← Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)
Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)
Billy Eichner
01:19:09
Ted Danson is chuffed to sit down with his new pal Billy Eichner. Billy talks to Ted about how his parents let him have a gay-coded bar mitzvah, getting fan mail for his film “Bros,” how being Billy on the Street didn’t come naturally to him, being mentored by Joan Rivers, why working hard is overrated, and more. Billy also shares about a 1989 film starring Ted that meant a lot to his family. This episode was recorded in 2023. To help those affected by the Southern California wildfires, make a donation to World Central Kitchen today. Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.
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- [00:01]
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- [00:16]
Ted Danson
Before you came, I was sitting outside and, you know, always trying to talk myself out of. Don't make this about you. This is about the guest.
- [00:25]
Billy Eichner
Please, who are you talking to? You're the king of making it about me.
- [00:41]
Ted Danson
Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. Billy Eichner is one of my favorite kinds of comic actors. He can go headlong into an outrageous character, whether he's playing Billy on the street or Craig on Parks and Recreation. Billy also is a very intelligent man, full of empathy, who's done a lot of thinking about what it means to be a creative soul in this world. I appreciated this opportunity to see that side of him. Let's meet him now.
- [01:11]
Woody Harrelson
Billy Eichner.
- [01:14]
Ted Danson
One of the things I did was, like I said, I devoured as much as I could of Billy on the Street, Parks and Rec, and I watched Bros. Oh, wow. And I have to say, you are a really, really wonderful actor.
- [01:30]
Billy Eichner
Thank you. I'm so glad I did this. So glad I came here today.
- [01:35]
Ted Danson
Okay, your turn. Have you seen any of my work?
- [01:38]
Billy Eichner
Actually, I certainly have, but we'll get.
- [01:40]
Ted Danson
To that in a minute on your podcast. But I did. I watched it at first, and I think probably at first I was like, oh, slightly jarred and, you know, and delighted. And then I went back and the second time, because I just seen it, I was just amazed at watching you. And that last. I'm a sucker for the love story. Right. So that last scene in the museum was just brilliant. The speech, the song, all of it. It was really, really lovely.
- [02:19]
Billy Eichner
Wow. Thank you so much. I'm very proud of that movie, and I really appreciate you watching it and having that reaction. It means a lot to me. Thank you.
- [02:28]
Ted Danson
Do people write into you a lot?
- [02:30]
Billy Eichner
I have, yeah. And movies have this strange shelf life now because of streaming, and I think a lot of people have found it on streaming. Not exclusively gay men, who it's ultimately about, but a lot of gay men. And I've gotten so many messages from people. They come up to me, too, in person sometimes, and also write to me privately online. And you don't always get a chance to respond to everyone. You don't always get a chance to respond to everyone you want to. Some of these messages are extremely moving.
- [03:11]
Ted Danson
Right.
- [03:12]
Billy Eichner
You know, and that Makes Movie is ultimately about a certain generation of gay men around my age. I mean, one hopes that everyone can relate to it. It's for everyone. But, you know, it is about these two middle aged men falling in love really for the first time. They've been out their whole lives. But that's different than falling in love for the first time and kind of unraveling all of our. Someone described it as elder millennial gay anxieties.
- [03:46]
Ted Danson
Wait, I love that.
- [03:47]
Billy Eichner
And I thought that was so brilliant. I was like, wow, I wish I thought of that.
- [03:50]
Ted Danson
Wait, say that again.
- [03:51]
Billy Eichner
Elder Elder millennial, meaning older millennial gay men's anxieties and unpacking, all of that and how those get in our way when it comes to relationships and love and sex and all of it. And so I think, you know, I think it affected and affects hopefully everyone. You know, it is a window into our lives, especially for people who don't know much about what it's really like on the day to day to date as a gay man of a certain age, but especially gay men. And they've written to me and just sometimes have really poured their hearts out in ways that I could never have expected from just writing a romantic comedy. But because we don't have a ton of films like that, they're out there, but we haven't had a ton of them over the years. And we don't get a ton of films and TV series that really, in a very specific way tackle what it is to be a gay adult. You know, we have a lot of, we have a lot more content now about what it's like to be a queer LGBTQ teenager, 20 something. And that's amazing. I, I mean, we never had that when I was a kid. That is truly remarkable. And those shows are doing wonderful things for the world. But I'm not a teenager and I started writing Bros with Nick Stoller when I was in my late 30s. And Luke, who plays opposite me in the movie, who didn't write in it's.
- [05:23]
Ted Danson
Also really, really good.
- [05:24]
Billy Eichner
He is so good in it, Luke McFarlane. And he's also a 44 year old gay. So, you know, and we talked a lot about our experiences and, you know, how things that happened to you as a teenager or Even in your 20s or 30s, how those things get ingrained in you and can ultimately become a real barrier, you know, to being open or vulnerable or in love.
- [05:52]
Ted Danson
And so like what, what do you mean? Like incidents.
- [05:56]
Billy Eichner
It's not necessarily an incident in my generation of gay men. And by the way I need to practice preface this by saying, I can't speak for all gay people, which is a tricky thing about doing gay content sometimes because you don't get a lot of it. And so it has to somehow speak to every single member of the LGBTQ community, which is an impossible thing. I can only speak to my own experience and those of my friends and people that I've observed over the years. My experience with being gay. I grew up in New York City. I was very lucky. I had very liberal, gay friendly parents. It wasn't a huge issue for me to come out. Wasn't a total non issue, but it wasn't traumatizing in any way. I had unbelievable parents and a huge support system and a lot of exposure to gay culture just growing up in New York City that you wouldn't otherwise get, especially pre Internet, because I didn't grow up with the Internet, so I didn't have an issue being gay so much as at that point in time. In those years, we really put masculinity on a pedestal. Right. So it was okay to be gay as long as you didn't seem gay.
- [07:09]
Ted Danson
Right.
- [07:09]
Billy Eichner
You know, and I think we sort of fetishized that when it came to sex and dating and how vulnerable we could be, how effeminate or whatever that means now to people. You know, these definitions have changed over the years, but all of that stuff we were really dealing with and not really thinking that that was fucked up even. We just thought that's how it was, Right. So, you know, we were gay and we were fine with that. But we were attracted to a certain sort of stereotypical version of American, all American masculinity. And there was a lot in the culture at the time that kind of spoke to that, you know, which was kind of, even if it wasn't overtly gay, was appealing to the gay world in a way that really put hyper masculinity, this kind of jock bro y behavior, on a pedestal. Whether that was Mark, Marky Mark at the time in Calvin Klein underwear or shirtless, ripped dudes, you know, greeting you at the door at Abercrombie and Fitch in the late 90s. Right. Which is really what it. What would happen, you know, when I was in college, that's what you were aspiring to be in a way, or you thought you were supposed to aspire to be. And that stuff will get in your system when you're a young person and you won't even realize what effect it's having on you.
- [08:42]
Ted Danson
And I want to talk about your Parents. Because I read that you said that they were the most supportive of your creativity, that if you can imagine it, you can be anything you want. And that, to me, is a miraculous thing for any person to hear from a parent. And not all people do. You don't always get unconditional love growing up. And that must. Is that something you realized in hindsight, or did you know at the time that you were getting a. I don't.
- [09:15]
Billy Eichner
Think I realized it fully at the time, but in hindsight, there's nothing more clear to me that is ultimately underneath it all. The reason for however successful I've managed to get it is from a very young age, they let me be me. And I'm working on a project right now for Audible. It's an audio series which really digs into my childhood and teenage years. And I started working on it not really knowing what it would become. Cause it's a little too early for me to do a memoir, but I wanted it to be personal. I've never really talked about those years in detail. And what it really ends up being now that I'm in the middle of working on it is a love letter to my parents.
- [10:09]
Ted Danson
Oh, that's great.
- [10:10]
Billy Eichner
And just thinking about things that happened, my behavior as a kid that they never. I don't know what conversations they secretly had, right. But in front of me, to me, you know, I was growing up in the 80s in New York City at the height of the AIDS crisis, which they, as adults, must have been even more aware of than I was. And I was aware of it, right? Because on local news in New York in the 80s, you heard about AIDS and gay men, and gay men were essentially so vilified and associated with death and dying and risk and sickness, you know, and those were some of my formative years, you know, and my parents must have seen all of that. They grew up in New York, too. My parents, both at different points in their lives, lived in the West Village. So they were not no strangers to gay culture. And so I came along in the middle of all of that. And I was this young kid who, even at the age of five years old, was obsessed with the entertainment industry, loved Broadway, was obsessed with Madonna, loved Barbra Streisand, loved. You know, I, like, showed all these very obvious signs early on of being gay. And they embraced all of it. They took me to Madonna concerts, they took me to see Streisand. They took me to see Bette Midler at Radio City Music hall when I was 12 years old. And they liked a Lot of those same things too, because, like.
- [11:45]
Ted Danson
Cause they are outrageous.
- [11:47]
Billy Eichner
They're New Yorkers, right? And so they. They loved those big personalities too, you know. And my dad was hilarious. And I had an older dad, too. My dad fought in the Korean War, so he was much older than my mom and had me later in life. So you would think that would have been an obstacle. But then you think, oh, when my dad grew up, Barbra Streisand was pop music. She was pop music to him. So me as a gay kid, loving her, even if he may be understood, oh, my son's probably gay. He liked that music too. It was such this strange bond. And they were not a show business family. They're a middle class. We were a middle class family in Queens, New York. I grew up in a tiny apartment.
- [12:29]
Ted Danson
So not flush, necessarily.
- [12:31]
Billy Eichner
No, they were middle class, nine to five people. But I was essentially an only child. I do have a half brother, but we didn't grow up together. And I was very much my mother's only child. And I was treated as such, you know, and they embraced all of it. I wanted singing lessons. I got singing lessons. You know, I had a bar mitzvah. The one thing I. I did not want to get bar mitzvah, but it was one of the few things we disagreed on. Even then. I was just. The idea of religion freaked me out. And I hated going to Hebrew school. I didn't believe in any of it. But it was the one thing we disagreed on and that really meant a lot to them that I got a bar mitzvah. So I did have a bar mitzvah, but the theme of my party was Broadway meets pop music. And there was a life size airbrushed version of Madonna that was made on one side of the DJ box.
- [13:32]
Ted Danson
Life size, three dimensional.
- [13:36]
Billy Eichner
It was airbrushed on what they used to call foam core, you know, and she's in, like the cone bra and a garter belt. This is at my bar mitzvah because this is what I wanted. And on one side of the DJ booth was that. And on the other side of the DJ booth was the same kind of airbrushed cardboard cutout of the Phantom of the Opera.
- [13:56]
Ted Danson
That's pretty. That's a big, wide range. That's pretty cool.
- [14:00]
Billy Eichner
These are profoundly gay interests, right? And they said, sure, great. And they just always let me be me. And that continued. And that's like the biggest miracle of my life.
- [14:16]
Ted Danson
Did you have to tell them or did they know that you were gay at some point?
- [14:22]
Billy Eichner
Did you. I went to Northwestern. And they came out to see me in a musical that I was in. They flew from New York to see me. And then the next night, we went to dinner. And I'm a junior in college at this point, and at this point, I'm out to my friends for about a year, but not out to them. Even though I did not think it would, you know, come as a huge surprise, But I still had to come out. And at dinner one night, my mother, out of nowhere said, so, are you dating anyone? Boy, girl, whatever? Just like that. Wow. How amazing is that? Wow, this is 1998. Boy, girl, whatever. She just wanted to know if I was dating anyone, you know? And I literally said, oh, God. And then that night, they drove me back to the apartment I was living in at college, and I said, okay, pull over. And they pulled over, and I said, as it turns out, I'm gay. And they were totally cool with it. And. But, you know, it's still like a huge weight off your shoulders, you know, just emotionally. So I started crying, and then my mom started crying, but no one was angry or sad at all. It was just kind of this weight lifted. And then I said to them, at some point, my dad did. My dad, for a moment, did do the classic thing like, are you sure it's not a phase? And I was like, dad. And I looked at him and I said, dad, you took me to Barbra Streisand concerts that I demanded ongoing. That I demanded to go to when I was, like, 12 years old, and Broadway shows and Madonna. I was like, you guys must have known that I was gay. And he said, classic J. Aichner. We discussed the possibility. And I was like, I bet you have. And so they were great. You know, they were great about it. They were great about everything. I was really lucky that was a.
- [16:23]
Ted Danson
Gift you gave them to bring it up and answer the question.
- [16:29]
Billy Eichner
Yeah, yeah. I mean, my mother gave me the gift. She was basically saying, it's okay to tell us. We just wanna know what's happening in your personal life. And I always joke. Cause my mother actually, strangely enough, passed away six months later. And I always joke around that, you know, now it's like 25 years later, and I'm still not dating anyone. Like, that's always my joke. Like, if she was around now, I'd be like, well, I'm still very gay, but still not dating anyone.
- [17:05]
Woody Harrelson
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- [18:32]
Ted Danson
That, that's, well, quite frankly, holy Hershey's.
- [18:36]
Woody Harrelson
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- [18:46]
Ted Danson
When I was in my 20s, I.
- [18:47]
Woody Harrelson
Was going to school in Pittsburgh, and I would drive to New York City to visit family on a regular basis. And on that turnpike en route to New York, you would pass by Hershey, Pennsylvania, and within about, I don't know, five minutes before you got there, you would start to have the most amazing chocolatey smells. And I used to dream about being able to pull over and get some milk chocolate of my own. And then I thought, you know what? If only they added whole almonds to this milk chocolate, I bet that would be amazing. I bet it would be a huge hit. Little did I know, some many years later, I'd be sitting here talking about milk chocolate with whole almonds. Thank you for that. Memory shop for Hershey's milk chocolate with whole almonds now at a store near you found wherever candy is sold.
- [19:45]
Ted Danson
Did your father, who's passed away, is that correct?
- [19:48]
Billy Eichner
Yes, he has.
- [19:49]
Ted Danson
Did he live long enough to see you be Billy Eichner full blown?
- [19:54]
Billy Eichner
No, he lived long enough to see me come close. And in my 20s, I started doing a live comedy show in New York that I wrote for myself and my friend Robin Taylor, who I pulled in to be my sidekick. Cause I needed a straight man, quote unquote, to play off of, I thought. And that's where that live show, it was called Creation Nation, is where this Persona, this Billy on the street like Persona started to evolve on stage. It didn't start like that. I started off just kind of normal and as myself telling jokes. And then somehow one thing led to another and I started to develop this character that was just irrationally angry about entertainment to the point where you would think something else is going on with this person. Right. You know, why is he so angry about this movie that he saw? Right. By the way, this predates social media, which is really amazing. It's like I was satirizing something. I didn't even know how close to close to that guy so many people would actually become in real life. Cause this was the early days of the Internet. And so it's in that live show where I said to my friend who was directing it, what if I took this character and we took a camera out on the street and I went up to people as this Persona and forced them to talk to me about Kate Winslet's Oscar chances. Right. Or who's more impressive, Meryl Streep or Gwen Close? Like all these ridiculous pop culture themes that I would bring up. Right. And force them, you know, force New Yorkers who are so, you know, to be in New York. I mean, I'm a native New Yorker myself. I grew up on those streets. And you all. You have to walk around with blinders on.
- [21:54]
Ted Danson
Yeah.
- [21:54]
Billy Eichner
There's hundreds of people around you, but you kind of have to act like they're not there. And you know, you're just going about your day and getting your work done and doing whatever you have to do. So I thought, what if I kind of broke that barrier and force them to talk to me about some ridiculous entertainment industry topic.
- [22:15]
Ted Danson
But that's a leap, right, from the show you were doing or did it come kind of from that?
- [22:21]
Billy Eichner
So we would make these videos and then show them as part of my show on a screen. This was before YouTube. The first Billy on the street video I made was in September of 2004 for a 1 off show I was doing in the basement of a Jewish center on the Upper west side. And they happened to have a screen and a projector. So it was a 90 minute show full of sketches and segments and songs. I would write funny songs and there was a band and it was like a. I used to say it's like a variety show where I'm the only act, basically. Right. And one of the things we did eventually was this on the street thing.
- [23:06]
Ted Danson
How did it play that night? Do you remember?
- [23:09]
Billy Eichner
It killed.
- [23:10]
Ted Danson
Ah, I love It.
- [23:11]
Billy Eichner
It killed. And probably if I watch that version of it now, you know, we didn't know what we were doing with editing. We were theater kids. We didn't know about cameras. We don't have iPhones at this point. You know, we had to teach ourselves how to edit on a big desk. And we just did it in order to make these videos for my live show. And again, this is before YouTube, but the audience, even from that first one, they were like falling out of their chairs. And it's a really cynical, smart New York audience that was following me at this point. So to impress them and to shock them meant something. And I swear that first night, I saw the audience reaction to that and I thought, oh, fuck, I'm gonna have to keep doing this because it's a bitch to do. And it did not come naturally to me to. I know it's such a cliched comedian thing to say, but I am not that person.
- [24:08]
Ted Danson
I'm pretty sure, which is why you can pull it off. I have a strong belief that if you were an abrasive, nasty, loud person, you could not be funny. Don't.
- [24:19]
Billy Eichner
I wouldn't have the self awareness.
- [24:21]
Ted Danson
Exactly.
- [24:22]
Billy Eichner
Right. And so. And I thought. I mean, the first time we ever shot the video for that Same show in 2004, I had to circle Washington Square park four times before I worked up the nerve to talk to anyone, let alone shout at them. I was just talking to them at this point, you know. Cause I hadn't fully leaned in to the character yet, so it did not come naturally to me. And yet I saw the audience reaction and I thought, oh, God, I'm gonna have to keep doing this. It's too funny. And we did. And then it's a long story, you know, YouTube came along a few years later, and eventually the video start going viral, which led to the TV version of it, which really just became, ironically, a delivery system for more viral videos. Right. Which we took from the TV show I used to make a joke about. I worked for years doing videos on YouTube in order to get a TV show which creates videos that people watch on YouTube.
- [25:24]
Ted Danson
Yeah.
- [25:25]
Billy Eichner
You know, because if you didn't grow now, I guess kids grow up and YouTube is NBC.
- [25:31]
Ted Danson
I've been told, hey, get rid of all these different. Just have YouTube.
- [25:36]
Billy Eichner
Exactly. That's all right. So for me, in my mind, YouTube. I didn't equate YouTube with success because it's not what I grew up with, you know, you were only successful if you were on tv, like a proper TV show. So then Billy on the street becomes a proper TV show on a semi obscure cable network. But still. But then the success of it comes from segments taken from that show going viral on YouTube.
- [26:02]
Ted Danson
Right.
- [26:02]
Billy Eichner
So I know it was such an odd thing, but, yeah, I want to.
- [26:08]
Ted Danson
Keep talking about it, but let me jump in with Joan Rivers.
- [26:11]
Billy Eichner
Yeah.
- [26:12]
Ted Danson
Was Joan who you say was a mentor of sorts?
- [26:16]
Billy Eichner
Yeah.
- [26:17]
Ted Danson
From a distance or.
- [26:18]
Billy Eichner
Oh, no, in person.
- [26:20]
Ted Danson
Oh, wow. And when did that happen? Was that before Billy on the Street? Because there's something about Joan's style of comedy and Billy on the street, you could draw a line.
- [26:31]
Billy Eichner
Absolutely. To sum up the story about my dad. Cause that's how we really started. So my dad saw all those live shows and he saw some of those Billy on the street videos go viral. And then Funny or Die, the production company got in touch with me and we said we were gonna go out and pitch a half hour TV version of the show. My dad saw the sizzle reel we made to sell that show at pitch meetings, which is like a sample tape that you make to show how the show would function as a half hour show and not just little quick segments. Right. And we took that around and showed it to execs. My dad watched that sizzle reel and that's the last thing that he saw me do. And then a month after he died, we went and used that sizzle reel to pitch Billy on the street as a TV show and sold it.
- [27:27]
Ted Danson
How old was your dad when he died?
- [27:29]
Billy Eichner
He was 80 already.
- [27:30]
Ted Danson
Oh, right, you said.
- [27:31]
Billy Eichner
Yeah, he had me later in life, so, you know, he led a full life. But the timing of it was very strange. Joan Rivers, which my dad is also connected to, because when I was a kid, my parents and I used to go to what we call, like, what we call the Beach Club, but was really just a pool in the Bronx called Shore Haven. And this is where he went over the summers for a number of years. When I was very young, you know, between the ages of, I don't know, 5 and 10, and they would have performers come sometimes for the adults. And Joan Rivers came and I. My parents, once again, being my parents and letting me do whatever I wanted to do and letting me watch whatever I wanted to watch, I watched the most adult things. I don't mean porn. I just mean, like, you know, things that were meant for adults, serious films and things like that, you know, art house films and things. They just let me watch whatever I wanted to watch. And we watched the Tonight show every night. And I liked Johnny Carson, but What I really loved was Joan Rivers guest hosting for him. You know, Joan came to perform at the Shore Haven Pool Club or beach club when I was a kid. And it was an adults only show because Joan was so raunchy, even though it was in the middle of an August afternoon. But my dad knew that I loved Joan Rivers from watching her on the Tonight Show. And I think I'm 7 years old at this point. So he snuck me in to the show and like held me on his shoulders so I could watch Joan perform. And I vividly recall it. And years later, I mentioned this show to Joan because it was like an 85 degree, hot, humid New York summer day, but she still came out in the middle of the afternoon in like a long evening gown and a fur to give you Joan Rivers. But it was so funny. Cause it was so hot out. And when I meet Joan, years later, I tell her that story. And she remembered that show. She remembered that performance because she said, yeah, it was so fucking hot. And I'm there in like a fur coat. It's very Joan. So the way that I meet Joan is I'm doing that same live show. This is in New York between 2005 and 2008. We did it. I'm sorry, no, 2003 to 2008, off and on. In the middle of that, executives from Bravo come to check me out. Because at that time, if you remember, Bravo was the only network really putting gay men on the air in any significant way. Openly gay men, I should say. And they did the Queer Eye and all of that. They were looking to build off of that. And they came to scout me and they liked me. And at the time, they were putting together a pilot for Joan to host called Joan Rivers. Straight Talk. Straight Talk being a play on words. Because it was gonna be basically a prime time version of the View, but instead of Barbara Walters and four different types of women, it was gonna be more comedic. And it was gonna be Joan Rivers and four different types of gay men, right?
- [30:48]
Ted Danson
Doing Straight talk. That's great.
- [30:50]
Billy Eichner
Such a fun idea. But this is before, just before Joan had her resurgence, right before her documentary came out and before she won Celebrity Apprentice. So she's not, in her words, like super hot at that moment. But Bravo did this pilot and they were looking to cast it, cast the gay men in it. So they came to my show and they had me come in and audition for Joan. And then Joan, she liked me at the audition. And so she came to see my show in this 90 seat theater, you know. Cause she Loved theater, Joan, and she just really got me, and she loved me.
- [31:34]
Ted Danson
Did she see a clip of Billy on the Street?
- [31:37]
Billy Eichner
Oh, yeah. She saw the whole video when she came to the show. And then I kept auditioning to be part of the panel. They cast me on it. I guess I was supposed to be like the Joy Behar or something, the funny one. And then Andy Cohen, before he got his own show, he was on the panel, too, and a couple of other people. And that pilot ended. We shot it, but it did not get picked up. We did a Billy on the street video for the pilot, as if that might be a recurring segment on the show, should it get picked up. But it was not picked up. But Joan and I really bonded during that process. And like I said, she came to see my live show and she just loved how outrageous I was. And she just totally got it on every level. And I think she could feel my drive. You know, we were both. I was a gay Jewish kid who grew up in Queens and obsessed with show business, but from afar, not in a show business family, and not conventional, looking necessarily like a definite outsider. And she had similar aspects to her story, you know, and she. We just ended up staying close. And I reached out to her once a couple of years later, and at this point, I was starting to get really frustrated because everyone was coming to my show and watching my videos and telling me how great I am, but I couldn't get a job. You know, in the classic words of my father, again, if you're such a genius, why can't you get three lines on Law and Order? Okay? By the way, he wasn't insulting me. He was frustrated himself. He was like, I don't understand. People come to your show and they're falling out of their seats laughing, and all these agents and executives, and then you can't get a job that even pays, like $50. Like, you know, how come it's not adding up? And I was getting frustrated, too. And I reached out to Joan and I said, I don't know what to do. You know, how much longer can I go being told I'm all these very nice things, but no one's giving me a job, so what am I supposed to do? And she said, joe, she did a weekly standup show in New York for charity. Joan. Literally up until the day she died. I think the night before, she went in for that procedure that ended up killing her. She did stand up at this tiny little club. And so she said, come to my standup show. I'll set some seats Aside for you and a friend. And then we'll go upstairs and we'll have drinks and we'll talk. So we did, and. And we went for drinks with Joan after. And she had watched me for a few years now kind of have this frustration, you know, and she just gave me the most amazing pep talk, you know, and she talked about how many years it took her to get on the Tonight show as a guest and how it took someone. She was so unconventional, but it took someone like Johnny Carson, who was that respected and that revered and that quote, unquote mainstream, to basically say, this woman is gonna be on my show a lot, and give her that stamp of approval. So that anyone who might have been scared of her or not known what to do with her, that fear went away just because he gave her the stamp of approval. So she basically said, you just need that. It took me years to get that. And she gave me an amazing pep talk. And then, anyway, she was putting together Fashion Police at this point, which became a show she did for E, which was very successful, and she said, I'm putting you in that pilot. And so I made a Billy on the street style video for that.
- [35:42]
Ted Danson
Was this involved around the Oscars, or. No, this wasn't Fashion Police at the Oscars.
- [35:47]
Billy Eichner
No. It had started as a series of specials she did, which then turned into a weekly series for either.
- [35:53]
Ted Danson
Gotcha.
- [35:53]
Billy Eichner
So she wanted me on that. But even again, like, the executives weren't quite sure, you know, you know, a lot of questions around it. And then not long after that, that kind of gave me this. This little push that I needed to just stay in the game a little bit longer and see what happens. And she was very complimentary. And she named all these comedians who were now huge but that she had watched come up, you know, and she said, they remind me of you. You know, you just need to. I mean, maybe she was just being nice, but that little push, I even went and told my dad after, who at this point was starting to get a little nervous about what was gonna happen to me, rightfully so. And I even said to him, I was like, well, I just saw Joan, and she said, I have to stay in the game a little bit longer. And as nervous as he was, remember, Joan and my dad, because he's older, are from the same generation, so he really respected Joan, too. And he even said. He was like, well, if Joan says that, you gotta do it, that's so great, right? And so I end up sticking with it. And not long after that, got an email out of the Blue from Funny or Die. That led to Billy on the street becoming a TV show. And the very first season of it, you know, it became known as a show which had all these celebrity guests run around with me, but I didn't know any celebrities when it started, right? So the. I happen to know Rachel Dratch from SNL from New York. I knew her and she was hilarious. She had done bits on my live show over the years. So the first season of Billy on the street, the TV version of it, there's only two celebrity guests, Rachel Dratch and Joan Rivers. That's it. And obviously it all slowly but surely snowballed after that. But, you know, and then Joan passed away not too long after that. And let me tell you one more quick story, because I have to. In those years when I was struggling, and I think it was after that, the drinks I had with her that night where she could hear my frustration, not only did she put me on Fashion Police just for the pilot of it, but she said, I want you to put your man on the street videos on DVDs and drop them off in my lobby. Because at this point, Joan, after decades of being blackballed from mainstream late night TV because of Johnny Carson, she was finally being allowed to make the rounds again because her documentary had come out and was a hit and people had a newfound appreciation for her. So all these late night hosts, Letterman and all of them, which had all declined to have her on for years and years.
- [38:51]
Ted Danson
Sorry to interrupt, but why?
- [38:53]
Billy Eichner
Because Johnny Carson basically blacklisted her when she, in the 80s, decided to stop being his villain host and host her own show opposite him.
- [39:04]
Ted Danson
Oh, oh, okay.
- [39:05]
Billy Eichner
So there's a long history there that's very fascinating. And you can go into. And Joan, you know, she still loved Johnny because he made her career. It was just this very unfortunate falling out they had. And for many, many, many years, she could not get on a proper late night talk show because all the guys hosting those shows were, you know, so reverent towards Johnny, even though he wasn't even alive anymore. Um, but Joan had a resurgence at this point, and so she was making the late night rounds again for the first time in years, which was a huge thing for her. And she said, I want you to drop off DVDs of your videos, and when I go to these late night shows, I'm gonna leave your DVDs with all the showrunners and tell them you have to watch this guy, Right? I mean, people thought Joan was my grandmother because she was so Nice to me. And I would have to explain that, no, we had no actual blood relation. And I don't even know why she's being so nice to me, but she is. And she went and did Letterman at this time and she dropped off the DVDs with Letterman and I guess, you know, or his producer. And I'm sure they were like, yeah, okay, well, sure, we'll watch these DVDs of this random guy. Okay. You know, they probably never did. But then Billy on the street became a show and the videos started going viral. And who calls to book me, who has now discovered me and is a huge fan, but Letterman, right. And when you think about it, it makes sense because Letterman really created the on the street, you know, this anarchic on the street thing that I was, you know, clearly very influenced by. And I watched again, going back to my parents, even when I was like seven years old, they would go to bed and let me stay up and watch Letterman when he was on at 12:30. And they would say, why don't you go to bed? You're in, you have to get up, you have school. And I was like, I'm not tired, I need to watch Letterman. And they were like, okay. And so I would, you know, and I went up and I then I got up and went to school and was like a very good student, a total nerd. It didn't seem to affect me. This is just what I like to do. And so Letterman was a huge influence on me. And so then Letterman, you know, became a fan and I end up getting booked on Letterman for the first time. And I think in between getting booked on Letterman and actually doing the show, Joan died. It was literally a few weeks later. And the timing of it was so strange. But yeah, Joan, she was really. And look, she's a complicated person for sure, you know, and you hear stories about everyone. In my experience with her, it was this shocking level of support and encouragement from a true legend who just felt that I, that she wanted to help me out. Yeah. And I really needed it at the time.
- [42:12]
Ted Danson
This is going to sound, I don't know, either self serving or weird or whatever, but before you came, I was sitting outside and always trying to talk myself out of. Don't make this about you. This is about the guests.
- [42:27]
Billy Eichner
Please, who are you talking to? You're the king of making it about me, right?
- [42:33]
Ted Danson
And then I had this thought about your parents and wanting them, this is the weird part, to feel good about this interview. And then you just said. And I was also circled Joan. Because I thought that's amazing. Because I do see, whether I'm making it up or not, some of Billy in the street has that same kind of Joan energy that she was so good at. Anyway, the image I'll always walk away from, excuse me, from this conversation, is you on your father's shoulder at nine, you know, 90 degrees. Because your father wanted you to see Joan. Because he knew that you would appreciate that. That's an amazingly supportive, astounding thing that tells you all you need to know about your father. Oh, yeah, in my mind. Sorry, over here.
- [43:29]
Billy Eichner
That's absolutely true. And yeah, that's. I was gonna say that's the secret. It's not a secret. It explains everything. And it explains why even in my worst moments of self doubt, having that safety net, you know, you're just taught from a young age that it's all gonna be okay, you know? Cause we're here for you. Even in their absence all of these years, that feeling really stays with you, you know?
- [44:07]
Ted Danson
It does.
- [44:08]
Billy Eichner
It does. Now let me tell you one story about my dad involving you. Cause this is a natural segue because we've never met, I don't think. And I was thinking about you and your career. And of course, needless to say, you're a legend. And of course I grew up watching Cheers and all the movies and everything and loving you. But there's one movie which doesn't get quite as much attention, but I really associate you with it for a specific reason. It's the movie you did called dad.
- [44:43]
Ted Danson
With Jack Lemmon.
- [44:44]
Billy Eichner
With Jack Lemmon. And a young Ethan Hawke, I believe.
- [44:46]
Ted Danson
A young Ethan Hawke.
- [44:47]
Billy Eichner
And a young Ethan Hawke. And look at him now.
- [44:50]
Ted Danson
So.
- [44:51]
Billy Eichner
So my parents, again, being pretty into entertainment themselves as an interest and also wanting me to be happy. I loved the movies. So there was a period in my childhood where we literally went to the movies every Saturday night, just the three of us, right? And I almost always chose the movie, Right. Sometimes they're more adult things, sometimes they were superhero movies. It was everything. Indie movies, popular movies, it was everything, right? So we went to see dad, the film dad. And I remember it a. I remember loving the movie and being really moved by it. But the specific thing I remember is my dad. You know, he was a New Yorker and he was blunt and he grew up in the Bronx, but he was still from a different generation of. Of man. And he was pretty stoic, right? And that movie Dad, I remember him crying at that movie. And at the time he was dealing with his father, my grandfather who was getting older. And like the Jack Lemmon character, he was even more difficult than the Jack Lemmon character in the movie. And he was impossible to deal with. And him and my grandmother had been married 65 years, and he was driving her insane. He just became this very unhappy old man. And my dad was dealing with that. And I remember. I honestly think it's the first memory I have, and one of the very few memories I have of my father crying during any experience was watching that movie. And I was a young kid, I remember thinking, whoa, dad is crying. Dad. No. But really, it really stuck with me. And that movie just moved him. I mean, it moved. We were all crying. Everyone in the theater was crying. It's a very sad, moving film. But I just wanted to tell that to you because that memory has stuck in my head all these years, you know? That's great.
- [47:05]
Ted Danson
Thank you.
- [47:06]
Billy Eichner
Yeah. No, it's a beautiful movie and underappreciated, maybe.
- [47:10]
Ted Danson
Yeah. Gary Goldberg wrote and directed that.
- [47:14]
Billy Eichner
I know. I did a deep dive on it last night before I came here diving together.
- [47:18]
Ted Danson
That's great.
- [47:19]
Billy Eichner
I know. I read the whole Wikipedia entry for dad. That led me down a long road with Ethan Hawke and Jack Lemmon and Grumpy Old Men. I ended up on the page for Grumpier Old Men, the sequel that led me to Ann Margaret. It was a long night.
- [47:36]
Ted Danson
Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Come on. Jack Lemmon, once invited. I love this story. Invited Walter to go see a screening of a movie that he was a little bit nervous about. And it was an early screening, and they sat and watched it very quietly together alone in a theater. And the lights come up, and Jack turns to Walter and goes, well. And Walter said, I'd get out of it if you can.
- [48:15]
Woody Harrelson
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- [49:28]
Billy Eichner
I can feel when you're watching me. I like it.
- [49:31]
Woody Harrelson
It's the perfect marriage of love and deception.
- [49:33]
Ted Danson
I watch her. I assume she watches me.
- [49:36]
Billy Eichner
There's a traitor in the house.
- [49:37]
Ted Danson
Find the leak.
- [49:38]
Woody Harrelson
Black Bag is the most anticipated espionage thriller of the year. Who's the suspect?
- [49:43]
Ted Danson
Your wife? Would you kill for me?
- [49:45]
Woody Harrelson
Black bag we don't under 17 nanometer without parent. Only in theaters March 14 with special engagements in Dolby.
- [49:56]
Ted Danson
Let me. Let me just go back for the silly kind of anecdotes about on the street. Did you. Have you ever been attacked? Has anything gone awfully wrong? I'd love to. 1. And I can't remember names, so I'm terrible. But it was a black woman who you talked to, and then she got halfway across the street and your parting line was very funny, but on her back. And she turned around and let you have it?
- [50:23]
Billy Eichner
Oh, yeah, she.
- [50:24]
Ted Danson
And I can't remember who loved it and started writing. Some singer, some. Somebody, some actress.
- [50:31]
Billy Eichner
Oh, I was asking her about La La Land and Emma Stone, right? Yeah. And I asked her if she thought this was during. La La Land is like, you know, nominated for Oscars at this point and we're leading up to the Oscars, whatever year that was. And I asked her if she was waiting for the La La Land hype to die down. This random woman in the street, she really had no time for me, you know, she had real shit going on in her life. I walk away from her and then she starts crossing the street and she looks back at me and says, I don't know who you're trying to sass for a fucking camera, but you've got the right bitch to put you in the wrong motherfucking place. She just improvised that. I mean, that was her genuine reaction to me. And I was so grateful. Thought it was brilliant.
- [51:19]
Ted Danson
Quick question. Do you have to get people's permission.
- [51:23]
Billy Eichner
To show that every single person that I speak to on the street signed a release afterwards.
- [51:29]
Ted Danson
Did. And she did.
- [51:31]
Billy Eichner
On Facebook. Yeah. No, we're legally. That's one thing they would not let me mess around with, especially if I'm yelling at people and stuff. There's another. A woman. I get into a big Fight with. And what is. I think maybe based on views online, maybe the most seen clip it has online alone, not counting whoever watched the original half hour show on Netflix or whatever. It has over 100 million views. This clip. I get into this fight with the woman. She doesn't recognize me and she's not happy with me for being getting up in her face. And we end up cursing out each other and she ends up walking away. For those of you who know, it's the clip where the woman, she's like a middle aged white woman and she says, is this a TV thing or an Internet thing? And I said, actually, it's a TV thing and an Internet thing. And we get up into each other's face and she's like, I don't like your attitude. And I was like, I don't like your attitude. And she says, who gives a shit? And she walks away. And I said, who gives a shit about you, bitch?
- [52:32]
Ted Danson
I saw that. Yes, I saw that.
- [52:33]
Billy Eichner
That's a very popular clip. They're gonna play that at my funeral, sadly. So that woman walks away and then it's up to my producers to go up to her.
- [52:45]
Ted Danson
Clean up on.
- [52:46]
Billy Eichner
Yeah, exactly. And so they have to explain what this is because, you know, it always becomes a tense thing. It's like, oh, fuck, that is. We know that's gonna be funny, but will this person sign the release? Because it's funny, because she genuinely got angry, but that's also why she might not sign the release. So they go up to her and, you know, we're in New York near Union Square. And my producers explained, you know, he's a comedian, he has a show at this point, I think it's season four or five. So at this point, they had the advantage of being able to take out their phones and be. And show her, oh, look, here he is with Will Ferrell and here he is with Tina Fey. You know, he's a comedian. And that woman who was genuinely angry said, you know what, When I was younger, I dated Andy Kaufman, so I understand what he's doing and I'll sign the release.
- [53:40]
Ted Danson
Astounding.
- [53:41]
Billy Eichner
Only in New York City.
- [53:42]
Ted Danson
Yeah.
- [53:43]
Woody Harrelson
By the way, she must be Only Andy.
- [53:45]
Billy Eichner
Only Andy. And only in New York City I dated Andy Kaufman. So I understand this Billy on the street thing. So I'll sign the release. Like, you can't make that up. That is a magical moment.
- [53:59]
Ted Danson
Yeah. God bless New York City.
- [54:01]
Billy Eichner
Seriously. Yeah, yeah.
- [54:03]
Ted Danson
She got mad at me and was quick and biting.
- [54:07]
Billy Eichner
Oh, God, she was hilarious.
- [54:08]
Ted Danson
Would have ripped you.
- [54:09]
Billy Eichner
I Mean, I loved it. You know, I thought it was hilarious. It was a perfect encapsulation of what the satire of that show is, right? Which is this maniac who is so obsessed with. With the entertainment industry and the minutiae of it and awards season and all of it. That can't see beyond that at all. And why would you. How could you.
- [54:34]
Ted Danson
I love. Also with very well known celebrities, actors walking with you and the people have. Do you know who this is? No.
- [54:42]
Billy Eichner
No.
- [54:42]
Ted Danson
No idea.
- [54:43]
Billy Eichner
No. I know Chris Pratt at like, the height of his movie superstardom. Everyone thinks he's. Oh, he's Chris Pine. Someone says, oh, you're Josh Duhamel. They don't even look alike. Really. I mean, and it's. Yeah. I mean, that to me, is at the heart of that show. And it evolved over the years into certain things that were just silly or absurd. But at the heart of it is a satire of my own. My own love hate, relationship with my own fascination with Hollywood. You know, I'm taking that to its extreme.
- [55:19]
Ted Danson
No, it's brilliant. It is brilliant acting. Did you.
- [55:25]
Billy Eichner
Were you part of Upright, Upright Citizens Brigade? No, I did. Well, I was in that. I took all the classes. I did go to Upright Citizens Brigade. After Northwestern, at Northwestern, I just did theater. There's a huge improv scene at Northwestern, but I was not part of it.
- [55:46]
Ted Danson
So you were training to be actor?
- [55:48]
Billy Eichner
Oh, yeah. That's all I wanted to be. I just wanted to be on Broadway, you know. Cause my parents took me to see all that theater when I was a kid, and I saw Nathan Lane in Guys and Dolls in 1992, and I said, oh, that's the greatest thing ever. Nothing will ever get better than that. And I want to do that.
- [56:07]
Ted Danson
Have you let go of that or why don't you write a musical?
- [56:10]
Billy Eichner
Write a musical.
- [56:11]
Ted Danson
It only takes 11, 12 years.
- [56:13]
Billy Eichner
Exactly. It'll have to be grumpier. Old Men, the musical. That's how old I would be by the time that. By the way, I'm sure someone has tried writing that. I don't know about writing a musical. That's really hard and it takes forever. But I would love to do some theater in New York. It's what I started out wanting to do. And now sort of strangely, the only thing I haven't dabbled in. So I would love to do that. But, yeah, I just wanted. I was in theater class doing Beckett and Pinter and Chekhov and all the real shit. I know I say that on people who are like, huh?
- [56:49]
Ted Danson
But I love that. Cause that is the. You would not go, ah, Billy on the Street. Yeah, here he is doing Pinter, of course.
- [56:56]
Billy Eichner
But Billy on the street was just this odd creation. And to me, even though it's not acting in the traditional sense, it's not strict.
- [57:05]
Ted Danson
It's a full blown character.
- [57:06]
Billy Eichner
It's a character and it requires, in a way, it is acting 101. Because the main thing with acting is listening, working out the night. Right. And you better, if I'm not listening real close, that I can't do it. And what's really interesting about Billy on the street is that we all make assumptions about people. So I would go up to someone thinking I have some clue as to what this person's gonna know about or not know about by how he looks, by how they look in some way, age or how they're dressed or something. I'm always wrong. It truly is a lesson in don't judge a book by its cover. Especially in New York City. Right. And so the little old lady will kick your ass and waste your opinions about things that you just would not like. Why does this 80 year old woman even know who Selena Gomez is, let alone have all of these very, like, detailed opinions? Oh, and I saw her on the View when I saw her on Good Morning America. And you're like, wait, what? And all of a sudden you're in a 45 minute conversation with this elderly woman about, you know, Selena Gomez. And so. And that's the beauty of New York City and the beauty of, you know, of the show, I guess. Yeah. But for me, it was a character and I did, it did require certain things I had learned in acting school. Even though if you had told me when I was at Northwestern that my big break was gonna be running around the streets of New York talking, shouting at real people, I would have thought you were out of your mind. You know, it just kind of happened. It was one idea out of many and it just connected.
- [58:53]
Ted Danson
What I thought was brilliant about bros was your performance was you took people well. At least my perception of you at that point was mostly based on Billy, of course. And you took enough of that and brought it with you and then expanded into this. You're not this angry, afraid of relationship. Who gives a fuck? Who needs you? You are a vulnerable. Da, da, da, da da. And that, that's the story.
- [59:27]
Billy Eichner
That's the story.
- [59:28]
Ted Danson
And surely by the end you really are fantastic. You really, really are. And you just.
- [59:35]
Billy Eichner
Thank you.
- [59:36]
Ted Danson
You made the love story totally work.
- [59:38]
Billy Eichner
Thank you. Worked really, really hard on that movie. Movies as you know, especially when you're writing it.
- [59:47]
Ted Danson
So start that. Go back. How did this all take place? You decided you wanted to write, or someone came to you?
- [59:53]
Billy Eichner
No, no, no, no, no, no. Um, I. I did a. I had one scene or two scenes in a movie Nick Stoller wrote and directed, which was the sequel to Neighbors with Seth Rogen.
- [60:07]
Ted Danson
Right.
- [60:07]
Billy Eichner
Nick did the original one. I'm not in that, but he put me in a few scenes in the sequel to it. Okay. We had a nice time. A few years later, he casts me in a recurring role to play. Fred Savage was playing a gay character on a show on Netflix called Friends from College, which had two seasons, I believe, with Keegan, Michael Key and Fred Savage. An amazing cast. And Nick and his wife co created that show, and he directed all the episodes. And they wanted someone to play Fred's boyfriend and then husband on the show, and he put me in it. And I think on Friends From College, he realized that I was an actor, you know, that I was a real actor. I was, in his words, the story he tells, which I don't even know at the time. But the premiere of Friends From College, it was a Netflix show, but the premiere was at a movie theater. They showed the first two episodes at a movie theater in New York. And he said that when he saw me on a movie screen and the audience's reaction to me, he thought, we can build a movie around Billy, and he loves romantic comedies. And he had done Forgetting Sarah Marshall, by the way.
- [61:24]
Ted Danson
That's a huge phrase to say that we can build a movie around this actor, because not everybody can do that. Great character actors, great, wonderful actors.
- [61:35]
Billy Eichner
Some would tell you he made a horrible mistake, but it got handed to the guy. Go ahead. So he said that to him. That's what, like, sparked the idea. And then he reached out to me and said. He emailed me out of the blue and said, hey, I love making romantic comedies. I want my next movie to be a romantic comedy, but I think it would be cool if it was about a gay couple, because we don't get a lot of that. But I'm not gay, so do you want to write it with me and we can build it as a vehicle for you and I'll direct it. And he even mentioned then, you know, he has a close relationship with Judd Apatow. So he thought Judd. Judd had been looking for years to do a gay centric film and had tried a couple of times, and it never made it all the way through. And so he thought Judd would come on as a producer, and I was shocked and baffled. I was like, what? I've never written a movie. I've never even had a large supporting role in a live action movie, let alone be the lead. You know, I've done TV things, but it's a little different. And I said, okay, let's meet about it. So we met about it and I just said, okay, well, I don't know if I can do this. And I don't even know if I have a story to tell because I do love romantic comedies and always have. But at the same time, I'm not a big relationship person like the guy in the movie. Though I have had a couple of experiences, you know, which ended up inspiring, loosely inspiring what happens in the movie. And, you know, we just started meeting and hashing out what the story would be. It's a fascinating process because it really becomes like a series of therapy sessions. Ultimately, you know, for any writer, I think they understand that. I know a writer who I'm working with now on something who's written in so many different genres of film and tv, but he says everything is inspired by the fact that he's still heartbroken over this one woman that dumped him. Everything, even like a horror movie hero, it is somehow still, you know, is like, springs from that. So it became like a series of therapy sessions where I really had to dig deep and figure out, okay, like, well, what is the source of. Of my status as a person who does date or doesn't date or a lot. And thinking about my friends who, you know, many of whom are also gay men around my age and who are also, you know, a lot of them are great catches in every way, but still single, you know. And I thought about how gay men of my particular generation, again, I'm 45, like the generation 10 years plus above us and the generation 10 years plus below us, there is such an enormous generation gap, right, in terms of what the world was like between those two generations. Culture and politics. The generation above mine, I don't like to define them by saying they're the AIDS generation, but for many of them, their lives were forever impacted by that. And that is a reality. Losing aids. Aids, you know, because they lived through that. I was alive and aware of it and still was. You know, HIV was certainly an issue when I came out of the closet, but not to the degree that it was for the guys who were a.
- [65:12]
Ted Danson
Bit older than me and hence were. What, more apt to be in a relationship.
- [65:18]
Billy Eichner
Oh, oh, no, no, no. I'm Just talking about the generation gap between the two generations, you know, so you have those guys, right, A lot of whom lost their friends in their 20s and 30s, and they had no civil rights, no equal protection under the law. A lot of them didn' out or to later in life. Then you have the kids, I say kids 10 years younger than me plus who are LGBTQ, who grew up with so much more representation. I'm not saying they don't have their own set of unique challenges. Of course they do, especially trans folks. But it's very different than it was, right? And we didn't grow up with RuPaul's Drag Race and Heartstopper and all of this representation and the Internet, which made it, even if you were in the middle of nowhere, easy to at least access queer people online somehow. And my generation is very much perched between these two generations, and it's just an odd, interesting, fascinating place to be. And I think about that a lot. And some of the themes I talked about earlier, where in my generation, I thought. Or at least among my gay friends, I shouldn't say. My. I can't speak for the whole generation, but at least among the people that I know and myself, I had no problem with being gay. But there was this fascination and this. This drive to be masculine, right? To exhibit this type of bro y behavior that. That was sexy or, you know, and that's kind of what, you know, you were going after in some way, and that leads to. To putting up walls emotionally, you know, to exhibit this kind of stereotypically masculine behavior. Of course, it's all stereotypes, of course, but when you're young, you don't realize that. And I think that there is something to all of that, which I was trying to unpack in the middle of what also had to be a kind of fizzy and funny rom com, you know, But I'm more kind of serious minded than people think. And so I think. And even Nick, I think, at one point was surprised by kind of where I wanted to go with it, but that's just what felt right to me.
- [67:45]
Ted Danson
Which. Which part?
- [67:49]
Billy Eichner
You know, for instance, you know, there's a. Well, a. The first thing I said to him, even at our first meeting, was, look, I don't know what this movie's gonna be. I don't know if I have the skills to do any of this. But what it cannot be is, oh, it's When Harry Met Sally. But it happens to star two gay characters, because the way we conduct our lives is very different. You know, some gay men live Heteronormative, as they say, lives. And they go and they get married and have adopt kids and they live behind the white picket fence. And that's wonderful, and that's one way to go. But a lot of the gay men I know do not do that. And we do stay single longer and we do have open relationships and there are different conversations, different understandings about monogamy or lack thereof, you know, and I. What I insisted on is that to the best of my ability. And yes, within the framework of a major studio romantic comedy, I needed to be honest about these things. You know, what I said to Nick was the most important thing to me. Yes. I want it to be relatable to everyone. Yes. You want straight folks and younger people and older people. You want everyone in on it. You don't want it to be alienating or unclear. But my main priority is I want my gay friends to go and say yes, that's it. You know, you get it.
- [69:23]
Ted Danson
I'm sitting here grinning at myself because I watched and I was. I don't know about scared. That's a little heavy. But I was like. And I stopped watching it. And then I went, nope, I'm going to keep watching it. And then I got. And I went from the last third on and I went, dad, you're an idiot. Because I got that full blown love story, full blown human characters, full blown everything, and was enchanted by it. I mean, it's really good. Went back and watched the whole thing in a much more relaxed, calm way. And I think you really nailed it to me. I really do. Thank you. And the journey, because you did have to. Both of you had to give up something to be willing to at least be in a three month monogamous relationship or whatever the.
- [70:23]
Billy Eichner
Exactly. That's our happy ending. Which is pretty funny to give it away, but you've had a year or whatever. But no. Yeah. And it was important to me that both characters, that Luke's character too, had his own arc, you know, and that he wasn't just the pretty face, that there's more going on underneath that surface too. And it's funny because we're very, very different characters, but we share kind of the same issue. We just show it. It just manifests differently, you know, towards the beginning of the movie. And he's very much, you know, leading with his, like, aesthetic essentially. Like that's his armor against the world. And my character is leading with his intellect and kind of his militancy and his activism, you know, and. But they are both. And by the way there's nothing wrong. It's great to lead with your intellect and it's also great to be beautiful and look like Luke McFarlane. But I would imagine. But, but, but. So those aren't bad things and sex is great. And physical attraction, all that stuff is important. But there, there was a. With both characters, there is a fear of letting those different guards down. And they have to ultimately.
- [71:50]
Ted Danson
So yeah, I really thought you nailed it. I really did really like it. So I don't know if your brain works this way about targeting or thinking ahead, but 10 years from now, what do you want to be doing? More directing, more writing, more acting?
- [72:07]
Billy Eichner
Well, I'm starring in the grumpier Old Men reboot for sure. What do I want to do again? I'm in a period now where I am trying to get back to what I really wanted to do, which is to act more. That becomes. In our culture at large and in our industry especially, it's a pretty narrow minded place. A lot of the time, you know, a lot of people, not just gay actors, you know, people do get stereotyped as the one thing that first thing that people saw you do that they liked. For me, that's Billy on the Street.
- [72:49]
Ted Danson
Okay, but you just went from Billy on the street. If you had to put names to it, character actor to leading man. You did that with Bros. I really do believe that.
- [73:00]
Billy Eichner
Thank you.
- [73:01]
Ted Danson
That you look the last 30 minutes or whatever and you go, oh, wow, that's a powerful leading man.
- [73:06]
Billy Eichner
Thank you. It's funny that I don't really think, and I'm not being self deprecating, I. I would be very comfortable and probably always assumed, at least when I was younger, that I would just be a character actor.
- [73:22]
Ted Danson
Me too. And that's the way to go, by the way.
- [73:25]
Billy Eichner
Yeah, totally, definitely. Absolutely. And I certainly never. I mean, what happened with Bros was I never for a second, if left to my own devices, I would have never thought, oh yeah, I'm gonna write a rom com lead for myself. This would have never in a million years happened. It's only because Nick thought that I could and I had the opportunity. So I took it and I went with it.
- [73:49]
Ted Danson
Let me jump in. Because that's a big thing right there, which is willingness. Sometimes people say, how did you make it? How do I succeed? You need to be willing to go through a lot of crap, drop a lot of. Check your ego at the door. There's a lot you need to give up and be willing to give up. Not bad stuff, but be willing to give up, to be successful. And that feels like what you've done.
- [74:18]
Billy Eichner
Thank you. I think that's true. It's certainly when you are any type of unconventional anything in this business.
- [74:30]
Ted Danson
It.
- [74:31]
Billy Eichner
Probably means you're gonna have to work a bit harder. It just does. And you know, and then to have had Billy on the street, which I love and I'm so grateful for and love how much people love it, you know, now for me it's about going beyond that. It's basically what happens in bros. Like, you know, we built it that way for a reason. That the movie starts off and you're like, oh wow, this is like an intense person, you know. But it's about unraveling that because everyone is multi dimensional, you know. And in a way that's kind of my story off camera too professionally is to, you know, I want to just be able to play different types of people to not always lean into to that Persona.
- [75:30]
Ted Danson
Would you be willing to write them for yourself?
- [75:34]
Billy Eichner
I will probably have to if history is any guide.
- [75:37]
Ted Danson
But that's good. That's a good thing.
- [75:39]
Billy Eichner
It's good. Sort of.
- [75:42]
Ted Danson
I mean. Well, the reason why you may have to is not good. But the fact that you would write and have that creative part of your soul get exercised is a pretty cool thing, strangely enough.
- [75:56]
Billy Eichner
The writing or the. The being able to self generate, right. That was what made it all happen. You know, I never thought of myself as a writer in and I would dabble sometimes. I would write jokes or bits or things. In high school I did a little improv and I never in a million years would have thought that writing would be so much a part of it. But whether it's billion the street creating that for myself Bros which even though the idea of doing it came from someone else, when all was said and done, I still had to lead the charge there from a writing standpoint and teach myself how to do all of that. I mean Nick taught me a lot about structure, but I had to just kind of lean in and go for it and believe that I could write funny natural sounding dialogue and flesh out characters and you know, create this fictional world. And so the writing really has saved me. It just is also something I didn't expect would be partially by necessity such a big part of the process for me, if that makes sense.
- [77:12]
Ted Danson
Is your life almost all about creativity or do you do stupid stuff or what's your day off? What's your day off from being creative and confronting the world and all that? What's your day off?
- [77:26]
Billy Eichner
Oh, by the way I am totally lazy and love not working. I mean, that is a. I love not working. I. Sometimes I think people. There was a point in my life I was so driven to make it all happen, but now it's happened enough. Like, I don't need to be the most famous or the richest or this, that. And the other thing, I want to keep working and being creative and doing things. But, like, trust me, me, I'm also. I'm not. I know some people who do what we do who are enormously successful, you know, some of the most successful producer writers in our business. Right. And I just. I have profound respect for them, but they, in a way, sometimes I'm happy that I'm driven, but I don't have that. That level of drive. And I'm kind of relieved that I don't have that gene. Maybe it goes back to my parents. I think it does. Honestly, it all goes back to that, you know, like, yeah, I want to be successful and all that, but I don't want it to define every moment of my life. And I just want to be a normal human being, which, luckily, I think I've gotten to be. So I'm not as obsessed with it as people might think. I just work hard. When the time comes to work hard, what other things do I like to do? I don't know.
- [78:55]
Ted Danson
I have no fucking hobbies.
- [78:57]
Billy Eichner
Do I have hobbies?
- [78:59]
Ted Danson
I don't. I like to work.
- [79:02]
Billy Eichner
I mean, I read and watch stuff and I scroll too much on my phone. That's not a hobby. That's a terrible thing to do with your life. That I'm doing constantly. I'm trying to think. I mean, I don't know. You know, I have an old group of friends. I'm really lucky. I have a really. I don't have a big surviving family, but I have a old group of friends. And we are still from New York days from New York, from college.
- [79:32]
Ted Danson
Right.
- [79:32]
Billy Eichner
Oh, I still am on a thread every day with that consists of my best friend since high school, since high school, who is still my best friend. I talk to him nearly every single day. We're on a text thread with him and all my old college friends who he knows now for years through me. And we literally text each other every single day. And we're all over the country, but we're very close. And I spend a lot of time with my friends and we go way back. And for the most part, there are a couple of exceptions, but we weren't from show business families, you know, we weren't even from particularly wealthy families. So a lot of us have had to scrape and crawl our way to success. So we really appreciate it. We have a sense of humor about it and, you know, we like to have a good time. It's because life is too short to be caught up in all this show business nonsense all the time.
- [80:37]
Ted Danson
My hobby's hanging out with Mary.
- [80:39]
Billy Eichner
That is such a good. I want that hobby.
- [80:41]
Ted Danson
Yeah.
- [80:42]
Billy Eichner
Can I come over?
- [80:43]
Ted Danson
Yes, please. We don't even get out of bed. If we're not, you know, jumping in a car and going to work at 5 in the morning, then we're, you know, we're in bed drinking two or three cups of coffee and playing Wordle for an hour and a half.
- [80:56]
Billy Eichner
That sounds like heaven.
- [80:57]
Ted Danson
I'm sorry, it is heaven.
- [80:58]
Billy Eichner
I want to be in bed with you guys playing Wordle, talking incessantly about my career trajectory.
- [81:03]
Ted Danson
Billy, I am so chuffed that I got to sit around and talk to you.
- [81:08]
Billy Eichner
Likewise. Are you kidding? Ted Danson, you probably would never have.
- [81:11]
Ted Danson
Had me on, you know, Billy on the street, but I got an hour. I got an hour plus just talking to you.
- [81:19]
Billy Eichner
You're going to get me in bed. That's where you and Mary and me, that's where we're going to end up.
- [81:24]
Ted Danson
I think it's good that you add. I guess Mary can be jealous. Add the. The and Mary.
- [81:30]
Billy Eichner
Are you kidding me?
- [81:31]
Ted Danson
Jealous?
- [81:31]
Billy Eichner
Because Mary has to be there. Are you kidding me? But yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's. It's an honor. And I. And I'm. Please cut this down. I'm sure you will. It just. I. I always talk too much on these.
- [81:45]
Ted Danson
No, you didn't. And I gotta say, I have blazoned in my. My imagination. Nine year old you on your father's shoulders is an image I don't think I'll ever forget. That was such a cool story.
- [81:57]
Billy Eichner
Wow. Thank you. That means a lot. Yeah.
- [82:01]
Ted Danson
Have a great rest of your day.
- [82:04]
Billy Eichner
Thank you. You too. Ted Danson.
- [82:14]
Ted Danson
That was the super talented Billy Eichner. Thank you, Billy, for being here and talking with me. So appreciate it. That's it for our show this week. Special thanks to Woody and our friends at Team Coco. You all remember Woody. Woody Harrelson, star of film, stage and tv. Anyway, I miss him. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone you love. As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you have a sack, be sure and check this episode out. On YouTube too. That's T O O, not T double O. See you next time. And EVERYBODY knows YOUR name.
- [83:00]
Nick Leo
You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leo. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross and myself. Sara Fedorovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez research by Alyssa Grohl talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bautista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Genn, Mary Steenburgen and John Osborne. We'll have more for you next time. Where Everybody Knows your.
- [83:41]
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- [84:27]
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