- I look back and think, "Oh, I wish I had zigged where I zagged." And then I had a friend say, "All those regrets are
built on this assumption you're supposed to know
how to do any of this." - It was just like the modeling thing. I was just talking to Jason about how, before we started recording, about like learning how to take pictures and how weird that is.
- Yeah. - As an actor and how it's
been like a learning curve. - Totally, I luckily
started out as a model. - Really?
- No. Oh. (Ali laughing) (smooth jazzy music) Hi, Jason. - Hey, Ali. - So, I finally watched
your show this week- - Oh cool.
- To prepare for seeing you because I have friends
who work on the show and I had heard so much about it and they're so proud
of working on the show and so I'm so glad that
I finally watched it so I can finally tell
them that I watched it. It was great.
- Thanks. That's a relief, right?
- Yes. - Since we were gonna
have to see each other. - Now I can like tell my friends, I can't just, I don't
have to just be like, "Wow, Jason's really tall."
- Yeah. - I can be like, it's a
really great unique show. - Thanks.
- It does seem like a left turn for you too, so I am curious as to what
made you wanna do that. - So my story's kinda long
a little bit like, you know, I'm sure career paths are
so twisty turny, right? - I first saw you on "Freaks and Geeks" and I was like-
- Yeah. - And in college I
watched 'em on VHS tapes that my boyfriend at the time, his brother bought them
on eBay and he was like, "You have to watch this show," and then I, that's how I first got
introduced to you then. - Yeah, I was 20. I was like a kid, and it's interesting. I'm sure your experience is similar, but I started out acting in
high school, not just comedy, just doing whatever was thrown at you 'cause you don't even
choose a lot of the time. And then comedy found me first. That was my experience with it. And then I turned out to be good at it and so then you start getting food pellets for what people like about you so then I was doing
comedy for like 10 years and I did another TV show
called "How I Met Your Mother" for like nine seasons, so a really long time.
- Yeah. - And at 33 years old that ended. I used to think I could do anything and now I just do comedy and I wonder, I like have this like nagging itch, I wonder if I can do other stuff. And I know too many people who
like sit around resentfully at dinner parties like, "Well, if I was in "The
Revenant," I would've done this." - Mm-hmm. (laughing) - Be the guy who finds
out, like go find out, and so I did a bunch of
drama for a few years and really liked that too. I swung really hard that direction, started to feel like, okay,
you don't throw out comedy, now let's try to like
integrate these things. And right at the same time
Bill Lawrence called me out of the blue and he
pitched me "Shrinking," Brett Goldstein also, they
had come up with this idea about a therapist who was grieving and it felt like a
combination of the comedy that I had gotten really
good at and then the drama I really wanted to be good at and here is the
opportunity to do 'em both. Nothing else. - Well, I'm going to
Japanese Breakfast next week. - Well, it looks like you're
gonna have to eat it at home. - It's a band, asshole. - Well, with an ironic name like that, they must be fantastic. - Some people feel like
they need to like strip all of the comedy to prove
themselves as a dramatic actor, but I really like that you didn't do that. - I'm going through life
the same way you are. None of it's one thing.
- Right. - You know what I mean? Like man, I've been through
some tough stuff in my life and I laughed my way through it and some of the funniest
moments were the times I was the most miserable, weirdly enough, and so I just take the view
that that's what life is and the best kind of, I don't know how I would define your show. Like the best kind of art
I think is reflective of... James Brooks was one of my big influences when I was younger. This sense of god, it's all of it. It's all the things, right?
- Yeah. - How many scripts did you
get when you got "Beef"? - So Sonny, the creator, he just called me one day and he said, "I have this idea based
on a real-life incident where I got into a road
rage incident with somebody and I just ended up following them." And then finally they like, it got really heated and then
Sonny just went like this or something and then he just drove away. And he always had Steven
in mind for one character and then for the longest time he was like, "I thought the other person
in the road rage incident would be a white male,
like a Stanley Tucci type," and then he said, "I just, you know, had an idea yesterday that maybe it'd be much more
interesting if it was you." And I've always wanted
to work with Steven Yeun. We had before as voice actors
on the show, but you know, he's like, it's him.
- He's so good. - It's a once in a lifetime talent. He's so good, and again,
he's that person who, like he has a really strong essence that always shows up on camera, you know, so he does disappear into the character and I always heard that he
was like a wonderful person to work with, and then Sonny, I had known to be this
incredible TV writer who'd written for television
for like 15 years, but he never got his shot. And so the people comes
first and foremost for me 'cause I have kids and to
spend time away from standup and my kids is like a really big deal so like what you see on
camera is like a fraction of how much you're actually collaborating with these people.
- Yeah, sure. - So you wanna make sure that the people like have great taste,
that they're talented, but that they're also grounded people that you wanna spend
all of this time with. You spend like so much time with them, making crazy decisions, so that was really the big selling point. And then the story was like so awesome and it was very much secondary for me. - Wow.
- I would be foolish to not work with these two guys and then, yeah, and then we kind of
talked a lot about the themes we wanted to point at and
this character Amy and Danny and their relationship
and how it was like, it works as this like thriller, but it also kind of to me, is
almost like a romantic comedy. - It's a love story. It's like also I felt
like, I'm obsessed with it. - Oh, it's amazing.
- No, I really am. I like love that I've
thought so much about it. It's also this really interesting,
without giving something, without giving anything away, it's also this really
interesting character study about two people who initially are painted as like polar opposites, but then you slowly find
out that they're the same, which is a theme that I'm obsessed with, that underneath all of
the like individuality, we're essentially the same person. - If you're just willing to like be raw and really be honest with
yourself and show yourself. You're the one who backed
into me like a psycho. - You're the one that flipped me off all wooded out and-
(horn honking) - [Bystander] Hey! Are you guys leaving or are you just gonna sit there? - What do you say? What'd you say? - Say it again! I dare you to say it again. I mean, did you find like, I feel like the grief
you really experienced, like you're touching on
something and was that difficult? Like it's personal, like
whatever you used to get there, but was that challenging
or is that something you kind of go in and out of really fast? - Well, so I couldn't figure out, I worked a lot like in my
20s and 30s and didn't, at some point couldn't
quite figure out why I was doing any of it. I basically had an existential crisis. I feel like somewhere
along the line I've lost maybe part of what I'm
supposed to be thinking about. I looked at actors I
admired and their choices maybe seemed more conscious,
if that makes sense. - Right, it's 'cause you were so young. - Yeah, I was so young and things did well and so then you're encouraged
to do another thing that's a lot like it
and hope that that does even a little bit better and
you know, all this stuff. So I started only taking movies where I would be around
somebody who I really admired just so I could ask them questions. - Yeah. (laughing) - 'Cause I read this crazy interview between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jackson. - Oh my gosh.
- Yeah. - Wow.
- Yeah. Like Michael Jackson invited
Kobe Bryant to Neverland Ranch when Kobe Bryant was like a rookie and gave him all this advice and one of the pieces of
advice he gave Kobe Bryant was when you're around somebody
you admire, don't be a fan, be an interviewer and
ask them every question that you think will be helpful
to you on your journey. So I started asking people like, "How do you choose projects? How long do you wait between projects?" Like all these things that
I really didn't learn. - 'Cause you don't go to school for like making these
kinds of decisions, yeah. - It's so funny you say that, yes. I have like, I look back and think, "Oh, I wish I had zigged where I zagged." And then I had a friend say, "All those regrets are
built on this assumption you're supposed to know
how to do any of this." - Well, it's just like the modeling thing. It is so funny, we were doing
it with this showrunner, me, Steven, and Sonny were
doing a photo shoot together and Sonny was just sitting
like this whole time and then we were like
behind him and I was like, "Sonny, you gotta switch it up. You gotta create angles,
you gotta keep moving. Stillness is death."
- Yeah. - And I was like, "You just
gotta like put your chin down." But I was like, and then he was like, "How did you guys know how to do that? No one told me what to do." And we were like, "Yeah,
man, you just gotta like, we've been doing this for 10 years now and we have bad photos
out there and that's okay. That's like human."
- It's human. I think the other thing
that's hard about it is they're two different skills. Like I find performing to require a lack of self-consciousness. - Yes. - And having like still photos
taken is the exact opposite. Like, I need to look good at the moment that they push that button. - Yeah, and then your hands always feel like they're like this. - Well, I was a hand model. (Ali laughing) - You got it. - I'm really comfortable about that. But anyway, you go back to your question. I asked a friend who I was
working with, "What is art?" It's like a very abstract question, but I was looking at some
of the stuff I was doing. I'm like, "This doesn't feel like art." You know, what is art? And he said, "Art is performing
an act of self-exploration in front of an audience." So I try to think of what
I'm trying to explore. - That really ring true to you? - It did.
- It really rings, that really rings true to me too. - It rang true as the
thing that I wasn't doing. Like I look back, early on I
wrote something about a breakup and that was really true
to who I was at the time. - Yeah, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," yes. - Yeah, and it was like
a very honest thing and I'm like, "Oh, right,
that's why that worked because I was really
exploring something honestly in front of the audience." So for "Shrinking," yeah, it was grief and it was just trying
to think of this idea that I think is kind of universal beyond just losing a loved one, which is we filmed like
right after the pandemic and everything was so weird and I think that like culturally,
we couldn't quite name it, but we all had this sense that
something was taken from us that we'll never get back.
- Right. - Whoa, like just an
active nature came through and all of a sudden something was gone, whether it be a loved one or just time. So that was kind of what
I was thinking about, this kind of feeling of
it's powerlessness, right? - [Ali] Yeah. - And then having to kind of rebuild. - Are you in? - It's like a divorce party. - Yeah.
- Yeah. I'm supposed to swing by my friend's brain tumor bonanza first. - Oh, that's dark. - What about you? What were you thinking about
when you were making "Beef"? - We had, we really didn't
have that much time, frankly. There was like, sometimes we would shoot. How many pages do you shoot
on average on "Shrinking"? - Shoot, I don't know. (Ali laughing) - There were times where we
would shoot like 10 pages. - Right, oh yes.
- In one day. And there was like a day where I do, there's a lot of phone calls I have to do and it was like a ton of phone
calls and I think it's just, you really just have to
connect to the writing to begin with. I don't really think about it too much, so it's kind of boring,
but in terms of process, like I have to work really
hard to memorize the words and then once I do, I just
like try to be present and like listen and say the words. - Yeah.
- For me, like if I try to channel
something on purpose that's like, it will come to me if
the words will inspire me to channel it, so, and
that's how I just felt about like that's, I have so
much chemistry with Sonny, the writer and so, and his writing, but I have read things where I'm like, I don't connect to this, you know, and then I'm like, I can't do this. When you're like, "I used to
think I could do anything," and I'm like, I'm very
like proud of the fact that I can't do everything, anything. I can't do everything. The things that I can do, like I know, and I know the minute that
I read it if I connect to it or not, you know, so. - Were you scared? - I was really scared and
I was especially scared to be on camera. I was intimidated about
working with Steven. He's like Oscar nominated and he's such an experienced actor. He has an incredible batting average too. Like he picking projects like, and I think it's all instinct for him too. He picks great projects and great roles. And on the first day of rehearsal, I think he could sense that
I was a little intimidated and he put his hand on my shoulder and he looked me in the
eye and he was like, "You know, Ali, I don't know
anything that you don't know." And either he's like, you know, I believed him because either he meant it or he's an incredible,
one of the greatest actors of our time, but it made
a really big difference. Were you scared? - Can I be honest with you? - Yeah.
- I'm scared about everything in my life and I'm not
scared when I'm acting. - Oh, wow.
- It's the one time in my life where I feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and that may be delusional,
like that maybe, no, it's true, you know,
like that may be the delusion of like an athlete who's like, "I'm gonna destroy this other
team," or something like that. But weirdly, it's the one,
because I think that my approach is very similar to yours, where I'm like, if I'm super prepped-
- Yeah. - And then I just listen,
I'm gonna be okay. Because then, you know, the
worst thing that happens then is that you find out you're
not that good at acting and that's something
that's worth finding out before you labor your life away trying to make something
happen, do you know what I mean? But I think like, I'm obsessed
with prep, like you said. I don't wanna be thinking
about what my next line is or if I'm gonna get it right. - Do you start like a
week before or do you- - I do this thing where I like, I have a notebook and I
write out the script by hand. - Oh, wow.
- Yeah. And I leave little gaps between the lines and then if the line I
think like means something other than what it is on its face, I write it underneath that. - This like the subtext?
- Yeah, the subtext. - To help you.
- Just for the act of that it's gone through my brain. You know what I mean? That it's kinda like become mine. Then I record it, leaving
gaps from my line. So I do everybody else's
line except for mine so then I can just take to
the streets and walk around- - Oh wow.
- And run the scenes. - Oh my gosh.
- So by the time I arrive, I like run 'em a bunch of times. I almost got kicked out of a
hotel because somebody called and said there's a crazy
person in the courtyard talking to himself.
(Ali laughing) That's a true story. - He has a Harrison Ford mask on. - Yeah, thanks. - Now he has a Jessica Williams mask on. - Exactly. - They're all on Popsicle sticks. He's very, the eyes are cut out. - Yeah.
- We're worried. - That's me.
- Yeah. - So I show up super prepped
and then I, like you, I just try to really listen. I could see how present
you were in the show because there are moments when, especially in conversations
with your husband, there were moves like within the line where you were gonna say
something and then hesitate and then decide to and then it turns. I love the feeling of someone
who doesn't have a firm plan. It's like my pet peeve is when
you're acting with somebody and no matter what you do- - They do the same thing.
- Yes. - It's so premeditated
and it's so calculated and it's so like, yeah, that
took a while for me to learn how to do because I come from standup where you're not
collaborating with anybody, you're just by yourself and you
don't listen to Jack S, PBS. You don't listen to anybody, so that was, that took
a while for me to learn and I think having really
good scene partners who like, who are like you can't ignore them, and when they're so good
at listening you're like, oh my god, but it took a while
for me to, but it feels like, my God, from the beginning, you
know, from when you were 20, you were like such a great listener. - There was so much improv in those, or it was like the way I
cut my teeth was on improv with Judd Apatow in our group so there's so much improv, you
have no choice but to listen and so it was a really,
really helpful tool, even going into like more structured drama and stuff like that. I think like the tools of improv, I'm sure you do that as well, yeah. The tools of improv are so helpful in terms of being present, I think. - Yeah, they really are. It was that show that gave you the first? - I did a couple dumb
like teenage comedies, one called "Dead Man on Campus" where I was a guy who masturbated
in his dorm room all day. And then I was, I mean
that was literally my part. And then I did one called
"Can't Hardly Wait." - Oh, yes.
- Where I drank vodka out of a watermelon and
then "Freaks and Geeks." - Well, was that the first one where you did a bunch of improv? - Yeah.
- Okay. And then do you apply that to like your show "Shrinking" too? Do you guys do a lot of improv? You do?
- Yeah. - Oh wow.
- Quite a bit, especially with Jessica Williams. - Oh, nice.
- Yeah I think she's the best. - She's the best.
- Yeah. It felt like how I felt
when I used to work with Paul Rudd a lot. Like there was some
sense of that no matter what one of us did, no matter
how dumb or wrong it was, we were not gonna let
the other person fall. - Oh good.
- You know what I mean? And so there's like you said, there's some unusable
stuff on that camera. - Like I bet not the mama
went on for way longer than what we saw, yeah. - There's a lot that
went on for way longer. There's a scene where we
sleep together that is like the extended cut of that
would be truly ludicrous. Like digging way too personally
into bad experiences. You write, I write, I think the script is really, really important. There's like no diminishing the script. It is this beautiful
treasure map to lead you through like some wilderness, right? But then you get there and all of a sudden it's three dimensional
and you've got the map and it like tells you how to get there, but then all of a sudden you notice like, "Oh, but there's something over there." And I always think it's
important to like go find out. - For sure.
- Because even if it's just one line, it's
like sometimes in a scene, you know it's the one line that- - Makes all the difference.
- You weren't expecting. It really does, right? - Well, especially with
season one of a show when you're still finding
what people's strengths are and what these characters' voices are, especially for someone like
Jessica Williams who's like, she's so funny in this very
specific way that I could see people might not like understand
exactly how to write to and for it to be like, instead of like, "Okay, all this pressure, like how to write for
Jessica" and be like, "What is she going to
show me if we let her and give her like room?" you know. - When you started with standup, did you want to parlay it into acting? - Not really, I just wanted
to tell jokes for a living and it was more like I
started acting in sitcoms because it was a great way
for me to still justify doing sets for free at night. - Right.
- You know, 'cause otherwise the
thing I was doing before was I was a temp for a
long time and I like, "Oh, well acting seems like
a lot more in line with it," with like standup and
stuff and I do enjoy it, but it really is based on the people. - I just wanna know if I
gotta get to where you are. - Everything fades. Are there any fun stories about you guys hanging out outside? 'Cause I know you shot it during covid. - We shot just after covid. We all got along really well. I think the big like,
whatever the best version of an elephant in the room is is that Harrison Ford
ended up in the show. - Yes. He's so great too. - He's so great. Look, I think, this is like, even part of a theme of your
show and I think it's so true, but I think all of us have
a part of us that is unknown that we wish to be known
and I think Harrison Ford for years and years has
known that he's really funny and hasn't gotten the chance
to like be really funny. - [Ali] So funny and just
sitting down the whole time. - Yeah, totally.
(Ali laughing) Talk about the limits of knowing
how to write for somebody, at first all you can picture
is like we'll do comedy around Harrison Ford who will be gruff. - Right.
- Which you can imagine and then he ended up like, he has moves. - You gotta be kidding. - Well, Jimmy, sorry for
always being so hard on ya. It's only 'cause I love you, all my heart. - I don't talk like that. - You got to do a nice mix of comedy and drama in this, right? - I did and like the
showrunner was really, we would do different levels, you know, there were like my instinct, like that one you see in episode two where I just come from discovering
that Steven's character has pissed all over my bathroom floor and then I chase him out
and then I come back inside my house and go around
point the gun at the crows and I'm like swearing. I did it, I think they used
probably the first take and then he's like, "Okay, let's try one that's like smaller," and then he's like, "Okay, let's go back to that one." - Yeah, yeah.
- You know, but we would try, just because of the tone of
the show keeps like morphing, we always made sure to get
like three different levels. - So did you know this climax
that the mansion was coming? - No not when I first joined. Yeah, but that was something, I mean, 'cause this, it was still being written while we were shooting. What I really didn't know was the finale. - The finale is so beautiful. - Oh, thanks, thanks so much. - For people who haven't seen it, it's like a self-contained episode where you and Steven are alone together, which is kind of what
we've been waiting for the whole season, right?
- Yeah. It's okay. I see it all, I should
have died, it's okay. This is nice. - It's this episode that like so clearly crystallizes the theme that these two people
are essentially the same. And there are even moments
where you switch voices and you're like, "I am you. I am you." - And I totally didn't understand that that's what was happening. Because when I had to memorize all of his, I was memorizing all of Steven's
lines in addition to mine, and I was like, "Why are we doing this?" Like I don't this at all. Like this just seems
like a lot of extra work that you're not gonna use. And then I had no idea,
it was like distress, and that's the thing
about, like again, people, it's when you work with people
and you don't trust them because you feel like they
don't have good taste, that's when you start to freak out. So then I was like,
"Okay, like I trust Sonny and like here we go,' you
know, and so we did it and it was beautiful.
- Wow. I will say that like, have you ever filmed
in a forest for a week? - No. I had a big modeling assignment expert. (both laughing) - Yeah, for REI. - Yeah, but that's back- - [Ali] And you just like in a fragrance. - Yeah. - So it was wild because I'm
kind of a wimp, you know, when we were there filming
at like two in the morning and running in the dark
on camera looks cool, but in reality, when you run in the dark, it's kind of terrifying and so I was like, I felt like Shelly Long
in "Troop Beverly Hills." - Yeah, of course.
- I was like, "I am so uncomfortable." And then Steven, he'd
been on "The Walking Dead" for seven years in the suburbs of Atlanta at three in the morning
running away from the zombies. - He was fine.
- He was like, "I'm at home." And then when I watched him, his truck has like crashed over
a hill and it's on its side and then he falls out of
the truck onto his shoulder. He did that by himself.
- Wow. - So committed in the
rehearsal like three times and then he would like
cut out him crawling through the dirt too. I would've been like kicking
and screaming the whole time. He just did it and I was like, "You were really like doing it." And then he looked at me
and he's like, "I love it." - Yeah. (laughing) - Then I was like, I am
not meant to do action. - And you were ready to get outta here. - I wanna be like Harrison
Ford, sitting, making jokes. - Totally. - I've slept 19 hours
without water, you idiot. - Who sleeps that long? - I had a bad day. - You're a child. - You're a baby. - I thought it was like
a crazy move that you and Jessica's character
hooked up on like season one. - [Jason] Yeah. - Was there a lot of
debate that went into that? 'Cause usually the move would be to like, "Who's the Boss?" it. - It felt like it was
the biggest transgression that he could commit because Jessica was my wife's best friend and so we wanted to just
jump right in there. Why save it? You know what I mean? Like have him... One of the things that I
think is cool about the show is we let people make huge mistakes and then kind of crawl their way out 'cause life is so sloppy. - Even the first opening
scene where you're doing drugs at night with these like
two women in bikinis and then you discover later
like, "Oh, this guy's a dad." - Yeah.
- Yeah. Like you start off with a big mistake. - We had a discussion about it and in like a stroke of self-awareness, I have played like your
best friend so much that I've like curried a lot of goodwill. - That's true.
- And we were like, let's spend it.
- Let's use it. - Yeah.
(Ali laughing) We really did have that discussion
of like we have a hunch. - That's so self-aware. It's like we do have a
relationship with you from being on television and
like on screen for so long. It's so true.
- It's a tricky thing. I'm sure you have to do the same, but when you're writing for yourself, one of the hardest things to do is I always under service my character because of like some weird
form of like humility or something, but I overwrite
the other characters and it's a little hard to
see yourself totally clearly because you're yourself, you know? That's been one of the
challenges I found about writing. But yeah, we had a real
talk about it of like let's take advantage of the fact that I could probably do some wrong stuff. - I'm so curious, did someone
else bring that up to you or was that initiated by you? - It's something I realized
when I was writing movies for myself of like the worst
version is to write yourself as the martyr.
- Oh yeah. - As like a super great
guy, flawless character. - No one wants to see that anymore. - No one wants to see it.
- So boring. - It's not fun, it's not funny. Like let's like have
them be all messed up. It keeps going back to this
theme of like find out. I'm okay with making mistakes
and finding out stuff creatively versus I've
made some other things where we didn't find out
and it just like felt safe and I don't like watching them. Like, "Oh, that's okay." Like you're, you know as
somebody who makes comedy, there is nothing more
repulsive to me than pleasant. - Oh yeah. (Jason laughing) - Oh, that was nice. - It's also so much about surprise. - Yes.
- Like if people think comedy's about making people laugh, but it's so much about
honesty in an abstract form, but you are expressing
something honest and still and it is about surprising people. - And you don't make that face. - Sorry. It just, look, we know
what they should do. I was wondering, 'cause
I have this sometimes, did you find it a relief to do something that you didn't write? - Yes. Oh my god, yes, totally. I was so thrilled to
just like give that up. - [Jason] Yeah. - Yes, I love that part
and just be part of his, 'cause again like that's
the part about collaboration that's scary for standup is like you like give up all this
control 'cause you know, with standup, like I'm the boss. Like I figure out exactly
how I wanna inflect my lines, my word choice, my outfit. I do my hair and makeup in
like five seconds by myself. - Wow.
- But again, it was like, I could have never
created "Beef" by myself and so for Sonny to be part
of this show that he created, just, it was amazing. And I don't think there was
anything about giving up that control that I disliked,
not one single thing. Did you write some of the episodes? - I wrote, yeah, I wrote on the pilot, but not the way that I write when I'm writing like
a movie or something, which I've either written
alone or I have a partner called Nick Stoller who
I write with sometimes. But this was such a team
and I was, it was easy. And I found it very like,
it was like a vacation. You know what I mean?
(Ali laughing) Like you're responsible for your prep and then the rest of it's
like not your problem. - Yeah. What are you most proud
of about "Shrinking"? - I'm most proud of my
cast, to be totally honest. There's a couple people who
are, they're not unknowns, they've worked before, but
this is like, you know, their big shot, woman who
plays my daughter, Lukita. - Amazing.
- Incredible. And she just auditioned. And then Luke Tennie, who
plays my first patient. - Oh yeah, so good. - And then also Christa
Miller, who plays my neighbor, has done a ton of comedy
but hasn't gotten to show this kind of range in
at least a long time, and to watch those three just slaughter. Well, I mean there's a million people, I wanna make sure I
don't leave anybody out, but Michael Urie and Ted McGinley, everyone comes in and not only
like nails the assignment, you know how like different
roles have different functions. Like Ted McGinley's job,
the neighbor's husband, is to come in and just kill a joke. - Yeah, kill it.
- You know what I mean? - Like, "No, the kid, that's not our kid." - Yeah, like you have to come
in and be a comedy assassin and then get out and
he does it every time. It's like flawless. And then my daughter had to show kind of this range and depth. - She's so good 'cause I
loved how like in the pilot, she just, she doesn't talk much at all and the one like when she says
to you, "It's not enough." - Yeah.
- Like you really feel it. - Totally, totally.
- Yeah. - So I'm most proud of my cast. I feel really lucky. What about you? What
are you most proud of? - I guess I would say the same thing. It is remarkable. Just everyone gets to be a human being and I do think that when you have an all Asian-American cast, which is rare, then the people get to be people because like when now when
people refer to people in our show, they use other
descriptors to describe like the characteristics of the person rather than their race. Instead of saying like, "Oh,
like the Asian husband," they'll say like, "Oh, the guy who has like the sick cardigans, who is like really positive
and rides the bicycles." Like and so- - He's so good, by the way. - He's so good, it's so funny. So what's so funny
about him is that Steven had come to one of my shows
at the Ace in downtown LA a couple years ago and he
brought a couple people and one guy kept on
taking like pictures of me and I was like, "Hey man,
like what's going on? Why are you taking on
these pictures of me?" He's like, "Oh, I'm a portrait artist." And I was like, "Oh, okay." And Steven was like, "Yeah, you should follow him on Instagram. His art's amazing." And I did and then I ended
up buying one of his pieces two years after that and
it's on my office wall and so you can see it in the background when I Zoom with people
and then two years later, that's who he cast to be my husband- - No way.
- In "Beef," 'cause they were like, "Oh, we
just had a promising audition from a real artist." And Steven was like, "That's my friend." And I was like, "That's the
guy who did the painting." - He's a tall dude. - He's a tall dude. - Yeah.
- Yeah. There's a lot of tall dudes
on the show. (laughing) It just really got to me, you know, so then I started driving and then there was this guy.
- Amy. Before you spiral, I'm gonna have you stop right there. Take a deep breath. - But have you ever in
your own life felt the way your character felt where
like everything outside is seemingly going so
well and you feel like you're holding it together by a thread? - Sometimes, yeah, for sure, but it's because there's
something that's going on that I'm not telling everybody about. - Right, secret.
- Yeah. How about you? - I'm only just now starting to believe that everything's okay. - Yeah. (laughing) - I mean truly. I'm 43, but like I'm starting
to with a little distance be like, oh, the evidence is pointing to that everything's okay, but that has not been my experience of like how I feel during any of it. I'm always like a little bit scared of like how do I keep it up? - Yeah, that things are gonna go away. - Yes.
- That something's gonna, like you're gonna mess it up, something's gonna get taken from you. - Yes, feels high stakes. - Yeah, that is high stakes. - Life feels high stakes to me. - Yeah, or that like I
really identify when Amy keeps getting all like
that barrage of texts and she's like, "Just make it stop." - Yes, that's the first episode, right? - That's the first episode. I think about that a lot too. - That deal going through
is like in her mind and sort of in reality
her life depends on it. - Yes, so there's like in that way too, I mean, I think a lot of people
have spoken to this before, but just that idea of you
being attached to this goal and thinking that it's gonna
fill this hole inside of you and then you achieve the
goal and then somehow it makes the hole feel like, it's like that it's still
there makes it worse, you know?
- Yes. Do you think if people
will give enough likes to this interview, it'll fill the hole? (Ali laughing) Finally? - I don't know, I don't think so, yeah. (smooth jazzy music) (smooth jazzy music continues)
