Rashida Jones
Appearances
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
It's stressy. It's fully stressy. Yeah. I'm not good at it. I'm not the person to ask because I always feel stressed and weird about it. Because the best case scenario is that You do it and you sell some sort of chemistry, but like it's all above board and professional. That's the best case scenario, which is like seems impossible.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
You know, it's still one of my biggest complaints. I remember we did the table read for that, and I was like, no, no. No one's going to buy it because I don't buy it, okay? Pick anybody else on this cast to try to play that in an honest way. It is so unfair that you're making me do this. It really, yeah, it still hurts. It really hurts. Because how familiar are you with Genuine? We were married.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
No, I'm kidding. I mean, you know, I live in 90s R&B. That's where my heart is. It's not here. I mean, it is with you, but for the most part, it's not present. It's in 90s R&B. So he's a very important figure. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Thank you for saying that. What is your relationship to music? Music to me is the kind of thing you can't, there's something inherent about it that you can't explain why it has the impact that it does. You can break it down. You can talk about frequencies. You can talk about combinations of notes. You can talk about BPMs.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
But at the end of the day, the way it makes you feel is something that's just very hard to explain, you know, in a way that feels, if you don't believe in God, like the closest to an unknown that's outside of us. Like you can tap into something outside of us in a way that like, Even I love movies, but there's a visual aspect.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
So you don't like use your imagination as much when you're engaging with the thing.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I am. I am. And in fact, it's a shameful thing, but I took a lot of piano when I was little and I love playing piano, but I never really learned how to read properly because I learned so well by ear. So I play these like Chopin, Polonais, like big pieces by ear. I couldn't read it because I was like just picking it up, you know? Whoa. I know.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
It's sort of like it would be nice to have a balance of both, but, you know, it's definitely way more oral.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Isn't that funny? I was like determined as a nurse. I was like, you have to throw up. Like you can't. Right. You're going to get sick. And he's like, I'm fine. Right. And we were trying to get this like liquid in his mouth. And, you know, it's Hollywood. So things that happen like on camera don't actually happen in real life. So it was written that we like hold him down.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And he's resisting us and we give him this thing. But, like, you don't know. You don't know how small you are. Because I think both of us, like, I'm always like, I'm like a tall person, right? Like, I ask people if I feel tall. Yeah, I feel like a tall person. But I'm not. And I'm not. How tall are you? Five, three and a half. Yeah. Yeah. I'm five two. And Nick is solid. Yeah. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
He's a solid dude. Yeah, he's like a Midwestern corn-fed dude. Yeah, dense and muscular. And we were trying to hold him down, and he was whipping us around with such ease. Like, we couldn't – we actually – both of us could not hold him down. And he was like – literally, he would just go – And we would just fly off the bed in each direction. We could not stop laughing.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Because he was being gentle. And we would fly across the room. He was being gentle. Yeah, he wasn't really, he wasn't fighting for his life. Yeah, no.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I feel like we were tumbling all over the floor. Like, every time we got back on the bed, we were, like, and we were kind of, like, in each, we were both trying to be, like, on top of him and then, like, just flipping over really quickly.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
There's that spot in Andy and April's house. Remember where we could never get a scene done? Just that one, that living room.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Yeah. And then I remember there was one time you were like, Rashida! Because I could not get through it. But I really, it felt like haunted. It did not feel like it was my fault.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
They were. They were long. And it was fun until it wasn't. You're like, oh, my God, it's 10 p.m. We just want to go home.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Like it was like a dream job. We filmed in between our conversations. Yeah. And also I think I remember very clearly in the pilot because we had already been friends for years when we shot the pilot. Yeah. They were doing one of those spy shots, and we were in your office, and we were talking. And it was like, you know, other people were like, oh, this is great.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Like, this is a thing that really works. They're friendship. We're really going to be able to sell it. And we're like, duh.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Crunchy. Crunchy. Can we talk about it? Yeah, I would love to. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was crunchy.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Yeah. So I had been on hold for this untitled thing that Greg and Mike were going to write. Right. And I had done a year on The Office, and— They let me go, which made sense. It made sense.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I love Karen. It did not feel that way. People did not like me. Like, fans were not about it. But they had to create tension for the relationship to be earned later. So I was the third point in the triangle. It's fine. I, like, accept it. But anyway, so Mike was like, we're working on this other show. I'll put you on hold. We don't know what it is yet.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Remember, people thought it was, like, a spinoff of The Office for a second. But anyway, so they kept, like, kind of changing the main characters of the show. When they pitched it to me, the boss was a guy. Okay. And they didn't know if they were going to cast me or not. But I remember you were extremely pregnant. Yeah. We had just gotten back from Italy. You and I were in Italy. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
That's right. We were in Italy. And it was very hot. That's right. And a day later, you were like, let's go to lunch. I need to talk to you about something. Do you remember where we went? Pastis.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I know, that's impossible. And you need to accept it. What you did and how you did it was very hard because you took me to lunch and said, I'm so sorry, but they offered me the part. Both of us thinking it was the same part I was on hold for being created by a friend of ours. And so I immediately started crying in pasties.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And you held my hand and you were so warm and you were so... There was something about it where you were like... I know. I'm sorry, buddy. But you also, you didn't like do the thing that I sometimes do where I'm codependent where I'm like, I know I suck. I'm the worst person. I don't even deserve it. Like whatever I would say to try to make the other person feel better, which doesn't work.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
You didn't do that. You like held your space and you also comforted me at the same time, which was like a very beautiful thing. I wonder what Cher's version of this is. Let me tell you. Okay. Because I left him a message almost immediately because I'm not shy. And I was like, oh, I'm such an idiot for thinking I could even be on this show. Like, anybody wants me on this show?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Of course I didn't get this. Like, Amy is like a, you know, comedy goddess. Oh, my God.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Very mean. Very mean. That's a person we're trying to not invite to the dinner party anymore. Yeah. And so I called him. I was like, hey, would love to talk to you. He was on a plane. And he landed and he's like, uh. I was like, mm-hmm, you want to tell me what's going on? Because it would have been really nice for you to tell me and not Amy to tell me that I wasn't getting this job.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And he's like, no, no, no, back up. We changed the boss. It's a woman. And Amy's playing the boss. And I was like, you... Oh, my God. Like, we might be working together? Yeah. What?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And I still wasn't cast because I still had to do a bunch of chemistry reads after that. But that became, you know, this huge –
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
possibility of like my life being the best from the worst to the best god i'm sweating even thinking about that he wasn't they had they just hadn't decided things and they they were trying to build around you i think is what happened around that character so i think they had just done that and i think you wanted to tell me as soon as possible yeah because we were so close yeah which was the right instinct and mike decided to get on a plane which was his instinct
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Not great. Nightmare. Nightmare. Well, how do you handle that? I will say, you know, part of me was doing it because my little inner critic, that person that was at the table, is so loud and mean and unreasonable. And so I look to people who love me and can tell me that that's not always the person I should be listening to.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
So weirdly, my friends sometimes are like a stand-in for my highest self when I can't do it for myself. So I was sort of looking for that. And it's funny because I was looking for feedback about the things that kind of bring me joy and the parts of my work that my friends see light me up. The point is I was very targeted about it.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I ask people that I love and respect, and that is the thing to do, I think. I also think that if you are going to get feedback from people, because a lot of us get unsolicited feedback. Yeah. Bill Hader once said to me, it was when I first started writing and he was talking about notes because I did not understand that process. I didn't really start writing until I was like in my 30s.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And he said, you know, you should take. the note and not the solution. And that's what I feel like with feedback and people. It's like aggregate the kind of like common threads and they can be like, okay, I'm getting a kind of similar thing in this area where people seem to think I'm this thing. What does that actually mean? And where is that coming from for me?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And is that something I feel like I can fix or investigate as opposed to being like that person has a problem with me? And then also, as we know, everybody's just thinking about themselves all the time.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Do you... I most likely go, that's a really good point. I'll address that. And then most of the time, if you don't, if you make the rest of the thing good, it doesn't matter.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And also it's a waste of energy because it's such a long process. And if you're like using all of your you know, currency to fight back with everything, you're going to be exhausted. You're not going to be able to be creative. Whereas if you go, yeah, good, great idea. Let's, we're going to figure out how to solve that, you know. But then you don't do it.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Sometimes, sometimes it doesn't make sense because the thing they're asking for isn't, is, you know, completely contradictory to the other thing they're asking for. That happens a lot. So you can't do both.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Again, it's like if somebody's having a problem with an area of the script or like a theme of the script or a character, you know something's wrong, but they're never going to know how to fix it. You have to do that.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Yeah, I'm not going to law school. But yeah, I think some part of me thinks I'm a judge. Isn't that just a testament to how much downtime you have on the set? That we created an entirely new show. Yeah. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Well, contrary to what we just talked about, which is I love good music and I love the emotionality of listening to great music, nothing makes me laugh harder than... Really confident, really bad singing. Like sincerely confident bad singing.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Okay. I'm not laughing at them. I just like the gusto in which people – like I would watch the first couple seasons of American Idol with friends. Like appointment television sit down. Not, like, when it got to the good people, but, like, those first five episodes where people were just coming in hard with, like, no musicality whatsoever. And they were super cocky. Super cocky.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
There was one girl who... It was, like, what she did was actually musically amazing because she was tone deaf. She went to, like, six different keys in, like, 20 seconds. Like, just...
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
kind of brilliant but didn't know and nailed it and walked out being like i got it she said she was like mariah carey that's what she said that's so interesting that you say that because there must be some like psychological part of you that likes the way people are approaching yes music that's something that you revere yes so badly yes like it must be a huge release it is it it is and to that point i remember there's david wayne and i once i pitched this bit to him it did not go well when we did it at comedy at sketch fest is that what it's called yeah but
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Where I was like, let's do California... California... What was it? California Dreaming? California Dreaming. I'm like, but let's do it like super genuine, sincere... come in with a guitar, start singing, and then I'm going to come in with the harmonies and they're going to be totally wrong. It was funny in concept, but it was a release. It was like a feeling like, oh, I don't have to sound good.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Yes. How do they do that? I wonder if somebody coached them how to sing badly because there's good singers singing badly. I know. It's satisfying to watch Ariana Grande not get the note. Yes, yes. But it's not like – sometimes when really good singers sing badly, they're like – and you can tell they're good singers. They're actually doing a good job convincing people they're bad.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
That's a little bit more painful because it's in person. Okay. You know?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And then they leave being like, nailed it. Yeah. Suck on that. People who are so confident were like, if you laughed, they wouldn't crumble. Like, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. You know what I mean?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I'm going to send you some because I found them again. I found, like, the girl that knocked my socks off. Wait, let me just look at her before we go because we can do this now. I have a laptop. It's deep and, like, it's, like, in a super cut of, like— Do you remember her name? I don't, but it's, like— Do you remember what she sang? Yeah, she sang Phil Collins' Take a Look Against All Odds.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And she came in and she was like, people say I look just like Mariah Carey and I sound just like her, too. Is this her? No, that's not her.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
That's like acrobatic. That's very good. That's hard to do. I've tried to imitate that. It's hard to do.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
She's not hitting any notes. No, she's not hitting any keys. Or any keys. And within that, she's hitting all the keys, which is amazing. Like, it's really hard to do.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
She's so nervous. I mean, she's so nervous, you can tell. But she's like, this is not going well. She knows. She starts to figure it out. Wow, that is really satisfying. I'm going to hold on.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I think she was like, uh-oh. Yeah. Maybe too late, but she was like, uh-oh.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I was listening to, I'm really into frequencies right now. You know, there's like a lot of stuff, theories around like the frequency of sounds and how it impacts your brain and your mood. There's ones for anxiety, for sleep, for happiness, for abundance, whatever. But I was listening to one for road rage.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Yeah. And I find, I don't know about you, but I find that my tolerance for small talk has changed. Like I used to like it and feel like it was just kind of like a way to tiptoe into a conversation. And now it feels like, why bother? Let's just get into it. I know. Yeah. Let's not waste time. Life is short. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? What are you working on? Yeah, exactly.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
No, no, not your actual job, but yourself, your inner self. What are you working on?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Oh, interesting. I was just thinking about this last night, actually. Well, first of all, I just want to say I'm very happy that you have this podcast because I'm just going to say I have been encouraging. I've wanted this from you for a very long time. Thanks, bud. Okay, sorry. I just had to say that. Thanks, Dee. Okay, Harvard, Hasty Pudding. Yeah, I mean, I went to Harvard. Yay!
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I was in the Hasty Pudding theatricals. But they didn't allow women. At the time, women couldn't perform. I was a manager. I was manager of the Woman of the Year event, which you've been. Yeah. I'm sure I have not. Thank you so much, Hasty Pudding Theatricals. What? I'm actually like the only alum. But anyway.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Anyway, and then my senior year, Mimi, my friend Mimi, who you know, we were the first women ever to write the music for the musical in the like whatever 400-year history of the show. But no one was allowed to sing it because it was written by women? I couldn't sing it. No, of course not. Wow. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And then when I went back for class day, that was kind of like the one thing I snuck into my speech. Well, actually it was very political, but the one thing about school I snuck in was like, Make it co-ed. Let's go. I mean, enough's enough. And now it is. It is, right?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
It's so silly, but I will say it was really fun and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about production because it's legit production. You travel to New York and Bermuda and everybody has to like chip in and work on tickets and costumes. And like, you know, we got to like, we had an arranger who arranged for like a full orchestra. It was so cool.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
And that almost took you down. Almost took me down. Or took you up. Yeah, it took me up and then way down. But then I joined an acapella group and everything was fine.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
Where did you guys meet? Freshman year. We did a play together called Love, Sex, and the IRS where we were – the play started with us making out. Wow. Lucky him. Thank you.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
I mean, he did it while we were making out. It was so awkward. I mean, that's the thing is you just audition for shows, especially in college, and you're just like who you get is who you get. Like the fact that we met freshman year is nuts.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Rashida Jones
It's so weird. But also, comedy make-out is so different than serious hook-up. You're so right. You know? You're right.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
The, your new girlfriend will come and pick you all up and drive you away from me.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I'm going to say first truly good month for Harvard since its founding in 1636. Yeah. I was like, how far back do I have to go? Oh, maybe all the way.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Listen, we took it on the chin. We have our share of Jared Kushners and Ted Cruz's and also everyone on the Supreme Court and all that sort of stuff. And it's been, and Zuckerberg, don't, you can't forget about Zuck.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yeah. But finally, Harvard is like, hey, we have all the money.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And so we'll say no to the bully. And people were like, oh, my God, you can do that.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Uh, no. I remember when I saw you for the first time, which was at a, uh, UCB, uh, uh, sketch thing that happened at Fez.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Um, I've told this story before. I don't know if you want to, I don't know how in depth you want to go here.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Great. So I moved to New York right after I graduated in 97. In 98, I was working for Jon Stewart. No, late 97, I was working for Jon Stewart. He was writing a book and I was pitching my ideas for the book and he used none of them and gave me $3,000. And it was amazing. It was my first professional job. Thank you, Jon Stewart.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That's right. He looked at my ideas and was like, oh no.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
He was like, does three grand get you out of my office? So I went to, I heard about all these comedy shows that happened and I was very excited to see comedy. Went to Fez to see John do standup. And so you came on a stage. I did not know who you were. And you said, hey, everyone, I know you're excited to hear the stand-up, Jon Stewart and all these other comedians. My name is Carol Johnson.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I'm from HBO. And I'm casting a pilot. And so before, if you don't mind with your indulgence, I'd love to just do some. And I was like, oh, there's a nice woman from HBO here who is casting a pilot. This is so interesting. This is how show business works. I 100% bought it, hook, line, and sinker. I did not understand that I was at a comedy show and that this was probably a piece of comedy.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And then you announced that you were doing this pilot and you asked if anyone, you said that someone needed, I don't remember exactly, but it was something like someone needed to be able to do a Bill Cosby impression. This shows you how long ago this is. Yeah, sure. And Matt Besser, another person I did not know, was like volunteered. And you're like, oh, yes, sir. Please come right on up here.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And then he proceeded to do like the worst Bill Cosby impression of all time. And you in the role of straight person were just like, ah, boy, I'm not sure if that really fits the bill. And he kept doing it and kept doing it. And then I think Matt Walsh was like, I can do one. And he got up and did it. And it was even worse. And you were like, yeah, this isn't really what we're looking for.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And I remembered this so clearly. I was like, this poor woman from HBO is just trying to cast her pilot. And these guys are terrible. These guys are... And when I was having that thought, I was like, this is a sketch, I'm pretty sure. But there's a reason I tell this story, which is your performance was so real and grounded, I legitimately was blown away.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I was brought three minutes into this incredibly stupid premise before it occurred to me that you were not really Carol Johnson from HBO. No. And then I remember going, I remember talking to someone after the show, and being like, who was that? And they were like, this group called UCB. And I was like, that woman was incredible. And they were like, the straight woman?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And I was like, yes, she was incredible. Who is that? How does she have time to be in a sketch group when she works at HBO? She's a multi-talented person. But I remember then repeating that like this. They were so funny and everything. And then someone was like, that's Amy Poehler. Like everyone in New York already knew you. And I was just like that. You just like burrowed into my brain.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And then when you joined the show, I started working at SNL a few months later.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yeah, so you came- 2001. 2001, so September 2001. Yeah. And I don't remember where we interacted between those dates, but I remember that when you auditioned, You can in my office. And we smoked cigarettes in my office because I was running Update.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yeah. SNL was, like, grandfathered into all rules everywhere, and you could just, like—no one except us was on the 17th floor, and you'd open your window and smoke out the window, and it was terrible. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That was your first. So Robert Carlock was running it and he left. And I remember talking to Mike Shoemaker, beloved producer at the time, now runs Seth Meyers' show. And I was like, boy, I'm not sure I can do this job. Like I don't really know what I'm doing. And he was like, it's super easy. Like you just choose the best jokes and whatever. And I was like, okay, like it sounds fun.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And then 9-11 happened. And so my first show running the like funny fake news was 9-11. And it was your first show on the show.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That's right. And the first thing that happened on the show for your first show and my first show writing update was like,
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
rudy giuliani yeah pre-insanity rudy giuliani and like cops and firefighters and mta workers standing at home base and talking about like resilience and and the power of humanity and then paul simon singing the boxer yeah and then it was like okay and you're britney spears go remember that was your sketch you had a snake it didn't make it it got cut oh did it really i thought i made it it's good that it did
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It's a bad idea, yeah. It was the American adaptation of The British Office.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Which Seth got early from his friend in England. And we watched them in my office and we all like laughed and cried. And when Dawn came back and kissed Tim. Spoiler alert. Yeah, spoiler for a 20-year-old British show. We all like jumped up in the air and like, like we were celebrated, like we won the super bowl. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And then a couple months later I was like, I'm going to go turn that into, well, help turn that into an American show.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It'll be like a cult classic thing or whatever. Yeah. I mean, I signed on for two reasons. Number one, it was the only job offer I got. But more importantly, because I met with Greg and my wife, JJ Philbin, had worked on Coupling, which was another British show that had been adapted and had not worked out. And Greg was like so scientific about it. He was like, what do you think went wrong?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And what did they do and what did they not do? And we ended up talking in his office for like three hours. And I was like... this isn't going to work. It's a bad idea. Everybody thinks it's a bad idea, but this guy is so smart and has thought about this so carefully that this will at least be an incredible, like he's going to teach me things about writing. And so I was not expecting it to work.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I don't think anyone was except maybe Greg, but it was like, this is going to be an education for me and going from sketch writing to real or a half hour writing, you know?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Well, so Ben Silverman... What became Parks and Rec. Ben Silverman was running NBC and he asked Greg to do a spinoff. And so Greg's response, typically thoughtful and considered, was, I would love to do another show. If the best idea that I have for a show is a spinoff, then I will do a spinoff. If the best idea I have is something else, I'll do something else.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Greg is a real... One of the main things that he gave me in terms of how to do this job is... Best idea wins. Doesn't matter who it comes from. If it's staff writer or a 25-year veteran co-EP or a person who works in costumes or whatever, best idea wins. That's it. And there is no corollary to that. In every situation that you're in creatively, best idea wins.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And so that's what he said basically to Ben. And he was like, it's very important to me that you understand that if the best idea I have is not a spinoff of The Office, then we're going to do something else. And Ben was like, totally hear you, buddy. And the next day in the variety, he was like, Office spinoff is coming. Ben just totally ignored him and just announced an Office spinoff. Sure.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So Greg and I started meeting. Greg asked me to do it with him. So we started meeting. We would go to Norm's Diner in the Valley like twice a week for breakfast. And we would just think of ideas. And we would talk about what interested us and what was going on. And we would inch down a little path and then hit a dead end and then inch back.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And we would... We just met constantly over showing your work. We met all the time forever. And eventually... Came up with the idea of like, you know, and by the way, just to say it, some of the ideas we talked about were office spinoffs. They were like Craig Robinson and Rainn Wilson and all these people on the show who could clearly be in their own show.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So we talked about family shows with them or whatever. Greg was, I think, wary of taking assets away from a show that was very successful in part because of its large, rich cast. We stumbled upon this idea of like, okay, Dunder Mifflin on The Office is a fake company and it's a way to satirize the private sector. What if we create a whole fake town and satirize the public sector?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And as we're having that idea, the world economy goes kablooey and they're talking about like massive government bailouts. And we start to realize that like the government – obviously federal, really, but also state and local, was going to be very present in people's lives. People were going to be looking to the government for help. So we started getting excited about that.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I had this idea for an abandoned lot that would be turned into a park over the course of the entire year. run of the show very wirey idea I was obsessed with the wire as were you yeah we share that and I thought like the way that the wire portrayed like calcified systems and how slow gears grind and stuff was fascinating to me and I thought it would be really funny to
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
where if you did a show that ideally lasts for a long time and in the pilot, it's like, we're going to do this. And then it literally doesn't get done until the very end of like nine years later. So that was the idea that I really liked. Greg then was like, what if it's not a lot? What if there's like a giant hole in the ground? What if it's a pit? And I was like, that's so much better.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And so that idea of all the 73 ideas we had started to like fizzy, fizzy up. And it obviously is not a spinoff of The Office and Greg, true to his word was like, this is what we want to do. At some point we called you because we heard you were leaving and you were like, I'm theoretically interested in this. Let me know.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
The show was given a guaranteed 13 episode order, which now is very commonplace at the time was like insane. And the office was going to be on after the Superbowl that year. And this show was going to launch after the office and, Then you called us back and said, actually, sorry, prego. That's exactly what you said.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And it was like, well, you're going to give birth the week we have to shoot this, so no go. And then I remember very clearly two weeks later, I went into Greg's office and I was like, you know... There's no, like we had, we were working on the show at that point pretty strenuously. And I was just like, I just don't think there's anyone but polar who can do this.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And he was like, I had the same thought last night and very quickly. We made a phone call to NBC and said, if we can get Amy for this, we will give up seven of the 13 guaranteed episodes because we'd only be able to make six.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I mean, the thing was, it was actually a very simple decision because we were like, you know, getting Amy Poehler on your show is a long-term decision. Like, that's a decision you make for, like, this show. what you hope will be a very long chunk of time. Like the Superbowl slot is a short term decision. It's like, yeah, you'll get this like frisson of, of energy, but like it doesn't last.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Like no one ever, like very rarely does that determine the fate of a TV show. And so we then called you back and said, what if you could start shooting three months after you give birth? And then we made the show.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Okay, so it's two things. The first is growing up, first major comedic influence, Monty Python. Monty Python is, experts at silly, stupid names. Like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. You can go look them up in their sketches. But the actual... The actual thing that's going on here is different.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So I would go to actors' IMDb pages to see what they had been in when we were casting them in the early days of the show. And you would see like woman number two or like man in crowd or guy with sandwich. And it really bummed me out because I love actors. I love them so much.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I think that their job, people will scoff when I say this, I think they have the hardest job of any job when it comes to like making a show. It is so hard. Anyone who doesn't believe this should try it, by the way. Try acting.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It's embarrassing. It's hard. You have to summon something. Comedic timing or dramatic performance or tears or anger or whatever. Like instantly with cameras on you and lights on you wearing makeup and clothes that aren't yours and a hundred people staring at you and a big dude holding a microphone four inches from your face.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And when it's, when people can do it well, I think it's like a, um, it's like a miracle worthy of, uh, beatification at the Vatican. And so I would see these people on IMDb and it would be like man in crowd.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And it would be like that person like auditioned for this and booked this gig and drove all the way across town and like put on fake clothes and put on makeup and whatever and had to stand in a certain place, follow a million instructions, say a line or two, and then they yelled cut. And then that person drove all the way home and they got paid like $600 for like a week's worth of work.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And there should be something better than man number two or man in crowd. And so I decided at that moment, this is early in season one, I think, of Parks and Rec, that every character who appeared on the show was going to have a first and last name.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So when you saw, if it says man in crowd, you're like, oh, well, it doesn't really count as an acting gig. But if you see...
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Marv Vavavma which is a name I gave a character once you're like who the hell is Marv Vavavma what was Marv Vavavma up to so I and it has been that way it started with that intention and has become one of the great truly one of the great joys of my life is to give every because here's the other thing sorry you can cut all this out but the other thing is if you name a character Jack Smith yeah
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
you can get away with it because there are 10 trillion Jack Smiths. But if you name a character anything even mildly interesting, like Winona Cooper, there's going to be like four Winona Coopers in the state that you're setting the show in. And then the legal comes back and says, you can't name your character that.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
You have to be cleared. And there have to be either none or so many that not any one of them could be could think that you're saying anything about them. So I go for none. Yeah. I go for the weirdest names. We had a character recently on the show on A Man on the Inside named Ophelia Papipapepe. There's no Ophelia Papipapepe anywhere in the continental United States. So you get to use that name.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That has been my goal is to have none, have the Google search come up empty with every name of every character.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So Trot Frankenstein was a local reporter, or he had almost like a little show like this in Pawnee where he would interview political people like Leslie Knope. A great way to come up with a name that doesn't exist is to take a normal name like Todd and then just stick another letter in there somewhere. Trot. And then Frankenstein is just Frankenstein with a P at the end. Tyrion Fonzarelli.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Tyrion Fonzarelli, obviously a combination of two characters from TV history, Tyrion Lannister and Arthur Fonzarelli. This name goes to Matt Murray. Matt Murray did this.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yeah, Panther. Tyrion Fonzarelli was a- A writer on Parks and Rec, among other things. Was a guy in a jewelry store who was buying an engagement ring for his to be betrothed when Anne and Chris Traeger were shopping for rings. Great. Leslie Knope. Yep. Gretzky Susan Pellegrino. Okay. This... So...
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Gretzky Susan Pellegrino was like the fourth in a series of names that for some reason all involve the last name of the greatest hockey player who ever lived, Wayne Gretzky. I don't offhand remember who Gretzky Susan Pellegrino is. Also, it should be noted, hyphens, huge part of my naming process.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
No one's first name is Gretzky Susan. Gretzky hyphen Susan. Typhoon Montalban.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Typhoon, also Matt Murray, I believe named, gave Typhoon the first name Typhoon. We needed a last name. Where do you go for the last name? Ricardo Montalban. Typhoon Montalban. Sesandra Sesasnorp. Okay. Sesandra Sesasnorp was, I believe, I could have this wrong, was just, it was like Sandra Snorp.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And then the legal was like, didn't clear. We found a Sandra Snorp somewhere.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So guess what you do? You add five more S's. Now you're good.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Sesandra Sesasnorp. Summer Ole Kraken Frog Frong. Okay, this is a Monty Python ripoff, straight up. Ole, O-L-E with an accent, and I guess just that part. There's a Monty Python sketch called, I think, Election Night Special, where they're just going through election results in local elections all over the country. And there's a silly party and a sensible party.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So all the people in the sensible party have names like John Smith and all the people in the silly party have very crazy names. And there's also a very silly party and a slightly silly party. If you want names, go watch that sketch. It'll... it'll sate you. Summer Ole Kraken Frog Frong. That's a good one. Frog Frong is a great last name.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
They'll be here at six to pick me up. Jenna made me do that. C.C. Homo, H-O-M-E-A-U-X, was all Jen Statsky and Lucienne Yellow and Paul Downs. I don't know which one of them came up with it.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It's a very funny moment in the show because she introduces herself as C.C. Homo and Gina Smart goes... Spell that.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Please, don't make people sit through Summer Olay Crack and Frog Frong before they get to the famous people.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And I realized that what I really needed was under my nose the whole time.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So this is like season four of Parks and Rec, I think. Leslie Knope's running for office. And we have, in this season, incredible regular guest stars on the show. Katherine Hahn played a campaign manager, a high-powered campaign manager from D.C., who was running the campaign of Bobby Newport, played by Paul Rudd.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And Bobby Newport was the moron son of a wealthy businessman who didn't want the job at all, but was running against Leslie, and it's Leslie's greatest dream, and Bobby Newport does not care at all. And in fact, in the finale of the show, when he loses... there's a brief clip of him on TV being interviewed and he says, honestly, this is a huge relief, which is one of my favorite.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That just means you haven't interviewed any podcasters. No, I have not talked to a lot of podcasters.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It's an incredible Paul Rudd moment. So in this episode we were shooting, you were all in like campaign mode, which meant you were on maybe uncharacteristically wearing like a very smartly tailored suit. Yep. And Rashida was, uh, Ann Perkins was also wearing something like that. And then, um, Jen Barkley, Catherine's character is always high powered suit lady. And Paul Rudd is there.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And Adam Scott is there who usually wore ties and suits and stuff. And so this is what I remember is that someone came running up and said, look at this picture. And it was all five of you. And I think it was just a wardrobe picture. It was like, let's get a picture. They take pictures of characters all the time. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Just to say like, okay, this is what they look like in case we have to recreate this. And that I think maybe Rashida had said, someone had said we look like we're in a David E. Kelly show. Yeah. Like a legal drama. And I think Rashida maybe just said Philly Justice a lot.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So then what I heard, and this stuff was like bleeding up to me in the writer's room, is that you guys had started kind of just, you were like, this is the thing we're doing now, is we're coming up with characters and scenes and moments of dialogue for our characters from this
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
fake show that you had invented called philly justice which was a david e kelly show from like 2005 yeah that had shot the pilot and had never aired and you were all goofing around and improvising right like improvising just like who you were and what the show was about so it it just kept wafting up to the writer's room that like the everyone was really enjoying this bit Great, fantastic.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Then I think we all collectively blacked out. And when we woke up, the writers had written scenes for Philly Justice.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yeah, like writers, it should be noted in comedy rooms, will take any excuse not to work.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It's the worst. And if there's like a more fun thing, great. Totally. And I do remember at one point divvying up scenes for Philly Justice the way that a good showrunner would be like, okay, why don't you guys take act one of the next episode and you take act two and whatever.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And instead I was like, okay, you guys write the scene where Adam, Scott, and whoever are like fighting and you take the scene where Rashida is doing this. And we just started writing scenes Scenes, fake scenes for a fake show that didn't exist for you in character.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Correct. Now, we have in season four of the show, we have built the city council chambers where Leslie was hoping to work someday. The city council chambers looked kind of like a courtroom if you squinted. Yep. So it was like, okay. And then at some point I remember Morgan Sackett.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Coming in and saying like, I think we can shoot all of this stuff in the, in the city council chamber. And I don't remember when we decided to shoot it. I like that again, we blacked out.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I don't know if the first seven years even count because we were barely recording it. We were just screaming into our computers. We didn't have microphones.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
But suddenly we were just going to do this. We were going to make, we're going to use NBC resources to, While we're supposed to be making the show they paid for.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Never suffered. And we're going to take some of those resources and divert them without anyone knowing. Sure. To a different part of the same set. Yeah. And then shoot the scenes from Philly Justice. And by the way, this is very important for everyone to understand. To no end. There was not a point to this.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It wasn't like we're going to put this on the DVD or we're going to, this is like a backdoor pilot or if this works, we could really do X, Y, and Z. And it wasn't like we're going to make a viral thing or we're going to be talking about it 15, 16 years later.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It was because it was fun. And really the thing that I think is the most important thing to get across is that that show was so fun to work on. everyone was almost singularly devoted to the concept of having fun. And this just seemed fun. And we didn't question it. We didn't ask why we were doing it. Morgan's job basically is to like make the show that we're making.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
He was as gung-ho about this as anyone. He was like, yeah, of course we have to do this. We have to do this. And the next thing I know, well, then a bunch of stuff happens. And I don't want to go too far, too fast.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Joe Posnanski and myself, sports writer, award-winning sports writer Joe Posnanski and me. And we started it a million years ago, but we haven't really— It hasn't been like anything approaching an actual extant enterprise for more than like five years, I would say.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yeah, and then I'm going to Twitch. I'm going to do a Twitch stream that has that in a small square while I play Castlevania.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And then that whole thing will be on a video on a phone that Mr. Beast is holding at the NBA Slam Dunk contest.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It's also Aziz's barbecue. And he's not allowed in. He's also not there. He's not in either place.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
If Aziz walks through the background of Morgan Zoom right now, it'll be the greatest moment in the history of podcasting.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And also, how were you this irresponsible that you allowed this to happen on your watch?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Okay, so you commissioned the photo yourself because you were enjoying how you all looked in your slightly tailored suits. Yes.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And Rashida, do I have it right? I thought I remembered that you were the one who first said the words Philly Justice as if it were a fake show. Do I have that right? Do you remember?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I feel like you two and Han and whoever were on was an Amy who were on the chat had gotten you had done so much work and just like in texting and like doing the bit of the show. that you had accidentally created this very elaborate backstory. And one of the pieces of the backstory was that Dylan McDermott had been in the pilot.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
He, of course, a veteran of The Practice and of other shows like that. And then at some point, and this is where we need Morgan, when did we reach out to Dylan McDermott to say, we're doing this insane thing for no reason? Do you want to be a part of it? And how did that go exactly? Do you remember?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Well, also, so then, but the lore in the meta, meta, meta world became that Paul Rudd had been that character and had been recast after the table read and been replaced by Dylan McDermott, which is why he was going to be in it and not Paul.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I'm sorry. I just got the text that Polar sent with these descriptions. They are so long. They're so long.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
There's hundreds of characters. There's more work put into this than there was into the actual characters from Parks and Rec. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I'm literally wearing a Celtics sweatshirt right now because the Celtics are playing a playoff game right now. I can't watch it because I'm here with you. And so I wore this as like a shield to protect myself against evil and the city of Boston for that matter.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That's also not true. There's a lot of places that need justice. Quite a few.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
So just to be clear, he's a district attorney who works at this law firm.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Wait, see, 9-11 made him grab a pistol and go to Afghanistan. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Oh, wait, no, you're not wrong. There was a joke, and this is now coming back to me. I think there was a joke that we were going to do a scene where like, Adam and Catherine kissed, and then Adam and Rashida kissed, and then Catherine and Rashida kissed. And it was like everyone is making out with everyone.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
His name is Shane Chains. That's Dylan's character's name.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Don't use the laptop for what? For like notes? Just for like- Referencing.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Wait, Morgan, I have an important question for you, and I don't want to get too inside baseball. Is that Steadicam? That is, right?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Did we hire a Steadicam operator? We never used Steadicam on the show once, probably. We hired a Steadicam operator to shoot that? It looked like Steadicam to me. Yeah, it probably was. Do you remember?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
By the way, this is a very Boston exchange. Just someone offering advice and the person coming back at them hard with like, what? Like, let's fight.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That's the trailer. We shot more. Somewhere there... Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Right. Yeah. There's, there's definitely, my guess would be that we looked at all of the footage and we're like, this is a trailer. This is a trailer, not like long scenes or something. My favorite part of it is when, Adam, when you say, you're a social climber and a playboy. I'm a rebel who plays by his own rules. You're just like speaking the bios of the characters out loud. That's right.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
You once described to me, do you remember this? You once described to me that the, you said to me that the city motto of Boston should be, must be nice.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yeah. And you described a situation in which when we were at SNL, you would go home and see your friends or people that you grew up with and you would go out for drinks. And if you paid, the attitude would be like, oh, must be nice. Got a big Hollywood show, whatever. And if you didn't pay, it was like, oh, must be nice.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Make all that money in Hollywood and still get your friends to pick up your drinks. Like you can't win. Yeah. You can't win. You can't win.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Can I tell you one quick thing? Please. That is going to be of vital importance for this podcast.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Yes. My mom lives in Bedford, Mass., went to her barber today, got her haircut. Barber said, you know who comes in here?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Do you know Amy Poehler? Amy Poehler's dad comes in here. And I guess your dad recently switched barbers for reasons I don't want to get into that are very, very private.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I'll tell you off the air. But my mom said, you're not going to believe this to her barber. my son and Amy Poehler are friends and used to work together. And you can imagine the fireworks that happened in that barbershop.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
It's literally breaking news as of like 2 p.m. Pacific time today.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
What percentage of people say no to that question? No. No.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Like, oh, you think you're so great, you can't... Oh, you want to have people in Boston looking at your headshot?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Well, I just sip water and wait for you to find whatever you're looking for.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Love them. And I believe that people do their best work when there's like a strong system that also allows for freedom within the system. That is why I love working with you and people like Andy Samberg, people who are like from the SNL world specifically, because they're, roll with the punches people.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
But, and all you have to do is like set up the boundaries. You put out the gate and you put, lay out the fence and you're like anywhere in here is fine. And then, and this is actually very appropriate for what we're going to be talking about today.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Once you've, I believe set up a sort of like boundary and like a mechanism and like, you're going to be in the yard from two to four, you carry your toys, you can do anything you want from two to four and then you're back inside. That, And then you get the funniest people you can who are the most comfortable and happy. And you say like, don't worry, everything's taken care of.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Rules are in place, fences in place, go crazy. And you let people like do their best, most fun, most joyous work. I really believe, and this isn't like revelatory, but I really believe that is the best way to work creatively within a group. Yeah.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
and the reason this is relevant, and I don't want to jump the gun here, but the thing we're going to be talking about today very much came out of a world where because we had this really great system in place and then went out and just found the funniest people we could find to come make this thing with us, crazy things happen, like wonderful things happen that are just the result of just creative juices flowing and people feeling happy and free.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Someone said to me once, and I believe this is true, That in creative enterprises, everyone is either in survival mode or creative mode. And if you're in survival mode, like you're worried about your job, you don't feel safe in your place of work, there's a threat somewhere, you feel like you're not being listened to, whatever, no one can be creative.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And your job as like a manager of any kind at any level is to like flip that switch and get people back into creative mode where they feel like comfortable and warm and happy and safe. And that's when people do good work. And I think maybe the defining principle of Parks and Rec was that everyone was in creative mode all the time. We were in survival mode with outside forces.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
Are we going to get canceled? Is this it? Are we done? But that's over there. We can control that. Within the fence that we put out for the show, we worked at all times to make sure everybody was in creative mode. And that's why crazy things like this happened.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
That is correct. And for a very long time in Hollywood, I think especially, but it's not, this is not located only in Hollywood. This is everywhere. I think there's a belief sometimes that like, if something good results from a chaotic atmosphere, it's, then there's a weird response where it's like, well, this is the only way that something good can happen.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
We got this good thing, and the process was chaos, so we better not try to fix the chaos. When a rational person would think, let's fix the chaos, and then there will be more opportunities for more creative things that will also cause less pain and suffering. That's what I just can't stand about Hollywood specifically. I think it's weirdly gotten better.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
I mean, like when you and I were coming up, it was like whatever the system was, you were just like, okay.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
You just like grit your teeth and you like put your head down and you try to survive.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And the generation behind us, and especially the one behind that generation, looks at chaos and goes like, oh, then no, thank you. Like, then no. Like, I don't want to – they just – they have a – they don't have, I think, the sort of like structural fear that we had of just like, if this is what's going on, then I will just suffer and tolerate it.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
"Philly Justice"
And I think younger folks are just like, oh, then I won't be a part of it.
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.