410: Nathan Fillion—Kind of a Big Deal
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Mike Rowe here with another episode of The Way I Heard It. This one is called, well, I'm not going to tell you what it's called yet. You're going to have to wait for it. Wow. Because honestly, I'm still wrestling with it, Chuck. Are you? Yeah, a little bit. Because I'll tell you this. This is my favorite conversation of all time. All time? For this podcast. Wow, that's great. Yeah.

And part of the reason is because it's a really good conversation and modesty aside by any measure. But it was also a chance for me to connect with an old friend who I haven't seen in over 20 years. Yeah. It was a guy who I spent a lot of time with in New York and

and had some crazy fun times. And then he went on and became incredibly famous. And we haven't really stayed in touch over the years, but to acknowledge the fact from time to time that we'd each been tracking and triangulating the exploits of one another on the TV. Right. So...

Let me just first say that sitting down with an old friend and reminiscing is one of the greatest things a human can do. You know what the second greatest thing a human can do? Record it and sell ads against it. For me...

It was watching two old friends reunite. Tell me. First of all, I know you very well and have for a long time. I know of Nathan because of you, but that's it. I don't know really anything about him. But for me to sit here from this little perch and look to my left and my right and see these two guys who haven't seen each other in person since, what, 1990-something? It would have been probably, yeah. God, it's...

I hate to say it, but yeah, it would have been '99, probably '98, '99. Well, I found it really... I mean, not to get sappy, but it was heartwarming. It was nice. It was really good to... Like I said, I know you, I know a lot about you. Some of the stories that you guys shared, I already knew, and many I didn't. And he told stories that you had forgotten. No, I totally forgot. And it was so great to sit here and see you guys

It's kind of why this thing went a little long. - Yeah, well look, I mean maybe it's a little too inside. I loved every second of it. I remember why I love this guy. Like he shows up 15 minutes early with gifts. - With gifts, yeah. Seems like a great guy. - He's been doing that his whole life. He's Canadian, which you can't hold against him really. He's very famous if you don't know him. I mean he's a legend in the Comic-Con world, the Marvel universe.

Starting Castle. Oh, yeah. Starting Castle. Currently starring in The Rookie. Season seven starts January of 2025. Yeah. I mean, he plays a cop, John Nolan. He's so good. He's so good at everything he does. He's a trained actor. He's a thespian. He's done a ton of work on stage. He's doing a thing. We don't talk about it in the podcast, but he's doing something on Netflix now called Big Mouth.

which is funny. Funny. He plays an exaggerated version of himself. Right. It's animated. Yeah. And it is sassy and saucy and wrong a thousand different ways, but funny. He's a triple threat. You know, he can sing, he can dance, and boy, can he act. When I met him, he was playing Joey Buchanan, major soap star. What was it? Days of Our Lives, I guess it was. Was it Days of Our Lives? Pretty sure it was Days. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Brooke Alexander. That was out here? No, that was New York. Was Days of Our Lives out in New York? Because I did Days of Our Lives in the 80s. I kind of think it's not that. Google it. See where Joey Buchanan was. Wouldn't it be great if we knew this properly? But look, if you know his work, then you know what a talent he is. But if you don't know him, if you haven't dug in and read what people have said and really dug into some of the interviews...

Then he's just a mensch. Everybody loves this guy. You've got my internet, by the way. Oh, is that right? I'm not plugged in. It's plugged in right there. Anyway. Anyway, here's what I'm wrestling with. There's so many laugh out loud moments coming up that this episode is either going to be called Nathan Fillion, kind of a big deal, or Nathan Fillion, out of the gift closet.

Because he's got this gift called... You know what? Yeah, you'll hear about it. It was one life to live. It was one life to live. One life to live. That's a New York one, yeah. That's the one. Anyhow, let's go with Nathan Fillion. Kind of a big deal. Because he is. In every way that a successful actor can be. What a pleasure to catch up with my old friend. You're going to love him. I promise. And you're going to meet him right after this. Chuck, I've been meaning to ask you something. What's that, Mike?

You got three-day blinds, right? Yeah. How long did it take three-day blinds to put your blinds in? Be honest. Like an hour, maybe less than an hour. Did you talk with the people who came out about maybe changing the name to one-hour blinds?

You know what? It didn't come up in the conversation, but I was just happy it all happened so fast. There was a real nice guy. He cleaned up after himself. He had a helper with him. The two of them banged it out real quick. He explained everything to me, how to use the remote control, how to control it on my phone with the app, how to recharge the thing. It was super easy. Well, I'm looking through the talking points here, and nowhere does it say to emphasize the fact that real nice guys clean up after themselves at three-day blinds. But hey,

Nowadays, you take the win where you can get it. Absolutely. And people love three-day blinds, folks. It's the truth. I've actually, as you've probably heard me say, will crash at Shea Chuck from time to time when I'm in town. And what used to be this greenhouse filled with sunlight coming in from every direction is now as dark as a cave in the depths of Mordor, cool and delicious, and I love it.

I would call three-day blinds immediately if I needed them, but I don't. The home I bought came with window treatments that I like, but so many people are living with crappy blinds. You don't have to. These guys have been around for, what is it, Chuck? 45 years, I think. Yeah. Why don't they change their name to 45 years and one hour blinds? Well, I think that's a bit much. I mean, you don't want it to take 45 years, do you? No, no, you don't. But here's what you do want. 4.7 stars on Trustpilot. They got them.

People love them. And right now, you buy one, you get 50% off your second blind or shades or drapes. Here, let me just read this right so I get it.

Right now, you can get three-day blinds, buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blind shades, shutters, and drapes. That's what I meant to say. But here's the important part. For a free, no charge, no obligation consultation to what Chuck did, go to 3dayblinds.com slash row where you buy one and get one 50% off. One last time, the number 3dayblinds.com slash row.

Three day blinds, shades and drapes, shutters too, custom made. I told you once and I told you twice, you buy one you get one for half the price. You've never seen such a deal in your life as three day blinds.

It's not even a joke, man. Nathan just said that he would actually get us a slate so we could officially and properly begin these things instead of poor Taylor clapping his hands. There's something about the hand clap too, right? Authentic, warm, human. Yeah, it's hands, right? In Taylor's case, no. Yes, yes, hands. Are they calloused, hard-working hands or are they the soft? Let me see them, Taylor. I have the second softest hands. I have soft hands too. In Hollywood. Yeah.

Yeah. Who has the first? Andy Samberg. That does track. This is true. It's like shaking a sponge. It's not even... It was like cupping a baby's bottom. It's just...

And he looked at me and said, "You have very soft hands." I said, "Never seen a day of work in their lives. You have really soft hands." He said, "And that's the joke I always use." That's true. I have the second softest hand. - You know, it's weird. My hands are medium to small, and people expect they're gonna be like frying pans. And they also expect they're just gonna be covered with calluses and hair. And when you stand in line for hours on end, as you've done many times, meeting people, shaking their hands,

For me, because the show I worked on was that show, the dirty jobbers will line up, you know, for miles on end, and they're not content to merely shake. They want that crushing bone. They want to grab you with their hands.

with one hand and then with their left hand they want to put their big meaty mitt on your shoulder oh and then they want to stare into your eyes and they want to tell you about the time something happened to them that resulted in an explosion of filth everybody has their stories my guys they like to tell them while they're crushing my hand and you're praying for a short story

Typically, yeah. And this happens, like, where's the weirdest place you ever met a fan who was a true fan but simply couldn't stop themselves from sharing everything they needed to share? I think I was going in for a colonoscopy. And, uh...

And, you know, it's kind of chilly in those rooms and you've got a little paper gown on and you're in that kind of that twilight kind of, you're in that pre-drug, right before they put you under kind of state and it was chilly and the fellas, they had to bring in the warm blankets. Yes, yes. And, of course, mentally, you're in a fairly vulnerable state of mind. Fairly vulnerable, yeah. We all know what's going to happen. Yep. And I think, for me, in those situations, I'm just looking around subconsciously for visual clues

positive cues, just signs that everything's going to be okay. And yeah. So go ahead. For us, it's a big deal. But for him, it's like, we're doing 12 of these today. Yeah. It's old hat, you know, so. Yeah. For him, it's business as usual. God bless him. I did a digital rectal check.

on the air once. Whoa, hang on. It was a prostate exam. Prostate exam. I believe is what they call it. Well, yes, but I just wanted to... A digital rectal check. So really analog. Yes. Not so much digital. Oh, I suppose it was. I was going to say, what kind of equipment are they using for that? But you meant...

Fingers. You meant digital. Digitally, yes. With the digits. Of course. Yeah. Well, this happened. It was a pretty famous director who wanted to do a PSA for colon cancer. And he asked me if I'd be game for this. And I said, you know, I would. And my doctor said a really funny thing to me one time. He said, there's only two circumstances whereby a patient enters my office and doesn't leave

without my finger going into his rectum. And I said, his name was Dr. Schlain, I said, "Tell me, what are the circumstances?" And he said, "No finger, no rectum." But as long as I have fingers and you have a rectum, we're gonna have a look around up there. - These are the discussions we have to have now at our age.

I don't know that we have to have them, but we're having it, man. This is the norm now. I am growing older. I am finding out, oh, this aches, this hurts, this. And oh, yeah, the doctor put his finger in there. At least he said it was his finger. No, I could from my I couldn't tell. Hey, what did you bring me?

What gift is this? That is a little camera drone that I found. I've been hoping and wanting for this kind of technology for ages because I don't know if you know, drones are very hard to fly. Taylor? Yeah? Not easy. Not easy. So this thing basically has little pre-programmed flights that you can tweak as you need. You press a button, it goes off, it does a thing, and it comes back and it lands in your hand. And then you get these tremendous shots.

And it's underweight, so you don't need a certificate. You don't need a permit. It just, by the time someone says, hey, is that a drone? It's folded up. It's in your pocket. You're gone. You are somewhat famous for that weird nexus between nerddom and geekdom. You're a gadget guy. And so I'm not really. So how long will it take me? Just...

I'm not a big instruction guy either. How intuitive is this? I will send you a little YouTube video that you will watch while this is charging and you'll kind of half-mindedly download the app and then you'll be an expert. Do you like jerky? Beef jerky? That's the first time anyone's asked me that today. I got you this. It's Jed's beef jerky. It's pretty good. I also got you a bottle of my grandfather's whiskey. God bless you, my friend. I'm so glad I brought a gift now. Look, I knew you would.

And I knew that because it's very difficult to know where to start with you. Let's start at the beginning. Okay. Brooke's apartment, 1996? Five. Really? Well, it could have been six. I moved to New York sort of in 93 and in fits and starts kept coming back. And then you're right, Brooke Alexander. Yeah.

Brooke Alexander had a party. Had like a barbecue because she had that funky two-level apartment. And then in her bedroom, you could go up these stairs and there was a small door to an outdoor patio. Upper west side? Yeah. Yeah, that was upper west. She was something else. You knew her from the soaps, I guess? Yeah. I've run into her a couple of times over the years. How's she doing? She looks lovely. She always looked lovely. She's having a great time. That thing lives on...

The edge of my memory, the apartment I really remember was the night I met you. You remember Laura Solomon? Yes. And of course her friend and yours, Tuck. Tuck Watkins. Right. So I walk into this apartment and I got there before you did. And you walked in and you had gifts for people. You started handing out gifts. You gave a gift to Laura and you gave a gift to someone else.

And I asked you, I said, is this like a housewarming thing or what is an occasion, somebody's birthday? And you were like, I don't know. I don't think so. And then you kind of looked at me the way you're looking at me now. Like, why doesn't everyone bring gifts all of the time? When I was growing up, my mother had a gift closet.

So I was like, oh, I'm going to a birthday party. She goes, great, go to the closet and pick out something appropriate. And there'd be little, there'd be some gift bags, some tissue. You go, oh, he'll love this. Throw it in there. There's a card. You write it out. You're on your way. So when did you come out of the gift closet, Nathan? I started mine 15 years ago, but when I bought my first house. My only house, I'll say that. The only house I've ever bought. Was this Hover Air X1 in the closet? That was in the closet. Okay.

And so this is in the rotation now for your very special friend? There was three of them in there. Two weeks ago, I went to another birthday a week ago, and now there's one left in there. So I'll have to restock on those. This is one of the reasons why he doesn't appear to have any enemies. Everybody likes him. Everybody does like him, right. Everybody likes him. And this was true back in the old days, and obviously it's true now. Full disclosure, I don't have a gift closet. I barely have a closet.

But I stay around the corner at a hotel, and the woman who runs it is a friend of mine, and she read somewhere once upon a time that I stopped eating sweets and started eating jerky. And now every time I check in, there's a bag of Jed's handcrafted beef jerky waiting for me. I have probably 30 pounds of jerky. I'm thinking of getting a jerky closet, but I just knew you were going to bring something fabulous. At least a pantry. Yeah.

Yeah. So here's when I knew that sometime in the future, you and I were going to sit down to discuss your path. I knew it that night. Because after that party over, I think if it wasn't at Laura's, it might have been at Tuck's. One apartment was right above each other. So who knows? Right. But-

We went to my favorite Mexican restaurant in New York at the time, later that night. Which one was that? It was Harry's. Harry's Burrito. I have a Harry's Burrito story, but keep going. Okay. So most of the people that were at the party are in the restaurant. And we kind of spread out, and you and I are sitting at the bar drinking margaritas.

you ordered, it was like the ultimate or the supremo or you remember what it was? - With chicken and black beans. - God, that thing was, it was like a football. - It was massive. - Massive, and you were just plowing through it and we were talking and laughing. And I guess at that point, were you still Joey? - Oh yes, oh yeah. - You're still Joey. You were telling me you had come from a Walmart where you had done one of these meet and greets. - Yes.

And I said, what do you think is going to happen to you? Clearly, you're going to become a big deal. But do you know how it's going to happen? And again, you're looking at me just the way you did then, except you got a mouthful of burrito and you're holding on to this margarita. And you said...

I kind of already am a big deal. And I laughed like you're laughing right now. And I thought, you know something? Two things I've learned that are critical for every successful person that I admire. They have to be in on the joke.

And they have to be fundamentally grateful. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes. That's you. For as long as I've known you, you've looked for the joke. You've been in on it. You've never taken yourself too seriously. That's true. You're never afraid to say whatever fool thing pops into your head. I might be afraid, but maybe I just don't show it very much. But you're weirdly polite. You're mannerly.

You're still one of those guys who probably stand up when a girl walks in the room. That's right. I do that. It's very old-fashioned, but I do that. At the table. At the table. At the table. Yes, at the table. Courtly, they would call it. Thank you. And you show up with gifts. There's that. So, I remember talking to my girlfriend at the time about you and saying, if there were a line on this guy in Vegas, I'd bet on him. And then...

Way leads on the way. We go our separate paths. But buddy, over the last 25 years, what a treat to turn on the TV. And whether it's Dr. Horrible or Two Guys, Girl, the Pizza Place thing, I've been tickled this whole time to watch your career unfold. And I can say the exact same thing about you. Then go ahead. Do it. And take your time.

I mean, really lean into it. There's a few things. You remember when you used to surf channels? Just channel surfing type of stuff. There was a few things that would stop my afternoon and say, ah, cancel my plans. One was Groundhog Day. One was Shawshank Redemption. And one was Dirty Jobs. Wow. Wow. Okay, that's some high cotton.

Because it was always going to be extremely entertaining. You would always come up with one or six gems. Nothing falls on my lap on purpose. Something that just would throw me into a giggle fit and go, oh my God, that's so Mike. It's so Mike.

and how happy everybody around you filming you and doing these would just say, just roll cameras and just let them go. That's all they have to do is just let you rip. And that you found a career where you just sit and do what you love to do. You are a wordsmith, the best storyteller I have ever encountered. And I've encountered a few. I think of you fondly. And I mean, sound is such a sense that's so strongly linked to memory and

Buddy, you are a part of my journey, my path, but it feels like you've been ever present. Isn't it odd how as time goes by,

those seemingly random margaritas and burritos once upon a time. It's not like I went home and wrote any of that in a journal. - No. - It was just a thing. And then time, it just keeps going. And then as we try and maybe anticipate a future, we look back to the past for these talismans, these harbingers of things to come, and all of a sudden these moments reemerge. And then,

To be able to sit at this point in our life and just in the last 20 minutes talk about fingers, rectums, beef jerky, technology, mothers, closets. I knew it would feel this way.

But it feels to me like we could be sitting in Harry's Burrito and that feels like it was about 10 minutes ago. Let's go back to Harry's Burritos. All right. There is a 40 to 65% chance that that evening at Harry's Burritos, Alan Tudyk, movie star, voice actor, character actor extraordinaire. He's terrific, man. Dancer, theater, Juilliard trained, was in attendance. No. Yes. No.

because he was a waiter at Harry's Burritos. When I first met him and we were starting to hang out and we did Firefly together, I said, oh my God, you're going back to New York. Please go have a burrito for my favorite Mexican restaurant. He said, where is it? I said, 71st, between 71st and 72nd on Columbus, Harry's Burritos. He stopped and said, wait a minute.

Were you the guy? And he remembered me. And I remember, clearly it opened up the doors in your mind, right? But yeah, so he was our waiter. What a blast. Now he was, what was his character in Firefly? He was Wash the pilot. Wash, right. He was the pilot. This is like the very definition of witty repartee. You guys got that down pretty quick. Alan, Alan is...

Like you, he is an incredible storyteller. He is wildly entertaining. And he does, he'll do the characters in the story. So he doesn't just tell you the story. He plays the characters as well. So it's really entertaining to watch. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do

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Go back to the remote drops for a minute. I'm so interested in that Groundhog Day. Why?

Yeah, it's a good question. Why? I think there's something really wonderful about the concept of the opportunity of the do-over. If you could just every day, you could try it until you get it right. Something very, very pleasing about that. And essentially, that's kind of my job. That's kind of the way I do my job. A work in progress. Same thing for me. That's on my list. And really, I think for the same reason. The way I ask myself is like,

I don't think I have any natural talent on the piano. I know where the keys are, and I'm musical, but I don't have great rhythm, and I can't really play. And so watching him learn to play the piano made me think, I wonder how long would it take me to actually learn that? You can go to websites. How long was in the story, was Bill Murray trapped in this cycle? And people have written stories

massive articles that predict, right? Like how long would it take him to learn to play the piano, to learn to do all these other things? And then that movie takes on a quality kind of like It's a Wonderful Life, where there's some scary shit going on under the surface, like really scary. The concept that, was it hell? Was it purgatory? Right. Right. Was he on a path of

Punishment or redemption? Yeah, he's not merely waylaid in Puxatawney. That whole thing is a metaphor for something much, much greater. And some people say, you're talking about hundreds, maybe even a thousand years. Geez. Yeah. I mean, there's some really dark articles about what that must have been like. It's funny, they're sunny and share, the clock flips over. Oh, it's another day.

But then-- - It's torture. - He's trying to kill himself every day. - He does. He does do it several times. - Except he comes back. He can't even get that right. So to realize that you're trapped and blessed at the same time. This is your redemption. It's gonna take a while. - But he didn't even realize it was real. Yeah, yeah, I love that movie. And he's such a lovely actor. He does such a good job. - Have you had a pleasure of working with him? - Never once. - Really? - Never.

There's lots of actors I've not worked with. Impossible. But here's what's funny and interesting about you and Bill Murray. His version of the gift thing is just showing up at parties, showing up at weddings, just uninvited, hanging out. Crashing it. Tending bar and then leaving people with...

Just a stunning... Isn't there a documentary, like the Bill Murray stories of some kind? There is. Yeah. He showed up at United Artists Movies when we were ushers there.

Liz Boyer was the cashier. Caddyshack had opened. No kidding. Yes. Yeah. You don't remember that story? You guys were ushers together? Oh, yeah. This is high school? This is after high school? It's kind of both. Cuspy. Yeah. Cuspy. Yeah, we were still in school and then off and on for a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah, this, I think it was one of the first multiplexes in the country. It was the United Artists Golden Ring Mall. Yeah.

And there were five of them. And they had two of them down by the Heck Company and three of them down by the Montgomery Wards. Montgomery Wards, yeah. Did you guys have those little push-powered broom sweeper devices? Oh, sure. I love those things. Is that weird? I love those things. Well, no, for you, no. That's not weird because that would pass for tech. That's a beautiful piece of engineering. Like when you think about the gift that you brought me,

compared to just a dustbin on a pole. Like at a glance, you'd be like, look how far we've come. But really, a thing that keeps you from having to bend down, it almost makes picking up trash kind of fun. It's a treat to do it. It's like erasing. It's so... It's like an eraser. You're right. It does. It just, you know, and it can leave a mark. We used that thing. He did to great effect.

I'm sure you've had lots and lots of jobs where you get to the realization that what you really need to do is amuse yourself in order to survive. Like your job might be to entertain people or your job might be to tear the tickets or whatever, but in the end you have to find a way to amuse yourself. And he and I would...

You have a tissue? Is there like a tissue available? No tissue. Yeah. Tell him your next show, maybe. Yeah, get him some toilet paper or something. Thanks. Yeah, I think that's the closest thing to tissue. I mean, it is tissue, if you think about it. I'm not above it. It is bath tissue. It's soft enough for your rectum. Rectum hell. Damn near killed him. Yeah. Yeah, wait for the tissue. I mean, there's a Bible right there, but wait for the tissue. Yeah. Please. So this is what happens.

Go ahead, make it loud. Blow that thing. Blow it hard. We would do these things called Brodies.

basically, pratfalls. And we'd do them in front of as many people as we could. A full theater. Yeah. Or a full restaurant. Like leaving a pizza hut one time, my friend Pat Paul said, Mike, you're going to love this one. And at the door on the way out were maybe 30 or 40 wooden high chairs. And they're all stacked up and they're together, right? Right.

So Pat gets up. He's just one of those guys that takes up all the air in the room, you know, and like people just wind up looking at him even just because he just exists, you know. And he's up and he's kind of noisy and he's walking around and he's taking big steps and he intentionally hooks his foot on the edge of one of these wooden high chairs.

And the whole rack of them goes down. And you know when wood smashes into wood, it's the clatter, right? Now he's tangled up in it and he's screaming. He's screaming and he's pinwheeling his arms.

And the high chairs are falling. It takes him probably 10 seconds to get all the way to the ground. And when he finally lands and the clattering stops, the entire Pizza Hut is just a frozen tableau. People are just shocked.

So he holds the standard, but you came back from checking the thermometer. Thermometer. Yeah, it was down in front of the theater. So you had to walk all the way down the center aisle of the movie theater and then go over to the side with your little pen light and you go, oh, yeah, it looks good. And then you turn it off and then you walk up and.

As I would walk up, I would turn back to look at the show, and then I would catch my foot on my other foot and just go ass over teacups and fall down. And people were like, oh, my God. And they would try to help me up. Like the whole theater. Like to completely ruin the movie. But, oh, I'm falling! And down he goes, crash, crash.

Yeah, I mean, you can really heighten the effect with that little broom thing. I love tripping over that thing on purpose. I'm imagining the damage you guys would have done had there been TikTok at the time. We would have gotten fired a lot sooner than we did. A lot sooner. Sure. And justifiably. You, as I remember, I don't know of anybody who loved a great prank better than you.

Here's the thing. I do, like, little pranks that say, oh my god, you thought about this for a long time, you took time to arrange this, but nobody gets hurt. Nothing gets damaged. I had a guy come up to my car one time at work and, uh...

This was many years ago. And gummy worms have been placed across my windshield wipers on a hot day in August. It is a sugary, melted mess all along my... And propped up underneath my brake pedal was a crushed traffic cone. And I'm going, what the hell is... Who would do this? And my brother goes, hey, that's for doing the thing to me. And I said, I didn't do that. Yeah. Oh.

Sorry. Yeah. Fine line. Yeah. I mean, I got to clean this up now. I got to do this. I was at work. Here's my birthday on my present job, the first season of my present job. I went to my car. It was full of balloons. I had to go get some pins to make room for me in the car. I had to pop them all these balloons. And then you tidy up the balloon shrapnel later. That's a harmless little joke that took people some real time. Nice.

some lung power to fill those damn balloons. Yeah, it took time and effort, and it says I love you. Those are the kind of pranks I'm into. Do you do those? You said something very kind to me earlier. It was fun on Dirty Jobs. It was stressful, strenuous, disgusting, and dangerous, but so much fun. Looking back, I never really thought about it at the time, but a lot of that, people take their cue from me.

especially in an unscripted show, you have a lot of permission, leeway, to kind of set a tone. What is it like in the scripted world when you're, what do they call it, the number one, the lead, whatever it is, do you consciously set a tone? I mean...

I think I am consciously the way I am because I enjoy my job. There's no place I'd rather be. I'm not in my mind saying I'm going to behave like this so everyone else does as well. It's kind of just my expectation that you're going to be cool at work.

But I've had jobs that were stressful and I've had jobs that are fantastic. And I don't change the way I behave in any way. And people say, hey, man, it's due to you that it comes from the top. And I say, that's really nice. But I have learned it takes a village because one sour grape, man, can cause a lot of stress. A lot of stress. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think in so many ways, I mean, the scripted world is still a mystery to me. I've done some. You should come do my show. All right. Will you? Yeah, sure.

That's legally binding. I got it recorded. Obviously, I owe you one. Give me a release. I'll sign anything. Excellent. No, I would love to. I played Tim Allen's younger brother. How'd that go? It was great. You know, because Tim sets a tone and Hector was terrific and that whole cast was really, really tight. But Tim knew...

from so much experience that it was a job and he wanted his people out of there by like nine o'clock. It wasn't the friends thing where it's two in the morning and there's still test and takes and it's nothing like that.

What was it like on Two Guys and a Girl? Was that your first sitcom? That was my first and only sitcom. I mean, I've guessed it on others, but yeah, that's what are they called? The bankers hours of television? Yeah. Sort of work four and a half days a week. Yeah. And one evening in there somewhere. You put on a play. And you put on a play for an audience who's glad to see it. And you do that for three weeks and then you get a week off.

There's a regret I have. I really should have taken advantage of that week off. I just traveled the world, just see some incredible things, do some amazing, like just achieve something. And instead I was like, I got all week to sit on my ass. And Harry's burrito. Having another ultimate supremo. Okay, let's go back. I want to go back to another memory of New York. It got me thinking about it with the push broom.

Because I was living on 68th Street. You were down the street. You were 2468. I was 2468. And you were down the street, 24... I was never good with addresses. No, you were four... You were three buildings down. Two or three buildings down. Yeah. And one evening, I think I called you. I can't remember who called who. You said, I thought you were in a Greek restaurant. Because I could hear...

smashing and crashing behind you. The tinkle of ceramic on floors, what I was imagining. - Things were bridging. Oh God, I know what this is. - And I said, "What's going on?" You said, "You have to come and see this." I said, "What's happening?" He said, "I can't even describe this. "You have to, it's something you must see with your eyes." And I went to your house. Now please tell everybody what I saw.

you saw a kind of Armageddon. You saw the wake of a disaster that would be most associated, I would think, with a flood or some kind of a hurricane. What happened began a week earlier when I was running late for my train to go down to Baltimore and I was in the shower of an apartment I was subletting. This is important. I'm subletting it. It's somebody else's domicile. It's somebody else's thing and I've been living in there about...

three months and I'm in the shower and the water goes off. I'm fully lathered, right? I'm covered in soap and I'm late for a train. And I'm turning the knobs off on, but this water's gone. So I clean up as best I can. I go to the train. I make it. I get to Baltimore. I'm filming down there all week. I come back a week later this day and

this day you're describing, and I put my hand on the doorknob on the outside and it was not hot, but it was warm. How could the doorknob be warm? I thought to myself and the reptilian part of my brain, something said, Hey, go easy opening this door. You're getting a message. But I couldn't imagine what it could have meant. I opened the door, Nathan, and all of the paint

was hanging off of the wall like a giant sunburned bat that had been peeling. There was must, there was fog and steam in the air. Everything looked soaked, but there was no water on the ground.

It was inconceivable. But what I had done in the shower, apparently, these knobs, these faucets were threaded backwards. Yes. So rather than the direction you would think would be off, I turned the cold water off, but the hot water stayed on, even though it wasn't coming out. So when the water in the building was reactivated...

For approximately one week, burning hot magma came out of my shower head. Because New York water is hot. It's lava hot, man. So that everybody can share, that everybody has enough hot water. Not that week. Not that week. Was it still hot when you turned it off? The people in the building had been complaining all week that their water wasn't getting hot. And then it wasn't even getting warm. Oh, my God.

Because it all emptied. Earlier that day, it was all the hot water was gone. And all of the steam from all of that incredible hot water had filled my apartment. And when you called... Sorry, not your apartment. The person who owned it. His name was Russ. And his dad, I forgot his name. But I mean, that was a rough call. I gotta believe it was. Rough call. Because it was destroyed.

It was destroyed. What did you see when you walked in? I saw piles of what looked like delicate porcelain lined with fine layers of color. So I assumed if anybody's been to a New York apartment, they see that every time someone else moves in, they just...

roller over everything with a thick white. Yeah. The windows are glued shut. Right. The light switches, you have to break the seal to get them working again. So everybody knows, no one's taking off the outlet covers to paint. They're just painting right over everything. Right. They're in a rush. And, uh,

All of those layers, and I'm probably thinking about it now, probably down to back when they used to use lead paint. Probably came off in there, some real toxic, steamed lead for your pink lungs. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do

If you had told me back in 2012 that I'd be sitting here on a podcast talking about the sweatshirt I received in the mail from Bayard Winthrop over at American Giant 13 years later, I'd have said, well, that's impossible. And if you told me I'd still be wearing that same sweatshirt after hundreds of washings and God only knows how many different dirty jobs, I'd have said, well, that's also impossible. And yet, here I sit.

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American Giant, American Made, American Giant, American Made. Well, if you're looking at, like, for a little useful, helpful takeaway from this story, steam is a real, I tell you, man, it's very effective, the steam is. I would say, though, you've probably got yourself an extra seven square feet in that apartment.

I had more headroom than I recall, that's for sure. And while standing there talking to you, I would watch pieces fall behind you and shatter on the floor. Yeah. Oh, God. And you kind of sighed and got your brood. Pushing it into the closest pile. These big piles. I mean, like, I talk about foreshadowing for dirty jobs.

Little did I know that that would be repeated many, many, many times with a full camera crew. Moments like that. It's demoralizing. Obviously, it wasn't my property, so it could have been worse. But when you think about coming home into a place that's been damaged by floods, or like in my world where sewage backups...

have resulted in these fecal fountains of filth in people's homes and they're literally knee deep in your neighbor's scat. Like some cleanup jobs are just so overwhelming. I actually, I wasn't crying in sadness, but I was weeping as those chunks fell and shattered because each one just was just a reminder that I had made a terrible mistake. And...

I was really not going to pay a price for it. I just had to explain to these people, you know, because there's no renter's insurance. How can you be mad, though? How can you be mad? That story is worth its weight in gold. You know what? I should write it down, I suppose. But I'll tell you what we did later that night. You were nice. You kind of helped me clean up a bit. And then you were like, you know what? We should go over to Harry's, get a drink. LAUGHTER

I miss that about New York having, like walking home from work and you know, someone calls from the other side of the street, "Hey, I'm going to a movie at six. Wanna go? I got an extra ticket." "Yeah, okay, I'll meet you there." And the movie's theater's just one block over and then you're walking past this place to go get your laundry and someone knocks on the window from inside a restaurant and they go, "Come on," and you stop in, you have a bite. Meeting your neighbors and being cool about it. I miss the forth-with-ness

of New Yorkers, of the East Coast. I miss that. Do you think that's brought about

By proximity. Yes. I do too. The isolation of Los Angeles, people aren't dealing with people, people are dealing with cars all the time. It's just, I believe that full on. You are up front with people all the time. Just a couple years ago, I was in New York, and my GPS was not, it was spinning. I don't know what was going on. I'm just looking, I'm going, this is not, I'm looking at the street, and I'm going, how do I name this guy coming next to me? He goes, what are you looking for?

What is this place here? I can't even tell. He goes, oh, you're on the wrong street. You need to go one more over and then down that way. That's the way. He's just tired of me being lost. Yeah, exactly. That's the difference between New York and L.A. in so many ways. The kindness that happens in New York is often delivered with a brusqueness and almost an exasperation. It's like they're really not doing it for you. Right.

They're being kind just because we just got to get you out of the slit stream. I can't watch this anymore, man. I can't watch this anymore. Exactly. I love that. I got one for you. Go. It's winter. Okay. We'd had a lot of snow and you go a little stir crazy in New York with the snow because like you were saying, you're...

Little did we know what the lockdowns would eventually bring, but to be locked down because of the snow for a couple days, it's kind of fun, but it's kind of weird. And you and I wound up going out one evening. There was a lot of snow on the ground, and the streets had been plowed, and you said, I know a guy. I want to take a ride.

And I know a guy. And I'm like, I have no idea where this is going. You were dating a girl at the time. I forget her name. But I walked down to 2468. She was there and you were there. And we were sitting around. You had a fireplace that you kept filled with candles. That's right. Like dozens of candles. Yeah, big thick white ones. Yeah. And we were sitting around enjoying the snow and relaxing. And you made this phone call.

And this guy shows up in this car. It's like a Duesenberg or something, like a 1945 Dick Tracy car. And on the roof of this car is a martini glass about five feet tall. And the martini glass is being... It's made of neon. And it's being fed by some battery inside the car. So it's like purple and red and...

And also in neon on the car was the name of the bar he owned. I'm trying to remember the name of the bar, but that was at this, he had a, he was always parking at that thing up front and it was a beautiful sign. And it was called the high life. Thank you. The high life.

And you were like, let's take a ride in the High Life car. I'm like, what are you even talking about? And it's snowing and there might have been some frosty beverages and whatnot involved. And we were in such a fun, happy place. And now I'm in the back of this car with you and this girl and we're driving through the snow.

in Manhattan and everybody we passed was just looking at us. 'Cause you can imagine, streets were nearly empty too because people didn't want to drive on that stuff. - Right, right. But people were walking 'cause people want to be out. So I'm in the back of this car with these two people with the words High Life and Neon and the snow's coming down and I could see the people looking at us. I could see the envy on their faces. They didn't quite know who we were or where we were going.

But there was a party in that car. We were clearly having a ball. You were living the high life. And later that night, Chuck, again, there's blank spaces, but we wound up behind the tavern on the green. Those incredible lights in the trees. And we were lying on our backs, and I swear to God, we were making snow angels. Now, I'm like, I'm 38 at this point, which means you're probably 29. 23 or 24. Yeah, whatever. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

I was younger. I must be nine years. I'm 62. 53. There you go. There you go. I got nine years on you. There you go. So I'm lying here with this dude, just Joey Buchanan, soap star, with this girl who's just a kick. I don't remember. I don't even know if you remember who I'm talking about. I think I remember exactly who you're talking about.

I don't want to get too detailed, but... Her name was Heidi. Yeah. She was hilarious. Do you remember a mason jar? Yeah. Her father was a mycologist. Yes. Please explain to the folks what a mycologist does. He's a doctor in the study of mushrooms, and he would send her what he called an earth ball, and she would roll it out in her closet and water it in a little Tupperware dish, and then she'd come and

pluck out the mushrooms that came out of it later and dehydrate them and that would fill your evening. That was lovely times. What a time. You got to unpack that a little bit more. Well, I don't want to spell it out, but you know, I mean, the miracle of psilocybin is a thing that's been experienced by... And her dad sent her this? Yes. Her dad, I believe, the way she told it to me was he was...

I think she might have used the words pioneer in the field. Yes. She said, you know, if there was a problem, a real problem, someone, you know, a police officer wanted to harass you about those things, that you could get off because they're not illegal because they don't, there's no such thing as them. Right. He had invented his own strain that is not listed as any illegal substance. It's kind of like that Bright Lights, Big City. You ever read that?

Jay McInerney, it's a famous book takes place. I've heard of it. In New York. What's interesting about it is he wrote it in the second person. Very unusual. Not first person. I did this. I went in. Not third person. He went in. She saw him. But you, right? You wake up. You look around.

You're not exactly sure what happened the night before, but the doorknob was warm and what used to be an apartment now looks like the DMZ. You shake your head and you say to yourself, what the hell were you thinking, Mike? All you had to do was turn off, right? So it's that. Everything is set like that.

That evening, I was thinking of Jay and that book as we were making Snow Angels behind the Tavern on the Green with this girl Heidi and all of this completely legal substance that was somehow making the snow and the high life all the more interesting. And like my internal monologue is going, you reminded your own business you got a phone call. Your buddy says he knew a guy with a car and a girl with a mason jar.

You say, all right, let's take a ride. And now you're making snow angels behind the tavern on the green. And so it's like...

I'm just so interested in the way our memories work. You know, the blank spots and the specificity of certain other spots. And I think sometimes the real benefit of staying friends with somebody for 45 years is that they can help you fill in the blank spaces and reconnecting with somebody that I haven't seen in over two decades. It's the same thing. You get another brick in your wall. You get another tile in your mosaic wall.

And, and suddenly the doors open. It's a beautiful thing, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not to be maudlin about it. I realize this is awfully inside for maybe the average listener, but, but I do think what we're talking about right now is so much more relatable in the human condition than, you know, the problems with the first AD or the problems, you know, like, like our careers, whatever in the end, uh,

everybody's just trying to make sense of one of those evenings 25 years ago that for some reason is looming large. Does this happen to you much? You know, what happens to me a lot is I'm made to realize, I'll say forced to realize how much I've forgotten over the years. But it just takes one mention, thought, passing by a building, wait a minute, and it

A door opens up in your brain that you haven't accessed in how long? Are those pieces of my brain, are they still getting blood flow? I mean, they're just waiting there. It's all there. They're waiting. That's interesting. That's interesting. Waiting, like waiting to be called on. Like a room full of people, they all have questions. Nobody wants to be rude. But I sure wish you'd call on me. I wish you'd jog. I wish somebody would say something to jog that part.

Those are gifts, man. To be reminded of a thing that made you laugh so hard once upon a time. Has this ever happened to you? Go. Have you, like in the same way it's delightful to be reminded of a thing you didn't remember at all, have you ever seen yourself on the screen, whether it's a computer screen or a TV, doing a scene, doing a thing,

that you had no real recollection of doing, and yet you couldn't deny it because, well, there you are. Yeah, certainly. Certainly. For the most part, I remember I'll see something and it'll... It does that thing. It opens the doors. Oh, wait, yes, that was... That was when...

We were at the far end of the street and then things start filling in. I can't remember if it was this day or that day. I do remember this. I remember this much for sure. I just saw something online.

from Desperate Housewives that I hadn't seen in a very, very long time. And I just went down memory lane. Oh yeah, Dana Delaney. Oh my God, I miss her. I owe her a call. I got to call her. I haven't talked to her in a long time. And I remember where we were. Oh, that was the time. Here's a quick story for you. I'm doing Desperate Housewives. I'm having a great time. They're very lovely. A friend of mine visits from high school. He comes to set.

And one of the Transpo guys says, hey, do you want me to drive you guys up to Wisteria Lane? It's part of their whole...

they have up there, Universal Studios. They have a neighborhood that you can go and use. And I said, that'd be fantastic. So we went up to Wisteria Lane. We're standing in front of one of the houses on the street at the end. And lo and behold, here comes one of the Universal tram tours coming by. And I hear the fellow in the announcement, ladies and gentlemen, if I'm not mistaken, we just drove past one of the more recent cast members of Desperate Housewives. And I'm going, this is great. And right in front of my buddy. Yeah.

One of the more recent members of Desperate Housewives, Nathan Lane. And my friend and I are just standing on the curb, just watching him go into the sunset. They're just kind of taking off. They're heading west now. They're driving away after we heard that. And he goes, so how'd that feel? Oh, man. Phil, what's the name? Phil Keegan? Kogan. I never get his last name right.

It's Keegan. Phil Keegan. He pronounces it Keegan. It looks like it's Kogan. Host of The Amazing Race. Okay. He was on a year or so ago. And he would have said, what you got right there is the classic tall poppy syndrome. And in New Zealand, it's like, they don't like anybody...

Everybody's rooting for each other, but the minute you just get a little too far ahead, right, the tall poppy gets cut down. They like their poppies all nice and even, and they like their people the same way. So too much success, too much fame, those guys will cut you like a knife. And so, you know, that's what friends are for. That's what old high school buddies do. All he had to say...

"What? How did that feel?" Because he knew the answer! And he knew it! He didn't even laugh, he didn't just explode with laughter, you know, pointing at me and enjoying my...

Is it hubris? Am I using that word correctly? My humiliation? Yeah, yes. You went from hubris to humiliation. You were feeling a little puffy. Oh, isn't that fun? Look at these nice people. Got themselves a celebrity sighting. I love that deflation. I kind of made a career out of it. Dumb.

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I never enjoy it when characters look extremely cool because it's not something I can relate to. So anytime I'm doing something on TV where my character looks really, really cool, I'll do a little something that kicks them in the nuts. Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know that I had the presence of mind to really understand that intuitively, but I learned it soon enough on Dirty Jobs, and it was a great gift for me. Whatever...

arrogance or hubris or whatever good thing you might be thinking about your performance, yourself, your standing, when you're in a sewer, when you're covered with other people's crap, when you realize that the show that you pitched and sold actually hinges on your willingness to take the pie in the face, your willingness to be the apprentice, the dilettante, the second banana.

Once you're okay with that, it's about the most freeing thing that can happen in the nonfiction world when you're in front of a camera because all the expectations of expertise drain out of it. The viewer no longer is looking for me to be correct. They're looking to me to try. And I can do that. I can try all day long. So yeah, man, managing expectations, both your own

And the people around you, that's a neat trick. I saw you crawl into some spaces that would have sent me into a panic. A very real panic. I saw you climbing heights that would have paralyzed me with fear. I would still be there now, gripping my safety line. The guy next to me. You made me very nervous once, flicking around as I was.

I flicked, too. And I'll stop at Groundhog's Day. We'll get back to Shawshank in a minute. But the Emmys were on. And I tuned in just in time to see your pal, Neil Patrick Harris, absolutely crush the Open. Boy, he was good. He's extremely talented. He's always good. But that, like, stuff lined up for him on that. And then he introduced you. And you came out with Sarah Silverman.

And you're doing a song and dance number. And now, you and I had hung out enough. I knew you could carry a tune. And I knew you were a fan of... I knew you'd done plenty of shows and stuff, but...

I didn't really know if you could sing. I didn't really know, you know, and you're in a fucking tuxedo and you're coming out there and I'm like, oh man, this is live. He's going for it. My friend Nathan's going for it. My sphincter tightened up for you. Thanks for that. Because I've been around that. That's really live. That's a thing, you know. Were you nervous? Do you even get nervous? Oh, heck yeah, I get nervous. Yes, I get nervous. I get the flop sweats. Yeah.

It was super simple. I sang a line, maybe two. All the dancers around us make it look like you're dancing. They're doing all the heavy lifting. I came up with a bit to just breathe really heavy at the end, like we've been dancing, but really we weren't because all the dancers, every rehearsal they'd be finished.

So I said, I'm going to do that too. So no one thinks I'm getting away with something up there. You hyperventilate. Exactly, exactly. Looks like you poured your heart and soul into it. But really, they took really good care of us up there. Yeah, there was no big deal there. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. I bet. It gets a little, it's exciting, I think. That part was exciting. I didn't think about it too much. I went to something recently, um,

where I had to make a speech in front of a bunch of people. And as I was watching everybody come in, I think, oh my God, these are, some of these people are big deals in the industry that I've chose to try to make a living in. And I started getting a little nervous and I had to follow Will Ferrell. I'm like, ah, Jesus Christ.

Who asked me to do this? Who do I know? I got nervous. I got nervous. I practiced. I was confident in what I was doing. I think I did a good job. But yeah, I got super tense. I got super tense. Sometimes you get yourself into those situations where you think, have I bitten off more than I can chew here? Do you use it? Like, how do you deal when you get that feeling? My secret is I don't have a way to stop being nervous, but I do have a way to act like I'm not. Mm-hmm.

A hack. Yeah. Yes. It started with auditioning. Yes. Auditions are so awkward and awful. The worst. This whole process is just a screw of the brain and mind. And the further along it goes, hey, we're going to call you back and call you back. The stakes keep getting higher and higher. And I finally found the hack of I'm playing the character of Nathan Fillion, professional actor. And it starts in the parking lot.

and how I walk in and how I sign in and how I comport myself. This is a guy who can look you in the eye. This is a guy that doesn't laugh at your joke if it's not funny. I'm not thrown. I am rock steady. And if you hire me, this is what you get. Someone who's rock steady, who's not dying to be your friend. I'm here for the audition. Can we talk about soaps? Yeah, please. Yes, please. This occurred to me.

Also, I think I was, you popped up randomly, this would have been, it was the Dr. Horrible thing. Right? Dr. Horrible, did you ever see this? Dr. Horrible's like a musical blog.

Something they did just for grins. It was born of the strike in 2009, 2008, 2009. There was that big old strike. And a lot of writers wanted to say, we don't need producers. We can make our own stuff. So there was a striketv.net and a lot of guys started putting their own stuff up. I did a project with James Gunn called PG Porn. PG Porn. Pornography for people who like everything about porn except the sex.

Wow. So you're like a pizza delivery guy? I was a construction worker. Yes. Yes. But at the point where the sex should start, something else happens and it just takes a left turn. That's great. It was a lot. It was very entertaining. It was a bunch of them. Different themes. It was really fun. And then Joss said, this is something I wanted to do. And with my brother, both my brothers, my family and everybody that he knows. It was literally...

that thing was like, "Let's put on a play. "All right, we got some costumes and clothes we could use, "and we could use my uncle's barn as a stage." It was that. We were literally walking down the street filming something and we had lost the light of the day, and two people held up iPhones with the lights on the back, and roll. - Good enough. - And it's all we needed, and off we go. And that was some guerrilla filmmaking. It was a lot of fun. - Well, that's what pulled me in, because back to that business of amusing yourself, first and foremost.

That just felt really modest but intentional at the same time. And, you know, you mentioned the writer's strike. There was one in, I guess it was 2003 or 2004, which got dirty jobs on the air, honestly. I mean, it was that whole time people became so...

All of a sudden we need content and people looked at nonfiction differently and the standards kind of maybe, you know, I was able to sneak on the air with stuff like that. I mentioned in passing because as I was watching you sing in this thing, who was the girl, by the way, the sweet voice she had? Oh, on Dr. Horrible? Yeah. Felicia Day. Yeah. Yeah, there's this great moment where he plays, was it the Hammer? Captain Hammer. Captain Hammer. Corporate tool. Yeah.

You got to give me the... Because this isn't the hammer. Yeah, but I'm going to be giving her the hammer all night long. And these are not the hammer. And then he walks out of the shot and then walks back in and says, the penis is the hammer. And then walks out again. And that's when I was like, Nathan, you got me. That's so good. And then I...

I think in that moment, for whatever reason, I was thinking about the Joey Buchanan days and the soap opera days, which made me think about my own QVC days. Mm-hmm. Right? And so the question I'm getting at is, I didn't talk about, I was fired three times from QVC. Yeah.

Just five weeks. It just didn't take. It just didn't take. Who hires you back after you've been fired? Well, Joan Rivers, for starters. Wow, okay, there's that. Yeah, so many great stories in those days. But when I was done, I wasn't ashamed of what I had done, but nor was I proud. I had spent three years in the middle of the night talking extemporaneously about items that I hadn't bothered to prepare for, right? And so...

Whatever. When I left that job, though, I knew how to audition. I had my hacks all worked out. My toolbox was completely situated to allow me to do what I wanted to do, which at the time was just freelance. And then years later, to my earlier question, I saw myself on YouTube in the middle of the night

selling the Amcor negative ion generator with absolutely no memory of that happening and yet completely aware that it did because I'm looking at myself. And that got me going down a road of thinking, you know, I made a lot of fun of that job, but I actually think I learned every useful thing I needed to know about this industry in the middle of the night trying to stay awake with these nameless products.

Which led me to wonder what you learned as Joey Buchanan in the soaps. Everything I use every day, I learned in the soaps. Really? Everything. Everything. I was with people who had been in the business for 15, 25, 40 years. And God bless them. They were all willing to teach me anything I asked, anything I wanted to know.

They were willing to share their wisdom. There was a kid who came to our show from another soap. They were interweaving soap operas to make these fictional cities actually exist and try to lend validity to the universe. And so we're doing all these crossover episodes, and this fella came to our show, and he's

We were going out for lunch to Harry's Burritos. I invited him along. On the way back, he'd been very quiet the whole day. And on the way back, he said, you guys are all actually friends. Yeah, of course we're friends. You don't have friends on your show? He goes, no, no. I hide in my dressing room. If you get too much attention, someone will get you fired. It's not. Oh, wow. Tall poppy.

How horrifying. How horrifying. And it made me so much more grateful for the conditions that I was learning in. I'm still friends with all those people. The fella that played my uncle, two stories. The fella that played my uncle, one of my first scenes with him, I'm just standing across from him talking and he reaches out with his leg and just pushes me to the side. I move over and he goes...

And we keep going. We're not stopping the scene. I was in his light. You were in his light. I didn't hit my mark. Technically, that show taught me to be technically proficient. I can sneak across a darkened sheriff's office where there's zombies around somewhere and I need something and then turn and have my...

my eyes you know perfectly lit just with one slat of light because that's where it needs to be and because I heard something happen and oh no it's nothing okay keep going and slither as I recall that was slither that's exactly right and the DP who's like oh he's very concerned about that light hitting my eyes he said to me you are technically perfect every time you can do every time I said thanks soap shoppers that's what soaps did for me and then that same man

pulled me aside two years into my three-year contract and he said, it's time. They're going to ask you, are you going to stay or are you going to leave? And you're going to tell them you're going to leave. And this is what they're going to say. And then this is what you're going to say. And then they're going to say this to make it more. And you'll say, can I get that writing? And they'll say, we'll try our best. That means it's not going to happen. So he said, listen, it's the golden handcuffs of entertainment. They are gold, but they are handcuffs. And the longer you stay, the harder it will be to get out. So wrap it up.

Go to L.A. If it doesn't work, pick up the phone and say, I want to come back. And they'll fire whoever's in your place. Don't worry about that guy. We don't love that guy. We love you. No one's going to say, oh, you left. Everybody's going to welcome you back. There's no risk. All right. Okay, wait, wait, wait. Who was that guy? Bob Woods. Bob Woods deserves credit. I love that story. I tell it to him every time I see him. Well, now we're telling it to the world because, you know,

I always wind up at some point in the conversation coming back to one of those moments where you probably appreciated the significance of it then, but how could you completely understand the wisdom of it until later? You had to leave a sure thing. As you so gently reminded me in Harry's with a mouth full of the Supremo. Kind of a big deal now, Mike.

You were a big deal. You were Joey Buchanan. Listen, from where I'm from, people don't just take off and go do soap operas. You know, it's not. So when somebody asks you, hey, when did you know that you made it? And my answer is all the time. Like the last time I made it was just a few months ago. Like every time I get a job, I go, oh, my God, I made it. Yeah. Hey, Mike Rowe just called you to be on his podcast. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Finally, I finally made it.

There'll be no money. I'm putting that right into that. Try it again to this camera. This time. Taylor, is he in the light? Do we have him good? Oh, he's always in the light. He knows how to find the light. Oh, man. Okay, so Bob Wood. Bob Woods. Woods. Also Bobo. We call him Bobo. Bobo.

How nervous were you? About leaving? About, yeah, coming here to Sodom or Gomorrah or whichever one. You know, things started to roll for me two days before I left New York. I got a job here in LA. I came out a month or two prior to visit friends. My agency had an office on each coast.

And they said, "We're gonna put you on some auditions while you're out there." I went to an audition. It was a nightmare. It was awful. It's one of my most horrific audition stories. And they didn't want me. I come back to New York. I got an audition. It's for the same project. I said, "I just auditioned for this. They didn't want me." They said, "Oh, this is totally different casting. Just go in." All right. I didn't prepare because I'd already prepared. I knew the scene. I knew exactly what I was gonna do. They were laughing throughout. I got the job.

So instead of my plan of loading up a truck and driving across country, a friend of mine packed all my stuff in a truck for me and sent it. I had to fly in and do a pilot. I was already working. What was it for? It was called 708. We were being groomed to follow a very popular program called Friends. We were going to be the 830 show behind the 8 o'clock Friends.

Wow. And it was a sure thing, Mike. Sure thing. Sure thing. You got it. You guys are in like it's out. It's gone. It's gone. It's been. No, it's not going to go any further. That's it was horrifying. A good lesson. Yeah. And then right after that, a casting director I met in New York. I auditioned for a movie of the week. I want to say Rich Kids versus Poor Kids sailing. Yeah.

Check that box. And the casting director said, you know what, I'm going to have you come back and audition for something else. And it was for an ABC cop drama in Los Angeles. And they wanted me for the role, and ABC Daytime wouldn't let me go to go to ABC Primetime. And I felt a little bitter about that, but the casting director said, call me when you get to L.A. And I called her up, and she put me in Saving Private Ryan. And this is the other moment. I was here in L.A.,

And when I saw you crying up on the screen, I cried too. - Hey, thanks man. - I swear to God, I was sitting there with Howard Balaban's friend, a guy named Richie, and I was like, I'm glad we started this conversation where we did because it's just one long I told you so. I told you you were gonna make it. - You did tell me that. - And really, selfishly, it's just a delight to be proven correct in so many different ways. From Dr. Horrible singing,

The Rookie, by the way, John Nolan, it's terrific. Castle, Jesus, what a run. - Thanks, man. - The big screen, the small screen, the singing, you're still in on the joke. You're still bringing gifts to people. Sorry, tell me about Private Ryan. People should understand.

The reality of that. I know the story because you and I spoke after it. But flying over there, Spielberg. I was nervous. I bet you were. Yeah. That was before I found my feet. I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea. What was the scene? This is the scene where everybody... Somebody just asked me yesterday, you were in Saving Private Ryan? What part were you... And I tell them, they go, oh, yeah. It's I was the wrong Ryan. Minnesota. I was Minnesota Ryan. Yeah. I was...

James Frederick Ryan. No, James Francis Ryan. They were looking for Francis and I was Frederick or they were looking for Frederick and I was Francis. Either way, you were not the droid they were looking for. This was not the guy. But...

All I had to do was come in and cry. And on the soap opera, they called me Joey the Town Crier because I could cry at the drop of a hat. And here I was in London, and here it is. It's actually important. And I was dry as a popcorn fart. I could not summon a glazed eye, never mind a tear trickling down my cheek. And I was just so nervous, so nervous. And, you know, there's the incomparable Tom Hanks. There's the...

wonderful Ted Danson that I was raised on cheers. Raised on cheers. I was tense and Steven Spielberg took me aside before he did some wide shot stuff and I was not happy with my performance and he goes, "Oh listen, there's five of us in that video booth. We all bought it but what I hear you saying is wherever it is here it's not coming out to here. Tell me about your homework. Tell me about when you hear this what is your character going through? What do you think?" And I tell him my whole big spiel that I came up with. He goes, "That's great."

Instead of eight and ten, what if they were four and six? And when you see them and you imagine that those two, when you see, turn that camera around in your mind. Who is seeing them? Is it your mother? Who discovers them? Who tells your mom? It should have been you. And when you're going home, who are you going home to? She's already dead. You know that. She's already inside. And I was so emotional. That whole thing that he gave me, he looked at me and said, you look ready. How do you feel?

Somebody say action. I feel ready. He goes, all right, let's start the rain. Let's put this on a 35 and rolling and everybody. And that's how loud he was too. He didn't talk very loud. Amazing.

Cut to, I'm filming Firefly on the Fox lot. And I was in the market for a new... Not in Canada. No, no. I was in the market for a new automobile and I was walking in costume from our set to our production office and there was a SUV there. And I said, oh, that's a... I was kind of thinking about an SUV. People wonder what kind of SUV that is. And I look and someone is inside waving me over. Oh, and it's Steven Spielberg.

And he goes, "Hey, remember me?" - Oh man. - Yes, yes sir I do. I do remember you. - Wow, wow. - He says, "What are you doing?" And I told him what we were up to and then I think two weeks later the production office was abuzz with, "Steven Spielberg is watching our show, did you know?" Well, you're welcome. - If you had to do it again and you walked over to him in an alternative universe, can you imagine a better moment than him saying,

Nathan Lane, right? How'd that feel? How'd that feel? Oh, man. So, I guess there's really nothing else to ask you. I don't want to ask you the shit people ask you every freaking day. What about fans? How do you think about...

This Comic-Con thing. This is a world. Yes. And I don't know how many of our listeners, we've got a pretty big audience, but I don't know how many of them go to Comic-Con. But I went to one. And it was like, holy crap. There's a whole other world. And it's not a small world. And these people are engaged. And you at Comic-Con

are the last piece of chicken at a country ranch cookout. You are. He painted a picture. There are lines. There are mosh pits. They weep. They clutch. So how do you think of your fans? And are those the fans you think of?

That's the bread and butter. If no one is watching and no one is engaged is a fantastic word because they are engaged. Do you think about things that you were a fan of when you were young and what was your access? A folded poster from a teen beat magazine of some kind? I mean, they didn't have Lego sets based on your favorite TV show. They didn't have t-shirts or things that you could customize and print yourself or...

The fandom now has access in a way that they never have before. And every time I go to one of those things, every hand I shake, every photo I take with someone, that's someone who will go and buy a ticket to see the movie I come out in next. It's a guarantee. They're not going to stop being a fan at that point. At that point, they're more locked in than ever. They're already a fan. All you have to do is not blow it. Just blow it.

With gratitude. Just with gratitude. Yeah, you work for them. Potentially, right? I mean, I'm having a great time. When I first started acting, I really thought the immediacy, because I was doing theater. There's not a lot of television and film going on in my hometown, but it's a great theater community. Lots of support for theater. This was Edmonton? Edmonton, Alberta. We have the second largest fringe festival in the world next to Edinburgh. Thank you very much.

No kidding. Yeah, yeah. Week theater. What did I see? You were on stage. You were very young. It looked like a college production. There was a sword. Oh, Jesus. You saw that? I don't know what I saw, but I... Look, man, I joked with you before we started rolling. You are the gum I stepped in 25 years ago.

It's just like, ah, there he is again. And it's such a kick to be here with you in the flesh. But it was another one of those moments. I saw you in a sword fight in a college production of something. Zastrozzi. You saw that? How did you possibly? Man, I'm deep well, dude. I don't think I've seen that. You should look at it. Zastrozzi, yeah. So it was a fellow I know who...

In an odd turn of events, it voices Rocket Raccoon for the animated Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, I saw his name up in the credits some time ago, so I'm really happy he's doing well. He was in a director's program and he needed to put on a little show. It had to be a certain amount of time. He said, I want to do something a little bigger. It was a bigger amount of time. There was only one show and it was about the greatest swordsman in the world whom I played. And we wanted this sword fight to be great.

We wanted it to be great. I love this story. And we had a plan. If listen, if all fails and something goes terribly wrong, we will move to this point of the fight, kind of the last third of it. Just go to that bit. And right off the top of this fight, we're kicking around and we're doing great. Listen, I'm proud of that work we did. We were really on top of it. Me and this other fellow, we practiced like crazy.

And like 10 or 11 smacks of that fencing blade, tank, mine broke off. Four inches from the hilt, and the blade hits the ground, and it goes sliding over and hits the feet of the people in the front row, who all look at it, and then look up at me. And I go, look at him, look at my sword. I said, what?

Don't move. Ran off stage. Give me a sword. Someone else grabs their sword and hands it to me and I come out back there and I land and I go, okay. The crowd is laughing their ass off.

And we're just kind of connected for this moment, just waiting for this laugh to die down. I take the moment to kind of just test the sword, make sure it's going to, all right, this is good. It's going to work out. But I'm looking at him saying, please, God, don't go to the end. We've worked so hard on this whole sword fight. Let's just pick up from where we left off. And he got it somehow. He understood. And we did our whole sword fight. I was very proud. We went to the end. And I remember Trevor at the end was pretty thrilled that it worked out. So...

I was racking my brain to try and better describe what I meant an hour and 20 minutes ago when I told the audience that you were always in on the joke. And that's what I meant. It's one thing to be technically perfect. It's one thing to memorize your lines and hit your mark and execute a well-choreographed scene and always know where the light is. It's great. But when it shits the bed and everybody's looking...

In that moment, we really learn everything we need to know about the human condition, the state of theater in modern times, and everybody around us, too. It's bang, just like that. It's hic sunt draconis, right? Here be dragons. This was not in the brochure. To handle it that way in that moment is why everybody loves you. I think it's the reason. You relieved the audience. They were worried about

For you, they were worried for the other guy. They were worried. This is all just so awkward. And you not only relieved them, you gave them something that they'll remember. How many people are going to remember a sword fight from a college production? But they'll remember that. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. I got a question for you. You are extremely successful. Your television programs, your books, your podcast, here we are.

Busy texting. I got Taylor. Yeah. No, he still takes notes. Trying to give him some credit, but that's okay. He's like that. He doesn't need it. He's solid. With that hair? No, you don't need it. Those hands? Yeah. He's actually ordering the Hoover Air X1 right now, I'm sure. When did you know, how did you know, I've made it? Like, I'm a success? You or me? You. Oh. Ah. When did you say, I've got this? Well...

The second time they hired you for BBC. The second time they've hired me back. I'm untouchable. I guess maybe I knew that something was up. You'll laugh at this, or maybe you'll have something real similar, but there were some awards and things, and I saw a lot of shows spin out of Dirty Jobs directly. And I thought, well, that's interesting. And I saw a lot of the cable landscape change, right?

Because of that show I knew I was onto something when the fan mail it wasn't about oh you're funny or oh I love that show it was Wait, do you see what my dad does my mom my brother my cousin? Where do you see what they do for a living that made me feel really good It's a different kind of fan mail than you got at QVC. It's a different kind of fan mail I'm sure than you got from from the soaps, you know when you do something you play a cop and

How many cops have you heard from saying, thank you? Thank you for doing something for our profession. Thank you for making us human, right? That kind of feedback matters. And the one that got me, two things got me. One was some photographs a mom sent me of her little boy dressed as me for Halloween.

Dressed like a construction worker. He had multiple outfits, you know, he was like a Sanitation worker like all these trades, you know, he's trick-or-treating as me a little mask on little respirator Right, and I was like, that's amazing and that same week I was shaking hands at I was in Woodstock, Georgia at a Lowe's

And I was doing some deal with Whirlpool. Whirlpool, I don't know, I made some commercial deal. And Barsky was in a dunk tank and people were lined up. You know, they heard I was there and a lot of Dirty Jobs fans came out. And then word got around and then the line went like half a mile. And I was supposed to be out of there, but I don't have a lot of rules. But one is, if you're in line, I wait. You know, we might stop the line at some point. But there was nothing to be done. The whole town came out.

And the line was long and I ran out of headshots. And so people started going into the Lowe's and buying plungers and toilet seats. And I would autograph toilet rims and like all the pieces of the toilet, all the plumbing supplies. I'm autographing plungers. That was a minute, right? But then there was a little kid, like the kid with the pictures, who came up to just ask me all the, how does that work? And were you scared on the bridge and so forth? And behind him was his granddad.

who flew bombers in the Second World War. It was about '99. And he wanted to tell me some stories about the war and how much he enjoyed the show and how much he and his grandson enjoyed watching it together. That killed me. That killed me. I'm signing plungers and talking across generations about a show I did for my granddad. It was supposed to be three and done. It wasn't supposed to be this thing.

So, yeah, it was the fans who stood to say thanks and ask me to sign a plunger. What is the feeling when you understand that

The notes you are playing are resonating in people's hearts. What does that give you? Well, I'll answer if you promise to answer the same question. Okay. Because this is my podcast, for God's sakes. By the way, why don't you have a podcast? What are you waiting for? We're thinking about it. We're thinking about it. We're making some plans right now. Thanks for asking. You're welcome. If I'm not in the top five first guests, there's going to be help. You're going to be in there. Don't you worry. Don't you worry. It's going to be me and Alan Tudyk, actually. Oh, thanks. That's great. Yeah. What was your question again? I drifted off.

The feeling you get when you understand that you are resonating, that you are connecting, that something you are doing is meaningful and lives in the hearts of people that you've never met. Yeah, it's a weird mix of gratitude, humility, and actually a little bit of fear. What's the fear part? Well, the fear is I am a staunch skeptic.

of platitudes, bromides and tropes. I think a lot of what's happened in our country that's got people going down a bad road is that they've taken advice that wasn't meant for them and they've heard the advice courtesy of these cameras and microphones. When you have a platform, when you have an audience,

you're immediately grateful for it. But if you're living in the real world and you're talking to kids about scholarships and people about their careers and college or no college and these things, you don't really know who's listening. It's fine if I'm sitting across from you and it's fine if I have an understanding of who you are and know something about you. But I think we're real long in advice in this country and very long on certainty too. And so I

Our foundation is, I don't know, we've given away $12 million in work ethic scholarships. Well done. We've got 2,000 plus people who are prospering in the trades because they learned a skill that was in demand. Congratulations. Thanks. That makes me feel great. But I worry. I worry every day that somebody might be listening and

And they might take a thing I say to heart the wrong way. I can't control that other than to constantly step back and say, look, don't take it from me. Do your homework. Be diligent. I find myself spending a lot of time qualifying my advice.

By saying, I don't really know. I have my story and I've got a lot of anecdotal facts. I've got a bunch of people we have assisted, but I don't know you, not really. And so Dorothy Parker said, advice is that thing you need to hear but wish you didn't. I once distributed some advice at a Comic-Con, one of those conventions.

Someone asking you know, how do you become an actor and it's like I don't there's no one way you have to want it Just how do I possibly I can tell you I can tell you something that served me Well do it if it scares you if there's something in front of you and you're scared to do it There's a reason you're scared and that may be the reason is it's something you need to do and the very next time that following year or two I went to the same convention and a young lady came up to me and said I

I heard what you said and I quit my job as a kindergarten teacher. That's what I said. That was exactly the same. What have I done? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But she was incredibly creative in creating prosthetic makeups and models and whatnot. She was...

extremely talented. The fancy dress, this was in England, the fancy dress costume contest. She was Alan Tudyk riding a T-Rex was her costume. And the T-Rex was Jurassic Park quality. It had

striations in the teeth where you could see the tartar build up. You could see the gums were discolored here, but the same here. The glaze in the eyes, the scales on it. She looked like she pulled off Alan's face and put it over her own. It was bizarrely amazing. Wow. And she's a kindergarten teacher. She quit her job, and then at that point, she was doing creature creations for the Harry Potter movies. She was making trolls and goblins for them.

She said, I've never been happier. That's terrific. So thank God that worked out. But I felt that fear of, oh my God, what have I done? Yeah. I mean, can you imagine Bob Woods gets a phone call a few years later from Skid Row where Nathan is hanging out saying, hey man, I'm going to need that gig back. Yeah. Yeah. You don't know. You don't know. But fans, man. You used the word engagement earlier. I think that's a phenomenal word. I have at times...

called upon fandom to help a cause, do something, for getting books to kids, for getting clean water to communities that need it. And I am told by these charities that there are big rock and roll bands that are wildly famous the world over who can't get their fans rallied enough to help. But mine, when called to task, they're into it. They rise. Yeah, they really are.

You are blessed, and I am too. The fans of Dirty Jobs programmed it. All the ideas came from them. I think it's awesome that in the end you still know that. I think you probably knew it intuitively from the jump. But what we need to do... God, is Harry's even still there? I don't know, but I'm sure any Mexican restaurant will suffice. All right.

I mean, ideally, we need to do it in New York. - Ideally. - In a perfect world, it'd be snowing, Heidi'd still be in the sketch, we'd get the old High Life thing, take a cruise through the park. - Columbus Avenue. - Yeah. But if that doesn't happen, can we just vow to go get a meal here in LA at some point? - Yes, sir. - I've always liked you. I might even love you. I can't wait to unpack this thing and see if it works.

I hope you don't choke on the jerky or the whiskey, but, you know, from me to you. This has been a treat, Mike. Thanks. If you're done, please subscribe. Leave some stars, ideally five. Five lousy little stars.

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