Lisa Kudrow
01:05:13 Share

Attention sports enthusiasts! Keep the adrenaline pumping and elevate your game day with Chumba Casino. It's completely free to play, no purchase necessary. Whether you're cheering from the stands, on the move, or relaxing at home, Chumba Casino brings the thrill of social casino directly to your fingertips. Experience the ultimate social casino adventure with reels of casino-style games, offering hundreds of exciting options to choose from and fresh new releases every week. There's always something new and thrilling to explore. From

action-packed social slots, and classic blackjack to engaging bingo and solitaire. The fun never stops. Plus, enjoy generous daily login bonuses and a fantastic free welcome bonus to kickstart your social gaming journey. Dive into the excitement. Discover a world where you can play for your chance to redeem some serious prizes and have a blast along the way. Don't miss out. What are you waiting for?

Join now and immerse yourself in nonstop fun and adventure with Chumba Casino. Get in on the action today at chumbacasino.com and make every day a Chumba day. No purchase necessary. VGW group. Void. We're prohibited by law. 18 plus DNC supply.

Wow. What's up? I just bought and financed a car through Carvana in minutes. You? The person who agonized four weeks over whether to paint your walls eggshell or off-white bought and financed a car in minutes. They made it easy. Transparent terms, customizable down and monthly. Didn't even have to do any paperwork. Wow. Mm-hmm. Hey, have you checked out that spreadsheet I sent you for our dinner options? Finance your car with Carvana and experience total control. Financing subject to credit approval.

All right, our guest today is the one and only Lisa Kudrow, one of America's sweethearts, and she has a new show out. She's in a show called No Good Deed. It's on Netflix, and it's kind of funny. It's very interesting. I'll tell you that. It's got Ray Romano in it. It's got a great cast.

Uh, Linda Cardellini, who I, I don't see much. And, uh, she's great. It's a great cast and it's from the people who brought you dead to me. That's right. Which was another great show on Netflix. And so, um, looking forward to it. She's a really funny, talented actress.

down to earth, nice to talk to. And we talk about friends and different relationships. And we talk about how she grew up with John Lovitz. And she knew John when John was like a

Lisa Kudrow

We are Dana and David. You can figure out which one is which. Dana and David. Okay. You got it. It's kind of weird. I'm his older brother from another mother.

Do you have any doppelgangers in show business like, you know, you look like or someone saying, you know, people tell me I look like you. No. Well, yeah. People that come up and say, oh, my God, everyone tells me. Oh, OK. But wait, listen to this. Years ago, I was at a restaurant waiting for someone and the hostess came over and said, are you famous?

I'm not doing the accent. I said, um, she said, are you Dionne Warwick? Are you? That's a kid a lot. Uh, I used to get, David would get me, I would get David. And then I aged out of that. And then they say, do you know David Spade? It's my latest. Did you know him? Oh no. What do you mean? I go, yeah. Did you, uh,

You're like, are you like everybody's kid sister in a way, kind of?

You look a little like my sister a little bit. Oh, really? Well, I mean, you know, Levitz, both of you, John Levitz. Yes. Of course. The one and only. Yes. I grew up with John. He and my brother are best friends. David. David. Yeah. Yes. I've heard so much about this. It'd be interesting to hear it from your point of view. Yes. The real point of view. John's, um, let's say eccentric dad, you know, I met a few times and, uh,

David's encouragement to him. Yeah. And then you being the kid sister coming out of, going into show business. So go ahead. Go. You have 30 minutes. Yeah, that all sounds right. Yeah. Explain John then to John now, just as a personality. There's no difference.

I will attest to that. There's absolutely no difference. At 10-year-old? John, did you meet him at 10 or 12? How old was he? They're six years older than me. If I was three, they were nine. So you met him far back? Yeah. He was at our house all the time. I mean, so at home, he could just walk in, go to the kitchen, cookie drawer, grab stuff. Do you have any brownies? No.

Oh, you don't have the other cookies? Yeah. Lisa, sorry about your attitude. Yes. When did this guy come in? I mean, the 40s guy. Was that there when he was like 10 or something? Hello. Well, I don't remember when I was three. But later on, he was 14. Yes. Because he would call up.

And we shared, the kids shared a phone and it would be like, hello.

Oh, hello. Is this Lisa? Yeah. Hi, John. Do you want to talk to David? Wait. And he would do some very long bit. I can't sing. Love it. Can I just get David? Can I just get David for you? Yeah. That's hysterical. Always funny. Always has a spin on a joke. And then wait, you get older. Didn't you go...

No, I didn't. You didn't get older? I'm kidding. That would be bad. John Lovitz? So we were like, didn't you go to improv the same place he did or no? Well, yeah, because then when I graduated college,

college, I told him, yeah, I think I'm going to try acting now. And he said, oh, okay, listen, okay. Because look, you know, I studied in college and everywhere, but the place I learned the most was the Groundlings. That's where I learned the most. You have to learn improv. It's listening and responding. It's the most important thing in acting. And he was right. And I

And they wouldn't let me take classes because I hadn't performed or done anything since junior high school. Do you have to have a res a little bit to get in there? I don't know. This was like 1985, 86. You have a beginner's class, right? And that's kind of you. You have to audition for those. What? Yeah. Our viewers are freaking out right now. Jeez. Yeah. I thought they were just sort of screening, you know, but they wouldn't even let me audition for

Did you have, as a little kid, did you have any kind of whimsy in your head? Like maybe, maybe I'm funny or maybe I could do this. It was, it was at a secret or did you tell your parents, you tell David or was it just. No, I mean, yeah, as a kid, I did want to act. I thought, yeah, I did. And my family, everyone was funny and I was the youngest. So I was the least funny. How many kids?

Three. Okay. Yeah. Five and ours. I had three older brothers and a younger sister. Okay. Funny parents. Were you the funny one?

Everybody was funny, but that was more my specialty because I was doing little impressions in the early 60s. Oh, gross. Attention seeker. I was an introverted extrovert or extroverted introvert. I see you as a kindred spirit. I don't think you're on or I don't see you as always on. No.

No, no, no, no. I'm not always on. But when you're on, you're funny as hell. Oh, thanks. Well, there's evidence on television. We've got some evidence. Let's look at a clip. Let's go to the tape. Season five of Friends. Let's go to the phones. You've lost your bicycle. The exit is breathtaking. No, but I also would imitate Lily Tomlin doing Edith Ann. Oh my gosh, of course. I would, you know, like...

I would...

I would offer my entertainment services at school. I offered to go from class to class. I worked out with like scarves to do like the dream, Tevye's dream from Fiddler on the Roof. Oh, yikes. And I offered graciously. You pitched this to a teacher? To my teacher. I said, I put together this thing. Should I just do it for the class? And she went, sure. And,

And I did. And I said, now I can do this for all the other classes. I've got my bag. And I can go like, what was wrong with me? Yeah, something's wrong. Or how wonderful. How wonderful. That's how I look at it. Like, be so confident, you know. And she went, sure.

She's like, kill five minutes of class. I don't care. Were you consistently confident throughout the grades? Did you have years where you're the star and other years you're a little down? Or was it just consistently you were like one of the most popular school kids? No, I don't think I was one of the most popular. I mean, in grade school, I was confident. And yeah, I had friends and I was like, I'm going to start a David Cassidy fan club. Everyone's invited. And the moms would come. Everyone talked to me like I was an adult. I didn't.

I didn't understand. But everyone treated me like I was a little older. And I think it's because of my brother and sister and being older. And I had their, I stole their sense of humor and their jokes. You know, I was going to say that because I was going to say, I'm three boys in our family.

And I have to say there's, everyone's a little bit funny and I'm more like a research paper, like a compilation because you can always borrow like from your life. So this happened with Chris Farley, like his brothers would go,

That thing he does is mine. It's like, well, he got on TV and he's reaching for straws. At a certain point, he's like, that thing was funny. And, you know. Yeah, he had the guts to take it public. Yeah, most people aren't using it actively. So you just go, I can borrow what my mom says. You know, it's like, it's funny to me. But so you're like, yeah, you got little things here. And your parents were funny, is that what you said? Yeah, my dad was very funny.

Yeah. That's a big deal. He was really funny. That makes it fun to be fun or try to make him laugh when you're little. Yeah. Well, I mean, I didn't make anyone laugh. Oh. But, yeah.

Sadly, I thought you were killing it at school. At school. Yeah, at school. Oh, tougher crowd. Did your brother ever put you in a sleeping bag and then tie it off and leave him there? No. Oh, well, that happened to my wife. So I was just curious. No, no, David. No, they were good to me.

I mean, unless everyone was fighting, you know, but for the most, because I mean, didn't siblings always try to kill each other? Yeah. Most of my childhood with three older brothers was cut it out. Yeah. Cut it out. Stop. Yeah. But mostly it was rough and tumble fun. I mean, we had movies that were touchstones because there was no VCRs or anything, you know.

If what was your, like my sister was obsessed with Splendor in the Grass with Lauren Beatty and Natalie Wood. Oh. And it came on once a year and she commandeered the television. Did you have stuff in your formative years that was just mind blowing besides your crush on David Cassidy? Which my wife also had a mad crush. Yeah. I think I did. I did. I played David Cassidy on an SNL sketch. Oh, that's right. Oh, wow. He played everything on an SNL sketch. Yes.

Very well, by the way. So much fun. But my sister, you know, she's the oldest. She's eight years older than me. And she she would we would watch Father Knows Best and leave it to Beaver.

Yes. Reruns. And she had to sneak leave it to Beaver because my father, when she was younger, wouldn't let her watch it because that's bullshit. That's not what people are like. That's not what a family is. Stop it. Yeah. That's pretty advanced. Oh, because they were too nice to each other? Yeah, they were too like formal and nice.

Oh, gee. Well, gee whiz. Like that infuriated him. Well, golly, Wally. Yeah. That guy was the original Garth. I just figured out. And I have the same birthday as Jerry Mathers. Oh, really? He kind of talked like Garth, didn't he? Golly, Wally. I don't know what you're doing. By the way, and the Mathers lived in our neighborhood and Sean Mathers was in my class. Whoa. The younger, younger brother of Jerry. Yeah.

I always sort of, you seem a little more...

You just always seem very together to me. That's why people feel like you're older when you're younger, because something about you seem like you're very together and suffer no fools. Oh, yeah, I don't know. But you've suffered some fools along the way. I think I'm generous with fools. Well, you're too right here. Well, you've been generous to me so far. I won't connect the dots. No, I've been nervous to do this because you guys are legends.

Oh, good. Yeah. Has anyone called you a legend yet? Yes, I think so. When does the legend thing come in? No. Nobody? Not even John? Not to my face. No, John certainly hasn't. But John's been very sweet and generous and good, I have to say.

I think he's very proud of that. He loves to tell the story. And I said, do this and do this. And then she went there. You know, he loves to be the person advising. It's a role that he really enjoys. He loves that story. I've heard so much. I definitely have talked to your brother, David, on the phone a few times where John has put him on. Say hello to David. He's a doctor.

it's may west it's 1940s i mean it's both but anyway it's nice to have someone that's in the business that you could ask questions to like saturday live is a huge deal you're just auditioning and then you you're like what's it like just doing this or just auditions and readings and you know i don't know how to cold read like when i started i had no one really to go to it's good to have someone that's

been there. Yeah. Well, I mean, and the good thing John said was groundlings listen, respond, don't take them personally. Cause some of them are kind of unhappy and that was true. I saw that. I saw it. Cause then he got on Saturday night live and there were one or two groundlings. Cause I thought, you know, it's okay to say like, so what brought you here? I said, Oh, well, I grew up with John Levitz and they went, Oh, okay.

Oh, so bitter that Saturday Night Live. Oh, bitter and envious. You know, that is the thing about show business, no matter what, except maybe Eddie Murphy or something. Most of us needed a break or hadn't something had to happen. Yeah. And there's whimsy to that. And, you know, people I know so many stand ups, great stand up, not famous, had good careers in the clubs, but just didn't get

did some pilots, went on the Tonight Show, but didn't get that little turn. So it breeds weirdness. Right, then why not me? Or that wasn't deserved if someone else got it and I didn't, which is, that always mystified me. It's like, what do you mean? I mean, even if you think it's all luck, then...

you know, why not? I'm in not you this time. How about you just think this time? I used to go on showcases at the improv, like Dana did, like they'd say, we're going to bring a cat. They're doing a sitcom, whatever they're going to look at. They want to look at 10 comics. And this is sort of the look female, male, whatever. And we do it and someone would get it. And I'd always be practicing going, why them just in case I didn't get it. And then, but it's true. Like,

It's like, it's hard to complain when it's an even playing field. Like you all went on in front of them. Yeah. And they go that one and you go, wait, how do I figure out how I'm the victim here? I'll figure it out though. And all you can control is trying to get better. It sounds like a Hallmark movie, but all you can control is just try to get better. Yeah.

Where'd you get those shoes? Easy, they're from DSW. Because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour. The boots that turn grocery aisles into runways. And all the styles that show off the many sides of you, from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between. Because you do it all in really great shoes.

Find a shoe for every year at your DSW store or DSW.com. Did you have nightmare auditions before friends that humiliated you and made you think maybe it's not going to happen? No, not the auditions didn't make me think it's not going to happen, but I had one nightmare audition. I finally, I was so excited because I got to audition for Larry Sanders and

With Gary Shandling. Great. And then whoever else was in the room. And I thought, okay, great. I'll improvise a little too. And I think, and I don't remember exactly what I did, but I scared Gary. I know that. Was there sides or did he just do his thing of, I'll say something like this and you say something like that?

I'm trying to remember because I was just sort of the character was, Janine Garofalo ultimately did it, which is right. Oh, that was there for a full-time character. Yeah. And I remember, because I knew how to audition, I had a great cold reading class and audition class, which was just, you're not there to make friends. You're not there to chit-chat. You're there to...

do the audition, be polite and everything, and then just get going. And so it's sort of, I said something and he, Gary made sort of like a joke and I played along as an improviser with the sort of like, oh, now we're in a fight. You know what I mean? I see. Yeah. And, and he just went,

okay, should we read it? And I said, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we did it. And he said, okay, well, thank you. And we'll, we'll, we'll be in touch. And I went, all right, thank you very much. And I walked out and walking down the hall, I heard the door open and I turned around and he was there going, okay, bye-bye. We will be in touch. We really will.

And I went, okay. I thought, what did I scare him? What happened? What did I do? I was playing. Oh, they didn't know I was playing. Is that what it was? Did you ever run into Gary after friends and everything? And he, does he remember, did he ever remember that? I forgot to ask him, but I did run into him, um,

I ran into him after we had our first day of auditions for this HBO show I did called The Comeback. Comeback. Oh, yes. And HBO and Chris Albrecht and Carolyn Strauss, they had no idea what we were pitching. Just write it. We wrote it and they said, we still don't get it. Why don't we just shoot it? Because back when your Michael Patrick King was working with Sex and the City, we'll just shoot a pilot.

Okay. Great. So when we had the auditions for the pilot, that's the first time they saw me as the character because it didn't read on the page. Like it was hilarious, but then they saw me doing it. And so after that, I went to something, I can't remember what, and Gary Shanley was there and he went, Oh, I talked to Chris Albrecht today. He says, he said, you're brilliant.

And I went, that's good to know. That's really good. And I thought, oh, good. So yeah, I didn't feel like bringing up, I think I scared you. Yeah. I think that was smart. I mean, Gary was really complicated and he was,

He was harder on himself than anybody else. And I was doing Larry Sanders once. I did it a few times and he just writes on a piece of paper and just hands it to me, you know, between takes. And it just says, I hate myself. Funny, but it was just, yeah. Comeback was also like,

It was sort of like a curb type. That was type, that type, right? It wasn't improvised at all. Oh, it wasn't? It seemed like it. Oh, acting. That's because of the camera stuff. Maybe it was like that. It was sort of like handheld or something. Oh, the cinema verite, the office did it kind of. Yeah. It was right after the British office. Oh. Right. But just before. There was one before the American office. What's going on? Uh-oh. Yeah.

You know nothing. You are nothing. Sorry. You can't ever get him out of his last Golden Globes. You cannot get that out of your mind. It's one of the great moments in television when he says, you know nothing. You are nothing. Thank your God and fuck off. And now the show. Anyway. When you do the comeback, it looks like it's right after Friends. Yeah, it was right after Friends. And it's with, you said,

Sexton City Patrick King? Michael Patrick King, yeah. And so you get to that. It must have felt fun, A, to do something new and to do something sort of a little looser and a little rougher around the edges, right? And it was something no one had seen before. It was meant to just be raw footage from a reality show so that you can see

Just the folly of this woman thinking she's going to control it. It's her show. And, you know, just throwing herself into a meat grinder for to stay in the spotlight. Yes. Yeah. And not really understanding what a reality show actually is. And that was before Housewives. There was just Anna Nicole and.

The Osbournes. The Osbournes seemed like the first one I remember that went huge. Yeah. Yeah. That was an inspired idea at the time. It was. It was very interesting. I think people would talk a lot about it because it was just, it's always great when you get an idea a little bit out of the blue that everyone goes, oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was very, it was, that was very, very rewarding. I have to say. I mean, cause you'd done this six seasons, whatever you did all that with the live audience, which brings it's,

It's rock and roll and all its pressure. And then you do this whole new thing. It must have felt really good. Like, oh, yeah, I can also do this. Yeah, it was a different tone. Yeah. And luckily, while I was doing Friends, I was doing independent films a lot, which was fun because there are no stakes at all.

Yeah. And, uh, you know, especially when your day job is friends. Yeah. Oh, darn. I hope it does. Well, we have one to go back to guys in 26 weeks. In fact, I thought, and when I'm done with friends, I mean, I'll just do independent films and then they went away because. And now it's all lives, live streaming. And now it's all streaming. Yeah. You're,

Might as well bring it up. No good deed. Oh, yeah. Ray Romano. Yeah. He was on this podcast. Oh, yeah. We love Ray Romano. Yeah. That must have been fun. Yeah.

He he's a gentle giant. Like I was surprised how self-deprecating he is and how open he is because he's a big guy. Yeah. And he does not wear that on his sleeve at all. He's just very real. Yeah. He claims to be insecure and, you know, well, and he, he might be, but we were talking once and I said, but you're not mean to anybody. Like most insecure performers are,

find someone or something to blame everything on. Right. Oh yeah. We didn't give me the right lines or, you know, that stuff. Or some stooge to shit on occasionally and just little put downs. Yeah. Leverage their power over, you know, that, that character. Right. He doesn't do that. And he said, Oh no, that's cause I, I think I'm to blame for everything. Yeah.

I just blame myself. I think he really sinks into these things. He's not just doing it to kill time. Like,

We were doing the Mirage, Dana knows that we were doing like a, both of us were not sort of residency doing standup, but he gets into like these indie movies and like this thing, it's just good little things. And he really puts a lot of heart and soul into them. It feels like to me and wants them all really to do well, like really into it instead of just like, I'll do this. I'll do a week on this if you pay me. It's more like, let's get into it. Nail it. Yeah. No, no. I think he has a reason for everything he chooses to do.

Mm hmm. Yeah, you had a Luke on there. I was just watching it in the other room because I hadn't seen it. I go, Oh, shoot, let's go check it out. And I was, there's Luke. And there's a everywhere you turn. I was like, Oh, good. Oh, Dennis Leary. I saw. Oh, yeah. And and how fun he used to be. I used to know him a little more in the old days.

But so how fun is it? That's, that's a fun thing to do. And you did it for, and it's on right now. Cause I'm watching it right now. Yeah. On Netflix. It's on Netflix right now. Will you introduce the premise? I researched the premise of the show. Which is very interesting. Me? Yeah. Yeah. You. Oh yeah. Okay. I could do it, but I think you can't do it. It's tough to explain. There's a couple who's empty nesters. They're selling their house.

And, um, right. So far seems to, I know it seems to be, uh, yeah. The details we get into later. There's some secrets. Yeah. Surrounding the house and their life there. And then you have the people who come to the open house and desperately want this house and whatever's going on in their life that somehow intersects with this couple. Yeah.

And the producer of Dead to Me, which had its own... I love that show. Yeah, I did too. And I thought, whoever is the mind behind that, and also Christina Applegate. Yeah. The name of her partner was so good. Linda Cardellini. Yeah. Is always phenomenally good. Always phenomenal. Always. And so I'm assuming the sensibility overlap

different storylines and everything. But I did see one of the clips where you're in the kitchen and you're kind of waving the knife around. He goes, put the knife down. And it was just very smart, dry, weird, but real kind of dialogue. Like just put the knife down. Well, I'm not going to stab you. I saw kind of the tone in that moment. Yeah. Yeah. I think we

Kind of played with that one, Ray and I. Sure. Good. They're taking advantage of that. You can sort of know what you're doing. Let's make it real and surprise ourselves in the moment. Well, it's nice if they trust you to let you.

you know, and are too like, but no, the script. Yeah. I don't think people listening know that it's not always the case to have the gift of running with something. Sometimes it's script, script, script, move on. And then you go, could you want me to try something? They're like, Nope, we're good. Yeah. And so when you see it, it always feels looser. If,

You just feel a little more into it. And take advantage of the digital cameras. I mean, going back for just a second on Shanley, he had three 16 millimeter cameras on shoulder. So there was a single on me, single on him and a two shot. So every take was its own take.

Every take could be improvised, overlapped. It was all there every time. And so I just wondered, did they have a camera on Ray and a camera on you? Or was it, they go, well, that was a good improv. Can you repeat it? We'll come around on you. Or did they manage the shooting? So it was just. I think there were two cameras.

And we may have done it more than once because we did it, probably did it once. And then it was, yeah, do that thing again. I think. Yeah. I don't have a good memory for that stuff because once I'm done, I move on. No, none. You know? When this thing comes about, does it perk up your ears because of the dead to me part of it? Like, this person did this, so you're already sort of intrigued. Yeah.

and then you want to read it and then you're more intrigued. Is that sort of the way it goes? It should have been, but actually it was. So this is something exciting, we think, said the agents. They said a limited series on Netflix and it's Liz Feldman who did. I said, dead to me. I know who that is. I love that show. Yes. And playing your husband would be Ray Romano. And I went...

He's wanted to work with Ray Romano. Oh my God, that's been like a dream. It's like, well, dreams come true. And so far, Linda Cardellini is in it. And I went, what? Yeah. Work with Linda. So I said, I guess I should read it. But do I have to? Because it's yes. Do I have to? And did you have to?

Yeah, no, it's a good thing I read it because I read the first episode and then I had a meal with Liz where I had a lot of questions and I went, I'm basically saying yes to what has my character done? I'm not sure.

Did you have a read through? Did you get everyone, when everyone got together, did you read the pilot in a room? Yeah. I always find that, and I haven't done that much of it. Very nerve wracking. Cause like, you know, Lisa, she's going to bring it, man. Are you kidding me? We got the A team here. Oh God. You're thinking, what's the puzzle? How am I going to say these lines? That's how I felt. That is exactly. Everyone usually is nervous at that thing. Everyone's nervous. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, because also, I mean, young people get nervous too, because they weren't around in the days when you would do a read-through at a pilot and then get fired based on the poor performance in the read-through. I've been in a pilot, they don't even do that many read-throughs anymore, and what should I do? But when

When I was, I read for this pilot, it was like basic ABC, whatever. And then they go read through is great. And the next day they're like, Hey, where's this guy? Oh, they got fired. There's a new person playing them. I'm like from yesterday. What happened? Yeah. Like, Oh, they bombed. I'm like, they did. Like, you don't even notice. You're like, what are they looking at? I don't even know. That's what scares me. Like how about a rehearsal and a run through to see if they bombed. Yeah. Let's,

See, give him one more goddamn swing at it. Like, it's terrifying. You hired them. Yeah. Based on something. It's quick decisions. It's all. And then what was your first day of shooting with Ray? Did you have your scripts in your hand? Let's get it on its feet, people. All right, quiet, everybody. All right. We got Lisa. Number one, number two, we're going to run lines. All right, go ahead. Anytime. I'm going to mark this one.

And then you do it five times in a row and there's little titters from the crew and then less and less and then finally just dead silence. All right, we're ready to shoot it. Your confidence is totally... We beat it to death. Let's shoot it. Yeah. Beat it to death will be the sequel to No Good Deed.

Beat it to death. Dead to me. No good deed. Beat it to death. That's so good. That's funny. I wanted to make it clear for your listening audience. Yeah. Well, we won't give too much more away of that, but titles are tough, but it's on Netflix right now. Yeah. And all eight shows are available. You can binge it tonight if you want. And it is good. I mean, it is bingeable. Someone was talking about it the other night.

It got like an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah. It got 102% Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, it's fabulous. Extra tomatoes came in. At Sierra, discover top workout gear at incredible prices, which might lead to another discovery. Your headphones haven't been connected this whole time. Awkward. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving.

I want to ask you a little bit about Romy and Michelle, because I know you get it a lot, but it's such a, such a big one, especially when it came out. And you must still hear about it all the time. It was such a cool one. You still have the Halloween costumes, girl. I love it when you do something that's a Halloween costume. It's so fun. Yeah. Yeah, that is fun.

And when was that? What was that? It was 97, is that what it said? 97. Yeah. Maybe 96. Movie heydays. That's right around when movies were like such, it's so fun. How to do opening weekend. Wow. It was number two. It was in variety. Even my mom would go, it looks like it was number one. I don't know if something...

something with a car chase in it i think i don't know fast and furious one that was before titanic the vin diesel story it was a doc yeah but i remember doing talk shows for that and it was um like you know what i like about this jay leno actually who's very nice and yeah well i'll say it and then you can okay he'll do jay leno um

And he said, you know what I like about this? That it's two women, but you're not man bashing. You know, it's just, it's two women and you're funny and it's fun and it's not against men.

You know what I like about this? You know, you're not man-banishing. It's just two women having fun. You're not bashing the men. It's just a great little movie. I thought it was tremendous. There was no man-banishing at all. I'll say it one more time and then I'll let you talk. No man-banishing in the whole thing. You gotta be careful with the man-banishing because you don't know what you're gonna do. Sorry. I got a little silly. That's so funny, but...

I mean, yeah, but it wasn't about men. It's a big victory. That was, that's, that was your victory. Listen, we didn't do a man bashing. Was Thelma Louise man bashing? There were abusive men and predatory men. Oh yeah.

Oh, in that way. So Thelma and Louise had Brad Pitt seducing Sarah Saran or something. But they were escaping a bad husband. Another bad guy. Okay. It's as if like, right, that's not fair because that never happens. Yeah. Wait, no.

It happens a lot. I mean, quite a bit where the estranged husband is not happy and he has a weapon. Right. I mean, if a woman is missing, who's her husband, who's her boyfriend, you know, that's the first place you look. But, um, but it was just funny to me that it still needed to be contextualized. Like in relation to men. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, and it was very, you know, what I get about most of my comedies is, you know what I like? It's so fucking dumb. That's what we need. Yeah, but we do. I know. I love it. Believe me, I'm doing one right now. It's hard, but Roman Michelle was clever, cute, fun, and...

A smart little comedy that, you know, and then I don't know. So you do it and you don't, I don't, you might not expect a lot. You don't know what to expect. It does well, right? Yeah, I don't expect a lot. It did fine. It could have done better if it weren't rated R.

Oh, was it rated R? PG-13 is the way to go. Interesting. I thought that was a huge mistake and it was too safe. Oh, for that movie? I don't remember one thing R about it. What was it? Janine Garofalo said fuck off, I think, two times or three times or something. Over one and you get an R, I think. And the big stand was, I'm not changing Janine Garofalo's fuck offs. And I went, I don't think she'd mind. She wouldn't do shit. She wouldn't care.

If it's holding back another $50 million. No, if it's like 40% of the net profit, what are you going to do? Unless it's just a cause, make a movie called fuck off, you know, and do that. But I, I,

14 year old girls would have gone maybe more than once to the movies by themselves to see it. I mean, those would come over and over again because they all wanted to be those characters. I watched it and when I heard R, I went, okay, who do you think this movie's for? Yeah.

though. Yeah. A hundred percent. I can't, I would never. That's 30 year old men. Right. Who goes over and over? You get lucky. They go over and over and that's young women would have gone to see that. Yeah. I thought that was a mistake personally. Thousand percent. PG-13 is the move. Remember Greece is the move. PG-13 is the move, but I don't know. I don't know. Greece is the word. Greece is the word. Have you like, so you, you grew up in the nineties as a star. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Greece is the move. It's the move. It's the move.

Okay. Um, yeah, John Travolta was an incredible businessman. I think he got, he got, he got some publishing on that and also on, uh, cause he, he came around and hung out. He's a super nice guy. Oh my God. Potentially I've ever met. I mean, we all went to, we all went to Bruce, uh, no, Tom Hanks, his birthday party up at, um, in up on, uh,

whatever, the planetarium in Griffith Park Observatory. And everyone was there and you'd say hello to someone. You could tell they're like, oh, my God, I'm talking to you right now. But Springsteen's over there. They were panicked. And Travolta just wanted to hang out with us and talk about airplanes.

Because I have a fear of flying. He goes, you know, an airplane's only as safe as its maintenance. But anyway, he was just a great, he is a great guy. He's a great guy. I always see that picture of his house with a 747 in the driveway. I made it big. Because he pulls out and he goes, going to work, hon.

747? Yeah. Or 707. 707 from 1958. An inch longer, but yes. Yeah, I flew on his plane. Oh, you did? And he was flying it. I did a movie with him.

What was it? What was the name of the movie? Is that a fever? No. Yes. You don't remember me? Michael, the angel, the angel movie? No, no, no, no. But Nora Ephron directed it. It was called Lucky Numbers, I think. What was it called? I'm looking to see if I have anything. You're looking to see if anyone's in it. But anyway, it didn't do well. It won Nora Ephron awards.

John Travolta movie. God dang, Nora Ephron too. It didn't do well, but I got to work with him and he is the nicest. Yeah, it's something about him. Because it's not about him. Yeah. And he didn't, like how big he was, I've always found it was interesting that Tarantino

Because he did the talking dog movies with Kirstie Adler. Look who's talking. He was like, he was so- The talking baby. Yeah, talking baby. And he was so, so huge with Urban Cowboy and all of this. And then Tarantino, you know, the studio's like, you know, you want Travolta? Really? You know?

And he said he knew because he would walk around L.A. with Travolta and it would still stop traffic. Yes. And people would swarm. Good looking, tall. But what about Sarnat Viva in Greece? Almost back to back. And you go, I think it was back to back. And the hugest hit. And then another monster hit, both with music, both crazy. Right. And then Urban Cowboy. And then Face Off.

And then, oh, yeah. Yeah. And Michael is huge. Everything. And Luke is talking everything. I mean, yeah. And then Pulp Fiction kind of put him in this other kind of lane. And then he went from there. But anyway. Yeah. John, if you're listening, you're always welcome to come on. And we'll just talk about you. A Deborah Winger. We'll say what was what was that all about? That's Irving Cowboy.

Yeah. I saw your on stupid Instagram. I saw your urban cowboy with Debra when you're sketching, you played drool to like two days ago. And that was, I'm talking to Dana and then Lisa. I even forgot that I did. Oh, with Debra Winger. Yeah. Yeah. Friends. Friends is so big. I saw a Instagram today about you guys splitting a check.

And I saw it an hour before this. I'm like splitting a check. Well, you were like in the, in the real show. Oh, you're deciding it was show a one Oh eight, six, nine. Oh yes. One Oh eight, six, nine. Yes. That one is a great one. That was one of the good ones. Yeah. And you're deciding where to pay. And I'm like, it's still, I mean, you don't have to talk about it too much, but it still keeps going and going. We don't. Yeah, it does.

It does. The gift it keeps giving. Did you ever wear a disguise like at peak Friends of Mania? Too famous. Did you ever, did any of the cast ever wear a disguise? Not that I know of. Yeah. Okay. No, I don't think so. I mean, also it wasn't so bad for me because I'm, I'm married to a,

who's not in this business. So there's no sort of interest in, there wasn't any interest in how's that couple doing? Right.

Oh, out there with the tabloids. So you're not on Daily Mail a lot, I've noticed. And is that a disappointment at all? No. I don't follow you. You kind of think everyone's out in the tabloids, but it's really kind of similar characters a lot. And then you realize, oh, so many people are not pursuing you.

that path of celebrity, uh, within their career. And you forget about them. You forget they even exist. Yeah. Just their work, you know? Yeah. That's okay too. Yeah. Some lean into it and some, some of you can't totally avoid it, but some really lean into it. And some tip off more people tip off and regular people know, um,

Because really, are they at the bowling alley and there's five photographers there? Like, why? And also, there are certain restaurants, if you go to them, no, there will be paparazzi there. Yeah, they'll call it out. But then, to be fair, there are some people and, you know, if something's going on in your life, you know, they just stalk you. Yeah, they wait in front of the house. To, yeah, see where you're going to go and what you're going to do. That's definitely legit. Yeah. Yeah.

That does happen, I think, to a lot of people. For sure. That's horrible. You know, to be nice to people who don't know what show business is and you're at some school function and they sidle up and, hey, how do you make that Friends-type show? You know, what do you... Those kind of nice, sweet people are really just interested in wanting to say the right thing. Yeah. They just, you know, well, we rehearse a lot. Yeah. I didn't get a lot of that.

But you know what I get a lot of? Oh, yeah. I don't know. I didn't watch that show. Why do they always say that? They really want to let you know. And I always say, oh, sure. Yeah, I know a lot of people. There are plenty of people who didn't watch TV. Or it's like, no, I mean, I watched. OK, I liked Seinfeld a lot. And one time it was. And it's a good friend, too, who said. But that was more of a.

That was more of a girl's show, wasn't it, friends? No, I don't think so. Was it? You know, I asked my husband. He's like, no, it was for guys, too. Three of us were guys. Yeah. Some people liked Wayne's World. It wasn't my cup of tea, I'll tell you that. Who? No. Has anyone ever?

Oh, yeah, you just get all kinds. I guess you get all kinds. Oh, yeah, no, I don't watch those kinds of movies. We go to the art houses. It's not my thing, you know, but I guess some people really did like it. Are you from Canada? I think so. I'll have to check my driver's license. But, yeah, it's a show, but it's just a funny thing. And when you get inside of it, you just see all the

How the gears move and the insecurity. And, you know, you're on a soundstage somewhere and it looks all greasy and ugly and stupid. And then you see it later in the film. It's all shiny. Yeah. Color corrected. And so it's it's a show. I think there are people who just want to let you know, like, I'm not a fan. So you can trust me.

Yeah, that's true. I'm not after anything. Right. I don't want anything. I'm not a fan. I couldn't care less that you were famous and on TV. I just like you. I don't care about celebrities is the number one person that cares about celebrities. That's the first telltale sign. Do you host fundraisers? Do you do that kind of stuff? I have for things I'm involved in, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I do that. Do you have, do you have schtick? Do you have like a stick? You don't know. Always.

Always let them know. Do the thing from grade school. Yeah. Tevye's dream, everybody. Dana, when I was on Just Shoot Me, it was right around the time of Friends. And when I heard they were getting favored nations, I was hoping it meant all sitcoms. So we'd all get the same, whatever they got. Turns out it was not. No, that was hard to get.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, they wanted nothing more than for us to split up and divide and conquer. Yeah. Whoever thought of that was was smart. Keep keep the team. Yeah. You know, it was Courtney or Schwimmer, depending on I'm thinking you're talking to. Yeah. But Courtney's pretty smart. Yeah. About that.

She worked a little. I don't know her trajectory exactly. I remember from the Springsteen videos when she rocketed out, you know, right? Right. She probably may have had a little more experience. Well, she was on Family Ties and then she was Ace Ventura. But I think the first minute she made any money, she bought a house.

And then was flipping houses. And I think made more doing that. If I had her money, I'd throw mine away. I love when show business people leverage their income and make money. Yeah. And take care of themselves. She's so smart. I mean, also just like with blocking, we would block scenes and you'd be stuck. And Courtney would say, well, you should just stand over there and you do that. And that way it's easier. And she was always right.

You need somebody like that. And she was also the one when we were first like shooting the pilot or I don't know if it was then or got picked up. She said, listen, y'all, I did Seinfeld. They help each other all the time. Like if you think I could be doing something funnier, tell me. You got to tell me. And we need to help each other out. So that set a tone that I think carried through the whole 10 years for us.

That's really cool. Yeah. Otherwise it can get, you know, I mean, David, you've been on shows where it can get tense. Sure. Casts don't normally love each other. Also, if things happen or someone gets more money or someone gets more jokes or something, there's always trouble. Even photo shoots are weird sometimes. Yeah. So many little things you don't see coming and you go, itchy, itchy. Yeah. But,

But you're all like... On SNL, it was different. Sorry. Go ahead. I was saying, like, on Just Shoot Me, even though it wasn't obviously a friend's show, but we did about seven years. And George Segal, Wendy Mellon, we had all done stuff. Yeah. And also had good and bad things. Yeah. And so everyone was like at a point where like we're really lucky. Yeah. So it was a little easier to get through it all. Okay. Because we appreciated it. We were like, hey, this is going to go away tomorrow. And so...

I think it might be harder for you guys because when you're one of your first things, if not your first thing is so monstrous. Yeah. I don't know how you think nothing else could be like this. It's too good. You go, and then I'll do this and it'll be it. And then it just, it just seems like it's a weird, weird world to, to deal with. Yeah. I mean, we did all fully appreciate.

That was the other rare thing because we, we would check in and check each other all the time, you know? Um, and we had to answer to each other if we were going to create a disturbance, you know, like, I got to do this. Is that all right with you guys? If I leave early and my stand in does that, you know, um,

it was it was it was great to be accountable everyone was accountable to everybody else and then we'd all go off and like they'd let us which was really nice go do a movie and you know you come back and shoot your pickups and stuff and and everyone would say well i'll tell you one thing movie making's for the fucking birds because no one's running up offering me a sandwich they're here it's

break craft service and sure you know we rehearse most of the time and the more you do it unreal yeah it's like the more you do it the more you get paid and the fewer hours i think it was either david spade or tony danza that told me that he got it down to 17 hours i don't know it was not a week

A week, you know, just for the read through the thing, the blocking. Will and Grace got pretty tight. They were across from us. And they got very- I was jealous. I'm going to lunch. They're all driving away in their Porsches. I'm like, guys, this is a half day. And they're like, no, this is their whole day. And I'm like, you're joking. Wow. Well, I think also they had Jim Burrows. Yes. Most of them, right? So, yeah, I mean, they knew what they were doing. And then-

They probably had early run-throughs. Yeah, early run-throughs are great. Yeah, the writers like it, right? They write a draft, you run it through, and then they don't really need you for a while. Like, okay, now we're just going to go work. It falls on them. But at first, they would have us do the run-throughs at like 5, because they wanted to be in the writer's room most of the day, and then come see it. But then they'd have to do all the rewrites that night, so then they'd be up really late.

We got ours down at one o'clock on like a Wednesday to shoot on Friday. And then she would come in, rehearse, go through everything once, run through and you split. But did you do a Monday read-through or a first day read-through whenever you shot? We did the first seven years, I think. We also would shoot, they'd have us start at like six or seven at night.

On a Friday. I'll let you know. Till like two in the morning. Oh shit. Really? Yeah. And it, it took six hours.

to shoot our show. They did a lot of rewrites because the audience, I guess, would get tired of a joke. So, oh, okay. Well, maybe, I don't know. They just wanted it to be as good as it could be. We'd have hair and makeup changes. Yeah. I don't know. That busload of youth prisoners in the audience. They would go, hey, they didn't like it. I'm like, well, we liked it all week. We can't totally go by that. I know. I would think

This is for a television audience, though. Yeah, it's not the people that would come here. Yeah, and also you guys had more pressure because it's a bigger, it's probably a little more overthought because it's a big deal. How does this fit in? Will people like this show? I could see that going a little longer. It took, I mean, it was sort of notorious for taking a lot of time to shoot. Would you get fidgety?

No, no. And luckily we were all, you know, young. And you knew it was your hard night, you know, ahead of time, this is going to be. Yeah. And we knew, but it got to me when I was pregnant and felt like I had a flu for seven months. And then to be there two in the morning, it was, that was a little too tough. My husband had to come drive me home a couple of times. Yeah.

Sure. I get it. And then I think we just said, how about we start earlier? Someone got that. Where was Courtney earlier? Yeah. Yeah. And we were told, yeah, I don't know if we can get the audience. For friends? Really? People can get off work if they have tickets to the show and people fly here on vacation. Yeah.

To see the show. For sure. Pretty sure. So we would, we started earlier and then we'd have two audiences. Oh, wow. No one can sit for that long.

Even if you throw him some fucking jelly beans. Pizza. Pizza is the stock thing that goes out. Yeah. The audience warm-up guy, that guy gets burned out. Can you imagine six hours he had to keep everybody? I would hear it. They'd go, hey, there's David Spade. Come say hi. And I'm like, don't make me come. I'm running my line. Yabba dabba doo. And then they say, hey, do this. And then.

But, you know, you feel for the crowds. And would you? Would you? I'd go, yeah, yeah. Because they're there. They're super tired. I don't even know if we gave them pizza. I don't know what happened. This guy had a million trips. Well, six hours.

Oh, yeah. We had to give him pizza. Give him something. Let him live. A hard candy. A butterscotch wasn't going to be enough, I don't think. We got a bowl of Skittles. Don't forget it's at the bottom of the stairs. Skittles. Don't go crazy, though. When did Peak TV end? I mean, was Big Bang Theory the last water cooler show or was it Friends or? I think Big Bang Theory.

Maybe it was the last kind of big, big network sitcom. I think so. Now you get like maybe 800 people or whatever it is. It's been renewed with a 1.1 rating. Yeah, 0.8. Yeah. Amazing. But I think they want more to try to make multi-cameras work again, just because, you know, it's on a stage. It's not as expensive to shoot and it traveled really well.

Something about it works. It's been working for years. It's been working for 50 years. So 60, 70, like. It can, but you know what? It always seemed to me things that didn't work were usually missing funny people and good jokes, right? Good joke writers, you know? I need it.

It's pretty basic. It's good. It works. It is basic. Modern Family was a good big one, too. That was one of them. But it wasn't in front of an audience. Oh, that's right. And it also had the docu-sitch. You're like, and also that's not really what we're talking about right now. And I'm like, yep. I just kept wondering, what documentary is this?

Yeah, I know. Who's watching this 10-year documentary about this dumb family? I've been in situations on a movie where the brain truss is around the camera and there's a take.

And they're beside, they're bent over. We're like, it's the funniest thing. And I go, we're so fucked. It's over the brain or a dailies. They used to have the brain for us is like, Oh my God. You're like, no, this is death. You can tell it's over. Yeah. But I have to say, I'm not a great judge. Like when I see something and I think, Oh, that's,

too broad or I don't know if that's very good. And then it's, you know, the audience's favorite thing that's ever happened. There is that element of comedy where you're like, really, that was the one that killed. Yeah. Or you do a show like a movie and you go, I remember some movies I did where I go, this was the scene that tested the highest just because it's like one shot. But when people watch it for 10 years, like a Romy and Michelle type movie,

Some of my movies, they go, these are my favorite things. And I'm like, it's not what it was the first time when it came out. It switches. Like they see it so many times now. They're like this and like that. Yeah. Yeah. The real throwaway jokes and that kind of stuff. Yeah. But initially the big jokes are like the easiest ones to get. Yeah.

Yeah. After the movie, they go, did you like that one? And everyone goes, sure. And they're like, okay, that's your favorite scene. All right. We're going to fill out our cards today. It's a scale of one to five and just, you know, remember what we talked about. Remember what we talked about earlier. And thanks for participating. And we're sure I appreciate it. What are you? What are you? What's a word of David Spade's characters? Stupid.

Okay. Well, that's not one of the choices. We're going to have you just write them down on your card and hand them in to the front. If you thought the dog was cute, we have another special card to put it on. Exactly. That's exactly what those test screenings are. I know. Who would you want to see more of? Yeah. Who should we cut out of the movie and fire immediately?

Lisa, thank you for talking to us. We'll let you go. It's very, very nice to have a long chat with you. No good deed. No good deed. Thanks. Thank you. We enjoyed it, Lisa. We'll see you around campus, as they say. All right. Bye. This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.

Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.