An Adults Only Melrose Minute!

Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney Thorn Smith.

And Daphne's Aniga an iHeartRadio podcast.

Hey you guys, Oh my gosh, Daphne, you were so cute at King for coming.

Yes, So, first of all, welcome to our Melrose Minute. We had the super crazy fun thing of getting to go see Daphne at Upright Citizens per Grade, which is an improv show, and it was really the best one I've ever seen. I never stopped laughing. Normally there are awkward pauses. I never did.

So Daphne, please tell us what it was like for you.

Well, UCB is, you know, started in New York. This is the La Theater and within that somebody, I think it was Amy Poehler was one of the founders, and then another actor started ascat a double four s's and the format is.

And I said, you say, ass cat. I've never said it that way, but that would be the appropriate I'm just trying it out.

And I don't know where that came from, but I think you see be the theater itself has at least that night, there were three shows, so people come, they.

Line up, but like they're you know, five, Almost every night there's two or three shows almost every night, and they're just like a different themed, recurring show.

And if they and.

This particular one with Ascat, which is not in all the shows, they invite a guest to come in and they say, we're going to ask you to tell three stories. They have to be true, and then our improv troupe will act them out. And obviously, you guys saw they take you to start with your stories and they go off from there.

Yeah, they weren't really acting out your stories so much as they used it as a trigger to spark ideas for themselves. So they would take a piece of your story and just go off on that became a tangent and it.

Was hysterical, shysterical.

And by the way, Daphne I thought about this later, like your stories were great because you provided just enough detail for them to like grab onto things that they wanted to like store away and go, oh, I want to I want to do something on that beat.

And they weren't always like truthful to your story.

It was just like that beat of the story that they took and told another tangential story off of. And just the way they work together and they you know, they as improv artists. They're like ready to jump in and go I see where this can go and how I can contribute. And they tap the shoulder of one of the other actors out and they tap out and they step in and all of a sudden, they pivot the story and everybody's just like they don't miss a beat.

It was so fun to watch. Yeah, it made me wish that I had had the courage to do that as a actor, and I thought I wish I had. I wish I had done it because it looked so much fun and they were enjoying themselves. And Daphney, what I think you did so beautifully.

First of all terrifying, like when they say, like when you're doing a pre interview for a talk show and they tell me a funny story like the only can't remember anything. Yeah, it was that moment on a stage in front of people. But the stories you told were really charming and funny in and of themselves, and you were so relaxed and you seem so happy to be there, and I think it gave them permission to really be

No, you were just smiling, you delighted. We were across the stage from you, on the other side of the stage.

And once you sit down after you've told your stories, you sit down as an audience member, and you watched the troop just do their thing, and you're laughing.

As the thing. You honestly were like beaming. It was so fun to watch.

It was cringing because they get a little like pro genitalia.

Yeah, was there.

I told the story of our blind date, and I was like, I did not mention anything about what I could.

Kill someone body part. Yeah, and it was very dirty and they get.

Dirty, but they let's see my stories. The first one was, oh, someone said desert, so I still.

I told a Spaceball story.

So we had guys acting out mel Brooks and the other characters and.

All different versions of mel Brooks.

All different versions of him. And then I told a story about our blind date, and so I kind of was regretting. I don't know, because it's I've never done that before. So these stories came up, you know, as you saw, they asked the audience for words and they were giving me words like ginger vitis.

Like no kept coming.

Yeah, because the audience first is supposed to throw out words for you, the guest to think of a story on that theme, and then you have to think of a story sort of on a theme based on the audience suggestion, and then the improv actors tell off from tell their thing, do their thing based on yourself.

It's all like a very sort of collaborative yea, yeah.

And I know why it would feel weird for you because one of this phrase you told it was so adorable was that you were talking to your now husband and you hadn't met yet, and he happened to be in your mom's town and he said, can I take your mom to coffee? Which is so such extremely charming, I can't even so, and the whole audience went, oh so after to take your mom to coffee, So they

Is it all you and David? Like that wasn't the truth?

The sweet part was, I can imagine why it felt sort of personal deal, like are people going to think, but it's not.

It was so ridiculous.

And as you said, they said penis more times than I can count, and then Wiener and I was saying to I went with my friend Dan, and I was like, the embarrassing thing is it.

Makes me laugh every time he goes.

I was getting kind of calm by the penis because then they said Wiener and I lost it, like why is it so funny?

How young?

I mean, it's also silly and stupid, and yeah, it was so silly and great, but yeah, that's absolutely true. Daff Your story was so sweet and genuine, and everybody just kind of went, oh, my gosh, that's so cute.

But like they completely turned.

And then it became animal crack and lizard planning, and then that lizard someone mentioned Meryl Streep and then I

I love that story and I don't say money.

But because Meryl Streep went to the same Summerstock theater years before, I use that because they said do that, And.

Then I'm great.

I kind of learned, like, Okay, I get it. Now, these are acts, their improv Let's give them some visuals, you know, and they can just go off from there, because clearly I know they will. And yet they turned it into more genitalia and.

Right, well, I'm like, did you know did they ask did they say, hey, this is an over eighteen crowd, like this is adults only, because or somehow in your gut you knew to ask for it. Right at the beginning, You're like, wait a minute, is everybody out here over eighteen? And they haven't turned that into a joke, which was really funny for them, but like, I wonder you even knew, Like, hey, I just just.

Want to check who's my crowd here. I want to read the room.

Well I was saying that more for my stories, right yeah, yeah, So but then I thought I'm not going to divulge any like stories that I don't want out in the public anyway. So they're going to stick to like really fun, you know, save stories. But boy, when you have like really talented if some of those people are second city, there us be. They used to came up in New York when it started with the Amy Polar group and all of that, so they're very talented. They do this

They because I do improv.

I've studied with Gary Austen, I've studied with you know, my friends, Helen Hunt and Helen Slater. I've Jason Alexander had been in there. Lisa Kudre is there in the very beginning when she came up with her character for Friends. I mean, these are brilliant people who just have but you have to be open to your own inspiration because it kills you if you think too much. And so I'm always terrified over the years to do it, and then i keep doing it because it's fun.

But you really, I.

Really saw because I got to just tell this story and then sit down like there, imaginations just keep going. Yeah, never stop and that's a real ability. That's a real, real ability. I hope you guys do it. I hope you guys do it. You said Doug might want to do it.

I mean it's just like if between Doug or me, like who's sort of more brave about that, that would be Doug I have. I'm like, like panic, I'm not going to be able to think of something in the moment, you know that that fear like you said, like going on a talk show and like, ah, I can't.

I felt scared, But it looked so fun. Yeah, do it fun?

And what I saw because I always think I wish I could be as relaxed in my work as an actor as I am with my friends. Right, Like, I'm much funnier with my friends, and you guys are now my friends, so we're nice and relaxed.

But it's like you're hilarious.

But I always thought, like I look at and that's what they felt, like friends making each other a laugh and they were like the guys weren't actually on stage, were waiting, were laughing hysterically at their buddies.

And I thought that's why the show was so.

Magical, because it wasn't all these people trying to perform and be funny for each other. They were making each other laugh, and I think that's why it felt so relaxed and easy. So then as an audience member, I could relax because they were having fun. Like I said, we could see you you were having fun, so that made it.

It was such a great show. I was so impressed.

Well, I actually have I have a really good friend who is not an actor, and she has always just sort of had this. She has a kid, a grown child who's pursuing acting as a career and stuff.

And she just said.

You know, I wanted to put myself in an improv class because it's one of the scariest things I can think of doing, but I think it would be so good for me.

Whatever, And she just.

Went and did this super brave thing and put herself, as a middle aged mom person in an improv class with a bunch of people who were like pursuing it for all of their reasons. And she said, she was, you know, by far the oldest person in the room, but like the super scary and vulnerable thing to do.

The main thing that we get afraid of is judgment, right, we judge ourselves and we're afraid of being judged by the audience. And I remember again twenty something thirty. I don't know if this was in the nineties, but I was in one of my early classes with Gary Austin, who was a co founder of the Groundlings, and his opening exercise was to get up on stage alone and make a fool of yourself for two minutes, so you get it out of the way to the Cudro Lisa

You know, that is so brilliant because it's one thing to say, you know, I'm really funny and easy with my friends.

It's very different to do it on stage. That's a brilliant an exercise. Yeah, a few minutes and that's going to feel like forever. And I will say, like I have had talk show appearances go very badly and it's actually healthy because you go, that was as awful as I feared it was going to be, and here I am. I'm still here, right.

It's that sense of I did the humiliating, horrible thing and I'm still here.

It's really healthy. Maybe I should take an adult.

It is sort of a good lesson, and I'm going to take a little kid in prov class then I will.

But I tell you one thing that I remember with Gary's class much years later. I did he I didn't. It's called the theatrical. I forget what the name of the exercises. But I was on stage for thirty minutes by myself, just following movement and making a story out of it, and things came to me. This is many years ago, so my memory is more intact. But I remembered thing my childhood and cinequel just that's working. But I know, but still I think I need to up my dose because that's a great brain.

We just went off on that tangent.

But you know, anyway, we got to have a whole other Melrose moment, middle aged Melose moment.

Do you remember what you were saying?

Yeah, I do remember that. I remember the experience. I thought, I was terrified. What am I going to do?

We all had to do it, and and it just.

Turned out there are instincts in us. If you've been acting for a long time and you have to access and give yourself freedom, but the instincts are there, and if you just let yourself go into the the rules that he lets you, that he lets you in on, then you're going to be fine.

I was.

It was an amazing experience that class. And he said that was so theatrical, It was so you have it in you. You just don't know because regular life doesn't ask this of us.

Yeah.

And by the way, can I just mention that Melrose's place never allowed it either.

Like we were not open, we were not welcome to improv.

As a rule there was like state exactly is written and yeah, no the Mary Donner out.

No, no, no, I should have married Donna Onda we should be so fun.

Yes idea, yes, not to self married.

Honnor love her, But like we weren't really welcome to improve in any way. And it wasn't like this collaborative, you know, creative process. It was really like figure out how to tell this exact story in the way that is expected.

Although I will say like in.

Later seasons, I did feel like I got a little, a little opportunity to do some improving and stuff just with that.

Within the realm they.

Did loosen and well, in the beginning, we were young and people were changing the script in ways that changed the meaning, and that's why it got so strict.

And then later on I think they loosened.

Plus everyone's tired.

Season seven, you're just like, say, launch whatever whatever I want to go, Yeah, do it with chop stick.

But I just want to say, we're going to wrap this up, but I want to say it, so just a shout out to the theater to uc b LA. It's that's their instagram and it's right there on Franklin Street, right there in Beechwood Canyon and they have shows all the time and I really recommend people.

Going all the time. It was super much fun. Yeah, I brought my kid and shows called ass Cat the Sunday night shows.

All right, it was super fun watching you daff and super fun to talk about it and always start to see you.

On a Melrose minute. Ladies, Yay, see you guy soon, you se. Bye bye