Lisa Kudrow Returns | Club Random with Bill Maher

Lisa Kudrow returns to Club Random for a second conversation with Bill Maher, and the Friends star proves once again why she's one of Hollywood's sharpest and most refreshingly un-Hollywood voices. Lisa reflects on The Comeback Season 3, playing a woman the industry keeps underestimating, her years at The Groundlings, and the acting teacher who taught her never to take rejection personally. Bill shares the most humiliating story of his sitcom career, working alongside Sam Kinison as drugs, chaos, and misplaced blame turned the set into a nightmare. The two compare disastrous early drug experiences, debate whether AI will reshape creativity or destroy it, discuss why Hollywood keeps making the same mistakes, and somehow spend ten hilarious minutes dissecting Spartacus. Oh—and did Lisa Kudrow just casually reveal that a Romy and Michele's High School Reunion sequel might actually be happening? Support our Advertisers: Get bugs out of your house with Pestie. Go to https://www.pestie.com/RANDOM for 10% off your order. Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:30Bill Maher?

  Breaking news, our merch just got a full revamp with all new designs and items. So if you want a little more random in your life, head over to clubrandom.com and check out the store. We've got premium hoodies, including our brand-new Quads hoodies, with the updated logo. Super soft t-shirts, super soft, for men and women, and even tie-dye shirts. All merch is available exclusively at clubrandom.com. While you're there, catch up on recent episodes and grab some swag and bring a little random home. Once again, that's clubrandom.com.

• 2:10Bill Maher?

  You're so not typical show business anything, and I mean that in a good way.

• 2:15Speaker 04

  Well, what I'm about to say might change your mind.

• 2:20Bill Maher?

  I think you'd like mushrooms. I mean, it's just.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  Okay, then I will.

• 2:24Bill Maher?

  It's just.

• 2:26Bill Maher?

  Bring them on out.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 2:30Bill Maher?

  Well, I have you. That's what's important.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 2:34Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'm so happy you came back to see me.

• 2:37Speaker 04

  I'm so happy you asked.

• 2:38Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 2:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:39Bill Maher?

  I never. Well, you know what? I think you and I are a lot alike. We kind of play it close to the vest. You kind of have to like.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  You do?

• 2:47Bill Maher?

  Well, you.

• 2:48Speaker 04

  What are you saying?

• 2:49Bill Maher?

  No. Like, you kind of have to with people. Like, you have to get it from actions more than like. Some people are very effusive. You know, like, they vomit a lot of love right away. And of course, in Joe's business, I'm a fan is hello.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:06Bill Maher?

  You can't not say it.

• 3:08Speaker 04

  Right. Well, you have to, though.

• 3:09Bill Maher?

  You have to.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  You have to.

• 3:11Bill Maher?

  You have to.

• 3:12Speaker 04

  I mean, don't you can sense when, you know, some people will need to know that.

• 3:17Bill Maher?

  It's just.

• 3:18Speaker 04

  They need to know that.

• 3:19Bill Maher?

  It's just got to the point. I mean, it's understandable. Maybe it was always thus. It's just understandable that if you don't say it, it's conspicuous. Then you're saying, I'm.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  I'm not familiar.

• 3:32Bill Maher?

  Trust me, I've had people sit here who are like, they don't really know what I do for a living.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  No.

• 3:37Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Who?

• 3:39Bill Maher?

  I'm not going to say names.

• 3:40Speaker 04

  But is there any, like, musicians or like?

• 3:43Bill Maher?

  Well, just like, not everybody watches your show. Not everybody watches your show.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:48Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 3:48Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 3:49Bill Maher?

  You know, we all have our own. Some people are only watching ESPN or only.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:54Bill Maher?

  Crime podcast, ladies who kill, you know, their friends.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, I know, that's true. And there's way too much to choose from.

• 4:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Just in terms of entertainment. There's so many different kinds.

• 4:09Bill Maher?

  It is an embarrassment of riches. When I think of when my youth and three, three, three, well, New York, the New York market, of course, we were, we had three local and three networks. So that was six channels. Some countries didn't, because some. Some cities didn't have that.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  No, no, we had just three networks.

• 4:28Bill Maher?

  Where were you?

• 4:30Speaker 04

  Here.

• 4:31Bill Maher?

  In California?

• 4:31Speaker 04

  In California, yeah.

• 4:33Bill Maher?

  And there's only three channels?

• 4:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, wasn't there?

• 4:35Bill Maher?

  Well, we had-

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Well, I was a kid, I wasn't watching PBS.

• 4:38Bill Maher?

  No, I know, but-

• 4:39Speaker 04

  I wasn't interested in Sesame Street as a kid.

• 4:42Bill Maher?

  That was, PBS wasn't around when I was little. We had ABC, NBC, and CBS, the three networks. There were three, there was no Fox. And then, but then we had local New York, WOR, WNEW, WPIX.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, right.

• 4:56Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Yes, we didn't have that, we had, yeah.

• 4:58Bill Maher?

  Wow, you were deprived.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  No, we, no, we had it too. KTLA, Channel 13, that's what we called it. We called them channel numbers.

• 5:06Bill Maher?

  That's where they put the kid shows, like Officer, Officer Joe Bolton. Did you have him?

• 5:11Speaker 04

  No.

• 5:11Bill Maher?

  No?

• 5:11Speaker 04

  No.

• 5:12Bill Maher?

  A cop? Cops were good.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  For kids?

• 5:16Bill Maher?

  Of course, because a cop was, the policeman is your friend, you know? We weren't in-

• 5:20Speaker 04

  Right, right, right.

• 5:20Bill Maher?

  You know, post cynical and historical. I mean, cops have done a lot of shitty things too. It's not, we're not making that up.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  No.

• 5:29Bill Maher?

  But-

• 5:29Speaker 04

  There's good and bad.

• 5:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they're, most of them, I'm sure are. And we sure don't want to live without them. And, and I, I get the chip on their shoulder.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:39Bill Maher?

  But Officer Joe was, you know, with the policeman's cabin. And, you know, they had, who was your person who like, there must have been-

• 5:46Speaker 04

  Captain Kangaroo.

• 5:47Bill Maher?

  Captain Kangaroo.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  I liked, but I loved something called Romper Room, Miss Mary Ann. And she had a magic thing, and she'd look-

• 5:55Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah, Romper Room, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  I liked it. And Wonderama.

• 5:59Bill Maher?

  We had that.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 6:00Bill Maher?

  Sonny Fox.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Was that his name?

• 6:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah, the host.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  It was Sonny Fox?

• 6:04Bill Maher?

  I believe that, I believe that is the guy.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  But I met him later.

• 6:08Bill Maher?

  Sonny Fox?

• 6:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. I thought Sonny Fox owned Toys R Us.

• 6:13Bill Maher?

  It could be a different Sonny Fox.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  No, but he was friends with-

• 6:17Bill Maher?

  Or maybe I'm just making that up, you know?

• 6:18Speaker 04

  No, I met him through Howard and Betty Fast. You know Howard Fast?

• 6:22Bill Maher?

  No.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  The writer?

• 6:23Bill Maher?

  No.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  He wrote Spartacus and-

• 6:25Bill Maher?

  Spartacus, no.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  He wrote so many.

• 6:28Bill Maher?

  Dalton Trumbull wrote Spartacus. And, and, no, that, that, because that was a big black, you know, blacklist.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Howard Fast. Howard Fast was blacklisted.

• 6:40Bill Maher?

  And he wrote Spartacus?

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:42Bill Maher?

  Why do I think Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted, wrote Spartacus?

• 6:46Speaker 04

  You got him confused with Howard Fast, who was blacklisted also.

• 6:50Bill Maher?

  Okay, Dalton Trumbo. Yeah, yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, he did, and Kirk Douglas, yeah, was in it, and they fought about that.

• 7:00Bill Maher?

  Well, whoever wrote it did a fucking awesome job. I mean, have you seen it recently?

• 7:06Speaker 04

  No, not recently.

• 7:08Bill Maher?

  You've seen it, though?

• 7:09Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 7:10Bill Maher?

  It's so great, because it's like Stanley Kubrick, before he did like the more unconventional ones that were, I mean, he certainly did, like, you know, everything he did was so different than his other movies. You know, there's no, like, genre of Stanley Kubrick.

• 7:24Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 7:25Bill Maher?

  Every movie is like, it's its own genre, and then he's on to something else. But like, that was 1960, and it's great to see that master of like, the far out, when he just said, okay, this is a studio picture, and I'm just gonna make an awesome studio.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  I didn't know he directed it. I had no clue.

• 7:43Bill Maher?

  Spartacus?

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh oh, what are we talking about? Maybe I don't know.

• 7:50Bill Maher?

  Didn't he?

• 7:51Speaker 04

  We don't have our phones, we can't check anything.

• 7:53Bill Maher?

  No, but I, I, I'm pretty sure he did.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 7:58Bill Maher?

  I think, I think that was his, yeah, he did like Paths of Glory in the late 50s.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 8:03Bill Maher?

  He did, you know, you have to, you can't immediately get the job of, okay, you do whatever crazy shit, you know, 2001, A Space Odyssey.

• 8:11Speaker 04

  You've earned the right to experiment, right, yeah.

• 8:13Bill Maher?

  You did a, you did it conventionally, and I just thought it showed his great talent, because when he put him, his mind to that, he made a great popcorn movie.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 8:24Bill Maher?

  Because that's what it is.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:26Bill Maher?

  You know, it's a real lump in the throat, I am Spartacus.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. I know that part. Yeah, I don't know, that's Gladiator stuff, yeah.

• 8:35Bill Maher?

  It's awesome.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  As a kid, I wasn't.

• 8:37Bill Maher?

  Laurence Olivier's in it.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Oh. And Tony Curtis.

• 8:42Bill Maher?

  Tony Curtis with his Brooklyn accent.

• 8:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, but who, was it, who is flirting with him in it?

• 8:49Bill Maher?

  Gene Simmons.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  No, no, the man.

• 8:53Bill Maher?

  Yes, you're right. There was like, they have a, they had the code for it, like,

• 8:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:59Bill Maher?

  Whether a man likes oysters or clams, you know, it doesn't matter. You know, they were saying it doesn't matter if you're straight or gay, but in 1960, that's as close as you could get.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 9:09Bill Maher?

  But now Jean Simmons was kinda hot. She was the slave girl.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:13Bill Maher?

  She was Spartacus's girlfriend.

• 9:14Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah.

• 9:15Bill Maher?

  Spartacus, but he's being pursued by Crassus, who was this historical figure, part of the first triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Pompey and Crassus.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah.

• 9:25Bill Maher?

  And that, that's how we'll be on the test.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  I know some things.

• 9:27Bill Maher?

  We'll be on the test.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  I'm not huge on Roman Empire.

• 9:30Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  Which was, I should be.

• 9:32Bill Maher?

  No, you shouldn't.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  If you're gonna learn anything.

• 9:34Bill Maher?

  But it's not uninteresting.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Pretty impactful, Roman Empire.

• 9:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, very, very impactful. But, so Crassus, he's pursuing, and, and so he's-

• 9:45Speaker 04

  Tony Curtis?

• 9:45Bill Maher?

  No, he's pursuing Spartacus, who's Kirk Douglas.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:49Bill Maher?

  And so he captures his girlfriend and he's got her, he wants her to like, like him. He's, come on, look at her, this guy's a slave and he's got no good clothes and, um, Crassus and I got, you know, togas and look at that fucking great fire. And, and she's, you know, she's-

• 10:06Speaker 04

  But it really is.

• 10:08Bill Maher?

  She's like, not having it.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  How many outfits do you want?

• 10:11Bill Maher?

  What?

• 10:11Speaker 04

  I have all these togas, how many outfits do you want?

• 10:14Bill Maher?

  I mean, today-

• 10:14Speaker 04

  But you just said, he doesn't have good clothes.

• 10:17Bill Maher?

  And she won't have it. At one point she says to him and he, he goes, hm, you tread the ridge between truth and insults with the skill of a mountain goat. I was like, oh, I love movies.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:30Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 10:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:31Bill Maher?

  Just, I love it when they talk, for a good reason, not like we talk, cause-

• 10:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 10:37Bill Maher?

  Ever read a transcript of anything you've said off the cuff?

• 10:40Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:41Bill Maher?

  So bad.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Well, sometimes, yeah. Sometimes-

• 10:46Bill Maher?

  Well, we, there's just a lot of-

• 10:47Speaker 04

  Not you.

• 10:48Bill Maher?

  Yes, me.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Off the cuff?

• 10:50Bill Maher?

  Of course, because we're-

• 10:50Speaker 04

  No, you're quick.

• 10:51Bill Maher?

  We're quick, but what I'm saying is we, we lard our conversation with all this conversational spackle, these ers and ums and, you know.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Yes, because we wanna seem real.

• 11:04Bill Maher?

  That's because we weren't raised in Britain where they would, you know, they used to like, you know, they didn't say like.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  I know, when I do read how many likes and I mean's and.

• 11:14Bill Maher?

  That's what I mean, you know, but it's okay. We're communicating.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Then I'm like, you know, come on, like, I'm 60, why are you saying like, come on. Too old for that.

• 11:25Bill Maher?

  I'm 70.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  Talk like a, no.

• 11:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  I thought we were in the same age.

• 11:29Bill Maher?

  No, 70, and I noticed you say it on the, you know, you're not afraid, or you have a little bit where you allude to it in the show. You know, you don't, you don't, you don't hide from.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  60.

• 11:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah, not to bury the lead, but you know, I told you when you were here before, I mean, I'm the biggest fan of that series.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 11:49Bill Maher?

  I was so, I was so beyond delighted and shocked. I didn't hear anything about it till it was on.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 11:56Bill Maher?

  I was looking, I was like, oh, I'll watch, I'll watch these again. It was like, oh, there's a third season.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:03Bill Maher?

  They kind of kept it quiet there.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Not really.

• 12:07Bill Maher?

  No, I just missed it?

• 12:08Speaker 04

  You missed it, but that's okay.

• 12:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, because HBO was great at promotion, but.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:12Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe they targeted it to, you know.

• 12:17Bill Maher?

  I'm too old even for that, no.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  No, no, no, I don't, not old. They, you know, well, I mean, look, the, so much support from gay men, I have to say, for the comeback.

• 12:30Bill Maher?

  I.

• 12:31Speaker 04

  Love Valerie Cherish.

• 12:32Bill Maher?

  Don't take this the wrong way, gay men, but I so understand that. I mean that in the best way.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  Yes, me too.

• 12:39Bill Maher?

  I do.

• 12:39Speaker 04

  Me too. I understand too.

• 12:41Bill Maher?

  I do, and, you know, not to be facetious at all about, but why do gay men, you know, are, why are they attracted to characters like that, divas and so forth, and it's usually because they relate to the fact that it is harder for women. For, certainly historically in this country, things have changed a lot and, you know, in many ways now, you know, they have more of them go to college than men, blah, blah, blah. But there is still lots to do and, and so they do relate to that sort of, you, you know, I'm, I'm not on top, but I'm going to get to the top.

• 13:18Speaker 04

  And you have to.

• 13:19Bill Maher?

  Cluck and spirit.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  Get along to go along. Right? So, there are compromises. And, you know, someone's not gonna be nice and you have to just, okay. Having a bad day, I guess. You know, you have to alter reality just a little bit 'cause it doesn't serve you.

• 13:39Bill Maher?

  Honestly, that character itself should be in The Smithsonian with Archie Bunker. Really, I'm not kidding. And Fonzie's jacket. And it so captures an era.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:53Bill Maher?

  And just something in the culture. I can't put my finger on it. I don't have to, 'cause I know it's there.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:59Bill Maher?

  And it's just, it's this combination of, you know, somewhat bravado when she needs to be like that. You just love that courage that comes up because otherwise, her instinct is always to get along. And to like make people like, and of course, maybe to me, having spent a decade as an actor, I know the desperation of actors, you know. But you kinda like make, you do it in such a way that it's the desperation that we all feel.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  That we relate to. It's just genius.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  But the fact that you don't take it personally or feel threatened or like it's, that's fantastic. Thanks.

• 14:40Bill Maher?

  Threatened?

• 14:41Speaker 04

  Well, there are a lot of, I think, well, this, I don't wanna say it the wrong way. But, you know, there are a lot of straight men who just feel bad for her and can't bear it and can't watch it because she's been treated so horribly. First season, Polly G, the writer.

• 15:01Bill Maher?

  I gotta say, that character was right on the edge of, like, I wasn't, it never made me think, I'm not gonna watch the show. I loved it too much. But like, it was, I mean, I hope that actor is not like that in real life.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  He's not.

• 15:14Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  He's also the dad on Young Sheldon now. He was. They finished Young Sheldon. He's fine, Lance Barber. He's great.

• 15:21Bill Maher?

  He was so terrible, you're right. It was like, it was hard to, hard to take, but, you know.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  But to be fair, we didn't explain him 'cause the camera was on her. But he was a writer.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  And wrote a show. Network said, no, change it to Four Sexy Singles. That wasn't what he wrote. And then they said, and to hedge our bets, you gotta keep that older one, um, cause we're doing a reality show. And you're gonna have reality cameras around.

• 15:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Of course, he's pissed. We didn't explain that enough.

• 15:57Bill Maher?

  So that's the backstory.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  To justify, yeah. I mean, I thought, well, we're letting you know a little.

• 16:02Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  But, yeah, I thought it did need explanation. I really thought it did.

• 16:07Bill Maher?

  I didn't, because like, there are pricks like that in show business. And I.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  And then that is also true.

• 16:14Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, I've been, I remember once, or a couple of times, but certainly one sticks out of just being, uh, you know, unfairly berated in front of the, you know, thing. People are tense on sets.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:31Bill Maher?

  Things happen on sets that, uh, probably don't happen quite as much at the office, because there's just much more tension in the air and a lot more high-strung type of people.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:43Bill Maher?

  And, uh.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  No, as if there's so much at stake. Right? Isn't that how it is?

• 16:49Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  It's like, we don't have time for this. We're gonna die if we don't. What? Get a better joke? I don't know.

• 16:58Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  The egos are outrageous.

• 17:01Bill Maher?

  But also, the money's outrageous.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:04Bill Maher?

  You know, you know that as well as anyone.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, that's true. I mean, showrunners, though.

• 17:09Bill Maher?

  You deserve it, but, you know. But no, that, that's one reason why they're like, huh, because how much does a day of shooting cost? On a movie, it can cost like a million dollars a day or something.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Right, but on a sitcom?

• 17:20Bill Maher?

  No.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  You know, you're not, you're rehearsing. A day of rehearsing is a lot. No. I, you know, and Friends, they were great showrunners. So it really wasn't until I was working with Michael Patrick King, and he started, you know, fleshing out POG. And I thought, seriously, aren't we going too far? We got more writers in the writers' room. They all had. They all knew five showrunners that were as bad or worse than Paulie G. And I went, okay, then it's a thing. Wow. Okay.

• 17:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  But there's a lot of people on a set that used to, I think it's so much better now, take it out on the people they can take it out on if you're not number one or two.

• 18:05Bill Maher?

  This thing I just alluded to, that is exactly what happened to me.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Were you a guest star on something?

• 18:11Bill Maher?

  No, I was a regular on a sitcom. This is like my fourth sitcom.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 18:15Bill Maher?

  I was really over it mentally and it was like my sitcom career, thank God, was, you know, it was not ticking off, it was going down. So I think that this was called Charlie Hoover.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  That sounds familiar.

• 18:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it was Sam Kinison.

• 18:33Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 18:34Bill Maher?

  Shortly before his passing. And the lead, let's just leave him out of it, but he was the one who like, it was, Sam was on heroin at the time.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 18:47Bill Maher?

  So, like,

• 18:49Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 18:49Bill Maher?

  He'd be in the makeup chair like this.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  Oh, boy.

• 18:53Bill Maher?

  And we'd wait around for four hours till he woke up. So I feel like whatever tension and problems the show was having, it was a little more than that than whatever I, and somebody in that cast who had the authority to just blame me, because you couldn't blame him because he was the co-star.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:13Bill Maher?

  He was the co-star, and there's no show without him. He was very hot at the time.

• 19:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:17Bill Maher?

  That showbiz.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  That's inexcusable. I mean, didn't you remember thinking, just like the sane inside of you, this, I know this has nothing to do with me, but it's just, this is deplorable behavior. It's just not right.

• 19:32Bill Maher?

  And they don't seem to be. Self-aware of it, certainly not at the time.

• 19:40Bill Maher?

  They're like, I guess that they just survival, you know? Everyone's surviving out there. And it's like, there's an actor who's like, he had a thing. Now he's on a sitcom. I'm not saying sitcoms were always a sign you're on your way down. But your case it was on, your case it was, you know, mega stardom into anything you want. So you had the greatest sitcom experience.

• 20:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 20:06Bill Maher?

  I had more the other one.

• 20:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:08Bill Maher?

  So, but very often you get somebody, it's like, somebody who was like maybe in the movies, and now the time has come to like, you know, take your sitcom like a man.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:17Bill Maher?

  Come on, Eric Stoltz. Just fucking get rid of your pride. And so you, so you got a guy like that, who's like, oh, okay. I gotta make this, I fell off this rung of movie stardom, right? Now I'm on this rung.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:36Bill Maher?

  TV, like, people have made that into a big thing, you know? Burt Reynolds had a hit show.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:41Bill Maher?

  Movie stars have done that, like, landed very well on TV. But you don't want to lose this rung, because then you're on reality.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:51Bill Maher?

  So like, that's his tension.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Right, but you're leaving out the other part of that tension, which is, I don't even want to fucking be here. And now I have to deal with overdose and, you know, and this guy who's so much funnier than I am.

• 21:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah, this wise-ass comedian. And, look, I'm not saying I couldn't have said something that was inappropriate. Lord knows, I never have since. But, you know, yes, could I? But, listen, I don't, if I, I think if it was anything, I would have remembered it. But I sure do remember getting my ass torn in front of the entire crew and, you know, the, just the whole set, you know? And it's like, okay, you know? And like I said, this guy probably was very tense about his career.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:37Bill Maher?

  So like, if this is what it took to keep peace with the co-star.

• 21:42Bill Maher?

  Then, sorry, you know.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm, yeah. No, I, yeah.

• 21:47Bill Maher?

  Show business.

• 21:49Speaker 04

  I think I had things approaching that. Not that bad, because I was never enough of a threat. You know.

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• 22:56Speaker 04

  But.

• 22:56Bill Maher?

  A threat on friends?

• 22:58Speaker 04

  No, no, I don't mean on friends. I would guest start a lot on things.

• 23:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  But I just wouldn't take it in. I had the best acting teacher who wasn't really an acting teacher. He was just a, here's how you cope. Teacher. He's, I'm not teaching anyone acting. That's your business. But we're here to, you know, practice how you do what you do.

• 23:20Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  While auditioning and they're eating. Doesn't matter what they mean. Maybe, what if they're hungry? Like, don't take anything personally. It was so great.

• 23:30Bill Maher?

  That was the acting teacher?

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 23:33Bill Maher?

  I knew he was successful.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  And it was all cold, all cold reading. So we'd just hand you sides. Because people worked with him before an audition. And it was so great. He even had us do warm, a certain warm-up. We'd get up, for five minutes, you're going to do stand-up.

• 23:49Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  In front of, and it was only 10 people in the class. Yeah.

• 23:53Bill Maher?

  How'd it go?

• 23:54Speaker 04

  Well, you didn't plan it, you didn't write it. You just stood up and spoke. And we learned immediately, if you're okay. Because he would say, and here's just what I'm going to tell you. If you're okay, the audience is going to be okay. If you're scared, or you're nervous, or you desperately want them to like you.

• 24:15Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  That's not what they're here for.

• 24:18Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  So I would just talk and be okay. And I did Groundlings improv. I could work in something sort of funny, not stand-up funny, you know? Not craft a joke, but, and it was, and it was fine. And it was, that was a huge lesson doing that. Like, yeah, if you're okay. And right, like, all of you who are really good. All right, a joke doesn't go. And you say, all right, that didn't work anyway. You know, moving on, or you say something funny.

• 24:47Bill Maher?

  Sometimes the crowd likes that better.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Or, yeah.

• 24:49Bill Maher?

  You know, when Johnny Carson made a living out of...

• 24:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, and David Letterman.

• 24:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, yes, absolutely. There's something...

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Just be comfortable.

• 25:00Bill Maher?

  Well, there's also, when a joke bombs for a comedian, there's something in the reality of that moment. Like, we all feel it. So the comic feels it, and the audience feels it. So there is a huge tension that needs to be broken.

• 25:12Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:13Bill Maher?

  So if you can break the tension, you'll get a bigger laugh than the actual joke would.

• 25:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 25:17Bill Maher?

  Not that I try to fuck up jokes, but once in a while.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  No, well...

• 25:20Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 25:21Speaker 04

  But, I mean, but it's not devastating. If it doesn't go well. That's the trick. Because they can tell when you're devastated. I did a roundtable with other actresses who do comedy, and they're all younger and really talented. And the question was, so how do you deal with, like, you all did improv and bombing in front of an audience?

• 25:46Speaker 04

  And they're going into these big explanations, too, about, well, you try to win them back. You gotta try to win them back. You gotta da-da-da-da. And I thought, oh, I don't have an answer for this. I don't remember bombing.

• 25:56Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  And not because I didn't.

• 25:59Bill Maher?

  I do.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  Because I didn't let it in. Because I know I had. And I just thought, all right, but we gotta keep going, so...

• 26:07Bill Maher?

  But you were on stage with other people, like, in a...

• 26:10Speaker 04

  In an improv.

• 26:11Bill Maher?

  But then you can blame it on them. I mean, like, I, like, I have, you know, years of bombing. Not every time, every time at first, but like, you know, it just...

• 26:21Speaker 04

  There's no other way to start.

• 26:22Bill Maher?

  There's no other way.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  Right? In stand-up, I never did.

• 26:28Bill Maher?

  It's, it's pretty brutal the first few years. Just because you're learning something as you, anyone learns anything, but you're learning it in front of people. I can learn something on the computer and no one's laughing when I don't get it right away or whatever, I go, you know, here, there's no, you know.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:47Bill Maher?

  That's, the way you're graded every time on your progress in what matters so much to you

• 26:54Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:54Bill Maher?

  is there like obvious disapproval. Because, you know, you can't fake laughter.

• 27:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 27:03Bill Maher?

  People really don't, it's very involuntary.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  No, and you can tell courtesy.

• 27:07Bill Maher?

  And you.

• 27:09Speaker 04

  When you hear like.

• 27:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yes, a courtesy laugh.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Uh-huh, someone make a sound, you know, in the audience where they're, they're just like, someone make a sound, it's really trying.

• 27:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, maybe like kindling, it'll start a little brush fire of, no. No, it's, uh, look, we're not heroes in any way. We are just traveling.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  No.

• 27:34Bill Maher?

  No, wait, I'm just, we're just minstrels and cartoonists of some sort and charlatans and mountbanks, but we do have a kind of bravery.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  Yes, but that's the other thing I was gonna say. Because I, when you said you're starting out and you're just bombing over and over and over again, okay, what keeps you from quitting?

• 28:04Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  What sends you back on that stage?

• 28:06Bill Maher?

  That is, that is the question.

• 28:09Speaker 04

  But that.

• 28:10Bill Maher?

  And it's, it very much defines success or, I mean, there's a million reasons why success can conspire against you at show business. Some of it is luck and where you were and timing and whatever. But that's a big one. If you are willing to go back into the ring after you get your dick knocked in the dirt, you have a good chance of, of getting somewhere because it is knocking on a lot of doors and it is a lot of patience and a lot of rejection and, you know.

• 28:41Speaker 04

  But you're also not expecting.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  You don't have a chip because you're not expecting someone to say, "I'm gonna give you a regular spot here." When you're starting out, if you've got the right attitude, there's no entitlement. There's just, "Oh, I'm working it. I'm working on it, and that's what I'm working toward." Where someone says you're going to...

• 29:02Bill Maher?

  That's true.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  "I want you to come back. I want you..."

• 29:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah, no, that is completely true, unfortunately.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  So humility, a certain level.

• 29:10Bill Maher?

  Unfortunately, that is not the attitude I did have.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Really?

• 29:12Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 29:13Speaker 04

  You thought, like, "What's wrong with everybody?" Did you really?

• 29:17Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  They're not laughing. Everyone's too stupid for what I do. That was, you were one of those guys?

• 29:22Bill Maher?

  I, yes, yes. I can't deny it. I mean, and that's partly the stupidity of youth, and also partly, I wasn't always wrong, okay? Sometimes they were stupid, and sometimes it was a good joke. It's just, you know, but even if it was true, the last thing you want to do is convey that to them. You just have to.

• 29:45Speaker 04

  You can't take it out on them.

• 29:46Bill Maher?

  You can't, and I did. But, you know, that's what you...

• 29:49Speaker 04

  And you would, yeah. Oh, but everybody was, right?

• 29:51Bill Maher?

  Well, when you're in your early...

• 29:52Speaker 04

  You weren't alone.

• 29:53Bill Maher?

  No.

• 29:54Speaker 04

  Everybody did that.

• 29:55Bill Maher?

  No, they didn't.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  Oh, they didn't?

• 29:57Bill Maher?

  I was particularly bad at it.

• 29:58Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 29:58Bill Maher?

  I was, many people just grinned all the way through it, as you should. I just was thick and brash or whatever. I don't know. But I made my life so much...

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Cornell, Cornell.

• 30:10Bill Maher?

  Cornell, as if that's anything. But no, I just made my life more difficult than it would have otherwise been if I could just have, you know, get it that you just, just... I've seen, and I would see other comics do it. You know, they would smile through it.

• 30:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then go backstage and say, "Boy, they fucking idiots didn't get the thing."

• 30:31Bill Maher?

  Or sometimes it takes 15 minutes to warm them up.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:35Bill Maher?

  They're like Richard Gere in American Gigolo. You know, when he's like, "Took me two hours to bring her to orgasm." Who else would, you know, remember, he took real pride in his job.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:47Bill Maher?

  It wasn't just money.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  I kind of remember. I think I blocked that stuff out.

• 30:51Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah, Richard.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  That's who I am.

• 30:52Bill Maher?

  Richard what?

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Sex in American Gigolo?

• 30:57Bill Maher?

  Did you ever see it?

• 30:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:00Bill Maher?

  Well, you remember it. Was, did you think it was cool? Maybe that's a guy thing.

• 31:04Speaker 04

  I just remember all the guys started trying to look like him. After that, every guy cared about how he looked and... You know, got a haircut.

• 31:14Bill Maher?

  We were looks maxing. That's the movie that put our money on the map.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  Mmm. That was, really?

• 31:21Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  I'm gonna have, okay, Nicorette.

• 31:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  I don't think you'll be upset.

• 31:27Bill Maher?

  A Nicorette. You can have a heroin here if you want.

• 31:32Speaker 04

  Have you ever had any one? No.

• 31:34Bill Maher?

  Have, any one?

• 31:35Speaker 04

  Do heroin, here?

• 31:37Bill Maher?

  Are you offering?

• 31:38Speaker 04

  No.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  No.

• 31:51Bill Maher?

  I did it, I smoked it once. I went like, I think my first year out here, in 1983. Somebody had it, uh, somebody, turned out, wound up doing a lot of our heroin. And I don't think just smoking, but at the time, yeah, I, nothing happened.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Oh, lucky.

• 32:09Bill Maher?

  And maybe that's just smoking, but I, like, zero. But nothing happened the first time I smoked pot, and that's of, often the case with people.

• 32:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 32:16Bill Maher?

  The first time you smoke pot, it just doesn't, I don't know what that is, but...

• 32:20Speaker 04

  No, me, nothing happened, and the next time.

• 32:23Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you're...

• 32:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, the worst thing that ever happened to me, yeah.

• 32:27Bill Maher?

  Well, what happened?

• 32:28Speaker 04

  No, no, it just wa, it didn't go well.

• 32:30Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 32:31Speaker 04

  It was a little too much. I was, like, 13, I think.

• 32:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, whoa, yeah.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  And I just remember thinking, my friends are laughing, it's like, what are you laughing about? You're not high, this is, you're full of shit. Cause this is misery, and I think I'm gonna die.

• 32:47Bill Maher?

  And you never did it again?

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Not till college.

• 32:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  And again, you know, it's like, nothing's happening. Take another bong hit, and, you know, okay. And then, all I were going out, and I have two people holding me up, and we're going through a door. And I just went with my boyfriend into his room. And I was taking, um, like, a bio psych class, cause that's what it was called in the 80s. And...

• 33:13Bill Maher?

  Bio psych?

• 33:15Speaker 04

  No, it's neuroscience. And, and I, the only comfort I could, I really thought I was gonna die. Everything was racing, it was going too fast, like... Slightly disassociating, I think, you know, it's just, ugh. And I would just, okay, I know exactly which neurotransmitters are firing too much. I just have to wait until, you know, the receptors can then.

• 33:38Bill Maher?

  It's, it's the worst feeling in the world. Maybe not the worst, I was never tortured in Vietnam. I'm sure there are worse, but in my life, my charmed life, then when a drug, a psychic drug has a hold of you like that, doing something you didn't think it would do, and you don't, you, I've told this story before, but there was, I took, uh, speed, not speed like the drug, but they sold this stuff like fen-phen.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 34:08Bill Maher?

  You remember that?

• 34:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:09Bill Maher?

  Like it was diet drugs.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 34:11Bill Maher?

  But it was just, it was some nut from South America. And it was speed, very speedy.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 34:20Bill Maher?

  And I did it with a pot brownie. And you don't know how much pot is in a brownie.

• 34:25Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 34:26Bill Maher?

  And I thought, oh, you know, I got a lot of work to do. I'll take the, uh, the speedy thing to give me energy, and I'll take the pot brownie to psychic, you know, I love writing on pot. Well, the combination, I was like, I didn't know, I didn't know what reality was. I didn't, I couldn't move.

• 34:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:46Bill Maher?

  Like, I felt like if I moved, I would die, like one inch. So I was frozen at my desk. I could see the phone, but I couldn't move. And I don't know if that happened for 10 hours or 10 seconds.

• 34:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 34:59Bill Maher?

  You know, it's just, it's like, and you, you don't know, I thought, this is hell, I'm in hell, or.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, it may, it also, it makes me wonder.

• 35:11Bill Maher?

  So horrible.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  Was it my mindset that this shouldn't be happening that makes it a nightmare? Or is it possible, or would it have been possible, possible to just like, okay, just go with this?

• 35:27Speaker 04

  And then it would have been. No, my heart was going.

• 35:31Bill Maher?

  Exactly. There is no doing that.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  No.

• 35:34Bill Maher?

  It's just it takes you. It's sort of like the psychic version of food poisoning. Because, once again, you have no control. And it's a scary feeling that you don't. You, I don't know when this is gonna end. My head with this crazy trip I'm on. And with food poisoning, I, I, I don't wanna throw up.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:54Bill Maher?

  Doesn't, you're, you're not doing. I don't wanna be, you know, puking while I'm having diarrhea. Doesn't matter.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:00Bill Maher?

  That's what we're doing. And, you know, and you're just, you're bargaining with your own body. Please, just give me a minute. I promise, I'll throw up in a minute. I promise, I will. Just give me one minute to. No, let's do it again now. Let's do it your way, huh, body? You know, I'm like, well, why can't we work together? I am you.

• 36:18Speaker 04

  And that's what that was with the fen-phen in the pot mixture.

• 36:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 36:22Speaker 04

  Shit.

• 36:23Bill Maher?

  So what'd you do?

• 36:24Speaker 04

  So did you ever never do it again?

• 36:30Bill Maher?

  I.

• 36:30Speaker 04

  I didn't know that. I mean, just what I would do is never do that again.

• 36:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, I certainly never did pot with fen-phen.

• 36:39Speaker 04

  Well, that's what I mean.

• 36:40Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes, no.

• 36:41Speaker 04

  Or speed.

• 36:42Bill Maher?

  Or, no, no.

• 36:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:44Bill Maher?

  Yeah, dumb idea.

• 36:45Speaker 04

  Have you done mushrooms or those things? And that's okay?

• 36:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, great.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  That's what my husband says, yeah.

• 36:53Bill Maher?

  It, yeah, I mean, I haven't done it in quite a while, but when we did it in late college, twenties into my thirties, I think. Not often, but it was just a, it's a laughter drug. Complete laughter.

• 37:09Speaker 04

  I'm, see.

• 37:09Bill Maher?

  You're just laughing your ass off at nothing.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  I know, but people do that with, and this is like the seventies when I was thirteen and got too high. That was not the heavy stuff that it is now.

• 37:24Bill Maher?

  Heavy mushrooms?

• 37:25Speaker 04

  No, no. The pot in like the seventies was not as.

• 37:30Bill Maher?

  Strong.

• 37:31Speaker 04

  Strong.

• 37:32Bill Maher?

  That you.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  And the fact that it had that effect on me made me never go near any kind of psychedelic. Thing terrified me.

• 37:44Bill Maher?

  I mean, I think you'd like mushrooms. I mean, it's just.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  Okay, then I will.

• 37:48Bill Maher?

  It's just. Bring them on out.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Here?

• 37:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, the gold diggers are here.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  I guess it's a good idea.

• 37:55Bill Maher?

  No, but, you know.

• 37:57Speaker 04

  The gold digger.

• 37:59Bill Maher?

  Bring them on out, girls, the whole tray of mushrooms. I mean, when I did it in college, remember the first time and, you know, we didn't know what we were doing. And we put it in like a tuna fish sandwich. It was disgusting.

• 38:12Speaker 04

  What?

• 38:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I know. But they were the actual stems. You know, it wasn't like a pill. It was mushrooms.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Right, no, I know.

• 38:20Bill Maher?

  Dried horrible tasting root.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  I saw them.

• 38:24Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Because other people were doing that.

• 38:28Bill Maher?

  And you'd eat the caps and I don't know, whatever it was, it was fun. It was like, it was really fun, but I, what I think is going on with that drug is it is robbing you of all the, is it serotonin that makes us happy? Is that the one?

• 38:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe, but.

• 38:46Bill Maher?

  One of those.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  Mushrooms are?

• 38:48Bill Maher?

  While you're on it, you're, I feel like it, that's why you're laughing and you're just hysterically off the charts happy because it's just, just.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  Draining.

• 38:59Bill Maher?

  Draining it so that when you come down, it's like, oh.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:05Bill Maher?

  I remember that first time I came down, I was, it was at my, my parents' house where I was like for the weekend because it was like my first six months in comedy and things are not going well. I'm just, you know.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  First six months?

• 39:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  We've already talked about the beginning, how bad, how bad that can be.

• 39:23Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 39:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:24Bill Maher?

  And I wasn't even up to the bad part. I was pre-bad, it was just horrible. So, so to be in that moment in reality, when the serotonin was just robbed.

• 39:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:37Bill Maher?

  Was just a terrible combination.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Right, I could see that.

• 39:40Bill Maher?

  It was just a lot of.

• 39:41Speaker 04

  But you didn't have the mind expanding, like trees are talking and moving and any of that wonderful stuff?

• 39:48Bill Maher?

  One time I, my fingers looked like they were, yeah, little, not much. My, my mind didn't, but that's just how people's minds are. Some people can't be hypnotized.

• 40:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:02Bill Maher?

  I'm not surprised I didn't have a lot of hallucinations. I mean.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, me, I'm very here.

• 40:07Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 40:08Speaker 04

  I'm very.

• 40:09Bill Maher?

  That's why I like you.

• 40:10Speaker 04

  Present.

• 40:10Bill Maher?

  You're very present.

• 40:11Speaker 04

  I know.

• 40:12Bill Maher?

  You're so, you're so not typical show business anything. And I mean that in a good way.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Okay. Well, what I'm about to say might change your mind. But, no, because I've been listening to physicists that are, you know, thinking about the difficult question of consciousness. And deciding that what makes the most sense is it's consciousness is not in here. It exists in a field, the field that is everywhere. But it's not in here.

• 40:54Bill Maher?

  I don't understand that.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  You don't understand it.

• 40:57Bill Maher?

  What do you mean everywhere?

• 40:59Speaker 04

  Well, you know, that all particles, waves, everything, you know, subatomic. There's entanglement, right? You've heard of that where.

• 41:13Bill Maher?

  I, I have a, you know, New York Times, Tuesday Science, Times, education on a lot of this. That's about as much as.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:24Bill Maher?

  Like, I'm not like, but I'm aware of all these things to a degree. And mostly, you know, that degree as well. I don't have a degree. So I, I get it.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  I don't have, I never took physics.

• 41:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  So, because too abstract for me.

• 41:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's, it's one of those, I go, I kind of get it.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Kind of get it.

• 41:41Bill Maher?

  Kind of get it.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  I'm, and anyway, there are things that we can't explain.

• 41:46Bill Maher?

  Lots. And lot, and there's so much going.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  Quantum physics.

• 41:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  Can't explain it, a lot of it. And then things that we experience that we can't explain what happened.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Like weird, not really a coincidence. It's too, it's more than a coincidence.

• 42:03Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  But you don't want to sound like a

• 42:05Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  hippie freak.

• 42:07Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  Right, so.

• 42:08Bill Maher?

  Well, I do, but yes.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  So people are too afraid to say, but now I'm, yeah, I'm in. Let's keep asking. Let's look into it.

• 42:19Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm a big fan, certainly in the general, of we don't know much. Certainly, that's always been my argument that I've made with people about medical matters. A lot of them think I'm too on the maybe left. I don't know, right, whatever.

• 42:33Speaker 04

  How is there a sign?

• 42:35Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, like, the far left is like, you know, vaccines are the greatest thing in the world.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  But we don't know.

• 42:44Bill Maher?

  I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but at all, and never was.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:48Bill Maher?

  But, you know, that becomes a political thing.

• 42:51Speaker 04

  And it shouldn't.

• 42:53Bill Maher?

  No.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  And it should not.

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• 44:26Bill Maher?

  No, but I'm just saying, people go to those polls.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  I know, I know. It makes you, it makes me nervous to say any, everything

• 44:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  becomes you're taking a political side when, no, I was just talking about, you know.

• 44:39Bill Maher?

  But, I mean, I don't know, my consciousness, I do feel like is all in here. I mean, I feel like I'm influenced by things out there, but, you know, there could be...

• 44:51Speaker 04

  Okay, I'm gonna say something, and cut you off, I guess.

• 44:55Bill Maher?

  No, no.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  Because you like writing while smoking, right? Or being altered in some way.

• 45:03Bill Maher?

  Yes, yes, exactly.

• 45:05Speaker 04

  So, a lot of neuroscientists, I'll say a lot, but neuroscientists, some, are saying, the brain is a great filter, especially this front part. And it really, it's filtering all the information you can't use to exist here. So, there's a lot going on inside, I mean, for example, inside. If your brain had to be aware of every cell dividing, no, sorry. There's no room for that. Well, there's just as much as being proposed happening outside that we aren't aware of. So, our brain has to filter all that out.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  Well, once you make the filter a little more permeable, you're getting access to some things. And creativity is one of those things that maybe doesn't start here, but it comes in, you know, when you're in a flow or something is really going.

• 46:05Bill Maher?

  And that's what the machines can't do.

• 46:09Bill Maher?

  Apropos to your show.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  Not yet, I don't know, yeah.

• 46:12Bill Maher?

  Because, again, oh.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:15Bill Maher?

  So glad I made myself just think of this. So glad I couldn't forget to tell you this.

• 46:24Bill Maher?

  The thing this year with the AI.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:26Bill Maher?

  Is the perfect Act Three subject for this moment at this time. You're so right on the money.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. Michael Patrick King, have to give him credit. Here's what we can do.

• 46:39Bill Maher?

  And of course, it's given that the rate that AI is moving, it's like probably like two weeks ahead of reality.

• 46:45Speaker 04

  I mean, we were so afraid that by the time it came out, we would be, that's insane. Nothing like that would ever happen.

• 46:53Bill Maher?

  Talk about being at the head of the parade. You are.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:57Bill Maher?

  It's such a great subject and it's perfect for comedy and

• 47:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:02Bill Maher?

  telling us what we need to know. I just did two weeks ago something.

• 47:09Bill Maher?

  I cut this from the final version, but I was gonna say that I was gonna do this whole thing without any jokes in it, which I've never done in 23 years.

• 47:19Speaker 04

  What?

• 47:19Bill Maher?

  Always put this about AI.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  Oh, oh.

• 47:22Bill Maher?

  Just to, and I didn't do that.

• 47:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:24Bill Maher?

  But just to make the point that I consider this so far and above the most important issue than anything else. We're, I mean, yes, there's Trump and nukes and that. But it's actually AI. That's what, that is, you know, Colonel Pepper in the kitchen with the doorknob or whatever that show is where you clue.

• 47:47Speaker 04

  Oh, clue. I don't know what he's talking about.

• 47:51Bill Maher?

  What I'm saying is, you know. That's who the murderer is.

• 47:54Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:54Bill Maher?

  It's AI. And I'm more scared of it than anything and think it's more dire than anything.

• 48:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe. But to me,

• 48:08Speaker 04

  the reason it's not,

• 48:11Speaker 04

  it can't, it's not just AI. It's that human beings.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  Have created it. And don't really know what it is. And don't know enough.

• 48:24Bill Maher?

  Yes, this is.

• 48:25Speaker 04

  To put the guardrails in. That's what you're saying. No, no.

• 48:28Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  But as a tool. If it could have been.

• 48:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 04

  If it's kept as a tool. Because it needs human beings supervising.

• 48:36Bill Maher?

  No, it'll probably in, you know, some years, a few years from now, cure me of some terrible disease I otherwise would have died from. And then the next year, the robots will completely take over and nuke the world. Because in their computation, we are the problem. You know, there's a reason why Hinton, the godfather of AI.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  Right, said.

• 49:02Bill Maher?

  Said there was a 10 to 20% chance of an extinction.

• 49:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 49:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, and Musk has said, this shit scares me to hell.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  I know. Well, what are you gonna do?

• 49:16Bill Maher?

  I know. Chris could.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  What are you gonna do?

• 49:19Bill Maher?

  No, because the genie's out of the bottle.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 49:21Bill Maher?

  Well, at least we should be talking about that. It's interesting, someone was just saying today somewhere about this. And the thought was, the only thing that's going to stop AI from taking over is more AI. Which was a scary thought to me, but it may be true.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  Right, and AI that's programmed to hack the existing AI that doesn't know better.

• 49:46Bill Maher?

  Or it's. I.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  Well, luckily, we just stayed with.

• 49:58Bill Maher?

  But it's so.

• 49:58Speaker 04

  Sitcoms written by AI.

• 50:00Bill Maher?

  It's such a great premise.

• 50:02Speaker 04

  And then by the end of it, they've scanned her and she's like, no, no, I docasigned that. As if it's not a legal document. That doesn't count, but.

• 50:11Bill Maher?

  I also love the thing with the. Then nobody, nobody saw Mrs. Hat. That kills me every time.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  It was on Epic.

• 50:21Bill Maher?

  Like the look on her face. You know, and she's, she's miffed every time.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:26Bill Maher?

  You know. But that's the pluckiness of that character. I mean, she's, she could be Mary Richards. If Mary Richards was much more insecure.

• 50:38Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, or needed.

• 50:40Bill Maher?

  And, yes, or talented.

• 50:42Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 50:43Bill Maher?

  I mean, she's.

• 50:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know how talented Valerie is, but she does know.

• 50:46Bill Maher?

  Well, she keeps doing shows.

• 50:48Speaker 04

  She knows serviceable sitcoms, for sure. That she knows.

• 50:52Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Very well, but.

• 50:53Bill Maher?

  I mean, there are, I, I take her, I take her as much more successful than that because they give, they always mention all the shows and.

• 51:02Speaker 04

  Right, that's true. And she won an Emmy for the.

• 51:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  Gritty, single camera.

• 51:07Bill Maher?

  In real life, I mean, there are people like that who the audience just likes. And so Michael Landon always has a show, you know.

• 51:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, he did, that's right.

• 51:16Bill Maher?

  He can be a fireman, he can be a, William Shatner, you know.

• 51:19Speaker 04

  An angel.

• 51:19Bill Maher?

  An angel. Well, you're a cop, you're a lawyer, you're whatever it is, we just like you. Ted Danson, we like you.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 51:26Bill Maher?

  God damn it.

• 51:26Speaker 04

  And it makes sense.

• 51:28Bill Maher?

  Always be in a show.

• 51:29Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 51:29Bill Maher?

  That's how kind of I see her because it's not like she doesn't work.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  Right, but AI picked her for this. Because who would do, like, you know, there was an algorithm and who would do it for this much money and, and.

• 51:44Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  You know, and it, and they just, by the end of it, they don't want a great, funny show. They just want a serviceable show.

• 51:54Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  That people, he'll say, Andrew Scott plays the head of the network and he'll just say, we don't need it to be great, we just need it to be good enough so that it's on while people do whatever else. It's second screen and that's why they picked Valerie, so.

• 52:14Bill Maher?

  That's like the most evil thing in it. I mean, just that kind of thinking.

• 52:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it's already happening. I mean, look, we started, we thought reality TV was going to be the end of scripted television because it's cheaper.

• 52:31Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 52:33Speaker 04

  But.

• 52:35Speaker 04

  I don't know, audiences will always tell you what they want. And yeah, they do want some stupid stuff and silly things. They also want things that make them think and things that make them really laugh. They want the, they want the option for all of it.

• 52:51Bill Maher?

  Well, and they want, whatever it is, I feel like they want the best that we can make.

• 52:57Speaker 04

  They want that too, but not every night.

• 53:02Bill Maher?

  No, not every night.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Do you think, like The Crown, people would want The Crown every night?

• 53:12Speaker 04

  You know, or your show, every single night.

• 53:15Bill Maher?

  I am so.

• 53:16Speaker 04

  Like, oh god, I gotta think about, yeah, ooh, that's scary shit. You know, like, you've got to have variety.

• 53:23Bill Maher?

  I'm so behind on The Crown.

• 53:25Speaker 04

  You never watched it?

• 53:29Bill Maher?

  No, it's kind of a chick show, isn't it?

• 53:32Speaker 04

  I know.

• 53:34Bill Maher?

  No.

• 53:34Speaker 04

  No, that one's not. It really isn't.

• 53:37Bill Maher?

  Oh, I can like a good chick show, but.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, but now who knows? If it's what you're learning.

• 53:43Bill Maher?

  See, you're not gonna do the character ever again, no. You said this is, you got very final about this is final, right?

• 53:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:52Bill Maher?

  Just feels right trilogy.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  It feels full circle.

• 53:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 53:56Speaker 04

  We started at what we thought would be

• 53:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 04

  almost an extinction event, and now here's the next one.

• 54:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 54:01Speaker 04

  For entertainment, not for what you're talking about. Cause, yeah, it might be. But, um, yeah, so it just feels, and now it's, it's a trilogy. That's a whole, it's a piece. A thing that got fired turned into, you know, a three-part

• 54:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 54:19Speaker 04

  story.

• 54:20Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and it merits a, it makes sense for a trilogy. Like Godfather 3, I like it, it's entertaining. But what's wrong with it is that the arc of that story ends at the end of 2. Michael Corleone goes from, that's not my family, Kay. I don't know who these fucking gangsters are, but that ain't me. To killing his own brother, spoiler alert.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  Spoiler alert?

• 54:47Bill Maher?

  So, once you've gone through that cycle.

• 54:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:51Bill Maher?

  You're done.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:52Bill Maher?

  And then, then they, and I think they knew it. They were just making a gangster movie.

• 54:57Speaker 04

  He killed his own brother in 2?

• 54:58Bill Maher?

  At the end of 2, yeah.

• 54:59Speaker 04

  At the end of 2, right, shit. Yeah, that's right.

• 55:04Bill Maher?

  What movies do you watch?

• 55:07Speaker 04

  Look, if it's on, A Few Good Men, I can't not watch it.

• 55:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, great movie. You're right.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  I can't help it. Everyone's great.

• 55:16Bill Maher?

  Everyone's great. Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise.

• 55:21Speaker 04

  Demi Moore, Kevin Pollak, so easy to watch.

• 55:25Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 55:25Speaker 04

  So good.

• 55:26Bill Maher?

  So good. Oh, Kevin Pollak was...

• 55:29Speaker 04

  He's great.

• 55:30Bill Maher?

  Everything he does, yeah.

• 55:31Speaker 04

  I know.

• 55:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah. And he had a good... I mean, we started as comics together, you know? And then he got this great career as an actor.

• 55:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, he's fantastic. Yeah, so I love that. And then the Sex and the City movie, the first one, if that's on, sorry, I'm gonna watch it.

• 55:51Bill Maher?

  So you just like...

• 55:52Speaker 04

  I'm all over the place.

• 55:54Bill Maher?

  You just like, you don't purposely watch things? You just, whatever's on?

• 55:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:59Bill Maher?

  Some people watch TV that way. That's so foreign to me.

• 56:02Speaker 04

  Ooh, no. I don't enjoy it as much when I look for it and put it on. Unless I'm with my husband and he wants to watch, you know, something. I said, "Let's watch something rom... Can we just watch a good, like, romantic movie? Would you do that? Because it's not his thing." He's like, "Yes, yes, I would, yes." And I said, "Okay, what about, ooh, Defending Your Life?" Because it's also so good. Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, Defending Your Life. Where fear is the wor... What? He... See, that's where, I'm sorry. That came in and his great brain turned it into something, but... Fear, of course, fear is...

• 56:47Speaker 04

  That's the worst. That is suffering. That is...

• 56:51Speaker 04

  And then love is the opposite, and that makes everything okay. So that's what's about... I loved that whole paradigm.

• 56:57Bill Maher?

  Defending Your Life, such a perfect structure.

• 57:01Speaker 04

  Perfect.

• 57:03Bill Maher?

  Why do you think so?

• 57:06Bill Maher?

  He wants to... He dies.

• 57:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:09Bill Maher?

  He goes to heaven. But and he's he's put to the test because he has to prove that he has courage. Right?

• 57:17Speaker 04

  Or that he wasn't afraid.

• 57:19Bill Maher?

  Like if you don't prove that you-

• 57:20Speaker 04

  And why didn't you like yourself enough? Was the prosecution's point, why didn't you love yourself?

• 57:26Bill Maher?

  And he falls in love with Meryl Streep.

• 57:27Speaker 04

  And Meryl Streep loves herself. And because she does, there's generosity and she's not afraid of anything. Like, that's the antidote to fear, love. And it's such a big idea. And at the time, I thought, really? I'm not sure, you know?

• 57:44Bill Maher?

  She's going off at the end on the bus, right? Because you're like the bus in heaven, like that takes you to the next level.

• 57:51Speaker 04

  And he's on another bus going like some crappy place.

• 57:54Bill Maher?

  But he goes after her bus.

• 57:55Speaker 04

  To be with her.

• 57:57Bill Maher?

  Thereby also fixing his problem.

• 58:00Speaker 04

  And he's breaking a rule, which is a fear, and he's, yeah.

• 58:04Bill Maher?

  But you see, that that perfect structure of starting with a need.

• 58:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:09Bill Maher?

  And a desire, and then having them. You know, boy, show business, when it's good. I mean.

• 58:17Speaker 04

  No, because it's an idea that everybody gets. And you're not even sure on what level you're getting it. But something about it makes you laugh because it's true. Or makes you cry because it feels true on some level. You know what I mean?

• 58:33Bill Maher?

  When do you watch like TV or movies? Do you watch movies on TV? I mean, I do.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:40Bill Maher?

  When, do you go to the theater ever? Never, yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 04

  No.

• 58:43Bill Maher?

  See, we're alike, nope. And I feel bad, kind of.

• 58:47Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 58:49Bill Maher?

  I mean, I could blow my brains out about it.

• 58:51Speaker 04

  I'll say, so do I.

• 58:55Speaker 04

  So do I, you know?

• 58:57Bill Maher?

  I'm not saying I'm a better person than you because I feel bad. Just because, you know, I mean, you hear these directors like Martin Scorsese, who we all know is the greatest and I love him, but but, but you know, they're all like, it needs to be seen in the theater. I think, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sure on your level and what you are seeing. But we're, I'm just a young man in the 22nd row, you know? I'm just, I like them, I've even watched some of your movies in the kitchen. I'd seen them before, but you know, I'm watching them again. I'd seen it three times.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  By the way, that's how good they are.

• 59:29Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  That I don't need. This huge epic experience.

• 59:34Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 59:35Speaker 04

  It's so good that it works on that. Or on that in my family room, but.

• 59:44Bill Maher?

  Or when I'm making a sandwich.

• 59:46Speaker 04

  Or when you, yes.

• 59:47Bill Maher?

  I don't, I.

• 59:48Speaker 04

  You know what else I have? Oh, what did I miss? Back it up below so I can see. I want to see that again. And I don't need to be in a community to know whether it's funny. And hear other people laughing.

• 1:00:03Bill Maher?

  I don't either.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  Or, you know, crying.

• 1:00:06Bill Maher?

  I don't either, and sometimes that annoys me. You thought that was funny?

• 1:00:11Speaker 04

  I know, and, and.

• 1:00:12Bill Maher?

  Or you didn't think that was funny?

• 1:00:14Speaker 04

  You thought that was funny, and I missed the next line, which I bet was actually funnier.

• 1:00:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I've been the only guy laughing in a theater. I think I have that memory a few times in my life.

• 1:00:28Speaker 04

  I laugh at the small stuff. Like that side, like that muttering that's, you know, right after the joke makes me laugh also. So, like Lucy and Ethel on I Love Lucy, you know, what made me laugh? Ethel going, oh, what? Oh, okay, oh, you know, just like the, it felt like they were really there. And, oh, well, I didn't know, honey, I, oh, honey, I didn't know. Yeah, that little stuff makes me laugh.

• 1:00:57Bill Maher?

  Not that I'm obsessed, but again, like, the idea that, like, the audience isn't getting the best. The idea that somebody would say, like, well, it just, you know, it just has to be good enough. It just, I really feel like, as flawed as some of the stuff was in the past, for various reasons, some of it, you know, we don't want to get into the political, but I feel like the writers of Mikhail's Navy really did their best to, you know, the writers of The Wild, Wild West, and then Star Trek, and like, everything I liked.

• 1:01:32Speaker 04

  Star Trek was something.

• 1:01:33Bill Maher?

  Beverly Hillbillies. I feel like, you know, a bunch of guys got in a room and were like, oh, people like our show, and let's make this the funniest episode ever, and, you know.

• 1:01:46Bill Maher?

  So.

• 1:01:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Bill Maher?

  You know, it offends me that anyone would have that idea that with AI or whatever, just so good. I have never phoned it in. I don't, I don't think.

• 1:01:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 1:01:59Bill Maher?

  And I've seen people phone in it, you know.

• 1:02:02Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:02Bill Maher?

  But.

• 1:02:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Bill Maher?

  Thirty-three.

• 1:02:05Speaker 04

  I'm just going like, I probably have, yeah.

• 1:02:09Bill Maher?

  No, no.

• 1:02:12Speaker 04

  But.

• 1:02:13Bill Maher?

  You're, you're, all, that, what's the movie with the, where you're like, you're with the rapper?

• 1:02:24Speaker 04

  Oh, my God, come on.

• 1:02:26Bill Maher?

  What is that?

• 1:02:27Speaker 04

  That one, Marcy X.

• 1:02:28Bill Maher?

  I love Marcy X.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  How?

• 1:02:32Bill Maher?

  Marcy X.

• 1:02:32Speaker 04

  How?

• 1:02:33Bill Maher?

  I said that was on fucking cable.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  I have never seen it.

• 1:02:37Bill Maher?

  It's great. It's great.

• 1:02:40Speaker 04

  Are you kidding?

• 1:02:41Bill Maher?

  I'm not.

• 1:02:42Speaker 04

  I didn't even have to do press for it.

• 1:02:44Bill Maher?

  I just remember.

• 1:02:45Speaker 04

  That's how, that's how much it was like, yeah, I guess this did work.

• 1:02:48Bill Maher?

  It's really funny. I'm stoned now, so I can't like remember what.

• 1:02:52Speaker 04

  Okay, you don't have to. That's okay.

• 1:02:54Bill Maher?

  What, you tell me, you did it. What, remind me, what's the plot? You're.

• 1:03:00Speaker 04

  My father is very wealthy.

• 1:03:02Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  He has a heart attack. Does he die? No, I don't know.

• 1:03:07Bill Maher?

  You inherit something?

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  And I inherit a record, failing record label, and Damon Wayans.

• 1:03:12Bill Maher?

  Failing record label, right.

• 1:03:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, is the star rapper.

• 1:03:15Bill Maher?

  Star rapper.

• 1:03:16Speaker 04

  And I'm this like rich chap from New York.

• 1:03:20Bill Maher?

  It's great. It's great, I'm telling you. Nobody ever told you that? Nobody saw it?

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:03:27Bill Maher?

  I, you know what, I.

• 1:03:28Speaker 04

  Never.

• 1:03:28Bill Maher?

  I, I didn't, I was not aware of it until it just popped up. You know, they, every movie comes, if you flip through the 50 movie channels.

• 1:03:37Speaker 04

  Okay, maybe you were stoned when it came up.

• 1:03:39Bill Maher?

  No, when it came up, I said, I've never seen that. Like, what is this? You were in it. I was like, oh, I'm definitely gonna watch this. I was not disappointed. I honestly.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Wow, and Damon Wayans.

• 1:03:50Bill Maher?

  Yes, very fun. The whole fucking thing is funny. It's a great.

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  Well, I think, yeah.

• 1:03:55Bill Maher?

  Who directed it? Who wrote it?

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  Richard Benjamin wrote, uh, directed it.

• 1:03:58Bill Maher?

  Richard Benjamin?

• 1:03:59Speaker 04

  He directed it.

• 1:04:00Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  And, um.

• 1:04:01Bill Maher?

  Tell the kids who Richard Benjamin is.

• 1:04:04Speaker 04

  Richard Benjamin.

• 1:04:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they don't know.

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  Heartbreak Kid. He was in everything. Wait, what's the big one?

• 1:04:11Bill Maher?

  Well, he was married to Paul Apprentice.

• 1:04:13Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:13Bill Maher?

  And they had a show when I was a kid, He and She.

• 1:04:16Speaker 04

  He and She, yeah.

• 1:04:17Bill Maher?

  Was so awesome.

• 1:04:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Bill Maher?

  And only one.

• 1:04:20Speaker 04

  No, not Heartbreak Kid. What was he in? Not Heartbreak Kid.

• 1:04:23Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:04:23Speaker 04

  God.

• 1:04:24Bill Maher?

  The one.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  Portnoy's Complaint?

• 1:04:25Bill Maher?

  Yes, that. Well, he had a fine career as an actor.

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  And he was in Catch Twenty Two?

• 1:04:33Bill Maher?

  No, no. Catch Twenty Two is Mike Nichols.

• 1:04:36Speaker 04

  No, no, he didn't direct it. Oh, he directed My Favorite Year.

• 1:04:39Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:04:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, My Favorite Year, oh, yeah.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Bill Maher?

  No, and lots of stuff.

• 1:04:42Speaker 04

  He was lovely. He was so nice.

• 1:04:44Bill Maher?

  So he did that movie.

• 1:04:45Speaker 04

  And Paul Rudnick wrote it.

• 1:04:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, Paul Rudnick is a genius. I loved him. We used to be on Politically Incorrect. So funny. Do you remember the column he used to write?

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:04:55Bill Maher?

  We were, there was a movie magazine back when we had magazines. And he wrote a column called, If You Ask Me. And it was, you know, he's a gay man. It was from the, it's this woman, Libby or something. It was just her view of the reviewing movies. It really was so funny if you're looking for something from the past.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Bill Maher?

  But, so that, what a pedigree for that movie. You, Paul Rudnick, and Richard Benjamin?

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:05:23Bill Maher?

  Oh, so why are you surprised it's good? It's so good.

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  Surprised because it barely got a release. I wasn't required to do press.

• 1:05:30Bill Maher?

  What does that have to do with good?

• 1:05:32Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:05:32Bill Maher?

  What does that have to do with good?

• 1:05:34Speaker 04

  Well, it didn't, it felt fraught the whole time.

• 1:05:37Bill Maher?

  I'm sure it was.

• 1:05:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Bill Maher?

  Art movies?

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  Pretty.

• 1:05:40Bill Maher?

  Usually?

• 1:05:41Speaker 04

  Rough. No, I mean, I did some independent films that were not at all, that were great. Those were easy. Easy?

• 1:05:49Bill Maher?

  Would you?

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  If I say easy?

• 1:05:50Bill Maher?

  If they said, we're doing the next season of, you know,

• 1:05:59Bill Maher?

  Women Where There's Been a Murder shows.

• 1:06:03Speaker 04

  Oh, Snoop, one of those Lady Snoop shows? Yeah.

• 1:06:07Bill Maher?

  Not Mrs. Hat?

• 1:06:08Speaker 04

  Not Mrs. Hat.

• 1:06:08Bill Maher?

  No, like Big Little Lies. I think, you know, like.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:13Bill Maher?

  A-listers like you who were involved with a, oh, please. No, I'm saying, but would you do a show like that?

• 1:06:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, it depends on who, yeah, why not?

• 1:06:26Bill Maher?

  Oh, that would be great. You should also do White Lotus.

• 1:06:32Bill Maher?

  Don't you think?

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:06:34Bill Maher?

  That would be great for you.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:06:37Bill Maher?

  Don't you think?

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:06:38Bill Maher?

  What do you want to do now? Now that you're not gonna be...

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  Well, I might be doing Romeo and Michelle sequel. That movie. Romeo and Michelle's High School reunion.

• 1:06:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, I gotta watch that one again. Yeah, I remember it.

• 1:06:50Speaker 04

  Might do that soon. Very soon. Yeah. And then, I don't know. I'm up for whatever. I hear there are very nice sets now. And people are not like what you described on sitcoms. And there are people that just really want everyone to...

• 1:07:11Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:12Speaker 04

  Be professional and get along and focus on the work.

• 1:07:16Bill Maher?

  I'm sure there always were, but way less in the past.

• 1:07:20Speaker 04

  No, but there was... There were people that felt like, no, no, it's fine. You know, when movies are... When everything goes smoothly, the movie's terrible. I just went, that doesn't... There's... That doesn't make any sense. So, I think everyone could be decent to each other, too. And it could be okay.

• 1:07:39Bill Maher?

  I just remember hearing about how awesome dailies were when I was like doing movies like... I mean, my movies...

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  The dailies are...

• 1:07:47Bill Maher?

  You know, everyone was like so jazzed about the... Did you see that? And it's like...

• 1:07:52Speaker 04

  Would you go? Did you ever go see dailies?

• 1:07:55Bill Maher?

  No, I was...

• 1:07:56Speaker 04

  You weren't invited. Right. I wouldn't have been invited.

• 1:07:59Bill Maher?

  And did I even ever have my own trailer? No, I was never rose to that level. I did like Cannibal Women and The Avocado Jungle of Death and DC Cab. This is my acting career. Murder She Wrote, I was on twice.

• 1:08:12Speaker 04

  But did you like acting?

• 1:08:14Bill Maher?

  You know, at the time, you know, I was mid, late twenties into my thirties. Yeah. I mean, I did. There was... There's some... There's a satisfaction in nailing your close-up that is a real high.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Bill Maher?

  And I'm sure people like yourself who do it way better than me and have had an awesome, long career... That high is worth chasing way more than it was for me to chase it. And it was never really my destiny, anyway. Acting, you're a character and I'm better at being exactly who I am. And acting is sort of the reverse of that.

• 1:08:52Speaker 04

  Right, it's very hard just to be exactly who you are with someone else writing the words for you. Especially, that's hard.

• 1:08:59Bill Maher?

  But I think the reverse, I think it's harder to be, you know.

• 1:09:02Speaker 04

  Someone else?

• 1:09:03Bill Maher?

  Well, the way, I mean.

• 1:09:05Speaker 04

  Oh, I love being someone else.

• 1:09:07Bill Maher?

  Of course, that's why you're good at that.

• 1:09:09Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:09:10Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:09:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:11Bill Maher?

  I could see also why you want to be Valerie. It's just so much fun to slip into that and.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  Because nothing bothers her, not really. You know, she just makes up a reason why it's okay, not none of my business.

• 1:09:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  You haven't seen the last one.

• 1:09:30Bill Maher?

  I tried to.

• 1:09:31Speaker 04

  They wouldn't give it to you?

• 1:09:33Bill Maher?

  No, it's only up to six on my machine.

• 1:09:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 1:09:36Bill Maher?

  And there's eight?

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  Eight, yeah.

• 1:09:38Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, the last one is good.

• 1:09:42Bill Maher?

  They're all good. I was, they caught on, you know, the streamers at first, it was like, binge, binge away. And they were like, oh, you know what? People are just gonna binge and then cancel. And there was like, oh. Yeah, let's go back to how we did it in my day on TV where you watched once a week and that's why people came back to your product. So, yeah, of course, now if I want to.

• 1:10:07Speaker 04

  And now they have commercials. They have up-fronts again. I just heard there's gonna be up-fronts for HBO Max.

• 1:10:15Bill Maher?

  For HBO Max?

• 1:10:16Speaker 04

  Uh huh, up-fronts because they're gonna have one tier.

• 1:10:21Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  A lower-priced subscription with commercials.

• 1:10:25Bill Maher?

  Well, they already do that on Epic.

• 1:10:28Speaker 04

  Netflix does it?

• 1:10:30Bill Maher?

  No, no.

• 1:10:30Speaker 04

  Or they were threatening to, I thought.

• 1:10:31Bill Maher?

  But somebody does it. Somebody does it that way, cuz I tried to watch something once and it's like, oh.

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:10:38Bill Maher?

  I see, I have to.

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Bill Maher?

  Sit to a commercial.

• 1:10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, oh, I watch History Channel and all I can get, I only watch one show on it. And there's always, there's like three minutes of ads and I'm not, I don't, I'm not used to that anymore. I don't care for it. You can't fast forward.

• 1:10:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, I hate fucking.

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  That's not fair.

• 1:10:58Bill Maher?

  I hate streaming, they've ruined sports.

• 1:11:01Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:11:02Bill Maher?

  They've ruined it.

• 1:11:03Speaker 04

  Why?

• 1:11:04Bill Maher?

  It used to be all the games were on one channel.

• 1:11:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:07Bill Maher?

  So you're just like, okay, all I do is turn that with the game. Now it's all over, you never know where the game is. It's on, some of them are ESPN, NBC, ABC.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  Wait, it's not one network or one streamer that.

• 1:11:21Bill Maher?

  Spread all over.

• 1:11:22Speaker 04

  Got all of them?

• 1:11:23Bill Maher?

  No. So we have to hunt for the fucking game.

• 1:11:27Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:11:28Bill Maher?

  And then it is harder to fast forward through streaming. You can't do it with old DVR. I know, grandpa. You can see how fast you're going, you can see where to stop. You can blip through the commercials and know, you can't do that.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  Why?

• 1:11:46Bill Maher?

  Because it just doesn't, because they don't want you to.

• 1:11:48Speaker 04

  Is it live? Streaming live, is that why?

• 1:11:51Bill Maher?

  If I wanna like zip through the commercial, it's not easy to do on stream. It's just not.

• 1:11:56Speaker 04

  Right, it's as if it's on demand and you're stuck with the whoever sponsored that segment, yeah.

• 1:12:02Bill Maher?

  They just.

• 1:12:03Speaker 04

  I don't know. Do we sound, I don't know what you're talking about, I guess, but anyway.

• 1:12:07Bill Maher?

  I'm talking about zipping through things.

• 1:12:08Speaker 04

  I know, but.

• 1:12:09Bill Maher?

  It's harder on streaming.

• 1:12:10Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:12:11Bill Maher?

  It just is. And they, they do lots of shit like that. I call it reverse improvement, you know, like, things were, I mean, half the stuff, just to get the TV on. I mean, I don't wanna sound like Andy Rooney.

• 1:12:27Speaker 04

  Remember you used to hit a button and the TV would come on?

• 1:12:31Bill Maher?

  And have you opened a bag of potato chips lately? It's mostly air.

• 1:12:35Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 1:12:40Bill Maher?

  But TV is so important to me.

• 1:12:42Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 1:12:42Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's what I watch it at the end of the day. Well, I watch it, you know, I have it on, I have a TV in the kitchen, the bathroom, my office. But if I really want to watch something, I watch it in bed at night because I'm just, just watching.

• 1:12:56Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:12:56Bill Maher?

  I'm not taking a bath, I'm not making a sandwich, I'm not unpacking my briefcase. I'm that, so I watch your show from the bed.

• 1:13:04Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 1:13:05Bill Maher?

  It's the highest compliment I can give to a.

• 1:13:07Speaker 04

  It's an honor.

• 1:13:08Bill Maher?

  A thespian.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  What an honor.

• 1:13:10Bill Maher?

  I said thespian.

• 1:13:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:13Bill Maher?

  So.

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  Why? Oh, because you said.

• 1:13:16Bill Maher?

  Lesbian, thespian.

• 1:13:17Speaker 04

  Thespian. Thespian, yeah.

• 1:13:21Bill Maher?

  I'm assuming the audience.

• 1:13:24Speaker 04

  Did he say lesbian?

• 1:13:25Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  Can't say that.

• 1:13:28Bill Maher?

  You know, I have to watch at least an hour of TV before I go to bed.

• 1:13:33Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 1:13:34Bill Maher?

  Which is probably not the right time to do it, they say, because you shouldn't be screened. It's kind of the opposite effect of what.

• 1:13:40Speaker 04

  No, no, no. That's my wind down.

• 1:13:42Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 1:13:43Speaker 04

  That's my wind down.

• 1:13:44Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 1:13:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Bill Maher?

  But that light is not great right before you sleep, but too bad.

• 1:13:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:51Bill Maher?

  It's worth the trade off.

• 1:13:52Speaker 04

  And I have to watch sitcoms.

• 1:13:54Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:13:55Speaker 04

  Before I go to sleep.

• 1:13:56Bill Maher?

  Is that?

• 1:13:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, because it's not like I watch, if I can't watch your show before going to bed because it. No, no, it lights my brain up.

• 1:14:05Bill Maher?

  Go to bed infuriated.

• 1:14:06Speaker 04

  Gets me thinking. No, because it gets me thinking and, oh, that's a good point.

• 1:14:11Bill Maher?

  You wake up, you punch the shit out of your pillow.

• 1:14:13Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:14:13Bill Maher?

  It feathers all over the place.

• 1:14:15Speaker 04

  No. No.

• 1:14:18Bill Maher?

  No. Well, what's like old sitcoms like?

• 1:14:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, they're all old. What's a new one?

• 1:14:25Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, like going like old, like Andy Griffith's show.

• 1:14:29Speaker 04

  Oh, no, not that old.

• 1:14:31Bill Maher?

  Not that old?

• 1:14:32Speaker 04

  No, I've done All in the Family, though. That was fun. I like doing that. And I've watched Andy Griffith, but at night, right now, it's Will and Grace. Makes me laugh out loud.

• 1:14:43Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  30 Rock.

• 1:14:45Bill Maher?

  What a great compliment.

• 1:14:46Speaker 04

  Makes me laugh out loud.

• 1:14:48Bill Maher?

  30 Rock.

• 1:14:48Speaker 04

  And recently, Friends. I did finally watch Friends.

• 1:14:52Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 1:14:52Speaker 04

  All the way through. And it made me laugh out loud. Pretty good.

• 1:14:57Bill Maher?

  It was the most popular show in my lifetime I've ever heard about.

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Bill Maher?

  It's.

• 1:15:02Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 1:15:05Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was really something.

• 1:15:08Bill Maher?

  Sometimes I forget because, you know, I'm such a fan of everything else too. I think, oh yeah, and she's also that icon one.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  The icon, on that icon show.

• 1:15:19Bill Maher?

  It's iconic.

• 1:15:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, it is. Thank God for it. It let me do the other things I wanted to do.

• 1:15:25Bill Maher?

  It had a Beatlesque feeling from, I always thought from the fans who like, aside from the fact that they loved the product, they loved the show, they loved the Beatles music. But they really like were emotionally invested in the, in the band liking each other. Like it was, it was like

• 1:15:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:43Bill Maher?

  painful if they thought mommy and daddy were fighting, you know.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:46Bill Maher?

  John and Paul were, you know, beefing or, you know, John Lennon wrote a couple of mean songs about it. It was like, oh come on, you guys. And I felt like you, you, you gang had the same thing.

• 1:15:58Speaker 04

  No, we really liked each other, yeah. We really did.

• 1:16:02Bill Maher?

  Well, that, but yeah, I mean, that's good too.

• 1:16:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Bill Maher?

  But, um.

• 1:16:06Speaker 04

  Oh, that people were invested in that is what you mean.

• 1:16:09Bill Maher?

  You know, we, and.

• 1:16:12Speaker 04

  But you can see it. You could, you can, I don't know, maybe you can't tell. I mean, there were shows I love and I didn't know they all hated each other.

• 1:16:20Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:16:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:21Bill Maher?

  They're acting.

• 1:16:22Speaker 04

  Right, well.

• 1:16:23Bill Maher?

  But yeah, I think there was a, I think there's a special chemistry that does come through.

• 1:16:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, it has to certainly with familiarity over the years and going through each other's problems. I mean, you were young.

• 1:16:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:35Bill Maher?

  So, young people do, I think, do a lot more sharing.

• 1:16:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, although I was 30 when I started, when we started that. I was the oldest one.

• 1:16:43Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:16:43Speaker 04

  To 40. An adult.

• 1:16:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah, an adult, but at that vantage point of 70, to me, that's young.

• 1:16:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, me too now.

• 1:16:53Bill Maher?

  Well, just because I know how I was acting when I was 30 and it certainly wasn't like a mature adult.

• 1:16:59Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah. That's right.

• 1:17:02Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:17:02Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:17:04Bill Maher?

  I went, I went and drove to a party. I was 32, I believe. I drove from my house in West Hollywood to the beach, I think it was Labor Day, in my Mercedes, top down, without a shirt on.

• 1:17:23Bill Maher?

  And, and did not bring a shirt, as I recall.

• 1:17:29Bill Maher?

  You know, these are the

• 1:17:31Speaker 04

  So Hollywood.

• 1:17:31Bill Maher?

  I call this, who was in my body moments? Like, so if I remember that, I know specifically I did that. I think, okay, that was my brain? What else was I getting wrong?

• 1:17:45Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:17:46Bill Maher?

  You know, at that age.

• 1:17:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:48Bill Maher?

  What else must have been askew? But that's a male. Women's brains, I think, mature much faster. And thirty, they are adults. Not a man.

• 1:18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Bill Maher?

  Not this man.

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  Well, I always, I couldn't wait to be thirty from when I was ten. So I was always, you know, that doesn't seem safe. What are you doing? Why is everyone an idiot? There's such unnecessary risks, you know?

• 1:18:18Speaker 04

  I was the best teenager ever.

• 1:18:21Bill Maher?

  I wanted to get a childhood over with also.

• 1:18:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Bill Maher?

  I looked up to adults. I wanted to be one.

• 1:18:29Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 1:18:29Bill Maher?

  I'm a control freak, so children are not in control.

• 1:18:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:33Bill Maher?

  So it's a fundamental, it's not like I had a bad childhood, but I was fundamentally in a state unsuitable to me.

• 1:18:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:18:41Bill Maher?

  As a small tyrant.

• 1:18:43Speaker 04

  But what was, was there anything worse than when there was a substitute teacher in grade school? And everyone was just like screaming because it was a substitute teacher. It wasn't the regular teacher. And everyone was, it was pure chaos.

• 1:18:58Speaker 04

  Oh, it was the worst. I hated it.

• 1:19:01Bill Maher?

  Are you one of those people who thinks high school did nothing for you?

• 1:19:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, no. I think it did.

• 1:19:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:11Speaker 04

  That's where I took biology and honors biology and fell in love with that. And yeah, I liked that. But socially, yeah. I mean, my first year, we started in sophomore year. So 10th grade was the first year of high school. And yeah, I thought, okay, we'll go to a football game. Then we'll go to parties. And two of those, and I was done. Like, oh, they're just getting drunk. And it's even more stupid. You're already so stupid. Oh, no. Like, now what? That's 10th grade. Figured that out, and so did my other friends, yeah.

• 1:19:53Bill Maher?

  See? So ahead. Women to men. That's why the girls were...

• 1:19:57Speaker 04

  No, the other girls were thrilled to be there. That was, we were weird, the four of us. We were just weird.

• 1:20:07Bill Maher?

  Weird because ahead. Because you were, yeah. When I got to college, Cornell, the first year in the dorm, I got ostracized because they were having shaving cream fights.

• 1:20:23Speaker 04

  Ow.

• 1:20:23Bill Maher?

  And like, the first few times, okay, it's funny. Like, the 10th time, and I said something, and then I was like, made myself into ostracism boy. I mean, I'm telling you, the dumb things.

• 1:20:39Speaker 04

  You were a drag.

• 1:20:41Bill Maher?

  I, like, yeah.

• 1:20:44Speaker 04

  You were such, you were such a drag, because it wasn't funny enough. It wasn't entertaining enough for you.

• 1:20:50Bill Maher?

  I mean, it was...

• 1:20:51Speaker 04

  But did you like sitting around having intellectual conversations? No?

• 1:20:55Bill Maher?

  With, in the dorm?

• 1:20:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Bill Maher?

  I, I had one friend. No. I mean, it was terrible.

• 1:21:02Speaker 04

  But once you made friends outside of the dorm, is that what was fun for you, to like, sit around, talk about?

• 1:21:08Bill Maher?

  Yes. Like, well, I didn't, I mean, it was rough the first couple of years. I didn't, barely, at first I wanted to have a girlfriend. I gave up on that after, I was like, I could just have a friend.

• 1:21:19Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 1:21:20Bill Maher?

  That's how lonely, yeah, Cornell's liked it. So, eventually I did hook up with a great guy who was one of my friends for life.

• 1:21:29Speaker 04

  Oh, great, yeah.

• 1:21:30Bill Maher?

  And we smoked our first pot together, really, and, you know, we were pot dealers together in college and...

• 1:21:40Bill Maher?

  We did Speed. A few times and Speed, I mean, like, I don't think they make it like this anymore. You would be up for 12 hours having great conversations. Or you thought they were great conversations. But there was that feeling of like, wow, you know,

• 1:21:57Bill Maher?

  my mind is alive and, you know, this person is, you know, we're playing ping pong mentally and it's

• 1:22:04Bill Maher?

  one of the greatest pleasures of life.

• 1:22:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:06Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:22:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:08Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:22:09Speaker 04

  That's why I keep saying I'm no fun at a dinner party. Because I don't know what to do with the chit chat, ever. You know, I just get.

• 1:22:18Bill Maher?

  Well, just pick out one person and talk to them.

• 1:22:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:22Bill Maher?

  But you probably have that at home.

• 1:22:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:25Bill Maher?

  I mean, if you're married for a long time, it's probably because you have that mental ping pong that the person is just, you know, a person can just endlessly delight you mentally.

• 1:22:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. We sometimes can't get through a show because it's pause and then we talk about something for 20 minutes. And, yeah, and then it's, okay, great. So you're gonna go to bed now, right? Because now I can just watch something and not get through it.

• 1:22:53Bill Maher?

  Well, I am just so flattered that you would steal away to talk. I mean, it.

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  Come on, it's you.

• 1:23:00Bill Maher?

  I appreciate, I'm finding this out. I'm telling you, actions speak very loudly and I'm just thrilled that you like me that much.

• 1:23:09Speaker 04

  I do and I have a lot of. And I have a lot of respect for you.

• 1:23:14Bill Maher?

  I appreciate it. All right, well then.

• 1:23:16Speaker 04

  A lot of respect for you.

• 1:23:17Bill Maher?

  All right, I won't bother you, but.

• 1:23:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, that would be great.

• 1:23:23Bill Maher?

  But I wish I could, no. But, yeah, will it come back here or?

• 1:23:27Speaker 04

  Tomorrow?

• 1:23:28Bill Maher?

  No, sometime. I hope I get to talk to you more often than I have.

• 1:23:33Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:23:33Bill Maher?

  But I appreciate it. And I guess we're plugging the.

• 1:23:39Speaker 04

  Season three of The Comeback.

• 1:23:40Bill Maher?

  Season three of The Comeback. I don't know if we did that formally.

• 1:23:44Speaker 04

  Well.

• 1:23:44Bill Maher?

  I don't know when this drops, but certainly maybe all eight will have been on by then.

• 1:23:51Speaker 04

  I hope.

• 1:23:51Bill Maher?

  But if not.

• 1:23:52Speaker 04

  I don't know where I'm looking.

• 1:23:53Bill Maher?

  Just watch all eight. It's so good.

• 1:23:56Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:23:57Bill Maher?

  I love it when I have a show, you know, that I'm just dying to see.

• 1:24:01Speaker 04

  That's great news to me from you. Honestly, thrilled.

• 1:24:07Bill Maher?

  All right, I'll let you.

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  Bill Maher likes our show.

• 1:24:09Bill Maher?

  I love it. It's a good show.

• 1:24:15Speaker 04

  Thanks. When am I gonna be 80 and do another fifth season five? Like, uh-uh.

• 1:24:24Speaker 04

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• 1:25:24Speaker 07

  Hi there. I am fully charged and here to tell you, Toy Story 5 is now on Disney+.

• 1:25:31Bill Maher?

  It's been too long, cowboy.

• 1:25:33Speaker 07

  Woody, Buzz, and Jessie are back for a brand-new adventure with some seriously cool new tech. What? Holy butterscotch! You said it, Jessie. So, save your batteries and watch the global phenomenon at home. And the best part? It's perfect for the whole family. Power up your movie night and watch Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5, now streaming on Disney+, rated PG.