Rashida Jones
Appearances
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I think it was that. I think you just read so much when you're auditioning. And even if you're not getting jobs, you just see the kind of landscape of what people are writing. And obviously there was good stuff. But I was kind of inspired by that moment in time that like the peak Judd Apatow where like all those dudes were just like... just writing themselves, you know?
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And I thought I could at least do that, right? Even if it's not as good or as funny, I could find some audience. And I also had this feeling that like, nobody would ever cast me as a certain kind of thing. And if I'm gonna get that part, I probably have to write it for myself.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Anyway, that was hard. I wasn't saying that about, no, I'm not saying that about, but you know what I mean? Like I saw the entire spectrum and I thought there's somewhere I can land. And of course I had lofty dreams because I grew up on Jim Brooks and Nora Ephron. And those were the kinds of movies I wanted to be in and I wanted to write. So-
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And I think having them holding each other's hands through the process, like we literally sat side-by-side and wrote our first script together, and I feel like that... How did that relationship start?
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I did a movie in the 90s, indie movie with Mary, and I was obsessed with her. She was like the coolest, funniest person I'd ever met. She was like, you should go out with my brother. You guys are soulmates. And she's not wrong. It didn't work out. We did date for three weeks. It didn't work out. But he kind of is my, like, work soulmate, you know? We still work together, so.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
We started writing... Oh, it's so weird. No, we started writing a show in New York. I mean, we were just drunk. It's not even worth mentioning. Um... The only thing we completed was Celeste and Jesse Forever. It was the first movie that we wrote in its entirety and went out with.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Well, we kind of, yeah. It kind of was that a little bit of it. It was like an amalgam of the first kind of love that we had, our own separate loves, plus our dynamic as like a kind of somewhere in the middle of romantic and best friend-ship relationship.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Which is what the name is based on. And so like you'd get to school and you'd have, everybody would pick their headshots, you know.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Hard copy. Digital, we had ethernet my senior year. There was no internet.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Somewhere under that beard, you do look great. Just a lot of beard. But I see it. That's a hell of a backhanded compliment.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I love it so much and I kind of like sing for fun. I've written for fun and I've sung backup on some albums and things like that. Really? Yeah, I sang backup on the first two Maroon 5s. No way.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I can write. My reading is limited, but my dad's a musical genius. That's like the last thing I want to do is try my hand at that. But I love it. I have a deep ache for music, and I just don't ever feel like I'm good enough to do it. I'll never be good enough to do it.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Like he had it. There was a doc series on BBC. There was a documentary about him in the 80s. And I was with Jane Rosenthal. You know Jane?
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
you have to make a documentary about your dad and i was like oh i do i do don't i i didn't want to but she was right because the truth is he's so well documented he's so accomplished right that it's almost impossible to spend any time storytelling about who he is as a person to cover so much ground with just what he's like like contributed to the world and culture i wanted to do something that felt like it captured his personality because nothing ever has
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
and so that was kind of the goal and then al hicks who i love by the way have you if you've never seen he made a documentary called keep on keeping on which is about clark terry who's my dad who's my dad's mentor oh wow player and his last mentee who was who's this incredible jazz pianist he's blind justin coughlin it's like about their relationship it's like if you're ready to cry
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Keep on keeping on. So Hicks, he directed that. We met on my first day of filming in Montreux in Switzerland at the Jazz Festival. I had like a 5D camera. I was like trying to figure out what to do, how to do it. And we met that day and then I asked him to co-direct with me.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Yeah. Yeah. It felt, it felt intimate and too intimate. In fact, cause there's a whole scene where, I mean, he almost died while we were filming and we stopped filming. And luckily my brother was like filming a bunch of stuff in the hospital, like show my dad. Cause he was, went into diabetic coma and you know, uh,
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Luckily, the conclusion of the story was such that we could put it in and felt like the real triumph through that because my dad is a beast and he has cheated death many times. 91, still crushing it.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
No, I heard you guys talking about that. And we actually did. We watched it recently too. We watched all three. And great films. Great films. I don't know if anybody knows, but really great films. And three, great film. I don't know. I think we watched the edited version, but I watched it because I hadn't seen it since I know Sophia so well. And just seeing baby Sophia in that movie.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
You know what's crazy about Three, you guys? Yeah. It's about first cousins in love. I know. I just started watching it. And that's not the central conflict of the movie.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
We had met, we had met, I was in an act, I was like an out-of-work actor in an acting class in New York. And she came to the class to workshop Lost in Translation. What? And so I played the like main part for... a month with her.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
So I work with my acting coach, Greta, works a lot with Frances and Sophia. And they do like dream work around, you know, character, character dream work. And so she kind of came to explore and enrich like the characters in the film. And so I was like assigned to the lead part, to the Scarlett Johansson part.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And then, you know, I had to do like dream assignments and come in and like, you know, embarrass myself by acting out my dreams. But it was really very cool. Like I got to play that part and work with Sophia for like a month. I was like 27 or something, 26, 27. Yeah.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Also shot in Japan. I didn't get the part, but that's fine. Yeah. Didn't even audition.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I mean, obviously, I would have done anything for her. But we stayed friends over the years. And then I shot, we did... She directed a Calvin Klein underwear commercial that I was in. And then she did this Bill Murray Christmas special for Netflix. And we had a little scene in that. And she was like, there's like something happening here. Like, this is like a good dynamic.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And I think she got the idea sort of from that scene we had together. Yeah.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
We have—when we were doing that workshop, Sophia was trying to cast him, and she had a dedicated assistant who sat outside our rehearsals with a phone waiting for him to call back all day, every day.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Yes, that was originally when I met her and we were working on that. She had not cast him. She was still courting him. And, you know, he's like a Loch Ness Monster.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
But he really is like, he did a guest spot. I had a show called Angie Tribeca.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And he did a guest spot and he called me and I booked his ticket. He was like, oh yeah, I want to leave at nine. Oh, no way. On Wednesday. I was like, okay. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
He's pretty great. I mean, he is extremely charismatic. You know, he's like... And he's also, what I didn't really know, I'd worked with him a couple times before, but doing a whole movie with him, like, he's so... He's so good. He's so good. I'm not saying anything you don't know, but he's such a good actor and he's so present and he still works hard as an actor. You know, he's not checked out.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
He could be checked out because he's like, just his talent is... is you know undeniable but he's like he works hard he had like a lot of big meaty monologues in that movie where he would talk about like biology evolutionary biology and the nature of men and women and like it was a lot he had to he had to run down some serious theories and he was like fully committed
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Yeah, me too. And it was, yeah, I was on Parks and, you know, they have really kind of cool development where every, you know, they're development people, they're casting people, they watch indie films. Like that's how they get their ideas, you know? Like I had had some friends who'd written indie movies who'd written there. And we went and screened Celeste and Jesse forever.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And then we got a call to meet on a project, all very, very under wraps, you know, like they have to keep everything really. And we went and met and we got the job. And so I went to, sure. And I was like, listen, I love you. I love the show. I want to be here, but I got a job here. It's at Pixar. I have to move to the Bay Area, but I need your blessing. And he was like, he's the greatest.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
He's the best boss ever because he let everybody do everything they wanted to do while we were doing that show. Chris Pratt, they filmed in London so Pratt could do the first Marvel movie he did. He just wanted everybody to be the best version of themselves. So he was like, yeah, of course, you have to go.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
It's collaborative. It's iterative. You're rewriting a script every three weeks. It is not a WGA job. I'll just say that, you know, like you're, and you're working with the story artists and they're sort of writing within their, the way that they, you know, draw changes the story. And then you have to like change the script to fit the sequences they've.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
No, no, no, no, no. There's no raw stories. There's no raw story. I just remember like seeing you around and like you were cute. All my friends liked you. I just feel like there's so much crossover. 80s, Valley.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Or 11. Yeah, right. But I feel like there was like, I'm trying to think of the 80s parties, 80s clubs.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
My mom was an actress, yeah. Was an actress for- Encouraging there? The great Peggy Lipton. Yeah. Yes, the great Peggy Lipton. Yeah, she was encouraging. I was like, my rebellion was like, I'm not doing this Hollywood bull. I'm not doing entertainment. You've been surrounded by it, and you're right.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Yeah, I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted to be legitimate.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I wanted to litigate. Like, I wanted to be like, you know, Spencer Tracy in Hair at the Wind. You know, like I wanted to like argue the case in court.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
environmental law or criminal law or... I probably would want to have been like, yeah, like I would have been like a DA or something, you know?
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
That, no. I don't know. I'm in a real like maybe you guys can tell me because you're a tiny bit older than me. I'm having that moment right now where I'm like – I don't know anything. I don't know anything.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
There is something at this moment, there's something sort of like regenerative, and I'm sure it's coming for you, Will. Like right now you're sort of like resetting, which is incredibly scary. But most people I talk to who are 50, just turned 50, have this thing where they're like, who am I? There's like this full rebirth. Who do I want to be for the next 50 years if we're lucky?
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
What does my back half look like? What's actually fulfilling? What does my ego want? Do I need to fulfill my ego? Do I need to fulfill a deeper soul purpose? Like so much is coming up.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
But good for you for doing that work because you could just like slide by and you could probably be okay and live in denial for the rest of your life. And the fact that you're going deep right now means you're going to rebuild and be like the best version of yourself.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And also that's all that stuff that you thought for your entire life was going to fill the gap. You're like, wait, it doesn't quite fill that gap. There's still a little piece missing. And what is that piece? And we're privileged enough to have succeeded in a way. But I think for everybody, they're like, wait a second, it's just going to be this forever? Like all the firsts are gone.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
But to your point, Jason, I think everybody here, including me, I want to not to be overly earnest, but I want to be able to create from a real source, from a feeling of connection. So I'm taking a little breath to figure out what that actually is and what that looks like and what I want to say. You know, I don't know. I'm not going to, I don't want to just put shit out.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Well, like the thing I always go back to is my dad says, make decisions based on love and not fear, which sounds so platitudinal, but it's really not. Like when you think about it, well, like, you know what you were just saying, like I have often looked... at my life and thought, let me just do this thing that I know is the kind of safe way to do it.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Or let me do this thing that's gonna make people love me. And because I'm afraid of not being loved as opposed to like really, really loving something and believing in something and not caring.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I think looking at it, acknowledging it, and then I would say my greatest gift is like just continuing to develop my inner life. Like something that is not connected to anybody else, creating almost like a little... house inside, whether it's meditation or breath, whatever it is, nature.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
And I don't listen to your show, so I didn't know it was a surprise. I'm really glad I didn't say anything. Okay.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
He has a radio show, not a podcast, a radio show. Oh. But also a musician.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
I love you. I love you. What am I doing today? This, I'm doing this. I'm, I don't, what am I doing today? I'm like prepping for the summer.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
No, just like packing. Tanning booth. Tanning booth, of course. Where are you going? Just a lot of, well, I'm doing some press for the show. Oh, yeah. That Will mentioned, Sonny. I didn't write it. I'm in it. I'm in it. But I produced it.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
It's the best. I had been there like three or four times for a couple weeks, but I was there for six months.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Yeah, you can, but even getting lost is fun there. It doesn't really matter. There's no bad version of it. But yes, I was like dialed in because I had like the most amazing PA and like people who really knew the cities. And so like I just went to the best, coolest restaurants, gardens, temples, onsen.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
Yeah, I always wanted to be a writer, but I didn't feel like I was good enough or anointed to be that kind of person. I think probably because I went to school with a lot of people who ended up writing for television. Harvard. Did you really go to Harvard? And they were all in the lampoon, and they were funny, and the guys who were going to get the jobs and stuff.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
So I never felt like that, so I didn't feel worthy pursuing that. And then a strike happened.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
We met freshman year. Wow. We did a play together freshman year called Love, Sex, and the IRS.
SmartLess
"Rashida Jones"
We wrote a paper together in college, by the way. How stupid is that? We convinced our teacher that we should write a paper together.