Jason Segel joins GQ as he revisits some of the most iconic characters from his career so far: from his breakout role in Freaks and Geeks as Nick Andopolis to fostering the role of Marshall Eriksen for all 9 seasons of How I Met Your Mother.“I went from being 24 to 33. I came into that show as a young guy, not really knowing anything,” says Segel as he reflects on his time working How I Met Your Mother. “I would be writing a movie whilst shooting How I Met Your Mother and then a hiatus would come and I’d shoot the movie I wrote, and I’d get out of there in time to start the next season!” Watch the full episode of GQ’s Iconic Characters as Jason Segel breaks down his most iconic movie roles.
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00:00People weren't knocking down my door to play Captain America.
00:02It was going to be like a different kind of path.
00:04As Jesse Eisenberg once said to me,
00:07yes, but you could have been the captain of a weaker country.
00:09Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
00:19Peter, as you know,
00:23I love you very much.
00:30Are you breaking up with me?
00:32I just remember I had had a really bad breakup
00:35that year when we were doing Knocked Up,
00:37and I had thought of the idea for Forgetting Sarah Marshall,
00:40because I got dumped while naked in real life.
00:43While it was happening,
00:45and this is probably a problem with my brain.
00:47While it was happening, I was like,
00:49oh, this is so funny.
00:50I'm going to turn this into a movie.
00:52This is like the funniest thing that's ever happened to me.
00:54Right after Knocked Up, Judd took me out to a Laker game and said,
00:57hey, I think it's your at bat now.
00:59Do you have any ideas?
01:00I said, yeah, I've actually started writing something
01:04called Forgetting Sarah Marshall,
01:05and I gave him like a really light pitch on the movie,
01:07and within a few days,
01:10like the process of making that movie started,
01:12and I was tasked with writing the script.
01:15I had never written a feature before,
01:17but these dramatic themes go back forever.
01:18They go back to Shakespeare.
01:20Like being devastated about a breakup,
01:22the thing that's enduring about that that's relatable
01:25is the pain of it, the desperation.
01:27And so also what Judd was really right about,
01:31and still to this day,
01:32is that even if I try my hardest to write a drama,
01:37it is funny because of the way that I experienced the world.
01:41I find if I lean too hard into jokes, it feels jokey,
01:44like something feels false about it.
01:46I think the desperation of scrambling through life
01:48is really funny,
01:49and that's actually like what brings us all together.
01:54♪ Anything of value, Peter, you suck ♪
01:57♪ Write some music, but instead you sit ♪
02:00♪ And write these bullshit songs, it's so self-loathing ♪
02:03♪ Go see a psychiatrist, I hate the psychiatrist ♪
02:06So there was like three years there
02:08where I hadn't gone to college,
02:09and I wasn't getting work.
02:11I was like too tall to play a kid,
02:13but too like gawky to play a doctor,
02:17and so I just didn't work.
02:18And I concluded that the way that I was going
02:21to dig myself out of this unemployment hole
02:23was I was gonna write a lavish Dracula puppet musical.
02:26So I wrote a few songs alone in my apartment
02:29and triumphantly recorded them,
02:31and then I called Judd, who was like my in in the business,
02:36and I was like, Judd, I need to come over.
02:38It was probably like 10 at night, you know?
02:40I have to come over, I have to show you something.
02:42So I drove over with a burned CD-R,
02:45and I sat Judd down in his room.
02:47He's like, what is going on?
02:47I'm like, you'll see.
02:48Oh, you'll see.
02:49And I played him these few songs
02:52of the Dracula puppet musical,
02:54and he looked at me as a friend and said,
02:58you can't ever play this for anybody, ever.
03:00And my dreams were dashed,
03:02and I was really obsessed with this idea of like,
03:05the thing I don't like about romantic comedies
03:08is you know how it's gonna end.
03:10The guy on the poster is gonna end up
03:12with the girl on the poster.
03:13She's a scientist.
03:15He hates science.
03:16He'll overcome this big gap between them.
03:19And I didn't want it to be like that.
03:21And so I said, Judd, I know how to end the movie.
03:24Remember?
03:25The Dracula puppet musical.
03:28He said, you're kidding me.
03:29I said, no.
03:31It's the Dracula puppet musical.
03:32And I remember specifically,
03:33which by the way, it sounds like dismissive,
03:36but now I look back, I'm like,
03:37oh my God, what a vote of confidence.
03:39He said, it's your movie.
03:41And so that's why that exists.
03:44Freaks and Geeks.
03:47I mean, you know they're gonna play disco, right?
03:49Disco sucks.
03:50I hate disco.
03:55Rather make out with Principal Farber.
03:58Oof, again?
04:00I was a high school athlete
04:02playing basketball at a school in Los Angeles,
04:05but I was doing secret shame acting at night.
04:08Like I would go from basketball practice and games
04:10and then like sneak off and go do acting.
04:12I was too shy to do like the big school plays
04:15because I felt like I would get made fun of
04:17by the basketball team.
04:18But the head of the acting department
04:19who just passed away last year,
04:21his name is Ted Walsh,
04:22who I owe my life and career to.
04:24He saw me do some of my like little plays
04:27that I would put on
04:27and I think he maybe noticed something in me.
04:30And he said, hey, I think you might be good at this.
04:32I know you don't wanna do any of the big school plays,
04:34but what if you and I just put on a little show together?
04:37We'll do, I'll match you with another actor.
04:38We'll do a play called The Zoo Story by Edward Albee.
04:40I knew nothing about it.
04:41It turned out it was like a very challenging play.
04:43So 17 years old.
04:44So we'll just do it for three nights.
04:46So I put it on and a week later,
04:49my parents sat me down and they said,
04:51you have a decision to make.
04:52Paramount Pictures wants to start putting you in movies
04:55because what he had done was done like a secret showcase
04:58where he had called casting directors
05:00from all the studios in Los Angeles
05:02to come see this little play.
05:04And I started auditioning for things
05:05and then the Freaks and Geeks script came across
05:07and I read it and I loved it.
05:10And I showed up to the audition totally blind and cold.
05:13I didn't know anyone and Judd and Paul Feig were there
05:16and they had me improv a little bit
05:17and I had the naivety of youth.
05:20I wasn't scared at that point.
05:21I didn't really know how hard all of this is.
05:24Next thing I knew,
05:25I was brought in for a callback with James Franco.
05:28And we were, as far as we knew,
05:30competing for the same part
05:32because at the time there was only one of those characters.
05:35Daniel and Nick were just one character at the time.
05:37So we went in and we auditioned against each other.
05:40They liked us both and they split the part
05:42and he became the cool one and I became the goofy one.
05:45I always felt like Nick was,
05:47he was a lot like me.
05:48He was like a sweet guy
05:49who just couldn't quite get it right.
05:51I'm really happy for you, Nick.
05:56Well, you should be, you know?
05:59I even quit smoking pot.
06:01Yeah.
06:03I don't even really want it anymore.
06:04It's like I totally cleaned myself up.
06:06I'll tell you something about that episode,
06:07which I think is really cool.
06:09We shot that episode halfway through the season
06:12because we started to notice
06:15that the craft service table was really dwindling.
06:18Like at first it was like beautiful cold cuts
06:21and all the stuff you would want.
06:23And then it was like all of a sudden
06:26just like mini corn pops and dairy creamer.
06:29So people started looking at each other like,
06:31oh, we're getting canceled.
06:33We're getting canceled.
06:35And so Judd and Paul and Jake
06:38did something really smart.
06:39And they were like, sometimes when you're canceled,
06:41you just find out and you don't shoot anymore.
06:43We're shooting the finale.
06:45And so we shot the finale.
06:47It's emotional to think about, yeah.
06:49We shot the finale of the show
06:51and just held it in anticipation of getting canceled.
06:54It's like knowing like your partner's
06:56gonna break up with you.
06:57You know what I mean?
06:58So we had that.
07:00Look, maybe you guys are just screwing around,
07:02but I want us to be good, you know?
07:06I'm tired of sucking at everything in my life
07:08and I wanna nail that audition, all right?
07:11But we're not gonna nail that audition
07:13unless we play the songs over and over and over again
07:15until they're perfect.
07:17The sad answer to where I think Nick is now,
07:20in my mind, he gets sent off to war and doesn't make it.
07:25That was always like the threat looming for Nick.
07:27And that's what happens to a lot of men of that generation
07:30and socioeconomic status.
07:32That's how I was always thinking of playing him.
07:35For Nick, the desperation in his character
07:38is that the alternative is not making it.
07:40That's how he felt.
07:41Like, yeah, I'm gonna drum my way out of this.
07:44How sad, because you're not gonna drum your way out of it.
07:46How I Met Your Mother.
07:50No, you are too old to be scared
07:52to open a bottle of champagne.
07:54I'm not scared.
07:55Then open it.
07:56Fine.
07:58Please open it.
08:00I went from being 24 to 33.
08:02So I came into that show like a young guy,
08:05not really knowing anything.
08:09Really, I mean, I learned a lot about work,
08:12but I also learned a lot about teamwork.
08:14And I learned a lot about professionalism over that time.
08:18I would be writing a movie during the year
08:21while shooting How I Met Your Mother.
08:23And then hiatus would come
08:24and I would shoot the movie I wrote
08:26and like get out of there in time to start the next season.
08:29I was exhausted.
08:30I was exhausted and I was growing increasingly unhappy.
08:35And I didn't know why.
08:36And I think that it's because I didn't understand
08:38that you're also supposed to have a life, personal life.
08:41The other thing that I think I learned,
08:43which I didn't understand, because why would you?
08:47Art is about making sense of what you're going through.
08:51And I wasn't putting anything in.
08:53I was just working.
08:55So I was just making stuff and making stuff
08:56and making stuff.
08:57Facsimiles of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
09:01You're encouraged to take something you did well
09:03and stretch it as far as you can.
09:04When that show came to an end,
09:06which to be clear is the best thing
09:09that ever happened to me,
09:10making How I Met Your Mother changed my life.
09:12It allowed me the creative freedom, which I then took.
09:15I was like, you got to figure out a way to do this
09:17that's sustainable because you're 33 years old
09:19and there's a ton more time left.
09:21So how do you do this in a way
09:23where you don't feel like how you felt
09:26by the end of that run?
09:28Your father, he had a heart attack.
09:34He didn't make it.
09:42My dad's dead?
09:44The scene that was the most interesting to me
09:47was the scene where my father dies,
09:49but I don't think they put it in the script
09:51for leak reasons.
09:53You know what I mean?
09:54This was like the era of the internet leak
09:56of what was going to happen in shows.
09:58And so it wasn't in the script.
10:01It just says, Lily tells Marshall some news
10:05because some weirdo went to the producers
10:07and the director and said,
10:08hey, do me a favor.
10:09Like, I don't want to know the news.
10:11Don't tell me what the news is.
10:13Because there were a few options.
10:15That she was pregnant.
10:16My dad had died.
10:17That we were moving.
10:19That she wanted a divorce.
10:20Like there were a few things it could have been.
10:22I didn't know what was going to happen at that moment.
10:24And that was, that's one take.
10:27That was a very special, that was a special night.
10:29I like stuff like that.
10:32I'm gonna go too deep again.
10:33But it is, it's my,
10:36what I've come to really like about my job,
10:38like what I think is the most exciting thing
10:40that you're trying to do,
10:42which is catch something.
10:44Catch it on camera.
10:46You then have to get good,
10:47like the craft is repeatability and all that stuff,
10:49because you're gonna need to do a lot of angles.
10:51But the magic is like,
10:52oh, we caught something real there for a second.
10:55Everybody took something from the set.
10:57What did you take?
10:59I took nothing.
11:01I am not big on memorabilia stuff.
11:04I don't even watch things when they're done.
11:06If something is airing that I'm on,
11:07I don't watch it either.
11:09Because I like to do it.
11:11And I like to not think too much
11:13about the consequences of it.
11:15I don't have any How I Met Your Mother memorabilia.
11:17The only thing literally that I have memorabilia from
11:19is the Muppets.
11:20I have the Jason Segel puppet.
11:24The Muppets.
11:27The puppet is in my secret puppet room.
11:31It's upstairs in my house,
11:33and it looks like a bookcase.
11:36And if you push the bookcase just the right way,
11:38it opens up into like,
11:39it looks kind of like a speakeasy.
11:41There's like chairs and tables,
11:43and all of those chairs and tables are occupied by puppets,
11:47including the Jason Segel puppet.
11:49It is 100% true.
11:51Yeah.
11:52Yeah.
11:53That's why I'm not married.
11:54The only way to save the studio is to raise $10 million.
11:58$10 million?
12:00That's impossible.
12:01But I mean, the only way to raise that kind of money
12:03would be to,
12:06would be to put on a show.
12:07My favorite Muppet movie growing up
12:08is Muppets Take Manhattan.
12:10It's about putting on a show.
12:11And the Muppet movie I wrote
12:12is very much in that vein of putting on a show.
12:15To me, it's what the Muppets do best.
12:17I think we love the Muppets
12:18because at some point in your life,
12:20you have to leave behind not a care in the world.
12:24It's a sad moment in growing up where it's like,
12:26oh, all of a sudden I know about taxes
12:28and I know about that life is difficult
12:30and I know about that it's gonna be hard.
12:33And the Muppets are kind of stuck
12:35at this moment of naivete where it's like,
12:38it's childlike wonder going through
12:41what we're all going through.
12:42Because Sesame Street's a little younger.
12:44They're like learning kid lessons.
12:45But the Muppets are doing hard things.
12:47They're like trying to put on a Broadway show
12:49or like not get their legs cut off
12:51and fried for the restaurant.
12:54That's like a really scary thing, actually.
12:56Doc Hopper wants to cut off Kermit's legs and fry him.
12:59But they're like, oh, but maybe he's a good guy
13:02underneath all of it.
13:03You're like, oh, fuck.
13:05I wish I could be like that.
13:06I wish I saw my leg fryer with that sort of empathy.
13:10I wrote the Muppet movie with my buddy, Nick Stoller.
13:12They put a lot of trust in me
13:14to kind of carry the torch for this Muppet movie.
13:17And so the time came to do the first table reading.
13:19I was sitting at the table waiting to do the table reading
13:22and in come all the puppeteers who also do the voices.
13:25And so they sit around the table.
13:27We're getting ready to do the table reading.
13:28And then I didn't quite know what was happening,
13:31but all these crates start getting wheeled in.
13:33And then it's time to start the table reading.
13:35All of a sudden the Puppets come up
13:39and they're not just gonna do the voices.
13:41The Puppets are gonna do the table reading.
13:42So like my breath starts to go a little bit.
13:45Keep in mind, I'm like a little bit like the boss of this.
13:50There's a few of us, but I'm like, you know,
13:52they're like, we're letting Jason Segel make a Muppet movie
13:55is kind of what it felt like.
13:56And these guys didn't know me.
13:57So we get to the part where Kermit says his first line,
14:00which is, hi-ho.
14:01And Kermit says, hi-ho.
14:02And I burst into tears.
14:04Like I start crying really hard.
14:06And everyone's like, oh, how lovely.
14:08He really loves the Muppets.
14:09But it got away from me.
14:11And I started to cry disproportionate to the occasion,
14:14like deep, like deep sobs.
14:18And the looks of how sweet slowly changed to like,
14:21wait, he can't like make,
14:23he can't be in charge of doing this.
14:25I think about it a lot.
14:26It was like, come on, Jay, too much.
14:30You know what to do.
14:34I think that the finale scene
14:36where Animal starts to drum again
14:38was the most meaningful for me
14:39because I remember thinking about that
14:41in a parking garage in Santa Monica,
14:44this idea that Animal couldn't drum anymore.
14:47And then I had the,
14:50because I make music sometimes,
14:52I had the like image thought of Rainbow Connection,
14:57which is a tender song,
14:58all of a sudden just hearing the
15:01boopity, boopity, boopity, boop,
15:02and Animal's drumming again and everybody coming in.
15:05That's the thing that I always think is really magic
15:07about making stuff.
15:08Why that moment sticks out to me
15:09is like the secret of all this stuff
15:12is that I've thought of an idea on my couch,
15:15or I've thought of an idea in the shower or on a walk.
15:18And then you have the singleness of purpose
15:22to turn it into something real.
15:25That to me is, it's magic, you know?
15:27It's like alchemy.
15:29Excuse me.
15:30["Ode to Joy"]
15:38You okay?
15:39That was quite a tumble.
15:43My favorite Muppet is Kermit.
15:45I know that's a generic answer,
15:46but I've talked about it before.
15:48He was my first acting idol.
15:50I think that when you're young,
15:52Kermit is Tom Hanks and Jimmy Stewart.
15:56It's this lineage of,
15:57it's an acting style that is like surrogate
16:01where basically their job is I am you.
16:03Like there's another kind of acting style
16:05which is cooler than you, like James Bond,
16:08where you're like, oh, it's aspirational.
16:11Like I wish I was that kind of person.
16:13But Kermit, Tom Hanks, Jimmy Stewart,
16:15they're like, in this movie, I'm you.
16:17Imagine you're going through this.
16:18I'll represent us.
16:20And that's the kind of acting style I try to do.
16:22Like totally based on Kermit, my first influence.
16:26Despicable Me.
16:29I'm applying for a new villain loan.
16:31Go by the name of Vector.
16:33Yeah.
16:36They showed me a bunch of sketches of him
16:38and he's such a little guy
16:40and has like this arrogance, undeserved arrogance.
16:43And so once I kind of zeroed in on that idea
16:46of like super, super cocky without the stuff to back it up,
16:49it came pretty naturally.
16:51That was fun.
16:52I like doing voice stuff because it's like puppet adjacent.
16:54I'm doing puppetry, but without the hand.
16:56I think I'll hold out to them a little while longer.
16:59No!
17:00Oh yeah!
17:01Unpredictable!
17:04Listen close, you little punk.
17:05When I get in there, you are in for a world of pain.
17:09And did you guys do a lot of improv?
17:10Yeah, I think so
17:11because they haven't animated the mouth yet.
17:13So it's just like, you have the kind of very rough visuals
17:16of what is going to be happening.
17:19And you kind of just go to town.
17:21Again, in the spirit of not overthinking stuff
17:24or like watching stuff later,
17:26I'm like, I'm just going to try everything.
17:27I trust that they're going to be the best at what they do.
17:29And they are, those guys are the best.
17:32Knocked up.
17:35You got to know all the tricks.
17:36Like for example, if a woman's on top,
17:38she can't get pregnant.
17:39It's just gravity.
17:40Well, that's true.
17:41Everyone knows that.
17:41What goes up must come down.
17:42Freaks and Geeks was canceled.
17:44And I think we all had a sense
17:46that there was something electric
17:47that was starting to happen amongst the group
17:50and amongst like our stylistic approach.
17:52And Judd had taken me and I think a few others aside
17:55and said, if you can improv the way you're improvbing
17:58on this show, you can write.
18:00You just need to learn the craft and the skill of it.
18:03And it's the only way that you're going to make it.
18:04So we all started writing.
18:06I have always thought separately
18:07that Judd went on a kind of Monte Cristo style
18:11revenge mission against that cancellation
18:13and was like, I'm going to show you that you were wrong
18:15by systematically making each one of these people
18:18a movie star.
18:19First came 40 year old Virgin with Carell
18:21and Seth like popped in that so hard.
18:24Seth had knocked up
18:25and we got to be the supporting and knocked up.
18:27So knocked up was really the genesis
18:30of me getting to do Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
18:31It was like Judd saying, okay,
18:34I'm giving all these people their shot.
18:36And it was all the gang
18:37and we were competitive and supportive
18:39and all the things that make a team great.
18:42It's shrinking.
18:46I'd like you to give me another shot.
18:48Okay, look, I'm going to level with you.
18:50Last time you were here,
18:50I was probably a little high and drunk
18:53from the night before.
18:55I'm going to go under some shit.
18:56But look, Sean, you and I, we have to talk about this.
19:00This is not somebody who got
19:01into a no big deal bar fight with you.
19:04I was really interested in the idea
19:06of somebody continuing to practice therapy
19:09when they were going through a nervous breakdown.
19:11That's just like an electric idea,
19:13the opposition of it.
19:14Yeah, we all wish someone would just tell us the thing.
19:17Just say it.
19:18So I know what to do.
19:19That was really interesting to me.
19:21And then acting with Harrison Ford was like,
19:23oh, this is going to happen.
19:24Like this is insane.
19:26And the rest of the cast is among the best actors
19:28I've ever worked with.
19:29So that's not just lip service.
19:30It's the best.
19:32I have been not great.
19:38I think I'm onto something.
19:41If you could just let me keep going.
19:43Are you even trying to be careful?
19:48Or are you just going to burn your career
19:50and take me down with you?
19:52Coin flip.
19:54The name Harrison Ford came up
19:55because generally what happens is there's a part
19:58where you want like the guy or the girl.
20:01You take a big swing
20:03knowing you're not going to get the person.
20:06And we're like,
20:06we should just offer this to Harrison Ford.
20:08So for three days,
20:09we can say we offered it to Harrison Ford
20:10and then we'll offer it to someone
20:12who will really take the part.
20:14And then he said, yes.
20:16And then there was this like mad scramble of like,
20:19holy shit, Harrison Ford's going to show up here?
20:21You then have to rewrite the show.
20:23Paul was a much more supporting part.
20:25He was like an occasional check-in mentor
20:28in the original conception of the show,
20:30but you're not going to underuse Harrison Ford.
20:33And so then it became much more of a two-hander.
20:35I think one of the things that I've learned from Harrison
20:38is that you don't,
20:40I really, really want it to be good.
20:45And like, I really, really prepare really hard
20:49and I care so deeply about it.
20:52And Harrison does as well,
20:54but with a little more ease,
20:56with a little bit more understanding that,
20:58hey, it's going to be good.
21:00You know what I mean?
21:01Like you don't have to clench so tight
21:03around making sure it is.
21:06You're good.
21:07Harrison really cares and really preps,
21:09but Harrison also has done this enough to know he's good.
21:14And so I'm learning that a little bit.
21:16It's going to be good.
21:17["Winning Time"]
21:19Winning time.
21:21Let's take a minute.
21:23["Winning Time"]
21:25Give sorrow words.
21:28The grief that does not speak
21:29whispers the o'er-fraught heart
21:31and bids it break.
21:37So-called day?
21:39No, no, no, no.
21:40Oh, no, no, no.
21:42Not at all.
21:43A friend of mine,
21:45it's such a good quote,
21:46I'll just say who it was,
21:47is Chiwetel Ejiofor.
21:48We had done a movie together
21:49and I would ask these people who I really admired,
21:52what is art?
21:52And Chiwetel said this thing.
21:55He said, it's performing an act of self-exploration
21:58on behalf of an audience.
22:00And I never thought of it that way.
22:01And so I try to apply that to everything I do.
22:04And to me, that winning time character, Paul,
22:09it's like a Shakespearean story
22:10about a guy who has been overlooked and belittled
22:14trying to step into his own manhood.
22:17How frustrating.
22:19Being stuck as someone's flunky
22:22when you're capable of more.
22:24I didn't want someone to go through that like I did.
22:30That's why I picked you.
22:33Because you're not capable of more.
22:36Again, I thought of this as a character,
22:38not as Paul Westhead, the man,
22:40which is why I didn't want to meet him.
22:41I wanted to do a Shakespearean arc
22:43because he was a Shakespeare teacher.
22:45It all felt in line.
22:47And so it's about a guy,
22:48season one is about a guy who unexpectedly
22:52is forced to step into his manhood amongst a group of men
22:56and battle his own insecurities
22:58and ultimately win the thing.
23:01And then season two, I wanted to do the fall of that idea
23:04of like, what if you got handed the crown
23:07but you actually didn't have the qualities to be king?
23:12And so then you watch somebody
23:14a little like Lord of the Rings style,
23:16what does it look like
23:17when the ring is being taken away from you?
23:20My precious.
23:20That's how I thought of those things.
23:22I think that since I kind of changed my approach,
23:26all I try to do is work with people I admire.
23:29My first thing is like, what can I learn?
23:33I want to keep learning and keep getting better.
23:35So who can I be around that I'm going to learn from?
23:38And certainly Adrian, Tracy Letts, John C,
23:42I mean, all these guys, Jason Clarke.
23:43I was like learning daily about approach and technique.
23:47And there's a great book called Steal Like an Artist.
23:50You steal stuff, you know?
23:52It's one of the great things
23:53of like filling your backpack with these little tools
23:55because sometimes you'll like get to a moment
23:58where you realize, I don't know how to do this part.
24:00And you're like, well, there's that thing John C did.
24:03You know?
24:04We're letting you go, Paul.
24:06I don't think that's a good idea.
24:09You said that this was my team.
24:12There was a scene where he fires me
24:14where at the end of it, he gave me a compliment.
24:16And I was like, so moved to just to have another actor
24:21who you admire say like, hey, you did good there.
24:23That really gets me every time.
24:25It's a very generous thing to do.
24:26Sometimes we forget to tell people
24:28that they're doing a good job.
24:30The end of the tour.
24:33Why we, and when I say we,
24:35I mean people just like you and me,
24:37mostly white, upper middle-class,
24:40obscenely well-educated, doing really interesting jobs,
24:43sitting in really expensive chairs,
24:45watching the best, most sophisticated
24:47electronic equipment money can buy.
24:50Why do we feel so empty?
24:52End of the tour is the movie that changed my career
24:56and my approach to acting, I think.
24:58I had just finished How I Met Your Mother.
25:00I wasn't sure about how I wanted to proceed
25:02or what I wanted to do.
25:04I was also at this kind of moment of existential crisis
25:07where in a lot of ways I had won.
25:10I was on a big hit TV show
25:12and I was making movies that were doing well,
25:14but I was very unhappy.
25:16And so I couldn't reconcile this,
25:19what am I doing wrong that I'm not feeling
25:21the way that everyone tells me I should be feeling?
25:24And right at that time, end of the tour came to me
25:27and it was about that very thing.
25:29I mean, for David Foster Wallace on a much grander level,
25:31but he had just written what was being called
25:33the book of a generation.
25:35And his experience of that is like,
25:37God, now I have to write the next book.
25:40He couldn't grab onto it.
25:42And I thought, oh, this is exactly what I'm going through.
25:44And then the dialogue, it was such a drama.
25:48It was nothing I had ever done before.
25:50And I read it and I was not sure
25:54that I would be capable of doing it.
25:56And that was a really exciting feeling.
25:59Up until that point, I either wrote the thing
26:01so I knew I could do it,
26:02or I was sent stuff that was adjacent
26:05to things I had written so I knew how to do it.
26:06I was like, who do you want to be?
26:09The guy who finds out,
26:11or the guy who like for the rest of their life
26:14sits at the dinner party saying like,
26:17well, if I had played David Foster Wallace,
26:19I would have, you know what I mean?
26:21We all know that guy.
26:22If I had directed The Revenant,
26:24I would have, the bear would have been much faster.
26:26And so I was like, let's find out.
26:30Let's find out if he can do this.
26:32And I was so scared.
26:35I played what would Edward Norton do in my prep
26:37because I had no system of prep to do something like this.
26:39And so I just thought like, okay,
26:41Edward Norton would get a dialect coach.
26:42Edward Norton might write out his lines.
26:44Edward Norton might record the thing.
26:46I like literally just made guesses
26:49as to what people I admired would do.
26:50And I did those things.
26:52And I funny enough do that prep
26:54that I invented for that to this day.
26:56I treasure my regular kindness.
26:58I've come to think that maybe
26:59it's my biggest asset as a writer
27:01that I'm basically just like everybody else.
27:05You know, I'm not doing any kind of faux thing with you.
27:09And I'm not gonna say it again.
27:10Okay, but that faux thing,
27:11what you just said is an example of the faux thing.
27:13You're not willing to risk giving the full you.
27:16Gained like 40 pounds for it.
27:18And that puts you into a,
27:20just a different physical state.
27:22And then also, if I'm honest, I did not feel dark.
27:27What I felt was contemplative in a way
27:29that was very true to the fact
27:32that I had not stopped working from like 23, 24 until 33.
27:38And now it was over.
27:40This era of romantic comedies was ending.
27:43How I Met Your Mother was ending.
27:45And I was left with like, who am I without this stuff?
27:49And that's exactly what the movie was about.
27:51So I actually felt, this was before Chiwetel
27:53had said that thing about art to me,
27:55but I was accidentally doing what I was supposed to.