Once We Sold Dead Snakes | Episode 16

What was your first job ever? I found a dead snake and went door to door until I sold it for a silver dollar. Is there a market for? I sold that son of a bitch. Patrick Larkin bought it. I didn't want a dollar. I wanted a silver dollar. And I got a silver dollar. You're quite the salesman. Yeah, I could sell a dead snake for a silver dollar. That sounds like an old adage from Texas. He's such a good salesman. He's so sly. He could sell a dead snake for a silver dollar. Once we were spacemen. I tend to play weird people, Usually aliens and robots and things that don't have romance I once didn't get a job where they were looking for a Nathan Fillion type Once we were spacemen Once we were spacemen Alan Tudyk, do the thing Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Once We Were Spacemen Because once we were spacemen It was a great time It was a sexy time Oh yeah It was a time that we didn't pay attention to time Because things were happening and they were fun And now as time has gone on We look back at that time And we say to ourselves Once we were spacemen Hey Nathan Good times I should start writing things for that I think I think spoil the fun I think I could maybe make him better. I don't know. I don't like cats. I'll think about it. I think the enemy of good is better. Is it? Yeah. The enemy of good is better. Somebody told me that once. But isn't better better than good? But you keep chasing it. If you have it, if you've got it, right. Why chase it? Well, in work, there's always room for better. Maybe that's setting yourself up for failure and a life of unsatisfactory wins. Like even if you win, you're like, could have been better. That's, I think, a good lesson in life. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing. I'm better. There's many places you could possibly be. Tell me where you are right now. I don't recognize the room behind you. This is Los Angeles in my Los Angeles home. Now that there's going to be a little video piece to this, I think I need to set up something a little bit more lovely. Right now, it's just obviously a room at my house. I have a room for this. You know I do. I have a room for exactly this. with incredible lighting. Is that where you are right now? No, I'm in my theater. I'm in the little, I see the theater. It's a little room that I have a TV in. That's a good way to do that. And everybody out there, if you have a room with a TV in it, start calling it your theater. It feels better. I also call it the cave. It's like somebody gave me some wooden cutout letters up there on the wall. It's just the cave. How do you differentiate it from your cave? Because I mean, I'm in my cave most days. Do you have a man cave? Do you have like a den? Do you have like a little room that's just for home? Actually, I do. Well, downstairs. That little dungeon room. It does have a very dungeon-y feel. It could be a cave. It didn't come with the house. It was built into the house by myself and more importantly, my friend Billy, who was a contractor at one time in his life and knew what he was doing. I just supplied tequila and the wood and cement. I helped a lot, but he knew how to make it work. I remember the door on that room is not a true door size. No, it's small. Again, really reinforcing the cave. That's why I say it's for the dungeon room, because it has that little door. You'll hit your head on it. I wanted to put some of those little western doors, you know? I wanted to do a Western door thing because, you know, you only see those. Where do you see them anymore? They used to have them in porn in, like, video shops. There'd be, like, a couple of Western doors in the back. You're like, what's back there? They're like, the porn. And that was the only place where Western doors got relegated to just seedy little back rooms of porn shops. Oh, yeah. Don't some restaurants still have those kind of swinging saloon doors? To go to the kitchen? I hope so. I hope so. There was one in Texas called The Feed Bag. It was a hamburger place. It had western doors, and I love going there just to go through the western doors. I just love pushing through them and pretending like I was a cowboy. There's a new sheriff in town. Yeah, I announced two evidently when I was a young little three-year-old, four-year-old child. pushed through them and announced to the whole restaurant, I'm Black Bart and I'm here to get burgers or something like that and embarrass my mother. I did it one time because I yelled it out and the whole restaurant was like, the hell is that, child? I love cartoons. There were a lot of those saloon cartoons with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. There were some of those. And Daffy Duck as well. Yeah. Stuff you don't see anymore because they were shooting them each other in the face and stuff. And they're pretty concerned about what they're teaching kids. It's Yosemite! Yosemite! That's why there's no violence in our world. I actually, there was a child staying with me a while ago, a friend of ours who he was in a trial separation from his wife and moved his two-year-old son in. I was like, hey, Come move into my house while your trial's separated. He brought a two-year-old with him. And we had a blast. It was a great summer. But I was like, this little kid needs to see some real cartoons. This is how I feel like I learned comedy, was by watching Warner Brothers cartoons, because they were based on vaudeville. And it's the classic one, two, three, and just really great comedy. And we propped him up in front of the TV, and we turned it on. somebody came i think it's a bucks bunny hit elmer fudd in the head he looked at that looked at his dad had a pillow and hit his dad in the head with it and that was it that was we were done watching those cartoons because it was immediately you'd watched him see it and then try it out it's like all right enough of that a cautionary tale it was it was i don't know if he's grown into a violent child. We've lost touch. What was your first job ever? I found a dead snake and went door to door until I sold it for a silver dollar. Is there a market for? I sold that son of a bitch. Patrick Larkin bought it. I didn't want a dollar. I wanted a silver dollar. And I got a silver dollar. You're quite the salesman. Yeah, I could sell a dead snake for a silver dollar. That sounds like an old adage from Texas. He's such a good salesman. He's so sly. He could sell a dead snake for a silver dollar. Yeah. I was always coming up with things to sell and ways to make money. When I got old enough, probably 11, I was going around and putting flyers around the neighborhood that I would babysit or wash your windows or weed your garden or anything. Were you any good at any of these, John? No, definitely not babysitting. I was terrible at that. I needed my own babysitter to babysit somebody. Also, weeding I could do, and I would only charge you a penny of weed. God, it was the worst job. I'd charge you a penny of weed, and if I don't get the root, you don't have to pay me. I'm sure on your flyer. It'll just grow back. So I'd go, I'd go, I'd get the route. I'd get the whole thing. And I'd wash your car. I'd do all that kind of stuff. I had a friend in New York City. Her name was Amy. She grew up, I guess, Texas? One of these southern states. But she isn't just one of these but gone, gone, yes. Okay. But she and some, a friend of hers had, her friend's father was the pastor. Okay. And they had access to this church where in the back kind of office room. Do you remember mimeograph machines? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You had to type something onto a carbon paper, and then you'd put it onto this drum, and you'd roll the drum, and with toner, it was an early form of photocopying. Yeah, it was like a photocopier. And you turn the... And it smelled a certain way. Shoo-joo-joo. Yeah. Yes, it had quite an odor, and the ink people would smell them as kids saying it could get you high. And it was only good for so many copies before you had to make a new carbon paper. Before you got wasted. Absolutely. They would concoct lottery tickets and mimeograph them and cut them out and staple them together and go to the rich neighborhood in town and sell lottery tickets for a raffle that did not exist. Oh, and they did this at a church? Out of a church. That was their base of operations, yeah. Oh, my God. That's some high-level scammery that I would never have conceived of as a kid. These kids were making money hand over fist. They were 20 bucks a book. That's the devil's work. That is the devil's work. They're going into the house of God to print up lies for money. And what'd they use that money for? Liquor? And if she told me, I won't forget. This is a very old story. Drug, sex, there's all the wrong things. But Alan, so that's early entrepreneurship. But what was your first job? I need your social security number for your W2. I was a paper boy. I had two paper routes. yeah the plain old star what does it mean to have two is like like a paper route is so many houses yeah it's like one section of a suburb and then i i was that section and then i took over my brothers when he got tired of it and i did two and you basically you it's there's a pain in the butt there was a lot of rolling papers a lot of rubber bands you'd have to you get a big stack of papers you roll them up and then you'd have to deliver them sundays you get the papers late saturday night and you'd roll them early early in the morning before the sun came up and then you'd deliver them so that people had their Sunday paper. And there were so many, you'd have to do trips on your bike or your parents drove you around if they felt sorry for you. That's not an easy job. That's a lot of hauling basically wood around. Yeah, and then you have to go by the houses with your ticket book and go knock, knock, knock and go from door to door to collect money. Yeah. Kind of be like you're running numbers. You're like you're hustling. Hey, give me my money. You owe me. You owe me. My book says. And so you got to chase people down. You got to deal with dogs. You got to, but I had some cash. I really, I think I understood early on, we had chores and stuff. And my parents were in control of money. And they were able to use it to control me. So I was like, I need my own money. I need my own source of cash. And was like early on, knew that instinctively, was always seeking it out. that's very astute to want to be independent like that. I listened to this crazy job I had that I gave myself in the 12, 12 years old, like six, seven, eighth grade. I love these. You remember those choose your own adventure books? Oh yeah. I loved them. So it's where you go in a book and you, you read for a while and it's like, somebody says, somebody comes up. It's almost like what you do in video games now or certain games is text games, right? Where they say, you want to come with me to the creepy cave in Alan's house? Or do you want to come with me to Nathan's theater and go, oh, I'm going to go to Nathan's theater. And then you go to page whatever and you follow that adventure. Or if you go to the creepy cave in Alan's house, you follow a different adventure. And I didn't have an, I was buying them, but I needed money to keep buying new ones, but you couldn't get them at the library. So I brought them to school in a box and I started renting them to other students. Leasing books. I was renting books to children, to my fellow students. Step right up. What you need is a choose-your-own-adventure book right here. Did you have a little ledger where you wrote down who had what book and for how long? Yeah. Wow. I was a weird kid. What did you do, Nathan Fillion? Alan, Alan, I need an adventure, man. Come on, I'm Jones. You still have my other book. I'm not giving you anything. Come on, Alan, come on. It's been a long... I'll give you this confession, Alan. When I read those books as a kid, and I said, hey, do you want to do this or do you want to do this? I would pick a choice, but then I'd keep my finger in the book on that page just to make sure if I didn't like the choice, I'd go back and go, hang on a second. And at some point, I remember having like four to eight fingers in there. So I wanted to, I guess I wanted to go back. I don't know how far. It's kind of weird holding a book like that. I've got cramps from reading. Lots of paper cuts. my first I mean my parents would give me money for chores but my first like did you get an allowance yes I remember my first one of my first allowances was like 50 cents a week I would get 50 cents but you could get a lot for 50 cents back then I could get a candy bar and a soda pop for 50 cents that was the day but my dad I remember taking a dollar bill and tearing it right down the middle saying here's your allowance and giving it to my brother and saying, here's your allowance. That's weird. We went to the store together and we were trying to buy something. We were going, here's our money. And he's like, all right. And he just taped it together and took it. You know, that's kind of sweet that you have to, I mean, if you weren't friends, that would make sense. But you guys were pretty close as brothers, right? Yeah, we were stuck at the hip. Yeah. But my first job, and it cost a lot of money to get that hip surgery to get you separated. Get separated. Yeah, it's more than a dollar. My first job was I worked at a trophy shop. What? Do you remember being on a team as a kid? And at the end of the season, they'd take the team photo, and they'd take your individual photo with your foot on a soccer ball, and then they'd have a frame that had in it your team, and over there on the side would be your photo, and then there'd be a little card underneath that said everybody's name on the team, a little gold cardboard gold plaque. We had something similar. It was a cardboard frame. It was a cardboard plaque. Oh, man. I was the kid who slid the team photo in, slid your photo in, put some glue stick on the back of that thing and put it on there. Wow. That was my job. That's like factory work, man. That's like gear as it comes down. Glue stick, one. That slap, two. But I guess you knew. Did you know all the kids? Was it that small of a town? No, these kids were all over the city just having the trophy shop, right? It was one of the local trophy shops. So they all go through all these teams. A lot of teams. A lot of teams. Did you buy yourself any trophies that you didn't earn? I would have been wanting that. I remember it was minimum wage. I don't remember making a huge amount of money and going, woo-hoo, I'm rolling in dough now. But I do remember going, I had to pay taxes. I remember that. They take that away? That was my money. I remember that. shocking revelation. When I was a paper boy, I was so mad. It was a bit of a stink when they decided, when they started taxing the paper boys. It was like there were a lot of articles written about it in the paper I was delivering. I remember taking my action figures and trying to claim Steve Austin and G.I. Joe as dependents. Hmm. Hmm. No. Why are they? This, Steve Austin, he's even got one wonky eye. Look. Do you have any idea The maintenance on a six million dollar man Oh man that was great Have you watched any of those lately Seen any footage from Like six million dollar man fights Bigfoot With weird glowing eyes I actually saw some clips of that on YouTube Do we have a name drop sound Is there a sound for name drops Did we do this already I think it should be a name drop sound From a high place Like a... Ka-dunk. Yeah. Name drop. I went for breakfast at a local place not too far from my home here. The lovely Michelle Chapman, who's a producer on this show. Is that the name? Go for it. One of my besties. That's not the name. Oh, is that not the name? But she was with me, and I look. We're in line for breakfast, and I look over sitting and waiting for, I don't know what, it a lady and she goes oh hi And I go oh I know her Hi And I said I going to go say hi And I walk over and I go wait a minute I don know this lady but I do know this lady Oh my gosh It Lindsay Wagner Lindsay Wagner Name drop. It's Jamie Summers. Yeah. Oh, my God. It was the bionic woman. So that's who Lindsay Wagner, for those people who aren't as old as us, that was the bionic woman. She is the bionic woman for Christ's sake. Yes. When she moves around in the cafe, was it this way? Did that happen? Like she puts it in the ear. Yeah. Yeah. She had like the superpowers that were all mechanical bionic and the bionic man and the bionic woman. There was a bionic dog at one point. They were big deals. Yeah. They were super big deals. Yeah. That's Hollywood royalty right there. Yeah. That's lunchboxes. That's backpacks. I mean, and the good old lunchboxes, you know. I think I had a $6 million man lunchbox. I think I did. I think it was red. If I didn't have it, my friend did. I also had a Jabberjaw lunchbox. The hell is that? What's a Jabberjaw? Old cartoon, kind of a Scooby-Doo kind of thing, but instead of a dog, it was a shark. Oh, yes. Okay. Yep. Yep. I remember him. It was very, very stoogy. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I think I had a Captain Caveman, which I was just weird. I liked him. He was right. He'd just reach into his fur and pull out anything he needed. Yeah, out of his fur. I like the idea of the bottomless pocket that has everything he wanted. Yeah, that's good. I have a question. What was your favorite age growing up? Probably before puberty. I mean, it depends. Favorite age? What's your favorite? How are you defining favorite age? Tell me your favorite age growing up. So I loved being outside in the summertime. We'd play hide and seek all the kids in the neighborhood. Oh, yeah. All sorts of, you know, adventures on our bikes and stuff. But then winter would hit and you're paralyzed. Yeah. If we haven't covered, really where Nathan comes from is one of the coldest places on the planet. And it is so, it is just unforgiving. Negative 40. What are you going to do? What are you going to do out there? Move. I think all you can do is move. I didn't like it. It got dark at like 4.30. By 5 o'clock, it was black as pitch out there. Yeah. Oof. I mean, I love being a kid, but the winter really put a hamper on that. Even as a teenager, just being a little more independent. Until you had a vehicle. And my first vehicle was a scooter, so you're still paralyzed in the wintertime. You're not driving that thing around on the ice. Like a moped scooter? Minus the pedals. Yeah, a moped's a moped, Alan. A scooter's a scooter. Well, some people... Okay. It wasn't a bike? It was a motorbike. It was 49 cc's. The hill is a scooter. What? What is a scooter? Is a moped a... You used to own one. You got one from your movie, Dodgeball, Average Joe's. I cannot wait to go to that premiere. That's going to be so much fun, Alan. I'm so looking forward to that. Buddy, you just... I can't wait to reach out and tell you about it. That's a Vespa. That's a Vespa scooter. So you had one. You had one of those. Yeah. Mine didn't look like that. Mine was the Yamaha Townie. The thing it had brown. It was red. It was fire engine red. The thing it had was a big fat seat. You could actually give someone a double if you wanted to. It had a two-gear, automatic two-gear. So usually those little sprees, the Esprit, the little Vespas, they have one gear that's as fast as you go. And it's kind of great off the start, but it caps out a little earlier. Mine would not be that great off the start, but you get a second gear and you get some faster top speeds. All right. And we're talking like 30 miles an hour or 40 kilometers an hour. What were you? It was almost 50 kilometers, about 35 miles an hour, yeah. All right. That's good. It was like City Street's speed. That's better. It was a lot of independence when I was a little guy, when I was a young man. You ever wreck on it? Never did. Oh, God. I wrecked a couple times on mine. Yeah. I'm not good at that. But now I have a motorcycle, so the stakes are higher. It's good. I'm still doing it. I was riding out today thinking, this is dangerous. It's fun. It's fun. Crazy dangerous, man. Stay alive out there. I will. I want to confess something. Oh, these questions that I ask you? Yes. I'm not coming up with them off the top of my head. Where are they coming from? I've got a lot of these questions I'm asking you, Alan, are from a questionnaire in Women's Health magazine, getting to know your partner better. Now, I'm not saying we're partners. We're more partners. Partners? Hey, partner. We're more partners than partners. We're partners. We're partners in crime. We're around on our townies. Where I think we're partners in this podcast, but I mean, for the purposes of the questionnaire, I don't think these are the partners that they were thinking about. Wow. Yeah, Women's Health Magazine. Are you having to skip over things like how to spice it up in the bedroom, or these are just getting to know your partner better? Well, I'll confess there's like 250 of them. I haven't gotten that far. There might be some uncomfortable questions coming later in the show. about my erogenous zones. Can you find it? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I had no idea. Yeah. Well, wonderful. That's wonderful, man. I'm glad to know that now. I'll answer your last question. Okay. My favorite time was probably in some form of adolescence where we were playing outside, too. I think that was a pretty great raucous time. Yeah. We had boundaries set. We played flashlight tag at night. We would go to the creek and hang out in the creek, just try not to get leeches and catch tadpoles. But it was like suburbs. I grew up in the suburbs. It was a very safe environment. And so anything that felt like danger, outdoorsy, was really fun. But we did get to play, you know, run around at night unsupervised. And we would always be unsupervised. After you got home from school, we would go outside and we'd be out until dinnertime. until my mom would call us all in or call just my brother and I in. And I guess my sister at some point. It was a different time. It was, yeah, yeah. Long time ago now. I think that was great. Like once, once time, once it got into the girls, once it got into that whole thing, man, everything just changed, you know. And, you know, for some of us, for the better, I'm sure you've got great, what was your 13, 14 year old? You became, you're pretty popular on campus, I'm guessing. I don't know that I was, I wasn't unliked. I think I was well-liked. I don't know that I was popular. I was known. I don't know. I certainly wasn't. I had bullies. Did you have bullies? Of course you didn't have bullies. Yeah, I had bullies. I had a couple of bullies. What? Yeah, I had a couple of bullies. That's a great question. Well, I need to know that and where are their erogenous zones? What are your bullies erogenous zones? Tell me about a bully story. And I'm hoping this one has like a full circle where it came back around and, you know, there's a resolution. Do you have one of those? No, I mean, I was always hoping this guy would end up in jail. I'll just say his first name was Sammy. So anybody who grew up in the Plano and Ben School District and was in the Davis to Haggard to Vines to Plano Senior High track, because there was a lot of different schools you could be kicking around, knew Sammy. I was actually the kid that they assigned to Sammy when he first showed up in school, like in second or third grade, and they're like, hey, show this guy around. Alan, you're a pretty personable kid. For some reason, I kept getting that job. Anyway, Sammy scared me from day one because he was a tough guy. He actually lived right down the block from me. his dad was not nice to him. I'm pretty sure. Anyway, those are the seeds that were planted in Sammy, but Sammy was a toughest man. That guy scared the shit out of me. And he'd pick on me. He'd come up. I was a little kid, little guy in my grade. Hey, let's punch each other. Let's, let's play. Uh, I don't even know. It probably had a name. Cause I'm kind of like, he punches me. I punch him. He punched me. I punch him. Who can take as many punches? Like, I don't want to do that. I want to do that. And he's got a, he also had a roll of dimes in his hand. This kid's treacherous. Yeah, man. Of course, Sammy treats. The guy was a criminal. Sammy was dangerous. He beat up a skinhead one time at like in ninth grade at the McDonald's. It almost put him in the hospital, just stomped him. He was dangerous, man. He scared the shit out of me. Anyway, we had Jim together in six, seven, eight grade and he was hassling me. And I went to my dad and I was I was like, dad, this guy is picking on me and I don't like it. So my dad is going to my dad instead of my mom. My mom would have gone, great. Boop, boop, boop, boop. Hey, school, get this Sammy kid off my son. And it would have been resolved. But you don't do that as a little boy. You don't want to go to your mom about that stuff. So I went to dad. Dad will tell me what to do. I think he was drunk. Respectfully, I'm pretty sure he was maybe a few Coors cans, past sensible. when he told me, well, Alan, what you need to do is just punch him in the face. He picks on you, punch him in the face. You go to the biggest guy, like that dumb adage, pick the biggest guy and beat him up, punch him in the face, and then they'll respect you. I'm like, well, Sammy's the biggest. Sammy's the one that you'd go for. He's like, good, punch him in the face. And you can call him a son of a bitch if you want. I'm like, I can curse at him? He's like, yeah. So I was that young that I'm getting permission to curse. So the next day in my memory, Sammy, his locker was right by mine and Jim. He comes, he starts picking on me. I said, hey, Sammy. I don't know. I'll say I don't want to, but I said, f*** you. That's what I said, man. I said, f*** you, Sammy. Leave me alone. I don't want to be picked on by you. And he said, whoa, you better watch your mouth. I said, really? I better watch my mouth? You're concerned about cussing? F*** you. and he went to the coach and told the coach I was cussing at him. I was blown away. Wow. Like, you told? You, like, Teddy, get in here. You got to come in here. Don't peck your wood. These Texas coaches pulls me in there and he says, no, I'm cursing at him. And I'm like, he told on me. I can't believe that. He told on me. He's like, just don't. I'm like, he picks him. He's like, I know. He gets it. Just I have to tell you to stop, so go out there. And I went back to my locker, and he was there, and I said, man, I can't believe you told on me. That's ridiculous. And he's like, you better watch your mouth, man. You've got to watch your mouth. I was like, I'm not watching my mouth. F you. And I walked out of that gym. I was, man, on air. I felt like I couldn't believe it. I stood up to the bully, and he pussied out and told on me. and it was right about then that I felt the hand grabbing the back of my head and my hair being twisted up in a fist of rage as he bounced my head off of a locker. I found myself on the ground and looked up and it was Sammy and he's just looking at me plaintively like, I had to do it! I had to do it! Like, you made me! Like, I had forced him. I went to the nurse and the principal came and he's like, who did this to you? Sammy. And then he got in trouble. So I told on him, he told on me. I guess that's kind of full circle, but I still had run into him. Did the bullying stop at that point? Hell no. Oh, really? Hell no, man. And it got worse as I moved schools with different guys. I mean, they catch you in a moment, you know? Like if they catch you alone. Texas is tough, man. Like they, and I, Canadian, parts of Canada the same way. It's everywhere. Where somebody walks in, they'll be like, what are you looking at? And there's no right answer. You either say, you? Which is wrong. You don't say that. And you don't say nothing because that's lots of trouble. It's just that somebody wants to fight you, they want to fight you. And I had a smart-ass face. I had a face what they would have called somebody who needs to get smacked. Wait a minute. When you say had. Yep. That is, yeah, that's true. It's true. I just have it on my face. It lives on my face. Bullies are the worst. I've used it to my advantage in life. I tend to play smart-ass roles, if you've noticed. I just wonder, bullies of the world, are they not watching all the movies where, like, hey, you're the asshole in this scenario? Right. Are they not watching the same movies I'm watching? I don't know. Maybe they need to, like, check in with other Facebook, like go one generation up of Facebook and see how the bullies turn out because a lot of them didn't work out. I mean, Sammy now is born again. I know this through the internet. It's all very Christian. He found his way. He found some way. I don't know. I bet all this behavior Hansen. I doubt that. I don't know. Maybe he does. I mean, that dude. But I'm sure he had a bad. I think his dad was, you know, tough on him. That was, I think, really hard on him. He didn't have a dad who gave him great advice like, go and curse at the big guy who you have no defense against. Go do that. He didn't have that in his corner like me. How about you? Did you have to? Alan, I had, at one point, I had a teacher who was a real jerk. And I'll say a bully because they're in a position of power, right? There's age, there's size, there's authority. and they have one over on you because they have, you know, they're marking your grades and all that. This guy was a jerk. He was a real jerk. He was our math teacher at one point, and five kids in the whole class passed the exam. When that happens, if I were, you know, I studied to be a teacher. Did I ever tell you that? Yeah, I knew that. Yeah, I was going to be a high school teacher. So I'll tell you what I'm saying. If five kids in your class pass the exam, the issue is not the kids. The issue is the teacher. Right. But that was not his perspective. So he said, I'm going to split the class up into two groups. Get this one. Over here, these five kids, they're the smart. And the rest of you, you're the stupid group. So that's the guy we're working with right now. So that's the thing. and he's now trying to backtrack and get us all on course with what we're supposed to be learning for this exam because we can't proceed without it. And I'm not getting it. I am just not getting it. I'm watching him teach it, and I'm like, what the fuck? I opened up the book, and I said— I'm sorry, sir. Am I to assume that you were put into the stupid group? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, you were. Math was not my strong point. I'm in the stupid group. Okay. And I said, to heck with this guy. I'm just, I'm just looking. What does the textbook say? Because the textbook is right here. Everything I need should be right here. So I look up in the textbook and I go, oh, it was pretty simple. It was pretty simple. What to do. What a mature response. Oh, that's it. And the guy in front of me, Jason, Jason B, turned around and said, what? What is it? How do you do it? Because we're all desperate to get out of the stupid group. Here's a couple of kids just desperate to learn something. He goes, what do we do? And teacher says, hey, you guys stop talking. And I said, I was just trying to explain it to Jason. And he says, you explaining it to Jason is like the blind leading the blind. Oh, my God. And I was just now, never mind, I forgot it. I didn't learn it now. And I'm just seething. And that's all I can think about. dinner that night with my family, my mom would always have us go around the table and say, all right, everybody say something great that happened today to you and say something not so great that happened to you today. And that was always kind of the basis of our family conversations, how we'd all kind of, you know, support each other and do the kind of things. It was really wonderful. And when I said, this is what happened that was not so great. I told them the story and they said, well, you should really ask him to apologize. He said, I can do that. They said, Yeah, yeah, you should actually do that because that's not right. He should not be doing it. No, keep in mind, my parents were both teachers. Teachers, yes. Yes well and well in the very same school system My mother was best friends with the vice principal of the school I was attending He and my mom were thick as thieves and my dad would play backgammon with him all the time, Mr. D. He'd play backgammon with Mr. D all the time. I really liked Mr. D. He was over at our house constantly. He was a nice guy. So wait, the vice principal of your high school or your school over at your house? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, we had teachers all the time. All my parents' friends were teachers. Oh, wow. The vice president was always the scariest one. But they're friends with yours. He was great. He was also my eighth grade teacher. He was fantastic. Wow. Eighth grade? Ninth grade. He was fantastic. I loved him. Anyway, I said, yeah, you should go there and say, sir, I would like to speak with you outside and take him outside the classroom and say, I would like you to apologize for what you did that was uncalled for. And I said, okay, I'm going to do this. So next day I go to school. All right. I got my parents' permission. I can do this. I'm going to go to school. Put your head in the locker. Go on. Yes, go, go. Sorry. So the teacher takes attendance and says, okay, let's get started. And boom, I put up my hand. And he goes, yes, Nathan. I said, can I speak to you outside, please? And everybody freezes and kind of looks over sideways at me going, what? And he kind of does a little freeze and goes, all right. So I walk outside and everybody's looking around at each other like, oh, what's going on? Nobody's doing this. Who does this? What's happening? Who does this? I go outside, and he's a big fella. He's a tall guy. He's got a big mustache. And I said, Mr. K, that's initial. When you said this thing to me yesterday about me telling Jason what to do, is the blind leading the blind, I found that really offensive. And I would like you to apologize. And you could see his mustache just go twerk. And he sits and he considers for a second. and he goes, fine, I apologize. And I said, Mr. K, you insulted me in front of the class. I would prefer if you apologized to me in front of the class. And his mustache is just shaking and twitching on one side. I mean, I'm just sitting there just smiling at him. I'm sure I'm smug. I'm sure I had a smug little look on my face. You'd have to be. And we walked back into the classroom and he apologized to me in front of the class. And that changed everything. Wow. It changed the power dynamic in our class. He was reduced. He was no longer this big, scary bully. Nobody was afraid of him after that. Oh, wow. He didn't last much longer at our school. I went back home and they said, how'd it go today? I told them what I did. They said, you did what? Nobody told you. Nobody told you to go take it to the class and make him do this in front of the class. I said, well, I thought it was on read. I thought it would be good. But that was my, that was my, one of my bully stories. One of them. I've had a couple. Wow. Okay. I had a bad teacher in 12th grade. So my final year in high school, I had put off health. You had to take health class. And this is like, you know, boys have penises and girls don't. We don't want to get into what they have, but let's just say it's different. You know, it was the, let's not upset anybody while we tell you about your bodies class. And since I had put it off to my 12th grade year, the only other, the biggest group of people who had put it off till the 12th grade year were the football players. Because they basically have health. They're always doing physical stuff. They don't need it. So they're always like, I don't want to take that crap. I don't want to take, you know, how to work out, how to eat right, how to, you know, it's like all of that kind of stuff. So my class was full of football players and myself, and we had a bad substitute teacher one day. And he was old school. He was like an old school Texan guy who came in. And this changed my experience at high school as well, because I was chewing on my pen while he was talking, and it exploded in my mouth. Because what are you chewing? I don't know. Oral fix it. Who knows why? I raised my hand. I said, yes, I'm sorry. I have a pen ink in my mouth. I need to go rinse it out. And he looked at me and he said, I don't think so. I think you're stupid enough to put a pen in your mouth and chew on it. You can sit there and think about what you did with pen ink in your mouth. All right, moving on. And he like turned around and I sat there for a second. I was like, huh. And the whole class looked at me like, what? Your move, Dudik. And I was like, you know what? I'm not going to sit here with this ink in my mouth. I'm going to go wash it out because this is not healthy to have this ink in my mouth. He said, if you get up and you leave here, don't come back. And I said, I don't care. I don't want to come back. So I went out, I left class. I washed out my mouth. And then, oh, he said, you can go to the office. You can go to the principal's office. So I was like, fine. I don't care. I'm cool. I skateboard. And I spit it out. And then I came back to get my books because I'd left my books in the classroom. And I opened the door and he saw me coming in the classroom and ran to the door and put his body against the door. You're not allowed to come back in here. You can't come back here. Go to the principal. I'm like, my books are in there. And I had my foot in the door and I powered past him and pushed him out of the way, got my books and left and went to the principal's office. Like, there's a guy down there who's lost his mind is what I told the principal. I'm like, this is what happened. And they're like, yeah, that sounds weird. And okay, sit here, sit over there, go to your next class when the bell rings. And meanwhile, what had happened was a revolution. Everyone was like, people didn't respect the guy anymore, like your guy. They ended up throwing things at him. Like it just the whole, it was chaos after that. And this one guy, Jeffries, I guess that's his last, we'll say that's his last name. I went to school with that kid from kindergarten. He came up to be big guy. He was a linebacker, I think. Anyway, he came and he said, Alan, anybody ever messes with you on this campus, you come to me, we got your back. And I had protection after that, man. Because I had been, I stood up to this asshole in front of everybody. You garnered their respect. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. I didn't, you know, I didn't need a lot of protection, but it really felt good because I could, I, especially in my 12th grade year, I dressed weird. I'd wear costumes to school, basically. A huge sombrero I wore to school all the time. And I would wear hairnets and, you know. Lunch Lady Appreciation Day was almost every month. I would come and the lunch ladies give you all their stuff, all the aprons and all the stuff. They'd give you all their stuff and you'd wear it all day long. The lunch lady would give you her apron? They had them in the back. They were like plastic aprons. You asked for an apron? Because I wanted to dress like a lunch lady. and attend school. I had trouble at school. It seems like this is like early, early performance art. This is early, you're a performer. Yeah, it was a very big school. We had 1,500 graduating in my class. I didn't know the two kids. We were sat alphabetically at graduation. I didn't know the kid on either side of me. Like I've been going to this school since kindergarten, you know, through the Plano and Pinto School District and I didn't know the guys. Like, it was a big school. Nathan, I think we should tell a little something about ourselves to one another. Let's get to know you better, Alan. I know you and you know me. Let's get to know you better. Yeah, I want to get to know you better. Although I feel like I've gotten to know you a lot better this time around. We've gone deep on a couple things that we've never talked about before. Yes, yeah. So here's something that you don't know about me, Nathan. I don't eat cheeks I won't eat cheeks Now I know this sounds weird But anybody who goes to restaurants And you try new things A lot of new little restaurants A lot of times they're like Have some pork cheek braised on this Or beef cheek has been broiled Or that is pig face Let's put it like it is Have some pig face You son of a bitch. Just those jowly cheeks. Cow face. Nobody wants to eat cow face. Eat their face. And that zombie shit, that's not good. I'm going to agree with you. There's something very Hannibal Lecter about eating the face. I just feel like that's where I draw the line. Under the neck and down. I guess you could count me in. Yeah. And, you know, they try to make it. They try to tart it up and make it sound all good. A glistening trestle of pork cheek on a sumptuous bed of saffron or something like that. That's just pig face on rice. Now, if they said the pork cheek was actually from the rump, then you're in. Oh, that cheek. Yeah. Are you good with that? Well, you know. Yep. That's a rump roast. But you'll go to the other end of the animal. Which seems wrong because that's butt stuff. And nobody, I mean, nobody wants to eat. Nobody on the menu says, you know, give me the business end. Try it special. Yeah. I want the, isn't the business end the part with the teeth? No one's just dead. I guess it depends on what your business is. None of your business, Alan. What kind of business do you have with this animal? I will eat a rump roast and not think twice about it. I went to Thailand and I watched a group of people clamber over the fish cheeks. They all wanted the cheeks of the fish. That was the delectable part. I was not on the list. I was not in that. Yeah, that's nasty. I mean, I guess on a fish, for some reason, it seems less nasty. I don't know. But it's still a face. I guess because they don't have expressions. You know, the fish, you know, if they had eyebrows, we'd be screwed. There'd be no way you could eat that much fish. but they don't. Because of their frozen expression, we feel safe. Yeah, they look stupid. They look like they don't have emotions or feeling. Except Barracuda, man. You've been scuba diving? Seen a Barracuda come at you? Yeah. Yeah? They look like they're mad at you for being there. They're always frowning. They got their teeth. Well, they're also in your face. They don't mind. They don't have, they don't know. They're quite curious. Yeah, I guess that's what it is. Yeah, they're quite curious. They've got razor teeth. Scary looking. Yeah, like dogs. I think that's a lesson to people out there who want to do too much Botox. Look, if you get to a point where your facial expression is frozen, somebody might eat your face. They just don't have compassion for you anymore. They don't see you as having emotion. Just be careful. Too much Botox, somebody will eat your face. And Botox face is, I hear, pretty tasty. Nathan. Yes. What do you have to share about yourself? Alan, here's a little something. I don't know if you know this about me, but much like you were speaking about earlier when you went to high school and you would dress in costumes and whatnot, I think I was, you know, wanting to have an identity and to set myself apart. My brother was a very talented musician. He was athletic. He could sing. I didn't have those things going for me. I learned how to ride a unicycle. Yeah. So you wanted to be cool. Well, hey, hang on. I wanted to be different. If I wanted to be cool, I don't think I would have bought a unicycle. But there was two things in my life. If you remember the television program, Welcome Back, Cotter. Oh, yes. In the opening credits of Welcome Back, Cotter, they're showing all these kind of a montage of Brooklyn life. Yeah. I think it was Brooklyn. And the very last shot is a kid riding down a street, kind of a dismal, kind of a fall day, kind of a cloudy day. Yeah, it really looked depressing, didn't it? And he's riding a unicycle away from us. And I thought, what's that? And then there was the show Booze and Buddies, which I thought was a fantastic show. I really liked that show. Great opening song. And I thought those two were so cool. The montage in the beginning of that show was so cool, where they're shopping, and one guy would throw the produce behind him, and the other guy would catch it in the bags. At one point, it looks like they're having a real intense conversation. And Tom Hanks was on a 10-speed. And the other gentleman, whose name I'm blanking on at the moment, His name is Peter Scolari, was riding a unicycle. And I thought, that's for me. He was a bit of a circus performer, that guy, in real life. So I learned how to ride a unicycle. And then later on, my friend Tom got one. And then his little brother got one. And I remember one time, it was not a short journey. We rode our unicycles to school one day. Oh, no. Let me tell you, these things are not built for long distance. That is not what they are designed for. High wires, bears, and, you know, hanging around in the neighborhood on the driveway. Not like the six and a half miles to school. I remember being so sore. God. I'm sitting on that thing that we couldn't ride them home. We had to walk home. It was just too painful. I was like, oh, you're so bad. Not a lot of shock absorption in that seat. The whole way home. Wow. We must have looked a sight, the three of us, just hauling ass. Yeah, I did not know. Have you had any urge to get one of these electric unicycle type looking things where you just stand on either side of the one wheel? You've seen those. I've had a number of electrified mobility things. I want to say a skateboard, but it had, it was an electric skateboard, but it had pneumatic tires on it. It had air-filled tires. It wasn't a polypropylene plastic wheel. It was a tire. I remember your many, I've had a bunch of these throughout the years. Yeah. The last time I bought one, I'm like, you know what? I'm done. This thing's going to kill me. I'm going to die on this skateboard. For sure. Yeah, they're dangerous. Yeah. I just think I have too much to lose. I don't want to fall down, Alan. I don't want to fall down. I'm too old to fall down and just to jump up. Wait a second. It's okay. There's no spring that pops me back up anymore. I just lay there until someone comes and gets me. It's a sad thing that happens. We're the same age. We're in our 50s. You're older than me, Alan. I know. I'm a little older than you. We're the age of the Golden Girls, of most of the Golden Girls. These are golden years. Yeah, right? And, yeah, you never saw them. Maybe there was an episode, one of them falls, and that is the actual subject of the episode because it would be everything happens around it. Maude falls. I'm sure that's her name wasn't Maude on the show. But she did another show, and then there's Maude. Yeah, and then there's Maude. That was her other show, yeah. But, yeah, that isn't even her name. Her name is Bea Arthur. She played Dorothy on The Golden Girls. Alan, I want to do the bit of the show called I Wrote That. Oh. I'm going to name a movie, and I want you to tell me one of the lines in that movie that you wrote. Okay. I wrote that. Alan, the movie is one of my most favorite projects you've ever done. It is Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. give me a line in that movie that you wrote. Hmm. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't write. Well, I'm sure I wrote. Like, oh, he's heavy for half a guy. I think that ended up in the movie. God damn, he's heavy for half a guy. I'm going to name another movie. Okay. Wreck-It Ralph. I don't think I made it. Oh, I said, and this has actually been attributed to me, but it's not as much as attributed. where it's, the line was, King Candy says, you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you? And he takes off my glasses and hits me with him. And I say, oh, you hit a guy with glasses. Well played. I just said well played was what I added. But I didn't, I didn't, I don't know if I added too much in that one. Rogue One. These are just going to be one after the other. A lot of the lines in Rogue One are mine Because when we made that movie The script kept changing And also I was motion capture So I could blow every take with new lines as long as I was basically saying the same thing. It was so, I can't imagine. I mean, Diego Luna, God bless him. Because I would say the line once, and then after that, I was like, I can say whatever I want. There's that scene where we're coming up. We're in Jeddah, and we're leaving. We're like, we better get out of here. There's a lot of Imperial troops around. And he goes, Troy, where are you going with those prisoners? I turn around and I say, prisoners? Yes, these are prisoners which I'm taking to prison to imprison them in prison or some version of that. Right. Yes. Basically saying the same thing. Stop right there. Where are you taking these prisoners? These are prisoners. Yes. Where are you taking them? I am taking them to imprison them in prison. And then there was another flub, like this speaks to how much the script was changing, was that Diego showed up on set with a split lip and that had been painted on. Yes. And the director goes, why do you have that? He's like, I don't know, I had to fucking come in so early to get this thing. And he said, oh, I know why. Oh, that was from the, you got your split lip because you were interrogated, but the interrogation scene is cut so you don't have that split lip here anymore. So you need to go take it off. He's like, I showed up early to get this fucking thing on. Can't we just leave it on? What if he hits me? And he's kind of like, kind of joking, kind of serious. I was like, yeah, oh, I'll hit him and tell him to be quiet. I'll hit him as a prisoner. Like, that's how loose it was, man. It was loose. So that's, so that was kind of how we came up with. And then I said, and there's a fresh one if you mouth off again. Taking us to the quiet. And there's a fresh one if you mouth off again. That is my phone ring when you call me. That's what it's so let me. So I'm going to tell you my favorite lines that you say in your projects. By and large, I find out you wrote them. That's very cool. The fact that you feel that way and that people when I go to Comic Cons will say, hey, could you write this on the picture? and a lot of times they're the lines that I came up with. You know, it's called Alas, hello, all that kind of crap from you, all that from A Knight's Tale, that it made me want to write. I was like, well, maybe I should just write things because I guess I can collaborate with a writer. Maybe I could do some of my own. And that's why I wrote Con Man. It was from that encouragement. So it's your fault. Con Man is your fault. Any problems that arise from that, again, Nathan's fault. And I'm still writing stuff. I'm writing that other thing right now, which we were discussing earlier, and maybe one day I'll be able to share it with everyone. But I'm writing again, which is fun. Before we move on, I just want to say that often in your stories, when you have other people, you do an impression of them. Rather than just tell me what they said, you put on the person. Your Diego Luna is fantastic. I could come on set and the whole crew would be like, what are we doing today? And they'd all turn around and go, ah, fucking Alan. That's Jesus. That was Diego. Diego's great. He's great. And the fact that he has not won any awards for Andor is bullshit. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Alan. And you imitate people all the time. Yeah, I do. I do. Yeah. Okay, here's mine. You ready? Yes, please. Tell me. I did a bit in a little movie called Percy Jackson's Sea of Monsters. I had a small scene where I'm walking around and I'm showing these kids this phenomenal Federal Express style package delivery service that I have as Hermes, the messenger god. The director said, we have about like 30 seconds between this and this. So just come up with something in there. 30 seconds of something to, all right, okay. That's a lot. Yeah, but they had a great framework. They had great stuff for me to work with. And I just said, oh, I can turn this into this joke. I can say this, this, this, this, and that, blah, blah, blah. We do this lovely scene with the incredible Logan Lerman and Alexandra Daddario was there. He's so young at the time, still doing fantastic, those guys. But just, I got to tell you, they were just pros. They just, yes, they were young. Man, they knew their stuff. They did great work. Yeah, yeah. I worked with Logan once. He's a good guy. Yeah. I've worked with him a couple times over the years. And just, I love these guys. They're very good workers. Anyway, we did a scene. We do their scene, and I say something very, hey, hey, buddy. And I pull Percy over, and I say, just so you know, if you see my son, tell him, you know. And I say something kind of heartfelt and warm and kind of drop the bravado for once. And I send them off. All right, see you guys later. And as they walk off, I just, the scene's over. So I just, you know, once the scene's over, I think his glove's off. You can do whatever you like. Yeah. And I said, they'll never make it. That's lunch. I need to watch this movie. I have not watched it. The That's Lunch was literally something I say to the crew whenever I say, all right, that's it. That's lunch. That's a wrap, everybody. And I always say it like far too early. It's never lunch and it's never a wrap. But it's something I just, I'll do something and go, that's a wrap. And clearly it's not a wrap. So I did my last bit. They'll never make it. And then screamed out to the crew, that's lunch. And they A, kept it in the movie. and between those two lines, actually, I said, don't ever make it. A bell goes off. Ding! That's lunch! So, they just, yeah, they used it to great effect. I was... Oh, fantastic. ...more than pleased that they did that. And another one, now, I'm hesitant to say that I wrote it because I think, I've mentioned Kelly before, she's one of the camera assistants, where we have a secret handshake. I think she wrote this one. This is The Rookie. This is John Nolan and his lovely wife, Bailey, played by the lovely Johnna Duong. She's starting to decorate the house with some of her stuff because she's going to move in. She has this crappy ceramic gnome that she's made in some pottery glass. She's got a thing for trying to do art, but it's like the one thing she's not good at. She does all these incredible things, but this is the one thing that she just can't get a grip on. But I said, no, we're going to put it right here on the shelf. It's going to be great. And then there's a bit of a tremor and it falls off. She's thinking about signs and it's just a sign. It falls off and it cracks and it smashes on the ground. And I said, hey, I'm sure that that doesn't mean anything. And we're just looking at this thing. And then I pop up and I go, but you never gnome. I like it. But I waited so long for the scene to be over that I was safe and just doing it because it was just for me and the crew, just for us to laugh. But they kept it in along with this extremely pregnant pause. Yeah, man. That's great. I had, in 28 Days with Sandra Bullock, I was on this, it was a rehab movie with Sandra Bullock, and her and I are both up on, we're being belayed, like we're in repelling gear. I mean, God, what a crazy, what a group of people, man. It's like, oh, it's such cool, cool. It was one of my first movies ever. I, you know, your first ones, you have so much fun, and Sandra Bullock, Sandy, was just, ah, fantastic. Namedron. Anyway, we're up on this thing. I'm wearing a harness all day long and sweatpants. These green sweatpants. I played this crazy person named Gerhard Weinocht who is very emotional. He's always crying. A lot of my characters cry, I've realized. Interesting. But anyway, he's a very emotional guy. Very sensitive. I'm up there for hours, and the blood is rushed to my nether regions. Also, I have a harness on, and this thing is like lycra thin. And the strap, you can see from below, you can see that whole region there is being highlighted. Throttled. Throttled. That's more what it was. It was being throttled. And I had made, there was a joke that I had. We all wrote our histories of our characters. The director asked us to do that. Betty Thomas asked us to do that. And I mind he was a stripper, and I had these stripper dances I would do. Off camera for the crew, where I was pointing in these weird ways. Basically, all my stripper dances are just me pointing at my junk. And so we finished the scene. Again, there's a cut. This is back when there's film. Betty yells, cut. And I looked down at my region. And I said, oh, my God, look at my package. And I point in this really weird way with a long arm and a finger at the end. And I point, which was part of one of my stripper dances. But even though she'd yelled cut, there was still film going through the camera and it ended up in the movie. And they just took her cut out of the thing and it's in there. Oh my God, look at my package. And I point at my dick. I remember this moment. Yeah, it was a beautiful, I was very proud of that when it finally came out. Of that moment specifically. Betty was a big one with, who's got another joke? I don't like this joke. Anybody got anything they want to use? And I'd be like, are you serious? Oh, I've got two. If I'm standing over there, I can say this. And if I do this, she'd be like, the first one, no, that's too complicated. We'll do the second one if we have time. She'd go round the room if anybody has a good idea. I will remind any writers out there listening at this moment that by no means do I think or does Alan think that we're smarter than writers and we're better than writers. But I also believe that comedy, especially, is a team sport. and a couple of actors who have been doing it for a few decades. Everybody brings something to the table. And a super smart person will bring five great ideas to work and get ready to go with one that's better. Yeah. My favorite jokes, since I mentioned comment, my favorite jokes in comment were from other people. They're the ones that made me laugh the most. Yeah. All right, Nathan. Is this another podcast? Did we do it? Feels like we did it. Alan, not only did we do it, we keep doing it. This is 16 now we did and a Christmas special. We had a Christmas special. Alan, have you been talking to anybody who listens to your podcast? No. Yes. Nobody you know listens to your podcast. Chad. Shout out to Chad, who I go to his gym in Los Angeles. Not a sponsor. Get ripped with Chad. He's listened to it. What does he say? What are the reactions that you're getting? I think they're positive. They're positive. They're positive. I feel like you're getting more positive than me. I don't know. Maybe I don't talk to people. I try not to talk to people. You know, people. I'm out there pushing it, Alan. I'm pushing this show. Oh, you haven't listened to it? I'm sure you'll find time. Like, throw a little guilt in there. I think I might be hanging out with more supportive people. That's all. Certainly your wife listens to your podcast. No. Carissa? Should she? She doesn't listen to it. My family doesn't listen to it. Alan's brother and sister absolutely listen to the podcast. Does your family appreciate your sense of humor, Alan? I know that you're a bit of a black sheep in your family. I think I was. I think I've come out on the other side now. And I'm a little better. I think they do appreciate my humor. I think they do. I really do. I think they know I'm a little. He's out there, but they can't argue your success, though. My mom, last time I was there, I was doing a fast. I was doing a fast to try to get in shape. And somebody was telling me, fasts are really good for your body. It resets your stomach and your biome, your stomach biome, and it helps your brain and all this stuff. So I was at their house not eating for almost 48 hours. Recipe for disaster. Recipe for disaster. And it was surprisingly great. But my mom was eating and she was like, I'm done. And I was like, and she's still food on her plate. And I said, mom, you're not going to finish that? There are people right next to you who are starving. And she laughed a genuine laugh. That was really great. There are people right next to you who are starving. because I heard it from her my entire life. There are people in China who are starving. I don't know where they got that. I don't know if there were, but it was a callback with a twist from my mom and she got every part of the joke and laughed, a genuine laugh. And a genuine laugh for your mom is one of the best things you could ever do. Exactly. You know, my mom always comments that I was a quirky kid, you know, and... You rode a unicycle, yes. That's right. Barely touches it, but yes. So, but my parents were extremely supportive. They just wanted me to find an interest in something, be interested in something, do something. I was a little all over the place. I was a real daydreamer. But boy, I loved movies. I loved TV shows, and I loved that stuff. And my mom kind of laughs. She definitely laughs and says, all those things that we kind of laughed about and kind of worried a little bit about, I'm like, ooh, I hope this works out okay. It was all preparing you for this incredible career you've built. It's all lining up now. How beautiful. That's a really good relationship, it sounds like, that you and your mom have. Listen, my folks are extremely supportive and love to live vicariously through me and love to hear about my adventures all the time. And that is this life. This life that we have, this incredible journey we're on, is an adventure day after day. Yeah, it is. It is. When you have an experience with these incredible actors from all over the industry, you're going, oh yeah, I'm rubbing novels with these guys and he called me the other day. It's special. It is special. Yeah, we're lucky. Hey, buddy. I could talk with you forever let's keep doing it let's do number 17 next you want to keep going yeah yeah yeah let's just keep going there's so many other things there's so many oh buddy wait till I tell you about the weirdest direction I got on a this sort of evolving direction I was getting on this movie that ended up going to such a weird place I'm writing this down so we have something to talk about the next time weirdest direction. I want to know what season you are makeup-wise. There's so much more to cover. Are you a spring or a summer? Are you a fall? Are you an autumn? I don't know that. This is what we're going to get. We're going to nail that down. I don't know that. Would you look good in Capri pants? This is what the mademoiselle getting to know your person better. That's what these things... Your magazine questionnaires you're looking at. We've got to get some from Vogue. We gotta get one from Mademoiselle And from Tiger Beat Stop talking We'll save it for next time Oh my god Thank you for listening You just bless your heart You know what if you haven't yet Why don't you head on over to our Patreon You're gonna get some bonus content That's extra content There are longer episodes There's more there You know what's better than less? more. You also get a chance to get your hands on some incredible crap. The kinds you don't need to wash off after you're done. And if you love the show, please leave us a review and tell your friends. Once We Were Spaceman is a Collision 33 production. The hell that is. The show's produced by Michelle Chapman, Siobhan Holman, oh yeah, and Josh Levy. I wear them jeans. He is of Collision 33. It's all starting to make sense. It's edited and mixed and produced by Resident Record. So special thanks to Courtney Blomquist and Adam Townsell. Our theme music's done by Carlos Sosa. The Groovline Horns guy? Yeah! And Joshua Moore artwork is done by Louis Jensen. Until next time, I swear to God I love you. The hell is a scooter?