Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 138—Connor Ratliff on Falling Backward into Show Biz and How Improv Made Him a Better Listener
127 Plays6 years ago
"You build good habits but the terrain going forward should be unknown to you," says Connor Ratliff. Hey, What’s up there CNFers, today’s guest is none other than Connor Ratliff, actor, comedian, writer, and performer for the Upright Citizen’s Brigade: Hey, it’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, and producers about the art and craft of telling true stories. I trace their origin stories and get to the heart about how they go about the work. Go on and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and head over to brendanomeara.com for show notes to this show and every other episode. There you can also subscribe to my CNFin’ monthly reading list newsletter. Book recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat it. Like I said, Connor Ratliff is on the show and you might wonder why the hell I invited an improv performer who works with the likes of Chris Gethard, Amy Poehler, Jason Mantzoukas, Zach Woods, and countless others. Thanks also to our sponsor in Goucher College’s MFA in nonfiction and thanks to you, kind listener.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, what's up there, CNFers? Today's guest is none other than Connor Ratliff, actor, comedian, writer, and performer for the upright Citizens Brigade. You might have heard of that. In a dream world, like the dream improv scene sort of for me is like, you very quickly figure out what the deal is. And then it's just like, oh, great. We just live in this world and play, you know? But first, a word from today's sponsor.
Podcast Sponsorship & Format
00:00:26
Speaker
The Creative Nonfiction Podcast is sponsored by Goucher College's Master of Fine Arts in Nonfiction. The Goucher MFA is a two-year, low residency program. Online classes let you learn from anywhere, while on-campus residencies allow you
00:00:42
Speaker
to hone your craft with accomplishmenters who have pulled surprises and best-selling books to their names. The program boasts a nationwide network of students, faculty, and alumni. Which has published 140 books and counting, you'll get opportunities to meet literary agents and learn the ins and outs of the publishing journey.
00:01:04
Speaker
Visit Goucher.edu forward slash non-fiction to start your journey now. Take your writing to the next level and go from hopeful to published in Goucher's MFA program for non-fiction. Oh, what was that? That felt like a format change. I don't know if I like it or not. No matter. Riff.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yep, always riffin'. Hey, it's Creative Nonfiction Podcast, friend. The show where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, and producers about the art and craft of telling true stories. I trace their origin stories and get to the heart about how they go about the work.
00:01:50
Speaker
Go on, I mean it, go on and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and head over to BrendanO'Meara.com, hey that's me, for show notes to this show and every other episode of this seven year run.
00:02:05
Speaker
of this hot mess. We call a podcast there. You can also subscribe to my CNF monthly reading list newsletter, book recommendations, and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast.
Career Influences and 'Don't Think Twice'
00:02:21
Speaker
Once a month, no spam, can't beat it.
00:02:24
Speaker
Like I said, Connor Ratliff is on the show, and you might wonder why the hell I invited an improv superstar performer who works with the likes of Chris Gathard, Amy Poehler, Jason Mantzoukas, Zach Woods, and countless others. He wrote an essay for P.A.C.E titled, The Truth Behind Mike Birbiglias. Like I said, I can never pronounce his last name. Don't think twice.
00:02:50
Speaker
For longtime listeners of this show, you know that I love that movie because so many of the themes of that movie apply to the questions I have routinely asked the artists on this show. Connor had a very small role in that movie, gave notes on early drafts of that script, and in the essay writes about many of the themes I like to dig into in this show.
00:03:15
Speaker
so he graciously agreed to come on the show to talk about his career, how things started happening for him when he stopped trying so hard, and how improv made him a better listener.
00:03:27
Speaker
I think you're really going to like it. He's a great talker. You can tell he's got that performance ethos. He's, uh, he's very fun to listen to. And I think you're going to dig it. Follow him on Twitter at Connor Ratliff and keep the conversation going by pinging me on Twitter at Brendan O'Mara and at CNF pod. All right. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do this.
Social Media's Impact on Community
00:03:58
Speaker
Anytime I doubt the utility of social media and Twitter, something like this kind of re-instills my faith in it because otherwise I probably wouldn't have stumbled across that article you wrote for Paste about Don't Think Twice. And it's a movie I've seen several times and the themes of it is which I love talking about with people who come on this show. And otherwise I would have never found it and then been able to reach out to you directly. And so this is great that we're getting a chance to do this.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing I think about a lot because so much of social media and so much of the internet, it is such a mixed bag to the point where it almost feels like it's hard to have an opinion on it because it really is such a balance of like, it connects like-minded people, but that also means like,
00:04:53
Speaker
people who used to feel like, oh, I'm the only I'm the only kid in my school who likes Star Trek or something. That kid today can find a lot of people who share his interests and not feel alone. But you also have people who it's like, well, I hate this, you know, minority or something. And they're like, oh, I can find a whole group of people who also hate this group of people. You know, like, yeah, it really is such a double edged knife, you know.
Growing Up Creative
00:05:18
Speaker
And so with respect to you, Connor, before we kind of talk about those themes from Don't Think Twice and that piece you wrote, I'd love to get a sense of where you came from and kind of where you grew up and what kind of kid you were. So where did you grow up and what were you into when you were a kid? I grew up in Jefferson City, Missouri, which is the state capital of Missouri. And people who have heard of it are either people who have
00:05:45
Speaker
some personal connection or you find the people it's like, Oh, you learned all the state capitals. Um, the, uh, it's interesting growing up in a state capital that you have that thing of like, Oh, if you buy like a puzzle, it might like list your town, even though it's a, you know, relatively small town. Um, but I grew up and my dad was, um, a local weatherman and he hosted a live kids show on TV.
00:06:09
Speaker
My mom, who's from Ireland originally, my dad grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. And my mom is from a little town in Ireland called Arklow in Wicklow County. And I grew up in that creative household. You know, I mean, my mom, by that point, like my dad, you know, he was he was working at the local TV station and my mom, she did a lot of community theater. And so and was very they were both very creatively encouraging. It was a very like
00:06:38
Speaker
good household to grow up in, in terms of like fostering, like I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was a kid, I wanted to be an animator. And a lot of that probably came from the fact that like my dad knew a lot about animation and he showed cartoons on his, uh, uh, his TV show. They would, you know, the way it would work back then with like a local TV show, they would, you'd order like a package from like Warner brothers and they would send the TV station, like a few, a couple of hundred.
00:07:06
Speaker
16 millimeter reels of old Bugs Bunny cartoons, you know And that's how they would show them on the air They'd literally literally be projecting these films into like a machine that could like process them for broadcast, you know and so all through my Childhood I wanted to be a cartoonist. I wanted to work for Disney and and then when I got to be like close to being like a teenager I started realizing that I
00:07:34
Speaker
I like drawing and I like drawing cartoons, but I probably, I started just, it started dawning on me that I'm like, I bet if I keep doing this, I will grow to hate it. Because I remember specifically thinking like I, I had relatives, like I had a cousin who worked for Don Bluth studios, which is the animation studio that made like, um, an American tail and the secret of Nim and all dogs go to heaven and things like that. And so I, I knew a little bit too much, fortunately about how like, Oh, it's really hard to be an animator, you know, like,
00:08:04
Speaker
It's not fun, like making cartoons. If your job is like, if you don't want to just draw frame after frame pose after pose. And, and I had another, I had an uncle who was a commercial artist and he would draw these like logos for like, you know, like the little logo that's on the bag that your loaf of bread comes in or whatever. And I remember having a vision as like a preteen or early teenager of like being older. And I just remember thinking about like,
00:08:31
Speaker
imagining a scenario where my hand would hurt and I didn't want to draw and I had to, you know, like I, I could, I, I, I was sort of like flash forward in my mind to me being at a point where I'm like, I don't want to draw anymore. And it made me so sad that I kind of just was like, I'd rather, I kind of stopped doing it. Like I, I, it's not that I kept doing it for fun so much. I really stopped doing it most of the time because I was like, I like this and I don't want it to be ruined by.
00:09:00
Speaker
hardening into something that I come to resent, you know? Right. What's interesting about where I've landed, because the short version of this is that I was doing a lot of plays in high school and then I became a drama major in college and I ended up moving to England and going to a drama school in Liverpool, England. And I was an actor for a little while there. And I'll back up on a couple of these details in a minute, but
Improv Journey Begins
00:09:28
Speaker
Where I've ended up, my dad was an improviser in Chicago in the early 1970s under Del Close. Del Close directed him in an improv theater and Del Close being like one of the sort of like founding people of sort of 20, the modern improv scene sort of came from Del Close and you know, Nichols in May and a lot of the, there's a certain period sort of mid 20th century that most of modern improv sort of stems from.
00:09:57
Speaker
And my dad did improv for about a year in Chicago. When I ended up doing improv at Upright Citizens Brigade, I started 10 years ago at UCB in New York, and a lot of that was the encouragement of my parents, was them saying like, hey, Amy Poehler has a theater that gives classes, why don't you take improv classes? And I was like, I don't know. I sort of resisted it for a while. But it's very strange to think that I ended up
00:10:27
Speaker
doing the thing that my dad had done before he went into local broadcast TV. Did you feel like, did you resist going into improv or taking that class because it was maybe, did you see a similarity in terms of, oh, if I pursue this to the extent that I might have pursued animating or drawing, it might kill the knack or the need or the want to do it down the road?
00:10:56
Speaker
No, it wasn't that. It was actually I had already I'd already tried show business once and I hated it and I gave it. I quit it, which was so I I did in the 90s when I went to college. I first I did a couple of years at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and I was theater major in their theater department and I started just having a bad experience there. So I I quit and I started over going to the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in Liverpool, which was Paul McCartney's
00:11:25
Speaker
It was like the school Paul McCartney went to where he met George Harrison as a kid. And this building had fallen into disarray. It was sort of this abandoned building. McCartney, in the mid-90s, put in a ton of money to start up a school that would be designed towards being a vocational school for the arts, for show business. So it wasn't just that you do a bunch of plays and then you'd be on your own. It would be a school that would be designed towards getting an agent, working in the industry.
00:11:55
Speaker
trying to make a career out of them. And so I went there, I saw that because I saw a little item in USA Today that Paul McCartney was opening up a school and Elvis Costello was going to teach there. That was what caught my eye. And then I sent away for information just because I was curious as an Elvis Costello fan what was going on. And then I found out they've got like a drama program and they're just starting. So I was in the first year of graduates of that school, which is still a kind of a big deal school over there.
00:12:23
Speaker
So I got an agent out of it and I moved to London and I was an actor in London for a few years. Things started off really good in London, but very quickly what I feared happening with, what I feared happening with cartooning ended up happening over the few years that I worked as an actor in London, which was that I, I was auditioning for things that I didn't want to do. You know, I was like,
00:12:48
Speaker
I remember auditioning for plays and being like, I don't like this play. And if I get this part, I'll be stuck in it for like six months or a year, year and a half. In some cases, you know, there were some things that I was just like, I realized like I've gotten so far away from the thing that I liked that I don't recognize it. And I moved back to America and took a couple of years off figuring I'll go back to it at some point. And then I moved to New York in 2002.
00:13:18
Speaker
And I tried really hard in 2002 to get back on track and restart as an actor. And it was impossible. Like it was, uh, I, I did everything I could think of. I, I, and everything was a dead end. You know, like I, I, I wrote a play and staged it. And then I realized like, Oh, it's actually almost impossible. Like you think you're going to stage a play.
00:13:46
Speaker
And it's a good play and you put good actors in it and you have it on, it's in a theater in like downtown Manhattan. And then you realize like, how do I get anyone to come see this? And you realize like, Oh, this is basically impossible. Like we just couldn't get an audience. And you know, you know, there was, I had, you know, convinced these other actors to help put it on. And, and I think we had a good production and we just couldn't get anybody to come see it. And I realized like, well, of course.
00:14:15
Speaker
Why would anyone come see this play? Because first of all, you have, I had like some equity actors in it, which meant it had to be an equity showcase production, which meant the minimum ticket price was $25. Now I'm sure now it might even be more than that. I assume because this is a while. This was 2004, 2003, something like that. I think I, and we just couldn't, nobody, you couldn't get any industry, anybody. And I was like, well, of course you're in Manhattan. People who live here.
00:14:42
Speaker
can go anywhere they want for entertainment. It's like they can go see real theater. They can go to Broadway or off Broadway. They don't need to go to off, off, off, off Broadway. They go someplace that's, you know, or they could just go home and they can watch, you know, uh, HBO. They can, you know, they can not waste their evening and their money risking it on some play by someone they don't know and never heard of, or they could go watch, you know, the latest like well reviewed TV drama that's on
00:15:12
Speaker
that they were paying, you know, $10 a month for something on cable. And so there was a point where I was just like, you know what? I don't like this industry. This industry doesn't like me. Um, I can't do this. And so I stopped. And from that point until 2009, I really, you know, I pursued some other things creatively, but at a certain point, like I wrote a novel and I tried to get it published and I couldn't.
00:15:38
Speaker
And I realized just like at a certain point, I'm like, maybe I'm just someone who does creative things for my own to pass, to while away the hours and to pass my own time. But I also started kind of questioning like, why do I need like to do work that is, you know, experienced by strangers? Maybe I can just do fun little creative things and like show them, share them with my friends, you know, and I would, I would make little web videos and stuff and,
00:16:05
Speaker
You know, and I was like, I'm not going to make a living. I hate this industry. I hate the, I hate the, the way that this industry has no need for me. They don't need any new creative people. They already have them. And I blew it. I was really just like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be a part of it basically, you know? Yeah. So I, so I quit. And so like, when, when my parents would say things like, why don't you
00:16:31
Speaker
I remember one time I went to see something with a friend. This was probably like 2004 at upright citizens brigade theater. And I went and saw something. It was really funny. I remember asking the person like, uh, Hey, uh, this theater is pretty cool. Like, how do you put on, how do you get to perform here? Like, how do you put on shows here? And they're like, Oh, well you take these classes. And then, you know, I was like, not forget it. Like I've already, I've done that. I've done, I paid money for drama school. I learned nothing.
00:16:56
Speaker
You know, like I, it helped me not at all in the long run, you know, and I was like, I don't need another racket. I don't need another bunch of classes. And so for years went by where I just didn't consider. And then I ended up seeing some things that upright systems brigade again, years later. And I, I went to a few more things and I was like, these shows are affordable. Like for one thing was I didn't have money. I was working at a bookstore this whole time. So I didn't have money to go see plays or, you know, even movies were a huge indulgence, but you could go see at that time, you could go see something at UCB for like.
00:17:26
Speaker
five or $10 and sometimes free. It's a little more now, but it's still priced generally at the affordable end of New York. You know, it's, it's, uh, the shows are cheap to go to. And so that's why I saw enough things there that I was like, you know what, I'll take one class. I'll see if I like it. Because I was like, I like this theater. I like the energy. I like the fact that you can afford to go see a show here. And the show is great. I was like, what is that? No wonder there's like lines down the block for this place, because
00:17:55
Speaker
For $10, it used to be that when my parents would come visit, they'd go see theater. And I remember once I got into UCB around 2009, when I started taking classes, my parents would come to town and I'd be like, hey, for one of the nights you're here, instead of spending hundreds of dollars to go try and see a Broadway show at maybe not the best seats and maybe the show is not even great, how about one of these nights we go on a Saturday night and for $10 a ticket, I promise you, this will be better
00:18:23
Speaker
than what you're seeing at most of these plays that we've been trying out. So I started taking classes there and really quickly I realized, I was in classes for a couple of years there before I became a performer at the theater. And even when I became a performer at the theater, I still did not have the goal that I was gonna work in show business again. I was just doing it because I liked it. Like I took the first class and I was like,
00:18:50
Speaker
I like this. I want to get better at it. I want to figure out how to do this because it was hard. Like I was funny and I was a good actor, but I did not know how to do, how to make up scenes that would be satisfying and would feel comfortable to like be on stage and not be like terrible at it. You know? So I was like, I want to get better at this. And the classes, like when I took acting classes, like I said, I learned nothing in drama school.
00:19:15
Speaker
I never learned anything good in an acting class, not at MU and not at LIPA. And that may partly just be me, but it was like, I got better when I did plays. Like if I did a play in drama school, that made me better. Every time I did a play where I actually did it, I got better. But in acting classes, I never got better. None of the exercises helped me. Some of the exercises felt hostile. Some of the teachers sometimes felt hostile because
00:19:44
Speaker
It felt like sometimes you were being taught by people who wish that they were acting instead of teaching and they were mad at you because, you know, you're teaching someone that is like maybe going to achieve your dream. You know, it's a hard place to be. There are drama teachers who are great, who want to be drama teachers. And then there are drama teachers who have landed there and they are almost like, in some ways you realize later, oh, they were almost like an enemy that you had to like get past because they were someone that was like,
00:20:14
Speaker
you're trying to get into a building and they are the bouncer at the building that wouldn't let them in. It's a strange thing that you realize improv wasn't like that because improv, the people who were teaching improv, and this is kind of a controversial point in some circles, because you don't get paid to do shows at UCB as a performer. And there are some people who've tried to make a big thing about how this is not fair, that it should be treated like work
00:20:44
Speaker
You know, and, and it should be paid accordingly. What I have found in my experience is that most things you get paid for in this world, unless you're incredibly lucky, there is something about it that it's like, Oh, that's what the money is for. Like I just had an acting gig the other day. That's that's, it was like a commercial gig. That's.
00:21:03
Speaker
going to really, you know, popped up and it really saved my bacon for the year so far that I'm like, Oh, good. You know, this will help me not lose my sag health insurance or whatever. But when you're on those jobs, you feel it all day. You're like, yeah, I wouldn't do this for free. You know, like here, there's a classic Anthony Hopkins quote where he says, um, someone asked him about being paid to act or something. He says, Oh no, no one pays me to act. I act for free. They pay me to wait. And it's really true to a certain extent that it's like,
00:21:32
Speaker
When you're doing something creatively, cause I didn't go into improv thinking like I, you know, they tell, they tell you in the very first class, it's like, you know, people generally don't get paid to do improv shows. If you're watching an improv show in most cases, you're the people aren't being paid, but it's also, you know, if you're, if you're doing a play professionally, like they expect you to show up a few hours early, they expect, you know, there's certain things they expect. Whereas an improv theater, like when I'm going to my show.
00:21:58
Speaker
If I roll in five minutes before the show happens, no one bats an eyelid, you know, because even if I don't show up, they just, they go on with the show, you know? And so there was something about UCB that was like, oh, it's like professional quality in terms of the talent. By the time you get, by the time you get to the main stage, but the people who were doing it are doing it because they want to and because they love it. Eventually I did it enough at UCB that I got enough of a profile that I sort of fell backwards into show business again.
00:22:27
Speaker
that like eventually I got approached by like a commercial agent who was like, do you have a commercial agent? I was like, no, I'm not really interested. And they were like, well, if you are, you know, here's what you can do. And I was like, okay, maybe I'll go for a few auditions. And then I like, I booked a New York lottery commercial and that ended up being like half my income for the year. And I wasn't pursuing it.
Return to Show Business
00:22:47
Speaker
And then, uh, at a certain point, a manager approached me and one time I had a manager approached me and they kind of nagged me. They were sort of like,
00:22:55
Speaker
How come you don't have an agent or a manager? I was like, I'm not interested in working in show business. That's why I'm just not pursuing it. Then they were like, well, what's your actor's access like website profile? I was like, I'm not on the actor's access website. And they were like, Oh boy, you really mean it. Well, I don't sign people unless they're on actor's access. I'm like, I don't know if you get a cut from that website, but like, I'm not interested. Let alone like, I'm not going to sign up for a website before you'll even talk to me for a thing. I'm not asking you for, you know, it's like, uh,
00:23:25
Speaker
the, it's like someone asking you for a date and insisting on going to a certain restaurant before you even agreed to the terms that you're going on a date. You know, it's just like, we have to eat here. I'm like, I'm not going. Then I had a manager, my current manager approached me and I liked him and he was, he, he, um, was like understanding about like my whole thing where I was like, well, you know, I don't want to do stuff I don't want to do. You know, uh, I'd been reluctant to get into show business because I don't like show business having control over me.
00:23:55
Speaker
It's been a pretty consistent thing since I've gotten back into it that things generally only go well for me when I'm kind of pushing back against it. I'm not superstitious particularly, but there's something weird about like, if I don't want a job, it starts to want me in a way that I can't quite explain. If there's something massively inconvenient about it, then I'm going to book it. And the second I try to.
00:24:22
Speaker
get, if I really want something, I never get that. You know what I mean? Like, I have to like not care about it in order to make it happen. And I don't know why that is, but it, you know, I, I tried for years to become an actor and nothing clicked, nothing worked. And the second that I started doing stuff creatively and not worrying about the career aspect of it, things started falling into my lap. And I was like, I don't, I don't know why that is. It's it.
00:24:49
Speaker
I was a reader. When I first was an actor in London, my first thing my agent got me was the job of being the reader that the actors who were auditioning read the scenes with. And I saw the way it was for people, which is that people who came in who looked like they did not give a shit about whether they booked this part or not did so much better than the people who came in who looked like they were like, I'd really like this.
00:25:14
Speaker
Well, I think you said you kind of just in passing kind of hit on the word like through through that grind of trying to make it you were you were trying and it was kind of when you just Relinquished that sort of control and just went into certain things that were just appealing to your taste all of a sudden there probably was no try and that's when things started to go your way when you just kind of Were following your taste
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah. And, and really, you know, it's an interesting thing because, you know, there, and you can find places, there are various people who are like writing about the nature of, of improv theaters and, and paying performers and that sort of thing. And, and I do agree with the principle that like creative people should be paid for their work. But for me, the interesting thing about the improv scene is that, um,
00:26:09
Speaker
part of what makes it a cool scene is that the tickets are cheap and the talent's good at a good improv theater. And the second you start paying the talent, the tickets become more like theater tickets and the audience changes and the vibe of the place changes. And it is one of those things that like, it may happen at some point, but it will be the end of like UCB. I think if they get to a point where, uh,
00:26:34
Speaker
And it could be that it's already on a pathway where things are inevitably going to happen. Certain things happen like that. But there was something about being at a place where the point of it wasn't, we're all here because we're being paid to do this. We're here because, I mean, it had the same vibe as what I grew up with in community theater, where you did something because you love doing it. And you were given the great resource that
00:27:01
Speaker
UCB provided me with a theater that had an audience and it was a cool audience and it was a hungry audience, but it was a packed audience in New York city, which is a much more, um, hard to come by, uh, uh, commodity or, or resource than you. That's what I learned the hard way when I was trying to put on plays in New York was like, Oh, you just, you, you need a hub. You need a place that will draw people in.
00:27:32
Speaker
For a decade, I felt I was not lonely for friends or companionship during the decade that I was sort of lost as far as the career, but I was very creatively lonely. And that's a thing that I just didn't have. I didn't have an outlet. I didn't have people that I could collaborate with and suddenly
00:27:57
Speaker
you know, I was at UCB and once I became a main stage player, the people that I was collaborating with were like, um, what I had always wanted community theater to be like, which is like, Oh, everybody here is talented. I can't remember when I was going to see shows at UCB. There are, there are several other like improv theaters in New York city that are good theaters and good things happen there. But I noticed very quickly that it's not that
00:28:25
Speaker
The other theaters don't have a lot of good and great shows, but the other theaters I noticed also had a lot of not so great shows and sometimes even bad shows. And part of it was just like the, if you were great, you could perform at any of the theaters, but if you were not great, there were certain theaters was like, yeah, you can probably find a slot to perform at this theater. And UCB wasn't like that. I never saw a bad thing at the theater. And I was like, well, that's the goal. I want to be worthy of performing.
00:28:54
Speaker
on the stage with the people that I'm looking at now. Like I was watching people like Zach Woods perform at the theater and I was like, I want to be able to perform at the same level that he's performing at. I want to be able to like, which is like a, you know, set myself that goal creatively. Like I want to be able to get on stage with someone like that and be able to do a good scene that's funny, you know, or interesting to watch. The work that I have gotten professionally off of being a UCB performer, like if you had paid me
00:29:24
Speaker
even like a real, what would be like a realistic pay to do an improv show for every show I've ever done. Uh, you book one job and it's like getting paid for a year worth of shows, you know, like you book one job and it's also like you do that job and you're like, yeah, I know why they're paying me for this because like, I don't like, I don't like doing like, you know, you're at the mercy of the circumstance. You have to do it exactly when they want you to do it. You don't always have the freedom or the creative control. Uh, I had a chance to audition for a play recently.
00:29:54
Speaker
And, you know, cause I had said to my, um, my agents, like I, I would be interested in doing the right play. It's been a long time since I've acted in a play. I was like, if the right thing came along, I'd be interested. And they sent me a thing for what I read. And it was a good script. It was a good script for what I think it will be a very good play at a very good theater. But the part that I was up for was kind of just like, it's sort of like a dirt bag character. That was, that's the kind of role it's fun to play.
00:30:24
Speaker
But I was reading through it and honestly, I was like, you know, this is good, but I don't want to spend like, I don't want to give up my like March through May. I don't want to give up my whole spring just doing this play night after night. When creatively I get to play a character characters like this, you know, several times a week at UCB with people that were like, I get to kind of like make up this kind of a play and this kind of the character whenever I want.
00:30:51
Speaker
I'm like, ah, it's going to take something else to lure me away from the thing that I, that I like doing creatively, um, to do something professionally. That's like, unless it's like, obviously there are things where it's like, you do things for the money because you need, you know, I'm in the screen actors guild and it's always like year after year, it's this, you know, race against the clock.
00:31:12
Speaker
to not lose your health insurance because I have until June to make X amount of money. And what will happen is if I don't make it by June, then come October, I won't lose my health insurance, but instead of it being like $400 every quarter, it becomes like $600 a month. Even if I then book a job, the money from that job is just to sort of like pay off that. You know, it's like suddenly.
00:31:38
Speaker
It feels like suddenly if this doesn't happen, it'll be like, I have a gambling problem or something. It'll be like, suddenly I'll be like, where's all the money going? You know? And so there is this like constant, you know, like, you know, relief whenever you book something and you don't care what it is. Like you get to a certain point where you're like, well, I want to do good work, but then you get to a certain point where I don't, I don't want to lose all of the money I've saved to try to keep ahead of rent and expenses and you know,
00:32:06
Speaker
Yeah, at some point, it's like, I want to do good work. And then you hit a point where like, I will do any work. Yes, yes. And I mean, the dream is that you get to a point where you're doing the work you want to do and it's, you know, paying for everything. But the other thing is that, like, you know, living in New York City, even if if improv shows, if shows that you see did pay, they honestly, even if you even if you got to a point where they were paying you so much that it was actually like hurting the theater.
00:32:36
Speaker
that money would not be a drop in the bucket of what you need to survive living in a city like New York. Like it's one of those things where it's like, you're better off working anywhere else for a day than you would be doing improv shows for money all week. You know what I mean? Like, uh, it's one of those things where it's just like, there's no way that being paid to do improv shows would pay me as much as I, as it would pay for me to coach improv teams, you know? But it is that thing of like finding your,
00:33:03
Speaker
I'm so lucky and so relieved that I was able to find another route into show business. And it was reluctantly because I didn't want to do it. But like all of the proper channels that you're supposed to go through, all of them failed for me. I mean, I had like small successes, but it wasn't enough to sustain anything. You know, it wasn't enough to keep going. I was lucky to find improv and I was lucky to find UCB because it both
Value and Philosophy of Improv
00:33:32
Speaker
accidentally led to me having a professional career again because honestly if if I could have I would have been happy just continuing to work at the bookstore forever I would not have I was happy at the bookstore for the most part and I probably wouldn't have been able to because I think it would have
00:33:48
Speaker
the the the that job would have changed to a point where I wouldn't have sustained me but do you think you would have grown kind of embittered like feeling like a failed actor at a bookstore you know no because I'd already this is the thing I'd already dealt with that like I spent a decade not being an actor and coming to terms with it then I was like I don't I don't
00:34:13
Speaker
I had to get to a point where I was like, I don't need show business to feel like creatively fulfilled. I don't need show business for anything. The scary thing for me at this point is that now my life has started to be structured in a way that maybe I do need show business that like, I'm always, I always am looking for the exit now in terms of like, I don't want to give this industry power over me because in my experience, when I give show business power over me.
00:34:41
Speaker
That is precisely the moment that show business loses all interest in me. I literally, I signed with agents finally a few months ago, or I haven't actually even signed with them yet, but I made the agreement to sign with an agency. Cause I had a manager for years, but no agent, a commercial agent, but no, any, any like TV show or movie that I've done in the past few years has either been them approaching me to be in it, or my manager is like somehow got me for it, but I have not had it like a legit agent. And when I met with.
00:35:09
Speaker
this agency a few months back in the meeting, I told them stories that I was like, these are just honest stories about, um, like what I'm telling you that afterwards, I was like, Oh, I actually kind of was sort of warning them about me in some ways. Cause I was saying things like, I don't want to get stuck on a TV show that I'm like, you know, or I was telling them about like, uh, how I used to throw auditions in London. If I didn't like the play, I, because I was too scared to tell my agent in London that I didn't want to audition for something.
00:35:38
Speaker
So I would, I would do the audition just good enough that they think I was good, but not good enough that I, they'd have to cast me. You know what I mean? Like I would try to like find the sweet spot of like, I don't want them to think I'm bad. I just want them to think I'm not right for this part because I don't like this play. So I'm telling this stuff to my agents or my soon to be agents at this point. And in some ways, like just being clear that it's like, I want you to know who I am so that there's no, um,
00:36:07
Speaker
I always want to have that feeling of like worst case scenario, isn't me not getting work in show business. You know what I mean? Like I don't, I don't want it to be, I don't want to feel like I need show business work or else I have no path forward. You know? Right.
00:36:23
Speaker
There's too much control to give to an industry that doesn't need you. Right. Right. Yeah. And to give them agency over, you know, your, your voice and, and, and career trajectory is just, you know, you need to see some of that power yourself. Yeah. Which that's the thing. I mean, that's, it's the reason why there are people, you know, everybody who performs at UCB is a person who wants to be performing at UCB. And it's the reason why you have people like,
00:36:53
Speaker
Actors like Jason Manzoukas, who like keep coming back and doing shows for free at UCB, despite the fact that they're on every TV show, they're in every movie, you know, they're booking work constantly. But it's like, there are creative itches that don't get scratched by money gigs. I don't know that I'll necessarily be able to do it forever, but I want to at this point, you know, like I want it. I want that feeling of being able to be on stage with a handful of talented improvisers and put on a show for an audience that is a worth watching.
00:37:22
Speaker
And you get to do whatever you want, to a certain extent. I mean, it's collaborative. So you're also responding and you're working with people. But you can literally just, you know, it's funny because improv has gotten so big in the past few years and certainly stuff like Don't Think Twice is like brought into the spotlight. You know, you know, it's more it's more of a known thing now. And there's there's a lot of like funny jokes and funny portrayals of improv on shows like there's an episode early of Broad City where
00:37:52
Speaker
Um, where Alana's dating a guy and she assumes he's a drummer in a band, but she finds out he's on an improv team. And the fake improv in that show is exactly like what bad improv is. You know, uh, it's, it's really like very, and actually that, if you watch that episode, uh, that's an early broad city episode. If you watch the improv team, that's bad in that episode. Most of those improvisers are like some of the best GCB improv improvisers.
00:38:19
Speaker
doing a version of what bad improv. Wow. But it is one of those things where like it is something that has saved me creatively. It sort of brought me back from a place where I was maybe not. I don't think I was in a danger if I kept working in the bookstore of becoming an embittered, like wanted to be an actor. It was I was going to become creatively more isolated if I hadn't found UCB. Like I would probably be someone who would just like write scripts and not produce them or write the short stories and not publish them. You know, it would have been
00:38:49
Speaker
It would have been a thing where I would have had a drawer full of unpublished writing that I just did for the mental exercise just to get it out because that's the way my mind works. I have the impulse to be creative and I want to find an outlet for it constantly. What was your experience like when you first took that improv class and then when did you know that you had a knack for it?
00:39:15
Speaker
The first improv class, I remember specifically, it was a teacher named Betsy Stover. And I think she's in, she's in LA now. I think she teaches improv in LA. And I remember I tried to do something funny in a scene and I remember she gave me kind of a look that was sort of like, it was a little bit like she could tell I was trying to be funny. And I remember thinking like, oh shit, why am I, why am I trying to be funny in an art form that I don't know how to do yet? Like, I was like, I just need to,
00:39:45
Speaker
figure this out first. And so I didn't worry about being funny for a, I would say for the better part of a year, I really didn't focus on being funny. I really was like, just trying to figure out like, how does this work? You know, and try to figure out how my brain works. And I was also trying to just like learn more because I was like, if I know more things, it makes improv easier. Cause if you know something, you know, like if you're good at math and you're in an improv scene and you can do, if, if the, uh, situation arises that you can
00:40:13
Speaker
do simple arithmetic in the context of a scene, it gets a laugh because it's like funny to an audience. If someone's like, someone just does math in the context of a scene, if it comes up and someone says like, Oh wait, but we have five left. The audience was like, Oh, they did the math and they laugh because it's, it's sort of like, they can't believe that on the spot, people can do a thing or know a thing. You know, I remember the first improv scene that I did that the first, I remember a move that I did in my second
00:40:42
Speaker
improv class, it was improv 201. So I'd been doing it for like a couple months. And I was doing a scene and someone was, someone was on stage and they were calling 911 because their child had broken a thermometer and swallowed the mercury inside the thermometer. So this guy's doing the scene and then he's on the, and he's on the phone and someone on the back line is being the voice of 911 and he's saying, ah, my kid just ate a thermometer, like a broken thermometer and drank the mercury out of it. What do I do? What do I do? And.
00:41:12
Speaker
I stepped up to, and I ring, you know, pretend ring the doorbell and I was thinking we were going to, I was kind of gracelessly trying to move time forward to when like the paramedics arrived. But then the person who was on the phone said, um, we'll be sending you an ambulance. It'll get there in about five minutes.
00:41:34
Speaker
And so I'm, and so meanwhile, this improvisers walking over towards the imaginary door to answer my ringing the doorbell. And in that moment I was like, Oh no, what do I do? I was going to be that it was like 10 minutes later or something, but now they've just said that the paramedics won't be here for five minutes. So I can't be the paramedics. So I, I just was terrified because I was like, what do I do? I wasn't really scared, but I was just like, this is going to be bad, you know? And they opened the door and I didn't,
00:42:03
Speaker
think of the thought, but the words came out of my mouth somehow and I said, hello, I'm selling thermometers. And it got, and the teacher laughed, I remember. And I remember thinking like, oh shit, that's funny. Like, like the one he, it's solving one of his two problems by far, the lesser of his two problems, the paramedics aren't there, but his thermometer is going to be replaced. And I remember thinking like, oh, and it was just because it was like, what else is the scene about? I guess is what I was thinking. And I was like,
00:42:31
Speaker
Oh, maybe I could be here for the thermometer. I was like, I was not good enough at improv at that point to have consciously thought, Oh, what would be funny is the other thing. Like right now I can look at it and be like, Oh, that's like the right move. You sort of punish the character by giving them what they, in comedy, you give them what they don't exactly what they don't need. And whatever the funniest version of what they don't need, you know, it's funny. I don't remember. I think I still think about that because I'm like, I didn't.
00:42:57
Speaker
think of that, but some part of my brain, it was almost like the improv version of like the mother, you know, with the child trapped under the car and they can lift the car suddenly. It's like when that moment I was like some part of my brain was like, you got this. Just talk about the other thing, you know? Yeah. Um, but I, I, I sort of, I shouldn't have said I was terrified before because it, I, I actually think one of the things that helped me in improv was that I, I, I never was really nervous about it. I would feel like bad, but only to a certain level because.
00:43:26
Speaker
I was 33 by the time I started taking improv and most of the people are in their twenties when they started doing improv. And I'd already been through so much, like a certain amount of disappointment in life that I was kind of like, ah, what, what's the worst? Like I can have, I, oh, so I'm in a bad improv scene. That's not the end of the world. Like it's not gonna, not gonna take away my apartment. It's not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna not have food to eat tonight, you know? And so I was, I never was nervous about improv because I'd already been so disappointed by so many things that I was like, yeah,
00:43:56
Speaker
worst case scenario they'll say don't come back you're bad at improv you know and then I won't do improv you know yeah and something that struck me about the scene you did which is what makes comedy and especially written comedy work really well is not being
00:44:13
Speaker
overly jokey, but actually just having something that is born from the scene itself. You know, like what you said wasn't a joke per se, it just was situationally funny and unexpected. Yeah. And there's also a thing I think of improv of like not overly complicating it. So it's just like, what is in play? Like what is in play? There's a kid who's joking, he's drank some mercury, he's poisoned, there's 911 on the way. What else is in the scene? Well, there's the thermometer and it's like,
00:44:41
Speaker
I didn't have to invent a new thing. I was just like, Oh, no one said, no one's done anything with the thermometer. I could do something with that rather than like the impulse to like, what the funny, you know, you know, if I was like, I'm selling Viagra or, you know, you didn't need boner pills. Like that would be trying hard to be funny. Whereas it's like, why don't you do something with the thing that is already on the table here? You know, which is there's a thermometer that was broken. It's also a thing where people do improv in different ways and.
00:45:07
Speaker
Some people are very good at, you know, they have a good writerly comedic mind. And I have a, I'm funny and I can write some stuff that's funny, but I don't think of myself as being a pure writer. You know, I've written things, but I'm, I don't identify primarily as a, I'm more of an actor, a creative actor than I am a writer. Even though you wrote a novel?
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah, but it wasn't published. So it's you know, it's like it's like cooking a meal and not eating it. It's just like not a cook. Nobody knows if it was edible, you know. Right. And you know, I wrote, I wrote, I mean, I've written things. I wrote an independent film that that sort of went nowhere. Like it played a few festivals and got a very small DVD release and then sort of vanished. The I wrote a film. This was part of the struggle of leaving show business was there was a point where
00:45:59
Speaker
I'll give very small versions of these because they're stories I think I've told too many times. But like in 2000, I was cast in Band of Brothers for HBO. And then I was fired the day before I was supposed to film my scene. I was fired by Tom. I was fired by Tom Hanks the day before. I was just I think he just thought he thought I had dead eyes on my audition tape. And so I had to re audition. And I've told the story before. It's kind of like and then like I
00:46:24
Speaker
Uh, you know, I had, that was like one experience. I was like, Oh geez, I almost got a thing. And then it sort of went nowhere. And then I wrote and acted in this and produced this film that got into a, uh, got into the Austin film festival, which was like a huge break because the focus of that film festival is screenwriting. So I'm like, the industry loves flying to Austin, uh, for film festivals. I'm going to make so many connections. If I can get anybody to just take a look at this film, it'll be such a great
00:46:52
Speaker
calling card for me as an actor and as a writer. And so I got accepted. We got the film into the Austin film festival. It was accepted in August of 2001 for October, 2001. Anyone who knows anything about recent American history knows that that timing couldn't have been worse. Uh, basically, you know, they started flying airplanes again, you know, a month, a few weeks after nine 11. And then it was like, okay, there's anthrax attacks right now. Who wants to fly to Austin for fun?
00:47:22
Speaker
And basically everybody in show business was like, not us. And so like, we flew to Austin for the film and it's just like, yeah, whoever was already here for the festival is here. But there was just like, nobody came to Austin Film Festival that year for, you know, a good time. Everyone was like, no, I'd rather not fly an airplane right now. Let's wait and see how this shakes out. And so they're like, there was, there were, um,
00:47:49
Speaker
So like I've written, I have written things, but like as an improviser, um, my, there's sort of, I sort of struck upon a thing recently, which is that like, some people are good at coming up with tons of funny jokes and things on the spot. What I'm good at, I think is figuring out what the base reality of a scene is and then finding something funny eventually, you know, like before too long, I don't, you know, try to find it pretty quickly, but it's sort of like the difference between like the movie airplane and the movie Tootsie.
00:48:19
Speaker
that, like, if you can improvise like the movie Airplane, then base reality doesn't matter because you're just you can fire off joke, joke, joke. Everything's funny. And that's great. I don't know how to do that because, you know, I think the way they write those movies is, you know, they sit down and they take a long time and they pick the right jokes, whereas it's a very rare person who can be that rat-a-tat-tat funny without requiring the base reality of an improv scene to like ground them, you know?
00:48:48
Speaker
And trying to be funny in an improv scene often feels to me like trying to be like airplane. And to me, like Tootsie is the kind of comedy that if there was even one moment in that movie where like a character broke the fourth wall and was like, boy, this is crazy. It would completely ruin the movie. It would like pull you out of it in a way that like the thing that makes Tootsie funny is like this reality that grounds it. So it makes the funny things funny. And that's when I'm in an improv scene, my first thing is like, who am I? What's going on? What do I want?
00:49:18
Speaker
And then I'm like, and what, and what's in play here? Like, what are the first few things that are said? Those are the important things in this scene. And, and then try not to overcomplicate it. Try not to, unless you need to try not to, you know, waste a bunch of your brain power, inventing funny things. When, you know, if you started a scene and you're like, you know, you're my teenage daughter and I'm your father and you're, and you're saying like, dad, don't embarrass me at my, at my party. I just stay in the other room. Then I'm like, okay, great.
00:49:48
Speaker
I know, I know everything I need to know about the scene. I'm a well-intentioned father. Uh, my daughter is embarrassed by me. I got to think of some things that are embarrassing that my character won't think are embarrassing. I think of like reasons to do embarrassing things and not, and, but also reasons for my character to think like, well, this won't embarrass you. This is a song I wrote and I think you'll appreciate it. You know, I know you like music, you know, um, that you just like have to think like, well, what are, what's in play here? And then.
00:50:17
Speaker
in a dream world, like the dream improv scene sort of for me is like, you very quickly figure out what the deal is. And then it's just like, oh, great. We just live in this world and play, you know, I definitely have that, like, um, like thinking about Birbiglia's movie, like, for instance, like the, the thing that I really related to in that movie was, um, the, uh, you have the character who just
00:50:44
Speaker
pursues this because they want to, and it's really almost like sabotaging their career goals. And you have the other character who's very concerned with getting on TV and having a successful comedy career. In my experience, you do have sometimes those things come into play. But for me, I've always leaned more toward the side of my improv life is a creative life that fuels me creatively. It also is like,
00:51:13
Speaker
to a certain extent, a social life. But it is also the thing that like, it's the only thing that's career-ist about it is that it's a great calling card. That it's like, I've had to do fewer auditions because of the fact that I can be seen and known as a UCB player. That there are shows like, there's like the TV search party that I have a small recurring role on. I never auditioned for that show. They just knew me from UCB and I didn't know them personally. They had UCB connections and
00:51:43
Speaker
They knew me from UCB and they were like, we want you for this part because there was no need to go through the song and dance. So like, come in here and read some sides. They're like, we know, you know how to read an act and we've seen you do this and we know what the part is and we know what you are. And, you know, that's a, you know, but that's as careerist as I sort of get with the improv aspect of my life, because I, with the exception of like projects that I personally want to develop that I want to create.
00:52:12
Speaker
that sometimes I'll use UCB as like a sandbox for those kinds of things. I came very perilously close to having my own TV show on a streaming platform a little over a year ago. And that came largely from like the work that I had done at UCB on a couple of different shows. It fell apart at the last minute because it was one of these things where you have people who work at a certain, people who work whose job it is to like develop programming. And they are like, hey, we want you to do this. I'm like, great.
00:52:42
Speaker
Let's figure out like, okay, while we're sorting out the legal, those people all get fired and new people come in and they're like, what's this? Like, oh, we were making a show and like, no, we're not. And that's part of the thing about not wanting to like give over my power to an industry where that's even possible, you know?
00:52:57
Speaker
Right. What was that moment like when you finally, when you broke through and became a member of UCB and
Age and Experience in Improv
00:53:05
Speaker
you're up there on that platform with essentially the same stage of a lot of your peers and heroes? It was very strange because one thing that was interesting was that my peers coming up through improv classes in the two years I was taking classes were mostly all a decade younger than me.
00:53:26
Speaker
and sometimes more. And then I was on Herald Night for about eight or nine months from January to beginning of September 2011. And then I got put on a group called The Stepfathers, which is the oldest team at the theater at this point. A lot of people that
00:53:48
Speaker
Or on that team that I look up to as if they are older than me are actually younger than me. They were just like, like Chris Gethard was my teacher. He's younger than me, but it's almost hard for me to perceive of that, that I've been around longer than him because his improv experience goes back so much further than mine. Cause he started relatively young. He started when he was like a kid almost. So he'd already been doing it for well over a decade.
00:54:13
Speaker
So there was like a weird, a weird adjustment of like figuring out like, what's my age? You know, like I started, when I started doing work on the Chris Gethard show, one of the first things I did was I did a campaign for president. Um, where my whole platform was that I was 35 years old because I was 35 by the time I started the bit. So my whole bit was that I was, I'm old enough to be president. And part of it was doing a bit just because I was like, that seemed to me like the funniest version of
00:54:40
Speaker
Cause I turned 36 a month into my campaign. So I spent a month campaigning about how 35 is the perfect age. And then I immediately had to hold a press conference apologizing for turning 36. And it was like this very like fun bit that ran for years on the show. But part of me thinks I did that in a way because I didn't want to like convince my, I was, part of me was worried that am I starting to think I'm 24, you know, like because everyone I was around was
00:55:06
Speaker
younger than me. Like it was I had some genuine age confusion by going into this art form a decade later than you're kind of supposed to, you know, or that most people do anyway. But so part of me was like my my peer group age wise at UCB, most of them have been doing improv a lot longer than I am. So I feel new even now after 10 years of doing improv.
00:55:31
Speaker
There's still that thing of like every now and then, you know, I've, I've been on stage with like Amy Poehler a couple of times. That's still not something that I'm used to. Like that's, I don't know. I think it would take a while for me to actually get used to that because, um, she's so nice and so easy to do it. She makes it. Even if I was bad at improv, she wouldn't make it easy to do improv because she's so good at it that like a good improviser can make a bad improviser feel like they're a great improviser. You know, they could, they just take care of you. I do a show at UCB called try.
00:55:59
Speaker
which is me and a couple of other seasoned improvisers, and we have a guest who's never done improv. And we do an hour of improv with them, and we talk about it during the show. It's like an hour of conversation that flits back and forth between talking and going into improv scenes.
00:56:16
Speaker
Our job is to take care of them. Like sometimes they're great at it, but like, even if they're not, our job is to make them feel so comfortable that it's just easy for them. You know, it's almost like how, you know, if you, if you have three people who know how to play their instruments and one person who doesn't, then you got to figure out like, well, what's, what's the way that we can make this sound good? You know, it was a very, it's still every now and then I still have an experience where like I improvised someone with someone that I haven't improvised with before. And it's suddenly like exciting.
00:56:44
Speaker
that it's like, oh, this is someone that I saw doing improv years ago, and now I'm doing a scene with them. And I love the sense of community you're talking about, too. It's tethered to what you're saying, but not directly. A lot of this is finding your people, but also, for you, it was just creatively nourishing to be able to have this outlet.
00:57:12
Speaker
that in and of itself has gotten you the work that you've gotten in the last 10 years. But that's great. Can you speak to just the communal nature of it and how that is a form of nourishment in and of itself? One thing I'll talk about first is just the fact that there's something about the audience is the first thing, which is that for a long time, the shows were all $5 and $10. Now it's sort of pushed up where there's
00:57:39
Speaker
I think there's still some free shows, but they're more like seven and 12 or seven and 14, depending on the night of the week and what the show is, you know, but that's still in, you know, if you're working a job in New York City, that's still on the affordable side of what you can do. It's like going to a movie, you know, in some cases is like some of your cases is like going to a morning movie, you know, and which to do something that is to go see something good in New York for seven dollars in the evening.
00:58:08
Speaker
is that's a hard thing to find these days. So that's one thing is you have this, you're nourished by the fact that you have an audience that can afford to come see you. And they're excited about, because I also think, you know, I sought to kill a Mockingbird recently on Broadway and those tickets are expensive and it changes the way you experience a thing. Cause it was great, but it's also like, this was like flying to another city, you know? Like this was, this was like an airline flight, you know, to, and it's over quickly, you know, it's a couple of hours and you're done.
00:58:38
Speaker
It just changes the way people laugh a lot harder at Broadway plays when a joke is made. And part of that is because
00:58:47
Speaker
They've spent so much money that when a joke happens, part of them is like, laugh. We paid hundreds of dollars for this joke. Yeah, the unit price on a laugh is a lot more, so you're going to get your money's worth. Yeah, and it's also true. You go to a stand-up comedy club and it has a two-drink minimum. Years ago, I went and saw a friend of mine do stand-up at Caroline's.
00:59:10
Speaker
I didn't realize it was going to be at the end of the evening. I was like, this costs me like $60 to see you stand upset because I remember I had to buy, I don't drink. I had to buy two hot chocolates and they were like $12 each or something. I was like, I don't want two hot chocolates, you know? And so there's that there's also, you know, like I'm on a team at the moment, the stepfathers is me and Shannon O'Neill and Alex Dixon. And honestly, like doing, doing these shows, the three of us, um, week after week,
00:59:39
Speaker
Um, I trust them. They make me laugh. I'm excited to see what they, what they do every, every time we step up for a show, I'm like, it's so exciting to see what they're going to do and be able to be a part of it and react to them and to, to make a thing with them. And it's also, you know, you know, most of the time it goes great. Sometimes it goes good every now and then it's, you know, I don't think the audience would necessarily notice.
01:00:06
Speaker
If we have a bad show, I think it would still feel like a pretty good show. We're at the level where we can make an okay show seem pretty good, but we might feel like, oh, I wish this had happened or I wish this had happened differently or whatever. But it's also like, you know, we, we do whatever we want, you know, like there's something that we don't have. There's nobody who comes to us after we have a show that's just so, so, and it's like, guys, we gotta, you know, as long as we keep the standard up overall, we can try things. You know, there's, there's, um,
01:00:35
Speaker
something very liberating about being able to be ambitious in ways that like, if you, if you're in, you know, I want to do things in film and television that are ambitious, but if you're ambitious with a film or a TV show and it fails, you know, people lose, lose their jobs. People hate you. There's like, there's like, you get, you know, excoriated in the press for like, this film is bad. Or, you know, it's great to be able to have so much time to be able to creatively try things to the point where I think,
01:01:04
Speaker
When I do get a show, which I think is a thing that could happen, I mean, maybe it never will, but also I don't care. But if I ever do get a show, I am much more prepared to succeed because of all the failing I've had the opportunity to do with people that I trust and people at a high level of skill on that stage, you know? Yeah.
01:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And when you were reading the, say the script for Don't Think Twice, and it kind of had that resonant feel for you, were you just reading it and being like, wow, this is so true. This really hits home for what it's like to be in this world. Mike and I became friends. He was doing these sort of improv shows at UCB in between doing his regular shows that he tours with. He would do improv shows at UCB sometimes.
01:01:54
Speaker
And I guess Chris Gethard was part of that show. And at one point he stopped doing improv. And so he gave Mike my name and was like, here's someone who'd be good in your improv shows. And so then when Mike started writing the script, he would invite a bunch of people over to his house, like once every couple of months to read over a new draft of the script. And I think the only thing most of the time, there was really one thing that I ever had a note on in the script, which was originally there was a plot line that had to do with, um,
01:02:23
Speaker
there's that producer who comes to them and says, like, you should be performing at a regular theater. You know, you should, you can make a lot of money if you did your improv shows at a proper, like, off-Broadway theater, because you have this built-in audience. And in the original script, that producer was a con artist who, like, took their money, and then, like, his, his, it was like something out of, like, the Spanish prisoner or something, where it was, like, you go back to the guy's office, and it's, it turns out the office was fake, and it's now, like, a laundromat or something, you know? Like, he put up fake walls and stuff.
01:02:53
Speaker
And my only note, I said to Mike, I said, you know, I said, you know what would actually happen? Like, I was like, this is fine as far as like, I've only ever seen this kind of thing happen in movies where like a grifter, you know, it's like the sting or something where it's like, you know, they play all these characters and do this long con. I'm like, nobody would do a long con on a bunch of improvisers, you know, like, not a particularly lucrative con. And I said, what would really happen? I said, the sad thing that would actually happen is
01:03:24
Speaker
This improv team that has a sold out show every weekend at this improv theater, if they took their show to a regular theater, they would struggle to get an audience because people are going to the theater. They're not just seeking out these performers. They're going because they know this theater has a brand of quality. And I said, cause I'd had a sketch show, a sketch team I was on at UCB called Stone Cold Fox. I was a member of, they were a long running team, but I was a member for their last few years.
01:03:51
Speaker
And we were doing shows at UCB like three Fridays a month that were sold out, completely sold out every time. And we did the Fringe Festival and we took one of our shows to the Fringe Festival and we promoted the hell out of it and we could not get single digit audience numbers. Like we, there were shows we did where there were more people in the cast than there were in the audience. And, and that's what ended up in Don't Think Twice. There's that scene, there's that sequence where there are
01:04:18
Speaker
they're dressed in tuxedos doing an improv show and there's almost no one there. And cause I'm like, that is like, improv is a weird scene. It's funny cause there are people who observe the improv community from the outside who really, and it's not the, this sounds almost, this sounds like it's one of those things about like improv being a cult, but there is one of those things where it doesn't work the same way that normal theater works. And part of that is because you have to have the freedom to like,
01:04:45
Speaker
If you went to seek to kill a Mockingbird and one night they didn't do it right, like the wrong things happened and it was bad, you'd have a riot on your hands. There's something about, um, there's a reason why TV and film tend to be scared of improv. You know, they, they, if you say something's improvised, they want to see scripts. They want to be able to give notes to it. They want to be able to have you do another pass on the script. They don't like the idea of a TV show that's improv based because then what do they give notes to?
01:05:14
Speaker
And it's a little bit that thing of like an improv theater, you know, going in that you're paying your $7 or your $14 or whatever that it's like tonight, maybe a bad show. I mean, it probably won't be, but there's always the chance, you know, it could happen. Yeah. In that paste article, I think I write about there was a show that is still when I think about where it was Bobby Moynihan, Zach Woods and Chris Gethard and
01:05:42
Speaker
They were doing an improv set in an indie show in a small theater under St. Mark's. Before they got to the show, Gethard had said to the people running the show, I will call the blackout, meaning I will say when our set is over, I'll say, thank you, that's our show. Instead of having the tech person black the show out when it was over, because often the tech will be the one who decides when the show ends and that has to be like delicately timed.
01:06:07
Speaker
And so they did like a great set for like 25 minutes. And then they did, someone did a line that felt like the perfect punchline to the set and there was no blackout. And then they did a little bit more and they did another line. There was another perfect ending, no blackout. And then they started like breaking, like three of the world's funniest improvisers started doing, they did about five minutes of the worst improv I've ever seen in my life. It was because they were like, why isn't this ending? Why is the blackout not coming? You know, they were done and.
01:06:37
Speaker
At one point, one of them died in a scene and no one reacted and they just started doing stuff and you could feel the audience getting sweaty. And I was just like grinning from ear to ear because I was like, Oh my God, you can be great at this and still be two seconds away from doing your worst show you've ever done. You know, like you, there's no guarantees in improv. Like you can be bad, even if you're great at it. Uh, and you can do a great show and not be good at it. I've seen people who aren't very good at improv.
01:07:07
Speaker
do a great show. And then their next show was terrible, you know, because it was a fluke. You know, they they they happened upon something and they they didn't know why and they couldn't get back to it. You know, I've seen I watched a set once that was improvisers who I later was coaching and I was like, oh, they're not very good. But they did a set that was I would have been proud to do that set. And then the next show they did, I was like, oh, here we are again. It was almost like Flowers for Algernon or something where it was like, oh, no, they
01:07:37
Speaker
It became improv geniuses for a night and then, then went back into, cause they didn't know what they'd done. It was like, it's like someone accidentally shooting the three point basket or something. It's just like, do it again. Oh, I can't. I don't know what I did. I just threw it and it landed there. You know?
01:07:52
Speaker
And in that article you wrote that I've seen people struggle as they watch their peers and friends become more successful. And I've seen people get bitter about it and burned out. And you go on, of course. But that, in a nutshell and in a sentence, really sums up what that movie's about and what so many people in the creative fields deal with. What's your experience with that and jealousy and looking over your shoulder?
01:08:16
Speaker
If you've experienced it great, it seems like you've found a great way of coping with it. Um, but other people, I'm sure you notice, uh, are get pretty, pretty down. I'm trying to think if there's an example of, of anyone that I've been really jealous of in recent years. And I can't honestly, I, it's not me being not, I'm not trying to pretend that I'm this great person, but it's more just that like, I, I think.
01:08:46
Speaker
Uh, I don't spend a lot of energy thinking about, I mean, the closest thing I, I really tried. That's another example of me really trying and the trying being the thing that, that, um, sabotages me. Like I really tried to get on the most recent season of arrested development. Like I pitched, I specifically visited, I went and made a trip to LA and I, I got someone to get me an appointment with the casting director to talk about myself.
01:09:13
Speaker
And I really was pitching myself hard to try to get on that season and it didn't happen. And I even said like, I'm there like, well, the problem is you're not local and this, you know, is it would have to be a local hire. I'm like, I will be a local hire. Like I will fly myself out. I will do it, you know? And, uh, and I think it's another thing where it's like, I'm trying to harden them. I'm just trying, didn't happen. And I know other people who, you know, had little parts in season four, season five or whatever of that. And.
01:09:39
Speaker
But I don't feel jealousy back because I'm just like, ah, it just didn't work. I tried too hard. You know, I think it's so, it's so poisonous to think in those terms. Like it's, it doesn't get you the thing. I don't find it to be a driving force when someone else gets something really good. Whether if I don't like them personally, then I'm like, uh, you know, I don't like them, but it really doesn't. And you know, you don't, you never like seeing, you never like seeing people you don't like do really well, but.
01:10:09
Speaker
That would be the only circumstance and it would have more to do with not liking the person than with their being jealous. You know, when I like someone, I'm just really happy to see like, I'm happy to see them pop up in a TV show or a movie, even if it's something we're like, Oh, that would have been fun to be in. Um, it really doesn't go far beyond that. You know, like I'm still, I'm even like grateful to be considered. Like I think one of the, my favorite shows, one of the, I think the best TV shows in that there is right now is the good place. And.
01:10:38
Speaker
I'm friends with Darcy Carden who plays Janet on that show and we were actually on a sketch team at UCB briefly before she moved out to LA and she texted me last year and said that
01:10:54
Speaker
she was going to recommend me for a part on that show. And then she found out that I was already like on their list being considered. And I didn't get the part. No one ever contacted me. I never auditioned or whatever, but I was just like, Oh cool. I can't believe they know my name. I was like, like, I wasn't like bitter. Like, why didn't they call me? I was like, wow. Like, you know, my assumption is that show will run however long it's going to run. And I will never be on it. And I will just watch it as a fan. But like my friend Brandon Scott Jones just showed up in the last two episodes this season. And to me it was like,
01:11:22
Speaker
such a thrill that it's like oh yeah because Brandon and Darcy used to do such funny stuff at UCB a few years back and it's so cool to see him on show and there's literally no part of me that would be like oh I wish I could have played that part you know like I think the only thing that the thing that I have that's maybe closest to that feeling because I genuinely I'm trying to think of any time that
01:11:47
Speaker
I get jealous of other like comedy people or actors. The closest thing I have that feeling is when I see a TV show or a movie that I don't like the TV show, when I see something I don't like, especially in comedy, my impulse is that I want to
Creative Response to Media
01:12:06
Speaker
I want to write something in response to that thing. Like if I see a show and I'm like, I wish that show were more like this, then my impulse is like, Oh, I would like to make a show that is more like what I wanted that show to be. You know what I mean? Like, right? It's almost, I still feel like it's a positive use of that energy, which is just like,
01:12:25
Speaker
If you, if you see a show or a movie, like I'll just use an example, even though I enjoyed, I could just, cause I think of a, I don't want to bad mouth anything, but I'm thinking of a thing that a lot of people had a negative opinion of, but like La La Land is a movie that like, I enjoyed it in the theater when I saw it. Um, but I know a lot of people really furious at that movie. You really hated that movie. And if I, if I hated La La Land, my creative impulse would be to try to come up with something that is like, well, what would I have preferred La La Land to be like, you know, like,
01:12:55
Speaker
Like I feel like that's a really healthy, creative thing, which is like, like people talk about like answer songs, like people would write answer songs. Like if, if, um, well, here's like a kind of a horrible example, but like, um, sweet home Alabama was the answer song to Neil Young's Southern man. Um, that he, Neil Young wrote Southern man, which was about, you know, racist white people in the South.
01:13:22
Speaker
And then they wrote the song in response to Neil Young's Sweet Home Alabama because they were mad. They felt he was like painting with too broad a brush or whatever. And I'm like, that's a horrible example because I would tend to side with Neil Young in that conversation. I think that the Confederate flag is the Nazi flag and people should take it down and they should take down all those statues. They lost the war. And that's what happens when you lose a war is you have to deal with it and grow up and squeezing a lot of political content into the end of this thing.
01:13:51
Speaker
just because like that's the only example I could think of an answer song which is like they didn't like that nearly young young song so they're like we're gonna write our own song and I think it's just like it's a healthier impulse creatively than stewing about it or or shit talking you know which is like put your money where your mouth is it's like
01:14:07
Speaker
Well, if you don't like that song or that movie or that TV show, write the show. Come up with the show that you want to exist.
Writing for Paste and Vulture
01:14:14
Speaker
You write this piece for Pace. What resonated so strongly about the movie that really made you want to sort of pick up the pen and write an essay about it? Honestly, because I have the little tiny part in that movie.
01:14:30
Speaker
And, uh, someone at paste asked me if I wanted to write something about it. Cause it was coming out on video and I hadn't really thought about it. And then I was like, Oh, actually I have a lot of things to say about this movie because, you know, it's one take on the world of improv and I have my own take on it. And I was like, I have some things I want to say about improv. And it's, I don't, like, I don't think I have enough to write a book about improv in my head. Maybe I do. I don't know. But like, I was like, I know I have enough to write a long form essay, like every now and then I have something where I feel strongly enough about
01:15:00
Speaker
Something that I, I think I've written three pieces for magazines over the past few years. I wrote that piece in paste. I wrote a sort of a goodbye journal to the Delclos Marathon ending its run in New York last year that was in Vulture.
Performance and Audience Respect
01:15:18
Speaker
And then for Rolling Stone recently, I reviewed every new Christmas album that I could, I reviewed 50 new Christmas albums in December.
01:15:27
Speaker
And everything I've written has been long, and everything that I've written has been that I get something in my head that I'm like, well, I just have thoughts about this. And you do improv long enough. You have a lot of thoughts and opinions. And I felt like I had a few interesting stories about it.
01:15:44
Speaker
I really kind of felt like, well, if you like Don't Think Twice, you might like reading this article that tells you a few things about the way that improv works and what it is and what it means. Because I also think, you know, on the one hand, the reason I'm never nervous doing improv really is because, you know, like what's the worst that can happen? This is not the end of the world. This is supposed to be fun. There's enough things to feel bad about in this world. I think if you do a bad improv show, I think you should feel bad because you made people watch a bad improv show.
01:16:13
Speaker
But there should be a limit to how bad you let yourself feel. You should save your bad feelings for truly bad things that either bad things you're going to do or bad things that are going to happen. Save your bad feelings for other things.
The Mystery and Thrill of Improv
01:16:25
Speaker
Having said that, I think it's worth taking seriously. If you, if you want to do improv, you, if you're going to get up in front of people and do improv, you owe those people, whether they've gotten in for free or whether they're paying five or seven or $14 or whatever.
01:16:40
Speaker
You owe them at least your effort. You owe them the best you can to try to do a good job. Like I take it seriously enough that I think I have some interesting things to say about it that I, most of which I put into the article, like by the end of the article, I was like, there, I've sort of said most of the things I have to say about it now. The, if someone asked me to write another article about improv, I probably have enough for maybe half that length because
01:17:09
Speaker
pretty simple to me, you know, like complicated things can happen in an improv show. But the nuts and bolts of it, I think, are pretty similar, no matter how you do improv, you know, there's some very good books written about improv, many of which I've read, some of which I haven't. And there's also an aspect of it that's just a complete mystery. You know, one of the things I think is interesting about improv is like, you know, like science and religion both end up at the same spot, you know, that like,
01:17:37
Speaker
you know, religion has all these like folk tales and rules and stories that are like, well, we think this is what happened and this is what happens. And then you're like, what, why? And they're like, well, we don't know or how, and we don't know. And science is like, well, we think this is what's happening in the universe. And then this is what, how it started. And they're like, yeah, but why and how? And then like, well, we don't know, you know? And there is an aspect of improv that will always remain like as mysterious as that thing with the I'm selling thermometers, which is like,
01:18:07
Speaker
I don't know what part of my brain figured out that that was the thing to do. And that still happens sometimes. I'm still in scene sometimes and something happens and I'm like, that was me but it wasn't me. I couldn't have planned ahead to do that. That you just, you learn, you build good habits but the terrain going forward
01:18:34
Speaker
should ideally still be unknown to you. Like I don't ever want to get to the point where I'm doing improv, where I have a bag of tricks that I know like, Oh, now we're doing the scene where I'm the doctor who's lazy. You know, um, I don't want to, I always want there to be a surprise to me. You know, otherwise, um, I think there are, there are people who do improv to a certain point and then they get tired of it. And I think it's because.
01:19:04
Speaker
You know, it loses the thrill. It loses the surprise. It's not a mystery to them anymore. And I think that's an important ingredient of it is you can, on the one hand, every improv class I learned had more actual practical, useful things that I learned than any acting class I ever took, because part of it is you're learning. That's like, you know, acting to a certain extent is just like.
01:19:28
Speaker
How does this character talk and then like pretending that you thought of these things then that you actually memorized earlier and pretend it's happening for the first time, you know? And that's it for me. Like that's it. That's acting. But improv is like, well, you step out, you listen to the other person, they say something and it's like, could be anything, you know, and be relaxed enough and confident enough to act like you're not completely lost, you know?
01:19:55
Speaker
that a lot of it is just a confidence game where you're selling to the audience. You're, you're, you're one of your number one jobs. If you're improvising is to make the audience not feel nervous for you because they won't be fun. If they're worried, like you're their kid in a school play and they're worried, you're going to forget your line as a tree or something, you know? So you're doing these scenes and you're just like acting like, yeah, this is a play that I've rehearsed a thousand times. We've been doing, you know, this is our, we've been running this show for three years, you know?
01:20:23
Speaker
And even though you're doing it for the first time, you'll never do it again. You probably won't even remember what you did a week later, you know, unless someone reminds you of it. Cause I, I immediately, my brain, you know, like when you study for a test real hard and then you take the test in your brain, you can feel it deleting the files. Right. Yep. Improv shows are kind of like that. Cause you just don't have the memory to hold that many things. So someone will come up to me like, Oh my God, I saw you in a show years ago where you were doing this and I'll immediately remember it, but I'll be like,
01:20:51
Speaker
Oh, I guess I moved that file to the trash, but I didn't empty the trash. Sometimes what it is like, but I wouldn't ever have remembered it without the person bringing it up. You know, sometimes they'll bring it up and you have, it's just like, Oh God, it's, it's actually scary when they bring it up. You're like, I don't remember that. That was a year ago. You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's the nature of the beast. Then that's the beauty of it. It's kind of like baseball. It's like, you have a bad game today. Well, there's another one tomorrow and you'll, there's another chance to be great.
01:21:18
Speaker
It also, it also helped me when I was during the period where I was doing improv shows all the time and I was still working, I was working at Barnes and Noble union square in downtown New York.
Balancing Work and Improv
01:21:28
Speaker
And, um, there was a period before I quit that job and gave into being an actor where I was already like doing stuff that would show up on TV or in a movie or, you know, I was already doing some like work.
01:21:42
Speaker
Where and or there would be people who would see me and ask at and then see me at the bookstore the next day and they'd be like, oh, my God, I just saw you in the show and kind of be awkward because like you would people would react as if it was almost like that thing of they see you in a show and you seem so like you're on top of the world and it's like and then they see you and you got like a V card of books that you're like struggling to get out of the elevator or something.
01:22:09
Speaker
And they react almost like that thing with who's the actor from the Cosby show who was in a Trader Joe's and it became this huge news story. Jeffrey Owens. Jeffrey Owens. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. People react like that. But I did notice when I was doing improv and working in the bookstore, like there was a guy who came into the store who started talking to me about how his wife had died not too
Social Skills and Comedic Instincts
01:22:35
Speaker
long. He was an older man and he was just
01:22:37
Speaker
regaling me with the, you know, sort of the hardship of his life in this book he was looking for because it reminded him of her. And I realized as I was listening to him that I was like, I might've been trying to get out of this conversation because it was uncomfortable a few years earlier. I might've been thinking like, oh no, I don't want to talk to this stranger about this painful thing. And I realized that I was just like, I was listening a lot better and I was like,
01:23:00
Speaker
I did not feel uncomfortable talking to him and asking him questions or saying something. Like I was like, I think this is because of the improv that like, it was actually making me, I had more social skills to deal with an unexpected and uncomfortable conversation that I was like, Oh, I just need to like put him at ease and make him feel like he's been heard. And then we can get out of this scene, you know, like, uh, and it was like, I think this is the improv training that like,
01:23:30
Speaker
I didn't just immediately be like, I don't want to do this. I was like, oh no, let me listen to this guy and figure out what's happening and what's the dynamic that's happening in this conversation. That's amazing. Just an amazing life skill that you're basically like, yes, anding, just a regular conversation instead of just cutting out of it before and being insensitive to it.
01:23:59
Speaker
Yeah. And it wasn't, you know, and that's not like, I wasn't like trying to make the conversation funny. And that's another thing. Like, like, I also, that initial lesson from the first improv class, I know like UCB is like a comedy theater and the goal is to make the shows funny, but, and some people work really hard at like coming up with comedic premises and initiating with comedic premises. And for me, I kind of feel like, and I, I feel like I, whenever I've coached improv, I coach this way that like,
01:24:26
Speaker
I think people who are funny are funny. And I don't think I learned to be funny at UCB.
Dramatic Improv Challenges
01:24:31
Speaker
I think UCB taught me how to do improv, to do long form improv on stage, and to do improv shows. And the funny part was already there. And the acting part was already there. What they taught me was how to sort of rewire my brain so I could write plays while I acted them, basically, in collaboration with other people, you know.
01:24:52
Speaker
My main concern is almost never to be funny in an improv show. I, I, I actively not worried about it. Like I actively, when I, I don't think I ever think about it, like in terms of like making an audience laugh, I'm more concerned with like where, what is happening in this scene and making it like, even if it was just, we do a dramatic scene, I bet I'll end up making it funny because it's, it's, even if we improvise, even if we tried to improvise something as serious as to kill a mockingbird.
01:25:20
Speaker
You know, it's almost impossible to do that because you're dressed in not the right clothes and everyone knows you didn't come here to do this. And, you know, like if you ended up improvising to Kill a Mockingbird, you'd probably end up with something that was more of a comedy, even if you try to do it dramatically, just because everybody knows what the deal is. Like we showed up here tonight and you guys had nothing.
01:25:42
Speaker
And even if you did a pitch perfect dramatic thing, there'd be some aspect of it. It's like, it's funny that you came up with the crucible tonight, you know, like, uh, cause I've done a show, uh, the past few Dell close marathons, I've done a show with Alex Dixon from the stepfathers where we actively tell the audience that we're not going to be funny. We're just going to be dramatic and we don't want people to laugh. And it's kind of a.
01:26:06
Speaker
a war against the audience in some ways to try to not, because they want to laugh. We've done a couple of sets that are so intensely dramatic that the second there's even a hint of something they can laugh at, the audience is so tense that they burst into laughter. And then you're like, damn it, I thought we could get through this. And then you punish them for it. You double down and you make them regret that laugh by making the next thing devastating.
01:26:34
Speaker
The I've done at least two of those shows where I have been like crying actual tears on stage, feet away from the audience because I'm so angry that they got we got a laugh that I'm like, I'm going to make you feel like that laugh is something you should be ashamed of.
Interview Conclusion and Gratitude
01:26:53
Speaker
Well, Connor, I want to be mindful of your time, of course. And this was such a pleasure to get to hear hear about you and how you go about the work and
01:27:02
Speaker
and just uh yeah and your wonderful essay which really touched on a lot of great themes that i think a lot of creative people you know whatever field they're in deal with so you know thanks for writing that thanks for all the the comedic work you do and chris gathard show you're in you got ucb and everywhere else you pop up it's always a pleasure to get to see you do your work oh thank you so much thank you for having me of course connor we'll be in touch
01:27:27
Speaker
And if anyone wants to follow me on Twitter, it's connoralifat, C-O-N-N-O-R-R-A-T-L-I-F-F. That's it. And I usually almost always ask people, where can you be found online? And there it is. So yeah. There it is. Fantastic. Awesome, Connor. Well, take good care, and we'll be in touch. All right. Thanks a lot. You got it, man.
01:27:46
Speaker
I like when I can get out of the way of a guest and just let him or her roll, you know what I mean? Thanks to Connor for coming on the show, that's at Connor Ratliff on Twitter. Maybe he'll come back because I have a billion more questions to ask him.
01:28:00
Speaker
Thanks also to our sponsor and Goucher College's MFA in Nonfiction. And thanks to you, kind listener. If you dig the show and you find value in it, please share across your social platforms, wherever, and even consider leaving a review on iTunes.
01:28:17
Speaker
Keep the conversation going, man. On Twitter. On that Brendan O'Mara and that CNF pod. And even on Facebook. Creative non-fiction podcasts. Let me know what's on your mind, man. Not everything, but, you know, keep it your main. Is that it? I think that's it. If you can't do interview. Nope. Nope. That's not gonna cut it. If you can't do... Interview. See ya! Much better. Much better. Thank you. Oh, thanks, producer.