Warning. This recording contains discussions of eating disorders, body image, and potentially triggering topics related to food and mental health. These subjects may be sensitive for some listeners.
Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte?
Hi?
Everyone, welcome to Are You a Charlotte? Today. We have a very fascinating guest in Catching Up with Friends. His name is Jacob Pitts and he plays the other Sam Jones in episode seventeen of season three, What Goes Around Comes Around. He is the young NYU student that Samantha Jones ends up having sex with. I'm sure you all remember him because he was incredible, which is partly why we wanted to track him down and talk to him. And he does not disappoint you, guys. He's super fascinating.
He's gone on to have a really great career. He was in the Pacific on HBO. He was Unjustified with Timothy olliphent While Goggins, which I totally forgot to talk to him about because he was so incredibly interesting. All right, please enjoy my conversation with Jacob Pitts. Hello, Hi, thank you for joining us. Jacob Pitts very exciting. We really really wanted you on. You did, yes, yes, because you play a very unusual and interesting character, your young self.
So take me back. So, first of all, I'm pretty sure this is We just watched this episode, so you we were like, who is that kid? He's amazing playing the other Sam Jones, And you look like you might be seventeen or something. You look so young. So tell us, tell us.
Well, I was interesting, you say, a very unusual character. I think I was very unusual at that point in my life.
In a good way, not always. Okay, okay, tell us more, tell us more, Well, I.
Think I was about twenty going on twelve, and yeah, I think I was not to start out really dark, but I believe I was in the throes of some kind of anorexia.
Oh no, yeah, yeah, oh no.
I'd done a Broadway play and I saw some photo of myself that I saw recently again in the last couple of years, and I thought I looked chunky I saw the last couple of years. Of course, I saw him like, I don't want Chunky at all, And I got obsessed with doing unendurable things like running seven miles a day and only buying products that had zero fat in it. Oh yeah, I could go on. There's some stuff that I've once described to a friend of mine.
He said that sounds like psychosis. So oh no, it was perfect for the part at the time.
I mean, fully perfect for the part. But separate from that, I think it's so interesting to hear from an actor talking about it because we're all human, right, and we're in this really weird situation where our visual selves are a huge part of what we're doing, like what our job is, what we love, what we're committed to. I mean, did you feel like that was part of it? That you took that picture?
The odd thing is that's not the sort of thing I worried about at all, Like it wasn't like it was that I can remember, uh huh. It just I saw that in the picture, and then I became obsessed with that. I go from obsession to obsession throughout my life.
Fair enough, fair enough, I feel similar to that. Yes, yes, And it's all about moderating the obsession, right.
We're finding a less terrifying one.
So absolutely absolutely. I mean I'm sober. I'm a long time sober, and I started at eleven. Thank you so much. I started drinking out eleven correct, Yes, I know, insane, right insane. But what it was a screwdriver, you know, orange juice and vodka. And I was in some ways able to do that because I was in the theater and in a very not professional way in South Carolina, and so I was always around adults. You know, I'm
very old. So it was the seventies and there was not a lot of like supervision in a weird way, you know what I mean. So if you had that like you know, genetic leaning or whatever it might be. Yeah, then and I had read recently with anorexia that they're looking at there's a set of genes that they're looking at as being part of what might make you prone to that, which I think is super interesting.
Well, I've never had ever since I forget what it was that. I think it was the run, the long distance running, and I justified to myself I could eat anything I wanted at that point. But I I've never had about or worry about other than being just a vain actor type. But I've never had a you know, worry about that otherwise.
Interesting. So it just you saw this picture and then you became obsessed.
I was obsessed for a better part of a year.
I would say, wow, and our show came in the middle of that.
Yeah, and yeah, I was I was only allowing myself to eat once my stomach was ravenous. Just some terrible yo play and peaches or something like that. Wow.
So that manic energy that you have and the part that was that was real wow. So okay, before we discussed the part so more, how did you get out of this phase? Like what happened to get you out of there?
I think it was that I think, well it was the wrong long distance running right then decided I could eat anything I want, And then I think I just found my way to marijuana.
Okay, that's less, that's probably less dangerous, right.
Well no, because then delusions of its own.
Oh oh my god. Well, can I say, first of all, you seem super young, like like even I mean, your your energetics are so perfect for the part, because you look really young and you're thin, which I think kind of makes you look younger in a way, you know what I'm saying, Like like boyish, very very yish.
The boy undeveloped body kind.
Of thing, definitely, definitely. And then where like.
A regular old twin.
Why how did you come to audition for our part for our show?
I don't know. They just sent me there.
So you're acting at this point like full aid this you're living in New York.
Yeah, I was living in New York. Oh man, I don't know how much of this I want to reveal.
You don't have to reveal anything you don't want to. You're already fascinating.
Okay, Well, you know it was interesting watching the episode was that I've seen it three times now, okay, And the second time I watched it, I was too connected to that that kid, so I kind of watched it, sure, And the third this time, though, it was just it was that first feeling I've ever had of that's that's just a totally different person. It's not even wow, you know you've had that feeling, sure, yes, and so it
was kind of a relief in that sense. But I thought, oh, this poor kid, because I remember all the dellusions he had and the crazy you know, uh yeah, friendless.
Oh no, oh yeah, oh no, that's so sad.
Few years before I got a real friends really good for that part, I was a real weirdo.
I mean, you were perfect, perfect casting I'm sorry that I didn't see you, and I hope that somebody in our world was kind to you.
You're not sorry you didn't see I know they were great. I was actually thinking about everyone was fine. Who I met? I God, I watched that and I thought that is I was running on pure instinct at that point. I had moved to New York about a year and a half earlier, and I started with just the most terrible acting school you could possibly, like, the most discouraging. I don't want to do any more acting classes after this school.
It was just, you know, they broke it up into things like we actually had a course called the history of sitcoms. Oh yeah, really kind of sketchy stuff that I'm like, do we need to be studying this?
Odd?
I remember we had a scene study class with there were a sister and brother in the class. Okay, it pretty much cycled through all the partner ups you could, and at the end this sister and brother were partnered in a scene as lovers. No, yeah, that's how bad it was.
That's not good.
And so I didn't have and I don't know what it was. I couldn't No one could talk to me. I don't think I had that. I've since found out a bunch of my friends of the same age and kind of experience had the same experience where we would somehow. I think it was that I was looking to get into the business post Titanic, and they saw me as any kind of DiCaprio esque wow kid who could yell a sentence or two with eviction. It just picked him up and said, let's see which was.
You know, that's amazing. I love that because I also I do feel like that's a big thing, right, Like someone hits so big like Leo did when he was really like his breakout whatever, and everyone's like, where's someone like him? But you know, good for you that you were in there, and I mean sad that you were in a scary acting class, but obviously you persevered. You've worked tons since then, and we got you like, like, what first acting job, second acting job, third, Okay, yeah,
so you were really doing pretty well. I mean that's pretty good for that age, don't you think, Oh yeah, I was fantastic.
I have no I had no appreciation of work.
I mean, I don't think you do when you're young. But also you had a lot going on, so maybe you weren't really like, you know, grounded thinking about it right, Definitely.
Not interesting thing about it is I, you know, James Dean was an idol of mine, and I only knew what I'd retained from some weird biographies. There was actually a Robert Altman documentary about him and Black and was one of the earliest things Robert Altman ever did.
Wow.
But I just remembered stories about him pulling a switchblade on directors and being unpredictable and real. Oh no, cass And I didn't. This acting class didn't give me any thing I didn't have. I didn't. I didn't grasp a single thing. Wow. If they had anything to teach me, and maybe if you could teach me anything, I couldn't hear it because I was such a sheltered, delusional kid. I needed to be this great James Dean genius. Wow. No one could hand, no one could direct, no one
could handle. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy delusion.
I mean it's fascinating.
And there was a scene in the in the the party scene in this episode when uh, Samantha and Carrey first come up to me and I put a solo cup almost on a plastic inflatable cactus. Yeah, And at the time, I wanted to do the idea of just letting it go onto the cactus and spill out everywhere and do everything. And but I didn't know. I didn't have the experience where I could go go to the director, go to the cast, see if they want to do that, right, it's just in my head be like, no, it's got
to be surprised. They can't know. Wow.
Wow.
And I didn't have the balls to go through with it because I didn't want to ruin this.
That's probably good, that's probably good.
Yeah, But it was that kind of mentality interesting.
So but I love the I love the kind of naive ambition of it all, you know, because sometimes I feel like young actors are just trying to play it safe, you know what I'm saying, Like, especially maybe nowadays, where like I'm always pushing people who are younger to try to like step out, like try something, you know.
I really think they're playing it safe these days.
Are some that I know, some that I know I don't want to I don't want to call anyone out here on the podcast, but I feel like it might be somehow related to social media. I don't know if that's true or not, but.
Like I'm sure it's true.
Right, like some kind of perception that they have about how they should just be like kind of flat and natural all the time.
No, I don't know, you're you're you're jet No, yeah.
I mean I'm ancient. Is really so you have?
But you had the thing where I don't know, I grew up. This is the thing I've observed that I grew up on various cartoons and sitcoms where they always had a moral or a lesson at the end of the episode. Yeah, and they all had the one where you know what was the one Carlton got in trouble this week because he wanted to be cool for Will's friends from Philadelphia. Yes, yes, what he learned was that you shouldn't care what other people think and that you should just be yourself.
But that's great. I think that's great.
But did these kids grow up with any of that.
I don't think they did.
You ever got that special episode?
It doesn't seem like it. It doesn't seem like it. I mean. The interesting thing is I think also it's weird to be a young person acting right, so like you might have maybe a lot of supervision because people don't want to, you know, the safety. People are worried
about safety. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I do know that that there's a bunch of young people that I was like, you know, act you know what I'm saying, like go, whereas like for us, we were all looking at the Nero and Meryl Streep and you know, like actors, like real actors, where we wanted to be super like serious and risky and you know,
emotional and all of those things. And I don't know if that's what they are looking at now as being there kind of their idols, you know what I'm saying. And like for me, everything that you're saying separate from the fact that you were in a very dark place, which I feel really bad.
I know it.
I didn't know, like god, like I got it.
I wouldn't have known it if you told.
Me, wow, wow, amazing. But like for me, I think that's partly why I really wanted to talk to you, is that here you are so young and our show, and our show at this point third season is pretty big, like it's pretty successful. I don't know if you were aware of that. No, amazing because you're just so bold in the part. I mean it's written as bold obviously, like you play Sam Jones. You know, Samantha Jones gets these phone calls just in case anyone has it watched
it this week or whatever. And your friends start calling our Samantha saying, you know, we're coming to your party, and she's like, what party is this? And who's this other Sam Jones? And how come I haven't met him? And oh, he has an address that's near Washington Square Park. He must be rich. But of course you're in a
dorm at NYU. It's also hysterical. So she and Carrie end up at your party with a bunch of young people, college age kids, and then she eventually you basically say something to the effect of you know, I must be the wrong Sam Jones because I'm still a virgin, like you just blurred out to her at the party, which is adorable, and she's like, oh, and then she did
she leaves, thank god, because I was nervous. I was like, no, Sam, don't do it, because I don't remember a lot of things when I look back, right like certainly other people's storylines, I don't remember what's going to happen. But then she does relent and I can't remember right now why she lens even though I just watched it, but she goes.
I'm pretty forcable. I kind of forced myself.
You do. You're like you have a lot, You're very persuasive, definitely a lot of energy, and also like you seem just very sure of yourself. You know, like, even just watching you as an actor, I thought that young actor is very sure of himself. Like, wow, I'm so impressed. And then you guys have very athletic sex, and you're very very funny, and the sex very very funny. Your faces and everything is very entertaining. And then you tell.
Her you love her like a little puppy dog like it's so sweet at the end, and then she's like bye bye, and then you go like down in a dark, dark freak out, which is also so adorable because normally that's what you see women doing, right, and.
You're like Samantha at the door of Sam Jones. Sam Jones, So, I have so many questions. Number one, do you remember anything filming it in particular, other than that you had a theory that you were going to put the drink all over everyone.
I remember very little. What I do remember is well, there were only two days.
I think, yeah, but you packed a lot in.
I remember Alan Colter giving direction.
Yeah.
I don't know if this is your experience, but anytime he had something for.
Me, he was like, definitely, definitely that thing.
And then I remember it was my first experience with the modesty pouch. Yes, And they gave me two options, the skin colored thong and the tarzan g string. Yes, and they say which do you want. I remember going, whoaoa whoa. I thought this was HBO, want to see what happens?
Oh Jesus, yeah.
Exact delusional and I thought I was and Kim and Kim Cattrall is like, no, but this is Kim Cotrell and I was like, okay, So I took the Tarzan.
Thing, Okay, okay.
Do you remember why you have the accent that you have because you're from Connecticut? Correct?
Correct? Yes?
Oh?
So what happened?
Well, I think I could be wrong. I think there was something, and I think it was in the audition scene as well. I thought there was some reference in the script to Texan.
Oh, if there was, I missed it, but.
Cool, I don't know. I didn't think they. I think I didn't because when we start, okay, they played like a jingly, jangly banjo kind.
Of they did. That's true.
I feel like that was always baked in.
Somehow got it. I thought maybe it was Culter, who has an accent kind of like not exactly the same, but like a little Southern isms kind of to him. I didn't know where that came from, but I love it as a choice.
I don't think it came from me. I don't think I.
Well, you committed to it. You committed to it in a very adorable way, very adorable.
Joe buck there.
Yeah, it was good. It was really good. It was just as I said, it was so different from the normal guy parts on our show, which are like often a little bland ish. I don't want to criticize them all, but and then until we find out whatever makes the relationship go wrong, right, But like, you were just full on out there the whole time, Like I thought it was so so, so fantastic and perfect, and that you were so young doing that I thought was just super interesting.
And I'm curious what your experience was like if you can remember when that aired, well.
I went to a couple of my friends from that terrible acting school had HBO and they were in Union, New Jersey. So I went over to Union to watch it, okay, and so that was that was that.
Did they like it?
Like?
Were you were they impressed?
Like?
Okay, okay? Did people shout at you on the street and say, like Sam Jones, No, actually have not.
I it's It's the funny funny thing is like I feel like I'm seldom recognized.
For that, understandably because you're like a grown up now, but I mean it's.
Like every seven years somebody recognizes me from editors. I find myself in a conversation where they're like, but you're Sam Jones. You know. You're like, it's a really famous thing, right, Well yeah, I'm like, okay, well it is.
It stands out, it really does.
But then six years of silence from the world passes, and then another somebody comes up and it's like you're right, and I'm like, is it.
I think it's because you don't seem like you're insane. You know, like that's probably a good thing that you're not walking around like shouting manic things, right.
If that's going to get me the people the recognition. I deserve them.
Okay, if you feel one day like you need a little recognition, just just start shouting names, either Sam Jones or anyone's name. I bet you you could get some attention. Well, I think it's really amazing. And I'm sorry that you were like running seven miles a day and I'm not really eating when you were with us, But I'm so glad that you found your way out of it.
You know, you can achieve certain states of plis when you're starving yourself.
That is so so true. Not that we recommend that to want to endorsement, right, definitely.
Amazing the endurance of the human metabolism.
That's so true, but also like just so fascinating. And I know as I mean, I think I've probably gone on record many a time talking about the crazy dieting that I've done through my career. So bad, Probably not, I don't think to the extent that you're describing, because I probably would never remembered my lines at a certain point, you know what I'm saying, Like at a certain point you can't really function, you know, Yeah, and I would
just break down and eat French fries or something. But I mean, I've gone on really long times where I'm like eating M and M's like I would just have some thing where I'd be like, I'm just gonna eat it so bad, so bad, and you can really kind of go for a while like that. You know. It's interesting. It's not great, not great, not great for your health.
But yeah, when you're you know, like if you have some scene and in your young mind you've built it up, you know, and you're nervous and you're not going to wear a lot of clothes or you've got really tight clothes or whatever it is, and you're like, I just have to make it to that scene, so I'm just not going to eat till then, you know, like craziness.
Craziness actors do, I mean everyone, I guess everyone does this, right, I mean I don't know if everyone, but people are prone to be doing things like this.
Yeah. Yeah, it's maybe with actors it's more transient because it is attached to a job, as opposed to something that's so baked in. Neuroses.
It's true. It's true, though. I do think I think our neuroses are you know, baked in and then kind of like stirred by the job, you know, what I'm saying, Like, I certainly had a lot of people telling me that I wasn't thin enough, right, Like it wasn't just me, you know.
I mean, yeah, so you know the stuff they tell you in this business that's accepted as normal is.
Yeah, pretty bonkers.
Yeah, you wonder what kind of person you'd be if you never had done this?
I mean absolutely, But I also feel and I mean this is just me, but I also feel like if I hadn't had a job where I was able to express myself, I don't know what would have happened to me either, right, That's true, you know, like as positives negatives, you.
Know, it's like the thing when in I don't know, hanging out in la or trying to make worm my way into the improv scene for a while, and these be finding myself in these constant contests of one upmanship and strange high school kind of mentality and being insecure and always trying to be the wittiest in the room, and then finding myself hanging out with my cousins or people who are not in the business at all, and all of a sudden feeling, oh, I'm like Robin Williams
and normal people yes, but to entertainers, I'm like not, definitely not. Robin Williams.
Yes, it's a good point. It's a really good point. And I do think you kind of get into like an insular thing of like when you're in New York or LA trying to do the you know, the job and hanging with all the people, Well, you can feel like, gosh, I'm like this wallpaper, you know what I mean, Like I'm nothing. When you go out in the real world, you're like, oh yeah, no, nope, nope, nope, don't fit in here either, you know what I mean. Like it's interesting,
it's really interesting. So I'm also curious because you've gone on to do many many TV shows and things, all kind of stuff. Do you like it? Like, what was your favorite job?
I think pound for pound My favorite job, which was another starving one, was the Pacific for HBO.
Yeah, that was really good.
It was very intense and we were all starving ourselves, supposed to be starving. Yeah, yeah, and it was it felt like it's a very serious subject. We were being watched by actual marines, some of whom were cycled back to Iraq at the time, and that for them, the Pacific theater was like there their lord of the rings. I suppose. Wow, And so you felt a great responsibility to not ham your way through it.
Absolutely absolutely, And so it.
Felt and we didn't have you know, you didn't the mentality about it was anyone who used a set chair or who who who you indulged in any of the creature comforts, who didn't who didn't participate in the push up contests or the stupid you do. It just felt like it felt like a real not a real job. But it felt like it didn't feel like you were the spoiled actor on set and everybody else was you know, lifted, you lifted your weapon, you lifted your your machine gun emplacement.
Wow, incredible. I mean, what an amazing job to be a part of.
Yeah, it was amazing.
Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean that's what we all want, right, something that's like bigger than us, that you're just lucky to be a part of.
Yeah. I wish they did, you know, boot camp for romantic comedies.
And stuff that would be interesting and funny. I mean, first of all, we'd have to get someone to make some romantic comedies, which right now really no one's doing. Sadly, I think sadly though I don't know. I mean, I don't know if you've seen I don't know if you watch TV, but have you seen Heated Rivalry?
No, but I've certainly heard about it.
The thing that I love about it, I love many things about it, but one thing that I love about it, and this I think is for me as an actor, as someone who's been part of a romantic comedy for a long time, and you know, you watch romantic comedies and then kind of go through phases about how they're done and how people respond to them, and it seemed like for a while, irony seem to be very important to comedies, like people couldn't really buy in without it,
and then like at a certain point there's just kind of like people aren't going to buy in at all, right, Like so no one's going to make them, which is really sad. Of course he did. Rivalry about two closeted hockey players, has the most powerful romantic comedy payoff at the final episode or right, it's not even the final episode,
it's the fifth episode. It's a sixth episode thing. The fifth episode, I think there's a payoff, Like it's such a kind of almost textbook romantic comedy type of a scene that if it weren't closeted hockey players, I don't know if audiences could really like buy in and have the full experience of what it is. Like is so beautifully done the way they lead up to it, they editing the writing, all the different parts, you know, the
different characters are interconnected in this scene. It's so beautifully crafted that it makes me want to watch the whole thing all over again, just for the craft.
Aft of that place.
Yes, and having it actually work like it's kind of blows my mind still just thinking about it, but it makes me think about you know, like Jacob Tierney, the showrunner, he should be teaching a romantic comedy boot camp, you know what I mean, because he knows what he's doing, and I'm not saying that other people don't obviously, you know, we I think we did a fantastic job of a very long term, you know, romantic comedy TV show, which is kind of unheard of, right because it's it's not
a sitcom. It's not you know, like you had a sitcom class, which is also like a very specific art form, right, but like also weird to have a class of it. I don't know. It's all very weird.
But they didn't teach us. The thing is, they didn't teach us. It's not like they taught a sitcom style acting. Oh no, just like it began with the Honeymooners and then it moved on to Wow, the Swiss Family, Robinson or whatever. It was bizarre.
That is bizarre, I mean because sitcom acting is hard in its own way, right, because you've got an audience, you've got like a set behind you. You have to kind of like it's like your theater because you can't you know, you don't want to upstage yourself. But yet you also have to make it seem natural and tell the jokes. I mean obviously very we're having like hardcore actor talk now, But like if someone really taught that,
I think that would be interesting. You know, though I don't know how many sitcom.
Four camera stuff is very bizarre.
It is very bizarre, I agree, and hard. I find it really hard to do. There was a certain point of the show where I thought, you know, I want to go on some sitcoms because people would talk to me about like, oh, you know, we should develop a sitcom for you when the show was over, when Sex and City's over. But I was like, oh, I'm scared. I'm scared. I don't know about that. So at one point I went on Friends as a guest star. I
went on Will and Grace as a guest star. It was really really fun, but still very terrifying, Like you'd walk out and they'd all clap, like like a Broadway where you just have to like somehow hold Oh.
Yeah, I hate that on Broadway.
It's so hard.
I hate that on broad right. I mean, it's really who it is. It's just you're totally destroying the realities.
I agree, and I think the audience means it as a positive thing, right, But as an actor, like, it's very strange.
Nine hundred dollars to see Denzel Washington. You want to make sure that like yep, and get my money.
And I think people genuinely love Denzel Washington, right or whoever it is, right, so they want to they have a moment where they're like live with them basically, right, which is the joy of theater, of course, So they're like, I'm going to show him right in this moment, I'm going to clap really hard. But then as an actor. You're just trying to breathe and like stay still or whatever. Like it's really strange. It's really really strange.
And you came on. They clapped when you came on, they did you must also feel like I haven't earned you don't know, yes.
Yes, yes, yes. It's very weird, right because it's not for the part that you're doing. It's just for your general you know, being or whatever, like Sex and the City. But yet you're on Friends or you're on Will and Grace. It was very strange and mortifying, like like I felt so like egg was just running down my face, you
know what I mean, Like I felt so embarrassed. But everyone's always super, you know, like James Burrows was directing Will and Grace, who's like a great you know great Like if you ever want to be on a sitcom down and say, come with James Borrow's directing, he will take care of you. And he was like, just breathe, just breathe, just breathe and hold, don't don't ruin the next laugh, don't keep going because my inner anxiety would be like I'm just gonna push through. I'm just gonna
keep going, which you kind of can't. You gotta wait, you gotta wait. Yeah, it's super interesting. Acting is weird. Don't you think.
I think it's weird?
No, really interesting. Okay, you know what.
I think is weird. This is what I think is weird. I think it's I'm very I've been very nervous about this whole thing.
I have to tell you what being on my podcast.
Yeah, being any in any anytime I've done a red carpet interview or any interview anywhere, I'm incredibly self conscious about it. I find I find it interesting that we live in this world where the people who have found a purpose in pretending to be anybody other than themselves are expected somehow to be happy and most joyous when everyone's paying attention to them as they are so true. I'm not. I've never been. I think there's species of actors,
or there's species of you know, and I'm not. I've really gotten a lot of respect for Robert de Niro just as a as a public person, because people criticize him for being a terrible interview But I I'm like, he's not a personality, right, He's a guy like he's and that's you're not, that's not what's interesting to I'm sure he's a fascinating person.
When he's definitely fascinating, I.
Don't want, I don't care about like it's even saying this right now, it's terrifying to me. I'm going to regret it immediately.
No, No, you're great. Oh my god, Please don't regret it. Please don't regret it. So this is what I want to say.
I look going to regret the whole thing. Oh, thank god, I'm going to regret. I'm going to know.
I'm gonna No, don't regret it, because I completely understand what you're saying.
I'm looking at an empty glass. There's nothing here.
I love it. Just pretend to drink it. Okay, you're acting. Go ahead. So this is what I think is so great. I think that there is a general misconception that somehow actors all want to do stuff like this, right We all want to do red carpet interviews. We all want to be on talk shows, we all want to be talking and the center.
I thought that's what I wanted when I started to you know, I think, I don't know. I think a lot of my friends, you know, a lot of people, there's something that makes you want to put yourself in a position where the world adores you. There's some kind of basic lack there, whole need. And I think what happened to me very early on in the business from what I witnessed, is that being famous does not absolve you of being an asshole and it does not actually
make you immortal. So what why you know? And it's yeah, so that's one of and those those those delusions kind of crumble.
Right, I think that's really correat.
Then you start coveting fame just because you realize, oh, this is currency, and that's works more if I have more.
Of this absolutely, which is very real. That's very real. It's unfortunate, but it's very real. Like it's not talent, it's the currency of being well known or being your last project or whatever it is.
And I think just more just being you know, we live in this time now and social media and whatever the kids are into these days. Those yes, they are getting TV shows, they are getting represented by huge agencies. People who watch video games online and comment on them, and that's how they make their millions. That's what. Yeah, isn't that That guy pewdie Pine, that's what he did.
I don't know who you're talking about, but I believe you.
I barely. I saw some daily on him or something. Oh my god, he's made like hundreds of millions of like millions, and he started he's just a guy from Norway or something commenting on.
I mean, it's fully bonkers out there, okay.
Momenting on video games, and that's how he.
Well, this is what I think about that. I think that, yes, the world is nuts, and we're living through this humongous change with AI and all the things, and I think that we as actors just have to remain calm, like, remain grounded, try to protect ourselves and keep doing what we do because I have to believe that in the end, people are going to be attracted to actual real storytelling, you know, which is what that's actually what we do, that's what we want to do.
I agree with you, right, I agree with you. I think the question might be will they be able to tell the difference?
I think so. See, I personally think so, because I do not think. I mean, I just feel like I also just have to be hopeful, because what's the point of not you know, I can't get my mind around the fact that this be true. But like I don't see how like you know how for instance, Okay, let's think about you in this part, right, You're like a kid. You're a kid, and you are bold and out there and surprising, and I don't even know what you're going to do next when I'm watching it, which is partly
why I wanted to talk to you today. And you are not disappointing. I want to add as yourself. So how could AI replicate a human and then surprise us? I don't think it could happen, do you know what I'm saying. I haven't seen it happen yet. I don't think it could happen.
I get I suppose, but then don't There are actors. I'm sure you have. I have them who I who are and this is petty, yes, but I who star in movies and I'm not going to name them, but I see them and I know every single movement they're gonna make before you do it. I know you're saying everything they're gonna do.
That's true, that's true. That's a valid point. That's a valid point. But I also feel like, you know, until we see a successful, you know, show written by AI which hasn't happened, right, Like, we're about to see a bunch of shows about AI writing, right, Like the Comeback is going to be coming back. The Comeback is coming back on HBO, and it's going to be about the first sitcom written by AI, which I think is going to be prettyunny because it's Michael Patrick and Lisa Kujo.
But I still am not convinced everything that I have seen and or read, Like, my daughter's fourteen, she's in school, and there's a whole thing about you know, whether they've used AI for their homework, right, it's like a whole situation.
You read the anxious generation.
Yeah, no joke, they are the anti anxious generation. It's for real. Oh it's scary. Yeah, it's scary.
Is your daughter's stat I'm not going to pry into your daughter's life?
Yeah? Probably not. I shouldn't even bring her up, but it's hard not to because of everything that we're talking about. For the young people, we we remember life before, right, thank god, you know, they don't really have a life before all this stuff, Like it's it's kind of kind of kouka.
Yeah. Yeah, there's people in.
My personal life, yes, younger people.
Younger people.
Who who are they there? Are they in the room?
Always there?
Okay?
They they The concept of when I first met these younger people, the concept of not contacting somebody, well, like letting contact go for eight hours with no contact in terms of like, well, I didn't know what you were doing. I didn't know where you were. I didn't know from the from the nineties.
That's why we were from the analog world. It is true.
You don't have to give a report every It's true.
But that person just loves you and wants to know where you are and wants to feel that connection. I can I could tell what that person's thinking. It's sweet.
You'd be the first one.
I love it. Okay, wait, I had more questions, but you're just too interesting and we're so off on AI. But like, I mean, wow, I'm so happy that you talk to us, because first of all, you're like one of those mystery people who are just on our show once and then they go away. And that's who my podcast. People love it when I can find you guys like and all of you are looking fascinating. Okay. I have to give a lot of credit to Jennifer McNamara, our casting agent. I mean, man did she find some great
people like yourself. Incredible.
Good for her, yeah.
And God for you for being like like having these crazy, wild ambitions to be James Dean, I fucking love it.
Who is your guy or go Meryll?
Meryll? I mean, there's nobody but Meryl for us, you know, really, you know what I mean? Like, who could ever? I don't know. Yeah, I mean there are other people like I always loved Holly Hunter, Oh sure, yeah, because she's Southern and I'm Southern, so I like that. I mean, there's so many great ones. But when I was really young, it was Meryll, like the French lieutenant's wife, you know, like that kind of like mysterious Meryll.
I think all Ironweed is is that scene where she sings He's my power.
Oh my god. Whenever she sings incredible, it's incredible. You know, she's on murder Murders in the buildings, only murders in the buildings.
I don't know.
If you watch this show, and there's an episode in it early on she plays an actress, a kind of unemployed actress when we first meet her, who's just lived her whole life in this kind of tiny apartment and you know, has so much talent, but it hasn't worked out for her. And then she gets apart, which is great, but she has an episode where she sings I mean only murders in the building, making me cry, you know, like just bam because she's Meryl. You know it's magic,
it's magic. But yeah, I mean, you know, we can the fun thing. It's fun to remember the life that we used to live, right like the purity that we experienced in the analog world. But you know what I love. I love also that we're still here. We're still cranking along. We were bringing our memories with us right into the into the future. And it's really really nice to talk to you. And I appreciate you overcoming your your your your fears or whatever to come on because wow, fantastic episode.
Okay, well ok, yeah.
Oh my god, you're super interesting. I could continue to talk to you, but I know we promised you that I wouldn't keep very long because you didn't want me to. But wow, you know, I wish you had more memories about how your acting class friends responded. But maybe you're just maybe maybe they've gone with time, or maybe maybe they didn't.
Oh it's a while in the rear view. Yeah, if Stacy and Scott san Clemente are listening out there.
Hi, I love it, I love it, I love it. It's fun. Thank you, Thank you so much, Jacob. You're very very interesting. I'm gonna have to follow and watch everything you do.
Now I barely do anything.
Well, I don't think that'll last long. I'll hire you, all right, Okay, great, have a great day. Okay.
Bye,