Rob Delaney: Necromancy and the Humors
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That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling, and so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing, cash back.

That's right. Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. Delaney. Hey. Are you in London? I sure am. So you just gave up the ghost. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. I am your host.

Robert J. Lowe. J. Lowe. Actually, my middle initial is H. Whatever. Another Rob. This is Rob Central today. Rob Delaney is here with us, the sage of Twitter. One of the funniest men. One of the OGs on Twitter. The guy literally has more movies and TV shows about to come out than anybody in history. Also, a wonderful sober man living a great life. And

Off in London, one of my favorite cities. So we got a lot to talk about. So without further ado, let's get at it.

I moved here now seven and a half years ago, thinking I'd be here for like six months. I moved here for a TV show called Catastrophe. And it's not been a catastrophe. The show was great. You love London. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. It all worked out. And yeah, we ran for four seasons and we just kind of stayed, you know, life happened as it does. And

And, you know, London's been good to us. So I get it. I love London. I've worked there a ton. And you kind of when you kind of find your, you know, your your your whatever it is, you figure out your people, your restaurants, your like your your vibe. It's kind of pretty amazing.

I'm a massive fan. You know, we certainly didn't flee Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a great place. And I, we loved living there. You know, we lived in Santa Monica by the beach. It was magnificent, but yeah, we came here and this place is nice too. What were you struck with? Like when you first moved there, cause it is, it is culture shock. And by the way,

Anytime you make a television show or a movie outside of LA, there are the foibles of the areas that you're, you're shooting in. I, I have my thoughts and experiences, but I don't want to, I don't want to poison the well. Tell me what it was like for you, like really shooting a proper show in England. I mean, really great. Um, we were, uh,

You know, it was a very small budget compared to a big American show. But you know how that's kind of fun after a certain point in your career to like toggle between like doing a big budget thing, which you're like, oh, great. They have I can have any kind of berry I want whenever I want it from craft services. And that's nice.

But then you shoot like what a half a page a day because of special effects and stuff. So then it's wonderful to go back to something that shoots, you know, quick and dirty. So,

So catastrophe was certainly quick and dirty, but it was, it was great. Yeah, it was great. Now, whenever I, you know, now I have the very, very good fortune to work on bigger stuff. And whenever I do something smaller, I'm like, oh yeah, this is, this is the fun stuff. I remember I was shooting a show there called wild bill. Right. I guess it was ITV or something. And I was like, um,

So we're in a deserted building. We're here all the time. This is our police station. Yeah. It's on the, right by the Hempstead flyover. And no, no, the, sorry, no. What is it called? Sort of the Odeon. Wow, where the hell it was. Anyway, I was like, would it be too much if we had heat? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, I'm not asking to turn the building back on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, it's...

I can see my breath. Yeah, and we're indoors. And we're indoors. You must have done stand-up in London since you've been there, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. I've done it all over the UK. And that's amazing because if you want to make a living as a stand-up in the US, you got to go to all the different cities and do stand-up. And you got to fly to Ohio and then to Portland, Oregon and all that. Here, they've got...

just as many big cities, but they're all in a much smaller area. So you can perform in a 2,500 seater, 5,000 seater, and then drive back to London and be back in your own bed by 1 a.m., wake up and take the kids to school. So stand up in the UK is a much friendlier profession. So that's way better. Do you, did you find a difference in the audiences? Yeah.

The only difference is a British audience wants to talk to you. And a lot of the stand-ups encourage that. I don't. So I... Wait, are you saying... Are you using a euphemism for heckling? Or they actually want to... Not necessarily heckling. But they want to get involved. And I...

And I'm not interested in what they have to say. Not in a mean way. I want them to be having a great time. But, you know, I've put a show together and I'll talk and you can just sit there and laugh if moved to do so. But you actually don't need to do any work at one of my shows. So but I think people get the hang of that in the first few minutes of one of my shows and it all works out. Apparently your kids speak with British accents. Yeah.

Yeah, they do. They do, which is wonderful. I really love it, you know, because you love your kids anyway. But then when they speak in a weird little cute voice that's very different from yours, it's even better. So what do they are they doing? Like a northern of Manchester, a posh like what are they? Yeah, no, they they have like North London accents, which are like.

fairly kind of standard would be the equivalent of like somebody from California, you know, who doesn't really have an accent. Uh, you know, there's a little bit of, uh, East London element in there. So like when my now nine-year-old was going to nursery school here, he, uh,

the way he pronounced water was just bananas. Cause we say water cause we're American, my wife and I, but then, you know, most of his friends say like water, but then his teachers at the nursery school were like, whoa. So the way that he said water was some collision of those three things. And it was just insane. So yeah, my kids can do a lot of accents more than me. Like I, I, I,

I think I'm pretty good with accents, but I'd be terrified if I had to professionally do one. I don't know if I could do it. I mean, I think you would have to figure out where your character is from and then work with a dialogue coach because, yeah, there's too much work already. Fuck it. No, that's too much. I don't work that hard. I just I just don't. Tell me about the vasectomy.

Oh, sure. So we had four boys and we didn't want to have any more. And I wanted my wife to be able to, you know, live life and do more than just like

be, you know, a broodmare. I was trying to think of what it would be more than what a broodmare. What am I going to say? Yeah. That's what anybody would have said. And, and just to be able to live her life. And also she did all the work for decades of taking hormonal birth control pills, which many women who take them aren't like, yay, I want to take a pill every day. The mess is my hormone. So it was my pleasure to,

To at least sign up for the best activity. Getting it, I didn't enjoy as much. The aftermath, once you've healed, which is pretty quick. Oh my god, it's the best. You don't have to think about it. And these children that I'm doing my best to raise now. And, you know, doing a mediocre job. I don't have to worry about another one showing up. And sort of me doing even worse as I get older. So just...

I have kids now that are fantastic and I don't want to have any more. I hear you because I always feel like, you know, I had it with my wife. We have two boys. Yeah. I think I do want a third. Do we do want to try to for a girl? And we did and it didn't work. And then I said, wait a minute.

It's a little like being up at a casino. Like, oh, yeah, let's let's let's declare victory and get off the field. Oh, absolutely. So what's the school situation? Because that always I'm always obsessed with that private public school. There means something different than it does in the United States. For those of you listening, don't like when you say public school in the United States, it's public school there. It's the posh schools are the public schools.

Now, there's a way to explain that where you'll be like, oh, that actually sort of makes sense. And here's why I need to hear that because I don't get it. So back when nobody went to school, the super rich would have like some scientist from the local university. They would like kidnap him and make him teach one family's worth of kids privately. OK, so that guy would come in your house and you would just have a guy in your

house who was teaching you, you know, whatever necromancy and the humors and whatever shit they learned back then. And, uh, but then what happened was a few of the posh parents, you know, were like, I don't want my kid in my house. Um,

Why don't I organize with my neighbor on the next, you know, estate and the one over, we'll get a few of them together and it'll be like a public school. It totally costs money and it's a place that we send them, but it was public in that it wasn't just your ugly daughter and your stupid son. It was everyone's ugly daughters and ugly sons and stupid and all that. So that's why they called it public.

Yeah. So my kids go to state school, you know, which would be public school in America is what they would call it. But they still get to wear adorable uniforms because that's really what that's what I was getting at. Because until until you've experienced the gaggle of kids walking around London in those insane uniforms. Yeah.

That's fantastic. Is there anything cuter? Is there anything cuter? I don't think there is, you know, and they don't have to worry about what they're going to wear. So I'm massively pro, uh, uniform cause they look so frigging cute. Same. My kids went to schools where they had to wear uniforms as well. And a, they looked super cute all the time. And there was never any, well, Billy has that. And Johnny has this. And I want to dress like, no, I want to, whatever is just like, they just, well,

or what they had to wear. Yeah, yeah. When I was watching the Beatles documentary, which I'm obsessed with, all it made me do, well, not all, but it really made me want to eat a lot of toast because they eat so much toast. So much toast in those wonderful little, they don't have them in the United States where there's little like

They give you that little metal thing with all the little toasts standing up. Yeah, a little rack of toast. A little rack of toast. What? Come on. We've thought of a lot of stuff in America. Why have we not thought of the rack of toast? Well, the big thing Americans need is the electric kettle. I mean, like I grew up with my mom drinking tea, but she like had a kettle that went on the stove and it took forever. Whereas in the UK, people use the electric kettle.

You got your hot water in a jiffy. You're boiling. You're piping hot boiling water in a jiffy. Cup of tea. Here you go. Didn't take any time at all. So if you don't have, if you're American and you're listening and you don't have an electric kettle, you just got to get one. Would you say, would it be,

To say that you were one of the early Twitter voices. I don't because I think you've been around forever on Twitter. I can remember following you from from the jump. And I think you were like one of the first the first guys I ever followed.

It always made me laugh. I mean, I think Twitter's been a big thing for you, right? Oh, it was massively helpful. Yeah, because so if I joined in 2009, at that time, I'm paying more for a plane ticket to get to Minneapolis from LA than I'm getting paid by the club in Minneapolis to perform there. You know what I mean? That's unreal.

So that type of thing. And I'm submitting a joke packets to, you know, Letterman Leno, everybody trying to get on the staff of a late night show as a writer. So I'm constantly writing short jokes. I'm not getting hired. And I am doing standup every night. And so I,

I'm just amassing jokes all the time, but having a hard time getting paid for them. So, yeah, so it was really right time, right place for me. I was one of the people in the beginning, you know, comedians who were like, oh, you don't have to just tell people what you're eating for breakfast on here. You can you can do jokes and try to entertain people. So. So, yeah, I was very fortunate there.

That Twitter came along when it did, because because then, you know, as people more people follow me that I could say, like, hey, guess what? You know, I'm coming to Minneapolis and then I would sell more tickets, bigger place, make money. And so it was very, very helpful. You're so funny. And there have been so many I've liked over the years. I'm just wondering if you have a favorite.

You know what? I'm going to tell you because you were on Parks and Rec. And just earlier, a couple hours ago, my wife and I were talking and I remembered a Megan Amram tweet. And she was a writer on Parks and Rec. She's amazing.

then I can use the carpool lane for the next few days. It's such an insane. I mean, that is better than most novels. And it's like this long. So, so that was, that's an example of what Twitter was before, you know. So I'm not crazy that Twitter's

Right. Oh, no. I mean, I I you know what I did a few months ago that was very wonderful was I unfollowed everyone. So I don't have a feed anymore. There's no I don't see anything. So I don't know what people are mad about. Not not mad, mad.

That's in quotes. Yeah. You know, so I don't know the thing that I don't know. And it's great. So but you still know what's trending, right? You still know what's trending. I can look and see what's trending or I can if something's true.

Truly trending. It'll be in a news source and then that's fine. But there's too much information. We don't know what to do with it. Like even when they came up with CNN, 24-hour news, there isn't 24 hours of news. And it's not...

So we need to know much less. I think a biweekly publication that gets delivered to us by not even a horse, but some type of slower four-legged thing, like maybe a camel. They can be pretty fast, the camel. So, you know, I don't know. You remember when I was a kid, like Time Magazine meant something. And you would be like. Oh, yeah. You couldn't wait. But in the news and Time Magazine would have been quote unquote old. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And we didn't care. It was more than enough. That's all we don't need. Like when there's a new variant of COVID, I'm like, you know what? We, I don't need to know that. I know where a mask indoors, uh,

Get a vaccination as you name the variants. I don't need to know. I can't do anything with that information. I don't need to know. Yeah. Yeah. I loved I loved Twitter. I'm still on it, but not not quite as much as I as I used to be. But I loved it for the discipline, particularly when it was like like before they expanded how much you could write. Yeah. Like the discipline. If you had a joke or a thought. Yeah.

I loved that. And that's like the Megan Amram thing you're talking about. It's like so it's so much satisfaction per word. Yeah. There's nowhere else you can really get that. Yeah.

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'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. I am days away from my 20th anniversary of sobriety.

And I know that you're a sober guy. So since it was so close to my anniversary, I was like, yeah, I'd like to talk to Rob Lowe. And happy birthday to you. Keep coming back. It works if you work it. Yeah, I love talking to people who are in our little club. I love it. I just and I knew that you had you got 20 years, man. That's not nothing.

man, it's crazy. Just bananas. And, and obviously a life changer for you. I'm very, very dramatically. Yeah. I mean, 20 years ago I was, um, you know, in jail in a wheelchair, uh, cause I had, I had driven a car into a building in LA and, uh, thank God no one else got hurt. No one else was involved. Just me in a building. And,

Yeah. Coming to surrounded by cops and doctors and be like, so what's what's going on, folks? What's what's happening here? So a blackout. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I had drank into a blackout and then gone to bed for the night, which is really terrifying. And then at some point got up and thought, you know what, I should go for a little drive.

And, um, yeah, I drove into a building, I think, um, near the intersection of Pico and Genesee. And, uh, you put a plaque there. Yeah.

But yeah, then, you know, a judge said, hey, man, you should should very seriously consider a residential rehab facility unless you'd like to go to jail for longer. And I said, rehab sounds great. And I was wondering. Yeah, I spent I was there for 28 days, as is often the case with folks like like us. And man, oh, Christ, it was the best experience.

See, I love that you're saying this because that's what I say when people ask me about rehab. It was, I loved every minute of it because I felt like, oh, so this is why rehab.

I am doing what I'm doing. And, oh, so that's a great tool. Like it was literally like every day I had these epiphanies and, and I was always a pleasure to have in class and school. Like I really studied, I was really like diligent. So smart people were teaching me about a way of life that I didn't know anything about and no one had ever talked to me about. And, and I just, I never, I never felt like I was,

Like I was somewhere where I didn't want to be or it was counting days to get out. But the thing is, is you – clearly you had –

That one thing that you have to have going in for success, which is you were done and you were ready to learn. Yeah. Move on. Yeah. You didn't have any illusions still, did you? Or did you? No, I didn't. I was really lucky because, you know, both my arms were broken. I had to have surgery on both of them. And so I was...

you know, really temporarily crippled and needed help to do stuff. And so that was super humbling. And then at the same time, because of the car crash that I didn't even remember, you know, that's when I realized that my drinking was, you know, potentially, I mean, that's the type of thing where you could kill a family, you know, by driving, running them off the road or something. So, yeah,

And I had wanted, I had tried to quit many times before. And, but this was, but just cause I was like miserable or my girlfriend broke up with me or, you know, I had health issues from alcohol, you know, small stuff. But when I realized that I could kill people, that's when I said, you know what? I actually don't want to drink that much. And so I,

I, yeah, was very, very lucky. Did you ever have that moment where you're like, wait a minute, so this mean if I ever get married, I won't have a champagne toast with my bride? Or if I ever have a kid, I'm not going to have a glass of whiskey to celebrate it? What kind of life is this going to be? Early on, early on, I had the thought, maybe.

If I get out of here and this is so delusional because at the time I didn't have a nickel and I was like unemployable and such a disaster. But this is my thought process. If I get out of here and I'm sober for a long time and also become quite successful, then maybe like when I'm in my 60s, I could hire a bodyguard to protect other people from me and then I could drink.

That's amazing. In the early months of sobriety, I thought like, maybe I could do that.

I don't want to do that anymore, which is, I think it's, it's sort of good that I admit that because it goes to show you, you don't have to have a perfect game plan for the next five decades. It's just one step at a time. Yeah. I had a psycho thought. That's why they say one. That's why they say one day at a time, because that, that thinking is look, it's, it's better than nothing. At least in that thinking, you're like, I'm going to be sober till I'm 60. At least. Yeah. It was, you know, not bad. Yeah.

So now you're in London. The recovery world is still I'm just going to say it's still not as embedded in the culture there. What could we invent right now?

It's our version of the pub. Okay. So for me, I'm happy. Like I'm one of those people who I don't do it often because I have kids and a career that I enjoy. So I'm not out a lot sort of extracurricularly, but whenever I do do it, I enjoy myself, but I will often leave early. Not because I don't want to be where the fun is, but a bar or a party or wherever the stuff is,

They don't have iced coffee, which I will absolutely drink at midnight and have no problem going to sleep. Yeah. And they don't have ice cream, which if I could just have a milkshake while you're having your fourth IPA, I'll stay. So I think for me, they don't need a separate thing. But if bars had coffee on tap and good ice cream...

like the mug of Ben and Jerry's Netflix and chilled that I just ate before I did this podcast, then I'd stick around. So I think if places just broaden their horizons a little bit, I'm staying. I like it. Why don't we do that? We should open a, it'd be our version of Wahlburgers.

Yeah. If Mark Wahlberg can open a chain of hamburger restaurants, you and I can open it. Okay. Let's name it. We got to name it though. Rob's. Yeah. Rob's. Well, it has to be Rob's because there's two of us. Yeah. Rob's. And they're like, you put the apostrophe in the wrong place. And then we come around the corner together. I'm like, no, we didn't.

I have a favor to ask. In the advertising for it, would you mind reprising your performance of Liberace's Doctor from Behind the Candelabra, which I just want to say is...

Things when they happen aren't always recognized as the seismic event that they are. But I think in 50, 7,500 years ago, people are going to be like, you know what good acting was. And then that's what they're going to show. Wow. That performance, my wife and I lost our fucking minds. You were so brilliant in that movie.

Which is so watchable. Jesus Christ, is that good? It's an amazing movie. And you're amazing. Yeah. Well, thank you. What's funny about it, and I had Steven Soderbergh on the show recently. Oh, cool. And who directed the movie. I had never met Steven. I had never auditioned for Steven before.

fan forever never even literally never even had any interactions particularly and i got a call out of the blue and i'd been following the fact that they were making that show so i was aware of it because i was like oh my god how great is this movie soderbergh michael douglas's liberace matt damon is the boy toy i'm so down to see this and then he called and just offered me this part i i

Didn't have the script yet, but I knew I was, I didn't care what it was. I was going to do it. And then I got the script and all it said was, it said, you know, doctor starts,

looks like he's plastic and very cold. That's, and I, so I had this sort of idea of what I wanted to do and I called Soderbergh and I said, listen, I don't know the tone particularly or how big a swing you're willing to put up with, but I have a pretty big idea if you're down. And he was like, oh, the bigger the better. Hence, you end up with that in lunatic profile.

Oh, so good. So good. You know, I, I, um, it may be, you may have been out of LA too long to appreciate this, but I based the look on these type of men that I would see at the Laker games, but, but, but, but not, not courtside and not in bad seats. It was very specific about the type of guy, hipster, cool, hipster,

Like guy that would be in like kind of really good seats, but not great ones. So good. Dr. Starts, which also proved to me again that that old adage that there are no small parts. God, no. Jesus, Lord. If you ever watch it again.

The opening scene where I'm sitting in a two shot with Matt Damon, he can't look at me because he could not look at me and not laugh. He does not look at me. Joyous. I literally have to grab him by the chin, which I do, and turn his face to me. Speaking of, I mean, you're in a gazillion. When they sent me everything you were working on right now, it's like literally seven pages long. Well, yeah. You know, the pandemic, I think, sort of like made a lot of stuff happen.

piled up on each other. You got your Jason Statham, Guy Ritchie movie. You got your Vince Vaughn show. You got your Matthew Vaughn. You got Judd Apatow. You got Paul Feig. I mean, Jesus, dude. How much of you... There's only one of you. How do you do it? Wow, to hear you say that. That does sound... I like the sound of that. You know, I mean, a lot of those parts are small, so they didn't take that long to do. But...

Yeah, you know, it's funny. No, I didn't get cast in anything until I made my own show. And then people realized that I didn't stink that up too badly. And then, you know, work begets work.

And, you know, yeah, my favorite thing is to get hired by somebody a second time. That's that's what I'm like. Yes. You know, when they knew you, you showed up on time, you knew your lines, you were nice to people. And I think a lot of those shot in London. Funny, Paul Feig's School of Good and Evil shot in Belfast, England.

And we were like, you know, in a field and, you know, some like parking lot next to a field where all our trailers and they were like, what do you want for lunch? And I was like, oh, God, this is going to be good. And, you know, they gave me the options. The food was great.

Insanely good. In Belfast? In Belfast. Not even in Belfast, like outside of Belfast. And I was like, Christ, what are they going to do? And so I remember I got like the vegetarian option to like be safe. And it was...

Unbelievable. And so I ordered like one of each for every subsequent meal. And it was, oh, my God, I hope that movie gets a sequel because I want to go back. Well, you know, a movie company is like an army. It really is. And, you know, an army has to be fed. And when you're when the food is good, it's great. Here's what I got to ask you about. I'm sure you've signed 5000 NDAs on it.

Dream Mission Impossible 7. Right. With my boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With my boy, the last surviving movie star, Mr. Thomas Cruise. That was remarkable. So Christopher McQuarrie, McHugh, as they call him, lives in London and they produce those movies out of London.

And so I've gotten to know him a little bit. And so, yeah, he called me and he said, do you want to come to...

The new Mission. And I was like, yeah, kind of. Because, look, there's a lot of great movies out there. A lot of great franchises. But I don't see them all. How can you, you know? And, however, the Mission Impossibles I see in the theater on purpose. And so it is my favorite franchise. And they just...

man, they just deliver every time. So, so yeah, so I, I spent a week on that and it was incredibly fun. Both Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie were unbelievably generous with their time. You know how if they're changing camera setups, usually an assistant director will say, okay, you're going to have probably 25 minutes where you can go do whatever you want and then we'll call you back.

With this, they never did that. They would go to change your setup, but they wouldn't tell us that they were done with it. And then they would just like do an impromptu film school and explain, you know, kind of casually why we're going to switch to this lens. And the reason we need to get it from up here is because we want to say this. And so they, it was really fun because you were super involved and, um,

It was really a pleasurable experience and a great set to be on. That's amazing.

I, they don't bring out chairs though. So I did stand for a full week without interruption. So my legs and back hurt a lot, but in the world of Tom Cruise, pain is not, you know, you don't say like, Oh, my leg or back hurts, you know, or you could have somebody, you could do PS flying kick to the head. Anything could happen. I don't think I've ever seen Tom sit on a set, but that's was, we hadn't seen, we hadn't seen each other in,

And I was doing the West Wing on the lot at Warner Brothers. And Tom was shooting on the back lot, a minority report. And he came to visit me. He goes, come on to the set, come on to the set. So at lunch, I went to his set and we're just talking casually. And he goes, come on, come on up. We just watch us do the shot. And I follow him up this back side of a back lot building to the roof.

And I figure, oh, he's shooting, you know, a scene on a roof, whatever. And we're talking and he's getting, I do notice he's getting plugged into these cables. And they're like, all right, we're ready. You ready, Tom? You ready? Yeah. And he's, hang on just one second. And action. And he runs across the roof and jumps four stories down.

Like it's nothing. And then he does that amazing Tom laugh. And you're like, this guy is there's no one like him. Yeah, no, not that I've ever encountered. I'm pumped for Mission Impossible. So, you know, there's a great story where he I forget what Mission Impossible it was, where one of the directors, I think it was Joe Carnahan, for whatever reason, didn't and was doing it and then didn't do it. And Tom was asked about it. And he said, listen, I told Joe they don't call it Mission Difficult.

Yeah. 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. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

I'm also kind of have a minor obsession with Jason Statham. I've done two movies with him. I did Hobbs and Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw and Wrath of Man by Guy Ritchie. My son, John Owen, who's a young writer, smarty pants in the business.

says that the first half of Hobbs and Shaw might be the perfect movie. I need to see it because he's obsessed with the first half. Not that the, I don't know about the second half, but he's obsessed with the first half of Hobbs and Shaw. Hopefully that's the part you were in, just the first half. Of course it is. Of course it is. Yeah.

But yeah, Statham's great. Honestly, he is different to act opposite than anybody else that I've acted opposite because, you know, he was like a diver and an athlete and he just

just comes at it from a whole different angle. So a diver, a diver in that, like an Olympic diver or like a diver in a, in like a Scooby-Doo diver suit who is soldering underwater pipes or something. I don't believe he was in the Olympics, but yes, he did. Like, yeah, it could go up on the high thing and go like, and make no splash like that type of thing. And, you know, and obviously an amazing martial artist and all this stuff. So, so yeah,

But, you know, he didn't go to Rada or Juilliard. And so he... A lot of times when acting opposite him, you're like, is he really... Am I... Are we acting? Are you really... Because this is... I'm scared. You're scary. And I think... Are you really... Like, it's kind of fun to... Because, you know, it's not like somebody, you know, who you know is like...

you know, warming up their technique. I was going to ask what was his, he didn't have a Juilliard warmup. I did a West wing. Brad Whitford was the Juilliard guy and he never let you forget it. Cause you could always, there was always like a before you would act.

I can't handle that stuff. Oh man. That is amazing. Um, I think it's perfectly good to act for a living. Absolutely. It's no better or worse than any profession. I just think that you should be ashamed of yourself most of the time for doing it. That's all. That's what I'm saying is like, I'm good. Look, we all got to do what we got to do to get there and whatever. It's all good. But like, I, I, if I'm doing good,

I'm doing that in the trailer alone. Oh, big time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'd much rather have you walk in on me masturbating than have me be like, grip top, give me the gift of a grip top sock. Yeah, no. Right? In like with a slate in front of you? Yeah. Man, action.

No. So good. Oh, so in the Judd Apatow movie, The Bubble, so many people are in it who I love and are friendly with. Yeah. Did you, so this has got David Duchovny, one of my great friends, Fred Armisen, Leslie Mann, among others. Did you get to work with any of those folks?

All my stuff was with Karen Gillan. And yeah, I've met a lot of those folks and I know a lot of the folks. But yeah, Karen, all my stuff was with her because I play her agent in the film. Oh, amazing. How great is it when you get to play agents? Well, you know what? It's funny because my agent is such a piece of shit, the one that I play. Yes, of course. And it's funny. I'm like, why do we so –

Because nowadays, if you were a real monster, people are going to find out. So you can't be too disgusting anymore. And so like my more, any more. Okay. So, but like my real life agents are wonderful people. Like I like them, you know what I mean? So it's funny. Cause I was like trying to be the most disgusting possible character I could be. And you know, Judd Apatow encourages a lot of improvisation. So I'm like, how do I make him worse? Yeah.

And but then I'm like, wait, will my agent see this and will his feelings be hurt? Because, you know, and it's so funny. I love that you still think agents have feelings to me. That's the headline of this interview. Oh, yeah. Is Rob Delaney is mentally ill. I mean, I played an agent in Thank You for Smoking. And I I I based it off a very famous agent that I knew and they never knew. OK, good.

Delaney, you're the best, man. Thanks for staying up, man. I really appreciate it. Nice one. Well, as the sun sets in London and Rob Delaney crawls quietly into his wife's bed, the sun is still up in Los Angeles and Rob Lowe leaves the studio to go watch football until the sun sets in Los Angeles when the eagle will fly. Anyway, that was fun. Such a fun. What a great guy.

And now I see the light is flashing on the answering machine here in the studio. What? 75 messages. Oh, my God. Hello. You've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.

Hey, Rob. Lenny calling from the great state of Georgia, home of the current national champion Georgia Bulldogs. That feels good to say. I was wondering, with your sons now being grown up, what some of their favorite Rob Lowe productions are out of your vast library of films and TV shows. Also had to see my wife, daughter, and I love The Grinder, the sitcom you did a couple years ago with Fred Savage. I was wondering, with your sons now being grown up, what some of their favorite Rob Lowe productions are out of your vast library of films and TV shows.

That was some classic TV comedy and hated to see the network not renew that for a year or two. Big mistake on their part. Someone needs to pick that back up. Well, first of all, thank you for being a fan of The Grinder. Anyone listening who has not seen The Grinder, you can now get it on Tubi, which is yet another platform that's out there. But I'm excited because I want more people to see it. It's my favorite thing I've seen.

I've done comedically, maybe other than Parks and Rec. Anyway, my boys, because they're my boys and they love to give me hell, they're very proud of the fact that they don't know much of my work, which makes me laugh. But they do like Parks and Rec. And honestly, that might be it. They refuse to watch any of my 80s movies because there might be a chance of them seeing me naked.

is what they tell me. And you know what? I can't argue with that logic. Thank you so much. Tune in next week, everybody. Tune in. I urge you to do it. I also urge you to give us a nice five-star review on Apple. And don't forget Parks and Recollection, where we do a deep dive on everything Parks and Recreation related. And I will see you next week on Look For It.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile. Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our researcher is Alyssa Grahl. Our talent bookers are Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.

And music is by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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