0:02

I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening

0:04

to Here's the Thing from My Heart

0:06

Radio. My friend Lorne

0:09

Michael's told me that back in the nineteen

0:11

seventies when he launched Saturday

0:13

Night Live, there were only a handful

0:15

of comedy clubs in the United States.

0:18

Today there are hundreds of comedy

0:20

clubs, and Americans have

0:22

available to them an ocean of

0:25

sitcom's, late night talk shows

0:27

and streaming comedy specials. To

0:30

distinguish yourself in that world of

0:32

comedy is a very difficult thing

0:35

to do. My guest today

0:37

has succeeded at just that. Actor

0:40

writer comedian Patton Oswald

0:43

has appeared in many sitcoms, including

0:45

The King of Queens, ap Bio,

0:47

The Goldberg's Veep, Reno, Parks

0:51

and Wreck, and Brooklyn Nine. He's

0:54

written two books, including a

0:56

memoir, Silver Screen Fiend,

0:59

about his of of movies, and

1:01

he does a lot of voiceover work,

1:04

from My Little Pony and Word

1:06

Girl to Archer and bow Jack,

1:08

Horsemen, and, perhaps most

1:10

memorably, as Remy in Pixar's

1:13

Rattatui. First of all,

1:15

I'm a rat, which

1:19

means life is hard. A

1:22

second, I have a

1:24

highly developed sense of taste and smell flour,

1:28

eggs, sugar, vanilla

1:31

bean, oh Small Twisdom.

1:34

Patton Oswald has released three

1:36

Netflix comedy specials, including

1:39

last year's I Love Everything, where

1:41

he riffs on parenting, home ownership,

1:44

and turning fifty. If you

1:46

were to fly a helicopter low over

1:48

the earth, you know what you would see. You'd

1:50

see people in their twenties

1:53

gobbling drugs, eating delicious food,

1:55

having sex, People in their

1:57

thirties with actual jobs making the world run,

2:00

People in their forties trying

2:03

to fund the twenty year olds, and

2:07

then us, the gentle surrendered

2:10

fifty year olds. We've

2:12

got our earbuds in listening

2:14

to podcasts what

2:18

You're done by twenty year olds

2:20

that nobody wants to fuck. In

2:25

April two thousand sixteen, Patton

2:27

Oswald suffered a great loss

2:30

the sudden death of his first wife, true

2:32

crime writer Michelle McNamara. She

2:35

was forty six. She left behind

2:37

patent and there then seven year old

2:39

daughter Alice. My

2:41

absolute first thought was, why isn't it

2:44

me? She should be here.

2:46

She's doing, in my opinion, the more important

2:48

work and has the better

2:50

bond with and it would

2:52

be a better example for to raise

2:55

our daughter with not not to I

2:57

don't believe in you know, um false

2:59

modesty. But if you're going to choose

3:02

a person to emulate you, oh yeah, have

3:04

do do Michelle more than yeah?

3:07

Exactly mother. You can't replace them

3:10

right now? No, No, what was that like

3:12

for you in those early stages of managing that,

3:15

not just your grief but your single parenthood

3:18

you you know, I didn't think about

3:20

this aspect of a part of being a dad.

3:23

At least part of my process

3:25

is going off and having

3:28

some solitude to be with my

3:30

thoughts and then be there

3:32

because I was hardwired with that old

3:35

patriarchal model of I'm

3:37

the one who goes out into the

3:39

wild and gathers up the

3:41

firewood and that kills the meat

3:44

and brings it all back, and then when I'm home

3:46

I relaxed while they all prepare us. And

3:48

then I had to do I had to still go out

3:51

and get the sustenance, but then be there

3:53

and be the parents. So there was about

3:55

a year of kind of adjusting two.

3:58

I very early on stop judging myself

4:00

for maybe not being the most dynamic,

4:03

but I was going I'm here, though

4:05

I'm physically here, when I'm home and she's

4:07

home. I'm here, and I just

4:09

and you find out that if you

4:11

want to, you can adjust your schedule to

4:14

go, Okay, well, she's in school for these hours, so

4:16

this is when I will do work, and this is when

4:18

I will get stuff done in the minute she's done

4:21

work has got to know that I'm not available

4:23

now and I want to go pick her up at school and come

4:25

home with her and just be with her. And

4:27

that was that was how it was for a while. That's

4:29

where were That's where we're recording at

4:31

this time. Because my two

4:33

youngest boys, not the baby, but the two middle

4:36

boys, they take a nap, right people, I

4:38

mean, when are we recording the podcast? I go one o'clock,

4:40

it's naptime. And when they when they nap, Yeah,

4:42

the only time the house is quiet enough to record.

4:46

Yeah, exactly a lot of times, what

4:48

what you learn is when my daughter was talking

4:50

to me, I had to get over my impulse

4:53

to go, well, what is the action thing

4:55

we can do to solve this. A lot of times she

4:57

wasn't looking for the action solutions.

4:59

She just let's just talk this out and

5:01

look at it. We don't need a solution

5:04

right now. I just want someone to hear

5:06

me and then to say back, oh, yeah, that

5:08

is really bad and I don't actually

5:10

have an answer right now. Like that, in a weird way,

5:13

that was more reassuring, because

5:15

coming back with an immediate action

5:18

solution almost feels to

5:20

that person, especially to my daughter. Sometimes

5:22

I think it felt like I don't think he really

5:25

was listening to me. I think he just wanted

5:27

to jump to the solution. And it

5:29

seems like men want to jump right

5:31

to the solution, and women are so

5:33

much more patient and

5:35

and confident in going let

5:38

we don't need to have us let's just keep let's

5:40

look at this exactly,

5:43

you know, and menally, no, we solve it right now.

5:45

But but there's and nothing makes

5:48

a man panic more

5:51

than you don't have the answer, where there's

5:53

not only do not have an answer, but when

5:55

you realize the answer is there is

5:57

not an immediate solution. Like there's

6:00

friend drama um at school

6:02

and I and I had to go I

6:04

guess you have to go back tomorrow

6:06

and talk to her, or like

6:09

like there wasn't this specific

6:11

I wanted to do that, like the Good Fellas thing of like

6:14

if someone was being mean to her at school, like grab

6:16

her and put her head in a pizza of and go. You

6:19

know that's not doesn't work that way. When

6:21

I say to my daughters, I'm like, I don't say this,

6:24

but she'll be like, she'll be crying and should be like, you know, Amanda

6:26

would mean to me it was mean to

6:28

be on a zoom call like,

6:31

and my wife is so the process

6:33

and the you know, and I'm

6:35

like, why don't you just tell Amanda to go fund

6:37

herself? You

6:40

know, like maybe I should go talk

6:42

to a man. You

6:45

know, you don't need to go into the school angry

6:48

sixth year old man yelling at an eight year old your

6:51

your Your wife was a writer her entire career.

6:53

She was, yeah, I mean she started as a writer

6:56

in college. She taught writing

6:58

at Michigan and and started

7:01

it was weird. She started writing TV

7:03

shows and screenplays in Hollywood.

7:05

They were comedies, but they were crime adjacent.

7:08

And then as she wrote them,

7:10

she even, if you're writing a comedy about

7:12

a crime, you have to at least know the

7:15

crime has got to make sense or it doesn't.

7:17

You know, the comedy falls apart. So in

7:19

researching the crime aspects of it, she

7:21

started realizing oh no, I really like the crime way

7:24

better. I don't want to write comedy. I want actually,

7:26

I don't want to write Springtime for Dahmer, you

7:28

know, I don't want none of

7:30

that for me. Yeah.

7:32

So she worked as an assistant for a

7:35

private eye for a while, like, did cases

7:37

with him, and and just that became

7:39

her thing. And then she when we got

7:41

together, you know, she would tell me that

7:43

just the Labrinthian details

7:46

of these cases that she would just research

7:48

online. And I was like, why don't you just because I

7:50

had a web master, I had a web page for my shows.

7:52

I'm like, I'll just pay me a little lecture. Let's

7:54

get do you have a website? Just write this stuff

7:56

out. And she started writing it, and she

7:58

was starting to put these crimes together

8:01

just on This is like in the you

8:03

know, the early stages of the internet, and

8:05

now there's a million crime blogs

8:07

and crime podcasts. Um. She was

8:09

one of the first that was doing it and was getting calls.

8:12

She got a call from Dateline.

8:15

They hired her as a consultant because she had

8:17

put together a case they weren't able to crack. And

8:19

the reason they weren't able to crack it was because when

8:22

they would go to the family and talk to him, it's like, oh, this

8:24

is the news. They would clam up. But some

8:26

girl on the internet, yeah I'll say anything

8:28

that who cares? And they told her everything.

8:31

It was amazing. So the documentary,

8:33

which is the same name as the that's a six

8:35

part documentary. It's an on HBO. Yes,

8:38

I'll Be Gone in the Dark. It's yeah, they all six

8:40

episodes are out there now. Oh my god.

8:42

And obviously did you did you have any

8:45

involvement with that at all? Were you? I you know,

8:47

it's a documentary about an extraordinary

8:49

woman that was made by an extraordinary

8:51

woman. I love Liz Garbas Liz

8:54

Garbage, Oh my god, woman

8:57

and so prolific.

9:00

I mean, she did I'll Be Gone in the Dark,

9:02

then did all In Then now she's

9:04

like she just is able to capture

9:07

the essence and the absolute right angle

9:09

of attack for these stories. It's

9:12

incredible. It's as much a tribute

9:14

to Liz and her crew

9:17

as it is to Michelle and the people

9:19

around her. And again, just

9:21

like I was with Michelle, I'm just the

9:23

mediator. I guess that the one thing I can give

9:25

myself credit for was knowing when to step the hell back

9:28

and let people do their work. And both

9:30

times I had the wherewithal to do that, Thank

9:32

God. You know, for me as a

9:34

kid, TV was something

9:37

that you. I mean, I'm a bit older than you, and TV

9:39

was something that you sat down and you did

9:41

what I called I This might not be

9:43

the most apt phrase, but you would do back then

9:45

in the sixties and seventies, when I referred

9:48

to as I are vedic listening, you

9:50

know, you did the most intense listening known

9:53

to man. You'd watch one

9:55

episode of a show or a movie and you remember

9:57

every line because you literally got into a

10:00

mirrorlogical electromagnetic

10:02

field with the TV and it

10:04

was going into your brain and being chiseled

10:06

into your brain. And I remembered all the words

10:09

to the show watching it one time, because

10:11

that's all you had. There was no VCR, it

10:13

wasn't coming back nothing. You watched it then

10:15

and that was it. So I would watch Herman

10:18

Munster, I watched Gilligan's

10:21

Island, f Troop. I watched all

10:23

the TV from when I was a kid.

10:25

Family Affair. It's

10:28

weird you you just mentioned the air vetic listening

10:31

for shows like Family Affair

10:33

and Bewitched and and igree Ma Genie

10:35

and stuff like that. Do you think that

10:38

that informed your characterization

10:41

of Jack Donneghee on thirty

10:43

Rock only because now that I'm thinking about

10:45

it, he was an

10:47

evangelical salesman for

10:50

that kind of sitcom hypnotism

10:52

because he didn't give a crap about the content

10:55

of the shows. He loved the fact that

10:57

it got people into a state where he could

10:59

sell ducts, and it was why

11:01

he was so good at mimicking those

11:04

rhythms on other people.

11:06

Was that like a subconscious thing that got drilled into your

11:08

brain and you didn't realize you had it? Probably subconscious,

11:11

Yeah, because you've done a lot of very like

11:13

rough You know that the mammt the you

11:16

know, Miami Blue is way more naturalistic

11:18

stuff, and you very easily fell

11:20

into those kind of inhuman

11:23

rhythms that you realize when you listen to

11:25

it. But that is kind of how we talk because

11:27

we've been programmed by the TV. It's

11:30

really weird that that happened

11:33

a your vedic listening. What

11:35

was that background for you grew up where I

11:38

grew up in the very very

11:40

bland suburbs of northern

11:43

Virginia, Sterling Virginia.

11:46

Was your dad in the government, Yeah, he was. My

11:48

dad was a marine for twenty years and

11:51

then he retired and then he

11:53

worked at USA today at Genet and

11:55

built all their computer systems. So

11:57

it was he was a tech guy out

12:00

Silver Spring. And I remember him saying

12:02

he would talk vaguely because he couldn't even

12:04

conceive of it. But he's like, it's all

12:06

gonna be on a computer, like

12:09

everything, Like I had a manual typewriter

12:11

and I wanted an electric And he said,

12:14

just why don't you just wait? In five

12:16

years, it's all gonna there won't be any typewriters. There won't

12:18

like, there won't be any of that. Just but he couldn't articulate

12:21

it enough. He didn't know exactly what was coming.

12:23

But he had an inkland because he saw what was going on,

12:26

you know, with Business Defense Department

12:28

here. What did your mom do? My

12:31

mom was a legal secretary in

12:33

Vienna. It was all people

12:35

the suburbs where I grew up. It's all

12:38

around four and everyone went into

12:40

the city and made money and then came to the suburbs.

12:42

When you're a child, it's the

12:44

funny in your household and everybody's going

12:47

get up there, Patton. That is

12:49

so funny? Are you like the performing the

12:52

family I had? I mean, I was funny

12:54

in my family, but I was also in you

12:57

know that the term the class clown, that's

12:59

actually a false term. There's a clown click

13:02

in every high school. It's not. There's never just one. There's

13:05

a group of people, boys and girls who were

13:07

super into comedy. And that was my click. So

13:10

then, of course in my home, you know, I could

13:12

lift more than everyone else because I was hanging out all

13:14

day with these comedy nerds. But

13:16

then I would come home and my dad was you know, he

13:19

introduced me very early on to like

13:21

Jonathan Winters uh and

13:23

the mother's brothers and stuff like that, and then that led

13:25

me surreptitiously to

13:28

Richard Pryor and then, weirdly enough to

13:30

Steve Martin, who Steve Martin was my

13:32

gateway to Monty Python because

13:35

I heard Monty Python before Steve Martin. I didn't

13:37

get it. I thought it was stupid. Then I heard

13:39

Steve Martin went oh, I get what they were doing.

13:41

And then that led me back into it. And then this whole

13:44

world like kind of opened up. It was great

13:46

where you go to college. I went to William

13:48

and Mary. I went there to study writing.

13:50

And when I went to William and Mary, this is in the

13:52

late eighties, early nineties. They they had

13:54

a theater department, but they really didn't have like a

13:57

film society or any kind of

13:59

like stay up. They had a couple of improv

14:01

groups and stuff like that. And then now

14:04

apparently it's just it's even more exploded.

14:06

You know. At the time, I think William Mary was

14:08

more of a feeder school

14:11

for like lawyers, and it

14:13

was it was that kind of thing. They weren't really that focused

14:15

on the arts. They majors exactly.

14:17

Yeah. I remember I was having problems with my senior

14:20

because I had taken too many courses

14:22

in my major and I didn't have enough credits

14:24

to graduate because I took too

14:27

many English courses and I didn't understand

14:29

that I was supposed to take some psychology. Took a lot of

14:31

geology and psychology too. But I

14:33

remember I had to petition the

14:35

committee on degrees and

14:38

and asked them to wave it was just

14:41

like nine credits that I was shy, and I

14:43

was talking to my counsel

14:45

and I was like, look, I really need to graduate

14:47

like, and he was like, you actually don't

14:49

need to. You can just do a whole other year. It's

14:51

great. You do a whole other year as a senior

14:54

and you only got to take nine credits, will

14:56

be the best year of your life. And I'm like, no, you don't understand.

14:58

Like I have jobs lined because starting stopping

15:00

here, I started actually getting work as a comedian. So I'm like,

15:03

by the time when I was a senior, I have jobs

15:05

lined up. School was in the way. Yeah,

15:07

And and then he was like, oh, what firm, Like what

15:09

firm are you with? Like he in his mind

15:11

I had signed with it. I'm like, oh no, I'm

15:14

doing Charlie Goodnights in um North

15:16

Carolina. I'm doing their Garvins, I'm doing the

15:18

Comedy Caravan, like I had all these gigs lined up.

15:20

And then he and then he said, I don't

15:22

think William and Marian wants to be known for producing

15:24

comedians like like as a

15:26

like kind of And then I went okay, and

15:28

then I just like I just petitioned

15:31

so hard and they went fine, just get out and they gave

15:33

me my diploma. But I was like ah,

15:36

and and and then like they William

15:39

and Mary Produced, Michelle Wolf and

15:41

John Stewart. For God's sakes, they should be proud of

15:43

that. Comedian

15:48

Patton Oswald. I'm Alec

15:50

Baldwin and you're listening to Here's

15:52

the Thing. If you like conversations

15:55

with comedians who can also act,

15:58

check out our archives and my

16:00

conversation with Kristen Wigg, who

16:02

credits her college acting teacher and

16:04

helping her overcome her performance

16:07

anxiety. It was literally

16:09

acting one on one that was one class one class,

16:12

and I was terrified

16:15

to take it. But something about

16:17

this class we learned about improv and

16:20

my teacher was really supportive and at the end of

16:22

the class he was just like, have you ever considered

16:25

doing this? And I was like, oh, yeah, right

16:28

was your teacher? Was my teacher? Yeah?

16:30

Here more of my conversation with Kristen

16:33

Wigg at Here's the Thing dot

16:35

org. After the break, I talked

16:37

to Patton Oswald about his move

16:39

to San Francisco in the early nine nineties

16:42

and whyatt prompted him to tear up his

16:44

previous material and start all

16:47

over. I'm

16:55

Alec Baldwin and you're listening to

16:57

Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio.

17:00

Patton Oswald was a fan of stand

17:02

up as a kid, but he didn't try his

17:04

hand at it until college. It

17:07

was between junior and sophomore

17:09

year of college. That was that somewhere where

17:11

I'm like, oh, I better actually figure out what I'm gonna do,

17:13

and I because I couldn't really And that

17:16

was something I tried all these different jobs. I

17:18

started training to be a paralegal. I

17:20

was also working as a party DJ. I

17:22

was writing sports for a local paper under a

17:25

pseudonym, just like, what's one of these

17:27

things is gonna stick? And then I one evening,

17:29

I went, because I always loved comedy, went I'll do

17:31

an open mic and I looked in the paper. There

17:33

was an open mics place called Garvin's. And

17:35

I went to Garvin's Comedy club that

17:38

was in d C on L Street between

17:41

thirteen and fourteen Street, very

17:43

super sketchy area. I went on.

17:45

I went out and I went on stage.

17:47

It did not go well, but one

17:50

thing that I said got like a half got

17:52

that comedian laugh from like that kind

17:54

of ah like that. Also,

17:57

my first night on stage was also Dave Chappelle's

17:59

first night on age. He

18:01

was fourteen years old and he

18:03

when he went on. It looked like he'd been doing

18:05

it for thirty years. He was amazing.

18:08

He just like having my god

18:10

and and I I was nineteen and

18:13

it but the one I really

18:15

loved. I loved sitting and

18:17

watching all the comedians hanging out and

18:19

riffing with each other and building

18:22

jokes at a thin air. And I realized, even

18:24

though there's no immediate reward here

18:26

for me, I want this life. My

18:29

roommate in college as a comedian

18:31

named Gary Laser, who I was, you

18:34

know, Gary Laser was my

18:36

my and then he and I were roommates. We got in an apartment

18:38

together for a couple of years, lived at him for a couple of years. We

18:40

have Gary was my roommate off and on for like four or five

18:43

years. And Garrett I would go to the clubs

18:45

with him, to the Good Times on

18:48

thirty on thirty of them third or whatever.

18:50

The ben atar

18:52

was discovered. We got and

18:54

we go to these different clubs with him and his friends and

18:57

they don't get up there and perform. And I remember,

19:00

you know, it was like there's no place else I'd rather be, you know, these

19:02

guys, Gary Leason and going. I was married to my

19:04

first wife, yeah. We were together

19:06

for three years, and that three years went by just

19:08

like many

19:14

had so many materials. Material I still remember his

19:16

routine and I loved him.

19:19

And then I go and do what I'm doing, and when I come back

19:21

and do thirty Rock, it's like I'm around those

19:23

people again, where like on

19:26

my best day, I'm not as funny as

19:28

them on their worst day. You know, Tina

19:30

Carlock call them they're so in

19:33

terms of writing. You're not a comedian, you

19:35

know, they're just so blindingly funny.

19:37

And for you, did you go through a

19:40

period where you're like you're

19:42

honing, you're working. You said that the thing

19:44

went so and at what point, you

19:46

know, you're here at Garvin's and d C. At

19:49

what point do you sit there and go I think I got

19:51

this, I think that's going well. I really

19:53

didn't. He Here's it was weird. I felt

19:56

like one of the things I like was

19:58

I'm sitting at the so first of all, this material,

20:01

I'm not hearing joke. Second hand, I'm

20:03

here where they're being created, so I'm

20:05

upstream. I'm one of the people

20:07

sending it down into the you know culture,

20:09

which that was also really exciting, but

20:12

very early on I learned it's

20:14

weird how you talked about the air of atic

20:16

listening with with TV. I kind of

20:18

had that with comedy in that I

20:20

learned the rhythms very early

20:22

on, and I could get away with very

20:25

very mediocre material. But because

20:27

I had the rhythms, and because there was this comedy boom,

20:30

you could kind of go up and talk in those rhythms and

20:32

people would just kind of go, okay, this is comedy.

20:35

And then as I was doing it, I

20:37

started getting good in that

20:40

I was getting a lot of work. Then I remember

20:42

very very specifically, I moved

20:44

to San Francisco, and this

20:47

is when the comedy boom was starting to collapse and

20:49

all the clubs were closing, and I went to the Holy City

20:52

Zoo. I'm the new kid in town. I've

20:54

been killing it on the road. I'm gonna do great,

20:57

and and that was I went into this room, Holy

20:59

City Zoo, and on the show was like Greg

21:01

Proops, Margaret Show, Jeanine

21:04

Garoffalo, Greg Barren, like all

21:06

these comedians doing this stuff that rhythms

21:09

I'd never heard before. I went up with

21:11

my road rhythms, all my

21:13

a stuff that I thought would kill and it just

21:15

died. Then I watched all

21:18

of these comedians I'd never seen before,

21:20

who were the best comedians

21:22

I'd ever seen. I remember very specifically, I

21:24

walked across street from the Holy City Zoo to the

21:26

Taiwan Restaurant on Clement Street, and

21:29

I sat there with my notebook and I tore all

21:31

the pages out of my notebook, all my routines,

21:34

and I wrote it was May five, the

21:36

tip. And then I just started fresh, like I gotta start

21:38

at zero now because none of that stuff works,

21:40

Like I've got to start over the road. Stuff

21:42

doesn't work. And then I started rebuilding

21:44

that. And that's when probably around

21:47

four years after that was when I really felt like,

21:50

oh now I'm me on stage Francisco.

21:52

I'm still in San Francis. Well, at that I

21:54

moved away from San Francisco because

21:57

also the clubs were closing there, and I got a

21:59

writing job doing what I was

22:01

writing on the first two seasons a Mad TV.

22:04

You went down to l A, went down to l A, and

22:06

then that your first time in l A. That

22:08

was my first permanent time in l A. Yeah.

22:10

And then and that's when the un Cabaret

22:13

was happening in Largo. And all these alternative

22:15

rooms, and I was going there and that's when

22:17

I really really felt like I

22:19

became who I am. And that's how many years?

22:22

So that's my point. How many years into

22:24

your career are you before you go I think that

22:26

the cake is cooked for me? It was like eight

22:28

years before I felt really it's an amazing

22:30

yeah. But but what's weird is, and I'm

22:32

sure a lot of people have experiences. I

22:35

was working as a professional comedian,

22:37

but I doesn't. I didn't feel like I was me, And I

22:39

wonder if that's I bet there's a lot of actors

22:41

and writers and performers who

22:44

had years of making money

22:46

but weren't feeling like they were actually

22:48

doing, you know, something that was theirs.

22:51

So you start writing from Mad TV?

22:54

And then what kind of zone do you

22:56

find yourself? Does everything get to be different when you're

22:58

in the big league, so to speak? So, um

23:00

what? But here's here. Here's the interesting thing. At

23:02

the time that I was writing on Mad TV, and they were

23:05

amazing writers on that show, and we got to do some

23:07

really good stuff. But Mad TV was

23:10

my introduction to, oh, this is what it's like working

23:12

for a big network where

23:15

you've got to serve a lot of things before

23:17

you can even get to the comedy, which

23:20

I've heard sometimes can happen on SNL where

23:22

there's like other considerations first

23:24

and then you got to get to the comedy.

23:26

And at the time that I was my Mad TV at the same

23:28

time Mr Show was happening over on

23:31

HBO and all my friends a lot

23:33

of my friends or on Mr Show, and that was where

23:35

there was nothing but the comedy. It was all

23:38

about what was the best idea and everyone

23:40

is getting to work at the height of their powers.

23:43

And I was so jealous of

23:46

like why can't I be over there?

23:48

But it took me a while to see that I

23:51

was learning some very important lessons

23:53

over at mad TV of how

23:56

to circumvent the

23:58

system. And also when I look back, there

24:00

were real moments of brilliance

24:03

that the actors and the writers could

24:05

conspire together and get through around

24:08

the network, going but we need to have this

24:10

thing, and we need to have this thing

24:12

and there, and they found ways to give them

24:14

what they thought they wanted and then do amazing

24:17

stuff. So there's always no

24:19

matter where you are. What I learned was don't

24:21

look at over what other people are doing look at

24:23

where you are and how can you make that

24:26

as good and interesting as you can? So

24:29

you wrote a memoir silver screen

24:31

fiend. M hm, how

24:34

did you get that book published? Um? I had

24:36

published a book before of like essays,

24:39

but but it wasn't totally met. There were like

24:41

a couple of memoir chapters, but I wasn't

24:43

confident enough to just write a full memoir at

24:46

Simon and Schuster and they liked it and they said, you have another

24:48

book in you. And then I was looking through my

24:50

old calendars at my time

24:53

in the in l A, in the when I moved there, and I'm

24:55

like, my god, I was like, I

24:57

didn't realize how obsessed

25:00

I was with films because it was the first

25:02

time that I really lived in a city where

25:04

you could go see a movie, either a new

25:06

or a classic movie, pretty much every night of the

25:08

week in the theater, not at home, in the

25:10

theater with people the

25:12

new Beverly Beverly

25:15

and the new Art and the new Art and all

25:17

those places. So I started going

25:19

and I started kind of and I'm sure

25:21

you went through the same thing with when you first

25:23

started being a theater actor. And there must have been a time when

25:26

you would just obsessively go to the theater

25:28

to watch shows because you realize,

25:30

I want to be doing this, so I'm going to absorb

25:33

as much of it. The

25:37

love Oh I not to

25:39

do oh my god. My friends and I would go

25:41

watch bad stand up at open

25:44

mics, not to make fun of it, but just to go, oh,

25:46

don't do that, don't do that, don't

25:48

do you know. It was and same with films.

25:50

Oh when you see like the same things happening

25:53

over and over again, Oh, don't do that, don't

25:55

do that. So that kind of um

25:57

obsession, I really you

25:59

know, it kind of took over my life

26:01

for like those four years. It's I go, this

26:03

is the most boring addiction memoir ever

26:05

written, because it's about me being addicted

26:07

to movies. Although I saw people

26:10

I got very close to tipping

26:12

over the edge of There are people that are

26:14

kind of lost by

26:17

films, and you see them holding their like Leonard

26:19

Malton guides that are just tattered

26:22

clip and mark because they've got to see every

26:25

movie. And there's a you know, in New York

26:28

is an even just as equally a dangerous

26:30

place to be a film fanatic because you can go

26:32

see I mean not now, obviously, in

26:35

the heyday, I

26:37

live around the corner from Cinema Village, really live

26:40

downtown. But you say about New Beverley

26:42

is, and I remember this. I would

26:44

go to There was the KB

26:46

Cerberus Theater in Washington,

26:49

and I would go there. I'll never forget one day

26:51

in a revival theater. I can see Last Tango

26:54

and I go into that theater and the music

26:57

and the whole and Brando's you

26:59

know, self flagellation, all of it. I

27:01

go see this movie and I haven't seen any movies

27:03

like that, And I remember coming out of the theater

27:06

and I was hammered and the sky

27:09

was gray. It's washing. The sky was wintertime.

27:11

I'm in school and the sky

27:13

is leaden. Remember seeing it, going like

27:15

I didn't want to go back into the world. I didn't.

27:18

I wanted to go back into the theater and go run

27:20

it again or show me another movie. I couldn't.

27:22

I didn't want to face the world. I mean, yeah, I

27:24

get into these weird dives. But the

27:27

mood that I've been in, I wanted to see

27:29

Alec Guinness in Tinker Taylor because

27:32

I've been so starved for a character

27:34

who's just quiet and competent and

27:36

can just do like. I was so starved

27:38

for that that that was my oasis during

27:41

all this was Oh, a quiet,

27:43

non flashy guy who can actually get stuff done.

27:45

He was so good He would clean

27:48

his eyeglasses with a fat part of his tie,

27:50

and it became so much part of his

27:52

character that that that when Lakaray wrote

27:54

Smile these People, he added that trait

27:57

because of watching the TV shows, like he

27:59

did the character that I created better, and

28:01

now I've got to adjust him to

28:03

the actor that did it like that level

28:05

of just inhabiting. But

28:08

the thing about writing and acting,

28:10

there's a risk Alan Moore talked about this when

28:12

you truly inhabit characters long

28:15

term. There's a mental risk for

28:18

great writers and great actors when

28:20

you sacrifice your personality

28:22

to go into these other lives. You've

28:24

got to have a safe place

28:26

to come out of and kind of get yourself back

28:28

on the ground. That's why I think you see

28:30

with a lot of actors who go way

28:33

deep later in life, they kind of suffer their

28:35

personality flickers a little bit and they're never quite

28:37

on a steady keel

28:39

after a while. You know, Peter Sellers

28:42

is a great example of you know, he

28:44

basically said, I don't have a personality. It's

28:46

like he sacrifices personality before

28:49

he even started acting. So you've

28:51

gone kind of deep with some of you. I mean, there's

28:53

not a lot. There's not a lot of the warm of uncular

28:56

Alec Baldwin at the beginning of Glen

28:59

Garry Glenn us, how do you do you have

29:01

a place where you can come out of characters

29:04

like that or well, I always tell the same

29:06

story. And this is to

29:08

me one of the most meaningful moments of my

29:10

career where a director really helped me. This

29:13

guy, Jamie Folly, said to me, he said, it's like that scene

29:15

in Patton when Patton slaps the guy and says, you call

29:17

yourself a soldier. He said, that's what we're doing here. He says, you

29:19

call yourself a salesman. He said, you're doing this

29:21

for their own good. You're doing

29:23

this for their own good. You don't want

29:26

to do this, he said, you gott And once he said

29:28

that to me, I felt like, literally like a cartoon character.

29:30

Were like the lightning bolts went through my shoulders

29:33

down into my fingertips. I was like, I looked at

29:35

my wing. I got it and I went out

29:37

there and I was like, I'm gonna fucking

29:39

I'm gonna, I'm gonna knock you out. Man. If you don't,

29:41

you gotta you gotta do whatever that Just do what the funk

29:43

I tell you to do. And I went out there

29:45

and and and folly. The phrase I use

29:48

for what I teach acting is authorization. What

29:51

authorizes you do when you if you

29:53

go into an operating room. And I've done

29:55

this to prepare for a film. I watched over

29:57

a hundred hours of surgery in

29:59

Last Angeles and in western Massachusetts

30:01

to the movie Malice, not because I wanted to learn

30:04

surgery. My favorite line is Walter Matthau.

30:06

They said, you're playing a doctor, do you want to go observe

30:08

surgery? And Walter math I took a pause and said,

30:11

I'm a movie actor. No one expects

30:13

me to really know how to do surgery.

30:17

But the point is that I wanted to go in that

30:19

room so that when I went into the set,

30:22

when I got on the stage and we did the scene, I'd

30:24

seen it right, I knew it. I

30:26

was authorized to do this because I knew

30:28

it, And to me, that's vital. I need the

30:30

authorization of that character. Yeah,

30:32

but but I just wonder how far is

30:35

too far? Sometimes? And I wonder that too, like when

30:37

I'm writing or when I'm doing

30:39

some of the more dramatic roles. Like I just watched

30:42

the Michael Jordan documentary. This is weird how

30:44

this ties in. But his teammates are

30:46

talking in the documentary about how he was kind

30:48

of an a hole, but he needed to

30:50

operate at this I'm a demigod

30:53

level to perform at the level that he did, Like

30:56

that's how he won. And at the end, like you

30:58

see how kind of drained he is, he's crying

31:00

a little bit, like I know that I was doing

31:02

that, but it's what I needed to do to with Like in

31:05

art, you do wonder how much of myself

31:07

do I sacrifice? How much do I

31:09

hold back? You know, like that's

31:11

always gonna be that ongoing question. And also

31:14

with with comedy, how when

31:16

I was doing that special annihilation,

31:18

how deep into my own

31:21

darkness do I go as a comedian

31:24

until it stops being entertainment instinct

31:27

you've developed? I didn't. I mean,

31:29

luckily I had years of doing comedy

31:31

where I kind of had an idea. But when

31:34

it really got down to it, I remember

31:36

Bob kat Goldthwaite was directing the special and he

31:38

came back into the green room before I went on

31:40

or He was like, you just want to go out there, don't

31:43

you like? I'm like, yeah, I can't think about this anymore.

31:45

I have to go out there. And you

31:47

you must have seen this in place where we've rehearsed

31:50

the ship out of it. But now, can we just

31:52

go and get started and then we'll fucking

31:54

figure it out. If we can start, that's the best way

31:56

to figure it out. Just let me fucking

31:59

go out there and I'll figure it out. You

32:01

know, I see people who are comic talent who I think

32:03

I'll never forget. I said to Chris Rock one time.

32:05

I said, I knew some guys that were

32:07

very powerful group of people in the music business

32:10

and had a lot of access to rights

32:12

and things. And I said to Chris, you

32:14

should play Miles Davis. I said,

32:16

I know you're an actor. You're you're an

32:18

actor. I mean that you're funny and you do

32:20

all that marauding the stage

32:23

and the way I always cry,

32:26

and I feel the same way about you. You're an actor.

32:29

And do you sometimes feel like, Okay,

32:32

I've done the comedy thing. I got that in my

32:34

pocket, marauding the stage with a

32:36

microphone in Charlotte, be dazzling

32:38

everybody. Time to go do something else.

32:41

You know the thing about Santa Bus. It doesn't have to

32:43

be either or you can go do other things

32:46

and then go do That's what I remember.

32:48

I went and saw me and Maria Bamford went and saw Jerry

32:50

Steinfeld's comedian documentary together,

32:53

and we were walking out and she was like, we picked a

32:55

profession that we can do forever. We

32:57

could always do stand up. We can also do other

32:59

things. We can always do stand up

33:01

and stand up is such a It is

33:03

one of the last pure, I guess,

33:05

dictatorial posts where I think

33:08

it, I say it. That's it. And

33:10

if anything, you get to a point where I mean, maybe

33:12

I'll get to the point where Chris Rock is. Where

33:14

you can get to the point where you

33:17

not only elicit laughter, you elicit what I

33:19

like to call the laughter of disbelief, where

33:22

Chris Rock says things and people like the

33:25

h ship. I mean, that's true, but holy

33:28

fuck, I mean, did can he

33:31

that? I mean that is true? But we

33:33

don't like he says things where

33:36

the audience you can you feel the laughter

33:38

is like, I mean, we all know that, but we're not supposed

33:41

to say that, all right, But he just said that, So I guess we're

33:43

gonna like that level of you

33:45

know, maybe I can get to that level. But I

33:47

never want to stop doing stand up, but I definitely want

33:49

to do other things because, especially

33:52

if you do stand up long enough and you try to be

33:54

as wired into not only other

33:56

people's foibles but especially your

33:58

own. You see in

34:01

acting where people don't go deep enough with

34:03

that or they're not as honest, like, oh you pulled

34:05

back. Why didn't you just stay

34:08

and go that deep? So then

34:10

you want to do that as an actor, actor

34:13

and comedian Patton Oswald, if

34:16

you're enjoying this conversation, don't keep

34:18

it to yourself, Tell a friend and

34:20

subscribe to Here's the Thing on

34:23

the I Heart Radio app, Apple

34:25

Podcasts, or wherever you get

34:27

your podcasts. When we come back,

34:29

Patton Oswald talks about falling

34:32

in love again. I'm

34:41

Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. In

34:43

Patton Oswald's Netflix comedy

34:45

special I Love Everything. He talks about

34:48

finding love again. Not to bum

34:50

you guys out, but I was very, very resigned

34:53

to living in the gray. I was, after

34:55

what I went through a couple of years ago. I was just going to

34:58

I'm going to live in the gray, and I'm just to

35:00

raise my daughter alone

35:02

and try to put focus all the joy

35:05

and adventure in life on her and give her

35:07

that life, and I will merely exist. I'm not going to

35:09

hit joy again, but that's fine. I can

35:11

still exist, That's okay. And

35:13

then I met this

35:16

poem of a woman who ReLit

35:18

the sky, and I just said, I'm going to run

35:21

at love again. If

35:23

you see love, run at it. Run

35:26

at love. If you see

35:28

it, trust me, run

35:31

at love. Patton

35:34

Oswald married actress Meredith

35:36

Salinger in November two thousand seventeen.

35:38

Her breakout role came at age fifteen

35:41

as the lead in the Journey of Natty Gan.

35:44

I wanted to know how Patton Oswald

35:46

found such a perfect match a

35:48

second time. I was married

35:50

to this extraordinary woman,

35:52

and I think the fact that I

35:54

was with her for so long was what helped

35:57

me see very quickly this

35:59

other ex ordinary woman. Because Meredith

36:01

Sounder, who is yes child

36:04

actress, insanely gorgeous

36:07

teen actress beyond gorgeous,

36:09

like like classic nineteen forties

36:13

movie siren gorge

36:15

Yes, exactly, how did you meet her? We

36:18

have a friend in common, Martha Plimpton, amazing

36:20

actress, and Martha Plimpton likes

36:23

to do these salons where she brings

36:25

various people together for dinners at her house.

36:27

That's what I do. And the morning of it, I had

36:29

to fly back from Austin at like six

36:31

in the morning. And when I got home, like, I can't go out

36:34

again. I'm so dehydrated and exhausted,

36:36

and I I'm so sorry I have to beg off.

36:38

And then the next day Meredith

36:40

sent me a message saying, you missed

36:42

the best lasagna last night, dude, And

36:44

then I wrote back story in my life film.

36:47

Maybe we'll go get coffee. It's not sorry, you know, And

36:49

then we just started. This was in February

36:52

of sen I'm still

36:54

deep in my grief, but I'm just talking

36:56

to We're just talking about books and politics.

36:58

Oh my god, the world is insane right now. And

37:01

it got to the point where of the many things

37:03

I missed about Michelle, I missed having someone

37:06

fascinating to talk to in the dark at the end

37:08

of the day, so as I would

37:10

put Alice to bed and then I would

37:12

just get on my phone like at nine o'clock and

37:14

I would go, hey, are you here, and you're like, oh, yeah,

37:16

what's going because she was also like she

37:19

has dated some fascinating and

37:21

very troubled people in her life, and

37:23

she was taking a hiatus from the damaged

37:26

Geniuses, and so she was just in

37:28

her apartment with her cats, and we would

37:30

just every night like, okay, same time

37:32

tomorrow night. And for three months we never spoke on the

37:34

phone, never met in person. We would just right

37:37

for like hours about everything

37:39

and just talking, talking, talking, and then without us

37:41

either because I was not looking to

37:44

date anyone, not having to fall in love and like, oh

37:46

someone, And there was also someone that wasn't it's

37:48

gonna sound weird. She wasn't in my immediate circle

37:50

of friends or family, so every

37:52

conversation didn't start off with the how

37:55

are you doing okay? How like this

37:57

was just me talking about to someone

38:00

with an incredibly agile brain from

38:02

your suffering exactly, And so we would

38:04

just connect on all these supper levels and then without

38:07

knowing it, we just kind of I just we

38:09

fell in love with each other without

38:11

realizing it. And then we finally met in

38:14

May after three months of just talking

38:17

in the lobby of Shutters Hotel and

38:20

she I go, I go, let's go get dinner. She goes, well, let's

38:22

go somewhere where if

38:24

it doesn't work out. We were so realistic about

38:26

it, like if we meet and it doesn't click,

38:28

we either of us can leave. And I go, absolutely,

38:31

that's a great idea. And so we went to shut

38:33

Hers Hotel and had dinner in

38:35

the restaurant there. But when we met and she tapped

38:37

me on the shoulder in the lobby and I turned around and her first words

38:39

were and I'm saying this as a brag, because Meredith

38:42

Sounder said to me and she goes, oh,

38:44

you're so cute. And I was like okay,

38:48

and then yeah, and

38:52

playing against him like the

38:56

woman she is, like she

38:58

is enragingly beautiful, Just

39:01

like, what the hell are

39:03

you kidding me? Love is love God

39:06

love. You find it where you find it, and when

39:08

you find it, the only thing is you say thank you.

39:10

You're grateful. You're grateful. Yeah,

39:12

And I was like, I was so

39:14

obviously I had some oh my god,

39:16

I'm getting married. But also it's

39:19

not like we're in our twenties trying to discover

39:21

ourselves. I don't know if I like at that age,

39:23

if you know, when you find the other person, like, let's

39:25

get married. What I'm not going to go to all this and

39:27

you know, you know, yeah, And I remember talking

39:29

to other widows and they were like, ignore

39:32

all the stuff. Because one of the

39:34

widows, and I knew it was a woman, she was like, I

39:36

waited ten years to get married. And

39:38

I got the same crap from people because they're

39:40

like, she waited too long. She

39:45

got grief because she waited too long, you

39:48

know what I mean. So she's like, there's

39:50

no way to do it, but no one will ever be happy

39:52

with it. You have to be happy. You can't

39:54

live their lives. Go do what you have to

39:56

do. And it's been great. And

40:00

Meredith is the most amazing

40:02

mom to our daughter. She

40:05

is like again, it's

40:07

like Alice had Michelle,

40:10

this amazing crime fighter, and now she has

40:12

Meredith, who's this amazing adventurer. I'm

40:15

following a small basket

40:17

of people's careers, of which yours is one of

40:19

them. Wow, I mean I find you as

40:21

somebody who and I really really mean this. The

40:24

thing about you that I find so exciting is

40:26

anything is possible. There's just nothing

40:28

you could do that would surprise me. Dramatically

40:31

acting I mean the writing and stuff like, but in

40:33

terms of comedy and comedy

40:35

shows and stand up but also a dramatic

40:38

acting. I think that you're capable of anything,

40:40

Thank you. I mean even marrying Meredith

40:43

Salinger. That is that

40:45

must have been the okay, that was the real point.

40:48

God, wow, the Ratitui

40:50

married Natty Gain. I don't know how he pulled it off.

40:52

Yeah he did. Comedian

40:56

Patton Oswald. I'm Alec

40:58

Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you by I

41:01

Heart Radio. We're produced

41:03

by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue,

41:06

and Zach McNeice. Our engineer

41:08

is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening.