Interview: Nelson Franklin (Pt. 2)
Welcome back to my interview with Nelson Franklin, a guy who’s been on a ton of your favorite comedies, and even if you don’t necessarily remember his name, you definitely know his face…and perhaps even more than that, you know his glasses. And maybe his height, too, because lord knows he’s a tall drink of water. In the grand scheme of things, though, it doesn’t matter what physical reminder might be required to bring him to mind. The reason you remember him at all is ultimately because he’s funny, and he’s proven it time and time again.
We talked about some of Mr. Franklin’s past accomplishments in Pt. 1 of our conversation—and if you missed it, you can check it out by clicking right here—and this time around we talk about even more of them, including Veep, working with Will Forte on A Futile and Stupid Gesture, playing Andrea Savage’s not-gay brother on I’m Sorry, being a part of black-ish, having fun with Will Arnett on The Millers, and more.
So I used this interview as an excuse to go back and watch a bunch of episodes of Veep...
Nice.
Do you have a favorite takedown by Dan Bakkedahl over the course of the series?
Yeah, there's an episode that Chris Addison directed where Dan says something like, "Well, that's a pretty good metaphor," and I correct him. I say, "That's actually a simile, it's not a metaphor." And then he calls me a fat girl right after that. [Laughs.] It's one of the simpler ones, but we were having a hard time making it work, and Chris was, like, "I want you to run this scene as fast as you possible can. Go nuts. Make it so fast that it seems like a fucking joke." And we did it, and it was the funniest thing we did on the whole series, I think. [Pauses.] That can't be true. There's so many good ones. But I really like that one.
And I really like the episode where I go jogging with him and Matt Walsh around a little pond - I can't remember what episode it is right now - but that's the one where I say that Matt moves slower than a Mississippi detective investigating the murder of a young Black man. They got really creative.
The weirdest thing about those great lines and those great takedowns is that the ones that made it on the air were always, like, the sixth version. They'd be, like, "Oh, say this! Oh! Say this!" I'm, like, "You guys are just coming up with this shit? This is really fucked-up, vile stuff you guys are just flinging off the top of your heads there!" It was great. It was fun because you could see how much fun the writers were having with it. It was a fun challenge for them to go as far as they possibly could in that dynamic where it's, like, "I'm not saying it, I'm making another guy say it!" And there's no limit to what can be said there, as long as you're passing the buck.
And that's something that Dan... Well, to make a short story long, when we would go to do Veep, at least in the early seasons, we would have rehearsal days - which is unheard of now, because of budget and everything - where we would sort of do all the scenes and see what was the funniest and sort of rewrite them based on how we performed them and stuff. And Dan had a joke in our first episode where he passed a line to me in the way that he does for the rest of the series, where he went, "What was it like, Will?" And then I had to say it. And he was, like, "This is the funniest part of this. Let's do more!" And Dan is the one who gave me, like, three more of those in our first episode. He gave me his own lines because he was, like, "It's funnier if you say it!" I was only supposed to do one episode, and we were on the show for the whole seven-year run because Dan said, "It's funnier if we're a duo here." And he made that happen. I really owe him a lot!
I think my favorite takedown—because it's delightful wordplay, even if it's basically homophobic—is "Wilbo Faggins."
[Bursts out laughing.] Yes!
I did not remember it when I hit that episode, and I thought I was going to fall out of my chair.
It's good. They have a lot of ones like that. There's a lot of Lord of the Rings references for Jonah and for Will as well. Yeah, they're good. They're all really well-written takedowns. It was a strong suit of all those writers...and they're all British, by the way. They're clever.
I was thoroughly impressed with that series and how it managed to shift hands from one creative team to the next without skipping a beat.
Yeah, that's an unbelievable feat right there, and I have to hand it to Dave Mandel, who just knocked it straight out of the park. For those of you at home, the first four seasons of Veep were Armando Iannucci and his crew of English writers and directors, and after four seasons - which is already wildly past an English show's general lifespan - he decided to call it quits, but they passed the reins over to Dave Mandel, who is sort of a Seinfeld / Curb Your Enthusiasm showrunner, who picked up the reins flawlessly, as you said. If anything, it just got better. I could not believe it. To step into a show that's already that good and popular and just keep it going... It's wild.
So how did you take on the job of playing P.J. O'Rourke in A Futile and Stupid Gesture?
[Laughs.] That was an interesting gig! You know, there are certain parts of that guy that I definitely resonate with, in that—because of having creative partnerships over the past 20 years, scene partners or writing partners or producing partners—you always have to work with somebody in this business, and there are certain times where you feel like you're picking up the slack and you have to cover the other person's ass or vice versa. I sort of identified a lot with the main role of P.J. O'Rourke in that movie, which was the guy who had to take over. Doug Kenney was the guy who started National Lampoon, and he was notoriously a drug addict. I mean, back then, it wasn't called that. He was just a fun party guy or whatever. But he basically took a one or two year cocaine hiatus from National Lampoon and just dumped it on his friend P.J., who I played, who was a real pot-smoking hippie cool guy, who—weirdly—later in life switched to becoming a conservative talking head guy, which is just... That part, we didn't touch it in the movie, so I didn't have to wrap my head around making that transition!
But I had a great time, and that was my first time working with David [Wain] before the pilot I mentioned. And this was one of these jobs - happens to me a handful of times - that happens if you have a relationship with a casting director beyond a work relationship, if you're friendly with them. In this case, the casting director was Allison Jones, who is one of the biggest comedy casting directors in town, if not the biggest, and if you look at my career, it's 100% entwined with hers. All of the important jobs, like Scott Pilgrim, Veep, I Love You, Man, The Office... These are all Allison Jones jobs. And A Futile and Stupid Gesture was also an Allison Jones job.
Sometimes when I don't have an audition for a movie or a show and the table read is coming up and they still haven't cast a dozen roles, Allison will call me up and say, "Hey, can you read these eight or nine different roles at a table read?" And I love it. Some of them are just two lines, some are more significant, whatever. Sometimes I do stage direction, and I love that, too, because it's a really thankless job that you can be very bad at it. You have to be good at it. And I do it very well. And sometimes when you do these favors, they will throw you a little consolation prize and you'll get one of the jobs in the show. And this was one of those times where I did the table read, I read five or six different people, and I got the P.J. O'Rourke gig...partly, I think, because I kind of look like the dude, at least with the long hair and everything.
And I had a tremendous time on that. All of my stuff was with Will Forte, who I was blown away by what a nice, normal person he was. Because, you know, I'm a big fan of Macgruber, and that movie, when he's, like, fucking a ghost on a tombstone... I think that's the hardest I've ever laughed in my whole life. [Laughs.] But he's not that guy. He's just a totally normal guy. And I remember on the last day, we were walking to our cars together, and we get to our cars, and I'm, like, "Is this you?" And he's driving, like, a 2007 Honda Civic. And he's, like, "Yeah, the paparazzi guys make fun of me all the time when they see me getting in, but I don't give a shit about any of that." I'm, like, "Oh, man, Will Forte is the greatest guy who ever lived." That was a great cast all around, and I've gotta say that that's when I made friends with Rick Glassman for the first time. He's a special person who... I have never seen anyone look more like the person they're playing than Rick Glassman and Harold Ramis. I mean, it's, like, shocking how identical they were.
I only recently started watching I'm Sorry, but that is a funny fucking show.
I love that show, man...and, honestly, I got to do some of my favorite work in there. It's Andrea Savage, who... It's her baby. Or it was, I should say. But she worked her ass off. Now that I have a kid, I don't know how she did all the things she did on that show and stayed a mom. It's very much just her voice and how she lives her life. We met each other during Veep times, and she said, "Hey, why don't you do this?" She just offered me this gig. I don't get a lot of offers. Nobody does. But we had a good relationship when we were doing the finale of Veep and we were both aged up. We really got along. She's a very, very funny person. And I feel like she really called in a lot of favors for that show. She got a lot of big names and cameos and stuff. And Dale [Stern], our first assistant director from Veep, was doing a lot of work on that show as well. But she did it. That's what you've got to do: make a Hail Mary, and then make a great show.
It was very freeform, that show. She was, like, "Here's the scene, it's written down, but you don't have to say anything that's written down here." [Laughs.] And one of my favorite scenes I've ever done - it's at the top of my reel! - is the scene where I have to come out to her as straight because she thought I was gay the whole time. I'm her brother! She's, like, "I already told Mom you're gay," and I'm, like, "Oh, my fucking God, you told Mom?!" And we ran it twice, and she's, like, "Okay, now we're not going to do the script anymore," so maybe 50% of that scene is just a road that she took me down. It was really fun. Those are the ones you remember: because it didn't feel like work at all, it just felt like play. Yeah, that was a great show.
Well, it's on HBO Max now, if you want to watch it.
That's what I'm doing!
Something I meant to mention earlier when I brought up your Parks and Recreation audition: you might not have gotten that gig, but like Chris Pratt, you also later found your way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, albeit in a slightly smaller capacity.
Oh, are you talking about... [Hesitates.]
Well, technically, I'm talking about two things: you played an employee of the Advanced Threat Containment Unit on an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and then you were a medical examiner in Captain Marvel. So probably not the same guy this time.
I forgot about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! Yeah, those are just classic auditions, baby. [Laughs.] You know, auditioning for guest-star roles is sort of my bread and butter. And sometimes they turn into bigger things, like on New Girl, for example. I auditioned for a two-episode arc or whatever, and it turned into 18. With these things, I'm just trying to get my foot in the door, as they say, and a lot of times it works out.
But Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., that was just a classic audition. Although it's funny, I think back on these auditions that were before COVID, 'cause it's hard to remember past a couple of years now. All the auditions I've done for the last two and a half-ish, three years now have just been in my home with my wife...and I think back to when I would go in for people, and the producers were there. I miss it. I'm the guy who wants to go back into the room. I don't like taped auditions. And I think I'm definitely in the minority there, because you can do as many takes as you want, you can make it perfect, you can spice it up or whatever and make sure it's good. But I don't like that. That levels the playing field, you know what I mean? If you're forced to go into a room, and there's a bunch of dudes waiting outside also to go into the room, you know you've got one shot. And if you're a room guy, that's it. If you're a tape guy, you might not get that job. But now it's all flipped on its head...and, wow, what a tangent that was. [Laughs.] But I do actually remember going in for that, and it was really fun.
By the time I got on Captain Marvel, it was mega-secretive, and they were, like, "You've got an audition tomorrow for a Marvel movie." And I was, like, "Can I get the sides?" And they're, like, "You have to download an app on your phone or iPad, and this app will allow you to view your sides for one hour - 60 minutes - and then you won't be able to look at the scene again until you're in the casting office, at which point they'll give you the physical lines to read." I was, like, "What the fuck?" [Laughs.] And by the way, when I read the scene, my name was "Character #1," and the other two people in the scene were "Character #2" and "Character #3." They wouldn't even let me know who the other characters were! So when I showed up on the set, I had no idea who was in the scene with me. I was, like, "Samuel L. Jackson! Please, God, Samuel L. Jackson!" And sure enough, I got there and I'm, like, "Yes! YES! Samuel L. Jackson!" What a weird process that is. Anyway, I guess they kept the secret that I was the medical examiner...
And was working with Samuel L. Jackson everything you'd hoped it would be?
Holy shit, it was amazing! Like, he had this assistant who was... [Hesitates.] This is the part that I remember the most. The scene was great, they only had to do two takes, they're both champs, him and Ben Mendelsohn. They're both lovely people, they banged that scene out, no problem. I was only there for a couple of hours.
But the most fascinating part for me was that we rehearsed, and then they're relighting or whatever, so I was sitting around for, like, 40 minutes in a chair near Sam Jackson. And his assistant kept coming up to brief him on what was going on, because that's, like, the busiest guy in the world, Samuel L. Jackson. And I kept looking at his assistant... He looks exactly like him! And it turns out he used to be his stand-in, and they worked together for so long and so well that he has him on the payroll now!
So his assistant was, like, "Okay, so we've got to go to Vegas next week for this thing." And Sam Jackson was, like, "Yeah, okay. The big plane or the little plane?" And the guy says, "It's the little plane." And Sam's like... [Sighs.] "Can we get the big plane? All right, you know what? Don't ask. It's okay. We don't need the big plane." And I was, like, "Big plane or little plane? This guy hasn't flown commercial in, like, 20 years, I'm sure." [Laughs.] Anyway, what a boss. I love him.
You mentioned small gigs that turned into bigger gigs. Was that the case with black-ish?
It's interesting. I didn't know exactly what that was going to be. Kenya Barris is a good friend of mine, another sort of juggernaut, a titan of the industry right now. I mean, he's just got his hands in everything. He's doing a million things. Basically, what happened was that I did a show for him when Hulu did not have original content yet and was just a playback service for whatever TV was on last night, that kind of thing. Other services were starting to do original programming, and they were dabbling. They decided to do a web series on Hulu. It was this very quick-lived thing they did. But they got Kenya, and they hired him to make this show called We Got Next.
I did it for $100 a week. [Laughs.] It was a 10 or 15 minute episode each week of a pickup basketball game. It was a couple of guys who met every week just to play basketball, and it was an interesting Kenya-esque thing where there was a Black guy, a white guy, and a Latino guy, and they talked about their worlds interesting. The white guy was Bill Fagerbakke, whose most famous role, I guess, is Patrick the Starfish on Spongebob Squarepants. But he's, like, 6'7" in real life, and they hired me to play his son. That was the first time I met Kenya. But Bill's character was a Republican, and I was his son, who's a hippie yoga teacher. He couldn't stand me. [Laughs.] So I'd show up in every other episode or something and say, "Namaste!" And he'd be, like, "Ugh, I hate my son."
But that's where I met Kenya, and I worked on that show really hard for $100 a week, and he never forgot me. He's put me in black-ish, he's put me in grown-ish, he put me in #blackAF, and he put me in his new Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? reboot (You People) that he did with Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy. He's a guy who remembers, and I really respect him for it. There's not a lot of guys like that. But with black-ish, he sent me a text message that was, like, "We need a new white guy at the office. Can you do it?" And I was, like, "Yeah, whatever!" And I thought I was replacing Jeff Meacham, so when I got there and Jeff was still there, I was, like, "He said 'new white guy,' here's the old one." [Laughs.] Then I realized he just wanted an additional one.
Yeah, that was an amazing time. 100% of my work on that show was in that one room, and it was a joy. Anthony [Anderson] is a joy, Deon Cole is, like, my favorite person in America, basically, and Jeff Meacham, another great guy. Anyway, it was a great job, and Kenya directed a handful of those episodes. I was in the episode after Trump got elected, and I had to play the guy who voted for Trump was, like, "Here's why I voted for him." And I had to do that and play it for real. Kenya directed that one, and he was, like, "Here are your talking points..." We were all so mad and upset and hurt and angry, and he was able to just sort of put it aside and see the other side of the argument. And myself and Catherine Reitman were the two Trump voters who had to sort of plead our case. We went through a lot of weird shit on that show. It was really a special place.
I know we're in the home stretch here, but I wanted to ask about The Millers, since it was, after all, the show you were working on when I last saw you. That cast must've been fun to work with.
Yeah, that was my first multi-cam show. For the folks back home, that means, like, a studio audience show. Every show has multiple cameras, but the multi-cam refers to the fact that all three cameras are going at the same time in front of the audience. Anyway, it was my first live-audience show, which was a whole new ballgame from what I was used to for years. I went to the Acting Conservatory, I was doing The Office, which is the most naturalistic show possible... I was doing a lot of shows like that, and all my work was about subtlety and small looks and glances. All that is out the window. You've got to be a clown and play for the back row. And I did have an adjustment period.
The first week was really tough for me, and the person who got me through it was Will Arnett. Again, you sort of see the personality of the people he plays on TV, and you're, like, "This guy might be a douchebag." [Laughs.] Not at all. He's the greatest guy of all time, and he would say to me, like, "I know you're so funny, and...here's how you should tackle this line or scene." And he really helped me through it in a big way. I really owe him that. He wasn't the guy who was, like, "Ugh, this kid needs help, there's one more thing we don't need to deal with..." He was great. That's also where I met Jayma Mays, who I think is the sweetest person in the world. And Margo Martindale, who's a national treasure. How did we get all these people on that show? She got nominated for Emmys for drama while we were doing The Millers! I think she was a guest star on The Americans at the time. It's tough to get a guest star nomination...and she won! Yeah, that was a great gig.
I have to ask about working with Beau Bridges.
Oh, Beau! Yeah, of course! I love Beau. This is the funniest thing, and I felt like such a bad ass... Beau would sit in these zero-gravity chairs all the time. Like, instead of using the classic director's chairs that they give the cast all the time, he would always bring this zero-gravity chair, which was essentially this chair that reclines all the way back, so that you're lying flat. He's, like, "I love this thing! I sleep in it all day when I'm not working!" And I tried it out a couple of times, and I was, like, "This is a great chair! You're not kidding, Beau!" And when the show got canceled, he bought me one of those chairs, and I was, like, "That's so sweet!"
And then, cut to however many years later, I did the pilot for FX's The Old Man, which is now finally coming out, and it's with Jeff Bridges...and he was sitting in the fucking zero-gravity chair on set! And I was, like, "I'm very sorry to bother you, Jeff, but I just wanted to let you know that your brother gave me one of those chairs, and I have it at home and use it in my back yard all the time." And he's, like, "He gives those chairs to everybody!" [Laughs.] It was a great moment.
But Beau was tremendous on that show. He's one of these guys who... [Starts to laugh.] Will would fuck with him all the time, because he's such a nice guy. When he would forget his lines - because he was in his mid-seventies or whatever at that time - what he'd do was write his lines down in pen on the furniture on the set. They hated when he'd do this. He'd, like, cross over here, look down at the table to his line, and then say his line...and then the set decorators would have to repaint the furniture every day! But Will would always do this thing where he'd, like, move a bowl of fruit over where Beau had written his line down on the table, so he'd walk over and... [Looks down at table, looks up and growls.] "Goddammit! Who covered my lines?"
We had a good time over there. We got taken down because we had the post-Big Bang Theory timeslot, so our ratings were through the roof. It was amazing...and Chuck [Lorre] was basically, like, "I want Mom in that slot. That's my new show." And CBS is, like, "I don't know if we're gonna do that." And he's, like, "If you don't, then I'm gonna take away the rights to the Big Bang reruns," or something like that. He had some kind of leverage where they were, like, "Yessir! We'll do whatever you want!" And they put us on Mondays against Monday Night Football, and then we were canceled within, like, three weeks. It was, like, "Who would've seen that coming?"
I may know the answer to this, but...is there a favorite project you've worked on over the years that didn't get the love you thought it deserved?
That didn't get the love, huh? Um... I mean, I'd put Scott Pilgrim in that category. Financially, that was not technically a successful movie.
It has since found that love, thankfully.
Oh, yeah, it's got a real cult following now, thank God. But one that didn't get the love? I mean, look, I'll say Abby's. I really, really loved that show. What did you think I was going to say?
I thought you might say Traffic Light.
Oh, sure! It's hard for me to go back that far in my mind. To be honest with you, I haven't watched it since it originally aired.
You know, I almost bought it.
[Laughs.] Really?
Yeah, you can get the whole thing on Amazon for, like, $8.99.
Oh, shit! Okay.
I was very tempted to do it, but then I was, like, "I probably still have the screeners around here somewhere!" So I didn't pull the trigger. But I still remember it fondly, and I don't think I'll be disappointed if I do decide to make the investment.
Yeah, I should revisit it, too. It's been long enough ago that I've sort of let it slip out of my mind, but...I'm still friends with Aya Cash, who I treasure as well. She is just super successful these days, killing it out there. And, of course, Dave Denman. I love him, too. What a great guy. He's wonderful. We have two kids who were born, like, a week apart from each other. He's a special dude.
Just to wrap up, you look at your career, and you've just got this tremendous arc of great show to great show to great show. To what do you attribute that streak, other than luck? Is there some special sauce that you bring to the table that you can identify?
I mean, that's a good question! Some of it is luck, for sure. My dad always used to say, "Work begets work," and I think it was lucky for me to get some of those early, early jobs, like I Love You, Man and The Office, for example, which - as I told you - were both courtesy of Allison Jones. When I first started working in Hollywood professionally as an actor, I had been an assistant for many years to different people on different jobs, and the last guy I worked with was a guy named Stuart Cornfeld, who passed away during the pandemic. He was a great friend of mine, and he was... I mean, you know his credits, I'm sure, because he was a big-time, old-school producer. He did, like, Kafka and The Fly, stuff like that. He's amazing. And after I worked with him for about a year - I did the Tenacious D movie (The Pick of Destiny) with him - I decided, "I'm going to give it a go, I'm going to be a professional actor now." And he was, like, "Are you sure you don't want to work on Tropic Thunder?" [Laughs.] And I was, like, "Nah, I need to break out on my own here. I don't want to get stuck on this for another eight months or whatever." And he's the one who set me up with a manager, essentially, and I can never thank him enough for that.
But when I first started out, the manager was, like, "What's your game plan?" He knew I had graduated from NYU and that I had several honors there for acting or whatever, but I had nothing to go on. And I said, "I want to go the Seth Rogen track." I was heavier back then, and I was, like, "This is a chubby Jewish guy who's become a movie star. He's doing it. Let me go down that route. I don't want to do drama. Let me get in on the ground floor with comedy." And the first audition he sent me on was for Allison Jones.
It was for that T.J. Miller movie She's Out of Your League. Well, actually, I was auditioning for the T.J. Miller role, so I guess it was a Jay Baruchel movie. [Laughs.] And I did the audition - my first audition straight out of acting school - and Allison Jones said, "How come I've never seen you before?" And I said, "This is my first audition." And she said, "Well, let me just level with you right now: you're not gonna get this part. I mean, I knew that already. I just kind of wanted to see what you could do here. But will you come back tomorrow? And I'll have you read for some other shit." And I was, like, "Okay!" And looking back on this, it's, like, way above and beyond the call of duty for her to do something like this. But she took an interest. And when I came back the next day, she read me for I Love You, Man, she read me for The Office, and a handful of other things, too. And I got two of those jobs!
So cut to me on the set of I Love You, Man, my first real movie, and Jason Segel's agent was a woman that I had worked with many times in a different way when I worked for Stuart. I would talk to her on the phone all the time. She's Jack Black's agent, also. I said, "Hi, Sharon," and she said, "What are you doing here? Whose assistant are you?" I said, "No, I'm actually in the movie! I'm an actor. I got a job." She's, like, "Get the fuck out of here! Really?" [Laughs.] I said, "Yeah." And she was there visiting Jason, so she said, "What else are you doing?" And I got to say, "The Office." And you mentioned the luck, but this is luck, where - just by being in the right place at the right time - she signed me as a client the next day. So all of a sudden I had an agent, and she was a big-deal agent...and way too big of a deal for me, to be perfectly honest. But she did the right thing and passed me on to one of her junior guys. And just getting those two jobs from Allison Jones of that high a quality, it really got the ball rolling for me, because people were, like, "Oh, he can do that stuff? Well, then..."
Oh, and I'll also say this: when I was doing I Love You, Man, I got along pretty well with Paul Rudd. It's impossible not to, of course. He's the greatest guy. But he gave me a job on Party Down. I had no idea that he had anything to do with that show, but he's an executive producer on Party Down. He enjoyed me, we enjoyed each other, he gave me that job, and that was one of my favorite scenes, too. That scene with Adam Scott, which was directed by Fred Savage, who was also, like, "Do your thing, whatever." We shot that at 10 p.m. at night, and it was, like, the worst day ever for Adam. [Laughs.] He was so exhausted. But he played ball, and he was great.
But those are the sort of connections that matter. I did do well for Allison, which takes the luck aspect out of it. I didn't fuck up for Allison. I did do a good enough job for her that she was, like, "I would like to put you in something else." The rest of it is luck: that I met Sharon there, that she signed me the next day... All these things are really lucky. It's the 21st century version of some guy stopping you at the mall and being, like, "You've got a face for the pictures!" I had a lot of good luck in a short period of time. That's how I got started.
And you've done well for yourself, I think.
Well, thank you. [Laughs.] Thanks a lot. But I do feel very, very privileged to have worked on all of these shows that I like. There are some shows... [Hesitates.] Most working actors will do stuff they don't like. In fact, all of them will. And I have, too. But I've been fortunate enough for it to be tipped mostly in my favorite, and…it's been great!
I loved his "for the people at home" asides, very helpful. Also there's a duplicated question that starts with "Something I meant to mention earlier when I brought up your Parks and Recreation"