Jason Sudeikis (‘Ted Lasso’) Still Believes

Jason Sudeikis became a household name during his decade-long run on Saturday Night Live. Then, came his Emmy-winning turn in Ted Lasso. On the heels of the beloved series’ Season 4 finale, we discuss this latest chapter (3:30), writing new characters (6:37), and what shaped Sudeikis’ sense of humor growing up in Kansas (9:50). Then, we talk about his years on the basketball court (12:30), lessons in show business from his uncle, George Wendt of Cheers (14:30), and how he arrived at SNL in the early 2000s (24:30). In Act II, Sudeikis reflects on a piece of writing advice from Tina Fey (29:00), departing from the show in 2013 (45:00), and who he believes should succeed Lorne Michaels (49:00). Finally, in Act III, we get into where Jason ends and Ted begins (1:02:24), how his personal life informed the show’s latest chapter (1:08:39), navigating public scrutiny (1:14:35), how the series helped him through difficult moments with his mental health (1:21:52), and what it meant to return to Studio 8H as an SNL host (1:30:27). Subscribe to our⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube channel⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@talkeasypod. As always, our email: [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. To learn more about Endel, visit endel.io/talkeasy http://endel.io/talkeasy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Wait a minute, like to Lauren specifically, like you're gonna bust us on, you're gonna be logic cop for us? Like, man, you're the one that put on Toon's is the driving cat. You made this nonsense. You turned us into this on your watch, homie. Don't you try to go suit on me, buddy. Like, come to the stairwell. Let's get down.

• 0:23Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Forgo, so welcome to the show. Today, actor, comedian, and writer Jason Sudeikis. For most of the early 2000s, he was a staple at Saturday Night Live, often the straight man opposite Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and Fred Armisen. Sudeikis left after a decade at 30 Rock in 2013, going on to star in films like Horrible Bosses, Where the Millers, and Sleeping with Other People, my personal favorite. But amid that run of films, Sudeikis appeared in a series of NBC commercials promoting the Premier League

• 1:08Sam Fragoso?

  in which he played a blustering American football coach accidentally hired to run a soccer team across the pond. The ad spots did remarkably well and would eventually serve as the prototype of what would become Ted Lasso, which in its first three seasons has received 61 Emmy nominations, 13 Emmy wins, and emerged as a cultural phenomenon and breakout hit for Apple TV+. Sudeikis joined us recently on the heels of the season four finale, a season of which, as you'll hear at the top, was not a given by any means. And so we start today by talking about the gap between season three and season four, this new chapter in the Ted Lasso universe he wanted to explore with the Lady Greyhounds, and how the show speaks to this larger cultural moment. Then we turn to Jason's beginnings in Kansas City,

• 1:53Sam Fragoso?

  his formative years doing improv at Boom Chicago and Second City, the audition that landed him a writing job at Saturday Night Live, and what he learned from both Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels once he got there. Then finally, in act three, we talk about the ways in which Ted Lasso has mirrored Jason's own life: self-worth, divorce, co-parenting, and how making the show helped him through some of the darker moments over the last few years. As always, I want to say a big thank you to people listening and watching, whether it's on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. An episode like this one, as you'll understand in a little bit, is why I made this show in the first place back in 2016. And so I want to thank Jason here at the top for coming on and for all the time and being so vulnerable.

• 2:37Sam Fragoso?

  And I want to thank you, whether you're listening or watching. The best thing you can do is subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. If you want to share the show, you can tag us at Talk Easy Pod. Share it with a friend, a family member, anyone that you think may enjoy the kind of conversations we have here each and every week. And as always, my email is [email protected]. And without further ado, here is Jason Sudeikis. Uh, Jason Sudeikis.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  Yes, sir.

• 3:09Sam Fragoso?

  Welcome to the show.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:10Sam Fragoso?

  How we doing, man?

• 3:11Speaker 00

  We're doing all right. Yeah.

• 3:12Sam Fragoso?

  Is that true?

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if I were to go full 30,000, 300,000 foot view.

• 3:20Sam Fragoso?

  I think it's 30.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Doing great. 30, then yeah, still solid.

• 3:23Sam Fragoso?

  300 seems really far.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  It seems obnoxious. Yeah, what are you doing all the way up there? Can't breathe up there.

• 3:27Sam Fragoso?

  Let's go right down to 30.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, 30, 30's still really solid.

• 3:30Sam Fragoso?

  So I just want to be like transparent. At the end of season three.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:34Sam Fragoso?

  Which I really enjoyed. I was under the assumption that the show was done.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, me and you.

• 3:39Sam Fragoso?

  You felt that way too, right?

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, 100%.

• 3:41Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, so in everything in the press that I read, it was like you had three seasons mapped out.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:47Sam Fragoso?

  You did it. It went pretty well.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:50Sam Fragoso?

  And then everyone was kind of excited to come back, but you were the one holding out or the one that did not see the next step, did not see the next step of it. So tell me, where were you at at the end of season three?

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Physically, emotionally, spiritually?

• 4:05Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, I think those two especially. Yeah, we'll take the spiritually at the third. And then how the hell did you get back to season four?

• 4:11Speaker 00

  You know, emotionally, I would say drained. You know, like it was a lot. And, and the, the post-production process, you know, we were, we were, we were, you know, still working on stuff up until, I think I maybe gave, you know, thumbs up on a couple of fake magazine covers the day before the strike started. And so I went from driving into Warner Brothers lot and editing it every day, you know, for like 10 till 5, to then parking down the street and walking in a circle, you know, holding a stick with a sign on it for, you know, X amount of, you know, a couple of times a week typically

• 4:55Speaker 00

  at that point. But yeah, it was just kind of like, oh, like, like certain level of exhaustion, both creatively and physically. I mean, as much as one can be exhausted sitting in a room just thinking about something a lot.

• 5:10Sam Fragoso?

  My memory serves that you had been put, you and your ex had been put through like the wringer at that point.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you only have so much control over, over that. I mean, it's one of the themes of our show is like, you know, these things happen and how you go about responding to it is sort of what you have control over, so.

• 5:29Sam Fragoso?

  Is that like a John Wooden quote?

• 5:31Speaker 00

  I don't know. It's probably a bunch of peoples, you know? Marcus Aurelius.

• 5:35Sam Fragoso?

  They're in the same camp?

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, 100%.

• 5:36Sam Fragoso?

  Marcus to Wooden?

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. With Maya in the middle there, making it, making it sound even prettier.

• 5:41Sam Fragoso?

  That's really the kind of the Ted Lasso Holy Trinity right there.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  It is a little bit, yeah. As I was sort of, it was spilling out of my mouth, but yeah, I.

• 5:47Sam Fragoso?

  Mark Twain.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Twain would be up in there. Yeah, probably. Yeah, some of his work, some, not all of his words. But of the time.

• 5:54Sam Fragoso?

  You were worn out by the end of season three, though.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I personally, yes, yeah. And, and it was a little bit like, you know, if, if creativity is water in this cup, yeah, I mean, it was fully dumped out. And so then you kind of. There was nothing left. I mean, just a lovely mug that will go on a shelf and get used. But still, you gotta let it fill back up. Now, what it's gonna fill back up with? You have a little bit of control, I guess, but, but you never know. So then, so then over those next few certainly months and, you know, maybe even year or two, it, when I looked into the, into the cup, it was like, oh, that's, that's just more, that's more Ted Lasso, you know?

• 6:37Sam Fragoso?

  So when you look back in, you saw this women's team?

• 6:40Speaker 00

  I mean, I've tried to explain this, and it sounds so, I mean, corny, artsy-fartsy, indulgent, I don't know what, I don't know. I don't want to qualify, but I'll just tell it the way, the way I, I felt it and remember it. Is I just kept hearing the voices of the characters that we know in my head. Like, when you, when you sit down there, like any of us, our head will hit the pillow and we'll sort of go maybe, so, you know, I've always since a kid, like gone through my day like, ah, would've, could've, should've, and then gone through maybe the day or the week in advance. Like tomorrow, I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna do bang, bang, bang, you know? And whether I get to those things, who knows? But I would hear the voices of the characters. And I, and then you just, and a lot of time, you know, over the, since, you know,

• 7:22Speaker 00

  2015, when, when me and my buddies were first thinking about the show, I would just sort of see certain things. And then you kind of like either let them inspire something else or you create up to that image. And so I would get voices, I would get images. And then other new voices started to show up. And so that was, that became apparent that that was, you know, characters that, that now embodied the women's team. It's, it's, it's less like people are coming in, like they're action figures and doing, you know, my bidding or anything's bidding, or you're just kind of guiding the show into what it is. But for me, this is like a reintroduction of what this, of what the show is.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Wait, so hold on, do y'all have to share this room?

• 8:06Speaker 03

  Only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and every other Saturday.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we get to keep our toiletries overnight.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. So there are showers?

• 8:14Speaker 05

  There's one shower. And one toilet.

• 8:17Speaker 06

  And a urinal, which I actually prefer to use now because, you know, taking a piss in a slight squat is good for the core.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Gotcha, okay.

• 8:25Speaker 05

  Knock, knock. Bye, guys. I'm Ted. The press is ready for you.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Hey, real nice meeting y'all, and I'll see you out on the piss, okay?

• 8:38Sam Fragoso?

  So you and the show's co-creators, Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, you all met in the early 2000s, performing at a comedy club called Boom Chicago, which wasn't actually in Chicago, but was in Amsterdam.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. We met in Amsterdam, Boom.

• 8:52Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Boom, Amsterdam, which is actually Chicago. No, this is confusing.

• 8:57Sam Fragoso?

  Who's on?

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:58Sam Fragoso?

  So, but the thing is, you guys bonded in Amsterdam, certainly.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, 100%.

• 9:01Sam Fragoso?

  As one does on mushrooms. I think that's good.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Sure. Yeah, absolutely. It didn't hurt.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  But it was, but we did, most, the majority of the shows were done sober, so.

• 9:10Sam Fragoso?

  What's the percentage of that?

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Oh, golly. I mean, I would say 100% of the, the shows that with the paying audience for myself was done sober. We had this thing called Late Night, Friday Late Night, I think it was something like that, that was sponsored by Heineken, and it was basically a short form improv game, and we, we, we, people got ripped.

• 9:28Sam Fragoso?

  I'm telling you, that sense of play and fun.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:31Sam Fragoso?

  I feel like the three of you have brought it to Ted Lasso.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  I believe so too, yeah.

• 9:35Sam Fragoso?

  And, and I think that begins for you back in Kansas, in the sixth grade. You got a video camera that your father bought you.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  True.

• 9:44Sam Fragoso?

  And your friends Ryan Landry and Terry Marr.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Come on, man. There you go.

• 9:50Sam Fragoso?

  Was your childhood and your sense of humor shaped by those two people?

• 9:54Speaker 00

  Amongst others, but yeah, Ryan Landry is hands down one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life. And, and he's done, I know he tried stand up there for a little bit. He's a great cartoonist. He, you know, he gets hired by a lot of companies in different places to do caricatures in Kansas City. He spent time, I think he went to University of Miami of Ohio, maybe went to school for like eight, nine years, like definitely like a character from an 80s or 90s college film. But just, kind of just spoke in punchlines, like he just always, but always the funniest kid, the weirdest kid, silliest kid. He was like Daffy Duck in real life. Like it was, it was so funny. And then Terry was just cool. Terry's still cool. Terry's an emergency room doctor. So you don't, I don't know how many emergency room doctors you want being

• 10:38Speaker 00

  cut ups, but he was just like, but a great sense of humor. So for all the kids that I had that used to make me laugh, I probably had the equal amount of kids that just had really fun sense of humor too.

• 10:48Sam Fragoso?

  SNL, when you were growing up, what was the cast that you grew up on?

• 10:53Speaker 00

  That's, it would have been, you know, Dana, Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn. I mean, I think one of the neat things about that era, similar to the original era, and we almost got there within my time there, was how few people were in the cast. It was like seven people, seven, eight people. And, and when you have that, you know, then people just get reps, people, the audience gets to know them better. They get to think they know them. And then with sketch comedy, what's lovely about it is you can, you know, be one thing for four minutes, completely different world for another four minutes, you know, or what have you. And that's a fun time. But then I also had, you know, another friend that you didn't mention, but was a big, was, you know, because we did get, we did get

• 11:38Speaker 00

  a few, but I don't, hey, this is all right. But, but it is name checked in the season of Ted Lasso. Joe Conrad.

• 11:43Sam Fragoso?

  There we go.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Joe Conrad.

• 11:44Sam Fragoso?

  Good job. Joe?

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. You gotta go up here with him. He's up there now, unfortunately. Yeah.

• 11:48Sam Fragoso?

  Jesus, why the fuck bury the lead?

• 11:50Speaker 00

  I know. Well, you know.

• 11:51Sam Fragoso?

  The fuck?

• 11:52Speaker 00

  You know, it's, it's out there.

• 11:54Sam Fragoso?

  And he's dead.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  He loves it. From 300,000 feet, no less. What are the odds? We've been talking about him the whole time. The show's been foreign the whole time. That's why I, that's why I went up there. Didn't want to put, you ask me how I'm doing? Thinking about Joe. But he, I spent the night at his, at his house for the weekend. You know, my, my sisters went to some other friend's house. I went to Joe's house. They gave me 40 bucks or 50 bucks. I spent the first night, 20 bucks. We went to wherever Blockbuster or some, and I bought the best of Eddie Murphy. So I feel like Eddie Murphy was also raised, raised with, with that video, with that VHS tape. That was huge, huge, huge, huge.

• 12:30Sam Fragoso?

  The only thing you love more than comedy, I think, was basketball.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, at that.

• 12:35Sam Fragoso?

  Right?

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:36Sam Fragoso?

  And in your game, you described it as a mix between Pete Maravich and Jason Williams. Quote, "If there was an easy pass to make,

• 12:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:45Sam Fragoso?

  "You could count on me not to make it." Could that double as a metaphor for how you lived your life?

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Yes. 100%. Yeah. Yeah, man. It also is like when people are like, did you want to be an actor growing up? I was like, no. But like, then I think of the way I played basketball, or the way I conducted myself in class, you know, or whatnot. I was like, well, that's just acting.

• 13:06Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  That's just performing. I was 100% clued into the fact that, oh, I'm playing basketball and there are people watching. And even if it was just a, you know, open gym or something, it's like, you still got, you know, freshmen, sophomore, or seniors, you know, whenever you're trying to earn your spot, or like, you'd still wanted to make, make a ruckus.

• 13:25Sam Fragoso?

  Is there an overlap between basketball and improv comedy, which is kind of where you go after playing?

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, there absolutely was. I, I mean, basketball was my metaphor for all things, and probably still is like a foundation for it.

• 13:38Sam Fragoso?

  Me too, yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Working as a group, like towards something, it absolutely, it made total sense. That's why, like I still to this day, my backpack, which is in the green room, you know, I still have that John Wooden book, that blue John Wooden book. Cause when I read that, I was, I was like, oh, this is about basketball, I know. But this is about improv. And, and just with having that blinders, you know, dropped out of college, I'm gonna move to Chicago to, you know, try acting. But really, I just wanted to be as good of an improviser as I could be, you know, as good as anybody I'd, I'd, I'd ever seen at it, without knowing even what that means, right? But that, that book just made so much sense about, about improvisation. And then ultimately, as you get older, you start to read, read it and

• 14:19Speaker 00

  be like, oh, this is about life. Like this guy's a philosopher. He coached, but like, he was badass.

• 14:25Sam Fragoso?

  There's a reason he kept winning.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:26Sam Fragoso?

  To be fair.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  Interesting, incredible people.

• 14:28Sam Fragoso?

  Big deal.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  Big deal.

• 14:29Sam Fragoso?

  Bill Walton.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Yep, also helpful.

• 14:31Sam Fragoso?

  You, you used to have this line, because your uncle was the late great George Wendt.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:36Sam Fragoso?

  You would say, you know, people always ask me, did he give you advice?

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:40Sam Fragoso?

  And you would say, yes, he did. He said, make sure you're on the best TV show of the 20th century.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:46Sam Fragoso?

  In Cheers.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:48Sam Fragoso?

  I think if you do that, you're gonna be just fine.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. That was 100% a joke.

• 14:52Sam Fragoso?

  I know it was.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  It was like, did your uncle give you any advice? Yeah, get on the, one of the biggest sitcoms ever and just ride it out.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  And it's, what's kind of funny is that, you know.

• 15:01Sam Fragoso?

  You kind of did it?

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, I mean, I'm still in the process of riding it out, but like, and it feels a little obnoxious to call one of the biggest sitcoms ever, but in relation to Cheers, you know what I mean?

• 15:12Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean, in relation to numbers? What are you talking about?

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Sure, sure, I guess.

• 15:15Sam Fragoso?

  The numbers did well.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:17Sam Fragoso?

  Aren't you paid like a million something per episode? I feel like it's going all right.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  I think, yeah, but that's.

• 15:22Sam Fragoso?

  You don't know how much?

• 15:23Speaker 00

  Not off the top of my head, no. No, no. I'm, you know, I trust people to do that.

• 15:29Sam Fragoso?

  May everyone get to a place in life where you can't even count how many millions.

• 15:33Speaker 00

  I don't know if I, yeah, it's just take too long.

• 15:36Sam Fragoso?

  Before you made all that money, though.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  I was more wealthy than ever.

• 15:39Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, spiritually. You're living with your grandma on the South Side. You're driving your uncle's car, working at Banana Republic.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:47Sam Fragoso?

  And at night, you'd watch as many shows at Second City.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:51Sam Fragoso?

  As they would allow you.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Improv Olympic and Second City, yeah.

• 15:54Sam Fragoso?

  What were you after then? Like, what, what were you looking for?

• 15:59Speaker 00

  I just loved it, man. I still love it. I like, I, I believe in, in that community. I believe in that work. It was like, I'm at, sort of said earlier, I just wanted to be like, how, how can I get better at this? How, how on earth can I get as, as like, good as Scott Adsett and Kevin Dorff and John Glazer? Like these, these heroes of mine that were performing on the stages at the time. And that's just the fellows, you know, like, I mean, the women were remarkable too, but when you would, I wanted to be on, I just wanted, like, it was tiny goals. When you get hired to be in the touring company of Second City, you get to do archive material. So these sketches, they're only, again, like

• 16:42Speaker 00

  I said earlier, like, you know, four to seven minutes, it would be like, I get to be Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. I get to play, you know, whomever and whatever. I get to be Scott Adsett's part in, in this sketch, Country 1 to Yes, Anna, Country 2, that he wrote with Tina, you know?

• 16:58Sam Fragoso?

  Your uncle is also in the archives.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  I know.

• 17:01Sam Fragoso?

  Of Second City.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  I know. And my aunt, his wife, Bernadette. Like, it's, I mean, I, like, I just loved it. You know, there, there was that part of me that, that my basketball skill wasn't good enough to ever play like at KU, you know, and I, and I didn't, wasn't hard enough working to go, you know, walk on at Notre Dame like Rudy, right? But I'm just saying.

• 17:24Sam Fragoso?

  Is that your way of saying that you didn't have that dog in you?

• 17:26Speaker 00

  I think it is my way of saying it, you know, 100%. I have more of a dog in me as, as an actor than I do as an athlete.

• 17:32Sam Fragoso?

  Is that true?

• 17:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think lazy athlete, but hardworking.

• 17:35Sam Fragoso?

  What about as a father?

• 17:37Speaker 00

  I think I'm right, right, right. It betwixt the two. You got a foot in both worlds, you know? I mean, how do you work hard at it other than, you know?

• 17:44Sam Fragoso?

  Shut up.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  Then, then I guess I do work.

• 17:46Sam Fragoso?

  Actually, I'm not a father. I, I can't speak to this.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  But, I mean, you're maybe speaking towards your relationship with your own father. Like, I don't know.

• 17:52Sam Fragoso?

  Good try. Good try, Jason. Good try, sir. See what they tried to do there?

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 17:59Sam Fragoso?

  You said recently on All the Smoke, when you were 22, watching those shows, that you weren't drinking at the time.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:05Sam Fragoso?

  And so you didn't hang out with folks after the show, which is kind of a big part of it is the camaraderie.

• 18:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:11Sam Fragoso?

  What was the reason for you abstaining?

• 18:15Speaker 00

  I didn't drink in high school. I drank, I think at that point, I'd maybe been drunk once or twice in my life in community college. My dad drank, you know, a bunch when I was a kid. He was, he was super fun when he drank. It wasn't ever, you know, like scary or after school especially, but, but, but I remember at times it could feel uncomfortable, like when he would, you know, I'd have friends sleeping over and he'd stumble in, and a little bit like that scene in Hoosiers, where it's like, hey dad, you know, like when, when, you know, Dennis Hopper comes onto the, onto the thing.

• 18:45Sam Fragoso?

  I had a stepfather.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And it was, I do, I've, I've, I've sort of wondered, oh, is this why I enjoy being a comedic straight man? Because there's a little bit of having to bring my dad in, let him cut up with my friends, but also them being, you know, smart young men who knew that Jason's dad had been out, and most likely, even though, you know, had driven home under the influence, and then, you know, get him upstairs, you know, get him upstairs to his room and, and take care of business.

• 19:15Sam Fragoso?

  Would you bring him up there?

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, or at least guide him. I mean, the house wasn't too big. Like, it's funny when I go back now, it's, it's nuts to me that the five of us lived in that house, because my folks still live in the same place. But, but yeah, it would be like, all right, here, you know, here we go. Hey, you know, he's doing, he's doing that thing. But I can watch myself do sketches on SNL where I'm playing the straight man to like, you know, Kristen or Fred, or like Melissa McCarthy, and be like, oh, that's, that's 16-year-old Jason, like tap dancing, and, and like Tai Chi, you know, his father's, you know, you know.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Levity, I don't know, like, what do you want, drunken levity? Yeah, yeah.

• 19:52Sam Fragoso?

  I asked this also because George, when

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:56Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, maybe the most famous barfly

• 19:59Speaker 00

  I was gonna say.

• 19:59Sam Fragoso?

  In the history of moving images.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know.

• 20:03Sam Fragoso?

  I like film and TV, he's right up there.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 20:06Sam Fragoso?

  This is a man who wrote a book called Drinking With George, Mm-hmm. A Barstool Professional's Guide to Beer. And I, I just thought, like, when you have an uncle who made it.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:17Sam Fragoso?

  Who's there. So few people have a window into this industry.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 20:23Sam Fragoso?

  And I wondered if there was a part of you that goes, I want to take what works and I want to take what doesn't work from someone in the industry. Like, did you see that as, because you, you always say, he showed me the show part, not the business part.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, but he was savvy to the business part, too, because I, I remember, I remember asking him early on when, when, um, we were doing Second City in Las Vegas. And I was in partnership at that time with this wonderful woman, Kate Cannon. Uh, and, and a fella named Jeff came in from Brillstein, uh, Brillstein and Gray, which at that point I knew was, it was always in the, at the end of, of, uh, Mr. Show episodes, like Brillstein and Gray, you know, Enterprises or, or, you know, Entertainment. Uh, and he was coming, uh, to watch the shows. And I remember asking my Uncle George, what's the difference between a manager and an agent? And he goes, he goes, well, I mean, and I don't know if he made this up or whatever, but I think it's so funny and so, as quick as anything.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  He goes, he goes, well, it's a good question. Manager.

• 21:23Sam Fragoso?

  Do you have his voice?

• 21:24Speaker 00

  No, uh, I mean, no, not at all. Uh, a manager would, would, uh, make sure, you know, you get to your mother's funeral. Uh, the agents make sure that your mom's dead.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Which I, which I'm kind of like, what, what does that mean? But it makes so much sense. So like, I could always ask him for things, I think, you know, ask him questions, but I didn't really have to, because he led his life in such an interesting way. He was always a vessel. He didn't have a production company. Uh, but he loved the work and he loved the people that he was in scenes with. He loved the, the guy or gal holding the boom mic. He loved the guy, you know, pulling the ropes on the side. Every, they all loved him. So he was really just a people person who kept his connection to where he was from, Chicago, at Second City, uh, and his family. You know, it wasn't like he was at every single function. He, like a professional athlete, missed a lot of weddings, the same way. You know, I'm finally getting back into going to family weddings,

• 22:25Speaker 00

  because there was a 10 years there on SNL. I didn't get to see anybody get hitched, you know, unless it was around the holidays. So I don't think it was anything about his drinking or anything like that. Like, for me, it was just, I mean, the smartest phrase I remember saying in high school was like, well, I don't drink, you know, people, people drink to act like I do without it. You know, it's like the dickhead 17, you know, me.

• 22:45Sam Fragoso?

  You got a lot of those quotes.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  Hundred percent, yeah. I'm gonna say, you know, right where you know, yeah.

• 22:49Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, they kind of do find their way into Ted Lasso, too.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  They sure do, buddy.

• 22:52Sam Fragoso?

  It's just a lot of one-liners. They all come from

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Something.

• 22:57Sam Fragoso?

  Kansas.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. They were, they were in Missouri, depending on, you know, if we had to go get beer on Sunday with, with my dad. Um, because they didn't sell in Kansas. Yeah, I just, I just, I just, just didn't. There's probably a little bit of fear, wanting to do it differently, wanting to do it my own way. And maybe that's just that, you know, the fear of success, as, as silly as that may be, because I know most people would view me, and I understand that's successful, but like, it, like, I mean.

• 23:23Sam Fragoso?

  Is that why you, you were reluctant for a long time to audition for SNL?

• 23:27Speaker 00

  I, well, I was never asked, you know, and I, but I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't go for it either. And I don't, I don't even know how one, it's a little, it's not easier, quote unquote, but now you could make content, put it online and have, and have those things. But like me signing with a manager, because I'm with the same fella that came out and saw us.

• 23:48Sam Fragoso?

  The one that didn't kill your mother.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  Exactly. The, but got me to the funeral. Um, the, like, it wasn't even him asking if I wanted to audition. It was, it was Jeff Richmond, you know, that, that, that was.

• 24:02Sam Fragoso?

  The Tina Fey's partner?

• 24:03Speaker 00

  That's Tina Fey's husband, yeah, who was, you know, on his own, you know, Jeff friggin Richmond, who was like amazing musical director and director for, uh, Second City shows, you know? Um, and then was at that point doing the music for, um, for SNL, all the original music at that time. And, you know, since going on to do many things.

• 24:21Sam Fragoso?

  So when you're performing improv comedy, first in Chicago, then Vegas, there's a brief period where you wanted to be part of the Blue Man Group.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:27Sam Fragoso?

  Um, but you're trying to find your comedic voice.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:31Sam Fragoso?

  I think you've, you've shaved your head, you've done all kinds of things.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:34Sam Fragoso?

  Did you hate SNL before you auditioned for SNL?

• 24:38Speaker 00

  I said I did, yeah. Yeah, that, that's one of those things that I think, I think any of us had the capability of doing in our, in our lives, where the thing that we really want, or that we dream about, or dream, or, or think of, we, we act like we don't. Uh, and that's what I was doing. The, the metaphor I'd always use was like, yeah, like the, the, the girl that you had a crush on in school, uh, and being like, oh, she seems stuck up. And it's like, oh, I'm sorry, you don't, you know, she was asking about you. And it's like, oh, wow. So the second.

• 25:06Sam Fragoso?

  The tune will change.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that I, I, I, I think for some people, I mean, there's a million different ways to go through the, the comedy experience in Chicago, but, but at some point I had to hate whatever was popular.

• 25:25Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  You know, I, I, I think that that's part of growing up and, and, uh, you know, and going through stuff, maybe as an artist, maybe as just a young man. You had, had, had, had to hate it. But then, but then also, then I started to know people on it. And I'd gone to it. My Uncle George had hosted it in that crummy year, if I remember correctly. It was the first time he hosted when Francis Ford Coppola, I didn't go then, I watched it on TV. And it was Francis Ford Coppola's, uh, you know, Saturday Night Live. And it's this funny episode where literally Francis Ford Coppola directed it, and George was the host, and it was very meta, the whole episode. But then he hosted the finale of like 1991. And it was him and Elvis Costello. And my mom was like, do you want to go? I was like, yes, I could give a flying fig about Elvis Costello at that point in my life.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Because I was more into, because playing basketball, I was more into hip hop and R and B. Um, and so Elvis Costello, I didn't, I was, didn't have an older brother and the, the older kids next door to me, Jeff and Joe Wilcox, listened to metal. So I didn't have a connection to Elvis Costello, um, like I do, and an affection for, like I do now. And, but it was just getting to go there and just like walk around. And the very next time I was there was when I was walking down past the same places, auditioning for the show in 2003.

• 26:35Sam Fragoso?

  The audition went well enough for you to get on SNL. And I thought, why don't we talk about SNL after the break?

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Can, sure, I'll be here.

• 26:41Sam Fragoso?

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• 27:23Sam Fragoso?

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• 27:49Sam Fragoso?

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• 28:34Sam Fragoso?

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• 28:56Sam Fragoso?

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• 29:40Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:06Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:51Sam Fragoso?

  You started writing on the show in 2003, then became a featured player in 2005. What piece of advice did Tina Fey give you when you started out?

• 32:00Speaker 00

  She said, "If you can improvise, you can write." Which was good because I was in the throes of what I now know, or at some point discovered to be what people call the imposter syndrome. And that was a big thing she said to me. I remember seeing on the wall, I don't know if she ever talked about this, I don't mean to put her on blast, but I think it's profound because I don't think of, I hold her in very high regard, I don't think of her, I don't think people realize, like, how much she's human sometimes because she's so capable. But there was, in the hallway of 17, written, very, very small, like, I couldn't even write, we couldn't even write it with that pen, it'd have to be like a brand-new sharpened pencil,

• 32:45Speaker 00

  was just like, "I used to perform." And that was before Tina had written on the wall there, before she had been doing update. So she had this really interesting point of view that she was a hero of mine, someone that I used to watch and was just kick-ass at Second City, and had like, you know, a couple of shows' worth of sketches that were very, you know, specific in their voice and very much her, especially her and Rachel working together. And so then she had to channel that voice that she knew for herself and give it to, you know, legends like Anna Gastey or Sherry O'Terry, but still there's that part of her that I used to perform. And I think she was sort of seeing me from a little bit further back from me, or a little higher up than me, like a good coach.

• 33:29Sam Fragoso?

  30,000?

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Maybe, yeah, at tops, yeah, at that age.

• 33:32Sam Fragoso?

  Not 300?

• 33:33Speaker 00

  No, no, no, we were barely, barely, you know, again.

• 33:35Sam Fragoso?

  "I used to perform."

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, "I used to perform." Yeah. And it was just because she wasn't that point, and because that is, her creative cup was overflowing, and so she wanted to have two cups. And she was like, "Yeah, I mean..."

• 33:49Sam Fragoso?

  Didn't she also tell you to not write something that you could perform better yourself?

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, "Don't write something for someone else that you would write for yourself."

• 33:56Sam Fragoso?

  And did you do that?

• 33:57Speaker 00

  I sure did, yeah.

• 33:58Sam Fragoso?

  And for who?

• 33:59Speaker 00

  For a fellow named Jeff Richards. I wrote a Dr. Phil piece that, you know, because I had done Dr. Phil as one of my impressions for the show.

• 34:10Sam Fragoso?

  What did that sound like again?

• 34:11Speaker 00

  No, you know, it was "Talk Like This," "Hey, hey, Jase, where are you supposed to be?" It was more me doing my high school basketball coach than people would assume Ted Lasso was.

• 34:21Sam Fragoso?

  Don't showboat.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  "Why don't you just throw that easy pass, Jase? Why don't you go ahead and sit down and think about what a dumbass you are?" You know, like, that kind of stuff. Like, remember back in the day, like?

• 34:27Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, yes.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  On Oprah, he was like, just straight talking the hell out of everybody. And so it was real fun and talk like him, you know, he was just doing that kind of thing, everything a little slower at the end.

• 34:36Sam Fragoso?

  And as this interview goes on, feel free...

• 34:39Speaker 00

  Dip right in that, stay there.

• 34:40Sam Fragoso?

  And tell me, tell me what I'm doing wrong.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  You know how you did all that research? Should've done a little bit more, right? Yeah? How many hours you sleep last night? Probably could've got two hours less, right?

• 34:51Sam Fragoso?

  Actually, unfortunately, no.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying? But like, I wrote this thing for him, it was when Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson hosted, and the whole premise was like...

• 34:59Sam Fragoso?

  They were your favorite hosts, right?

• 35:00Speaker 00

  They were my all-time favorite hosts, yeah, and people.

• 35:02Sam Fragoso?

  No, no, they've come to your weddings.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, they will be invited to all of my weddings.

• 35:06Sam Fragoso?

  The future, multiple?

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've only had one so far, but I mean, yeah, but I think I only have like five on the books.

• 35:14Sam Fragoso?

  So you wrote these sketches?

• 35:17Speaker 00

  Wrote these sketches.

• 35:18Sam Fragoso?

  That really you should have done?

• 35:19Speaker 00

  That was one of the only ones, and, you know, Jeff was a very, very good impressionist, but like, that show was tough, man. You can get the yips on that show, and they show up on Wednesday at the read-through, and it just, it just didn't play as well as he had been doing it the night before because we were having a fun time writing it. And Tina was really happy that I wrote it with him and for him and stuff, and it just didn't play on Wednesday, and I remember feeling really like, "Oh, shit, this is what she meant."

• 35:47Sam Fragoso?

  Terrible on Thursday.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  Because you just want to get a piece on, you know? Like, I would watch, I would watch, you know, as a newer writer, you know, because Tina had so much going on, being head writer and doing update, that I would shadow her pieces, so I would, you know, be the one checking the cards for her. And you're just learning the system of the show. I basically, you know, to keep the basketball metaphor cooking a little bit, it was like I got red-shirted at like this, at, you know, the SNL University. And so I got to, you know, learn all these things, learn where all the elevators went, learn how to, you know, check cards, get to know the department heads, get them, more importantly, for them to get to know me. But yeah, it was, it was a lesson. Anybody can tell this, you know, I can tell my son, you know, "Okay, but this and that," and then it's gotta be like...

• 36:30Sam Fragoso?

  You gotta do it.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, they gotta screw up.

• 36:32Sam Fragoso?

  You gotta fail.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I did there, and I was like, "Damn, okay."

• 36:36Sam Fragoso?

  So once you get added to the team?

• 36:37Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 36:38Sam Fragoso?

  I heard that you would quote, "Write high and edit sober."

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 36:43Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me about this process, and what is your favorite sketch that came from you writing in an elevated state?

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, one that comes to mind, like, because I was, I was, you know, for the guy that didn't drink or do any drugs in high school or community college or Chicago, by the time I got to, not Amsterdam so much, even though I dabbled a little bit there, like I said, with Jesus Christ Superstar and whatnot, but by the time I got to Las Vegas, I remember a friend, Jerry, sort of talking about how he found himself, you know, becoming like a guy that got high every night. He's like, "Yeah, stress, stress and boredom, stress and boredom." And I realized it was probably more boredom in Las Vegas, you know, because when you're living there and working there, it can become pretty mundane, and then the stress of SNL.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  And so I would usually write one under that state, I'd usually write two, one for them, one for me. And the one that I'd write for me, I'd like, I remember I got in this habit of going over to the other side of the building on 17, like where accounting would be. I sat at a fellow named Greg Scarnicchi's set desk, and I would, like, get high in the, like, fire escape or whatever, you know, like the stairwell, you know? Then go back and sit at his desk, listen to John Coltrane's My Favorite Things on repeat.

• 38:11Sam Fragoso?

  I know, I know.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  And you don't want to pay for that, so we can, you don't want to pay for that.

• 38:17Sam Fragoso?

  Are you gonna pay for it?

• 38:18Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no. Maybe season five, if we do a season five, I can pay for it.

• 38:22Sam Fragoso?

  You'll come back?

• 38:23Speaker 00

  I'll buy you the saxophone.

• 38:24Sam Fragoso?

  Coltrane and all.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, so Coltrane and all, and I'd write one. And I remember one that sticks out to me, because it was a little bit of me pushing, like, I didn't, Christina Applegate, no, excuse me, legend, Christina Aguilera, also a legend, but not comedic legend, was the guest host. She may have also been doing music, too. Lovely, lovely person, didn't really get to know her because the writers very rarely interact with the host. But I could not think of what to write for her. So I was like, "Who are the three people that, like, bring it for every sketch that they're in?" And so I wrote it, I was, I gave myself the parameters of like, "I'm gonna write a three-person scene, Chris Parnell, Amy Poehler, and Will Forte." And not that everybody else didn't, like, you know, bring it in their own special way,

• 39:08Speaker 00

  but those were three that I was kind of like, "I don't know what this is, I'm just gonna start writing it."

• 39:13Sam Fragoso?

  But they elevate.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  They just dug in on everything, on everything. And, and yeah, could absolutely, they could turn one plus one, make it three easily. And it played great on Wednesday. It was like I was performing through writing, you know? And like, I remember Mike Schur, like, you know, tapped me on the shoulder, going, "You know, that was hilarious." Like, and Mike had been there for years, was, you know, it was before, it was his final year there. And just people like Harvard kids laughing, you know, Tina laughing across the way there, Lauren laughing, you know, Parnell getting less, Forte getting less, Amy crushing. And then it played, then it made it all the way to air. It was in that spot.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  And then I remember, if that would have been, like, maybe in the fall, being at my Aunt Marty's house at Christmas time.

• 40:03Sam Fragoso?

  Well, they must've been so excited for you.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Yes. Do you know what happens here? Do you know, like? Maybe I'd had like some eggnog or something. I was like, oh, my sketch is coming on. I think I told my sisters, like, you know, because it's not very much like, um, this thing that I made. We're all going to sit around and watch it. It, it starts, and I was sitting here watching it. No laughs. You're talking about 30 people, family members. Everybody's just like.

• 40:30Sam Fragoso?

  Was there a kind of polite chuckle?

• 40:32Speaker 00

  I don't remember. I don't think so. No, I don't like, you know, and, and nothing. They were being rude. It just did not land, connect, did not land, did not resonate whatsoever. It was so ridiculous. The out, the button is, is ridiculous. It's John Lutz running through in a jogging suit, stealing a hot dog from someone. It was like, it was just insane. But what I learned at that point is like, oh, if you just write, write, write, write what you like. Write what you like. And, and, and sometimes it'll be for the show, but other times the show will be curious about that. It'll, it'll follow, it'll follow a voice.

• 41:04Sam Fragoso?

  I'm thinking about your generation of SNL.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:06Sam Fragoso?

  Bill Hader would start with a voice. Kristen Wiig would know what the character looks like. Fred Armisen always had the quirk.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure does. Yeah.

• 41:14Sam Fragoso?

  What was your way into a character? Like, how do you get into main justice?

• 41:18Speaker 00

  That was me doing George Kennedy from, from Cool Hand Luke.

• 41:24Sam Fragoso?

  Does the facial hair help with that?

• 41:25Speaker 00

  Well, that, that sketch is interesting because I want to do Texas justice for Horatio Sanz. Where it's just, where it's just, ah, Texas justice, you know, one of those judge shows. And we did, they did a lot of those, you know, Judge Judy.

• 41:35Sam Fragoso?

  Sounds like a Taylor Sheridan show.

• 41:36Speaker 00

  Sure does. The, uh.

• 41:39Sam Fragoso?

  By the way, Ted Lasso kind of falls apart. Not the worst idea?

• 41:42Speaker 00

  Just go over there and be like, hey, man, I got, I got some, if you want to, if you want to cut up some of that billion you got, that they gave you. Billion dollars.

• 41:49Sam Fragoso?

  I'm aware.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 41:51Sam Fragoso?

  I'm aware. You're not that far off.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  I'm quite far off.

• 41:54Sam Fragoso?

  You're not that far off. You don't even know how many millions you're paid per episode.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  It ain't a billion. It ain't a billion million. Tell you that.

• 42:01Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, no, no, it's, it's certainly not a billion. Yeah. You got me there.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Thank you. All right. We can wrap this up.

• 42:09Sam Fragoso?

  Put a little bow on it.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  There we go.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  But okay, so there was a sketch that I wrote when, when Gerard Butler hosted. The whole premise was like, instead of being Cool Hand Luke, you know, that's that famous scene about eating 50 eggs. We made it like, you know, like it was TBS, you know, after movie where it was like, you know, um, like easy, easygoing Gary, right? And, and so he played, he played that and he's like, 50 eggs. I bet I can eat 50 eggs. And there's that challenge scene, but then the character, instead of doing it heroically, like Paul Newman does in the movie, uh, he tries to back out of it and he's just like, wait, now, hold on, are these, are these free range? Like I'd be, I'd hate to eat chicken eggs that have gone, you know, someone's gone through trauma, you know, like he's, he's just trying to backpedal out of it.

• 42:49Sam Fragoso?

  I'd like to do it.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  Exactly, but.

• 42:51Sam Fragoso?

  But did the chicken live a meaningful life?

• 42:53Speaker 00

  Is there a humanity to it? Like, is there, is there ethics?

• 42:55Sam Fragoso?

  So how does this get to main justice?

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Because I played George Kennedy, like, like, and so I'm doing that whole voice. Well, come on, man, you go ahead and do it. You know, like doing like Foghorn Leghorn George Kennedy and that voice like played well. The, the sketch did not get chosen. And one of my favorite things about main justice, I can't remember if I've told this on anywhere, but like, was that Seth and Lorne kind of were logic cops about it. They didn't like the, they were like, what is the, what is the idea here? I think it was me, Mike O'Brien.

• 43:21Sam Fragoso?

  Like, like what, like what?

• 43:23Speaker 00

  Where it was just like, okay, so why are they there? So then there's a whole, there's like a three sentences where we're just written to placate the bosses. Because at that point Seth was head, head writer.

• 43:33Sam Fragoso?

  Bit exposition.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  Oh, like, maybe we got, you know, dislocate, you relocated after Hurricane Katrina. And we decide our news, maybe a time portal, space portal opened up and we got spit out here and we're just doing what we do. It's just all of that. Or maybe.

• 43:48Sam Fragoso?

  By the way, improv comedy, people love exposition.

• 43:52Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. We got it. We got it all out there.

• 43:54Sam Fragoso?

  Amazing.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Placated, but one of my favorite things was like Mike O'Brien and I, Rob Klein, I think was also in there, maybe Eric Kenward, were like, was like, women, like to Lauren specifically, like, you're going to bust us on, you're going to be logic cop for us? Like, man, you're the one that put on tunes is the driving cat. You made this nonsense. You turned us into this on your watch, homie. Don't you try to go suit on me, buddy. Like, come to the stairwell. Let's get down.

• 44:22Sam Fragoso?

  After a decade of working at 30 Rock Studio, 8H.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm 17.

• 44:27Sam Fragoso?

  When you think back on the host, which ones made your week the easiest and which ones made your week the hardest?

• 44:34Speaker 00

  Well, the easiest were people that elevated and heroes, you know, when someone like Will Ferrell came back. He's just so good. He's so good at that format, so good at the show. Just such a nice guy, like, and, and so impish, like, you know, made Lauren laugh, but also kind of like broke the rules. Was like, it was just kind of like silly, just silly kid, joyful, you know? Uh, Tom Hanks, you know, that's just someone that I loved him as films, but also so good at doing that show. Like understood how to get something out of all of it.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  The, the ones that were hard, the first one that comes to mind, you know, was like, there were a couple of years when Dane Cook hosted, that like,

• 45:18Speaker 00

  you just got to imagine sitting around that big old table with all these really, really funny people. You just want to show up. You just want to do well, right?

• 45:27Speaker 00

  And every, every now and then, if there were 45 sketches on average, written for, on Tuesday night for Wednesday read through, I would be in like nine to maybe 20, you know? But as the host, they're usually in 40 to 45 of them, right? So I'm watching someone that's kind of in my slot, like six foot, you know, brown haired, white dude, left-handed even. Like, like where I'm just kind of like, oh, and, and he's being given 45 sketches.

• 45:57Sam Fragoso?

  The fact that you know that he's left-handed.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  I mean, I thought my, before I even got on SNL, I go, well, I'm done.

• 46:02Sam Fragoso?

  There's already someone got there. Mental illness here is unbelievable.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Only lefties notice other lefties. That's, you know, so, but, but 45 sketches that, that were all written like in my sort of like, like strike zone, right? And you're just like, oh, and the first time he hosted, I wasn't in anything. I think maybe it was in maybe one thing, if that. And then the second time he hosted, I, I was like, I'm gonna write the stuff for us, like two-handers. And I was in, I was in a couple of pieces with him. But that's, that's not his fault and it's not the writer's fault at all, but that, I know that that was hard for me. So, so to answer your question, who was tough, when it was someone that was kind of like in your slot, because you'd watch, you'd think, oh, maybe the, I know.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  All these brilliant people just don't know how to write for me. That's why I'm only in. And then, then a week comes and it goes and they write everything that you could do for someone else. And you're just like, oh, no.

• 46:59Sam Fragoso?

  You've said that your era of SNL was, quote, fueled by Starbucks and unhealthy comparisons.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:05Sam Fragoso?

  Which all things considered, SNL wise.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:07Sam Fragoso?

  Not the worst thing to be fueled by?

• 47:09Speaker 00

  No, not at all.

• 47:10Sam Fragoso?

  Who did you compare yourself to?

• 47:14Speaker 00

  I think previous, previous generations, I think is what I was referencing there in the, in the monologue. We had that moment where, where people didn't like us, you know, people, people didn't know us, so they didn't like us. At that point, the previous generation would have been, you know, um, Will, Jimmy, Molly, you know, Sherry, like, um, you know, even, you know, Parnell and Horatio, Rachel Dratch, you know, um, Horatio and Rachel being heroes of mine when they were at Second City. And now the, all those guys were gone and we, and we got that cast, you know, that's around that time we got that, that cast down to like nine, nine people, kind of like, like I was, you know, saying about the original cast and the Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks era.

• 47:52Sam Fragoso?

  So in some ways, like your coach, your Ted Lasso, I guess it's a mix between Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Part of it.

• 48:01Sam Fragoso?

  You've said Lorne Michaels, um, is also deeply human.

• 48:06Sam Fragoso?

  Quote, he did all sorts of things that drove me nuts.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:09Sam Fragoso?

  Like what?

• 48:10Speaker 00

  When all signs were indicating that my final show is going to be my final show,

• 48:16Speaker 00

  that he would have accepted that premise without me having to declare it publicly.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  So like I, because I left, my last show was the same, was Fred's last show and Bill's last show. And I'd written a, a final sketch. There was, it was a recurring thing that I had done before.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  And, and he, he didn't, he didn't choose it for the final episode. And I've never asked him about it because I, I accept the premise, you know, you know that going in, like it's, it's, it's his show.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  And I,

• 48:53Speaker 00

  I never held it against him, but I get, but that would be something that, that I'd be like, oh, just come on, homie, like, just, who knows? You could maybe make the argument that he wasn't great at taking no for an answer, you know, or maybe it was, it was part of him not want, or, or not believing that I wasn't going to leave like that. Oh, he'll come back. He's, he's probably just.

• 49:13Sam Fragoso?

  Did he believe that you'd come back?

• 49:15Speaker 00

  I don't think so. I don't know, but it's, it feels similar to, oddly enough, like the Ted Lasso season three thing, right? Where like, there's plenty of people that were like, yeah, yeah, you're, yeah, you're really done. It's like, oh no, it was, it was done. Like it had to be done.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  And it wasn't until, it wasn't that it wasn't done. So I think part of him. And again, this is me doing dime store psychology on something that I, you know, could very easily ask him. And he'd be, he's had so many people come and go and leave that he'd probably be like, what? No, I don't remember. What, what day was the show? It was Saturday. Oh, right. Right, right, right. You know, like, it's, it's, that's one of those neat things that I think when you come through an institution that as interesting as you are, as one of one, as you feel that we, that we actually are, but that we maybe can indulge ourselves in being, that they've all seen it.

• 50:06Sam Fragoso?

  You are one within a larger history.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  Or one of that has these, you know, maybe have a little of this, a little of that. I think I wanted him to know me better than I, than, than he'd necessarily needed to. Or it's like, oh, Jason means this. Just, just enough to be known that like, oh, I'm, he's sincerely leaving and he doesn't want to make a big deal about it, but it's a big deal to him.

• 50:27Sam Fragoso?

  But also it sounds like you want him to go. Your place in this thing is important enough

• 50:37Sam Fragoso?

  for a proper send off.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  Yes, but I, but I, I.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  But it wasn't so much of a send off, you know, it wasn't like me being carried off like the Apache or something like that.

• 50:49Sam Fragoso?

  You did pitch that at the

• 50:50Speaker 00

  I did.

• 50:50Sam Fragoso?

  Table.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had the gown made and everything. I'd done, you know, did a whole thing with an asp, which I'm

• 50:58Sam Fragoso?

  Didn't play on Friday.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  No, for some reason, people, people are afraid of snakes.

• 51:02Sam Fragoso?

  Evidently.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  It had a little, it was like, oh, can I say goodbye to this place on my own terms? But, but, but, but hiding it, you know, nothing to, you know, outwardly, like I didn't announce it.

• 51:17Sam Fragoso?

  Why, why did you leave?

• 51:19Speaker 00

  I'd had my time with it.

• 51:20Sam Fragoso?

  You, you were done?

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:21Sam Fragoso?

  It was like the cup being full?

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just wanted to go do other things. It was also, it was also out of respect towards all the new people that are coming in with a, with a verve.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  And the people that I came in with, Kristen and Andy had left the year before. Bill and Fred were leaving. Seth was going to be leaving soon to go do his late night show. But I was just like, oh, no, no, I gotta, I gotta, I just gotta, I gotta, I gotta go. I had, I've had my time with it and, and, and never, never regretted it. I mean, you know.

• 51:50Sam Fragoso?

  A decade's a long time.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  It is. Yes. Longest job I've ever had.

• 51:54Sam Fragoso?

  Seth Meyers, when he came on, he said, Lorne has probably already decided who's gonna take over.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  Who Charlie Bucket is. Yeah.

• 52:03Sam Fragoso?

  Do, do you think that's true? And, and do you think it is Tina Fey?

• 52:07Speaker 00

  Pretty neat. It is, man. She's, I mean,

• 52:12Speaker 00

  I'd be down. I mean, who, who would be mad about that? I don't know.

• 52:16Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think she would, she would do it?

• 52:18Speaker 00

  I would hope so.

• 52:19Sam Fragoso?

  This is like, it's like we're playing poker suddenly.

• 52:21Speaker 00

  I think, I think it's neat. I think, I think, I think, I think it's like, it, it makes me feel good. The same kind of thing like with, with like, you know, stuff on like, where it's like, oh, I'm almost near tears thinking about it. That's, that's usually a good sign.

• 52:32Sam Fragoso?

  Really?

• 52:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, man. I think that that's, I think that's beautiful. I think that's, I think that's a beautiful idea. Not, that's not enough of a reason for Tina to do it or for Lorne to let Tina do it.

• 52:40Sam Fragoso?

  Because you're on the verge of tears.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  But if they're just looking for a nudge, it's like that Sudeikis guy almost got a little choked up thinking about the potential of it.

• 52:50Sam Fragoso?

  Is it Sudeikis?

• 52:51Speaker 00

  No, it's Sudeikis.

• 52:52Sam Fragoso?

  Jesus Christ. By the way.

• 52:55Speaker 00

  I mean, that's how my dad says it. I don't know what, you know.

• 52:57Sam Fragoso?

  But that's how your dad says it?

• 52:58Speaker 00

  He says Sudeikis. I'm talking with you. Like, no, I'm just, when people are like, is it pronounced Sudeikis? I go, I don't know. That's how my dad says it. Like, is it really? Like?

• 53:06Sam Fragoso?

  If it was Sudeikis?

• 53:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:07Sam Fragoso?

  No SNL, no Hall Pass, no horrible bosses.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:11Sam Fragoso?

  Maybe you still could have got the part at Eastbound and Down at the end, but I think that would have been it.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  Just the twin brother.

• 53:16Sam Fragoso?

  Just the

• 53:19Speaker 00

  But I'd have to call him Udis Sudeikis, Sudeikis, Udis Sudeikis, my son. It just sounds better. Udis Sudeikis, Daisy Sudeikis.

• 53:25Sam Fragoso?

  None of this sounds good. Sounds better.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  It's neat being on one of the only shows that says people's full names, like for, for at least eight years.

• 53:35Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think SNL can survive?

• 53:36Speaker 00

  I do.

• 53:37Sam Fragoso?

  Without Lorne Michaels?

• 53:39Speaker 00

  It did barely for those five years without him. I think, and, and I think it's only gotten stronger and better. Now, will it be the same in the sense of the infrastructure and like the, like the, um, like the business side of it? I like, that's where, that's where, that's above my pay grade. Like, would, would they be given the same leniencies? It's, I think it needs to be different than what Willy Wonka says. Cause you know, remember the end of that movie? He's like, I, you know, an adult would come in and want to do things their way. And like, and it's like, oh, I think there's, I think you'd, you'd be in good hands. There, I mean, there's probably a few people. I think Seth could do a really good job too. Like, um, but yeah, it's fun. It's, it's kind of, it's kind

• 54:21Speaker 00

  of fun to think about, but, but, but I would only be down with it if, if, if, if Lorne is, you know?

• 54:27Sam Fragoso?

  Recently, I went up to San Francisco for a conference. It was a very, very quick trip and one that I spent most of my time meeting new people and having a lot of candid conversations. But in between meetings and presentations and talking, we had unreasonably, unseasonably good weather for San Francisco. And so with that good weather, I made good use of it. I walked around the city, met up with friends for dinner, went into some bookstores. And those couple of days just made me think about breaking out of our normal routines, even if it's just for a quick work trip, and how you notice the things that give each city its own unique character. As a result, I've been thinking differently about my own place when I'm away. Rather than simply letting it sit empty while I

• 55:10Sam Fragoso?

  travel, I've considered listing my space on Airbnb and giving someone visiting Los Angeles a comfortable home where they can discover the city for themselves. Maybe they'll find a neighborhood restaurant they love or a museum they didn't know about. And the extra income can help offset my costs for a future trip. So next time you're planning a getaway for yourself, why not consider listing your space while you're gone? Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host. Ahead of these interviews, I spent most of my week, uh, deep in research, reading books, going through articles, writing outlines, and sometimes finding the right environment to actually focus can be a little bit difficult. I've tried listening to music while I work,

• 55:54Sam Fragoso?

  but to be honest, I end up paying too much attention to the music. Then I start singing along, then I'm looking at the lyrics instead of the guest. And silence isn't always the best option either. That's what's interested me about Endol. Endol is an app that creates personalized soundscapes designed to help you focus, sleep, and manage ADHD. Instead of putting on songs you actively listen to, Endol uses what they call functional sound. Endless, evolving soundscapes that fade into the background and create a protective layer around whatever it is that you're doing. The sounds are backed by neuroscience and adapt based on things like your current state, environment, and circadian rhythm. I started using Endol while I'm reading and preparing for these interviews. And what I like about

• 56:38Sam Fragoso?

  it is that it's the one thing that doesn't ask me to do anything else. I turn it on, it starts working, and eventually I almost forget what's playing. More than 5 million people use Endol. And if you're someone who has trouble finding quiet, or just wants a little help staying focused, I think it's worth giving it a go. You can try the app for free today. Click the link in this episode's description, or visit their website at endel.io/talkeasy. Get seven free days of Endol to support better sleep, recovery, and focus. Find the link in the show notes.

• 57:13Sam Fragoso?

  So, so when you were done with SNL, you said it was similar to the end of season three of Ted Lasso?

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, just the idea of done.

• 57:21Sam Fragoso?

  I'm done.

• 57:21Speaker 00

  Whether people accepted the premise or not.

• 57:23Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I think one of the reasons people did or did not accept the premise is because when the third season happened, in reading all the press around it, there was so much written about it being over budget, the shoot going on, long and long, and et cetera, et cetera. Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Yes, he does.

• 57:42Sam Fragoso?

  Called it death by a thousand cuts.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  In relation to what?

• 57:45Sam Fragoso?

  In relation to what went wrong in season three, in the making of it.

• 57:49Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 57:50Sam Fragoso?

  What were the incisions as, as you understand them?

• 57:54Speaker 00

  I mean, we were budgeted for a 30 minute show, and yet the storytelling from, in season two, you know, the average, the average running time went up. And that, and that was, you know, a byproduct of having more characters. We were serving more stories.

• 58:06Sam Fragoso?

  More characters you liked.

• 58:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. And more, more characters that, that inspired, you know, more storylines. And so that's, that's really what it was. I think, I think you go back into it and, you know, if it's budgeted for 30 minutes, but the average episode was now 50 minutes? Cause there's just this, I don't know, there's this weird thing that goes on where we put these things in these boxes of like, oh, comedy's only 30 minutes and drama is an hour. And that, and I'm like, I don't, like, how are we through all that? You know, when you have shows like, like ours that some people don't think is funny and some people think, or, you know, don't think, you know, you know, The Bear is, is comedy enough or Widows Bay is comedy enough? And yet they, they clearly have elements of humor in them.

• 58:52Speaker 00

  And it's like, but what, what is a comedy? What is it? I don't, like, I don't know what the hell's going on anymore. It's like, so why is anybody trying to put anything on anybody?

• 59:00Sam Fragoso?

  So you think it was a math equation problem?

• 59:03Speaker 00

  Well, I think on our side of things, it was, I don't know, you don't know you're

• 59:11Speaker 00

  over, like, I, I never during those three, four years, the four years now, like ever, you know, knew the budget or understood the budget. That was never like part of my job description, as, as explained to me, or as I knew it internally, you know? So, so it was, but then when I started to hear like, oh, it's going over, it was like, oh, you know, we just got behind on writing. So then you have to pause in July. And it wasn't, it wasn't, I, I'd heard people think that there was a lot of rewriting. It wasn't, it wasn't rewriting. It was just flat out writing. It's like you, you have outlines or stories, but the scripts aren't written. So, you know, that's, that's a little bit of me coming from the background that I come from.

• 59:52Sam Fragoso?

  That's what I was thinking. So, so, so the writing process of this, is, you said to The Hollywood Reporter, I'm not a big fan of closing the laptop until the moment, basically of action.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Sam Fragoso?

  Is that the process? Like, you kind of brought from SNL to Ted Lasso going, look, until it's commercial break, five, four, three, two, I'm gonna keep writing and rewriting till then.

• 1:00:17Speaker 00

  To a certain degree, but also things happen in the room with the way, you know, things are portrayed, or if you're, if you're, I mean, if you're on one of your own sets, you, you know, all the, the ins and outs and ups and downs and, you know, how things sound in that space, the blocking, whatnot. When you show up on a location, inspiration strikes.

• 1:00:35Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  Or the day player makes a choice, or makes a mistake that becomes a choice, or one of your own, one of our, you know, actors makes a choice, or understands the material differently. You're kind of, ooh.

• 1:00:45Sam Fragoso?

  This is more interesting. We ought to go down that road.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause it is, it is a, I'm not just stand here, say this, look at each other and do these lines. Great, moving on. It's kind of like, and what better way to use the leverage of the success of the show than to make the process, um, meaningful? You know, versus like, everybody gets watches, or whatever.

• 1:01:10Sam Fragoso?

  Right. Put it back into the show.

• 1:01:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Sam Fragoso?

  I understand that.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Sam Fragoso?

  So what was this all about then? Cause I, I'm so confused. There's so much written about you and Bill Lawrence having all these problems and

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Sam Fragoso?

  the show having all these issues. Look, making anything is hard.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Sam Fragoso?

  It's a big pain in the ass. People don't get along all the time. I, I barely get along with myself. In fact, I don't.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:01:32Sam Fragoso?

  So like, when, when he leaves and, and you bring in this new showrunner, Jack Burditt, is that, is that his name?

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  That was for this year. Yeah.

• 1:01:41Sam Fragoso?

  For this new season.

• 1:01:42Speaker 00

  He wasn't there, season three.

• 1:01:43Sam Fragoso?

  Right. At the beginning of season four, Bill Lawrence calls Jack and he says, quote, here's how to deal with the show. Here's how to deal with Jason. So if we're thinking about it like in a scouting report.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:58Sam Fragoso?

  What would he have said that's, that's on the Sudeikis scouting report?

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  You know, I, I would have always, and will always have wanted.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  And I've said, I said this during season three, I've said this, you know, during season four, behind the scenes, you know, in, on a microphone that like I, my preference would have been that everything, certainly the first three years would have, the plane would have landed with all the same people it took off with.

• 1:02:26Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, to have the team intact.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it didn't seem like that, like that wild of an idea. Again, a lesson I learned at SNL, all sorts of people that I, that you get to know there, you know, even starting with, with the pages that work at the, at the desk on eight, you get to know all their names and then you realize, oh gosh, it's a whole new crew in three months or six months. And it doesn't mean you don't learn their names, but, but maybe you don't, you know, think they're going to be in your life forever. Uh, cause I think I had that sense about even Second City, like from, cause my uncle George married someone that was in his cast. So I thought you ended up, you know, I mean, so did I ultimately as well, funny enough, but like, but you don't always become best friends. You don't always see eye to eye about everything through, throughout. Um, and maybe I keep that kind

• 1:03:13Speaker 00

  of rose colored glasses a little bit to this day or that hope. But I also can understand that that's not where everybody comes from or what everybody needs, what everybody wants. And so some people got out of the first couple of years, what they needed, you know, that was different than what I needed.

• 1:03:29Sam Fragoso?

  You don't strike me as a terribly difficult person to work with.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  I know I could read things more, read things earlier.

• 1:03:38Sam Fragoso?

  Is this your coach saying you could have got less sleep?

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, for me, reading something, like it's really, it's, I mean, it's, it's a very, like exhaustive, it's exhausting because to give, to give notes and it also can stop a, a level of momentum, uh, that, that is, that I, that I, that I worry about it, like causing more damage to, it's like the wheels coming off and then the sound of, you know, a wagon like against gravel, it slides off and children screaming and stuff like that versus if I don't, if I, if I don't read it, then there's part of me that maybe has tricked myself into thinking I'm trusting that the wagon

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  will make it to the bottom of the hill and everybody will be safe. And maybe we'll lose a few things out the back, but hopefully no one that, that isn't too injured that they can't walk down here and, and you know, once we've set up camp, be like, oh, thank God, there you are. You know, I mean, I procrastinate. I don't know if that's, you know, again, that's, that's one of those reasons why I think I gravitated towards improvisation. There's, you don't procrastinate. It's, it's built in. You're making it now, something wonderful right away. SNL, it's, it's done because it's not because it's, it's good, not because it's ready, but because it's 1130. It's like, this is, this is a little different, you know, and, and people just, you know, that do like the desk, the, the

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  day to day jobs at like desks and like need to know what these people are wearing and what location they're going to be wearing them in.

• 1:05:15Sam Fragoso?

  You've said that Ted Lasso is you if you've had two pints on an empty stomach.

• 1:05:20Speaker 00

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:05:21Sam Fragoso?

  Or like you on mushrooms in Amsterdam.

• 1:05:24Speaker 00

  Well, I always thought the character with Ted would like, you know, I was reading, uh, how to change your mind during the time of writing that pilot. It struck me that, oh, Ted is, Ted, or like his ethos, his philosophy was like mushrooms, you know, he's meeting people straight up, like with, like egoless. Um, the, he had the, the beer thing is more, is more speaking towards his optimism. And so there's a freedom of Ted playing within the rules, you know, like within the confines of, of the space that's, that's allowed for him that I think, you know, I, I feel that, that playfulness, um, certainly on mushrooms,

• 1:06:08Speaker 00

  certainly just when in a good mood. Um, yeah, it doesn't always have to be substance, you know, inspired, but, but, but that, that was, that was like an easy fun metaphor that I thought maybe people could understand, uh, me where, where I was coming from there.

• 1:06:21Sam Fragoso?

  But Brendan, your co-star says that the two beers is not a necessary qualifier. Quote, Ted Lasso is very much a representative of a part of Jason, a well intentioned Midwestern yokel who really gives a shit about other people and who has a knack for seeing stuff that other people don't quite see.

• 1:06:39Speaker 00

  That's lovely. That's nice to hear while still alive. Uh, where'd he say that? He tell you, you don't, you don't call people, you said that in the press?

• 1:06:45Sam Fragoso?

  Sometimes I do, but he did say that in the Hollywood Reporter.

• 1:06:48Speaker 00

  Oh, no kidding. That's nice. That's sweet.

• 1:06:52Sam Fragoso?

  Is that right?

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  It's like, I mean, it's the best parts of me. So I would say that, that when I hear those things back, you know, I, I think that those are some of the, the, the things about myself that I've learned to understand and appreciate and love. Um, I think we all have access. I think, I think one of those people asks, why does this show resonate? You know, and I don't know, right? I don't really know, but you try to theorize, right? And I think Ted's in like, in a lot of different people and people have someone like that or have had someone like that, or, or much like myself, maybe really just really wanted someone like that, like given at various points in my life. And so, so I, it's hard to take ownership over it, even though I'm, you know, writing a bunch of it and, and

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  saying a bunch of it, but, but it's like, I think it's, you know, but a blessing and it's a blessing and a curse, you know, totally. But I don't, I don't, I've, I've accepted the responsibility.

• 1:07:48Sam Fragoso?

  What's the curse part of it?

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  Oh, people conflating, you know, one with the other. Like, I don't look at him as like perfect. I think, I look at him as like a flawed man.

• 1:07:57Sam Fragoso?

  Definitely not.

• 1:07:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Sam Fragoso?

  Especially as the seasons go on.

• 1:07:59Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. Yeah. I just, I, I think he's human. I think they are. I mean, they've all broken my heart in one way or another. They're, you know, they have things going on that we've never even shared that, you know, that, that I just know is part of their makeup that I think is like really compelling and lovely.

• 1:08:15Sam Fragoso?

  There's so much, obviously that you're putting in there that runs parallel to your life. I mean, the, the kid raising children and separating and living far away and trying to navigate what's important to you versus, you know, career versus, a lot of challenges in that. And knowing where you were at the end of 23, it does seem like a lot. Like it, it just seems like a lot. And I, I remember you did this interview in GQ and you said, after the split, you said, I'll have a better understanding of why in a year and an even better one in two years and even greater one in five years.

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:57Sam Fragoso?

  And I was thinking, now that we're five years from that, it was 2021, that quote.

• 1:09:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:09:02Sam Fragoso?

  A lot's happened. Do you understand what happened and where you were at and, and where you are now? Has that, has that tracked to you?

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  To a certain degree, uh, you know, that was me being optimistic, thinking sometimes, you know, if that, that old equation of like, heartbreak, you know, or, or any variation of it, um, takes half as long as, as the process itself, you know, or some version of that, right? Like, you know, to get over something.

• 1:09:34Sam Fragoso?

  A mother good at math, but yeah.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. So like, so if it was a 10 year relationship, five years from, and 2020 would have been five years. Uh, and it might be, you know, the same answer towards what those things that I could do better in relation to the show. I think it's just flat out just communication.

• 1:09:53Sam Fragoso?

  What, what do you mean?

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  Being, I could have communicated better within, you know, how I, how I felt, how things were making me feel, um, how things, how things, you know, make me feel. I, I think, um, you know, if I don't, if my parents never see my bad grades, then we never have to talk about my bad grades, even though the grades still exist.

• 1:10:19Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  So if I don't, if I'm, if I'm feeling a certain way and I don't talk about it, that doesn't make it go away. And it's unfair for someone to be a mind reader, whether that person be, you know, a, a partner or, you know, a boss at SNL or, you know, a line producer for a television show, you know? So it's like, how do you, how do you convey these ideas, you know, quicker, even if it's to then change them? Except, cause I have a tendency to not just like think a long time and then write versus write to rewrite. Like other people, other people will write things and just get it down on

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  wax, get it down on paper. And then it's kind of like, then that's all suggestion.

• 1:11:07Sam Fragoso?

  So you'll wait.

• 1:11:07Speaker 00

  So I'll, I'll wait to, to, and that, that, and, and I would say that I probably that in relation to like that quote, one thing I've learned is that like waited a little too long.

• 1:11:19Sam Fragoso?

  And, and it's bubbling up and all that.

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. And coming on different ways, the same way like, you know, the reason we, you know, we burp or a breaks, screech, you know, it's like warning signs, like, you know, the body's trying to tell you stuff.

• 1:11:31Sam Fragoso?

  I can't imagine for the two of you.

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Sam Fragoso?

  Like kind of going through that in public.

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Sam Fragoso?

  And you and Olivia have, have raised these, these two kids. You're kind of modeling this co-parenting thing, which is very much, God, in this new season especially. Um, of that whirlwind, of that nonsense, what did it get wrong? Like what nuance did it leave out?

• 1:11:58Speaker 00

  Oh gosh. I mean, a million little things, but, but what's, what's interesting is that it allows you capacity for empathy for when others go through those. And you need not be, you know, as, as lucky as we are to get to do something that we love. I mean, I can't, you know, I know Olivia loves what she does and is very, very good at and always has been. I'm thrilled for her. And I feel very fortunate and that I'm doing what I'm, you know, supposed to be doing. But I can only tell you that you go through all that and it's allowed me an opportunity to sort of see when other folks are going through

• 1:12:36Speaker 00

  something similar, to like just sort of like feel into that and just sort of put out there like, you know, like, um, all things must pass, you know? And when they do, I think it's, it's, I think the responsible thing is to, um,

• 1:13:06Speaker 00

  At least what is felt responsible for me is to, is to just,

• 1:13:12Speaker 00

  you know, not dwell too much in other people's folly.

• 1:13:22Speaker 00

  You know, it's,

• 1:13:25Speaker 00

  it's not easy. I mean, you know, a little bit of research, you know, I did on you. It makes me think about that quote, the Roger Debert quote, you know, kind of one of your original theses for this show. Does this ring a bell? I don't have it memorized by any means.

• 1:13:40Sam Fragoso?

  That we must contribute joy to this world?

• 1:13:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:43Sam Fragoso?

  That was what I said on the first episode of the show.

• 1:13:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, that I think, I think there's a great deal of confusion of

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  contributing joy.

• 1:13:55Speaker 00

  Shows up, can be done in, in different ways. These days and, and sometimes at, at the behest, is that the right word?

• 1:14:04Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  Of, of people. And I'm, I'm, I would probably challenge if that's, if that's true joy. If that's, if that's actual joy, having been on the receiving end of, of some of those people's joy.

• 1:14:15Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean?

• 1:14:16Speaker 00

  Like, I mean, just schadenfreude or, or, or, or the, the assumptions that people put, or the, the mirroring that occurs when you become sort of.

• 1:14:24Sam Fragoso?

  You mean the pleasure people took in things falling apart publicly?

• 1:14:28Speaker 00

  Sure, sure.

• 1:14:29Sam Fragoso?

  It's an odd way to move through the world.

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't wish it on anyone because I don't think it really moves the needle. And to be clear, this isn't like, like all evil is just misunderstood or something like that. I just mean like these, these interpersonal situations that, that then get portrayed as being these, you know, binary situations of right and wrong, you know, left and right, whatever, male, female. I, I, I'm, it's, it's, it's always more complicated, more human than that.

• 1:14:59Sam Fragoso?

  This is the only time in this interview that you have

• 1:15:06Sam Fragoso?

  slowed down.

• 1:15:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I'm sort of, because I'm feeling it. It's like, it's, it's like one of those things that, that I don't want to be, I don't want to float above it. I mean, I've said this in therapy, I've said this under, you know, you know, you know, during medicinal journeys, I do not want to float above it. Think I'm bigger than it. I do not want to be buried beneath it.

• 1:15:28Sam Fragoso?

  You don't want to be 300,000?

• 1:15:29Speaker 00

  No, no. Rarely 30, unless I'm going to somewhere and I'm going with people I love to see more people I love. You know what I mean? Or to do something I love.

• 1:15:40Speaker 00

  I just want to ride the wave. It's scary as shit, you know? Yeah, it, it demands my like,

• 1:15:52Speaker 00

  patience. So maybe that's why I slowed it, slowed it down because it's like, it's real. There's like real people that, that, and people that I love. You know, that I hold very near and dear. That I would never

• 1:16:09Speaker 00

  in a million years, you know, choose to like

• 1:16:14Speaker 00

  weaponize or destroy or humiliate or.

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  No, it's just, it's just not.

• 1:16:24Speaker 00

  That, that, I just wouldn't be able to stomach that.

• 1:16:27Sam Fragoso?

  Live with it.

• 1:16:28Speaker 00

  Live with it, eat with it, breathe with it. I wouldn't be able to like, I wouldn't be able to leave the house. I'd feel, yeah, it'd be, it'd be bad. I think my whole worldview, the way I was born, the way I will die, like would be completely different if I was, if I was,

• 1:16:47Speaker 00

  if I was just like la di da about it all.

• 1:16:50Sam Fragoso?

  Well, in terms of being productive, I gotta say, um, before we go, you, you have put some of this at least

• 1:17:00Sam Fragoso?

  in an episode of this new season, episode six of season four. And you and, and the woman, I can't remember her name, who's playing your ex-wife.

• 1:17:09Speaker 00

  Oh, Andrea, Michelle.

• 1:17:10Sam Fragoso?

  You guys are like throwing darts.

• 1:17:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:12Sam Fragoso?

  And it's such a good scene. It is such a moving exchange, but there's a scene right after that that I wanted to watch here because I just think it's one of, I just found it to be one of the most moving scenes of, of the show.

• 1:17:27Sam Fragoso?

  So this is from season four, episode six.

• 1:17:29Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:17:31Speaker 00

  Oh, sure.

• 1:17:32Sam Fragoso?

  Of Ted Lasso.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  What can I say? I'm sorry I didn't have a shady therapist pursuing me, making my return to dating so easy.

• 1:17:40Speaker 07

  What are you talking about?

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  Well, you and Dr. Jacob. That guy manipulated that whole situation because he had the heart for you.

• 1:17:47Speaker 07

  That's not what happened, Ted. He didn't pursue me. If anything, it was the other way around.

• 1:17:56Speaker 07

  After our divorce, I hated myself. For over a year, I sat at home every night, vacillating between feeling guilty and feeling confused, always putting on a brave face for Henry.

• 1:18:09Speaker 07

  Then one day I'm grocery shopping in my pajamas and I see Jake haggling with the cashier over an expired coupon.

• 1:18:18Speaker 07

  Asked him out on the spot. And he said, no, because it was a former client. I insisted. Nothing romantic, I said, and it wasn't, not for months.

• 1:18:30Speaker 07

  I was just sad and lonely and I just thought, well,

• 1:18:36Speaker 07

  if I'm going to spend time with someone, it might as well be somebody that already knows all my [BLEEP]. So I don't have to explain it all and they don't have to come figure it out.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  I didn't know you were going through all that.

• 1:18:52Speaker 07

  How could you?

• 1:18:55Speaker 07

  I feel a lot better now, but I do worry about you.

• 1:19:00Speaker 07

  I've learned divorce makes us do crazy things, but it doesn't make you a failure.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  You remember my first head coaching job down at Fort Scott?

• 1:19:17Speaker 07

  God, in that tiny apartment?

• 1:19:19Speaker 02

  You couldn't fit a large pizza in that joint.

• 1:19:24Speaker 02

  Every morning I'd wake up, I'd be like, oh, today's the day. They gonna sniff me out, they gonna send me packing. Not you though, nope. He just kept on encouraging me. Writing me little notes. Making signs I could hang up in my office.

• 1:19:46Speaker 02

  You always could see things in me that I couldn't see in myself at times.

• 1:19:51Speaker 02

  Good and bad.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  So yeah, you're right.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  I keep telling my truth at work.

• 1:20:02Speaker 02

  Whoever I'm coaching or coaching with.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  And yes, I should probably ask someone out on a date.

• 1:20:12Speaker 07

  Well, as Mark Twain would say, continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.

• 1:20:21Speaker 02

  Wait, are we talking about coaching or dating?

• 1:20:24Speaker 07

  I'm just talking about Mark Twain.

• 1:20:27Speaker 02

  You're damn right.

• 1:20:36Speaker 00

  It's really, really interesting

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  when people who

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  go through something and forgive someone. I always find it odd that the person that who has the most to forgive and they find the ability to do so that people around them don't. People, there's, there's, there's segments of the Ted Lasso audience that really disliked the Michelle character and really demonized her and vilified her. And in a way that I, I just, just broke my heart, you know, because I was like, oh, but Ted loves her. Like, that's the mother of his children. What are you doing? How like, and I can't yell at him, can't talk to him, you know, you can't really, I don't know where it's coming from. I mean, is it, is it just flat out misogyny? I don't know. Is it just, is it bad writing? You know what I mean? I don't think it's Andrea's performance by any means.

• 1:21:24Speaker 00

  So it's like, this story that, that Michelle goes on to share is exactly what ended up happening. That that there was no level of manipulation, that she was just, she didn't feel good. She'd been with this man for a long time and she knew she needed to leave him and it was heartbreaking to her and it was heartbreaking to him.

• 1:21:45Speaker 00

  And we never know what people are going through. You know, and same thing Ted says in, in season two to Dr. Sharon, I, you know, I never, never gonna let someone go through something without, you know, because you never need to, like, someone might be going through something bad. He's talking about his dad, but he's talking about everybody he meets. And he didn't do it for his mother of his children. And I think it really, like, she kind of lets him, doesn't judge him for it, but just says it very, I don't know, what'd he say? Not scholastically, because she obviously gets emotional here, but she's through that, that dark forest, you know?

• 1:22:24Sam Fragoso?

  She has language.

• 1:22:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, she has language to understand it. And, but does he, I think for the, for the first time, certainly on, on screen between the two of them, he has language, you know, or access to feelings to hear her versus trying to fix it. You know what I mean? He's just, he's just there with her. He's present with her the same way he's about to be present with Alice in a couple of episodes later. I love that scene, you know? And that was one that, that, that monologue was something that was, you know, that Andrea was memorizing that morning.

• 1:22:52Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  You know? But, but she as a human being has lived a lot of life, a lot of lives. And she brought all that into it. And the details of it with the sound off, like, you know what's happening there. Like, with the, the camera pushing in and all that, and all those neat things that movie making, TV making, filmmaking can, can help accentuate what's going on there. But at the end of the day, that's just, that's two people that really, really care about each other, that still do and always will, regardless of having a child between them. Like, just, just between them. The kid is, the kid is a byproduct of that love. So nice.

• 1:23:33Sam Fragoso?

  I think it is amazing that you and Olivia with the invite, which is excellent.

• 1:23:38Speaker 00

  I've not seen it yet, but I, but I'm excited to see it.

• 1:23:40Sam Fragoso?

  It's worth seeing.

• 1:23:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Sam Fragoso?

  Um, that you both have just decided, I could, you know, could do a Marvel movie. You decide, we're gonna go right at the thing and fold it into the work in some way. It's of course not autobiographical, but-

• 1:23:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. It's more universal than that. You know, I'm not the first person to, um, be on the giving or receiving end of a, of a breakup. You know, so much, so much of my stories or, or interpretations of other people's stories, or, or the wish fulfillment for my own stories are buried in any one of these characters.

• 1:24:19Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  And that's not just because I sit there when I'm writing, talk to myself as these people and do bad impressions of any of them, like I used to do with, you know, Fred characters. You know, like, let these, let these, you know, interesting, clever, sensitive kids, let them, let them talk to each other and talk to themselves and, and, and give it to people. And hopefully they're strong enough for those people to give it back.

• 1:24:42Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm. For years, fans of Ted Lasso have come up to you. And they've said, because of how it deals with divorce, co-parenting, separation, mental health, depression, et cetera, that it helped them.

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:58Sam Fragoso?

  In many ways. People all over the world have said this to you.

• 1:25:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Sam Fragoso?

  And you have always said, Ted Lasso saved me too.

• 1:25:05Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:25:06Sam Fragoso?

  And yet I have never heard you talk about how and what it saved you from.

• 1:25:15Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:25:16Sam Fragoso?

  We're back to the arms being crossed.

• 1:25:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, for support, so I don't fall over and pass out and ruin, break your mic. Well, certainly, I mean, like, some form of self-harm, flat out. Like, where it's just like, no, no, no, we're not, we're not doing that, homie. Which she hadn't felt like since, you know, the confusing teenage years, you know, where you're just like, poof. That's probably the rawest, most, maybe embarrassing, but I don't think it's embarrassing, maybe like, but it does, it does bubble up shame in me to think like, how dare you? How dare you have those kind of thoughts, you know?

• 1:25:53Sam Fragoso?

  This is before you go to Chicago?

• 1:25:55Speaker 00

  Oh, this has been before, yeah, before, like, before I transferred to Shawnee Mission West. You know, this has been, yeah, like freshman, sophomore of, of high school, like those kind of ideations, like, you know, things that you sort of like, oh my God, like, you just, when the, when the pain just becomes, it's what I'm most envious of drummers and dancers. It's like, I just want to fucking, like, just-

• 1:26:17Sam Fragoso?

  Find a way to get it out.

• 1:26:18Speaker 00

  Spin, like, a fucking, some cross between Taylor Hawkins and Billy Elliot. And just, just leap and just fucking, like, yeah.

• 1:26:28Sam Fragoso?

  Do you still have that?

• 1:26:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In like, in like, in like, the best way, you know? Those, those are, those are some of the best parts of me. They're also some of the most scary to me, because it's, it's like such, it's so raw and so, so vulnerable. So, so how did it save me? To a certain degree, it, it helped, like, it carried me as, as, as sometimes the work is done in the past and, and previous relationships carried me in like, you know, Bernie and Weekend at Bernie's. Like, it brought me into this thing with the sunglasses on and the mustache. And just like, here I am.

• 1:27:12Speaker 00

  And yet, and it allowed me to, like, this, this, this metaphor that I would use in the writer's room a lot is like, you can confuse yourself and think this is a fist, but this is like something else that's in there. And it can be something or someone. And eventually, as you get strong again and become a fist, whether to, you know, defend yourself or make a point or, or, or fight the power, it's just like, this shit will fall off. And then you'd just be left there with yourself. And so as I'm doing that, yeah, the show afforded me the time to like, it's like, oh, get, get to here. Now, I don't know if I, if I fully did, but it's like, it does, it does get you there. It does get you there. And it's, we do get there.

• 1:27:55Speaker 00

  May we all get there before we, you know, you do it this way. Um, or, you know, or whatever. But, yeah, I, like, that scene for me is like folds, and maybe that's why you brought it in and it, it entered into here, was it's like, and I have a friend whose father had this great quote, that's kind of a, a reinterpretation of the old, there's three sides to every story, his side, her side, and the truth, you know, they're just making it gender. There's that, there's that verse, but he had an updated one, which I think is more, even more accurate. And even more so in this day and age, like, there's four sides to every story. His side, her side, the truth, and then what really happened.

• 1:28:36Speaker 00

  And so the show gives us all an opportunity to sort of like, remind, it remind, it gets to remind me of that when meeting someone and you're kind of like, oh, oh, like, like you, you, you've gone through shit. I've gone through shit. We're gonna keep going through shit.

• 1:28:56Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 1:28:58Speaker 00

  Are you gonna like, utilize it or are you gonna weaponize it? You know, you, it's like, I'm just trying to utilize it, because I don't want to be above it. I don't want to be buried beneath it.

• 1:29:10Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 1:29:11Speaker 00

  I'm gonna use it to like, and look out for others that are also like, okay, you good? You good? Oh shit, man down, woman down, let's go, let's go, let's get over there. Or help, help, you know, if I, if I can't do it myself, because I'm like, oh fuck, I can't get over there. It's pushing me this way.

• 1:29:27Sam Fragoso?

  In the Criterion Closet, you were talking about after hours.

• 1:29:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:31Sam Fragoso?

  And you said, uh, someone would, would come up to me and they'd go, why didn't he just, why didn't he just go north? And you said, sometimes it's just not that easy.

• 1:29:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:29:43Sam Fragoso?

  And I gotta tell you that, uh, I am concerned, that is concerning, that raw feeling. And it's weird, because you remind me so much of my best friend in a really weird, specific way. What do you do with that?

• 1:30:03Speaker 00

  Which part?

• 1:30:04Sam Fragoso?

  That, that, that, that getting close to the bone where you think it's better to discontinue than continue.

• 1:30:12Speaker 00

  Look around. Like, listen more. I think feel more. I think the kids say touch grass. Yeah. It hasn't happened in a while, that feeling. And it's never, it's never gotten to the point where it's-

• 1:30:41Speaker 00

  Like consumed, but it's like, oh, don't, you know, it's, it's not. It's not this present. And even in those moments, it was, it was. The duality in me was being, was asking me to confront it so that I knew that I didn't want it. Right? And it wasn't because, oh, you've got money in the bank or it's, it's. I can't even do it for the kiddos. You know what I mean? Even though that's a good enough reason to never indulge.

• 1:31:14Sam Fragoso?

  What are you doing for them?

• 1:31:16Speaker 00

  For you. We gotta do it for ourselves. We gotta do it for, for, for the, for the gift of it all. I think, I think, I hope. And if there's anything, maybe that's, that's, you know, I just gotta remind myself that I can do both those things. I can think and hope. And the show is a little bit of a byproduct of, you know, of, of those things of thinking and hoping. It's, it's about as close as I think I've ever felt to like George Bailey or Ebenezer Scrooge, right? You know what I mean? Like where you're kind of like get to see. Your life have people talking about you like in a, in a way that like you don't like, you mean, again, I hear that quote from Brendan like that, like that, that dude, that's like, that guy's fucking.

• 1:31:58Speaker 00

  I hold that guy in real, real high regard as, as just a human being.

• 1:32:02Sam Fragoso?

  But it's not just that you're holding the good one, but there's also the bad quotes.

• 1:32:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, but those aren't as bad as the ones I can write. Yeah, I'm always, I always got notes on the bad ones. So like, I could, I could have done better than that. So that's my turn in like, you know, Eminem from Eight Mile. I start, I really start, you know, flaying myself.

• 1:32:21Sam Fragoso?

  So what does this all mean for you moving forward? You want to keep going back to the well? Do you have season five and six mapped out? Is that the plan?

• 1:32:31Speaker 00

  I mean, that's, that was the endeavor of going back into it was just sort of the like, oh, I think there's, there's more, there's more, there's more in there.

• 1:32:40Sam Fragoso?

  The cup.

• 1:32:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna need a bigger cup, you know, like I.

• 1:32:44Sam Fragoso?

  That was Jaws.

• 1:32:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, right? The, we'll see, like it takes, it takes a village. So, you know, I, I, I would.

• 1:32:54Sam Fragoso?

  Do you want to do it?

• 1:32:56Speaker 00

  I would like to, yeah. Yeah. I think it'd be, I think it'd be, it'd be fun.

• 1:32:59Sam Fragoso?

  You're being mighty coy about whether there's gonna be more seasons of the show.

• 1:33:04Speaker 00

  Oh, unintentionally.

• 1:33:05Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 1:33:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:06Sam Fragoso?

  Do you just not know?

• 1:33:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just don't know. We haven't, we haven't started a writers room or anything like that.

• 1:33:10Sam Fragoso?

  But they would, Apple would do it if presumably you want to keep going.

• 1:33:15Speaker 00

  I would, I would assume so.

• 1:33:16Sam Fragoso?

  Not gonna win?

• 1:33:17Speaker 00

  Sure. All of it.

• 1:33:18Sam Fragoso?

  Okay. You famously did not break a lot during SNL. You, you kept it together.

• 1:33:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:26Sam Fragoso?

  And the only time I can really find you, I guess, breaking is in 2021. When you're hosting the show, around the period we've been talking about, you're going through stuff and God knows what. And you're talking about being there on stage. And I was wondering why, what made you so emotional in that moment?

• 1:33:58Speaker 00

  I don't know. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta die to get to, to rise again. And it was, it was like, that place had that, had that for me. And I think it's one of my favorite things about sketch comedy. It's like every time the lights go out, that's death. That's a blackout. And then scene comes up and here we are. It's rebirth. Oh, that's the same guy that was playing that guy. Now he's playing this guy. And it's like, I love that. I love that. Especially because it's a, you know, group of people. Like I love it at Second City. I love it in, you know, homecoming sketch show or skits, you know, I just, I just love sketch comedy.

• 1:34:37Sam Fragoso?

  When you're looking at the different versions of yourself, what do you make of all that?

• 1:34:42Speaker 00

  The most profound one was by myself. When I went back to the, the one bedroom apartment I was renting in midtown after my first episode in the cast. I went to the after party and went to the after after. Then I came home and I had bought this futon because I thought for sure I was gonna, you know, get, you know, get sent packing. Just like Ted says to Michelle in that scene, you know, I thought they were gonna send me home. They hadn't. They just kept, they kept putting me more into the fabric of the damn place. And I re, and I was laying in bed. I was like, I gotta watch this shit. I get up and I just watched the intros and just hearing Don Pardo say my name and just like just bawling.

• 1:35:22Speaker 00

  It was like in May of 2005, I guess. And it was, it was, it was, it was wild. It was like, it, it didn't feel, it didn't feel real. And so then that was the first time. And then to go home and see it in the same, you know, again, different couch, different TV, but same wall, same ceiling, same, same carpet that like, that, that felt. That's, that's like, you know, like kind of like, you know, that scene in Ratatouille, kind of thing where.

• 1:35:49Sam Fragoso?

  Why did it make you bawl?

• 1:35:51Speaker 00

  Cause I was so, it's, cause, cause I'd know how hard it was and how hard it's been for other people and how hard it always will be to, to, to, to think you can do something than to actually do it. It's like I'd forgotten what it was like to talk and walk, but it felt as epic as that probably did to like a little kid. Cause it just didn't, it just never seemed possible, regardless of who my, my uncle was, regardless of what I'd got to see and do up to that point. Where the, it was just, it was just like, it was just overwhelming. It is. It's like one of those, one of those, one of those things that you just like, he like, he just like, I got to play like it.

• 1:36:31Speaker 00

  At Madison Square Garden, you know what I mean? Like I had to play it like, that's what, that's what's going on. That, that, that sketch was like, cause I wrote that or that monologue, I wrote that the night before. Cause I love all those men and women that work behind the scenes there. And we do, it does become a job. But very few of us get to work at a place where when you're walking in, people are taking their picture out in front of it. Or you get to have those opportunities. One of the neatest things about my job is getting to bring people I know and love to go see things that I know they love. And SNL is one of those things. And they get to come in. That's the best show ever. Cause it's their first time there. Place is so small. Cause it feels so big in their heads and hearts and soul. And it's just kind of fun to remind us all, cause these are all,

• 1:37:14Speaker 00

  all these, all these people are on the ship, all these people are on the plane.

• 1:37:17Sam Fragoso?

  They're life sized.

• 1:37:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. And they're real. And like, this place is real. And we've been here. We're here tonight. And we keep going.

• 1:37:25Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I want to thank you for, uh, we kind of started 30,000, 300,000, back down to 30,000.

• 1:37:31Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:37:32Sam Fragoso?

  Here together.

• 1:37:33Speaker 00

  Here we are.

• 1:37:33Sam Fragoso?

  And, um, thank you for all the time, sir.

• 1:37:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, man. Thank you.

• 1:37:37Sam Fragoso?

  Jason Sudeikis. Appreciate you.

• 1:38:03Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you for watching Talk Easy. If you enjoyed today's episode with Jason Sudeikis, be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever you do your podcasting. As always, you can reach me at [email protected]. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our editor is Jessica Brooke Sanders. Video graphics come from Will Tunnanham. Mixing, Andrew Vastola. Social media by Lucy McGraw. Photographs today come from email, Ravello. This episode, as all episodes are, are made by the good people at Higher Ground Media. And I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. I'll see you back here next Sunday. Until then, stay safe and so long.

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• 1:40:01Speaker 05

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together. We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats. I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there? There were 32,000 pounds of them. 32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:40:24Speaker 05

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast, What It's Like to Be.