Rashida Jones joins us this week, donning her dad’s pink headphones. Agenda items include: the massage bus, a tanning booth, dreams of litigation, and the central conflict of the movie. What am I doing today? It’s an all-new SmartLess. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.
So welcome to SmartList, everybody. I hope you have a full charge on your iPod. Do people still use iPods? No. I don't think so. I think they just use... Is that what they listen to us on? Their phones. Okay, boomer.
is boomer what ages are boomers 1946 to 64 i just looked it up today truly truly wow what's azir us that's us no we're gen x man oh we're x sorry what are the ages of x uh gen x is like 19 well sorry we keeping you up you know we're rolling bro 1960 are we rolling right now yeah we're cold opening the shit out of this right is this an all-new smart list all right welcome to smart list
Oh, yeah.
Will. Yes. Well, Will. Today's Will's guest. It is. Yeah. It is. How are you feeling about your guest today, Will?
I'm feeling very good about my guest. Yeah. Well, because, I mean, I don't want to get into it too quickly, but because it's somebody that we all know, so...
You'd think I would have a preference as to either your guests or Sean's guests by now. Who ends up hosting better guests? Do you guys have a preference? I think it's pretty random, right? A lot of times we bring people on that...
that we all know yeah and then sometimes it's it's a lot of times as people not none of us know and sometimes we sometimes it's in the middle and sometimes it's right in the middle and sometimes fascinating but like and sometimes we reach out to guests and then sometimes guests reach out to us and it's just yes it's just it's just it's a great blend you guys i well i should i gotta listen to this show pointing it out this show seems great um
Jason, it was good to see you last night. We all had dinner last night, and we haven't seen you in so long. Yeah, I know. It was so nice to see you. And the dinner was super fun, and everybody was funny. All giddy all night. I laughed real hard last night. And then I told you. I'm real sweet on that Tig Notaro. She's great. She's so funny. I just love her. Hysterical. Hysterical.
Yeah.
Sean says to me the other day. And it was really good. He goes, hey. Was it good, Sean? You know what? We watched The Godfather the other night. It's really good. And I said, oh, did you think everybody was lying?
And then I just watched that part two like two days ago, three days ago.
Now, they say that part two is better than the first. I don't remember having a feeling either way.
Yeah, I think... They're different. They're both excellent. Part two, Godfather 2 is excellent as well.
Yeah, I kind of had to pause every 10 minutes and be like, Scotty, who's that? Who's that? Who's that? There's so many characters. Oh, you're one of those. You remind me never to watch a movie with you.
Okay, don't ever watch a movie. Hey, and then number three gets a bad rap, but I don't remember like watching number three and going, this is terrible.
I think he got a bad rap at the time and then now people have, as they look back, they go like, they've had a different, yeah.
I just, Scotty just said Coppola went back in and recut it recently, like in the last five years or so. Oh, really? Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know if that's true.
Yeah, three and a half. Yeah.
Anyway, check it out if you haven't seen it.
Hey, if you haven't seen any of the Godfather films. Welcome to Smart List Hot Takes on new films.
It's like the time Jason came up to me and said, hey, you know what I want? You know, Blues Brothers is a really good movie.
80 film I know oh there's so I was a band was humming like the Flashdance song the other day and I go you know never seen it she goes oh you're such a loser I really am there's so many remember last night we were talking about At Close Range which is a good movie I want to go back once I haven't seen it I haven't seen it I need to see it who's in that Sean Penn and Chris Walken oh yeah I want to see that yeah let's see I never saw Flashdance you didn't no
Now, that surprises me.
What about Ghost?
I love Ghost.
Sean, I'm surprised you haven't seen Flashdance.
I know, me too, because I dance. Because you like dancing.
And you're flashy. And I'm flashy. All right, that's enough of the fucking Regis-Kathy Lee chatter. Let's get to the guests.
What are you talking about? It's the fun part. And so is the guest part. But this is fun, too.
I know, but I always feel bad for the guests. I got to sit there and listen to the patter.
All right, fine. Well, everybody's got busy lives, too. They're probably, you know, sending emails and texts and stuff.
You think your guest is sending emails and stuff?
Well, I know that our... Put it this way. Okay. This is a great segue. Our guest is a very, very busy person. Huh. Yeah, because in addition to being a very sought-after actress, she's also a very sought-after writer and producer. Oh, really? Yeah. She has written and produced Emmy-nominated stuff. She's produced and written big, huge animated films. Like, I don't know. Toy Story 4. Sean.
You know, she's acted in and she's written a new series that she's got coming out. Her new series is called, I think it's called Sunny. Yeah.
It's the worst fucking intro I've ever heard.
No.
Just take a little time to write something down when you write something down.
No, because I'm trying to disguise who it is. You're doing a great job. As soon as I say what you know her from, you're going to know who it is. Let's have it. Because you know her really well. Because you know her also very well from things like The Office and Parks and Rec and Boston Public. It's Amy Poehler. No, it's Rashida Jones! Rashida!
Rashida, did you know you were coming on when I saw you last week, two weeks ago? I did.
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.
It's happened so many times. I don't even know why we continue the whole structure.
Charade.
Yeah. Look at your cute pink headphones. Listener, she's got some real headphones on.
They're my dad's, JBL.
Really?
He rocks a pink headphone? No, this is like his design.
Oh, his line. Oh, really? What's it called?
It's JBL, but it's like the Q...
We're happy to do some personal experience if you want to send some of those our way. You got it.
By the way, for my sister Tracy, your dad is Quincy Jones. Please continue.
Okay. Yes, Tracy.
That's also if you're not a listener. I heard about that. I heard about that. We referenced Tracy.
Sort of a catch-all for those less informed. But there's no shot at Tracy herself. No. She's a very bright, sharp Wisconsin.
She's representing the people.
Yeah, she's happy to do it.
Rashida, welcome to Smart List. Where are we finding you in this great booth of yours?
Thank you. I'm in my husband's studio.
That's a question mark. What does husband do? He's a musician.
He has a radio show, not a podcast, a radio show. Oh. But also a musician.
Wait, wait, Jason, do you honestly not know who her husband is?
I don't. You know how old I am. I barely know what day it is. I embarrass myself hourly. You're kidding. On my kid's life, I have no idea who her husband is.
Her husband, Ezra, is singer, songwriter, extraordinaire. Have you ever heard of a band called Vampire Weekend? Oh, no way.
Yes. I didn't know that either. You both met him.
Oh, that's right.
But he didn't announce his job. He didn't give you his bio.
Right.
I didn't lead with that.
It's like when people come up to you and they go, oh, you're an actor. What are you in? Do you want me to start listing you?
Well, by the way, still to this day, I assume nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows what I'm, people look at me funny and I'm like, yeah, I know. I look like that guy you went to school with. At this point, really? Come on. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, you know why? Because I spent so many years assuming everybody knew who I was and I had a very uncomfortable adjustment.
You peaked early.
I will never make that mistake again.
Everybody knows you're Justin Bateman. They know that too. That's exactly right. I get that once a day. Justin Bateman, a big fan. Not that big.
Rashida. It's so good to see you. Rashida. Tell me what you're doing today and what's going on. You know how much I love you.
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.
Oh, how does one prep for the summer? Cleaning the pool or? Just like a lot of reps. Got to cut a lot of vegetables. Yeah. Oh.
Oh, yeah.
Crutch.
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.
Oh, I thought you wrote it, but you produced it. Yeah. And you produced it, which is a really cool, the premise is your character moves to Japan, lives in Japan, and her husband dies. Yeah.
Missing, but they're on a plane crash.
They're missing. And his company sends you a new personal robot.
Yes.
Called Sunny. In the future.
Yeah, it's in the future.
I had three callbacks for that robot. Did you? Yeah.
You know what they said? You know what the note was? Too robotic. Too robotic.
It's the only way I tee it up for you, Willie. I know. Well, wait, hang on now. Rashida, you wrote yourself something that puts you in Japan a little bit?
I didn't write it, you guys. Let's be fair.
I didn't write it.
I produced it. But yes, I put myself in Japan. Yes, I lived in Japan.
How great was that?
It was really great. I know, I've never been.
It's great. Have you been before? Japan is the best.
It's the best. I had been there like three or four times for a couple weeks, but I was there for six months.
Wow.
Now, Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka?
Kyoto and Tokyo. We filmed in both, yeah.
Wow, that's so cool. Because I hear if you go over there, you've got to have it wired. It's a place you need to have a chaperone or very good notes or tips or... You can get lost there.
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.
Yeah.
So, Rashida, you know, I loved Silo so much. I told you when I saw you. And I was like, oh, my God, Rashida's in this show that I heard so much about, that I love so much. And then you died in the first fucking episode. Spoiler alert. That's how I do it. I was like, wait, what? Did that bum you out? No, that's why I took the job. What do you mean?
No, it's fun to make people like you and then die.
If you guys haven't seen Silo, it's so good. It's like James Dean.
Damn, dude. It's not even 11.
Guess how old he was when he died. By the way, not too soon, by the way. There's no fucking way that's too soon.
Willie, guess how old he was when he died. 23? Yeah. Was he?
That's so crazy.
Isn't that amazing that he was never older than 23? I looked at him, I always tell you, he was like, you know, like, that's a man.
I just watched The Giant with him and Rock Hudson and Liz Taylor. Just Giant. Just Giant. More hot takes from Sean.
Tracy, it's just Giant.
How was that?
Hey, you know what's a great movie? Gone with the Wind. You guys seen that?
And nothing's really gone. Nothing leaves. I mean, there's a fire, but, you know. It's got legs. Fire.
Yeah, I know it was really long, but it was good. I didn't know it was based on... Dallas was based on it. The show Dallas was based on Giant.
Oh, yeah?
Anyway, let's continue. Yeah, James Dean. I think this is one of his last movies or his last movie. Wait a second.
Hang on a second. This is like... Yeah, Rashida's here, by the way. Rashida Jones is here. You're like a one-man Reddit thread. You're like a fucking... And you're like, what am I doing? Why am I clicking?
But is that a known fact or is that a weird Reddit thing that Dallas was based on Giant?
No, the guy's name is J.R. I mean, his initials are JR. And Giant, he's an oil king and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. You're sure? 100% positive.
Okay. And then what Knotts Landing was based on? I'd love it if Scotty just slid in on a rolling stool. Well, that was based on...
Just for what it's worth, A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift is an amazing movie. Sorry, I just thought we were doing random.
Let's get to the guests. Will, do you have any questions for your guests?
Yeah, would you back off? Come on, let's hear it. Your attitude is so shit. Go eat something for fuck's sake and then come back at me. That too much oatmeal is the problem.
Jason pulled up his shirt last night and I saw his abs, crazy abs.
Really?
Oh my God. Like summer abs? But not by choice, just from diet. No.
Just no sugar, there's no sugar, dairy. There's no food.
There's no dinner.
There's no food. There's no sugar, no dinner.
That's the key.
Intermittent fasting? That's what you do?
It's unintentional, but it's... Intermittent eating. Yeah, that's it.
Wow. Are you hungry all the time? Are you hungry and grumpy all the time?
No, you get past it. You just got to race to bed. You have to get to sleep.
You got to get to bed.
You got to get to sleep.
He thinks it's discipline. Oh, it is definitely discipline. It's mental illness, bro, at this point.
People have different words for different things.
So, wait. So, Rashida, I want to talk to you a little bit about your experience. Everybody knows you from The Office and from Parks and Rec. But everybody knew you as this actress and you were kind of working in comedy and TV. And then you started...
You and, I want to say that you and, I don't know how long you knew Will McCormick for, but you guys teamed up, you started writing, and you just started writing all your own stuff. Like, you kind of made this shift at a certain point. Was that like a conscious decision? You were like, I've always had all these ideas, and I'm sick of doing other people's stuff. I just want to do my own shit?
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.
So I never felt like that, so I didn't feel worthy pursuing that. And then a strike happened.
Did you know Mike Schur at Harvard? Yeah. Mike Schur is the one who created Parks and Rec.
We met freshman year. Wow. We did a play together freshman year called Love, Sex, and the IRS.
Love, Sex, and the IRS. It opened with us making out. Was he acting? No. Yeah. How was he? Yeah. Funny. I bet he's great. Yeah, he was funny. He was great. Yeah, I bet he is great, yeah.
Mike Schur, yeah, for Tracy, Mike Schur started SNL and he was head writer of Weekend Update and then he went to The Office and then he went with Greg Daniels and they created Parks and Rec and then he went on to do Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place and tons of other stuff. He's a brilliant writer and you guys have a long relationship.
I feel like I kind of know Schur through SNL but also kind of through you because you guys were friends.
Yeah, since we were 18.
Yeah, that's amazing.
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.
What was the paper?
The Warren Court.
What is that?
About the Warren Commission? About the Supreme Court Justice Warren.
Uh-huh. Wow. I'd love to read your paper.
It sounds hilarious.
It sounds really funny. And we will be right back. And now back to the show.
Now wait, so get me back to the writing part of it. What gave you kind of the fuel to like say, well, you know what? Maybe I can or maybe I should. Did it come from just getting more and more proud of your writing or were you reading more and more things that were not great that were getting produced? And you were like, I can do at least that.
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?
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.
You know what? It's so funny. When I was living in Chicago, I would watch certain channels that no longer exist. And on those channels were shows that no longer exist and they weren't really great. And I was really young and I was like, I know I can be at least that bad. Like if that's all that's required, there's gotta be some job for me somewhere. You know what I mean?
Cause that's not, they're not fantastic.
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-
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?
How did you guys...
We were set up. We were set up by his sister, Mary McCormick.
I know and love.
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.
So you guys still work together, you and Will?
Yeah. We produce and we write together.
That's awesome. I love Will. He's such a good dude, and Mary is so amazing. So you guys start, so you guys kind of have this, you realize, you date, but it's not working out, but you realize that there is something else there on another, maybe potentially even deeper level.
Yeah.
Creatively. That you connect on. And what was the first thing that you guys were like, hey, we need to write this? Like, how did that happen?
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.
Were you tempted to write about your relationship?
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.
Yeah. You just made me think of, sorry to bounce around, one of my favorite movies is Social Network. Was there any, your participation in that and having gone to Harvard, was there any, was any of that happening while you were there at that time?
No, bro. No, I'm old. No.
So it was after you left? Yeah. That was like 2004.
We had the Facebook, which was the freshman Facebook.
Yeah.
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.
Like a yearbook.
Yeah, like a yearbook, but you submit your picture.
Yeah. Was it digital or was it a hard copy? Yeah.
Hard copy. Digital, we had ethernet my senior year. There was no internet.
Right, yeah, we're about the same age. No, you're younger than we are. I'm younger than you. Come on.
Look at her. Jason, you're the oldest one here, by far. I know.
55.
Look at his face. Wow.
You're 55? That's amazing.
Yeah, there's some gray in my beard.
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.
I'm playing a loser. So, you know.
Oh, you are? Yeah.
Oh, in the movie. Oh, in the movie. No, in real life. My wife and I like role playing. So this month she's got me as a loser.
This month. Hey, growing up around so much music, I'm sure, there's constantly music in your house, I'm sure, right?
Yeah.
When you were a kid? Yeah. And were you ever inspired to do that? Like, was your whole family like, wait, don't you want to come over here and do what we're doing? We're playing instruments, we're singing songs, we're producing records.
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.
Nice.
And I sang for them live, yeah.
That's so cool. That's so good. Wait, can you read music? Can you write music?
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.
Again, like, I want to remind people, like, your dad produced Thriller. Yeah. Right? So, like, that's so... I remember one time, Rashida, going over to your dad's house with you and being blown away, going downstairs and seeing... You know when you go into somebody's office, guys, and you see, like... They've got like a record, right? Like a platinum record or whatever. Like some, whatever.
And you go into Quincy's house. Well, it is, A, it's a museum. And B, the framed thing for Thriller has like 40 platinum records in the frame. Yeah. Literally 40. You're like, what the fuck? It's like the granddaddy of them all. It's crazy.
What about that documentary you did was just so awesome. Oh, thank you.
Yes, that was so good. Yeah, so I was going to talk about it. So let's get to the documentary about your dad.
What a great thing to do for your parents. It's just like, I don't know.
Well, I was going to say, so, I mean, obviously, you know, yeah, like Jason said, it's a great thing to do and to be able to do with your dad. But also, like, what was, do you remember the moment where you're like, how that, the sort of the genesis of that? What was the moment? Yeah.
I'm not going to take any credit. My dad is so well documented.
Yeah.
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?
Yeah. The great Jane Rosenthal.
Who's a legend. And she worked for my dad years ago, like 30 years ago.
Oh, wow.
And she said to me, you have to make...
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
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
That's what you turn on. It's like waterworks. It's so good.
Keep on keeping on?
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.
Wow. That's great. Yeah, and I mean just the accent. So yeah, all that archival footage that people have already seen about your dad. no one's seen you just walking around with a camera in the house and talking to your dad. That was just like this access. It was just, it just felt so privileged watching it.
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,
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.
Wow, that's amazing. You know, what was fascinating to me watching that was seeing you in the document because you're like, you have to check out this documentary. I ran home and watched it. And there's my friend Rashida Jones and I'm watching Rashida Jones interview her dad, who's Quincy Jones. And I had this weird thing where like, wait, they're related?
Which is a compliment because- That's really nice, I take that. You've become, you've made such a world for yourself, separate from his huge world. And you've both become hugely successful that it was wild just to see-
Wow, that you both, yeah. Well, it's true, Rashida. And that was also something I wanted to get to, which is like, it's not easy, I can imagine. I can only imagine how to... And it's not by anybody's fault or design that you have a dad who is larger than life, who is, you know, like, as you said, a musical genius. Everybody knows he's created incredible things. He's done amazing things.
And to grow up with that, I can only imagine there's a lot... Yeah, and then you go to Harvard and get... To create your own thing and to have your own incredible success, that's a real testament to your talent. I hope you recognize that.
Yeah, to have the courage to even try, and then you nailed it. And now people are like, wait, she has a famous dad?
You know, it's like you've already got your own thing. It's Janet and Michael. Huh? It's Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson. I never think of them in the same family.
No.
No, but like, Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson are in the same family, but when I see them, I'm like, I don't think of the other one.
It's not a great analogy, also. It's too close. It's too close with Michael and stuff. All right, sorry, sorry. No, I mean, we would cut it, but we want to shame you, so we're going to leave it in. We might open the episode with it. Have you seen The Godfather? Just kidding.
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.
That was her first on screen, wasn't it?
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.
It's just a B story. Well, so you mentioned Sofia Coppola. So you made a film with Sofia, I want to say five, four, five years ago, right? On the Rocks?
Yeah, 2020. Well, it came out during lockdown. So yeah, 2020.
Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. I blanked that part out of my brain.
Yes, we all have.
I don't know what you mean. So you made this film on the rocks in 2020 with Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray. Yeah. And you got a lot of great reviews for that performance. I mean, everybody loved it. Did you know Sofia before or was that where you guys kind of got to know each other?
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.
No, wait, wait, walk me through that idea. What is that?
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.
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.
Wow. Wow, that's pretty cool.
That is cool.
Also shot in Japan. I didn't get the part, but that's fine. Yeah. Didn't even audition.
So, but you didn't get the part, but you got to have a sort of a really intense working relationship with Sophia. And you guys stayed together. We're like, we got to do something at some point. That's the kind of vibe?
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.
And I think she got the idea sort of from that scene we had together. Yeah.
Nice. What was that like working with Bill Murray? I know. I mean, you don't really talk to many people that work with him. I know. They're as elusive as he is. Yeah, that is true. Also, by the way— I never thought about that.
That's true.
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.
God, it's amazing.
By the way, she already had a relationship with him, had a successful film with him and stuff, but she still had to have that.
No, no, no, that was for Lost in Translation.
Oh, that was for Lost in Translation.
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.
Because the story goes like you can only reach him via fax or something like that?
I know. Yeah, I guess. I don't, I've never had that.
He's got a phone number that you can call and leave a message.
He had like a toll-free number or something for a while.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that, yeah.
But he really is like, he did a guest spot. I had a show called Angie Tribeca.
Yes.
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.
That's funny. No way. Yeah. And is he just about as chill and sort of don't sweat the small stuff as he seems?
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.
Right, right.
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
I would love to have him on this show and ask him questions for an hour. Why don't you wait out in the hall with a phone?
Not good enough? I'm already thinking about the next guest.
I'm already thinking about old Bill Murray. We'll be right back. All right, back to the show.
All right, so let's switch gears. All of a sudden, now you find yourself with the gang over at Pixar. Right? The crew.
The Pixar crew.
The Pixar crew, they approach you and they go, Rashida, we want you to come in here and start mixing it up on the Toy Story. Bonanza. How'd that go down? I mean, this is, I love these Toy Story movies. I love Pixar movies so much. Yeah, I do too.
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.
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.
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.
How long did you live in the Bay Area to do that?
I lived there two years.
Wow.
Yeah.
And you had to live there while you were writing it because the process is so sort of collaborative and back and forth?
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.
Yeah. One of the greatest documentaries I've ever seen is the Pixar story.
Yeah, they sit down and show that to you on your first day there.
Yeah, they should. It's so fascinating. Yeah. And I did Monsters University, that little movie. And so I went up there too. And the whole facility is the coolest. Like everybody's just playing ping pong and walking around.
Yeah, there's a vibe there. It's like college.
They're so good at ping pong up there.
They're so good at ping pong.
That's the one thing I love about Pixar is how good at ping pong they are. I did one movie. I did Ratatouille. It's not a big deal back in the day with Brad Bird.
That's a good movie.
You played that great big huge dude, right? The nasty boss?
No, he's the German sous chef. So good. Fun movie. Brad Bird is such a genius. That guy's a genius. Yeah, he's amazing. It feels nice. They send me a nice coffee table book every Christmas. They do?
Yeah.
Just about different subjects each year? Just stuff from your friends at Pixar. Sometimes it's about boats. It's very nice. I really appreciate it. I got a lot of coffee tables. I drink a lot of coffee. Okay, guys.
You and Jason both grew up in the Valley. Did you ever run into each other? Have you known each other or no? You always pass each other. You don't remember, do you? I want to know. I want to hear this. I don't remember yesterday.
No, I definitely, we've crossed paths.
Uh-oh. Uh-oh, Jason.
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.
Yeah, but like where in the – was this before we were driving? Were we at like kids' parties?
No, because you were driving when I was like 12.
Yeah.
Or 11. Yeah, right. But I feel like there was like, I'm trying to think of the 80s parties, 80s clubs.
Well, sure, like Roxbury. Flippers, Peanuts, Roxbury. It sounds like you didn't see each other. Well, I wasn't remembering a lot back then. Let's go back to Flippers and Peanuts. Yeah, Flippers was a roller skating place.
You remember Flippers?
Yeah. Flippers is now the CVS on the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica.
And you still go there.
It was like Studio 54, but roller skates.
No way. It was happening. Very happening. And then there was a big club where the Beverly Center is right now.
Oh, yes.
It's called Odyssey, wasn't it? I think that was.
Odyssey, yes. Yeah.
Roxbury though, that was a spot. And then above the Roxy on the rocks, that was a biggie. The whiskey bar at the bottom of the Sunset Marquee was a big haunt for me. Oh, that was banging. Yes, me too. Yeah, it was good times. So see, I do remember things.
But just not her.
Did you go to high school? Like, did you go to high school in sets?
This is a great question.
Ish. I did not get any.
Imagine a, okay, Rashida, imagine a school bus.
No, no, that was eighth grade.
The back of it has a bunch of massage tables. And the back has a bunch of massage bus, right?
She doesn't know about the massage bus.
You went to massage bus school.
Yeah, it was called Heartlight. It was an experimental school. It's just one year. Exactly.
And I also grew up with Amanda.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, Jason's right, Amanda. Yeah, we all go back. Yeah. Where did the acting bug come from? Was there- Well, what age?
Well, your mom, obviously your mom.
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.
Yeah.
Yeah, I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted to be legitimate.
You would have been a great lawyer, by the way. Yeah, you would have been great. For real, you would have been. What kind of lawyer?
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.
Yeah, but you could do that with a lot of different kinds of law, can't you? Yeah. But there's no particular law that really interests you like...
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?
Rashida, with all of your success already, have you sort of like slowed down your dreaming? Like, do you even allow yourself to... Like, where would you love to see yourself in... 5, 10, 15, 20 years? Is it more on the writing side, the acting side, like just like harmony just with your family? Or do your goals move as often as like mine do? Do you just settle on anything?
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.
That's better. And by the way, you can do it all because you're already doing it all.
I don't know. Am I?
I just started therapy. This is true. I'm going to get real for a second. And I fucking don't know anything. This is the most scared I've been in my life is right now. That's good though, Will.
Wait, why?
Because it's really scary. I'm doing like... I can't even believe I'm talking about this. I had heavy therapy this morning and I can't believe it.
It's scaring you because you're like admitting that like you might not know as much as you're pretending to know?
Yeah, that's the tip of it.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I do think...
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?
Yes, yes, yes.
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.
I talk about all that shit in my therapy. I talk about all that stuff. Yeah. So good. Will, I'm excited for you. This is really exciting. I wouldn't be scared. I would embrace it.
Embrace the fear of dying. But the fear is good because we're all scared.
I had to put eye drops in just so that my eyes were white because it was rough. Oh, really? I know, I had a really rough morning. Really? I love it. It's been a tough couple weeks.
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.
By the way, the best part is I told Polar yesterday, she's like, oh, I'm so glad. I'm like, what do you mean you're so glad? What? She's like 20 years too late. Oh, my God.
We're all here laughing about it on a podcast.
I know, but it is so weird. You're right. I think at this stage of your life, you've done stuff. You've had this huge first couple chapters of your life, and you have the work stuff, and you have the adolescence, and then the work stuff, then the kid stuff, and then the work with kids stuff, and blah, blah, blah. And you get to this point, you're like, okay, now what? What? Right.
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.
Most of the firsts are gone. Wow, I talk about all that, Rashida, in my therapy.
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.
And also it's hard to put shit out right now, but you know.
All right. So wait, so Rashida, so then first of all, everything you're saying is like so well said. That's like so succinct and to the point and I love it. What is the best advice somebody has given you to get over what we're all talking about? Or to not get over it, but to kind of deal with it. Yeah, manage it.
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.
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.
Worrying about the results. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I realized that I have all these tricks. What I've come to sort of realize anyway in the last couple weeks is that I have a lot of these tricks that I can do that help me get over things and get by and I can get to a place of okay and I can kind of put the things back on track. But there are patterns there.
And I'm like, nothing's ever going to really change unless I actually look at it. That's the...
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.
Yeah. That's self-sufficient and it's not reliant on external, uh, approval, gratification. Uh, yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, anyway, have you seen Goonies? Yeah. Good movie.
Welcome back to Sean's hot takes.
Hot takes instead of hot cakes.
Triple hot.
Um,
Well, Rashida, you are real sweet to give us an hour of your day. This is fun, you guys.
We appreciate you.
Is that an hour? Wow.
That's an hour, yeah. Look at us.
They're breezy. It's a breezy little stop here.
We were just getting into the meat of it too, right? I know. We were getting deep. I know. We just started to get real deep.
You want to take another bite, Will?
I don't know.
Should we talk about therapy some more?
I really, really don't. I can't believe we talked about it at all. I love that you did. This is good.
It's great to be vulnerable.
We always talk about that shit.
It's good. Rashida, we love you. I love you. I love you guys.
This was so fun. Thank you for having me.
Thank you for doing this.
And talking to me. Watch Sunny.
Sunny. Watch Sunny. Now, Sunny, is that spelled with an O or a U?
S-U-N-N-Y. It's on Apple TV+.
Apple TV+, Sunny starting the incomparable Rashida Jones. Rashida Jones. Congratulations on that. Yeah, congratulations on everything. So much love to your family and continued success. You're great. Thank you, guys. Love you, guys. Thanks, Rashida. Bye, guys. See you soon.
Oh, well, Willie, that's – now, that's almost your kind of half-wife, right? She's best friends with Amy.
Yeah, I mean, I've spent a lot of time with Rashida over the years. We've like – A lot of time. We've vacationed together many times. We've just done... She and I actually went... Well, not... We asked her together to Mike Schur's wedding. I mean... What do you call her for short? Sheeda. Sheeda? Yeah, Sheeda. Sheed. Sheedy. Sheeds. Jones. Jonesy. Rashida Jones and me.
RJ? Ever RJ? RJ would be good.
Oh, RJ's good. RJ's pretty good. You're obsessed with the initials, Jay. Yeah, I do like the initials. I call you Jay.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's lovely. She's so grounded.
She's so, well, she's so smart and funny and just razor sharp and has always been. And yeah, I always like spending time with Rashida Jones. And easy on the eyes. Easy on the eyes. Easy on the eyes.
But she's grown up in such a potentially privileged, isolated environment, yet does not seem that at all. No, she's very... Probably worked hard to not be.
Very, very down to earth. If you didn't know that her dad was Quincy Jones and that she'd grown up in Hollywood, if you met her in...
a coffee shop in kansas city you'd be like oh she's just a somebody from any time yeah and who is just a smart you know awesome person um but she has no there's no um she's not spoiled to that way no no yeah really great um but at the end there i like that we got real real about it and uh i like talking about that stuff and i'm glad you're you're doing that well that's really great and i love when jason asked if when you know we weren't done if you wanted to take another
SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Michael Grant Terry, Rob Armjarv, and Bennett Barbico.