Pilot Error: LIFE WITH DAVID J (2001) and DJ Nash's marathon (not a sprint) to A MILLION LITTLE THINGS
People have asked me how I enjoyed the experience of revisiting the TCA press tour this January for the first time in six years—I last attended in July 2006—and I’ve been pretty consistent with my response: it was great to see my friends and peers, it was disappointing how few opportunities there were for one-on-one interviews, but at least I was able to get the ball rolling on a few future conversations while I was out there…and this is one of those. DJ Nash, creator of ABC’s A Million Little Things, popped into Pasadena long enough to do the panel in advance of the series’ fifth and final season, but he basically had to bail out not long after that panel in order to get back to work in Vancouver. Thankfully, my pitch to talk to him about his first real TV experience proved to be intriguing enough that he was agreeable to hopping on the phone after I got back to Virginia, and we had a great chat about his 2001 pilot Life with David J, but not before we talked about A Million Little Things and how this conversation led me into belatedly becoming a huge fan of the series.
Thanks for doing this! I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to chat in person during the TCA tour, but I know you were completely swamped.
DJ Nash: I had to get to a flight because I was directing! They had me fly in for the day. But it was really fun!
Well, I'm glad you were at least able to be there for the panel. As you say, it was a lot of fun.
Oh, this whole ride has just been amazing. I am so grateful, and I'm so thrilled that we get to do this final season where we wrap up the story.
Absolutely. In fact, I was just telling Cheryl (the publicist for A Million Little Things) that, when I knew for sure that we were going to be having this conversation... I'm sure she told you that I'm actually doing a piece on Life with David J, but I was, like, "Well, I can't be the guy who's doing a piece about his failed pilot and not know anything about the series he's actually doing," so I immediately went into a deep dive on A Million Little Things. I've been binging it, and as of today I'm almost at the end of season three, and I pointedly spoiled some of season four for myself in order to be up to date to talk to you about it. But I'll just tell you: I wish I hadn't slept on the show as long as I did, because it's amazing.
Oh, thank you very much! It's been an incredible experience. I was just at an assisted living / retirement community yesterday speaking about the show, and I see people in their twenties, and now yesterday I had people in their eighties and nineties who watch the show. It's so fun to see - and moving to see! - how much it's affected people.
Did the folks yesterday speak specifically about the storyline revolving around Rome's dad?
In terms of Rome being there for his dad? Yeah, they did. And that storyline is a big part of this season as well. But everyone wants to talk about "how's Gary?" [Laughs.]
But of course they do. And understandably so.
Yeah! But I talked to a mom yesterday who lost her son to suicide, and just hearing for her and how much the show has affected her and meant to her... It means so much to me.
As I was watching the show, I was amazed at how on-topic the series ended up being able to be, such as when Maggie came back from the UK just as the COVID lockdowns hit.
Yeah, you know, I think part of the reason for that is because the stories... I'd say 90% of the stories we tell are based on real things that happened to the writers, so as our characters were experiencing COVID and the fallout, it's because the writers were experiencing that. So, yeah, for a second we'd talked about, "Should we have COVID hit our show?" And we thought, "Well, we'd better, or else we won't be able to tell stories!"
I was also impressed with the way you were able to work the George Floyd situation into the show. I literally just finished watching that episode before I got on the call with you.
Oh, you know, I was so impressed with that. There were three writers who did that episode (Royale Watkins, Corey Deshon, and Nikita T. Hamilton), and they all brought... [Hesitates.] I said, "If we're gonna do this episode, I don't want to do it adjudicating whether or not it was wrong. Obviously, the death of an innocent man is wrong. I want it to somehow be about our characters experiencing it." I just loved the stories we found for that. It was really powerful. And the episode before, where they play the video, where Tyrell comes in and plays the video, our composer Gabe [Mann] hired this choral of singers to sing, and...that was one where I just helped shepherd it, but I was really proud to be part of that.
Well, like I said, I'm finding it to be truly fantastic, and I wish I hadn't slept on it as long as I had. But I'm going to be seeing it through to the bitter end. I'll be fully caught up in time for the season five premiere!
Oh, that's amazing. Thank you!
But as you were saying, I can't even begin to guess how many questions you're getting about Gary's situation and what the future holds.
Yeah, and when you have cancer, you don't know what the future holds! So everyone is hoping for a happy ending for Gary and Maggie, and what I'll say is that there's a ride they go on, and it will be emotional, and like every other story we encounter, with the right group of friends at your side, anything is possible.
One thing you've very successfully done throughout the run of the series is have those six-month checkups, and the tension is considerable with each and every one of them, as it would be in reality.
Yeah, you know, it's interesting: I'm seeing some family today, and I have two breast cancer survivors in my family, one for I believe 25 years now, and one for 15 years. And even as you talk about it, even after that long, there's still always the knock on wood and the holding your breath until your next scan.
Okay, so that's enough seriousness. It's time for a more ridiculous topic: Life with David J. Like I told Cheryl, I do this feature called Pilot Error, about pilots that never made it to series...
[Bursts out laughing.] I love it! I couldn't be more excited. This is fantastic!
So tell me a little bit about the origins of Life with David J, which provided you with an opportunity to step in front of the camera.
Exactly! So I was a stand-up comedian in New York, waiting for the right time to be seen, and in July of 2000 I did the Montreal Comedy Festival - the Just for Laughs festival - and I did New Faces. And for people who don't know, every year they bring...I think it's 24 new faces, comedians from around the country and maybe even around the world, to showcase for the festival. And upstairs are the executives from the networks and studios who are looking for new talent, and downstairs are regular people. So you are performing for an audience that's in front of you that's there just to see a comedy show, but at the same time you're being simulcast upstairs. They're filming you, merely to see what you look like on camera, I guess, but that's being shown upstairs.
But I remember doing that showcase, and it changed my life. I was supposed to go on my honeymoon with my wife the next week, but my manager said, "You have 20 meetings in L.A. in the next five days." So we postponed the honeymoon. I bought her earrings. The right one was named Maui, the left one was named Kauai. [Laughs.] I went to L.A. and I took all those meetings, and CBS said they wanted to do a sitcom based on my standup. Now, a lot of the comics who did the New Faces festival, they just told really funny, great jokes. I was sort of showing the show, so I talked about having a loving but overbearing dad, I talked about being a newly married guy who desperately wanted to make his wife happy but had no idea how to achieve that. So I think the CBS folks thought, "Okay, this is the next Ray Romano!" So I took a meeting, and Ray's show was a huge hit for them, so they said, "We'd like to develop a show with you based on your marriage, and could you do a showcase to find a showrunner?" So I did a showcase at the Laugh Factory, and I found a showrunner.
The showrunner was Jeff Strauss, who was coming off of Friends and had had a lot of success developing shows. So he and I paired, and he said, "Do you want to write it with me?" And I said, "Sure!" So on Halloween of 2000, I moved out to L.A. - my wife stayed in New York - and I met with Jeff every day over at 20th Century Fox. They were the studio behind it. And we'd write shoulder to shoulder every day, and we'd have so much fun. We'd play a bunch of video games, and then we'd work, and then we'd play some more video games, and then we'd work. [Laughs.] But we wrote the thing shoulder to shoulder, and the next thing I know, I was told that we're gonna shoot this pilot! And that's, like, every comedian's dream: you go, you do a showcase, you get a thing, you write it... It's gonna happen!
So we started casting it. Elliott Gould ended up playing my dad. Liz Vassey played my wife...and we just recently had Liz Vassey on A Million Little Things this year! She and I reconnected after all these years about six months ago, and I was, like, "Liz! Why haven't you been on A Million Little Things!" So we wrote a whole arc for her. She's amazing this season. Bert Kreischer, who was another comedian who showcased that night, he played my best friend. And Peter Jacobson, who's an incredible actor, played my brother. And it was this really fun show. All of them... I don't know how well you know them, but Peter's a great actor, Bert is super funny, Elliott is an Academy Award-winning actor, Liz is incredible, and then there was me. [Laughs.]
I'd never been on a soundstage before, much less in front of the camera, let alone been the lead of a show! So I was really green, and...acting is so much different than standup. Standup I knew. I knew how to tell the joke, I knew where the joke was, and I was doing it just by myself and not with another actor. So I didn't really enjoy it, probably because I wasn't really good at it. I recently re-watched it because I was joking with Liz about it, and so we watched it. But it didn't go, and...I think it was pretty well written, I think it had an incredible supporting cast, and I think if Ray Romano had had some extra time to play the me part, it may have gone! [Laughs.] But the experience left me at a lost at first, because I thought... I mean, I came out here to be the next Seinfeld, but then I realized that I kind of wanted to be the next Larry David. But I had agents for acting and not agents for literary, and... Well, I guess if you're just telling the story of Life with David J, that's where that story ended. But when you say "a failed pilot," man, it certainly felt like a failure at the time. I thought, "Well, that's it!"
But I never would have what I have today if it weren't for that. I mean, that show was everything. I remember there was an assistant to one of the EPs on the show, and she and I became friends. We'd eat lunch every day. And she then went on to Sony, she was an executive there, and we were still friendly, so I said, "Oh, I have this show I want to take out." So we took the show out, and we met with every network president. It was fantastic. They all sat on the edge of their seats and asked me questions...and nobody bought it. [Laughs.] We left four separate meetings thinking, "Oh, we totally sold this. We totally sold this!" And nobody bought it. We were, like, "This is unbelievable!" And then a few years later she called me, and she said, "Hey, I want to do that show you pitched!" And I said, "We tried to sell it! Nobody wanted it!" She said, "I'm the buyer. You already sold it." And that executive was Tal Rabinowitz, and the show was Growing Up Fisher.
So I feel like it's a marathon, not a sprint, and I think sometimes I forget, and I think, "Oh, I have to run as much as I can!" But you're meeting people, and some of these relationships are going on 23 years for me. There are people who I've met along the way who've come in and helped us out with A Million Little Things, and all of it sort of goes back to that first show.
Well, I will say that, over the past few years, I’ve become acquaintances with Peter Jacobson, so I dropped him an email to ask him what he remembered about the experience of doing Life with David J, and he replied:
“Life with David J was sooo long ago. Unfortunately, since I can't remember what happened 15 minutes ago, I won't have too much recall on shooting the pilot.
But I honestly do remember having a lot of fun. Shooting a network live audience comedy can have a lot of built-in stressors, but I recall the energy being really great on that one. It started at the top with DJ. I'm not sure there's a nicer, easier guy to work with. It was a genuinely fun and funny shoot.
I remember initially being scared of Brett Kreischer—who wouldn't be?—but that turned into a great time as well. He was a blast. And just hearing his laugh on a regular basis over nine days was its own adventure. Definitely, playing Elliot Gould's son was special for me. The other nicest guy in the business. He's a legend, a mensch and has some amazing Hollywood stories. I got to hear many more of those years later playing his law partner on Ray Donovan. Liz was super sweet and fun.
A good time was had by all, I think. Wouldn't it be funny if Brett was saying it was a miserable experience?”
And then he closed by saying, “Hope this is helpful, send my love to DJ.”
You know, it's so funny that you're doing this article, because when I reconnected with Liz, she was insistent: "You weren't as bad an actor as you think." And I was, like, "You have a very bad memory, or you desperately want a job on A Million Little Things. I can't figure out which one it is." [Laughs.] But we were talking about getting together... I do this podcast, A Million Little Stories, and we were talking about getting the cast together to do a table read on the podcast of Life with David J. So within seconds I'm able to find the script. I talk to Jeff Strauss, he sends me a copy, we can compare if we have the right draft. And instantly my nerves kicked in again. I'm, like, "I don't want to do this! Why am I doing this? This is terrible! I don't have my wife's law school loans to help with anymore. No, we're not doing this!" But I love all of them so much. And Jeff actually opened a restaurant in L.A. that's fantastic that I go to all the time, and it's so fun when we go in there with the family, and it's, like, "Oh, that's the guy Dad used to write with!" And he's living his dream right now as well. But you should definitely talk to Liz Vassey!
I was just about to say that I'm Facebook friends with Liz, and I haven't actually interviewed her, but when I posted about how I was going to be talking to you about Life with David J, I tagged her and said, "If you can offer any remembrances as a sidebar, I'm all ears," and she replied, “I love DJ! You’ll have a great time talking to him. I had big fun doing Life with David J. DJ wasn’t all that comfortable with the fact that he was acting in it, but he was way better than he’ll tell you he was.”
Yeah, that's her terrible memory! [Laughs.] That must've been before her deal closed on A Million Little Things.
She also said:
“‘Sitcom wives’ can sometimes be a mixed bag of a role to play—you’re happy for the job but sometimes it’s mostly about setting up the husband to be funny. DJ didn’t write my character like that; she had a POV, and was smart and funny on her own. I appreciated that. Lastly, Elliott Gould played DJ’s dad and I heard—not sure if it’s true—that when they tested the pilot someone said, ‘I just don’t understand why Ross’ dad from Friends is calling DJ his son.’ Yowza.”
And, of course, she also said to say “hello.”
I think that is true about Elliott. [Laughs.] But that's so funny, too, because Ross from Friends—David Schwimmer—directed the pilot for Growing Up Fisher. And when I met him, I said, "You've made it okay to look like this. You totally changed my dating life. I would not be married to the woman I'm married to if it weren't for your face. So thank you." Yeah, that character is really special. The character is also loosely who Catherine is on A Million Little Things. It's based on my wife.
It's all come full circle.
It is full circle! And it should be noted that Liz Vassey is the only woman since I've been married besides my wife that I've kissed. It was for the show.
However you want to spin it.
No, that is absolutely how I'd like to spin it. [Laughs.]
By the way, she wasn't in Life with David J, obviously, but Betsy Brandt wanted me to tell you that she said "hello."
Oh, she's amazing! Can I tell you... I don't know, you probably know her professionally, and I do as well - she was on our show, and she's wonderful - but she's an incredible mother. She is such a good mom. I've seen her with her kids and, man, she's inspiring. She's really great.
She and I have followed each other on Twitter since I interviewed her during Breaking Bad and she killed a wasp mid-interview. Needless to say, I transcribed every single moment of the battle, and we've been bonded ever since.
Yeah, between Betsy and Liz Vassey, those are two powerhouse funny women who are great actors but also great writers.
Well, she said she loves you, and she said, "It makes my heart happy that you two are talking."
Oh, that's really nice. Yeah, she's great. That's our perfect date night: with her and her husband [Grady Olsen].
So I know we're in the home stretch here, but I wanted to mention that I was a huge fan of Traffic Light.
Oh, yeah, that show was great! I wasn't the show runner. I think it was the last time I worked on something where I wasn't the show runner. But, man, it was so much fun. I've worked on shows that I created that weren't as close to my life as that show, and I could just bring in these stories. And Bob Fisher was such an incredible boss that I named Growing Up Fisher after him! That was an incredible experience. It was my first time working single-camera and really just using the camera to tell the story. Oh, I loved that show so much. And there are so many elements of A Million Little Things in there, like a bunch of guys just talking. I should go back and watch the series, because that was really fun.
It made me laugh to see Nelson Franklin show up on A Million Little Things as the psychic.
Totally. And that's what I'm talking about, with it being a marathon and not a sprint. There are people who did A Million Little Things... Like, Ryan Hansen did our show, and I never would've gotten Ryan Hansen to fly to Vancouver and do an arc on our series. But Nelson, he played Elon, the psychic, and he's, like, "Of course! Anything you want, DJ!" "You want to read the script?" "Nah, just get it to me when you can. I'm in." It was great. He's so nice.
What was particularly amazing... When you see Liz Vassey's role this year on the show, I will admit that, when we wrote it, it felt a little two-dimensional. And she brought such depth to this character that I was so impressed. Because, honestly, the only thing I'd seen her do was try to act opposite me. [Laughs.] But she was great. When you put her in a room with a real actor, she really shines!
Lastly, there are two other pilots in your back catalog, and I don't know if they're worthy of their own columns, but...are there stories connected to Losing It and Let It Go?
Well, if you want me to do it now, I absolutely can! The big significance of Losing It is, if you ask how a half-hour comedy guy was able to do an hour-long drama, it's because of Losing It. That whole experience in developing it with Channing [Dungey] and with ABC, and with people like Brian Morewitz, who was head of drama at ABC at the time I sold A Million Little Things. They screened Losing It, so they watched it when it was up for consideration. That show tested higher, I think, than any show I've had. They tested it three times, because they just didn't believe the testing. [Laughs.] Jon Cryer played the me character, and Gerald McRaney played the dad character, and the real problem - and I knew it right after the table read - was that I said, "Should we make this an hour-long? Because as a half-hour, I don't think this is a companion piece to the stuff you have on." And Channing said, "You worry about making a great show and let me worry about programming it." And it tested huge, but as soon as they screened it, they were, like, "We don't have a half-hour drama on our network." So it died. But the storyline from it is a huge arc that we did on A Million Little Things, and that experience of working with ABC and probably them seeing how collaborative I am but me really appreciating how collaborative they were, they bought A Million Little Things in the room. And I think they bought it as a put pilot. And the reason they did it was because of Losing It. So it started my relationship with Kapital [Entertainment], with Aaron Kaplan and Dana Honor, and... Well, again, it's a marathon and not a sprint. If I hadn't done Losing It, there would be no A Million Little Things.
Okay, that's too perfect a full circle moment. We'll just have to save Let It Go for next time.
Whatever you want, man. This has been really fun. I can't wait to see it! Do you need photos from back then?
If you have photos, that'd be amazing.
Well, first of all, I have a photo of me, my dad, and Elliott Gould, and we look like three people who are all the same, because he played my dad! [Laughs.] And I've got a press photo for it, too. I'm flying home tonight, so I'll try to get it to you tonight. Did you ever see Life with David J?
No, I keep searching YouTube, but I haven't found it yet. It may be out there, but...
It's not. Oh, no, no. If it is, I have a team taking it down. [Laughs.] Here's the story: I have only stolen one thing in my life, and that was right after Life with David J went away. I was going out for my first TV-writing meeting, and I'm waiting in the person's office. This was back in the day when all the VHS tapes were on the shelves of the pilots. And I saw with Life with David J...and I took it! I was, like, "This is for all of humanity." You know how you can steal a loaf of bread if it's to feed your starving family? I felt like by taking this VHS tape, I was really doing a moral good.
In closing, I just wanted to mention that I did try and reach out to Bert Kreischer, but as of this writing, I haven’t heard anything back from his manager. I’m hoping that I eventually do get a chance to chat with him about his experiences on Life with David J, but until that happens, this video clip gives you a little bit of insight into what it was like for him. I’ll also add that I’m not a huge fan of Barstool Sports, and I hate the clickbait-y title that they’ve given to this clip, but the story Bert tells about actually working on the pilot is too good to ignore.
That was just delightful; the fortunate conflux of well-prepared, enthusiastic interest, and a joyful, generous willingness to share and reminisce.
A Million Little Things was not on my radar but the way you both spoke about it prompted me to Wiki the show. A little too close to a bone for me to approach, but I can understand why it would touch so many.