"Let's Call It A Play!" (w/ Drew Droege)

You have to buy tickets to the show. It's gonna be an amazing gag. It's November eight ten pm. It's a Saturday night as part of Brooklyn Podcast Festival at the Bellhouse. Bit come on, Bellhouse. The game is already a foot in here because we're already talking culture. And I was nervous, you know, not to use an old wives expression, blow our load a little bit too early bow as the old wives say. The old wives have

been saying it since the Middle Ages. And you know, we just got off oh no pun there to the thought of being on a plane and watching certain films and you're saying that you this blows my mind. You're saying you would get emotional while watching my best friend's wedding during the scene where Cameron Diaz does karaoke. Yes, because what an emotionally fraught scene. The arc of that scene is insane, Like she's she's petrified to sing in front of the sum of strangers, and then she does it,

and then she's triumphant. Like I get that. It's a hardship narrative, you said. I mean, you were like, it's a comedic performance. It's great, And I was like, yeah, but also, what an emotional ride that she takes this on that ultimately ends on a high note, like the topography of that that's beautiful. I never thought of it

as emotional. But you know what, and you know, no one else I never thought of I never thought to ask about what hot engineer Will's last name was, and then today I found out this gentleman's name is Will Smith. Now I don't really want to get into his name is Will Smith. I think he's gotten this his whole life. I don't think, but I don't think that's enough. I don't think we need to really go into this. I mean, fine, bitch, his name is Will Smith. He happens to have the

same name as I just think it's amazing. How old are you? So Will Smith was not it wasn't unknown things. He was definitely known, unaware. Okay, okay, but okay, And I did think about this. No, no desire, and I respect, I would respect this if you had no desire to change um the shortened name to Bill or Willie. In my family. It's a family, you know what though, if if my last name was Heaton, you would I would definitely Patricia my daughter, some of them you need to

go along with will Smith. That's just too big. But if your last name is Parker and you don't have a daughter name is Harriah Jessica Parker, you don't get the assignment. Sure, sure you don't get the assignment, which is to name your children after it's prevaring clearly alright, So listen, I kind of guess for me, I don't know about I think this is I mean, this is really um, I don't know, this is so, this is

so um, what's the word I'm looking for? Toying? Cloying for me to say, But like you know, you and I've have loved this person for so many years you went to go see our guests do like a character workshop in college. It was this was at USC at the Fracas Teach a comedy festival. Billy Domino, former guests of the show. Uh, and I were really excited to

take this character workshop class. And then the entire time, we think our guest brought just sort of intellectualized Jerry Blank in this way that was so gorgeous, and I was like, this is this is it, This is all I need to know. And I think and I think that still holds true. Um, oh god, he's amazing. Let's

talk about what. Okay, So he is the host of his own podcast, Minor Revelations, um, and how he is uh going to start his run at the Soho Playhouse of his amazing, amazing show Bright Colors and Bold Patterns. I saw this three years ago at Ours Nova and still like remember it vividly to this day. It's so good. It's so good. Directed by Michael yury Um. And we just talked about Michael Yeah, because he's in the show, because he's about that. Yeah, I can't wait to keep

talking about this. And uh, you know he has TV film credits just are fucking wild wild wild and it would be a whole brick of text if we had to, it would just be too goddamn long. Now we can get fucking exhausted. And Matt, why don't you tell everybody that I would say the children have to know they have to search the Chloe seven videos. He says it like seven right. Also, you just don't know what's pronounced

correctly not and those videos, honey. He plays with language in such a pronunciation in a way that is captivating. There you go, that's welcome our guest. Hi. Oh my goodness. It's so fun to just sit here and just hear myself talked about and like pretend like I'm not in the room yet. I just fluid, like already just bad. What a fun little um what what do you what would you call that hygetic of podcast? No, that's not the right word. Just it's a beautiful moment in every

podcast when the guests can just hear themselves credited. Yeah, you know, it's really nice to look back and go, you know what I did? It is done? It mortifying because it's both it's horrible. Yeah it's here, and I mean it's fine. So you just have to like go through all that, and also the one where they put you on the button, like, so, what do you want us to say? I know, I know, and you're like and I know it's that, but you both so lovely.

But no, I mean, sometimes it's unbelievable when they have you on and they're like reading off the back of a cereal and they're like, um, and what have you done? And they make you feel like mad. They're mad that you're there, and you're like, I don't know, especially if they don't really get what it is that you do. I was just done. That's the other thing I'm not

if I was playing Chandler on Friends, you know. I mean, it's like you love them as this, as this, but it's like I do so many weird offshoot, insane rag tag I mean, I'm glad I'm not on a sitcom. No, we don't need it. I'm glad I don't have a regular job. I'm I love just like screaming and begging and throwing pieces of yarn together and making a dream happen. That's but that's that you do that best. That's you're the best at that thing. And sorry to like shoot

hern in a compliment. There no okay, And these are just some small little granules of other credits that I think I have to throw in because I think Billy will appreciate this. Planet Unicorn. Oh, Tanya Roberts, Yes, um with Dommy Garcia. These guys just google them. They're there. I mean, Chloe is like the big one, but like

you got a Google I Planet UNICORNI watched. I watched this with some friends, a nice mix of sexualities and we all inccessibilities and we all still were like this whole that was Planet Unicorn was was the brainchild of my friends Micro's and Tyler Spears, and they put that

together with me. They just brought me along. They I can't really take credit for any of the writing of that that was their thing and that it was for this this UM channel one and one, and so it was just this idea that we that they had and they threw me into it and it was like when it was one of those It was one of the first viral videos that I ever definitely was when I

was involved in right. It was like kind of when that was kind of starting, and it was unbelievable because we had so many children that were after because it's very it's very innocent. It's like it's subversive in the way that as an adult you know what's going on. But there's nothing dirty about it. There's not there's nothing um, jokey, caddy and bitchy at all. It's very sweet and it's about being It's about being sweet and you know, taking

care of each other. The queer references are just like them all drinking boba to get like that's like the most overtly gay thing is like them being at the beach like it's so sweet. Well, kids are gay, exactly. Kids are gay, especially little boys. And these little girls that were just like had these slumber parties and they all would dress up like the unicorns. I mean it was really magic. A little gay girl, girl girl, big

a girl. When you know, when you go like sometimes like I'll flashback to elementars are all we do children's theater here and there, and so we'll go to a school those little six year old boys just leting in

each other's laps. It's just like very insane. Stay this way, I know exactly because even you know, it's like if and if we can teach anything in the next generation, if all the hetero boys just to be that way and it's okay because it's lovely and don't like you know, but because boys crave touch of each other, gay, straight, by non binary, whatever you want to say, they crave it. And like when they don't, when they can't they can't hug or touch, they punch or they know, you know,

because they want that connection so badly. It's it's a human thing. Yeah, you know, I think that you're right. It's definitely a response. Like and I it makes me so sad because I have a cousin who's drawing up on Long Island and it's very kind of toxic masculinity. And he's even going to be twelve. And I can hear him deepening his voice, you know, I can hear him talking down here right right, right right. When you really listen to it, it's not natural, right, it's something else.

It's a it's a it's something you're doing to yourself to make yourself sound like a boy, right or a man. And that's like eleven, twelve years old, which is I think when that's when that's when it starts to happen a little bit. When you're starting they're like, oh, I gotta act like I gotta be too cool. Yeah, that thing and you're like, oh please, don't no, don't don't go, don't go out lay in your friend's lap. It's so it's and then yeah, I mean you see them like

he's like, what a good for Christmas to feel? That's you don't want to go? Don't actually say that. I mean sometimes he did his toe into these things. But now there's also there's also a thing where you know, as a kid, I mean, you know, I loved horror movies and I loved violence, and I love you know. I mean there's also that, so you know, I think like there's there's also a thing when you're like you you're testing the line and you kind of love I

mean I loved dark things. I love anything because I you know, so anything that was just like you know, kind of subversive and funked up on some level, was like this this world, I need to be in this. But that's a thing that I think speaks to like an emotional intelligence that a lot of boys don't have. Weights And speaking of just being emotionally in touch, Drew walked in. I think, are you still in this emotionally

fraud place? I feel dull stupid and bad because I just know and because of how, because of what happened to me today. That's what I'm saying. Okay, walks stupid like you just what did you just you just came in what you just saw play? Yes, I just saw Michael Jury's play Torch Song, well, Harvey Fierstein's play Storge Song, starring Michael Arry. And that's why I'm saying I feel dull, stupid and bad because it just it just melted me

in all the best ways. It is essential viewing if you're in New York and you and you have to see it because I mean, I remember I saw the movie when I was in college. There's so many lines from it that you won't believe that we're quoted from that. You'll be like, I know that line. I know that line because people have quoted that play for thirty years. And it is it is so it is like I came in and said, it's our Glass Menagerie or our town. It's it's that seminal and it's that important and it's

funny and it's heartbreaking. It punches you across the soul. It is so good and Michael, it just really makes it his own I mean, it's like, you know, you can't you can't live in it without feeling Harvey there. And and Michael really does honor Harvey but gives it such his own spin. And um, but it is it's three pieces, it's long, it's three hours. You're in, you're in for an evening of theater, but it flies by.

But you're getting ninety four and nineteen eighty and our culture and seeing who we were and what we were and how timely it is now. And there's stuff that happens in the play that I was like, if this was said in the nineties, I wouldn't believe it, because it's said in the seventies. It's actually could be happening now with all this sexual fluidity and all this stuff that's kind of happening it. There's unbelievable stuff that is

like that that AIDS really changed. I mean, for lack of putting it in another way, that like, in the eighties and nineties we were in a different space and this play is just before that. This play is not aware of AIDS yet. And and because it you know, and real, and yet there's so much of what's going on now in the play it's it's it's it's unbelievable and Mercedes rule, come on, come on, that's the children

have forgotten. Have you ever seen the Fisher King brilliant she won the Oscars for and she is phenomenal, and she plays Michael's mom. She played the role that A stell Getty played in the original production, because you know that if you know this story, but that Harvey saw a stell Getty in a community theater production of something in New Jersey, yes, yes, before. This is how gold has happened for her because she got anyway he saw her in the show. He was like, you have to

play my mom. She had no real professional credits. He put her on Broadway to play his mother in this and then from Torchtung Trilogy, a still Getty got Sophia, which and she was just brought on as a guest star because originally in the pilot of Golden Girls, it was it was Dorothy Rose and Blanche and then the gay housekeeper and then um uh cleo, I want to say his name was I'm wrong, Coco Coco, and then

Sophia was the guest star. She was coming to visit and then they were like, we love the mom and it's the eighties, so we don't need gays on TV. So by so anyway, but you know that was a still getting like like story like that. I mean like just talking about Harvey, it's like what um like what like he's like one of like the great gay benefactors. Absolutely when they when all the Drag Race queens honored him, Yeah,

oh that was did you see that? Okay, it was the Logo It was at the Logo Awards or something. It could have been like the New Now Next Awards or something like that. He got some sort of like lifetime achievement and actually ginger Min's the drag Queens perform Wonderful performed this number for him and it was so she was so like in her body, she was so centered, she was it was a beautiful performance tribute like it was. It was like beyond what you thought like ginger mind

was capable of. Like but that was a real performance. I said, I turned to Henry. I was like, she could be sucking on Broadway. She could about I heard that about her, and you you really have no idea from Drag Race what those queens and can't do, because that show really does edit these stories that about these and so you really don't always know you watched me, like I don't really know about that one, and then

you see them and they blow you away. Um, but yeah, I saw Harvey do hairspray when you saw him to it as Yeah, that was incredible. I saw him do it at the Hollywood Bowl and it was like I'd never understood Harvey fire scene until I saw live. Like I had seen the movie towrch Song Trilogy. I had seen him obviously, bird Cage and a million of the things, and I always loved him, But it wasn't until I saw him live his ability to that dead pan that stare to hold. Look, oh my god, the whole room

is filled with almost no effort. It's crazy. He really like you're hanging on his every move when he is a uniquely talented performer. It's crazy. And that was in a show full of incredible people, and you walk away and you're like that was that had to even inspire them? You're talking about like this is like a young cast of like Matthew Morris and Laura Bell, Bundy, um Russa,

garald Winoker. I believe u uh carry Butler was in that so this is like all these people that that this was just the surface of what you see their talent um. Also, there was one actress and I just want to toss this out for this actress. She was She played the trailer trash mom in that Mini Driver movie where she does the pageants. Beautiful, beautiful, Um, here's a deep cutch. He Drew Jo was an extra beautiful.

Yes you are Sally Field. Sally Field directed that directs that movie, and yeah, and Mini Driver and the girl from the Pepsi commercials Yes, Yes, what's your what's your Jesse Eisenberg's sister Hallie. This Drew's first I'm sorry, I'm referring to in the third person first screen credit or you're an extra Sometimes didn't end up on IMDb. No, it was right when I moved out to l A. And I was and I got some random thing to do extra work that day, and I was like, why not?

And then I saw Sally Field was directed. I was like, I was like, oh, I've made it. I'm working with Sally Field, work with her. But yeah, I was. I was like, I was like in the audience when she you know, when she's sang. I was in the audience. If you look really hard, you'll see very a tired, terrifying skinny. Let me tell you the best scene from

that movie. The best scene from that movie is when they put Mini driver and like the blonde bitch who was I think married to Pete Sampers, the tennis player Bridget Wilson Sampras think, or maybe it's another actress, I don't know, but one of those. So they put them in like a glass box so they can't hear the other debate question and many drivers, of course, you know, is hitting with the secret that she, of course is

the is the mother. She shouldn't be competing because the rules that she can't, and she's deciding whether or not she's going to share that secret. And she turns to Bridget Wilson Sanpris and she says, is it true? Do you really like roller coasters and long walks on the beach and do you really speak Spanish and French? Because if that's true, then you deserve to win. And Bridget Wilson Sampras turns her head. She takes a beach, she turns her head and she says, in a different voice

than she's used the home movie. She goes, what difference does it make Sally Field to know that Sally Field is responsible? Yeah, I'm gagged. Children have forgotten Sally's a director. They need to know. Yes, children director for your film called Sally get in touch with her son. Her son is on tender. You can read you can read her through him. That's amazing. It's it's such a fantastic movie. Yeah, it's in the worst in that kind of way where

you're like, yeah, why not? But it was on Stars a lot of course, of course, the Perfect Stars movie, the Perfect Stars movies. Um, Drew, We're gonna ask you what we ask all of our guests, which is because we've gotten some background. Yeah, now you know me. You alluded to horror earlier, but feel free to venture outside of that. What is the culture that made you say culture is for me? And don't limit this to movies or media necessarily, but like you know where you grew up.

I mean there's so many of course, ever seen Everest. Everybody has things? Can I sleep? Um? The first thing I thought of when you when you sent me that question, and I thought I was like, the first thing I thought of was the old Batman TV show. Uh yeah, So yeah, somebody else says somebody somebody said, yeah, okay.

And I mean, I am obviously not old enough to remember when it came out because it was like late sixties, but I saw the reruns in the eighties, and you know, and I as a kid would run home it wasn't currently running, so I was just I was so excited about what that rerun was going to be that day.

But there was something about those colors, those villains. I love monsters growing up, so anything like Caesar Romero and like I could see his beard coming through the makeup and his joker, and I was like, this is so weird and funked up and perfect. And I also love both cat women, but I never knew if it was going to be Julie Numar or Earth the Kids, so I was like, is that going to be? And then

you know, and I loved Yvon Craig. I love bat Girl, So when they introduced Barbara Gordon into the show, I was like, so it was just like the purples and the yellows and the bangs and the pops and I loved the that was a cliffhanger, and and the villains all had like fun. It was like you know, Vincent Prices the Eggman, and you know, Joan Collins was the siren and she was like an opera singer that sang about the death that show. She was a villain on

the show. Yeah, they had everybody on there. They had everybody they could, you know, and um, you know, and I just I remembered as a kid being like and I was fascinating about it. But I mean I also watched like Masters of the Universe and other eighties things, and we watched you know, Family Ties and The Cosby Show and all that stuff growing up. But I was obsessed with this show that was really like my parents generation. And I was sort of like, didn't understand why nobody

all wanted to talk about Batman. Yeah, you know what for me looking back to my child, because I was very into Batman as well. Although it was kind of the movies in the atmosphere and presented there was an animated show one like yeah, yeah, Mark Hamill, Yes, yes. But for me, what always grabbed my attention and made me excited were the villain origin stories. When you provide me with a good villain argent story or even just maybe the best one, we say, honestly, any movie she

comes out with. Now, if they decided to do that, like she's been around for a long time, give her an oscar. I'm on board. Give it to her for whatever. Give it to her this year for mother who cares? Is she pretty good at it? Good? Give her an oscar if you took it away from her. So who on that year? I mean like who? Like what was the Batman Returns would have been yes? And so that best film was forgiven? Yes? Well, no, Unforgiven was ninety three.

I believe Silence of the Lambs was ninety one. Yeah, and then there was Forest Gump Probabbe it was unforgiven. But then in ninety two supporting actress, that's a deep that's going to be fiction, pulpe fiction was competing with Forrest Gump. Yeah, Mercedes Rule was, oh my best actress to bring her back. I think Mercedes Rule was best supporting. I think she was lead. She was positive, but then look it up, so supporting when it been somebody like, oh boy, the fact that we even got here without

our smartphones. We have talked about sometimes like how that can become Well, actually, let's talk about the oscars because this year is going to be a big fucking change for the Oscars because wine is yes. And I was reading something about the Oscars today, well, while we get this answer, I was reading that this is could be the year where all logic in terms of what we thought about the Oscars could be thrown out because people are done, like Get Out could very well get nominated

in what I hope it does. It's one of my favorite movies of the year. I thought it was brilliant and I I saw it two days in a row, and it was just by chance that I was with friends and who were going again. I was like, I loved it so much. I was saying, watch it again, and the second time it really holds up. And you know, it's one of those movies it's like so fun the first time through, but then you're like knowing what's going on the whole time. It's so it's it's funny, it's

terrifying with brilliant performances. It's a crack smart script. It's one of the best movies of the year. I would love for it. I would love for it to get nominations and and when why not? You know what what would be a real gag was if they're not going to give the best picture because they still have their hangups about that whatever, like their genre hang ups or Honestly, the racism in the Academy is like a very real

thing just because their majority white. Like they also the industry, like there's very few films that know, it's like they have very few that they actually see. The problem too is it's a lot of old white people who don't see things. They don't They don't see movies on Netflix right right right, like Beasts of No Nation whatever, that brilliant performance and they didn't they just didn't watch it. I you know, I think there's also their factors like that.

I don't think they're overtly racist as much as just they're limited and what they get access to, and when they have so much, they're going to pick the stuff that appeals and there, and they have so much old white man stuffed in front of them exactly. And so that's why I feel like change all that exactly. And you see every year the Academy, like the invitations they

sent out getting more diverse. I think like if they were to just if Jordan Peel were to win Best Director, that would or even be nominated and Greta Girlwig Ladybird, like, come on, acknowledge and you said it was fucking amazing twice And I'm not like I love Greta. I didn't love Mistress America but that was Noah bom Bach. But um god, Ladybird fucking destroyed me. Um okay, who won Supporting Actress. And this is like, this is you're gonna be like, oh, of course, and you know we're gonna

have our thoughts. Oh my gosh, Marissa, Yeah, okay, she's brilliant. She's brilliant. She's gotten so much flak for that Oscar, and I will say she deserves it. She's a genius. I'm glad. I thought she was incredible in the movie and also given the you know, idiot asked Faye Donaway this year when she said La La Land. You know that Jack Palence didn't mess up because for years they were saying Jack Palance was old and crazy and he

read the wrong way. You know, if you read the wrong name, and they would have corrected her, they would have said something. She won the award full out. She was wonderful and and she has proven herself time and time again. I mean in the Bedroom before the Devil Knows You're dead. Yes, the wrestler voted for her. Yes, I would have voted for her, honestly. And it was Penelope Cruz that one. That and but I'm but I but yeah, I will totally. It's I will support her,

will support for me. It's a it's about Marissa ways now. Um. There was also some some conversation about for Best Actress. They were saying, like, you know, like everyone was very gung ho about Kate Winslet there for a while for this new Woody Allen movie, and now you just hear people stop talking about it because and this sucks so much when it is that when it's you're just the actor in the equation, you're giving the performance and you're Kate Winslet, and you're like, you know, I also believe

she probably doesn't care about getting it. She has an off star. She's amazing. I don't know anyone who says Kate or you know or whatever. I mean. I think she's she's thoroughly earned. She's thirdly, she's thoroughly lauded, and she's been not you know. Yeah, I'm just saying like in terms of like things might change it's like even

the Woody Allen factor. It's like you just see like the pundits like stop talking about that, you know now they they're saying, this could be the year where it's like you see a thriller nominated again for Best Picture. You see a movie perhaps too. I don't understand why we have such double standards because to me, the woman who was the mom and the Baba Duke gave the one of the best performances of the year last year

or two versions. When that came out, I was like, that deserves the nomination, Like we give people these awards for these sweeping period piece you wore a wig and you know what, you wore a nose or and I mean again, I'm not even saying that. I mean I love her and performance, but I'm just saying, like, why are thrillers or comedies considered less valid? I think you know that it all should be. And the interesting thing

is they didn't always. That wasn't always the case, Like if you look back in the seventies, you got um. I mean even even like that's a great example, right,

I mean like there's always small exceptions. It seems like the general rule is though there's those categories and if you kind of play this part, like for example, if you were playing port of wife and the film is good, your chances and best Supporting Actress look very good, right, right, But there was Ellen Burston in the seventies was nominated for playing the mother of Reagan and for actress. Both Kim Carry Piper Laurie and SUSY's Basic were nominated as well.

And yeah, yeah they did it seemed and also Robert Robert Shawford just know she haster Yeah, okay, now screaming she did coal miners daughter. It's such a thing that we have us case isn't knowledge of and women. It's about women and their awards. Well, I don't care about I don't care about the men with the words they were were like the women in there give him a statue, Yeah they I want to stand there, to stand and hold it high. I love it, but I love it.

Prior guest Friends of the show, John Early Cole School. I did an interview for never heard of them, garbage bags sacks, both of them. They didn't review and in cake Boy magazine, which is like a Brooklyn queer perfect talking about like why like why women like why is it exclusively women? Should we feel bad that it's we're only scrutinizing women, But it's like no, It's like, but if you're gonna ask any of us about who our favorite male actors are, we're just gonna be like, I

don't know fucking Nicolas Cage exactly. I don't even know what. I don't think it's important though, that we start the conversation um as gay men about about gay men. I know that sense really self involved in naval Gate and to be like we needed more, but we don't lift each other up like we lift I mean, you're right, thank god, we lift women up because you know, straight male cultures had to learn from us, like, hey, be nice to women, but celebrate them. But I had this

moment earlier this year at an Adam Lambert concert. I saw him um as the you know, lead singer of Queen. He's touring with Queen. It was one of the most incredible things that ever see brilliant, and I was like, you know what pisces me off is that in our culture, we pick a gay bar and if some fair to middling you know c W straight star walked into a gay bar, we would be losing our minds. Oh my god, oh my god, that's so and so he was on

three episodes of you know, fill in the blank. If Adam Lambert walked in, our reaction would be like this bit and we should be laying down the red carpet for for you know. And I just think that that's something that we're not there yet. We have a weirdness about accepting among our own royalty. I mean, and again, like just celebrate what what the gay men are doing.

Actually know, I was just going to mention um, even with the announcement of boys in the band, you saw a little bit of this and you saw a little bit and you know, to be honest with you, I guess maybe like my instinct a little bit was to be like those four again because but they're incredibly talented. They're going to do a great fucking drive that you know what's fucking brilliant. They could put four gay men in that cast and they're all stars and they're all

gonna be amazing. And that means something because you know what five years ago, maybe even two years ago, you know half that cast is straight. Absolutely, how do you have these people who have all deserved it, who have all worked their ass off. Who are who are going to kill it? I mean, I think every one of us is a little bit like why not me? But

oh my god, they're honestly some of the greatest. I mean I saw that lineup and I was like, they are Also we're also lucky to get to watch them are I mean I've I've been blown away by all of them in different ways. And I just and and and yes, we're telling our stories and we're in front of people, and and you absolutely we have to acknowledge that moment. But you're right, we didn't even take a moment to say, look and all gay cast outcast of stars in a huge Broadway show. We immediately go into

these bitches. Of course, of course it's you know, opportunities for more and there needs to be you know, and it's yeah, it's happening, but yeah, I won happened a couple of things I wonder well, one like, yeah, I had that same reaction to boys in the band, um, and I feel like this just means only good things for other things, because right now it's like call me about your name is going to come out, and it's

like okay, cool. But also both of these actors are straight again, um, and so hopefully that'll like ripple out into these other industries. But and the second thing is, I think, I don't know, this might seem this might not be a fair thing to say, But is part of that like instinct to be like that bitch? Like is it? Is it linked to it all with what Drew sort of just said just now where And I feel this way too, where it's like why not me? I feel like that's part of it, right, It might

be and it might be. Uh. I always I feel so I have such a weird relationship with the familiarity in our community because part of me loves it. Part of me loves that I can go into a gay bar and if people know who I am and what I do, I'm approachable. If they tell me they like what I do, it makes my night. It's like so great. I love it and I love that Like I'm here.

I got here yesterday and I went to Julius and somebody came up and was like, I like your podcast, and we talked for a minute and it was like immediately I was like, you know, um, and if you know I feel like I I that is that is I always want to be able to have that and that that relationship and I love that, and I feel like, if, um, I don't know, like if I was like a movie star or something, somebody might look across the room and go, oh, I can't go talk to him, he's too big of

a you know whatever. But I do think that with that comes the next person to come up and immediately go into the it's kind of bitchy familiarity that I'm like, oh, you haven't earned that, you know, and I and it's I don't have an answer for that, but it's it always Sometimes I can get my feelings hurt by a

stranger who was genuinely trying to compliment me. But also, I mean, I play a lot of horrible asshole characters, and so I think people think like, oh, I'm gonna come up and just say the bitchiest thing and you'll find it hilarious. And I'm like, no, I'll just start sobbing that's that's me. But or I'll just get weird and have to shut down and start talking too much and run away. But um, so I know it's like a thing where we are very Yeah, I think we

feel very close to it. And also like every gay person is invited to every gay thing, like just at parties and we so we see each other. You know, it's not it's not you know, weird to see famous gay people at you know, out at bars and at parties, and because we're all like in the world together, so you do feel a little bit like, oh, I know

this bitch. So some of that's not terrible total. I just think it's like and again, I would never uh, you know what I was saying earlier about like you know, like someone walking in and be like, don't ever go up and talk to them. It's like, yeah, it's it's wonderful when people come up and say something nice and support.

But I do think there is still part of us where we think, you know, we think there's a glass ceiling, and we think we have our we you know, I have I, we have our gay thing, and then our goal is to ultimately be with the straits. Our goal is ultimately to be accepted by straight culture and straight culture at least the straight people that I know and care about love us and don't care and don't and all look at us that way. They don't categorize us

that way. We categorize us that way. And I think that's something that's very important for us to not look at straight people and say, oh, you're because yeah, they're always going to be horrible, homophobic people. But who we don't know those we don't hang out with those people.

Let's be honest. Are straight friends are like the first ones to like embrace and include and accept who we are, what we're about, and not categorize us as their gay friend, just like we're taught like, don't talk about your black friend, you know. I mean it's this, it's they're taught in the same sort of vernacular, like see them as a person.

But sometimes in our own culture we see we kind of we bottle each other up because you feel entitled to that attack, you know what I mean, Like if they they're part of me, so I can judge them, honey, Like I know where they come from, and so I'm going to read them to filth. And there's and and it's really what it is is you feel that there's

only so many spots. It's that there's some element of I'll say, just because from firsthand experience, I'll say, some element of self loathing, some element of well, there's this shared experience that we start off at anyway, and that I can sort of I've earned the right when you haven't to write right because you know you're so wow, you've really touched on something. I feel like gay gay culture hasn't really recalibrated to this like socialization. It's like, yeah,

like okay, so Joel and I'm our friend. My friend Joel and I just did a show in Philly. I just came back today and you know, we were at the the bars last night. It was really fun. Philly has a very nice, what I'll say with no pejorative at all, unpretentious gay night life, so welcoming, so fun,

so nice for everybody. Um, but people come and people came to the show, and then we ran into some people afterwards at the bars and they would come up and be like, um, or even just tweet at us things like are you do you to fuck each other? Or is that like like just they would just say these really offhand things, and I'm like, and I think, I don't know if that's in that same neighborhood of like people, because because you're I don't know, because they're like,

do you guys fuck each other? Because that would be like my master, Like that would be my masturbation fantasy for sure. Like just you're like what right? I mean yeah, I mean problematic on a lot of levels, but just like like you also like two comedians I know and love and right right, all this weird? How straight? It's like, what a weird thing to just sort of lead with,

and then you know it's you. You sort of have to be like, Okay, I don't know, like one great that you've feel familiar enough with us too, not great, but like you feel familiar r enough enough with us to say that thing. And then on the other side of that, it's like, oh, but how inappropriate, Like you haven't earned that. I mean, no one ever does. They don't obviously don't know how to communicate. So it's like it's like a little bit of a toxic thing. But I think like it is a little bit of both.

It's I'm jealous and I don't know how to deal with that, and also also I feel super familiar with you just because we have this thing in common and I don't have that with a lot of people maybe, and so I think you're going to get it. And specifically, I also think and you touched on this a little

bit as well. But with that cast, there's a little bit of like a beauty standard, right, which we don't talk about a lot, which because you don't get there because the first thing you say is like, well, there's not enough gaze obviously or of course them. But then when you start looking at the cast, and you know people have called Ryan Murphy ott on this a little bit, he certainly has like a type that you hoist to

the front. And so you look at that cast and you're like, oh god, like that's the bar and it

can feel very far away. But again that's just us getting just like I think the thing for us all to keep in mind is this is only going to open doors for It's only going to bring first of all, millions of people to see this story that they didn't know before, and it's going to inspire smaller productions of this play around the way, you know, and then it's gonna open up other opportunities for completely different shows, completely different films, pieces work. It's just it's just an added

it's just adding. It's not detracting, and so and it doesn't mean because you're not in the Boys in the Band with Ryan Murphy that you don't matter, and yeah, exactly that that was your time, that was your chance. But I do think we all have there was a part of you know, even to be totally honest to admit, when I saw that, I was like, oh man, I want to be there with you know, and you're like that makes no sense to like relax, like because I am ultimately so thrilled and so happy. But I think

we all have that collective feeling. And I'm just speaking totally. You know, it's like, ultimately, it's like it was, it's it's a wonderful thing. And it's because it's like, no, this just means that they're making it possible for you to have a voice as well. You know, they're finding

a place at the table for you as well. You know, and you're you're, you're you're already so close to that table, and you're at this other great table, like equally great table um and the table of nineteen, the table you're at, especially if Junior Squid is at that table, Oh my god, I tapped in, tapped in my mom fucking love table nineteen and she saw on the plane of course, we have to take a quick break back we're gonna talk about bright colors and bullet patterns, of course, the Chloe

videos and so much more. Stupid bitch. Alright, bye, hold on, we'll be right back. Oh Matt, I'm so excited for our next I don't think so, honey, Line, I'm very exciting to basics, back to basics. I mean, we've just been through the cult war, which really has us, you know, battered and bruised, but we are ready to bring back the love that'st the cathartic moment that is, I don't think so, honey. And this cast, oh my god, oh my god. We've been trying to get some of them

for a while. Yes, and can you believe after three shows, even after two shows, the star power is still strong and not for nothing. But these are going to be fifty people that have never done the live show before. So if you thought we only knew a hundred people, bitch, no, there's fifty more in our little black book. That's right. We sucked them all. Um. We got Jill Kim Booster hottie, hottie. We've got Francesca Rampy, We've got Sarah tolimas you've seen

around Colbert hottie. Oh my god, Mike Calton fucking hottie. What a hot Oh my god, Brandon Scott Jones like fucking hotty, Oh my god, so hot. We had to Kila Hughes. Oh my god, I'm tripping. Le's so hot. God, everyone's so fucking hot. Oh. It's part of Brooklyn Podcast Festival. Oh my god, I'm gonna I'm wet for the Bell House. We're gonna be at the Bellhouse. This is the first at the first show at the Bellhouse. I mean, we've our home has been Little Phil ready to you know,

pack the capacity at the Bellhouse. People. This is gonna be so freaking exciting. I'm actually so excited. We've never hosted a show here. We're so glad. It's gonna be great. It's part of the Brooklyn Podcast Festival. Ten pm, Saturday, November eight, ten pm. This is gonna be so so fun. You're gonna if you missed the show, feel feel and feel insane. You'll you'll be at home with the Fomo of a Homo homo. And if you com guaranteed you are going to be to us hottiet Okay, oh my god,

we're back Withdrew um, amazing first half. Let's get into his um show his Can we call it a play? Well? I mean please, I mean I loved it. That's the title of another play. Let's call it a play that sounds like an old coward, like we can't come up with it, and we have a couple of ideas, let's call them. I was in a horrible like reading him a play like years ago, and they were like came to like a list of titles and they were all

like that. It was like the boy can't stand it, and it was just like it was just all these horrible It's like, um, let's do pussy Cat and all about Eve, like the plays that he Davis, like Aged in Wood and the like I want to go see a like on Aged and would thank you. And it's like bringing on the Stars and just one of these titles. You're just like, this means absolutely nothing. I feel we continue any further. I have to ask for your feedback on feud. I really feel you you watched did you watch?

Features the thing? I love that it existed. I'm not even being political. I'm so glad that something not the mommy dearest perception of Joan absolutely Crawford. Why can't I come with her name out of the because that was just a bold faced lie. I mean, Mommy Dares is a drag show in its kabuki theater. It's insanity. It's insanity and it is not And it's like, I can't believe that Joan Crawford was a was a warm tender, you know, uh, you know, lovely woman. She was not

Diane West. Okay, no one is. There's only one, and that's Diane. But but she she was a tough woman who was in a tough business and should climb, talk about it clean, talk about clean all that's John Crawford. So I love the show really humanized her, and I thought that, and I thought Jessica did an amazing job of humanizing her and not really doing an impression of her. Um. I thought Susan Surrandon looked exactly like Betty Davis but

had zero fire and zero music. I'll say it also given you know in the world, you know Ada Dicks, who was then sorry by but like, but I was so upset by her Betty Davis, because I was like, that is the easiest thing to do, and I know you don't want to do a drag performance, but it was like, you're not even trying anything. She really went like SI there and it was if that and it is kind of tired. I don't want to be here.

And I'm like, Bettie Davis was never tired. Betty Davis is dead and and still away like she's still chewing at the at the earth around her. Bettie Davis is so vital and to play her like that and I just felt like, um, I was just the whole time, I was like watching her look like that. And then they re enacted scenes from Baby Jane that weren't like that. I was like, we know the movie, so at least at least do them when they were like on camera

actually screaming. And I also just think, like the reason why, I know, you want to bring people, make people real and humanize them, but a star as a star, especially from that era, and they were over the top. That was their reality, that was their truth. So to have them like that, I was just so I was frustrated with it. That's a great answer. However, I watched the whole thing and I totally would watch another one. I

love what he does and thank God for making that. Yes, I will say I really enjoyed Susan strended in the quieter moments, like like in the final episode, in the behind the scenes quote unquote moments where you you didn't have Betty performing as Betty, because I agree it didn't match the reality of her. Um. I thought she she acted the scenes well opposite Jessica when they were getting real, you know what I mean. I also don't think she

was even too much like her. I think she had the Oscars episode where she really had a lot to do, but then the rest of it was kind of like very much the Jessica show. Um. But it was funny because the big moments that were supposed to be these like incomparable Betty moments, like when she walks onto the set for the first time in character as baby Jane.

I was like, that was supposed to feel bigger than Yeah, you can feel the direction doing something for Susan the scenes with Kiernan Ship, I felt like, we're just like, what's your verdict on Karenan Ship She's fine, I'm saying no, I'm saying Susan sur Ran in acting opposite Keienan know, I know, but I'm asking what are your thoughts on Kierenan. Do we have to have thoughts on karenan ship? I

think I think we do. And you know what else, because they fucking won't stop shoving Millie Bobby Brown down our thread. She's god damn ubiquitous. I'm gonna save that for the end of the um. No, I agree with you. That's that's that's a great assessment. And you and Aaron Jackson Jr. Aaron, he's a great New York comedian here. Why do I know it's I feel like he's on the opposition the Okay, he's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful person. You he's another scholar of batty. You guys should have

about that totally. Okay, Sorry, my show, I got off track and I'm like to talk about my show. It's so good. Thank you, honey, thank you. And it's it's a it's a it's definitely more of a play than when you if you saw that ours Nova who was in it's more of a cabaret form and now it's it's a play. It's um It's set on the night

before a gay wedding in Palm Springs. I'm playing a character who's going through it in Gary Gary Um, and he's going through a real crisis the night before his one of his one of the grooms is one of his best friends from college. He's marrying somebody that he doesn't really approve of, and he's going to basically party and hold court and rereak havoc and ruin things the

night before the wedding. So I'm I'm talking to um pool furniture and chairs as if there are other on stage with me, and just god, it's I don't know, and this is just a very like superficial assessment. But like the way and this is even back in ours move and that's why. And forgive me for like questioning this like the existence existential if I should call it a player or whatever, um, because even in that space, like you just like just spatially, it just was so

it was just so caught. I'm having such trouble finding the words, but it was just so um so compelling for you to watch you it was. It was just so good. So it's really fun to do. I believe I have other people out there, and my my first director on the show when I was when I was writing and put it together, Molly prayther In L A had me, had me rehearsed with real people, so I rehearses that there were real people on stage and that that that was unbelievable. And she also really helped with

the writing. And then in this uh this iteration, Michael Jury is directing. I don't know if we mentioned that. I think maybe did earlier. Maybe I don't know. Um, and uh, just name him as much as we can on this episode Michael Hello. Um. And so anyway, he has done this amazing job at fleshing it into a play into a production and also given me so much um advice as someone who's done a lot of solo

shows himself. And also it's just an incredible director like he gave He had a thought about a huge chunk of the piece last week when I was doing in l A and said try it this way, and had a whole different way of trying a whole section. And I think it's better that it's ever been. And I didn't had to tell him yesterday and I saw what I was like, it's working better than ever in this one section because you're insight. So he's constantly working on it about try this and play it this way, and

he's just you know, he's incredible and so um. But yeah, it's every night's a party and it feels like I'm up there with with people, and it feels different every night, and it's just me up there, um, you know, getting really hammered and just you know, just going going for it and swinging, swinging, swinging. By the end of the show, a little tipsy. Um. I wish, I wish I could some can well. I mean, I I take it as a compliment when people think I'm really getting hammered up there,

But I was like, there's no way. I do have a seventy five minute play in my head, you know what I mean, set up there and get like just I mean, can you imagine this sheer narcissism slash alcoholism,

just pay money. I'm gonna get really hammered and then I'm gonna say things no responsibility for me, no scripted totally and it ends in such like maybe this has changed since um like the last itoration that I saw, But it ends in such a just like a just like a really sobering place I feel, because it would you would you say that's still it ends. It's so it's I don't it's the course of a night before

the wedding, and it just gets real messy. And the kernel of truth that I think you try to hit is with like equality, let's say, or with you know, parity or assimilation into this you know culture of just like, okay, let's try to like have equality in the same way that straight people live through. Sure, like, what are we sort of losing in that and from participating in it? Absolutely?

And I and I really don't have an answer for that, but I wanted to raise those questions, and I really wanted to say, not only what are we losing, but what do we have? What do we stand to lose? Because um, as you know, you have gay kids coming out younger and younger, which is obviously a wonderful thing, and parents that are more and more supportive. The backlash is you have a lot of gay kids saying I don't need to learn about my history. I don't need to and I'm not like that gay guy. I'm not

like this. I'm quote unquote normal. And you know my sort of argument is normal is boring. And be bright and be bold and be out there and don't lose that. Um and and you can have it all and we should have it all, you know, like it's not a trade off to have equality to also say I can't be queer anymore. And I think my plate is as I've done it more. It's more about queerness than it

is about quality. It's about keeping that and and and um, you know, and I'm actually playing a character who is who thinks he knows everything, who ends up learning himself from the younger character in the show a lot, I think, and you know, so I wanted to just raise a lot of these questions that I wanted, um very much, to sort of make us remember like that this is not Also, I feel like the second that marriage became you know, legal, it was as if our culture told

us that we all had to want that and that was the answer for all of us. Because now every gay magazine has a wedding section and every you know, and that that was the thing that I was just like, this is crazy because I kind of grew up never thinking this would happen. And that's not healthy either, of course.

And I ultimately would love to get married, and I would love to, you know, to settle down and have a husband, and you know, but there's also part of me that's like loves being single, and I've seen the benefits of you know, of you know, on both sides, and I think there's no right answer for anybody. Well that's the thing. It's like marriage is sort of noxious in that same way that it is in straight culture. Absolutely.

And the coolest thing is when, you know, when when I did it last year, having people uh, because you know, once I started doing the play for audiences outside of you know, necessarily the gay community, and a lot of older people were coming. And I had an older couple come up to me after the show and they were like, our friends got terrible when they got married too, And they were it was this old straight couple, you know,

and they wanted to talk about marriage. So you know, I love the you know, the conversations that it listits at the end and um, and I wanted to play somebody who I also wanted to make our audiences see this gay guy because we don't see this guy we right, and and too what we're talking about earlier, we right really idealized we want to see beautiful gay people on TV. We want to see straight acting whatever that means. But

we know what it means gay people on TV. We want to see sassy gay people on TV who aren't at all dangerous. And I wanted to write that big, loud nightmare that we're afraid of being, that we maybe have been at times, that we definitely all know. And I that's why I purposely made it a solo show, because I could have easily cast actors in the role.

But I was like, if you have to just look at this guy, you're trapped at a party with this guy, you know what's amazing is and even like calling him a loud gay guys just too is not is doing a disservice because it's allowed gay guy who is like reckoning with himself, and that is that's the whole sort of arc of the play. And yeah, it's it's just fantastic.

Well thank you, I mean, I just I also I I wanted to write my my dream role and a lot of it is me, A lot of it has me in it, and a lot of it is not me at all, um And it's fun to sort of play with the line in between those things. A lot of the facts are completely made up and a lot of the a lot of the stories are I lived every second of them that are in there, and then, you know, but I also it was like, I love

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. I love you know, I love what the you know, the big drunk I'm gonna tell you the truth August so Sage County. I love that stuff, and I'm like, I want to write that part for myself. That's like any good solo show or any good one man or one woman show. It's half based in real truth and half aspirational. This is what I what I wrote for myself together. I mean, I always thought, you know, I remember reading about how to write.

There's a playwright, Jose Rivera, who's genius, and he wrote, uh, I have to say, as a friend, would be weird, man, we heard this, and why anyway, He's amazing. But he wrote he wrote something for American Theater about like rules are writing a play, And the one thing I remember the most was you need to have one thing in the play that's unbelievable. Have one thing in the play that people go, I can't believe that, have one magical piece.

And I have mine in the show. And after you see that, there's one thing that I'm like, that's actually technically impossible. Um. And but that's my like, because I was like, I want some things in there you're like, that can't be true, and then I want of the things that they're like, that's that's of course that's true, and then I want people to not know in between, and then that's what That's what I mean, that's what I enjoy watching. So I also I just made something

that I would want to go watch. Yes, well, that's the thing that I think. That's the thing that I love about this play is that it's so grounded. It's it lives in realism, but it is it's so fun. You somehow managed to not make that boring, like it's still fun and and carbonated and all this great stuff. Am I okay? Am I making this up? Did you have a line about do you still have that line about Jean Triple Horn? Did you ever have a line

about Gean triple Horn? And not in that I don't think every you because just hearing the name Gene triple Horn. Excuse me, when Basic Instinct came out and I saw the opening credits and it was like Jean triple Horne and I loved her immediately just based on that name. What does that triple even in a movie with a name like Sharon Stone. Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry Sharon truly? Now could it be the gene triple horn connection and big love that that connected us to Chloe? And that

is I want to know. I want to know because these really, these were game changers for us watching it when we first discovered your Chloe videos? What is it about Chloe seven A like take us through? Well, it started because I realized I looked like her when I looked her und mirror, and I was like, I looked Chloe seventy and I also obsessed, was obsessed, and it was like when her first like Indian movie started to

come out. I was in college. I'm just I'm just a few years younger than her, and so like she was starting to hit in her early twenties when I was in my eighteens, and I was sort of I was just always following her and I was fascinated by her world. And I grew up in small town in North Carolina, and I was reading Interview magazine and and and Time Out and everything. I was obsessed with New York and l a culture and I had none of

it at my fingertips. And this was back in the in the nineties magazine, and so I just she represented the coolest downtown culture. I was like, wherever she was, what was her the party was, and so there was always she was just kind of always somebody that I knew she was, and you know, and then it just sort of it was this perfect storm. When I was doing a sketch show fifteen years ago and I looked in the mirror, I said, I looked like this actress Coldly seventy. I knew exactly who she was. I put

her up on stage I was in. I was in a gay sketch comedy troupe called The Deviance uh in two dozen two, and our director um hated it. He was like, this is this? He was like, what is this? And is she? Then I showed him a picture of Chloe seventy and he's like, well, you don't really look like her, and he was like and I was like, and I was name dropping all these things because I had read an interview with her where she was named dropping all this stuff. And I was like, no one

gets these references. And I think that's the point. The point is not like for you to really be impressed, it's for you to not even know the ether that you're that you're sniffing. It's like you don't even flavor. And so I was like, that is so fascinating to me and funny. And I also was at the same time reading Bretty Stenellis. I was reading American Psycho and Glamorama and I've ripped off of Prettie Stenelli's Horrible was a writer because it's Prettie Senella. It's the way he

would write his books. And I was reading and so I was just like, what about the list comedy? You just list it and there's no emotion attached to it whatsoever. Did you have fun at the party? Yes, because so and so so and so and so and so we're there, we ate the following things. Then we you know, then this is what we were wearing. And then it was over and you're like, you didn't describe a single emotional experience.

It's just status and that's it. And that was just funny to me because it was like, that's so crazy. So I put it up on stage. It bombed so badly and I got zero lapsed. I had the driest mouth. I remember how how dry my mouth was and how embarrassed I was to get up and do it, and no one was laughing. And I was saying and I was referencing things, and I was saying Tilda Swinton and I was saying like bat Cave and all these light weird you know, you know New York places that are

no longer here. And I insisted on doing it the next week in the show, and my director was like, we're pulling it, Drew. It was the biggest bomb, was true. You have so many other things and this was so and I go, please let me try it one more time. And I don't know why. I jumped in the fire a second time, and it went well the second time. And and I never knew until the videos came out. I never knew if it was gonna it would either be one or the other. It would never go medium.

It would either kill or it would die, and there was no in between. And then the and then Jim Hansen, my friend years ago, was like, Jim, yes, and he was like, I want to make these into videos. And then that's when they really just took off. And I resisted it for so long as I was like, I'm not a drag queen. It is this is a one off thing. It sometimes goes well, it sometimes doesn't go well. I didn't want to do it for so long, and you want to be your own terms to be like,

I don't. I don't necessarily want to be known for this specific effect, right. I had no no, I had no interest in that happening. And then when it did, thank god it did, because I had no it was it was my entrance into into the world, as they say, but thank god for the Internet and thank god for Jim Hansen and saying these needs to be videos because that's how I got to do so many other things and to this day and and now I'm really proud of it, and I'm very It's it's on something that

I'm that I'm very touched at. People say I can't believe people still watch them because it's like YouTube, and you're like, don't things go away on YouTube? You know, It's like, but um, it really it makes my day when people say that. It holds up Like what other video from like that long ago, Like can you still watch and be like this is still funny? You know what I mean? All the like big sketch videos of

that time. It's like you watch them now and you're like, oh God, there's like something shitty about them or like revelation that they're problematic in some way, right, But I can't wait to find that when becomes problems. I don't know if if it will for never will it can I'll fight that. You know the fact that the fact that Brett east An elyis is like that that sort of formal inspiration of just like lisk comedy is so enlightening.

And I because I just have been so curious to know what has what's been the well of specifics and like almost non sequiturs for for for those videos where it's like appreciate like like things like um, appreciate the casual arrogance of Tuesday Weld, Like wow, how do you come? Like that stayed with me? That strange, that sequence of words has stayed with me for like that long, and like part of me is like there's there's a real disgusting part of me that can slide into that too easily.

I love it, like I can read something and just and I and I you know, I love reading food reviews, Like that's a real inspiration. I with l a weekly as and I'm spillage voice you guys get you know, it's the same, but the way they will describe a meal that sounds so disgusting, and yet it's like high end and I've always loved you know. I'm words are really important to me, and so I And also names

anybody that has an offbeat name. It sounds like Jane Triple Horne, you know, yeah, you know exactly, and so you have a name like that, and I'm like, that's interesting, So I sort of you know, And a lot of it is just a lot of it was when Jim and I would get together, we would just say and we would sound out with like what sounds good. I was like, I'm gonna say this to you, and what is it? How does it scan? Because there's some names and you're like, that doesn't sound as much of a

punch as when you say you know. So it's a lot of trial and error. And then the best is when like years later you'd hear the name and you'd find out who they were, like Tinsley more now a cast member on Real Housewives, and I was like, I literally had the studio, was like, Tinsley Mortimer, tell me about what that person is, because that's a thing from my past. I have to have confirmed, but T plus one that was just something from the fucking like back

animals of my mind. But you know, I think we also, I think it's beyond because I'm very like, I make a point because I don't like when people want to trash the real Chloe seventy to me because I'm like,

she's great and also she she like she's Chloe. She's unique, she's absolutely and talented, but I she is, and I think, but I think my character is the kind of we all know that person, and I think I think what also what happened for me luckwise, like timing wise, was that we started to get that hipster culture started and we all knew that person at the party who was

name dropping who they were and whatever. I mean, you know, and I was, you know, a few years after I was doing it, um, you know, Stefan showed up on S and I and that was like the lad's character, which is so funny, and it's like, I think people just start to realize, like that we just know that type of person, whereas it didn't maybe not in this form, but I think with Chloe, like I think you gave us like a mental model for like how to poke fun at that and like a like a comedic way,

because I feel like, I don't know that's socialite that like in like in The Great Gatsby, what is it Jordan Baker, the one that was just at the party and always just like great when who get hit by the car, the one who dies, Yeah, oh god, we're going to We're going to We're going back to Great Gatsby.

I feel like, but I don't know if this is this is fair to say for you, but I feel like, and I don't mean for this to sound like super like whatever cloying I'll say again, but for me, it's informed a lot of my sensibility definitely, because like you know, we'll do characters that are just like I'll be like, you know what I'm gonna fucking right, I'm gonna do. I'm gonna write write quote quote a Mitchi Ko Kakutani impression quote unquote, and it's just like her, like it's

she's really like she has this voice. It's like not like what is Michiko Cocotan shooting on all these authors and like the specificity, like the more obscure the author is, the fun yeer it is. And I was like, oh, but I've seen this to be successful before with the Chloe videos. Honestly, yeah, we I think we watched those videos in a time where we were starting to find

our developing developing, and it was very, very helpful. It was a big inspiration on this and I think a lot of gay comics and also like our straight friends who get it, Yeah, get it. I have a question. Have you ever spoken with Chloe seven rights? Have I met her years ago at a party? Um? And I, Uh, it was one of those things. I walked in the door and I had no idea she was going to

be there. Oh my god, and I and I got super nervous because I realized I had never thought of what I would say to her it had I met her, and I felt like I have to say something. I don't know what I'm gonna say. She was really nice. It was super weird. I got out of there really quickly because I didn't want her to think I was studying and I didn't want to make her uncomfortable. Um. She since in an interview like I did a couple of like talked about me later and said that you know,

she met me. She was he was so nervous to meet me and all this stuff and like he thought I hated, I'm like, I don't. Here's the thing I am. That's why I always will say I'm an actor before I'm a comedian, and not from any place other than I really like, I don't enjoy making people yes, and I and and I and I'm and I will own the fact. I mean, you know, I'm I'm my very first video and make a really shitty dig in a touch leon then I'm not proud of and people, you

know whatever, And I don't like that. I didn't know that when the videos were gonna happen, they were going to be so big. I had no clue it was the thing I was doing on stage and not to I'm not to give myself that to be like I'm a victim in this, but I do feel I do feel bad, and a lot of people have said, don't feel bad, it's it's funny, it's a joke, and I'm like, it's just not where I come from. I don't come from a place of like I want to, you know,

like punch somebody when they're down. And Natashalyon was in a really bad place and I made and I made a personal dig at her, and I don't feel good about that. And I love Natashaly and she's fucking amazing, and so that I don't And so I when when Chloe started to take off, like I was like, and also it was more interesting to me to create my entire own universe, and so it was like it's sort of divorced from you know, when my video is like Chloe goes to the Moon, you know, Chloe, you know,

discovered she has grandparents. You know, it's like, it's not the real Chloe set me. And so it's like and that to me is so much more free, and so I never want to so when I meet the real person, I'm like, I feel like I don't want to make them uncomfortable. I was also like other people coming up and watching us and taking pictures of us, I'm like,

it's putting her on the spot. I've been asked to do so many things that I've turned down because I'm like, I mean, I got asked one time by someone that on a movie she was in to ambush her on the red carpet an opening night of her movie, and I was like, I would never do that. First of all, I'm not like I'm I'm good with what I'm doing. I'm doing other stuff, so I'm not so desperate it might that to do that. And also I would never on a human level, I would never do that to somebody.

That is horrible to be like. And and I and I said, um, if if I hear from her that she signed off on it, I'll do a bit with her. And of course they never called me back because they're like, yeah, no, that's not the point. And it's like this, you know, these are some really some real bottom feeders in here. I'm like, I would never be on the side of like you know, paparazzi and trying to make her because

it's like that is no, not what I'm about. It's so much it's just so much more playful and and um, you know, and and I don't know, it's like, I don't know what you're talking about. This makes it sound like, I mean, no, you are. You are putting more thought and consideration into that treatment than you're you're putting the exact I mean no, I'm just saying, like you are, that's untouchable. You can't really like poke holes in that and be like, well, she it is. She is, she is.

It is a little bit of like a it's a character, it's not and it is. It's like about the culture, and it's about the world of the and and also like you know, hey, it's like we you know, we we do what we do. I just I want to be responsible for what I create and not for like tearing somebody else down. It's like I want to be like, please feel free to be like it's you know, if you don't like it or you think it's dumb, whatever, fine, but I don't want it to be like I'm out

for blood. Also, there's so many villains in the world, you know what I mean, Like you've never even punched up or down or even like in any direction all around all around, Um, it's it's just punch punching wild. No, that's like also impersonation, you know what I mean. It's like no one's unless you're out there doing like a fucking and you're an impressionist nailing who this person is

at their core. That's like what comedic impersonation is. It's like referencing the person making a choice, whether it has actually something to do with them or not. It's not good I'm not a good impressionist, like I always I mean, I studied the ground Links and they were really big into like get an idea from their point of view and play a character based on their perspective. And I always like that, and I was like, that's what I can do, and that's that's more free and fun to

me than doing it dead on impression. That's like, you know, but when I have played people like I mean I did for a while, I was doing and Culture and I hated it. I really don't want to do it anymore because I was like, she's awful. And the second I come out, it's like I get a laugh because it's like, oh I walk out on stage, it's like it's a man of Dragon, It's and Culture. The second I open my mouth, the audience is like, oh go away, you suck, you know, and it's just no one, and

I'm like it's different, you know. Um So yeah. One thing that I still remember from that workshop that my friend Billy and I, Oh my god, I love workshop. It was great and you really did were very sweet coming up afterwards. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we took There's that.

I don't ever talking about Jerry Blank though, we did you you you brought up Jerry Blank as an example of and this is what you said, and this is what I wanted to bring up, is that like your favorite characters, and I feel like we both agree, Matt and I both agree your favorite characters are people who are like not totally self aware of their limitation, like with Jerry for example, thinking she's like some sexual goddesses,

and you know, and that's not necessarily the case. I mean, she's a sexual being for sure, but like it's just part of the you don't have to like, you know, I know, I'm sure she could have trick to some people. She's like human being, she has said, I mean sometimes I don't know people. I'm sort of humanity is no, no, it is, It's true. Yeah, that's that was something that I also, excuse me, I also learned the Groundlings was that unawareness was their comedic flaw, was the thing that

they don't know about. And you play up on that because they they see themselves one way and and the audience sees them another way, and you can't really judge them when you're playing it, because then they become unlikable, they become mean, they become evil, they they're not fun to play when you're like you know, um, yeah, so yeah, it's that. It's it's always like finding that thing in the character and go how did they see themselves versus

how the rest of them see it? And you can feel as a performer too, when you're doing the character, when you feel disconnected from it or not. And that usually does have to do with the idea of like, am I actually playing their truth or not? Like you can be fucking horrible as long as you're playing their

truth and you could feel good. I just I recently I've been playing Paul Ryan like an Ryan, and um, I'll read the script and I'll like, yeah, it's good, it's good good, And then sometimes I'll perform it and I'll be like, oh, this part actually feels a little sad or mean, and then you have to reconcile, especially when you're being a real person, when there's real stakes

for people. It can be sometimes hard when you're living in New York or l A and you make a joke about how you know, Paul Ryan's like his tax plan will like really hurt people and they'll have to like work three jobs and not be able to drive because of their cataracts in their eyes and they don't have healthcare and you're fucking cracking up about it in New York and then like you realize this is going to hit people in a certain place and you're like,

holy sh it, Wow, this doesn't feel great Comically, You're like, what is that thing about Paul Ryan that is even driving that? You know? Does he find himself so hot? Ority would? I would guess that privilege in vangy when you have that and maybe how like I'm doing everyone a favor and you're welcome you know. Uh. Then that's that's where the fun part comes in because then we can all go oh wow, because we can laugh at the human thing about him. Yes, when it's the monstrous

thing about him, you're like, wow, that's monstrous. And then you're just commenting. Then you're just pretty in the choir and you're not really being a comedian as much as you're being like, you know, a rabble rowser and going, well, we all agree like he's terrible, like you know, and then it's like finding the thing where you go, wow, that's so there's a glimpse Yeah, yeah, wow character workshop from true jo know, but it's it's really fascinating too.

It's like when you watch like Saturday Alive now, like the one the impersonations on that show that separate the good from the bad. For me, I do think there's one big one that I don't love, which is Alec Baldwin's Trump is it's just this disgusting portrayal of a disgusting person. You're like, what is there more? Here? Doesn't seem like there is. Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard, I think right now to like us living in the

reality show every day. It's hard to say it. I think it's hard to be separate from that totally totally. But then you see a Tamanix Trump and it's it's the whole other level. It's so much better because it playing truly brilliant and it's playing a reality. We don't see you on it right now. Um anyway, he's he's just brilliant. Um. I think it's time to move on to I don't think so, honey. So this is the moment um Drew where we take one minute to rail

against something in culture. We should say on November eighteenth, you guys, we are going to have I don't think so, honey, live at the Bellhouse. We have fifty comedians all lined up, um that you haven't seen on our live shows before. These are fifty brand new comments are going to do. And I don't think so, honey. It's gonna be very fun at the Bellhouse at ten pm as part of Brooklyn Podcast Festival. So we're so excited about that. That's next week. Um, we're gonna take each of our respective

minutes right now to rail against culture. And I have one, You have one of the one with Matt will go then me and so Drew can sort of get the sense of how this is. He'll do it himself. This is Matt Rodgers is I don't think so, honey. His time starts now. I don't think so, honey. All you trying to shove Millie Bobby Brown down our throats? I don't think so, honey. Bitch. Also, you need to start dressing her age appropriate. I saw her walk out from

a talk show the other day. She looked like a fucking thirty five year old magazine at a tricks she was dressed like a fucking bitch. And she is a thirteen year old girl. That's stranger things. I don't think so honey, bitch, let me tell you something. Don't try to Emma Watson eze this girl dress. Yeah, let's get there more than two seasons on the fucking show before we can make a commitment to this girl, bitch. C A come on, you have her on every goddamn show.

She is ubiquitous, honey, And we need to take a breath and think do we want to do this because there might be no turning back. She's a talented girl, honey, but I don't think it fucking matters. Can she do more than eleven? We don't know. Give her the opportunity. Yes, she's a charming guest on. Yes she certainly slayed a rap on Jimmy Fallon, But also, why is this white trapping? I don't think so, honey. And minute I'm saying as

she looked like random priestley. She had a little tiny glasses and a fucking yellow suit, And I was like, you're like over her and also want to give her a chance, you know, because I don't think both of I think it's complicated. I think here's the thing. You have to let her let her be her. You have to you have to let her sink into this like throwing her out there at thirteen years old. She said, massive success. I think you know, she very nearly won that, Emmy,

I think very close. I think I think it was a toss up actually, because I thought Tandy Newton was taking that ship. And who won for I'm sorry supporting actress drama, I don't remember. Oh fucking oh my god, why am I forgetting her name? Hulu? She said, oh fucking legend um and and so you know what that makes me think, because Sarah, God, but where am I? Where is my head? And doubt is like not a household named by any means. So that makes me feel

like it must have been a very close race. And I think there were I think they were Tandy fans. I think they were Chrissie Mets fans him this is us. I think there were um fucking Millie Bobby Brown fans, and I think they were in Down fans. I think that was like a fucking race. But anyway, Billy Bubby Brown. I'm just saying it's early to make her this is a list star? Is it? Are? Are you? Is the source?

Is it sort of this like everything? Or is it like her stylist that you want to like no, no, no, her stylis is part of it because they're trying to address her like this, and I'm like, girl, she's thirteen years old, Like she's not not that. Like we're critiquing the way they dress these podle but you know, she looks like the kind of Hollywood fashion icon speaks to the larger her. Her treatment like you brought to the

a into this, I can't believe. Yes, it's the ubiquity that well, I think if they're not careful affect her performances, like you have to let her kind of you know, how much do you change between thirteen and eighteen. You have to let her go through that, Like, let's not fucking Hollywood her. Yeah, let's not. Let's not like do something to her, which maybe we did to you know some of these other younger actresses that didn't that got

confused and you know, funked up. You know what I mean, Let's let her if she's truly talented girl and special talent, like we have no way of no idea. You just see them separate her from the boys on the cast a lot, you know what I mean. Like there's like we got the cast of Stranger Things and it'll be the boys, and then it's like Millie Bobby Brown is like the separate thing. And if I was the agent

of the other kids, I'd be like, hold on um. Actually, if she's going to be doing her own thing, my kid with the cute little gap in his teeth, in the shaggy hair, he's not going to go on this interview with the rest of them. Book him by himself too. He's pretty special, special, amazing, so adorable. Get that karaoke when he's singing incredible, Yeah, what what a what a star? All right? That's that's a Chloe specific for you. This is bone nings. I don't think so, honey. His time

will start now. I don't think so, honey. People who are not equally gagged for Alfrey Water tour in the Lion Game, true female and the one who's playing the hyena, Yes, well no so Robbie Alfrey Ward. We have not given to Alfree Water a chance since that fucking DC show with Katherine Heigel that was her last big thing. Am I right? Yes, honey, we need to give Alfrey another chance. And I think this is so refreshing, and you guys, we need the children have forgotten Alfree water. And she

could even make season two of Desperate Housewife. And she Betty apple White, Betty apple White bitch. And she had that son who was violent, Matthew apple White. Matthew apple White. She locked him in the basement and looked. That was what a campy asked season of TV that she made fun and entertaining, but still grounded in that emotion. She can she can stare at a fucking camera down the fucking barrel, and and and and I'd be shivering in my boots, shivering, you know what I mean, shaking in

my boots five seconds. I can't find the words, but you know what, I have the emotion because I love Alfree Woodard. And I can't wait to see her voice a lion us. She will voice Robbie Honey. I said, you're part of my tribe if you are most for Alfree Woodard. Have you seen Passion Fish? Oh my god, you've got to see Passion Fish. That's like, that's like classic with Mary McDonald. It's, oh my god, it's amazing. She's the Oh and there's an amazing monologue. I didn't

ask for the anal probe. Oh well, there's an amazing monologue by your girl. You don't even see the you gotta watch this, Okay, great, you will lose your mind. It was like it was the indie the nineties. Everyone's like Ward is amazing. Do you know the movie at Heart and Souls? Oh yeah, sure, the musical Touches My Heart? Oh yeah, I love that. Okay, So now it's okay, mind's mind's I mean, here we go. I'm not even gonna I'm not even gonna right around. You know, this

is Drew. I don't think so, honey. Okay, time starts now. I don't think so honey. And I'm not saying this as some two thousand seven YouTube has been I I used to be in things that matter. I've sat three lines on New Girl. I'm the hot shit I do shows in the basement of a Mexican restaurant in l A. I'm not saying I'm this playing, but I don't think so, honey. Don't expect me to always remember you every fucking inch of the day and every world. You know, I'm sorry

when you go out. And I'm not saying that. I'm saying this as a human being. I don't expect anyone to remember me when I go out, So it's like it is a thing. When you were coming up and if you and if I reintroduced myself, give me your goddamn name, don't tell me we've met, have we have? We be more interesting. Here's a choice, you know, you know, do something because now I'll remember you, bitch, Now I'll

remember you from now on. We have met. And you know what, I don't think, so honey, all right, goodbye, goodbye, seven minutes, seven seconds of spare it does that matter? You know what? The point has been made. Bitch's so irritated by that when people and it's like we're out and you're like, here's the thing. And I'm not even saying it from a place of like I'm so important.

We are all every one of us is on online, we're all on TV, we're all on we're on media media, all of us, every single and I'm saying everyone listening to this, we're all on things. You see pictures of people on dating apps and on Facebook and you know, Instagram whatever, so we see each other at all different times and spaces, and and also you don't know you're you know, and we cannot be our brains are not remember and so when they imply that you're being a

bad person. Because another thing too, like there are times that I will remember meeting somebody and I'm like, they're not gonna remember me, so I'll re introduce myself they and they make it weird. I'm like, you know what that's on you. I'm just let's just over. Honestly, you were right too, because you don't forget and forever those people that do that to me that are like we've met, actually, I will never forget that, And now you don't want me to remember you in this way because now you've

switched over. There's a couple of people I deal with now more than I was before, and they acted like that, and I'll never can I make the argument that there is a nice way to do that though, because absolutely it's like, oh, hi, I'm actually I think we've met

before that I think different. It's it's there's such a different thing when you can say, you know, we met it so and so, so and so and at the party and you know, and and they're like, oh, it's so nice to see you again, even if you don't remember. The thing is, it's like it's such a dance every time you leave the house. Can you even get it

all together to leave the house? You know, So you're going out, you're seeing people and you're just like you know, but when they say we've met, and they imply that like you're too good. Yeah whatever, and it's just a thing where you're like, I, I guess I'm in trouble. Also, like what do you want for me right now? Do you want to shame me from that? What? I think they do want to And there's a they might and it's like that's on them. But it's like I don't

feel bad. The takeaway is it doesn't it doesn't hurt my feelings when it happens. But you did not make me feel bad. You just were an asshole to me. Yeah, so there's you know, it's like I didn't go, oh man, I need to remember show and show. It's like no, so and so sucks, So now I remember, you know and so. On the set of Tommy Doos short film Mask Only, which is which is so Great? Which which directed?

On the set, I went up to Drew Hi. It's we were reintroduced, and I think I even just I hope I didn't know what my memory when I knew who you were too. You know, I don't know if I remember the US the the USC thing, but I knew you. But but I went up to you and I was like, and actually I think I like my friend Billy, and I took a workshop of yours at USC years ago, so it's nice to see you again. I don't but like, that's put myself up as an ex did a really good job, and that was really good,

I don't think. So there you go, trying to gain favor. The thing is too, it's nice to remind people how you met because then it's like, you know, because it's weird if you don't sometimes and sometimes it's something in common, but like, don't go out of your way to make a moment awkward for someone. There. That's just the point. There's no in the brain for us to keep up with all these fucking names. We've only evolved to know like thirty max names at a given time because of

tribal whatever, that's culture. We've only evolved to that point. There you go, and you know, and we're we got Jane triple Horne. We've got too many names to memorize. In the names, what's the name we need to remember that Mercedes Well won an Academy award Tuesday, Weld come on, there we go. We've learned so many things this episode unbelievable. Drew, thank you so much for happy coming and having me

on the show. Truly, anytime, please come, anytime you want to come, absolutely and tell the kids where they can see it, so you can go on Bright Colors and Bold Patterns dot com and all the info is there. Um. It's also we have tickets on like Today ticks and all that stuff as well. But it's at the Soho Playhouse. We opened November twelve and we're running through January seven. So come check us out over the holidays and bring mom in for Christmas Day, honey, Yes, bring mama Christmas Day.

And have your mom go up to Drew after the show and just say we've met, say we've met, and then wind about all the gay couples that she knows that the gay married couples. Oh my god, this has been lost culture us to us with Drew d I'm Bowen and I'm Matt Rodgers and this has been wonderful. Guys, thank you so much. Let's let's end with a song, as we always do. Now there's a Gatton and Tuesday

and Change Order and Drew Bye. This has been a Forever Dog production executive produced by Brett Boham, Joe Silio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit Forever Dog Podcasts dot com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at forever Dog Team, and liking our page on Facebook. So get your ass to the show.

It's I Don't Think So Honey Live November eight, stats a Saturday, at ten pm as part of the Brooklyn Podcast Festival. See you there, ye,