Paul Walter Hauser Talks Doing Both Silly Comedies and Dark Dramas... and Pro Wrestling

Summary

Good One Podcast: Paul Walter Hauser Talks Doing Both Silly Comedies and Dark Dramas... and Pro Wrestling

Host: Jesse David Fox (Vulture)
Guest: Paul Walter Hauser
Date: May 21, 2026

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Overview

In this wide-ranging interview, Jesse David Fox sits down with Paul Walter Hauser—best known for roles in "I, Tonya," "Richard Jewell," "Cobra Kai," and "Black Bird"—to discuss his versatility spanning silly comedies, intense dramas, and, unexpectedly, hardcore pro wrestling. The conversation covers Paul’s current projects, personal philosophy, creative process, and experiences working with comedy legends, as well as his unique career trajectory from standup and sketch comedy to heavyweight dramatic portrayals.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Latest Comedy: "Balls Up"

• Background: Directed by Peter Farrelly, co-starring Mark Wahlberg, Molly Shannon, and Sacha Baron Cohen [02:26]
• Paul’s Excitement:
  • Comedy nerd background, longtime fan of standup/sketch, and drew inspiration from working alongside comedy heroes.
  • "When Mark FaceTimed me and said, 'Hey, I need a co-star for this movie, I thought of you,' I was like, 'Yeah, Mark Wahlberg, I'm interested in going to Australia for three months with you and Pete Farrelly.'" [02:46 – 03:35]
• 'Edgy Comedies' Debate:
  • Pushes back on "you-can’t-make-that-movie-anymore" rhetoric:
    • "Edgy comedy, it never went away. But it has lessened deeply... A movie like Balls Up is not made as often as it should be." [04:20]
    • Still enjoys both raucous comedies and high-art films: "In the same breath that I watch a movie like Cold War... I also enjoy really raucous, stupid comedy." [05:02]

2. Reconciling Faith and Dirty Comedy

• Jesse’s Question: Both Paul and Wahlberg are open about their faith but "Balls Up" is far from ‘clean comedy’. [05:49]
• Paul: "As a Christian person, I can admit what I like and not feel squeamish about it. If there's something, if I feel convicted about something, I'll turn it off... but I still believe that all these people have the right to make what they want to make." [06:10]
• On Policing Art: “If you start to critique or police art in a way that makes it feel stifled, you’re really doing a giant disservice to everybody.” [07:15]

3. Learning from Comedy Legends

• Working with Sacha Baron Cohen:
  • “Sacha is just a house on fire… trying not to laugh while he improvises is really hard.” [07:40]
• On Molly Shannon:
  • “You can be really talented and super kind and a decent person at the same time. She’s got that Catherine O’Hara thing.” [07:40]

4. Inside the Joke: The "Naked Gun" Bit

• Best Joke of 2025, according to Jesse: [08:14]
  • Paul Walter Hauser’s deadpan delivery: "No, you can’t. It’s a building."
• On Hitting the Right Tone:
  • "Naked Gun has such a tonality… it’s really about honing in on what it needs to be for each specific joke… it was almost comedy by intellectualism rather than comedy by impulse." [08:48]
• Notable Quote:
  • “There were some moments—like with Busta Rhymes… I had to literally pinch my skin… to not laugh because it’s just so damn funny.” [10:07]

5. Key & Peele and Tim Robinson: Sketch Comedy World

• Background with Key & Peele:
  • Wrote a feature, did sketches on the show, collaborative and improvisational environment [11:11]
• Pitching Movie Ideas With Jordan Peele:
  • Recalling stoned nights, board games, and the creative kernel of “Get Out” [12:33]
• "I Think You Should Leave" (Jamie Taco):
  • Proactively sought out Tim Robinson: "I will serve sandwiches or hold a boom mic... I'll do anything." [15:39]
  • On working with Tim: “It’s not an improv situation. Tim literally gave me a line read a couple times and I wasn’t offended in the least because I want to make him happy." [17:22]
  • Notable Bible-tinged quote about working for a true visionary:
    • “I would rather be given a line read from Tim Robinson than be in some bloated movie that doesn’t have near the genius of Tim Robinson.” [17:59]
  • The afterlife of the Jamie Taco role:
    • “I could win an Academy Award for playing opposite Kate Winslet… the majority of people coming up to me will say ‘Stingray, Cobra Kai’ or... ‘Jamie Taco’... I hear that like once a week.” [16:43]

6. Stand-Up Comedy Background

• Journey & Honesty:
  • Discusses his stand-up origins, early lack of vulnerability, and genre-crossing between sketch, stand-up, and acting [19:52]
  • “Had I dissolved two or three of my other outlets and just committed to standup, I probably would have had a breakthrough… But I just was very unwilling.” [20:56]
• Chris Farley Influence:
  • “Fearlessness. The desire to people please. And play—a sense of play, which a lot of people lose at some point.” [24:35]
  • On the fear of excess and addiction:
    • “My hero in comedy was Chris Farley. My hero in drama was Phil Hoffman. They're both dead... I didn't want to end up like John Candy or Chris.” [25:33]
  • Quote: “I'll always have an addiction to work on.” [25:33]

7. Approaching Both Comedy & Drama

• Genre-Agnostic Acting:
  • “A character doesn't know what genre they're in... I try to be genre agnostic... And the way in is truth and knowing we’re all making the same movie.” [30:23]
• Breakthrough with Spike Lee:
  • On "BlacKkKlansman," Spike Lee's directorial generosity, and how moments of spontaneous improvisation were woven into the final film [33:04]
  • Quote: “Spike comes over, kneels down in front of me... and writes my ad-lib in the script.” [33:04]
• On Character Acting:
  • “A character actor doesn’t sell the movie, but they can make the movie better.” (attributing Richard Kind) [34:22]

8. Hollywood Economics & The Working Actor’s Reality

• Paul on Actor Finances:
  • Candid about how pay breaks down due to agents, managers, business managers, and tithing [36:43]
  • “What looked like $250k is a lot closer to $136,000... I have to keep doing [movies] because I’m not getting paid on a Springsteen or Fantastic Four what I’m getting paid on Balls Up.” [37:35]
  • On misconceptions:
    • "People Google net worth of Paul Hauser... you have no idea what we're making. You have no clue or concept." [38:01]

9. Wrestling: His Other Passion

• Why Wrestle?
  • “Feeds my inner child... and it's performance, so I get the actor thing out. And it's physicality, which I never got to do in high school. I was never, like, a jock.” [50:18, 51:22]
• Is it punishment or therapy?
  • "The pain I feel from a powerbomb or chair… does not compare… to the pain of being rejected by girls and women… or feeling marginalized by Hollywood." [52:15]
  • Aspiration: “I want to wrestle till I'm 50... The idea is not to become uber famous for that. The idea is to show you can do two things at once.” [52:58, 53:02]
• On Playing Real Wrestlers:
  • Attached to play Mick Foley in a biopic; producing DDP/Jake Roberts story; in talks to play Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart [54:49]

10. Personal Growth, Sobriety & The Cost of Performance

• Sobriety: Four-and-a-half years sober from marijuana, alcohol, and pornography [25:33]
• Intense Emotional Roles and Identity:
  • Black Bird: "[When watching Larry Hall]... there were times where I'd look at the character and I didn't see myself. That really upset me." [45:17]
  • “I’d talk to my therapist and my A sponsor and work through whatever that was because it felt strange.” [45:58]
• Method or Not:
  • "I'm not method in the isolationist sense... but there are moments... where I do have to be alone and paste the floor of the set." [47:45]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Comedy’s Place:
  "I think comedy is a four quadrant thing. Young, old, male, female, etc." [04:20]
• On Comedy Actors' Legacy:
  "People like Goodman and Giamatti, Michael Shannon taught me I do have a place in this world." [43:38]
• On Career Resilience:
  "I try to find variants when I can." [44:46]
• On Working with Legends:
  “If somebody offers me something with Anthony Hopkins… chances are I’m gonna do it regardless because I want to work with Anthony Hopkins.” [57:11]
• On Awards vs. Goals:
  "I would rather win the U.S. title or tag team titles in AEW over winning an Oscar." [57:26]
• Fun Fact:
  • “You can be really talented and super kind and a decent person at the same time.” — On Molly Shannon [07:40]
  • “When you see me do that line in the sketch, you feel Tim’s DNA all over.” — On "I Think You Should Leave" [17:22]
  • “On Cruella… I was like, guys, I can do it. Let me fall in the cake!" [65:36]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• "Balls Up" and Edgy Comedy: 02:26–05:37
• Reconciling Dirty Comedy and Faith: 05:49–07:29
• Naked Gun and Working with Icons: 08:14–10:55
• Key & Peele and Sketch Comedy Memories: 11:11–13:56
• "I Think You Should Leave" Jamie Taco Sketch: 15:39–18:29
• Stand-Up and Chris Farley: 19:52–25:33
• Approach to Acting—Comedy vs. Drama: 29:18–32:53
• Finances & ‘Working Actor’ Reality: 36:35–38:47
• Wrestling & Why He Does It: 50:09–53:02
• On Playing Real Wrestlers: 54:47–55:15
• Lightning Round: Famous Interactions, Best Living Actor, Bombing: 59:18–63:06

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Final Lightning Round Highlights

• Best Living Actor: "Tie between Anthony Hopkins, Denzel Washington, and Cate Blanchett." [62:02]
• Best Bomb: Bombed at The Improv on Melrose, opening for Quinta Brunson, Patton Oswalt, and others. [62:24]
• Last Time He Cried at Art: Recent Hulu show "Paradise" and film "Newborn." [63:06]

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Tone

Conversational, frank, self-aware, and often self-deprecating—Paul’s humor and earnestness shine throughout, whether addressing professional insecurities, addiction, or Hollywood realities.

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For listeners and fans, this episode provides a comprehensive look at how an actor like Paul Walter Hauser navigates commercial and artistic ambitions, the unpredictability of fame, personal reinvention, and the pure joy of just making people laugh—sometimes by falling into cakes.

Transcript

[Jesse David Fox]

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[Paul Walter Hauser]

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[Jesse David Fox]

This is good one. I am Jesse David Fox, senior writer at Vulture and author of Comedy Book. My guest this week is Paul Walter Hauser, one of the definitive that guys of this generation We Talk About Balls up, his new hard R comedy. He stars in alongside Mark Wahlberg as well as working with Jordan Peele, Tib Robinson, Clint Eastwood, Spike Lee and the Fantastic Four. Paul is also a surprisingly active hardcore wrestler. Yeah, we talk about that as well. So here is Paul Walter Hauser. I'm here with Paul Walter Hauser. Thank you for joining me.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, thank you for having me, man.

[Jesse David Fox]

Of course. So the first question we like to ask, what is the funniest, strangest, or most fascinating thing that happened to you this week?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It was probably earlier today. I went and did the Drew Barrymore show to promote my movie Balls Up. And at one point I was sitting on a couch with Drew Barrymore in front of a studio audience. Her dog Douglas was sitting between us and I was eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch mid interview. I think that that's something that if I told my younger self at 12, this is what you'll be doing someday. You and the girl from ET Will be with a dog on television. You're eating bowl cereal. That's pretty surreal.

[Jesse David Fox]

There must be something. It literally would be like the kid was zapped into the TV screen doing the exact same thing he was doing.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's gotta take the cake.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think that's Amazing. So balls up is, you know, the new comedy you're in was directed by Peter Fowler, co starring Mark Wahlberg. You have been in comedies before. You've led movies, but this felt like the movie in which you've given the most space to do funny things in. What were you most excited to do?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, so background. I'm a comedy nerd. I love standup comedy, sketch comedy. I've gone way out of my way to try to be in comedy things I like. Key and Peele, Reno911. I think you should leave with Tim Rama. With him. And so, you know, when, when Mark FaceTimed me and said, hey, I need a co star for this movie, I thought of you. Would you be interested in this? I was like, yeah, Mark Wahlberg, I'm interested in going to Australia for three months with you and Pete Fairley with a screenplay from Rhett, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the writers of I believe they did Deadpool and Zombieland. It had all the components of a good comedy for me, so it was an easy thing to sign onto. And then all that rambling. I forgot the actual question.

[Jesse David Fox]

What were you most excited to do? You get to do some big, it's like set PC comedy stuff.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. Most excited to work with Mark. And I knew that Mark and Molly Shannon were on board and Sasha Baron Cohen. I just thought like, these are cool people to get to play with.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

So that was more than anything. It was like the idea of playing with all these cool people. Benjamin, Brad, Eric, Andre. It's like you anticipate getting to try to bring the funny with them.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. They're midwife through watching this movie, I had a thought which is this is a sort of like edgy all out comedy movie that certain like former comedy directors, comedy actors, right wing political pundits say you can't make anymore, you know, and I was curious what you, what it means that you obviously can, that you were able to make this movie that was like this.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, the far, far right wing punditry or celebrities in Hollywood say things like that. What they really mean is you can't even say a racial epithet anymore. That's really what's behind it. But as far as doing edgy comedy, it never went away. But it has lessened. It has lessened deeply. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is in their 17th season or something and those guys and gals have been doing edgy, hard our comedy the entire way through at a high level. So I, I would, I would push back and say it Exists but a movie like Balls up is not made as often as it should be. Yeah. And I, I do think that both for. I think comedy is a four quadrant thing. You know, young, old, male, female, etc. I, I just think that like there something happened in culture where suddenly Hot Tub Time Machine, the hangover, old school, these things were like weirdly not beloved all of a sudden. And I don't know what that shift fully was, but I still have loved it all the way through. And in the same breath that I watch a movie like Cold War from Paul Polkowski or freaking Capturing the Friedmans or something, some documentary from 20 years ago. I also enjoy really raucous stupid comedy.

[Jesse David Fox]

It is funny to have to come up with an example of what movie is the opposite of Hot Tub Time Machine.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

The Cold War is a good one.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think you nailed it.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Amelie Hamnet. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

You and Mark are both very open about your faith and there is Christian comedy out there. There's people that are very successful making that's ultimately like extremely clean comedy that doesn't talk about sex and stuff. And this is not to get you, but I'm curious for you, how do you reconcile this making an extremely dirty comedy with your face?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Typical gotcha media. Sorry. That's why Sarah Palin nailed it.

[Jesse David Fox]

I was like, is Sarah Palin here?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

There is some mov goose in the fridge. I think. By the way, it's so funny how we like demonized her and she's like, she's like so beloved compared to the current psychotics running the entire world or having someone run it for them. I, I would say I love Nate Bragazi and Jim Gaffkin, what they do Brian Regan in the way of cleaner comedy and I'll still consume that. But I also love Bridesmaids and Superbad and just edgier stuff or you know, more loose with the tongue type of thing. So I, I guess I just, as a Christian person, I can also admit what I like and not feel squeamish about it. If there's something, if I feel convicted about something, I'll turn it off. You know, I remember watching American Horror Story and just getting some really dark vibes and I turned it off. The final scene in Hereditary, which is a brilliant film, I walked out of the theater. It was too much for me. Yeah, but, but I still believe that all these people have the right to make what they want to make. And if you start to try to critique or police art in a way that makes it feel stifled, you're really doing a giant Disservice to everybody.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. You talked about Molly Shannon and Sasha Baron Cohen being this movie. Do you have any stories or interaction with some time where you were able to learn something from them, specifically in working with them? Yeah. Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I mean, Sasha is just a house on fire. He really improvises like crazy, and. And so much of it is really brilliant. And. And with him, it was more just. I felt like I was at Guantanamo Bay or something. Like, I had to. It was like torture. Trying not to laugh while he improvises is really hard. And with Molly, it was more just the reminder that you can be really talented and super kind and a decent person at the same time. She's kind of got that Catherine o' Hara thing where she's brilliant, but she's so humble and sweet and chill.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I was so excited to talk to you because you participated in my favorite joke of 2025 from the movie the Naked Gun. I'll set it up. Liam Neeson's Frank Drebins character says, you can't fight City Hall.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And I say, no, you can't. It's a building

[Jesse David Fox]

full inside Actor Studio. Remember, Tell me about that day. Tell me about what goes through a character. It is, like, to me, is the funniest thing I've ever. I just love that that can exist, but you have to play it as if straight.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a. I was talking about this in another interview where Naked Gun has such a tonality. It's a fine line. You have to walk with it. And a little bit to the left or right can throw it off. So it's not about improv. It's not about trying to think up whatever. It's really about honing in on what it needs to be for each specific joke in those moments. And it was fun. Liam was great to work with. Akiva, Doug and Dan, the guys that wrote the script, they mastered the tone, and it was almost comedy by intellectualism rather than comedy by impulse.

[Jesse David Fox]

What? Do you remember that scene? Or reading that script and being like, okay, this is how I have to do that. That one line.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Not so much planning as, like, a lot of it's stripping away because I'm the straight man in that relationship on screen. So it was a lot of me having to play it like I'm in a real cop movie, not Naked Gun.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. You have to throw it away. You can't let the audience know that, you know, you're saying the joke. This line.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Correct.

[Jesse David Fox]

Especially because that movie, what's amazing is they. You don't know when you are where in a joke you are. You don't know if you're doing it. They really.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It might be a long con or it might be a one liner.

[Jesse David Fox]

So at any moment you can't at all tip it. Everything has to be sort of thrown away.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Correct? Yeah. There were some moments, like with Busta Rhymes in the scene where he's being interrogated. One of my favorite jokes ever is in that scene where he goes, it says, you did 10 years for man's laughter. Must have been some kind of joke. Buster goes, you mean manslaughter? I love that joke so much. And while shooting it, I had to kind of pinch myself or like literally pinch my skin. Kind of hurt myself to not laugh because it's just so damn funny every take.

[Jesse David Fox]

That joke was like, how is it possible that.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

How's that up and said like a

[Jesse David Fox]

million monkeys or whatever types, typewriters, and no one found that one. It's unbelievable.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. And that's the brilliance of humanity. I don't think AI is going to come up with that joke. I don't think we'll see.

[Jesse David Fox]

Not yet. You participate in two of the great sketches of the 21st century and I would like to ask you about them. Well, you're in the insult comic sketch and Keen Peele, you're the second Percy Insults. Do you remember that shoot?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

So I'd become friendly with Key and Peele previous to that show when MADTV had gotten canceled. We shared a manager and I was just rep for literary. I'd written some scripts that they liked and. And they were like, do you want to write this movie for Key and Peele? And so I wrote a movie for them over the course of a year and a half.

[Jesse David Fox]

What was the movie?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It was called Hardly Working. It was about black men trying to get a promotion in a predominantly white executive board at this like advertising agency and full of hijinks. No different than like this movie we're talking about Balls Up. And it didn't get made. And it was really tough to get made at the time because they weren't as bankable as they are now. Yeah. And they kind of threw me a bone. Them and the director, Peter Atencio, were like, do you want to come do a couple sketches? I was like, of course. And you know, it pays nothing, but you're just happy to be in that room with them. And. And I remember on the day I pitched a joke that didn't make the sketch, but I pitched a joke to Keegan that he Fed to peel on one of the takes where I said, you should have the guy with the laryngectomy say I thought laughter was the best medicine. I was wrong, you know, and, and they were fun and humble and collaborative to let me pitch a joke in the middle of a sketch, you know, it was cool.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think you said he used to like pitch movie ideas. You and Jordan would just like make up movie ideas with each other. This is years before.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, he made his own board game and it was a game about like you're pitching a movie and you draw actor cards and genres and stuff and you get to make up a film and then roll dice for box office or whatever it is and, or you know, you pick up a card and you're like, oh, won an Oscar, you know. But we used to, yeah, we used to hit this pathetic one hitter joint in a shabby apartment on Hollywood Boulevard by like Hollywood and La Brea and we would just get a little stoned and order a sandwich and play this board game and try to come up with movie ideas. And at one point we, we came up with an idea called the Last Ship. It's weird, it was like a comedy Mike judge version of paradise on Hulu where it's like end of the world and like there are different, there are different hierarchical facets controlling thing, but then there's one ship with all the people willing to be custodians and stuff and they revolt and fight back and, and it was fun. We, we put a little bit of work into that and we're working on an outline and then it fell apart over time and I left LA for a couple years before coming back. And by the time I came back he was in pre pro or development on Get Out. And it was funny because Jordan used to pitch me all these horror ideas that were brilliant, genius and then here he is making them all now. It's crazy. It's awesome.

[Jesse David Fox]

You're like, these are good ideas. But everyone thinks their buddy has like pretty good ideas, like generationally good ideas.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

What was cool is it was a different level of brilliance though where when he would pitch me something I'd be like, oh, you really thought this through. Whereas some people are just like, what about a guy who gets, you know, proposes to his girlfriend at the super bowl and she says no, it's like, it's a good elevator pitch, but like, can you actually write that? Can you flesh that out?

[Jesse David Fox]

It's a great bad movie idea.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And obviously you're also in Dane Cook

[Paul Walter Hauser]

and Jessica Simpson in National proposal in

[Jesse David Fox]

that era of movies.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Employee of the month. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Or you truly were like, they thought of the Blockbuster cover first.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And they're like, what is a screenshot that we can put on a cover of Blockbuster dvd?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

There's still a version of it, too, where sometimes a streamer will be like, Kevin hart and Melissa McCarthy in candy factory. And you're just like, what is this? Do you guys really like this idea? Or you just. Are you schlepping? Are you. Are you just kind of.

[Jesse David Fox]

You're like. You found out that. That every day people search both their names together and you need something.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. I mean, comedy by committee or by metrics is always a wayward process, but I think when you. When you A great comedy like Friday or Dumb and Dumber or, you know, anything from the mid-90s from New Line, I guess, based on what I'm saying. But a lot of great comedies are usually because it comes from a singular vision rather than. Well, we. We got everything from the grocery list. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

So the other sketch I want to talk about is. I think you should leave the Jamie Taco sketch where you play his. Jamie Taco's.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Scott. Scott.

[Jesse David Fox]

I was like. I was like, what? I literally watch it right before this and I cannot remember his name. How did that come about?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I was shooting Richard Jewell summer of 2019. I had a guy's weekend where I paid for all my buddies from high school, like, come and crash at an Airbnb with me for like a three day weekend. And amidst all the things we did, one of the things we did together is we watched the full season of I think you should leave probably twice all the way through. And we were obsessed. We thought it was the funniest thing we had ever seen. So I looked him up on IMDb and was like, oh, Tim Robinson and I share an agent in Rachel Rush at caa. So I hit up Rachel via email, and I'm like, I will serve sandwiches or hold a boom mic on this. I'll do anything. And she got me in touch with Tim and Zach Kanan, and they sent me two sketches. One was the one I ended up doing about the theater fiasco and needing your wife to support you. The other one was the fedora in the courtroom. Yeah. And I thought they were both funny, but I was like, I feel like there's more I can do with the theater. One with Jamie Taco.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And just the name. Jamie Taco. The name alone.

[Jesse David Fox]

I was like, how often do you say it?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I have to do that. And now people. It doesn't matter what I do. I could win an Academy Award for playing opposite Kate Winslet in a freaking Sam Mendes film. It won't matter. The majority of people coming up to me will say, stingray, Cobra Kai. Or they'll say, I gotta go. No, they'll quote, I think you should leave. Or they'll literally come by and be like, man, Jamie Taco. Like, that's such a. I hear that, like, once a week. It's crazy.

[Jesse David Fox]

Would you have been the part? Tim plays the guy wearing the fedora.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

The fedora guy, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Wow. Sliding doors. So how do. How does one act in the Tim world? Like, does similar.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Similar to Naked Gun, where it's a fine line and you're really trying to stay in the tonality of what him and Zach and the creatives in charge desire. Yeah. It's not an improv situation whatsoever. You can improv within the. The guidelines of what they're asking for and do it in your own way. But, like, Tim literally gave me a line read a couple times, and I wasn't offended in the least because I want. I want to make him happy. Yeah. So he came up to me and was like, so when you walk through the door, you're gonna go, I auditioned for a play and I got the part. And, like, when you see me do. Do that line in the sketch, you feel Tim's DNA all over 100. And that's. And I love that. I love. I mean, there's a Bible verse that says, better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. And I equate that to something like that, where I would rather be given a line read from Tim Robinson than be in some bloated movie that doesn't have near the genius of Tim Robinson.

[Jesse David Fox]

When I saw that, I was like, it's a skill to be able to do it still feel like your own. I think this part of that sketch, you really make your own is the line read at the end about having to. You just gotta go. There's so much pathos. There's so much weight to being like, I have to go.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It's so funny. There were. I think I improvised clogging a few cans. That wasn't on the page. And people say that all the time. I'm like, you'd be clogging a few cans if you had my wife or whatever. Yeah. And I forget. I forget what it was, but I Got to play a little bit there. And that group of guys, once again, similar to Sacha Baron Cohen of having to hurt yourself to not laugh. The way they deliver those lines where he goes, my wife gets mad because I left some pee in the toilet. It's just pissed him saying that. Like, it was nearly impossible to not crack a smirk during that scene because these guys are all nailing the Tim Robinson sphere, you know? Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Because you don't know these guys, but they're able to find people to have. It's like people either have the Tim cadence or this magical cadence that only one person on earth has ever had.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Biff Wiff. Biff Wiff. Who gave the commitment in the Shirt Brothers sketch in season three and. And Detective Crasher, I think in season two, it's just they find these people that know how to hang on that playground.

[Jesse David Fox]

So you did stand up for over a decade before really committing.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Did. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

There's not much of it online, but there is some, which I don't know

[Paul Walter Hauser]

if you know Zen Vimeo.

[Jesse David Fox]

So there's two things. There's one, we'll talk about the thing on Vimeo first, which is a set you did in 2018. It's on your Vimeo page. Just directing everyone to your Vimeo page. It also has a few short films. And I will say that you say, this is the first time we did stand up in a couple years. So I'll take it with a grain of salt. And you do a set, and it's pretty good. You talk about movies. Divorce is like a concept. Masturbating and being a virgin. But the biggest laugh comes when accidentally the mic and the cord detach. And I was watching it, and you're clearly very funny and like, well, this is sort of my honest assessment of you is this standup, which is you were being personal at moments, but not vulnerable. Like, it's a lot of things you'll see with comedians before they kind of like, break through, regardless of where it feels like they are open to the audience more. And I felt like you were like, I want to talk about personal things on stage or try it out, but we're not fully giving. I was.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Does that resonate with you?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I think that makes sense. I think it's also the comfortability of doing it enough. I never. I was never a guy who. You hear about these comics who are like, in New York City, they're like, I'm going to go do this open mic, and then I'm on a showcase set, and then I'm doing one at 1am in Hell's Kitchen. I was never that guy. Yeah. I wasn't willing to put in the work that many successful comedians did to do that, because I was also auditioning for TV and movies and commercials, writing screenplays, doing sketch comedy on stage. So had I dissolved two or three of my other outlets and just committed to standup, I probably would have had a breakthrough moment of the vulnerable matching the confidence and putting in the reps. But I just was very unwilling. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Cause I think you were able to access it. I mean, this was 2018. You were already, like, actively working as an actor and clearly able to access it there. So it's like, hard to be like, why should I do this really hard thing.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. There are some jokes I like where I'm like, you know, I talk about sex as like Super Mario Brothers, and I say something like, I'm not killing the game. I am reading the game manual and I'm just trying to figure out how to beat Bowser. And for you women out there, your vagina is Bowser. Like, stuff like that. I. I still love jokes like that, and I'm proud of that stuff. But I definitely never got to that point that the Theo Vaughns and Jimmy Oyang's got to.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Were they. Who were you around when you were coming up? Was there a crew you were running with?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

First night I ever did stand up in la, I was on a showcase in the Belly Room with Fortune, Feamster and Amir K. And. And me and Fortune slaughtered. We absolutely murdered this 40 person belly room. And I just had this feeling. I was like, she and I are gonna make it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And then cut to, she's guest hosting Jimmy Kimmel and interviewing me a year or two ago. But I do know, like, sorry, what was the question? I'm just curious. Yeah. I came up with Amir K, Jimmy O. Yang, Fortune Feaster, with a lot of people that are working very successfully and touring now and just murdering.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And there are times where I get fomo and I'm like, man, I wish I could, but. But. But it is what it is.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

So the other footage is a showcase from 2013 on a YouTube channel that now has 10 views because I watched it a few Times, but had seven.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

2013. I don't know if I know this.

[Jesse David Fox]

It's called un. It was called Uninvited.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Oh, that's online. I was proud of that. I don't give. I don't care what. Anyway, this is gonna get the good one.

[Jesse David Fox]

Bump on that.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

But that Was sketch that was 100%. That was a 30 minute sketch show I concocted for a comedy festival at the I.O. theater at the time on Hollywood Boulevard. And I signed up for it without having written or performed anything. I just made that thing up and then it got. And then I did it in front of 25, 30 people or whatever at IO. It wasn't a big crowd.

[Jesse David Fox]

I don't know who this person is, but it is online. I can send you a link later. It opens with you doing a lip sync to Dashboard Confessional. Yeah. Do you remember this lipstick?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. It's like me writing in a journal or something.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. But then it's like interpretive dance. It's very Chris Farley.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. You reveal that I'm in my underwear. I think.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. I take the blanket off and yeah, it's very.

[Jesse David Fox]

Because it's like. Because you in the underwear. It's like. It's like all of Chris Farley's horrible.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

This is when I was bigger too. This is me at like 275, 280.

[Jesse David Fox]

As a performer. What does Chris represent to you?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Fearlessness. The desire to people please make sure people feel. Feel like they're getting their money's worth a little bit. So I would say fearlessness, people pleasing and. And play. A sense of play. Yeah. Which a lot of people lose at some point.

[Jesse David Fox]

The. The other thing I was thinking about, obviously, like, Chris, there's a, you know, like Adam Sandler's talked about where he like, you got to slow down. He's like, you'll end up like Blushy. And he goes, well, Belushi is my hero. And like. And I remember it's the thing I asked Stavros as well, which is like, he's great.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I'm happy for him.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

He's killing it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Growing up as a bigger kid who idolizes bigger comedians, you're always seemingly. For him at least he was always aware that both that means this type of comedy and the fact that you like essentially have a death wish or some capacity of it did that. What did. How aware of that were you had how much of that lived. Those that dichotomy lived together with Chris for you.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. My heroes in. My hero in comedy was Chris Farley. My hero and drama was Phil Hoffman. They're both dead. Yeah. So clearly there's something to that and the excess of bigger emotional men and addiction. I definitely bought addiction myself. I have four and a half years sober from marijuana and alcohol and pornography. And the next things I'm trying To cut out are cursing in front of my kids, anger and rage and sugar. You know, I got. I'll always have an addiction to work on, but. But, yeah, I. I didn't want to end up like John Candy or Chris or whoever. I just. I knew I had that gene in me. Being a bigger, performative, emotional guy.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Do you. How do I put. I mean, like the. The quote that I was thinking about from the documentary Bob Ohnerkirk says you can't walk around being funny all the time. You have to be yourself sometimes, and you have to be alone sometimes.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I could not agree more. And it took me a while to learn that. Yeah, I think some people go real hard the other way. I feel like Christopher Guest almost. Sometimes you feel like he. He's very withholding or would hate comedy the way he acts, but then you watch him on screen and there's maybe no one better at doing it. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

What's the state of the Chris Farley movie?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It's at New Line. New Line is under the Warner Brother banner, and Warner Brothers famously just had the big acquisition brawl between Netflix and Skydance Paramount. So we're waiting on the acquisition merger thing to go through, and then we'll see if they greenlight it. But it's kind of on pause right now, and my health journey is losing weight and getting in shape. So, you know, if the movie ever does come to fruition, I'll just find a dietitian and a personal trainer and we'll put on, like, football player weight. Not that weight. You know, I mean, are you.

[Jesse David Fox]

Are you at this point, are you scared to play him in terms of like.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

No, I'm not scared to play him. It just feels too faded.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

You know, Chris Farley died. The last person he saw before he died was a prostitute named Heidi Hauser. Spelled the same as my last name. Chris and I are both deeply spiritual dudes from the Midwest who did improv comedy at the same IO theater in Chicago. Like, we have a million things in common that people know or don't know. So it feels faded. I'm not worried about it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

When it's time to do it, I'll have the creative support around me and God will have my back and we'll all kill it. But. But I will say that doing the funny stuff is easier. Like, doing a Matt Foley impression is not that hard. A lot of people can do it. Playing Chris as a human and finding him when he's not code switching in the comedy, that'll be the real tough thing.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Because we have less models of it. And it's just. Yeah, yeah. And figuring out how to. He seems so gentle when he's not on.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And you have to really. It's such a. It's almost an unbelievable contrast.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

He was also fiercely, you know, introspective and intelligent at times. Where Tim Meadows and him used to go see foreign films like Cinema Paradisio and stuff, and then like, talk about it at a diner for two hours afterwards when they lived in Chicago. And. And Chris. Chris would have motivations or influences in his comedy that had nothing to do with comedy. And. And you really. You really start. The more you learn about him, the more you realize he was equal parts brilliant, intellectual, creative, but also stuck in this man childness of addiction and. And people pleasing and stuff.

[Jesse David Fox]

You talk about the difference of it for you. I like to ask every actor I know who does both, what is the difference between acting in a comedy and a drama?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I think comedy is more instinctive and impulsive, and I think trauma is more narrowing in on something specific that you have to do sometimes in comedy. Naked Gun, I think you should leave. The tone is so specific that it's almost like drama. Interesting, but. But drama, you're. You're really trying to connect with some bit of truth, whereas comedy. It's not always about truth. I mean, Del Close would tell you different. The truth is comedy. Truth and comedy. And that's true. But sometimes you're also just trying to get a laugh. Yeah. And. And that. That is more instinctual and impulsive.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think in a movie like I, Tonya or Black Klansman, that you are doing comedic roles, but, like, you're adhering to the universe. I think you talked about, like, the first time you read Odd Tanya, you're like, this can read like a Christopher Guest movie. The next time you read it, it reads more like dramatic. Dramatic, yes. Can you talk about shooting that and figuring out how to modulate? Because I think that's a really breakthrough for you in terms of, like, being able to hold both at the same time.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. I. I have long. Most of my career, I have long subscribed to the words of Steve Carell. Like a character doesn't know what genre they're in. It's just, you know, they're, however, earnest they're going to be. So I try to be genre agnostic in the genre space and just try to subscribe to what is true for that character. And I think John Goodman and Big Lebowski is a great example. Catherine o' Hara in Literally anything. She can make something comedic but true in a dramatic space or something dramatic and true in a comedy space. Yeah. So I'm always trying to level out. And how do I do that? It's usually just the way in is truth and. And knowing we're all making the same movie. I pulled Spike aside on Blackkklansman Week 1 or 2, and I said, if you think I'm, like, doing a mad TV SNL character right now, you got to tell me. If I'm not in the same movie as you, you got to tell me, because I'm feeling a little shaky. And he goes, no, you're doing great. Patted me on the back, and walked away. And it, like, wasn't assuring at all because he would sometimes have me go to a 9 or a 10 when I was already at a 7 or an 8.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And I was like, are you sure? But Spike was having fun with that character. He let me play quite a bit.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. And then he asked you to be in another movie, which I feel like is the endorsement. Yeah. Do you have any other Spike stories of what it's like, especially the second movie when he was like, I. You know, you're now one of my guys. I can now, like, figure out your.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, I think the can I? Part of me wonders if he'll ever cast me again, because I remember there were, like, one or two arguments on set over creative stuff where he was telling me to give a look or make a face, and I was doing it so exaggeratedly to try to give it to him, because he kept saying I didn't give it to him. And then he kind of was like, well, that's too much. And I'm like, mother, like. Like, I was like, how do I split the difference and please you? Or whatever? But when I look back, it's like we were out in the middle of the jungle in Thailand with cicadas screaming from the trees, trying to get out dialogue. It was hot as hell and humid that you would ask the foreign crew for a cup of coffee, and they bring you back a. A sneaker. Like, you just. There were a lot of things going against us in a way that. That I just think made it kind of a. A difficult shoot for everybody. So tensions were. Were higher on that because of the environment, whereas tensions were higher on Black Klansman because of the content.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

But the environment was more chill. Hopefully he feels good about me as an actor. I adore him. He's definitely the. The director. If I could choose one to rework with it would be Spike.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And. And I'll never forget his generosity on blackkklansman. We're doing a scene in rehearsal. Me, Adam Driver, Ashley Atkinson. It was like the whole crew of clans people. And. And they wanted to run the scene. And after the scene, I jokingly said, I was like. Because I didn't have any dialogue in the scene. It was really quiet. Nobody said anything. After the scene, they're all kind of looking at each other. And I go. And then I say nothing. Right. Once again, trying to make fun of myself and be self deprecating. Spike comes over, kneels down in front of me, puts a script on a chair and pulls a pen out. And he goes, what would your character say in the scene? And I look up and Adam Driver and Ashley, and these people are looking at me like, you did it now you're. You're fucked. And I. And I was like, I, I, I. And he's like, really? What would you say? And I go, I think I would tell Adam Driver's character that he needs to name his piece. He should name his gun, and that my gun's name is Betsy. He writes it on the page. Two, three days later, I get like a salmon draft or whatever, the new color draft, and it's got my on the spot ad lib from rehearsal in the script. So it just goes to show that a guy, that brilliant and prolific Oscar winner Spike Lee, was willing to, in a moment, just take some random character actor's words and put it on his page.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. You've talked about really revering character actors. And I recently saw an interview with Richard Kind. He says a character actor doesn't sell the movie, but they're there. They can make the movie better.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Thousand percent.

[Jesse David Fox]

And I'm curious what that means in practice. Like your role in the Springsteen movie that came out last year, on the page does not seem like much. It could be.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It's not much.

[Jesse David Fox]

Not much of a role. Why take it? And what do you then decide to do with it? To make it better than. Make the movie better through your performance?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, I mean, that's what Spike did on the Five Bloods. There were nine lines for that character on the page. It was not a big role, but it was being in Spike's playground in his church. So I wanted to go there. And then, you know, the job is to just try to elevate it as much as one can, either with improv or a unique idea, whatever it is, you show up and you try to make it something that you feel it might need to be. And if you get a Scott Cooper or Spike Lee, they love actors enough to give them the latitude and longitude to play around with. Deliver Me From Nowhere. It was just like, keep it real, you know, like, obviously I purposely ran into the door frame with the box I'm carrying and delivering me from nowhere. That's obviously Comedy 101. And I didn't do it every take, I don't think. But I knew maybe they'll use this because in a movie like that, you gotta have a pressure release.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. That movie. Otherwise it would be so claustrophobic. That movie.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And. And sometimes I'm ramping up tension in comedy, and sometimes I'm ramping up comedy intention. You know, I. I think it depends on what it calls for.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think. How do I put this? People see a character actor, yours, and you're working a ton, and I imagine they have a certain perception of what it's like. And I want to pose this and answer it however you will. How much money do you make or have? And you don't. This is not to. I think this is just to reveal the nature of, like, what your job is. Like, not to be like, please.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Not to like. I'm not looking for the juice. I just, I'm curious what a. What a career like that looks like, because I think people be very interested to know why, like, you essentially need to work as much as you do.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. I think if I'm starring in a movie, indie or studio, I demand a certain salary.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And. And when I'm doing a supporting role, I know that, that I can back down and know that they only have so much money to play with for something like, you know, Fantastic Four. You know, you make two or three hundred thousand bucks to play mole man. And then, you know, taxes, agent, 10%, manager, 10 lawyer, 5%. I get 5% to a business manager. And I always, you know, I grew up in the church, so I'm always tithing something, whether it's 5% of my net gross or 12%, I'll give away some money to someone who needs it. But at the end of the day, that what you. What looked like 250k is a lot closer to $136,000.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And that's still a lot of money by anyone's metric. But it's not going to set you up for life.

[Jesse David Fox]

No.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

There's a reason I do a ton of movies and it's because I have to keep doing them because I. I'm not getting paid on a spring scene. Or a Fantastic Four when I'm getting paid on the Luckiest man in America or. Or Balls up.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Speaking of Fantastic Four, you know, it's. You were.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Hopefully I was revealing enough without being overly ready.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think that's great. I mean, I think it. I think that is the was looking for, which is. I think.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And you get some mailbox money, which is nice. Residuals come in sometimes and you're like, Wow, 30 cents from Key and Peel. And then you're like, Wow, 2500 from Cruella. Hell yeah. You know, you never know. But I think there is a misconception. People Google net worth of Paul Hauser Net worth of AO at a beerian. It's like you have no idea what we're making. You have no clue or concept.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think. And I think a lot of people are still stuck into an idea of like the 90s of how much certain movies it just sort of just skews.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

They've scaled it back. They're going to pay Sydney Sweeney and Jason Momoa. A lot of them aren't going to pay me or be.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. 100%. Like, I do think people like, oh, the top person making $20 million. The 10th person is probably making $2 million. Like that's not exactly the.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

No. I passed on movies where I was just like, this is an insulting amount of money. Yeah. And I'm not just going to do it to. To work with this person I like.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Speaking of Fantastic Four, you know, it is well known that a large portion of your character's work was cut out. Like it seemed like the first act. You kind of had the like Jamati first act villain role.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. Giamatti and Jungle Cruise or something.

[Jesse David Fox]

No, Jumadi in the. I feel like the first one we did after Spider man was Rhino or whatever.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

But what was like seeing the movie? Like you're.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Well, first off, John Malkovich got cut out entirely.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

So it could have been way worse depending on how you feel about that stuff. I, you know, to no Fall. The Matt Shackman, the brilliant director who both directed, directed me and it's always done in Philadelphia in 2010 and then offered me the role Mole man in 2024. I was lucky to be in that movie. I had a blast making it genuinely. And. And I'm happy with the performance. But it is a bummer when you. You're like, oh, I got this great 2 1/2, 3 minute scene with Vanessa Kirby and it's not in the film. It bums you out a little bit. But I still think the movie's awesome. I, I, you know, I very much think Fantastic Four is one of the better Marvel movies in the last 10, 12 years.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I mean, what of your character did people not get to see? Not even just sort of the scene? There was a deleted scene they put up. But, like, I imagine you did a decent amount of work to, like, embody Mole Man. He's a character that has a history.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It was only two or three scenes they cut. The biggest one was a Vanessa Kirby thing. And then there were like, little things here and there that we did that didn't make it. Like me breaking into this, like, banking building and holding them hostage before the Fantastic Four show up. I think you just see me getting arrested in the back of the van or whatever. But, but yeah, I, I listen, it's also, it is no fault of Marvel or Matt Shackman that I had that reaction. Yeah, they made the movie they needed to make and it was a great movie, end of story. But I think selfishly, when I signed on for Mole man or anything, because I knew I only got one shot at playing a, a villain in a Marvel or DC movie. And you've seen the brilliance of Heath Ledger as Joker. You've seen the brilliance of Jack Nicholson as Joker. You've seen the brilliance of a lot of folks who inhabit these roles and kind of make a good mile marker in their career by doing it. I think I wanted that and I think it was a little more tertiary and maybe I needed to also be humbled. Maybe. I know it's a healthy thing to be humbled sometimes too. I've needed that at times in my life and career.

[Jesse David Fox]

What was the voice you were doing? I feel like a lot of your characters have very specific voices that come from something. Was it a specific voice?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Very much so, yeah. Like, like me and Queen Pins with Vince Vaughn and Kristen Bell and Kirby Hall Baptiste. That's me doing like, Dennis Farina, Chicago, me and Cruella. I'm doing the Cockney. Oh, what is the actor's name? From Hook and who Framed Roger?

[Jesse David Fox]

Bob Hoskins.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I'm doing Bob Hoskins from Hook.

[Jesse David Fox]

At first I was like, is he doing Statham?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, well, very similar. Obviously it could be misconstrued easily, but, but it was me remembering Hoskins and Hook going, ace Peter Pan, all right, he's just been gone from Neverland so long. He's forgotten everything. And that, that's me just trying to do that. But for Mole man, it was kind of an old timey, like, Black and white movie, kind of, you know, Mr. Potter type thing of, you know, as Mole Man. I feel a certain way about how you're treating me. And you can tell by the way that I'm talking that I'm not totally on board with it. You know, that. That. That was what I was trying to do with Mole Moon.

[Jesse David Fox]

There's a scene, a type of scene that you have done in a lot of your roles. There's two versions of it. Essentially, it's a scene kind of in the end of the second act, early third act, where you acknowledge how people are perceiving you, that you're aware of how people are perceiving you. There's either the Richard Jewell.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

He does.

[Jesse David Fox]

Richard Jewell is the most famous one, but there's also the comedy version where you. There's the way to do comedy where she goes, I know you think I'm stupid, but I'm smart. Which is then played as a joke. And then there's the ritual jewel. Vern was like, I know everyone thinks that I am stupid, but I am smart. What? I guess start with the ritual jewel scene. But how do you think about those scenes? It is an interesting thing to have noticed that it's like. It does come up. I was like, even in the after party, you do a version of that.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. I think that guys that look like me or Danny McBride or John Goodman will always be. People always think of them for that. Just because of how you look.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And that's okay. It's not a big deal. It's not like something I have to deal. I'm lucky I have a place in Hollywood.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

People like Goodman and Giamatti, Michael Shannon taught me I do have a place in this world. And that was cool. But it's funny that that is a recurring element, for sure. And some people on Twitter like to say, like, you always. You always play fat, stupid people. And I'm like, yes and no. Yeah. There's some truth to that, which is what would irk me or make me remember them calling me out for it. But there's also a reductive nature to saying that. If you watch me in Blackbird, in Beats of Anthony Anderson on Netflix, where I play kind of like a white, white boy in the hip hop world. If you watch me in Richard Jewell and then you watch me in Cruella, these are totally different things.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

So to say that they're the same fat, dumb guy is. Is pretty reductive. Yeah, I would say.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Do you worry about Typecasting of course.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Of course there are things. I mean, I turned down Sam Kinison. I turned down Fatty Arbuckle. I turned down Rob Ford, the mayor from Toronto. Smoke crack. I turned down. There's a ton of like, big guy stuff that I'm just like, too, too much of the same thing.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

So I try to find variants when I can.

[Jesse David Fox]

You talk about Blackbird, you know, which is a very. If you see Blackbird, then you can't say this person can only do one thing right. It's a completely different out home. It's a.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Certainly not for lack of trying.

[Jesse David Fox]

I mean, you, you really go to pretty scary places in that. Can you watch or think about the Blackbird performance without thinking about, like the tremendous life change that also happened while shooting it?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It's kind of hard to separate the two. My brother in law, Joe recently asked me, he said, are you able to enjoy that performance? Are you so kind of tainted or disgusted from your behavior at that time and how you felt that it's impossible to appreciate that or be proud of it. And I'm able to kind of hold both at the same time, where at the time I was abusing drugs and alcohol and was a deadbeat and wasn't talking to my wife while she was pregnant or, you know, soon after my son was born. But I was also doing a good job with the role. So it's like I, I, I'm able to appreciate it or watch it still.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

But I will say there was a moment at Dennis Lehane's house when I first saw the show. There was a moment where one or two times for sure, one, maybe two. There were times where I'd look at the character and I didn't see myself. And then I felt guilt, like I had done what the character did, like reminding myself like, no, that was you. And I felt really screwed up for a couple days and just psychologically had to talk to my therapist and my A sponsor and work through whatever that was because it felt, it felt strange.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. In terms of like, you, it was unclear who was, where you were, the character, the person you were playing, who you were at the time, which was taking over, who was in non charge.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It'd be like seeing AI footage of you fooling around with another woman who wasn't your wife. You would be like, I know that's not me, but that looks a lot like me. It was more of that AI footage of you stabbing somebody to death. Like, I saw that and Larry hall and was like. Or was a little scared of myself. That I could transform to the degree that I didn't see myself. Yeah. There's a look I give Taron Edgerton in the scene at the end where, spoiler alert, it kind of reveals that Taran's been in on the joke and is trying to get a forced confession out of me. And there's a look I give him where I go. And it's like this wide eyed, purse lipped, like, sick, weirdo look. And I've never made that face before that I've been aware of in my life. And that really upset me. For some reason, I hated seeing that. And I was like, what the hell?

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

How do you. How did you get there? How method are you? How method. Yeah, how method are you or how. Or were you for a thing like that?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I don't think I'm method in the isolationist sense where I can't hold space for other people and be a part of the set environment between takes or setups. But there are moments in a Richard Jeweller, a Blackbird or Luckiest man in America where I do have to be alone and listen to the national on my Spotify and paste the floor of the studio set.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And so I, you know, on this show Kingdom, that I did back in the day with Frank Grillo and Nick Jonas, it was a little criminally underseen. It was on the DirecTV's Audience Network, but it was one of the best shows and one of the best performances I ever gave. In my opinion, that I was very method where I put a wood chip in my shoe to purposely be uncomfortable even while sitting. I would flick the back of my ear between takes to feel the residue of bullying, like a kid flicking your ear in a classroom setting. I did things that would purposely make me feel what the character was feeling. And I don't do that as often. I don't find it necessary. But in a certain case, like Blackbird, you really have to think the thoughts and go to the place and do the whole dance.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. You said around that time. I think what I lacked in craft and sort of performance intellect, I had in recklessness and fearlessness.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. And sometimes your best performances are because you are more reckless, fearless and insecure.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

But it depends.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I mean, it reminded me of a Mick Foley quote. As we're about to. We're soon to be in the wrestling section. I can't jump high, so I jump from high places.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Brilliant.

[Jesse David Fox]

Which is like, this is what I could brilliantly put.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah. And I do that in wrestling too, where I. I Can't do what Zack Sabre Jr. Does with wrist manipulation and these old Greco Roman holds or submissions. But I can jump seven feet down through a table and I can get split open and I can do body slams and take a certain amount of in ring punishment or out of the ring punishment that, that I think even the seasoned wrestlers themselves are like, hey, good job. I don't know that these other actors would be able to do that.

[Jesse David Fox]

So wrestling, you wrestle upwards like seemingly six to ten times a year and it's like full on. Hardcore wrestling, not like hardcore as like the style. Not just saying the adjective.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I wrestled somewhere between 10 and 15 times a year on average.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Creatively. Why do you do.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Feeds my inner child, my childlike sensibility that I wanted to wrestle someday. I always knew I would wrestle at least one match. You see people go to WrestleMania. It's like the guys from the Jersey Shore, Stephen Amell are bad Bunny. And you're like, oh, if they can do it, I can do it. And I can do it apparently pretty proficiently for an actor. If you compare me to Dean Malenko or Triple H. Yeah, no, I'm not that good. I get it. But. But the way I, the way I always kind of compare it is if a wrestler came into the acting world, I would not discourage them. I would only be ready to help them and say, let's see what you got. And I think the two can abide. I think what's weird is I've been doing it to the degree that I have like 30 matches under my belt. Yeah. And most people do it once or twice, but I really, I love the physicality. It's inspired me to get healthier and be stronger, which makes me a better dad, better husband, better energy and. And it's performance. So I get the actor thing out.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And it's physicality, which I never got to do in high school. I was never like a jock. And it's like I get to be a pseudo jock now.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, it definitely is. The reason for it, as my producer likes to point out, is like a melding of theater kids and jock people into.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

That's what I said. I said in Interview. I was like, it's like in a weird way, rest. The wrestling locker room, the backstage green room area, what have you. It feels like a world where the Jackson theater kids are best friends. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Are one in the same to an outsider. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. It's hard not to.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Oh, I will.

[Jesse David Fox]

All right. Be ready to correct. It's Hard not to see it as it's hard not to think, is it self flagellation or whatever or an exorcising of demons. But I was curious just sort of what you think about that aspect. Like, is there a part where you're like, I deserve to be beaten up? Or this is a part of me that I want more of a proving ground of.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Like, I can take it. I can take the punishment. Because to be honest, I've told people a million times over, the pain I feel from a power bomb or chair being hit on my back, which, rest assured, when Adam Priest hits you with a steel chair to your back, it's real. That does not compare to an iota of the pain of being rejected by girls and women throughout my life or rejected by Hollywood or feeling marginalized by Hollywood.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

It doesn't touch emotional pain at all. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

In many ways it seems like it is like, I can take this. It's a nice way to remind yourself, I can take this. If I can land on glass or all the stuff that you do, you're like, yeah, oh, this is how much I can take.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And I'm going to do it till I can. I want to wrestle till I'm 50.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

You know, I want to have like 10 years into this and 150 to 200 matches and be able to say that I really did it. The idea is not to become uber beloved and famous for that. The idea is not to make a ton of money. It's. The idea is to show that you can do two things at once. The way Deion Sanders played baseball and football professionally. I want to be able to walk away and say, I wasn't a celebrity wrestler. I was. I was a wrestler.

[Jesse David Fox]

You are represented by wme. WME owns the WWE or whatever group.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

They intermingled things.

[Jesse David Fox]

What are they? They are owned by Endeavor. Never do anyway. How have you had conversations? Because you mostly do Indies. That is obviously the. I don't know if it's a brass ring. It's. It is the thing. Have you had conversations about what it would be like for you to do a WWE thing one day?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Definitely open to it. You know, Tony Khan was kind enough to give me a match in ROH where I. I got to fight in the ECW Arena 23 under arena in Philadelphia. And that match kind of made me, in a sense, because it allowed people to see what I'm willing to go, what lights I'm willing to go to. So I'm forever grateful for that. I don't think you would look at me doing a match in WWE as like a betrayal or something. I would hope not, but. But yeah, there's been a conversation or two is all say between me and some people at WWE about that very thing. It would be a question of when it's most advantageous and schedule aligns.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. If you were to play a wrestler in the movie or, or in tv, do you have a dream wrestler project?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Well, I'm attached. Play Mick Foley.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And I'm. I'm a producer on DDP's Life Story about him and Jake Roberts relationship. And then, you know, Natty Neidhart has come to me a couple times and said, would you have any interest in playing my dad, Jim the Anvil Neidhart, if we did a Heart foundation movie or something? So I'm interested in playing any wrestler, but the one that is at the forefront right now that has the most steam is probably the Mick Foley thing.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. If you were to close your eyes and imagine your sort of ideal career in three years. What do you see in three years?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

April 2029. Oh, it feels weird to say I wanted to make a joke and I'm not going to because I don't want to get in trouble. I've learned when to censor myself.

[Jesse David Fox]

Sure.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Don't want to pull Kathy Griffin.

[Jesse David Fox]

Sure. Yeah. No, I, I had a.3 years.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I hope that I have worked with auteur filmmakers that I love. Somebody like an Adam McKay, somebody cool like a, like a Catherine Bigelow or a David O. Russell. In three years, I hope to have directed my first feature, at least being pre pro or development on it, which I, I have a movie written, a low budget Christmas movie ensemble piece called Good Riddance that I hope to make in the next three to five years. And then I hope to have sold some screenplays and be actively producing with certain companies and studios because I really, I really have a lot that I've written and developed and I, I want to break into that place where I can have a production shingle of some kind, have a deal somewhere at a streamer or studio. But at the end of the day, the hope is I can make good money telling good stories. That is always the thing. I would also say I want to work with people before they're not working anymore. We just lost Catherine o' Hara and James Vanderbeek and Robert Tuval. It was a lot of folks who just passed away and it was a harsh reminder of wanting to try to work with some people before they stop working or pass on. God forbid. So if somebody offers me something with Anthony Hopkins, whether it's the best script I've ever written or the worst, chances are I'm gonna do it regardless because I want to work with Anthony Hopkins.

[Jesse David Fox]

You know, Would you rather win an Oscar or host Saturday Night Live?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Win an Oscar.

[Jesse David Fox]

The double. The benefit of that is if you're winning an Oscar, you probably can host Saturday Night Live.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

There you go. But I also would rather I would rather win the U.S. title or intercontinental title in WWE or win the win the tag team titles in AEW over winning an Oscar.

[Jesse David Fox]

All right, good. Now we know the the the ranking for the next few years to check.

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[Paul Walter Hauser]

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[Jesse David Fox]

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[Paul Walter Hauser]

It's the Priceline negotiator.

[Jesse David Fox]

How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget? The Priceline app. It's got hotel Deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Hold your horses, there's more. The app lets you filter hotels by neighborhood vibes, star level, and amenities like pools and spas and beachfronts. Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me up. Now it's time for our final segment. It's like a lightning round, but you don't have to answer quickly. These are just questions we ask every episode, so we section it off. But do you have a short story of an interaction with a legendary celebrity actor, director, living or dead, you're willing to share?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

God, I have so many, it's hard to choose one.

[Jesse David Fox]

One you haven't told before would be ideal with the most famous person possible.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I had a weird interaction where I was so newly sober at the time and I was at a big Hollywood party thing at the. Is it the Sunset Hilton? Sunset Towers. I don't know what it's called. It's across from, like, Comedy Store on Sunset. Yeah, I was there and I decided to just start asking people two questions. I went up to DiCaprio and a bunch of people and said, what's one thing you're grateful for in this past year and what's one thing you're concerned about in the new year that I can pray for? And DiCaprio came from a place of gratitude with his career, but also a place of concern for Killers of the Flower Moon. He was like, I don't know if people are going to believe me in that role or it might be too ugly or odious.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

And I went up to Scarlett Johansson Nast, and she was a little bit like, what are you trying to get? Like, kind of thought I was almost playing a joke on her or something, the way she looked at me. And I just remember Colin Josted walked up to me and he looked like he might have. I don't know that he was, but he might have been in his cups a little bit. And I just turned to him and I felt like I was supposed to tell him this. I just. I just grabbed him and I don't. I think Scarlett was out of earshot. And I just said, hey, man, it's really tough being married to her for a number of reasons. And you both work in Hollywood at a high level, but I want you to know I think your biggest hurdle is you just need to put your wife first in your career, in your marriage. And I said, you put her first. The wrestle fall into place and he, like, gave me this look like he was about to cry, and he hugged me and, like, I don't know why I said that, but it felt like it was something he needed to hear. Yeah. I don't know why, but something about being submissive to. To her amidst all the craziness of probably being married to someone super famous and desired by the world, you know?

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Who is the best living actor?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

The best living actor, I'm gonna say a tie between Anthony Hopkins, Denzel Washington and Cape Blanchett.

[Jesse David Fox]

Great answer. Second, Anthony Hopkins. We got you worked with Emma Stone, who I think is at on a pace to be the actor of our generation.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

She's an absolute killer.

[Jesse David Fox]

It's unbelievable.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Love her.

[Jesse David Fox]

I love Corella.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Would do anything with her.

[Jesse David Fox]

What is the best time you ever bombed? It could be in an acting gig or on stage.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Yeah, I bombed at the improv on Melrose, and it was horrible. I was in a lineup that consisted of, like, Quinta Brunson and Patton Oswalt and Howie Mandel and Joey Coco Diaz, all these killers. And I just. I. I really thought I had a tight set, and I really thought I would have some goodwill for the acting roles I had amassed at that point. And I ate a big fat pile of. And I was depressed for a week after. I was inconsolable.

[Jesse David Fox]

What was the last movie, TV show?

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Sorry to Mike Glazer who booked me on that show.

[Jesse David Fox]

What's the last movie, TV show or play that made you cry? Not because it was sad, because it was good.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I got choked up at paradise, the Hulu show, Strong K. Brown and my buddy Julian Nicholson. I thought that was brilliant. I love that show. It's my new favorite show. And then I got choked up watching this movie, Newborn. It stars David Oyelowo and Barry Pepper. It's directed, written and directed by Nate Parker, fellow actor, now filmmaker. And it is so moving. It's about the penal system and how people are dealing with, like, PTSD and mania after coming out of being in solitary confinement. So those two shows, paradise as a show and Newborn as a movie, they both have such depth and heart in them. And they're fronted by two of our best actors being Sterling K. Brown and David Ayala.

[Jesse David Fox]

Last one. What is. Do you have to. In any form of a creative instinct or it could be a joke on stage, it could be a sketch. It could be a decision you made in a movie that you thought was correct, you thought it was funny, your thought was moving, you thought it was the right decision. And then eventually we're talked out of it, but you'll go to your grave being like, I was right, they were wrong. This is how this should been played. This joke was funny, et cetera.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

I was on a show called Kingdom back in the day that I referenced earlier with Frank Grillo, and I had a shave mark in my head from the pilot episode. This director, Adam Davidson, he said, what do you think for this guy? And I'm like, he's in a halfway house. I think he's on the autism spectrum. I think he's working through a lot of PTSD and violence in his life. He probably was abused in one of his foster homes. So let's give him a shave mark where there's a scar where hair won't grow over it. And I remember a kid from high school who. That was his story. This kid Alex. And. And so we did that. And then, like, season three, when my hair was a different style, they were like, we're not going to do the shave mark. And I'm like, the. You aren't. That was a creative decision on my part. I have a backstory for it. And they're like, no, no, no, we're not gonna. And I was. I don't hold a grudge to this day, but I talk about it on occasion because I'm just like. I felt so betrayed creatively in that moment. Another one is on Cruella. I wanted to do the stunt where the guy swings from cables against the wall and falls into the big cake at the party in the mansion at Emma Stone or Emma Thompson's place. And they wouldn't let me do it. They were like, we have to let a stunt guy do it. If something were to happen, like, we could lose you on the production. And I was like, guys, I can do it. It's not a big deal. And they wouldn't let me. And I. I was.

[Jesse David Fox]

I could fall into that cake.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

To this day, I'm still teased about that one because I'm like, come on, man, let me do the thing. Matt Damon said he had dinner with Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise said once. So we were doing the stunt, and the stunt guy, the stunt coordinator said, you can't do that. So I fired the stunt coordinator. We got a new stunt coordinator. And, you know, I. I think I have a little bit of that Tom Cruiseness in me of like, all right, screw this guy. I'm gonna do it anyway. Let's find the person who will co sign it. Just.

[Jesse David Fox]

You gotta get to the point where you can start firing Stunt. Stunt coronation or at least telling them

[Paul Walter Hauser]

to take the day off. Lying about the schedule, saying, you're not needed today.

[Jesse David Fox]

Thank you so much.

[Paul Walter Hauser]

Thank you, buddy.

[Jesse David Fox]

That's it for another episode of Good One. Good One is produced by myself, Zachary Mack, Neil Janowitz and Ann Victoria Clark. Music composed by Brandon McFarland. Write a review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. I am Jesse David Fox, and you can follow me at Jesse Fox. Buy my book, comedy book, wherever books are sold. Thanks for listening to Good One from New York Magazine. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] Pod be back with a new episode next week. Have a good one.