Transcript of Rhea Seehorn

Welcome, welcome, welcome to "Armchair Expert." I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hi.

Today we have Emmy Award-winning actor Rhea Seehorn.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, Pluribus. We love Pluribus.

She's so good.

She's our star of Pluribus.

Yeah.

Also, she was on "Better Call Saul" for years, uh, "Bad Boys Ride or Die," "Inside Man Most Wanted," and she is on the new season, out now, on Apple TV, "Stick," with good old Owen Wilson.

Mm-hmm.

Who she gives glowing reviews to.

She does.

He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert.

Hey, Monica.

How you doing?

Hey, Dax. Yeah.

Hanging.

What's happening?

Welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, I'm very excited to have you.

I'm excited to be here.

So happy.

I haven't seen you since our little Glooby lunch.

Oh, that's true.

Remember that? Or brunch. I guess it was a brunch.

Our brunch.

It was first time, first time Golden Globe nominees.

First time nominees.

It was cool.

It was cool. You were at the cool table.

I rarely at the cool table, so that's very kind of you.

I was happy for you.

If that's your memory, I'll take it.

Yeah, there's tiers of tables. You understand this.

Definitely. Sometimes you feel it, feel it.

Yeah.

And you're like, I'm legitimately put on the edge of this thing by the kitchen.

I think you're making a good point that you only feel it if you're, you think you're at a lower table.

Probably.

Right?

Well, no.

The only people that can possibly feel good are like Leonardo Caprio, because when you go to these things, you're like, oh, I finally got here. Like, oh, wait, TV's in back. Okay. Yeah, you'd start. I guess we're over here, and now they're over there. I was so excited, and I would be like, shit. You can't win.

It's a real roller coaster.

You can only win if you're Leonardo DiCaprio.

Well, you can win if you're you, because you did.

You're sweet.

You can literally win.

Oh, yeah.

But at the, I mean, it was funny. I was elbowing Carolina, 'cause I said, I'm always so uncomfortable when they do the in memoriam thing.

Yeah.

And people clap for some people that they recognize more. And I was like, even in death.

I know, right?

Our popularity is mattering.

Exactly.

Makes me sad.

It does. I know there should be a rule: no clapping until the end. A big clap for all.

Right. I mean, obviously the idea is like, yes, I know that person's body have worked very, very well.

Whoa.

Yay. But then it's like some poor.

I know.

Person.

Perfect hug for.

Nobody cares.

If I end up with a terminal illness diagnosis, I might fake my death.

Okay.

Just so I can observe if, well, and if I make it in the in memoriam.

Oh.

And then if so.

If there are claps.

Yeah, where the claps.

Yes.

Or if people go, what did they say?

No.

Oh, wow.

I suppose you could interpret it that they're clapping like, oh, he's dead.

Yeah, they got it.

So good.

Suck ass.

I love your bag. Thanks. Claire V.

That's a good bag.

Local, right?

Local.

Love it.

It's locally sourced.

Yeah.

We love Claire V.

Sourced. I'm not trying to put it on display here, but yeah, my friend, the awesome writer-actress Gloria Calderon Kellogg just turned me on to her bags.

God. Well, now you're gonna say, got it for you as a gift. That would have been even one step better.

With a bunch of crap in it.

Yeah, preloaded.

Yeah, preloaded crap.

There's a lip balm in there. There's some Advil.

Oh, that'd be nice.

That's actually a good gift idea.

A preloaded purse?

Yes. A cell phone.

You would be particularly good.

Oh, like a new phone. Yeah.

Yeah.

I was thinking more like personal, like how good would you be at guessing what somebody wants in their purse?

Yeah, I would be bad.

It's very personal.

It's very intimate.

What is the most outrageous present you've ever bought somebody?

Hmm. Outrageous in what category?

It could be either. It could be like, I can't believe I'm spending this much money on somebody. Or it could be like, I can't believe how much work I've put into this. This is the high watermark.

Time put into something for not much product would be like when I make people things.

What kind of things do you manufacture?

I, uh, what if I was like, I have a plant.

Yeah, you have such a cute smile. It's really bullying me over. You don't smile a ton in.

Pluribus.

Pluribus.

Yeah.

You know what's why I gotta say this now, 'cause it's gonna happen. Our friend Eric pronounces everything wrong.

Okay.

We all like it, and then we'll start pronouncing the things he pronounces wrong. So he has fucked up Plurbius.

Oh, no.

That's what he calls Pluribus.

Okay.

Plurbius.

Okay.

And in our whole now pod, we all say Plurbius.

I don't.

You skip that.

I'm in the pod and I have not, I'm just so you know, I'm pronouncing it wrong.

But if I accidentally say Plurbius, it's Eric Richardson's fault.

How does he say my name?

Okay, yeah, I wanted to talk about this. We need to get this exactly right.

It's one syllable.

It's Rhea.

It's just Rhea.

Yeah. Oh, I went Rhea. I know that. I know that. I heard Jimmy Fallon say Rhea.

Well, I'm glad we're clearing this.

I'm glad we're clearing this up.

It's just straight Rhea.

Once you look at your video.

It's so much easier to act like what you meant was Rhea, comma, uh, and then you were speaking.

I would claim that in a court of law if you sued me. I would say, no, obviously I said Rhea, a wonderful person.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I was just in somewhere where, uh, there was a very large group of drunk people that were shouting, but they were very nice and they were shouting, we love the publicist.

Oh, wow.

I was like, I think you're talking about Pluribus.

Yeah.

But maybe you really.

So they're like, Rhea, we love the publicist.

Maybe I really like Ruth Bernstein from viewpoint. I don't know.

Pluribus.

Yes.

You're not smiling a ton in it.

I don't smile a ton in it now.

No, but you just smiled so brightly and I was overwhelmed with how cute of a smile you have.

Yeah, it's nice.

It's kind of fun.

There's a few of us that didn't fix our teeth in this town.

Okay.

No, but they look great.

I got some jankiness.

I have some jankiness, but it's like, whatever.

Character.

It's character.

Right? Back to what you may or may not have built for somebody, for a present.

Oh, okay. Bless you. So I constantly have to be making things. If I'm not working, I will embroider or sculpt or paint or draw or crochet.

That's a childhood pursuit. Yeah. You'd love just painting and sculpting.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

That's carrying on.

When it was crochet, and I for some reason I can't get the hang of knitting, but I really, really want to. But I want the project to be over quicker. So I would make like baby clothes or amigurumi, because it's a tiny object.

It's small.

Like, yeah, it's not gonna take months and months and months.

Yeah.

For a while everyone was like, wow, you're really obsessed with babies. I was like, no, I just need it to be over.

Tell me about the embroidering that's done on a sewing machine.

That's on a hoop.

Oh.

You are not wrong. There are machines that do the massive embroidering. Like if you're getting like a baseball cap with letters, those are machines, usually.

Yeah.

This is more almost like doing like a little painting in thread.

Oh, okay. Okay. And what is needlepoint?

I'm not entirely sure, but it is different.

Okay.

But embroidery often is leaving space. Not always, but it almost looks more like a drawing element versus needlepoint to me. I know somebody's gonna write you and correct all of it. It looks like miniature cross-stitch to me. The way it's like every teeny square has the exact same kind of stitch. It's, there's a grid system.

Uh, you know who we can ask about this? Laura Moses Collins.

Yes.

She's. Wait, are you guys friends?

Matt does Rhea's hair.

Matt does my hair all the time.

Yeah.

He says hi.

I have no idea.

Yeah. Next time you're with him, ask him how Eric pronounces stuff. I'm sure he'll hit you with five or six.

Oh, really?

Yeah, whammys.

Okay. Yeah.

'Cause he's also cool.

Doing your hair just so perfectly. Did you do it today?

Yeah.

Looks great.

Oh.

Looks so good.

I just made, I just made him something. It took me two years. Well, I mean, I did when they had the registry, when they had their kid. But then, because he's just become such a close friend, I was like, oh, I should make something for their kid. Even though they're small things, I'm slow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So is he like two years old now?

Yeah.

They're called ragdoll stuffed animals. So they kind of have a stuffed animal head. It's a puppy and paws, but then the whole body part is more like a blanket. So you can like drag it around like a.

I like that.

This is advanced.

For a while people were like, oh, you should start an Etsy shop. I was like, one product per like two years is obvious.

That's obvious, right?

Yes, exactly. But my wife is like you. She has to be busy doing something. She's a big, big knitter.

Oh, yeah.

And she makes these incredible sweaters.

Maybe Kristen can help me.

And she sincerely wants an Etsy shop. And I was like, hon, when do you think you are going to have the time?

Oh, in my head I want one. Can you imagine? And like Kristen and I are like at UPS trying to ship stuff out with like shipping costs.

And then getting the complaints and it getting sent back 'cause this isn't actually an extra small.

That's a headline. Rhea and Kristen's Etsy shop sucks.

Yes.

Let's go to Virginia. Northvolt, Virginia.

Right now?

You wanna go?

Yeah, we're gonna head out. Yeah.

Northvolt, Virginia.

Nothick, if you're from there.

What do you say?

Nothick.

Nothick. Okay, I'll take that on.

It's like Baltimore instead of Baltimore.

Right. What is the one I say you hate? I say, well, Norlands. You're supposed to say Norlands.

Norlands.

Norlands. It's one word. Norlands.

Right.

Norlands.

Wow, you're really getting into it today.

Yeah, just if you're gonna do it, you might as well do it.

What age were you in Norvold?

Uh, yeah, born there and then left at two years old to move to Itsugi, Japan.

Okay, great. So already you'll be the first person I've probably ever interviewed whose father was in naval intelligence.

Correct.

Counter.

Counter intelligence.

Counter intelligence. Let's paint a fair assessment of how rare this position is. You're a smart motherfucker if you're in this role, no?

He's, he was very smart. He's passed away, but yes.

And then mom was also, she was working as an executive assistant.

Right. We were civilian, but they both worked on bases frequently. And then my mom was doing all different types of jobs after they got divorced and she went back to work on a lot of bases. She did everything from paralegal work to the person who does all the quality control training for people in the service and stuff.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, she did a lot of things.

She did all.

She's very smart too.

Did they meet somehow through the Navy?

No, I actually don't know. I do know one thing about how they met. A man named Ray introduced them, and that is why I am named that.

That's why you got that as a middle name. That was a throwaway. Right, that was like a nod to him, but in the middle.

Yeah, first name Deborah.

Deborah.

Got called Debbie. Perfectly fine name, but I don't know why I didn't feel a connection to it. And then it progressively got worse as I became a chunky middle schooler. And they would say, hey, fat Debbie, do you want some more little Debbies to snack?

Oh, Jesus.

They were popular in Detroit too.

This isn't Cannes, they were pretty bad.

Oh, you were bad.

They were zona.

Oh, geez.

At that point. But I was like, or no, that was Virginia Beach.

You can get called fat Debbie real easy in Virginia Beach. I've spent some time there.

100%. 100%. And I was just like, I have always liked my middle name better. Let's just check this out.

You're on record as saying you really associated that with like attractive cheerleaders, that name.

I'm so sorry that was on record. I don't wanna be mean to anybody named Debbie out there.

No.

Or the cheerleaders. I had best friends that were cheerleaders.

I was a cheerleader, so we take this in stride.

She would always be like the person that's in like a John Hughes film that would be the really snobby, extremely good-looking cheerleader.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who was mean, and that was not me for any of those categories. So it felt a little ill-fitting.

Yeah, I think we're in the same generation. 12 years later, that person became Becky. I think Debbie was Becky.

I see.

But also, if ever you were gonna say something about Deborah, saying that you associate them with very attractive cheerleaders, I mean, that's hardly offensive.

Yeah.

Of all the things you could say, like you're not like, oh, Debbies generally are assholes or something.

Yeah, but you were saying they can be a little rude, these Debbies.

It's a very particular kind of popularity.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Which is not true across the board, but at the time, that's what that name was a little more known for. Monica was cool. That was the name that was.

Really?

Oh, yeah. It would be the more like exotic name, like if you were like a Sophia or a Monica.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Strong, bold.

Yeah. And probably like dresses a little cooler than all of us.

Sure. Little New Wave.

Yeah, Little New Wave.

Little New Wave.

Little New Wave.

Little New Wave. Yeah, yeah. Oh, lived in Spree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know. We're the same age, so we know. We know what's going on with that.

When I moved though from Arizona, I moved from Yuma, Arizona, tiny, tiny town. I've heard it's built up since then. But one school, not large enough that they even had separate kind of areas based in class. So moving from Japan, we didn't live on bases. I lived in a normal Japanese little suburb.

Do you have any recollection? No, you're too young.

I do. My sister, who's three years older than me, there's many times she lives in North Carolina. There's many times where we will pick out the exact same wrapping paper from two totally different TJ Maxx, 'cause that's what we like to do.

Yes.

Browse around the home goods.

Get the Maxx for the minimum.

Yeah. Or cards or something. And it almost always will link back to something that feels slightly Japanese.

Yeah.

You're drawing to the aesthetic.

Cherry blossom prints. We're both obsessed with all things miniaturized, which is a huge Japanese thing. I totally remember it.

I love miniature stuff too.

Me too. Obsessed. I know it's a huge trend now, but my obsession goes way back.

Can I tell you my ultimate goal? Like if I had Elon Musk money?

Yes.

I want to build a pretty lengthy lazy river. Like, let's say I have 20 acres. I build a lazy river. And then on the river, I build everything that's on the Colorado River along it. So miniature Rocky Mountains with the miniature ski lodges. And then I wanna be able to float through and feel like a giant going down the Colorado River. That's kind of my dream.

I was not guessing that end part there.

That end part?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the part you like.

Yeah, like Gulliver's Travel.

It's confusing 'cause you are a big man.

Like, why do I want? But that's like when Bill Gates said he wanted to be smarter. When they asked someone superpowered, you're like, what a waste of his.

Oh, do you really?

Yeah, isn't that cool kind of?

I like that. This one's weirder to me. Like, it would make sense if I wanted to be like a giant. 'Cause I've never been able to experience that.

Sure. But I think you could easily psychoanalyze this.

Of course.

Yeah.

I love to overpower people.

Yeah, I don't ever wanna feel threatened or in danger or gonna get physically harmed. It would be so fun to be a real giant and like walk through the Rocky Mountains and everything be tiny.

I think it would suck.

Well, yeah, you'd be very lonely.

Yeah, exactly.

And you'd keep breaking everything.

And you might step on some people on accident.

Yeah.

Every food item is gonna feel like the tiniest snack.

What about walking through Manhattan though? And it's like you're at face level with the Chrysler building and you can like look around. Like, wouldn't that be fun? No. All right. I don't have any either. You can't cosign on this fantasy.

Yeah, any purchase. I make tiny things too. I like the craft that's involved with making something miniature really well.

Me too. Have you been to Legoland and looked at those little cities?

Yes.

Aren't those cities incredible?

It's so incredible. And then I just got to go to like my first fashion show for Louis Vuitton and they flew me out and it was all very fancy, but everybody was nice. It was not, I get very socially anxious where I constantly think I don't belong wherever I am. But I had an absolute blast. But we had one day off that was like totally free. It just ended up not being any press or anything. Ruth Bernstein, that I mentioned earlier, is a good friend of mine and my publicist. She's also obsessed with miniatures. There is a store, there's two stores there that we found that that's all they sell is the miniaturization of like everything.

I would love it.

If you walked around, you would actually love it.

It feels so safe.

It was super cool.

'Cause if a mean man ran out of a building, he's like, I'm gonna fight. I'll be like, oh, come on now. It's not gonna, you can't do anything.

We had a mean miniature man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I'm a giant, I'm safe. You guys are not getting this.

We are getting it.

I just want there to be a diorama somewhere that is battery operated to have a mean man come running out.

Like a cuckoo clock. He's just like, damn it. And then he goes back in.

Well, no, he's gotta say the same shit people said to me in my town where I'm from. You know, this gotta be really.

What?

Well, the terrible words they called boys, you know, whatever.

Got it.

One will get bogged down.

Okay.

Yeah. But it's got, yeah, there's gotta be like miniatures of old stepdads and stuff. They pop out.

They're saying the F words.

And they say, yeah, yeah, one of the F words.

Oh, God.

And then some of my stepdads will pop out and they'll, you better eat with your, you know, and I'll just laugh 'cause I'm so big.

I love it. I love it.

Okay, so you do remember Japan to some degree.

To some degree.

And then Yuma, Arizona, I'm hip to Yuma, Arizona quite a bit.

Really?

Have you ever heard of Glamis, the sand dunes here in California?

No.

They're on the border of Mexico and the border of Arizona.

Okay.

Huge sand dunes. And we go out there and go off-roading.

Oh.

And my wife and I's favorite thing about it is we pick up the local Yuma news over the aerial antenna. Her father is a news producer of some repute. We're very hip to how it goes. And the amount of errors that are happening real time in the Yuma news, we then take videos and send to her father just 'cause we know the father would shoot himself in the head if this was going on. But it's very, very pleasurable to watch Yuma news.

Okay. I'm gonna have to check that out.

It was kind of mean to Yuma news, but.

We've been pretty disparaged.

I loved, but I loved Yuma. And what I was gonna say, the fact that we all went to school and like we had like a mansion next to like a shack. I was super, super unaware of class as well as judging people by clothing. It was like some weird, idyllic kind of bubble.

Interesting.

We had kids on food stamps. We had people from reservations.

How were people rich there?

I think money they had before then, but those people would be like, Wendy was my sister's good friend and she had horses on her property. And we were like, what? Like blew our minds. But moving from there to Virginia Beach.

What age?

Nine.

Okay, you were in Yuma till nine.

Yeah.

From like three to nine?

No, like six to nine.

Six to nine. What was in Yuma?

I don't know what case he went there for. I know we came back to Virginia for the Walker spy family case, which was fairly famous.

What's that?

It's just a very interesting read if you wanna read it. But it's two brothers. One was Navy and the other one was CIA or FBI. I can't remember which. Both had begun giving secrets to the KGB.

Oh.

And both have since died in prison. And one of their wives was also part of it. And they were using their kids to do like dead drops on bikes. And for a while they were gonna try to prosecute one of the kids. And then I know you're gonna fact check all of this.

I am.

But the kid did not get penal. The kid had no idea what he was doing. But even in the trials, they were still claiming like, I didn't actually harm anybody. Why are they saying that I did? But the Navy guy was telling the KGB the exact weak spots on our ships.

Oh, Jesus.

Where you could torpedo or bomb them and take the whole thing down and kill people. But he's like, yeah, but I didn't kill anybody.

Oh.

And then the other one was giving up the names of our agents that are undercover in Russia. All assassinated, I'm sure.

Yeah.

And he's like, but I didn't do anything.

Oh.

I just gave names. So FBI, CIA, I think it was FBI, CIA, NSA, and NIS, which is now NCIS. They all were working together. It took years and years and years and years and years, which I later found out. Just like, what was it? The Robert Hansen one? Wasn't that a big one out of Maryland?

I need a dinner party with you. I need all of these stories.

I don't know when that happened.

My dad had passed away before that one. But definitely our people turning was his thing.

And how much was he talking to you guys about his job? That was a huge curiosity of mine.

Not a lot. So he was in the field as an agent and like deep undercover before my sister and I were born. So there was that sort of more like spy thing you would think of when you think of spy going on then. But by the time my sister and I were around, he's going to a regular office. I definitely saw an interrogation room one time and I just immediately got the creeps. But unfortunately, he died when I was 18. And your head is still way too far up your ass as far as thinking your parents.

Are cool or interesting.

I was like, whatever.

Well, it's standard. Your dad's whatever your dad is.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, that's a standard dad.

So now I have all these questions that I can't get answered.

Yeah.

But it felt more like, oh, dad goes to work with certain agents. And occasionally I'd meet people that seem like his partners, but for short periods of time. And I always wondered like, was he investigating them? I wonder like, was it really hard for him to make friends? If you were like, well, if Fred's sitting with you, he might be investigating you.

Yeah.

I don't know. Or was it not within your own office? I have questions. Maybe somebody could write in and help us. He ended up doing it for 33 years.

He was older when you were born, I presume. Or he was an older dad?

No. And he died at only 52.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah.

Can I ask from what?

Alcoholism.

Oh.

Okay. Okay.

This is so sad. I'm sorry.

Thank you. He and my mom had been divorced since I was 12. She's been happily remarried for over 20 years. But I always feel sad that I think he probably had some kind of depression that you're just like self-medicating for in a way that we talk about a lot easier now.

Yes.

And also I think we're more aware and the government's more aware of helping people that you're putting in positions that mentally screwed. He was in the Vietnam War and in the Tet Offensive too. And like, I never heard him talk about any of this.

Yeah.

I never heard him. So when people were like, did he tell you about the case? It's not really until they were over. Like he handed me a Newsweek article. I think it was Newsweek. I can't remember. But on the cover was them finally catching the Walker spy family.

Yeah.

And loading them onto a plane. And the agents that were all part of the investigation are photographed, but only from the back, you know, loading them on. And my dad had severe like, I forget what you call it, but it's like swayed back knees. When he locks his knees, they go way, way back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I totally know it was him.

Wow.

And he was like, see who that is? And I was like, oh yeah. I don't even think I read the article. I was like, whatever.

Yeah.

So stupid.

I don't buy them.

I don't want Newsweek.

You're so sad.

We're 17 magazines. This is dumb.

Children are incapable of being interested in.

It's hard.

They're interested in who I could introduce them to.

Surely.

There's that.

Yes, yes, that's true.

Or tickets to things.

Yeah, yeah.

Tickets.

They're interested in you as a conduit to other things.

They absolutely wanna know if suddenly a sports person follows me on Instagram.

Oh, yeah, that's a big deal.

That can get tickets to something.

Sure, sure, sure.

And musicians.

I hope you deliver occasionally, but not too often.

Correct.

Yeah, that's the sweet spot. Well, my father was an alcoholic, but he found sobriety.

That's awesome.

But he also died very young.

Oh.

'Cause I think the damage 62. It's not ideal.

No.

Seemed less crazy in 2012. I was like, 62 feels pretty old. Now I'm 51. I'm like, oh.

It's weird, right?

Yeah.

When I turned the age that my dad was when he died, I was like, whoa.

Yeah.

Yes.

'Cause at the time, you're right. 52 and 62, they feel older when you're younger.

Yeah. It was early, but not insane, right?

I knew it was very early because everyone, especially 'cause I was only 18, you know, you could see it on people's face of like, oh my God. Like, and I didn't know anybody who had a dead parent.

Yes.

Really anybody. So I knew that it was significantly young, but I don't think I fully, and it sounds extremely narcissistic to say like, it wasn't till it's my life, but it's more about seeing where you are in life and how much you feel like you just started getting going.

Yeah.

You're like, whoa, if it was just cut off tomorrow, that's crazy down.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

62 also.

Yeah, it's kind of nuts.

Sorry. Are your parents with us?

They are.

They?

They are. And they're both above 60.

She's like they're 41.

Yeah, like, oh, it's hope. No, my dad's in his 70s and my mom is in her 60s.

They're going to 100.

They're not going to.

They're gonna see 100.

My mom's 83. She's crushing it.

Oh, great.

She's like, I just put her on a plane to go home. I got her greeters. Nobody like think I'm a horrible person.

No, that's so great.

Yeah, she flew out to see me and go to the Academy Gala with me.

Oh, wow.

She came out from Virginia. And I have a picture of her hanging with ASAP Rocky, who was so nice. And he was like, you're exactly like my mom. That's what he's saying.

Oh.

'Cause she was excited to talk about her dress costing $60.

I love him.

He's so, so cool.

Yeah.

Virginia Beach, nine years old.

It's a beach town. Much like LA, it's so spread out. You can be driving and driving and driving and it still is Virginia Beach.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Although the resort pier boardwalk part is the famous part. But man, was that such a massive learning curve for the name brands. All those 80s beach like OP, wave riding vehicles, eyes out of just start wearing multiple eyesots with different colors popped up.

Sure. Ron John Surf Shop shirts.

Ron John, yes.

Yeah, nice.

Body Glove, DoorDash.

DoorDash.

That's not beach, but Sassoon.

Yuma.

Like, if you got to school, you won. Like, it doesn't really matter how or what is on your body.

Right.

In any way.

Wranglers.

No one cared.

Yeah, yeah.

Literally, some people rode a horse to school.

You had a little culture shock.

Yes. And I was considered very cool for not caring, like wearing whatever. Like, look at her cuckoo clothes for like literally about 48 hours. And then just sharp.

Fell off a cliff.

Sharp.

The interest is over.

Yes. And then I got made fun of brutally.

Ugh. What about your sister?

Oh, she fell.

Was she always cool?

She was.

She was.

My sister dressed cool.

Did you copy her?

Tried hard. It made her hate me.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. And I stole a lot of her esprit clothes and always ruined them.

Oh, God.

Oh, I know.

No.

Debra, always. Debra, don't ruin her clothes.

I stole her jewelry and lost it. I stole her clothes and ruined them.

Oh my God. These little siblings.

I know.

Can't.

She and I were only in school together at the same time for elementary because this is different here. When I was growing up, seventh to ninth was middle school.

Oh, that is bizarre.

Junior high is actually what it was called.

Right.

10, 11, 12 was high school.

Oh, man.

So our three-year difference made us never in the same school except elementary.

Virginia Beach is really doing it.

Yeah.

Really doing it differently.

They are.

I've never heard of that permutation of the grades.

Normally we're thinking out of six through eight middle school.

Yeah.

Ninth and twelfth.

Ninth through twelve. You guys should have been in high school together.

Yeah, for one year.

Yeah.

We were not.

You were not. And so the massive interest in like painting, sculpting, all those things. Solitary endeavors.

Yeah.

That was a refuge.

My whole family is very good in artistic endeavors of all sorts, but none of them did it for a living.

Your dad and your grandma were both really.

They painted. So for my sister and I, both as kids, it was very the same as like, you know, they say kids take up reading as like a leisure hobby if that's what they see their parents doing.

Yeah.

And my dad would come home and just start drawing.

Yeah.

Constantly, constantly sketching. So it was very normal for us to do that. And then we would draw with him. And then when we got to see my grandmother, she taught painting and also had like a whole craft studio. I do think it was an outlet, but it was kind of absorbed osmosisly. And then I ended up going to in Virginia Beach, it's called Old Donation School for the Gifted and Talented Program. Thank you.

Uh-huh.

Oh my God.

It's a little bit like the Governor's Magnet Schools that you will get shipped out to for like one day a week.

Yeah.

So I would go to this other school. And then later it was after school for more than one day a week. And then I just started getting more and more and more into like the classes and advancing and then got my degree in fine arts.

So Rae, when you would go to this class for the one day a week, were those your people?

Yeah, I loved those kids. And they weren't even necessarily, I can't remember, oh, Mark Quintana and I became like friends' friends. But for the majority, let's say there was 10 people in it, we were all from different schools. It wasn't like we're gonna now hang out outside of this.

Yeah.

But I guess the closest I would say is it felt like I later felt like about theater.

My people.

They're your people and it's safe and you're gonna explore things together.

More of me exists. That's comforting.

Yes. Later, I would say once I decided that I was gonna pursue acting and I very quickly saw the business side of both the visual arts and of acting art take up so much time. They are a whole different.

Yeah.

And I was like, I'm not gonna be able to do both of these. One of them needs to be just privately as a hobby. And so I decided art would be. And now I would categorize it more what you had said. I would categorize it as definitely a yin-yang thing to how social our jobs are as actors.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's, I don't need anybody's permission.

Yeah.

It's a private pursuit. It's very calming to me. When I'm painting and drawing and sculpting, that'll be a more just feeling like another creative outlet. When I do the things that are tedious and repetitive, like crochet, the embroidery, I'm usually following a pattern or I've bought a kit. I also do Lego sets and jigsaw. Following instructions that are tedious one at a time and then unraveling if I get it wrong and doing a step at a time is extremely calming to me.

Wow.

So I do that stuff to calm my anxiety.

That's truly miserable sounding.

I am your gal. Like if you have furniture to build, like an IKEA thing that just won't come out, I have taken a printer apart and put it back together just 'cause I was irritated that they make them to break so easily now. It worked for two more days, I have to say. That was it. But still, I mean, I legit, it was like, we're gonna learn how to build this printer.

Oh my God.

It took a very long time.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

Did you ever find your groove in high school or no? High school, that's kind of a wash.

At a really large school. It wasn't unusually large for that area. I had like 650 in my graduating class. Virginia Beach has very highly rated public schools. So great schools, great teachers. Wasn't any issue. It wasn't till I moved to DC and then definitely when I moved to New York that I sad, but I'm glad that I did wake up and realize that not everybody has access to great public schools. Like where I was from, going to private school was strange. It was either gonna be the military one or the other one. No shade to these schools. They both were great schools, but usually the parents were taking you out of one of those schools because of discipline problems.

Yes.

Same.

Yes, yes, yes.

I'm putting you in the story. I was like, private school, ooh.

Yeah.

What did you bring it saying to?

Exactly.

Yeah. So it was huge. And I bring that up because it was constantly fluctuating whether I was popular or not popular. But even when I was not popular, there's another table of people that I could go still hang out with. I never felt alone. Like my awesome stepsons were in smaller private schools and they did great and their schools are great. But when you go through inevitably any period where out of the blue, these kids, they don't like you 'cause your pants today.

There's nowhere to go.

Nope. If 10 of 12 kids don't like you on Monday.

Yeah, horrible. Your persona non grata.

Yeah, I'd be in tears because this group was calling me thunder thighs, which happened a lot.

Geez.

Yeah.

But then it was, I know. All the teachers though would say like, wait till you get in the real world. You know, the one where you'd have like five exams on the same day. Backpacks with so many books that like you're falling over.

Yeah.

Stressing out over your grades, then getting called thunder thighs at gym class and having to change in front of everyone. And they're like, wait till you get in the real world. I have news for kids. There is nothing. If you're being bullied right now.

Doesn't get better.

What's the awesome like bully slogan they're trying to put out there?

Yeah, it gets better.

It gets better. It does.

Yeah.

Nothing will ever be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My apologies to those who've had horrible trauma after school, but I think you know what I'm talking about.

No, there's almost the utility of it, right? It's like, if you can make it through there, man, it doesn't get harder. You're never in a job that's that insane with like the clicks within a job or anything else.

Although there still are, let's face it.

Yeah, there are.

But it's not. You were just talking about the good tables and the bad tables at an award ceremony. It's like, are we still doing this?

But the guy, but Leonardo DiCaprio didn't turn around and throw a roll at anyone.

No.

You know, it does reach its apex, I think.

Yeah, he did. Though you'd be like, ah, yay.

Yeah.

What do you think?

I know that you decided to act once you were at George Mason, yeah?

Yeah.

Then you moved to DC. Why did you move to DC?

Well, I went to George Mason University. I did not do any research on your schools like you're supposed to.

That's so bad.

I was very concerned about debt. I had an insane paranoid fear of debt. I don't know. I must have heard or read somewhere sometime that school loan debt or credit card debt. I think I put something on layaway once. Remember layaway? I don't even know if you still have that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kmart had layaway.

And had to pay the interest on it. I just paid six times more for this thing. Like it freaked me out so badly. And I was already thinking at the time, before I went to college, I was thinking, I'm gonna try to make a living as a painter. And I was like, I'm screwed if I come out of there with debt. Like how the hell is that gonna work?

Yes.

So I didn't apply to where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to NYU. I wanted to go to SCAD. I wanted to go to San Francisco Art Institute, Chicago Art Institute. But I was terrified of two things. One, if I didn't get in, then I've been fooling myself that I'm good enough at art, that I'm special in any way, that I'm gonna be able to make a living at this. And two, the cost of it. My dad was definitely on the last parts of his alcoholism. And my dad was awesome until he wasn't.

Oh wow.

Oh yeah, those are cool.

And she knew all the words to all the Duran Duran songs.

I like her.

And she had a really cool asymmetrical cut. And she always knew everything cool before anybody else. And she went to George Mason.

Nice.

So I was like, obviously this school's cool. Never visit it. I've never been there. Nothing.

You knew all you needed to know. She went there.

But that's how most people are making their college decision. It's financial first and foremost and like proximity.

You know somebody.

You know somebody? It's like, sure, that's my option.

Oh, they did it.

If I had gone to an art conservatory program, I wouldn't have ever admitted 'cause I was terrified. And again, like sometimes I was popular. I'm not saying like I never was. Although it imprinted on me how ridiculous and trivial it is, what's popular and what isn't. Because it would just be like, I changed my hair and then they liked me in eighth grade. And then ninth grade, something went wrong with, I don't know, some jeans I was wearing. And then it was boo again.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

It's so ridiculous.

That's so bad.

Yeah. Shaving was a big step forward in one period 'cause I was being called hairy girl.

Oh, I was also called woolly mammoth, but that was from my arms. So then I did have to shave my arms.

You weren't an acting group called Woolly Mammoth? No, what was it called?

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Wow. That was a real ding, ding, ding moment there.

That was hilarious.

Yeah.

But I would have never admitted or had the chance to take an acting class. If I hadn't been in a BA program, if I had gone to just a painting school, it wouldn't have occurred to me. 'Cause at George Mason, you had to take another class in the arts that was not within your major. I think two, actually. So I took like a dance class that was really fun. And I was like, well, I'll just take a basic acting class. But it was completely outside of anything of anybody I knew to make your living as an actor.

Yeah.

At the time, I thought you live in Hollywood and you know Hollywood people. Or let's face it, if you look back at like '80s American television and movies, or you look like a model. And I was neither of those things. So I was like, I don't even wanna tell people. It would be akin to saying, I think I'm a supermodel.

Right.

If you said like, I wanna be an actor.

It's a very tall hobby to think you could be an actor. Yes.

I also didn't understand the craft to it. I was obsessed with film and television, constantly doing anything I could to earn more TV time. And I knew, how come this person's believable and that person isn't?

Yeah.

Is it just magic fairy dust? Anything would be Arthur. I was like, how come I believe mod, but I don't believe this person? Thankfully, my first acting class was all script analysis, all technique, no feel-good emotions, kind of like ethereal stuff. Took all those classes later, but it was the first time and it was Lenny Raback. It was the first time that I understood, oh, this is something that you can put your head down and work hard at and get better at. Like I was like, I can do that. I can't do anything about a lot of other stuff, but I know how to put my head down and do my work.

Right, right, right. So DC was just closest and they had a theater scene.

To me, it might as well have been Manhattan because I'd never been in any kind of big city. I think it was my first semester 'cause it was still a fine arts class and we did field trips to galleries and museums. I thought it was a city. Nick at Night used to be, you're too young for this.

No, I love Nick at Night.

Nick at Night used to be old sitcoms playing at night.

It wasn't kids.

It wasn't kids programming. Yeah.

Yeah, my two dads.

I remember watching That Girl and being like, I'm gonna live in a big city.

Yeah, yeah.

That's where the artists are.

Yeah.

And so that's what DC was to me. And in fact, I still love DC. I still think it's some of the best theater in the world. I think my first play that I saw there was at Woolly Mammoth Theater for an acting class assignment. Blown away. We didn't go to any theater growing up. School field trip, you were forced to watch some touring production of Julius Caesar or something, but that was about it. The Woolly Mammoth Theater was all new plays, often provocative plays. I literally didn't know that there are plays that could speak to you in the same contemporary way that a great film or television show is.

I was gonna say, like when you realize there's modern plays, when you're a kid, the only thing you're exposed to is like, it's almost like a history lesson. Like you're gonna see.

Exactly.

You know, Dickens.

And there were friends, there's a lot of classical theater in DC as well. And some of those productions were gorgeous, but I immediately gravitated towards the new plays. They were always doing super dark comedies, twisted, which is still pretty much my jam.

How long did you stay in DC doing theater?

About 11 years.

Wow.

After I graduated. I started working professionally while I was still in college.

You were doing industrials and stuff, right?

Yeah. There's no agents in that town. You make your little postcards yourself. And you started Non-Union Theater. And I would offer to usher for free if I could watch the plays over and over, which is a huge way to learn. Backstage running crew, volunteer box office, volunteer reading stage directions for new plays in a basement. Just so that I wouldn't be a complete stranger when I dropped by my postcard for my little show I'm doing with six friends in an alley somewhere.

Yeah.

Eventually, maybe the City Paper, which was kind of like Village Voice, would come review it. And then that might get you in a slightly better Non-Union Theater. And then eventually a Union Theater giving you a tiny part. And then it took a long time to get an equity card.

Yeah. So if you spent 11 years in DC, next up is New York.

Then I went to New York.

That's a long time to be somewhere. And then eventually, what was the fire that you're like, you know what, I'm now going to New York?

I'm trying to make sure I did the math right too, because then New York was two and a half years before I got a sitcom that flew me out to LA. I was just doing the math the other day that I've been doing this as a job for about 30, 33 years, which is crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Longer than you've not done this job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's weird. And I love it. The exact same. The exact same as I did the very first day.

Wowzers. I'm impressed with this game.

Love, love, love it.

But was there some opportunity up there? Did you follow a lover?

No.

Did you?

If anything, I had to go backwards. A lot of the contacts just didn't translate. I was working consistently in DC Theater. I was able to quit my day job, which is such a huge milepost to get past. It wasn't about this town's too small. There were still people that still are some of my acting idols. And I wasn't yet playing lead. I looked younger than I was and was a very physical actor. And so was frequently cast as like teenagers and 20-year-olds as well.

Which are generally the leads.

Yeah, but they are generally the really fun part.

Scene stealers, yeah.

I was often the character part, not romantic lead, which then went triple fold when I decided to do TV and film. I guess I went to New York. Do you know what it was? Is a lot of the plays that Woolly Mammoth would develop with the playwright often. We would help them flesh out characters, would then go to New York, and New York would not take our cast. Sometimes not even let you audition for it.

Right.

It needed to be a famous person or somebody that has Julliard in the bio.

Right, right, right.

Or NYU. And it really bummed me out. And I took buses up there to see these plays. And they were great. And there was great people. There was no, you know, arms folded like, I did that better. It was always like they were great, but I just thought, well, I want access to all the theaters.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I thought, might as well go now.

And was the first, you got an understudy role in a Broadway show, 45 seconds, what is it?

You've really memorized all your homework. It was called, it is called, it's a play called 45 Seconds from Broadway.

45 Seconds from Broadway.

The reason I'm stumbling is because everyone called it 45 Seconds on Broadway 'cause it closed so fast.

Oh, okay.

Oh, wow.

Well, that's a clever joke.

It's the only Neil Simon play to ever be a flop.

Oh, wow.

Box office raise. I think it was his last play that he wrote too. And it was his love letter to the Edison Diner that was across the street from the Richard Rogers Theater where we were doing it. But also, to be fair, we previewed right after 9/11.

Oh, not great.

Not ideal.

Yeah.

No. Not ideal.

So there was that.

Rough time.

Yeah. I was going to rehearsals, crossing Times Square, not a soul. One of the weirdest things I've ever seen. No one on the subway.

Vanilla Sky style.

Yeah. We were still being told on the radio, don't go to public gathering places.

Right.

They still hadn't figured out, they still haven't figured out who was sending anthrax to everybody. It was a crazy time.

Wild.

And Jerry Zaks was directing and he's notorious for, even though I was an understudy, that you have to be at every single rehearsal, even if they're not your scenes. And you also needed to be at every single performance. It used to be you would show up and if your actor that you're understudying is there and capable, you can leave. Sometimes you'd have to be on a pager maybe, but you could go home or go to a restaurant. No.

Really quick. I don't know anything about the history of theater. Has that happened where someone like twisted an ankle and then mid-show we swap them out?

We should find out. We should find out.

I'm sure it's happened.

It has to.

That would be so wonderfully confusing and fun.

'Cause we were all in the basement, full costume and makeup waiting, and you're listening to the monitor. And he would tell us if somebody falls.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Trying to make their entrance or in the middle of a line, I expect you to finish the line.

Right.

So we were down there like, and if anybody just did like a dramatic pause one night that they didn't normally do, you'd shit your pants. We were dying.

What brings you to LA?

A sitcom called I'm With Her that was loosely based on Chris Henshe's real life of dating Brooke Shields.

Oh, wow.

What if a regular guy had to date the most famous, most beautiful woman in the world?

Also regular guy in quotes. He's also pretty famous in his own world.

He is now, but then they met, he was a writer on Suddenly Susan.

Right.

And Marco Pinette was the other producer on it. Brooke was, she said this publicly, she was going to play herself.

Oh.

But she got pregnant and Terry Polo played the famous person. David Sutcliffe was the boyfriend in the show. He's a teacher though. And then Danny Comden and I were the fuck up character parts.

And so that brings you to LA.

Mm-hmm.

It's so encouraging to see someone stick with it and then have massive success later.

Yeah.

What is quite intriguing to me is someone who battles the war of attrition with endless dedication. And then probably what I'm most interested in is like, there has to be moments where you're like, you know what, fuck this. I'm going back to theater. Oh, I'm doing this. Weathering all of those start stops and getting excited and fuck, now we're back here. That's a grueling experience that takes a lot of stamina and resolve. And I just wonder like, what was your north star through all that?

The move from LA to New York and having to really almost totally start over with casting directors getting to know me and crashing auditions, couldn't get representation 'cause I'd never even had an agent and now I need one. Those were some tough years.

Were you started thinking back up plan a little bit or no?

No, never.

No, okay.

The only thing I thought was, it's possible I'm gonna have to get a day job again.

Right.

And I've thought that at multiple times years after that as well. I lost my insurance one time while in LA. It was just because this show didn't go. And that was back when we had a pilot season. So if you didn't get cast in something then, you most likely weren't gonna have a job for another 10 months.

Yeah.

Yeah. Lost my insurance and I was like, shit, I'm gonna have to get a day job. I lived very, very, very frugally in hopes that I wouldn't have to get a day job. But that's all I ever thought was, I wonder if this is gonna have to be something I do in my off time. Like plays that are only on weekends or something, but give it up. No.

You had a lot more moments of encouragement, I guess for me personally.

I did.

I had been here for eight years and auditioning all the time for commercials and I couldn't get them.

I couldn't get commercials. Tried, tried for years.

Everyone at the Gremlins was like in 12 commercials and they had fucking condos and cars and shit. And I do remember when the punked audition came around, it was like you had to improv.

Okay.

You had to be great at improv.

Right.

And you had to not be afraid of confrontation. And I did say to myself, there's never gonna be one more on a platter for you. If you cannot book this, we have to get a little more realistic about the future.

Oh, sure.

And that's the moment I think that's a little more specific. I mean, is like, you can lose faith in yourself.

I did. And I used to really beat myself up too. For years, I actually don't think it was until Better Call Saul, but because a friend of mine was like, you have to stop this or I'm gonna stop it for you. I would save the sides from every part I didn't get.

Oh, wow.

And then every now and then, if I was getting really down on myself, I'd say, well, this weekend you're gonna go over all those sides and try to figure out what you fucked up.

Oh my God.

Yeah, here we go.

The sledgehammer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The masochism. I can still relate to that.

Yeah. So it got scary. And also they would sometimes call me in and I'm just trying to make the role three-dimensional. That's what I believe my job is. But I had lost weight. I was blonde, blue-eyed. So suddenly I'm being sent in for girlfriend roles where I'm really not supposed to be making them interesting. That is a problem.

Right, right.

But I got told to my face so many times, not hot enough to actually be the romantic lead, but not ugly enough to be the character part.

There's nothing I can relate to more than I feel like the purgatory of being, it was like, I wasn't character looking enough.

Yeah.

I am not good looking enough to get the lead of any of these things.

That shit was hard.

Yes. It was very real.

That was very hard. I got walked out of an audition once with a casting director. And the fact that she said this with a tone that like she's being an ally made it worse. We're walking out and she goes, you're obviously the best person for the job, but you and I both know they're gonna have to get somebody hot.

Oh God.

Am I supposed to nod? What am I supposed to?

Yeah, exactly.

Am I supposed to argue that I'm hot? I was like, I don't even know. I just shut up.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It can really do a number on you. Really quick back to Dad. How aware were you that he was dying of alcoholism?

Not as aware as I would've thought I was. My sister says she knew.

Yeah.

Before we were told. I had to be told. I just thought he was very moody. He was, towards the last five years of it, extremely irritable about things that seemed ludicrous.

Right.

Like how noisy it was in Shoneys.

Yeah, right.

Oh, Shoneys.

Love the Shoneys. If you're pissed at Shoneys, something's wrong.

No.

'Cause they got a great sale at Barnes.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My dad's was more Mad Men style, where it just was normal to have martinis at lunch.

Okay.

And then came home and had drinks.

Is that a problem?

Yeah, Monica's having a girlfriend.

No, I'm sort of living that life currently, so.

Did you have any thoughts about like whether you should or shouldn't drink?

I didn't drink from 19 to 32.

Wow.

Okay, yeah, there you go.

And it wasn't so much like, oh my God, I'm terrified I'll become an alcoholic or die from it, to be honest. It was me truly believing, and I still do, that my dad was covering up some emotions and feelings and thoughts that needed professional help.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so for me, I thought, oh, I wanna make sure, 'cause I was drinking a lot in high school. That was the other thing is we all knew the kids that got to college who weren't allowed to do anything and then they went cuckoo town.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sleeping with everybody, drinking everything, all that night.

Go like that.

My mom was really great with not overreacting to me experimenting with different things. And so I didn't go crazy when I got to college. But I do remember after he died thinking, I wanna make sure I can develop other tools to deal with things that I already knew were problems. I already had panic attacks. I already had depression problems. I already had anxiety problems, extreme social anxiety.

Good for you at 19 for being able to realize that that's wrong.

But I waited another 10 plus years to get professional help. And unfortunately, wish I had done that.

It got worse.

Much sooner. Yes. And when I don't stick with my professional help, I do start drinking too much. Not like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just when you know this is for the wrong reasons. This is not to enjoy a glass of wine. This is to not think the things you're thinking.

This is to numb out.

Yeah. One of my big coping things for a long time before I got any help, basically what turned out to be a lot of OCD behavior.

Yeah.

And I totally thought I was covering this shit.

Yeah.

And from that same play at 45 seconds from Broadway, another one of the understudies, why can't I think of his name right now? So lovely. He had a very big brother kind of energy. All I was doing was coming to work and we were understudies in the basement together and rehearsals that I didn't know him socially. We never went out anywhere. And he just says to me one day, and I still don't know what he was watching or witnessing, but he just goes, "Hey, I know it's none of my business, but I just wanted you to know that you don't have to live the way you're living."

Oh wow.

And I was like, "What? I don't, what? What? What?" And he goes, "I don't mean anything by it. I just, I know a lot of great therapists and stuff."

Wow.

And you don't have to. And I was like, "Hmm, this must be showing."

Did you get defensive in Hainem or were you.

I didn't.

Okay, that's nice.

Good for you.

'Cause I had been pretty much forced to see therapists before. If your dad dies while you're in college, it was like mandatory. Any introduction I had had with everything from Allen on to therapy had been forced.

Uh-huh.

With threat of punishment.

Yeah, that's not the way.

And was an environment that was extraordinarily unhelpful for a long time. That was why I wouldn't get help in any of those areas.

Yeah.

And then thankfully, when he suggested this therapist that I went to, she was a dream. It was literally like, do you know the first time somebody smart and compassionate that's not your friend says, "Ooh, that must have been terrible."

Ah.

That's a horrible thing to say to a kid. I'm sorry you went through it. And you're just like.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not crazy.

Yes.

I'm not crazy.

Yes.

You're just waiting to find out you're not crazy.

Yeah.

Do you have any tics?

I was counting things and I still do it. Do you know what an Euler circuit is?

Euler circuit?

E-U-L-E-R.

No, tell me that.

Oh. It's like a vocal warmup.

No. So I had to take one math class. I'm not good at math and it makes me sad, but I had to take a math class for college. I thought statistics and in my head, even though Malcolm Gladwell's books weren't out yet, that's what I thought the class was gonna be. Like behavioral statistics.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, fun.

It was hard as shit. But one of the things we learned was an Euler circuit. That's an equation. I'm not exactly sure how they explain what it measures, but the most famous example of it is the snowplows in New York have to use Euler circuits. It is to figure out the most efficient way to do a route so you're not backtracking.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

I was fascinated by this.

Yeah.

And then later when the OCD was happening.

Yeah.

And I'm living in Manhattan and I'm leaving from the L train in Brooklyn to go into the city. You gotta be able to check the right pay phones that you know are working to see if you have any messages, to see if you have an audition. You also need to not get very far away from the Equity building, which is the only free place you can go to the bathroom.

Oh my God.

'Cause I can't afford to buy things every time you go in somewhere.

Yeah.

Or Barnes and Noble.

You're like an Amazon robot in the warehouse.

Yes. Trying to figure out.

And those are the pictures.

And then the post office. But then I'm gonna go buy food in Porrium 'cause I also need groceries, but that's gonna have to be last because otherwise they'll go bad.

Yeah.

But I don't wanna carry my dry cleaner. I would sit and try to figure out the most efficient route and trains. And it got so bad. I needed black and white answers. Nothing could be gray or nuanced.

Yeah.

And I would tell myself a smarter person could figure this out. And so it got to the point where I never left the house. I never did it.

Wow.

Not never, but that day when I was supposed to run errands, none of them got done.

Because it was overwhelming.

'Cause I can't figure out the perfect route.

To get the route wrong.

I'm not sure that that's the perfect route.

Yeah.

Maybe, but what if the G train would be better?

Come on.

Over and over and over and over and over and over.

It's a level of anxieties.

Anything I was reading, I would read over and over and over because a smarter person would've gleaned more from it.

Oh my gosh.

I would've loved to have talked to you in this period.

Oh my God.

It pops up.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's popping up.

Okay, good, good, good, good. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, those were things too that I was telling the therapist and she was like, "Okay, so you know, that's not very productive." And I was like, "What?"

What do you mean?

Everyone else is just reading it. What?

It answers when you are looking at the sides over and over. It's like there's like a compulsion about you being bad or wrong or not smart or something.

Correct.

And none of, yeah.

Which my dad when drinking, obviously with his job, he could find your jugular very easily.

Oh yeah.

And poke at it. He never screamed. He was not a rager, but he would go after your intelligence. It was his number one thing to do.

Stop.

Would be to tell my sister and I that we're not smart enough.

What you tell these children.

It matters.

Oh my God.

And now that I'm appearing, I'm trying to think like, I don't know. I'm trying to imagine what the person thinks in that moment they're "helping" their kids with, right?

Sure.

You're maybe in your most generous state, you can go like, well, their goal probably wasn't to destroy my confidence and my intelligence.

Yeah.

It probably was to tell me that is the most valuable commodity and you gotta be on it. I don't know. You wonder what they were thinking in this warped mind.

When he was in a healthier state, he would say things like really wanting me to make sure that I am independent as a woman and I have financial independence and that I am only ever with a man by choice, not because I need to be.

Yes.

And so I think they probably went together.

Right.

And then they just get kind of, yeah.

Yep, yep. The underlying anxiety is, what if I don't get to do this?

Ah, yeah. I wanna do one thing on this planet and I might not be able to get to do it. And what do we do now?

And knowing that is the case for most people.

Exactly.

That is statistically.

Statistically.

Statistically.

We'll tell you.

The case. And as far as the narrative of how people look at what's going on with me now, I'm very proud that a number of people in our business have told me, and very happy have told me that it gives them hope. Not hope to stick with it. And some of these people are actors and actors that have been working a long time, but that the storytelling world is opening up a little bit for you to not have to be 25 to be the lead of a show.

Yes, yes.

Pluribus did very well with 18 to 25-year-old males, which they keep thinking only wanna watch a certain thing. And I'm like, I don't know. Apparently, if you build it, they will come. I'm not saying I'm why they're watching it, but Vince's writing is strong. If the writing is strong, like they don't care if it's not a 20-year-old.

Well, no, what you're experiencing right now does not happen in 1980.

No.

It doesn't happen in 1990. It doesn't, you know, this is a new phenomenon that you are a woman not in her 20s that is carrying a show is fucking awesome and should be encouraging to all people doing all things.

Thank you. I mean, Vince would tell you stories like, you know, everybody turned Breaking Bad down. So Vince wouldn't be who Vince is now and being able to greenlight this show that everybody was like, how the hell do you even categorize this? What are we even saying this show is? It's a science teacher that gets cancer and because he thinks he's gonna die, he becomes a meth kingpin. And then the whole thing's depressing. They were like, what?

Yeah.

What are you doing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, and it's a middle-aged dude. Is that fine?

So obviously Saul's like the first big chunk of bedrock, right? You're on that for seven years?

I think it's six seasons over a period of seven years.

Does it take you a while to settle into that, to trust that? This rollercoaster might have found some kind of stability and I can trust that I'll be okay now. How long does that take?

That part does take a while. And it was two things going on. One was an immediate realization that is not justified, but it is what it is, of the way people, fans, and journalists and media treat you if you're doing what is considered prestige drama.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Versus sitcoms.

Yeah.

It was a very sharp change.

Yeah.

For sure. It was like, 'cause we all know if you're really doing comedy and sitcom comedy, if you're doing it really well, it should look like you're not doing any work at all. And it's.

It's the hardest shit ton of work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I don't think one is easier than the other, but it was just very interesting to me that suddenly they were talking to me about craft. And I was like, oh, I think I'm being taken seriously as an actor in a way that I haven't been since I was on stage.

Yeah.

When I was on stage, I was, and I did comedy and drama back and forth all the time and it was not an issue.

Yeah.

But then you really get pigeonholed, but then you're lucky 'cause your friend right next to you isn't getting called for anything. She's like, don't be so sad. You're called for another sitcom, dude. And I wasn't. I loved them, by the way. So there was that realization. And also I was a huge Breaking Bad fan. I understood that this writing immediately, even in the first script, I was like, oh, these people like grow and change. You know, I watched Breaking Bad. And even my first conversations with Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and the other actors, they reminded me so much of theater. Deep deconstruction of scenes and rehearsals and really breaking things down. So I understood that something about the work had changed and I was also being given a platform to show more nuanced work.

Right.

What if this is it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then you become petrified that you're gonna be written off the show. And then when it was ending, you know, and I was lucky enough to be considered for some other shows, but longing for the environment that I knew that was not just what I thought was some of the best writing I've ever read in my life, but his environment that he creates the set. It is like having 300 people every day, you coming in with something that you're like, I'm not sure I can pull off this scene. This is harder than I've ever. And all 300 people are like, Monica's the one that can do it. You're about to ace it. Let's go fucking do this. Like it's crazy uplifting.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

Well, A, I don't know anything about how Vince works, but I read enough interviews of you today that I learned this. I admire so much people who don't claim to know the answers to everything. And it sounds very much when you and Bob are talking with one another in an interview about the process, what I heard, and maybe I misread this, but it sounds like he's fine with saying, I don't really know where this goes.

Correct.

I don't know what this show is yet. Or that this person with Jessie's gonna die in the first episode. You know, all these things, like the flexibility, the amount of confidence that takes to let everyone explore together and find out together is like so rare and I feel like must be so special.

It is special. And yet you're looking at him going like, I know that there's a genius part going on in there because clearly you do have an architecture where the tiniest thing back in season two was paying off in season seven. And I've asked him about those things, like the stuffed animal floating in the pool. And like you had to have known where it comes. And he's like, I didn't.

He said he keeps saying he likes to paint himself into a corner.

Yes. He was like he wouldn't suggest it for anybody. It's a terrible way to rate.

But that's a genius.

But there is an architecture of Pluribus. There was an architecture, I mean, like Better Call Saul is a prequel. So you already know.

Yeah.

There's certain architecture that has to show up and be the way it is. But he does, and he did say Jessie was gonna be dead in like one season. My character was just gonna move away in one season. Michael McKean's character, Chuck, was gonna be the totally sympathetic invalid that stays home. Jimmy would become Saul Goodman, complete transformation by the end of season one. And the only way you saw his soft side was because he had to take care of his invalid brother. But Michael McKean was playing it with such gravitas that he was like, this is like Shakespearean, these two brothers, the way their relationship is.

Yeah.

Mm.

God, so cool.

I'm sure you've talked about this more than you want to, but I am fascinated. You guys all lived together on Saul?

You did?

This thing's crazy. They're all in one house.

Wow.

Well, not everyone, but several cast members.

There was, um.

Patrick, you and.

Patrick, Bob, and me lived together for most of the season.

Wow.

Yes.

What is that? Tell me about that. Is it Melrose Place? Is it so fun? Does it make being on location?

No, and everyone's like, oh, you should've filmed it and made a whole second show. And I was like, people would be so bored. Like it is a nerdathon happening is what's going on. And like my only concern, 'cause Patrick and Bob lived together first, I think second season, and I had said no, because I got along with them so well.

And what?

And both of them are like my brothers, but you're like, that doesn't mean we'll be good roommates. And also I'm freakish about my alone time.

Yeah.

And I have two sides of me that are very extrovert introverts.

Well, I was gonna say your job is extroversion. You need to get home and recharge.

Yeah. Which often involves like Lego sets and staring at a wall in a corner.

Yeah. Redoing that row every fucking 12 minutes.

We always got places though that had areas you could be alone and then more communal areas. And it worked out great. We often didn't have the same hours, but I don't know. Like you ended up with tons of time alone if you wanted it. And also all three of us are close enough that you can say for real, like, dude, I don't wanna talk. But we also knew, it just ended up that if you're in the kitchen, you need to be prepared for the fact that you might be asked to read lines.

Oh my God.

Yeah, yeah.

If you wanna go get your food and then like move to another room.

Yeah.

That's fine. If you hang in here.

You're gonna be running this scene a few times.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

That's rad as well though.

It's fun.

It started out of necessity because especially Bob had so many lines. But that show had very naturalistic moments in the style of the acting, but it actually was a bit outside of naturalism. The writing, like people wax poetic. It was extremely verbal and you did it to the letter.

Aw, yeah, right.

Yeah. You did not change a single word. And so we would drill and drill and drill and drill and drill lines because we wanted all the takes to be about finding performance. 'Cause Vince and Peter would write, and Tom and Jen and all the other great writers on it, you could have an 8 to 12 page scene of just two people talking and the map of what's going on underneath could be done a thousand different ways.

Wow.

And they're interested in all thousand.

Yeah.

Which is so fun as an actor, but you don't want lines to be your problem.

Exactly.

You need to know them at first.

You got bigger fish to fry.

So we would run 'em and run 'em and run 'em and drill 'em and drill. And you even drilled lines, like if Patrick had scenes with people that weren't one of us, we'd still just drill those. And we always invited guest stars over to do rehearsals so that they felt comfortable when we go to the studio.

It's just so wild to have a 12 page scene. That just doesn't exist in any other.

We still do eight pages, six pages scenes all the time. And you shoot them for the whole day. But that's also the visual language Vince likes. Like.

Yeah.

I was trying to explain to my mom the other day, I said, when you're watching a show, and again, it's not good or bad, it's just different. It's the style that he wants, the visual vocabulary he wants. If you start paying attention to how many times you think that camera has moved, ours is a lot. And I know he said this publicly. If you really let him shoot for as long as he wanted to, he wishes you would never cut back to the same angle twice.

Whoa.

So bazillion setups.

Bazillion. You're doing the scene over 'cause it's here and then it's here and then it's here.

God bless you.

Never indulgent though. He always says he's not a good director at explaining things. It's not true. It's so much fun. All the directors and writers that he hires have such specific interesting things they want you to try. You never feel like you're just being exploited.

We must talk Pluribus. Again, I know this is an annoying question, but I have to do it. 'Cause.

Oh, what is it?

Kristen and I debated so much. I mean, first and foremost, obviously, I fucking love that show.

Oh, thank you.

Congratulations.

Oh, thank you.

My God. I wanted to mention too that you were nominating, you won a critic's choice for Saul. You were spectacular on that show. You were nominated a couple times for Emmys, right?

Yeah.

Pluribus, we've debated so much while watching it if it is a metaphor for something. I know this is annoying. I know people drive you nuts about this. I'm not asking you to tell me if it, what, it's a metaphor, but I am curious, has it been expressed to you if it is a metaphor for something?

No. What has been expressed to me that I do believe is sincere is that Vince wants it to be able to receive all of the interpretations.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

They're all correct. He is staying true to his very specific, personal, unique exploration of questions he's grappling with about what it means to be human. I understand why people are like, well, it's obviously in response to AI, but AI existed 10, 12 years ago when he started writing this, but it wasn't a debate topic.

Right.

No.

Then other people are like, it's about COVID. It's about isolation.

Right.

Hadn't happened yet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

People are really projecting.

I like the ruling it out part.

Yeah.

But then I read one word that I felt like confirmed my hunch, which was Vince sometimes feels like he's a missing throw.

He has said publicly there is a large part of him in Carol.

I mean, that's why art's so awesome. You do project onto it.

Yeah.

You see confirmation. I do think there's this kind of fantasy collectivism that if we all just behave like name the group we idolize for being so cooperative and so collective, that that would somehow be a utopia. And I very much think that's bullshit. And so of course that's what I projected onto it. I'm like, this is somehow a comment on this, you know.

That makes sense.

Yeah. Okay. Do you get to think about it in your own way? Do you yourself assign one?

I was reflect on it pretty much after the fact.

Yeah.

I try to keep my head in the game while I'm doing it that I have the great luxury of Carol can't figure out what's going on. When people are like, do you know how the actual signals work? And I was like, not supposed to.

Yeah.

So I don't bother.

Yes.

It's like RAM space full. I'm just playing when I'm playing.

Well, it wouldn't be useful to you as the actor in the scene, except you have a distrust and a distaste for what you're observing. And I think there you would be free to assign what it is you hate about this thing. Not that you need to do it publicly.

I mean, it's kind of almost the way you talk about like doing comedy and for the most part keeping it real and the stakes real is what's funnier.

Yeah. You can't know what's funny.

But I've also done comedies with people who cannot get the rhythm of the comedy. They're playing it for real. For like they legit are doing it like a Mike Lee film. And I'm like, it's very hard to explain. Like, no, the stakes are real, but you have to be aware of the piece you're in.

Yes.

And so it's the same kind of thing where a part of your brain is just being Carol, but a part of me knows, oh, I get the point we're making here though.

Uh-huh.

And another part knows that this is funny.

Yeah.

Sometimes the funny was on the page. Sometimes the funny is something we discuss. Like the pilot when I'm talking to the TV, Vince kept reminding me, I want this person to be an absolute reluctant hero that is a real person in the middle of such a non-real circumstance. And so he would remind me like the more I drilled down on, okay, what would somebody actually do? And Carol has different flaws and skills and strengths than I do. But just thinking about like, I don't even know. I still feel flustered. And so I was so flustered talking on the phone and trying to piece together like, am I talking to a person through my TV, but it's on the phone?

Yeah.

And I took the phone away to motion about the crazy kids and then realized like, oh, he can't hear me unless the phone's here. And Vince started just dying laughing. And then he kept that. So we were always looking for comedy born out of the reality of the situation.

Yeah. That's kind of the most rewarding, right? When it's like something really happened organically and only when they all cut do you recognize like, oh, that was fantastically preposterous.

But we definitely, I mean, the like late nights and my cast, we would have debates about stuff all the time.

Sure.

I mean, everyone was just cringing during that scene with the awesome Jeff Hiller when you find out that your partner secretly didn't think you were actually a good writer. It's like anybody in the arts, like that's your fear.

And your great suspicion.

Yeah. Yeah. It was fine.

Yeah.

She knew it was popular. It was like popcorn. It's like.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

That was fun. You know, and then other times like we were constantly going back and forth about who's manipulating whom between me and Zosha played by the fricking brilliant Carolina Woodruff. 'Cause she's very protective of her character, but her character has this dictum like that they have got to try to change everybody no matter how much you don't want it and that this is the loving thing to do. But so would you be manipulative?

Yeah.

And Vince would say stuff like, are you being manipulative as a parent when you trick your kid into wearing a coat when it's cold outside?

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's because it's better for them. And so we were like, are you manipulating? And then I'm partially, Carol's at some point completely choosing to live in delusion when she starts just playing house with her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was like, how much does she believe? Am I manipulating her to get information? Was it Matt Cradle, my camera op? I can't remember. One of the crew members was like, but in reality, aren't all romantic relationships, aren't we all manipulating each other?

Right.

'Cause you're all trying to get something. You wanna be loved back.

Yes. Yeah.

Or you want monogamy or like whatever it is. And I was like, okay, that's depressing.

It is depressing. I don't like the way that's phrased, but we are making choices to get certain reactions.

As actors, we all know that we're supposed to assign the reasons.

Exactly. Motivation.

So that it will for every single line, because in reality that is what your brain is doing.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Every millisecond, whether you think you have intentions or not.

Yep.

Yes.

It's a lot to break down. I'm constantly evaluating how could I make the other person in the room more comfortable.

Which would make you more comfortable.

It's still ego driven.

Yeah, yeah.

It is.

Yeah. You'd be more comfortable.

I did learn that one in Al-Anon.

If this person.

I think you're just being such a good person that I constantly need to go make sure the person that's not being talked to.

Yeah.

Is included in the conversation.

Yes.

And I need to just make sure everybody is okay. Obviously, because I was raised in a house where something might blow up at any second.

That's right. If you regulate them, you'll be regulated.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You won everything. Congratulations. We happen to be there. We happen to be there.

We were at the Globes when you won.

When you won. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So exciting.

I was shocked.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny.

And other, you've won, yeah. You've won everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, the critic's choice, you fucked everyone up. Came in like a wrecking ball. We just saw Miley Cyrus Friday night.

Yeah.

Top of mind, top of mind.

That was a really punched out.

Okay. We're gonna talk about Stick 'cause you're in.

So much fun.

Season two.

You guys know all those guys, right?

I know Owen enough and he was one of my greatest obsessions. Sorry, listener, but I memorized an entire interview of his in Playboy magazine, like line for line.

Was this during your OCD days?

Just he, like no other human being, just chatting. He talks as if he has written it over the course of hours. He's just referencing this dog book he read about different breeds and that's coming up.

He's very smart.

He's deceptively genius level smart, right?

Yes. And I mean that in the best way.

That's how you'd want someone to be smart.

It's also his speech inflection sounds spacey almost.

Yeah, yeah.

And yet he is not. And also none of what he's doing is just, it's just my natural way of being on camera. It is all thought out. He is very, very intelligent.

The whole family's fucking bonkers.

So good. But yeah, him, Mark Marin, and Timothy Oliphant.

What a charming motherfucker.

Yeah, we love him.

I had no idea he was that funny. I didn't know he started in standup.

Oh, he's so funny.

He's so funny.

Also, when we interviewed him, our pants fell off. I'm like, this is the most attractive human being on planet.

It's crazy.

Yeah. But all three of those gentlemen Rex as well. Actually, all four of them are very, very funny people in very different ways. And I was just having a blast. And Jason Keller, the showrunner, is so nice. I'm obsessed with Judy Greer. I wish I'd had more stuff with her.

You don't hang out with Judy more? That's going to with Laura Mett.

We have the thing. And I send her pictures of fountain pens whenever I find them anywhere. 'Cause I know she collects them, but I'm obsessed with her. And Peter and Lily and everybody on that show. It's just that the way the story part that I was in, I'm more with the guys. I had a blast.

And when I'd be ready to guess, what a perfect thing to do in between Pluribus.

It was fun. I find Pluribus very funny, but it's not the same as like, and this isn't rom-com light, but it has rom-com elements. The part I'm playing in Stick. But it also had like beautiful, pivotal, sweet moments that Owen is also brilliant at. It was really fun to lean into comedy comedy.

Yeah.

And I would imagine that so much of Pluribus, and this was Bob's fascination when he interviewed you, was there's so much alone time.

Yeah.

Which can be terrifying for an actor. You don't have dialogue as a way to convey. You don't have another person there to react to. It's just you thinking. That's a big undertaking.

But I saw Breaking Bad and I saw Better Call Saul. It's not like I have never seen him take Mike Ehrmantraut taking a car apart for 30 minutes and call it a scene. Like he does that shit. I knew it, right?

Yeah.

But I didn't see this much coming from me.

Yeah.

'Cause I didn't even know where we were going in the show. But it goes back to what we were saying a minute ago, but like I now know that he trusts me and I trust him to just think the thoughts. When I get an eight-page scene from him that has no dialogue, I know he wants just as much storytelling as if there was dialogue the whole time. So I'm going through and writing out what I'm thinking. You start from like, all right, it says I wake up on the couch. No, wake up, the other one, it was, I remember the one I was looking at. She wakes up on the floor.

She's drank too much.

Yeah. So immediately I know not capable of sleeping in my wife's bed. And then I'm waking up and I drank too much. It was probably a hellish night. That tells you something about how you physically would feel. And then Vince and I were talking like, what do you think that first moment is? And I said, I was thinking about it and I know that in my life, the times when something horrible has happened and specifically grief or tragedy, there's that little tiny twilight moment when you wake up the next day where it might not be true.

It might have been a dream.

And you really are hoping and praying, was it just a bad dream? And so we made sure that her body, Helen played by Miriam Shore, who I just absolutely adore, she's a national treasure if you get to meet her, but that her body was there so that when I turn my head, it all like comes crashing down. And then it's like, okay, now think the thoughts about what are you gonna do? I still don't know if these others eat people or are real zombies. I don't know what they do.

Yeah.

Do they have guns? Do they have lasers? She has no idea. So I gotta hide this body. Like, do I bury her? I don't know how to bury a body. Like, how am I gonna move the body? It's like, okay, now you're gonna go upstairs and get this blanket and then put the thoughts into like, why this blanket? Why this chest? Has it ever been used before? What does it smell like? Is it hers? Is it her grandma's? Is it my grandma's?

Yes.

Yeah.

So then my guess is on Stick, you can trust that the dynamic will inform a lot of stuff.

Yes.

That's kind of gotta be a fun reprieve.

It is. It was a lot of fun. And then being back together with Rex from my Better Call Saul days.

Yeah.

These are awesome.

And that comes out early November is what I read. But do we know what is early?

I think November 4.

Okay.

And I think they're doing two. I think Apple normally does that two episodes first.

Sure, sure.

I had the best time. I just really, I was so peopley. And I got to take a bunch of golf lessons again. I took a couple golf lessons to do the swinging in Pluribus when she goes out trying to have a good time by herself.

Yeah.

But I had to like really look like I could golf this time. So I took a bunch of golf lessons. I liked it. I was never on a course. All they needed from me is to get the most professional, 'cause my character's supposed to have been like she almost could have gone pro and does swing coaching for pros. They needed my swing to be as expert as it could. So I was only in a simulator for my class. Like I have no idea which direction the ball would go if you put me on that.

Sure, sure.

Not your problem.

No, it's someone else's problem where the ball goes.

Exactly.

Well, Ray, this has been so fun.

So much fun.

Everyone watch Stick November 4th and then you resume season two here soon, right?

You too.

Shooting.

Getting ready to go back.

Ooh, exciting. Where'd you guys shoot?

I have the first script. New Mexico.

He just loves New Mexico.

He likes to use the same cruise over and over as well.

Oh, that's nice.

It's a thing for him.

That's very nice.

Yeah. The first script is bananas. It's my report.

Oh, wow.

I was like, what?

I read it, but this felt, was it hyperbole? Did it crash Apple?

That's what we were told.

Wow.

I don't have figures or, you know, any documents to tell me that that is why, but yes, it crashed when it came out.

That's amazing.

We were in London doing a press chunk at right after something else. And Vince and I do not read reviews, but we knew we had to go in these rooms the next day, mostly he and I together. We were both trying to get our pillars just like, give me a general idea so that I don't walk into a room where everyone's like, hi.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, and I was like, at first you don't think Vince would care. He's like, I don't know if they're gonna say like, dude, stick to Breaking Bad. What the hell? You know?

Yeah.

He's always wanted to go back to do a sci-fi thing. He's obsessed with Twilight Zone, you know, which has so many elements in this and stuff. And people forget he was on X-Files sometimes. But yeah, he was worried. I definitely was worried. So they did come and tell us. They were like, well, Apple had to shut down 'cause there were so many downloads and then they said it was all great reviews.

Yeah, it said it broke all ratings and the platform itself was the sentence I wrote. I was like, is that literal?

Love to hear it.

All right. Well, Ray, such a delight.

Thanks for having me.

Long overdue. Everyone watch those things. Please come back.

Thank you. Thank you.

He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gotta let him have the facts.

Did you go number two just now?

Yeah, I did.

Okay.

Well, it's in a water balloon.

Oh, good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, that's a ding, ding, ding.

Did you go number one two?

I went number one.

Okay. We're in between for the listener. We're in between Armchair Anonymous and Fact Check. We had a bathroom break.

There was a bathroom break.

Yeah, this isn't just a random.

Yeah.

Unsolicited.

And you were worried you might have a number two liquid form.

Yeah, water balloon.

Yeah. But you didn't.

But it wasn't. It wasn't.

It wasn't, which is great news. But it is a ding, ding, ding.

Okay. Ding, ding, ding. But do you know that how I take my, I take my fiber in a unique way?

Oh.

Which is, you know, metamucil, you're supposed to pour a big glass of water and then dump it in there and stir it.

Yes, it's necessary.

But I don't wanna have that much liquid right before bed. And I always remember to have it right before bed. So I just take a big spoonful, I put it in my mouth, and then I quickly, I have to rinse, I put water in there, I swish it around really quick and try to swallow it, but it does sometimes congeal in my throat.

Yeah, this is a horrible idea.

It's a terrible technique, but I keep using it for whatever reason. But that is at play with this previous number two. Sometimes when I have a big dose of the fiber, I think I'm gonna have a water balloon, but it's not.

Okay. I just, your insides could explode if you're not doing metamucil correctly.

Who's the first person who OD'd on metamucil?

No, people's have exploded.

They have.

Yeah.