Did you collectively decide you were always going to direct?

No, I didn't want to. I was scared. I'd never done it because it was horrible. On the second day of prep for the movie, I started getting chest pains in the second week. And by the third, fourth day of prep, I had to go to my cardiologist and see if I was having a heart attack. But that's how stressed out I was about this whole process. And it didn't go away until we started filming nine weeks later.

What's up, guys? And welcome to Episode 157 of Dropouts. This week we have, don't say a word until I go to you guys, please. It's Jared's birthday. Can we just be a little respectful of that? Happy birthday, Jared. Thank you.

This is going to come out a week after, but.

Thank you. I know these two are the last people you'd want to have in your home on your birthday, but...

Oh, yeah. Couldn't think of anyone worse.

No, and all seriousness is we got Ray Romano, Mark Stegman, been practicing all day. And Jared didn't think I could do it, but I knew I did. I could. And they have just came out with a movie that may be my favorite movie of this year. And I'm not saying this because they're in front of me, but mostly because I've already seen it twice. And that means a lot. How are you.

Guys feeling? Thank you very much.

Good. First of all, how old are you? What birthday is it?

25.

I'm leaving.

What.

Are we doing? That's my youngest son. My youngest son is 25.

Really? I met him actually at one of the screenings. Nice kid.

He's the inspiration for the movie characteristics.

And he's also in the movie. I think is he the sign guy?

He's a.

Pencil guy. Pencil guy, I apologize. But right when we get into it, let's hit some intro music. Alyssa, and this is a time for us to just... We get to take a breath. We don't have to exist for a second. Tom's here. Somewhere in Queens. You've heard of it, right?

I won't go see it. I won't pay for it.

Well, thank goodness. That's a good way to people, other people to go see it. But we watched it last night. Being of spaghetti descent, really enjoyed the movie. And she said it was probably her favorite one she's seen this year. And I wasn't supposed to say that out loud because you thought it'd be embarrassing.

But it's true. Thank you. Where are you from?

Originally, I'm from Pittsburgh, but my family is from New York.

That's our audience.

It's perfect. She said it felt like she was right at home.

Yeah, it was great.

That's what I grew up in. That's what I married into.

And how long ago did you guys start the conception of this little number?

You guys. You were 15. Yes. You couldn't.

Even drive a car.

You still had braces on when we started. But we're almost not kidding. We're not kidding. We started when we had a show called Men of a Certain Age. Mark was a writer on it. And when that got canceled, we were both unemployed at the moment. And my idea was, I'm going to try to write a screenplay. Who wants to help? And your hand was the only hand that.

Went up. Two other guys said no. And so I helped.

And that was what, 10 years ago at least? Yeah, at least. But in fairness, we would put it down and pick it up and put it down and pick it up. He got a job, I got a job. And we're very slow writers. So it just took a shitload of time. And then COVID and everything postponed things. But it was about seven years after we started, or six, that we finally had a script that we said, Let's do a table read and see if there's anything here.

Then on this pace, you guys will be able to make another movie in your next life, which is great. You can reincarnate and then start fresh.

Yeah, we started another one.

With all the ambition of, We're not going to do that that way. Again, we're going to move quick, and.

Now we're We're not moving quick.

Stuck in quick sand.

40 pages in. What was the point where it got legs, though? Was there any point at the three year mark where, All right, this might happen, or is it.

I mean, the biggest thing was we put together a table read of friends. We just put friends in, we cast them as... It wasn't the right casting.

Was Jennifer Annistyn hard to work.

With there? We just want to hear it. But we had the only original person who read for that initial table read was PD, the character of PD, John Manfilati, the guy who my friend in the movie. He's the only one, right? He's the only one who was the character. Everyone else was just actors. We had Neoufer Dahlis play my wife. Craig T. Nelson. Craig T. Nelson played my father. We had, what's his name? Johnny Roast beef Williams. That's his name. That's his actual name on.

His headshot. Does he make the roast beef or he's just a consumer of the roast beef?

More.

Consumer. Okay. Is that based on his physical appearance or just...

I'm not going to say.

No worries. That guy can throw down a roast beef. Just googling. So can Jared, though. Love a good roast beef. I mean, Arby's, he's the one keeping them in business. So that's.

When we knew. That's when we knew, let's make it into a movie after the table read. Otherwise, we didn't know if what we had was anything, really.

We'd written a bunch of script. I mean, we'd rewritten it a bunch of time. We wrote one, it was way too long, and then we cut it down and said, we're just going to remove stuff and make it the proper length for a feature film. And then we basically rewrote from page one, a whole second script. And then that was done. It was like, We can't do this to ourselves again. Let's see what this sounds like.

Out loud. And we filmed the table read. We have it on film.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it was fun.

But it came from your son playing basketball. Is it a pretty linear story or pretty parallel to what happens, or was it more just you're losing.

Your son? No, just the concept was based on real life. My son was graduating. He was a high school player. He was a starting center. I would get all the accolades by going to the game. When he was graduating, I knew he wasn't going to play in college because, first of all, I didn't know if he was going to college. And second of all, you know sports, so he was 6'5 and he was the center. So he played center for four years. So he had no guard skills. And in college, 6'5 is a guard. Yeah, 100 %. We knew his basketball career was pretty much going to end there. And so I was upset and sad. I was sad that...

You had to keep working, honestly, because he couldn't.

This is going to end. No, I was upset that the attention was going to end. That's how pathetic it was. I didn't get enough attention in my real life. I had to go into the gym and get it. So then the thought was, what if this was happening to some poor slob, and that's all he had in life? He felt very small in his real life, and he felt like a big man when his son played basketball. So that was the jumping off point. That's where it started from. But the rest wasn't based on my son's life. We took a little bits from here and there.

Well, no, I saw him in person, undeniable, your son. But the height, where did... Was it miracle grow in the womb? Where did that come from?

I don't know. I'm the tallest one up before him. I'm 6'1. But he looks like me. Thank God he looks like me. Otherwise, I'd be asking questions.

He sounds like you. He has one word in the movie and it sounds like...

When he has one word where he says Wally. He says, Somebody says, What's your name? And he says, Wally. And Mark said, We may have to dub that because people are going to think it's me saying Wally.

Was he paid on scale that day or did he get...

He got an apple and...

Okay, and a.

High.

Five. And a kick in the ass. I don't even know. I don't even know what I got for the movie.

Well, let's... Mark, do you know what you got for the movie? Do you mind? I don't think he got anything.

He got scale. He got scale. Everybody got scale.

At what point did you collectively decide you were always going to direct or was it just originally writing?

No. At one point, we were thinking of who's going to direct this. And then my agent said, You direct it.

And I.

Immediately.

Refused.

No, I didn't want to. I was scared. I'd never done it. And then he kept bugging me that it's too personal a story. And I said, I don't know nothing about cameras. I don't know nothing about lighting and blah, blah, blah. And he said, You get a cinematography, you get to surround yourself with the people and you worry about the story and about the acting. And I saw his point after a while. And I took the leap. But I was so pissed off at him in the beginning because it was horrible. I've told the story before, but day two of prep, when you go and you prep for a movie... Hold on, off the record. On the second day of prep for the movie, and it was going to take nine weeks to prep. So I flew to New York, and and you weren't even there yet. You were coming two weeks later. I started getting chest pains in the second week. And by the third, fourth day of prep, I had to go to my cardiologist and get on the treadmill and see if I was having a heart attack. They said no. They said no.

But that's how stressed out I was about this whole process. And it didn't go away until we started filming. Nine weeks later when we started filming, that's when there was no time.

For it. No, I think a lot of people can relate to trying something new, even though it's in the same field, something very daunting of being the leader of a set or a movie or potentially a franchise. But at the point of your agent saying you should direct this and you deciding you should, what was the education process like for yourself of what did you first pick up to, okay, how do I become a director?

I've been in the edit room for years and years and years. So that wasn't a concern of mine. And I knew enough to know the shots I would want, that stuff. I still didn't know technically about the cameras. One lens from another lens, I didn't know. But I knew what I wanted things to look like, and I had seen enough to know the difference between this and that and this lighting and that lighting. So I knew if I was the cinematographer, I have to find the guy that's going to collaborate with me and hold my hand, and we're going to sit and watch movies, and we're going to say, We want it to look like this, not like this. How do you get this? How do you get this? I knew I was going to have to find that guy. As far as dealing with actors, I've been around it. I've been dealt with myself. On Everybody Loves Raymond, I had a chance to direct, but I never really wanted to. I didn't run the show, but I technically was running it behind the scenes with Phil. Everything went through Phil. And then on Men of a Certain Age...

Who's this guy? He gets all this money and now he's going to do a food show? Does he need any more? This Phil guy?

He's not going to do a food show. And that's what.

I'm saying. He's doing it. And I just think it's selfish. But we'll get to that.

Another time. But then on Men of a Certain Age, I did run the show with Mike Royce. So I have dealt with actors and know the things to say and not to say with them. But it's still intimidating and you never know who you're going to get. I was lucky. We got a great cast who was very collaborative and was okay with the new boy directing.

Speaking of your cast, Jen, I was just saying there's a certain cast member I'd like to meet someday. If you're ever... Oh, I mean, he's just in passing.

He's enthralled by.

Her.

Acting. Are you watching her new show?

No, I just rewatch her guy's movie over and over. And I buy it every time. I don't wait for the 48 hours. I'm just right back in. And then where can people watch it? Pretty much anywhere, video on demand, right?

Any of the places you download or buy stuff.

Right now it's rentable, so you don't got to spend the 20 bucks. You only got to spend five bucks.

Five bucks, but you got to watch it in two days.

Genuinely, when you guys watch it after this, DM me and let's have a conversation about it. I'll get back to everybody that watches it. This is what it felt like for me. It felt like in a movie world where everything is fast food and processed and made in a factory, it felt like a home cooked meal. I mean that very genuine way. That's a.

Great way to.

Describe it. I mean it in a very genuine way. That's a movie I left and I called anyone that's ever had a meatball in their life. I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is what your family feels like. T hat's stereotypical, but it's beautiful.

That's the goal. We appreciate that. That was the And everybody loves Raymond. It was specific to the Italians in Long Island. But it appeals universally because it's about people and families. It doesn't matter where.

You're from. It feels like a home cooked meal because it's like if you went to Mario Batali's house, it would still feel like some master chef was cooking.

For you.

But if you're going to a normal guy who just really likes Italian food and spends a lot of time on.

It.

I guess that's... What I'm saying is we're inexperienced filmmakers, and so we just spent a lot of time and effort on every little moment.

I think this movie was made on a relatively nicer budget than most movies are. I want to speak to the lower budget movies of the world because you did The Irishman, which was, I think, more money than God has himself to make. And everybody's at your whim. And then right after that, did you go straight to Paddleton?

Yeah, I think so. I think Paddleton might have been the next.

Okay. Paddleton is my litmus test movie. And I'm a little... I'm sorry, I've seen one episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, but three of the movies you've been in are three of my favorite. And Paddleton, The Big Sick is up there. It's like if I have a date night with a new girl, I have to show them that movie. And then if I want to break up with them, I show them Paddleton because just a lot of emotions come out. And then now this is the new one. But I wanted to talk about maybe... I find so much heart in the movies that are maybe bootstrapped, like Paddleton or everyone on the set is really close and tight. I was wondering what the difference is just on a camaraderie basis from a giant set movie to the more personal pictures.

Well, it's true because, first of all, with Paddleton, we were up in Solvain. Solvain is...

No, and that makes it better.

Yeah, it's just up north a little. But we went there and stayed there and it was on a super low budget. But my trailer literally was a milk crate. There was no trailer and there was no chair. There was like, Okay, we got 15 minutes until the next stop. Find a milk crate and sit down. This was the mock Duplass. I think I may have told you this. It was an improv movie. That's not to say it wasn't written, but it was an outline written, that's all. He had about a 20 page outline of each scene. And the dialogue was not written, but what happens in the scene was written. And then we filled it up. And then we did takes, a couple of takes, and we would bring our own thing to it. And then after each take, he s like, Oh, yeah, let's do that again. And that worked, and this worked, and, Oh, let me try this, and let me try that. Yeah. So for comedy, if you have the right people, that can be pretty good and pretty great. For Palette mostly is a drama, really. That's what scared me about it is I've improved comedy before.

Now I'm improving drama and pretty intense drama. So who knew? But you were right about the camaraderie because we filmed it almost chronologically, not exactly. But it's very hard to do that in a movie. But at the end, when... I don't think we can give away the movie. The movie.

Is sad. The movie is sad.

Well, it's also, yes.

Just turn the volume down. Turn it down on your podcast.

Six years old. But in the end, he's my friend and I'm going to assist him in... What would you call it? Suicide. Yeah, but what's the other word? Euthanasia. Euthanasia, yeah. Because he's terminally ill. And the scene where he dies, it was the second to last day of shooting. And it was a big emotional scene for me. I was like, How am I going to tap into that? And it was weird because we had been living together and hanging together so much that it really felt like I was losing this friend. And it was very easy to tap into. There's a funny story. I don't know if you can cut. You guys, this will be edited, right? So I'll tell you a story about Paddleton.

He's like, Just please cut out Paddleton.

No, no, no. No, no, no. In case this goes too long and.

It's not worth it. It's worth it. It's one of my favourite movies. Okay. And Sadie and I bonded over it. Not a big deal. Anyway, keep going.

So you know this scene, then. So the scene is when he decides it's time to drink the poison. Okay, so I've been there with it. I'm helping him the whole way. So the director tells us he's going to drink it, whatever. He's going to lay down in the bed. I'm going to just lay down with him and be there for him when he passes away. And he says, And then you leave the room. Eventually, let's let it play out. Whatever happens happens. And then you leave the room. I say, Okay. So we do it. And it's emotional. And he takes the poison. And then he goes, and he lays in the bed, and I get next to him, and he's scared. I don't know what he's going to do. And he's sitting up and he goes, Lay down. I'm just going to whatever. And then he says, I'm just going to close my eyes for a little. I go, Okay, whatever. And I'm getting emotional. He's going to go, Boom. And then he passes away, and I just lay down next to him and I'm waiting and I want to take the moment in. I'm not just going to run out of the room.

So I'm just going to take this moment in and I take the moment in and he sits up. I'm not kidding. And I'm like, in my head I'm thinking, well, that's a weird choice. It's back. It's Mark II plus, and I'm thinking, maybe he thinks the medicine didn't take or whatever. And so I sit up and he's like, and he dies again. And he lays down. So I lay back, I take it in again. I'm crying, whatever. And he does it again. And he comes up again. And now in my head, I'm like, Listen, I love Mark II plus. He's brilliant. I think he's off on this one. I really think he's off. But he does it again and he lays down. And then the director, when I lay down next to him again, so he's died twice now, the director says, Ray, leave the room. I hear him whisper, Ray, leave the room. So I get up. I'm in character still. I and I leave the room. Cut. We come back and I don't remember what to say. I'm like, They can't leave that in the movie. I'm like, Wow, that was yeah. You think so?

And he goes, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He goes, I was waiting for you to leave. I was holding my breath. You were taking too long to leave. He had to catch his breath twice. Oh, fuck. I said, All right, I'll leave sooner.

I thought you were going to say he was going to pitch to you just to try Dracula origin story. He's just like, yeah, he rises up. We're going into Paddleton 2 straight away.

It's just a zombie apocalypse.

It really scared me because I was like, I was losing my faith in Mark Duplass. Thank God it wasn't an acting choice.

I'd love to see those outtakes. That would be the funniest thing in the world.

I wonder if they have that. Yeah, they must have it.

Some of us. Working on that set, and then both of you working on maybe a bigger set of sorts, what did you guys take from the big jobs and then the more intimate ones into directing or into working on this movie that blended it? Or what did you learn as a director, maybe from those two pictures, the Irishman and Paddleton? Anything that helped you out as being a director?

Well, I mean, with the Irishman, we literally did almost like... We could have done a page a day on some days just the amount. And then on Paddleton, there was move, move, move. On our show, we had a pretty strict schedule, but we still got it done. We never sold anything short, right?

No, not at all. It wasn't a killer amount of... We had a reasonable amount of work to do every day, but.

It was efficient. Everybody was on point. We never moved on when we thought we didn't get something.

But you know what I was thinking about with ours is there's no blooper reel. Nobody ever fucked up a scene. It was like, we do it. Everyone would get it. We say, all right, let's make an adjustment. We do it again and we'd move on. Everybody showed up. It was also we were maybe one of the first productions post COVID to actually be going. So everybody was glad.

To be there. And Laurie Metcalf.

Laurie Metcalf doesn't make mistakes. It was just like it was just...

Sadie, you're...

Loving my life. However you want.

To put it. She was on point. And then the kid, Jacob, he hardly had any words to say, but he was great. And the kid, Jacob was driving Postmates when we told him he got the part. So this was his really first thing he ever did. I mean, it was great because...

He was the easiest to direct. Yes. He's just a blank page.

He's.

Just like, Whatever you want.

I thought for sure I wasn't going to get any lip from him. I was scared of everybody. Metcalf and the guy who played my father, Tony Lo Bianco, these veteran actors, that's what I was scared to death of. Are they going to take direction from me?

What was the approach on that? Did you ease into it? And then eventually they just trusted you? Or is it a give and take? You're trying to get dog most?

I've learned n my life, I'm very nonconfrontational, but I'm also pretty good.

He's.

Manipulative. No, I'm pretty good at getting along with everybody. I can get age their personality and mold it and get it in and yang it.

You're malleable.

If that's a good word, then yes. I also knew what actors probably don't want to hear. But you still never know. You never know what you're going to get. But they were great. They were great. Tony, I was scared of the guy who played my father because he's a veteran. He's done 100 movies. We got along great. He came to see me at the comedy club one night, and I think that won him over.

You'd also heard from Scorsese.

Never heard of him. What's his name?

Scorsese. Okay. About casting. That casting is the biggest part of directing it. And I think for us, that was definitely the case because that's why people didn't mess up. That's why we didn't have to give, you didn't have to give. A lot of adjustments are changing because they did it in the audition the way we wanted to see it anyway. And then they brought that to the table and it was...

Yeah. I mean, a little hurt that you guys didn't audition me for the Sun's part, play basketball as well. Not a big deal.

You're too talkative.

No, look at this.

Yeah. Yeah, you do look like...

You're bringing it.

But do you look 17? You look young, but...

He's already got the bang.

He's already got the hair. I did this just in case you guys do another one. Or you guys want to do re shoots?

You could pass as a virgin. He was.

A virgin. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

That was the funny thing.

About it. Jared, you laughed a little too much about that. Since it's your birthday, I'm going to let it go.

Sorry, he's just calling it as he.

Sees it. He's calling it. That's good. Shoot from.

The hip. I know you're not.

Oh, do you? Let's cut to a clip.

Cut to a meme.

There you go. So you thought you were out of touch and you're right here with us.

The saying you play basketball was also a big thing in casting because we read, not you, but we read a lot of guys. Oh, I remembered. Yeah. And we had 15, 16 that we thought this might work. And then we realized we haven't asked anyone if they could play basketball. And so we said, Can you play basketball? And they all said, Yes. And then we said, Can you put yourself on tape? And then.

About.

15 of them, the second they touched the ball, you realized.

Feet are kids playing basketball. It's water and oil.

It narrowed the field down a lot.

To just two. And one of them was an auditioned. But did you guys have.

Any ideas of who you wanted to play each character beforehand?

A little bit here and there.

I don't remember having anybody for sticks in mind.

I remember for the fall that we had Pacino was our...

I wanted Harvey Keitel. I liked Harvey Keitel.

He was our guest voice.

The character of the wife's name throughout the whole writing process was Edy because we were thinking of Edy Falco.

But just using her.

As a template. Just as a template, as a person to hope to get.

Or whatever is to imagine. But listen, Al Pacino was a legend and he's one of the greatest actors of all. But I think having Tony was the right call because Al Pacino takes you out of the movie a little bit.

Yeah. Because all of a sudden the movie is about, oh, Scarface is the dad.

I was wondering, okay, I can get why I wasn't in it now. That makes sense. Me and Al Pacino together? That's too many fireworks, baby. Yeah.

They would have been, oh, there's Scarface, and then there's that TikTok boy.

I'll.

Watch them now. How good a basketball player are you?

I'd give your son some buckets. Not a big deal. Not a big deal.

But giving buckets means.

He's better?

I've never heard that saying before. I'm just as lost.

It's interpretive. It's art. And that's why I'm an artist with my words.

I saw an interview with Ben Affleck when he was talking about his directing and starring in a movie and stuff, that that comes with a certain level of self consciousness. Did you feel that when you were filming your scenes and having to direct yourself and the other actors in those scenes? Did you.

Take your own notes?

Well, that's where Mark came in. Not to name drop.

Please do.

I got to talk to Bradley Cooper.

Ugly guy, huh?

Your.

Second crush. The producer we were going to hire was the guy who just produced Starsborne. So he was talking about directing yourself when he said, Bradley, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He goes, Call him up. He'll tell you, whatever. And he gave me his number and he talked to me. And basically, the note was have somebody on set that you trust who's going to watch, who's going to watch you and give you honest feedback. And so that was this guy. And we had lived with... We both knew exactly what our intention was in every scene. Sometimes an actor would come up with something new and great, and if it fit, we would be happy that they gave us that. But we knew every moment of this scene. So he watched when I was up, and then he would tell me, You better do it again.

And you didn't, right? You did it exactly how you wanted to because you can't trust this guy.

No, you gave me some notes here.

Not many. Again, we cast the person who did.

The part. But it's a little weird. It's a little weird that you're calling action. You're not calling action, but you're the guy who's given the notes. But I made sure... And if I didn't feel it, I'm hard on myself also. I could tell when I sucked out there and I needed another one.

What was the inception of you even getting into the art? I think why you are so relatable, and I personally enjoy your movies is you don't seem like a guy who would get into this field. I mean that in the most respectful way. You seem like a guy that would sell futons. I don't know if you've ever done that.

I didn't sell them. I delivered them.

Oh, my fault. Okay, then I'm completely off basis here. I delivered them. We could have used some.

Well, I started in stand up. And stand up was my that was my goal, was to make a living doing stand up. And then acting came along after it. And yes, I had fantasized about being an actor before the stand up. But when I found stand up, that was my calling. I felt like that was my calling. And then after 11 years of it, when I had watched other standups make the transition and get the opportunities, I thought, well, if this comes along, I'll definitely take it. And it wasn't coming along until Letterman was the one who... He was really the only one who offered me a deal to try to develop a show. And that became Everybody Loves Raymond. I haven't heard of it. You've only seen.

One episode. I might get.

This a little bit closer. I hear you've only seen one episode.

I saw the pilot and that's because Tom made me.

All right? It's not the one to watch.

And we're going to watch more.

I actually, the first time I ever saw Everybody Loves Raymond was in college and I was taking a history of sitcom class, and we watched an episode, and then I watched a few getting ready for this.

What was the professor trying to show you with that? What was the lesson?

What was the lesson? I mean, it was was during the traditional three cam sitcom format section of the course.

I think he just didn't want to work that day. I don't.

Think he wanted to work any day. All we did was watch sitcom from different areas.

The history of sitcom. Exactly.

That's a throw away class. I have a throw away degree.

That is true.

If you're going to start watching it, not that season one and two aren't good, but go to three.

You'll pick it up. You'll get your groove.

Final? I'm I'm stiff and clunky in season one, and I don't even like watching it, but they're still good.

That's the cool thing. If you do watch from the beginning, you watch all of them. The cool thing is watching what you become. Honestly, because you are stiff and you're clearly a stand up doing acting.

But even being stiff and whatever, I wasn't that bad.

But like, Seinfeld never got better at acting. He just did what he did and he didn't care. And you clearly cared.

Yeah. If you guys want to stay directly in the camera, how much better you guys are than Seinfeld? He usually watches these. We'll get it to him. We got him covered. Okay. I'm interested in a lot of people start podcasts where they watch the shows along. Always sunny in Philadelphia does it, the Office does it. Has there ever been something you thought about about you rewatch the episode. It doesn't have to be about the episode, but then you have a little.

Podcast outside of it. No, I wouldn't do that. But actually, I have twin boys and they got offered that.

Oh, did they?

Wow. They got offered one of those formats and they turned it down.

Why was that? They adverse to money?

Yeah, it's not that thing. I don't think it's their thing. I don't know.

Well, they're in the filmmaking as well. They got a documentary they're.

Working on? They're trying to make a documentary now. Yeah. I don't know. I think it scared them away and it just wasn't their thing. But I know what you're talking about. But I don't know. It doesn't appeal to me. Are they good? Are they fun to watch?

They're a ton of fun. Especially the always sunny Philadelphia one, because those guys are just.

Obviously electric. Those guys are fun. Is it the main guys doing the sunny?

Yeah, it's all three of them.

Really? That's funny.

Yeah. While they're still coming out with episodes, which is.

Pretty cool. I don't know how they have the time.

But they're probably ragging on each other.

And all that. You're not a rag r.

You're more of a... I mean, off camera I can rag on you and all that.

And feel free to rag on Jared.

At any time. I wouldn't do it on camera.

A birthday rag is always great.

Brad Garrett would do it with me. That would be something totally worth watching.

All right.

We'll set it up. Because Brad Garrett, you guys got to get Brad Garrett on. You'll have more fun than this, trust me.

Well, just back channel that number to us. Just like Cooper. With this coming out, okay, this is what I really want to know because I feel like during the process, obviously there's an anxiety. Making a movie, I want to make it good. I want all these things to go in the right place at the right time. Then picture lock, sound, everything is done. You're sitting there the finished product. What is either the relief or the increased anxiety of that moment of you're no longer working on this, it's ready to go? I want to know.

Well, at that point, the anxiety is what are people going to think of it? Yeah, I mean, every screening we had was nerve racking, and we would listen to the audience's reaction, and we would talk and discuss it after and rate the well. They didn't laugh a lot here, but I think they still liked it. We lived and died by every screening and every moment in it. I would be obsessed with this sound. We screened it a whole bunch of times with an audience, and it was just stressful each one. But they were fun. When they work and they're laughing and you know they're getting it, that's the reward, man. That's it.

Our first one at your house was one of the worst nights of my life.

Well, that's part of the editing process.

Yeah, it was an early edit. The sound is all bad. The picture doesn't look.

As it's.

Cleaned up.

It all.

Looks.

Terrible. Think of everything we edited after that.

No, I know.

How.

Do you, I guess, zoom out from something you're so ingrained in? You know every nuance and everything of why it flows the way it does. But to make it more consumable and it's like, we don't actually need this. Let's jump to the next part. Or maybe it's a big scene that costs a lot of money to make. We might as well keep it in there. But you have to ask it for it to make sense. How do you make those choices?

I don't even give a curse here.

You can do.

Whatever you want. I really didn't give a shit about how much money we spent on a shot if it was going to make it better. And the perfect example is the The one around the diner. The DriveA way. So sticks goes back to the diner and talks to the girl you're in love with.

Well, I'd like to be introduced to and love with. Let me tell her that on the second date, okay?

Okay. When he goes back and tells her I'm not going to school, I'm not whatever, and it's their final meeting. And he says, Are you scared? And she says, Everybody's scared, it's this. And it's that moment and he walks away from the diner. We were in love with this shot and we really worked hard on it. We got a big crane of him leaving the diner, getting in his car. So this is the new kid, the kid who he's going to go on and he's going to be okay. And he pulls out onto this busy Cross Bay Boulevard in Queens, and he drives and he goes under the L. And we kept doing it until we time. We didn't know when the train was going to come on the L. We tied it. Well, we didn't have a schedule.

Yeah, we did. But anyway. We knew it. You got to go. You got three minutes.

It's going to.

Be here too.

But we did it. We did 11 takes of that of him driving. And we got it perfect. And we put it to music.

Incredibly.

Cinematic final.

Shot of a movie.

And when we watched it, we felt like it's too climactic.

Well, the problem was we still had 11 more minutes of story to tell in the movie. So the shot... If it was the last moment, if credits came after it, we would have kept it.

It felt like one of those moments where you're watching it and you're Oh, I thought it ended there. Yeah.

So to answer your question about what you cut and why is, from screenings with people, we kept feeling like, That feels like the end. That feels like the end. And you could feel people were worn out by the time you got to the end. So then it becomes easier to say, Just cut it out, just remove it.

Well, no, I think Seinfeld actually said it perfectly. This is actually true where he was offered, I think, another 100, 200 million to do another season. And if you don't end the project at the right point, people are only going to think about the ending and the sourness of that. So you've got to really end it. And this movie has one of my favorite three words of dialogue to end anything ever. The perfect choice. When I saw it, everybody roared at that point.

Good story now.

Over to you.

Sorry. I'm going to be honest and tell you, we can't take credit for that because you're talking about who's this whore.

So.

The mother, the girl, cheers for her son and says, Yay, Matthew. And Laurie Metcalf leans over and looks and says, Who's this whore? And when we wrote that in the script, I know you only saw it twice, so you're not going to know.

Every moment. Oh, I am.

But check me. Okay. So when he first gets up to say his poem, the girl screams real loud. And Laurie leans over and just looks at her and sits back and the audience laughs there. And when we wrote that, that was all that was intended was she looks over and as a parenthetical, we wrote... In the screenplay. What she's thinking is who's this whore. So we wrote that in the script. And when we were filming it, I just said, Just once, try and say, Why don't you say who's this whore? So she said it once and it was funny. But it was all done in that first moment when he.

Walked away. Oh, wow.

He says his poem. The editor, one day, went on one of the days we came in, he goes, I tried something with the ending, so he made it so the girl says it again. She never said it again.

She never said it. So you only have one take of her saying that? Or a couple? We have.

Different.

Takes.

But at the moment that he comes up on stage, she never said it once he left stage. Once he left stage, he just points to me, boom, end of movie. And so the editor put it there and we said, We thought it was going to end on this emotional moment. And then he shows us who's is who. Our first instinct was, we're not going to... And then after I watched it, I go, this is pretty great. And it takes a little bit of the schmaltz off. You know what I mean? It's a little thing. And so we have to give him credit that he found that little moment and manufactured it for us.

Yeah. Well, I bet it was a little...

I loved that moment because I was tearing up at the end. Tears were flowing. And then it was just like, it was so perfect. That contrast was just the most vul thing you could.

Say at that moment. And both characters are speaking their love language. Your character is pointing, that's their thing. And then her is being a protective mother. That's her showing her love language, which really works. I'm just glad the faces matched up and it didn't look like it was out of context, like the facial reactions of the ending.

No, we did it. Actually, the girl yells out, I love you, Matthew. And she never said that. We ADR'd that. We put that.

In an ADR. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely needed that.

Yeah, I'm happy that he found that, too. That was fun to not end on an emotional beat.

I think that's also important to keep true to how the film is as a whole because it's a dramatic story about the relationship between this family. But there's a lot of comedic moments. And I think that's something that a lot of comedies don't do well anymore is that they have that sense of drama within them. They don't balance it well anymore. And I feel like that movie or this movie really balanced it well.

We were not trying to write a comedy at all. I think we both wanted to write a serious dramatic movie. But tendency, just our natural inclination is we're writing this heavy moment, and then one of us has to say something to cut the tension. And so when the editor found that, I think he was just reacting to pretty much every dramatic scene we have in that movie, ends with.

Some comedic lesson. I wouldn't say we were trying to write just a drama first time. We knew that every page, just because who we are, we're going to have to put something funny in there. So we didn't worry about the comedy. We didn't go in thinking, Okay, we need comedy in these two pages. You got to have 50 laughs.

What maybe shapes that mindset? Because your guys' comedy is my favorite where it's not being shoved in your face if that makes... Here's a joke. It's through natural, relatable interactions where it's like, I've seen this before, and this is funny that they recognize it without fully...

Where did you guys get it? There's no written jokes. We didn't write any jokes. I think if you've seen men of a certain age, and if you haven't, you're going to love it.

But.

That tone came straight from there. That was an hour long TV show that was, again, grounded in reality but written by comedy people.

I know you only watch one episode of Lewis Raymond, and everybody loves Raymond is a sitcom. So it's hard to argue that we did it there, but we did it as much as we could. But we still had to... The genre we were in, you've got to be bigger. You've got to be broader. But we tried to make it as ground as possible. But there are still times... I watch it now, and there are times where my character is like, You can't even... I remember I got mad because she didn't like the name of the dog I was going to name. And I went, You can't even let me name my own dog. And I was like, See, in a real movie, I wouldn't have done that line that way. On a sick hub, I got to do that line there. But that's what appeals to me, too. You're talking about that type of humor, and that appeals to me. One of my favorite comics ever is Larry Miller. Now, you're probably too young.

Oh, no, I watch him. That's my morning routine. I throw him on and.

Then I do the show. Here's for the kids out there. Youtube, Larry Miller, the five levels of drinking on YouTube. It's a classic bit that he does. But that's his whole style. The Sun. It's just the son. Oh, you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah. Are you a fan of Nate Burgettsy? Yes. I feel like that's your type of humor as well. He's one of my favourites. He's absolutely one of my favourites of not necessarily having to stay clean, but his humor doesn't have to derive from this big punch to the gut. And it's so relatable, so funny. I find the same thing in your content. I think that's why I like it so much. And Paddleton, I think your character is hilarious. But how much are you conscious? Are you conscious of the funniest you're bringing to that, or are you just playing it? I don't know how to essentially ask this question, but are you very conscious of they're going to laugh here based on what I'm doing?

I want to say no, but the answer is yes.

But.

Also, I think that's my wheelhouse is the throw away, the conversational. That's where my comedy, the strength is in my stand up in my comedy. So I'm glad it sounds that way because that's deliberate.

Does that come from your family or of maybe... Is your family similar to somewhere in Queens as far as the dynamic?

Really, the world that that's in is based on what I married into. Got you. I'm Italian. I grew up in Queens, Italian, but I didn't grow up.

Like.

That. Not that Italian.

How many times have you left one of her family dinners and just been like, I didn't grow up like that.

It's a true story. And this sounds like a cliché. I told the story at lunch. When I first started dating my wife, I called her up week two. And this is before cell phones. I said, Hi, this is Ray. Is Anna home? And her mother, who did not speak, spoke Brooklyn English, goes, Yeah, she's not home. And I go, Okay, can you just tell her the Ray call? She goes, Okay, I tell her. Okay, thank you. And then she goes, You hungry? Over the phone, she asked me if I'm hungry, which sounds like a cliché, but that's the way it was. And that's their family. That's the world I wanted to write about. Whatever story we were going to come up with, I wanted it to be through those people.

Well, not to generalize, but we've shown this movie to Italians that have this similar dynamic in their families, and they just are over the moon of finding their trope inside of it. What was her family's reaction like to the movie?

They love it.

At any point where they're like, They're in it. Who is this.

Based on? No, because they're in the movie. Every one of them is somewhere in there. When it's and they're all dancing that s there's seven of them in there.

At the Sweet 16 party, yeah.

And the kid that shows the flush is his chain, right? That's my nephew. They love it. They're in it.

Yeah, they love it. But we've had people at screenings, I think the one you were at, where each of these two Chinese girls came up and were like, That's exactly what my family is like. And that's the secret is you're writing specifically to one type.

Well, the Chinese invented posture. That's true.

Chinese and Italians, they're all hand in hand in.

Where's your family from? Chicago. Chicago. Okay. So you didn't have as much of this, but I was wondering, filming in Queens with your family nearby, what element did that add?

That was the only No, I'm going to say the only blessing of COVID.

Was.

That no one was allowed on the set because I knew filming in my hometown, this might be a nightmare, not a nightmare that I don't like these people and want them around, but everyone's going to want to be around. And no one was allowed on the set. Beautiful, isn't it? Right. So the only way around that was to put them in the movie. My manager even couldn't come by. And I go, Rory, they're just strict. They can't. But you want to be in the diner sitting in the back and come in for the day? Yeah. So he was in the diner. That's the only way they could come is if they did something on the set. So they were in one day and that.

Was it. Oh, it's wonderful to have your family come in. O kay, you guys are just going to move on. We can't have conversation. I'm so sorry. I'm very busy. Meanwhile, you've taken three lunches. You're like, You just keep doing that in the back. Are the cameras even here? No, that's really great.

I love them, but I was under enough stress as it was. So it actually worked out well that they could come one day and couldn't talk.

Well, there was a huge rumor that you're the one that released the bat to get COVID started. And I don't know if this is helping your cause. But no, I generally hope everyone watches the movie. And I'd say the easiest Amazon, Apple, pretty much everywhere.

It really is a fantastic movie. And it's what, like an hour 45 or something like that. But it breezes by. You have fun the entire time. And like you said, it's like a home cooked meal. You just eat it all up.

And it's five bucks now.

Yeah.

It's a cup.

Of coffee. Even if you're generations poor in your family, you guys could scrape it together. I mean, come on, eat tomorrow.

I've already had friends telling me they're downloading it off of pirating websites and stuff. Just do that.

Just watch the movie.

Just watch it. One, two, three movies. We all know the sites.

Is there a place where they can... I don't know. After they watch it, you guys can see their reaction. I know you haven't figured out the internet quite yet.

What do you mean?

Usually people have a social channel and go like, I like this movie, and a comment.

You can read it on Rotten Tomatoes. You can read the audience.

But no, I know what you're saying. On Paddleton, there used to be a Twitter page for Paddleton.

Okay, this is what you'll do. You guys send me your reactions. I'll send them to Tom. Tom sends them to Bradley Cooper. He'll send me you. Does that work? And then you can send them to Jerry Seinfeld.

Put Chino in the mix there somewhere.

Honestly, I don't want to take up too much of your guys' time, but we have...

Where's this going?

What's this going on? Oh, this is just for us. Oh, okay. Oh, wait. You guys want to record? All right, hit record. And where to go? No, this is going to be on YouTube. This is going to be clipped out everywhere. Tiktok, Snap, whatever.

Snap a chat?

Usually that's safe for genitals, but I thought it'd be nice to have you on there.

What about Vine? Is that still around?

Yeah, this is going to be right on vine. They're going to.

Revamp it.

Just for this. Tiktok. No, but honestly, this has been a lovely conversation. Appreciate it. If you guys don't go see the movie, we'll fight your family members. We're going to bring all of... You got some fighters in your family, correct?

My wife's side, yeah.

So we're going to bring them to wherever you live. We'll charter a bus and we'll fight your relatives if you don't watch the movie. I feel like a threat is the best way to get people to do things.

Oh, yeah. Fear is definitely the best way to inspire.

I got my nephew, Victor Luigi.

Okay, fake name, but it's fine.

100 % real name. The truth is, though, he's three years old.

Right now. I was going to say I loved him in the Super Mario Brothers movie that just.

Came out. His dad is the one who pulls the chain.

And his mother. But if you don't watch the movie when Victor Luigi is 14, he will kick your ass.

And you'll forget about it. Oh, yeah. That's the worst thing about Victor Luigi. He's the Liam Neeson of children.

He holds a grudge. He holds a grudge.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Ray, for coming on. This was fun.

This was awesome. Thank you.

You need to fix it. Fix it in post. That's your job, right?

Make it interesting. We'll cut it down to six seconds for a vine, and we're good to go. I'm sure there's something good in here. All right, guys, if you stay till the end, send me a screenshot of you guys watching the movie, actually. Let me know your favorite scene and let's make this... We got to blow it up to where they can make another movie. And then he can get $280 million to go... You want to direct the next Marvel? I think we have that power.

He's.

In.

We want to make our money back. We want to make our money back, but we're a long ways off. You guys are going to have to get a lot more viewers.

We got you. We got you.

People are going to watch it. It's fun. All right, guys, thank you.

It's a it's not about.

The money. It is about the money.

It's always about the money.

Oh.

Boy. The kids are going to like it. The kids are going to like it.

I thought that was great. I think so. What's your demo?