Transcript of Mom's Car: Timothy Simons

Hello, and welcome to Mom's Car. Today, we have Timothy Simons. Oh, my God, what a wonderful and tall human being Timothy is. You probably fell in love with him on Veepe as I did. He was also in Handmaid's Tale. And let us not forget, nobody wants this.

Tim is a party.

He's honest, and boy, did he teach us a lot about ADHD. Please enjoy Timothy Simons.

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I grew up in Maine, Central Maine, like woods and lakes rather than ocean. Okay. But I was going to say that when I was growing up, there was this Shakespeare theater that was in a really amazing building. The actual building is beautiful. The theater is beautiful. So it's a destination for New York equity actors to come up and do Shakespeare and get out of the city.

What's the other one? There's one in the Berkshire's, too. Is it like that?

Williamstown? Yeah. It's not big like Williamstown. Okay. Williamstown, I feel like big names go and do shows. And I think people that are playwrights at Yale will do shows up there. You're like a steadily working equity actor in New York or Boston, and you just get to get out of the city, and the pay is shit, and you live with other people in the community. But growing up, one of the people that was always in shows there was David Harbor. Oh, really? So when I was 12 years-Is he from Maine?

No, he was a New York guy, but he was up there for four or five summers.

So I saw him do a bunch of Moli air plays and a Two Gentlemen of Verona. And I worked at the video store, and he would come into the video store, and I treated him like I was meeting-Brando? Brando. I was like, Oh, my God, man, how's it going?

Do you need any secret copies of anything?

I would try to do a cool video story. I was probably 14, 15. Oh, my God. I got recommendations for it if you need them. He was probably like, Yeah, man, I know. I'm an artist, too. I'm an artist. But I always love seeing him around.

That's really fun. I imagine it's a small town.

Very. My hometown was really small. It was 2,000 people, and the town that that theater was in was even smaller. We made fun of it for how small it was. Oh, really? Their high school, Monmouth Academy, they had literally 10 to 12 people per graduate class. Oh, wow.

That makes Dady rough.

Yes. I was on a basketball team in high school, and it was always the only team that we could beat.

They didn't have enough players? Basically, yes.

They were like, We got subs. We have the only nine guys that can even possibly do this.

Yeah. What did your mom and dad do for a living?

When they first moved to Maine, they actually were two of the founding teachers of the high school that I ended up going to. Was it a private school? No, it was a public school. Okay. It drew from four towns. They were founding members of that school.

Do you like that?

Oh, man.

This is how I drive.

It's a good crash course. This is why Karen was like, Dax and I grew up being very aggressive.

Well, we worked for GM.

Yeah, so we have just been driving like fucking maniac. Our entire life. And Karen wasn't too interested in it. Yeah, he doesn't drive.

I remember when we got a puppy, the dog walker was like, you got to introduce him to older dogs. The older dogs can roll them. That was the phrase she used. You got to roll them so that they understand. You were rolling that guy. You're like, he's got to understand.

You're blowing this red light. And I'm letting you know, I know you blew this red light. I fight my instinct to be a sheriff, but it comes out sometimes. I regret that you saw that side of me.

I like it. I feel like there has to be a little more of that. We should all be understanding. I have this thing.

Okay, this is really great because regionally, I was going to say, Michigan, we didn't have the camp culture. That was a very New York thing, I guess. Additionally, you have agents. I feel like it's very specific to agents. You have agents driving around LA in 911s, and they're 5'5, and they're screaming, Fuck you, and cutting people off. And I'm like, You cannot get away with that in Detroit. Someone's pulling you out of your car. You got to be able to back that up. And there's something that just feels crazy to me about LA, that that goes on. And then the same guy, yells at the fucking hostess. And it's just a bully, but he does not have the stature to be a bully. That really sets me off.

Can I ask you a quick question? Because I only found this out very recently. And this sounds like a big phrase, but a comorbidity of ADHD is a heightened sense of injustice or a heightened sensitivity to injustice in that way of like, this is an injustice. I'm going to ask, are you an ADHD person?

Okay, so two things. I interviewed Gabor Mathe, who is an expert on on ADHD. After the interview, I'm walking him out of the house just randomly, he goes, Have you ever been tested for ADHD? It's like an intake counselor at a rehab asking if you've ever done the questionnaire for addiction. I was like, Oh, I think maybe you just evaluated me, and that's your conclusion. And then I had another ADHD expert say that to me as well. But I'm fighting against it's so popular on Instagram. Is your feed just endless? Adhd people do this. I saw one the other day, I was like, Have multiple drinks. I always have four or five different drinks going. And I'm like, Oh, yeah. But then I said that out loud, and Monica looked it up and was like, No, that's not really a symptom. So people are piling on symptoms. I think they might just be humanness. I don't know. So I think I probably am ADHD, but I'm also having a reservation. How about you?

I am. I was diagnosed when it was still a pretty novel thing. I had to go to a children's hospital in Boston. I was never an amazing student, but I had fallen off a cliff in the 10th grade to where they were like, something larger is going on.

Sure. He's either gotten a substance issue or closeted homosexuality. Something big is happening.

I went to the doctor and they were like, You're a closeted homosexual. I'm not ready to face that yet. So what else you got in the hopper?

Do you have any pills that will distract me until I'm old enough to pursue this? You're a closet. Do you remember your doctor said that to you with a clipboard? He's got test results. Your labs are in.

Flipping through the pages, and I got to tell you, your brain lit up. I don't know why we showed you pictures of men in swimsuits, but every lobe was firing.

We rarely see the ocipital catch fire the way it did. This will not come as a surprise to you, but you are close to the ocipital.

That doesn't sound right. I remember it being my local doctors were either unable or maybe didn't have the training to be able to give the diagnosis which meant my mom, my dad had to take a day off from work. We drove down to Boston, I had tests all the next day, and then we drove back.

Do you remember what the tests were?

I mean, it was everything from written tests to physical. I do very clearly remember. They were like, okay, now you have to hop on one foot for 30 seconds. Oh, really? And then you have to hop on the other foot for 30 seconds. It was like a battery of written, verbal, and also physical. How long was it?

Was it a half a day?

Full day. I was in there for probably six hours.

Which sounds like the worst thing for an ADHD person to be stuck. Or was things moving so quick? You were stimulated.

Things were moving fast. And also I got to leave school for the day and go to the city. So I was like, I'll fucking hop on one foot all day. If it means I get to actually see a building that's more than a story of Paul.

If I can top over to Bull, what's the Cheers location? Did you go to that? Like Bull Finch and something?

We probably did Boston Common. They probably pointed it out to me, but they were like, You can't go in there.

You're too You'll fucking drink everything in the house. Comorbidity, we'll just explain that really quick for anyone who doesn't know. It's like, anytime there's a condition that has a high likelihood that you'll have another... It's a very common overlap. Say the given population has a 5% chance of being narcissistic, right? People with BPD might actually be 30 % likely, and that would be a comorbidity. Those aren't real examples, but that could be a thing like that.

So it was a friend of mine who's wife, who I actually met. I ended working at that Shakespeare theater that David Harbor worked for. But when I was 21, 22, and there was a woman who is now a costume designer out here when she was 19. It was her first job. We got to be friends, and we still see them out here. They live out in North Ridge. They came over to the house for dinner. They have two kids now, and she is very ADHD, and so he's a great husband. He does all the reading of the ADHD books and then tells her. That is It sums it up for her.

He's her doctor. Yes. Yeah, that's very generous. That's a sweet person.

And that was one of the things that came up. I really dialed into that when I feel it happening. The injustice. It has both managed to calm me down when I am feeling that way and has also explained a lot of stuff up to this point.

Just being able to look at the feeling you're having going, Right, you have an exaggerated sense of this, so just keep that in mind.

Keep that in mind. And then it also says, Okay, so is this really as big as my head is making it out to be? It makes you just look at it again, and sometimes it is, No, actually, this is a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But has allowed me to then pull back from things that aren't.

Does the awareness seem impossible or you just are constantly aware now?

Yeah, How long will you be in the emotion of, let's say, rage towards injustice before it clicks?

Oh, this is that thing. Well, recently, it hasn't been very long because I only found this out less than a month ago. Oh, okay. I have noticed a huge shift in how long I in that spinning thought where it used to ruin an entire day. Somebody that ducks under the little barrier at the airport. You know what I mean? It's like, no, they set up the fucking lanes. I'm using the lanes, but you went under. I would be mad for the whole flight.

You could ruin your vacation.

Possibly a week, maybe. I have noticed in the last month, while, yes, that person should still be executed for doing that, I'm able to just understand understand that it's going to take a while to pass that law.

Yeah. Well, look, I have that really bad, but it's always interesting. Also, when you have kids, they force you to confront whether this story you have about yourself is real or if it's just your fucking genetics, right? Yeah. Do you have that with your kids? So my story was, oh, my dad filed bankruptcy three times. Money was really tight, and that's why I'm so frugal and responsible with money. But then Lincoln, our oldest, she has saved every penny she's ever been given. She's grown up in abundance. And then the little one. Look at this. We got one. That's a fucking big one. In a big ride. I was like, should we just sit in front of a rice barbecue? Because we've had an inordinate amount of deliveries from rice and barbecue.

It looks like this is a two banger trip to restaurants.

Salt and straw is the first.

Is that it? That's ice cream, right?

Yeah.

While they're doing a full thing, they're doing dessert and maybe a main.

I hope they got some dry ice in this bag.

So my story about my injustice thing is like, oh, I had stepdads, they were bullies. I'll never stand for bullying. I won't stand for injustice. But I might just genetically be that way. Because ADHD is definitely genetic, right?

It's not a nurture situation. I don't think so. I definitely notice, and I guess maybe I wonder, is it genetic or is it nurturing? I see behaviors that I don't like in myself in my kids, and those get heightened. And sometimes your own like, oh, now I'm mad at my kid, but I'm not really I'm mad at them. I'm mad at myself. I'm mad at myself for allowing that to continue, and that can be rough.

Yes, I have a very easy time parenting our daughter that's just like Kristen, and she has a very easy time parenting the one just like me. My oldest and I set each other off so much. I hate if a plan has changed, and I really don't like any plans that I didn't come up with. I hate to admit that. So much of it is arrogance. I'm like, I just am very inefficient thinker. I'll know where we should stop, right? It's just arrogance. But fuck, she's the same way. And she'll be being very stubborn and inflexible. And I'll be like, Just fucking go along with the plan. You got a whole family here. You're not the only person with a vote. It's me, and it's hard.

It is funny when you're saying that, and you're also like, I'm never going to take that advice for myself.

And I'm enforcing my plan, which is like, we're a democracy, whatever the fucking thing it is. And Kristen is just like, yeah, I've been dealing with this for 18 years, and I'm used to it. I know how to outwit you. And outmaneuver you and distract you. And similarly, the little one drives Kristen nuts, and they're the same person. Kristin will be actively yelling at her for leaving stuff in the sink while half the shit in the sink is Kristin's. And I just stay out of it. I'm like, Oh, my God, this is so funny and ironic. Yeah, the sink is full with both you all's shit. And Lincoln and I don't ever do that.

That's so funny. Have you ever checked? Did you do a count?

How do you know which ones are hers and which ones are yours? That would be my A sarcastic way to bring that up without fully committing to addressing it.

There are always days where it's like, Is this the day that I make the joke? What's her mood?

What's the temperament? Is this a good day to be a pussy and fucking frame this as a joke instead of addressing it?

Instead of just being direct about it. I will also say I know that my fucking moods cause Annie to be like, Well, how am I going to attack Tim's bullshit today?

Oh, man. The hardest part, especially since we've been out already today, I'm really hungry now. I would fucking kill that whole ice cream section there.

Well, maybe you should just get a little to go.

That will slow us down.

Or we could run through a drive through. No. Okay, I want to hear Aaron, your injustice.

Rather wait. Oh, well, just the whole genetics, it reminded me of... And Tim, I know we don't know each other, but I got sober five and a half years ago. And it was like a thank you. And it was a whole emotional, mental, physical.

Yeah, to bring up this feed, Aaron had another 16 years at it that I did. We went the same level of impossible consumption. You can't imagine what he looked like five years ago. He was 100 pounds heavier. He was missing many teeth. His nose didn't work. His eyes didn't work. He was gray. He looked 59.

He's dying.

This is a full frame off restoration. This is like Bob Bila got in there and got down to the studs. This is the biggest turnaround I've ever seen in sobriety.

I had to bring that up just because I really I was not aware of a lot of things until I got sober or I didn't want to be aware of anything. I just wanted to hopefully make it through the day and hopefully not at the same time.

If everything went perfectly, not make it through the day.

I came out with my son, who's now 18. He was probably six or seven at the time. Came out here to LA. We went to Disney World, and we were in Dax's driveway playing catch, me and my kid. And I remember Dax asking him something He was so shy, my kid, and he's like, and I'm like, Wait, answer him. I got angry. I'm so embarrassed to say this. Dexter was like, This is what I love. That was you when you were a kid. I was like, I am a monster. I was like, That's why I hate my son because he's mean. I love him now.

The first time I ever brought a weekend at my dad's. My dad was a car salesman and a huge personality. You look people in the eyes and you shake their hand too hard and you talk.

First name, last name. Hey, Jay Ashenfelter.

I yelled, he just left Dale Carnegie an hour before dinner. We were in this booth in Greek town, I'll never forget. Aaron was so shy as a kid, and he whispered something to me, and we laughed. My dad goes, Hey, we don't whisper. If you got something to say. He was so aggressive.

The fucking voice was so loud.

I was like, Dad, shut up. He and I were always like this. But yeah, I was like, Aaron, this is the same situation. Remember you didn't want to talk in front of my dad?

I was like, God, I don't want anyone to be like me.

It's so hard.

Give me the phone. Oh, sorry. No. Thank you for waiting for me. We're so busy today with making this money. There's no time to talk.

Do you think it's unethical? I'm taking some work. I don't. I do, but also I don't care because it's for art. Yeah. Lowercase A. That was For me, in fact, the A is like half the size of the lowercase R.

Basquiat is looking up from his grave being like, God damn it, why was an Uber Eats around when I was alive?

I think of the paintings I could have done.

I could have done some real shit. I've had that idea before. Would it be fun to sign up for Uber, drive around every once in a while, even in just a way to get an idea?

That was my first fantasy. Aaron has been driving Uber in Detroit, and he hits me once a week with a fucking insane story. And I'm just jealous of the I always say I want to work at 7: 11 when I'm retired just to see shit go down. I love stimulation like that. That's what was my original idea. I was like, Nobody's going to get in a fucking Uber and there's three cameras. When I go, Hi, you're on a podcast. Where are you traveling to today? So this was the next best thing. But it has been really illuminating. What I've concluded is half of the city is in their house, and the other half of the city is driving things to those people's houses. Every car we're seeing is a delivery person, virtually. Okay, So when you got the diagnosis, what year was this?

Sophomore in high school, '93, '94.

Okay, and were you prescribed Ritalin or Adderall?

I was prescribed Ritalin.

Okay, and did it have a really positive impact? Incredibly positive. Yeah. I always think, what the fuck does one do? I'm an addict, and if I had, well, maybe we're concluding I do have ADHD, I couldn't have had that medicine. But it also explains why cocaine was my drug. I love cocaine. I feel perfect on cocaine.

I'm not a doctor, but that seems to be what someone would call self-medicating in that way. I have heard stories of other ADHD kids walking in and they're like, What is that? They're like, Oh, this is like a 64-ounce Diet Coke. And they're like, You are self-medicating. You're trying to find the same thing that this drug will give you. Yes.

You have no addicty qualities, right?

I think I do. Oh, that's good. I do. That's good. You guys are both like, tell it to your heart.

What have you done? Spray, spray, spray. I don't know what it is.

If I'm going to try to draw the only line that I can, I feel like I've always seen my dad never go too far in any direction. He always would have a drink, but he would never drink a lot.

Annoyingly moderate.

Annoyingly moderate in that way. I feel like whenever I have gone, I don't like the feeling of being super out of control. So whenever I felt like things were getting toward there, I was like, I feel like I got it. But the first time I ever sports gambled, I was like, Oh, this is why people move to Vegas and give everything else up. That part of my brain is in there, and I do think I'm okay at managing it. But I did smoke two packs of cigarettes a day for 10 years. Yes. I know it's in there.

Yeah, we were both very, very heavy smokers, Aaron and I.

It's fun.

It's great. Yeah, I read...

It's great and cool.

Someone sent me an article that they're on the verge of a vaccine vaccine for lung cancer. And I was like, What do we do? Obviously, I'd wait till my kids graduate. But when I'm on a Lakehouse retired and I have a vaccine for lung cancer, am I going to bang darts?

Yeah.

But I am willingly forgetting about how much I cough, how bad my cardio was, my teeth were getting yellow, everything smelled.

I do it for the day that I decided to quit. How long ago? I started when I was in college, when I was 19, and quit when I was 29. And I always told myself, I'll quit when I'm I quit when I was 32.

That's a good age to quit. Entering a new decade, and you're like, Are we going to do another? Because you know if you enter that decade doing it, another 10 years will go by.

Yeah, then it's going to be on 40. The reason I quit was I walked up one flight of stairs and was out of breath, and I was sitting on a couch one time at rest, and I was breathing. I was breathing heavily, and I'm like, You're 29 years old. And so that was the thing, a little bit of a come to Jesus.

Aaron, I'll tell you, I just coughed all fucking day long. I tried to get the tar out of my lungs from the second I woke up.

I miss it. I mean, it's like a... No, I miss him coughing. It was like a soothing. It made me feel safe. No one was around.

Did we all go in? No, just me.

No, just X.

You have no duties other than be charming and funny with already nailed.

Yeah, show over.

What? Aaron, don't any of you have two bags? No, just-We're going to two different locales. Yeah. Okay.

Wait, there are two people at this place?

No, We had two pickups, but we also have two stops.

This is like a level of executive function that I don't... I think because of the ADHD, it's like two different... Can I just drop both of them off? Can you run this down the street?

I think a lot of people in this business do that.

You just help me out real quick. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

When I started delivering food, I was in a pizza place called Little Caesar's. Oh, you've heard of them? Oh, of course. Yeah. There's this gazillion in Detroit. There's so many people. I went in there to pick up an order, and there was probably 12 other delivery people in there waiting on food. It got so scary. This is in the middle of the hood, and there's bulletproof glass between the shit, and people are banging on it, and we're this, and, Come on, kick in this glass. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, dude. We haven't seen any of this, by the way, yet on our ventures here. We probably need to go to a different neighborhood.

Yeah, I don't think you're going to find it much in Silver Lake with all the writers. Right.

This one girl, I'll never forget it. She's waiting on whatever she's waiting on, and she goes, Give me a fucking breadstick, Whatever the fuck you have is what I'm taking them. That's what they get. And I'm like, People don't give a fuck.

Oh, my God.

So he possibly ordered three large pizzas and got a chicken wing.

Two bread chips and a chicken wing.

She said, I don't give a fuck.

I don't give a fuck.

That's what they get.

I feel like the person that ordered gives a fuck, right?

That's what they get. They should order from another person if they wanted more.

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At least the kids thought it was hilarious.

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I was asking while you were inside what your relationship was like after you had gotten sober, but he had not.

Yeah, I'm sure he said.

It barely started, but yeah, tell him.

We stayed close in that anytime I was in Michigan, we would always hang out. But I was always aware he was definitely making a concession to be around me and be as straight as he was when he was around me. We stayed in love, but it limited... We could never go on a vacation together. There's just so many things we couldn't have done together because he would have just been busy hiding everything. But I never said anything, even though, of course, I was like, I know we both needed to get sober. I didn't say anything until there was a very clear moment where I was like, Oh, he's going to be dead in a week. I've got a week or two to say to him, If you want to go to treatment, I'd love to send you. To my complete shock, he said, I'd love to go. The funniest story ever was I had booked him a place in Antigua, and of course, he needs a passport, which he doesn't have. And now I'm like, Oh, my God, he's got to stay alive for four or five days, knowing he's going to treatment. For those five days, I was at home going like, I'm making God.

That decision to go in the actual... I should have on that moment.

Not ideal to have a five-day window before you go to treatment.

You're going in every day to the fucking passport office.

Guess what I didn't do for five days? Sleep.

Yeah. I would be like, Shit, I never shot dope. Maybe this is the time to shoot dope. Okay, so back to the Rillin. Oh, yeah. So it worked really, really well. Yes. Were you in charge of your prescription or do your parents give it to you? Because I know I would have ended up doing three, and then I would have to tell them, I'm out.

I think this was at a period of time. I would have been between zero and 10 years old when the just say no to drugs, Nancy Reagan thing would have been So there was that general vibe out in the world. And not that there weren't drugs where I grew up, but this hippie high school that my parents helped start had this thing called Teen Issues Week. And Teen Issues Week was everybody took a week off, and they had everything that you can learn about jazz music. This is a panel of gay students who are out. It's like the mid '90s. They also had people who had been in jail coming to talk about their experiences It wasn't necessarily scared straight. It wasn't bad. It was just this is what it is like, and if you have questions about that. I do feel bad that we all really laughed at this, but one former heroin addict came in to do... It was called the Dance of Addiction.

It was already a rough title for it.

It was an interpretive dance about his experience with addiction. An interpretive. Done in the round of a bunch of eighth and ninth graders.

Very well intentioned, but this sounds insane.

Very well intention, also incredibly insane. And I know we were all giggling. But I think that what that whole week did was give you a long view of your life, even if I wasn't able to really internalize it. And I think that is all to say that I don't think I was ever going to take more than I was supposed to. I think I was a rule follower in that way because I was so nervous. This is also like AIDS crisis time, where it was like, sex is going to kill you and drugs are going to kill you. So I was like, And then when I finally did get into drugs, I was always like, I'm not going to do any of the heavy shit. I like hallucinogens.

Yeah, no one's ever died.

No one's ever died. It's all fine. Even when I was in college, I'm not sure what the statute of limitations on this is, but definitely, if I was out of money on a Friday, I would sell some of it on the floor. And then I'd be like, oh, cool. I have $100. Yeah.

And did you suffer at all when you didn't have the medication?

I would feel a little out of control. I was like, I'm annoying everyone around me. I know I'm a lot, but I can really feel that I'm bugging the people that are around me. And that's when I was like, okay, let's get it back together.

I definitely relate to that feeling. Not the other people. I relate to being the person that's way too much.

It's a thing. I mean, maybe that's another comorbidity.

This is really hard to govern it because it's very appealing until it's not. It's a very fine line to be walking the loud, provocative energy.

A lot of times people are like, Oh, my God, this is so great. This guy is so fun. And then that extra 5%, they're like, Fuck, I just wish this guy wasn't here, or I wish he'd be normal for one second.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

But no, even during that, I never crushed and snorted it. I was like, Yeah, it's just not for me. I'm fine. Definitely had a positive effect.

And are you still on it?

I took a long time off. A lot of it having to do with whenever I was 22 or whatever, I was not on my parents' insurance anymore.

And there are $100 on the street, as you found out. Yeah.

And And so I was like, all right, I'm going to try to self-manage this. But both of my kids have ADHD, and it presents itself in very different ways. I was like, Oh, all the conversations I'm having right now, I know are happening with me. So I actually got back on it three or four years ago.

And you're much happier, I assume.

Much happier, and I definitely feel a little bit more calm and a little bit more able to manage the things that I need to manage. Whereas before, I would just be like, I just lost this whole day.

What happened? Yeah. It's It's interesting, too, that it manifestsends different in women than men, because Kristenristen's pretty certain she has it. And if you read the symptoms for women, it's very interesting. They do it differently. So Kristenristen didn't present that way to me, but as I've learned about it, I'm like, Yeah, I could cosign on is. And we're probably both that way, and probably our oldest is that way. Okay, this is very exciting for me to finally get to ask you this because you are a part of what I think might be an apocryphal story. You came to LA, and I want to know the whole version, but at some point you were an assistant to a casting director. Now, is this part a lie? You were reading other people for Veep? No. Is that someone else?

That might be somebody else, but I can see where these stories would cross over because I was running camera for commercial casting places. Okay. It was that job that led to a job that got me into Allison Jones's office where I was able to audition for Veep.

Okay, so walk me through that. First of all, how old were you when you moved to LA?

I did that, people would say, in the entirely wrong way. I was 30 when I moved here. Ideal time.

Ideal time.

You know what?

Fresh face. Hollywood loves these people who are 30 with almost no experience.

They love that. I had never been to Los Angeles before. I knew when I moved to Chicago that I would go to either Coast eventually. And I was just like, Fuck it. I'm going to LA. If you want to work at a steel mill, you move to Pittsburgh. Yeah, right.

In the '70s.

In the '70s, yeah.

You want to build cars in Detroit in the '70s. In the '70s. Had you done any I. O. Or Second City classes or anything while you were in Chicago?

I took one Second City class because my agent in Chicago was like, If you don't have Second City on your resume, I can't fucking do anything right. It's just nothing to be done. And so I begrudgingly took one, and it was very fun. And I don't know if we have this in common, but a little bit of a contrarian fucker thing of being like, Oh, you want me to do that? Then I'm not going to do it. So I didn't really-Cetical morbidity? Yeah, probably.

I just don't want to do anything anyone else is doing. Yeah. It's such a terrible quality. Aaron and I are the same way. We love punk rock.

Oh, that's so stark. Anything oppositional, I was drawn that way. But when I got out here, I still wanted to do something. I didn't want to lose being in front of an audience or live theater or anything like that. So I started doing UCB out here, Nobody was asking. Started taking classes there. At 30? At 30. The first time I ever viewed Los Angeles was getting off of the Five, driving down Los Filos Boulevard. We had got married three weeks previous in a moving van. God bless your wife.

Yeah. Oh, my God. God bless her.

Who also had lived in Los Angeles when she was younger for a very short time or lived in California and didn't like it. Sure. And it was also 2008 when the financial markets startedTrash. Terrifying time. So she's a public school teacher. She had gotten a job out of school.

Talk about marrying your mom. Yeah.

Do they have the same name.

We don't draw too many of these parallels over the course of this drive.

But then eventually found a job running these commercial casting sessions. I would get hired. Casting would come in and be like, All right, they pick up the tie, they look at it, they smile like, Oh, good product, and then they leave. And then all day, I was directing people to do that.

That's That's an interesting way to enter this whole thing. I almost think that's a gift.

A hundred %.

Because I found once I was directing and I was on the other side of the casting process, I was like, Shit, I wish I knew all this stuff the whole time I was going and auditioning.

Seeing it from that side, usually it's not about you. No. Also then just all day seeing on camera what read as funnier than other things. What is the very small thing that that person did that just made it a little bit better? Then that led to a job where I was running these casting sessions. But in this case, it was like, All right, the director wants you to improvise with these kids as they're coming in. And so I started doing that, and they just liked the stuff that I was throwing out. And somewhere in the callbacks, the director got up and was like, Just go in there and I'm going to move the camera. Because I'm writing you into this. Oh, my God. And so that was the first commercial job that I got. And then that led to a little bit of a run of, Oh, shit. I'm actually working in a little bit, getting insurance, doing all of that. Then that led to this one commercial where I played Abe Lincoln, that a friend of mine from Chicago, I was a bartender at the House of Blues. Nice. Oh, that's fun.

That sounds really fun.

It was really fun. His roommate out here was Allison Jones's casting associate. When I had first moved out, we met, we hung out. He was like, Oh, yeah, if you ever do something that I can show Allison, let me know. Yeah, that's so generous. It was. So he showed and she was like, Oh, he's funny. Let's call him in. And I went in three or four times. Oh, the Abe Lincoln commercial. Wow.

Yeah. She's so wonderful, right? We just interviewed her.

She really is.

Nobody has ever had an eye for talent like her.

It feels like everybody that has become big in comedy in the last 15, 20 years. She's the one that found-She's like the West Coast Lorne Michiels.

Yes. She's really special. But when you audition for Veep, other than the stuff in Chicago, in LA, you'd only done the commercial?

Only really done commercials. Veep was the first television show.

That's amazing. That's incredible.

So, yeah, there was a little part of me, my agent in Chicago, who was like, You're making the dumbest decision of your life. You're moving out there without a job. You don't know anyone. You've never been there.

You're not good. You're not good.

You're too tall. I've been trying to tell.

You measured yourself. Too old, too tall.

I remember his advice. I was like, Hey, do you have any advice? I'm moving to LA. His advice was moisturized. I was like, I don't know what to What do you do with that, man.

It is a dry climate.

Yeah, it's a dry climate.

This is the point where I fellate you and bring you out of the closet. So memorable. I mean, there's a handful of people I can remember from almost the first scene I saw him and going like, Oh, my God, this person's fucking hysterical. Watching Veep, I was like, Who is this guy? What is he? On the main stage at UCB, is he a groundling? What's the story? This guy's fucking right out of the gates. Brilliant. What is it? 8028?

My money is on this right here.

Yeah, 8024. I'll go up these stairs. Yeah, girl.

You did it.

We did it. Had people been like, You're Dax, Shepherd?

That was our hopes. But no. 90% of the time, it says, Leave it at the door because no one wants to fucking talk to their delivery driver. The few times it has been a handoff. Actually, there was one person who looked very confused. You could totally recognize him, but couldn't make sense out of it. Then the last time we went out was with Kristen. So of course, there's a handoff. And then Dags was like, Oh, Kristen's in here, too. And they went crazy. But no, most of the time, you just leave it at the door.

You just leave it at the door and they don't even know. Sure.

No, that's what they're disappointed.

They look at you through the window and wait for you to turn around.

Yeah, they can't wait for you. Which I relate to. It's like something so embarrassing. I feel like I don't deserve it. I'm not better than you.

Exactly. I thank you very much for the compliment. I will say that while not taking any abilities that I might have out of the equation, I think I found myself in the best possible circumstance for me to contribute in that not having a lot of experience, it being a very nontraditional show, and that we had these long rehearsal processes. I don't know that I would have been set up for success in a situation that was a little bit more like, Okay, this is your first day of shooting. I was learning everything as we went. It's going to be embarrassing. I didn't know how to read a call sheet. I thought the second AD was my boss. She came by in my fitting and was like, Oh, I like your glasses, but they were just my regular glasses. And I was like, Do I have to wear my glasses in the show now? But I was in a situation in which before we started filming the pilot, we had six days of rehearsal in this hotel in Baltimore that we were all staying in. And I was also a part of a group of people who were incredibly supportive.

It very much had an ensemble feel. And so even though, yeah, I was to be in the room with. I had just gone through UCB, so Matt Walsh is in there. Yeah, the godfather. And huge Arrested Development fan, Tony Hale's in there. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an icon. Even though I was nervous, especially top down, both Julia and Armando made it a situation where they forgave me for my green moments and also allowed me to be a contributor. And I don't know that if I had just been cast on a show and shown up, that I would have ultimately built up the confidence to be able to participate.

Yeah, I have the exact same story. Well, first of all, I think that's generous, and I believe you, but also very intimidating as much as, yes, they did turn out to be so helpful and supportive. Also, it's a big league to step into. So I could see that crushing someone. There's a lot of experience you're stepping into.

I will also say that I was lucky in that when I was going through the audition process and I didn't really know a lot of arm's work, but as I through the audition process, back to start watching it, I did have some confidence in that I was like, Oh, this is exactly the shit that I feel like I'm good at. Not that I know a lot, but I feel like I know this world. Even if it takes me a little while, I feel like I'm in a wheelhouse that I understand.

Yeah, it's not abstract to you. Punked was the same way. I couldn't really act. You couldn't give me a scene. I wouldn't have been that good. But the fact that I got eight episodes of improvving, which I could do, led people to believe that I could act and read scenes and stuff. And I remember, and I'm so grateful because I went from eight years of auditioning, nothing. Then this show punked. I just got kicked out of the groundlings as well. Really? Yes, out of the Sunday Company. And so I get this show and it airs. And of course, I'm like, And now what? It's a very big show, and people know my name. That's really cool. And thank God, this guy, Steve Brill, he thought I was so funny on the show, and he was casting without a paddle. And I went and auditioned, and I wasn't very good. And he He was like, I know you can do this, and we're going to get you this. So I'm going to bring Seth in, who's a great improv, or Seth Green. And you guys are just going to improv your audition. And I'm going to send that to the head of the studio.

She'll have no idea what scenes are real and what aren't. And I got to do that. I just got to improv with Seth for a half hour, and he cut together a thing. And had it not been for him, I don't know how I really end up as well. The combination of, yeah, getting to do exactly what I know how to do on punks because you couldn't come in and give me a no? Yeah. And then this guy, Steve Brill, who believed in me so much.

You're naturally funny. And eventually, there is a thing about this industry that I think is cool. You can work with that. You get technically better as you go along. But you can't be technically good and then become funny.

Yes, you're right. There's no learning curve for that, or at least I don't think much.

I feel like without a paddle shot in Chicago or in the Midwest, didn't it?

No, New Zealand. Oh, it did? Would you imagine that, eight years of no work, and then my first job is go to New Zealand for four months. Oh, my God. Go canoeing, jump off waterfalls, ride fucking ATVs, work with Bert Reynolds. I couldn't believe it was happening.

He was like, Is it going to get even better than it?

Yeah, it couldn't. There's just no way. When I found out they had cast Bert Reynolds, who was my childhood idol, I was like, I'm going to die in the middle of this movie or something. This is all too good to be true.

I feel like I may have auditioned for something in that movie out of Chicago.

Are you sure it wasn't Let's Go to Prison?

Because Let's Go to prison. It was Let's Go to Prison. Yeah, it was Let's Go to Prison.

Because we shot that there, and it did have Keckner was in it who was I-O. There was a lot of Chicago folks because Oden Kirk directed it. The craziest casting in that was Michael Shannon. Oh, yeah. How good was he? Oh, my God. I mean, I guess it was obvious when I watched him. I just remember thinking, this guy deserves to be in a much better movie. He truly does. And that was true. He then went on to do Road to Perdition.

This is the that I love because I have always been somebody who really loves a community, loves an ensemble. I love the small world nature of the business, even throughout the entire country. And that the day that I moved to Chicago, dropped my bags at the house, and they were like, We have tickets to see a show at a Red Orchid, which was one of Michael Shannon's theater companies. Oh, right. He was in it. No. Hangsdong at the end of the play. Hangsdong. Full dick. Oh, wow. Full dick, small theater.

Yeah, he's a big guy. Did he have a nice hog?

Yeah, good dick.

Good looking. Thick one.

Good stage dick.

Like his voice. And not timid. You could tell he was used to it because it wasn't nervous that it's out there. Then 45 minutes later, after hanging out at the bar, I was in the back seat of a convertible that Michael Shannon was in the passenger seat of, and Michael Shannon's childhood therapist was driving.

It's impossible.

It's like, that is like... We were like, going to a bar or a house party just somewhere in Chicago, and it is my first night in town. Oh, yeah. That is like that thing that I love about the small world versions of this. Just because I went and saw a play when I was a kid, I got to see David Harbor. And just because I showed up in Chicago one day, I met Michael Shannon. Yeah.

Okay, so here's a question for you. Okay. Veep, in my mind, was a very big show. How does the reaction to that compare to Nobody Wants This? Kristenristen has never been in anything other than frozen that would compare to the level of viewership and attention and cultural phenomena that you had to give a numeric value to them. Are they the same?

When I go to the airport, I will be recognized previously once. Right after the show came out, I was going back and forth. I was working on a job in Vancouver, right? When Nobody Wants us came out. And I got recognized. People stopped me to say hi, minimum 10 times. Yeah, yeah. And even there was one time where the Canadian TSA agent, she looked at my passport, looked at me and went, This is the guy from the show I was just... Oh, literally, she had just told him to watch the show. I don't think it really compares an actual numbers. This is a brand new experience.

Yeah, well, I've been with Kristenristen for 18 years, and she's obviously very famous. But the last time we were in New York, which is generally a city where people won't stop you. Every third person on the street shit their pants. And I go, Hon, you're fucking too famous to be out in New York. This is crazy. We can't get anywhere.

This show is amazing.

We can't stand in line to get popcorn.

So many people have seen the show, and they've responded to it, and I'm so thankful for that. It is also like you are constantly reminded that whatever tier you're on, there are subsections of that tier. And it is people very confidently getting your name wrong, and you're like, At the fucking after SAGs party, I had a full three-minute conversation with someone who thought I was the guy from Baby Reindier.

Oh my God.

In the first 10 seconds. That's a bad mixup. It was Also, I don't have an English accent. No, you're not Scottish.

You're not Scottish. He's a normal height.

I guess I had a beard at the time, but very physically different people, different accents. But the first thing was a selfie, and then it was a conversation about how much the show meant to her, and she was really looking forward to the things that I do next.

You're rightly assuming she's talking about nobody wants this.

No, within the first 15 seconds, I knew that she was talking about a baby Reindier. But I was just like, I just can't pull the rug out from under this position.

You don't want to ruin their experience.

Also, I felt like it would make them feel embarrassed.

What if you swapped to a Scottish accent mid-conversation?

In that situation, do you think you do that? Do you let it ride? Yeah.

They'll say, They love Garden State. Can I get a picture for sure? And Zack has done the same a bunch of times with me. Do you remember how popular that face swapping app was? Yes. It was all the rage, and we happened to be somewhere together, and we did it. And I can tell you, it's a mind-melty photo. Whose face went on? Whose body?

I'm putting a judgment on myself. Is that a good behavior? Is that codependency that I can't hurt somebody? Or is this a kindness that I didn't embarrass her in that moment.

I think the latter because I think from your own selfish point of view, it's much easier to just do the thing than to sit there and explain and then have, Oh, yeah, we look alike.

You're being very humble, I think, by doing it.

Now you got to explain, No, I'm on a show. You got to give your resume, which is humiliating. It's just the whole thing would be easier and everyone would be happy. It's a very utilitarian outcome, I think. It's maximum happiness for both people involved. I think that's the ethical thing to do.

I'm not saying this about the guy from Baby Reinger, because I do think he's an odd-looking guy, but I think he's a good-looking guy. Yeah, he's sexy. Have you ever had this happen to you? I have learned to never tell another actor that they look like another actor. The amount of times that I have been told I look like somebody, if I don't know them, I look them up and I'm like, Oh, that person looks like a fucking melted candle.

You're always bummed.

You're always bummed.

You can have a simultaneous terrible opinion of how you look and feel better looking than other people. I don't understand it because I have a very low opinion of how I look. But anytime I'm told I look I'm like, Jesus, it's that bad?

Man, one time there were a bunch of people, and I'm not on Twitter anymore. There were a bunch of people being like, there should be a biopic about the guy who played one of the bad underlings in the Superman movies.

You know who I'm talking about? He's floating in the prism at the beginning? Yes.

Yes. Like that guy. Who looks like Justin Thoreau.

But Justin Thoreau is gorgeous. Or no, that's the other guy. One guy is a beard. I know exactly who you're talking about.

Yes. It's like, okay. God, I hope that guy's dead and doesn't listen to this.

Look, it's universal. I have a fucking friend. I shouldn't say fucking. I adore this friend. Aaron and I are both friends with him. He's like, Oh, my God. If I get fucking told I look like Zac Efron one more time, and I go, Boo? Who? Oh, my God. I would fucking... Oh, my child.

Look at that.

I love this child. Hi, child. Moms car. Hi. We're We're just finishing an episode. I know your face. Tim from Mom's Show. We met on set.

From No More Wishes. Hi. Oh, I got a little jump. He was Mom, right? Yes. Yes.

Yes. Okay, I love you. Oh, I've never seen her walking over in school. That's so fucking adorable. Tim, this was a party. You're such a good-This was so fun.

I'm so glad this worked out. It's fun, right?

To drive around the car and shoot the shit.