Jane Lynch: Stalking Tony The Tiger
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Hey, Rob. We're both wearing red. Oh, I like it. And it's kind of a Nantucket red, if you will. You are in a beautiful location. Where is that? I'm in Laurel Canyon. You win the award for best background of any of the guests on Literally. Yes, Literally. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Today we have the great Jane Lynch.

who, as you will see, I discovered that we're the same person, basically. It's kind of creepy, but inspiring because she's awesome. I mean, she's won an Emmy and two Golden Globes for Sue Sylvester and Glee. And who among us does not love Sue Sylvester and Glee? She hosts Hollywood Game Night, which is a genius. And she's in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Won an Emmy for that. She's won more Emmys than I have. Maybe she should be hosting.

And I should be the guest. Let's see what's what. I'm so glad that you've taken time to come and hang out with us today. It's very, very exciting. I was going over just some background on you, and I came across something that really made me laugh about your mother going, I don't know if you're going to be an actress, Jane. Yes. I just don't know. Yeah. She said not everybody can do what they want, which I think said more about her than it did about me. Yeah.

Right? Yeah, yeah. What would she have had you do? Like in her dream scenario? Well, she told me all the time what she would have me do. You know, she thought I should be a teacher. She thought, she always said, you need to have something to fall back on and I should learn how to type.

And at one point when I was like in my late 20s and I was doing Shakespeare in the Park and she came to see it and she said, that was really good and everything, honey, but I still see you teaching. And I stopped her and I said, you can never,

say that to me ever again. And she never did. And listen, nobody was happier with my having success in this business than my mother. She was thrilled. I think there was an actress inside of her that never got to come out and she loved to sing. And, you know, I think she when she said to me, you know, not everybody can do what they want. I think that's where that came from. For sure. I mean, I look back.

Having kids now of my own and growing through and in the prime of the job hunt gives me such amazing appreciation for my parents for when I told them that I wanted to be an actor.

And that was all my interest was. I literally had no other... I got fired from every job I attempted to have. I was fired from being a busboy. I was fired for a projectionist at the Malibu Cinema, for kissing girls behind the ice-making machine and putting the reels on in the wrong order. I was awful. I was awful at everything other than being an actor. And I just so appreciate that my parents...

Let me do it. Yeah. I mean, it almost looking back on, I go, were they negligent? Were they like shirking their fiduciary authority?

responsibilities by not, I didn't go to college. I, you know, cause I did a movie. I had to choose between doing it. It's, it's, it's, it's a whole other perspective, isn't it? I feel for your mom. Yeah. Yeah. And, and how parents, you know, you're a, you're a parent, how they, they just trust that the world is going to be kind to your child and your child's going to find a way to eke out a living in this world. And yeah, it's, it must be a really scary thing. That's why I only have dogs.

You're so smart. Although I will tell you, my dog, I have five dogs. I was just talking. One of them just came up and put his foot in the soup and then threw it on the ground and then drank it and ran out. And my wife Cheryl was like, but it's such a good dog. I'm like, that's not, by definition, that's a bad dog. That's a bad dog, but I'm sure adorable and is worthy of having, deserving of that soup.

You're you. Do you do animal rescues? I think I don't do it myself. But well, yeah, we do. We do. I don't go into the shelters and pick out animals that would kill me, but I support them. And we always have old rescues. We adopt to a place called a purposeful rescue and we'll get old dogs. And the thing is, is then they're gone in a couple of years. But still, they had a great couple of years. Their last life, last years of their lives were really great. And

So we have one old girl right now and we lost one at Thanksgiving and we've got a little puppy who's probably going to be running up here that we found at Runyon Canyon in L.A. Someone just dumped him. We haven't done it in a couple of years. Well, more than a couple, but there were a few years where we would identify dogs in the shelters and.

My wife and I, and then kind of have a network of people that were likely to adopt them. And we would go in and swoop in like an army event. We would take them all at once, bring them to the house. We'd have mobile vets who would come and, you know, check them out. We have mobile groomers. And then we'd have like a showroom. And people would come. It was the cutest. The problem was then you always took, we always ended up with more dogs coming.

For us. Yeah, for you. That's right. Now you have five. We had four. The height of our dog population was four. And that was pretty tough. And we said three is the most. And so we have two now. We might get another one. We'll see. I'm a big believer in...

Non-dog, non-pet names for pets. Oh, yeah, us too. Yeah, we do people names. Bernice, Millie, Arbuckle. Arbuckle's kind of, but it's a fatty Arbuckle because he was a fat dog. Yeah, we do like real names. Olivia. But I've always wanted to have a dog like named Diane or Karen. Yes. Well, that's what Linda broke. That's why I love Linda. To call a dog Linda, that's fantastic. Yeah, we had Wayne and David and Buster. Love it. David. David.

David. David was one of the great dog names of all time. That's great. We had a Kevin. We had a Kevin once too. Now, but here's the thing is because I'm just a big pile of silly that...

The names last for two seconds and then they become baby talk gibberish names? Names, yeah. Like my dog Roomie, named after the poet, I call him Doom Doom. That's all I call him. I called him Roomie for about a week and then it was Doom Doom, Boom Boom, Doomer, Rheumatologist. Yeah, Roomie, Doomie, Zuma Zoom Zoomie, like, yeah. You never call them by their names. No, never.

No. Okay, explain Roomie to me because people have been trying to get me to read Roomie forever. Yeah. If I get one more fucking Roomie book from Chris Martin...

I'm going to strangle him and the entire band of Coldplay. I get it. They're evolved. They're smarter than I am. Yeah, well, I'm not smarter than you are. You know, my partner, Jennifer, she came up with the name Rumi, and I have two Rumi books right here just for effect. I can't say that I'm...

gravitate toward him, but I really want to because he's supposed to just be a delight about the relationship with the divine and how he makes it romantic. And I don't know, it just doesn't grab me that way. And I bet everybody's lying who says they get him. I don't buy it. I don't buy it either. I find it

I've tried. And I literally think that it is... I like the idea of me reading Roomie. I don't like reading... Love the idea of you reading Roomie. It's so awesome. And here's the other thing. Not to brag. Please. Because I've told the other side of this story. I once had my IQ tested and it was the worst thing I ever did. It was horrible. I should never have done it. Because it was high or low? It is when the result... Oh, it was really low. When it came back, it was...

It was like not good news. It was like I didn't think I had long to live in the looks of the person getting the test. You're too dumb to live, yes. But on the other side of it,

Within that, I was off the charts like crazy. They'd never tested anybody like me on other areas. And one of them was reading comprehension. So I may not have a high IQ, but my reading comprehension is like otherworldly. And if I can't read roomie with my big honking eyes,

high IQ testing. I think it says something. Yeah, I wish I had that. That's one of the things that I'd like if there's such a thing as praying that I give little prayers for is please, please allow me not only to comprehend what I'm reading because, you know, I'm in the Twitter age where you're just, it's like burst

of adrenaline. Boom, boom. I can't go. I can't read a whole article. Please let me not only be able to comprehend it, but retain it. Please let me be a student. Please let me hold on to this stuff because I'm interested. But, you know, I'm just I zip off and I don't like that. I want to. Are you good at are you good at memorizing dialogue? Is that hard for you? Not anymore. Dialogue is fine. But Rob, almost every role I've had, I have monologues. I just I stand up and tell people what's what.

And so if I have like a back and forth, I'm like easy. But the monologues, oh, like when I was doing Glee, I had two three page monologues.

Who was writing Glee when you, was Brad Falchuk writing it? Yeah, Brad and Ian Brennan and Ryan were the first three writers. I am, the character of Sue Sylvester is the brainchild of Ian Brennan, another Chicagoan, just like myself. I'm a great deal older than he is, but there is a particular sensibility in it. Irish Catholic Chicago sensibility. It's kind of dark and,

mean and has really like satanic images that's Ian that's Ian good Catholic boy right yeah I as a new member to the Ryan Murphy universe um

I have a total understanding for now and appreciation for what it's like to work in that. A lot of people say that they have worlds. The world of Marvel. Ryan Murphy has a world. He has a world, definitely. And you're on the early Mount Rushmore with your sweatsuit.

Indeed, indeed, indeed. Yeah, that was – what a gift that was. What a gift that whole time was. And I got to say some of the most ridiculously vile things ever said on television. So fun. Yeah. And then when you were on Glee, how much thought went into the wardrobe? Because I love your – I just love the notion of you in these tracksuits. It was very – it was just –

The absolute greatest. So iconic. It's an iconic image. Indeed. And a really strong choice, too. And not like Lululemon, but it was like Adidas, even though we didn't use Adidas. You know, with the stripe down the leg and the stripe down the arm. It was very run DMC. Yeah, right. Exactly. Honestly, it was...

Or what is it like an old Russian guy hiking up the hills? I don't know if you ever hike in L.A., but every once in a while you'll see these old Russian guys in total sweatsuits, matching sweatsuits. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, but so that was Ryan Murphy. That was his thing. And they would be of different colors as they were. I mean, I had an entire rainbow of tracksuits. It was the best thing. It was like going to work in your pajamas, basically. Which I'm aspiring to. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm aspiring to get to the point where I can wear my – like Adam Sandler, who just when he does movies – I've talked about this before. He just – it's like wherever he took his last vacation is where the movie is going to take place, and he's going to wear his own clothes. Yes. Exactly. Yeah, he's going to wear a hat, his favorite hat and his favorite jersey. Yeah. How did you find out that Carol Burnett was going to play your mom? Walk me through this because this is one of the things that people don't understand about being on TV that I love is –

You're on a show and inevitably you'll be standing by the monitor and Ian, in your case, or somebody will go, so looks like we're going to introduce your mom on episode seven. You're like, really? Well, that's really exciting. Who are you thinking of?

And it's inevitably these insane people. And then you end up with like a perfectly fine actor, but it's never who you said. Right. You got Carol fucking Burnett. Oh, I know. How did that happen? Insane. First of all, Carol Burnett got a hold of Ryan Murphy and said, I want to play in your sandbox. So whatever you want me to do. And he said, well, why don't you play Sue Sylvester's Nazi hunting mother? And.

Amazing. Yeah. And then he said to her, what song would you like to sing? And she said, well, since our show is set in Ohio, why don't we sing that song from my sister Eileen, Why Oh Why Did I Leave Ohio? And so that's how all that happened. It was her call. She decided. So it did blow my mind. And, you know, I'm a big Montecito fan. And Carol lives in Montecito. She's one of your neighbors.

So we've, I've had brunch with her up at the Biltmore a couple of times and she's, I did jury duty with her husband, Brian. So I've become a very good friend. Yeah. Yeah. That was amazing. What, one of the many times where I just get so grateful for, you know, living the life I've been able to live is when I see Carol, because I can remember like it was yesterday that,

waiting in front of the television for the carol burnett show to come on and you know because i'm from ohio and i was living in ohio watching it of course you'd you'd i'd be eating some real like midwestern like jello with milk in it you know that's what i remember that yes do you remember jello with milk in it what the hell was that crazy i know how did who thought of that yeah crazy because because jello isn't gross enough you gotta add some milk

And stir it up a little. You know what would be great? Curdling milk in this as you watch. It was great. The Carol Burnett show. Yeah. And then I became obsessed with, as I moved to LA and got here, is...

CBS and Television City, like you'd pass on Fairfax where they shot it. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And the Smothers Brother was across the hall. Yeah, absolutely. Didn't that blow your mind? It blew my mind. And you're from Illinois, right? Yeah, I'm from the suburb of Chicago, Dalton. Did you have, when you were growing up, like legitimate summer stock in your area? No. No.

No, not at all. No, no, no. No, we didn't have that. My parents did a show at the church called Port of Call where they would perform in the high school and each room would be a different port of call. But that's it. We didn't perform. No, we didn't have it. Did you have it in Ohio? Yeah. There was big time. We had a thing called the Kenley Players, which I'm obsessed with. John Kenley passed away a few years ago. He was 97 years old. And he had a circuit of theaters.

But there were big Memorial Hall theaters. So it's 1,100, 2,500 seats. And he would have a rotating –

shows that would come through. So you'd see like Sandy Duncan doing Peter Pan and then Harvey Korman and under the yum yum tree and then Rip Taylor in the music man. And like, it was one step away from a waiting for Guffman type of situation. With one star, right? One, one, one star that would be in the cast. One star. Everybody else would be local. Yeah.

100%. And it was like, you play Warren, Ohio, Lansing, Michigan, Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus. And that was sort of it. And you just know it was every sort of second lead on whatever the hit sitcom was of the time coming in to just get fucking blottoed through their summer vacation. Yeah. Yeah.

And making some nice little coin on the side. Yeah, I'll bet. And were you in those shows? Would you audition for them to play parts? I auditioned and I never got one. No! I never, but I was really, I was also really young. So I was like eight, nine years old. Right, very right. So I auditioned for Oliver, for one of the, you know, the chorus boys in Oliver. And Vincent Price was Fagin. Oh my God.

Vincent Price. He must have been old. He was old. I mean, I saw great shit. I saw, but that's the thing I thought in when I, cause then when I moved to California, there was actually less theater in LA than there was in Dayton, Ohio. And where you were at you, but you were at Steppenwolf, correct? I was in Chicago. So, and I probably one of the big reasons we didn't have regional theater is we had Chicago 20 minutes away, which,

which all the big shows would come in. And then Chicago is a great actors town. It's it's a lot of a lot of non-equity act acting ensembles. And Steppenwolf was one of those. And then it blew up and became huge. And indeed, I wasn't in the ensemble, but I did four or five shows there. I toured with Second City. I was in the touring company and I did a lot of what we call off loop shows.

Loop being the center of the city, non-equity off loop theater company. So I have a great deal of experience doing kind of the stuff where you bring your own costumes and you build your own sets and you clean the toilets, that sort of stuff.

Do you, when you were at Second City, were you ever there like when Lorne Michaels was coming in to look for the next cast of Saturday Night Live and that stuff? Yeah, I was. And I was never chosen for that sort of thing. But I was there when, oh, Bonnie Hunt wasn't on. But she became a big star, like Bonnie Hunt and Joel Murray and.

And Tim Meadows was there. Dave, I don't know if you know these guys, David Pasquazy. These are really great actresses, you know, that that I know. And they would get, you know, kind of plucked out of there either by Lorne Michaels or by a television series. And, you know, in L.A. and they'd go they'd go to pilot season and everybody would see if they're or are they going to become a big star? I I can only imagine what it's like to be in one of those, you know, amazing historic places.

Yeah.

And, you know, a Steppenwolf was its own thing. But there was kind of this thing, especially at Second City, you'd get in the touring company and then you right away want to get on one of the stages. And then when you get on one of the stages, you want to get on the main stage. So there was always this kind of a climbing thing where you were never happy with where you were. You're always looking to the next step. So I didn't suffer from that because I never made it to the next steps. Yeah.

The other thing I find interesting about you, and you can help me with this, we talked about Rumi. You frankly weren't much help with Rumi. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

Um, that was disappointing, but you have another, you have another chance here with telling me that I do need to get into transcendental meditation because everybody I admire isn't, does it? Yeah. And by the way, not a lot of people do it. I'm not saying that, but, but the few people I know who do it, love it. Yeah, it is. It's really great. So when you hear of TM, that's what it is. It's transcendental meditation. And, um, it, uh, it's,

centuries old, but it had its popularity here in the sixties, early seventies when, um, Maharishi came over and the Beatles, uh, went to ashrams with him and everything, but it's 20 minutes a day. It's scientifically proven. There's no woo woo about it. Um,

You can get woo-woo with it if you want, but basically it's pure science. You sit for 20 minutes, and at some point you're chanting internally the mantra that they give you, and you don't tell anybody what that is. You never say it out loud. You just chant it internally. And at some point, I mean, it's not like lights go off. That happens occasionally, but you just kind of drop.

And it's interesting that it's called transcendental, which means a high, but it's really a drop. It's almost like David Lynch said it felt like somebody, he was in an elevator and someone snapped the cables and you go. And in that you get a level of rest that you can't get in deep sleep. It's really, you know, I like love doing it. I do 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night. And you have to be trained by a teacher of meditation, but it

you don't need money to do it. Uh, if you have the money, you pay them, but if you don't, they'll do it for free. And, um, I'm associated with the David Lynch foundation cause it's right down the street and that's where I learned. And, um,

Yeah, it's really wonderful. It's a lovely thing to look into. Who bestows the mantra on you? Your teacher. And you go through a whole class. There's usually about five or six of you in a class. And it's about five days or maybe it's four days and you have to do them in a row.

And the teacher takes each one of you after she's explained or he's explained scientifically what happens to your body and your consciousness when you're meditating. Then she has a little bit of a ritual where you go into a room with her and she whispers into your ear. Hopefully you're good ear. I'm deaf in one ear. Are you deaf in one ear? I'm a, yes, I'm deaf in one ear too. Yeah, isn't that funny? I'm always like, oh, this one, please don't whisper it in my ear. I'm like George Bailey. I know, I know.

Yeah. And they whisper hopefully in your good ear and then they do it just that once and you remember it and you and from that moment on, you're meditating with the mantra. I've got to do this. It's one of those things that's been on my bucket list to try. And my problem whenever I've tried to meditate is I just go to sleep.

That's okay, too. I just get sleepy. They'll tell you it's okay. That's okay, too. You don't have to stay awake. In fact, if I don't do my second meditation at night, it's totally within the rules to do falling asleep for the last, you know, whatever, however many minutes before you fall asleep. Yeah.

It's really – it's the easiest thing you will ever do because it's the most forgiving method and there are some rules but – Wait, wait, because I – that's insane because I keep hearing – I don't know why I had it in my head that it was this unbelievably rigorous –

Discipline. No, it's not. It's easy and forgiving and gentle. Really? And kind. It's lovely. Yeah. Now, there are some people who go off on meditation courses and they'll meditate for like 12, 18 hours a day. But no, no, no. That the 20 minutes a day is literally just sitting. And, you know, you don't use your phone for a timer. Use a regular clock and you just kind of have it off to the side. You close your eyes.

And just chant them. And, you know, you're supposed to, thoughts are supposed to come up. You don't stop your thoughts. They come up and you go back to your mantra. Somebody told me that when your thoughts come up and you're trying to meditate, that this visual worked for me, that it's like the game of Frogger.

Where the logs come by and you just let them – those are your thoughts. Let them go by, yeah. It's just a game of Frogger. Here comes the lily pad. Let it go by. Yeah, you don't have to attach to them. And if you attach to them, that's okay too. Like I said, it's the most forgiving, gentle, kind thing you could do for yourself. And it really affects your nervous system. It really calms you down. What would you say –

So what's the benefit that you find that you like the most from it? Oh, I see. Is it energy and calmness? That too. I'm not so much, I don't feel the energy so much, but you talk to Jerry Seinfeld and he does a whole comic monologue about how it actually energizes him. He says he's an energy junkie. I haven't noticed that so much and that's not my deal anyway, but it's a presence and a calmness and sleep and I look better. Honest to God, it is.

It is like anti-aging. It gets everything just kind of going in a real smooth kind of, you know, it's just everybody's going to have a different, you know, great thing about it. But I can't recommend it highly enough. And I'm sure there's somebody in Montecito who's a teacher. I guarantee you there is a teacher in Montecito. There's so much. There's so much of that up here. This is a big yoga place, which is another thing.

That I've got to get into. Because again, everybody who practices yoga, particularly as they get older, they're just, they just look so young and they're, they're just so, I mean, I,

I'm still recovering from the evening, the weekend I spent at Sting's house where I woke up and he was nude practicing yoga in the garden. It kind of, I was like, kind of that visual in my head that I need to either accept or get over or embrace. Just accept it and it'll go away like Frogger. It'll just go away. Hold that thought. We'll be right back.

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Ashley has you and your sleep covered. Subject to credit approval. Minimum monthly payments required. No minimum purchase required. See store for details. Were you on West Wing when I was there? Yeah, I was. Yes. In fact, you were very nice to me. You probably don't remember, but you gave me a ride in that your kids were little and you gave me a ride in a golf cart. You rode you drove me to from the parking lot to set.

At Warner Brothers. Yeah. I remember that. I remember that golf cart. Yeah, your kids were young. I think that both of them were there, two boys, and they were like, you know, four and five. That's right. Yes, I did two episodes. I played a reporter and I it was one day of shooting, but it got it put into two different episodes and they turned out to be the two of the most like iconic West Wing episodes. It's when he shot.

Remember? Oh, of course. And it ends one season, then it opens the other season. So, so many people know me from that, Rob. I can't tell you. Really? Because they're two very, you know, iconic episodes of that show. I remember that scene, the shooting sequences in...

In D.C., that was a big moment for the show and a big moment to shoot. I remember that. I'm so glad. That's the episode you're in. I have to go back and look at that one. Yeah, two of them. The last one and then the first one of the next season. It's amazing how that show...

Just have it, what it means to people. I mean, like you have, you have glee. So, you know what that's, that's like, I mean, the glee fans are, is there a name for glee fans? Did anybody ever? Gleeks. What is it? G-L-E-E-K. And what are you, uh, West wingers called? Wing nuts. Wing nuts. Yeah. Yeah.

It was such a fantasy of such a good man in the in the White House and such a, you know, such high principles and everybody around him, you know, believed in him. And I think maybe Obama might have been as close as we've gotten to that. Yeah. I mean, Kennedy, you know, there's that thing. Aaron would never reference a president past Kennedy.

So if you go look, that was part of the, of the, of the world of it, because if you started referencing Carter or Reagan or Ford or whatever you would, I think people began to like go, well, wait a minute. Is this real? Is this not real? So I always thought it was fascinating that we, we lived in a world where there really wasn't a president after John Kennedy and the West wing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes sense too, because you start getting into people's, um,

Point of view about the more recent presidents. And when you go to Kennedy, there's just kind of a glow around him. You know, people don't say bad things about John F. Kennedy, even people who are, you know, way to the other side of the spectrum. You know, he's kind of considered this in a bubble of this, you know, Camelot. Yeah. Yeah.

For sure. I'm having so much fun because I have your, right next to me, I have your filmography. And every time I look over, I see something that's more fun than the last thing. I see that you are, oh, this is too good. Well, first of all, you're in The Fugitive. Yeah. Tell me about, I love that movie. That's one of my favorite movies.

movies ever. Did you, was Harrison, what's, what's that? So I'm going to go back and look at that one too. Yeah. Um, I was doing a play in Chicago, you know, we shot that in Chicago that was shot in Chicago, all in Chicago. And I was living in Chicago and I did a play called the real live Brady bunch. And it was this ridiculous thing that we were doing at a little theater on the North side of the city. And somehow the assistant of our director, Andy, um, who's

name is escaping me now, but he has a... I'm going to think of it too. Yes, he lives in Montecito. He lives in Montecito, yeah. He lives in Montecito. Nicest guy. And she said... Davis, Andy Davis. Andy Davis, yeah, Andy Davis. His production company's in Montecito. And his assistant said, hey, there's this girl, I think she'd be great for The Scientist. And he said, well, hire her. And they offered me $8,000, and I was like, oh, that's so much money.

And I got to work with Harrison Ford. It was the greatest thing in the world. And Harrison was very nice to me and that he was not happy with the way the scene was written. So he said, come with me. And he grabbed an umbrella because it was raining. We went into his trailer, we worked out the beats and we came back and shot it. And we shot it that way. So I was like kind of working on the script with Harrison Ford and I was, you know, 29 years old. It was mind blowing. And he was this huge star. So that was pretty amazing.

That is...

I was hoping that was going to be sort of the answer, that Harrison was great and I love the idea of you hammering out a scene with Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Yeah, it was really cool. It was like, I don't like these lines. We're going to work it out. And so we came up with our own thing and it was good. And it was good. He's such a stud. I did a TV series called Brothers and Sisters with his wife, Calista Flockhart, who I adore.

Yeah. And we would be, I have such a great memory of we were in, she was in this, listen, this beautiful ball gown and I'm in this black tie worth the, the Geary designed LA Philharmonic building and the moon is rising and it's late on a Friday. As you know, we always shoot late on Friday nights and the phone is, her phone is ringing and ringing and ringing and she's not picking up. She was, it's Harrison. And, and I'm like,

And I'm getting more and more nervous the more times he's calling and she's not picking up the phone. It's Harrison Ford. You should really pick up the phone. Pick up the phone. I mean, you don't let – I said, Clista, I don't want to hear that bullwhip. I don't – that's not – So you're in the Chris Guest universe. Yep.

You're a certified member. He's one of my favorite directors ever. I think I already talked about Waiting for Guffman. Didn't I already? I think I already mentioned that in this podcast. Oh, did you? Yeah. You've never done a movie with him though, right? No. I would love to. You're too famous. He would tell you you're too famous. I'm too famous now too. Oh, that's interesting. He likes people who when you look at them on screen, you don't know who they are. Damn it. Yeah, I know. I'm screwed. I'm screwed.

What? But wait, totally.

Tell me about, he directed you in a Frosted Flakes commercial? This is my favorite factoid ever. Do you know Sean Masterson, the actor, funny guy? Yeah. Anyway, he's a Chicago dude too, but we were both out here and we auditioned for the Christopher Guest commercial. We were both cast and we didn't know it was a Christopher Guest commercial and this was after Waiting for Guffman. And I, of course, loved that movie and had the preposterous fantasy of, I wonder if I'll ever get to do that. And so we showed up for the callback

for this commercial and I walk in and it's Chris Guest. And I know it's crazy, I did not expect him. There was no sign that said Chris Guest. And then after he cast me in that and then when we were shooting that commercial, he said, you know, I do movies and I'm like, yeah, I know. And he said, maybe we'll get to work someday. And then I ran into him at a restaurant one morning and he said, ah, I forgot about you. Come to my office. And he offered me a role in Best in Show.

He had completely forgotten about me, and then he saw me in this restaurant. I was like, what if I went to a different restaurant? That's the way it happens, listener. Be careful what restaurants you go to. You're a struggling actor out there. It's all about where you eat. First of all, Best in Show is, I mean, we've already established how much we love dogs. So we're so in that world. It's...

I don't think of Chris Guest in a Frosted Flakes commercial. Was there anything about the Frosted Flakes commercial that I would watch and go, oh, yeah, I can see that that's Chris Guest? Oh, absolutely. We improvised the whole thing. It was really goofy. And, you know, Chris Guest directs – I don't know that he does anymore, but at that time he was directing like a commercial a day. And anything you saw on – yeah, anything you saw on television that you laughed at, Chris directed it. In fact, he's the guy who started the – what's the sports –

A cable network, I forget. Oh, ESPN. ESPN. You know, those kind of weird commercials that I used to do where the the athletes would be walking through the corporate offices. Yes. Shaky camera. And they were funny and and irreverent. That's Chris Guest. He created that. I had no. Yeah, I know exactly what those those commercials are. Absolute classics.

So you have our Frosted Flakes commercial. If you saw that, you would see we're like out in front of supposedly the Kellogg's Corporation in Battle Creek, Michigan, looking for Tony Tiger, Tony the Tiger. You know, we're stalking him. We're trying to get a picture with him. And it's just so weird and crazy and completely improvised, just like Waiting for Guffman.

And so, you know, because when the closest I've done to stuff like that would be Parks and Rec. Yes. There's certainly a lot of great improvisational people who, you know, the top of their game. But there was always sort of a structure. Well, the scripts were great. They were great. We shot the scripts 98% of the time. But then we would get a version where we could improv on the guest stuff. Yeah. How...

is there any script or an outline? How does it go? How does it walk you through the process? It looks just like a script. And, um, it'll say like, uh, scene one exterior, um, uh, the, the park, uh, uh,

Corky and so and so talk about the upcoming competition and that's it and then it'll say scene number two Chrissy and whatever Jennifer Coolidge's character's name are discussing dog kennels and their you know championship poodle and

And there are some plot points he'll want us to get in. And he told us who our characters were. He gave us a backstory. And then he turns over the wardrobe people to you and he says, how do you want your character to look? And then you tell the wardrobe person and you shop with them. And then the set designer comes over and says, what do you think your house looks like or what do you think your office looks like? And then they go off and build it. I mean, it's crazy, crazy fun.

And it's really kind of you are calling the shots. Chris gives you, certainly gives you some great information about your character and what has to happen in the movie. And we know what the series of scenes are going to be, but how it, you know, how the character is expressed, how the character looks and sounds and acts and is all up to you. And after a take...

Is there that moment where everybody huddles up and goes, okay, this was genius. Let's do another and do more in here, and maybe let's move away from this part? Yes, he will do that. Very few words, but after we do the master, and he doesn't know what it's going to look like. It's just he rolls the camera, and he rolls, and he rolls, and he rolls, and you improvise, and you're doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then he'll finally yell cut, and he'll say…

Very good. He might not even say very good. He'll say, we don't need this part that when you talked about that, we don't need that. We have to make sure we get this in every shot. And that's it. Let's just do it again. And the camera gets closer and closer and closer. And we've kind of decided what the master looks like. And then we just keep shooting that. But at different angles, the camera getting closer and closer. That sounds like heaven. It's fantastic. And it's not...

The hardest part about it is what you do to yourself and your brain because it's really easy to do. And after about by the time I got to a mighty wind, I was much more relaxed about it. And I didn't stress so much about it because you feel like it's all up to you. But as long as you've done your acting homework, you know, your person is, you know, you're wearing, you know how you sound. And what the person's point of view is, you just show up. It's that it is that easy. But you just have you kind of have to pack heavy to get there.

You know what I like of Chris's that people forget about is, I had Marty Short on and we were talking about it, is the big picture. The big picture, yeah. Yeah, that was fantastic. That was a lot different than what he does most of the time, but he and Michael McKean wrote that. Those movies are just...

You have my, I'm jealous, very jealous of that. How long have you been deaf in your right ear, just like me? I was, I had a really high fever as a baby and like an infant. And that's when we think it happened. How about you? Same thing? Same. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like, by the way, even the way you describe it is exactly the same.

What my parents say, they go, I don't know. It's like a really high fever when you're an infant. And I'm like, we think that's when it happened. I'm like, how about some more details? Yeah. How about when did you find out? No details were forthcoming. When did you realize that it wasn't? Because I thought it was normal to hear out of one ear that I didn't say anything about it. When did you realize? My mom tells the story.

But she knew something was wrong. It was before I could talk even, apparently. Because she put the phone up to me to say I had a grandpa. And there was like nothing going on in my face. And she said all of a sudden she knew something was wrong. She put the phone to the other side. And I was like, grab it!

And then back. So apparently for me, it happened, you know, like within the first year. Yeah. I was about eight years old and you know, it had happened when I was an infant and my brother, remember transistor radios where you put it in your ear. It's just one thing. It's a, it's an ear thing. And my brother was switching ears and I said, you can't do that. And my mom said, well, why can't he do that? You know, it perked her ears up, her ears up. And I said, because you only hear out of one ear. And she was like, no,

Nope. And I went into a doctor and they tested my hearing and I overheard my mother talking to the doctor saying, will she live a normal life? And the doctor said, yeah, I'm worried about things. That's that's that nothing would instill good, solid feeling of quite like, will she live a normal life? And I was like.

And the doctor said, I'm sorry. She will never hear the Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Dark Side of the Moon as they were meant to be heard. Exactly. I always wonder too, are we missing anything in terms of, we do have stereo sound because the one ear we have is really good, but I wonder if we're missing something. We're missing everything. I got news for you. I'm perfectly happily, very well adjusted. You are too, but let's just be honest. We're missing a fucking shit ton of stuff. Oh, wow.

Because I love music. And is there more? No, no. I think if we, if one day we could both hear out of our other ears, first of all, I think our heads would explode. Our heads would explode. Yes, I think so. They would literally explode. Yeah. And then the other thing is like, I would finally be able to stop doing what I hate. So I come home and I go, hello.

And they go, hi, honey, I'm in here. I go, I don't know where here is. I don't know where sound comes from. Me too. I don't know where the sound's coming from. That too. I don't know where it's coming from. Like there'll be a phone ringing and, you know, my phone. And I have no idea where it's coming from. Here's a good one for you. How about when those detectors in the ceilings? Oh, you can't find it. And then you change the batteries and you don't know where they're coming from. And you can't.

Exactly. Here's the other thing is I'm convinced that people think I'm a dick because there have surely been untold times where people have come up to me on the street and got my bad ear. Yep, me too. Or the crowd and been like, hey, I just want to say hello. And I don't even hear them because I don't react. They must think I'm a total asshole. Yep, my partner's always on the lookout for me. She'll hit me in the shoulder and go, she's talking to you. Oh, is he your right or your left ear, Rob?

It's, I can hear out of my left. My right is the one that's gone. Oh, me too. Exactly the same. Same as. Yeah. And then how about when we're, when we're doing acting and we have to talk on the phone. And they want you to use this ear. I can't even put the phone on my ear. It feels so weird. Because I've never done it. So I will literally put the phone receiver on my forehead. Okay.

I have no muscle memory. Yeah. It feels weird on the wrong ear, too. Nothing feels right about it. No, nothing. Yeah. I mean, somebody else famously was deaf in one ear. Even Colbert, I think. I think we should... Colbert, that's right. We should make it our own fun club. We should. How are you loving doing Hollywood Game Night? Oh, yeah. You know, it hasn't... We haven't done it in...

Oh, my God, like a year. But we just did a quarantine edition where I shot it from my home and it's going to be on Tuesday. I'm sure these will this show will come out after it's been on. But right. Yeah, I shot it in my house and we had six celebrities and we shot at their house. So it was all of us together and it went off without a hitch.

Technologically, it was really good. It worked out. And we raised money for Red Nose Day, which is, you know, that organization that lifts children out of poverty all over the world. It's a wonderful, wonderful organization. Have you ever had anybody who was terrible at the game? You're like, wow, I'm a big fan of this. But boy, they're stupid. I never, you know, not so much. There have been a couple of people who were so self-conscious they never got into it. And only like two.

that I can think of that were, you know, everybody comes to have fun and it doesn't matter if you're good or bad. I don't even notice if you're good or bad. What I notice is how much fun you have at it. And there have been a couple of people who have, you know, just could not loosen up and, you know, no amount of booze loosened them up. But for the most part, everybody shows up and has a blast.

Well, who came up with the actual game? Hollywood Game Night. Yeah. The show was Sean Hayes. You know, he has really great... That's right. He has wonderful game nights at his home. That's right. And they were always crazy. He made up the games himself. And then he, you know, smart guy, said, let's put this on television. And that's how I got the job. He's a smart dude. He's a smart dude. Yeah.

And you definitely don't want to be on the other side of him competitively on any kind of a game. No. And he's on our show a few times and he was on this one. And yeah, he's he's great. He's the master. He's the original guy. He makes up his own games. You know, he's we have a team on our show that make him up now. But when I when I would go to his house and have a game night, he'd do the strangest, most wonderful games that he made up himself. Yeah.

Like when I have sports people on the show, I go, name your top five basketball players. If you had to put together your top celebrity game team, Sean Hayes, for sure. Yeah, Sean Hayes. Let's see. Yvette Nicole Brown.

She's brilliant. Anthony Anderson is really good. Who else is really, really good? Kristen Bell. She was on our show the other day, too. She was great. She's so great. Yeah, she's wonderful. And she's really bright and and just real. She's really good at it. Yeah. Have you ever been on on TV?

A game show that wasn't your own. Yes. Have you ever been a contestant? Yes. It's called 25 Words or Less. And it's Lisa Kudrow's new show. And Dan Bukitinski, I don't know if you know them. They're producing. Oh, I love them. Yeah, of course. And it's on Fox and it's syndicated. And Meredith Vieira is the host. And I've done probably 25 of them. It's syndicated. So they shoot like four or five in a day, maybe even six in a day.

Love it. It's off the top of your head. It's like the fast thinking. The reference level is like you have to read People magazine. You have to know like pop culture. And it's so much fun. I love it. Yeah, I love doing that show. I did. Lisa had this great show called Who Do You Think You Are? Yes, you did that. Which is a genealogy show? Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. It was one of the great experiences of my life. They come to you and they say, so...

It's a genealogy show. We're going to explore your family tree. Right.

And we're going to take like however long it takes to do it. Yeah. It may take us a year. It may take us nine months. We don't know. But if we find something, we'll come back to you. Are you willing to do the show, which would require you then to travel potentially for eight days? Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, I put it off. Like, how do you schedule it? I don't know. And I put it off and put it off and put off. And I finally said I would do it. And.

A year later, they came back and said, your episode's ready. Get a passport, and you are going to pack for cold weather. Oh, my God. And that's all you know. Yeah, yeah. That's all you know. Wow. And I went to LAX. You don't know where you're going. I flew to Washington, D.C., and I went to the Library of Congress, and then I had to fly to Germany. Oh.

And the long and short of it was just – and the sort of mystery and the misdirects of how you get there is the beauty of it. But the long and short of it was that my five-time great-grandfather was conscripted into the Hessian mercenary army out of Fierstenhagen, Germany. I went and saw the house he lived in. I saw the church records from 1600.

He arrived in Manhattan in 1776 and fought against George Washington at the Battle of Trenton, where Washington crossed the Delaware. Oh, my God. So he was a mercenary. In that battle were three future presidents. And the first member of the Supreme Court, my five-time great-grandpa, was taken prisoner and then was given his freedom if he would –

become an American citizen and then ended up raising money for the American Revolutionary Troops and thereby making me a son of the American Revolution in the most roundabout way imaginable. Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. Do you know they did my stuff too and they didn't find anything interesting enough.

See, that's true. If they don't find a story, they don't do it. And, you know, they're friends. You would think they would want to do this for their friend Jane. And they didn't. You think they'd make something up? Yeah, exactly. They said we just didn't find anything. So, you know, because now my appetite was whetted. And so I had my agent get a hold of the Your Roots people.

Finding Your Roots on PBS with Henry Gates. And I did one with them and it was fun and interesting, but nothing, there wasn't a big story. There wasn't, there was no big, I mean, there might be, who knows, you have to really look into it, but there wasn't anything. I'm probably the most interesting person. So maybe a hundred years from now, somebody will look back and go, did you know this girl who was in The Fugitive is your great, great, great aunt? The Fugitive. Yeah, The Fugitive.

And we'll be right back after this. All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

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I want to do with you what I do with some... I don't do this with all the guests. I only do it with some of the guests. And you qualify. Oh, thank you. You have qualified to make it into... Because it's all the talk about games, I think, is what's piqued my interest. In doing a round of questions called the Lowdown. Oh, yeah. Lowdown. I get it. That's so clever, Rob. Isn't it clever? Isn't it just? It's just... I mean, because I've never...

No one's ever used that ever when writing about me. No. No. So I've reclaimed the phrase for myself. There you go. And so I think the first question is Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles. Beatles.

That was quick. There was no... No, you know, I love the Beatles so much, and I think they did such a vast variety of music. And I like the Rolling Stones, but I don't love them. I haven't been...

attracted to them the way I feel about the Beatles. Well, speaking of attracted, that goes right to the next question. Has there ever been a cartoon character that you wanted to have sex with? Because for me, I'm not asking you something I wouldn't ask myself or that I haven't thought of myself. Yes, yes. For me, it was, without a question, the purple-eyed cat in the Aristocats. So you were really attracted to that cat?

I was six and it was, maybe it was the Zsa Zsa Gabor's voice, I think. Oh, sure. Now, I felt that being of the lesbian persuasion, I liked Natasha from Boris and Natasha. Oh, I bet you did. Yeah, she was just very sexy and very dangerous. And sort of goth before there was such a thing, right? Very goth, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, that kind of Eastern European goth spot, right? Yes. And she's also, it turns out I love Greta Garbo. She had the kind of a voice like Greta Garbo. But Greta, I just did Russian, Greta Garbo was Swedish. But there was that throaty kind of sexy thing that, you know, she slit your own throat. How about this?

What's the worst review you've ever gotten? Oh, I did. I was in a Shakespeare company in Chicago and it was Richard III and I played the mother. I forget what her name was, but it's usually a part that is cut because it is so verbose and over the top. And the reviewer from the Chicago Reader said after Jane Lynch's monologues, there was none of the none of the set remained because she had eaten it all.

That's a good one. But I see that. I think that's also... I'm not sure that's a bad review, though. I got to say, as a disinterested third party, I'm not sure that's a bad review. I think that's like... Like, I could say, after Alec Baldwin's always-be-closing speech in Glengarry Glen Ross, there was no set left because Alec had eaten it all. It all. And that was masterful, though. That was quite masterful. How about you? Have you had a really terrible review? Oh, well...

I have two of them. I remember there was a critic named Molly Haskell that everybody, she was like the, she was on the sort of level of, you know, Janet Maslin, who liked me, always liked me, Janet Maslin. But Molly Haskell did not. Molly Haskell, in a review, begged me to stop wearing so much rouge. I mean, you weren't, will you? Because you've got that natural. I have never worn rouge. Yeah.

Unless it was in my private life. There's never been Rouge on screen. I also got, I remember picking up Newsweek to see, I knew there was going to be a review of a movie I did called Class with Jacqueline Bessette, shot in Chicago, incidentally. Yeah, I remember that. At the Lake Forest Academy. And I knew the review wasn't going to be good when the headline in the table of contents said, Class, a vile concoction, page 73. Yeah.

It's not going to be good. Not going to be good. If you... Which would you rather see? A UFO, a ghost, or Bigfoot? And would you tell anybody? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. These are the hard-hitting questions you get here on this podcast. You know, what's great about that question is I have kind of gone down the rabbit hole of UFOs in the last... Oh, I'm in the rabbit hole with you. So if you open this fucking Pandora's box, you better be down to clown, Jane Lynch. Yeah, so I would say UFO, I'd be scared to death. But did you ever watch Joe Rogan? And he interviewed this guy...

Lazar, I forget his first name. Bob Lazar. Bob Lazar. Yeah, he's like Michael Jackson. Yeah, and that other guy that was in the Navy, I forget what his name was, commander something or other, and he saw a UFO flying a plane. But yeah, I've gotten into it. I watched the movie about Lazar and the whole – this is like in the last week. So yes, UFO for sure. Okay, before I forget, I think it's on Netflix. Yes.

Above Majestic. Okay. It's a documentary called Above Majestic. It's UFO- I stumbled upon, it's all of it. I can't even begin to tell you what it is, but the phrase Above Majestic is way above top secret. And it is, it makes Bob Lazar look like Mr. Rogers. Yeah.

Wow, that's amazing. Okay. But if you saw a UFO, would you tell anybody? I'd tell you, Rob, because- On a podcast, so nobody would know. Right, so nobody would, so we can keep it between ourselves.

What if the reason that we can only hear out of one ear is because we've been abducted and we're the special chosen ones? I mean, do you ever think about that? Call me superstitious or conspiracy theory. You know, I don't know. I think there's probably some alien out there using the hearing from our right ear. That is it. That is it. I think you're right. I have one.

If you could take one drug as much as you wanted, whenever you wanted, with no negative side effects or judgments, and nobody would know, what would it be? Oh, boy. You know, I'm not a big drug person, but I do. Oh, I am. I'm huge. I'm huge.

I'm a huge drug person. You know, I've never done ayahuasca and I've never done mushroom type situation. Psilocybin. I would like to do and go on some trips. Yeah, the ayahuasca trip. Mind trips with some psilocybin or ayahuasca and have my mind blown but not die. Yeah.

That's the problem because you hear stories about it where people have had amazing experiences and then you hear, you know, it's like the cautionary tale where they did it once and they were never the same. Yeah, and you know, I don't think that happens a lot. I, you know, I don't know. Maybe I listen to Joe Rogan too much. He's a big advocate for it, but... Yeah, I...

I just celebrated my 30th year sober. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. All my drug experimenting and all that is very much in the past for me. So I can look at it with a sort of different perspective. But the only thing that I miss is a good mushroom drink.

experience only about once a year because it would it took it knocks the shit out of you kind of does it I just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed yeah okay well you know I'm able to you know I I'm sober as well and um I was sober for about 27 years and then I took wow and then I took three years of drinking wine

And I did okay, but I needed to get sober again from it. I kind of went into some denial. And now I'm sober again for, I guess, a couple of years. But, you know, when you add it all up, that's about 30 years. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. It's amazing because I always – it's so funny you say that because I – this whole – the wine thing that started, it wasn't around –

My era was go-go 80s and it was like, you know, kamikazes and fucking Heinekens and blow. Yeah. And then – but then all of a sudden this whole wine obsession. Yeah.

And I, like the new tequila, that's another thing that was not happening for me. There was Cuervo Gold. That was it. Right. And there's so many. Oh yeah, like Steely Dan song, the Cuervo Gold, the Fine Columbian, Make Tonight a Wonderful Thing. Yeah. That was it. Now there's this fabulous, there's all this stuff that I quote unquote missed. Missed, me too. So I've always thought about what it would be like to maybe go back and sample it. So how, how was your, your, your, your wine sampling? Well, you know, wine is an amazing thing. And, um,

I started out, you know, just being, you know, tasting. And then over three years, probably the last year and a half, I was drinking alcoholically. And how quickly you go into denial, even with what at the time was 27 years of sobriety in me, I managed to fool myself for probably about a year and a half.

that I was fine, and I wasn't. And, you know, I have a partner who was, like, at one point she said, okay, so you're a drinker now. And I was like, what are you talking about? Wine with dinner. But wine with dinner was like, you know, four or five glasses. But I was telling myself that I wasn't doing that. So anyway, it was a pretty quick descent into denial. But there was about a year and a half where, you know, I would drink wine one day and not the next, but then...

Yeah, it's funny for me. They say that our addiction, no matter how many years we have sober, it's always in the hallway doing push-ups. It's true. I'm here to tell you. It's true. This is amazing to hear. I mean, because you very rarely meet people with that amount of time. Yeah, who go out. Who decide to go and experiment a little bit with it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, because I – and I relate to the slippery slope. I got – I was directing in Canada about two years ago, and there was a terrible, like, cold, flu, whatever, going around, and a cough. And so I got cough syrup. What I didn't realize was in Canada, the cough syrup has codeine in it. Yeah, yeah. And –

I was such a little happy clam running home after rap to turn all the lights off. And take that. And listen to James Taylor and drink my Shazerup. Couldn't wait, right? Yeah. Couldn't wait to hear, you know, Copperline and just be whacked on my cough syrup. And then you go, oh, I see how this would play out. Mm-hmm.

Yep. I was a NyQuil person, too. Before I got sober, I was taking NyQuil all the time to sleep. And I got really, really sick in about 2000. And I took some NyQuil. And I although I didn't go out and start drinking, I saw I saw that, you know. Oh, I could I could totally this could accelerate easily, easily. I don't like getting sick, but if I'm going to get sick, I cannot wait to have my NyQuil. Yeah.

Yeah. Can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that soft cotton. I mean, ooh. See, this is like, if you have never had any doubt about like, are we addict alcoholics? It's like normal people are like, it's fucking NyQuil. What's wrong with you? We're like, uh.

You don't really know. Right, exactly. It was cute. My 30th birthday and my family made me like a cake. And like it was really, really, really, really cool. It was amazing.

It was a fun thing. I'm glad you're back amongst us. Yeah, I'm glad too. Yeah. And you know what it was? I got to tell you, it was like the first time I got sober, it was really like an act of grace. It wasn't something that I had to work for. It was like all of a sudden it happened and I was struck sober and I went, okay, I am not going to. I am so grateful for this and I get it. I got the message and thank you for making it so easy to let it go again because it was easy.

It just happened. I was really lucky. I didn't have to suffer. That is, I was the same. I got it the first time knocking on wood, but it's good to hear to be vigilant because it really is true. It's like you can, it's always, it's just, I think it's a part of our, well, I think it's kind of scientifically proven that it's kind of a part of our genetic makeup. Don't you think? Yeah. I think that, you know, like my sister and brother have no problem with it, but I do.

So it's my individual genetic profile that isn't necessarily a part of my family's. But I got it. I know I got it. Yeah, I got it. And then it morphs. I like to say it's like whack-a-mole. Yes. When you pound it down here and then it pops up over here in some other new – like, ah, you know what? I think it would be a good idea to gamble all my money away. That would be awesome. Or if I can knock that down. You know what you need to do? You need to eat yourself to death better.

via Haagen-Dazs. Exactly. That's what I got. I will transfer it into food, onto food or coffee and you know what? So what about coffee? That's fine. Oh, okay. Let's talk about coffee. So I saw that and think it says, Jane Lynch is addicted to coffee. How addicted to coffee do you need to be to end up on my, uh,

background saying you're addicted to coffee. You know, I'm an addict. I'm an addict. So I don't do anything halfway. And that includes coffee. It is everything to me. It gets me out of bed in the morning. Look what I got. Look what I got. Look what I'm holding. This is my afternoon one. Iced coffee. Yeah.

This is my afternoon one, too. So I look forward to it in the afternoon. And sometimes I go to bed at night earlier. The sooner I get up, the sooner I get to go to King's Road Cafe and get my coffee. And I love it. It's my favorite thing in the world to do. And it never fails to work. You and I think exactly alike. We're like the same person. I go to bed thinking about when I can wake up and have my coffee. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're like the same person. We got a lot in common. Yeah.

No, Midwestern, deaf in one ear, coffee freak, alcohol. Alcoholic. Fucking amazing. How much coffee can you, like, give me your regimen because then I'll give you mine. We'll see who's more addicted. Let's see. I order two in the morning. So I get two hot ones and I get Brevets. I get two hot Brevets. I put one in the car and then I walk through the neighborhood with one. So I have two brevets.

And then when I get out of bed, I have one too. So that's my third by 7 o'clock. And then I will have one at 1 or 2. And then I'll have like a decaf at around like 5, 6 o'clock. And I'll try not to have another decaf until I fall asleep because even decaf keeps me awake if I'm not careful. I can do –

Like espresso at dinner and be fine. Oh, wow. Good for you. Not me. Oh, wish I could do that. Yeah, I can do that. So I do a triple espresso when I wake up. If I'm on the set, I'll do another triple espresso sometime during the day. Yeah. Five o'clock, five, six o'clock is another triple espresso. So we're looking at nine espressos a day. Oh my God, yeah. Right there. And that's if I'm kind of...

If I'm really off the rails, it could be worse. And if I'm really trying to keep it together, maybe I don't have anything after three. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. That's great. It's too good. Well, this has been so fun. Thank you so much for this. This was a great way to spend an afternoon. You're a champ for coming and sitting in with us.

all of us here it was really really fun and we talked to christopher guest and tell him to put me in one of the movies absolutely yeah well you know he everybody's famous now that he works with so he's gonna have to work that's right i'm too famous i forgot my face is fucking me up again

God darn it. I'll wear a bag over my head. There you go. I'll wear a mask. Yeah. Well, you might have to. Yeah. I might have to. Yeah, right. Perfect. Yeah. All right, Jane. Thank you so much. You were amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. For sure. Bye. Well, now I'm going to go and drink a ton of coffee. I'm going to drink. Here's the good news. I'm going to drink a ton of coffee. I'm not going to drink wine.

That's the takeaway. This is a gift for me. I don't have to try and experiment with anything. That's what I got from Jane. I'm not kidding. I actually think it's amazing. Anyway, I hope you had as much fun as I did, and I will see you next time on Literally with me, Rob Lowe. You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Devin Tory Bryant.

Executive produced by Rob Lowe for Lowe Profile. Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher. The supervising producer is Aaron Blairt. Talent producer, Jennifer Sampas. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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