"Bob Odenkirk"
57:06 Share

All right, I know we want to get started here on the show, but I just got an email from my mom. Yeah? What does it say? Classic. It's just a list of words as alternatives for swear words, because she thinks I swear too much on the show. She gave you a whole list of swear words? Yeah, she's given me like one, like 11... Alternatives. Yeah. Wow. Anyway, this is fucking SmartList. Let's go. SmartList. SmartList.

Hi, Talking. Hi. Hi, Talking. Talking, loving, learning. Wait, is that, are we, let's just change the title of this thing to Talkers. You think that's a good? I don't think it's too late. Talkers. And we could. You sound a little hoarse.

Well, it's just that is a think bar looking for freebies. And this is, again, think bar. That's T-H-I-N-K with an exclamation point. Too bad it wasn't helping with your thinking. Yeah, I was just going to say. And that goes down great with smart water.

That's great. This is why you're on the Talkers podcast. I'm so happy that you do most of your thinking. You don't do most of your thinking out loud. I'm sitting here uncomfortably. I've got one of, very sweetly, the other day I hurt, I tweaked my back. And so I've been kind of laid up.

And all of a sudden, Jason appeared at my house. True story. And he brought me over three of those icy hot patches for me. I know. I didn't even ask him. He just showed up. When was this? Two days ago. Was that weird? I mean, it's, you know, I do something super, super nice, true.

a year. Maybe, maybe no, probably once a year. It was unsolicited and he showed up and I was sitting there and he just showed up and he gave it to me. And it was really, I've got one on right now. I think I may have revealed how much I love you there. Um, unintentionally. Um,

Now I'm shy. I know. Maybe you can come over and bathe me then. You know, I just want to say, so we've got a guest on here today, a guy who... Does somebody have a washing machine going? Yeah, well, they're very busy. And by the way, it's right on brand for our guest because he's a very busy guy and has been for a long time. He's a man who wears many, many different hats. He's a...

in my eyes, in my view, a comedic god. He was on SNL. He worked on Conan as a writer. He created some really iconic sketches at SNL. He then moved to, then he came back out here to California where he's originally from Illinois, near where Sean's from. Oh, wow. Who is this? And they worked on SNL? Worked on SNL, wrote on the Ben Stiller show, then created a show with our friend David called Mr. Show with Bob and

Oh, yes, of course. Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bob Odenkirk. Hello. Gosh. Wow.

I love you brought us right up to it. We got it. Come on. You got that. You got that from me moving around my kitchen. You should have heard the names in my head. I was shuffling through. Sudeikis was there for a second and then, and then no, I don't think there's a Chicago there. And look at you, Bob. Yeah, there is. I think. Wait, he did a little bit of Chicago. He did. Yeah. Well, he was in second city. Um,

I'm pretty sure he's a Chicago guy. Wait, Bob, what part of Chicago? Well, I went to college my first year where you're from, Sean. Which college? I went to COD. You did? College of DuPage? For one year. I lived two blocks from there. That's our cue, Will. Let's take a tight five, you and me, Will. I was 16 when I went to college. No way. That's not surprising.

So I was kind of afraid of going away to college. I felt like I was so young. I would really not. Well, did we grow up near each other then if you went to College of DuPage? Yeah, I went to Naperville. I grew up in Naperville. That's insane. I grew up in Glen Ellyn. You know what? That's so funny because when Jason was 16, he dropped out of eighth grade.

So that's like this very similar story. Now, so 16, you went to college at 16. That means you're one of those, uh, not dumb guys. No, no. You and Keith doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean a damn thing, except that I found out I could leave high school and they'd let me go. And, uh,

I was like, all right. So then in 10th grade, they said you're done. I just went to school young when I was a little kid, and then I left a year early. So I cut two years off. But was that normal in your family? You have like six siblings, right? Seven kids, so six, yes, siblings. Any drunks? Any drunks, my dad. Yeah, same.

My dad covered the whole, he did it for all of us. He said, but the last thing he said before he died was I drank all the booze. I'm so sorry, kids. I drank it all. Now there's none left for you. So wait, so getting back. So, so in 11th grade, they said you need not go to 12th grade. All my friends were a year older than me in high school. All my close friends.

And they were all leaving. And I thought, well, I don't want to be here if they're leaving. So I asked, I went to the office, I said, can I leave? And they looked at my number of credits and they said, yeah, you can. After Jason, just so you know, since then, I've heard that my high school has raised the, uh,

they turned up the credit number so that I, that's not going to happen so easily. And all these ninth graders. Sounds like quite a process. Did you have to go to junior college for a couple of years to get into the kind of university you wanted? No, I went to COD, which is a small community college where Sean grew up, uh, which is only a 20 minute drive from where I lived. Uh, because I, I could have gone to any college. No, I mean, I got my, I got my degree, uh,

uh, from high school. And, uh, and I just, I just didn't feel like I'd fit in at all. And then in college, what did you leave with? What did you major in? I went to, uh, uh, three different colleges and four different, four colleges. Uh, the fourth one was just a class I took anyway. Look, no, what,

I want to know what you graduated with. I sound like a hero and a genius, real Einstein. He's trying to hide how highbrow the major was. Is it archeological theories? No, no, no, no. I got a major in broadcasting.

Oh. Broadcasting. And a minor in philosophy. Because you wanted to be an on-air guy? I wanted to be an intellectual on-air chatty guy. And here we are on the dumbest podcast ever made. Honestly, Jason, yes. Smash cut to smart list. And I'm going to lower the bar on this podcast, which is quite something. Good luck. Good luck.

Well, you've been successfully hiding your sophisticated intellectual high brownness for years. Not to imply that you've been coming across as a dumbass, but you certainly seem very approachable anytime I've ever talked to you. Wait, wait. So, Bob, let me – so take us back for a second. So you go to college. You go to four colleges because you had to show everybody up. And then when was the moment – so when did you start getting into –

when did you start getting into comedy, performing and comedy writing and working with Smigel and Conan and all that? What was that? Honestly, I started writing comedy like diligently, like as part of my daily routine when I was like 10. Wow. I just loved it. I just loved sketch comedy. Like knock-knock jokes? What's a 10-year-old writing look like? No, no, no, no. Sketch, fake commercials, parody commercials. That would be the first thing. Were you a big Saturday Night Live fan at that age? I,

I always liked Saturday Night Live. I was a big Monty Python fan. Yeah, same. And I particularly liked the Saturday Night Live episodes that Steve Martin hosted in the early years. For sure. Those were another cut above everything else on the show, which was a great show in its first five years. A great, great show. But Steve Martin hosting was like supercharged. But I loved Monty Python. In fact, when I interviewed with Lorne, I...

Lauren Michaels from Saturday Night Live. Yeah. When I, when I did get an interview with Lauren to be a writer at SNL, I don't know. I was sitting out there, you know, he makes you sit, he makes you wait for hours. Like, like 1am appointment. Right. You know, like Janine Garofalo famously waited six hours to go in for her meeting. Mine was not that bad. It was like an hour. I'm still waiting. Um,

But nothing gets me more nervous than waiting for a meeting. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. And he asked you, he asked me, what do I, what do I like? What shows do I like? And I'm like, Monty Python. He's like, have you, you know, do you like what we're doing here? And I'm like, not so much. I thought he wouldn't want to get his ass kissed. I really thought not only do I genuinely like Monty Python more than this show,

I thought he doesn't want to hear me go, Oh, I wish I could work here. You're so great. This is the best thing ever. All he wants to hear, right? That's all he wants to hear. So I go in and I'm a real standoffish, which I can be right. Yep.

I'm good at it. Yes. Yeah. And I'm, but I really kind of sort of purposefully was like, I'm not going to kiss this guy's ass. He doesn't want to hear that. He wants to hear that. I have some perspective on what they're doing here and comedy. And, and I also knew Lauren liked Monty Python a lot too. So I was like, look, Monty Python was the best and still is.

to me is the best, not this show. And you do your little show. Meanwhile, I'm a waiter at Ed DeBevick's. I'm a fucking waiter. And I'm sitting with Lorne Michaels going, nah, it's not so good. It's not so good what you do here. But you got hired. How did you get that interview, Bob? Like, where did that come from? Smigel. Robert Smigel was a really important writer at Saturday Night Live almost from the time he got hired.

He was just built to write for that show. And he just wrote so many great sketches. There's that great Star Trek, Trekkie sketch with Shatner where he says, get a life to these people. It's such a great moment. But so many, so many. I mean, the thing is, Robert's known for Triumph, the insult comic dog and everything.

the number of wonderful, amazing sketches that just made that show relevant and important and worthwhile that he wrote is hard to express. And it's not just the recurring ones. I mean, he wrote

you know, Mr. Short-term memory and all these and the bears guys and all that stuff. But he wrote just the greatest thing. So he was really important there and Lorne knew that. And Robert and I had been roommates and he had seen me in a show in Chicago and liked it and thought I was really a good performer and funny writer. And so we had begun writing a sketch show when he got hired at Saturday Night Live.

So he sort of was a pipeline for me. I was writing my material and he would share it with other writers in the office. And I would also work with him on the phone and punch up his sketches for the week.

I actually got a sketch on when I wasn't writing there before I got hired there called Sideshow of the Stars. You remember Circus of the Stars? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Jason, were you ever asked to do that? I proudly turned it down one year. Wow. Yeah, I think I was upset with the skill I was offered. I wanted trapeze and I think I got like, you know,

Dog tamer. It's so great, Bob. You're one of like a number of guests who have come on and mentioned these like great celebrity shows that were on in the 80s and they always go, Jason, were you on that? There's always a good chance that he was.

I know you guys had Paul McCartney on because I listened to that because he's so great. That was such a great episode. Anyone who's listening to this episode and hasn't listened to that, stop right now. Thank you for the plug. Thank you for the plug of our old episodes. Such a great episode. Jason, you're invited to be on.

The Wings ABC special? No. The what? Gotta watch. This is the worst thing McCartney ever did. And I'm a huge fan. God bless him. See, I immediately went to the TV show Wings. No, his band Wings. They thought, I forget the logic of this I was reading about. I was reading about McCartney and I thought, I read about this thing where he did a one hour special for ABC for network primetime and it was just so bad.

Back in the 80s? I love watching that scene. Yeah, with wings. Oh, boy. It would do great today. Yeah. Bob Odenkirk, you're in one of the biggest shows in the history of television, Breaking Bad. Yeah, I'm a small part. And Better Call Saul, right? Let's make that connection to how you get to Breaking Bad because I love this moment.

Bob, your trajectory is one of my favorite of all time. And, you know, I'm very fond of you. And you and I have a long history. Bob and I made two movies together. Great movies. Well, I'm a big fan of you, Will Arnett. I think you're one of the great actors. One of the greats. Who still hasn't had a chance to show everything you can do on screen.

And I apologize for not helping you do that. No, Bob. You did great with those movies. Those two movies, listener, as soon as you're done running through the Paul McCartney episode, you need to watch both Let's Go to Prison and Brother Solomon. You did a great job directing those movies despite Will Arnett being in those. You shot around Will so beautifully. So my experience with Bob was I didn't know him.

Bob came on Arrested Development the first season, one of the first episodes, Jason, you remember, and did those awesome scenes with David where you play the marriage counselor and then Bob and David ended up taking over each other's roles and it was fucking insane. And I was so, you know, I was such a huge Mr. I knew David a little bit, but I was such a huge Mr. Show fan.

It really, to me, was just the pinnacle of sketch comedy. And I loved it so much. Oh, God. Anybody in comedy, that's like, yeah, that is the show. It's just it for me. That's so nice. Thanks, buddy. I remember one time we went to, before we did Let's Go to Prison, and we went to a, I forget, we were at somebody's house, like a Christmas party or something. And you ended up talking to me, and I was like, man, I can't believe I'm talking to Bob. Bob Odenkirk. I just, I just. And then you were like, he's a great guy.

here's, here's where I think that you could, and you like gave me some advice, like on, and I really listened to every word. It was great. You'd had a couple, you'd had a couple because your dad had left a couple of beers out before he passed. They were warm. It was like a treasure hunt, but it was so awesome. And then, and then not long after that, they, um, let's go to prison came together and, um,

I got to go and work with you. And really, you, me, and Dax spent so much time in that... First of all, in that prison in Joliet, Illinois. Which is a prison my dad drove us by that prison when I was a kid. He drove me and my... Keep drinking. You're going to be in here. No, he said...

he said, look over there, boys. We drove right by that two lane highway that runs beside the prison. He goes, that's Joliet Correctional Facility. If you do bad things, you're going to end up in there. And it's a scary prison. Very frightening. It's fucking scary as shit. In fact, Melissa McCarthy was on, she grew up nearby there too. And she said that when she drove by with her mom in her Catholic school dress, her mom would say like, don't let them see you. Yeah.

So frightening. Right, so scary. So we go and we make that movie, and you had just had, you'd done Mr. Show to great acclaim. You also were on Larry Sanders, one of the other great influential comedies of all time to great acclaim. Then you start directing, and then- Poorly. No, no. Well, listen, let's go to- I did my best. Both those movies are so damn good. Yeah. Yeah.

You never know why shit. And Bob and I, we had it. That's really true. I think it's true, Will. I mean, you don't know how these things are going to come out. I mean, there's so many components and that goes for everything, but certainly a feature film and you just got to hope that it all marries up and somehow is as good as what you hoped it would be or maybe better. I've thought about this a lot with Brother Solomon and,

I felt a certain amount of guilt because I love Will so much as well. Will Forte. Will Forte. And he wrote that for us to do. And we went and did this movie. And I always, as you know, it was one of the funniest scripts I've ever read to date. Yeah. And just incredible. And I always felt like, fuck, man, I wish it was better for Will because I loved him so much. Well, I actually had this horrible brain fart that comes to you after you die.

fail miserably, maybe sometimes days later, or in this case, like a year later. And I thought, I wonder how that script would be if you shot it as a low budget

movie on location, not building the sets because it's already such a heightened, there's such heightened characters. And that was what I think really threw me off. You know, I, I first got that script. I read it. They asked me if I wanted to direct it. And I thought it's too much of a meta movie. It's too, everything's too conceptualized in these people and how they look at life. I don't, it's almost like a cartoon or like,

Anyway, I said, I just don't know how to make this work. And I handed it back. And then I got a call like a week later. Will Arnett wants to be in it. And come on, Fortale be in it. And we'll all get together. It'll be so much fun. And it's such a fun script. Come on. And directing is fun. It's really fun. And I'm like, ah, shit. Yeah, okay, I'll do it. But I just didn't, I hadn't figured out, look,

It's weird to say this because we just acknowledge that movies are such an uncertain enterprise. So you can never really know for sure. But I would say that in that case, I didn't have that core perspective.

principle to build around. And so I was going off what I read. And when you read it, it can read kind of like a version of Dumb and Dumber, which is to say they went with, you know, these bold, broad characters. And it would have been neat to take that same sensibility and those characters, but land it in a really low budget, like low budget.

Fi world. It might have worked. I think it might have worked great. And you could have done it, and Forte could have done it. Same cast. Yeah, I think that you're probably right. And I think that you and Will and I should get together and remake it. It would be the fucking hilarious thing to do. I'd watch that. The funniest thing to do if we did it the way we want to. But I will say this. A real testament to Bob was years later, I think we all felt a little...

because it didn't turn out the way we wanted to. And I ran into Bob, and Bob went out of his way to come over and say, hey, man, I'm really sorry. You said that I felt like I let you down, and I kind of said the same thing. And we kind of... Not that we needed to make up, but we did. And I thought it really...

I don't know, man. You don't get a lot of that in this thing that we all do. Well, I'm always surprised when I go into people's offices and they have movie posters for things that were just terrible. You're like, you don't be proud of that. Well, because it's so hard to get stuff made. People are so excited to actually get something made.

But I just, I always, I wanted to say to you that I've always really appreciated that when you did that, it really meant a lot to me. I think that you're a really fucking cool and big and cool person. So just that's that. And we can move on. Wait, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta tell my Sean Hayes story. Here we go. This is a great one. Now, Sean, have I ever told you this one? I don't know.

Have I ever told you that I was invited to do a part on Will and Grace? Okay. You don't remember this because it only lasted one morning. Did you do a table read? I did not do the table read. Okay. Okay, so tell me if I got this right. So I had little kids at home. Were they yours? And I was...

I was writing a movie with David Cross and all my friends, Mr. Show movie. And I was having a great time, but I was also exhausted. You know, when you have little babies. Run, run, run. Yeah, it was run, run, run, sketch movie. We were writing a bunch of attempts. And so I was really enjoying that, but also exhausted all the time. Exhausted little baby at home, first kid. And yeah,

So they said, yeah, they want you to do Will and Grace. And it's great, you know, great show. And okay, cool. And I get up, I'm doing my normal morning. I'm taking my son. We would go on a spider walk in the morning where he'd sit in my arm, the crook of my arm, and we'd walk around the house and look for spider webs. And he'd go, he'd go, did, did, did.

when he saw a spider web and we just walk around the house every morning with will sometimes. Yeah. He doesn't go. Yeah. I'm so surprised you can carry. And, and, uh, and then I'm halfway through my little spider walk. And I think, I think I have to be unwilling grace. Well,

Like right now. Oh, shit. Oh, my God. You mean you just didn't show up? No, I finished the walk quickly. Finished the walk. I grabbed clothes. I was wearing my pajamas. Got in my car, drove to the studio, changed in the bathroom, parked my car, changed in the bathroom, hadn't shaved, hadn't showered, ran in late. I thought you were describing Jason like to a T. I was going to say that.

did the reading like a reading and then went to do the thing and i was so not there i was so not so it was a like a table really like or like no no like the morning read you know i guess like you read it we read it in the group and then we immediately went to the set to try to you know put it on i do remember that i do remember and i was terrible and i'm thinking i'm

- Terrible. And I don't know, I forgot I had this. - This is like 20 years ago. - Yes, yes. My 22 year old son just, who was on my arm, just walked through this room. - Spider check. - Looking for spiders? - Still looking for spiders. - He is. - He's like, "I got one."

He's an arachneologist. That's crazy. Well, I'm sorry that it didn't work out. That afternoon, I'm at the writer's office. My agent calls. I'm sitting with David Cross and Scott Ackerman and all these guys. And I pick it up and they go, hey, Bob, we got to talk to you. And I go, what? They're letting me go? And he goes, well, it's about Will and Grace. I go, they don't want me? And he goes...

They didn't feel like it worked out. I go, okay. You're like, I didn't either. Gotta go. No, well, gosh, I'm sorry that happened. No, don't be sorry. It was my fault completely. I just didn't prioritize acting at the time. I really... I don't think it adds up, but there's a connection. Sean, remember that story you were talking about, the guy you had fired?

off-willing grace just to prove that you had the power to fire somebody. Didn't you have a story about that? I said it was about 20 years ago. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Let's move on. You know, I really just didn't prioritize acting at all. Acting was something that I like. I did a little of it in college. I did a play when I first moved to Chicago called Line by Israel Horowitz, kind of a famous play because...

And Pacino, I guess, did it for a long time. And it ran for like 15 years. Oh, Pacino, actor from The Godfather. And it just wasn't something, you know, I was so thankful I could work as a writer. You stopped. You wanted to write more. And then you directed these movies. You made Let's Go to Prison. We made Brother Solomon. And you were talking at that time that this is what you wanted to do. You wanted to focus more on directing. Yeah.

I love directing, yeah. But then your life takes a change and all of a sudden acting becomes not just part of it, becomes the main focus. And the last 10, 12 years you have become an incredibly –

a good enough actor. Celebrated. No, fuck that, man. Now, are you finding that a lot of opportunity is coming your way maybe through like sort of like a sexy indifference or are you really pointing towards acting and not really looking at writing and directing as much anymore? Oh, I'm writing a lot.

I'm writing a lot, but not directing. You know what? Listen, when I walked away from, actually, there was a small indie movie I made called Melvin Goes to Dinner that in a way was the most successful film I made because it

made people happy. It played very well at some film festivals and won the audience award at South by Southwest. And that was a great screening, a great experience for me. But, you know, I walked away from those movies, Will, and I thought the first job of a director is to pick a story that you really, really want to tell, that you did just, you have a strong sense of how it should be told and

Because you take the hit when it doesn't work. I mean, you feel it. You fucked that up. You are the core reason why that didn't work. So I thought, OK, your first job is picking a story that you just have to tell and that, you know, you may be wrong, but you have a strong sense of how it should be told.

And I would say with Melvin Goes to Dinner, it was a play that I saw and I thought, wow, this is a fun play. The dialogue is what matters. And it's kind of really great, got this great energy to it. And we'll keep this cast together and we'll shoot it with five cameras and everyone can keep their kind of very lively interactions and energy can be sustained and brought to the screen this way. And that was true.

And then Let's Go to Prison had this gritty, tough underbelly to it. And I thought we'll shoot it like a 70s B movie. We'll do these snap zooms and we'll get some 16 millimeter film. And I had some strong visual sense of what it should be. And that was pretty good. It has some integrity to it. And then Brother Solomon, I was just,

It was like I was a jobber. I was just trying to bring that script alive. And later when I saw...

Last Man on Earth, Forte's series, I thought those guys really figured out a kind of a way to do Forte's writing that I've enjoyed very much. I love that show. Wait, can I go back for a second? Melvin Goes to Dinner. Are you saying you used the cast from the play in the movie? Yes. Okay. Cast from the play. God bless you because I love you for that. I think that is amazing because you go see these plays, I won't name which ones, that turn into these huge movies that you're like,

well, they just nailed it on stage. Why wouldn't you just use those actors? I'm probably talking myself out of a future job, but why don't you just use those actors? They're so fantastic, so good on you. I think that's amazing. Well, thanks for saying that. You know, speaking of a great actor who was in a play and is now getting some attention, a guy I knew in Chicago named Paul Racey is in Sound of Metal. Oh, great. And he's so great. Is that the sequel to the Julie Andrews? No.

It is. Is it? It is. Wow, that sounds interesting. Hey, when you are not putting 14-hour days under your belt on Better Call Saul, do you like to completely do nothing in the entertainment industry? And if so, what is that? No, I never do nothing. I'm always writing. David Cross and I and my brother Bill are writing kind of a big –

sprawling comic documentary epic right now that we hope somebody will want and i'm working on so many projects a drama about oxycontin and a comedy i wrote an animated show with dino samatopoulos where the devil moves into a town in indianapolis near indianapolis and

And I just, I'm always writing. I have a memoir coming out next year too. And I wrote a book with my daughter. Oh, wow.

You know, during this COVID time. No weird creepy hobbies aside from spider hunting? No. I work out a lot now because I made this action movie called Nobody. Dude. I saw the trailer. It looks amazing. Bob, I wanted to ask you about that. It's so fucking great. What's it called again? It's called Nobody. Is that two words? It looks great.

It's one word. Well, I was just thinking because he worked out, you know, and... Oh, nobody. Thanks. Sure. No problem, dude. You know, puns... Listen, you start the audience with a laugh. They're coming back. Yeah. They're coming back along with parades. Consider me ready. Jason's memoir is coming out next year, too. It's called My Life in Puns. So, wait. So...

Bob, the fucking trailer for this movie, all of a sudden, like, you literally, you have a line where you're on a bus and you're faced up against these tough guys. You go, I'm going to fuck you up. I'm like, fuck you.

And Will, that was, you know, that was a monologue. That was like a page and a half long monologue that Derek Kolstad wrote, who wrote the John Wick films. And he's a great writer and he writes these mythic worlds and bad guys from that's come out of the shadows. And there are parts of big organizations that I, I can't tell you what they mean yet, but you'll find out. And that's, it's just, he's so great. This guy, this,

I love hanging out with him. I love hearing his stories. But he had written this long monologue and it was like the universe has a hell of a way of paying back what's owed and all this stuff. And I'm putting it off. You know, we're working with the story and he was really great talking to me about it because it kind of sprang from my own idea the whole movie.

because I had a couple home break-ins here in L.A. that left me with a lot of conflicted feelings. What kind of neighborhood are you in, Bob? Well, it's obviously not. You got a deal on the house? I don't have that Netflix money. Ha ha ha!

It sounds like you got a real deal on this place. Is it near a prison? It comes with meth addicts. So nobody came out of your own sort of feeling about a guy who's going to fight back a little bit. It came out of a lot of ideas and thoughts I had, but one of them was the genuine feeling of like, I, we had had this, uh, we'd had two break-ins, but one was particularly traumatic for my family and I didn't do anything like recent or, uh,

It would have been 10 years ago, that one. And you were home when it happened? We were all home. Oh, my God. And it was very traumatic. Thank God you're okay. So I tried to keep things cool, you know. Not that I have any weapons. I mean, like any dad, I grab the baseball bat. Sure. And I haven't swung a bat since I was, you know, 14. So, yeah.

You know, it leaves you feeling like, gosh, I mean, what else could I have done and what should I have done and how should I be prepared? And and but if I had done something, what would have happened then? You know, and you really I mean, it is smart to keep things cool and back off and get the hell out of there. Everyone's OK. Yeah. Well, there is a residual risk.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry about that. For sure. So all that sits with you. And, and so I, you know, you, you just can't help but feel those feelings and, and ask those questions. And, and it stays with you. Obviously you think you probably think about it at least a few times a week. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. And you think about guns, you know, which I'm like definitely for stronger gun laws and,

But you think about what value are they? I mean, how would you have one safely in your home and then be able to use it? All these complicated issues. But most of all, there's that personal frustration and anger. And I thought I'd like to work that out and see if there was a place for that in a story. And of course, there is in action movies. That's exactly what it's built out. They're built out of. And so I proposed this. I actually thought I'd get laughed out of the room, you know.

But people were like, no, no. Actually, it also came from my brother-in-law. He was in China and he took a picture of his TV screen, which had an ad for Better Call Saul. And I thought, shit, if they're watching me in China and I know they show plays in Russia and Italy and all around the world.

What could I make that would play around the world? Well, an action movie plays because we know what everybody wants on screen without understanding the language. And so there were so many things that drove me to ask, what about an action movie? I'm willing to do the training and...

And people said, yeah, that's a, yeah, that could work. So did you have to train because there's a lot of physical activity? Like, like you do a lot of ass kicking? I mean, listen, Jason. Yeah. I do all of my own fighting in this movie. Good Lord.

Wow. I trained for two years. It's a lot. It's a lot. I pull muscles getting out of bed. Did you, did you have, I mean, the first goal of the training was that I don't get hurt when I do the fight. Was that successful? It was pretty successful. I didn't, what happens is you train, uh, sort of just the basics for a year and a half while this whole project was being put together, you know, takes years always, uh,

So I had a long time, but I was training for a long time. And then you put the pieces up in the gym and you choreograph them and you learn the choreography over and over. But then when you get on set, things change. And of course, the set is maybe dimension wise, it can be a little different than what you trained in. And of course, now everything is real. The walls are walls. They're not walls.

cardboard boxes and so you end up hitting i i i only got hurt a little by hitting my fists on metal bars and stuff that were in that bus fight the bus fight is really something the bus fight is insane by the way i didn't want to interrupt i don't know if you ever heard the story about jason cut his finger taking his golf clubs out of his tesla but yeah it was uh it was we have

We thought about having a sequence where I take golf clubs out of a Tesla and we talked about, we couldn't get the insurance. Right, right. Just unbelievable. You should have seen the rehearsal for that. You also probably heard this story about Jason had to bring an icy hot patch for my tender back the other day over to my house.

But, you know, Jason, I love your attitude about it because another actor whose name I won't mention, I met him at one of these things we used to do before a pandemic destroyed social interaction in the world. And I go, yeah, I'm training. I'm training. I've been training for a year and a half. And he looks at me and he goes, why? They have stuntmen who will do that for you. He was mystical.

And I think you are too. You're like, don't you know you're in show business, Bob? You don't actually have to do anything. Just say the lines. I just know at my age, 52, you pull a little thing in your back or something. Okay. Yeah. Just little tweaks. They last weeks. You're right. You're in good shape. You take, I give you shit, but you take care of yourself. The thing is, if you've never, if you've never wrecked your knees or your back, you

Then you can get in shape enough to do these things. I had knee surgery four years ago, and I tweaked my back, but I'm never giving up. I don't give a shit. I mean, this fucking chassis was made to fucking run. Yeah, look at you. But wait, so, Bob, how fucking crazy is that? And you had, like, a real bona fide...

from top to bottom, action people involved in this, from the writing to other producers. I know Dave Leach a little bit who was involved with the film too. Yeah, David Leach. He's a fucking cool guy. And trained at 8711, his gym. And Daniel Bernhardt, the best stunt actor in the world.

Daniel Bernhardt trained me for that whole time. And I don't know why he did, but he was willing to do it. Bob, you know, Will mentioned this at the top of the interview that, you know, you just work constantly. You wear so many hats. Where does that come from in the drive? And I ask that a lot of our guests, but I think it's fascinating because,

You look at all the stuff that you accomplished. It's like, wow. And you have this family. It's like, how do you fit it all in? Let me finish my thought from earlier, which was about directing. Stop cutting him off, Sean. Which was just this, you know, I'm not sure I'll ever find a story that I think I like and can commit to enough to want to direct again. As much as I love directing, I think directing is probably the most rewarding thing any of us can do if we get to do it.

You get to use all your talents as a storyteller and it's just the best. It's really rewarding. But if I'm too much of a bird brain hopping from stick to stick and I can't focus long enough or really care deeply enough about a story, I probably shouldn't direct. And so far I haven't done it and I'm not really chasing it.

It'll find you. You can't rule it out, Bob. But the thing is, I don't really have hobbies. I read books. And you love work. I like what I do. I like doing what I do. I like thinking about...

stories and how to make them work. You know, the thing is, I don't want to be a dilettante. Yeah. I don't want to be George Plimpton, you know? So, which is one of the reasons why, you know, I did train for this movie and I wanted to do my own fighting. And thanks to the

the team at 87 11 and the people who got me there, I was able to do that. And you can see that I do it. And I did it. I think well enough, uh, people will decide. They may tell me I'm wrong. What do you think about like when you see Tom Cruise hanging from a, an airplane, like I look at that and go, God, I wish I had the sack to do that. I mean, was that something that you would do? Well,

Well, that's different from doing the fighting. That's just taking a big risk. Right. But I mean, as far as the, you know, the, the, the, the efforts made for authenticity and doing your own stuff. I gotta say, you know, I'll take that guy on. Oh yeah. Sure. There we go. Heard it here first guys. It's fucking on.

Bob, I want to go back and say, because, you know, it's the thing we kind of glossed over, but of course you have, and you just mentioned you're writing with, you're working with him again with your brother as well, but you have a long, long friendship and working relationship with somebody who I love very much. I know Jason loves very much, and Sean, I think you know. Yeah, I'm a huge fan. Yeah, and he's just a guy that...

big part of of my life uh big part of my professional life certainly and just an awesome guy david cross can you talk a little bit about your relationship with david and what a fucking huge impact you guys had on comedy well that's nice thanks i hope we uh helped some people and made a lot of people laugh but i mean people always give mr show credit for this like the way it was constructed and i'm like yeah but it was really funny that's what was good about it yeah who

Who gives a shit? But I think that's sort of a nod to sort of people appreciating that you guys did something that was complicated and you didn't need to, right? Like you made a bunch of people laugh on one frequency, but then you guys kept writing all these other frequencies that were much more challenging, tough to see. Just the thread, right? Just that basic concept of the thread between each –

Yeah. What might go right over a lot of people's heads that are fully satisfied with that show. You know, I think it's, it's really, uh, it's admirable. You know, this is a weird thing. And that show was the best thing I could do with my life as far as I'm concerned. And that, that goes for looking back on it. And I'm thankful for breaking bad and better call Saul and all this stuff.

But that show, as far as I'm concerned, defines me and my sensibility. And I don't know if I could do anything more me than that show in this lifetime. So it's a weird thing to have done that. Feel good about it. Feel like you did enough of it.

you know, like that it was substantial and then just be like, oh, I guess whatever I do next, I don't know, whatever's most interesting, but that's, it's never going to be as

fully me as that. And how fortunate that the first big high profile thing that you do as a performer is accurately portraying your brand of comedy. In other words, you didn't have to do a series of jobs afterwards to sort of reset a more accurate description and representation of what you would like to do and how you would like to be identified in the comedy world. Like it was right on brand with the kind of funny you'd like to give.

And then you just kind of took that and ran with it, yes? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, a lot of people don't get that. Yeah, a lot of people never get it, not once. And so it's funny because I'm writing this memoir and it's mostly about Mr. Show. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah, both you and David held on to that really difficult kind of subversive, you know, street cred punk rock type of comedy that

And in the same way that Monty Python kind of did. It's interesting that that's one of your inspirations because, I don't know if you think about it, sorry Jason, finish your thought a little bit. It's like, you know, I grew up in the same way. I revered Monty Python. I watched every single episode and it was amazing. But that you created this thing called Mr. Show that now has the kind of same...

kind of impact on the comedy world that that did for that generation. I really think that you've accomplished that. You and David. Yeah, that's nice to hear. I've had people say similar things, but obviously Python influenced such a huge generation and also was able to get more absurdist than we got. We just aren't, we don't think that way. Hmm.

But I love that show and I even love its absurdisms. But although the season without Cleese is my least favorite season. Where did Benny Hill sit for you in the English sort of absurdist comedy world? Behind the toilet. LAUGHTER

No, I did laugh at Benny Hill a bit, but I actually was... Benny Hill, it's not the most egregious example of a certain kind of comedy that we all shared in the 70s that really irked me on a deep level. It really unsettled me. I think as a kid growing up in a house with an alcoholic father and...

It took a while for us to find out what was going on. You know, I was probably about 12 or 13 when I understood what the thing was that made our house bigger.

weird and wrong and fucked up and kind of really deeply unsettling like i think this thing's gonna break apart tomorrow morning at any moment the same feeling and that comedy of the 70s and my dad loved hee-haw which is so crazy because later my manager was bernie brilstein who helped make hee-haw which i hated so

so much. I hated it so much. Anyway, this comedy of the 70s, I think everyone was so, I don't know, I'll psychoanalyze the whole nation. You know, Vietnam was so brutal and left so many raw nerves, right? And so this comedy came in of, oh God, John Denver, George Burns, both wonderful people, I'm sure. And I love, I got to meet George Burns. I loved meeting him.

But there was this grotesque, super sweet, you know, fake, phony, everything's okay. We're just joking around up here. I really, that I just hated so much. Yeah.

And of course, SNL was a breath of fresh air. It was dangerous. It was a little more confrontational. It didn't apologize. You know, I mean, that that whole thing with the Dean Martin Rose, which I laughed at. Absolutely. But also there was just this side to that whole thing that was like crude comments, kind of almost maybe slightly racist comments.

And then like, we're all just friends. We love each other. It's all life is sweet. And it just felt awful to me. Sort of lowest common denominator humor, if you will. People were trying to come together, I think, in a really strange and artificial way. They were trying to get back to get the nation back together or something or soothe their nerves after this argument.

10 years of Vietnam and bloodshed. So this hippie-ish, it was trying to bring the hippie culture into mainstream culture. Remember the Pinto car that had Levi's? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, wow. That's right. Remember that? Yeah. Remember That's Incredible and Sarah Purcell. John Davidson and Fran Tarkington. What was the one Fred Willard was on? Real People. Real People. Real People. You know, it was like this attempt by the whole country to like calm down. It's okay. We're just quirky. We're not dangerous. We don't have strong feelings. We're just quirky. We're just a bunch of quirky people. Right. And quirky is okay. Yeah.

And part of me, you know, I mean, a big part of me as a kid is like, it's no, we're not just quirky people. We're, we're different. And there's something really bad happened. Somebody say it, you know? And yeah. Yeah. I see that. I see the connection you're making. And I think that that probably informed a lot of like kind of what you did and what you guys ended up doing on,

on Mr. Show and sort of hitting it. I think the best comedy does that. Yeah. You know, Eric, Eric Idle in his book talks about, um, seeing the fringe, the beyond the fringe guys, you know, um, Peter Cook and, uh, Dudley Moore and, um,

I forget the other two, also great writers. And he said, seeing it as like in college, this was comedy with anger in it. And I agree. I agree that comedy should be a little bit unsettling, really great comedy. It should be a little, yeah,

serious about itself. It's got to be, there has to be, like you just said, there's an element of danger and there needs to be an element of surprise. Anybody who's ever, for me personally, made me laugh, they always say something that's really, they surprise you in a way that you...

just by definition that you weren't expecting. And I remember Adam McKay once saying, describing somebody who I won't mention, who's very famous and saying, yeah, he's not. I was like, that guy bugs me. He says, yeah, because he's got zero surprise to him. And I was like, yes, yes.

That's exactly it. And, uh, and by the way, street cred, we used to call when we, the first season of unarrested, anytime we would like go to do something and you know, David, David would go cross would go like, uh, man, that's lame, blah, blah, blah. And Jason and I would go, Hey, street cred, what, what should we do? That's cool. He kept us on our toes. Development is a great example of a show that, you know, I consider that a height of comedy and, uh,

it doesn't apologize or hold your hand. I mean, you really have to pay attention. Oh, and even for us making it, I mean, we constantly had to ask Mitch Hurwitz for, you know, comedic interpretation on all these incredibly smart things he was writing. I mean, everything existed on multiple levels that you need 14 layers of parentheticals to try to understand. It was very tough for me. I,

I still don't get a lot of it. Yeah. I love that. So if you were asking about David, David and I, uh, are a really great marriage of, of failure and, uh, and a lot of success falling short, but we entertain each other. We make each other laugh. And, uh,

we kind of compensate for each other. And the weird thing is in different ways. I mean, he probably is funnier than me, but there are times when I'm bringing the jokes and he's bringing the structure and we just really hand it off back and forth between inspiration and jokes and creativity and structure and sort of focus and grounding the piece. And we just keep balancing that out between ourselves and the

It's hard to... I actually don't like thinking about it too much, which is a good sign of something that's kind of magical. You don't want to think about it. It's like if you're married for a long time, you...

You just go, I just, yeah, I was just going to say that you can make, you could make the analogy to, to, to a good marriage where you identify, well, we don't need to Bob Odenkirk's. We got one great one. And so you don't want to marry another Bob. You want to marry somebody who's a proper counterbalance or, or, or pleasant opposite to who you are. And you kind of give them going back to Will's point.

her lane and you stay in your lane, you know, David can make certain people laugh and you can make other people laugh. And, and, uh, that little combo, that cocktail just works so beautifully. And also that you don't need to break it down. You don't need to understand why it works. It just does. And you can kind of move on. And, uh,

David makes me laugh. Same. I think more than any other person. I mean, Zach Galifianakis, I think is super funny all the time. Incredible. I think Tim Heidecker is one of the funniest people I know, but David's just like, just so funny all the time. He likes pranking more than I do. I'm not big into pranking people.

That's a big part of what David loves. It's to do something that sets up the audience or whatever that audience is. I mean, if you're in an elevator with David, he'll start saying something that will disturb the people around you. And it's a private, and I put the word in quotes, joke. Because how is it funny? They didn't do anything. They didn't ask for a show. Uh-huh.

But he loves that stuff. Even in this thing we're talking about right now, he keeps talking about sort of misleads and, and it's like, all right, well, I mean, we'll do a few of them, but he loves that shit. He just wants, well,

Well, you got to have David on. I know. We can't make his deal. We just can't make his deal. Believe me. You guys, I ought to say it was nice of you to want me to do this because you are all more famous than I am. And you are. We like to talk to people that we're huge, huge fans of and try to make us a little bit smarter. We love you. And I've always looked up to you. And thanks for coming and doing this, man. You're just such a huge talent. And I'm so excited.

excited for you that you have so many different chapters and you keep fucking doing whatever you want to do. I think it's, I think it's so rad. Fucking rad. Please direct another movie. Please. Please. That's nice of you. Thanks. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you, Bob, for doing this. Thanks for having me. We love you. Bye. See ya. You too.

You know, I didn't mention to Bob, but I wanted to. When I first got my production office for my production company, I'm one of three actors in town with a production company. And he worked one level below me, on the floor below me. And he just walked up the stairs one day. He knocked on the door. He goes, hey, I'm doing this animated series. Can you come down and do a voice really quick? Oh.

oh, I thought he was going to ask you to just keep it down because he's recording up there and the clogs that you were wearing at work were not working well for him. Right. No, he just said, can you come down and do a voice? It'd be so fun. I was like, yeah. I was like, Bob Odenkirk just asked me to do a voice. It was so awesome. He was so kind. And I just, I don't remember the name of the show. It was like,

The characters' names were in the title of the show, but I don't remember the name of the show, but it was great. It was Will and Grace Animated. I'm sorry, do you want us to... Yeah, are we supposed to guess? Yeah, guess. Go ahead. It'll be a fun game. Will, um...

How did you make Bob Odenkirk's deal on that? So I just, yeah, as you know. You guys have to do another movie together. Things happen in threes. You got two. That's a great idea to remake Brothers. We should do it, right? We should call Forte. That's so rad. At one point, we made so little money the opening weekend. I think it was like $545,000 opening weekend. It was a complete bust.

It was on like eight screens or something. And I went to Tom Werner, the producer, and I said, what if we remade it and the budget was what it made opening weekend? And he's like, great, go for it. I'll sign that check today. But that was like, you know, 10 years ago. But I have thought like it'd be really funny to get. That script was so good. It was me and Forte and Kristen Wiig and Shy McBride. And there are lots of people that are haters in it.

So many people are in it. And it was a really fun... The script is brilliant. Forte's writing is just brilliant. And the movie's pretty good, but...

but it could have been, as Bob said, we wanted it to be something else and it, and it wasn't. And it was just one of those things. And he, I think he, uh, was far too, uh, self-deprecating to say that, you know, that it was all his fault or that any failure of any movie as a director's fault, there's so many other things not to bore the audience to death, but you know, the marketing and the date, you know, the studio, the, the, the other films that are out that way, you know, is there a storm on the East coast? I mean,

It's so many things. You guys did a great job with both those movies. Yeah, I think – but, you know, it truly was – it was one of those things where I think a lot of people had – a lot of us involved in it had regret about the way it turned out because the script was so good. And Bob kind of out of the blue coming up to me and sort of making an amends, if you will, almost, really was –

I think it took a lot, you know, showed he's a really, he's a big person and was able to do that with no ego and just kind of go, hey, for my part, I'm sorry. And I was like, yep, same here. And it was, I thought it was really awesome and a very cool,

Again, you don't get a lot that obviously in this business, you know, a lot of people are happy to spread the blame elsewhere. Yeah, he seems like such a decent guy. He is. He's a really decent guy. So anyway, I'm so excited to have him on and have always been and remain such a huge fan. And then to go from...

to start as a writer, you know, he and Conan wrote together and, and with Smigel and, you know, to write on, on SNL, the right on Conan to then writing on the Ben Siller show to Mr. Show to Larry Sanders and,

direct a bunch and then do Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and now has this action movie. It's like, yeah, it's a great career. There's no, there are no limits. You know, we, I joked with you, you know, about, about his lane. I mean, here's a guy who's like, there is, I have no lane. My lane is whatever the fuck I want. I feel like doing in the moment. And for me, that's inspiring. Yeah. Do what, do what takes you in the moment, you know? And, um, even if you want to look for spiders, great. Fill the morning, be late for work. Fill the morning.

I know. He spent the whole morning looking for spiders and then forgot to kind of show up a little bit. Forgot to show up at Will & Grace. And then the phone rings. I love just the phone rings and he goes, it's Will & Grace, isn't it? Yeah. Well, you know, if you've been fired before, you know that feeling. I've always known when I'm about to get fired and I get a call from Principato and he'd go, well, you were right. And I'm like, yeah. They're letting me go, right? Yeah.

It's happened to me a couple times. Sean, have you been fired? Oh, you didn't want to answer that? I'm sorry. Sorry. One more time. What were you saying? He's trying to buy out of here. I'll buy. Smart. Worse. Smart. Worse.

If you like SmartList, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.