ramble [Music] welcome to best friends back all right the show where two High School best friends try the best friend thing again I’m Stevie win Levine and I’m making homemadefad and today oh boy do I have a special guest for you all Nadine especially because you know what you’ve been bringing the guests and it’s my turn but before before all of that and no spoilers even though I’m sure the title includes his name I have heard that you’ve been doing some reading this morning that you need to tell me about so please I see a periodical in your hand it’s a physical it’s not even an online article please tell me it’s a physical magazine so I got my University’s alumni magazine I don’t know I don’t know how they have my every episode I gotta bring it up every episode you’ve got to bring Harvard up and here we are uh I’m sorry I literally did not say the name of the school I just said I went to one all right so if you have something you need to work through that’s your problem okay so I was in the back of the magazine and there’s a classified section okay and in this classified section there are dating profiles and I know that dating profiles like in print came before online dating I know that’s been around but it was fascinating to read like a four to five line dating profile that somebody has written you said this is the alumni magazine it’s the alumni magazine so people like from the Class of 65 75 like old people older people are writing in this you know this woman writes I enjoy humor enthusiasm and creativity artists psychotherapist female 60 seeking the company of a like-minded man okay and she puts her personal email address here right so these are sweet sweet things but they have their like actual email and contact aol.com yeah seriously yeah you got a lot of yahoos and aols here and this one I found particularly interesting okay so this person says they are a Cambridge Widow warm witty ageless passionate about the Arts and then she lists the kinds of Art and the kinds of artists that she enjoys which I thought that was a nice detail right I guess you can tell a lot about a person based on that she talks about her Heroes and then she says that she wants to meet a lively and interesting liberal man and puts an age range you want to guess what that age range is uh how old did you say she is Ageless oh she’s ageless yeah yeah yeah yeah thank you mystery guess she’s ageless right um I feel first of all this woman is sexy as [ ] and I don’t even know the artist that she’s into and so therefore I’m going Young on the age side if she is Ageless I’m guessing she’s maybe mid 60s and then she’s going for like Oh I wanna say like a 30s-ish to a seven oh I’m getting a head nod from our mystery guest mystery guest would you would you like to weigh in 35 to 70 was my guess I was gonna say 30 35 but I was like eh is that too old I don’t know well I’m I’m happy because you guys have something in common you’re both you’re both wrong okay she her age range is 75 to 95. wow can you believe the world we’re living in where somebody is putting out an ad for a 95 year old person so so it’s odd to cut it off at 95. you know at that point there’s not much range left like it should just say 75 and up and up but I think that I think she put the 95 because she’s like no really guys I will go that old yeah 75 plus you’re like give it five ten years but 95. man this is I really like this section I know why you went to the back I was looking into um I’m I’m going to visit my parents in Virginia and I was looking at ziplining companies because Cassie wanted to not because of me and um both of the like main companies age range said from three to one oh three you know it’s like a little like jokey joke um but I was like oh that means you could like literally just hang there as a sack of potatoes and be fine I think just a bag but uh yeah neither of the zipline company said anything about um artists that they enjoy so um damn thank you so much for for being able to read um no no reason to be nervous well I actually I am nervous today um because well let me introduce our guest and then I’ll say why I’m nervous but you know you’ve had you’ve had all these brilliant guests on all Harvard graduates and so I feel like you’ve been carrying the weight of the podcast and it’s and it’s I feel it on my shoulders and so it was like I need to invite a guest on and they need to be a Harvard graduate Our Guest is about to leave he’s about to leave well no I mean and it turns out it turns out that today’s guest is a Harvard graduate here he is and he’s been here the whole time Jason Siegel hey everybody hey happy to happy to meet you and see you yeah yeah yes um and I say that you’re technically a Harvard graduate because I went to Harvard Westlake High School yeah yeah there we go big time school that’s an intense high school it’s really really intense it’s like super driven towards what college you go to it’s almost singularly focused on that and when I graduated I like really [ ] up their matriculation rate because I was the first kid in a long time not to go to college and in my yeah and in my paper they they list where everyone’s going to college at the end of the year and next to mine they wrote I’m not making this up they wrote Jason Siegel School of Hard Knocks it yeah they like kicked my ass on the way out the door yeah exactly they’re like get used to this how did your parents feel about that they were fine you know it’s actually uh interesting that I’m coming on now because you you guys talk a lot about high school you know yeah um this right now we just did a like a weird living Memorial but my high school acting coach has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and so sorry yeah well thanks uh he really changed my life um but he just did a living Memorial on Sunday where everyone came and celebrated his life with him sitting there and it was hugely moving but that guy changed my life um so I was doing like secret shame acting I was a high school athlete and then I would say okay Jason I pulled up your Wikipedia page so I know like supposedly what your nickname was in high school uh that I don’t know if is true but uh doctor dunk doctor dude hey we have had a lot of expert doctor experts on that show so Dr junk welcome to the show Doctor okay so you were an athlete Dr Dunk but also secret acting about doctor you know remember the fair remember at the fair when you could embroider stuff with like a name on it you know you could like get a hat and it would write on it in cursive sure so the newspaper called me Dr Dunk because I had a particularly nice game or something or something and uh my Dad loved the nickname Dr Dunn so he went and got me this hat with Dr Duncan broider but because of his cursive and the guy wasn’t that good it looked like Dr Dirk yeah but anyway so yeah I was doing like shame acting at night yeah like were you was this like a another like theater group you were in were you like in your bedroom alone acting like what what happened at night that it was shame acting well it’s funny you say that like so this is a whole other thing but I like uh came of age right when Final Cut Pro got released on on the Mac and you could really make stuff at home but I had no acting friends because I was shame acting and uh but I had a bunch of Puppets I like loved puppets how are you visibly a puppet guy but like shamefully and acting I don’t understand that guy too he’s not telling anyone about that no the puppets are all secret too but so I started writing like little short plays and but I didn’t have my friends doing it so I would do them with the puppets and I would like learn to use the camera did you have voices for these yeah yeah I mean I would do them with no voice and then I would Loop the voices in after this is where the Dracula musical came from yeah from Forgetting Sarah Marshall but anyway so my shame acting at school was I would go by the theater and pick a play off the um like the bookshelf and then I would rehearse them and kind of like put them on in this little black box theater with my acting coach um like little small place yeah and um so one day he was like we should you’re good at this we should try something a little bit harder and he gave me this play called The Zoo Story by Edward Albee and uh so we rehearsed we rehearsed and we put it on and like a week later my parents sat me down and they said hey you got to decide if uh if you would like to be like a professional actor because Ted my acting Ted Walsh had secretly invited the president of Paramount Pictures to come yeah it’s some real La [ ] but to come to come to the play and he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want me to be nervous smart and uh and my life changed at that moment so like I kind of my my whole life is built on the like act of this one guy who’s now who’s now passing away wow wow that’s pretty cool were these one-man shows or did your acting coach make other people act with you people act with me yeah and someone at his memorial just told me they were super resentful because like I had Ted’s attention and everyone everyone wanted the light of Ted wall shined on them and they were like and then he brought in this athlete to come do plays and like we we would talk so much [ ] about you but yeah it was pretty it was pretty special I feel like I hate that I hate that guy yeah Dr Dirk I hate [ ] Dr Durst so then when you when you had your debut at school then everyone knew that you were an actor right so was there some Fallout with the basketball team or with other jocks at the school I think they were all fine you know like my my school was so weird everybody was it was great I mean there was so much opportunity but everybody was like you said just like super focused on academics there but the basketball team was fine they went on they won another state championship I won a state championship right before I quit but it was great no big deal no big so wait Nate nikkien how do you you know Harvard Wesley because the only reason yeah I know Harvard Westlake is because my cousin grew up in LA and she went to Archer School for Girls and I remember as a kid she would like she wouldn’t talk [ ] about the Harvard Westlake people but like I knew living in North Carolina that there were these private schools in LA and I kind of like had the vibe for things yeah and um I didn’t realize Jason that you went obviously until I I Googled it but I texted my cousin this morning without any context to ask her for the first time in like you know 20 plus years like how would you describe Harvard Westlake or Harvard Westlake kid expecting her to be like ah [ ] those guys you know um and she just said very type A that’s the very first thing she said was very type A which I feel like is a very like nice thing just I mean as a type 8 person it’s a very nice thing to say about someone but yeah that only comes with age though like you don’t call someone that’s right in high school exactly and because I was like well how would you describe them in high school because I was like let me like give me the dirt so I can quote something really good but um she didn’t give me any any dirt so yeah I can give you some dirt yeah so I went to college with people that went to Harvard Westlake they were all okay smart intense hard-working I don’t really have anything bad to say about them but I went to a high school Camp uh one year and there were Harvard Westlake kids there and they were the ones doing the sex and the dress they were doing sex they were doing sex yes I was like wow you can be academically gifted and sexually yeah wow so I mean obviously we’re going we want to dive into mostly your your high school experience Jason but for the people who who are listening for our friends who are listening that don’t that have no idea why here all of a sudden on the show um for some context you’re you’re a mythical beast at least to an extent I have the dolls I have the stuffed animals The Stuffed dolls of Rhett and Link yeah you’re you’re a mythical Society member um you slid into our DMS with um like a very cool message uh that I dug up particularly for this intro that um just said in all caps you and the guys are my favorite which I think is slick oh I think it’s like slick and cool and then I responded with something about that like I guess that day I had like a butt chugging bit in the show it didn’t go well which I don’t at this point don’t even remember what that was even though that was over a year ago but um so that’s the context of uh how we became text buddies and uh and why you even agreed to join us today yeah I think the show is very special if I can talk about it for a minute I’ll tell you why and by the show you mean good mythical morning but yes yeah and this as well this as well but yeah no I actually I mean I I told you I actually find the podcast very moving um yeah High School’s such a vulnerable time and also there were some episodes early on when you were talking about coming out that like I relate to I think everybody can relate to having some fear about who you fundamentally are is something that I just think is a very vulnerable uh it’s like a very vulnerable place to live I’ve had it I know everyone who I think is interesting has had that like yeah um what will people think if they get to see the insides of me yeah I mean acting is sort of like that on a daily basis like or writing to anything artistic you’re kind of saying like hey here’s the inside of me do you think it’s beautiful that’s a kind of a vulnerable vulnerable thing but um I think that the way we start our day each morning really impacts what life feels like you know I’m really conscious of it and um and the News was like really I mean we all went through it it was driving everybody insane it’s still driving people insane yeah uh I was making a show and I just needed to not feel that way and so I switched over to Mr Rogers in the morning and yeah and I would watch Mr Rogers every morning before going to do this thing and it like filled me with child like Wonder and then I ran out of Mr Rogers episodes Daniel Tiger Daniel Tiger by the way yeah I have a stuffed animal Daniel lion and so then I stumbled upon good mythical morning and it was the same feeling I would launch out into the I get up very early when I’m working because I like to show up awake and I would launch out into the world feeling like life is nice and good and playful and uh I think playful is a really big part of it like we’re supposed to be enjoying all this [ ] you know it’s really easy to forget that oh I’m now you’re gonna make me cry uh I really love that I also wonder if you Googled like what is on YouTube that is like Mr Rogers because honestly yeah maybe good mythical morning would pop up I think that’s like yeah it’s something that we honestly that we talk about all the time and yesterday even I was on a on a call and um I can’t remember what someone asked me but it was essentially like what like what would be the ideal future for mythical and I I was harping on how important it is to me that what you said like what is on the inside is reflected to the outside because that’s how we form our community so like how important it is for me to make sure that the mythical crew is the healthiest and happiest so that behind the scenes that’s what they’re pouring into the show and that’s what’s coming out on the other side and so I do think that’s like a lot of the magic that we have is that kind of transparency and authenticity between you know what’s off screen and what’s being projected on screen and how people feel about it so that means a lot I really appreciate you saying that and I I totally agree yeah well I mean it I think that one of the things like the misconception sorry you probably won’t talk about high school but I think one of the misconceptions that you have when you make stuff especially when you start to get successful is that you’re doing it that it’s it’s like you’re manifesting it from your brain but I don’t think that that’s the case I think that what you’re performing is like a sort of transmutation and what you’re putting in becomes what you put out I mean I’m not the first to say that but so you need to be as the maker also you need to be putting in stuff that feels similar to what you want to put out or at least in the same world that it can be it can be turned into that you know yeah that makes a lot of sense um which uh I think brings me to the next thing I Googled about you so when I Googled and I didn’t do a lot of Googling because we had a dating expert on who said don’t stalk whoever you’re dating before not this is a date but you know I just I didn’t want to like get too deep but I did think it was really funny when I Googled the Harvard Westlake thing I don’t know what it’s called but you know how Google has like that little like they have like a quick guide like top part that just like gives you like a partial answer situation yeah it said like it popped up Harvard Westlake and I guess it’s because like there’s a Wikipedia page or something and then the other thing that popped up was Hebrew school but like that as a like thing where there is a logo that obviously like some 12 year old kid has drawn that looks like a 90s like page out of a like notebook Journal that says Shalom and then it says Hebrew school and so I was thinking to myself like oh is this like a specific Hebrew school that he’s gone to but no it’s just like the general like Hebrew school Wikipedia page has this awesome [ ] hand drawn yeah uh logo going on um but yeah give us a little give us a little bit of Hebrew school because um I myself have some Hebrew school but I want to know like are we talking like an hour on the weekend situation did you were you like raised Jewish like what’s the yeah uh my friend always makes fun of me uh I have a friend who I’m super super close with and we talk about like what defined us you know how we became who we are and he always makes fun of me because I I believe that this like really created who I am so I have a Jewish father and a Christian mother and they made the um at the time what I think felt like a really um Progressive decision on their part uh we’re gonna let him decide his religion yeah so so the way they did that was to provide like sort of equal education so I was going to Christian school during the day St Matthews and then Hebrew school at night to healeth Israel and they were walking distance so I’d walk from Christian School to Jewish school and what a parent doesn’t realize is that that just makes you the Jewish kid at Christian School and the Christian kid a Jewish school yeah that’s that’s how that that’s how that goes down and so I would do that and it was fine because I’m like kind of a kind of an odd guy anyway and I didn’t I didn’t mind being The Outsider I kind of like adopted that identity it was that was that was cool with me but the Fateful moment where I think I became funny is the the prefect or not I forget his name A guy ran the Christian school and I turned 13 I invited everybody to my bar mitzvah you know oh yeah I love it yeah and so he took me aside and he said Jason everyone is very excited about your party but the kids don’t know what a bar mitzvah is so we were thinking at the all school assembly on Monday you could get up in front of the school and explain what a bar mitzvah is so then you cut to a little Jason sequel on Saturday [Laughter] truly in the movie a direct cut to getting punched in the face [Laughter] did you have did you have a Hebrew name because we’ve discussed yeah meat that was yours mine’s [ ] you’re like brothers and sisters with that name [ ] and shulami yeah yeah I also feel like there is a little Jim Henson with the name [ ] yeah for sure I also was really into stand-up comedy at the time I’m a bit older than you guys I’m 42 I don’t know how old you guys are but um I’ll leave it we’ll leave it okay no I’m just kidding no 34 or 35 yeah okay yeah so uh I was in the era of like stand-up comics we’re wearing like oversized suits you know oh yeah this Steve Harvey suit yeah yeah and so yeah to my bar mitzvah I wore this like oversized Talking Heads purple it was a purple sport coat and mustard pants Oh my god did you have any kind of um you remember when those were really good I was gonna say you remember those like Blazer liners were popular I don’t know what that is okay okay so my dad like inside of a place which I I have a very good bot Mitzvah photo of me on my phone that I don’t know what I’m saving for but my dad I remember for my bat mitzvah had I don’t remember like how how long this period of time lasted but there was like a craze with men’s Blazers where the inside uh not fabric but fabric there’s like you could you put like fun jokey Fabric in there so it’s like you know serious Blazer on the outside and then like Dad joke on the inside and I remember my dad like so [ ] stoked for like these Blazers that had like you know fun inside yeah so yeah yeah but they weren’t they weren’t purple or yellow you kind of wore the the fun on the outside would you say you got your sense of style from from the Christian side or the English side I mean honestly I definitely got it from the black stand-up comedians totally my wheelhouse yeah that was where I was focused at the time oh man I also like I I had a growth spurt really young so I was 6’4 since I was 12. my God whoa yeah is that how tall you are now yeah and okay yeah no thank you I think kids would stand around me in a circle at the Christian School and one by one they would jump on my back and the other kids would chance ride the oath ride it’s better than ride the Jew I guess yeah it’s pretty damn close they were saying let’s be honest oh my goodness um so at what point did you like make your or did you ever like make a decision yeah like you just went you we went to both and then kind of never landed with the you know I choose x uh situation or oh my gosh Jason looks like he’s still choosing well I mean it’s just like such a it’s a whole podcast conversation but I feel as though I feel as though it was actually in retrospect the most beneficial thing ever because everyone was sort of saying uh very very similar tenants and really similar ideals but there was some crazy fear about mentioning each other yeah go to school I’m like we’re not going to even talk about Jesus I’m learning a whole bunch about him over there it seems like please I thought you actually said that I did not know I did not um and the same thing at Christian School we didn’t talk very much about the the Old Testament you know I have a question question about Jesus yeah exactly [Music] Hello friends before we get into the rest of the episode we wanted to talk about our sponsor hellofresh I don’t know about you it’s it’s something about this time 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you just get into basketball because you were tall and they were like oh tall kid no older brother who I idolize oh you have siblings yeah I have an older brother and a younger sister both of whom are incredible but my older brother growing up uh I love I mean still I properly idolized and I wanted to be just like him and so I the shame acting started early um I I didn’t have many friends during that uh dual education period And so my parents enrolled me in this a place called the Santa Monica Playhouse which had this these classes for kids and when you’re learning acting at that age or enrolled it’s not because you like love acting you’re too young it’s because your parents don’t you don’t have any friends so it’s like it’s you and the smelly kid and like this you know you’re all in there trying to try to figure it all out but I I actually loved it but the whole time like I really wanted my brother’s attention and so I started playing I started playing basketball with Hannah and how much older he’s five years older and my sister’s five years younger yeah I’m right smack in the middle is he super tall like you are he’s like six he’s six two he’s a he’s a big big guy okay so you one is what you’re saying my brother’s way tougher than me yeah yeah okay you just mean like physically he’s I’m a gentle guy my brother is like a proper a disciplinarian yeah I don’t I just want I just want everyone to have a real nice time well that is the middle child in you I am also a middle child did you have to like negotiate deals amongst your family members yeah a little bit and I think just in in general parents learn so much after the first kid that I was left a little I was I was left more alone than I think my brother was and you know yeah and I was also like I’m a little Wednesday Adams you know like I can see that about you you just like you you just you just look like he’s got the killer in him he’s not the killer yeah like I love Dracula since I was a kid and things that were a little bit spooky and the kind of Tim Burton energy is like what I always it made me feel so alive when I was young like this is the kind of kid I was this will sum it up every year for my birthday I had my parents take me to Disneyland but I didn’t ride any of the rides I would pick one of the Lambs and then I would dress that way and then so I would like spend all day like patrolling frontierland and I was like going to the saloon and like order a Sarsaparilla and then they’d be like we got Coke and Sprite kid like please stop ordering you were a Super Fan I’m just like I like black police wait were were you um also scared of the rides or you just you just specifically only wanted to live in the world you were definitely tall enough yeah I remember being a little scared of Haunted Mansion I ran off of the elevator once when I was young um but I I think I liked more like the transformative kind of thing yeah yeah totally so so back to this brother of yours is was he like Mr popular was he just Mr Sports guy like how did you you you thought that like you in order to be like him you had to play basketball is that because he was specifically playing basketball and he was great at it or like what did you want to emulate about him that set you in that direction I think I wanted to spend time with him and he was big on uh I don’t know how much basketball culture you know but like he was really big on pickup games and so he would he had I know what a pickup game is yeah so he had different games yeah he had 10 games different parts of the city on different days and so we would yeah we would like on weekends we would go to them Saturday morning there was a game at the um this church down the way and then sometimes we would go to the park yeah yeah exactly but uh it was it was honestly it was like a way to it was a way to just roll around with my bro so when did you um start playing did you in middle school or it was probably like 11 12 years old and I was terrible at it and then I like slowly got better and then I could jump pretty high so I became Dr Dirk you know yeah did you have any like were you known in high school as the sports guy or did you have like a high school superlative that was given I was kind of emo I was kind of like yeah in an athletic kid’s body so I wanted to be yes I was like rolled with the basketball team but then I would like it was really pretentious honest to God I would like do painting during lunch like I would sit at a table and do a painting and then I would do a play and then I was pretty good at academics so I could you know I kind of drift I could drift pretty well between between the groups yeah okay this leads into the next theme like let’s talk about high school romance because that sounds hot I’m gonna say it like that but you but Harvard Harvard Westlake is broken up into boys school girls school or I was the first I was the first coed class yeah oh wow okay so what was going on there like if you if you go back to that time period I mean naked said all all the kids were having sex and doing drugs but like let’s talk about maybe like your friend group like were you dating in high school was that something that was happening yeah a little bit I was a year younger than everybody because I’d skipped a grade when I was younger so I was wow okay I’m sorry was athletic painting during lunch and also skipped a grade um but it was all it was all so self-aware though you know it wasn’t with the it wasn’t with the with the Casual kind of yeah yeah yeah I was one step away from like wearing a beret when I did the painting you know what I mean it was I knew it I knew what I was doing I hadn’t okay it wasn’t casual enough yet but um yeah so I was I was like a year younger which I think you could maybe feel a little bit like my braces stayed on one year one year longer than everybody I couldn’t drive I feel like driving is the big threshold into sex right yeah but yeah I dated a little bit um I was probably too emo there like talking about my feelings and all this stuff and I don’t think that’s what anyone was looking for at that age right you know is this a um a school dance type of school or was that not cool or there were school dances but there were more my Recollections there were more House Parties it was like it was a house party culture and also like you said it was kind of a fancy pants La school so they were very like nice houses and parents would go out of town and then there would there would be like some big party and uh it was a lot it really was a lot like those teen movies is my recollection of it yeah my favorite time period for movies which I’ve said before is 1999 to 2001. it’s a very short window but I feel like that’s when all the like great like 10 Things I Hate About You She’s All That like all that time period which I also I mean on your Wikipedia can’t hardly wait you can’t hardly wait is that your first my first month oh it was my second movie my first movie was uh a worse one called Dead Man On Campus a worse one yeah I can’t remember it was your first I I don’t think I’ve seen that one yeah yeah I was a little boy but uh then came can hardly wait yeah uh which I think is like a call favorite I love Can’t Hardly Wait For some reason I feel like they syndicated that movie on cable like every single day for years for a period of time and it was the only one where I when I actually had cable and I would turn on the TV if it was on I’d sit and I’d watch the rest of it because also like so many awesome cameos in there well I guess not cameos but like you know so many people in that movie who maybe it was their first thing or like they weren’t well known and then you know they became well known it’s it’s it’s honestly crazy like yeah tell us about that experience because it’s somewhat High School related sorry it is no of course uh I remember I played a character called watermelon guy I remember thinking I remember thinking about these nicknames yeah I was like she saw me the casting director Sami and Edward Albee’s the Zoo Story this seems like an odd next [Laughter] do you gotta start somewhere but I do remember uh both dead man on campus and Can’t Hardly Wait my parents still make fun of me because I called them from set and they’re like how how is it I was such a teenage boy I was like you’re not gonna believe it they’ve got for lunch your voice is so much deeper too I was like they’ve got they’ve got steak and chicken and vegetables and you can just go through and get as much as you want and you can like keep going back you only get an hour but you can like oh my God that is pretty exciting yeah well you came you came from humble beginnings so yeah yeah you didn’t have steak where you came from no no steak in Pacific Palisades I was in the right streets of the Palisades my senior year I had to miss because I was acting and the one thing that I do look at and was like oh this is this this was like a badass thing nothing was digital yet you know like the world was still analog and uh I got him I got a movie called SLC Punk and it was like my first cool I think I’ve seen yeah I think yeah what is it about it’s about the punk scene in Salt Lake City in 1985 it was like my first independent film and it felt like cool and I was doing some real acting in it but I was only um 17 years old so I went downtown I got a fake ID you’re like looking over your shoulders and someone’s gonna walk into your room yeah add all my fake books filled with jelly beans anyway I did that entire movie on a fake ID like yeah all my W-2 forms and everything and I felt really really cool did your parents drive you to the dance place no they didn’t that’s so cool it was pretty cool speaking of your parents they seem very Progressive like they gave you many opportunities to be like an independent thinker and I’m always curious if about parents and like how strict they are with with kids when you’re growing up so was what was your experience like with your parents were you ever sneaking out were you ever getting into trouble I wasn’t much of a troublemaker my parents really I have to say like I have the greatest parents everyone’s got their [ ] you know what I mean but my parents like really when I look back you know something interesting happens at some point you reach the age that your parents were when they had you yeah yeah and you’re you have a New Perspective like yeah oh they were just this age yeah yeah all of these things that I viewed like how could they have done that how could they have done that oh I almost blew up my face in the pizza oven last night like a mess you know you know what I mean yeah you reach the age where you see your parents as like a peer adult as yeah as people versus as you know just parents and it’s really weird or and or like because there’s been such a shift in like when people have kids like I think my mom had me when she was 28 which I was like later for the time period in North Carolina like that that is crazy to think about just like at you know at that age having having kids having life having kids to another yeah I can’t I cannot imagine it oh my God so much I’m still figuring out you know and so it I think if you’re a thoughtful person like freeze you of any resentments that you may be holding on to hope uh but my parents were really great they just want they really do just want us to be happy and they kind of encouraged us they provided any resource for any direction we wanted to go in my mom said something to me when I left to go do acting which at the time I thought was really cool and now I think maybe was a little bit much she said uh she said never forget the person you are in this world is a reflection of the job I did as a mother oh my God the pressure the pressure and listen you’ve never forgotten it I haven’t and I didn’t realize like oh that’s why I’m so feel so guilty all the time hey but listen she did a good job I mean so I appreciate it thank you Mrs Siegel for making sure he arrived on time today yeah we’ll shoot a little thank you note over there you know what let me tell you is let me give some uh props to my mom so let me tell you I feel like I am a product of a decision made by my mom uh like you said different era my mom uh was a secretary at my Dad’s Law Firm and they fell in love my dad my brother is my half brother so my dad had him from a previous marriage my mom started raising my brother at like 25 26 years old and my mom was a super interesting capable woman who applied those things to being a mom but there I think was probably some version of a whole other life that could have been left you know yeah that she never talked about resentfully or anything like that I mean it’s amazing what women do you know but when I was like maybe nine years old my mom showed me Harold and Mott when I was like uh you know a little younger even she had taped every episode of The Muppet Show and because it was no longer on the air and started showing me the Muppets because I think that she was like creating me in the image of what she didn’t get to be Anna uh and so my oh gosh I think the world is so interesting and full of mystery and wonder and beauty and and I think that my mom like incepted that in me yeah right so you are her favorite it sounds it could yeah it could be bad or it could be that like she’s like I don’t know there’s I need to entertain this kid somehow yeah I’m taping all this stuff it’s just a copy of Harold and mod that came with the house all that screen time Jason I don’t know we have so many um for some reason we have so many like new dads on the mythical crew right now and I found out recently that they are um and I mean I don’t want to get them in trouble but they have I I can’t even recall the name of the show but there’s like a cool kids series that is out and uh somehow yeah of course because we’re you know we live in LA one of them has like a behind the scenes connection to someone involved with the show so he has like the next season that’s not out yet like on a drive and so he is hooked up like the other dads in the office with the next season of this kid’s show and that’s like what they talk about is like the newest episode of whatever whatever the unreleased season yeah yeah which I think is pretty cool I mean if you’re going that far um you know for your kids to have uh this entertainment if you’re if you’re stealing you know media endorse it it’s not just kids this is getting older stuff man I used to have the craziest stories and now I will talk for like 20 minutes about a nice piece of salmon oh yeah we we were doing uh we did quizzes recently and one of the quizzes was like what’s your fun type and we went through all these questions and at the end we both got low-key fun and it was like you enjoy gardening and like you say things like what was that you say things like uh you don’t need to have a drink to have fun yeah yeah so we’re like up here 100 there yeah that’s this yeah now it’s pretty great though I like it I gotta say like I look back at my 20s even my high school years you know as I’m really glad that I experienced a lot of those things but I’m also really glad I made it through yeah you know glad to be on the other side well back to those House parties so you were you weren’t like you know so isolated with your puppets that you didn’t go to the house parties and like and drink because like Nikki and I were such such good kids that we you know we it was a dry period for us it was dry ice actually alcohol fear-based socializing oh yeah for sure we’re afraid to do any of these things but I guess we also were in an environment back in North Carolina where like that wasn’t like necessarily like the prevalent Social Scene by any means but given you know where you were and kind of how how Progressive your parents were I’m assuming that like you were exposed to that and participated in that at that age I was exposed to it but I didn’t participate I I didn’t get drunk until uh I remember the first time I got drunk it was on SLC Punk so I was like kind of out of high school I was still 17 years old underage I was underage in Salt Lake City how were you drinking there I was in a movie like you know they’ll sort you out they have steak they have chicken they have alcohol okay you [ ] up no so uh that was the first time I got drunk and then I didn’t smoke weed until a girlfriend when I was like 18 19 years old and then I went through a really long period of smoking a lot of weed that that is so shocking Jason that’s so unbelievable what the week yeah yeah there’s a period of Jason Siegel um when so I decided not to go to college to like do acting and then I did those three movies SLC Punk and then there was a period of about a year before Freaks and Geeks and during that period I was not going to college I was just living at my parents house and I would like to audition maybe once a week or something you know it’s like slow going so I would just uh I would just rollerblade up and down the Venice boardwalk smoking smoking pots smoking pot yeah all day all day like eight years when was the last time you rollerbladed when when did you because I the last time I rollerbladed was when I rollerbladed into the side of a hill because I couldn’t stop myself any longer and I was like I’m too old for this but that wouldn’t be awesome I was really good at it I could I could I could great calves yeah that was great uh but I do look at that period as what set up my audition for Freaks and Geeks because I was like properly I was a proper Stoner by the time I went in for that show foreign [Music] Geeks we should touch on it I mean just for a moment because that’s high school right it’s high school and also like I will admit to being you know moderate moderately obsessed with Freaks and Geeks for a period of my life I mean I I ha I’m honestly how could you not be like it was really like in in my opinion it was kind of like this perfect isolated season of like you know I think it was ahead of its time even though it was it was a a period piece um but how was your how has your experience as an actual teenager fairly new in the industry you know being put into that position also like I’m sure you’ve been asked a million times but like you know the whole you weren’t really a freak or a geek in real life but like I don’t know just humor me and and talk about that project because is it’s the best cool yeah well I think it’s interesting this thing you said about uh like perfectly encapsulated High School I feel as though that’s only for people who are feel a certain way about themselves because one of the reasons the show got canceled was the head of the network at the time was like this isn’t what high school feels like where’s all the victories this guy was like the captain of the fit football team yes right right so it’s interesting like some people are having a whole other experience of life you know yeah it’s like that line from As Good As It Gets when Jack Nicholson says uh some people are out having uh their stories or picnics and you know but no one in this car you know it’s like I I’ve always I’ve always wanted to be in in the car you know yes that it does my peeps but um yeah so I think that it was one of the most special experiences of my life because it was like real acting we were being called upon to make those scenes we took it upon ourselves like great you know they had to be funny they had to be really truthful they had to be honest all of us had this naivety of Youth like nobody knew that this stuff was hard or even impossible making a TV show we’re like and so uh the coolest thing about that experience was one like starting to find out that you’re good at something that you think you might be good at you know that’s like a great feeling yeah yeah the other thing that I remember which I’ve tried to do this day but I end up kind of having to do it by myself is every weekend me Seth and Franco would get together at my apartment and do the scripts we would rehearse them together just alone in our house so that when we went to film we were like [ ] ready and I just remember thinking like oh this is just like oh man we stumbled into the coolest life yeah you know yeah totally it all felt really really and also really special I I’m sure that there were things about it that were difficult but it sure doesn’t feel that way when I remember it I think you bring up a really good point that we talk about all the time over here is that like a lot of times if comedy doesn’t have heart to it then it feels very two-dimensional but this show did a great job of making sure that you know the kind of emotions of being a teenager and the awkwardness of being a teenager was in the Forefront and comedy kind of supported all of that and and yes it was very much about the acting about the writing about the directing there’s just something you know so awesome about a show where you can watch it and involve it’s not a it’s not a second screen type of show where you’re like you know on your on your phone swiping through social or whatever and and then you still have like the Laugh Out Loud moments and honestly it really does hold up it’s one of those like Comfort watch shows for me that I’ll just yeah you know oh cool flip two uh not flip two but put on what click on um yeah I don’t know if you want to know my other Comfort shows uh I do I actually I would she’s like the bear it’s really weird oh my God that’s one thing that I I I’m very conscious of now is like I like um which maybe to a horrible extent but I do like an Escapist show where you can really like you know go there versus a show that like gives me anxiety or like you know puts me in a bad place which there’s some really amazing shows out there that um you know like like dope sick for example that’s like you know so powerful but like I just find myself going like oh God like I’m I have all this stress in my day I can’t bring myself to you know yeah yeah so I find myself going back to some like like Gilmore Girls is a really big one yeah yeah it’s a great one I feel like the stuff that is starting to like cool me down has been finding like a reality show yeah that’s that’s calming and one of the best ones that I would recommend Is Love on the Spectrum yes I don’t know if you’ve seen it but it’s about I love love young people who are on the autism spectrum looking for love and I think it’s one of the most purest depictions of like what we all want as as humans which is love and acceptance yeah and and these individuals are like they just say exactly what it is that we feel yeah we put so many barriers up there’s no filter stuff there’s no filter I think it’s one of the most that’s my Mr Rogers oh I love that you know um something keeps popping in my mind since you said that thing about comedy that maybe there’s someone listening to the podcast who writes you know the best piece of advice I ever got from was from Judd Apatow um after Freaks and Geeks when we were first of all you said you’re a weird guy you’re only going to make it if you write your own material which was great great true advice yeah he sat me down and said that he was like listen I want to talk to you you’re a real you’re a real weird guy oh God that’s actually like such a [ ] compliment that’s awesome it is that’s really sweet but when I was when I was writing um Forgetting Sarah Marshall he said this thing to me that I think about all the time when I’m writing he said set out to write a drama you your brain is funny the way you see the world is funny I promise you it’s going to end up funny wow and if we need to add a if we need to add jokes at the end we’ll go through and do a joke pass but the way that you sustain somebody’s interest is if you write a drama every great comedy is a drama um and I think that that is really really true everything I’ve written ends up funny ends up having a funny point of view and then it’s true you can go through a joke pass like the easiest thing to do if you’re funny but um like finding some fundamental truths um being really vulnerable being willing to be a little bit scared about what you’re writing like are people gonna think this is dumb that’s um there’s that great David Bowie thing advice to artists have you guys ever seen it is this about pushing boundaries yeah if you just Google it anyone listening uh David Bowie advice to artists it’s like a minute and a half two minutes long but he says that whenever you’re um trying to do something uh special if you’re repeating yourself or doing something that you think people will like you’re not doing anything that’s going to be interesting but walk a little farther out into the water where your feet are no longer touching the ground and that’s when things start to get interesting I I mean that that jet advice is so it’s so straightforward and also means everything like that that’s amazing and I mean speaking of you know not doing what people are expecting or from you or or doing something for yourself I did think that um your show dispatches from elsewhere oh thanks you watched that I did I I um so we were texting about I don’t know how it came up but but there was a place in Greensboro where we grew up and again I don’t know if you asked for this but um on Elm Street downtown there was this uh kind of like artist Collective and it was this old almost like fabric store or junk shop that was a few stories in this this older building on Elm Street and the woman who owned it and this was like just packed to the gills with anything and everything and the woman who owned it passed it down to her grandchild and he stopped you know selling things out of this junk store and said turned it into this artist Collective so they went in and they with everything that was there they kind of organized it and made art and made made this like living space that you could be in and in high school art school boy and I would go and hang out there after school and they had all these old toys and like the people living there were just so [ ] weird and we would play like you know the like cheap laser tag through all the fabric and like you know I remember that was that was one of the first times I think I’d ever like sipped a beer we went onto the roof with all the artists and then you know we had this amazing night one night where we went there really late and we didn’t know if anyone was going to be there and it wasn’t a it wasn’t a public place to go but we knew like okay there’s like [ ] up artists living in here that will hang out with us and um they we knocked on the door and they let us in and um we went and sat on the floor in one of the rooms and they were putting on a show like for no one they were just putting on a show for them and I just remember remember being like holy [ ] like this is so weird Like This Is My Jam this is so weird yeah and then when Jason and I were texting you were kind of talking about this world and I was like God this really reminds me of Elsewhere in Greensboro and then you’re like the show’s called dispatches from elsewhere and I was like holy [ ] like what are the chances just a coincidence because the world in that show you know at least the the the part that resembles more of Elsewhere in Greensboro it really does like it really looks like that place yeah and dispatches from elsewhere is the show that I found good mythical morning during that’s I was I was wake I was waking up each morning um trying to feel crazy a little mischievous you know Deepak Chopra said this thing once that the biggest uh Injustice we can do to ourselves are is putting the words just uh in front of coincidence uh-huh yeah yeah that was find we find a way not to want to believe like in the synchronicity yes yes are you an artist’s way guys you get you gave me goosebumps yeah it is so weird it is so weird um I’m I am familiar with artists way but I never got into it I don’t think I have quite the discipline that um that’s where you wake up and do the writing and all of that yeah Julia Cameron’s book it’s like for anyone that wants to get tap into their more creative side you don’t have to be a writer to do it but one of the parts of it is you wake up every morning and you Journal three pages yeah no matter how long it takes and when I was able to do it it was man I felt like on top of the world just because I had committed yes to sing and good stuff comes by page two only something good came by page two yeah I really wish I had the discipline for that I have a secret which is that I hate writing it’s something that I uh am good at and that uh is a very like one of the most important relationships I have in my life is to writing and I was just like when I think of an idea I try so hard not to write it and then it keeps nagging at me and then I’m like God damn it God damn it now I have to write this [ ] idea because it is anyone who does it knows it is such an exercise in self-loathing you’re like it’s just you versus the page and so you’re battling procrastination and then you’re also battling that um sometimes I talk to kids about writing and I tell them like before you rewrite anything get to the end don’t look back on anything you’ve written until you get to the end because you’re gonna [ ] hate it like yes it’s just so bad the first draft and that’s okay but man oh yeah the process I guess of like there’s so many drafts that you you go through to rip apart what you’ve just like poured out onto the page so not only do you hate it at the end then you like rip it apart so much you’re like I don’t remember what it was at the beginning but I also kind of hate this as well but yes totally you finish it something at night and you’re like oh God okay can you read it in the morning you’re like you [ ] you piece of [ ] yeah do you share are you protective about sharing your writing for that reason like you want to make sure you don’t add to the haters no I get I get to the end I get to the end and I let myself feel real proud that I wrote the end because I think that there is a lot of people La is full of it in coffee shops with a half finished screenplay and that screenplay will be half finished for their entire life you know like getting to the end is such a big accomplishment um and so I try to let myself feel proud of that and then like I it’s a little like uh like a run or something like that where you learn turn like oh there’s gonna be a part where I don’t want to do it anymore and then I will bust through that and it’ll be fine that’s sort of what I’ve learned I have faith that then I’ll go through it a few times it’ll end up being pretty good and can always throw it away the part of the run for me is um in the beginning before I start yeah starting yeah I know I know I’m so glad this is um audio because I can make exercise little do we know you’re like standing at a treadmill desk in your jumpsuit or something right speaking of run we’ve taken up so much of your time I really really appreciate you coming on the show and Dr Dunk this was great Dr Dirk in the house how is is compared to all these all these Harvard uh highfalutin bigwigs oh that’s what we talk about after you leave so you’ll have to listen uh to the show to to find out okay it’s fine you won’t have to hear it all right perfect uh okay thanks Jason this is such a treat thank you soon thanks guys man that was so fun and nice and um it was the first time that I’ve talked and not texted uh with Jason for a whole year and it was even better right it was even you know what I’m gonna FaceTime him from now on I hate do you have anyone in your life that surprise like not surprised but like they’ll give you a FaceTime call like as the first thing there’s no yeah that’s me I do that do you I love doing that I love doing that you don’t have to pick up you can text back I do that because I’m in the mood to see them and I’m like I’m thinking of you and I just feel like seeing your face yeah but I feel like I look disgusting like 98 of the time you don’t you look beautiful 99 of the time and you’re just you need to work through that self-shame girl do you have cameras how are you seeing me Logan helps me out you know oh man speaking uh oh God I cannot stand my transitions we anyway awkward moment I I okay so I guess I’ll be keeping that in I um wanted to share an awkward moment that didn’t happen recently but it’s an awkward moment that is stuck work in my mind and I think it’s something that other people may have experienced and it has to do with the workplace so a few years ago I was working at this University and we were in a really intense period uh where we were making admissions decisions about the students that were that were applying and when we’re in that season it’s like you’re working all week all weekend nights it’s it’s constant and my boss was traveling at the time and so we were doing a lot of the stuff by phone and we were talking talking talking okay so and so I’ll get that to you tomorrow send this other thing to me bye love you I knew it was coming I knew it was kind of I said I said love you like I would say love you to my husband I said love you like I would say to my mother like I hung up and you hung up after you said love so there was no there was no period of time for him her no no because it’s like the him it was like love you bye ding like that’s the that’s the tempo love you love you bye love you die bye love you Dad and I hung up and I thought to myself like oh okay you caught it immediately yeah as soon as I said it as I was clicking off I was like I I said love you but you didn’t catch it soon enough to make a joke about it or something because you because you would right is that is that a relationship that you had with your boss at the time like you’re like is this a relationship where you could have loved him no no is it a relationship where you could have joked like is it a relationship you would have said love you and then been like oh my God that’s so awkward I can’t believe I said could have could have this person had and has a really good sense of humor but it was just we were it was like the lack of sleep I wasn’t in a jokey mood we were in a like problem solving yeah [ ] done mood and as I hung up I was like well that was [ __ ] weird like yeah I’ve clearly been on the phone too long so I didn’t end up saying anything to him we didn’t talk about it but I did contemplate like hmm I wonder if I should say something like uh next time I talk to you like no I I don’t love you or or like oh that’s so weird I feel like he would have assumed that it was a mistake about it you never talked about it no the choice you made yeah we never talked about it it’s just like hmm I didn’t I think maybe that was the more Awkward Choice out of it not the experience but the but the choice not to talk about it afterwards so you would talk about it though I think I would have to but if let’s say you hung up the phone let’s say like yeah it wasn’t you didn’t have that second I would um I think I would text I would text something like I just wanted to make you make sure you heard that I love you you know I’m just like double down on it you know I really want to make sure that there’s um there’s like evidence what I’ve heard more often is like uh towards me that I feel like is pretty telling about like people’s relationships with other people like if you accidentally call me your wife’s name or you call me oh yeah mom um this is all it’s all coming from men interesting tend to analyze like I don’t know what that means have you heard this thing um about I mean this is a gross generalization but men basically see women in two different ways their mother or someone they can sleep with those are the two categories and so you gotta quickly put yourself in the maternal or the sexual I will put myself in the no and the No but yeah it is it is like especially the mom one is an interesting it’s interesting because there’s a lot of people who like called accidentally called their teachers moms growing up which which you know which kind of makes sense totally to a great extent but yeah I don’t think I’ve hi I’m hard-pressed to think if I’ve been and I love you that’s okay but you gave good advice it’s text it’s something right yeah address it it’s obviously you are obviously tired it’s like something that you know you say often when you’re hanging up the phone um and also the other thing that did nice is that like you felt comfortable enough with this person to have that sign off because I I actually think that it does say it I don’t know I don’t know if that’s what that meant oh you did it no the love you was not real no I know I’m not saying that you actually loved them I’m just saying that like you weren’t on like such high alert that like you wouldn’t have said that so I actually think that it’s nice because it shows like okay you had you actually had a relationship with this person for sure um and so yeah but I I my advice would be to like say something after the fact and not just like leave it to linger because you know maybe they would be offended no this guy’s like a dad like he was like more like a little figure age you don’t think he hung up the phone and like turned to whoever he was with and was like she said I love you yeah yeah for sure made fun of me yeah he for sure made fun of you so I my advice is to make fun of yourself before but if you are comfortable with not not talking about it then you go girl I mean don’t you think he could be offended though if I texted back and I was like I don’t actually love you he’d be like oh no no I didn’t say to text that I said a text I want to make sure you heard by the way I have been nursing three drinks nursing I’ve got a green smoothie I’ve got a water and I’ve got an iced coffee and let me tell you it’s time to close this baby down I gotta go to the bathroom all right well thanks for listening to this week’s episode of best friends back all right you can catch brand new episodes every Friday make sure to follow so you don’t miss an episode if you’re enjoying the podcast leave us a review you can follow at mythical pods on Tick Tock for Clips to share with family and friends you can follow me everywhere at negin and Stevie everywhere at Stevie W Levine and of course you can hear me every Monday through Friday on Good Mythical Morning with Rhett and Link at youtube.com good mythical morning I’ll see you there Hello friends if we don’t talk enough about sex on this show do I have some news for you because ear biscuits with Rhett and Link is bringing back sex Timber again this year that’s right a whole month filled with Rhett and Link talking about sex two sex experts two mythical beasts to have sex questions last year they talked to 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