A 3rd Rock from the Sun Cast Reunion at Vulture Festival

[Music] i am catherine fenerondonk and i am just beyond thrilled to welcome you to this third rock from the sun reunion panel as you know well we have joseph gordon levitt john lithgow french stewart and kristen johnston and i [Applause] [Music] so when was the last time you all saw each other together all four at once yeah when we shot the final i don't think really and it's today wow we are so honored to have you all here um the first thing i wanted to ask uh john i know that uh you had told the story a couple years ago that you were offered the part of fraser crane and did did not take it because you didn't want to do episodic television but then they pitched you this and you said yes and my question is like what was it about this that frasier did not get for you but like this was the thing you were like i have to say yes to this well uh listen this whole phrase your thing uh i actually didn't even remember it really being offered to me i just simply it was not in my uh my in my sur how i imagined i was never going to do a sitcom sure i i was sort of am ambushed by bonnie and terry turner and carsey werner and karen mandebach at our this historic breakfast where i thought i was just having a chummy breakfast with bonnie and terry my old friends from their snl writing days and i sat down and saw the whole power structure of car c werner and i realized i'm being pitched and i just thought how am i going to say no and get out of this as gracefully as i can it was it fell to terry to pitch this thing to me and the first thing he said well it's about these four aliens and i my heart just sank how did i get into this and five minutes later he'd persuaded me to do this it was such an incredible premise and they they had completely tailored it from my particular lunacy they'd gotten a little glimpse of it when i'd hosted snl and they were on the writing staff and it just they just changed my entire life in five minutes and that was the beginning of the process of putting together the four of us so um so french i feel like your character defines kind of the outer boundaries of how weird these people are going to be much of that was sort of in the character that was originally pitched to you and how much of that was sort of you driving it farther into weirdness i think i think it was a mix because it was weird on the page uh and i'm weird [Laughter] so it just uh but they the great thing about it was they uh they gave us a lot of latitude where if you came up with an idea uh they would they were open to it and it's not always like that and so you could pitch them something and they would either say yay or nay but it sort of opened it up and then gradually they figure out how to write for you but i just kind of felt like uh you know just go for it i just felt like it was a he was sort of going to be a perverted urkel [Laughter] sure love that you know and then and then i went and did like 10 years in uh tv jail afterwards no doctor parts for me i i promise not to take more than my sheriff no of course but i was there when french walked in to audition for this and it was at the we'd already seen about 20 people for the role of harry and he walked in and we suddenly understood what was funny about harry it was completely his creation and and the writers many of whom i believe are here tonight raise your hands writers yes they just knew so brilliantly how to write for him and i i will tell you the exact same thing happened with him and with her they walked in and everybody else just dropped off the page so i mean incredible um joseph i know you were so young and then basically grew up on this show that is about the weirdness of being a person and i was trying to imagine what that must have been like as an adolescent and it seems like it would either be just incredibly awkward all the time or actually kind of perfect because adolescence is about this like weirdness of being a person it's the latter yeah it's exactly perfect because uh being adolescent you feel like an alien you feel out of place all the time and then the punch line is that feeling never stops and i just never stopped feeling like an alien and out of place all the time but i had gotten used to it and figured out what was funny and joyful about that so it set me up on a good path for life i think i i watched the sh when i watched the show um you know i was seeing it uh on rerun like i was i was in middle school and high schools watching the show and i remember watching jokes was like i don't i'm probably too young to get this and i'm curious like if there were jokes that you were like i don't really know if i could quite understand what's happening yeah i'm sure there were um but i mean and this speaks to what you were asking before about how much french brought to it and i think how much everybody brought to it and the writing was incredible but i i i don't mean to say but after that clause but um but the rehearsal process on third rock taught me so much about what you could really do as an actor because you're not just showing up and shooting that day you you rehearse for four days and just try to make each other laugh and try different things and riff off of each other and they were they knew all about doing that and i had grown up like working on shows and movies where you learn your lines and then you come and do the thing and so i feel like that kind of collaborative uh brainstorming and and uh creativity it was such an explosion for me and uh i i tribute so much of what i now consider my sense of humor and and sense of uh being an artist to what i learned just coming to work every day with with them yeah kristen i mean so one of the other things again i was in middle school high school watching the show keep saying it yeah sorry you were you were really young we got it yeah but what i wanted to but what i wanted to say was i i remember looking at sally and saying she is looks like other characters i had seen in other sitcoms beautiful always beautifully made up fashionably but you play her in a way that undermines all of these gender norms that i was seeing on other shows and i was so fascinated by like i mean i remember looking at being like oh that's a possibility [Music] and i wanted to know you know how you felt about sort of all of the like gender play and like sort of pointing out all the stereotypes undermining all of these ideas that we have about gender well i basically am a drag queen anyway so that's kind of how i played her um and it was really a collaborative effort obviously the writers really i think bonnie especially and christine zander really loved writing for her i think they all did i loved writing for all of us but i think there was something about writing this particular woman and then like molina root uh the costume designer and johnny foam they we all work together to get the look right you know i said i want her to kind of look like a hot lesbian and um and so it was just this collaboration that kind of came together i just honestly i'd never read a script like that like john was talking about the pilot the pilot like i was just like no one else can play this like i have to do it and i had to go back like eight times to keep telling them like i seriously have to play this or i'll kill you for real so um so that was how that worked out but anyway yeah and then only later did i really understand kind of how uh sort of the feminine stereotypically bendy she was if that's even afraid sure sure anyway um so you also spend a lot of time with uh an incredible wayne knight who plays uh don i wonder is there like a scene that you can think of that's like a a really perfect incredible sally dawn scene well i you know probably our first one but like every scene that we ended up doing together was just ended up turning just because of us just turning into a film noir scene i mean it just i don't know how it happened it just sort of happened and um it was honestly like playing the donnie and sally scenes were just heaven they really were yeah yeah he's just so fun to act with hello sally yes where where [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i am so pleased that we kept the surprise so do you remember the process of auditioning for don like how did you had you seen the show it wasn't really like that in a weird way i was doing uh seinfeld and we're on radford what's that a little show we're on cbs radford and i'm walking and uh the last time this is a long story terry turner and i went to college together at the university of georgia i was an undergraduate student just starting he was a graduate student just leaving we were in this little dormitory area uh he was in one uh you know apartments and now he was in one i was in the other and we did a play together called jimmy shine and uh that's where i met terry and he was just so full of life you know at that time and then i i ran into them in new york uh walking down the street bonnie and terry and you know standard actor kind of thing you're like oh you're doing snl that's great and i didn't think anything of it then i'm on the lot at radford third rock has started i run into bonnie and terry and they say you know we'd really love to write a show for you i'm like hello uh they said but i've we've got too much to do and we're doing this and and i've got something with whoopi goldberg and i got this other thing and this this thing and that thing we can't really do it would you like to come over to third rock and be on third rock for a while while we figured it out i said yes and uh then i sold the idea that i was going to be doing two shows at the same time to seinfeld i said they're putting me on the front of the bus you and that's how can i just say though they kept trying to find a boyfriend for sally the first year and they were like all these hot guys and it just wasn't working and like no no i didn't mean it that way i didn't mean it that way i meant like young modelly guy i know how you man you know what i meant so he comes on as officer don and right away it was just it's chemistry you can't model it it's strange in that first scene yeah just like and well i think what we figured out is it was like pheromones that you would get in a room and you could just sense that she was in the room yeah and uh yeah yeah yeah incredible i didn't even see each other just you know i was watching um uh john you were on conan i think last year and you mentioned that one of your favorite scenes was this lord of the dance scene oh man like both of you were in this incredible choreographed dance see how long did it take you to learn this dance there's like 17 minutes everything on third rock happened fast and we had this fantastic choreographer somebody say her name marguerite arturo and she she whipped this thing together so fast she'd done her research she knew all about exactly how they stood and how they moved their feet and you know it started with me so ecstatic i have to tell you it was among all of us we couldn't wait to get that guy guy uh flatly yeah yes we just thought he was such an and and and so they wrote this episode where we basically got him instead of the lord of the dance it was the the king of the jig and and i went off to see him with dr albright and came out so incredibly excited all by myself i just started dancing and then jane started dancing and then wayne started dancing and then the whole and then eileen gets god rest her soul she started dancing and then the whole crowd we were swirling with irish dance and guy flatly was somewhere cursing us that was one of those scenes like i was like i was so happy i wasn't in it rehearsal and then after i saw it i was like damn it you know it was just great oh you got to you got to do the stomp the the dust bin stomp remember that when we strapped garbage can lids to our feet marguerite did that one too and then all together the four of you got to do the uh incredible serenading uh that's amore so truly i think for as i was going back and revisiting the show and was sort of beginning from the first season and watching through that scene was learned i was like oh this is this is how weird this show is you know really pulls it together yeah um i think one of the other things as i was going back and looking through just incredible guest cat stars would show up i'm curious if there's guest roles that uh you remember as being just you were so excited about or i mean i think declan mcmanus elvis costello elvis costello billy connolly oh yeah yeah john cleese christine baranski yeah oh uh there is once when uh uh william shatner was on on the show and that was always like a wild card because he's just great but it's like we'd be like hey how's it have you worked with the chat no my scene has not been shot upon yet but he's like he was really fun and one day i come in and they're rehearsing and it's john and william shatner and they're like working out this scene but they're having kind of a disagreement about oh my god how it's going and so um i'm like oh okay and i'm sit down and then it starts getting a little more heated and i never seen this from john like and all the time he's just such a nice man it never happens and then it's getting really heated and finally like shatner looks at me and he goes well what about you how do you think the scene should be done and i i know i'm going to see john every day [Laughter] and shatner will be gone on monday so i go well i think john's way is the best way and then uh they both just start laughing at me and i realize it's april fool's day oh my gosh yeah they just messed with it and the worst part is is that i have to spend the rest of the week doing scenes with shatner with him full on knowing that i threw his ass under the bus and they didn't mention a damn thing about him being the big giant head when he went into space did you know truly i mean philistines they don't know what they're dealing with but you did april fool's pranks a lot i have heard yes yeah uh yes i i was sort of it's really disgraceful because in the course of those six years it dawned on me that april fool's jokes are essentially hostile acts but it dawned on you after the sixth year yes that's right i got them every year to the point where i really had to work hard that the shatner argument was the was the great one because it it burst and it was a bright like a brush fire that burst into flames at three o'clock on friday afternoon which was the network run through and we roared at each other it was bill considered it his greatest performance and and then we started recording we just stormed off to our dressing rooms and i said i am not coming back until that man apologizes and and everybody was there their faces were white because we'd already shot a preceding episode there was no way we were going to replace bill shatner and then we came out with a cake wow yeah so i mean i know part of what makes the show so special is that the writers i mean just unbelievable work one thing i do want to we have a special clip that i think we're going to show from a very well-known writer of the show so i think if we can hi my name is will forte and i had the privilege of being a writer on third rock from the sun for the final two seasons uh some say the best seasons i'm sorry that i couldn't be there with you today but i'm in atlanta georgia uh and i am acting in something in which i play a horrible uh mistreater of dogs um uh when i was working there i had just started out writing i was one of my first jobs and i came in to this situation i was very nervous um and i got to be a part of a show that i had already been watching at home and was a fan of so it was a nerve-wracking experience and i was surrounded by this team of people uh cast writers crew that could not have been more supportive and uh and i just thought oh this is the way tv shows are this is what all shows are like and then you leave there and you find out oh this is not how all shows are and um it really made me appreciate so much uh just everything about the show i just wanted all of you there today to know how much you you taught me about how how to be respectful how to be professional that you can do all these these things and be uh you know be having fun and creating a fantastic show and also just treating everybody with respect at the same time so thank you so much it was an experience i'll never forget it was an honor to work with you and and i just i i can't tell you how special it was to get to be a part of the show so thank you for uh for everything that you've done in in educating me uh and uh i i again wish that i was there i send you all the best um and uh i love you oh wonderful wow can you imagine he got he got to write for john cleese and he created planet monkey world that's right yeah that i believe that was his first episode for a third one where you broke your foot no could be i but i but i do know that that young boy was writing comedy for john cleese yeah will looks like hammered now [Laughter] somebody had to say did he get a liver transplant recently he's gonna be thrilled to hear that [Music] one of the other things i like about that clip is that it segues from uh you doing a terrible prank on the writers to this police about how respectful but i think it it does speak to how cohesive you know the group was how much you were able to be comfortable with one another um i do think it's important i mean there's one significant cast member we really have to mention jane curtin who is so vital to the show i know that there was a first pilot that was written and then and the merry character was not there it was filmed it was filmed yeah and i'm curious if you can talk a little bit about like how the show changed how it became more grounded when you have that character come in yes there was a lovely actress who played my assistant uh and and and there was a bit of a potential love relationship there but she was a she was like a shy tremulous wallflower and uh and and we shot the pilot we all had a good look at it it didn't quite work and bonnie's analysis was dick solomon is a tennis ball and he needs a hard wall to bounce off of or he will not bounce and of course they had worked extensively with jane they'd written the coneheads movie and they were very good friends they called her up and brought her in and we re-shot a third of the pilot and suddenly pop and pop is the word the moment when we kiss each other i i kiss her in the bathroom of a part of a faculty party and she slaps me and then she kisses me and i slap her and then as i exit the party the hostess of the party the dean's wife kisses me goodbye and i slap her and that was the shot heard round the world that was the big punch line of the pilot episode and it was all j i mean she was the wall and i was the tennis ball yeah i do have another surprise we have somebody on zoom who i think would like to say hello if we can uh turn on the zoom [Applause] hi guys [Applause] i'm in the sun right now very bright in my house oh yes yes uh the lighting is extraordinary [Laughter] jane thank you so much for joining us um i as i was putting together the clips uh and we were putting together the clips for the little pre-reel one of my very favorites is this moment when john is wearing these leather pants that makes noise and it seems as though you cannot hold it together and i can't i'm can you talk about like who breaks did you were you constantly trying not to laugh as you were just working on this show it well it was a yeah that i was i was constantly trying not to laugh while working on that show um it because it was just so damn funny and and with with this giant man in leather squeaky pants trying to make it from point a to point b it was just too much i i i lost i mean of course of course are there other scenes are there other scenes that you remember as being like for you what are the most quintessential merry scenes the one that when as you look back you think of as just those that was the show operating at full speed i i think it was i think it was the show where we're locked in the library overnight yeah i'm very and we have to find our way through the heating system and we have to attach ourselves via my pantyhose so it it just every moment of that particular show when john and mary were interacting i couldn't stop laughing i to me that was just funny in the world i loved being attached by patio can you tell us a little bit i mean for all of you what was a table read like it was they were wednesdays at 11 a.m they were we were just everything we were such a dream team everybody knew exactly what they were doing and the writers had written exactly the right stuff for us and it people would just laugh themselves silly we never left going oh that's a stinker like ever right every time we're like oh that's the funniest thing it's very rare that you work on something where the table read is the reward uh it's not the starting off place that you're going to go it's a reward it's like getting a cookie you know you come in and you're like oh boy here we go and we would get it uh do our table read and then you find that you spend most of the week really trying to just get back to the table read yeah like that's that worked then and it's like you you go off and you you work too hard or you work hard enough and then suddenly you're you're back at the table read again it's lovely but also and i've found this that i think doing table reads on third rock sort of um ruined it forever because tableries in general are not as full-on and i i think everyone deserves credit for it but i would single out our captain of the ship here because when the star of the show comes to a table read and goes a hundred and ten percent then everybody has to follow suit and it's it and it was like that with the whole show you really always set the tone that like i am bringing it now and so we would all like be like okay let's go and and i yeah it's it's a lot you oh god bless you joe that's right but i i i tell you there was a real method to that i i felt it was i've always felt you have to give writers the best possible version of what they've written immediately because they don't have a minute to waste they gotta run out and they gotta fix whatever doesn't work so i and these are the best comedy writers i mean the best comedy writers our writer's room was legendary yeah and and i just felt this is this this table read is a lot of fun for us but it's essential for them so yeah they had to have everything when they left that yeah and you know they would go right off and have an hour-long note session based on what we had done so we had but then it's weird to do like as do shows after other projects and like the other actors bring like maybe 20 to the rehearsals and you know again you're overacting you're sweating you know and everyone's else is phoning it in because you know you're not filming it and honestly because it was my first big show too i thought that's what actors were supposed to do like show the writers exactly how you're going to do it and that's that's not the case but i miss it but it should be it should be should be so honestly that every single show i've done has been that way [Laughter] kate and ali and third rock those three shows were all you came in there and you read full out there were a couple of people on saturday night who didn't but everybody else did jane would you care to elaborate um that's fine [Music] so jane i i think in a lot of ways there are two cores of the show there's sort of the family core and then there's like the mary and dick core of the show as far as like warmth and like understanding that they could actually want to be human because there is this desire to be with you know have this relationship work it i i was i remember being so struck by like how much they were really hot for each other you know and i just i wonder if you can talk a little bit about um when you came in what you were sort of pitched as the character and how that evolved over time the relationship between those two characters well i i don't really remember a pitch so much as um you would be uh dick's love interest you would be working with him and being his love interest and that was what i understood um but i'm a really good cold reader and so um i can i can get what i need from the script it's all on the page for me and so i it was right there what i had to do and what mary had to be uh i didn't see any other way of doing it it was on the page so i mean that's the writers allowing me to do whatever i do to make that happen but it was the writers that that created mary yeah what were the moments that um were there moments between you and like the two of you that we were like this is the most absurd thing i can ever imagine it has to have happened constantly well i think there was the farting episode that's that's that would have to be i mean that featured heavily in the blooper reel at the end of the season jane is absolutely the best deadpan face in comedy there's no question you know just hearkening way back to her and chevy chase uh but when she breaks it's like the hoover dam she is gone for the next 45 minutes and it's it's really the most glorious moment in comedy acting is acting with her when she breaks that has got to be so satisfying oh my god well of course it was she was farting what can i tell you and she could not get through the scene without breaking and then finally she would get it and i would break the audience the studio audience just loved it they were delirious i can only imagine um who breaks the easiest of all of you you know this was never really a huge problem really no french it seemed like in that turkey scene oh yeah well there are there are two and when you spit on the baby yeah when me and joey totally lose it and they take it in the show and it's really embarrassing professional yeah yeah it's like we had this scene where uh you know we've been feeding the baby the baby's been spitting at us and then like this yeah and it's just right there and finally i put a big old wad of baby food in my mouth and just spit it on and we just the couldn't get we couldn't get over it we never did we never did it's still on film we just we did it it is we never made it um the other thing that the show i was it's there's so much physical comedy pratfalls and dances and like these huge physical scenes particularly when you were younger it seems like one episode out of four they were like throwing you across the set from behind the couch up and down up and down how how did you rehearse did you get hurt like what was the process of developing sort of the physical language of the show yeah i it was so it was such a fun part of it and i mean i never did get hurt but i remember i remember what the bit was but i remember like the day cause we would shoot on tuesday nights and then uh and then do table reads on wednesday morning and i remember we shot i forget what it was we shot and the next day you had these like gashes on your legs oh i know what that was it was me shoving you through that corn field oh yeah that's right yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah and i did it too harsh and he felt no no no that's the thing like with i spent like half my time you know when i'm doing physical comedy trying to talk somebody into like oh just go full out you won't you won't hurt me i never had to do it with her crystal just slam your head go ahead and slam my head on the table oh here push me through the corn you guys there you go buddy oh my god we had we had this fabulous thing that we we only managed to find about four or five times to put it in usually when we saw a spider when you would leap into my arms just boom like up in the air and suddenly he was in my arms like a little baby with his with with his with his feet with his legs tucked under him and bam it just happened like that yeah i remember noticing like whoa did you actually hurt yourself and i remember you saying like yeah man [Laughter] let me tell you about an actor named buster keaton have you ever heard of him i had never heard of him i i these guys taught me so much right like and he told me about who buster keaton was and i went home and watched buster keaton movies and by the way i don't know if anybody had the pleasure of seeing french in his business [Music] i saw it twice it's brilliant but it definitely did teach me something about physical comedy and physical acting and you know you try to push it you don't injure yourself i have injured myself a few times and it's your fault honestly no but uh but you you know it's kind of part of it's like it's like playing a rough game of football or something it might might get a little hurt and you know gotta make them laugh you know what's funny is like uh when we had uh chyna on the the late late great joni lauer and uh i said hey can you teach me how to like do the like can you just pick me up over your head and body slam me and she goes yeah i'll teach you how to do it and so she picks me up she tells me how to do it she picks me up and she slams me down and shh and i'm like oh god joanie it's just like she's like what what what and i said i don't i don't think i did it right and she said well did it hurt and i said yeah she goes well then you did it right joni wow um i so we do have to let jane go no i know but jane i wanted to know if there was the finale of the show is this moment where it's like finally she she learns she's gonna go can you talk a little were you did you have any stakes in like what the end of this character was going to be were there things that you talked about or sort of hoped for you know i didn't i i didn't get involved in in the direction that the writers wanted to go in that was their call it was bonnie and terry's call i i just i just went along with them because i i didn't see mary leaving earth and yet the possibility was there i so it could go either way i didn't want to sway it i was up for anything it sort of made me sad that i would never see him again but that's okay well we are so glad that we could see you and we want to thank you so much jane curtin everyone thank you everyone thank you oh yeah she looks like [Laughter] back on the sauce i should have realized i was setting you up for that i feel bad um so i have a couple of like you know questions about i was like where did where did the salutes come from oh we came up with that um the one of those the first five episodes and you and i were like how do we how should we do this i think it was in the writing but then then john said what if we do a backwards one or something like that or no hugh did the head and then i i was like yeah so we came up with it in rehearsals it was rehearsal it was an episode where i was going on a trip to chicago and we had to figure out how to say goodbye you know you know take care of the troops while i'm gone you know it's just something very martial i it literally happened like that and then of course it was set in concrete for the next six years in fact about three or four times a week when i walk down the street of a midwestern city wow um i i'm really curious uh i know that because you were so young and you know you were working with these more experienced people and comedy timing and just i i you talked a little bit about you know buster keaton and things but i wondered if you could just talk a little bit more about what you were able to learn just for like watching everyone as you were sort of figuring out like how this was gonna go yeah i i always even when even when i was a little kid i always wanted acting to be real i was really kind of um i don't know purist about that or something third rock from the sun was just not real at all and so it's a whole nother style of doing it that i think is maybe more rooted in the theater and i didn't come from the theater i grew up here like working on tv and commercials and things like that and they all came from the theater and so i feel like nowadays when i when i speak to theater actors i feel at home actually i feel like i'm amongst family even though i've still never really done a lot of theater other than this show where we would get up in front of an audience week after week and i feel like i i learned about what that means to play to a crowd and to get a laugh and to know how to time that i completely didn't know how to do that before spending all these years with them and joe was amazing like as a 13 year old i mean he was so mature so funny so smart he was right there with us the whole time yeah he was kind of an old man in a improv yeah yeah he also was cool like off you know off the set like if you you know if you'd recommend a book to him he would come like a week later having read it and wanting to talk to you about it just like a great kid yeah yeah and and we would have been so screwed if he had not been like like it was some horrible stage mother and like some little diva kid and oh it would have been hard and he was again i go back to that to the casting session where joe came in i i don't know what your recollection of it was joe uh i can't i have to restrain myself from calling him joey call me joey i love you but he walked in and he was a good three years younger than anybody else we had seen and he read the scene and it the scene suddenly made sense there was the funny a little old man in in a in a 13-year-old's body it just burst and joe says he has not done theater well he did he had that sense when he was working with us and after about three seasons he went off during a hiatus and he did a play like he almost assigned that to himself you all came to see it and it meant so much absolutely i remember that it's amazing because he uh the thing is he always had integrity because i remember even early on they were they were really beating the drum like for him to do tiger b and teen beat and he just didn't whatever he was like i don't wanna and james anderson the publishers he'd be like please can you and he's like nope don't wanna and so then they finally like james had been beating it and beating it and finally you know he says look just do it once joe just do it once and i'll never ask you again and joe goes all right fine i'll do it once and so on the day we're sitting there and everybody's having interviews on the set and i'm sitting next to joe and i know it's coming and so i've got my popcorn ready and i just can't wait and so some guy comes in he's like 60 he's from tiger beat or something he's like hey joe i'm going to ask you a few questions and i asked him like he's like well what do you want to say to your fans like who watch the show and joey says well you know i appreciate that and uh i'm really proud of it and and i'm like okay so far so good and i said well what do you want to say to the readers of our magazine and then there's this long pause and then joey goes i do like why are you reading that like like like there's nothing in there there's like a cover and a cover and then it's just a bunch of pictures of kids i don't get it i don't get it and so the guy keeps trying to ask joe questions and joe's like it's the same thing and then finally he gets to the end he's like all right one last question i'll just do a fastball down the millet joey what's your favorite color and then i hear all the air leave joe's body and he goes ah let's go with blue what the so um what's your favorite color the color of french's eyes oh wow okay so how will i move on um french so i know one of the things uh that is like looking back so intensely important about your character is the clothing that you would have him in i'm can you talk a little bit about like the process of designing that outfit and like whether there were sort of key pieces for you that were really meaningful again it was uh johnny foam and molina roo i mean like i had nothing to do with it i would just walk in and they would throw stuff on me like sometimes it'd be like they made a vest out of one of those uh like shag toilet covers seat covers i'm all like i do have one favorite piece and uh i stole it off the set and i brought it here so oh my goodness yeah is it backstage do you think i think i would hope something yeah okay well all right here we go oh yes [Applause] oh it's still fit [Music] wow yeah yes yes yeah i love it i love it there are three of them and uh i just walked off with one of them i did i didn't ask because i didn't want to take the gnome too no i i well maybe i did i think you took them i think i did too why are you trying to frame me i don't know i thought one of us did were there other things that anyone took from set it had to have been so remote did you take anything from i brought i brought a thing yeah that i want to show this isn't actually from set but this is from those days this is um i have it here this is a cd tell what is a cd first of all i have like a night where we're you know nostalgic for the 90s so cd should probably be a part of it um this is something that french gave me for my birthday when i was like i don't know 15 or something like that and uh this is you know back in the days when you could give somebody music as a thing like and hand it to them and uh this is um doolittle by the pixies and uh i never i never knew i didn't know who the pixies were and he was just like i think you'll like this and uh and so this is it and what's fun is then about 10 or 12 years later or so um i was i was in a movie called 500 days of summer and uh thank you thank you and uh and i had there's a karaoke scene in it and in the script it was written that my character was gonna sing a rolling stone song which is way too expensive for a little movie like that so we were trying to come up with what song the character was gonna sing and we ended up landing on a song from here here comes your man um and uh and i sang it in in that movie and i the first time i ever heard that song was because you gave me this cd for my birthday and like i said i said earlier i learned so much from these people so you started just trading music because then you gave me the no fx like yeah right yes and we just started trading stuff we kind of uh we just became brothers because a lot of time we were uh you know on like the b story together or the c story where you know you've got a scene a scene and then another scene it was always really fun yeah yeah [Applause] give me back my coat what's wrong with you did anyone else take things from set where they're like there has to have been objects that were you know you were fond of that were emote did you take any of sally's clothes yes i took i took all of her pants which unfortunately fit for like shut up they only fit for like six months after the show and then i i had to give them away but yeah i loved her clothes i loved them yeah yeah yeah i'd still wear them today if i could fit into them i would i mean if he was a badass she absolutely oh i took her boots yeah she wore the same pair of boots for a year so as a matter of fact i have i do have something i have a pair of sally boots that fit me because there was an episode where we switched bodies and i haven't i haven't had no occasion to wear them and all these i should have worn them tonight there was a wonderful episode uh in which i got to to act with wayne in the character of sally without revealing my secret remember that and the the most vivid scene was when we peed together at two adjoining urinals and i looked longingly down that's so awful just awful i was gonna ask about that episode because you do such a great job of performing each other why thank you favorite favorite episode just getting to do him and to do her was there like a tape do you remember there being like okay this is the thing that is like this is how they will know that i am him i think it was posture you know and then i remember you know uh i remember just being able to say like oh my god i'm gorgeous best line ever but i don't remember in manchester just being unable to walk in the heels like it was really fun how did you how did what was the key to being her oh i think just watching her her posture and and her her stride and putting on those boots very early on that was the key to it and just i mean it was wonderful it was so wonderful it's a great episode it was fun and then acting together with him as me and me as him and it was like wayne it must have been like very strange scenes to then shoot where she's oh not at all uh because you know john and i make out all the time anyway sure uh no you know i mean i think one of the things about third rock is that you're in a playpen when you go in and there's nothing that you can't do or nothing that you can't see or watch somebody else do and that's what was part of the incredible joy of doing that show it it literally was like an alternate universe where people were actually nice and and happen to be actors as well which is like wayne and i got to play good cop bad cop together yeah and that's one of my favorite episodes i love that that's funny i feel the same because because both of us wanted to be the bad cop oh god that was great one thing that i did not realize when i was watching the show the first time and was noticing when i come when i went back to it um there is a recurring character in the classroom scenes leon who you berate who is your son in real life right how did that happen how what that was you know i didn't i didn't campaign for him i didn't suggest him uh bonnie just came up with the idea and he came in and he read just as he would have to write he was so funny too i'm sorry he would have like one line and you'd it's always killed he just always killed and it was wonderful to have him around all those students were so great chris hogan yeah and dave still the wheelies and also we should not conclude a third rock reunion without at least mentioning the brilliant elmory wendell oh my god unfortunately i think passed away a few years ago but yeah oh my god mrs duke check just one of the all-time friends and lest we forget simbikali i mean you know yeah just the episode where she's moving and the i yes i love that one so much um so i as we're sort of closing out i i thought as i was going through there are all of these episodes that take on really big interesting like subversive and like thoughtful ideas there's an episode about voting there's episodes about race gender are there any of those that you were particularly excited about were you sort of thinking about like wow this is wild they're letting us put this on television these sort of big interesting meaty topics that you got a chance to really wrestle and play with in a way that made them sort of fun and exciting oh gosh they're just so many of them i mean i love examining things that all that we human beings completely take for granted like dreaming like aliens discovering what's this thing that happens when we're asleep the brilliant uh dreaming episode this part of the dreaming your pause is right the dog dream yes yes but i i it won emmy awards for cinematography and design and lighting it was just as extraordinary or mentioning simbi i discovered sexual fantasies and i i acted i i i'm not sure exactly how the plot worked but uh no i guess we enacted my sexual fantasies with simbi uh just little things like that and then and then the episode of tipping i mean you go from great big mysterious things like dreaming to the the nonsense of figuring out how much to tip every waiter it's still like there was somebody shared a clip with me recently where you and i are at the dmv i think we're like god going through all this to get a driver's license can you imagine what we have to go through to get a gun or something it was better written than that but i mean i was like god it's so it still carries today so much of the things that they navigated there's some great like kind of dangerous jokes because when uh jan hooks who's like you know but yeah uh just jam like you know vicky dubscheck gets pregnant and harry's like standing there she's like in the she's she's in the hospital and she's pregnant and she says harry like i ran out of cigarettes could you go get me some cigarettes and i say well i'll you know i'll i'll get you a a pack you're smoking for two now but it was just really thrown away but i'm like i don't think you could do that anymore not really i doubt it no and it was a wonderful uh pendulum swing between just very smart and very stupid that's the best that's our brand at vulture very smart and very stupid and and it was it also functioned as a kind it was a wonderful family show because like uh like an english pantomime there were jokes that would hit in at exactly the same moment for two different audiences for two different reasons so my my final question as i was thinking about the show um you also have such fun with like very topical things that when you look back you're like wow it was really 2000 wasn't it like there's a y2k episode there's a beanie babies episode maybe my favorite if third rock we're on now what would the solomons be [Music] what would be a topical third rock solomon's would they all be trying to figure out tick-tock dances would it be you know dick solomon on social media would not go over well you know this is such a great question for the writers because they must think about this all the time any thoughts anyone all right we won't put you on this you're welcome too but i mean just imagine going through life sing thinking oh i could be writing about that for third rock right now it's almost though like society has gotten so bizarre that you couldn't satirize it you know i mean you'd have to just depict it um so i don't know that escape has changed well i mean i think that speaks to what an incredibly special thing it was and how lucky we all are that it was something that we could all share and i think i think that's the note when i have to say thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much thank you [Music] you

Channel: Vulture

Views: 230,175

Keywords: 3rd rock from the sun, john lithgow, joseph gordon-levitt, kristen johnston, french stewart, reunion

Id: 6xt1NuaGY9c

Length: 56min 35sec (3395 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Frasierfiend]

This was so great. I was a bit teary eyed when the surprise guests showed up.

[u/bobbitsholiday]

They still have amazing chemistry. It is still a breath of fresh air.

[u/SkatingGeek]

I never clicked on something faster and changed my whole afternoon to watch. Just great!!!!

[u/smorges]

This was a joy and pleasure to watch. Incredible how funny all these guys still are together. Lightning in a bottle. JGL showing such deference and humility to his mentors is lovely to see.

[u/Kheenamooth]

Omg, I can't believe I didn't see it earlier. We are not talking about it enough.

[u/Kheenamooth]

Okay, Finally got the time to see it from start to finish. It was awesome.I love how French is just himself. "Will looks like shit!" I burst into laughter and then "She looks like shit!" I laughed so hard I think I peed a little.

The bond among the group was awesome! Specially the respect they had for each other. They joked around but at the end you could feel that these beautiful cast like each other a lot.

John Lithgow seems like an awesome person. I don't think I have ever heard something negative about the man.

The host asked really good questions, I don't know her, but it seems that she is a big nerd. (In a good way, I am a nerd and I love nerds, lol)

On the other hand, absence of Simbi Khali and Shay Astar disappointed me. :C