Gene Stupnitsky

Brian catches up with his old colleague, former writer on The Office and co-creator of Jury Duty, Gene Stupnitsky. He talks about his childhood as a Ukrainian immigrant, getting fired from every assistant position he ever had, and the secrets of getting kids to say dirty jokes without ruining their innocence.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before I became professional writer, I thought, oh, these writers
are They're so lucky. They're so lucky that they get
to do this. And then when I became one and
I was like, it's all talent, lucky, has nothing new
with it. I'm just that talented. And now I realize
I'm back to the lucky part. There's talent, for sure,
but there's so much luck involved. There's just things you
can't control. That we got on the show, that it

(00:20):
went as long as it did, that we met these
maybe these connections and met these people. It just it's,
you know, things are a lot of our hands, and
I feel so lucky. I feel so lucky. My name
is Jeans Stibnitsky and I've been fired from every assistant
job I've ever held.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hi, everybody, and welcome to another I would call glorious
episode of Off the Beat. It's me as always your host,
Brian Baumgartner. Do you like to show the office? Have
you ever of it? Well? If you do, my guest
today is one of the many reasons why here with

(01:06):
me is the brilliant head twisted Jean Stepnitski. Jean wrote
on the show for three seasons and he is fifty percent,
responsible for some of the greatest and cringiest episodes, including
Scott's Totts and Dinner Party. Now why fifty percent? Well,
his other half, I mean his writing partner Lee Eisenberg.

(01:30):
The two of them, in addition to writing on the Office,
also responsible for shows and films including Bad Teacher, Trophy Wife,
Good Boys, and the innovative and hilarious recent Emmy nominee
Jury Duty. Yeah Yeah, leave it to Jean and Lee
to mastermind an elaborate prank like bringing someone to a

(01:53):
fake jury duty, convincing them that it's real, pulling crazy
shenanigans in the courtroom, then turning it into comedic yet
heartfelt television gold, brilliant and twisted, just like I said.
But which one is brilliant and which one is twisted?
Maybe we'll find out today. Gene is also responsible for

(02:16):
the breakout hit No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence, which,
by the way, is on its way to being the
highest grossing R rated comedy of the decade. He's a
great friend, He's an hilarious dude. He's a fantastic writer.
I am so thankful and feel so lucky that he

(02:37):
agreed to hang out with me and you well, to
tell us how he became so incredible. Let's get started.
The One and Only Jeene Stipnitzky.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Bubble and Squeak.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I love it, Bubble and Squeagana.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Quaker cooking every more.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Lift over from the nay boat. What's up, Jet Ryan? Good?
I'm so good. It's been so long, my friend, while

(03:24):
it really has God, it's so good to see you.
You're in Massachusetts. I am Are you summering in Massachusetts?
Are you striking in Massachusetts?

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I'm I was striking and now I'm I'm summering. You
know how the lead the Hollywood elite do it.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
That's right, I mean you if there if there is
one thing you are at this point, it's Hollywood elite.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yes, it's elite. It's a very it's a lower tier.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, that's that's true too. I'm so it's just so
good to see your face, and I can't wait to
talk about everything that's been going on now. But I
want to go back in your life to when you
were born. You were born in Kiev in Ukrainian Soviet

(04:17):
Union and moved to the United States very young, like
nine months. So first off, what what brought your family?
Obviously you had no choice. What brought your family to
the United States.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
I didn't move. I was moved. I think, you know,
a better life. It's that old immigrant story they you know,
there was was not good for the Jews there, and
it was just not good for anyone really, and we
had some family members that had It's kind of weird.
There was like a split in the family where like
some of the family moved to the US in like

(04:51):
nineteen fourteen, and then some of the family moved in
like so like my dad's one of my dad's brothers
moved here like a year earlier, six months or earlier,
to Chicago, and then we kind of followed suit. And
so this was the late seventies and yeah, kind of
set up in the city and then moved out to
the suburbs. Yeah, so my earliest memories are in Chicago, right,

(05:14):
But I you know, we did go back recently, not
that recently, twenty ten kind of, so I got the
tour of like, you know, where I was, where my
parents lived, where I was born, probably where I was conceived,
and I think about it, you know, when they went
to school and that all that and I'm just, you know,
very thankful that we left and they came here and

(05:35):
gave me and my sister this better life. Although you
know my sister was born here.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Right do you how do you think that that affected
your childhood being and being having immigrant parents.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I mean, in fact, you know, there's this quote I
always think about. I don't know who it was either.
I've seen it attributed to Carl Young and to WILLIAMS. Wordsworth.
I don't know who've said it, but the child is
the father of the man. So you know, the five
year old version of Brian has been around much longer
than the current version of Brian and the things that
you know, if you're five and you find a dead

(06:09):
body on the street, that probably affects you more than
Look if I found if I saw a dead body,
I wouldn't love it, but I don't think it would
actually change me in any significant way or any any
of these events that kind of really can form your personality.
So being an immigrant, I definitely you know, I didn't
learn English, so that was six, and I have this
memory of going to school and just panicking, not understanding

(06:32):
because we grew up in you know, we were all
speaking Russian. I grew up like this. Russian was my
Russian grandparent or Ukrainian grandparents, speaking Russian, culturally Russian. And
suddenly we moved to the suburbs and I'm just dropped
in this school and I don't understand anything, and I'm scared.
And that is one of my earlier, earliest memories. And
you know, I know that I'm probably some of the
line never want to feel that way again. So there

(06:53):
are probably things I did that I'm not even fully
aware of to make sure I didn't feel that way.
But also, you know, I was an immigrant, so on
some level I was an outsider. So I was an observer.
So and I think, you know, with comedy writing, I
think a lot of you know, a few comedy writers
are probably like the high school quarterback, right. I know
I wasn't, but I was a quarterback. No, I wasn't

(07:18):
been a big high school A lot of great athletes.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, so you know, do you I mean, I have
to ask, now, because of what's going on in the world,
do you still have family in the Ukraine And how
does this now, what's going on now affect you or
what do you think about when you think about where
you came from and what's happening over there.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, I don't have family. My dad's childhood best friend
lives in Kiev.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Like many words, it's a pointless war. It's truly. I
don't I can't get my head around it. I don't
understand why it's happening. I think a lot of people
feel that way. There are a lot of geopolitical arguments
of why Russia invaded. I don't really care about those.
I just know there's just there's been mass casualties and
it makes me very, very sad. And it's the you know,
all those halfway around the world. I do feel connected

(08:07):
to it, and you know, it is on simil it
is personal. Though I see myself as an American, I
still my heart goes out to these people who are
being invaded and fighting in this war for survival.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah. It's interesting hearing you talk that you grew up
culturally Russian, you spoke Russian though you're from this city,
and the people that are Ukrainian and got their independence
after you were gone. It must just be very confusing.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
It's very confusing. So growing up people, you know, what
are you know? I would say I was Russian, right,
and because in the Soviet Union it was all culturally Russian.
There was no Belarusan. There was Ukraine there, but it
was all everyone spoke Russian. And then so I grew up,
you know, my parents spoke Russian, and then when I
went back in twenty ten, I didn't understand Ukrainian at all.

(09:03):
It was truly a foreign language, and my parents kind
of got it, kind of understood it. It was very
strange because I think once Sovie Union collapsed, you know,
countries kind of went back to their roots and became
more nationalistic, and you know, Ukrainians booke Ukrainian again and
Russian stuff being taught in school or maybe it was that.

(09:25):
I don't know, but yeah, everything changed in ninety one
when so Union collapsed. So but that was not that
was not the Ukraine that my parents were raised.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
In, right. Yeah, you brought up being an observer and
potentially giving you, I mean, it seems clear to me,
giving you potentially greater insight into what you do now,
which is really studying the human condition, or at least
that's what I think about it. You know, you observe

(09:57):
human and you find humans and you find comedy within
that you. You have said that some of your early
influences were Bill Murray and Jim Carrey. Interesting those two
because to me, they see that's what that's what I
was told. I don't think no, what about Bill Bill Murray?

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Look, probably no human beings made me laugh more than
Bill Murray right over.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
The roundhog Day you've seen that more than favorite comedy.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Day is my favorite comedy.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Well, what was it about Bill Murray that that drew
you in?

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Probably harl Ramus on some level. It was those early
Bill Murray movies, you know, And I didn't see them
when they came out. I was I was kind of
too young for those early eighties ones. But and like
you know, my immigrant dad wasn't showing them to me,
as he was probably like a lot of kids. But
when I found them, there's something about Bill Murray that

(10:51):
the character of Bill Murray, not I don't know the person,
but the character he played, this kind of rebel, a
route the reverend, didn't take anything too seriously. That really
appealed to me. You know, those early Herald Ramis movies
were anti institutional comedies, you know, against the country club
in the Catashack, against the university, in Animal House against

(11:13):
government bureaucracy and Ghostbusters, and I think those there's something
you know, it's it's the guy going up against the system.
That appealed to me. And then later on those kind
of self discovery comedies that he made at Groundhog Day
Multiplicity that was more you know, that was not bu
Murray but Groundhog Day. Really you know, it's like, oh,
you can change, you can grow, you can learn. Even

(11:35):
in your forties, you know, it's not too late, right
to make a change. And I think that affected me.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
When did you start writing? And is that what you
wanted to be a writer?

Speaker 1 (11:46):
I want to be the NBA And that became very
quickly apparent that that was just not going to happen, right,
no matter how many dribbling drills I did. There's just
I think when I graduated high school, I was like
five to seven. I had a grossport in college, but
it just wasn't gonna happen for me.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
I wanted to be the first basement for the Atlanta Braves.
So no, I get you. And then at a certain
point you changed. But was this something you were interested
in early on?

Speaker 1 (12:13):
No, Initially I wanted to be a film critic, because
being from Chicago, I didn't know anyone that you know,
made movies or TV. But I knew Cisco and Ebert.
I knew they were from Chicago. I was like, well, okay,
So I studied film criticism and film theory, and I
was a critic in my college newspaper, and I thought, Okay,

(12:35):
that's why I do it. And then eventually I thought, well,
am I writing about it? Maybe I should just do it,
and maybe that's the way to do it. And I
wanted to be a director initially at first. And someone
said to me, you know, no one's going to give
you forty million dollars to make a movie, but if
you can write, that will help. And I was like, oh, okay,
So then I kind of but you know, I, without

(12:57):
fully realizing, I loved comedy and write. You know, I
was SNL watching SNL, watching Seinfeld, you know, watching all
those seminal comedies and and probably just soaking it up
on some cellular level that I wasn't fully aware of.
And then yeah, I mean the goal was just so
go change from being a director to being just a

(13:18):
comedy writers, getting a job on a sitcom.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Right. You went to the university of Iowa. Isn't there
a big playwriting program there at the University of Iowa.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yes, there is a Yeah, there's a writing creative writing program,
I think the best in the country. But I did
not go to that. I went to the undergraduate school.
But I got all the kind of like the you know,
like some of my teachers were like like Dan Wise,
who could create a Game of Thrones? Ye taught me,
and you know I got so we were we had access.
If you were writing undergrad, you had access to these

(13:50):
brilliant writers.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
What made you decide to move to l A.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, once I decided I want to do it, it
was obvious there was no other move. I mean I
was very scared to go, but uh, you know, if
I had any chance of doing it at that time,
you had to kind of move to LA I don't
know if that if that applies today the same way,
but everything, all the business was there, so I was
going to go.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
So for me, I took my time. You know, I
did theater for a long time. I felt like I
needed to have certain boxes checked before moving to Los Angeles.
I mean it seems like you were like, I just
I need to be there. Were there people that you
knew or or or places that you wanted to either

(14:35):
study or sign with. Did you have an agent when
you went out or were you just like f it,
I'm going and I'm going to make this happen.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, I'm just like I'm going. I didn't know anyone.
I knew one person from college kind of and I
knew I knew Dan, who was my teacher who could
not CoCreate a Game of Thrones yet it was and
uh and I had In turn, I got an in.
Harold Ramis was a Chicago guy, and I got an
internship with him in the suburbs there, and then he

(15:06):
was making be Dazzled Us two thousand when I moved
out to so I got an internship working Friday mornings
and the Fox lot. I didn't really do much, but
it ended up being, you know, the most significant thing
ever happened to me, because that's where I met le Eisenberg.
It was a PA on b Dazzled in office PA,

(15:28):
and I was working in Harold's kind of bungalow on
the Fox lot and our copyer broke and they're like, Okay,
go to the Dazel production offices on the other side
of the lot and I went there and there and
I was like, I need to make copies, and they're like,
lead the copy boy will help you, and so they
Lee became my first friend in la.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
I did not know that. I didn't know that you
both before everything happened. Both worked for Harold that early.
How did you get in? I wait, was it because
you came from Chicago that you've got this internship? Did you?
Had you met him?

Speaker 1 (16:02):
So no, I never met him. What happened was I'd come.
I feel like I was supposed to, like go somewm
for spring break with my girlfriend. We broke up. I
came home. I was like home for spring break. And
there's a magazine that no longer justiss called north Shore Magazine.
My family that keeps ten year old magazines lying around.
This is like ninety six, the magazines from ninety six.

(16:23):
But I read in nineteen ninety nine and said, Harold
Ramis returns. He was on the cover and he was
coming back to And I read the article and like
said he had an office in Island Park, Illinois, which
was near me. I said, oh my god, So so
I called his office. I talked to Laurel Ward, who
was his assistant at the time later became a producing
partner of his, and she said, we need someone with

(16:44):
a truck because at that summer in Chicago, they made
these like I don't know if they were like ceramic cows,
kind of put them all over the city, and I like,
bring some, and I was like, I have a truck. Yeah,
of course I got a truck, which I didn't have,
so I'd like kind of scramble and find a truck
to bring these cows from Chicago to his house. And
that's I think probably what got me the internship is

(17:05):
that I lied and said there's any lesson to take away.
It's a lie. I figure it out later, And yeah,
so I didn't know him. I had no family connection
to him, but I got to know a little bit.
And then so when I moved, so this and I
went back. I did one more I was a college
for four and a half years, did one more semester,
and then moved in January, and someone in his orbits

(17:27):
said you can intern here. So I went. And really
what happened was that his you know, ISO tell people,
you know, it was like a Harold's nanny, because what
happened was his wife yeah, like hang out with the
kids and she's like, do you want to come with
us on vacation? And they had like a real nanny.
I was like the fake nanny. I didn't do anything.

(17:47):
I was a terrible nanny and if I stopped, I
didn't let the kids die. I mean that was my
big right.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, and they probably had fun with you too, right
was it more like summer camp?

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Like come on, that's fun. They had fun and you know,
we were like played sports, we hung out. But I
was also like a petty too, so they'd be like Daniel,
who actually worked on no hard feelings as an ap
uh as a sociate producer. To come full circle, but
I was looking after him when he was like six.
He was a little smart ass and he I remember
one time he said something just really just a little

(18:18):
made a sassy comment and then went to the water
and then took us the waterfound I just shoved a
stad in the water fountain, and he was like, I'm
gonna tell my dad my mom what you did. I
was like, oh god, I'm being sent home because it
was great. It was fun. But I got to spend
a lot of time with Harold, got to know him
and it was just like, you know, it's such huge
e fact on my life in so many ways, and

(18:40):
I'm just really I feel very lucky that I.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Knew him for those years and that I did.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
You started writing jokes for stand up comedians. Is this
something that you're told to do to start honing your
comedic timing or is this how did that come about?

Speaker 1 (19:16):
It's very old timy.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Okay, that's what it seems to me, Like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's not. Yeah, it's not like I'm sure there maybe
in the fifties that was like a thing. Basically, yeah,
there's some Lee was working somewhere. I was unemployed a lot.
I just was a terrible I was always getting fired.
It was a terrible assistant. So but like Lee had
was working somewhere a medic comedian. It was like, oh,
the guy buys jokes. I was like, oh, I'd never

(19:42):
really written a joke, but I started writing for him,
and then I started writing for someone else. It was
never lucrative or enough to pay my rent or anything,
but it was it forced me to kind of sit
down and think about jokes and joke structure and practice
and practice and yes, so that was that was the
first thing I ever got paid for, right, I think
it's like fifty hours a joke or something.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
So you bring up Lee again. So you meet him.
He's making copies for you. I bedazzled, not so much
for me, but well with you. Yes, the two of
you are making copies together. You become friends. Now, how
soon do you decide this that I want him to
be my partner? That? Did you have the same comedic sensibility?

(20:26):
Did you share the same interest? Did you just were
you just friends?

Speaker 4 (20:30):
Like?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
How did how did that come to be?

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, we were friends before we became partners. That old story, right, Yeah,
we were just friends. We had the same we want
to be a drama writer, okay, and was writing drama spackscripts.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
It makes sense because he's not funny.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
He's not funny at all. No, he's probably person I
ever met, which it's so funny now to think about
it that he was writing dramas. But he's also you know,
he's doing it again. But he's obviously a hilarious person.
He's a great comedy writer. So but yeah, at the
time he was he was writing drama and we were
just friends. He was my first friend and we that
was two thousand and like in two thousand and three

(21:07):
we moved in together and he was temping at HBO
and I was temping at Nick Junior not even the
real Nickelodeon, Okay, Nick Junior younger Nickelodeon.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
And by the way, that seems like the absolute worst
placement for you. Yeah, I mean, no offense, but like,
if there were two people, you being one of them
who like writes the most cringiest of comedies in the history,
like that you're writing for the not just kids, but

(21:40):
like the three to five year old kids.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Anyway, Yeah, I don't have nothing to say to these
I have nothing to say to this. I wasn't writing
for them.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
I was like, no, I know, yeah, you were just
working there, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
In the market. I think it was like marketing or something. Yeah,
but we ended up writing some stuff for Tribber Enthusiasm.
We had heard they were looking for ideas and we
ended up selling somebody. And after that we're just like, oh,
you know, we have a good we kind of have
the same comedic sensibility, and we ended up writing spec
comedy script that was sold to Fox, and then we

(22:11):
kind of constrated writing together and that led to you
know we wrote the spec. It was really about us
on some level, was it or was it a pilot? Sorry,
we sold the pilot. We wrote the spec, we told
of the spec didn't get made, but those thirty pages
ended up being, you know, really the most important things
we would ever write, because it got us on the office,

(22:33):
It got us writing for Harold Ramis on a movie.
It got us it really opened all the doors for us.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
The pilot you mentioned got the attention of Greg Daniels.
You have a meeting with him. What are your thoughts
going in to the meeting with Greg about coming on
the office.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
I was told, we were told Greg does a long meeting,
so don't read into that it's not good or bad.
He just in my mind, I only knew, you know,
I knew his name, and I knew he did King
of the Hill, and I was in my mind I
was expecting someone to walk in with a cowboy hat
and cowboy boots, man with glasses and a little little bag,

(23:10):
and very quiet and thoughtful. And we had a prossim
and talked to him for two hours, A lot of
long pauses we did not fill them. Yeah, I just
had a meeting that we could not tell I couldn't
tell you how it went. We had no you know,
his poker face. We didn't know like does he hate us?
Does he like us?

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Does he you know?

Speaker 1 (23:30):
I think what he was really thinking was like, I
can get two for one with these guys the writing team,
two for the price of one. You know, he's probably
coming at it from that place. But yeah, eventually we
got a call. We got I think we got three offers.
We got an offer for an animated show, those twenty
two episodes, We got an offer for thirteen for another

(23:51):
show episodes, and then we got offer of a script
on the American Office. Because at that time, I don't
know if you remember, like you don't know if you're
gonna get a season two you've got it was like
six scripts, right, All we were guarantee were scripts, and
we although we didn't have any money, We're just like,
we'd rather work on the office and take our chances
and nothing happening than the guaranteed money of the twenty

(24:13):
two episodes or the thirteen episodes.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
So we did was that because of greg Or? Was
that because it was we had.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Seen season one, We had seen those six episodes where
this is brilliant. We were just huge. I mean we were
huge hands of the British show. And then we're like
when they announced the America and when we're like, okay,
this is good. How are they going to fuck this up?
And we saw it. We were just it was riveting.
We just couldn't believe how good it was. It's all
we wanted to do. I mean, we literally got to
live our dream. Like that's all we wanted was to

(24:40):
work on the Office. Just from those six episodes. Yeah,
so it was the greatest thing that happened to us ever.
You know, it was just amazing.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
You were pretty young at this point that you come in.
I was eleven were you were eleven?

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Child?

Speaker 2 (24:54):
By the way, here's the thing spoiler alert, I was
really young too, do you know where the show was?

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Funny when I see the show now, I'm like, how
old is Corell? This? Is he older? Younger than I'm
always trying to do the math of like how old
was Stephen this? How old was rain Right? How it
was Brian? Like I'm always just like, oh my god,
I'm older than Correl was in season one?

Speaker 2 (25:13):
What you know, No, you come in pretty young. I
mean certainly there were quite a few young people on
the season back then, Mindy and BJ.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
I have to have this unlike so one of the
things that separated Lee and I from everyone everyone, like
a lot of those a lot of the staff went
to Harvard. They were all kind of like it was
almost their birthright to write the sitcoms. Okay, you know,
I was from Chicago, is from Boston, and I had
just five years of just nothing. I was, like I said,
I'm just getting fired a lot. I was terrible at everything.

(25:47):
So not a good assistant, not a good PA, just
a huge fuck up. Really just a history of failure
in many ways. So there was no like we didn't
expect to anything. We weren't didn't feel like we should
be there. But yes we got I think were I
was maybe twenty six or twenty seven. Yeah started.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
What do you think you and Lee, both of you,
what do you think your greatest contribution to the show
was or how do you feel like you helped? Oh? Wow,
what are you most proud of?

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah, you know, there are certain jokes that I'm really
proud of that I remember writing. That feeling you get
when you just you're like this is this is this
feels like it could be really good. So I have
those moments in my mind of just remember writing certain
jokes and they were weren't even always from my episodes,
but like they're just jokes that I'm proud of. It

(26:45):
feels so weird. This is when the imposter syndrome really
kicks in when you start talking about stuff like this.
But I think maybe we kind of subverted. I think
we like, you know, we did things like when Jim
kind of became like not the greatest partner every He's like, oh,
I got to I gotta leave, I gotta go the
houses on fire or flood and you know, trying to
leave camp like you would really piss Officer and a

(27:05):
segment of the audience. But just things like that, I
don't know. I think we probably wrote everyone had their own,
Like I feel like Mike Shure wrote like Michael it
is almost most noble in a way, like the best
version of Michael version personally I like a lot, and
like everyone had like a different version. But I think
we probably wrote like the the most biggest British version
of the show in a way. Okay, maybe some of

(27:27):
the darker.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Stuff, well that that was sort of where I was going.
I mean, the two episodes that you guys were responsible for, Scott's,
Todd's and Dinner Party, unquestionably considered the most cringiest of
episodes in the history of the show. Were those your
ideas or did you execute them? And what I mean

(27:47):
by that for those of you listening who don't know,
Sometimes there are stories that are decided collectively in the
writer's room and then you're assigned a script to write.
I'm curious about sort of the Jena for either one
or both of those episodes.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah, so, yeah, it's true. So like writers will come
in with ideas after we'll have like time off in
between seasons, were coming with new ideas, and the ideas
who come in come in with aren't always the ones
that you end up writing. Sometimes other writers write them,
and you write other writers' ideas. Neither one was our
idea Dinner Party. It might have been Greg's idea. I

(28:23):
don't actually remember whose idea that was, but I remember
feeling very I knew how to write that episode, and
I remember Greg assigned it to Mindy, who like, wasn't
that I don't I didn't think she wants to write
a different episode. I think At the time it was
called like Who's Afraid of John Levinson Gold? But Scott's
Tots was a Paul Lieberstein original that we were assigned.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Ok, you make your acting debut in the office correct
on television? On television, Yes, Yes, on television. Leo and
Gino the delivery guys. Was this something you were excited
about doing or was this just fun for the run?

Speaker 1 (29:00):
I did not enjoy it at all, and it was
really the other writers kind of. I think Greg thought
it was funny, and the other writers, like I thought
it would be funny to force us to act. I
hated it, didn't want to do it, fought against it,
but if we were going to do it, we did.
Lee and I did think it was funny for him
to play Geno and me to play Leo, which was
just really confused some of the people work on the show.

(29:21):
You know what our names was? What our names were
anyway at the beginning. I think by the end we're
really confused. And sometimes if I felt someone didn't like,
if I knew someone wasn't sure, if I was leader,
Gene and Lee would walk by and be like, hey
Gene to Lee, I would call him Gene which would
just doubly confuse them and they think they finally have
to haven't figured out, and then I would just continue confusing.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
That's so good. I mean, look the show, the show
gave all of us so much. I mean, for you, your
first job in a writer's room, your acting career on Delvion,
whether you liked it or not, your directorial debut. When
you look back on that time, what feelings do you have.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
I mean, I owe so much. It was my film school.
You know, I owe so much to the show. It
because you know, easily you can easily get on a
show that last six episodes, and then you get on
another show and it kind of you know, gets canceled
or it's I mean, we got so lucky being hired
on the show, to be on a show that went
as long as it did, and we didn't stay the

(30:22):
whole time, but it changed our lives, met a lot
of amazing people. We learned so much. We learned how
to become showrunners and how to write, and how to
run a room, and kind of one of the things
in the Writer's Strike that we talk about is just
and I know Mike Scohn record talking about this just
true as like, you know, for the next genre. You know,
we learned from Greg how to do these things, and

(30:44):
a lot a lot of people are aren't learning that anymore.
But we just completely change our lives, can change the
trajectory of our careers. I remember thinking before it became
preessional writer, I thought, oh, these writers are They're so lucky,
They're so lucky that they get to do this. And
then when I became one and I was like, it's
all talent, luckys, nothing with it. I'm just that talented.

(31:06):
Now I realized I'm back to the lucky part. There's talent,
for sure, but there's so much luck involved. There's just
things you can't control that we got on the show
that it went as long as it did, that we
met these made these connections and met these people. It
just you know things, there's a lot of our hands
and I feel so lucky. I feel so lucky.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
I remember talking to both Lee and you at the time.
My impression was you were in a really difficult but
amazing situation because I recall you saying like this was
all we wanted to do was to be writers on
the office and to continue to work. But you begin

(31:45):
to get because you are so talented despite your jokes,
a bunch of other opportunities, and it's you decide it's
time to go. That's a difficult decision for you.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Well, at the time, I remember our last year and
I were like, we're just going to coast through this.
We're just going to coast, you know, we're making we
wrote a movie that's going to production, and we're going
to just kind of take it easy. And then they
asked us to be the head writers. And we're like,
does that come with more money? They're like no, does
that come with a title? Bunth like no, okay, cool,

(32:16):
and so yeah. So by the end of the I
think it was season six or so, last season, we
were on fumes. So in a sense, it wasn't that
hard because we were I have never been more exhausted.
I mean, we were just kind of at the end
at the end there, we were so tired all the time.
So we just needed a break. We were so burnt out.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
You know.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
For those five years, we work Monday through Friday on
the office, and Saturday and Sunday we were writing movies, right,
so we were working seven days a week for five years.
That's it. We just wanted a better quality of life. Yeah,
and we were so tired. But it was not easy.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
It was scary, right, sure, well right out of the gate,
you go, you leave to go work on year one
with both Lee and the aforementioned Harold Ramis. Was that
a dream come true for you?

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yes, so yere one was. Actually we got high in
year one. I think like two weeks after getting heir
in the office.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
That's okay, So you're working on it the whole time.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yes, we're like working on it, Yeah, after work on
the weekends. So you know, Harold had started writing it already,
and so we would help out when we could. And
then by the end, I think we're doing a Bad Teacher.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, we're leaving in twenty eleven.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty exhausting.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Well, in twenty thirteen, you get on a list, the
Overachiever's List. This is Deadline Hollywood's pilot season overachievers list.
That year, you and Lee were behind ABC's Pulling, ABC's
Trophy Wife and CBS's Bad Teacher adaptation of the movie,

(33:52):
and your comedy pilot with Stephen Merchant. Hello, ladies on
HBO got picked up. You've got to be feeling really
good about you yourself at this time, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Feeling good, also feeling very scared about the amount of
work so bad, teacher. We didn't really have anything to
do with other than doing the movie, and we were execution.
The great thing about Hollywood is you can be an
executi producer and actually do nothing. It's pretty amazing. It's
a great gig. And Pulling was a pilot, but he
didn't get picked up the serious so we were doing

(34:24):
Trophy Wife and Hell of Ladies simultaneously. Yeah, it's like
bouncing back and forth.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
What was it like working with Steven who obviously you
hadn't Stephen didn't do a whole lot on the Office,
but obviously going back and working with him on you know,
someone that you had admired from the original British version.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yeah, I mean he was someone that we were a
fan of and then got to become friends with. It
was really cool and we became friends and he asked
us to produce Hello Ladies, and then we're like okay,
and then we start talking about and then he's like,
why do you guys just write up with me? Great
up with me? And we did. But it was so fun.
He lived with me for like eight months. It was great.

(35:03):
It was so fun I mean, he is one of
the funniest people ever. And one of the great things
about doing this job is you're like, I've been surrounded
by some of the funniest people in the world. I
always think, like my friends, I have the funniest friends,
and he's you know, he's one of them. And you know,
there's there's so many people DJ and I know so
many funny people, and I love it. It makes life

(35:25):
so much better.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
I'm going to ask you it impossible to answer question.
I know, I'm curious, how do you decide whether you
are going to work with Lee on a particular project
or if it's something that you are going to go
out and do on your own a process, and how
how have you managed to negotiate bad feelings on either

(35:50):
side of that.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, there's no bad feelings. There's no like rhyme or reason.
It's just like, you know, we I think some things,
we're kind of doing different things. Sometimes we do the
same thing, so there's a to imagine event diagram, and
there's some things that we both want to do, like
jury duty or you know, he's doing his drama stuff
and you know, I'm doing directing, So it just depends

(36:11):
what it's really a project by project.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Okay, are you discussing it with each other or not?

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Sometimes? Okay, sometimes it's.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
An impossible question. But it is fascinating because you guys
have had so much success together. Though you're not exclusively together.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
We date other people.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yeah, you date around.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
We did around.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Speaking of which something that you date solo? I don't
know that was a terrible transition. Good good boys. Your
feature film directorial debut with Lee writing, but you directed.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Well, no, we both directed it.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
You both directed it.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
We both directed it, but the director's guild would not
give us a waiver and their infinite wisdom would not
give us a waiver.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
So, oh I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, it's been so like on the Office. You know,
we I direct an episode, he directed one, but we
both directed both of them. Right, They just would not
give us a waiver to make a directing team, so
we put our name on it.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
I never mind.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah, he's you know, he ended up. He was a producer.
I was a director. But we both did the same.
You know, we both wrote it and then we both
did the same producing and directing.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
What was it like working with actual kids. I mean
we were sort of childlike on the office, but actual
twelve year old actors. And was it difficult for you
to finesse the subject matter? Obviously are rated comedy with
the kids? Are they understanding what's going on?

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yeah? You know, I mean, look, the parents wrote the script.
There are no surprises here, right, you know, you know
you're getting into right. Sometimes the kid would you know,
the kids would ask me and I'd be like, you know,
I don't know, maybe go ask your mom, right, And
like I love the kids. The kids were so great
and so funny, and you know at that age where
just they want to know everything right, and so if

(38:08):
like Leon and I were whispering sometimes they walk near us,
I'm like, got out of here. So for example, there
was a scene when they're when they find porn on
the computer, Like I set it up so like you
know those things where you're like you're watching a video
and like something jumps out and scares you. Yeah, so
it would be like that. It'd be like a like
a zombie just jump on the screen right at you

(38:29):
and scream, you know, things like that. So you know,
they didn't really know that much. And I've tried to
keep as much as possible away from them, right, but uh,
I loved working them because you can actually give them
line readings, like say it like this, right, say it
like and.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
You know that sounds like what you would like.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Oh my god, you're kidding. I think every director actually
if you, if they were being honest, they would say, yeah,
every writer director actually wants to give line readings.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah. But here's the thing you need to understand. If
you write something brilliant, it can only get better. Oh
someone else to interpret it.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
You can get worse too, well, get worse. So I
will say on the Office, we were lucky that, Yes,
it did get better on the Office was virtually always
better on the Office. However, you don't always get to
work with the actors of the Office. Sometimes you work
with other actors and it's it's.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Different, cringiest moment for you working with the kids with
the subject matter.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
There's in the reshoots, they're like, you know, you do
all jokes right, as we all know. We have alts
and I had to do oh god, also for one
of the one of the not one of the main kids,
but just a different child. And we're just like having
to tell her them, and she would just do one
after another, and like the whole crew is just staring
at me, like you piece of shit, making her saying

(39:50):
things that she clearly doesn't know what she's saying, and
I feel terrible, and I was like, oh god, I'm
just like at a certain point, I'm like, you know what,
I'm just not going to do anymore of these. This
is not I feel weird, but you know, hey, that's entertainment.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, we got to talk about Jerry Duty. I mean,

(40:26):
it is so fascinating. Well, whose idea was it?

Speaker 1 (40:31):
It was an amalgam of you know. We so in
like two thousand and I want to say fourteen, we
wrote a script wheneverro script Cultjury Duty for HBO. I
think we wrote for Will Ferrell. Did not go anywhere.
He didn't do it, they didn't pick it up. Nothing
really happened from it. So we just kind of had
this failed pilot. And then two producers, Dave bernad a

(40:53):
Front of Ours and Todd Shulman came to us. So
they want to do a prank show I believe about
a lawyer. Like, well, we have this jury idea. We
kind of combined ideas and that's kind of how the
show is born.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
But it's a it is sort of a prank show,
but he's not the butt of any jokes. That's what's
so beautiful about it too.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
That's the first they say, the first feel good prank show.
That was always the idea that it wouldn't be mean spirited,
that he would it would be he He was never
made to be the butt of the joke, which, by
the way, is really hard because then that makes him
in a way. Our fear was that he wouldn't be active,
you know, he would just be outside the action, watching,
And it kind of worked out somehow, just pure luck,

(41:40):
I mean part of it just you know, you get the.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Right guy, right. I wanted to talk to him for
the podcast here about it because it seems like you
just chose the right guy.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
I didn't choose him.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, but you collectively.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
So we actually did the show of three different people
who shot up three times two and a half times,
and shows you know, he was the one that we
did it with. But uh yeah, we didn't know, and
you know, we were talking how like we didn't know
if we would even have a show to give them.
He might figure it out halfway through then there's no show.
It just wasted a lot of money. Huge Amazon is

(42:17):
a rounding error, but still they may not have anything.
So and also I think in the middle of the
development process, first we told to Amazon, like, Okay, it's
gonna be an Amazon. They're like, it's gonna be an IMDbTV.
We're like, what is that. I'mdb we just bought IMDbTV.
It's the thing show's gonna be like okay. Then a
little bit later like okay, so i'm DBTV is gone.
It's not called freeb you're gonna be in free Like

(42:37):
what is a free v Uh? No one's gonna see
this thing. It's a disaster. Yeah, it's all like just
the stars. Sometimes the stars aligned, sometimes the stars aligned.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I started hearing about this show. It's one of the
what was one of those shows that it just kept growing,
It just kept growing, and I kept hearing about it,
and you know, part of my cynical brain heard reality
or whatever, and I just sort of and then I
heard about it again, and then some people I respect,

(43:11):
and then I found out that you guys were doing
and I was like, all right, well I got to
sit my eyes down and give it a watch. What
you just said that you shot it three times. What
are the other two people think who weren't chosen. That's
a good question, That's what I want to know.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, I don't know. I actually don't know. You know,
it took it took a lot of people to pull
this off. We just had a small part of this.
There was like a lot of people doing this and
making it work that are not namely in Gene.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they because
you know, the same they recognize their fellow jurors as
the people they served with, because you know, they were
told it was for a documentary about the American judicial system.
This is just a small part of it. Yes, So
they didn't you know, they didn't think there would be that.
They didn't understand, you know, what what we were actually doing.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Here's the thing, here's the thing that I don't understand. Okay,
so you talked about waste a lot of money. What
happens at the end If Ronald says you don't have
permission to show this, what happens, it dies.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, but there are things you can do to make
sure someone says, yes, I give them a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Right. I noticed that in the last episode. Yes, spoiler alert,
he does get Yeah, he does get paid. But still
like there is a there's a risk there, right, I mean.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Look, there's always a chance. There's always a chance. But
you know you kind of pre screen. You know there's
PaperWorks that's signed, and you kind of pre screen for
what's that what is that psychological trait? Agreeability?

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Okay, you've screened for it.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Always talk about like a sociopaths and serial killers have
a very low level of agreeability, right, So you want
people with a high level of agreeability to be on
jury duty because they can kind of go with the flow.
They see some weird behavior that's funny, but they kind
of accept it and they try and make the best
of it, including being told that everything is fake and
they were in the Truman Show and still signing off

(45:10):
and you know it could yes, it could have been
a disaster.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Absolutely well. I mean it's helpful also that he comes
off incredibly well. It is not the butt of the joke.
It's just similar to reality television. Obviously, there's not multiple takes, right,
You kind of get one shot at it, right.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yes, and no, Okay, so dirty little secret is you
know we shot this three times, so you know, we
are also taking our actors' reactions from other uh germs,
fake real jurors, the other Ronalds who aren't in the
show and using that not a lot necessarily, but it happens.

(45:53):
But yeah, you only get Ronald's reaction for last ones. Yeah,
interesting trip. It's a whole other way of doing doing things.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Can you do it again?

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Not not in the as a.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Not a jersey.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
You cannot do it as jury duty, but you can
you can probably do it again as a different social experiment.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Right because it became so it became so successful that
you can't do it again.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
I mean you can try making a court I would
never want to. I feel like we did that. Let's
do let's try something else, or let's not try something else.
But I don't you can't do it in a court
room again.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
I don't think what for you? What is the most
fortuitous plot point that Ronald made happen on.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
His own the I think the the racism thing, because
that was in the script that we wrote, you know,
and like the geniuses who were day to day on
that show got him. Basically, he had seen a Family Guy,
a Family Guy episode and got him to say that,
and kind of we're just all like, oh my god,
I can't believe this worked out. And because we had

(47:01):
a whole bit about him saying he was racism then
saying he wasn't racist, and it just it was like,
I can't believe it worked out. It just cannot.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Well, congratulations. I thought it was. I thought it was beautiful.
I thought it was it was feel good but also
very funny and super cool. I mean, something that has
never been done before. A Brank show extended for such
a long period of time. And how long were they

(47:29):
were they isolated?

Speaker 1 (47:31):
Well, I have to give credit to Joe Shmo. Did
you watch the Josh Moo show this? I love the
Josh Moo Show. I cannot say it. I love that show.
I think it's so funny. The guyss A Deadpool created it.
And as they say, Josh Moo walked so jury duty
could run. They were they were doing that like in
like two thousand and one a version of this.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
It's different, it's different.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
There's some overlaps, some similarities.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
How long was he confined? Confined sounds like he's in prison.
I know, three weeks? Yeah, three weeks were the actors
there too, or did they leave.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
They were there? I think Marsden left, Parson went home, right,
but I think the other actor I think they stayed there.
You know, you know, you go to bed at night,
come back in the morning.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Right, Awesome, Well, your other major project out now, no
hard feelings with Jennifer Lawrence. How did you know that
Jennifer Lawrence was right for the part?

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Well? I didn't really. I mean I knew she was funny,
I knew she was witty. I knew she had this
whole skill set that we hadn't really seen, but I
didn't know. So it was written for her John Phillips,
my co writer on the movie, and I wrote it
for her. But we know she would do it. I mean,
you know, if she wants to do it, she's right
for the part, any part she's going to do it.

(48:53):
As a director, you're just like, oh, should be so
lucky and hopefully she wants to do it.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Right. The movie based off of a real Craigslist ad
that you were set by the film's producers, I understand.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
So, just to bring it full circle, it was found
by Naomi Odenkirk. Oh. Yeah, I think Jenna's.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Manager Jenna's manager.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Yes, and Mark Provazio, who was the agent who got
me and Lee on the Office Wow the first place,
and in fact I was talking about with him recently
how after about three weeks on the show, we called
him and we're like, can you get us off the show?
He's like what, He's like, we don't like it here.
Everyone's mean and weird and the time about the writers,

(49:38):
not the actors, right, and we just don't feel like we,
you know, we belong here. And in a very nice way,
he was like, shut the fuck up. You don't understand
what your what how lucky you are, and just I'm
gonna pretend. I'm gonna pretend I'm gonna listen to you
and then not do anything, which in his infinite wisdom
was the right choice, you know, because we got there.
Like You're like, some of these people aren't that well

(50:00):
coming of our of our genius, but they see how
brilliant we are, and so you know, it's like all
the people that I love. Now I was just like, oh,
I don't like any of these people and no close
friends of mine. But at the time I was like,
this is I don't want to be here, and he
was like, yeah, I don't either, but he's anyways, so yes.
So I was in LA for the premiere of Good

(50:20):
Boys that week and I had dinner with Mark and
he told me about this idea that Naomi had found
and he sent it to me, and I thought, Okay,
this could be like who's the woman that answers this ad?
Like what's going on in her life? Were the parents
that put this out? What's what is this? And I
thought this could be really good for Jennifer Lawrence and

(50:40):
hopefully she'll do it. You know, she's working with obviously
major filmmakers, but she saw Good Boys and she was
a fan of that, and and so I picture this
and she's like, well, yes, it looks funny. I'm gonna
have to read a script. I was like, yeah, of course,
perf nce. And so two years later came back to

(51:01):
with a script and yeah, we did it.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
The movie now on its way to being the highest
grossing original R rated comedy of this decade. What is
it about R rated comedies? Why one do you keep
coming back to it? And two? Why do you feel
like there has been you know, there was sort of
a resurgence right around the early two thousands two thousand,

(51:27):
two thousand and six ish, and they've kind of fallen away.
Seems like studios feel like they're not going to make
money or something. What what do you feel like? Well,
what keeps bringing you back? Your sensibility?

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Yeah, I think my sensibility, you know, I just comedy
is my first love. I don't know if that'll always
do comedy, but I think everything I do will have
some comedy in it. I can't imagine working on something
that no comedy. You know, a lot of strangely, a
lot of very successful community filmmakers leave comedy, you know,
the Adam McKay's, the God Phillips, the jay Roaches, they

(52:05):
go off. They'll you know, move on to dramas. And
I understand that impulse, you know, part of me wants
to do that as well. But yeah, studios I think
are a little bit gunshy making them. They don't do
super well internationally. You know, comedy is oftentimes in some
ways regional or provincial. You know, what's funny in France
is not funny in Germany.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Right and all that, unless it's mister Bean and that's
just funny. That's just funny everywhere.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Funny everywhere but yeah, I don't know. I mean, they
make way fewer comedies. I think it's cyclical. I think
it'll come back. But also a lot of genres kind
of you know, superhero movies now have comedy in them.
There's horror comedies. So I feel like comedy has kind
of been bisected and dissected and kind of put in

(52:53):
these other genres. So the straight R rated straight comedy
is becoming a rare thing.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Yeah, well, congratulations to you on its success. Congratulations on
jury I mean, you're you know, some people say they're
television people and the summer film people. You just you
just dominate across all platforms.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
I think we can say after this, I'm also a
podcast person.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
I mean, are you dominate here? For sure?

Speaker 1 (53:21):
I dominated you in this podcast.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
You dominate, you dominated me. Uh, congratulations, man, I'm so
happy for you. I was so yeah. I mean again
that that Jury Duty. It was just I don't know
if this happens to you anymore, if you just read
too much about who's doing what, but it was it
was so fun for me to have this show that
everybody literally is talking about Jury Duty, and then to

(53:48):
hear it with you guys. I was just I was
just so happy for you. And then I watched it
and I mean, I can't even joke. I thought it
was fantastic. So congratulations, and uh, what's what's next? We're
striking for a little while longer and then we figure
it out, right.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Yeah, I guess podcasts, Brian podcast in my future? Can
we do one together? Can we have a lot of
thoughts on a lot of things?

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Yeah, I could be the new Lee in the podcast world.
Do we have to run it by him though.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Yeah, oh we could, we could. We can give him
you give me an associate producer. But yeah, I think
just uh yeah, you know, we're on strike for a while,
and uh yeah, I don't know what the future holds.
It's a it's a strange time.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
I don't either. I mean, again, you said it once,
I'll say it again to bring it full circle. The
last time we were sitting here two thousand and eight,
the strike interrupted shooting the aforementioned episode, Dinner Party. We
started on it for one day, half a day, and stopped,
and one hundred days later we went back to it.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Yes, yeah, that's true. We were picking our own episode.
It was weird because we're so excited that table read
was like, I think that the table read of Dinner
Party was the best thing I've ever experienced in Hollywood.
Was the euphoria, It was the same. I was so
happy that almost lasted a full day. Yeah, and and

(55:18):
I was so happy and like I was on top
of the world. I've never felt that good. And then
the strike happened and we found ourselves picketing our own
episode is so bizarre. Yeah, sometimes it has to.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Happen, and sometimes it has to happen. We're back there now. Well,
here's to being back soon with with some positive, much
needed results. So cheers, my friend.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
Great to see you, Thank you you too, buddy, Jean.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Great to talking to you today, my friend, Thank you
so much. I look forward to seeing what you do next,
and what you and Lee do next. Who knows? Me
and Jean's new podcast, did Gino and Brian Oh Show
premiering on iHeartRadio soon. I'm sure listeners, if you haven't

(56:20):
already watched do It Jury Duty and No Hard Feelings.
I think people in the comedy world are going to
be talking about both of these for a very very
long time. And trust me on this, you're going to
want to be in on that conversation, so go check
them out. Thank you for listening today. Until next time,

(56:40):
have a great week and we will see you soon.
Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced by me
Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executivecer Ling Lee. Our senior producer

(57:02):
is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris,
and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary
and our intern is Thomas Olsen. Our theme song Bubble
and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton.