Transcript of Zach Braff Returns

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

Hi.

Do you want to tell people about the housewarming card that Lincoln got you?

Of course.

She just, she just brought it up on our bike ride. And I did think it was—

Yes, it was the sweetest thing. She got me a card. She had it for like a year.

Yeah.

Which is so sweet. And she was holding it. The card itself says something like, 'Congrats on your new pad.' Yeah, yeah. And it has a frog on a lily pad. And she added the lily— she added Lily before pad. Yeah, very cute.

And she was explaining it to me on the bike ride. She's like, 'You know, because her middle name is Lily.' I'm like, 'Uh-huh, I know. I say her name several times a week.' Lily. And then Padman is like pad, so lily pad.

Yeah, she also added man to the end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Very cute. Very, very sweet.

Um, today we have returning doppelganger. It's doppelganger month. Um, Zach Braff is an actor and a filmmaker. Scrubs, Garden State, A Good Person, Chicken Little, Wish I Was Here, and the reboot of Scrubs, which is— it's a good show.

It's a great show.

It's a great show. Monica's back. I'm back in having nostalgic feelings. Uh, it is on Wednesday nights on ABC and then airs on Hulu. Uh, please enjoy Zach Braff. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple TV, the new US home of Formula 1. Starting March 7th, you can watch complete all-access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints, all in one place. Watch every race live only on Apple TV. How are you? I had a hunch you would wear a sweater, so I did too.

Are you guys mad? I'm feeling much better myself, but we're also mad.

Good to see you.

I haven't seen you guys since— oh, we could talk about it. I don't want to waste it, but you didn't have a hedge when I was here last.

Oh God, no. It was April of 2018. Which is crazy because don't you feel like we interviewed him much deeper into the show?

I think I've only been here once and we were joking about how it was smart of you to put down the hedges early because it was going to be a while.

Oh yeah, it was a while.

I'll bet you were like, I had the idea that we would just start the hedges right at the top and save, you know, $700.

Yeah, that's another thing. I could have gotten the 10 gallons. Yeah, 15.

I remember you saying that you were like, you know what, I'm gonna get the smaller one. ROI.

Wow, April, that means—

wait, what year was it?

2018, which is only— that's only 3 months in. Wow. But I think I've registered that whole thing as like, you were going off to do a TV show about podcasting. That's what you were promoting.

Was I promoting that?

Yes. So the fact that there was already a show being made about podcasting, but it was right at the top of things.

It was based on Startup. There was a podcast about a guy who was starting up a business, and the business happened to be podcasts.

Yes, it's based on a real story. It's the story of Gimlet or one of those.

Exactly right. Yeah.

I can't believe I I remember.

It's a very good memory. Podcasting was sort of new. Yeah, but you were at the forefront. I mean, Marc Maron was before you, right?

And Chris Hardwick.

Anna Faris.

Yep, Anna Faris. And of course Rogan. There were already some titans, but you really took off.

A lot has happened since I saw you. Yeah, a lot has happened.

A lot has happened.

Look at this place, it's so fancy.

I know.

I was upstairs, there was no curtain on the bathroom door. Do you remember that?

Yeah, we didn't have a door.

We didn't have a door. It wasn't even the structure.

Everyone had to look away if someone peed.

That's right. Or step out. Or stepped out if we were being respectful.

Okay, so do you have the same fascination as I do with watching us age? Like, sincerely?

You mean you and me?

You and I specifically. I'm monitoring you more than anyone else in the world.

I know, but you're really fit, so it's hard on me because I go, wow, that's what I would look like if I was ripped. And I see you sometimes and you're really looking good. You're keeping it tight. And I'm like, And I go, okay, well, I should go to the gym. And then I go to the gym and then I get in shape and I go, well, if I get in too much shape, this whole Dax Zach thing is going to be even worse.

2.0 though, maybe we ride out on a whole new wave of it. So at both times I'm like, yeah, you and I definitely looked a lot more similar when we were younger.

Yeah, I think so too.

And also I'm shocked with how different I look. I watch Parenthood with my kids and I'm like, I look so different, it's crazy.

We do still— I don't know how often it comes up in your life, but it comes up in my life once a week at least.

I think you're out in the world a little more than me because I work in the backyard.

Right. You don't leave your property. Yeah.

And you're on sets directing. You have an opportunity for more of that. You text me, which feels impossible to believe, but please tell me.

I have to start off with the story because, you know, I text Dax when this happens, when it's a funny one.

Sure.

Because a lot of times they're just kind of like, "Dax, love your work." That's not worth texting Dax over. But Donald Faison, my partner in crime, and I were in Las Vegas. We're 50 years old. We don't party much anymore. But we went one night in Vegas. We were throwing a couple backyards back and we're playing craps and we were winning and we're just having the best time. We have enough booze in us to decide we should go to the club, the nightclub, the nightclub at the Wynn. I forgot what it's called, but the Chainsmokers are playing there. Oh, it's enormous. It's like indoor-outdoor, thousands of people.

Wow.

And we go with a group of people and it's fun and we're having the best time. And as we work our way to someone's booth, I lose Donald and I'm like, oh shit, I don't want to be in this place alone at all.

Yeah, you start feeling very self-conscious, right?

Self-conscious. And I'm also like, I wasn't going to be here long anyway, but if My boy just left. How long am I really gonna—

your age starts hitting you really quick in this situation, right?

I definitely wouldn't do a second night in Vegas. Bill Lawrence always said, I never had a good second night in Vegas. So we're there and I'm like, did he leave me? Like, how fucked up would it be if he left and I'm here? I don't know any of these people in this booth. Starting to get insecure. And I look up and in the DJ booth— now mind you, thousands of people— but the DJ booth at this club is in the center of the thing and it's indoor-outdoor, it's enormous. And I squint and I see Donald in the DJ booth.

Absolutely. Just full The fact that that wasn't your where to look first just kind of shocks me with how long you guys have been friends.

I love him, but I don't know if you call it Irish exit or French goodbye or whatever you call it. I had a feeling like maybe he did that.

Okay. I know him very peripherally. My first thought would be, I bet Donald's in the DJ booth if I can't find him.

Well, back in the day, he was the guy at the club. Okay. But now he never leaves the house. So this was a big night for us, but I kind of think I talked him into going to the club. I was like, come on, we have a buzz in Vegas. Let's go to the club. So anyway, I see him and he sees me and he's gesturing me to come. I work my way up there. And just as I get into the DJ booth, I'm grabbed by the shoulders by Michael Fassbender.

Oh my God. Which— pause right there. I've never met him. I've completely adored him.

I love him physically.

I think he's so gorgeous and his body's so beautiful.

He's a beautiful man.

His penis was nice in Shame.

I don't remember his penis.

You don't remember him peeing in front of us?

I remember that Shame had penis in it. I just don't recall his specific penis. Oh, it's gorgeous.

It's exactly what you think. Of course.

This is where you two differ. You You remember and you don't remember.

We appreciate it. Sure.

Okay.

Yeah. Male bodies.

So what does he look like in person?

He's very handsome. And he grabs me and before I can say anything, he says, I love you. And I go, oh my God. He goes, I love your work. I love everything that you do. He goes, the shit you make is fucking awesome. I wish we could work together. Oh, my ego is like, here, stop.

I'm now having the experience you had just now. Real time.

I want to give it to you. That's why I texted you. And Donald's looking at me like proud boy.

Yeah, boy. Yeah, yeah.

And then he goes, I mean, fucking chips, dude.

Stop.

I just felt my heart sink because now not only is it about Dax, but I don't know how to get out of this encounter.

Exactly.

It's so cringe.

I have a pitch real quick.

Fuck.

It is also incredibly likely he has conflated you and I into one person. He also loves Garden State and Scrubs, and he just happened to land on chips as most recent. I mean, truly, maybe.

I don't know.

He might think we're the same person.

I never got that far. What happened was, I think he had a few too, in fairness.

Sure. Well, everyone's at a nightclub.

Yeah, it's the Milan Night in Vegas, and he's lovely, and I love him still. I love you still. I'm sure he watches your podcast. He's your biggest fan in the world.

So anyway, well, Fassbender, my goodness, I'm flattered.

So he goes, chips. And then Donald, being like my wife wingman, is like, no, man, this is Zach Braff.

No, no, no.

I would have just walked away. I would have been like, oh, thank you, chips is the best. But his face dropped, as embarrassing as it was.

Oh.

And then he starts to back away, like, oh, man, you guys had the best night. And Donald goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You come back here like a proud wife. This is Zach Braff. Do you not know? You've never seen Garden State. But Donald starts listing my credits like, you've never seen a good person. You've never seen the Last Kiss and Scrubs and all these things.

Full IMDb resume.

And he's just nodding and nodding. And then I'm like, donald, let's set him free. away, and that was it. But I didn't even make it out of the club. I was so embarrassed. I kind of just had a moment, and I texted Dax. I was like, it is important for you to know how much Michael Fassbender loves chips.

Wow, that's such a good story.

Oh my God.

But it's the worst though, when it's like your heart—

I mean, yes, because we both would love his approval, of course. Oh my God.

Yes, it's one thing when it's someone on the street. Of course we look alike. I go, oh, thank you. No, no, no, that's Dax Shepard. I'm Zach Braff. And that happens all the time in New York. I'm walking around. Yeah, but this was like an actor I really would love to want to work with me. Absolutely.

I'm rattled right now because I don't know any of those details.

Well, why don't you make a Chip sequel with Michael Fassbender? And then he hit the curb.

Still a Michael, but a Fassbender.

Yeah.

Oh my God. That's— that's heartbreaking.

I can't believe Donald corrected him. That's an interesting choice. I wouldn't have gone there.

Really good friend.

I never do it. And if I ever do it, I'm I'm always so kind. Oh no, you're thinking of Dax. We look alike. I'm Zach. I do that little uncomfortable dance. But Donald was like, you get back here, Mr. Fassbender.

You're going to be educated in the DJ booth.

You know what sucks is like, you feel embarrassed in that moment and you shouldn't feel embarrassed. He should feel embarrassed because he made a mistake.

No, we should feel embarrassed. We do look alike. It's cringe because you know what it is? It's solely ego. This man I love. Your ego is, I wanted this person to like me and they don't know who I am.

For me, the embarrassment would have been I'm not embarrassed I get mistaken for you. I'm flattered by it.

Yeah, you're handsome as hell.

You're incredibly cute and you're talented and you've had a great career. I'm not like, don't confuse me with him.

I once got into an Uber. I had a girlfriend at the time and we got into an Uber and the guy, he assumed that she was Kristen. Oh wow. He was like, hey, I love both of you guys and love your pod.

Was it Florence?

I don't think it was Florence because my brain would have been like, oh, if he loves both of us, this person wasn't a famous person.

Okay.

Okay. So I remember when he said, I love I love both your stuff.

The Carvana commercials.

I knew that it wasn't about this particular gal. I love your Carvana commercials.

And you're like, no, T-Mobile. This is where I would have been embarrassed. That same thing happens, right? Fassbender says, I love you, I want to work with you. And then he says, I'm so excited, I heard they're relaunching Scrubs. Right. What would happen for me is I would have been ashamed that I got excited and it wasn't for me. That's what it would be.

That's what I feel. If I'm being fully honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. I would have been like, oh, I feel so good. Now I don't. And I can metacognition my way Knowing that I shouldn't have any of those emotions.

I would like to get over it because it's so silly.

I had this at the Netflix party after the Golden Globes.

Did you get mistaken for somebody?

Well, sort of. Okay. I don't know if I should say who it is because she's so nice, but Claire Danes, who we did interview. So this is where things get very tricky. I don't know. But she was like, "Hi!" I was like walking by and she was like, "Hi!" She stopped me to say hi.

Why would—

Okay. So yeah, just hold on. So I said, "Hi! Oh, it's so good to see you. I can't believe you remember me." Remember me? I said that because I was like, we interviewed her so long ago.

Yeah.

And I honestly was like just very impressed. I was like, good for you for remembering me. And then she was like, yeah, of course, I just talked to blah blah. I was like, oh no, uh-oh, I have no idea who you're talking about now.

But you don't think it was like Mindy, or do you think it was an Indian confusion?

I mean, I assume whoever she's thinking about is probably Indian. I don't know who, but I just said, oh yeah, yeah, it was really good to see you. I'm just heading to She was like, "Great, have a good night." I've been on the other side of it myself. I mean, of course.

Can you recall exactly who you did?

Frank Grillo and Jon Bernthal.

Sure.

Oh, we love Jon Bernthal.

Absolutely.

I love them both. And I made a mistake to Frank Grillo, who's a lovely actor. This is very cringe. And I said, "You're killing it on The Bear." Okay.

Oh, yeah.

And did he correct you?

He did the same thing I did with a bit of a wince.

Yeah. Oh, no. Look, it happens.

I've done it too.

Yes.

But I'm sure I'm not the first person to confuse those two guys. Guys? Super masculine, very talented, have great bodies, similar vibes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What should be comforting is I too have fucked up, and I beat myself up over the time I misidentify somebody way more than when it happens to me, right?

Think about the gorilla thing when I'm in the shower, right?

Like, if you're comparing that to Fassbender, right, we would probably give the Fassbender a 4 and that an 8 or something.

But it became a great story because I'm able to tease myself about it because it was such a funny moment. The fact that Donald was like not gonna let him slide, the fact that he was the proud wife that be like listing my credits.

That is sweet.

You get to know him.

I can't say any of the names, but I will tell you that I was one time doing a movie. There was an older actor in the movie. It was reshoots. The night before, we had gone home. Chris and I, we watched a certain movie. We came to set the next morning. The older actor said, what'd you do last night? I said, we watched this movie. He goes, oh my God, I watched that movie too. I then said, oh my God, I don't know why people are obsessed with that movie. It's such garbage. I don't know why. It's blah blah blah. And I can sense from the people around me, this is uncomfortable. I've clearly stepped in it. And then I quickly remember, oh, this person also produces. And I said, oh my God, did you produce that movie? And he said, no, I directed it.

And why would he say to you, I watched that movie?

That was a little bit of a trap, but let's leave it. I'll just own my stuff. I tried to make it better. I buried myself worse. And then at the end, I just said, for what it's worth, you'll probably forget about this in a couple of weeks. And I'll be thinking about this for the rest of my life. And it is so true. I'll just randomly be lying in bed and be like, I cannot believe I said I said that directly to someone's face, and it just proves the lesson I hadn't learned yet, which is I don't need to ever say bad stuff about anything. Like, I could just tell you the things I love. You don't need to hear what I hate.

I don't do that anymore either.

Do you find when you were younger— like, I did it when I was younger.

Oh yeah, and Donald and I were doing our own podcast, a rewatch of Scrubs. Yes, we watched every single episode of Scrubs and then would chat about it for an hour and a half.

How many episodes were there? I don't know, like 200 or something. We should look it up, but 150 at Because you were doing 20 a year, right?

Back in the day, we were doing like 18 to 20 or so a year. 182. 182. He's good.

Yeah, he's the best. Wobby Wob.

So we watched them all, and it was fun. We did it during COVID over Zoom. It was something to do and have a laugh. And then it got really popular and people really liked it. I caught myself early on— when you're just chatting with your buddy, I'm sure you guys know this, you're gonna say, oh, I hated that, or I hated this.

Yeah.

And I stopped myself. I was like, I don't want to spread negativity about anyone's creativity. Occasionally something would slip in and be like, you guys like that movie? But it was mild. I tried to be careful about not talking down on the giant microphone about anybody's work.

Yes, you're operating under the false illusion that it's not going to get to them, but in modern day, everything gets to everybody. And I try to remember that when I read something shitty about myself. I'm like, well, that person, they didn't think I was gonna get it, and they might not even stand by it today because you're just in a mood that day. And I was annoyed last night and this happened, and then two days later I might be like, I don't even have that There's enough people putting negative shit out there in the world. Okay, so you and I have now had a bunch of weird, fun overlaps other than just looking similar.

Yes.

We've both been in the Cheaper by the Dozen franchise.

I didn't think of that one.

Yes. Yes. That's my very first on a screen in a movie theater experience. Oh, really? Yeah, for 12 seconds.

Mine was not fancy and in the movie theater.

Okay, but I'm sure your role was a lot better than mine.

Yeah, I had fun making that. We did a remake of it for Disney with Gabby Union and me having a mixed family. It was fun.

Yes. So we're in that universe.

Yes.

And then we must talk about Pinocchio. Penne for a second.

Yes.

So, you know, Andrew Penne is in my top 3 best friends of my life.

I didn't know that.

You didn't know that?

No, I know that he mentions you a lot. Your audience, you have to explain who he is because they won't have any clue who he is.

Well, we did talk about him quite a bit, so yeah, he produced Wedding Crashers originally, and then he produced a movie that I was in, Employee of the Month, and then we've done 4 or 5 other things, and then he produced all 3 of the movies I've directed, and we're like inseparable soulmates.

He's the nicest.

I love him.

In my world, he produces all the T-Mobile commercials we do.

Yes. And I think it's really interesting that he hired you instead of me, his best friend, who seemingly looks identical.

Well, you know what happened with those? It's interesting. There's a guy, his partner Brian Klugman—

yeah, Klugman—

who writes all the spots. He's sort of the Don Draper of T-Mobile. Those big spots that we make, we shoot full spec versions of them beforehand. T-Mobile ads are made in a really unique way. Most people don't know this. So for example, the Jason Momoa one, which was probably the biggest one with the Super Bowl ad we did, we don't just like submit copy to T-Mobile and go, hey, what do you think of these storyboards and this idea? That's the normal way it's done. We shoot full-on with iPhones and props and a couple people helping us. We shoot the whole spot in my backyard.

Oh, okay.

So, in that case, we wouldn't have had Jason Momoa, but in post, we'll put, like, a giant Jason Momoa head on a double whose body it is, and then we'll move the mouth like South Park.

Oh, yeah.

But, like, we shoot and edit and do all of the sound effects and everything and fully make a realized iPhone version of it, and then we send that in as, "Here's what it'll be." But that's so much work!

Be.

Actually, the first one I ever did, Donald and I ever did, was a Super Bowl ad, and they didn't use us. They ended up using famous football players, and I was sort of bummed. These are called, for people who don't know, it's a spec ad, meaning no one's bought it. You're doing it as a speculative thing with your own money. In this case, Panay's and Brian's company. But it's a great sales tool because the creatives, the people who make the decisions, as long as they can say, okay, this is an iPhone zero budget version, let me see what it looks like. If they can use their imaginations, they seeing what it looks like, and then imagine it with not a bobblehead Jason Momoa, a real Yeah, yeah, I imagine it was real effects and imagine it lit. So the very first one— sorry, I rambled— we did one in my backyard and then they ended up being two famous football players. So I was sort of bummed. Little did I know that it would come back around in such a huge way that now we're their partners.

How many years ago was that Super Bowl one?

We didn't do this year, but we'd done the last 4 or 5 years.

Yeah, I feel like you've been doing it for a good 5+ years.

Yeah.

Do you know how many spots off the top of your head that you've done in all lot.

But I'll tell you this, they're made in such a collaborative, fun way because Brian Klugman will just be brainstorming. We were on the set of making one of them, and he's like, oh, I'm so stressed, I got to do Christmas spots for these guys and I haven't really come up with anything yet. And we're just sitting there, a group of us, 4 people, just Donald, Panay, Brian, myself, laughing.

You know Nate Tuck?

Of course.

Nate Tuck's my oldest friend in LA.

I really didn't clock how close you were with this posse.

Oh yeah, yeah, my kids call Panay Uncle Christmas.

We got to talk about his outfits.

We could do 3 hours on his outfit. Every time I'm with him, I take photos so I'm gonna bring back and show the girls.

On your podcast, can you put up an image of someone?

We should. Yes, we will.

I feel like on the video you should put up what he dresses like.

Yes. Can I just tell you, I met him for a meeting for the employee of the month, and I walk into his office and he didn't have the funds yet, but he still had the style. So he was like in True Religion jeans, but they were bedazzled, and he was wearing like a half shirt, like a midriff. I had never met him, and I was like, wow, this dude's a lot, huh? But then within 4 seconds, I'm like, oh, this is the sweetest guy I've ever met. And I got comfortable with it, and then I came to really enjoy how playful careful he was with his clothes, but now he's got money and it is the most exciting.

I've never seen anything like it. The closest comp I can give your audience is— number 3— sorry, Liberace.

Yeah, Liberace.

It is diamonds like I've never seen in real life.

Yeah, yeah.

It is furs.

Yes.

It is a white t-shirt that's ripped. It is Louis Vuitton or Gucci boots that make him like 6 inches taller.

Gene Simmons style.

Gene Simmons, like Gucci or Louis Vuitton boots.

Yes. A lot of pink.

There's an entourage around him.

Great crew around him.

He has a whole posse that moves like the show Entourage. That's not something I've really seen in real life. I mean, I know it exists, but I haven't really been around those people. He's someone who lives that kind of life.

But it's really important to say, with no Entourage douchiness, just kindness, sweetness.

He's kind and lovely, and he champions— interesting, we're both examples of it— when he likes someone, he really champions them.

Oh yeah, he'll die for anyone he loves. Also, I'll add, he's a Greek kid from Sunland, who had a big afro when he graduated and just wanted to play baseball and has never drank in his life. He's so PG and so sweet and so earnest, and he's tried so hard. He runs 16 miles a day and takes calls while he's running. Nate told me the best story. So, yes, anytime you're talking to him, likely he's running up A hill. He's pretty good at not letting you know. He keeps his breathing in check. But Nate was on the phone with him. It's pretty important call. I think he had clients on the call as well. It was a big conference call, and all of a sudden he heard, Oh, sorry, bud. Sorry, bud. Just got into ice bath. So mid-conference call, he has ran 16 miles and now he's entering into an ice bath. I mean, he's the most eccentric, wonderful person and just the sweetest human I've ever met.

He's the reason he and Brian Klugman— oh, I want to tell you about how we come up with the ads. So we were shooting one and Brian says, oh, I haven't thought of Christmas spots yet. Someone in the group says, oh, you know, it'd be funny to do like a spoof of Love Actually with the cards at the door.

Yeah, yeah.

And I go, that could be funny. Well, why don't we shoot a spec of it right now while we're here? Yeah, so he has a PA grab the cards. At the end of the day, we do one take, two cameras cross-shooting, of the messaging that they want for Christmas on the cards. We never say a word. They love it. We have a proof of concept. We come back a few months later and shoot the real thing with fake snow on the ground. But that's why it's such a fun thing to be doing, because it's very, very collaborative. You know, you hear this thing about the ad market. I think this is most people's experience, is like, just do this, do these storyboards, and if it's not funny, you're kind of cringing. Our thing is the opposite. It's like, what would you say? What do you want to say? Riff 10 things.

Yes, I was gonna say, I think where we'll see other actors go wrong in these commercials is probably they're not writers, or they're not improvers, or they're not directors. So they're relying on the entire machine that is Madison Avenue. I don't know that they're great at writing to actors in the way— like, we could agree, great television showrunners, there's not a ton of them, and their gift is they can write to you to make you shine.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

And it's such rare ability. So I think when Kristen and I have been approached, both campaigns we've done, that starts with like, hey, I'll have to write them. We'll get the concept done, but it'll have to go through my fingers so that our voices are correct.

Yeah, that's smart.

And it kind of starts with that agreement, and everyone's been cool about it.

I had a friend who was going to do an ad, and she sent me the copy, and she goes, hey, can you help me? I'm like shooting this tomorrow. And I was like, oh no.

Yeah, yeah. Oh no.

I used to direct them too.

I've done a couple. Did you like it? I find it to be terrible. Yeah, I stopped doing it. It's demoralizing.

And And unlike my T-Mobile experience, which has been awesome, it was not collaborative. They really just wanted me to execute the storyboards. And I was like, well, then why am I here? A lot of people can execute these storyboards. I want to bring something to the table. Yeah, I want to bring something to the table.

In descending order, film is the director's medium. Television is writer, then director. The TV spots are the client, the ad agency, the this, the that, before it gets to the director.

Earlier on in my career, I loved it because I was not getting any budget for my work. So it was fun to have a big budget and to hire the coolest cinematographers in the world because they all do commercials. Commercials. So you can hire these badass DPs and work with them and hopefully develop friendships with them. And I'm a camera geek, so playing with all the cool camera toys. But then I really got over it because I was like, doing this is not fun and it's very stressful. There's way too many emails.

Too many emails. And then on set, there's like 55 people that got to sign off on everything that happens.

Yeah, one time Dax was directing—

as a favor, I want to add that—

as a favor, and you were getting so mad. And I was like, be nicer. "what if these people listen to the podcast?" People had joined via Zoom from another state. Of course, 'cause that's what they do.

And they missed their day. They didn't get their day on their shoot. So they lost their day because of this racket. And then I was asked by my wife, "Can you save this thing and direct this in our house and get the piece we didn't get?" And I go, "Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Can't wait. Do it." Well, now this group that already derailed it the first time are now on a Zoom call. And I just very bluntly said, "Hey, you guys lost your day." And I'm not here to make you happy. I'm here to give you this thing that you guys lost yesterday. So that was my attitude, and Monica was very upset.

Well, it's good that Monica keeps you in check. Yeah, it's good to have someone whisper in your ear like, hey, you're being a dick.

Yeah, you have to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's very easy to lose track of that.

I've never been a dick on a TV show I've directed or a movie.

Aren't you amazed at how many people are?

Yeah.

You know, Bill Lawrence, who's my mentor— I was a waiter when I got Scrubs, and he ingrained in the sets I've been on my whole life that no asshole policy The dolly grip might have a better joke than you do. Don't have an ego about it. Yeah, you know, that's the vibe of the sets we run.

The insecurity it has sometimes created in me is I'm on a set, or more often I hear a story about a really great director and what they did and how they treated everyone. In the past, I've been like, am I never gonna direct blank because I'm not a fucking asshole? Can you only get this level of movie by being a tyrant? No, I don't think that.

But there's been times where I think it's about having courage, because sometimes I find myself directing somebody huge, and I go, it's take 5, we gotta look at the time, are you gonna have the balls to go, hey man, we don't have it yet, we got to keep going?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's where I have to give myself a pep talk and be like, come on, don't be a wimp, go have the difficult conversation to push this person. Because a year from now when this comes out, they're going to be so stoked that even though it was the middle of the night and they were cranky and everyone's cranky and it's raining, that pushed them.

Okay, so you did one episode of Ted Lasso.

Yeah.

And you've done 5 Shrinkings.

I've done 5 Shrinkings. I just did 2 Roosters, which is the new Carell show with Bill.

How did those experiences differ?

Lasso was crazy because I was dating Florence at the time, and I was over in London, and Bill said, I've got this new show with Sudeikis, and it's going to be great, and do you want to direct the second one of all time? If you remember, it was one about the biscuits.

Yeah.

And I said, yeah, that should be fun. I like Sudeikis. He's hilarious. And from over here anyway, I'd love to work with you. I directed it. It was a lot of fun. I'm not really into sports, so I thought, I bet people who like soccer will like this. I mean, it's cute, and Sudeikis is very funny, and Bill's great. And then I left, right? And then it came out, and it was insane what happened.

It's still insane. If I go to Apple, I'll notice it's still always in the top 3, often in the top 2, and a new episode hasn't come out in years.

It just became a phenomenon. Yeah. And all those guys became famous, and what's happened to Brett Goldstein is incredible. And I just met them all when they were all completely unknown.

Yeah, second episode's It's tricky.

Second episode's tricky because the pilot of Lasso had a lot of pipe to lay out. It had a lot of story to conquer. And episode 2 with the biscuits was the one where Bill and Jason were going to show you, oh, we're also going to break your heart.

Also just establishing the tone of the show going forward. It's like, we established all the characters. Now we're going to show you what the vibe going forward is.

Yes, that really was too. And also it was the first one with gameplay, which was funny because the greensmen on the field were so protective of the pitch. And they And they wouldn't let us bring equipment on it. So I had to, as someone who's not into sports, figure out how the hell we're gonna shoot soccer without bringing gear on the field. So we've built this rig. Have you ever seen the things they bring on the beach that are the big inflatable tires on sets?

Yeah, yeah.

So the key grip and the dolly grip and the DP and myself, we all collaborated on this thing. It had big inflatable tires, almost like something you'd see on the moon, that with a remote head on it. And then it had a pull bar and the grips would put cleats on and they would run with it. Uh-huh. And those tires, they accepted as light enough, and the cleats were of course fine. And then the DP would operate the remote head on the sideline. So we kind of came up with this really cool rig, and that's how soccer was shot the whole show.

That stayed with the show.

Yeah.

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Shrinking Season 1, Episode 8 was the one— for those who know the show— where the centerpiece of the whole show is that Gabby goes to her ex-boyfriend's art show. That was my first entry into the Shrinking world.

How was it directing Harrison Ford? Talking about like the intimidation factor of someone might not be getting it on take 5.

Yeah, him and Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Like, I've had a couple experiences with these mega guys. Yeah, and it's scary being Morgan and Harrison, everyone is weird around them. Yeah, you have to understand, their fault, everyone is weird around them. I was driving in a golf cart with Harrison around the Warner Brothers lot, and there's constant trams of tourists going by, and he just gently turns his head the other way. And I go, do you ever wave? And he goes, no, but I do feel bad about it. But you have to understand that no one in their life, except maybe their loved ones, is normal to them.

I know.

So what they long for, I've deduced, is someone to just act like you don't give a fuck.

Yeah.

Not in a rude way, of course, a respectful way. But that wins them over real quick. I had to give myself pep talks. I had a tricky time with Alan. Rest in peace. Brilliant actor, but he was the trickiest for me. But Morgan and Michael Caine were really, really lovely. And Morgan so much that when I offered him A Good Person, a movie that was my own script with Florence, he said yes, and we had a really good experience making that. But he is gruff as hell, and he really only wants to work in the morning, and he really kind of only wants to do one take.

Yeah, he said that.

So, after you go, "Cut on take one," you go, "Great, everybody, that was awesome!" some, uh, let's go again. You hear, why?

Yeah, I don't know, I respect it.

Why? Why?

For fucking 25 days, every setup.

John Doe has the upper hand. Why? And what would you say to him?

I'd be like, Morgan, that was take one. You were great, obviously. You're never bad. But you know, we got to figure some things out. The camera didn't get the right position, and there's something going on with the background, and I want to put this lamp over here. And it was take one. And I'd be like, okay. And then, you know, throughout the course of the day, after lunch— he was an older man, and he was getting So that was the first example of I was intimidated and I had to give myself a pep talk. It's what we're talking about. I'm not an angry director. I don't yell at anyone. That's not my vibe. But I do have to go, if you're a wimp now and don't have the courage to go tell Morgan, even though it's 3 in the morning and we're outside and it's cold, that we got to go again with the crying scene, he's going to be mad at you a year from now when we're showing this movie and the scene doesn't work. So that's my response. Responsibility. And with Harrison, I have that too. People always go, how are you directing them?

You're not teaching them. You're not teaching a brilliant actor. Yeah, what you are is steering the ship. And you're going, Harrison, because the scene before this, X, Y, and Z happened, should we do one where you're a little more angry? I think maybe we should. 9 times out of 10, he'll be like, absolutely, yeah, you're right, that's good, that's good. Yeah, I'm the conductor of the orchestra. I'm not the greatest first violinist in the world. You are. But if I ask you to play that note a little bit louder, it's because I'm thinking of the whole thing. And we shoot movies out of order, and you might You can't be thinking of the scene. You weren't even in the scene before this when we shot it. We went to here, so this scene needs to be here. It helps, though, because once you've had the courage to do that with Harrison Ford and Morgan Freeman, I feel like you can do it with anybody. It's the ultimate swimming with weights on.

We just had Sterling K. Brown on, and he said, "You can't be a fan and in the game at the same time." And I was like, "That's a perfect way to say it." You can't be like, "I love him so much, I can't tell him what to do." It's like, "No, you're the coach of the game." They don't want that.

I just had the really cool experience, Harrison Ford interviewed me for Interview Magazine.

Oh, no kidding.

For this Scrubs rollout. And it was very trippy because my interaction with him on set is chummy, but, you know, he's Harrison Ford. I never thought he would ever say yes. They said, "Who do you want to interview for Interview Magazine? They usually pair you with someone." And I said, "Well, maybe Brett Goldstein will do it because he's a buddy of mine and he's an actor-director-writer. I thought that'd be a good match." And I was like, "I don't know, ask Harrison Ford," kind of sarcastically. And then Harrison said yes.

Oh my goodness.

So nice.

So it was very cool. It turned into more of a conversation, but I got to ask him questions. Questions that I'm not asking him when we're sitting around on set in the director's chairs. Yeah, I asked him, what do you like from a director? What's most helpful to you? He was saying a lot of the same things we're saying, like, I'm not always keeping track of where we are. I need you to remind me where we've come from and where we're going.

I personally had wished some people had phrased that to me that way at times. I think it would have been helpful because I take it as like, I've done something wrong in this moment, as opposed to, I need your help with this broader story. That's just so helpful to me when I was younger and super insecure on set, and we're going again, but I don't know why, and I'm thinking something I'm doing wrong. And it's like, oh no, no, it's not that you're doing wrong. It's like, also, we got to service this huge story. I might even be asking you to do something that's not as true just to service this bigger story.

And I might also not know yet. That's something that takes being 50 years old, is to go, I also might not know what the answer is yet. Would you help me find it by going again and trying one like this? Because then at the monitor, I might go, oh, eureka, that is what I was looking for.

Yes. Okay, so another thing that happened, and this is a moment when I text you, which is you popped up on Bad Monkey season 1, and I thought you were so great.

Thank you.

I immediately text you like, oh my God, I love seeing you as this fucked up, disheveled train wreck.

I feel like everyone was talking about it.

It was really bizarre. I never get parts like that, right? I would love to do more drama like that. And Bill, of course, is my biggest champion in my whole career, and he said, hey, do you want to come down and do some scenes with Vince Vaughn in Miami? And I was like, that sounds great.

Yeah. He's been using that pitch.

I think that sounds great. No, I think once he knew you were a fan and he loves you, he was like, that's gonna really fuck people up when you show up in Bad Monkey. They're gonna be like, he's back.

But again, it's so similar because I gotta say, I hadn't seen you act in a while.

You know how this is. I don't get offered parts like that. I don't come to mind for people at a part like that.

Yeah, like a fucked up degenerate drug addict who's gonna saw somebody's arm off.

Do you Remember when Albert Brooks was in Drive and he was the bad guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was fucking brilliant.

Yes.

Not that I was playing that much of a heavy or that big of a part, but that's what I kind of was thinking of. So Bill gave me this opportunity. I did it. It was fun.

Did you have any anxiety about it?

Not doing the part. I felt confident that I could do the role. I was intimidated by Vince just because I never met him. He's a legend in my eyes. Swingers was a pivotal moment in my life.

Like, we all wanted to be Vince Vaughn.

I wanted to be Vince Vaughn. And then there was a movie after it called Maid that I don't know if a lot of people saw, but I loved. I just thought he was one of the funniest improvisers. Actually, watch— if someone listening hasn't seen Maid, the blooper reel with him and Favreau is even funnier than the movie.

Yes, talking about the per diem.

Yeah, because Vince is just riffing and Favreau cannot keep a straight face. It's so funny. I always laugh at people trying to hold—

have you seen that movie, Monica?

I haven't. I'm gonna—

they're both dipshits and they get sent to New York on this mission. Vince does not know what per diem means, but they're trying to act like they've been there, done that. And so the guy's trying to like tell him you're gonna get this per diem. Yeah, yeah. And they're just trying to bullshit way into figuring out what the fuck Perdido means. It's so brilliant and subtle.

The blooper reel shows you how Vince works. See him in live time figuring out the best way to do the joke.

Yeah.

But Favreau keeps ruining the takes. Favreau's the director.

Yeah.

But he keeps ruining the takes because Vince is so funny. I had a funny moment in Bad Monkey. I had to play a corpse in one scene. Yeah. Sorry, spoiler. They put the makeup on me and I'm lying in a morgue drawer and Vince and his scene partner have a scene over me, and he just starts riffing the funniest shit that's not in the script. And Bill is like, bro, we have to fucking do VFX on your body because your shoulders are bopping. The corpse cannot help but laugh. Oh, he's brilliant like that. So anyway, I did it, and I didn't think about it again. Although it was funny, I did have an experience with Vince where we were all going out to dinner. I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna hang out with Vince Vaughn. And Andrew Watt was down there. Andrew Watt is like one of the biggest producers around, and he's Bill's daughter Charlotte's fiancé. Oh, okay. So he was down there, and we all went out, and Bill wasn't there, but we were all out going, oh my God, I can't believe we're all hanging out with Vince Vaughn. This is a dream.

And then Vince is like, should I come back to your guys' place? Because we were all living in this condo. We were like, yeah, that'll be awesome. Him and Andrew were just throwing them back. You know, I don't drink like that anymore. Him and Andrew were just throwing them back on the balcony.

Yeah, big guy. I'm sure he can handle it. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like the biggest fucking case of Coronas ever saw. And I'm like, oh my God, hang out, it's fun. Oh my God, I'm hanging out, it's been so fun. Oh my God, are Vince Van and Andrew Wack gonna drink all night long on the balcony?

What are you gonna do? You're just gonna have to suck that one up.

I did. I disappeared.

Recused yourself.

I recused myself and I put earplugs in. They drank until like 4 in the morning on the balcony outside my room. But my point is, 25-year-old me would have been like, what are you doing going to bed?

Yes, it's really interesting. So I text Bill if I'm allowed to even say I'm on it. He hasn't responded, but let me see if he— It's time.

It's time.

We'll decide for Apple if it's time that people know.

Holding on to this for a while.

Oh yes, have fun. I love that. Okay, so that's Bill. Okay, great. So yes, I too am now on it. So this is what I think is so fun about our overlap. And it's not just overlap like, oh, we were both on Bad Monkey. We're both on Bad Monkey at a very specific point in our lives, at a very specific age.

Doing dramatic roles we don't normally get cast in. Yes.

Although I'm playing a douchey I'm pretty much back. I'm probably the party.

Oh, I actually don't know what character you play, although he told me some fun anecdotes. I won't say because they're spoilers, but he did tell me that he had some funny stories.

I'll tell you what the character's name is. Rat Daddy. So that tells you a lot. I think the name says you can summon that inner Rat Daddy, can't you?

Oh, it's always ready to come out.

I bet there was boating involved.

Boating? Yeah. Yeah. Good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Smart. Smart.

Takes place in the Florida Keys.

Yes. And so when I talked to Bill, we interviewed Bill in September of last year. He's actually our first video guest, and he was so fun and good. And he said, "I'm gonna make you act next year." And I said, "I don't think so. I'm really busy on this, and I'm very content." And he said, "What if all your scenes were with Vince Vaughn?" Same pitch. That's how he lures people. Yes, yes, it's great. It works. And so when we talked on the phone, he's like, "How big of a commitment can you make?" And I said, "I don't know." He said, "What would you want to do?" on a plane. I said, a muscly douchebag. And he goes, oh buddy, do I have the role, but it's going to be a few episodes. And then Rat Daddies. But I was gonna say, I'm making a lot of assumptions about you, but you and I, I would hope, have the pride of like, all else said, 25 years we've been doing this. The longevity. I never hit the points I was trying to hit. I had my eyes set on being Will Ferrell or Vince Vaughn.

That didn't happen. I wanted to be Steven Soderbergh's that didn't happen. But I have great pride in the longevity. Like, fucking 25 years is hard to do. And I wonder where you sit with this, and tell me about the ebbs and flows of those aspirations.

That's a good way to put it. I have thought similarly. I've had my ebbs and flows. I've had career highs and years where nothing was fucking happening. But I think those ultimately led to me finally then sitting and writing a script I was proud of. And then I've had moments where I was like, I cannot believe this is happening to me. I can't believe this is all happening at the same time. This is so crazy. I'm so neurotic. So something awful is abound. To happen tomorrow. So that's part of doing this job. We're freelance.

And you just nailed it. You either have nothing or you have too much. Nobody has the right amount of it.

Yeah. And it's a wave. And if you ride it wrong, you crash. And if you ride it right, it can keep going and going. In fact, I'll give you an example. That little part I did on Bad Monkey, I got a lot of love for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was sending you love letter texts.

You did. And a lot of other actors I respect a lot as well. I would see a celebrity actor that I love. I don't know them that well, but I'm like, hey man, how are you? And they were like, hey dude, Bad Monkey, you crushed it. And it would just make me feel so good.

Yeah, of course. And it had been a minute, right?

I've been doing a lot of directing. Yeah, it'd been a minute, and it'd certainly been a long time since I'd gotten a juicy dramatic part.

Yeah, I think a lot of what people were saying was like, I forgot he's so good.

Oh, thank you.

It's fun. It's like when Edward Norton acts, he acts once a decade, and you're like, oh, that's right, he's one of the greatest to ever do it.

But I'll tell you, I got an offer to do an indie that was very challenging charging, playing a cop. True story about a cop who was a narcotics cop outside Baltimore and lost his daughter to drug addiction. An amazing script. It's called Clean Hands. It's gonna hopefully be on the festival circuit. But I think I got that offer, probably, I'm imagining, because of my work on Bad Monkey.

Yeah.

Had the courage to do it because of the feedback I was getting from some actors I really loved and respected, and went and had the most incredible experience where I really let myself go to a place I haven't because I had a little bit of wind at my sails.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

And shows and the movie. The movie I'm really proud of. And so yes, I guess to answer your question, to be able to make a living in this wacky-ass career path for 25 years, I feel so grateful. I know so many talented people that are incredible that aren't working or can't get work or had to move out of LA. I never go to sleep a single night without putting my head on my pillow and saying how grateful I am for the things that have happened.

There were periods where I felt bad for myself that I didn't hit the mark I was going for, and then a lot of weird things happen over time.

Well, what about this?

This is unexpected, and who would have guessed it?

You mean outside of this podcast world, the goals you set for yourself as a filmmaker?

Yes, or as an actor, like what I was trying to get to. And I now have the vantage point of like, oh, I got to do a ton of stuff multiple times and I'm still around.

But you also don't know what's around the corner. Bill is a perfect example. He created Spin City when he was 25 years old. And then he makes Scrubs. And then after Scrubs, he does a lot of stuff—Cougar Town and Undateable—but it isn't hitting the zeitgeist like those two first did. Yeah, he, I think, thought like, okay, I've had a good career, I can't complain, I love what I do. And then all of a sudden, Lasso breaks, and then Shrinking breaks, and then Bad Monkey breaks. And I can guarantee you, this Carell show called Rooster that I directed for HBO is amazing. It's that's gonna break. And now we're doing the Scrubs revival that hopefully will break. So that man is on absolute fire. My point is, he didn't expect that at all. He didn't think that's what his 50s were going to be about. You and I also have a unique experience in that we go back and forth from overseeing everything to just being an actor, which is such a mindfuck. It is.

Yeah, we'll talk on that.

When you're directing and producing the show, there's so much pressure, and there's always a problem. You open your phone, there's 11 fires being put out, and then everyone is like this all day long, and you're looking at your watch going, we are so fucked for time. What are we gonna do? How am I gonna shoot that next scene in an hour? And the actor, 180 degrees, is like, we got it. All right, I'll be in my trailer. Bye. I'm gonna go lay down and read my phone. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go look at Instagram. Oh, you guys are all sweating because of all those problems? Yeah. I think what's different for me on Scrubs, I directed this pilot of the revival.

Okay, we'll get right into it. I just watched it. Did you like it? It's so good, dude.

So excited.

You know, I didn't watch Scrubs, not because I had anything against it. I was 25 and I was an addict. I didn't watch any TV. I totally missed Scrubs. I've seen an episode or two, but I'm watching this and I'm remembering, oh, it has that same thing that I saw the first time, which again, you would think would be easy to capture, but I think would be really hard. It is. So it's got that thing. But I must have said 5 times my wife was getting ready in the bathroom, I'm like, this show's fucking good. This is how I'm saying it. And then 5 minutes later, this show's really good. I mean, it's just a fucking good show. Like, I missed it. This is a great show.

Start the first with the kids, with the kids. I love that original Scrubs.

So, you know, it'll be really trippy for people like yourself who didn't watch the show and watch it now and get into it, and hopefully they love it. There is 8 good seasons of the OG that they can go back and watch how we became who we became.

And that's a unique thing, but Can you do a very clean and effortless— it's not laborious— catch up to what's going on? We meet you.

I'm working as a concierge doctor, and I've been separated from my friend group. I haven't worked there for 17 years. Donald's character, Turk, and myself, we were best friends, the whole bromance thing. We really have both kind of fallen into melancholia because we're lacking the community and friendship. The show's theme song says, "I can't do this all on my own." It's what helped us get through what these men and women who work in hospitals deal with, the ups and downs, the highs and lows of being one of these superheroes that work in a hospital. You have a patient who returns to a grandmother who collapsed at her grandson's soccer game, and I live an hour away. Because my patient ended up back at Sacred Heart, I have to come. So I'm re-entered into the world. I haven't been there in a very long time.

I can't wait. It's very meta. It's like returning to high school after you've left, and you're returning to high school after you left.

And what's really trippy, I'm getting goosebumps talking about it, which is funny because I've lived it. We used to shoot Scrubs in an abandoned hospital in the Valley, Riverside and Whitsett, and that building got torn down. In order to do Return to Sacred Heart, the hospital, we had to build, recreate the entire thing to perfection on a soundstage. And so now I enter the soundstage fully dressed and fully recreated. Down to like the dusty murals on the wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a place I haven't been in 17 years, but it's a place I spent my 20s.

Is that the real gap between when the show went off and now?

17 years is when the show ended. Yeah, but we started in 2000. There is a few young people playing interns on the show that were born the year we started airing because they're 25 years old. That's how old interns are.

Yeah, yeah. First year, 25 years ago. Crazy. It's bonkers. Now I can't put too fine a point on it. It's fucking great. Thank you, man. Yeah. John C. McGinley looks incredible. I don't know what his protocol is.

He's a beast like you. He works out like a motherfucker.

He's looking great.

He's very into the sauna cold plunge.

Donald's looking fit.

Donald does not age. We're posting all this stuff because we're promoting it. And any time I post a picture of Donald and myself, every third comment is, wow, Donald didn't age. Sure. But no, everybody came back.

Was it emotional?

Yeah, it was my 20s.

This is what I need you to answer, because the sweetest chunk of my life as an actor actor was Parenthood. It was just beautiful from day one till the end. And there are many times where it's like, if I ever wanted to act again, that's what I would want to do. And then I have this great fear of like, but is it returning to high school? Would I go and then just be brokenhearted that no, it can't be that thing?

Are you so close with all those people? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It can be.

Yeah. So tell me that part of it.

What was unique for our cast is we're all very close. We love each other, we text, we do things together. Bill and I are best friends. Donald and I are best friends. I go out to Johnny's house. He lives out in Malibu. He's the one who got me into sauna and cold plunging and taught me the benefits of it all. Sarah lives in Vancouver, Kristin Miller, Bill's wife, we're all very close. We go on vacations together. And so the idea of, "We're just going to get the band back together," it isn't like going back to high school in a sense that you're going to feel misplaced. It's, "We're going to see what these people are like now." Because Scrubs is about a teaching hospital first and foremost. And when we entered the world in 2000, we were young, wide-eyed newbies. In all the ways. Yeah, we were living it. I had just come from waiting tables. Didn't take much to play a guy wide-eyed, in over his head. Yeah. And now, in the same meta way, as I come back— I'm directing the pilot— we're coming back and now we're the teachers for the young kids.

The story's still about us, but you can't tell the story of a teaching hospital without students, right?

First question: how much did the success of The Pit play into this coming back, and how much did you and Donald being in the T-Mobile commercial? What is the recipe that leads to the relaunch?

I think it was our podcast, first of all, did really well. Okay, I mean, not armchair expert.

We don't know, maybe it was bigger. You just ran out of episodes to watch.

No, you guys, it certainly was not on, on the level of your show, but it had a big following, enough so that we could feel it. We could feel that it was popular. And it did sort of suffer when we ran our episodes because you're both very good at interviewing people. That's not a skill set Donald and I really have. We were good at telling jokes and laughing, and we can kibitz all day long. You can get interviewed forever, right? And we can just chat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can imagine the audience enjoyed some of that. We also would go on long-ass tangents. We were also very candid. His wife would come on and they were very candid. We had a sex therapist on and it was hilarious because him and his wife just started going to a session with the sex therapist and it was so fun. And they are both very open, like there's no secrets. It was just great. We're interviewing the sex therapist, we're being boys, we're asking all the questions. She's like, you can't flap this woman, just ask her whatever the fuck you want to ask her. And she's an amazing guest.

And Donald starts to talk about how him and his wife have an issue. And I can say this because they already brought it out, it's on the podcast. He has a much he has a bigger libido than she does. Sure. And his libido— he's 50 years old and he has libido of a 16-year-old.

That's why he looks so youthful.

Casey comes on and she's like, all right, I'm ready to talk about it. She's got a Southern accent, she's from Texas. And it starts kind of funny as a joke, and then the woman starts giving them genuine counseling. This is a very common problem, let's talk about it. And it was so candid and interesting and funny that I was like, oh, this I enjoy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

But my point is, outside of that rare exception, we were best when we were shooting this shit about an episode the show. Right, right. So that's why it sort of faded out. Maybe we'll start doing it again now that there's more episodes to talk about. So that was encouraging.

The podcast was one big thing.

Then the T-Mobile campaign became really successful, and then they kept re-upping us. And then I think Bill just being on fire— we always joked, because Bill loves a panel. If you're listening to this and you're orchestrating a TV panel, invite Bill, he'll come. And every panel the man's ever been on, he's like, yeah, we're gonna do something with Scrubs. We haven't figured out yet, but we're doing something. So in my In my mind, you know, the show Psych, whatever channel they're on, they had done some Psych movies. I thought, oh, maybe we'll do that, or we'll do 6 episodes. We'll do something. How could we not? We're all available. There's interest. Bill wants to do it. Bill's on fire. I think it was being negotiated long before the pit because it took a long time to negotiate. This is a businessy thing that most people won't care about, but Bill's deal is— Bill has a huge Warner Brothers deal, one of the biggest of all time.

Yeah, good for him. Good for him. Almost T-Mobile money.

This is a Disney property. So it took like 2 years for them to all talk. Yeah.

Figure out how they'll all make money.

All those lawyers. So annoying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So literally once we said yes, it was like 2 years of negotiations just with those 2 guys.

Wow. So you've known this was looming for a long time.

I've known something was, but it was never revealed until the end. Oh, it's primetime ABC, 8 o'clock Wednesday nights, Hulu the next day, the full push. February 23rd?

February 25th. 5th. February 25th.

February—

do you want to say that again?

Yes, 25th. February 25th. February 25th, 8 o'clock.

We're showing both episodes 1 and 2 back to back. Brilliant. And then it's on Hulu the next day. And then if you're listening to this anywhere around the world, it's most likely on Disney+.

Episode 2, also great. I watched 1 and 2 prior to this. It's a good show. It's a good show.

I just like that while your wife's getting ready, you yell, it's a good show.

My tone is like, there's no way you can say anything but this.

Well, Bill and I had a mantra, and I put it on a whiteboard because I'm very into whiteboarding things. We said, you know, a lot of people are going to come at the show like this with their arms crossed, uh-huh, because the show is meaningful to a lot of people. Where is it streaming?

On Hulu?

Hulu. I imagine it's still huge. It is. I think it's gotten a bump because of the push. And so we said, we have to make the pilot undeniable. And when you say that you're yelling to Kristen, it's good, that makes me feel like we did our job, because we just knew that the show was important to a lot a lot of people, we didn't want to do them wrong. You know, it takes place in 2026. We had to make a modern-day version of it, and we're 50 years old, but we wanted to honor the tone of the show that they loved.

What about having to say the medical jargon? Hmm. Has it been a while?

It's just like if you've ever had to memorize a little piece of another language for a part.

I haven't. I do have anxiety when I'm watching it.

There's a woman on set, or a man sometimes, and first of all, you can say, when you read the script, "Send me the nurse." nurse who's on set saying how you say this. Okay, okay. So then you kind of get it in your head, and then she's on set, so you can be like, am I saying that right? After takes, whenever I do a procedure— even when I did the cop movie, I did a little police training, but there was a detective on set, and after every take I'd be like, I don't know how you did it on CHiPs, but ours wasn't a comedy, and I certainly didn't want to fuck anything up. After every take I'd be like, please tell me, I want to go again if that didn't look right. He's like, that looked great. So I have the same relationship with the nurse who's on set on Scrubs. The AMA, people will be surprised to hear, said that Scrubs was the most medically accurate show on TV.

I have heard that.

I know, but they're saying that about The Pit now. Well, The Pit probably surpassed it.

The Pit is taking the mantle.

In fact, I slid into Noah Wiley's DMs. We love him. I love The Pit. Yes, fucking— And I always thought Noah Wiley never got the flowers he deserved as an actor. I love actors. So when I see an actor who's finally having their moment, I feel this thing in my heart for them. Yeah, yeah. So I never met Noah Wiley, I don't think, but I DM'd him and I said, "I just gotta say, the show's wonderful." "and you're just a phenomenal actor." And he wrote back, "Thank you so much, Zach. That means a lot." Paraphrasing, but it was something to the effect of, "We knew going into this that Scrubs was known as the most medically accurate, and we really wanted to achieve that level of success." Oh, wow. That was kind to us. So that was very sweet.

They also had Wells on their side who had done ER. Right. Was ER—

ER was already out by the time Scrubs aired.

But I think that a lot of the shows that are dramatic take dramatic license because look at Grey's Anatomy, the things that have happened, or ER, the things that have happened.

Well, she was telling me she's on ER, been. It's like 6 or 7 little kids have gotten AIDS.

Yeah, I watched ER again after The Pit because I needed more, mainly more Noah Wiley. Every 2 episodes someone has AIDS, and it's often like a kid, or the way that probably they're not—

the thing about it is the dramas have to keep the drama going. Yes. And when you're on a comedy, maybe you have the license to keep it more realistic because there is a mix of comedy and drama. You don't always have to have someone on their deathbed and you're doing CPR. Also, The Pit and ER are both ER shows. It's interesting. About Scrubs, we do have emergency situations, but we never deal with the world of the ER, right? That's true.

Okay, there's a feather in your cap. So sorry, this is a spoiler. Coldplay is in this episode.

Song or the people? The song. But don't tell what song.

I'm not gonna, but a Coldplay song is in. It's used masterfully. Is it Fix You?

Don't, don't talk, don't talk about it. But I will say it's not Fix You, and it's not Magic.

That's that's all you get to work with. So now Kristen's towards the end of her thing. Have you screamed? It's good, it's good. And then the Coldplay song hits, and then the last couple lines, and she can hear me. I have like some predictable sounds I make as if I'm approaching crying, and a nervous laugh is kind of a part of it too. So I think she's in there and she hears like, um, I'm all by myself I'm in the bed, she's in the bathroom. She goes, are you crying in there? And I go, no, fighting my hardest not to, but I definitely want to.

That's Scrubs. That's the tone.

That's the whole show. I didn't know we went there in the show. It caught me by surprise.

You also break your arm.

It's not saccharine. It was like John C. McGinley says to you— I'm just saying he says something.

He says, come on, he's gonna say lots By the way, I love to hear that you and Kristen have the relationship that I imagine in my mind, that it's like a Samsung commercial.

Yeah, it feels like a Samsung commercial, her yelling from the bathroom, you crying in there? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much what's going on.

Thank you, that means a lot to me. Yes, the show, part of the brilliance of the Bill Lawrence universe is that we make you laugh and then all of a sudden we catch your heart. And I should give credit to Asim Batra, who is the current showrunner of the show, and her team of writers, we then catch you when you're not expecting it and hopefully break your heart a little bit.

Yeah, you did it. Congratulations.

You know, you reminded me, we have too much in common, not just our looks. I used to watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Do you remember this show? Sure, sure, sure. Man, could they pull on your heartstrings when the reveal happens. When they would say, bus driver, move that bus. And I remember just sometimes they would have a special needs child and they would have built a special thing for the child. And I just remember not just crying but making like— making noises. They were involuntary.

Yeah, you never think to do them in a scene where you're supposed to cry. No, but you know when you're, you're just—

there's a tear falling, but it doesn't stop there. Your body goes, and you didn't plan that. Yeah, yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair The Chair Expert, if you dare.

Do you cry a lot in life?

Not in life, but I love more than anything when a movie or a TV show moves me to tears.

I love that feeling. Life, because maybe that's why you guys make all these gurgles.

I hadn't cried from, I think, 9 years old, so when my best friend went to the hospital 7 years ago, so whatever that is, 35 years. Wow. And now I have these little beautiful girls and they sing songs on stage and I cry. I'm now starting to cry more and more and more, to the point where it's almost untenable. I have had a couple big cries here when we're interviewing people. Monica's like, okay, we've hit the limit. I'm kidding.

No, you shut down his crying? No, but sometimes I'm like, again? The line you worry about is that it doesn't seem genuine. It is genuine. I'm here to tell everyone it is genuine. But sometimes you're like, well, you can't cry at this because this isn't a big enough thing.

It's kind of like when you're making a movie, the character can really only I have 2 crying moments max. Yeah, exactly. You're starting to exceed your crying moments.

That's right. If you're talking about a daughter, anyone who's got a daughter's story, or it's a daughter telling me about how she feels about her dad, that's a guess, I'm done. Like, I have 2 little girls, that's all I think about. It's just a fast pass to me.

Cried from the horrible things that have happened, but I don't in my daily life cry much. But I love the feeling, whether it's a play, if it's a TV show, if it's movie where I feel it coming. It's wonderful.

Okay, I have some now personal questions. What is your relationship with your looks? I don't want to compare it to where mine have evolved.

When I was younger, there was no one calling me hot, and I was very insecure about how I was going to make it in Hollywood because I would go on these auditions and I would sit in the waiting room and I would look at all of these beautiful men who were hot and they were reading for the part, and I was like, I'm not gonna get this part. I don't look like that. And And that made me very insecure.

I think there's two sides of that coin. I have that experience. And then also I'd be at the commercial audition for Arby's and I was like, I don't look character-y enough either. I'm not goofy enough looking to get all these funny goofy roles. And I'm not handsome enough. I feel like I'm just caught in this purgatory doldrums of I'm not goofy looking and I'm not attractive.

I felt the same way right out of school. I got— well, even before school, I I got cast as Woody Allen and Diane Keaton's son in Manhattan Murder Mystery. Even though it was a small part, I knew I'd beaten everyone in town out for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because who wouldn't have wanted that part? So I got a little bit of confidence at 18. Then I went to school and learned filmmaking and studied acting, and I got out of school, and the first thing I got was a very high-profile production of Macbeth in New York starring Alec Baldwin, Angela Bassett, Liev Schreiber, Michael C. Hall. George C. Wolfe directed it, huge theater director. I was the young guy who played 2 different young roles. And so that kind of gave me like a, whoa, I just got a really big part for a young guy straight out of college. So I did start to have a little bit of confidence that I could act. But when I came out here and I saw how pretty everybody was, I was concerned that I wasn't going to book TV. And I didn't really. I would never make it very far and never for a love interest kind of thing.

I just wasn't getting that. It was frustrating. When I was waiting tables out here in '99, I was thinking like, gosh, I don't know, maybe I should have stayed in New York. The cool indies were at that point coming out of New York.

And theater, there's not that same bar.

No, a theater is going to choose the best actor.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, it's a meritocracy. And then Scrubs happened, which is—

though Bill knew me and studied me and wrote a part for me, it was so tailor-made for me. And then of course, it goes without saying that Bill and I ended up having the exact same sense of humor. That's what gave me my big break. But the first thought I had was, oh, this is going to help me get my movie Garden State made, because no one was gonna fucking cast me in Garden State if I hadn't written it. Yes, yes. So I knew— maybe you had felt the same way— that I'm gonna have create stuff for myself. Yes.

So my journey is like, hated how I looked, was bummed. I've gotten older and older and older. I like how I look now, especially at 51. And then even crazier, and I wonder if you're having this experience— without naming names, there was a whole legion of our peers that objectively, for sure, in our 30s and 40s, I'm like, that guy is so much better looking than me, it's insane. A bunch of those dudes. And now, because of this war of attrition in the longevity, a lot of these guys I'm looking around, I'm like, I I don't think that anymore. That's my journey with it. Some of my peers have fallen off, and it's crazy to know when you should wish for what.

I don't know that I feel that. I do see people getting plastic surgery, which I think is crazy.

Another thing I want to talk about is you and I clearly haven't had facelifts, but I want to know—

I do do this in the mirror though. I tell you, before I've seen a bunch go awry, yeah, I might have. But I do this, and you know, we both have this thing down to this. They're called festoons. Oh, we know.

He knows all about this, and it's genetic.

So I, of course, in the mirror sometimes on scrubs and I'm like in the makeup trailer going like, can you do this? And they're like, no, we can't do that. That's plastic surgery. Also, don't do that.

You looked crazy. That did not look good.

No, but my point is, of course it had crossed my mind being vain and insecurity, but I've seen enough people go awry that I'm not going anywhere near it.

Well, yeah, that's what I want to talk about. So A, I have zero judgment if someone does it. I don't give a fuck if anyone gets a face lift. I don't give a fuck if anyone does it.

Yeah, that's great. Cut to me like being on the show in 5 years. I know.

Remember when I said I go to the dentist, I whiten my teeth. There's a lot of things I do, and I work out like crazy because I want my body to look a certain way. Like, I'm vain. I just wonder if you're caught in this cycle of thought. Most of the time, I'd say a good 80% of the time, I'm like, this is actually kind of cool. I'm going to be one of the few people that didn't have a facelift, and I'm gonna look weirdly authentic, and I think that's gonna have some weird value. Like, I think I'm choosing choosing the right path. 20% of the time I'm like, this is crazy, why wouldn't I? I have the money and I am vain. I oscillate. But aren't you worried?

To me, the fact that it can go awry— like, I never got LASIK because I don't know what minuscule percentage of cases of LASIK go awry, but I never got LASIK because like, my eyes are my whole life. And that might be totally neurotic and crazy, but I feel like, oh my gosh, your face. And also, if you and I all of a sudden were— we had tiny button noses, if we had little cute noses and a fucking pronounced chin, and a jawline?

Wouldn't people be like, "What the fuck did you do?" Yes, they would. They would.

And we had no festoons?

Don't you think— I mean, you say this all the time, like, what's attractive about people is the differences. It's not— for some people, obviously, it is, but it's like the classic-looking cookie cutter is not what's interesting.

And everyone's starting to meld into one look. I think it helps us that we're the age we are because I'm playing a grizzled cop, a dad. The parts are different. You're not trying to be trying to be the leading man who gets the girl. I was never competing for those roles, really. I did one or two of those, but I was never going to be the Glenn Powell of the moment.

Yeah. Okay, now I'm gonna put you on the spot, and this is to answer my own curiosity, uh, because I'm so interested in all the parallels. But when you directed A Good Person, you had reached out to me a couple times about like AA. Yeah. And I don't know if what I said was helpful or not. Very helpful.

Thank you. You were the first person I reached out to because I started writing this movie about recovery. As I was just brainstorming and getting the story right, I didn't want to go down any wrong paths, and you helped me right off the bat clear up some questions I had.

My main complaint about when I see it in movies is everything's so heavy and so important, and when someone's sharing, it's like they're about to die. And I'm like, everyone has the biggest sense of humor about all the wreckage they've had. That is not the vibe ever. Yeah, even when it's tragic, that's just not our But at any rate, I have come to learn that A Good Person was really you kind of processing through this movie both your sister, one of your best friends who was living with you during COVID who died of COVID which is insane at 41. I know he's got to be one of the very few young people that went down like that. And although those aren't directly the storylines, they're you dealing with that.

Yeah, I wrote A Good Person during COVID My sister had an aneurysm. My best friend was living in my guest house and he got COVID at 41.

In March, at the very beginning. Right at the beginning.

His wife, Amanda Klutz, is a known influencer and actress and performer, and she was very public about it because she wanted to share with people that this could happen to a 41-year-old. And he never came out of the hospital. Again, it was very early on and they didn't know a lot of things. I can't help but I think if it had been today, it would have been a very different outcome.

Yeah. And your dad also died.

My father died of cancer. My manager, I don't know if you ever knew Chris Uvane. Did you ever know Chris Uvane? Oh, yeah, I knew.

He died by suicide. He took his own life.

So all of this happened. I didn't know what to do with it all. When you start to write something, I don't know if you feel this way, I don't always know what it's going to be about. You just start to say, "This character's on my mind. This scene's on my mind. This image is on my mind." And so what came out was A Good Person. It ended up being a story about grief. There is recovery. Recovery as a character in the story, but it's really about grief.

So the thing I've been curious about you for 25 years is what's your relationship with alcohol and drugs, or was there ever dicey periods? That's a good question.

No one's ever asked me that. Maybe Rich Roll, who actually helped me a lot. I don't know if you're friends with Rich.

I'm not. I keep hearing his name and I've never watched the show. I watched it because you were on it.

Oh my God, you would be best friends with the guy.

I feel like it from what I saw.

You have so much in common.

Yeah, we'd either hate each other or love each other. You know, it can go either way when you're— No, you have a lot in common.

He's a fitness nut.

He's a marathoner. He's one of those extreme guys.

He was an addict and completely changed his life around, and now he has a very successful podcast. You have a lot in common. And he loves his wife and kids. Yeah, I definitely have had binge drinking problems in my life. My problem with alcohol was never, oh, I want to drink at noon. And so I rationalized that just drinking a fuckton on a Saturday night until you blacked out wasn't an alcohol problem.

Right, right, right. Also, you have depression and anxiety.

Depression, anxiety, the works. Do you have ADHD, do you think? No, I definitely had panic attacks and OCD and all that stuff.

Uh-huh. What about cocaine? Did you ever powder your nose? Because that's a very good drug. Are you afraid to say that in public?

No, I never got into cocaine. I used to smoke a lot of weed, but ultimately that wasn't for me. College-aged me and older, but then I got sick of it.

So was there ever a point where you're like, oh, I gotta kind of get this on the rails?

Yeah, I think I had some embarrassing experiences where I I was just drinking too much. They accumulated. And so I reached out to Rich Roll actually, because he had had a guy on his podcast that if anyone's listening to this, this is speaking to you. I would watch this episode. The program was called One Year No Beer. And it was an English guy who was just in the business world and his whole career was drinking. It was pints. Every day he had to go for pints at lunch and pints after. And he did blow and I believe in all sorts of things. And his episode of Rich control really spoke to me, not because I had that kind of relationship with alcohol, but because he said, go on this journey and see what your life is like without it. I think it's worth your time to see, out of curiosity, A, can you not drink, because that's something you should know, and B, you should be curious to see how you feel without it. Yeah, and I had never done that. Rich is the one who I reached out to because he was a big inspiration to me, and I watched that guy's podcast, and we eventually had him on our podcast.

And I did a month with actually no alcohol in my body, and then I did another month, and everything he was saying started to come to fruition, that I was feeling better overall, less depression. Part of his whole thing is you are taking an antidepressant and pounding a depressant at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Which is nuts if you think about it. Yeah, yeah. And he said if you drink a couple times a week, the alcohol never fully leaves your system. So you always have this low-grade chemical in your body, a depressant. And so I started to feel everything that he was talking about. Once I flushed the depressant out of my body, I was feeling lighter. I was having more energy. I was feeling happier.

For me, I was like, oh, mornings are nice. Mornings hadn't been nice for 12 years.

Well, also a hangover at 50. I mean, you haven't experienced this.

I mean, I know what they were at the dog days of my 29th year. They were fucking insurmountable. Pronounceable, which is why I had to start drinking in the morning. They were too much. Yeah.

So anyway, I, out of curiosity, ended up doing 13 months never touching booze. Yeah. And totally reset my relationship to it. What were the downriver results?

Did you start looking at your romantic relationships differently in that period? Do you know if there was any kind of ancillary effects?

I know that I had a lot more energy and I wasn't as depressed, and I overall 100% felt better. It was almost the most valuable ingredient of the antidepressant. It was almost like in not taking it, it was like taking the best antidepressant, right? Right. Just omitting. So if you're listening to this and you're taking antidepressant and you're drinking several times a week, I'm here to tell you— you're listening—

if you happen to be listening, if you happen to be sitting within 4 feet of me, you should try.

Oh, is this your story? You should watch this podcast. I'm telling you, it really made me want to try. And by the way, it isn't about you're gonna give up alcohol forever. I drink wine. Wine maybe once a week at dinner with friends socially. I don't get drunk anymore. It's about, A, seeing what it feels like when it's fully out of your system. At least try 2 months and you'll notice it. I kept feeling so good, I did 13 months. But then I went back to a place— okay, I don't have a problem. I don't want to binge drink anymore.

So you've broken the habitual nature of it. So it's like, no, now it has a different—

also, no more booze. I don't do spirits at all. I'll sip wine at dinner. I'll have a mimosa at brunch. I don't get hammered anymore because I just didn't like myself like that. But my point is, since we're pointing at you, yeah, it is an interesting experiment to just see what you feel like a month and then do 2 months. Then you kind of get excited. And also another ancillary thing, not that you have this problem at all, but as a fitness person, the weight just falls off of you.

Oh yeah, I lost like 20 pounds in the first 4 months.

I got lean in a way I had never seen my body. That was kind of exciting.

Any photos? I would love to see.

I sent them to—

but also, my girlfriend, you said sometimes people can gain weight because they're filling the sugar loss with sugar, sugar.

It is very common, yeah, for people to get out of treatment who are like hardcore alcoholics.

I also want to say, and Dax, you should help me say this correctly, this is for someone who was not drinking any amount of alcohol. No one should go cold turkey if they have a serious alcohol problem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you might want to be medically supervised if you experience the DTs when you don't drink.

Right, I just want to be careful. I was just binge drinking, not just— I was binge drinking, not drinking every day. I was just—

I'm just binge But there's so many ways for alcohol to be a problem. Either you're binge drinking or you're drinking moderately but every day.

You know, you've seen the trends of next generation drinking are way down. Oh yeah, yeah. And isn't it insane to think how alcohol was marketed to us our whole lives? Talk about successful marketing. Our whole lives, fun is alcohol. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All those ads— you are not going to the beach, you are not going to the game, you are not hanging out with unless you're drinking. Absolut vodka had such a successful campaign because they did really cool variations of their ad in magazines and stuff. The swimming pools. Yeah. And I had a whole wall of them. My parents didn't care because they thought, "Oh, he's into graphic design." But I had a whole wall in my bedroom that was Absolut vodka ads. And in hindsight, I think, "God, it was brilliant marketing." We were just fed that if you're a human and you want to have a good time, alcohol needs to be a part of it. That was never a question.

And we all have some varying degrees of social anxiety, and it helps with that. So either the young people who don't do it as much— that's on a downward trend— and then the increase in GLP-1 users. So even people that are older now, so many people are on GLP-1s, and that reduces your drinking like crazy. What's GLP-1? Majorno, trisepatide, Ozempic. I know it is Ozempic.

That makes people not want to drink.

Oh my God, yeah. Like people who who were 3-glass-a-night wine drinkers are a half a glass and they don't even really want it. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's almost like across the board. Yours went down, right? Your frequency is the same but your intake is less? Yeah.

Is there talk that it could be helpful for people in recovery? There is talk. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know who's launching the study or funding it, but it's being observed non-stop. There's all these off-label effects of this drug. We've had 30 on here to say, like, it is the most miracle-y drug we've had in the last 60 years. Not just for weight loss. No, because once you're on it, all your metabolic conditions start getting better.

So Alzheimer's, heart disease, it just reduces inflammation kind of in total. Yeah.

And you're satiated, so you don't desire alcohol. It's insane how many positive effects. Wow.

I feel like I should go on Ozempic.

Let's get you on. I'm on. I'm on GLP-1.

You're very thin. Thank you.

It's not for weight loss. So originally I was like, I want to see what it does to my cholesterol. I have high cholesterol, so it's supposed to be good for that. And then, yeah, we just had so many people on that are like, it's great for your brain markers. It's great for this if you have dementia in your family.

We're in an Alzheimer's study with one of the premier Alzheimer's experts in the world, and he's a thin guy who's on it. And he's like, yeah, it has a lot of beneficial effects on a lot of these markers we look for Alzheimer's. Wow.

If you don't have the food chatter, I will say, which I don't, you do have to remind yourself to eat. You do have to be like, I need to eat breakfast now. If you start, yeah, without food chatter.

Because you'll get too thin.

Yeah, and you got to eat food. You know, you got to eat the things you're supposed to eat.

Some people get too thin on that stuff.

They do.

It can be slippery, so you have to monitor it. Oh yeah.

Like anything, it's going to be abuse.

You must have to eat a lot to maintain muscle mass. Or do you do protein shakes?

I do protein scoops in my oatmeal every morning. I have the most boring diet in the world. I am I'm such a creature of habit. I eat the same exact thing almost every meal.

That helps you not have to think about it.

Yes, and I am very ADHD, so routines work great for me. So I do the same thing every morning, from the meditation to the journal to the when I get my coffee to when I'm allowed to look at my phone, then when I get to have my oatmeal. I'm like Rain Man in some ways, and I'm happiest. Can you count cards?

Yes.

Well, Zach, I adore you. I'm probably more interested in you, that's what I'm sensing. I enjoy watching our, like, parallel journeys. When I see you in T-Mobile commercial, it's not like when I see Faison in the T-Mobile commercial or any other actor, I go like, oh yeah, there I am in this commercial. Where's my— how are we aging? Oh, we both haven't had facelifts yet. I was watching Scrubs the reboot and I'm like, guys, fucking hair's still gorgeous. I battled to keep mine. Do you? Oh really? Oh, I have a topical eye dropper I have to use twice a day and it makes my hair greasy. I see the receding now.

Yeah. You know, I don't normally rock this clean-cut fade, the Dax Shepard clean-close fade, so we're a little closer now.

We're graying in a similar way. The sides are gray, but the top's still hanging in there a bit. You don't do anything to maintain your hair? Nothing.

Nothing. You're so lucky. I just have to meet my Kristen Bell.

Well, how has that evolved? Because if I can be critical, I've bumped into you over the years, and you've often been with very attractive, slightly younger girls, or How often that's been the case? Not always.

Not always. Of course, that's been a critique, but not always. Oh, is that a popular critique?

I haven't heard that as a popular critique.

Either way. You don't make those lists of like—

No, no. But with Florence, of course I did because we had an age gap. But that's not been the rule for me. I have a crush on someone. Have you evolved in relationships?

Yes. What were you doing wrong that you know that you're going to try to do right?

Not just looking for adrenaline of the moment, looking for something that could be long-term and a life partnership.

Like reorganizing the top 5 attributes we're attracted to type of thing? Perhaps.

Also, because I'm 50 years old, I don't know if I'm past the age of having children or not. I don't think so.

I don't think so. A lot of people your age have kids.

I guess I'm open to the idea.

I mean, not that you should if you don't want to.

No, but I'm saying I think it took me reaching this age to be like, I'm open to either way. I would fall in love with whomever the universe puts in front of me without being attached attached to the notion that I should have children or not, which is something that I've pivoted on.

Do you think you used to potentially pick partners that when you walked into a room you felt proud to have them on your arm?

Oh, I think I've always had that. That might not be just their looks. I wouldn't be with someone that I wasn't so proud to have as my girlfriend, whether it be her sense of humor.

Do you think that's changed though into more personality over time, or has that always in the case. Um, I don't know.

Well, in your first interview, we did talk about your schooling experience and then going away to camp, and that you were the king of camp, and then you would return to school. Yeah. And so I think when someone's had that experience and they have a lot more options at their disposal, I've yet to meet the person who doesn't want to explore those options. Yeah, I did too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I definitely did that. Now I'm ready to settle down. 50.

You had a great run.

Yeah, it's never too late. You can also be like, there's these dudes, they're 85, and they never decide to do that. And I guess that's fine for them. That's just not me.

Line in, um, This Is 40 where I think it's Jason Segel, he says, I'm gonna Clooney it.

Yeah, but look at what Clooney did.

I know, but at the time he goes, I'm not Clooney it. And then, um, what's her name, I forgot the actress, she says, he has sad eyes. What's Judd Apatow's wife's name?

Leslie Mann.

I think it's Leslie Mann. I was in The Groundlings with her.

I'm gonna Clooney it. He has sad eyes.

Very happy eyes and great at selling tequila. Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah, it was so fun.

And thank you most importantly for liking my show. It means a lot to me. Yeah, it's a good show.

It's a good show. It's good, Kristen. Good show. I don't know what to say. It's good. You can't say anything else about it. It's really good. Oh, you're going to love it, Monica. It has the same spirit.

If you like to laugh and then all of a sudden wonder why there's tears in your eyes, have we got a show for you.

All right, I wish you well. Everyone check out Scrubs. Aaron airing on ABC February 25th and Hulu the day after. Thank you.

You're welcome.

I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.

Jumping right in. Let's pop in. Great. Whoa. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I know that's a big pivot. Okay, but I do I'm going to talk about it. Okay. Because I toured the Rape Treatment Center, which is here in Los Angeles, UCLA. Oh, okay. In Westwood? Yeah, it's connected to UCLA Hospital. Like, it's right there by the hospital. That hospital is really nice, by the way.

Yeah, I visited some friends there.

Yeah, I didn't realize how nice it was. But, you know, it's one of those things where I went to the gala last year and I was like, oh, I didn't know anything about it. And I was sort of taken, you know, I was like, oh, that's like a beautiful thing. Mm-hmm. They, they, the services they provide, which basically if you go there, if you've been raped or law enforcement brings you there, um, you go not to the ER, you go to this separate area and they talk to you, they do an exam. Um, is it not called the rape kit? You're not sure? I think, I think they don't really call that, call it that anymore. Okay. The rape kit is the actual, there is a kit and it has like your barcode on it has all the samples and stuff like that. But yeah, we walked through the whole thing and what it's like. And then it's beautiful. It's really nicely done. It's warm instead of sterile. Exactly. It makes you feel like you have some choice in the matter and dignity. And then, so it's the rape treatment center. And then next to it is the Stewart House, which is for children.

Okay. And that also like— Oh, sexual abuse?

Yes. Okay.

And there's a beautiful— waiting room and that there are volunteers that go and like hang out with the kids. And then there's like a pretend courtroom in there that they like fully make to look like a courtroom. So they can practice. They can practice and understand like where everyone's sitting. And, you know, 'cause often like, you know, it's their like stepdad or something sitting, you know, and it's helping them process all that. Anyway. And then they offer free therapy, free legal— there's a free legal team. I mean, it's really incredible.

Tell you what kind of volume they have? Too much. Okay, they said too much. No, they—

there are real numbers that I don't really remember, but I will say that day, just while we were there— for how long were you there?

The whole thing?

Probably an hour, hour and a half. Okay. 3 different kids were using the courtroom. Okay. So, you know, and it's 24/7, open 24/7. It's very, it's very remarkable. It's only 10% funded federally, so 90% donation. Oh, lovely. And that's why they're really able to like do all of this. And, um, a lot of other places that are fully federally funded are like closing or aren't a lot. There's a lot of now spillover here, which is great. I just want people to know that that's an option if they live in Los Angeles. Yeah, yeah. It's a really cool thing they're doing there. And I was very moved by it. And of course I was saddened, but I was also like, but it's hopeful.

This is positive. Yeah, yeah. Now, okay, now for tricky questions. Okay. It was a gala of sense, right? It's to raise money. Yeah. So did you feel at all a little weird like being super dressed up been looking nice and being there? Were you like, for the actual gala?

Yeah, it was, it was daytime cocktail.

Okay, so it wasn't like, you know what I'm saying though, like to be like dolled up at a place like that, do you feel, is it like, well, the gala wasn't there. Okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, I see. So you went to a gala and then you went and toured it. Exactly, much different.

Yeah, you see what I'm saying though?

If you were like, the red carpet was in front of the entrance, it would feel— it wasn't there.

That was, it was at the Skirball Center. Okay, okay. So the, yeah, the gala happened, and then because I was I was like, oh wow, I was learning about it and I thought it was so special what they do. And you know, there were people telling their stories. Yeah. And I was like, I wanna learn more about this. So that's when we scheduled the tour. Okay. Okay. And anyone can take a tour. They're very like open to having, because it's very hard to just like talk about and tell people what they do. But when you're there and you really see it is like, it, it's very moving. So I left my parents at home to, for that event to, to go, to go do that.

Were they invited, or you just thought this isn't for them? I didn't invite them.

I told them what I was doing. You could have brought them, probably. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I could have.

Yeah, right. But then I didn't want it.

Yeah, yeah. Plus I didn't want—

I don't know, they're on vacation. Yeah, they just got in, and I was like, I'm gonna go to do this rape treatment center tour.

So how is your visit going? You're on probably what, day 6 of them?

Yes, they leave tomorrow. Uh-huh. They leave tomorrow. Yeah, they, they've been staying at my house with me for a week, and you know, that can get tricky.

Well, I stopped by to hang out with them yesterday. I hadn't had a chance to sit with them, and we had a great 90-minute— what's fun is you and I know that we don't ever talk about politics, you and I, right?

Well, we— if we do, it ends up badly. Yeah, so we, we really don't.

Like, I— yeah, like, I, I haven't— I have a hunch of what your opinions are on a lot of things, but I really know, and I don't think you know, and I think we've agreed that's for the best for us. But your parents are political hounds, so I knew like, oh good, like I was actually excited, like, oh, I bet we're gonna argue about politics, which is fun.

I know, which I, I know, I felt kind of like, what's, how's this gonna play out?

Yeah, because I thought it was, I knew it was gonna go good, or I felt like it was gonna, I was like, oh, this will be a fun way for you and I to talk about politics, which is so dicey, but somehow they're gonna neutralize buffers. They're going to neutralize it, right? Which I think they did. Yeah, yeah, because we got into all of it. And I haven't really— I avoid it in general, not just with you. I really don't care what anyone's political opinion is, and, and no one needs to hear mine really. Um, I have of course an opinion on every single thing, but yeah, we just, we got into it.

It's been a while, but we weren't fighting, which was good.

I mean, we didn't agree on much stuff, but we weren't fighting.

Yeah, I thought we agreed.

We also agreed on a lot of stuff, I should say That too. Yeah, but your parents are incredibly well informed. Yes. And this is a topic they talk about a lot. And it's interesting too, because I think Indians in general are really political. We saw that in the Hassan thing, which was interesting. Your dad was just telling us yesterday that Kerala is one of the only places in India where they're not divided up into ethnic groups or religions as much as they're, they're divided up politically. Yes. So it's like there'll be 10 Christians and 3 Muslims and 9 this and that, but they're, they're politically aligned.

Yeah, because in other parts of India there's big rifts in religion.

Yeah. And they mostly are congregated over religion, right? Or probably some ethnicity. Yes. But not in Kerala. So it's like, also, he comes from a place that's clearly quite political. Yeah, yeah.

And my grandpa— yeah.

So they're just very political by nature. They are.

I think also part of that has to do with the generation like the generations that come here, they need to know what's going on in America as people that immigrated, you know what I mean? They feel like they need to be pretty informed.

Sure, but I am around a lot of first-generation Latinos, and I don't hear them talking politics as much.

Yeah, that's probably— that might be true. Yeah.

But anyways, we covered it all, man. We had Epstein, we had the war, we had the election. We ran through all the hot-button topics, and, and we— and I— when I left, no one was mad at each other.

That was fun. Yeah, so it's been, it's been good. They love the house, which is really nice. And it's been a way different kind of trip than normal because of the house, because I've had a place for them to be where they can like just watch TV and hang out.

When I came in, your dad was on the patio doing God knows what he's doing, and your mom's watching TV.

Yeah, yeah, she's been binging some shows that I told told her to binge. Um, so yeah, it's been more relaxed, which has been nice. Of course there's, there's little things, but that's life. That's family, you know. Um, Jess taught them spades. Now this was funny. So I have to admit that I made a bad stereotype, uh, judgment. Okay. I had it in my head that I was like, oh, it would be really fun if like were playing cards. I wish they knew spades. And I'd said to Jess, oh, I wish my parents knew spades. And he said, oh, I can teach them. And in my head I was like, no, that's not gonna work out. They don't play cards. They don't play cards. They don't know what cards are. Right.

They're like seahorses to them. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

And then the four of us were having a drink and I was like, oh, I wonder if you guys would wanna play spades. Do you ever play cards? And my mom was like, no, no, I don't play cards. Not no, I wouldn't want to learn. But, um, and then my dad was like, yeah, like I, I play cards. And he said there's a game in Kerala called 56, which is kind of— he was like, if you grew up there, you know how to play it. It's like basically the state game. Um, the official game of the state.

That's basically what he said.

Yeah. And he said, and it's like, like bridge. And there's betting and there's all the— and he was saying, and I was like, oh, it sounds spades-ish. So because spades is bridges as well. Exactly. And he said my grandpa used to play, and I was like, oh man, like, I wish I knew all of this. Yeah, yeah. Anywho, so my mom's like, yeah, let's learn. So Jess teaches us, and it's so— it is so funny what happens immediately. Their personalities come out so quick. Quickly where my dad is like, oh yeah, and I know, and then you do this and then you do this and I already know, oh, and then you're gonna like— he's such a know-it-all.

To remind you of the first time you played with me.

I mean, I don't want to make the comparisons, but he is such a know-it-all. And then what is annoying is he, he's a know-it-all, but he does know. He's good. He is good at it. Like, I was impressed. I was like, oh my God, yeah, he— and he— because he already knew strategy, he was already counting the cards. He was like, that's already been played. I was like, oh my God, like, yeah, yeah. And my mom is like, I'm not gonna— I don't know, I'm— this is gonna take so long for me to learn. I— we're gonna have to do a lot of practice. Like, she's like nervous. Yeah, yeah, that the rest of us already know and she doesn't know. And we're all like, it's fine, you're learning. And she just keeps saying it over and over again, which was getting annoying. Sure, sure. Um, you would also want want for her.

Yeah, to be in her 60s, had an incredibly impressive career as a computer programmer. She shouldn't feel like, oh, they think I'm dumb. If anyone's earned— like, she should be able to stumble through it and just go like, well, yeah, they know I'm fucking smart. Exactly. And that is a bummer. And, and you— I think we all have a fantasy we're gonna transcend our insecurities. Yeah, I don't know that you do.

Well, and she is so smart. Like, I've never— and I've never heard her not think that about herself. Like, it was, it was weird. I was like, yeah, why is she— what's she doing? Like, it's fine. But she literally didn't even know, like, the suits and stuff. She's never—

she more was seahorse. Yeah, she was seahorse.

Yeah. Um, even though she grew up here. So that was my stereotype, not, you know, not at its best.

Really backfired on both fronts. It did. If one of the two of them should have known cards, it would have been her. According to your stereotype, and And it was reversed.

It was reversed. Yeah. So anyway, she learned and then we finished that. We started a game and my dad and I were on the same team and then Neil and— I mean, Neil, my mom and Jess. Freudian slip. Freudian, yeah. We're on the same team and it was really fun. And then we finished our game yesterday. Oh, you did?

You resumed it? Yes. So how did it conclude?

My dad and I won, but kind of close, very close actually. Okay. It was also fun because my mom started doing moves, you know, and my dad was like, oh, that's a good move. Like, he was like getting impressed. Yeah, nice. The whole thing was very fun.

They were getting flirty.

If we're gonna call it that, I suppose so.

Did you hear footsteps to the next bedroom? No, ew, do not. I was on the verge when we were hanging out yesterday. There was a tiny lull in the political conversation. And I was like, it was on the tip of my tongue. It almost came out of my mouth like 3 times. I was going to say exactly this. Well, I keep asking Monica if you guys had any boyfriends or girlfriends before you got married, and she just has no idea. I was going to get it out of them while we were all together. And I was like, I don't know, Monica might be upset by this. So I resisted. I'm glad you resisted. But it was in the chamber. Yeah. Well, then I made the right call.

Yeah, you did. So that was, that was fun.

I also got to say what was really funny is, so Saturday I had a burst of ambition. You did. And I was like, I'm going to handle everything that's been driving me crazy about my house for the last 6 months that I've been ignoring. There was a palm frond that was sitting in the bay laurel hedges that I've been staring at when I'm in the sauna for 6 months, angry about. Yeah. Can't walk over there and do it. Was that— it was— I got a new rug for upstairs in the bathroom, right? And the door wouldn't clear it. Oh yeah, I'm sure Rob, you experienced that. Did you notice today it clears just fine? I noticed you cut the door because we're dealing with the same thing with our basement door right now. So I took the door off the hinges, I cut down the door, rehung the door. Wow. Clears like a fucking— also, I had got a new nightstand to match my other nightstand I had from 15, 20 years ago. Okay, these were chat rocks. Oh, so I have this furniture I got at HD Buttercup. I don't know what it is, but I still love it.

Okay, right. We still have some of the pieces. My mom has a lot of them. I gave her, like, my bed and stuff. And so one of them now is in my clubhouse, that little nightstand that sits on the right of the couch. And I love it. And then I took a picture of it and said to chat, hey, I bought this in, like, 2006 at HD Buttercup. Yeah. And it's like, oh, this is environment furniture. It was sold in these years at that store. That's cool. What you have is this exact thing. Let me scour the internet and and find out if there are any for resale. Yeah. I'm like, that's insane. I could have never figured this out.

Yeah. So wait, found it?

I didn't find that one, but I found another piece of their furniture, a different nightstand. So at least it's in the same vein. It's like this certain kind of wood that's reclaimed and then lacquered black. So I ordered one secondhand, so excited. It arrives, it's taller than the other one. So I've been sitting in my clubhouse staring at it on either side of the couch, and it just wasn't right. So then I cut down the legs They made that the same. Okay, great. I was banging them out. You know, I'm infamous for underestimating how long things are gonna take me, as you know. Yes. Like, I think I can power wash the driveway in like 45 minutes and 6 hours. Yep. That wasn't happening today. Okay. I was boogieing. I got through all those things in probably like an hour and a half. Okay.

You love to do things.

So then my next thing was my gate has been getting hung up for 6 months on the cobblestone. The gate is very heavy, and over the 2 years since it's been up, installed, it sagged enough that it's hung up on the very jagged cobblestone. Okay. So I ordered a stone chiseling kit. Wow. And I'm like, I'm gonna go chisel out these raised areas of the cobblestone so that the gate will close effortlessly. And this one, I was like, yeah, I'll do that in 20 minutes. And I was out there hammering. Yeah. Listen, we've all heard the expression— I've been breaking rocks all day. That meant nothing to me. That's like, that's usually used to like, it's the worst thing you can do is break rocks all day. I'm here to say that is a great analogy. So I was on probably hour 2, I'm laying on my ground hammering cobble, and all of a sudden I heard a car pull up and it was you and your family pulling into the neighborhood.

Yeah, we were, we're pulling right in the neighborhood and you were, you were right there on the edge of the street working on your, on your rocks, banging the rocks.

Yeah. And so I I ducked my head in the car and your mom was up front and she looked cute. And then your dad looked 6 years old. He was sitting in the back seat with a seat belt on and he is holding a 12-pack of Michelob.

Well, like on the side, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like it was like next to him, like he had a baby next to him or something.

And he was probably wearing his hat.

Yeah, he just looked really cute. It's like, oh, he got his 12-pack of Michelob. He had his arm around it, you know. It was really— oh, he didn't want it to fall over. Me you were parked, you know. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah.

We had stopped to get him his, his beer. Oh, and that's his brand.

That's his brand because of, of blood sugar. Okay. That's a low glycemic index beer. Yeah. Okay, good. I have a question because—

and this isn't in relation to your projects. Okay.

Okay. It is or isn't? It is.

Okay. Do you replace the filters on your furnace? Oh, um, I do, but not nearly enough.

Okay. Yeah, I've been, um, I've been shamed a couple times. Gordon Keith famously stayed at our house and he went and replaced all of them. Yes, but now we're on a schedule and Carly does it.

Okay.

So because they in LA, they get dirty way quicker, quicker than you'd imagine. I think that's part of my problem is growing up I had to replace them for my mom. You did? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But rarely they didn't get filthy, like humidity keeps dust down, um, for many, many reasons. Just LA's way dustier.

Yeah, it's very dusty.

And so, yeah, when I was living in that house, it was like I'd be sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I'd look up there, I'm like, oh, that motherfucker's black. And how long has it been black? And I just hadn't seen it.

Okay. Yeah. So this is part of having an engineer father, right? Like, so of course, you know, I come down in the morning and he's like, so you have 3— like, he's like done his investigations, his analysis of the home. Exactly. His inspection. Uh-huh. And he was like, do you know where your panel is? I was like, yes. Like, I already know. I knew, kind of. I kind of knew. But yesterday he was like, so, you know, you remember you're gonna have to replace the filters in the furnace every 3 months? And I was like, no, I don't. And I said that to him. Oh, okay. And he was like, yes, you you have to do that. I was like, well, I've never heard of that. I've never heard of that before. And I, I mean, are you, are you doing that?

And he was like, yes. Yeah, dads are obsessed with— my, um, Martin, my stepdad, thought about furnace filters more than anything else.

Oh my God, it's a very dad thing to think about.

I of course was like, oh, like I have a different kind, like I have an upgraded kind that won't need a replacement or something, or else I would have known about this. I was like, I mean, how would I not know about this if it's that— if it's that, like, important? Exactly. And then he was like, no, it is. And so he was like, you know, running around looking for where they were, and, and he was showing—

well, there's the hygienic aspect, but then they also start running way less efficiently because they're trying to suck air in through all this clogged— yeah— filter.

So he was looking, he showed— he found the two, and he was showing me, and I was like, I, I'm like pretty skeptical about this. I think he's being extreme because he is extreme. Like, you know, he's an engineer, so he's going to be very on top of all of this extra. And, and then though, I started panicking. I was like, oh my God, like, I can't— there's so much stuff. Yeah, I can't have a house. I don't, I don't know all these things. If he hadn't said that, I would never know that.

Yeah, you would have noticed at some point way too late. You'd have noticed like, oh my God, there's a black box behind that grill.

What is 'What is that?' And you realize, 'Oh, that, that's a filter and it's filthy.' So I was like, 'There's too many things now to consider that I don't know to think about. I don't even know.' Yeah. And then, because then my mom kind of overheard— overheard, she was upstairs watching TV— and she said, 'What are you telling her to do?' And then he said, 'She has to replace those filters.' And she said, 'She doesn't have to do that.' And, you know, you do, you do. Yeah. And I live by myself and I'm a homeowner and I'm gonna have to do these things. Luckily, so of course I texted Bill, my contractor, best friend, another dad of mine, and I said, my dad, and I don't know if he's just being like extra, but he says I have to replace the filters in this. And he said, you do have to, um, but I'm gonna give you basically, uh, how to run this house. Oh great, good.

Now this is— you've wandered into what is sometimes the domestic conflict between men and women. Because let's just say in my circle, what was universal is the moms are so mad at the dads around Christmas time because they don't do a lot of the Christmas present shopping or wrapping. And that is a fact. Yeah. And then the dads are kind of mad because the dads do this kind of stuff, but the moms don't even know it needs to be done. So like a lot of times I'm like, yeah, I know you're mad about the laundry. I do I feel like that. But even beyond that, I don't think you know what I do because you're not thinking about the air filters or the cobblestone or all the little dumb things I do that are mechanical. But you guys don't even know that that stuff needs to happen. So you have no kind of appreciation for it.

Listen, don't include me. I don't have a husband. I'm not nagging a husband about anything. Yeah, but I, I did think at first I was like, oh my God, I can't do this. And then I thought, you know what, wow, I'm going to be like very competent at, at, at running a house, cuz I have to. I have no choice. There's no partner there to handle things. Yeah, you can't— I can't— I mean, I can hire people to help me, but I have to know what to hire them for. Like, so I decided to look at a glass half full.

Yeah, you'll be comp— you'll be very competent.

I'll be competent at, at— you You can do all of it. Running a house. Yeah, it's, I can, I just need to know what it is I need to do. But Bill's gonna help me with that. And of course Bill was like, and I'm not going anywhere. You know, he's so nice to me. Yeah, he loves you. He's so nice.

He loves his daughter. Does he have children of his own or you're his only child? He does. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I think he has many because he has all these other clients. I'm not special. He has other clients. He's so nice. So my dad was right about that, I guess. I was like, I gotta have a kid. Asked, I said, I bet he doesn't do it. But you do.

I do it, and I'm aware of the fact that I should be doing it more. But we've hacked it because now it's just on the calendar, right? And Carly does it. Yeah, it is like— I guess I can't really be too proud of myself, you know? Okay, well, that's honest.

Um, but it is— there is some obvious domestic, um, differences in running households classically, obviously. Obviously there's a lot of chain differences. Yeah. And my dad does a lot of domestic stuff. He does the dishes, like, he does a lot. Yeah. Um, but yeah, because when my mom was like, she doesn't have to do that, uh, he was like, yes, she does have to. And, and she said, she said something like, something like, she's a woman. That made me mad. That mobilized you.

Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did.

Because also I said, well, no, I am. It's just me. Yeah, yeah. So yes, I do.

You can't not do the things that need doing because you're a woman. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

So I'm gonna be so competent soon. I need to take a nap.

Oh, I know what I want to say, and I don't know why I want to say— I think I want to encourage people to show their kids movies.

Oh, all right, great.

And I'm always struggling to like, what movie should I show? I know I want to watch a movie with generally Lincoln. Lincoln's now of an age where she can watch pretty much everything. So Moulin Rouge, a great movie, had been forever— like, my daughter loves singing and musicals, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, Moulin Rouge! How haven't I shown you that? So I showed her that. That was a big hit. Yeah. And then the one that I, I just had a hunch she was gonna love, and I bet you haven't seen this— have you ever seen First Blood? No. The original Rambo? No. Okay, now I bet you're put off immediately by hearing Rambo, but what I want to compare too, and it's a perfect comp. Rocky, the first one, was nominated for Best Picture, right? Might have even won. Might have won that year. The subsequent Rockies are more cartoonish. They're more like superhero movies. He's, he's less of a real person and whatever, but the first one is a legit masterpiece. Okay, he did win Best Picture for that. It won Best Picture. Yep, 1976. There you go. None of the other Rockies were gonna even get nominated, right?

The original Rambo: First Blood is It's an incredible movie and it's poignant and it's really dealing with the issue of the times, which are like these kind of wayward Vietnam vets who are just back in America and everyone hated them and they had no role anymore. And it's a great movie. Okay, but he's immediately— he wants to stop in this town to visit, uh, an old friend of his from Delta Force. He finds out that guy's dead. He's really sad. He wants to stop in this tiny little town in the Cascade Mountains in Washington and have a meal. But the sheriff does not want him there because he's clearly a Vietnam vet. And this escalates. They arrest him. He's having flashbacks. Anyways, it turns into a manhunt in the mountains. Okay. And not only did she love it, what I loved was like, she loved it for the same reason I did as a kid. And even watching it again is like she wants to know if she could survive. Oh, she was like, I want to be chased and see if I could get away too. I'm like, yes, me too. Okay.

Wow.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. He has a knife, and in the knife he's got matches and a kit to sew up, suture himself as he needs. He's a one-stop shop. Shop for survival. Wow. Yeah, and it's a really appealing tale if you have like a nice personality type. Yeah, to the degree that she's like, I want to figure out how to have a birthday party that's like a survival— oh, that's fun. It sounds like a lot of moving parts for me.

It also sounds like you need a liability waiver for the friends.

Yes, we all have those knives.

You gotta have a knife. Yeah, yeah.

And who are we gonna—

I bet there are kids or something that's It's kind of fun, like a Survivor birthday party.

I took her to Charlie's son had a birthday party at paintball. Yeah, you may recall this, Ace. Yes. And the whole way she was like nervous, was afraid. It's all boys shooting paintballs at each other. And I, I just was like, honey, I just have a hunch you're gonna love this actually. And she loved it the most. Yeah, she was so into it. Yeah, so paintball's kind of that. You get to see if you can survive and outfox the other people.

Or what's that called? Laser tag. Laser tag.

Yeah, that's a, like, a more G-rated version.

That's fun. Yeah, I mainly just kind of hid. I was in defensive mode. That's how I started. Good strategy. Yeah, that's my strategy. I don't know that that movie is going to be for me.

No, it's a great movie. Okay. Kristen was watching it too, and she was like, oh my God, this— I can't believe this is such a great movie. I would have never thought Rambo, John Rambo, was a good movie, to the point where she went to bed early and we finished it, and then she woke up in the morning and finished it. I think that's a testament Okay, that is good. Yeah.

One other thing, now that we're talking about things you've— we've watched. Yeah. Um, I started DTF St. Louis. It's fun. Are you— you're watching it? Yep. It— I mean, I only watched the first episode. I started the second episode. It's so good. Of course. Stephen Conrad. Stephen Conrad, The Patriot, your favorite show. Favorite show, watched 4 times. It's Bateman, it's David Harbor, and it is so good. I can't wait. It is so funny and weird and very him, very Stephen Conrad, where it's like, what is this? Like, tonally. But oh my God, I was like dying laughing. Oh, I can't wait.

They're— Kristen has gone back to work, so it's kind of tricky to be— and I— that's a show I'm not allowed to watch. Sure, on your own.

Yeah. Um, well, it's fantastic.

Yeah, that's the only reason I haven't seen it yet. I want to be clear because I'm an ultimate Stephen Conrad fan. Highly recommend it.

It has a Peyronie's disease reference.

Yeah, it does. Yay! Ding ding ding! Which seems like it was written after you. Oh wow, it does. You're gonna feel very— I don't have it anymore.

Yeah, let's be clear, you don't have I don't have it.

I had it. Sure. But you can heal from it, which I did, luckily. Oh, it's, you know, it's—

that was also seeing David Harbor since all of the drama. Uh-huh. At first I was like, it was like all I could think about.

You were distracted. I was distracted by the drama.

I was like, oh yeah, David Harbor. I mean, he's so good, it's crazy. He's a beast. He's so talented. It just made me think— I mean, I already think this isn't some— this isn't new me, but I'm like, ah, just like celebrity gossip is so annoying. Like, just let people do their jobs unless they're— of course, if they're hurting people, sure, like abusing people, yes, that's bad, clearly, and people need to go to jail. But, but I'm just like, being bad girlfriends and boyfriends, I don't need to hear about it anymore. I just want to be able to watch these people entertain. That's their job.

I guess if I'm I'm trying to be like third person observer of it. I'm an alien. I would imagine there's something comforting about knowing people that you feel like have too much good luck or good fortune are suffering and flawed is somehow comforting. I know, but like, yeah, schadenfreude, but it's annoying.

Annoying because, okay, so what if he didn't get that? Obviously they had already shot— I'm sure they had already shot that show by the time all this happened. What if he didn't get it because of that? Like, we'd all miss out. Yeah, yeah, on that performance. Like, he's— I don't know, it's just— I'm just— I'm sick of celebrity talk. Okay, okay. Uh, anyway, anyway, speaking of facts, oh, I have an update that leads right into to facts.

Great. Love it. So the Amanda-Pete episode, yes, was so fun in that I have now connected those two. Blake and Amanda. Blake and Amanda are now friends and they're chatting and I'm on a text thread with them, right? And I said, you know what, I have a concept already I had come up with for Zach and I.

Sure, it's yours. Oh wow, you handed that over.

So now it may come from them. Nature versus nurture may come from us. We'll see. But it's— I, I've gifted that concept them if they want to explore it.

Oh, so are you identical twins separated?

Yeah, I mean, hijinks and zoos.

Yeah, is it like a race to see who—

No, I wish them well. I'm not ready to go make a movie. All right.

Um, yeah, I mean, I guess we are— it is like 2 episodes back to back that are doppelganger heavy. Yeah, yeah, which is kind of fun. Yeah. Um, oh, other update, sorry, from Amanda Peet.

Amanda Amanda Anka.

Ding ding ding! Sad, right? She's married to Bateman, right?

Oh yeah, and she's married to Bateman. Yeah, but she came up— she did. Amanda was suggesting that she probably had done all this New Moon stuff. Yeah, and she told me that— well, let me see exactly— she participated in some. Okay, okay. She wants—

I hope she didn't cut her hair.

Funny you would say that. No cinnamon or salt, but would not wash my hair. Good. That was her text. Did she wear red? I said, and did you wear red? She said, socks. I usually sneak the red.

Okay, yeah, that's fine. That'll work. I was told you can do even your underwear as long as it's something.

That'll prevent the jinxing. Yeah.

Um, speaking of that, my mom, I just forget, like, she is so superstitious, and every time we're at a restaurant and we have a drinks, she has to— she— we cheer, we always have to cheers, and she always says, to good luck and good fortune, I think. Uh-huh, something like that. Good health and good fortune. I forget it, but she has to say it every time. And if she does, it's like, you know, it's a panic. We got to say it.

Who knocks on wood first when you guys are together? Her. Her? She's beating you to the knock on wood? I think maybe. Probably same time. Perfectly synchronized, probably.

But it was funny because we were talking about the— some— we're talking about these superstitions and like cracks, cracks in the sidewalk, you know, not walking on cracks in the sidewalk and stuff. And my dad was like, cracks? And what are— what cracks in the sidewalk? There aren't any cracks in the sidewalk. And she was like, yeah. And I said, yeah, you know, when they— the two, the two pieces meet. He said, oh, the joints. You know, he knows all this verbiage. He's like, oh, the joints? No, those are there to prevent cracks. It's true. I was like, oh wow. Yeah. He was like, so you can step on those. They're crack prevention. Exactly. Um, okay, this is also ding ding because we're talking about shows. I started the new Scrubs since, uh, since— and as I think I mentioned, I loved the original Scrubs.

So tell me, I hadn't watched the first, but to me it seems like they did it. That's the exact same show.

They nailed it. It's so good, and that tone is so specific. Those jokes are So specific. The writing is all— I can't believe they're able to do it again and recreate it and have them all be older and it still work. And it is, it's spectacular. That has to be quite a challenge. Yeah. They really, they, hats off. Congrats guys.

To good luck and good fortune.

It did make me, I cried of course, 'cause that's what they do. But also I was feeling so nostalgic watching it. I was right back to being in college when Callie and I would watch it.

Yeah. Talk about JD. Well, we didn't. Okay. Is that his name in the show? Yeah, that's his name.

Okay. John Dorian is his name. John Dorian. And yeah, it made me happy sad. It made you sad. It made me happy sad. Bittersweet. Nostalgia is such a weird feeling. I don't like it. She's a weird mistress. She is. I wish she would— I wish she would die. Oh no, no, I love nostalgia. No, it makes me feel too many things. Oh, I like it. I don't want to feel those things. Okay. Um, oh my God, huge Sim. Okay, huge Sim. So he told us a story about how they were in Vegas— him and Donald Faison were in Vegas, they saw the Chainsmokers. Chainsmokers at this club. Yeah. And I was gonna look up the club. Yeah. Also, but when we had the Chainsmokers on, they were telling us about the residency at the Wynn, I think it is. Well, hold. Okay. So then I edited this episode, you know, and I write down my facts, and then I go to pee. This is minutes later. Yeah. I go to pee. I'm looking at Instagram during my pee. Nicole, our friend Nicole, stylist— Chavez. Nicole Chavez had a post. She was in Vegas. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The day— that day. Uh-huh. With Donald and Casey. Okay. At the Chainsmokers. At the— I guess the opening of Zero Bond.

Okay. I don't know what that is.

So that's a club and it's— and there was an opening.

And what hotel is it in? I thought the Wynn, but— Yeah, well, that's what I think.

Yeah, it's at the Wynn. W-Y-N-N, right?

So that was wild.

Yeah, that's the Dingles.

Anyway, so a lot of people were at that opening. It was like a place to be.

Sure, they probably sent jets for people. They said who sent jets for people? Oh, it's the kind of thing they'll say, hey, if you want to come to this nightclub, we'll send a jet. Um, okay, how—

what percentage of LASIK eye surgeries go awry? Oh, um, I think it's very rare. Yeah, infamously occurring in less than 1% of cases.

Yeah, they've got it nailed.

Often cited around 0.3% to 0.7%. Oh, however, temporary manageable side effects like dry eye, halos, or glare affect up to 30% to 45% of patients in the months following surgery. That's temp. That's temp. Yep. I got new sunglasses.

Oh, I've been wearing the exact same pair of sunglasses for 12 years. I found a pair I loved and I never deviated. Yeah, Leisure Society, they're great. Yeah, you love those. Well, they got me with an Instagram ad Leisure Society, whole new frames, and I got 3 new pair. And my family's been making fun of me so much. Why? Just because Dad got new sunglasses. You know, Dad's just the resident dork. Oh, that's the role you play. But are they cute? I love them. Yeah, I think they're great. Yeah, they think they look great too. They're just laughing at the fact that I got a new— after 12 years, I have new sunglasses. And I was wearing them a lot. Yeah, and So that's just stupid, you know? Yeah, like what if your dad was wearing new sunglasses? You and Neil would probably be like, oh my God, Dad in his new sunglasses.

I don't know if we would, but yeah. Okay, he said on their podcast, for one of them, one of the episodes, they had a sex therapist on, and I was like, I bet, I bet it's Vanessa.

Okay, we had on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, and I looked it up and sure is it Oh, it was. Yeah. That makes sense. Yes. Vanessa, great episode. Great gal. Mm-hmm. Oh, one thing I wanted to remind everyone if they forgot, which they definitely did. The first episode with Zach Braff was the original Monica Loves Boys, how it started. So there was a picture of me looking at Zach. Okay. That, you know, Rob would take pictures during the episode. Yeah. He took a picture and I'm smiling in such a way.

You look like you're in love with him. Yes. Uh-huh.

And then we, that's when we, came up with Monica Loves Boys, just the name Monica Loves Boys. I think Rob wrote it on the picture and then really took off. Yeah. Who's the One Year No Beer guy? Co-founders Ruari Fairbairns and Andy Ramage, or Ramage. Those are them. They do One Year No Beer. Seems like maybe it's Andy Ramage mainly. That's who he was talking about.

I think so. That's who he heard interviewed.

I believe so. Um, that's it. That's all. Yeah, that's it for Zach Braff. Okay, number 2.

Thanks, Zach Braff number 2. Good job on Scrubs. Doppelganger. I wonder if people start telling me they like me on Scrubs. They might. They like the reboot.

I know, but we established you guys are—

we don't really look alike, but you— it's—

there is something weird. Oh yeah, it's like the mouth, eyes.

There's something going on It's the whole face. Yeah, but it's also much different than it was. It is different.

It is definitely different than it was, but also quite quick.

Yeah, yeah, not as similar but still similar. Yeah, that's what we would—

it's just so weird because I don't have one that we've met yet.

Well, the gal from, um, um, season 3. No, your friend on Instagram.

Yeah, yeah, she came back in the new season.

Yeah, of course, by popular demand.

She is not my doppelganger. Yeah, no. Okay, what's her name again?

No one ever thinks—

she's your friend.

No one ever thinks they're doppelgangers. They're doppelgangers. You think it, you know it. Well, because I'm exceedingly honest. What?

Mine's not about being honest. That girl's beautiful.

I know, but you would agree that— do not, Rob.

I want you to be very honest.

Why don't you show one from season 1? That's probably what she looks like now, but that's her on a red carpet with her hair slicked back and short. Like, that's, uh, maybe Robbie, you should pull up—

okay, now pull up a picture of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's not a doppelganger, but it's not—

yeah, one more. Okay, she has a much cuter nose than me. She's—

there we go.

Look at that. I love with the eyeshadow and the Yeah, that could be you.

We shave your sides and put some dark eyeshadow on, and she can give mean eyes like you can. But she's probably just on the verge of rolling her eyes, which is going to send him to the ground.

That's a really old picture. Look at that.

I don't—

do we— maybe I can't be objective. Do you really think those look the same? I can see it, but I was like 20 in that picture.

She's probably 24 in that picture.

I was actually probably like 24 in that picture. That was my first headshot.

Wait, I don't know who's— wait, which one's her? Yeah, I love her. I think she's great. She was also in Debs.

Yeah, she was. Yeah, she's your friend on Instagram. Yep. I have a lot of your best friends.

I have a lot of friends on Instagram. She's my friend. Yeah, I follow her.

That's your friend?

Yeah, that's my friend. That's your friend? I follow her on Instagram. Oh, there's my other friend I follow on Instagram? Oh, there's one too. Oh my God. All right, well, you're not, you're not buying it.

But listen, by the way, I wish that— I wish that she was my doppelganger.

This is where your own, like, um, body and face dysmorphia get in your way. Like, you wouldn't be able to see— as soon as you identify someone else as pretty, then they're no longer your doppelganger. That's like literally what's happening right now. You're like, oh, she's really pretty.

She's not my daughter. Her nose is different than mine. Yes.

And Zach has many different aspects of his face than I do. He's got black hair. We have different chins. We have a lot of different stuff. But there's some thing that is eerily similar. Her nose is nice.

Maybe I should take that into the plastic surgeon and say, make makes me look like that.

Um, all right, anyways, it's good to see my friend. It's good to check in.

Bye, love you. Bye, love you.