Nick Kroll

Please just stay alive. Just keep it all going. Hang in there. But when it comes, and it will.

Wirklich? Ja. Er will in Jersey geboren werden? Ja. Ist das ein Zementar? Ist das ein Familienzementar?

Oh, das ist schön.

Geht das in den Kompost?

Oh wow, they grind it? It's the whole process. I thought, I in my mind was like, you're in a mushroom-like body sack. Well, they have that too. And the fungus like starts to help break you down, right?

But there is a place where... But the grinding is where... Das ist wirklich das, was ich... Das ist die Pitch, wo es für mich schwer wird.

My mother... You're like, I must be buried in Jersey.

Das ist nicht, was sie bezahlt haben. Sie haben einen guten Preis. Sie haben einen guten Preis auf dem Pinbox.

Das könnte schön sein, um sich zu schlafen. Klar. Es hat eine bessere Kurve.

Ja, einen Rock nehmen.

Fast 101 Jahre alt. Seine erste Erinnerung ist, als sie eine Horsenambulanz in Brooklyn in 1921 hörte. Wow.

Sie war, ja, nein, ihre Eltern waren, ihre Eltern, ja, sie war erste Generation.

Juni. Oh, kommt. Ja. Was bist du, 70? Ich bin 71 Jahre alt. So it was right around this time. It was right around this time. My now wife, Lily and I, we got pregnant in the height of the pandemic. It was like a full mating in captivity.

And found out on her birthday May 29th, that we were pregnant. It was also the weekend of the George Floyd murder and the insanity of that weekend. It was the weekend we found out that she was pregnant.

And then, yeah, like helicopters. Remember how many helicopters there were? And then Trump, you know, did the Bible, the upside-down, backwards Bible.

Ja, es ist so lustig, Nostradamus nicht mal Trump anzupassen zu wollen.

It's a bummer, it's hacky, and it's a bummer. I'm not going to do it. So then, that Monday, I find out that my grandmother is on her deathbed. But you were like, okay. It wasn't like, what? She just turned 100. This can't be happening. I talked to her three months ago. Für zwei Minuten. Ja, und sie war eigentlich unglaublich scharf, unglaublich scharf. So fucking smart. Ja. Ihr ganzes Leben.

Und so eine interessante Person. Und dann, also wir haben ihr gesagt, mein Bruder ging auf ihre Geburt. Wiederum, es war das Covid-Zeit, also niemand war irgendwo. Sie waren in Westchester. Und mein Bruder brachte uns, FaceTime mich mit ihr, als sie war, wie du weißt, nur wie liegend im Bett, feindlich atmen.

Und wir haben gesagt, sie war die erste Person, der wir gesagt haben, dass wir krank waren. Und es war wirklich... Und es ging durch? Ich meine, ja. Wir sagten ihr, wir werden ein Baby haben. Also geh auf die Erde.

Wir haben einen neuen. Und dann war das am Dienstag und am Freitag war mein Geburtstag.

Es war zu früh. Es war nicht Covid. Es war super Covid. Und sie starb an meinem Geburtstag.

100%.

Yeah, her mind was in a great place. Yeah, she just died. Anyway. So that was that one. That was that one. That was that week. That's my birthday. And every year there was a hawk that landed on her body. Yeah. Yeah.

Just keeps eating his own shit.

Yeah, that's what she was. And then last year on my birthday, I was at my house and there were hawks that live around us. And this fucking hawk that never comes to our house flew like 10 feet over my house for like a half an hour.

I was like grandma, my birthday, and most importantly, the Trump Bible.

Oh, okay, so it's not, okay, not the mezuzah itself for the door. But here's how I read it.

But as compromise, because I know how weak-willed you are, let me give you something that you print out, you put it inside, nobody knows, but it's there. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, yes. Ja, ich fühle mich ein bisschen wie in einer Konversation über Israel und die amerikanischen Juden.

I don't understand you? Yeah. How do I feel about it? I like the movie a lot. How do you feel about this movie?

I know it might be a little late. I don't know if I'm the right audience. Mark Merritt. Alright. We'll take it.

I think that's a fair way to talk about it. Okay. Yeah, it's a horror comedy drama. It's like a little, but with like a farce. I mean, I guess that would fall into the comedy portion of it.

Right, well, that's what's been interesting about sort of either promoting it and how they're promoting it. Because I think it's been interesting hearing people be like, no, audiences need to know what they're getting.

You just thought you were watching like a rom-com-y kind of thing with me and Andrew Rannells.

Can we use that for the pull quote for the poster? Ah!

Yeah, there you go. Maybe that should have just been the trailer. I think something happens. And then something happened.

Yeah. Maybe that should have been the pull quote. Those guys just got away with it and now they're happy parents. You're like, great, so we don't need to, great, we don't need to watch it. We know what happened. But I hear you and it was an interesting, to do it that way was... How would I explain this? Why did you take the movie? I took the movie because I love Andrew Rannells.

He and I know each other. Great guy. Unbelievably talented. So funny. We worked together a bunch. He's been on Big Mouth since the beginning. David and Brian, who directed the movie, I knew a little bit. It's really based on their story. It's based on both of them trying to adopt a baby and getting scammed originally and then finally being able to adopt their son, who's in the film.

Sure, exactly. And then they had a nightmare vacation in Italy, which then they combined and were like, oh, we're dealing with this thing and then we have this true nightmare vacation in Italy, which is like them getting stuck in a ditch like we do in the movie.

Es ist einfach wie alles, das sich apartiert. Und dann heizen sie es mit dem Kombinieren in eine Sache. Also ich habe den Film genommen, weil ich sie kannte und ich sie alle liebte. Und es war einfach Spaß. Und es war wie, ich gehe nach Rom. Und meine Frau und ich, Lilly und ich, waren wie, wir gehen nach Rom. Hast du da gewesen? Ich war da, ja.

Ich war da über die Jahre eine gute Menge von Zeiten. Und so war es wie, oh mein Gott, in deiner Meinung, wenn du ein Kind bist oder wenn du anfängst, bist du wie, vielleicht werde ich einen Tag machen, wenn ich einen Film mache und in Italien lebe. Ja. Und wie, wie, wie, wie, wie, wie, wie, wie. Ein Hund in der Nachbarschaft.

Das war ein Zeichen. Mein Sohn war nicht mehr zwei Jahre alt. Es war ein schwerer Trip mit einem Zweijährigen. Es war ein Zweijähriger und ich arbeitete nachts. Es ist so viel wie in den Filmen.

So yeah, it was like 45 minutes outside of Rome and it was just like wet and I was wet the whole time and then I'd come home at 5 in the morning after a night shoot for a month.

I'd sleep for like 2 hours and then my son would wake up and like was 2 and was done with our nanny and was revolting on all levels and so I would sleep for like another hour and then I'd go, but then I'd go to the park with him and via Borghese, do you know that? Have you been to spend time in Rome at all? Oh, once. It's fucking DC. It's fine. I actually don't, I'm like, it's fine. Really?

Three days. Yeah. You go in, get it done.

Ja, das ist großartig, das Haus des Popes. Wartest du in den Vatikan? Ja. Wartest du? Nein, nicht dieses Mal. Ich war vorher da. Ich habe die ganze Zeit gearbeitet. Wir lebten direkt neben den Spanischen Steppen, in dem, wo es wie Times Square ist. Oh, ja. Und es war ein wunderschöner Ort. Wir hatten einen wirklich wunderschönen Ort zu leben. Am Top. Es war wirklich erstaunlich. Ja.

But it was like, the Busker started at like 7.30am. With the boomboxes? No, with like electric violins playing Coldplay.

You know, you're just like, no, no. And it really did so, but I, I mean, I, Rome is beautiful and a wonderful place, but it was not what I had, what I had envisioned in my head of what this was going to be romantic.

Und wir haben ein paar coole Sachen gemacht.

Sie war in ihrem ersten Trimester. Das ist okay. Aber es war ein schwieriges... Ich weiß alles. Nein, im ersten Trimester. Kein Problem. Ja.

You haven't had a kid? No. Physically you've never had a kid? No.

But I think it's too late for me to... When did you decide that you didn't want to have a kid? Or did you decide?

In any real way. I think that's a good call. I think that works for you and it's better for your unborn offspring.

I'm like, yeah, still not moving me. Yeah. I have 12 nieces and nephews, and before I had kids, I was like, I'm good for right now. I kind of in my head, because it's so much a part of the family, that I was like, I assume I'll have kids, but I was not, until I did it, I was not like, oh, my God, I'm itching to have children. Right. And then I did it and it's been amazing.

But also it is like, for people who have not had kids, I'm not like, oh my God, you must have children.

Sure. Yes, it's a more complete life for me.

Sure. Well, it's love, love masked as panic or panic masked as love.

It was just straight panic.

Yes.

Save that for the funeral, Mark. Save that for the Zoom eulogy that you delivered.

Appendages.

It would heighten, whatever happens when you have children, it just becomes a mirror and it heightens and magnifies whatever your shit is.

I like to, I think so most of the time, but I think having children has made me understand a very different element of myself that I have, I think, subjugated for my whole life.

Yeah, just like anger and things like that, like real rage. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or just because I see it in my small child, who's just like an amazing human. Ja, genau. Ja.

Well, sort of in general, but I was like that I, you know, that I would like raise my voice with him in a way that I haven't raised my voice with anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, that feels great. That's like real. So what'd you do about that? I told, he learned to fucking shut his mouth. He's a frightened kid now.

I shut it down and I'm happy about it. We're all, we're very comfortable now.

Oh, always. I used to have a joke in my head. I gotta talk to my therapists. And I now see a multitude of therapists. Really? I have a therapist who looks like Franny McDormand. Oh, that's good. Solid. Yeah, solid person. Talk therapist. And then you have a psychiatrist. No, I don't have a psychiatrist.

I mean, I got a guy on the side. Yeah, sure. If I need something. If I need something. Going on the road and I need to stay awake or whatever. Take the edge off. Stay up and do some work. Stay up and take the edge off. I got a psychiatrist for that. You got a Dr. Nick. Yeah, I got a special doctor. Yeah, yeah. And then I've got, you know, marriage couple stuff that we talk to someone. Oh, yeah.

And then like a parenting therapist who we talk to about our kids and how to...

Well, we cross over in the lobby in the waiting room when they're seeing their therapist. At two? Yeah, we say hi. We acknowledge each other. We all know we're all seeing someone. And then they go in for their session.

Because I decided... But everything seemed fine, Mark.

Um...

Sure. Almost as if they're an appendage to your narcissism.

Yeah, I'll take that one. The one that doesn't work. I'll take that in a medium. And, you know, dude, fuck it, let's just do four of them. Let me get out of here.

I'm like, no problem. But we'll see. Have you felt the cloudiness at all or anything?

The question on everybody's mind is stopping those rock-hard boners.

I want to be on equal standing here with you.

In Person konnte man ihn wirklich fühlen.

In general.

They're tied together. I was going to say, they're absolutely not tied. There's no connection between the two. So, we'll see. Are you on medicine? No. You fucking pussy. I've thought about it at times. For what? For more like ADHD stuff.

I don't think I have that. People have given you that?

I tried it over the years. I tried to get it over the years since like high school and all my friends were on like Ritalin and Adderall. So you wanted ADHD? I wanted it. Yeah. Because I wanted it in college to study and I wanted it because it was like, you know, it was just a fucking upper.

But I didn't have, I was not overly drawn to it at any point or like Coke or any of that stuff. It just didn't, it was not a... Du bist ein guter Junge, Nick. Like what? Like, you know. Microdosed? Microdosed a little bit. That never grabbed me either, but like, you know, mushrooms and like ayahuasca and all that stuff. You do ayahuasca? Uh-huh. Not, no, not like, no, not on a daily.

Well, because we are, whatever you're doing, we are who we are and we have to continue dealing with it. There's no silver bullet for any of it. Ja. Ja.

Cliff Notes to get in there faster than doing the actual work.

Microdose, not much. I never did a regular microdose of acid or mushrooms. That didn't grab me so much, although I'm sure it would be interesting, because I do find a certain focus... in using those kinds of things in a way that are helpful, can be helpful. But it never, that didn't grab me. I did do like, I did ketamine at Cedars-Sinai.

Yeah, I did that. For what? I did for just like trying to get a better sense of what was going on. In the world, in your life? In the world and life. It was like what I was talking about earlier.

Yeah, so like you're in an office and they lie you down in an easy chair and you get noise-canceling headphones or I listen to music. Oh, they let you listen to music? Yeah, I listen to Emma Hoy, this like amazing, like... Äthiopischen Pianisten. Die Frau? Ja, ich habe das. Es ist wunderschön. Und ich finde es sehr meditativ. Also, sie hören das und es war natürlich ein Montag um 11.30 Uhr.

And it's a very weird time to go do that kind of thing.

Yeah, you go, like you're lying there and it's an IV and then within 10 minutes you start to like trip. And I was never interested in ketamine. People use it like recreationally. I was never interested in it. But this very controlled trip, all of a sudden in 10 minutes you start to like... Ja, genau. I learned, I had, it's like, again, it's like a shorthand to whatever is going on.

That's what I found about those psychedelics, where it's just like, it's like, come on, man, let's fucking talk about this. You know what I mean? Oh, sure, sure. And it jumps you right in there. So an elf pops up and says, dude. Yeah, and it's feral, it's Will Ferrell as the elf, and it's Krumholtz as the elf. Oh, that's better. Yeah, that's probably closer.

It's probably Krumholtz coming into me from like the Santa Claus movie.

Yeah. Just do it. So, what are you doing? Just do it. So we, anyway, but it does, it kind of really takes you right inside of it and then pops you out. But I did it once and it was a good experience. And then I did it again and I was running late and I was trying to get to my therapist after that.

Like I was going to see a therapist to process whatever we had just gone, whatever I had just gone through. But I get out on a third street and I'm like running late and I'm still like, I'm getting to an Uber and I'm flip-flopping my feet around because I'm still on drugs. And it was not, I was like, this is not the right thing. This is not how this should be done. And that was it.

And I was like, I'm done with that now.

You do it with your wife? I did it, I'll leave her out of it, but yeah, so we, I did it in a very, again, like, there's the very, very bougie version of it, where it's like some white shaman and, you know... The guy who used to be a barista?

There's that version of it, and there are other versions of it that are much, I think, much more... von Leuten, die viel mehr direkt mit der Pflanze verbunden sind und mit ihrer Erfahrung in Zentral- und Südamerika. Es war also ein sehr intensiver Grupp, und es war ein wirklich interessanter, seltsamer Grupp, wo es diese Leute gibt, die sich denken, Oh, es ist alles, richtig?

Es ist wie, weißt du.

Just like real, like I was like, huh, like, yeah, just sort of big things. Like you go in thinking you're going to be like, I'm going to talk, I'm going to think about, you know, my relationship with my son or my marriage or whatever. And then something sort of, at least in all these experiences, usually isn't that direct thing.

It's like, oh, just a much deeper thought about like masculinity or how I connect right now. I was like, man, I can't separate. Ja. Ja.

So, it was, and I was just like, you know, anyway, so, I'm not a proponent one way or the other of it, but I found it, I enjoyed, I've enjoyed it and it found it very, I just feel like you, it's a shorthand to get to some deeper shit.

Yes, yes. That was great. Thank you. She did a great job, yeah. Yeah, she's incredibly talented. She's a massive fan of yours.

Ja, sie ist sehr lustig. Du bist wirklich der eine Comic, der, ich denke, sie hat angefangen, ihren Podcast zu hören, sehr früh, als sie versucht hat, herauszufinden, was sie tun wollte.

Und sie hat gesagt, dass dein Podcast ihr Insight into the idea of, that you could fail along the way to success, like that you're so many of the conversations you had, but not about you particularly, but mainly you. Yeah. No, but it was really as she was trying to figure out what she wanted to do and it was really enlightening for her.

And so your conversations really propelled her towards doing what she does now. Yeah. In a lot of ways, which is like landscape design and large scale botanical installation. And what you saw was like a, you know, a visual art sort of.

Das ist großartig. Es ist nichts Schlimmeres, als in eine Kunstschule zu gehen und zu sagen, was ist das?

Ich glaube, Piktographen sind Lumens. Es ist wie gespürtes Filmpapier. Sie nimmt Pflanzenmaterial und legt sie in den Sonnenlicht und schafft sie. Es war auch frühbotanisch, wie sie Botaniker zurückgezogen haben. Oh, um zu dokumentieren. Ja, um zu dokumentieren, wie die Darwin-Ära.

Yeah, that's the thing.

The stuff that's in the thing. The stuff that's there. It's in the tray. Let me tell you what the problem with these rooms is, though.

Aber deine Obsessivität hat das nicht komplementiert.

Es ist nicht von der nützlichen Qualität her.

Ja, also du sagst, ich wünschte, ich hätte das. Nein, nein, weil es ist das Ding, wo du, ich bin sicher, du hast ein Millionen von diesen obsessiven Leuten interviewt, die es in ihr Kunst und es nützlich machen.

Ja, ein wunderschöner OCD. Ja, ja. Ein absolut wunderschöner, wunderschöner OCD.

Sicher. Richtig. Aber dann musst du ihn reparieren. Du musst das machen. Nein, es ist, aber sie macht auch dieses, sie macht dieses Ding diesen Sommer in Madison Square Park. Sie hat ein paar der Läden übernommen und hat diese Outdoor-Installationen auf den Läden in Madison Square Park gestartet, den ganzen Sommer.

No, it's a different thing. It's a meditation garden, like a labyrinth. And then a children's garden with some stages. And we're going to do some live reading stuff for kids and stuff in there. But I sat there at the meditation. I was just in New York. I sat in her garden, because I was there for a couple of days, and sat and just watched everybody walk through it.

It was so gratifying in New York to watch, like, 50 verschiedene Arten von Menschen haben durch dieses eine Ding überlebt. Es war wirklich wundervoll.

Before Olmsted got his stupid fucking hands on it?

Yeah, but the idea that they would have enough vision to be like, we think it could get this big, so we need to make the park, think about it on this scale, that eventually this whole island will be covered.

And that's true. And then, I mean, also the... Same guy did Prospect Park. Yeah, I was going to say, Prospect Park also is an amazing thing to understand that about Brooklyn too. Yeah. It's like they're... They save your soul. That was the cool thing about Rome was that Via Borghese, that massive park was like really beautiful, like calming place to get inside. It works. You need it.

You take a deep... Isn't that wild though? I was there too. And it really, you need it.

You go to the gallery in Sherman Oaks.

Is it Balboa? No, it's one of... Anyway.

No, the Grotto's a different kind of park.

You need it. And L.A. is, unfortunately, you've got Griffith Park, which is an amazing resource, but you miss the central gathering park. There's no central gathering here. It's a failure in design.

Oh, I love to go to Runyon. No, but it's funny. Runyon is the first stop when you move to L.A. or come to L.A. and it's just filled with people with so many demons. Oh, yeah. Just like the most... Yeah, a lot of dreams hiking up that trail. Yeah, so many eating disorders. Yeah. Hiking up and down that hill. Of all types. Of all types and frequencies.

Oh, well, there's Runyon and then there's like the, you know, Canyon, the Bronson. The Bronson, I did for many years. I did that hike for many, many years. Like the Bat Cave area.

Yeah, you gotta do it. I'm telling you, you gotta do a bit about hiking or something like that.

How was the taping?

I saw that. I heard you talk about it. I've seen the close. I saw it at some point.

I bet. Yeah. But she could have charged you more.

Hey, bud. Quick.

Have you gotten used to doing it now where you're not unbelievably nervous and panicky while doing it or leading up to it?

Also, ich habe dieses Ding gearbeitet, weil ich von der Tour eine Pause hatte.

Das ist lustig und fühlt sich gut an.

Das ist immer das Wichtigste. Bei dir, für mich.

Ja. Da ist ein kleinerer. Oh.

Oh, ja, ja, ja. Oh, cool.

Most importantly.

Most importantly, you didn't see my face. You know what I think about still? Because I think about you talking about your grandmother. I'm sorry. What I think about is you talking about your mother eating whipped cream. Yeah. Cool whip. Oh, you cool whip. So when I'm like, I need my little sweets, I need my little taste, a little shot of whipped cream really gets me through.

And almost every time I do it, I think about your mom. Yeah.

A low fat, low sugar way to get a little hit. A little hit. Talk about a little dopamine hit. It's fun. It's so fun. Do you go there? You do that? I don't know. I have a separate tank for that, that I just hit by the bed.

No, no, no, I got Kanye's dentist on board, so now I just... How are your folks? They're good. They're, you know, they're older, they're getting older, but they're good. They're like 84 and 82.

I mean, it's, you know, the bummer for them is like people keep dying.

Yeah.

I can't believe I'm the one who's going to tell you this.

I do, but I took a much longer break than I wanted to as I cover my belly with my jacket. I started doing, I've been doing, I needed to get myself to do it again. So I did, I started doing like orange theory. Das war Gruppen- und Workout-Training. Ich musste in der Öffentlichkeit mit anderen Leuten zusammen sein und mir selbst verantwortlich sein. Und es hat funktioniert?

Es hat viel besser funktioniert. Wenn ich einen Trainer habe, kann ich sie dann ausdrücken, weil sie mich zu hart drücken. Oh, wirklich? Ja, ja, ja. Dann habe ich angefangen, diese Klassen zu machen. Du kannst alle Rates und Kalorien sehen. Du kannst kompetitiv sein. Und das hat für zwei Wochen geholfen. Ich habe ziemlich hart gearbeitet.

That was like six months ago.

Yes. The rest of it is fair. It's fair. Frankly fair. And also, as he explains it, you're like, of course, women would be into that kind of person.

Do you feel like, is it that you're not getting credit for working out? That's what bothered me about the whole thing.

Fair enough. Don't take that away from me. Don't take away.

Do you jog every once in a while? Today? Really? Do you jog in public? Do you jog out in the world?

I don't like also publicly working out like that. I do a very hard hike up there. A hike I'll do any day. But jogging in streets is like my worst nightmare.

How did it feel?

So you're not obsessive at all. There's no weird rules that you've created. No systems in place that have to be met or else it's a failure. There's nothing like that.

You'll slowly make your way through.

Big Mouth Season 8 is done. And that's it? With that show for right now, yeah. That's a long run, dude. That's a long run. We'll be the longest running scripted series on Netflix. Wow. Do they know? They don't know. We haven't told them. Wir werden es ihnen sagen. Wir haben 80 von diesen und 20 von den Spinoff-Human Resources gemacht. Und dann ist es vorbei.

Ich meine, das lustige an der Animation ist, dass wir vor einem Jahr fertiggestellt haben. Und jetzt kommt es diese Woche raus. Also ist es diese seltsame Distanz, die du daraus hast. Ja. Und ja, ich bin so glücklich darüber. Es war wahrscheinlich eines der besten kreativen Dinge, die ich jemals erwartet hätte. Ich habe es mit einem Freund von meiner Kindheit gemacht, mit vielen Freunden.

Ja, ich habe ihn auf meinem ganzen Rücken, weil wir Freunde sind. Ja, das ist toll. Weil ich liebe Knocked Up. Ja, du musst es machen.

Also, ich, aber ja, ich bin so stolz auf es. Es ist fertig. Wir machen ein neues Show, das kommt nächstes Jahr. Animiert? Animiert. Für Netflix? Ja, das gleiche Team, äh, genannt Mating Season, über, äh, Tiere verheiratet und in den Wäldern verheiratet. Du weißt.

Ja, versus Puberty, was ein bestimmtes Zeitpunkt ist. Aber eine Weiterentwicklung in vielen Fällen von dem, was wir gemacht haben.

Wir haben ein Ding dafür, ja.

Ja, ich meine, es ist sehr lustig und das Tier-Stuff, was ist das menschliche Ding, wie wir es zum Tier-Welt bezeichnen. In der Weise, wie die Flintstones lustig waren, weißt du, was ich meine? Ja, ja, sicher. And so we're doing that. The final season comes out May 23rd. And then I've been producing this other show called Adults on FX. Like 20-somethings in New York.

It's about to be on. It comes out on the 28th on FX and then Hulu.

Adults is like, you know, it's like if the... If you had sex in the city or friends, they were living in the West Village, and then the girls and girls were living in Brooklyn. Now, that period of time in your early 20s, these kids are living in deep Queens at one of their kids' parents' house. In Forest Hills? Yeah, in Flushing and Bayside area.

An area that's not going to get gentrified, but it's where they could all live.

Really? A story I feel like has come up a lot.

No, well, and at that point, a story probably the most international, like the most languages spoken in the world. The best. It was just the best.

Are there no rules? No, no. So the show is like, and it's really about kind of Gen Z, those kids, but it's really about like codependent group of friends living in a house together, trying to figure out how to be people. In that kind of grand tradition of that kind of show.

No, I wrote it. Yeah, the writers came to me like literally Ben Cronengold and Rebecca Shaw. They came to me, they're a couple, they've been together since college. They came to me like... Ben who? Ben Cronengold. Okay. And Rebecca Shaw there. They were Fallon writers when I met them. Yeah. They were at the... When I met them was five years ago.

It was like my first emails were them like November 2020. Yeah. When Melanie was just running around New York on cocaine. Yeah, yeah. Und ich habe von ihnen einen Anruf bekommen und wir haben angefangen, darüber zu sprechen. Und ich dachte, sie hatten so eine klare Vision dafür. Sie sind verdammt lustig, großartige Schriftsteller. Und es war so, ja, das klingt wie ein Show.

Und so habe ich ihnen einfach geholfen. Wir haben es gepitcht und es dann bei FX entwickelt. Und dann habe ich das Finale davon gedreht und sie einfach durch den Prozess geholfen.

Season again, that comes out, yeah, the 28th. On FX. FX and then on FX for Hulu, the next, all, the whole season drops on FX for Hulu.

I'm starting to direct a little bit. I directed on History of the World and then I directed the finale of this and starting to do that more. You like it? I like it. I love... Wenn du schreibst und produzierst, machst du einen großen Teil deines Jobs. Ich mag es nicht, wenn man auf einen Anruf kommt. Ich mag es nicht, wenn man auf einen Tech-Scout geht.

Die Dinge, die die Direktoren und die Crew tun. Wenn ich mich durch das machen kann, könnte ich etwas Neues erleben. Möchtest du einen Film machen? Yeah, I think like... But it's like, I love it. But I also, I love doing all of it.

Another rousing... Another wonderful pull quote from Maren. Just for your listeners who maybe are considering going to the movie, it's much better than Maren is giving it credit for.

Again, another perfect Polka. It's well shot and it's all there. Go to the theater to see I Don't Understand You, June 6th, Marc Maron.

I agree. It's really interesting. It's an interesting experiment in playing with audience expectation. In this moment in time, it's harder to get people to lock in if something doesn't exactly make sense to them right at first.

Again, could we use that one too? I don't know your fans well, but can someone just make one of your fans, can someone make this, the pull quotes for all of these quotes from the movie that I can put out on social? It was just like all of them. Or a trailer where it's all, you see the trailer and it's always like, instead of it being like the Daily Beast, it's like dementedly funny.

It's just all of Marin's quotes from the movie. I will put that out when it comes.

Can I ask, when did you pull out WTF? My Chupacabra was in the intro for your show for a long time. Yeah. WTF. Ja, WTF.

No, it's gone. But what a run we have. Oh, it's great.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm gonna try. I'm finally gonna try.

Thank you. It's so funny. Is that how you feel with your mom? What was the setup again? It's just how we're so deeply impatient with our moms. No shorter fuse with anyone in the world. Yeah, my mom was like, you know, I'm gonna forward you an article about the Art Deco movement. Warum würdest du das tun, Mama?

It doesn't go away, and I think it's more extreme with mothers than fathers, I think. We don't want to get hit.

emotional emotional hit you know what i mean fathers are scary yeah fathers are scary and also you can work your mom yes but you're just so emotionally intertwined with her in a way that it hits some deep like kind of core thing that makes you explode yeah but there's also the fight and this is you know about

Ich hatte gerade meine Eltern, ich war bei Colbert in New York und es war der Geburtstag meines Vaters, also habe ich gesagt, warum kommt ihr nicht zu Colbert und dann gehen wir zum Abendessen? Und ich ging und sie waren mit mir im Backstage in der grünen Raum, wiederum, reden wir über das, warum habe ich nicht einfach gesagt, schau den Show an und dann treffen wir uns.

So they're in my green room and I'm doing the pre-interview with the producer and my mom starts to weigh in and I became again like a six-year-old child. Before I'm about to go on national television in a pink suit. You know what I mean? I did that to myself. You know what I mean?

And you have so much other stuff connected and attached to those people. My least favorite shows are hometown shows oftentimes. Like they're the least, I don't, you know what I mean? Because you're just, you can start to see, you can feel people who you know thinking about you and you.

It's not because I put on weight, it's just simply the thickness of the fabric. It's a western shirt that I got from a special place. This guy's a wonderful... I lived in a town in Wyoming. As you look at the computer, I'll make this long.

I lived in this little town in Dubois, Wyoming. You did? Yeah, for a couple summers. And it was a cool little kind of dude ranch, real western town. It's like 80 miles to Jackson. The family went there? No, no. Family friends had a place there and I was like, can I go work for you? And they were like, no, go work. They were a ranch. It was like, be a ranch hand.

They're like, you won't be good at this.

I don't know. Here it is. Let's do it. Here we go. This is the soft pitch, Mark. But I lived in this town and worked at this restaurant and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Es ist du und Black Youth.

Bist du dir davon bewusst, während es passiert ist?

This is the payoff. Your literal, not underwear, your literal ass. Yeah, yeah.

Now I'll tune in. Now I'll tune in to watch it. How much stand-up are you doing? Ich mache es, wenn ich es kann. Ich weiß nicht, mein Leben ist ein bisschen, die jungen Kinder machen es nicht einfach. Aber wenn ich es könnte, in einem idealen Weltraum, würde ich es zwei oder drei Mal pro Woche machen. Ja, das ist ein Weg. Aber generell versuche ich, sie zu stacken, wenn ich es kann.

Ich bin endlich nach New York gegangen und habe den Seller und den Village Underground gemacht. Und dieser kleine Rund ist sehr schön. Und wie war es für dich? War es gut? Es war so lustig. Ich habe es noch nie gespielt. Weil, als ich in New York war, mache ich ein paar Show. Ich gehe nicht auf Spots. Und es war so lustig.

Ja, und die Stimmen sind lustig. Es ist nicht so fest. Es fühlt sich ein bisschen heißer an.

Yeah, but I'm used to New York theater crowds, which are fun, but like... Different, older. So I'm doing it, I'm trying to figure out what it is right now, where I'm like, am I working towards a special for an hour, or am I, I'm doing a bunch of stuff this summer, some dates in Canada. I'm doing a couple things with Mulaney and Birbiglia and... Oh my God, what is that? You mean just stand-up?

Fred, we're doing some festivals in Canada right now. As a three... It's like Mulaney's show and we're all doing spots on it. Oh, yeah. And we're doing some of those. I don't know if that's the right framing of it, but that's how it feels to me.

Yeah, me and Mike and Fred popping on.

Ja. Oh, interessant. Ja, also wir machen ein paar von denen. Und ich stelle mich immer darauf ein, was die nächste Aufgabe ist. Oh, okay. Weißt du, was ich meine? Und vielleicht aus dem, werde ich anfangen zu denken, okay, das fühlt sich jetzt an, als würde ich mehr mit dem Touren auf mich selbst machen. Ja, klar, klar. Ich stelle mich immer darauf ein, wie es auf dem Show geht.

Ich meine, wenn du einsteigen willst, werden wir in Halifax sein. Honestly, if you're in Halifax and want to drop in, we would, I'm sure, love to have you. Alright, well, next time, you know, we had a dinner without you. I know, I heard.

Yeah. I really had this moment where I was like, should we talk? Have you ever just openly talked shit on the air about people that you talk about in private?

Yeah. That's a joy to listen to.

Ja, ja. Ich meine, ich sage nicht, dass er für mich herausfordernd ist.

Gut. Wir sind zusammen in der Schule gegangen.

He wants no paper trail of words said.

But then does it help to talk through it versus a text?

Sure.

Yeah.

Have that conversation.

Yeah, of course. Du sagst, aber ich habe diese OCD, also brauche ich... Ich bin ein bisschen obsessiv über diese Dinge.

Ich könnte. Du könntest. Und dann, und dann werden wir einen von uns schicken, nachdem es jetzt ist.

Oh, du denkst das? Ich meine, ich weiß, er arbeitet so hart.

Aber ich verstehe, es ist so interessant, weil ich ihn literally, als ich ein Junge in Georgetown war, hat er mich in einem Sketch-Show gedreht. Und ich habe ihn durch mein Leben kennengelernt. Und er ist sofort aus der Schule gekommen und war auf Letterman innerhalb des Jahres. Also hat er weiterhin Erfolg in einer Weise, die war wie, warte, was?

I know, I put it on Instagram constantly. I'm trying to mine it.

Yeah, of course. Of course, trust me. I feel the same way.

Ich kann nicht, die Sache ist mit ihm und anderen, die du schon lange kennengelernt hast, die Leute, die du mitgekommen bist, du bist einfach so, natürlich ist es alles.

Es gibt diese Leute, die, wenn sie sich in deinem Leben befinden, du weißt, wie in verschiedenen Weichen, wie die Leute, die ich sicher bin, die du mitgekommen bist und die, die sich befinden, du hast komplizierte Beziehungen mit ihnen und du kannst sie lieben, sie respektieren und auch frustriert sein. Freunde. Freunde. Freunde, die dann endlich Familie werden.

Das ist gut, dass du diese Gruppe hast.

Die Wahrscheinlichkeit ist, dass wir uns alle unglaublich selten sehen, wegen der Leben und so weiter. Das ist das, was du findest, wenn du älter wirst. Du denkst dir, oh, ich sehe niemanden jemals. Und das ist das Schöne an Stand-Up, ist, dass du dich sozialisierst. Ja, das ist deine ganze soziale Sache.

Nein! Nein! Nein, aber es ist, aber es ist wie... Marin ist ein loser Kanon. Nein, nein, du willst das. Du willst das loser Kanon. Ja, sicher. Nein, aber ich, aber du nicht, als opposed to like us being backstage talking, then one of us running up on stage to a spot and then coming back or going to another spot.

It's a, you know, it's a condensed version of, of, of what that could be at a, you know, in a green room.

But it's hard to do that.

I was, and that would have been interesting.

Ich habe, es gibt ein paar schreckliche Plätze in L.A., die ich jetzt entschieden habe. Ich bin so, nein, das ist nicht wert, das fucking Stück.

Du weißt, es ist so, ich kümmere mich nicht um das.

Ja. Und dann kannst du lustige Leute schauen. Klar. Für interessante Leute. Ich liebe es, lustige Leute zu sehen. Die Essen sind okay und sie sind glücklich da. Ja. Again, if they want to use that for their poll quote. Which one? The food's okay and you're happy you're there. Come to Craig's. Mark Maron. The food's pretty good.

Did we do it? We did it.

Okay. Can I just talk about Israel and Palestine real quick before we get off? I'm out of tape.

I got no more data. AT&T took off my zeros and ones. The reels are running out. Yeah, no, we're good.

We had started talking like these guys. We had seen these two guys at a bookstore at the Strand. Of course.

Yes, they each had their own tote bag. The old Strand bags. Which we used to say was, Strand is 8 miles of books. And 12 miles of loneliness. And... Und wir gehen da rein und wir sehen diese beiden Jungs, die ihre individuellen Kopien von Alan Alda's Never Have Your Dog Stuffed kaufen. Hardcover. Great book, by the way. Great book.

Yes, I know. Wonderful conversation. Amazing. He's such a real actor and artist. Yeah. In a way that we're not. And a curious guy. Yes.

Yes, he hosted, what, 13 years Scientific American.

Yeah.

So we see these two guys buy their book, buy that book, and then we just immediately kind of become fascinated with them, follow them out of the Strand to like a diner, a coffee shop. You're following them now. We are now following these two men. And we follow them, and then as they sit at a coffee shop and both start reading their copies of Alan Alda's book, Never Have Your Dog Stuff.

Yeah, and we just, they just became a focus point of guys that we've been interested in.

Vielen Dank.

Musik Musik Musik Musik

Yeah. Oh, gut. Ich meine, auf irgendeinem Niveau bist du glücklich daran, dass viele Leute oder ihre Partner nicht davon zuständig sind.

Das ist, warum ich nicht Kinder habe, damit ich für meinen Vater's Tod bezahlen kann. Und nicht überraschen.

Nicht zu groß machen.