Interview: John Ross Bowie (Pt. 1)
In 2021, it’s probably pointless to try and teach your kids to view social media interactions with their favorite celebrities as something special, because it’s literally something they’ve experienced their entire lives. For those of us who grew up in a world without internet, however, there’s still at least a little bit of that lingering thrill when you find yourself sending messages back and forth with an actor or musician whose work you respect.
Such was the case when I found myself in a situation where I’d interviewed Timothy Omundson for Random Roles and, after the fact, he told me how excited his friend John Ross Bowie was for him, that it was effectively a rite of passage to be interviewed for that feature. What you have to understand here is that I live in Virginia, and no matter how many famous folks I interview or how much professionalism I put on during those conversation, I’m never, ever going to lose that little spark that makes me go, “Omigod omigod omigod, this is awesome!” So the fact that these two actors were having a discussion about a feature to which I regularly contribute… That’s still just nuts to me.
Still, it wasn’t so nuts that I didn’t see it as an opportunity to reach out to Mr. Bowie, someone who I’d never encountered at the TCA tour or interviewed by phone, and thank him for enjoying Random Roles. So I did. And we traded several messages via Instagram. And then several months later, when I had my Substack newsletter and he announced that he was going to be starting up a very cool new podcast called Household Faces, I thought, “Say, maybe he’d do an interview with me for the newsletter!”
So I asked him…and here we are!
First of all, let me just say that I'm very excited about Household Faces. Clearly, given all of these Random Roles interviews I've done, this is something that's right in my wheelhouse.
John Ross Bowie: I think it's a nice sort of deeper dive into the sort of thing that you do. We're going for... [Hesitates.] I usually tend to pick about three or four projects that we talk about in great detail, and I get very wonky in terms of technique and craft and stuff like that. I had a great talk with Bruce Greenwood. I'm not sure when we're going to drop it, but... Bruce Greenwood did a great JFK in Thirteen Days, right? And one of the things that's so dazzling about that performance is that he nails that incredibly difficult Boston Brahmin accent. And having really no gift for dialects myself, I was asking Bruce Greenwood how he got it so specific, and what he did was...
Bruce Greenwood is a big audiophile, it turns out, and he did this thing where he recorded John F. Kennedy talking casually to Bobby Kennedy - he found some tape on that - and put it into Logic or GarageBand or one of them, set up the .wav file, and then recorded his own voice doing the JFK impression, and then tried to match the two .wav files. He, like, looked at the two audio files next to each other to get them visually similar, and that's how he knew he was getting closer and closer to the timbre of JFK's conversational voice. And stuff like that is just fascinating to me. It's super-nerdy, and it might not be for everybody. I'll grant that. I might be going in sort of a niche direction with this thing. But it was really fun to talk to him about it.
I just wish it had turned out that he'd just listened to The First Family, like, eighty times.
[Laughs.] And that's exactly the thing! There's a way to do a sketch-comedy John F. Kennedy that sounds like Vaughn Meader or Mayor Quimby. But he went very, very specific with it, and it was very inspiring to talk to him about that.
So what led you to decide to do this? Just the sheer geeky love of character acting?
That's the short answer. My friend Ben Blacker, who produces The Writers Panel, and he was a writer/producer of the Thrilling Adventure Hour, which was one of my favorite things to do in Los Angeles when it was up and running regularly. Every once in awhile, they'd call me in to do it, and it was always the highlight of my month. I'd go and hang out with Paget [Brewster] and Paul F. [Tompkins] and Craig Cackowski and Mark Gagliardi and all those amazing guys. And then they'd have incredible guests. Thomas Wilson would come in, and I think Clancy Brown came by, Garret Dillahunt... They had incredible people coming in to do little bit parts!
Ben reached out to me and said, "Hey, I think you'd be a good interviewer. What kind of podcast would you like to do?" And I mention this because it really landed in my lap. I wasn't the sort of person necessarily, particularly during the pandemic, who was a huge self-starter. You know, I wasn't the guy who was like... [Pretentiously.] "I shall write a film for my family to act in!" I just did not have my shit together like that. At all. I baked a lot of bread, played a lot of acoustic guitar, but I was not putting a lot of stuff out into the world, you know? So Ben sort of cornered me with this idea, and I said, "Well, I guess the sort of podcast I would want to listen to would be one actor asking really specific questions to journeyman character 'that guys.' And he goes, "Great! Let's do it! Let's set it up!" And he hooked me up with the Forever Dog Podcast Network, and I was kind of preparing to pitch them on my credibility, my qualifications for such a position, and we got on the call, and...it was very clear that they were pitching themselves to me! Like, I was kind of a pre-sold thing!
So this thing had incredible momentum with which I had very little to do. It just sort of landed in my lap, which...is not a great lesson for people trying to break into show business, because things are rarely that simple. But it has been incredibly fun over the past three months. We've banked, like, 20 episodes. If I stopped today, we'd still be set through early December, in terms of our rollout. I won't stop today - I've got two scheduled next week! - but there's been a ton of prep for this thing, and it's just been fascinating. And it's been sort of a fun substitute for an acting class, in that I'm getting to talk to these people about very technical things, and each one has unique approaches to this business, to this craft. There are some people who have MFAs in theater, there are some people who just kind of stumbled into it, there are people who got into it via standup comedy... We have a bunch of people who found themselves on this journeyman character actor path from a bunch of different on-ramps. [Laughs.] So it's been wild. It's been really interesting.
Did you just have a wish list of people you wanted to get on the show, or are you also utilizing your own personal rolodex?
Yes and yes. [Laughs.] I've called in a couple of favors from people I've known. And then we're going through more traditional routes, going through people's publicists or agents. I've had some of my friends, people I know very well who I can just text, like Ana Ortiz or Sonya Walger, Alex Désert, Martha Plimpton... And then we've had some people who we had to go through various channels to get, like John Carroll Lynch. And I don't know Bruce Greenwood. We had to go through conventional paths to get him on the show. But it's been a nice combination of calling in favors from friends and going at it from a very legitimate media-outlet path. I think once it drops, if people like it, obviously things are going to get a little bit easier in that regard. I think people are gonna warm up to the idea once they see it, or hear it.
It's not a big, long, rambling podcast. I mean, we edit. You've noticed by now that I'm prone to a lot of "ums" and "ahs" that have to be deleted in order to make something kind of concise. But we're putting together a pretty professional sounding thing. I've listened to drafts of the Martha Plimpton episode, and...I'm not going to say it sounds like an NPR thing, but it sounds pretty slick. It isn't just, like, "Hey, let's be a fly on the wall in this conversation and see what happens!" We're putting together nice, efficient episodes that will accompany you on your hour, hour-and-ten-minute commute, which I'm pretty excited about. Because I like the long, rambling conversation podcast. That has its place. But I also like something that's just sort of incredibly efficient and bullet point, bullet point, awesome anecdote, awesome anecdote, awesome anecdote, we're out. [Laughs.]
I've been utilizing the blend of friends - or at least acquaintances - and traditional media-outlet methods to get interviews for this newsletter. For instance, I did an interview with Pauley Perrette a few days ago, and that came about because we kept meeting at TCA events, started following each other on Twitter, and just stayed in touch. And in typical form, I don't think I asked a single NCIS question. It was more, like, "What was it like working with Cameron Crowe on Almost Famous?"
Oh, cool! God, that's right, she's in that, isn't she? I always forget that.
Yeah, she's the DJ who's interviewing Lester Bangs [Philip Seymour Hoffman].
Oh, my God, that's right! Jesus... Wow, yeah, I'd completely forgotten that she was in that. It's been a couple of years since I've watched that movie, which I love. Oh, you know, someone else we had on the podcast was Beth Grant. That was great. She was fantastic. And Jim Beaver? C'mon. Swoon.
Jim is fantastic. I'm a huge fan.
Yeah, he's just... Well, you've talked with him, right? You did a Random Roles with him!
Yeah, and in turn, he's become a fan of my work, which...I can't even handle.
Yeah, I know. It's amazing. [Laughs.] We had John and Mackenzie Astin on in two separate episodes that we're going to roll out together for Halloween. That was also amazing. Did you know that there was an original off-Broadway cast reunion of Three-Penny Opera on Facts of Life? I'll bet you didn't. But John Astin and Charlotte Rae... John did a guest spot on Facts of Life, and the two of them had done Three-Penny Opera off-Broadway in the '50s together.
I knew he was on the show, but I was unaware that it was such a momentous reunion. That's crazy.
Yeah, so it's pretty fun if you're a big nerd for... [Pauses.] I keep saying "character actors," and I feel like that's such a limiting phrase. "Non-stars"? [Laughs.] "Journeymen"? Our British friends call them "jobbing actors," which I like, too. It kind of has a nice ring to it. I feel like the term "that guy" has been played out, but... "household faces," I stumbled across that phrase when we were talking to Forever Dog, and my wife passed me a note during this conference call I was on, saying, "That's the name! That's it! Right there!" And it kind of stuck.
And I'd say that 75% of the people I presented the name to, they knew what the podcast was going to be...and then the other 25% were, like, "So you're...looking at objects around your house that look like people?" I'm, like, "No, that's not... That's another podcast. Maybe you should do that podcast. I'm not going to, but...take it and run. That's a free idea!"
I’m sorry: is that a... Is that an Airplane! laser disc over your shoulder?
It is! And since I know you're not on Twitter, you wouldn't have seen my pinned tweet, but I'm working on a book with Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker.
[Excitedly.] About the film?
About the film, the Kentucky Fried Theater... All of the origin stuff.
Oh, my God! Well, congratulations on writing my favorite book of the year that comes out!
Whatever year that may be, but...thank you. It's been a lot of fun putting it together. I'm kind of just waiting on the guys at this point, but I've done a bunch of interviews with folks who they've worked with, folks they've influenced, a few people who auditioned for them and didn't make the cut but found fame anyway…
I ask all of my guests about a role that got away, and the answers have been fascinating. It sets up all these incredible alternative universes all over the place, like one where Mackenzie Astin was Jack in Titanic and shit like that that's just mind-blowing. Really interesting, and it really makes me hopeful that there's a multiverse out there somewhere.
Honest to God, I have a logo for this already, but I came up with the idea of doing a podcast called Pop Culture Multiverse, where I investigate things like, say, "Well, what would've happened if Patrick Swayze's TV series The Renegades had gone on for more than one season? Then he wouldn't have been available to do Dirty Dancing. And who was also in contention for that role? Billy Zane." And so forth and so on.
Amazing.
I think it'd be a blast, if a bit exhausting to put together.
Yeah, but, like, I'd heard that Matthew Broderick turned down Walter White.
Wow, really? I feel like maybe I'd heard he was considered, but not that he turned it down.
Yeah, and I've heard that John Cusack was on the list for it as well. And Cusack would've been kind of interesting, because Cusack can do...not necessarily menacing, but he can do a little dangerous, like in The Grifters. But Broderick would've been really, really challenging...and maybe he would've surprised us. Who knows? But at the same time, would I want to take a role away from Bryan Cranston? God, no!
At this point in the conversation, since we'd been talking about how we'd secured interviews for our respective projects, I quickly regaled him with the story of how Lin-Manuel Miranda set up my Random Roles with David Warner, which he'd never heard…and if for some reason you’ve never heard it, well, I literally had nothing to do with it: LMM was on the set of Mary Poppins Returns, he sent me the following DMs, and I had to lift my jaw up from the floor.
Although Mr. Bowie had not heard that story, he was, however, well aware of how much Lin loves Random Roles, and this led into the story of how he and Lin also met via social media.
I met Lin via Twitter maybe 10 or 11 years ago, and then he was in L.A. and he had free tickets to a show, so we went to see American Idiot together at the Ahmanson, and we've kept in touch over the years. But like me and like you, he's sort of an amateur casting director, and he knows a lot about actors and people who are a little bit under the radar. So, yeah, somebody like David Warner is catnip for Lin. He's just completely riveted by stories like that. And you can kind of tell from the way he's handling his acting career that he kind of just wants to do everything. He's, like, "Yes, I will do that musical! Yes, I will absolutely appear as myself in your weird fringe cable comedy!" He just wants to get it all in there, which I completely understand and empathize with. I get it, man.
He wants to be interviewed for Random Roles himself, but he said, "I need 10 more years distance from some of these so I can, y'know, really talk some shit."
Exactly. He needs a few more shitty projects under his belt, I think, before he can really qualify. He needs a few ill-advised money jobs...which I worry that he won't get to, the poor kid. [Laughs.]
Well, we've always got Do No Harm to talk about.
Oh, come on... [Laughs.] I talked to him about Do No Harm, and just how much fucking exposition he had to get out in that pilot. He was...
...Dr. Basil Exposition?
It really was! It was Basil Exposition-level. "Listen, you may be the best brain surgeon in the state, but..." [Laughs.] And again, man, I feel it. I have been there. Not once a week, but I've been there. And it is striking.
I'd argue that it is Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace-level exposition...which, by the way, is now on Amazon Prime, if you're a fan.
Well, you know, my Instagram bio is simply "...Plus Actor."
Nice.
Yeah, I'm a massive Garth Merenghi fan. A massive, massive fan. It is a litmus test for me among my friend group. It's just my favorite thing in the world. I love it so much. My only problem with it is that we're not watching it right now.
My wife hates me because I keep putting "One Track Lover" back in her head.
[Bursts out laughing.] Yes!
Every time I put it on, she's, like, "Goddammit, I'm gonna have that in my head for another year!"
[Quoting.] "Why won't she love me?"
Okay, let's talk about you now...and we'll start with the obligatory secret-origin question: how'd you find your way into acting in the first place? Was it something you wanted to do all along, or did you just stumble into it?
I wanted to do it all along, from when I was a very small kid, but the pitfall of growing up in midtown Manhattan is that you see every facet of the business, but what you see up close is the people who are really struggling. And I saw my friends' parents frantically dropping their kids off with us because they were running out to a last-minute audition or, you know, just being really upset that they didn't book a St. Elsewhere or a Kate & Allie, which was the only sitcom for awhile that was actually shooting in New York City. So I grew up right in the theater district, and we just knew a lot of struggling actors. And I also knew some people who were making a living, people who were on our block. The actor Robert Joy, who was Madonna's boyfriend in Desperately Seeking Susan, he had an apartment on our block. Cynthia Nixon lived in our building sort of as she was transitioning out of child-actor work into her twenties. I used to see her at the mailboxes, and she was very sweet.
So I saw the full parade of it, and it just struck me as such an incredibly unstable line of work that, even at 14, I was, like, "God, I'm gonna need firmer ground under my feet." [Laughs.] So I sort of gave up on the dream and did everything but. I studied to be a high school teacher, I was in a band for awhile, I did college radio and thought about doing that professionally... But these were, coincidentally, all things that put me in front of an audience one way or another. It's all very simple from the outside, but I was completely keeping everything hidden, according to me. But you look at the outside, and you're, like, "Oh, that guy wants to be an actor. That guy isn't fooling fucking anybody. He desperately wants to be an actor."
And when my band broke up in my mid-twenties - I would've been 26 - I kind of had this nervous breakdown. I was working full-time, writing brochures for a massive consulting firm that I won't name but which you've heard of, and...not to get too heavy, but I had a massive depressive episode where I was just, like, "My father hated working in an office, and I completely followed in his footsteps." He just resented being stuck in a cubicle. He actually had an office that he shared with somebody, but he quit in a huff in his fifties and never quite got his employment footing back. My father, with his rich, sonorous voice and his deep love for character actors and film and good television, he just had a lot of resentment. And at 26, I was just sort of realizing that I should at least give it a try, so I got into it.
But I still didn't have the courage to be like... [Authoritatively.] "I want to be an actor!" So I decided I would take improv classes, which was a way to kind of dip my toes in. And I vividly remember my first scene, May of 1998: I go into a class being taught by Armando Diaz at the Upright Citizens Brigade, before they actually had a theater and were just renting space in New York, I got up, I did a scene with a guy, I got some laughs, I sat down, and the woman who booked the classes, a woman named Celia Bresak, said, "Oh, so you're an actor?" And I went, "No, I'm not! I, uh... I... Huh." And a few months later, I quit the job at the consulting firm, I moved back in with my mom... [Laughs.]
But the thing is, this is why I'm so incredibly lucky: for me, moving back home means moving back into the theater district. No big deal. I'm right in the center of everything. It's humiliating. I'm 27, and I'm back in my childhood bedroom. But I'm a quick subway ride to any audition I want. And I kind of quietly told myself, "Okay, I'm going to get headshots, I'm going to give it a year, and if I don't book a commercial..." It seemed like a good low bar. "If I don't book a commercial within a year, I will stop and I'll reconsider everything, and it'll be time to ask myself some tough questions." And at the risk of sounding a little braggadocios, the business was extremely welcoming to me, and I had booked three, and I'd joined the union.
So...I can't say it fell into my lap, because it took a fair amount of sacrifice, and I had to kind of go through some pretty dark psychological spaces to get there. But once I decided that this was something I wanted to try, the business was pretty welcoming to me. Again, I'm one bad cautionary tale after another. "So my point is, guys, quit your job and move back home and everything's gonna work out!" [Laughs.] That is really not the message I want to send out to the public...although, God, it sounds like that. "It worked for me! Ha-ha!"
Well, now that I know where you got your start, it makes sense that your first credited onscreen work was on the Upright Citizens Brigade series on Comedy Central.
Yeah, well, what they would do at UCB... It was sort of a win-win for everybody. They didn't have a ton of money. They were doing a low-budget Comedy Central show, so they needed people who would work for peanuts or...I'm not even sure if we got paid on some of those early extra gigs! But they needed extras, we all needed screen time, we all needed experience on set, we all needed time learning what "back to one" meant, what "sound to speed" meant, all the lingo that you pick up on set. So everybody got something out of that equation. They got all these eager, reasonably funny people who would show up and do a day at some theater in Washington Heights as their audience, and then we got all this experience on set.
And then the other big thing we would rely on at the time was doing bits on [Late Night with] Conan O'Brien When he was still shooting out of 30 Rock, they would do all sorts of weird little sketches, and if you booked one of those, it maybe wouldn't take care of your rent, but it would take care of your utilities and your groceries. And then if you got an Under Five and actually got some lines... Oh, my God, that would take care of your rent. That was amazing! I mean, it wouldn't actually take care of your rent. You'd be an idiot and you'd go home and buy drinks for everybody at McManus like a schmuck. [Laughs.] But it could have taken care of your rent if you'd had a single iota of financial sense. Do you remember on the early Conan when they'd do staring contests?
Yep.
Yeah, Conan and Andy, they're just doing this standard staring contest, but behind Conan there's all this crazy stuff going on to distract Andy. So those gigs were... I'd say 75% UCB students who were called in. "Here, we're gonna put you in this crazy costume, don't fuck this up." And you'd be in the hallway, and it was like the old MGM backlot or something. There's a guy dressed like Superman, there's two Roman centurions, there's two guys in a donkey costume, you're dressed as a stereotypical nerd, there's a guy dressed like a stereotypical biker next to you, and the two of you are going to make out or whatever. It was just a series of dumb, quick sight gags. It was just so quick and silly, but it was invaluable training for learning how to get a joke across in the least possible amount of time. [Laughs.] Yeah, it was really fun.
But that call you'd get from Cecilia Pleva, who was the casting director at Conan, was a make-or-break situation, and we were all just so hungry for it, oh, my God... Or sometimes you wouldn't even get a call. You'd get beeped. [Laughs.] Your pager would go off. A bunch of had pagers. This was '99. And it was just, like, "Oh, man, I recognize that number! It's NBC! Oh, I shall live to fight another day!"
I don't want to dwell too much longer on your early endeavors, but I have to ask about the fact that you were on an episode of Undeclared.
Uh, whoa, whoa, I don't think I am!
But... But Wikipedia says you were! It must be true!
Oh, Wikipedia lies sometimes, man. [Laughs.] That's so weird, though. Wikipedia had me on an episode of Arrested Development, a show I never even auditioned for. And Undeclared... I wasn't even living in L.A. yet. I physically could not have done Undeclared. Is that on my Wikipedia? Really?
Yeah, as a television presenter on an episode called "Sick in the Head."
God, I wonder who that is...
I don't know, but apparently they look at least slightly like you.
[Rather than belabor this matter any further, I'll just say that I went back and watched the episode, I found the character in question, and although you can’t even see the “Television Presenter” well enough to identify who he is, you can hear him, and… Well, let’s just say that I can understand why someone *thought* it was John Ross Bowie.]
This is the problem with Wikipedia, man: anybody can get in there. There was awhile there where somebody thought I was in one of the Resident Evil movies, which would've been awesome. But alas, no, I have not been in a Resident Evil movie. I'm sorry to disappoint you. I liked Undeclared a lot. I thought it was a great show...and, I mean, that cast! I love Carla Gallo. She lives in my neighborhood. She's fantastic. Timm Sharp! Timm Sharp is a national treasure. He should work all the time. Jenna Fischer was in this episode! Anyway, I dunno, man. I dunno. Very strange.
But you were on A.U.S.A., correct?
A.U.S.A. I was absolutely on. That is very true. A.U.S.A. I was on. That was my first series-regular gig. Another fucking horrible story for incoming actors: I moved to Los Angeles, and within two months I had booked the first pilot I auditioned for. [Laughs.] I am the opposite of a cautionary tale. I set a horrible example for people's expectations for this business. If it's any consolation, several years later I almost had to short my house, so...
Oh, thank goodness.
Right? Thank God, I have had some lean times, don't get me wrong. [Laughs.] But A.U.S.A. was a legal sitcom that was a fascinating... [Hesitates.] It's a much longer story. I know you like to go deep with this stuff, but it's such a weird beast, because...I booked this pilot, we shot a single-cam version of the pilot. You know, actual sets, no studio audience. Scott Foley, coming straight off of Felicity, was our lead. Jeff Zucker was an old college buddy of our show runner. They had gone to Harvard together. We were being pitched as Scrubs with lawyers. We had a gorgeous tailwind.
They didn't like the single-cam pilot, but we weren't dead yet. We shot a multi-cam pilot. A couple of people got fired. I was not among them. So I'm feeling, like, bullets whizzing past my head, but I make it to the second pilot version. That one gets picked up. Absolutely everything that could go right is going right. They put us on after Frasier. You're kidding me! What a lead-in! Everything's going great! And then absolutely everything starts going wrong.
We're up against Results Night of the second season of American Idol, so that's Clay and Ruben. And even *I* am watching American Idol at the time. [Laughs.] Well, no, I'll be honest with you: I'm DVR'ing it. I'm DVR'ing American Idol and watching my show live...but even *I* am still very invested in American Idol! Our reviews are "eh." Our ratings are, at the time, "eh." Mind you, if you got 11 million viewers now... Please. You'd be guaranteed six seasons and a movie. I mean, you'd have your own Funko Pop, you'd be all set. But at the time, 11 million viewers was pretty paltry, because Friends was still on the air, and they were still pulling, like, 20 or 21 million a week. So we ran for eight weeks.
But it took care of my student loan debt, I bought a reasonably-priced used sedan, because I was never going to be the kind of guy who shows up and goes, "I'm gonna get a Jaguar!" I want something with a nice safety rating, you know. And as much as it looks from the outside world like, "Oh, my God, what a colossal flop," it put my foot in the door, it established me by putting me on 20th Century Fox's radar and NBC's radar, and I was able to sort of work backwards: I had this series-regular gig, and that led to a bunch of guest-star work that sustained me for years and years before Speechless came around. You know, there's a thru-line from A.U.S.A. to Big Bang Theory, even if there's not a ton of people overlapping. It established me as someone trustworthy, at least. Like, "He has been a series regular, therefore he will not fuck up our show."
I know you've done a number of improv-centric series, including Reno 911! for one.
Yeah, what was fun about Reno - and what was fun about Curb [Your Enthusiasm] - was that I got to do those shows with this chick I met in improv class who I eventually married. [Laughs.] So Jamie [Denbo] and I got to do Curb together, we got to do a bunch of Renos together... We did a great show for truTV that just did two seasons called I'm Sorry, Andrea Savage's show. So, yeah, Jamie and I met improvising in a Level 2 UCB class that was taught by a woman named Amy Poehler. I've become that age of actor, by the way. I've become the kind of actor who goes, "And that young actor's name was..." So I'm that tired old cliché.
Well, I mean, that's literally how I spun that Lin-Manuel story a few minutes ago, so...
Yeah, fair enough. Thank you, that's a good point. [Laughs.] But, yeah, we got to do Reno, and Reno was a singularly awesome experience because - I say this all the time, because it's true - even auditioning for Reno was fun. And auditioning can suck. Auditioning... I think it's a necessary evil, but don't get it twisted: it's a fucking evil. But the experience of auditioning for Reno was so great. You would go in, you would present the premise - you were either a victim, a witness, or a perpetrator - and you would get up and play with Tom [Lennon] or Ben [Garant], and they'd tape it, and then they'd go, "You're hired! We're using your idea!"
And then once in a great while, once you sort of got into the mix there and you were part of their regular rogues gallery - it was almost like being a Batman villain, you know? - you'd get the call, and they'd be, like, "Hey, do you have anything right now that you want to play with?" or "Hey, we have an idea and we want to use you two for this thing." So it was really great. Also, they'd shoot with, like, two cameras, you were wrapped by lunch, and they'd let you stay for lunch if you wanted to, but you didn't have to. It was just a great gig. And, you know, I got to work with the great Cedric Yarbrough, who has been my costar several times and is one of the Household Faces guests that's coming up in the fall.
And a Random Roles alumni, with a fascinating history. And I worked with Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Niecy [Nash] used to just destroy me on that show, she was so goddamned funny. Anytime I had to keep a straight face in front of Kerri Kinney, it was just such an uphill battle. Yeah, I look back on the Reno stuff with incredible fondness. It's one of my proudest credits to have been part of that show. It was a blast. Jamie and I did a recurring where we were these horrific pageant parents who are constantly trying to get our child into any pageant we possibly could, and she was constantly going "missing," but was clearly running away. Like, "Oh, the kidnappers are awful! They left us a note...and it's in her handwriting!" "Yeah, no, the child is trying to escape you." [Laughs.] And, you know, it was Reno 911, so it was all in the worst possible taste. But it was so...fun. And anytime you can surprise those guys... It is such a blessing! They're not easily shocked, but if you can make Tom Lennon gasp, you've done something truly amazing in your work.
I had a very fun conversation with Tom for Rhino Records' website, where I had the chance to ask him to pick his top 5 Smiths songs.
Oh, my God, that guy... He is a massive Smiths nerd. You know, he's in a Smiths cover band. He plays guitar for the Sweet and Tender Hooligans...and he actually owns a Fender Johnny Marr signature guitar, and he was trying to talk me into buying one. And I was, like, "Look, I love the Smiths, I love you... I didn't write Night at the Museum, dude. I'm not buying a fucking Johnny Marr Fender just yet!" [Laughs.] "Bless your heart, I'm perfectly fine with my Epiphone, but…all right, good to know!"
