back to the next town.
Guest:And so we were thinking, if we can get to that crick bed, it's back in the woods.
Guest:There's no way they're going to find us.
Guest:We'd be home free.
Guest:And so we dart out of the school, and then we shoot back into the school, and we were in this room that was like right on the edge where it was like a 200-yard sprint to the creek bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're sitting in the room.
Guest:We're like, okay, you ready?
Guest:One, two, three.
Guest:Come out the doors, and the cops are standing there, and we're at gunpoint, and we're like, whoa, whoa!
Guest:and then yeah and then it why'd you go back into the school when you got you went out and then because they were on our tail we were oh they saw you when we were out they were on our tail and we turned a corner and then we popped back in but we assumed that they didn't see us go back in and then they did and that so you could have gotten shot I could have gotten shot yeah so you went to jail
Guest:went to jail yeah yeah and then called my parents and then they were like we're not gonna come get you yeah and they were like wait for your arraignment how many days was that it was a good day oh yeah yeah sweep in jail learn your lesson yeah and then what happened with the charges
Guest:Uh, well, I got a deferred judgment.
Guest:Uh, and then I got probation and I wasn't allowed to leave the, leave the county.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, my girlfriend broke up, broke up with me immediately.
Guest:And, uh, and then I wasn't allowed to do any extracurricular or anything at school.
Guest:I didn't get kicked out of the school, which I,
Guest:Were you a hero or a loser?
Guest:No.
Guest:I'd shamed the city, right?
Guest:It was like a town.
Guest:There were 52 people in my graduating class.
Guest:There were 100 people in my town.
Guest:I'd shamed the city.
Guest:So the outlaw thing wasn't a positive thing?
Guest:Yeah, it didn't go well.
Marc:No sentence?
Marc:No nothing?
Guest:I mean, I did a bunch of community service.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:I had to do that once.
Guest:Yeah, I helped kids get on the bus in the morning and stuff.
Guest:I painted a fence and, you know...
Marc:I had a vacuum at an old folks home.
Guest:Yeah, there you go.
Guest:Yeah, it was good.
Guest:Yeah, this is like 40 hours of that.
Guest:Yeah, it's just because I fought a traffic ticket, a speeding ticket.
Guest:I mean, by the way, my community service was no worse than any of the jobs I had when I was that age.
Guest:So it was sort of like not really, it was just like a job I didn't get paid for.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, this is not, this isn't.
Marc:So when does this, the interest in the arts happen?
Marc:Does it happen?
Guest:Well, I had already, so when I was,
Guest:in like I think seventh grade I started doing junior high theater and I was in every play that my school offered for the entire time I was in school and I was in the Thespian Society and went and competed in like
Guest:state acting competitions and stuff.
Guest:They had acting competitions?
Guest:How do those work?
Guest:Would you do a monologue?
Guest:Yeah, you'd prepare a scene with a scene partner or something, and then you'd go and perform it.
Guest:I always loved performing.
Guest:I think I've psychoanalyzed myself and broke it down.
Guest:I think I just liked the attention.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:You like getting a laugh?
Guest:Yeah, it's great, right?
Guest:Yeah, there's sort of nothing as satisfying.
Guest:It's like, I actually said something that you found familiar enough to laugh at.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, I kind of fell in love with it, but also I was in Iowa and I'm going, how the hell am I going to- Get out.
Guest:Yeah, am I going to do like community theater or something?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You were thinking about that?
Marc:You thought like, how do I make this a profession?
Guest:Yeah, but I really didn't know how, so I kind of just gave up on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did pretty well in school, and so I decided to go to school and become a biochemical engineer.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I was going to be a geneticist.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What compelled you to do that?
Guest:I wanted to figure out how to stop the virus from replicating that attacked my brother's heart.
Guest:Really?
Guest:That was my goal, yeah.
Guest:You were kind of obsessed with it?
Guest:Yeah, I just wanted to figure out how to like, I mean, there's a process that viruses go through called lysis where they sort of transition and start to replicate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought if you could infect a virus with a strand of DNA that didn't allow it to replicate, that potentially you could stop it from.
Marc:Is that something they use now?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I haven't kept up on it.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You don't get the journals?
Marc:No.
Marc:But it seems like you're involved with the tech world, but you don't do biotech?
Guest:I've done a couple things in biotech.
Guest:I probably should do more, but I always feel like I studied it, but that I didn't learn it well enough to do it well.
Guest:Meanwhile, I wasn't a computer engineer or a computer scientist or anything of that sort, but yet I feel confident enough to... It doesn't really make sense.
Marc:Well, no, it does, because mechanics are mechanics, but when it comes to the human thing...
Marc:You know, you don't know what the hell.
Marc:It just seems like this, no matter what they do, it's sort of like, we don't really know.
Marc:Like with machines, it's machines, with digital stuff.
Marc:But when you're dealing with things like this, we're gonna inject this into, it's like, I don't know what the fuck is gonna happen.
Guest:I think there's not a regulating body that sits over the top of technology.
Guest:Whereas if you go into biotech, you have to deal with the FDA.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I don't want a guy at the finish line to be able to say, sorry, we're just not going to prove this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To me, that puts my investment in somebody else's hands.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, it might be for the right reasons, but you just don't want to be involved with that possibility.
Guest:It also might be for the wrong reasons.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:There might be some minor side effect that is outside of it.
Guest:And I'm not- We want to take the risk either way.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So my rule is I don't invest in non-FDA approved biochemical technologies.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, I mean, I just think it's interesting because the virus is sort of like a renegade strand of RNA or DNA that needs to hook up with something, needs a host.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So your concept was if you could create a fake, like a ghost strand of DNA that it could hook up to, that it would diminish the impact.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, if you think about like antivirals for like the flu or something like that, right?
Guest:Like they basically give you a dormant version of that.
Guest:So you could actually create, you should hypothetically be able to create an antivirus for- Anything, any virus.
Guest:For many viruses, right?
Guest:They're probably working on that.
Guest:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:But you didn't follow through?
Guest:I did not follow through.
Guest:I was in college and I was in a bar and some lady came up to me and was like, how old are you?
Guest:And I was like, let me get this beer and I'll let you know.
Guest:And I was like, I'm 19.
Guest:And then she said, have you ever thought about being a model?
Guest:And I was like...
Guest:i thought fabio was like the only male model like i didn't realize guys did that as a job yeah and i was and i was i said no i was like i thought about being an actor and she's like well it's a this is a really good way to be an actor come to find out it's not um and and and but then she sort of showed me the ropes and helped build my confidence where'd she find you in iowa
Guest:Yeah, I was at a bar in Iowa.
Guest:And she was from where?
Guest:She had a scouting agency in Iowa.
Guest:Now she's in St.
Guest:Louis.
Guest:You still know her?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm still really close with them.
Guest:Because she started your whole life?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And she was just like, you're a good looking guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you thought she was full of shit at first?
Guest:I thought she was completely full of shit.
Guest:She was like, there's a competition at the shopping mall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:like this weekend in cedar rapids yeah she's like come you know y'all you have to walk from like here to you know 50 feet and back and she's like wear a tight shirt and some jeans yeah and you're gonna yeah i think you'll win yeah and and then i won a trip to new york and i i i left my i got a week off for my job at general mills
Guest:in the Cheerio factory where I was sweeping Cheerio dust doing janitorial work and flew to New York.
Guest:And I called my dad once I got there and said, I'm not coming home.
Guest:And he was like, and he was like, bullshit.
Guest:He's like, get your ass back here.
Guest:I was like,
Guest:Listen, I've got my Boy Scout backpack, and I've got my sleeping bag, and I've got $100.
Guest:And if I run out of money, I'll figure out how to get home.
Guest:But for now, I'm not coming home.
Guest:And then with $100 in my pocket and my Boy Scout backpack, I set out in the world, man.
Guest:And that was that?
Guest:That was that.
Marc:And that's history.
Marc:So you were working at a General Mills factory?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where they made cereal?
Guest:It was a really good summer job.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, they made Cheerios, fruit roll-ups, clusters.
Guest:Did you take that stuff home?
Guest:I mean, I'd grab a handful out of the bin as it was going down the thing.
Guest:I mean, I was over a cereal by the time I got... I mean, I was covered in it.
Guest:It's sort of like when you work in a meat factory and you become a vegetarian.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're just like, oh, man, I don't know if I can...
Guest:They're killing so many Cheerios.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's so upsetting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's not upsetting.
Guest:You're just like, I don't know if I can eat this stuff, man.
Guest:Where'd your dad work when you were growing up?
Guest:He was on the fruit roll-ups line.
Guest:He was?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, he wasn't.
Guest:Yeah, he got me the job.
Guest:It was a great summer job.
Guest:I mean, it was an amazing summer job.
Guest:I think I was getting paid like 12 bucks an hour or something.
Guest:But it wasn't a summer job for your dad.
Guest:He was full-time fruit roll-ups?
Guest:Yeah, he was full-time.
Guest:For the fruit roll-ups?
Guest:Yeah, on fruit roll-ups, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I went from working in a warehouse, like driving a forklift.
Guest:Sorry, I'm laughing.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Guest:Why?
Marc:It's just like the fruit roll-up's fine.
Marc:And someone's got to do it, but it's a funny thing to say.
Guest:Somebody's got to make sure that the foot-long fruit roll-ups come out a full foot.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:You don't want an 11-inch foot-long fruit roll-up.
Guest:No, you want the whole thing.
Guest:You need a full foot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was your dad.
Guest:That was my pops.
Guest:You were on the forklift?
Guest:In a warehouse before that, so this was a great gig.
Guest:Sure, because you're working with cereal.
Guest:Your dad's right down around the corner.
Guest:I was getting paid $12 an hour instead of $8 an hour.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And instead of $4.60 that I got for washing dishes.
Guest:Oh, at a restaurant?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I'm glad.
Marc:It seemed like there was a nice progression.
Marc:Dishes, forklift, Cheerios, runway model.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Italy.
Marc:Italy.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a good progression.
Guest:Giorgio Armani.
Marc:It just works.
Marc:Wearing the nice suits.
Guest:All those brands line up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:The Homestead Kitchen, Hawkeye Foods, General Mills.
Guest:And then Armani.
Guest:I mean, don't forget Spikes Meat Cutting.
Guest:Oh, you were at Spikes?
Guest:I worked at Spikes, and I skinned deer during deer hunting season.
Guest:So you can do that if necessary.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I can skin and trim a deer like nobody's business.
Marc:What was Spikes?
Marc:It was a place where people brought their deers to be butchered?
Marc:Yeah, it was a butcher shop.
Marc:So people would bring them or they'd sell them?
Guest:Hopefully they'd have them field dressed and they'd just drop them off and then I'd hang them up and skin them and cut the head off.
Marc:So that was the service that Spikes provided?
Marc:The hunters would bring their field dressed deer?
Guest:A field dress game and then we'd turn it into processed meat that people could take home and eat.
Guest:And freeze.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, package it up.
Guest:We'd be frozen by the time we gave it to them.
Guest:You wouldn't want to give it to them thawed.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You'd freeze it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I mean, I thought, so they'd pick it up like a week later.
Marc:Yeah, a week, two weeks.
Marc:It depends on how busy we were.
Marc:It's not like by tomorrow I need this fresh and I'll put it in my freezer.
Guest:Yeah, no, it'd be like, you know, a couple days.
Guest:We can move through a deer pretty quick.
Guest:Yeah, and did you hunt or do you?
Guest:Yeah, I was a hunter.
Guest:How was it?
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I like bird hunting and I like fishing.
Guest:Shotguns?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like shotgun bird hunting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the way you do it, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With ducks and whale?
Guest:Like a 20 gauge or a 410 or something.
Guest:You want something small so you don't mutilate the meat.
Guest:Yeah, so you don't have to pick, like, spit shot out of you.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But I started deer hunting when I was 15 or 16 or something like this.
Guest:And I liked it, but it was a weird thing with deer hunting.
Guest:Like, you actually felt like...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just started feeling bad for the game.
Guest:It was weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's called the conscience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's called not becoming a serial killer.
Guest:Have you seen this don't fuck with cats thing?
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:You got to watch this thing.
Marc:I have two cats now.
Marc:I just had to put one down.
Marc:I don't know if I could handle it yet.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:It's something else.
Marc:Do you have cats?
Marc:I used to have cats.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love cats.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:People were telling me if you have cats-
Marc:It's going to be a little rough.
Marc:It's a little rough, but man, is it something else.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:It's just... But wait, what are these sounds you're making?
Marc:This doesn't sound like a good experience.
Guest:Well, I mean, if you're into this thing... Was it a good experience?
Guest:What's shocking is you're sort of seeing it through the eyes of these people who are using the internet to solve this case, but then they stumble upon something much greater, and you're like...
Guest:It's shocking.
Guest:So it's a good documentary.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I mean, beautiful might be the wrong word, but it's exhilarating.
Guest:Effective.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you're doing the big modeling with Ford, Wilhelmina, who's- Next.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Is that a big one?
Guest:It was one of the big ones for guys.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:So you're doing print, you're doing runway, you're doing all of it.
Guest:I'm doing enough to get by to start with.
Guest:Living in New York?
Guest:Where?
Guest:I was living in a two-bedroom apartment with five other guys.
Guest:It was a model's apartment.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:In Hell's Kitchen.
Guest:9th and 40-something?
Guest:It was 9th and 38th, yeah.
Guest:And then it was terrifying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like as a kid from Iowa, it was like- Right in it there.
Guest:Yeah, I mean-
Guest:I remember walking up this two-story walk up and turning the lights on in this place, and roaches just scattered.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Down the street, 9th Avenue, 42nd Street.
Guest:Yeah, there was a guy selling a girl on the corner, and a person living in a trash bag outside.
Guest:You're like, wow, this is just a different world.
Guest:Mind-blowing.
Guest:Yeah, mind-blowing.
Guest:But you had your Boy Scout backpack.
Guest:I was good.
Guest:I had my Swiss Army knife, man.
Guest:You could fly with knives back then.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:No, forget.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:And then I booked a couple little jobs and made a little bit of money.
Guest:But I didn't see any of it because I was living in the model's apartment.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was paying like $2,000 a month for this stuff.
Guest:Two-bedroom.
Marc:They put you up in there?
Guest:Yeah, they put you up in there.
Guest:So then they take your check when you get paid, and they pay themselves for the rent for the model's apartment, which couldn't have possibly been $10,000 a month.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But that's what it was.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And then they pay for all your flights, but you don't know how much they cost.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Ultimately, I didn't see any money for a while.
Guest:I was just kind of living off of ramen and whatever else I could get my hands on.
Guest:Then I went to Italy and did a bunch of runway shows and booked like 19 shows or something like that.
Marc:How'd you feel about that, being a model, coming from what you come from and knowing that now you're a model?
Marc:How'd your dad react?
Guest:And my dad was like, this is bullshit.
Guest:Come home.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was honestly, I was like, I can't believe people are going to pay me to just look like me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So there was that you didn't feel it was beneath you or affected your masculinity or anything.
Guest:No, it wasn't that.
Guest:It was just shocking that people were paying me to just be me.
Guest:You had to learn how to walk correctly, didn't you?
Guest:I had to learn how to walk the right way and do the thing.
Guest:Do the thing.
Guest:Yeah, whatever.
Guest:But it was just this sort of shocking thing.
Guest:And then it didn't take long.
Guest:It was probably like...
Guest:Within a year, I was like, it's not gratifying.
Guest:Because there wasn't a sense of earnership about what was happening.
Guest:And that's when I found an acting manager in New York and then started working with her and going on castings.
Guest:Who was that?
Guest:The manager I still have today, Stephanie Simon.
Marc:Stephanie Simon?
Guest:Yeah, from Untitled.
Marc:Yeah, I think I know her.
Guest:Yeah, so I met her through my modeling agent and then started going on castings and booked a Pizza Hut commercial and then I booked a test for an NBC pilot and they flew me out here.
Marc:Wait, is Untitled her company?
Guest:Yeah, her and Jason Weinberg.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you've been with her for years.
Marc:22 years.
Marc:Well, that's loyalty.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:You've been with her that long.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:It's like somebody gives you a shot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:I don't understand how people forget the people that give them a shot.
Marc:Like, it is... Do they forget them, or do they think that once they get the shot, if they can't continue to grow, that they feel like they've outgrown them?
Marc:I get that, but... I mean, she continued to grow as well.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:She's got a big company, right?
Marc:She's got a lot of people.
Guest:Yeah, and I just...
Guest:Even if they don't do what they used to do, you sit down and have a conversation about it, and you go, all right, what are the things that you could be doing that you're not doing that we need to be doing?
Marc:Yeah, you can do that, but from the other side of it, from a guy who was managed by a guy for 20 years, and you get to a point where they grow, but they can't move you, and it's not one's fault.
Marc:Sometimes you hit an impasse.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:Where you're like, this isn't working out.
Guest:Yeah, but maybe you still have a relationship with them.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:We're friends.
Guest:Yeah, I've had agents that I no longer work with that I used to work with, but especially the people that give you the first shot at something, that's a big bet, right?
Guest:Because they're investing their time and energy on you because they see something, and especially when nobody else sees it, I don't know.
Guest:To me, it's just like...
Marc:Yeah, oh, for sure.
Marc:And you're still friends with the woman who gave you the modeling shot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, 100%.
Marc:Well, I mean, some people, you don't necessarily have to keep a relationship with them, but you should honor that or respect what happened.
Marc:Gratitude.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Gratitude.
Marc:Perfect, yes, appreciation.
Guest:Sure, that's it.
Guest:Practice appreciation.
Marc:Yeah, so she got you the 70s show gig?
Guest:Yeah, so I flew out here, auditioned for this NBC thing, and then ended up booking a different NBC thing.
Guest:It was a little weird, and then went across town and booked the 70s show, and then decided to take that 70s show.
Guest:The rest is history.
Guest:Then I started to work a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you were on the 70s show forever, right?
Marc:I think it was like eight years, seven years, something like that.
Marc:But that's how you became a star.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, once again, they gave me a shot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But you could do it.
Guest:It was a funny- I mean, there was moments where I don't think I was doing it.
Guest:Go look at the first six episodes.
Guest:I was sure I was getting fired for the first six episodes.
Guest:And I didn't know my ass from my elbow.
Guest:I couldn't figure out- I'd done a student film in New York just to figure out how to act in front of a camera-
Guest:and I'd never done Take Two before in my life.
Guest:Who's student film?
Guest:Do you remember that guy?
Guest:Are you grateful?
Guest:Are you still in touch with him?
Guest:No, he's actually done really well as a director.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:I'm trying to remember the name.
Guest:The student film was called Distance.
Guest:It was an NYU student film, but I'd never done Take Two ever before because I'd only done plays, and you just sort of load up and then unload one time, and that's it, and Take Two was a whole new weird thing.
Guest:Reload.
Guest:Yeah, reload.
Guest:How do you reload once you blew your wad?
Guest:Some guys can do it.
Guest:You didn't have chops.
Guest:I did not have chops.
Guest:And then Bonnie Turner from The 70s Show basically taught me how to dissect a joke, taught me the rhythms of comedy.
Guest:Because, you know, some people are just kind of naturally have a comedic capacity.
Guest:And I just didn't have that.
Guest:And so I had to learn this process.
Guest:You kind of have it.
Guest:I mean, don't you?
Guest:I need material.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I can load up on material.
Guest:I can sit down and come up with material.
Guest:But before I go out and do a talk show or something like that...
Guest:I kind of know what my bits are.
Guest:You got to sit with that producer, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Go over it?
Guest:Yeah, I go over it and I build my bits.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when I get there, I just execute on the bits.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I'm not going to off the cuff with you.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:This is going to go south because I just don't have those rhythms.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Have you tried that?
Guest:No, I'm doing it now.
Guest:It's a disaster what's happening right now.
Guest:No, it's not.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:I've gotten a lot of laughs.
Marc:It's a disaster.
Marc:But like, so what Mark Brazil was the guy, right?
Marc:Mark and Bonnie and Terry Turner.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you like that, that whole crew, like I like Topher too.
Marc:He does good shit in movies.
Marc:Sometimes I haven't seen him in a while.
Marc:I've interviewed him.
Guest:He's probably the only person I haven't really kept up with from the show.
Marc:He's kind of an intense guy.
Guest:He's pretty intense guy.
Marc:Yeah, he's kind of hard on himself.
Guest:He's hard on himself, and he's pretty calculated about the things that he does.
Guest:I always say he's incredibly talented.
Marc:Yeah, he is.
Marc:There was a couple movies.
Marc:He does a thing.
Marc:He's got a thing.
Marc:His wheelhouse is kind of intense.
Marc:Yeah, his mode.
Marc:Yeah, his mode, right.
Guest:He always had a Michael J. Fox fascination.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That was his North Star.
Guest:Mine was Kirk Cameron.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was fair.
Marc:Yeah, good.
Marc:I'm glad you guys had your heroes and your models, the barometer for success.
Marc:Yeah, well, that makes sense.
Marc:Those two, that's about right, huh?
Marc:I know.
Marc:I worked with the guy from, the guy who, Don.
Marc:Don, I worked with Don.
Marc:Don Stark?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He played my sponsor in the fourth episode of my show on IFC.
Marc:Right on.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:Don's fantastic.
Marc:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you worked, and Milo was on the show, but you guys, you didn't, it wasn't happening.
Guest:Well, I mean, but she was like- And now she's your wife.
Guest:She was like 14 when we started the show.
Guest:Okay, all right.
Marc:And I was like- I'm not suggesting anything.
Guest:No, but I'm simply saying she was 14.
Guest:I was 20, 19, something like that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so 14 and 20, it feels like a big age difference, right?
Guest:Sure it is.
Marc:Yeah, it's illegal.
Guest:It's a legal problem as well.
Guest:28 and 32, you go- Not so much, right?
Guest:It's less.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:33, whatever I think about doing the math right.
Guest:But anyway-
Marc:But you did like that.
Marc:I mean, that show was your life.
Marc:You know, that sort of defines your life and your finances and everything for a long time.
Guest:Yeah, well, two years into it, because I was just a supporting character in the show, so I really wasn't doing that much work.
Guest:I mean, I would show up for the workday, but sitcom schedules are pretty soft anyway.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then when you're only in three, four scenes a week...
Marc:um i i had a lot of extra time on my head so i started a production company um and then uh but how'd you know to do that was that stephanie's suggestion i mean who who how do you like because like big actors people who who are making bread and have you know who have a foresight do that who gave you that
Marc:I just always wanted the job of the person that was paying me.
Guest:So it was your idea?
Guest:Like, I'm going to open a production company?
Guest:I met my producing partner out through his wife, through a party or something.
Guest:Oh, he was a producer, and he said, yeah, why don't we do this?
Guest:And he was talking about movies that he wanted to make, and I had some ideas about things, and we started collaborating.
Guest:I was like, why don't we just start a company?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so we started out of my house and worked out of one of the bedrooms of my house and, you know, about six months, eight months into it and just bootstrapped it on our own money.
Guest:And we came up with this idea for Punk'd and my agents and everybody said, don't do this is a bad idea.
Guest:Someone's going to get hurt.
Guest:No, they were just like, it's a bad idea for your career.
Guest:Like, why are you going to go do reality TV?
Guest:Right.
Guest:At that point in time, like, doing reality TV seemed like a career ender.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, no, I want to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then started that up.
Guest:And then I did Do Where's My Car, I think, after the summer of season three.
Marc:But punk was sort of a phenomenon, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like the number one show on cable at the time.
Marc:Isn't that where Dax Shepard comes from?
Guest:Yeah, I casted him for the first episode.
Guest:I think he was at Groundlings at the time, which was like an unbelievable place to go find talent.
Guest:Yeah, we casted him on there.
Marc:Oh, you cast a lot of people out of the Groundlings for punk, for improvising real people?
Guest:Yeah, a bunch of people.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, we found a lot of the talent for that show.
Guest:You know, and I also, I was a huge fan of Saturday Night Live when I was growing up.
Guest:And I realized that that was like the only other show that improvers really could go to and work.
Guest:Sketch guys, improv guys.
Guest:Yeah, like sketch improv people.
Guest:I was like, wait a second.
Guest:I can build, even if I'm number two to Saturday Night Live, I can build the other show that sketch and improv people want to come work.
Marc:Well, yours is really improv.
Marc:I mean, ultimately, SNL is scripted all the way.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we had a Bible of how we wanted to execute the bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the comedy in it was wholly improv.
Marc:They had to think on their feet because they're dealing with real people and things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, they had a little backup, but we were in their ear.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So if they lost track or if they weren't seeing something that we were seeing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:they had a little bit of a voice of god going yeah um don't get punched in the face uh back away right now he's talking about punching you you know it was like so that we had that it was like really successful and then you did the yeah that big movie dude where's it was a dude where's my car dude where's my car written by phil stark who was one of the writers on the 70s but then when do you start like becoming this wizard investor
Marc:So a lot of things happen, right?
Guest:I did a bunch of movies.
Guest:Started doing a bunch of other television shows.
Guest:Like producing the movies.
Guest:Producing some movies and then producing... We did this show called Beauty and the Geek.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We were building as a reality production company.
Guest:I think Endemol came in and offered to buy our production company.
Guest:And I was like...
Guest:Well, if we sell it, then I have a boss, and I don't know if I want a boss.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, why would they want to buy this?
Guest:I was trying to figure out why they were valuing it where it was at.
Guest:And then I saw buffering speeds online just getting faster and faster and faster.
Guest:This is about maybe 12, 13 years ago.
Marc:2007, 2006.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, man, I think all this content is just going to move online.
Guest:This is just an easier way to consume it.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You thought that?
Guest:I legitimately had this thought.
Guest:And so I went out and started looking for companies that could help me distribute content.
Guest:and quantify content, quantify creativity if you will.
Guest:Like determine where in the life cycle of a video people wanted more and where they wanted to turn it off.
Guest:And understand the total number of views across multiple platforms of the internet.
Guest:And so I was really just trying to figure out how to optimize content for that platform.
Guest:Any platform.
Guest:Well, for the online ecosystem, like VOD.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And- Because you saw the future of entertainment moving there.
Guest:That's what I thought.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I tried to convince my board to create a fund- At the production company.
Guest:At the production company.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To create a fund of capital inside the production company to invest in these types of companies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then use our production capabilities-
Guest:To make the content.
Guest:To promote these companies and accelerate their growth.
Guest:And then make the content and utilize those tools to actually build content out.
Guest:And so we built out the internal piece of the puzzle, but the board didn't improve the investment piece.
Guest:So I just started making the investments on my own.
Marc:With your own money.
Guest:With my own capital.
Guest:And I invested in a company called Optimizely, which is like an A-B testing tool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I invested in Skype.
Guest:I invested in a company called Slide, which this guy, Max Levkin, who was from the PayPal mafia, created.
Marc:PayPal mafia.
Guest:It's like a group of early people that Peter Thiel brought in to build up PayPal.
Guest:Then I just started meeting all these other people in the tech universe.
Marc:This is a pivotal time because these are guys that are now billionaires.
Marc:Some of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they weren't then.
Guest:They weren't then.
Marc:And so you're like on the ground floor of these people that know the future in a way.
Marc:Or at least were gambling on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And to be clear, I was the dumbest guy in the room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And intentionally the dumbest guy in the room.
Guest:and vacuuming as much information as I possibly could just to educate myself.
Guest:So I would go to San Francisco twice a week and just take meetings with the smartest people from Mark Andreessen and Mark Cuban to anybody who would take a meeting.
Marc:And they would take a meeting with you because they thought you were funny and they knew who you were.
Marc:They knew who I was, so they didn't- But did they look at you as an investor or sort of like, I want to meet that guy?
Guest:No, no, not at all.
Guest:I think they looked at me going, what's he want, right?
Guest:And then I found this angel investor, this guy Ron Conway.
Guest:An angel investor is a guy who just gives you money?
Guest:Yeah, he's like the first check-in kind of guy.
Guest:And he was the best in the business in angel investing.
Marc:Explain that to me exactly, how does angel investing work?
Guest:So somebody comes to you with an idea.
Guest:They haven't raised any money yet.
Guest:You give them the first check.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he was kind of like the first check that was a stamp of approval that caused the second check to come in.
Guest:And where does your check come in?
Guest:Well, early days, I was an angel investor.
Guest:So I learned from him and became an angel investor early on.
Guest:But then I also would invest in things where, you know, somebody would call me up and go, hey, Skype is selling from eBay and, you know, there's some legal hair on it, but we think we can clean that up.
Guest:But we think it's, you know, 6x multiple from here.
Guest:And then, you know, make that check as well.
Guest:So I was doing a little bit of both, but mostly just super, super early.
Guest:There's this incubator in San Francisco called Y Combinator, which is probably the most prestigious incubator in the world where the best founders go through there, the biggest ideas from Dropbox to Cloudera to Airbnb.
Guest:All these companies end up going through this incubator.
Guest:And this guy, Paul Graham, who built it and ran it, would mentor these young entrepreneurs and help them
Guest:figure out how to build their businesses.
Guest:And so I would go there and I, at the time there weren't any other celebrities or anybody else there.
Guest:And I would go and I could always get a meeting with the founder because they were excited to meet.
Guest:And, and, and then over time I just, I learned from them.
Guest:I learned from other investors and sort of figured out how to do it.
Guest:And then, and then, and then Guy Osiri, who is my partner in the fund was,
Guest:He was the only other guy from L.A.
Guest:that I kept seeing up there running into.
Guest:And he was a friend of mine.
Guest:And at one point he turned to me.
Guest:He's like, why don't we just do this together?
Guest:I was like, great.
Guest:Go find the money.
Guest:I'm happily because I'm running out of money.
Guest:And so then he went and found the money.
Guest:And then Ron Burkle came in with the capital and his back office.
Guest:And we built our first fund.
Guest:And it started from there.
Marc:And now this is like the bulk of your business is doing this stuff.
Guest:Yeah, this is a little bit more than nine to five.
Guest:And now I only do movies or films or TV that I'm really passionate about.
Guest:And it's more of like just for fun.
Marc:So you manage a fund basically?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's where you ended up with this.
Marc:And that fund is, you know, you guys just sit around and go like, well, what are these things that look like we can put money in?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then people invest in the fund?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So the fund's called Sound Ventures.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I can put money in Sound Ventures.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:What's it cost to get in?
Guest:It just depends on- Be honest with me.
Guest:No, no, it really depends.
Guest:Part of it is we try to have LPs that we think add value to the fund, so folks that give us some domain expertise that we don't have, and those are the limited partners they put capital in.
Guest:And then we have an unbelievable team of folks that run diligence for us on companies.
Guest:They're constantly sourcing companies and laying out the numbers and telling us what they think.
Guest:And then we have a portfolio management team that basically looks at all the companies we've invested in and constantly finding ways to try to be helpful to those companies and then help those companies grow.
Marc:That's the deal.
Marc:That's the business.
Marc:And you're a respected guy in this world, your fund.
Marc:I think so yeah now okay so going back you've been married to Miller for how long uh I think we've been married for five years almost five years yeah that's going good it's going amazing that's great and then before that you were with Demi yeah for eight yeah and you guys are still friends
Guest:We don't hang out.
Marc:I remember I talked to Mila and it was sort of like, oh yeah, everyone's good.
Guest:It's all good.
Guest:We don't hang out.
Guest:I make a really conscious effort to stay in touch with the girls.
Marc:Because you were sort of present for a lot of that.
Guest:I mean, it was eight years, right?
Guest:So Tallulah, I think, was like eight or nine.
Guest:Right.
Guest:She was the youngest, and rumor was like 12 or 13.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When we first started dating, and then when we divorced, like, they had all just, well, Tallulah was graduating high school when we divorced.
Sure.
Marc:So you had a relationship with them during a sort of essential time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I was helping raise teenage girls through their adolescence.
Marc:It's weird when that happens because my brother's going through some of that.
Marc:Like you have an ex whose kids you were a big part of their lives.
Marc:How do you maintain that?
Marc:And do you, you know, how does that work?
Guest:I think, I mean, I love them.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And I'm never going to stop loving them, right?
Guest:And respecting them and honoring them and rooting for them to be successful in whatever they're pursuing.
Guest:Yeah, I think you try, but at the same time, I'm...
Guest:not their father.
Guest:I was never trying to be their father.
Guest:I always had respect and honored Bruce.
Guest:And I think, you know, he's a brilliant human being and a wonderful man.
Guest:And, and I, and so I, I, you know, if they don't want an engagement with me, I'm not going to force it upon them, but, but they, they all do.
Guest:And it's, it's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's, well, it's good that there's not, you know, badness.
Marc:There's not badness.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, okay, so the other thing is you started Catholic and then you moved into this other thing.
Guest:You want to extrapolate on that or you want me to?
Marc:Well, I mean, early in the conversation, you said you kind of Christian Catholic upbringing, but I know that- Well, I had a very Christian Catholic upbringing.
Guest:I mean, I was an altar boy.
Guest:My mom's side of the family was Irish Catholic.
Guest:We went to church every Sunday.
Guest:I went to catechism.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Learned about Jesus Christ.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then- Confession, the whole business.
Guest:Yeah, the whole- Blood of Jesus.
Guest:Yeah, the whole thing.
Marc:Here's your cookie.
Guest:And learned a ton.
Guest:About the Catholic model.
Guest:Yeah, about that model.
Guest:And sort of being in Iowa, I mean, I had one friend that I realized was Jewish because he was gone on days that we were still in school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a Mormon friend when I was growing up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And never really-
Guest:recognized or realized a difference.
Guest:Of religions.
Guest:Yeah, but also never spent the time to understand any other religion.
Guest:And then, I don't remember how long ago, started learning about Judaism.
Guest:Just from who?
Guest:Who were you with at the time?
Guest:So Demi introduced me to a guy named Eitan Yardini, who was one of the teachers at the Kabbalah Center.
Marc:Now this is when like in Kabbalah's heyday, like when Madonna was Kabbalah and it was like sort of a fad a bit here.
Guest:Yeah, I think Demi found out about it through Madonna or something like this.
Guest:And I was really skeptical of all of it going in.
Guest:Were you still practicing Catholic or were you just kind of untethered?
Guest:No, I wasn't really practicing.
Guest:I was actually like sort of moving towards...
Guest:atheism.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like where I was just sort of like... You were also consumed with sort of like exciting investments and things.
Guest:I was consumed with a lot of things.
Guest:So... But I...
Guest:I was kind of questioning whether or not you need a model like this in order to be a good person.
Guest:And kind of questioning the, I always had an issue from the moment I asked my pastor, like, if you never heard of Jesus Christ, how is it that you go to hell?
Guest:Because you can't believe in something.
Marc:This is something you asked when you were a kid?
Guest:I asked him when I was, yeah, when I was an altar boy.
Guest:And he didn't have it.
Guest:He's like, you just have to have faith.
Guest:And I was like, that doesn't do it for me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's a good question.
Marc:That's a philosophical way.
Marc:Like if that guy doesn't even know who Jesus is, why does he have to go to hell?
Guest:If you're in the Amazon rainforest and you've never heard of, and he's like, well, this is the purpose of purpose for the missions and going out and spreading the word.
Guest:And you go, yeah, but there's, you know, some guy's not going to, you're not going to get to those guys in the Amazon.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I, and so I always sort of bumped against that.
Guest:And then, so Demi introduced me to this guy, Eitan, and I asked him a bunch of questions, and I was really skeptical.
Guest:Did you ask him that one?
Guest:Well, he didn't believe that, so therefore he didn't have to- Right, it didn't matter.
Guest:There was no hell.
Guest:There was no hell, exactly.
Guest:Yeah, and Jesus was just a guy.
Guest:Not just a guy, a Kabbalist, no less.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:It had to be.
Guest:By the way, so was Isaac Newton, and so was anybody else that has done anything significant.
Guest:Which is how it kind of generally goes.
Guest:So I started learning about this, about Judaism.
Yeah.
Guest:Learn how to, you know, read Hebrew and learn how to like, you know, read the Torah and read the Midrash and read all of it.
Guest:Read the Zohar and read the Talmud.
Guest:The Talmud.
Guest:It was like really.
Guest:In Hebrew.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I read the English translation.
Guest:I can read Hebrew like, say the prayers.
Marc:But you didn't convert to Judaism.
Marc:I never converted to Judaism.
Marc:And the Kabbalists, this version of Kabbalah doesn't require that.
Marc:It was detached from Judaism in a way.
Guest:It was never a requirement.
Guest:No, I don't think it was detached from Judaism.
Guest:It was never a requirement.
Guest:Nobody ever made it incumbent upon me to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just never felt the need to do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, I did mikvah and, you know, I tied teflin and would say my morning prayers every day and, like, you know, I did the Amidah.
Guest:Like, really, I studied it and went all in.
Guest:But you wouldn't say you're a Jew.
Marc:I don't think I'm anything.
Marc:But isn't that odd though?
Marc:I'm a Jew and I can read Hebrew and I don't know that I've put the study that you put into it, but I just never understood from what you're telling me.
Marc:I just don't know.
Marc:It seems like all of the rituals were there and the connections are there, but what is the primary spiritual lesson of Kabbalah?
Marc:What are you praying to?
Guest:I mean, at the end of the day, there was Hillel said, somebody had asked him to explain the Torah while standing on one foot.
Guest:And he said, love thy neighbor as thyself.
Guest:Everything else is commentary.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, and by the way, if you say, what is the golden rule of Christianity?
Guest:It's love thy neighbor as thyself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's the same thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in fact, what I ended up finding out through studying Judaism was why the Catholics did all the things that I couldn't get answers as to why the Catholics did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Why did the priest always put a little bit of water in the wine before communion?
Guest:Like, what was that about?
Guest:And why was the bread?
Guest:Why did they?
Guest:So water is a right column energy of mercy and wine is a left column energy of judgment.
Guest:And so you always want to have some sense of mercy or care before you judge anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:because otherwise it's a violent act.
Guest:So you put a little bit of water into the wine.
Guest:And it was like, why did they hand out wafers at community?
Guest:Why didn't they just hand out a piece of bread?
Guest:Oh, okay, well, bread is an antenna for wisdom, and when it's inflated, it's like the ego, right?
Guest:So it has the same amount of energy within a wafer as it has an inflated leaven piece of bread.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if but but it comes in a smaller package.
Guest:And so it's it's an antenna reminder for individuals to diminish their ego.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, it is bland and hold the same space.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A blandness to it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So.
Guest:I learned all.
Guest:And then I learned about Passover.
Marc:Are you learning this from the Kabbalah people?
Guest:Well, I just didn't know.
Guest:So I didn't know that Passover came at the same time of year as Easter.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and then when you do the matzah, it's actually the same as the wafer.
Guest:And it's there's just I learned so much overlap.
Guest:So much of it is exactly the same stuff, but just taught in different ways.
Guest:And all really valuable stuff to sort of have and digest and realize.
Guest:But I'm kind of left back at the same place where I began, which is, you know, I think all these things are great as long as you're not religious about them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I found myself becoming religious about it as opposed to...
Guest:As opposed to just... Curious, intellectual.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Philosophical.
Guest:I sort of passed the point of curiosity and philosophy and found myself becoming religious and went, whoa, I've just done the exact thing that I did before.
Guest:And here I am back at ground zero going, huh, let me re-examine all of this and see.
Guest:And just use what works.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where'd you land with that?
Marc:With like spirituality?
Guest:I'm... You know...
Guest:I kind of think that the God that we're all looking for is actually just in other people.
Marc:I can, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's, I mean, that's a pretty good, a pretty good, yeah, could go either way.
Marc:So you're grounded in that as opposed to magical thinking, which is like.
Guest:Yeah, my general sense is that like,
Guest:I'm seeking knowledge in this world.
Guest:There's more knowledge out in the world than I'll ever have, than I'll ever personally obtain.
Guest:And functionally at the end of the day, love thy neighbor as thyself, everything else is commentary.
Guest:Just figure that out and you're gonna do all right.
Marc:Yeah, you'd be a decent person.
Marc:People always have good things to say about you.
Guest:Not always.
Guest:You just haven't met the right people.
Guest:The people I've talked to think you're a great guy.
Guest:You just haven't met the right people.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:I'll introduce you to a couple.
Marc:They're like, fuck that guy.
Marc:You got a couple of those people out there?
Marc:Is there anyone out there saying about that, about Ashley?
Guest:Oh, I'm sure there is.
Guest:I have a couple personal.
Guest:One, I'm a pretty righteous motherfucker, which probably doesn't come off very good a lot of the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like I'm right most of the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As do most people, but I'm certain of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That could be annoying.
Guest:That's annoying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Number two, I have a... My wife actually picks up me about this all the time.
Guest:Like, I can't... I don't recognize faces very well.
Guest:Like, I have this weird... I can look at a face and go...
Guest:I know I know that person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I can't place where or how.
Guest:I mean, I've run into like ex-girlfriends that I've dated for years.
Guest:And you can't.
Guest:Well, that happens as you get older, buddy.
Guest:No, but I, but legitimately like dated for like years and not recognize them.
Guest:And I'm very apologetic about it.
Guest:I'm like, man, I can't place it.
Guest:I'm really, really sorry.
Guest:I should know this.
Guest:And the minute they tell me who they are, I'm like, oh, yeah, back to the thing that we did with the Cisco.
Guest:But I think that comes off really assholey sometimes.
Guest:And I don't mean to be.
Guest:I just don't have that auto recall on faces.
Marc:Well, sometimes you get older and you've met a lot of people in your life.
Marc:And you don't know how age is going to change people.
Marc:Sometimes it takes a second.
Marc:I've had moments where people, I don't know if I've dated them for years, but I've spent time with them.
Guest:I just feel really bad about it.
Guest:And then I always tell my, I'm just a shitty friend too.
Guest:Well, I just don't respond to text messages and things.
Guest:Yeah, you forget.
Guest:They fall through the cracks.
Marc:Don't be so hard on yourself.
Guest:No, it's not even that.
Guest:I just don't respond.
Marc:I don't want to.
Marc:Do you respond in your head and think you responded?
Marc:Maybe.
Guest:Yeah, I think about the response.
Guest:Right, and then it's just like, I never got to that.
Guest:Or I want to make sure it's like a good response.
Guest:Yeah, and then you don't do it.
Guest:And then I don't get to it because I need like five minutes to actually really think about the response.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:You know that thing?
Guest:Yeah, of course I do.
Guest:So I'll introduce you to some people at some point.
Guest:Oh, that'd be great.
Guest:I mean, I won't recognize you the next time I see you in order to introduce you, but...
Marc:But when I reintroduce myself to you, you'll walk me over to the people that don't like it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I'll be like, hey, here's the four people that are just like, tell him how much of an asshole I am.
Marc:So the last two things you've done TV-wise in terms of what you said you like to do, like taking the gig on Two and a Half Men, was that something that you had a good time with that you wanted to do or that was just an undeniable amount of bread that could be had there?
Guest:A combo of several things.
Guest:I was watching the Charlie Sheen thing happen, because I was watching it online.
Guest:Do you know him?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I've met him a couple times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's always been really nice to me.
Marc:And he's funny on that show.
Guest:He's been nice to me to my face, but then he said things that I was like, what?
Marc:Later, though, after you took the job, probably?
Guest:Yeah, I think he was just angry about things, which understandably.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah I was watching this thing happen I got in the car and was driving I was like man I was like I gotta tell you with what they're paying that guy like if somebody offered me that job I would take it and I sort of said it as a joke right but I was talking to my old agent about it or something like Adam Bennett who was my old agent and I said it to him just sort of like on a and so I went on a fishing trip in Alaska with my dad and
Guest:or up north somewhere, and I got a phone call from my old agent.
Guest:He was like, hey, were you serious when you said that?
Guest:And I was like...
Guest:Why?
Guest:And he goes, well, I think you could get the job.
Guest:And I was like, well, I said, I'm like, I don't know if I really want to, like, I'm not really sure that I want to.
Guest:And then I sort of sat and I thought about it.
Guest:I was just talking to my dad and I was like, I love doing sitcoms.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:like, love, love the live audience thing.
Guest:It's a, you know, when you get a laugh thing, right?
Marc:It's a specific skill, yeah.
Guest:Nothing better than getting a laugh from an audience that's all lavered up from a warm-up guy, and he's like, fucking laugh, motherfuckers!
Guest:And everybody's like, ah-ha!
Guest:And so they're ready to laugh.
Guest:But you still believe it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, I really love doing sitcoms.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at the time, I had daughters at home, and I knew things were a little...
Guest:not great in my relationship and I wanted to work on that.
Guest:With Miller?
Guest:No, no, no, to me.
Guest:Oh, with that respect, yeah.
Guest:And I wanted to work on that and I wanted to be home more.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like, let me think about it.
Guest:So I thought about it a little bit and talked to my dad.
Guest:and then I went met with Chuck Lorre and he seemed like a really smart guy and he had an idea for this character that I thought was really interesting which wasn't the character that I ended up I got the script and was like well that's not what we talked about but um but he had an idea for this character I thought was interesting and he was like are you ready and I was like what do you mean he's like well this is gonna be a big story and a big thing and I was like
Guest:What's going to happen?
Guest:I mean, worst case scenario, the guy's going to shit talk me and then what?
Guest:And so I was like, fuck it.
Guest:And I just decided to do it and had a really good time and met Don Rio and Jim Patterson who ended up co-producing with me The Ranch that we did on Netflix.
Guest:So we brought a bunch of the crew that was there as well.
Guest:And so it was actually super fortuitous because we all ended up connecting
Guest:and had a really good time making it.
Guest:And people liked it, right?
Marc:The people that were fans of the show, they stayed there, and you did the thing for a while.
Guest:And I actually went through a divorce while on that show, which is a really hard thing to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And having a family while going through that...
Guest:I needed that.
Guest:And so, and those people were all there for me and supported me while I was going through that and it was phenomenal.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And now you're still working with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, we just finished The Ranch.
Marc:That was eight seasons?
Guest:What was that?
Marc:The Ranch.
Guest:The Ranch, 80 episodes.
Guest:We did four seasons.
Guest:Four seasons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we just finished it.
Guest:It was the most episodes of any show ever done by Netflix.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, because that three-camera situation doesn't seem to work for them necessarily, but yours worked.
Guest:It worked, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it worked.
Marc:And you worked with people you like, and I didn't watch all of them, but was Dax in all of them, or did he come in later?
Guest:No, Dax came in the last, I think, 20, 25 or something like that.
Guest:It was funny.
Guest:I did his podcast, one of the first episodes of his podcast, and then left.
Guest:I was like, you know, we're writing this character who's this...
Guest:you know vet for this thing you know he comes he's my cousin he's like yeah i'll do it i'm like great that yeah he's like i was like i'm gonna call your agent he's like yeah call him yeah i'm gonna do it i was like okay great so it turned out but that show is not like it's not like two and a half men or the 70s show it's a heavy you know you can deal with heavy shit
Marc:Yeah, it's like a combination of comedy and drama.
Marc:But it's like a three-camera thing.
Marc:I noticed that about acting just because I do a bit of it now.
Marc:And you just said that you liked doing that, the sitcom sort of acting, the three-camera stuff.
Marc:And it's a real weird kind of unique skill set to be able to deliver drama in that format.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we had to figure it out because I'd never done that before.
Guest:I think we figured out quickly if they were really dramatic scenes, you could do them in front of the audience.
Guest:If they were pseudo-dramatic scenes, it was better to pre-tape them before we loaded the audience in.
Guest:What's the difference?
Guest:So we do a pre-tape day on Thursday with no audience.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then on Friday we shoot in front of a live audience.
Marc:But pseudo-dramatic just means what?
Guest:Just if there were... If it was a scene that went from comedy into drama... Uh-huh.
Guest:The problem was the audience was so keyed into laughing.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:That they would get to the drama and not be able to make the transition into taking it seriously.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Or laugh because, you know, you had like one guy in the audience that laughed because they thought it was a joke.
Guest:Still, right.
Guest:But it wasn't a joke.
Guest:And then it would blow the take.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it would pull the actors out of the dramatic moment that was building.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:Um, but if it was really dramatic scene, you could shoot it in front of the audience and then you can hear a pin drop on that stage.
Marc:As long as it's not cluttered.
Marc:It doesn't come out of comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Marc:So, so the, the, the stuff that had to kind of evolve, you know, like there's a couple of jokes and then you're all of a sudden you're into something serious.
Marc:You had to shoot without an audience.
Guest:It was much harder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we just kind of had to figure out like when what were the kinds of scenes that the audience could do and do well.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then and then oftentimes on some of the dramatic scenes, you'd need three, four takes and you don't want the audience to sit there and be belabored watching it three, four times.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it was a balance that we that we ended up figuring out probably after like halfway into this first season.
Marc:And and why are you ending it?
Guest:the story was told.
Marc:Yeah, I think that's a commendable thing.
Guest:I've been on shows where you keep going, and you keep going, and then you got a brother who's a gorilla.
Guest:I've done this stuff, right?
Guest:And so the story was told.
Guest:I love everything that we did.
Guest:everybody there was still, you know, highly in love with each other.
Guest:We didn't have to do that thing where, you know, you shoot a show for like four seasons, everybody's salary gets increased every year.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you go, I don't know if we can pay this much for, you know, this discipline within our crew.
Guest:And so then you have to let go of people and then hire new people to reduce the salary so you can contain the budget.
Guest:We didn't have to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We got to the point we were able to let everybody know that this was the last season.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that we're going to wrap it up.
Guest:And so everybody had time to find their next gig.
Guest:And, you know, it's not like Netflix owns the show.
Guest:So it's not like there was this big syndication.
Guest:No, right.
Guest:There's no back end thing.
Guest:Yeah, there's no big syndication boon that's going to come if we shoot two more seasons.
Yeah.
Guest:The story was told.
Marc:And you don't have to beat it to death.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good, man.
Marc:Well, congratulations.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:On your life.
Guest:I'm living one.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I don't want to do a different one.
Guest:I'll tell you that.
Guest:I'll keep this one.
Guest:Good talking to you, man.
Guest:Likewise.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That was Ashton Kutcher.
Marc:The show is The Ranch.
Marc:It's finishing up now on Netflix.
Marc:Final season is up.
Marc:You can go to WTFPod.com slash tour for venue and ticket information for all of my winter tour dates.
Marc:The few that are left, the seven or so that are coming up.
Marc:And my special, End Times Fun, will drop in March.
Marc:Obviously, I'll give you more details about that leading up to it.
Marc:And what else can I say?
Marc:Oh, wait.
Marc:I think I can do music.
Marc:I have a hotel room with a ukulele in it.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Boomer lives.