"Big Mouth" with Nick Kroll, John Mulaney & Jason Mantzoukas

[Applause] hey everybody hey everybody I'm Meredith Blake I'm a writer for the Los Angeles Times I write about TV and it is my distinct pleasure to be here with the cast and creators of big mouth I have I've got Mark Levin co-creator co-creator Jennifer flacon co-creator Andrew Goldberg co-creator and star Nick Kroll John Mulaney your voices head and Jason Mantzoukas to play say so you guys have just seen a very special episode from the second season and I thought I'd start by talking to you guys about the shame monster we've got same Whizzer excuse me we've got the hormone monster the hormone monstrous what inspired the wizard I mean on the one hand it's inspired by the fear that I think all kids have growing up that they might be disgusting here Despres yeah but more specifically at the end after the first season I remember writing on the board like the the hormone monster needs a mortal enemy and and I and I was and I had written a shame monster and you said no shames a wizard yeah it felt like shame would have sort of would be able to cast spells and and haunt kids in a way that the hormone monsters don't exactly and what we figure out as the season goes on is they are mortal enemies and then at times I think as we've seen in the last year that hormones and shame shame and sex mix more than we would like do you guys all have moments where you were visited by the same wizard in your adolescence metaphorically speaking I'm not legally allowed to be my guest just because I had high psychosexual self-esteem as a kid but I'll tell my like I'll tell friends and my wife like I used to do this like Jesus Christ so I retro actively go like oh yeah that's that was weird but I I covered my tracks I kept I kept everything out of my family's hair and I really literally over there quite literally I never threw in with a family load of laundry and I kept everything separate and so I didn't which is rare for a Catholic yeah I did feel like though we told you we were like we're Andrews gonna get haunted by this shame wizard yeah and you were like yep got it yeah I understood I also I remember taking a minute to digest what was different about when Andrew was just like embarrassed and ashamed because he'd been arrested as a serial killer because he masturbated and I think was an interesting discussion of how shame is more corrosive than just embarrassment yes we were we kind of got into once we started talking with a shame wizard we started reading and watching a lot of videos and the works of Brene brown who gave a TED talk about shame I would say yeah we did a deep dive into shame and that's what we kind of came up with the idea that mâche m-- is instead of you've done a bad thing that you are a bad thing it turns into your whole definition of itself and that was came out of that Binet Brown conversation among other things what was the silence and the the petri dish of shame is a silent secrecy and judgment yes and and and the way around it is to be vulnerable and open up yes which I think we have tried which we just get it in front of all of you guys yeah so it sounds like you guys really get into it and in the writers room getting like diving into the psychology of it we all tell our stories yeah well like you were a shoplift I was yeah and I'm not sure I felt any shame about it at the time and when I told the room I was like home you felt judged but I was happy for the I was happy too Alton well but we but there's also like Jen it's these funny things that get revealed in the room as you're writing so like Jen who is is really kind of keeps everyone moving forward in the room and is such a thoughtful and funny presence at all times did reveal at one point there was a summer when you went to a new school I introduced myself and I said I'm chickie flaca I wasn't chickie flacon and suddenly that was like my new that was my new thing and so Nick always calls me chicken turkey flagon I love it but it is that thing of like you know you take on these new identities at different moments or you you shoplift or whatever these things are and and later in the series you'll see Jesse gets caught shoplifting and it doesn't shame doesn't that's why in her over for that because it wasn't what she felt terribly guilty about at the time so that's if their kids here to tonight go home yeah but what what are you doing yeah on your way stop it at CVS you're saying to promote season two of the show of Steel yeah and if you get caught you know them Netflix made you go find the closest Duane Reade buy Walgreens the autobiography of duane reade as coke dubai Walgreen you are at a good duane reade or rite-aid pick up some sushi bar because guess what you want after you shoplift that lipstick diarrhea only thing not behind Plexiglas with a key lock homeless people can sneeze on at will and why not I think things that makes the show so special is that it stems from your friendships a number of friendships starting with with Nick and Andrew can you guys talk a little bit about that and your decades-long friendship met in first grade I had I had those glasses with transitional lenses that turned dark in the Sun and then you go inside and they he was and we were just looking at a picture of me and my first-grade at my birthday party and Andrew is looming looking at a cake with transition lenses on and he looks like the world's youngest cereal but we became we were friends from first grade on and and then we became like really best friends around middle school and you would watched movies together we watched Wayne's World like every day and we hosted poram talent shows as as Wayne and Garth it came out of the poram talents yeah it was the bro belt yeah and then and we went to camp we would came together we did lip-sync competitions singing queens don't stop me now wouldn't let us perform it on yeah it was too dirty and it was too homoerotic for a boy's camp and then Andrew went on to move to LA where he met mark and Jen yes I was their assistant when I was in grad school we posted he was a grad student UCLA and we had posted on board we needed an assistant on one of the thing where it was back around the turn of the century where you took a piece of paper off a thing and he took one for an assistant and there's another one for a babysitter took another for his girlfriend who's now as wife and now our daughter who's a sophomore in college she babysits for his kids now so it's [Laughter] and and and then and Andrew then went to work at Family Guy and I was on cavemen season 12 I love it the writing is great but we then came together and Mark and Jen and I became friends through Andrew and and the sort of we they came to me with the idea for this show and we went from there and now we make a filthy cartoon together yeah did you guys confide in each other as young teenagers or was it more certainly not as much as the boys do on this ya know it's aspirational no I think that was part of what I think was interesting about the show not only our experience but it seems like in general about puberty is that people are kids are really feel quite alone in going through it that what's happening to your body and the feelings that you're having make you feel like very alone like it's it's only happening to you because kids can't don't necessarily have the language or ability to talk about it and I don't think we really talked about it no we mostly talked about baseball and yeah and so we mean while we're talking about Lenny Dykstra little did we know he was a hormone monster so start with Lenny Dykstra comment mr. Dykstra my father will not be you can disparage himself but yeah it was it it felt like it was an opportunity for us to either have the conversations that we didn't have when we were kids and and hopefully give kids some platform and vocabulary to talk about the things they're going through to to let people know that and kids know that they're not alone going through this that it's happening to everybody and hopefully that takes some of the crushing either shame or embarrassment off of this really tricky period of life yeah did you guys have anything like that as adolescents that helped you through it that was your big mouth at the time the Wonder Years mark wrote your first Shabbos on Wonder Years yeah yeah yeah that was great I mean he's a great thing to write on and I I guess we opened up the door to that something very different door we go through the show yeah but I think we as soon as they cut to us in with Paul then when they went back to Kevin Paul but yeah we we I definitely watched that show and I remember actually Fred Savage directed an episode of cavemen and we're going to show right now yeah but he he came I met him on the first day and it was like oh hey man it was like meeting a friend from middle school it felt like another guy and so I think that show was sort of with some version of like a much more innocent version of it I remember blossom tackled a lot of stuff buckle hats yeah how to dance on top of a piano I remember blossom talked about I did not understand what condoms were from blossom I felt like I think for me I didn't watch many shows with kids I feel like I was watching 30-something when I was a kid and being like divorces I just want Melissa and Gary to get together I'm 13 and I'm invested in their relationship what about the company that they're starting together I was very worried about hope and Michael let's get into it I don't remember when I learned the word but I remember watching LA Law with my mother and there was there was a female female kiss and she looked over to be like how should I explain this and I was like they're lesbians I know one of the things that I also respond to about the show is um it's it's very balanced in terms of the gender portrayals Jen you're outnumbered up here but the show I think you know the second episode Jesse gets her period that's something that you don't see that much of in movies and television shows about adolescence I'm wondering about how you guys strike the balance whether that was always an important part of the show to you it was always part of the like even when we pitched it I remember that we pitched like and the second episode is gonna be Jesse gets her period and the tampon is gonna sing everybody believe yeah we knew that very early actually maybe I was like look and then I mean all along the way I just think that we always say like like we're just always kind of going sort of back and forth and kind of figuring that out and really I mean I always say like you know Nick I think is a really I think her really you've taught me things about feminism and and one of the things was I ladies all explain it part of that was that I was kind of like oh we need like we had a woman and then we were looking at these other men and it was like no no the writers are the writers did all the good writers and it was really it really kind of changed like we have a really balanced writers room and because of it our discussions are really balanced when we're talking about everything yeah for the men have you have you learned anything about being an adolescent girl is that a weird thing to ask oh yeah well I think it's like because it felt like in in in general pop culture if women if girls puberty was discussed it was largely around the period that was the thing and and but not the idea of girls desires sexual desires and stuff and there's an episode in season one called girls are horny 2 written by Emily Altman who I believe is here tonight is that right she's the one writing about girls jerking off but but I think we were interested in that and season 2 there's more of it it's really I think that it's kind of more girls jerking off in season 2 yeah well there's there's as much girls yeah but I think it was you know for us it was it was there was it wasn't just like well this is right it was like no this is interesting and incredible resource for for stories and and stuff that you know whenever you're trying to make something you're trying to make stuff that people haven't necessarily seen or talked too much about and like in this season you see Missy doing some worm dancing she has a glow worm that she really likes common amongst the women yeah writers room or the corner of a couch or we got a clap up front these stories that have not really been told and it felt like just felt like really fruitful yeah really as in full there's a there's a joke at the end of the second season about or sorry the four end of the first season about what you can get away with because you're an animated show was not always in the plan to be an animated show it was always in the plan I mean we knew that we couldn't put the kind of words we put in to the characters mouths into real kids mouth then also we from The Wonder Years like forcibly I mean for something yeah put the words people know with kid actors you have to shove the word right into their mouth just make them make their little mouths work like that my mom and with the animation we thought we could age them we could to kind of slow down the aging process I'm with Kevin Arnold on Wonder Years after it season two or three he had kind of grown out of the Wonder Years grew a mustache and yeah we were able to and I think the idea of the hormone monsters and the shame wizard all these feelings and emotions to be able to personify them and allow some of the crazy things to come out of Andrew and and the other characters having a hormone monster like in an animation form what allow us to do a lot of that stuff I think yeah you did some amazing things in season one like Garrison Keillor's skull and you went to some places real places that continues in season two but has there ever been anything that crossed the line well we thought that crossed the line well there was the the second step of the Garrison Keillor thing where we found Jen's line there was even a drawing we did that we thought that at the end of that episode everything crazy that Jim maybe he's kneeling over holding his own head and severed his ass and that was where Jen drew the line yeah always joke like when Jen goes to the bathroom let's put it back in yeah I think I was in the bathroom in that garrison keillor run shout out to garrison keillor what happened to him they wrote that joke by the way before any news came out about Garrett yeah there's a thermometer that comes out of a urethra yes so anyway bottom line is very well that's a very good creative partner yes I think Netflix wants to be promoting sounding which is the act of putting metal rods into you right yeah yeah and they want to take the temperature yep of the of the culture sure not just be careful don't break it in there did that draw a lot of mercury coach hormone monsters like little dick thermometer and it got pulled out God god bless him but I hated that r.i.p Rick you guys I'm interested in the creative process on this cuz it's not like a typical TV show where you you have the room and then you shoot it it's a long process and I also assume there's a fair amount of improv that goes into the final product is that right you know they say everything that we including tonight every single thing I've said tonight these guys we you know the we've got great writers and Emily and a whole bunch of people spend a lot of time in the room making great scripts but then when we get into the recording booth we'll do it as scripted and then we'll open it up and let people improv and the script grows and I would say that 30 percent of the finished show is kind of stuff that we find in the booth and is improv by these people and all the other talented actors in the cast yeah I mean these like these three guys and and Maya and and Jesse and Jenny slate and all the actors are too into men are not just funny actors but incredible improvisers so we'd be remiss if we didn't use that and then Mark and our audio editors spend a lot of time kind of combing through all the improv and figuring out what's funny and works in the story and yeah there's not like I don't think any of us could write the description of coming as cheesing [Laughter] I will I will take credit for that you know I mean it's just you know like it comes out of life guys yeah you know when you're ready to cheese you just know you're right out cheese emerson throw it's in the can and god I remember reading Emily Dickinson and she said cheese any other highlights from the improv aspects of the show there's a scene when I was watching earlier today where this is you watch a show during the day just watching the show how much every day you watch the whole season one every day I'm in an imaginary fight with Judge Judy so but I was watching a bit earlier today and this is spoiler we can all agree we won't share this ahead of time but there might be a scene where Andrew and Lola make out and and there was I guess you know some improv improvisation haha I have not seen I have not seen yeah but we did it together didn't we what are we saying [Laughter] I will say it is very weird to be in a sound booth with your friends and have it be like okay so now just like 40 seconds of sex sounds and you're just like there with everybody in you're like oh yeah okay let's do it again but like start smaller and get bigger okay mine are always like cry cry cry then explode yeah oh my god it and and most of Jason sex scenes are it's like and oh and this is with a pillow yeah yeah I couldn't it wasn't a database after the first season when you were the first time you were like okay whimper and then you don't have it's about like number 1134 you mean every organ and then the realization Nick you were talking about earlier wanting young people to feel less shame and to feel that they're not alone have you guys any of you heard from people that are watched so I mean obviously it's really funny I go to schools yeah [Applause] I got I just I just hang out at the fences yeah hey hey hey over here hey come over here yeah I gotta talk to the guy in the shorts yeah yeah yeah no I mean I've spoken to all versions of kids Hallberg you don't have children I've spoken to all versions 1.0 2.0 I updated my Safari yeah yellow haired one [Laughter] never met a child I would like kid what version if any of you would like to introduce a lot of kids also a problem also a problem stream every we've we've heard from people who have spoken with their parents or with their kids I also have a friend who upon watching the show her her husband told her how he he he came climbing the rope in gym class yeah is she married to Garth they watched the entire series in silence and I hope her answer was I want to divorce but I think like no we I mean mark and Jenna two kids one of their their one daughters in college and their son is in now in high school but really was almost the exact I think he was 12 when we started and he's smarter than all of us and but also we I guess we would sort of check in with him a window into what's going on yeah we would interview their kids their daughter and son and and we have started to talk to we've been trying to spend a lot of time talking to like sex educators and people in the field including a woman named Sofia Zaloom which sounds like a fake name for a motor scooter we've been talking to chandelier lavaliere but she introduced us to her class her like high school sex ed class and we had we've had lengthy conversations with them and and about the stuff that resonated with them and that they would be interested in seeing more of and and all you know that's that's been really useful and I and I honestly think the more that we can talk to kids and hear from them the stories that they want to hear as well as their stories the better off creatively and otherwise that we will be yeah did you ever it just occurs to me the wonder years was a kind of a nostalgic show and a lot of portrayals of adolescents are looking backwards did you ever think about setting this in like the 90s or we did dude it was actually it was Netflix as one note actually when they bought they said we'd like it to be we not not necessarily it had to happen right now but they didn't want it to feel like a period piece and original episode 2 is the period I really think it like they really were right like that was the thing like I think it's better because of it yeah I think we try to figure out how to keep it somewhat nostalgic in in that it was our childhood but also dealing how to how do you make a show about kids today where like they're not looking at their phones and screens all the time which is it's tricky because it's such a huge part of kids life lives now but it's not the most interesting thing to watch as I think most of the parents here will testify watching their kids crank their neck like the look down at a table it's not that fun but so we just try to choose our spots where we you know like we have Nick and Gina in this episode facetiming each other in a way that we would have been on like a land line when we were kids last thing I think I want to ask all of you before we go to the audience is since the show is about you you sort of being a young person what do you wish you all had known that you know now as as an adolescent I mean that I would one day meet Fred Savage that I would be I'm one of the most important citizens I feel like there are young people in this audience who are gonna later find out the caveman was in fact not just a joke we started doing our tonight I hope I learned that as well I mean III think it's like I guess I've said it a few times but just this feeling of the feeling so alone at that age and even if you have like a supportive family and good friends like I had you just feel I felt so kind of a lone going through it that you will go through puberty and you will come out the other end of it and you you'll that I wish I could have told myself like you'll survive this and and everything will be fine and one day you'll be at the 92nd Street Y anyone else I would say I'd go hey so in your scenario he doesn't know you're you you are traveling back in time to talk absolutely I was so bad at sports that I like they said try a few sports in front of us and then I did and then they went okay you just go read and do plays and I would have said you know you're a terrible athlete but you need to exercise just to like you need I didn't exercise so I was like 24 years old and you know I'm really I'm all you know I'm all deficient in different ways but I would I feel like when you're not an athlete you're go like alright I'll just live up here and so I'm trying to get kids moving yeah good freeway you'll be so anxious yeah yeah man in his mid-30s with a ripped hip yeah I tore my hip walking these are not things happening I feel like if I was able to walk up to my 12 year old self or whatever at that point I had only grown a full mustache which I was very self-conscious even though it was very popular magnum p.i and I would have said I would just say like don't worry the rest is coming if you ask you how old are you 14 because that is when I got a phobia oh my god uh no the question of what I would have loved have known then that I know now I would love to have known like like Nick says that that we were I was going to make it through I had very few friends at the time and I jen-jen Stan said you were made for college which no one said to me but I wasn't to submit to me at the time because that's when things started to happen for me yeah I think I mean it was all that idea of like hang in there like you know I immediately went to like there was no moose when hair mousse when I was growing up and my hair was so big and frizzy and I felt like such a freak and if I just known the mood one day guardian angel Paul Mitchell you just got an anonymous note mousses and you're like wait a minute from the Archie Cup I think I would have taken comfort in knowing that all the jerking off I was doing with not only okay visa problem was gonna come in handy useful are your parents right Nick and how have they watched the show our debate how do they feel about the show you go first you know I think like you know I mean it's I don't know it's I mean the the funny answer is you know something funny the truthful answer is I think the idea that Andrew and I have known each other since we were six years old and spent all of elementary school together and 25 years later made a show together that people are watching all over the world I think they I think they get a kick out of that my parents I showed them the pilot about a week before it came out last year and they were laughing and enjoying it and then about six or eight minutes in little Andrew is jerking off and next to his sleeping friend and and the laughter stopped and the silence began and and they they had trouble finding something positive to say about half but they've come around my mother really as she says she has to watch the show alone with nobody else there and she she really is into it enjoys it and and my father enjoys the success of the show I think we're ready for questions from the audience yes are there more microphones it looks like there's one right here and one right there so if you guys want to start lining up let's lower the lights down a little bit because this is like right after sex and it's like I asked you where Vincent Gallo Jason man all right here we go great show thank you have you thought about actually getting someone to write a Rock of Gibraltar book oh that's a great question the person to do it is in this very room yeah the Rock of Gibraltar from Season one is the so you know one person who could write it is I maybe my mom because they're yeah oh yes Emily would be great too who rose way it sort of came out was we were talking about this sort of sexy but you were and I was so into Outlander and I look it's so sexy you guys it's so great I was like we gotta do something about my kind of cuz I was just obsessed with Outlander and Nick kind of took anything you know my mother well yeah boobies I think we came up with a name Rock of Gibraltar I mean you were really like you were really talking about the Muslim right so my mom is you know from the 700 to the 1400s the Moors ruled Spain and a great time of the religions the Jews the Christians and Muslims all lived in harmony and science grew and there was great artistic freedom and I sort of spit this all out and they're like so maybe Emily and my mom can do a collab thank you okay so this is a brief question if all the presidents had a fistfight who do you think would win unequivocally yeah [Applause] one punch one punch of path by the way if you had any questions as to whether John was lying about being athletic [Applause] like an old-timey what a good difference between a young woman or young man's question I've watched the show and I have a question who would win enough fight I thought of something now what topic were you most nervous to tackle in the show well in Episode two of this season of season two it's about it's where we meet Gina for the first time she's the girl who all of a sudden kind of overnight gets boobs and the boys get very excited about it and the girls start to sort of have some questions about their own bodies and what that means and Jen the women in the room start talking about going to the Korean spa as a way that I think women get to see all different types of bodies yeah and well I had taken my daughter there and she just like she was like look at all these bodies and I really felt like if I have seen all these bodies when I was younger I would have just not I just would have felt like oh there's all sorts of bodies under everybody's clothes but you'd see so few of them kind of represented in the media and so that was sort of where the beginnings of that came but then when we saw soso we see all the bodies which which is awesome and everything a lot of vaginas you guys yeah and it's they're so long they're they're so far but there's a song that my as the hormone monstrous thing is called I love my body which I'm very excited we're not sure that's not it right now no that very excited for people to see you guys would let it include I'll be frank with you guys it includes the girls like they're in their robes at the at the Korean spa and after this song and seeing all these women and all these types of bodies that they feel more confident and comfortable in their bodies and they take their robes off and so it was a very tricky thing to figure out like how can you show a girl at 13 naked without it being sexual and it was really something that Jan and Kelly who wrote the episode were really trying to advocate for which is just because the girls knew does not mean it's a sexual its sexual eyes and ladies whoever claps I want to [ __ ] you [Laughter] but I think it was really Jen and Kelly really advocating for it and trying to find that that line of how do we how do we how do we tell that story and and and keep yeah so I think that was a pretty thing that we were trying to navigate yeah first of all thank you so much for the show we're huge fans my question is in your all's adult dish well put yeah do you think that younger people even like 25 or 26 can genuinely or men and when boys and girls can genuinely be hey did you do that yep yeah so we did a video I took over her tinder profile about a year ago Google Nick Kroll tinder profile Vanity Fair or whatever it was known I'm loved by the way you did [Applause] Oh for your help yes so it's sort of relate to that do you think men and women can genuinely just be friends yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah most of my friends were girls when I was growing up same sexual feelings no I mean I there were girls I was friends with that I would have crushes on occasionally but a lot of my friends were girls yeah I would say we're trying to knock the group's like Mike the group that I hung out with in high school and then also the group I hung out with in college were all getting squeezed hang on hang on just a second [Applause] we-we-we was a great guy but so I think yes I think it's I think it's meaning meaning cuz like as adults it's easier to have friendships that are uh yeah I think I think I don't know I don't know my friend Claire I talked to my friend she was a female and she is and we talked on the phone for like an hour every night and we were not romantic yeah in high school did you have friends that were boys or did you always feel like they were trying to I do remember that I do remember that thing when you'd reveal you had a crush was normally like oh wow I got a deal with this yeah I mean yes I think it's the problem is partly is that when you like when you're friends with someone it's like you like them and if you really like them then then it can become something that's romantic or confusing and especially at that age it's so confusing about like what it is you're feeling and why you're feeling it but I think I actually think maybe now kids are better at it than we were about having friends of the opposite sex I hope yeah so the ghost of Duke Ellington is a great character and I'm wondering if you had a celebrity dead ghosts that could have given you advice when you were a child community and why that's a pretty good question Wow bringing down the house he wasn't a ghost when I was a boy but Philip Roth it's amazing Howard I was like well Charles Manson wasn't dead yet huh what do you guys think do you have anyone I have to I have to thank Betty Davis it's a great question that we have no answer you don't wanna just throw it no well I'm 30-something the character of Gary does that character have been able to come back to me as a ghost I think that would have been very helpful but not the actor who played him not interesting guy you know you know who your ghost would be Jim Henson would have been mine Jim Henson I'm sayin no Jim how did you guys decide on Duke Ellington the we had my family had visited a house we we almost like rented a house that was the house of was a cocoa reporter and and there was a room I remember that his sheet music had was the wallpaper and I just thought that was so cool and funny and I think in the pitch we told netic we lied we lied and said that Duke Ellington may have died in my home for any aspiring TV writers out there blind your pitch live in steel doors yes the girl in front of me have the same question so I think we should give her a round of applause my question is can you put totally gay up on Spotify please oh also Jason do you want to hang out [Laughter] I mean what are we doing just hanging out there's a Duncan across the street yes yeah yeah I'll definitely I'll meet you at Duncan that invitation is open to everybody we're all going to Duncan I'd like it if that became a sexual term I believe it isn't all right yeah the original songs totally gay are fantastic and we do have to get a big mouth soundtrack out there somewhere somehow and we will we have a bunch of new songs and season two and we're gonna put them all together yeah and mark rivers songs Emmy nominee yes hey big fan of all of you guys I just recently reread Bar Mitzvah disco so this is more point attend Nick and Andrew how much was that book influential into big mouths well a Roger Bennett the co-writer of our mr. discos here as well I think it was obviously the beginning of an interest in this particular time in life that I seem to be consistently focused on and I think it's just because adolescents and this particular moment in time builds so many patterns and foundations for the kind of behavior that you have the rest of your life and there I found myself like in therapy talking about things that were happening happened to me at 13 and how they were still affecting me at 40 and so it just feels like such an important period of life and adolescence and puberty the stakes feel so high because the emotions are running so high that it it it seemed like such a great fruitful fruitful area for for discussion a lot of critics have said that caveman is an alligator with the hair first off hang on man hey man next what is the best advice any of you would give a college student who wants to be a TV writer or producer drop out only do Q&A yeah go visit Jim Morrison's grave I found that people don't like knows it's just me personally I found that when hiring writers a lot of people will get a stack of samples and they don't like reading as many samples as they do like watching videos people have made or seeing like live sketch shows that people have done I found that that was a much better yeah way to exhibit one's work then like having a stack of sketches in the case that I was reading or or sample scripts but I don't know you probably are more responsible you know when I was a when I was 20 20 years old I met Lawrence Kasdan who is the top writer wrote you know oh and I asked him the same question now be a good ghost ya laddies but he he just looked in shooter comin nebbishy gunning said right he said I cursed him for that but in retrospect it was probably pretty good advice to actually just do a lot of writing and then performing whatever it is but create stuff make stuff make make stuff everyday and find a community find a group of people that you like working with and go make stuff with them even if you're not gonna be an actor go start making stuff and just find a group of people because it can be a very lonely enterprise and I think this show is a testament to the relationships that you have helped you get through those tough times and you get lifted up by the incredible talents of your friends it's also like when you are especially in comedy you're so frequently it's built on and predicated on ensemble and collaboration and all of this stuff that is just as much an important part of a skill set that you need as the writing itself and so finding those people to work with like I came up in the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in this city and there are there's other theatres there other scenes there's other things and it doesn't mean you have to be an improviser or a performer there are writers tracks in all these places the magnet theater all these other places so find those those people and find those you know collaborators that you like working with and then just put just literally just start putting stuff out there and by collaborators we don't mean people who were Nazi sympathiser let me be clear yes hi so speaking of the totally gay song a little earlier I was so excited that there was gonna be a main character that was gay and totally find that it's not but I didn't know if they're not to make you know have any spoilers coming up I didn't know if there was any more gay or if you thought about any more gay or why not more days probably just a lifelong question yeah there's more gay yes there is more gay it's you know and and our goal in general in making this show is to it's a show about puberty but it's a show about sexuality and we hope to explore all versions of that and I would just ask for everyone to be patient as we try to cover all of those things but it's something we are acutely aware of and and trying of covering all the different versions of what puberty and sexuality and things are so there's more Gaye and plans for even more gay than that Andrew Rannells who plays Matthew is and it's so inspiring that was a real thing it's like we have such a resource here we should really be giving him more to do yeah and let's not forget about Cantor Dena there's more Cantor Dina calm hey guys so does the idea of boning a pillow filled with warm foods come from a very real place and what's it like pitching that idea to your friend like hey I'm gonna need you to bone and impregnate a pillow yeah you've made it sound even more attractive than it was we had a friend Andrew and I had a friend in middle school who's Kyle friends with him yeah we're still friends who had sex with his pillow made love made love to and then later in life we told us recently years later as an adult man found a Gatorade bottle and filled it with a warm sponge I'm not a contraceptive sponge he didn't care if you found a bath faucet that he found a romantic interest in and I'll just say is the actor who has to kind of bring that character to life you know you have to really live your characters yeah and so you know like I you know had went to Bed Bath and Beyond you know and I went down the line looking for furnace speed I was like do it I was like now we live in a world in which they are a tempurpedic pillow yes the heated up foam really holds the heat yeah plus once you put the Amy's in hello so you know like I was in a pretty serious relationship with a with a side sleeping cutout pillow for about six months yeah and then she dumped me but yeah we put that out and then found out the full-size body pillow yeah he gave her more some yeah yeah [Applause] also he referred to lentil soup as the Amy's yeah first I just want to say that when I was in middle school the league was my big mouth so your parents should be spoken to and I was wondering if any of your old material like inspired some characters or episodes of big mouth yeah there are voices that sort of came that I've been doing I'm a big believer like use all the parts of the Buffalo and that's an upcoming episode also but yeah you know ref Jeff it might sound a little like coach Steve and the crushing loneliness that lives inside of him so yeah I mean and you know Lola sounds maybe a little bit like Liz from publizity but the beauty of making the show is it starts we just watched we did a pencil test when we were selling the show which was like a two minute thing if here's what the show looks and sounds like and we just played it and listened back to coach Steven it was like oh wow coach Steve sounds different like these characters start one place may be inspired from something that was on Kroll show but once you start writing them all the characters there some of them are inspired by friends or family or people from our lives and once you start to write them they take on a life of their own and I think that's been an interesting well be coach Steve especially you watch the first few episodes of season 1 even he he can understand things that people say to a functionally functionally he's steadily suddenly gotten stupid flowers bro yeah yes that's right in the vein of my question I noticed some overlap between the shows I was gonna ask if Gil Phi's own and Georgeson Gillan we're gonna make a appearance that would violate ya to have them that close to children would violate also they were saying like they would love to be on the show and we said it's well we can animate them and they refuse that because they are we want to we want to who framed roger rabbit just walk on yeah what's that right by this episode with shades oh oh yes rabbi paul Blart oh the worst porno in the world some of it healed oh okay so my question got asked of course I want to ask what the pillow stuff you think everyone else in this room what universally wants to know about sex with pillows the pillow is voiced by Kristen Bell yep so yeah and at the time we were watching frozen in my house over and over and she was recording and I was like oh at the time when we did the first versions of it I had not really met her at all kind of in relation to what we were talking about earlier there's nothing weirder than sitting across from a woman you've basically just met and like doing like oh yeah for me and have urges because half of it I'm is not in the script and I'm just making absurd stuff up and however it just be like yeah like what I think that came from the thing I shared with the room that was when I was a 13 year old my sex fantasies I was 40 and I was rich [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] [Laughter] most awkward boner story in public it's happening right now I don't mean to open up a whole thing but alter serving was like you were like very thin white cop standing in front of everyone for an hour those were you know that's around a bunch of guys that Marco Rubio yeah adult observers look like Marco Rubio I was very uncomfortable everything about that was uncomfy I think this has to be our last question okay go ahead sorry so thank you guys for tonight and for making my 2018 so much better um I was wondering if coach Steve is based on a real person and does he still need a best friend the all the characters have whiffs of people but they are an amalgam of various people both real and imagined is the short answer and coach Steve very much needs a best friend he'll take anything animate or inanimate I feel like we should just quickly ask your guys questions go ahead ma'am totally go ahead go ahead go ahead are you okay so I actually just came up because my friend wanted she wanted support for the so when I was online I thought of this question because when I think back to myself going through your videos a lot different but would you guys have been friends with your characters that you portray yeah it's pretty extreme yes I have an inherent mistrust of magic yeah it's in the Harry Potter universe in which case it's flawless yeah by the way in this episode shame wizard played by Remus Lupin from the movie yeah I can't wait for everybody to see David Thewlis performance this year as the shame wizard we were writing the show as Fargo season 3 was airing and we wrote it towards that voice and then he said yes yeah and then he agreed to sing a song yes he sang his song and by the way Jay the character thinks Harry Potter is [ __ ] yes thanks for the house for new t-shirt go ahead yeah next I was just gonna ask were your parents as supportive as that was in the show or yeah my parents were were and are incredibly supportive even coming to early stand-up shows where Jesse Klein and I would talk about having sex and it was very awkward but they've always been incredibly supportive but my dad's much more of a guy [Laughter] yes they are I'm very incredibly lucky my parents are incredibly supportive um there seems to be happening a lot tonight but I just had to know where the scallop just came from that was about that is like my favorite character hands down Jon Hamm is the scallops yeah the scallops are the the one thing in season two that my father feels does not accurately represent him yeah because he doesn't really like scallops that mom yes everything else thank you for tackling the Jewish stomach issue all right so I think of a shadow a longshoreman yeah right okay sorry longer dressed for the occasion so I have to give a shout out to Jay Greek Malacca brother don't call me an [ __ ] my question is right now because evolve enjoyed recent success necrosis in a movie with Sir Ben Kingsley operation for now all right John just know what John does I mean what did I do and Jason was just then John wick three with Keanu thank you that's what's happening right now I'm so curious where we're going so thank you for the IMD but I think I'd also love to say three negative things about each now I'd like to take you apart piece by piece just like we do down on the docks my question is I who currently has the biggest ego what a beauty [Applause] you

Channel: 92nd Street Y

Views: 966,663

Rating: 4.8380976 out of 5

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, mantzoukas, jason mantzoukas, mulaney, john mulaney, big mouth, oh hello, geegland, faizon, kroll, nick kroll, kroll show, the league, ruxin, backstage, acting, comedy, comedian, standup comedy, stand up comedy, gender, sex

Id: kjxp_HgXWDc

Length: 69min 19sec (4159 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 11 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TheFlameRemains]

Big Mouth is the first show I've really binge watched (coach steve voice) in a minute. I think it find a great balance between balls to the wall comedy and character development. Like back in season 1 I never thought Just Coach would be anything other than comedy relief side-character, and now I'm very concerned about his future in season 3.

[u/bunch_habbleapple]

I was just about to mention how i noticed (more like i was bummed) that i've never seen Mulaney and Jenny Slate like doing any stuff together (admittedly they are two people i take a lot of notice of, cause i think they're grrrrrreat), which felt weird to me cause of their closeness to Kroll, and the fact everyone else in those circles seem to gravitate around each other and evidence of it pops up in some form, whether that be actually work or just on instagram or a promo thing.....and right as i thought to mention it in here this pops up.

[u/medinait]

The 92Y On Love with Rust, Jacobs and Apatow is good, too