Kirby

Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert. This is Dax, I'm joined by Padman. Is that the one you're going with?

Oh, I oh.

I thought you were going down to one name.

I am, I guess you're right. I should go by Padman because there's already another Monica the singer, who goes just by Monica. Oh, really, yeah, so unfortunately, I have to go by Padman.

Padman's Cooler.

It's pretty cool.

It's solid. We're saying that, of course, because our friend Kirby is here, Kirby is an actor. I think maybe Kristen first met her on House of Lies.

Really.

I think that's where.

Or Veronica, Mars?

No, I think it was. I think the order was house of lies, but I could be wrong. But then Good Place, then Veronica, Mars, lots of crossover, then Queen Pins, ding ding ding. A lot of people have seen Queen Pins. Kirby was also in Why Women Kill The Sandman Killing Eve Cruella.

She's so cool.

She's the coolest.

She is the coolest, she's cool guy all the way.

All day, all night.

And then sexy boy, wait, sexy man.

Sexy man She's also a sexy man.

And then Best boy.

And then best boy, and just barely any best boy.

She is that much best boy.

No, she don't need it, she's bad to the bone. Please enjoy Kirby.

He's an armchair expert.

He's an armchair expert.

He's an armchair expert.

I'm in.

Yeah, I'm in.

It smells lovely in there. Oh good, sometimes it smells terrible, like food.

I almost expected it to not smell good.

Oh, sure, yeah, it's a grody attic.

Because she takes things really personally, that person. What are they looking at? And I'm like, most of the time, people are not ever thinking about you. It's like that I'm in my brain thinking, Where should I park?

Yeah, so my sister-in-law has this incredible hack, which is she works at a retail clothing store or has in the past manages one. And she'll be helping someone find a blouse. And the person will be on their fourth or fifth option that she brings to them. And when they're still on the inside of the changing room and they can't see her. They'll be saying, like, I just don't know if I look good in red or whatever. And she'll say, Do you know what color shirt I'm wearing now? She's just helped them five times and has been dealing with them for half hour, and most times they'll go, Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed, I don't. I only say that to show no one's really thinking about what anyone else wears.

They're 100 not, yeah.

That would so be me. I'd go, Oh boy, blue. I would pick a high percentage, yeah.

I wonder, what is the highest percent black probably of people wearing right now in the country? The highest percentage is probably Black.

Black, But you know what? I've noticed, there's a real neutrals trend happening right now, isn't it? Everyone's wearing like sandy colors.

I love sand.

You do.

Yeah, I enjoy it.

When it's done well, it's not my default, black is my default.

But you also rock color like crazy.

Yeah, you do.

I do love color.

I think this is a gift of you guys being brown.

Yeah, it is a gift.

If a white guy wears a bright red suit, it's nuts. It begs a question, Well, or a little like?

How much attention do you need?

Yeah, how much attention do you need?

Or also, like, that's a bold choice, it feels like you're going for best or worst dress. Whereas I think if you have like, dark skin and you're wearing color, it's just this looks good. No, it does, it does. I do love wearing a nice little color pop.

Yeah, when you go on Talk, I just watched Three in a row, You on Kimmel.

Oh yeah.

And you let it rip style-wise.

I did let it rip. What'd you wear?

The first one was a really outrageous red outfit with your girlfriend.

Yes, I did a red suit and that's when I cut my hair and went crazy and dyed it blonde.

You know, what's funny is, I'm thinking of a different red outfit, but yes.

The pink and red outfit, that's my favorite one, that's one of my favorite things I've ever worn.

That's my favorite look on you. I've only known you for a short period and I've gotten to see you in like 20, 30 hairstyles.

You've seen so many hairstyles.

Should we shout out the brand?

Yes, I was gonna say, Weederhoft is the suit. I think they're an incredible brand. That's one of my favorite things I've ever, ever, ever worn. I'd love to wear more of their stuff. And then my hair was done by Erin Courtney.

Where do you find the braider? Is this in the common stew of hair people on sets?

No, this is certainly not so. This Braider I saw her because Willow Smith had really great braids. she tagged this Braider, Erin, and then that's how I found her. It's great, but then every time I wanna delete Instagram, I'm like, that's what keeps it.

It's a resource.

It's a resource it really is, and for things like that, it's so easy to find someone and see their work. You do discover people.

Can we do five on Willow?

What do you mean what's five?

Five minutes.

But maybe even less.

Like, chat for five minutes on Willow.

Oh, I absolutely, yeah, can we do five? Is that terrible that I didn't know what I was?

You've done your research and I haven't. Let's talk about it. I think she's fantastic.

I don't think that's like a common term, a colloquial American thing. I think that probably sounded weird to everyone. I'm kind of newly in a rabbit hole of hers and funny enough, ding, ding, ding for you and I. We were driving through the mountains of Tennessee together and I was playing my favorite songs.

Is that Willow Smith?

No, but you were like, What the fuck is this? I've never heard this. I felt flattered and validated that you liked one of my songs, and I just listened to her new music, Willow. And it's very hiatus coyote.

Okay, so now I need to go back and see. Because I do this and I'm like, Oh, I love that song, and then I don't write it down or add it to a playlist.

I didn't think I texted it to you, I went that far.

Oh, shit.

Don't look, you don't need to look at that.

It's really embarrassing.

For me.

What kind of shirt am I wearing?

For all of us.

Okay, well, I am going to go back. Hiatus Coyote. I'm going to have to say it like, four times, I'll have to get you to text me again. Willow Smith.

And that face is really something to study.

Insane.

Because it's Will Smith, I mean, she looks so much like Will Smith, but she's so beautiful, like Jada. It's pretty wild, you know? If you ever asked yourself like, I wonder what Will Smith would look like as a beautiful lady? and it's been answered.

Yeah, but do you think he would? I don't know if he would look exactly like that.

Oh, no.

I mean, it's almost, but I know what you mean. That's the funny thing actually, because I feel like this about Romeo Beckham. Romeo Beckham has Victoria Beckham's face. And even though David Beckham is obviously beautiful, but that's what makes him beautiful.

So were you already hip to Beckham? Like we watched the Doc, Monica and I, and we became obsessed with Beckham, me, maybe more than her.

Oh wow, okay, sorry, I just looked up Willow Smith. And I implore everyone right now who's listening to look her up currently because I haven't seen her in a minute. And you're right, she does look a lot like Will, yeah.

It's so fucking beautiful.

So beautiful.

She is stunning.

And then also, I want those teeth she has. Did you have a jewel on your tooth for a minute? Was that ever a phase you had?

No, did I.

No, it feels like something I would have done, oh for sure.

I feel like, maybe you're right.

I'm inclined to be like, Dags, No, don't say that.

But I kind of think you did, I feel like I did it. This is the same thing with the hairstyle. I also love the outward expression of yourself, and I'm like a jewel tooth.

Kind of a little like poor, ghetto, rich.

Exactly, yes, yes, you put your money in your mouth, literally, that's what it's seen as. But I always just thought my mum was the coolest, like she had this gold tooth and she had another one.

So she was funky as well, because you're funky.

Oh, my mum's crazy funky. I gotta show you a picture. Do you wanna see a picture of my mum?

Yeah, I'd love to.

This is my mum's shirt, she gave it to me.

Okay, I didn't know this about you. ugh, I'm going so fast, but what's fun about this is you and I.

She still has a stall, which I sometimes work at when I go back to London. Oh, you do. It's the funniest thing I've actually a couple of times been recognized. People will be like, Are you?

I'm just my mum's daughter, just my mum's daughter. It's in Camden.

So she used to do Camden well, it was the ballroom, so the ballroom is like a big club in Camden. Punk kind of grunge, you know, like those big, two-level, massive clubs. And on a Sunday during the day, it would be a market so everyone would come in and sell.

Yeah, the people in Essex might be, Yeah, yeah.

And also, people say that a lot of Londoners think that England stops at the top of the M5.

We all think that, too.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're like, what's the rest of it?

No, when I see like, English hillbillies and stuff, or English white trash, I'm like, Where'd these folks come from? I thought everyone was in a top hat and like, educated, like, there's a fair amount of fucking hicks in England.

100, it's like here, but it's smaller, we just have less space for everyone.

I love that you grew up in a market, that's my dream, really.

Well, Monica loves malls.

I love malls, I love shopping.

Oh, you'd love it. She still does markets, she does Earlham Street, that's in the West End, and she does Brick Lane, and that's in east London.

And where does she pull all the clothes that she ends up selling from everywhere?

So sometimes she makes stuff, then she gets them from different people. She's done it my whole life, she customizes a lot of stuff, it's like handmade.

Is that the only job she ever had when you were growing up?

She had to supplement it, so when I was really young, maybe one to four or something. She had a shop in Charlton Street and then she did these markets on the weekends and then had tons of other jobs. She's always had two or three jobs at once, she's a single mom as well with two of us.

Do you ever try to give her money and how does that go?

I do, but sometimes now I got her bank details, I'll just drop it in her bank account.

Okay, that's cleaner. Yeah, it's much cleaner. She might even be able to fool herself into thinking she just forgot she had money.

It's like, Wow, my market? Yeah, I'm doing really well.

Well, you know, the funny thing about my mom is that she is incredible and deserves the world, but doesn't really think she does. It's such a funny thing. Even just going out for a nice meal, my mom's like, Oh my god, this much for food. And her thing is, she always goes like, I can make this at home, which she couldn't. No, she doesn't have an e-fryer.

She doesn't have any of those ingredients. It was that clay pot they cook in in the Indian restaurants, oh yeah, the tandoori oven.

Yeah.

You don't have a tandoori oven.

Yeah, like, we went to Din Tai. She's like, I can make this. It's like, Mom, you've never even heard of these spices. Exactly, you would know a session on pepper for eating them.

You'd have to learn to speak Mandarin before you even started this.

That's a generational thing.

So I just drop it in. I think it's generational, this kind of like I don't need anything, no fuss.

What's her story? How long had your family been in England?

So my mom, Okay, so let me just.

Yeah, you handle this first.

Yeah, you handle it and text it to me.

Should I handle the picture first? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. The funny thing is she was in one of the people, you know, it has, like people and then albums.

Oh, I thought you were saying she was in People magazine.

No, imagine she would die. I mean, she's gonna probably hate that. I even spoke about her very private, she thinks you're tapping her phone right now.

Is she gonna listen to this?

If I direct her to the link, she might listen to it, but if I don't, she won't necessarily find it. Because you're not on YouTube, if you were on YouTube, she'd find you in a heartbeat.

You'd be dead, yeah, my mom, too.

This is my mom, text it to me. Oh, text it to you. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I wanna hold her.

Okay, please, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Dax loves moms and dads.

I do love moms and dads, you're right.

Okay, yeah, I'm gonna text you a couple.

I'm gonna sink my teeth in.

And apparently we look alike, but I don't know any.

Oh, that's fun, that'll be a fun game to see if we think so.

Yeah, she's totally rad.

You'll never see her like, not in a hat.

Oh, yeah, she looks awesome. yeah, she looks awesome, and she's eating a dish she could never cook.

She's eating like an enchilada or something, she loves them. Listen, I thought I discovered Mexican food. We don't have, like a lot of Mexican food in England. My mom has discovered Mexican food in her late 50s, and she's like, I love this dish. What is this?

Off to the races.

Off to the races, she can't get enough of it.

Yeah, she's really funky. Where do you think she got the confidence for that?

I'm gonna send you one more picture. This is like four generations of women. It's my nan, my mom, me and my niece. My nana passed away in 2020. So you say, where did she get the confidence?

It means a lot to Monica.

We like this, can you give us what the traits are?

So I say this because I'm not a big star sign person. I know my own and I'll know specific people's, but you know, people go well, what is this? They're rising. I don't know all of that, but the traits I know of an Aries are very strong-willed, very independent.

Can make most dishes.

Can make every dish.

If she can taste it, she can make it.

Have 10 spices, but can make everything.

I'm an Aries rising, let me tell you some of her traits, and you tell me if these also are Aries. She's incredibly creative, kind of a creative savant. If she cared for social media or publicizing herself more, she could do amazing things.

Doesn't want to ever be instructed how to do something.

Never you know what she hated when I brought her to set.

What happened?

She just hates the rules of it, the being quiet and how boring it is. Everything goes over and over and over.

Monotonous?

She's like, get on with it.

And I'm going to talk between action and cut, I don't care, they're talking, why do they get to talk? Also, like, who made those clothes?

Also, my mom doesn't like fuss, right? And if you bring your mom to set, different if you're someone else, but if you're an actor, it's so much fuss. Every minute they would knock on the door, like, Do you need anything? She's like, just leave me alone.

Fuck off. And then they're checking your wardrobe and your hair and your makeup.

She hated all of that. She's like, people just keep coming in the room. I'm like, Well, yeah.

I love that she hated it. That's my job, that's my job.

So a little stubborn.

Very stubborn.

She's beautiful. Oh, can I use a four gem? I just want to say one thing before I hand this over for the listeners. So all four generations are on a couch and everyone's smiling.

Yes, yes, yes, so this was when my mom learned deuces, so this was my mom orchestrating. Obviously my niece knew she's a child.

I know what's deuces, it's like peace.

Like deuces, like two, you know.

But in England, you might say deuces.

No, I think no here, too.

Here I think she got it from YouTube. My mom loves American TV drama, all of that, you know, what she loves is. When I was younger, my mom would always read the Inquirer magazine, you know, Inquirer.

I just told Monica yesterday, the commercial used to be inquiring minds want to know is that what it was? It was posing as some kind of legitimate information that you would be an inquiring mind like, it's a compliment.

Gossip-hungry trash?

It's just a trashy people want to know.

So my mom always would read that at the markets because also you can't get into a book because you have customers coming up all the time. And for some reason, that was her guilty pleasure. That was like, escape, a little bit, escape. And what that has translated into now is YouTube video blogs.

Does she watch any psychics on YouTube?

No psychics, but she can tell you everything. She watches Fox Soul, she watches This blogger. She'll be like, Oh, did you hear what happened with Krishan Rock and Blue Face? I don't know any of this.

We're gonna earmark that, yeah.

March on, March on. So very funny that my mom knows all of that.

Are you embarrassed by it? Because if my mother was doing this, I would go, Mother, what the fuck are you doing?

That's what I do.

Sometimes I do get to my limit. For the most part, she'll call me, or even more so is because now my partner's American and we have an American family. Soon as she comes in, she's like, Have you heard? like, that's not like talking about the weather, she'll lead with that.

Do you think it's so-and-so's, baby?

Yeah, 100, she knows all that stuff. Oh wow.

Is she loving the ditties? She knows everything about it.

Yeah, so does mine.

Oh, she knows everything really.

Your parents are into it, too. No, my mom specifically knows everything about it and she is saying it and I'm like, Why do you know this?

Yes.

Well, and she was following Johnny Depp.

Oh, I thought you were going to say, Jackie Laurie when you said that. And I was like, this is the person my mom's introduced me. Okay, Johnny Depp.

Her mother was following. She didn't miss one second of that court case.

She knew everything. I got mad at her, I was like, I'm telling you you shouldn't care about her.

Yeah, yeah. After a while, I'm like, Mom, it's just negativity, like, it's just purely feeding on, it's the most negative, mind-numbing garbage. And she'll be like, I'm just going to put on my shows.

I know it's trash.

But then when you're having conversations with me about it.

It's infiltrated. Do you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And do you know that it is just trash? Because you're talking to me about it and you know what I find? I said to my mom the other day because she was at my house. And if you're here, watch whatever you want.

I just know people's dirty laundry. I'm glad you're telling me all this because it does answer the question. Like that used to be an enormous industry, all those terrible magazines, they've gone away. I've been thinking like, Well, people didn't just stop getting interested in it.

It's YouTube and then, obviously, like Instagram, I think people are more interested in TikTok than they've ever been.

I've subscribed to this fantasy that Instagram kind of is what neutralize it, which is like, you don't have to catch me out on the street. I'm going to show you a picture of myself. Yeah, or maybe not.

You know, like the Andy Warhol quote, like, in the future, everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame, and that is obviously Instagram and TikTok. It neutralizes it in terms of the concentration of the base, right? A base would be down here, but I guess I'm doing it at the top. The concentration of celebrity and fame was here before, and everyone else had to climb to that.

Well, they're disseminating it themselves. Like Chris and I used to hate getting followed by the paparazzi. But I'm totally comfortable sharing my life with you as long as I get to select the picture.

Yes.

And I just feel like celebrities now feed that machine themselves.

Yeah.

But celebrity means less now because of Instagram, because people are their own brand. influencers now are celebrities, yes.

I've been on like a thousand shows. Back in the day. You would be a known person, but now it's like, Well, some people don't even watch our shows. You watch TikTok or your favorite celebrities are literally just influencers. Okay, I have to ask you this Dax. I know you do the asking and you say you hate the paparazzi. But I almost feel, and you tell me because you have been doing this for longer. But I feel like I missed out on this golden age of celebrity, if I'm honest.

Yes, I think, in many ways, Chris and I are both beneficiaries of a system that doesn't really even exist anymore. Because we were both able to be in commercials and stuff. And you're so right, I look at your resume and in many ways, your resume is better than mine. You've been on a bunch of quality shows. But the landscape's so fragmented that even this really great show is going to be seen by a third of as many people as without a paddle or parenthood was seen by.

Yeah, I thought this was a blanket, by the way, that's why I touched it. Because I'm cold. You're allowed.

Oh, this is a blanket, oh, you're sitting on one.

Oh, this is a blanket perfect. I'm going to put this around me.

Yeah, I'm 36.

There's pros and cons if you take everything like exactly who I am. Yes, it would have been harder, probably to get my foot in the door, because had I come up? When you guys were coming up, Gabrielle Union was like, That's the only-.

The network needed one Black female actress.

There was two Black actors on 10 Years of Friends guest stars.

Yes, and certainly not. One with a weird accent who refuses to straighten her hair, yes.

Or take the ring out of her nose.

It wasn't going to be me.

Or a jewel in her key, or her mom who's bitching the whole time.

Yeah, different time.

That is also completely static, as we were coming up the time before us did seem better. So I'm so lucky I got to be in a few comedies that did well, but 10 years before me, all comedies did pretty well. There was dozens and dozens of comedies out at the movie theater and they all did pretty well. And then just slid, slid, slid, and now there's not a single comedy in a movie theater.

No, which is so sad.

It is, but then again, there's so much fucking brilliant TV, Is there a lot of brilliant comedy? I don't know.

There's a lot of crap, that's what it is.

I think there actually is a lot of brilliant everything. I just think you're wading through the crap. I feel a little bit like the tide is shifting. To be like, should we just make crap? That's the thing that bums me out a little bit, where it's like, we can just make crap.

Because people will still watch it.

Because people will still watch it and we'll still make the same amount of money.

Now this is the really nice part that we got to experience, which I don't know that people now can achieve. Which is, I was in without a paddle. Every single 10 to 16-year-old boy saw that movie. I still run into adults that are like, Oh my god, my birthday party was that, and my camping trip was that. It was a real chunk of their life, in the same way that the comedies I watched as a kid, but now you're gonna see 65 different shows this year.

100%.

So I think in that way, it's harder to be an actual important part of someone's teenage years.

And I think that's difficult for me to reconcile, because I used to literally have poetry cut out and stuck on my walls. I've always been an artsy kid, I would make my own clothes and wear them to school. You're always cool, you're a bohemian.

You're always cool, dang it.

No, at school it didn't seem cool, I never cared.

How did it play?

When I was at this Catholic school, it didn't play well at all. I remember one day we were going on a school trip to, I think, Southampton or Northampton. We all got to shop in our own clothes because we wore uniform to that school, so that's kind of an equalizer, but we all showed up in our own clothes. And that was year eight. Oh my god, okay, I gotta tell you I remember this trip, so specifically because it's when the Twin Towers fell.

I just did a spit take with my mint, it's as if I just found out they fell.

What?

What the twin towers fell?

Not our twin towers, but I remember this trip because of the twin towers, but actually more so. I remember showing up and I was wearing this red and white striped shirt that my mom had given me. Like, real thin stripes. Really cute, almost like cowboy style, with little pop buttons. And then I was wearing flare jeans and light blue converse and I remember showing up. You were very American, very American. There's some parts of America I've always loved, like I love muscle cars, I love Americana in terms of style and dress, always worn cowboy boots, always loved that stuff.

You have a really interesting personality, you're a bit of an enigma. Yes, you're very unique. What I think remains endlessly interesting about you is, if you were American, I feel like I would be able to explain you a little better. As a categorical, stereotypical person, where I would think, Okay, I kind of get it.

Well, I guess from one enigma to another, because you're very much an enigma, too, right? Oh, do you not think?

I don't know well as in like, well, Monica, I mean.

Mixed messages? Yeah, you do.

I think you're yourself 100 of the time all the time, which is very similar to my brother.

Is he older or younger?

He's five years older and now we have such a great relationship. I think he's one of the coolest people I've ever, ever met and I will have the pleasure of knowing. And I also say that mostly because he just came and I kind of, like, saw him in a whole nother environment.

Oh my God, thank you. This feels very complimentary. Oh, okay, good. okay. Do you look up to the older brother now? I do very much.

Not in that way. He looks like a homeless person. Most times, he doesn't care, he said. One day, like someone tried to give him money.

Oh, wow, yeah, he's not offended.

That's very confident.

He's just like, Sure, if you think I'm homeless, I'll be homeless. He just doesn't give a shit.

That might be the most confident move I've ever heard, yeah.

There's a funny thing in my family, they have these traits, well, I guess just my mom and my brother. I couldn't tell you my dad, because I don't know him well enough. I know who my dad is, but I don't know who my dad is.

What age?

He wasn't around from about eight-ish and actually more or less from that age, completely out.

Did he move?

Well, maybe not out of the country, no, I mean, just from different locations in east London. He's just, this is me, kind of armchair psychologist-ing, very broken by his own upbringing and his mom in particular. And so, I think, doesn't know how to be a dad. I guess that's the best way to put it.

Most generous.

It's both generous and probably very cutting. Because if you don't think that and you've never heard that, let's say he was to listen to that and hear that. He might not think his child has that thought of him, I don't know what he thinks the thought is.

I wonder if you and I have the same dynamic then with my older brother and I. Because my dad left when I was three, but my dad left when my brother was eight. So they rode motorcycles together and we had a house with a yard, and then we moved into an apartment. So my brother very much pined for my dad and I did not at all similar.

My brother has way different memories of my dad, going places with him and this and that he was so keen. Yeah, my brother himself made more of an effort because I think he really felt like he needed that man.

Yeah, they had a real relationship, probably. I don't know if it's pining.

My dad's never been a good dad, he's just kind of been a person. But I think that my brother, interestingly enough, said something the other day. Because I think he spent a lot of time being angry at him. And he was like, I just realized that he's just a person. And you just got to be nice to your parents.

For you, that's what's funny, is it flips. You go like, am I the type of person who's going to be nice in spite of something or not? Because that's all we're working on is ourselves.

But also if you know my brother, who has been very angry for a long time and can be quite a harsh person as well. When he wants to be for him to turn around and say that I was like, Whoa, am I the asshole? Because I'm just like, I don't want any contact. Has he evolved past me?

Wow, you might be on the verge of a totally different thought, which is, you now have a little boy.

Yeah.

That's curious.

Yeah.

I don't know who knows how that'll percolate up now. Like, will you think? Well, I kind of want him?

It could go either way, though, it could go either way.

You could feel like who could possibly leave a child?

I do feel that's crazy, but I'm also not a guy. Just biologically, there's something very different, being a mother and being a father. That's just an irrefutable fact. It's not one-to-one, it's also not controllable by your own mind.

You have a ton of oxytocin right now, so cries doesn't sound as loud to you as it does to Larry.

Wait, it sounds louder to me. No, oh, it does the minute does.

Yes, because especially when you're first, like four or five months out, you're kind of doped up on your hormones. You're like missing stuff, you're almost a little tiny bit stoned.

Yeah, no, I'm doped up on my hormones, for sure, but the crying thing is crazy to me.

You're going to respond. The pitch of it is shaved off.

Less grating and the mom is ready to act.

Yes, yes, that makes sense, because I also feel like, even if he's in another room and I hear, like, huh, I'm like the baby.

Right way more attuned.

Way more attuned. My senses are on, I feel like that Bradley Cooper film.

Oh, limitless, yes, yes, yes, yes. But I think if we would have taken you and Larry two years ago and put you in some weird sound test where we played certain frequencies, I bet you would have similar levels of agitation at those sounds. Yeah, and then I just bet now if we measured you, it would be diminished a bit.

Do you know what? I sometimes wonder as well? This is a side note. He's five years younger than me. I sometimes wonder, can he hear sounds still that I can't?

Pitches, yeah.

But maybe it's now we're both over 30, so maybe it's fallen off.

Also, men then accelerate their hearing loss so they don't have to hear their wives. This is also like, you always see men with fucking hearing aids. you don't ever see women with hearing aids, they're just married men.

They just plug their ears with the aid, it doesn't even do anything.

Kristen just sent me this really funny meme. I can't be a real story. It said this man had faked his own hearing loss so he didn't have to talk to his wife anymore. And then she learned sign language to communicate with him, and then he went blind, mysteriously.

Wait, I didn't know Leary was five years younger than you.

Yeah, he's five years younger than me. Wow, Kirby's a beast. I'm a beast.

God.

I remember when you were you doing House of Lies when you first started dating.

No, but I was working with Kristen on Do you remember correctly? Not House of Lies.

Veronica, Mars.

Exactly, house of lies Kristen was pregnant.

Oh right, yes, yes, yes.

Veronica Mars Yeah.

And I feel like it was new in.

Brand new, I mean, literally in the van. Going back from base to set is when I got the text from my manager who was like, Hey, Larry wants to go on a date with you, Can I give him your number? It was that new.

And again, this is back to your originality and your uniqueness. Where you just said to me, point blank, you're like, I don't even know what his personality's like, but he's so fucking hot, I'm definitely going on a date with him. And then you showed me a picture and I was like, Oh my god, it's like fucking young Lenny Kravitz.

Yeah, he is gorgeous.

It's impossibly good looking.

Yeah, he's gorgeous, who wouldn't go on a date with him, right?

Why wouldn't I?

Why wouldn't you?

Well, everyone would, but I think, especially at whatever moment in time that was. I actually think most people wouldn't have admitted that. Oh, that you would just be like, Yeah, I'm gonna give this a go, because visually this person's very stimulating.

Yeah, well, I think people also want to be like, well, you know, it's a personality. It's like, Yeah, obviously. And if someone's gorgeous and they have an awful personality, they start to be ugly and someone can become better looking. But off the bat, we're animals. He's gorgeous.

You wanna look at him?

I wanna look at him, yes.

It's like a Ferrari.

I'm gonna roll the dice with this. It's like, Yeah, I hope he has a great personality, and if he doesn't, then I maybe expected it because he was that good looking, you know?

You just have been thinking about it. In terms of cars, like, sure, it might be responsible to buy a Prius or something. But the car that's gonna turn your head as you're walking is like a 60s Ferrari drives by and you're like, Oh, my God, what is that?

Yeah, that's gonna get your blood going.

Yes, and then we hope for a good personality.

Yeah, and then I lucked out, yeah.

That's nice, that's so nice.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

Something like that, like over 10 years.

How did you decide that you were gonna come here and do this?

Okay, so I worked at a summer camp and then traveled.

That's what we're telling.

Yes, circus. Exactly what?

Okay, yeah. More info.

Well, I worked at a summer camp, which actually, there's a lot of people, weirdly, one of my agents also worked at that summer camp. She was a CIT counseling and training, and then she worked in the office, which makes complete sense if you meet her.

She wants to be behind that desk.

Exactly, running shit. She'll get it done anyway. I went traveling after met a guy in San Francisco, we fell in love.

People have the option of listening at 0.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah, so it's on them. That's correct. Most people listen at two times this year.

Because we're so long. But this time-.

Well, that's what they're getting with me.

They can choose exactly the tempo.

They want to hear this at Okay. So, it's quite typical to take a gap year after secondary school, before college, before uni. You figure out what you want to do. I didn't get into the drama school I really wanted to get into. I really wanted to get into Bristol, Old Vic.

You'd already been on your own a little bit.

I'd already just been on my own too much, I was financially independent, I mean, I still lived at home with my mum. But it was just hard to go back to being in school, where they were telling you what to do and when to do it. America is like, if you're the fastest, run, the fastest, no one will stop you. In England, it's like, let's all hold hands and run at the same speed.

Or minimally in that direction, even if it's not the fastest.

I want to fulfill my own potential, I just want to see what I can do. And I was very much beaten down for it. In drama school, I had two drama school teachers that hated me in my first year.

And in my mind, I was kind of like, Oh my God, we love mediocrity.

Come on.

It's like a tech school, going like we haven't produced any inventors.

Yes, and we like it that way, but it's also like, do the students? I remember, you have to do an end of year showcase? No, no, what's worse than that is they don't let you perform at all until, like, your third year.

You enjoyed it?

Yeah, I absolutely enjoyed it, and I was like, I'm not coming back for this bullshit. And a girl I went to drama school with, who was a good friend of mine at school, she was like, Trust me, it'll get better. After your first year, you don't have to deal with them again.

Yeah, I assumed you assessed the opportunities in London and then you assess the opportunities in New York or L.A. and said I will go there because I want.

Not at all. No, it was more like, he's there. I didn't have anything in London, too, I didn't have an agent.

Month out is maybe max, yeah.

Well, you literally don't have, your frontal lobe isn't even developed.

Yeah, so I'm like 21.

And that was probably like 8,000 U.S. dollars. Yeah, 100%.

I was like, you have 5,000 pounds, go to America, you can make it.

I'm rich, go buy a house, buy a car.

I mean, I'll be famous in three weeks. famous is enough to get me through. I was like, I'll have an Oscar by the time I'm 23..

Right, this is all I need. Had you done comedy in England at all?

Not directly. Another jab that I got a lot from drama school was that I was too comedic, that I didn't take it seriously. I always made things comedic, like, even if it was dramatic, I would make it funny, and that was bad.

I think the subtext of everything they were saying was, You're not grateful enough to be here.

Dax, you've nailed it on that 100. That was the subtext. I remember even auditioning for Rada. And one of the things that they would say is we break you down so we can build you back up.

Yeah, Julia says that, too.

That was what they said. But actually, what I think they do in a lot of those schools is they knock any individuality out of you and they homogenize you. And you kind of almost see that in a lot of the performances that come out of it. It's like, very, by the book, I get it.

No, you can definitely lose something along the way, yes.

They very much kind of wanted that, and I think I refused to let the life be knocked out of me. And that was not the way they're like. Be the instrument, almost like, of the school.

You're the vessel only, and you're to bring nothing of yourself, yes.

And that's, I think, complete opposite of acting, you have to bring so much of yourself.

Yeah, well, minimally. You just look at the people you liked, and are they the people that were homogenized? In fact, I'm even more intrigued. I want to meet them in real life because I get a hunch. They're a little bit dark or a little bit this. So when you get here, how does UCB hit your radar and why do you decide to start there?

I was working at a cafe that I started working at illegally. Honestly, the owner was kind of terrible, but also for this kind of great that he let me work there. And there was a girl there, she did UCB. So the way I got enough of a visa to stay was I started taking classes at Lee Strasberg, so I had, like, a student visa.

Shockingly, shockingly.

I couldn't make it stretch, I didn't invest well or something, so imagine I still don't even know what investments I have.

I'll invest 4,000, that'll be yielding me at least 6,000 a year.

It's amazing how quickly that money goes.

You know, what's funny is there's all these things online that are like, you could take $5,000 and become a millionaire. Show me show me how to invest 500,000. But yeah, anyway.

Yeah, would you do these things where at the end of it, there'd be like a workshop and there'd be casting directors.

Okay, I'll tell you something about those. I did so many of those casting workshops and I know people have mixed feelings about them, but I think they're fantastic. Oh, great, really. I think they were one of the few equalizers that we actually had left as actors that didn't have their foot in the door.

I auditioned for that.

Yes, the lady who cast that, she was like, You're great, you didn't audition for that show, that you just bring some sides and you audition. There was this glint in her eye and she brought me into the office, like, separately, outside of that. And I got to the test stage, just kind of on my own merit, like at the test. Had to find a lawyer. Because, you know, you have to get that all done, but that was through workshops.

I completely agree. I was out here forever and I had friends that had agents and they were going on commercial auditions. I could not figure out, like, what on earth? I did not get an agent till I was in the Sunday company at the Groundlings, performing once a week.

I also had no idea you were in the Sunday company, you didn't. No, I'm terrible, I've done no research.

This is great, this is our chance.

Well, this feeds into the fact that I don't care about celebrity, I just never research anything. Okay, so UCB, that is one of the ways. So I was not having any success. A girl who I worked at the cafe, she was at UCB and she was on a Herald team.

Really quick, Monica, Was there any overlap between Kirby and you? A little? Maybe, you know? Monica worked at the front desk? Oh yes, Monica.

And I interned, and I was on a billion teams. Yes, no, I was never on a Herald team, though.

I think there was overlap because when I came over here, I'd known you because I interned too, right? I interned when it was just Franklin. Exactly so we were, but we were never ahead of classes together.

Playfulness is the currency there, and shining is rewarded, yes, and standing out is rewarded.

Exactly, and UCB felt pure, felt rebellious, felt punk.

Punk rock?

Yeah.

I haven't been there for so long. It started to feel less of that, and the more it grew. As is the nature of these things, kind of like markets in London, they become victims of their own success, they get commercialized and things like that. The nature of improv is so fleeting and truly no one cares.

Oh, there's nothing worse than when you do an improv show and you're at the whatever after party and people are trying to explain or walk through this improv thing. And you're like, all right. Without the high wire act, it's terrible, terrible, yeah, and that's why it doesn't work on TV 100%.

And then also if you're not in it and steeped in it. MONICA Maybe you can attest to this. When I say, like, it doesn't matter now that I'm not really doing shows, if someone asks me to do a show, I'm like, absolutely not.

Yeah, we did one together, though.

That was a very fun show.

That was so fun and I hadn't improved in, like, a decade.

Well, that's the only time it's fun is when you get to play with your friends. So now if someone asks me to do a show if it's not with all my friends, it's also kind of like a social kind it is. Yeah, then it's just not fun.

Of the many amends I owe Brie, the woman I was with for nine years, probably the number one is that she had to suffer through. Every Sunday night after a show where we all got drunk and went through every sketch and every improv, fished for compliments. I mean, what a thing for her to have had to have observed.

My ex was with me through the improv stage.

He came to every show willingly.

He wanted to.

She was there. Listen, the show's fun.

The show is fun, it's off. Yeah, you're right.

The six hours of sucking each other off afterwards, it's so true. That is what we do. And the drunker you get, just the more sucking happens, and then you're sucking yourself off.

And you're so brilliant in the moment, you're just like, Wow, and then that callback.