Glenn Howerton Explains Why He Took a Step Back from Always Sunny, and Why He Returned - KFC Radio

we just read an interesting article uh talking about your experience with sunny and how you you feel like you kind of like recommitted and you're back fully into it and there was a period of time where you were kind of growing to maybe resent it is that too strong of a word or was it really like a you know kind of uh you fell out of love with it for a period of time there yeah well it wasn't that i fell out of love with the show uh yeah it's it's a little weird i mean it is it's what i was resenting was not the show it was that i it was that i had it was that i felt tethered to it in a way that was preventing me from exploring other things that i wanted to explore um as an actor as a writer as a producer uh i'm just not one of those people what i discovered is that i'm not one of those people that has just boundless and endless amounts of energy uh i can only dedicate so much brain power and energy and you know i can only dedicate so much uh before i'm drained and i'm done and you know i tried to do other things while doing sunny at the same time and it was just i found it extremely exhausting and so it kind of got to the point where i was like well now that means i can only do sunny and after so many years and kind of feeling like i said everything i wanted to say on this show i just felt tapped out and it wasn't a good feeling it was it you know i was feeling that way and mostly in season 11 and then i did season 12 and i felt like i was like i think this is going to be my last season so i actually had a lot of fun with season 12 because i was like again i'm gonna go i'm gonna go out swinging i'm gonna go out try to go out on top here and i'm gonna throw everything at this last list last season of mine and then you know but taking two i took basically the last two years off of the writer's room um you know i was doing rewrites with the guys for seasons 13 and 14. uh but i wasn't there breaking stories and and writing original scripts and stuff like that so but so taking those two years off has been extremely refreshing and it's also honestly given me a chance to re-appreciate the the show and um you know re-fall in love with uh the show and you know get a little time away from those guys was that a discussion you had with them did you was there like a hard conversation to have at one point like guys it's just not i'm not feeling it anymore it wasn't you know it wasn't a hard conversation because um we have we're i'm able to have those kinds of conversations with those guys so i think one of the reasons why the show has worked as long as it has because we can have those conversations with each other um and they were incredibly supportive um they didn't want me to go uh but they totally understood and you know uh and and i said you know the last thing i wanted i don't want to like ruin the show um but if this ends the show uh then it ends it i i i can't i can't i can't keep forcing myself i i i i i was like i can't keep forcing myself to come in and and work on something that that i'm starting to get mad because it's getting in the way of me following other dreams um you know and they were like we totally get it uh we're going to keep going we want to try doing a season without you and uh you know i was like okay you know cool and you know when they got to the end or near the end of writing season 13 which is my first season kind of away from the show or actually i think somewhere near halfway through the writing process they were like we're having a lot of trouble figuring out how to write every single story without you in it would you be willing to come back and just act in a few and i was at that point i'd already had enough time away from the show where i was like act on the show that's the easy that's the fun part yeah you could just show up and do that right that's like you throw up yeah i was like 100 yeah totally so that's why i ended up you know acting in the six that i was in and and i couldn't help myself i i kind of went in and did rewrites uh on on just those episodes [Laughter] i really had nothing to do with uh the four episodes that i'm not in like as an actor producer or a writer very dennis reynolds you know that that must be nice to get that that like reappreciation though because you step away and you're like wow you know what i got it pretty good it's kind of like a relationship you know you go on a break and you're like wait a minute babe i do love you let's get back together yeah sometimes you got to go through trial separation uh you know but uh uh yeah i mean i mean i i think i i look at it almost more as like i've always looked at our situation we've always felt like more more like a band to me than a tv show uh because we write because you know we're we're in the studio or we're you know we're in the practice space and we're writing songs together and then we're playing them and then we're you know and we spend a lot of time with each other you know and and it's like okay we're gonna put out another album that's what it feels like every year you know and for me i was just like i gotta go off and do a side project you know what i mean i got to do my solo album or i got to do you know or i i just want to be part of a different band for a little while and just just you know do that and then but it was always in my mind i was like i mean if they're going to keep going maybe i'll come back at some point you know i mean i i never closed the door completely because you guys did downplay it a lot i remember our first interview was i think season one ap bio and it was you had been in the news and you re reiterated it with us we're like sonny's not going anywhere but it seems like you were like if it's going to go it's going to go yeah uh yeah koi you liars they're all just liars in hollywood um i think i just didn't want to i didn't want to be i didn't want to commit myself uh you know uh in the press to you know i don't want to make promises that i couldn't keep and um you know i wanted to allow myself the opportunity to to truly walk away um if that's what i ultimately decided to do um so it wasn't really my it wasn't like my intention you know i did want to but i also did want to honor you know that we wrote toward that at the end of season 12 i wanted to honor the stories that we wrote and say like this is the this is the story that we wrote and we're sticking to it um you know i didn't want to just bail on that it it felt like even though you know we usually hit the reset button this felt to me like it was something where i was like no we need to we need to like explore this like the guy left the bar he said i'm leaving i want to go be a dad and uh there was definitely some finality to it yeah yeah and i thought just for i thought just in my mind i thought like well if they're gonna keep going then um you know hopefully this will give give them something to write to um you know that will maybe shake things up in a way that'll make it interesting to them as writers is like you know sort of like i was kind of pitching them on the idea that like okay now that now that this guy's gone what are we you know and doing episodes that are where you're trying to figure it out like a new challenge yeah yeah exactly and and so i i thought that would be a good thing um but you know i don't think it's i think if any one of us you know were to really leave the show i do think it would be tough to keep going because yeah that was the argument i made when when you first when there was you know there's some sort of stepping away where i was like sonny's a tough one because there are so many shows that have the lead and sunny has five leads everyone plays such a humongously important role it's it's tough to even lose one leg on that point yeah but it's also all i think it's i think that cuts both ways because it's like i think that's why it could survive in the in the way that it did because it wasn't you know those guys can stand alone but there is something about it's not gonna be the same without everybody yeah it just you know i i think it might have been i think in some ways it might have been particularly hard with my character because when there's there's usually a straight man in the in any given episode or or any given scene there's the person who's sort of the voice of reason right you know trying to reign everybody in yeah you need that god damn it you idiots like there's nobody to do that yeah and it does that does shift you know it's not always my character but over the course of the you know 12 years that we've done the show i i would say that more often than not that responsibility had fallen on my shoulders um so i i think they found themselves also in a situation where they were like who's going to be the straight man that nobody wants to be the straight man nobody nobody could be yeah so so i think that that presented a a very specific challenge uh to the group dynamic when my character went away i mean that would be my guess i didn't i i haven't talked to them specifically about that but that would be the challenge for me if i were writing the show without my character in it as being like who's gonna play the straight man role most of the time who's going to be the the one who's irritated with everyone everyone you

Channel: KFC Radio

Views: 749,193

Rating: 4.9129682 out of 5

Keywords: kfc radio, kfcradio, kfc voicemail, barstool, barstoolsports, barstool sports, barstool podcast, barsool radio, kfc barstool, voicemail, barstool voicemail, feitelberg, feits barstool, barstool sports podcast, #podcast, kfc, radio, kevin clancy, comedy, funny, lol, glenn howerton, its always sunny, glenn howerton leaving sunny, glenn howerton why he left sunny

Id: xeqn2YYE78w

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/seckatary]

This quality content is taking up valuable meme real estate on the front page. I have a backlog of like 15 rum ham and troll toll memes to post, get lost bozo.

[u/itsmesnacks]

i just don't get some of the comments. he clearly isn't happy with playing the same character for so many years and would love to try something new, but instead of encouraging him to do so people say he should stick to sunny

[u/RawBearClaw]

Uhhh and um and uh

[u/krankortega]

I get what he's saying here about feeling tethered to the show. HIS RAGE IS UNTETHERED.

[u/sunplaysbass]

Don’t be a bitch Glenn