Jason Mantzoukas

Summary

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Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (Sometimes)

Guest: Jason Mantzoukas

Release Date: December 31, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode features a warm, insightful, and deeply funny conversation between Ted Danson and acclaimed actor, comedian, and improviser Jason Mantzoukas. They explore the depths of improv, performing vulnerability, navigating personal challenges, and the power of community in comedy. The discussion flows freely—from childhood allergies and their unexpected impact on psychology, to professional paths, philosophy of art, and the joys and anxieties of being truly present both on stage and in life. Throughout, the episode is shot through with mutual admiration, candid humor, and a celebration of curiosity and ensemble spirit.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Magic of Collaboration and Improv

• Dynamic with Ted & Shared Spaces

  • Jason highlights that his comfort and delight are situational: “When I am with you, boy, am I delighted…Because that means one of two things: I’m on a show that is one of the most delightful places to be.” (02:14)
  • Both reminisce on the joy and openness on Mike Schur sets (The Good Place, A Man on the Inside), emphasizing the creative freedom and collaborative space provided by Mike Schur and producing partner Morgan Sackett.

    "He gives us the space to do just anything, you know, which is very exciting." (03:54)

• Unique Environment of Ensemble Shows

  • Jason underscores the importance of a strong ensemble, citing his history with Darcy Carden from The Good Place and ongoing improv groups.
  • The pair discuss the necessity of trust: “I cannot do this without someone to work with…having that relationship, that history, having that like that facility, that ease with other people is really...helpful in being able to improvise.” (15:14)

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2. Formative Years—Egg Allergy & Control

• Childhood Impact

  • Jason reveals the life-defining impact of his life-threatening egg allergy:

    “I was very much told I needed to be in control of everything I ate…so there was a real sense of like, I'm in charge…” (17:36)

  • Discusses how this necessity for certainty began shaping broader patterns in his emotional life, including relationships and risk—noting how this later became a breakthrough in adult therapy.

    “No child should be so aware of and in charge of their own mortality the way that a kid with a food allergy is.” (21:44, quoting another interview)

• Lasting Effects

  • The anxiety for certainty, originally about food, applied itself to creative, romantic and work relationships:

    “I was taking that same, I need 100% certainty, and applying it to romantic relationships, applying it to work relationships…just stuck a lot or moved slowly a lot…just because I was too nervous, too scared…” (22:50)

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3. The Path to Comedy and UCB

• Improv Origin Story
  • Began college with shortform improv before discovering “Truth in Comedy” and longform.
  • Moved to New York in the UCB's earliest days; studied under Amy Poehler (“an incredible teacher”).

    “She was incredibly good at giving thoughtful, cogent, absolutely incisive notes in front of the whole class that you didn’t at all feel exposed by. They were always pure truth.” (08:55)

  • Pivotal Note: Amy taught him that character is about point of view, not just outward quirks—freeing him to build more authentic performances (11:20).

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4. Breakout & Recognition

• Late Career Breakthrough
  • Jason’s on-screen acting work didn’t take off until his late 30s, after years on the New York improv scene:

    “Could not get acting work until my late 30s…And then one year I was out here and I booked two shows…The League…Enlightened with Laura…both so beloved, but also gave me such access to audiences who just hadn’t seen me.” (28:04)

  • The strong sense of community at UCB led to continual ensemble work:

    “It raised all the boats, you know, in that way.” (30:10)

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5. The Philosophy and Practice of Improv

• Improv vs. Standup

  • Ted and Jason explore the differences and dynamics:

    “Standups are primarily…an antagonistic relationship with the audience…Improv is the exact opposite. We need them…Even if it’s just the tacit understanding that they’ve said the suggestion.” (33:05)

  • On audience trust:

    “You have to come out and assert dominance over the room…so the audience knows, oh, okay, phew. They got it. They know what they're up to.” (34:56)

• Group Play and Making Others Shine

  • The “I make you look good, you make me look good” philosophy guides Jason’s work. Loves playing within a group, hates being alone on stage:

    “I need those other people. I’m not out here for singular glory.” (37:48)

  • Ted likens the ensemble to sports:

    “Basketball is what it is, a team sport. I wanted to be a basketball player, and when I couldn’t and I then found acting…because it was like, oh, ensemble, team.” (38:02)

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6. Creative Process, Vulnerability, and Self-Reflection

• Confidence and Limits

  • Jason is often “the spice” in a scene, which he must calibrate for film roles:

    “If I'm in the whole movie, that's too much spice...Finding that was a challenge." (43:32)

• Interplay of Preparation and Discovery

  • Ted discusses the actor’s challenge of being “in the moment,” noting the camera spots when you’re not truly present; Jason agrees:

    “If you, Mr. UCBer, are part of a group trying to find out where this group is going next, you can't be phoning it in. Everything it's going, yeah, it's all discovery. It's all curiosity.” (52:10-52:30)

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7. The Importance of Curiosity and Gratitude

• Curiosity as a Guiding Principle
  • Ted:

    “My new word, though, is curiosity. Stay fucking curious.” (52:55)

  • Jason:

    “All my characters have deep curiosity. Like a lot of—they all want to know everybody else in the show more…” (52:57)

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8. Processing Sadness, Hard Times, Activism

• Comedy as Catharsis

  • Jason describes how improv offered relief and connection after distressing world events:

    “For me, the ability to get on stage and process my emotions is the place that I, like, I am the most at ease…That is where I’ll process all of my trauma, all of my anxiety, my OCD, all this stuff that's…percolating. I will put it all on stage.” (62:25 - 65:19)

• Community and Performance Preference

  • Strong preference for the ephemeral, collaborative experience over being on TV:

    “If you were like, you can never be in a movie or on TV again, but you can still do this, I would choose this…" (65:25)

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9. Identity, Family, Heritage

• Greek Roots and Family Support

  • Jason’s parents, still living in his childhood town, are deeply proud of his fame, often tickled by community recognition (“even the dry cleaner knew about your allergy!”).
  • Explores Greek heritage, the contrast of his parents’ backgrounds, and a recurring wish that he’d studied the language to connect more with grandparents (76:44).

• Parental Love

  • “They came and saw me do not very good shows in not very nice theaters and were just like, you were incredible…Always so grateful because then…it was very clear to me. Always proud.” (74:53)

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10. Intellectual Curiosity and Prior Passions

• Ethnomusicology Fellowship
  • Post-college, Jason earned a Watson Fellowship to study trance-inducing religious music in North Africa and the Middle East—an intersection of his interests in religion and music.

    “I did an ethnomusicology project in North Africa…music that's meant to put you into contact with something holy.” (80:18)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On set with Ted:

  “Reacting to you is just a festival of opportunities…You are so much. Not too much. Oh, no.” – Ted Danson (14:05)

• On Darcy Carden (“Janet”):

  “Watching her on that show was revelatory…that is just like an incredible episode of television.” – Jason Mantzoukas (16:09)

• On Amy Poehler’s teaching:

  “She was incredibly good at giving thoughtful, cogent, absolutely incisive notes…They were always pure truth.” – Jason Mantzoukas (08:55)

• On his childhood control:

  “No child should be so aware of and in charge of their own mortality the way that a kid with a food allergy is.” – Jason Mantzoukas (21:44)

• On creative process:

  “Sometimes I’m like, why am I even looking at me right now? I’m not the one talking…sometimes I see Jason the improviser there, instead of Apollo…” – Jason Mantzoukas (56:16)

• On curiosity:

  “Stay fucking curious.” – Ted Danson (52:55)

• On gratitude and legacy:

  “You won’t probably ever know the extent to the ripples that you’ve put out into the world that make people feel good. I am…You are a marvel.” – Ted Danson (86:14)

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Key Timestamps

• Improv and Comfort with Ted: 02:14 – 03:42
• Mike Schur & Ensemble Magic: 03:42 – 04:54
• Amy Poehler as Teacher / Improv Roots: 08:22 – 12:45
• Egg Allergy & Childhood Confidence: 17:36 – 22:14
• Learning Identity Through Therapy: 21:44 – 24:11
• Improvisation vs Standup / Audience Dynamics: 33:05 – 35:10
• On Working with Darcy Carden: 15:14 – 16:42
• Group vs. Solo Work: 37:48 – 38:57
• Career Breakthrough & UCB Community: 28:04 – 31:23
• On Being Typecast vs. Leading Roles: 40:54 – 41:41
• Creative Calibration on Set: 68:00 – 69:09
• Comedy as Catharsis (Post-Debate Show): 62:25 – 65:19
• Ethnomusicology Fellowship: 80:18 – 84:49
• Ted’s Reflection on Jason’s Impact: 85:48 – 86:48

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Tone and Language

Throughout, the tone is candid, affable, compassionate, and deeply respectful—filled with laughter and moments of earnest reflection. Both speakers are honest about their anxieties and joys, never shying away from vulnerability.

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Final Reflections

Jason and Ted close the episode marveling at the joys of collaboration, artistic purpose, and mutual admiration. The episode serves as a master class not only on the culture and technique of modern American comedy and improv, but on the ways authenticity, curiosity, and ensemble spirit transcend the stage.

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For Listeners

Whether you’re a lover of improv, fascinated by the ins and outs of creative identities, or simply seeking some comfort and depth amid the chaos, this conversation is an invitation into how humor, vulnerability, and curiosity can shape a meaningful life—and why it always helps to have good friends (and scene partners) along the way.

Transcript

[Ted Danson]

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[Jason Mantzoukas]

Anxiety, my OCD, all this stuff that's like percolating, I will put it all on stage.

[Ted Danson]

Welcome back to EVERYBODY knows your name. Jason Mantzoukas is one of the most requested guests on Team Coco's podcast network, and I totally get it. He is a one of a kind comedian, actor and improviser. I witnessed his magic firsthand when we worked together on the Good Place and we got to do it again on season two of A Man on the Inside, which incidentally came out a couple days ago. By the time you're hearing this, it will have been out for a while. So let's get to it. Please meet my amazing friend, my hilarious friend, Jason Mantzoukas. You always appear incredibly happy and relaxed to be where you are, and I don't know if that's an expectation or.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Here'S what I'm saying. Yes, here's what I'll say that is true in your experience, because when I am with you, boy, am I delighted. Because that means one of two things.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I'm on a show that is one of the most delightful places to be. Good Place. A man on the inside. I've run into you in public at the Sundance Film Festival. We ran into each other and you were like, Jason. And I was like, I'm about to have the best conversation of the night.

[Ted Danson]

You made. I'm so happy.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, it's the best. So for you, it does appear that I am easygoing, delightful, and comfortable to be here. Now, if someone else were here, very.

[Ted Danson]

Different experience for me would be, yes.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

But I'm saying in your chair, I would be like, mistrustful and suspicious. I am fully available for you in a way that I would not be for someone else.

[Ted Danson]

That's very cool.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Thank you.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Absolutely.

[Ted Danson]

Thank you. Because I don't do shallow, but not shallow, but surface.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

No, you don't.

[Ted Danson]

Well, I don't.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You don't.

[Ted Danson]

And that I'm bad at it.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And that is, I will say, one of the true delights of knowing you. The little that I know you, you know, is, like I said, I know if I see you, we're going to have a real conversation. Yeah. And this town is full of not real conversations. And those are the conversations that I am implicitly or explicitly uninterested in, mistrustful of, suspicious of all the rest.

[Ted Danson]

So let's also add one thing that we are both, when we're at our best, under the umbrella of Mike Shore.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Always. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

You know, because. Oh, yeah, he makes. He throws the party.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. He gives us the space. He gives us the space to do just anything, you know, which is very exciting. And especially for a show that. Or shows that oftentimes have quite a lot of people, quite a lot of moving parts, there is still such a. There is such a comfort and a calm on those sets, even when it is chaotic and crazy that allows for true discovery and surprise and just mischievous fun.

[Ted Danson]

Throw in Morgan Sackett, who is producing partner, because he makes those things.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

All those writers that have been part of that stable of writers through every iteration, from Parks to, you know, Good Place, Brooklyn to Man on the Inside.

[Ted Danson]

What was your first? Mike Shore, Parks and Rec.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Dennis Feinstein. Born Dennis. Dennis Fiero. Not Fiero Dennis. Dante Fierro. He was born Dante Fierro, but it is part of the Mike Shore names, like all the names in Mike Shore shows are incredible. My character on Parks and Rec was named Dante Fierro, but when he moved to Pawnee, it was more. He changed his name to Dennis Feinstein because it was even more exciting and exotic than Dante Fierro, the perfume magnate of Pawnee, Indiana.

[Ted Danson]

Mike always says that it's. I mean, it's true that you have to spend. You used to have to spend so much time passing, you know, all the lawyers, because if you use a name that's remotely real out there in the world, you'll get sued, or you could be sued. So he makes up shit.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

What a fun game. What a fun solution to the problem of, oh, we can't use that name because there's already someone with that name. So just spend time with the writers, thinking up names that certainly no one had.

[Ted Danson]

Even in the scripts where lady crosses in the background, lady has a name.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

That Mike has worked On Everybody's Got Names. There must be. Be. I'm so curious. There must be a master names list somewhere.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And I wonder, or, or I wonder, I wonder what's on there. And I also wonder the names that they've been trying to get that just don't work.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, the ones that they're trying to sneak in there, but are just to call too much attention to themselves. It's very funny.

[Ted Danson]

And Amy Poehler. Yeah, yeah. Big, big part of your life.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I mean, huge part of my life. Oh, yeah. So I start doing improv comedy in college. Like short form games, style improv. Whose Line Is It Anyway? Style improv, little two to three minute quick games, you know, two arms. In college, at Middlebury College in Vermont, where on stage. On stage in like the student center. We would do the student center, which was like 400 people big. It was a big room. We would do like orientation for freshmen and you know, like the. It was a big room. We would do like every semester we'd do one or two shows, we'd write a couple sketches and then we'd do short form improv games. And then there was a guy on the team, Rodney Rothman, who has gone on to write for David Letterman and the Spider Verse movies. He got a hold of a book that was all about long form improv called Truth in Comedy that we all devoured and got super obsessed with it. And we're like, oh, this is. This is the shit. This is what we got to be doing. This is like jazz, man. And then from then we started doing not the games stuff, but like much more scenic, bigger, longer scenes, longer shows. Not great in college. But when we left, college was right at this time in New York, where the Upright Citizens Brigade, which was a team, which was a group from Chicago that had come up in the second City improv, Olympic annoyance, kind of collective of theaters. Amy Poehler, one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade, had just moved to New York and had started teaching classes. And so I started taking those classes because I saw them perform and was like, oh, this is the thing.

[Ted Danson]

Did you audition for her?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

No, there weren't auditions at the time. As. As if you had the. Whatever, $800 for the class. I can't remember, $600. Maybe at the time you could take the class, you know, and it was not in demand. There was no theater yet. There was no focal point around which we were kind of operating.

[Ted Danson]

And was Amy known by then? In other.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Amy wasn't known, but Amy, Matt, Matt and Ian, the Citizens Brigade had just made a deal to do their own Comedy Central sketch show, which over the next couple of years they did. They did two seasons of. For Comedy Central, just sketches. This is before Amy gets SNL and all of that. So my teachers were these people. And one of my first teachers was Amy Poehler, who was an incredible teacher. She is the child of two teachers.

[Ted Danson]

This is very lame, but give me an example of what notes might be like.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So I. Okay. She was incredibly good at giving thoughtful, cogent, absolutely incisive notes in front of the whole class that you didn't at all feel exposed by. They were always pure truth. They didn't have any.

[Ted Danson]

About your presentation.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

About what? You'd do a scene.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You'd do a scene and it would go well. Or not.

[Ted Danson]

You did an improvisation.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yep. So the scene would be. So the show. The. Sorry, the class would be a series of exercises that were scenic based, you know, and so two people would get up, they'd be given a suggestion, and then a scene would unfold. Three to seven minutes of a scene, let's say, depending on the class. And you're improvising everything. Nothing. There are no. Unlike short form, where there are kind of rules and guideposts and stuff, long form improv is just truly open ended. Anything can happen and you really are just in a scene with another person. And it's all about building patterns and relationship between us that we can then find something that is funny, which is then kind of called the game or the pattern, and then replicating it, heightening it into kind of absurdity, so that what the audience is watching seems to be something that is almost something we've pre thought out. Because as long as we are listening and responding and agreeing. Yes. And all the kind of improv tenants, as long as we are building something together, one of the ethos of improv is I make you look good, you make me look good. Like selfish. Play like, look at me, look at me, I'm funny. I'm funny. Ends up being a bad scene, maybe with funny moments, but a bad scene and the integrity of the scene is incredibly important because the show is a collection of these scenes. All that then kind of weave together in that way that, you know, Seinfeld or Curb, the independent storylines would kind of marry at the end and kind of collide into each other. So a good improv show that we would do is about 30 to 40 minutes, same thing. Long form scenes, scene scenes build out and then those scenes start to collapse onto each other in either Thematic ways or legitimately. That scene, the people in that scene just crashed their car into the people in this scene. And now all four people are in the same scene.

[Ted Danson]

Right. So. So Amy note.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So one of the great notes Amy gave me was it was specifically about characters, playing characters, developing characters, stuff like that. And one of the notes was, she was like, jason, remember, characters don't have to, like, sound weird or the characters can sound like you. Like, they. It was basically, the note was like, don't focus on. Like, don't go. It's not outside in. You know what I mean? It's not like, my guy walks with a limp or my guy have this voice. My guy, you know, like, it's just point of view, and it can be much smaller. It can be just. It can sound like you and just have a different point of view. And that was revelatory. That was huge for me. So freeing because I was really not great at all the other stuff. I was not great at accents. I was not great at all the kind of external stuff, but internal stuff. I was very good at coming up with guys who maybe sounded like me or stood like me, but definitely had for real, very different points of view. And that was. Opened up everything. I feel like that was a very significant note for me in terms of calming down, settling in and being like, oh, okay, this makes way more sense now. If I'm not focused on doing a bunch of outside stuff, I have to.

[Ted Danson]

Put a little parentheses around what you're saying right now to describe what's going on with me. Yeah, yeah, I am. When my sister, I've said this before, chased me up the stairs. We were playing chase or whatever. She's four years older. I'd get halfway up the stairs. I had a real lead on her, and I would stop and scream.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Like a bad horror movie. Why didn't the lady get back up?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

She tripped and keep going. I'm that way with improvisation.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sure.

[Ted Danson]

And I'm that way in this conversation. Yeah. I'm going, fuck, this is scary.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Talking to you right now is scary.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh. Because this is also similar to the time the first time we did a scene together on the Good Place, where I believe I was given the note. You can do whatever you want. And you were like, whoa, what do you mean? What do you mean? He can go anywhere. What do you mean? Just because I was very free and was improvising quite a bit. And I think you were just like that lean in of, like, this is exciting. There's something there's something cool going on here. But then, though. Wait a minute. What's going on here?

[Ted Danson]

You know what it is what you do, though. I have learned that I don't have to compete because I can't and who cares? But reacting to you is just a festival of opportunities. I don't mean dining out. Just you can't help but be amazed or stunned or delighted or what? Because you are so much. Not too much. Oh, no.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sometimes too much. You know what I mean? Sometimes too much. But in. In a way that is.

[Ted Danson]

No, no.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You pull me back, you know.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Cut to. I'm just jumping all around.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Please cut. Let's go.

[Ted Danson]

So. All right. So I don't know if nothing makes.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Me happier than being in scenes with you, because it is true delight.

[Ted Danson]

I watched just. I went down a wormhole. Cause I was supposed to be looking at a whole bunch of stuff, but I went to Darcy and you playing. And it's just magnificent.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It's the best.

[Ted Danson]

It was just astounding. And the form, the play where we were. We're in the universe where anything goes. And they hired you to be the anything goes guy. And it was such a perfect marriage.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah. And it very much helped and is aided by. It's all collaboration, you know, Like, I cannot do this without someone to work with. And if you give me Darcy Cardin, someone who, when we did. When we started doing Good Place, she and I had already spent 10 plus years improvising together on stage. So having that. Having that relationship, having that history, having that like that facility, that ease with other people is really can. Is enormously helpful in being able to improvise, be in the moment, find something, hone it quickly. And then maybe the next take. Oh, sharper still. You know, we can get sharper still. And that's a real shorthand for Darcy and I because we had just done it a lot and so we.

[Ted Danson]

Another parenthesis. Isn't she magnificent?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

She's the greatest. Oh, one of the absolute true grace.

[Ted Danson]

Astounding.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. And that was like. And another. It's also one of those people that. Wow. Watching her on that show was revelatory. You know, the. The. Not just the Janet, which was incredible, but then I think all the time about. And talk all the time about the episode where. In the Void and where Janet plays everyone. And that is. That's just like an incredible episode of television. Unbelievable. Like an unbelievable performance.

[Ted Danson]

And by the way, in a room that was totally disoriented, you didn't even know where the walls were. Because they were painted and sloped and everything. So you were on acid just standing.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

There, it seems it must have been incredibly difficult to do, which makes how well she pulled it off even more incredible.

[Ted Danson]

Okay, so this was cutting back.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

We're cutting back.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. To you being 8 or 9 or 10 or something. Are you sitting around the dining room table being the Jason that we know right now? Are you this version of Jason at that age?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sort of. At that age? Sort of. I'm your confidence. Yeah. I'm always a funny, confident kid. I'm a very. Okay, so.

[Ted Danson]

Who'S around that table, by the way?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

My parents and my sister. Very Melissa. Younger couple years, three and a half years younger, and my parents. My confidence comes out of, I think, a early learned sense of control over my life because I had this crazy egg allergy. I have a crazy life threatening allergy to eggs. So from the jump from, like, immediately, I was very much told I needed to be in control of everything I ate. So there was a real sense of like, I'm in charge because.

[Ted Danson]

Wait a minute. That is literally huge. Because most everybody on the planet is mindless when it comes to putting. Not everybody, but if you have no.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Like, oh, that is like a very tricky thing for. And this is like a real crazy.

[Ted Danson]

Breathe carefully is an equivalent almost.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It is without a doubt, like the thing that has. I think, in terms of what you're talking about, I felt confident, and I felt confident at a very young age. Not because I thought I was funny or hilarious or anything like that, but because I had to confidently tell adults, does the cookie you're trying to give me have eggs in it? I can't eat eggs. I had to be kid active.

[Ted Danson]

A lot of people sometimes went, oh, be good.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And then that mom would have to call an ambulance. I'd have to go to a hospital.

[Ted Danson]

How many times did that happen? Frequently?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

All the time. I went to the hospital three times last year. I went to hospitals in Mexico, England and Italy last year.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Because your pen doesn't help you.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

The pen will help. The pen helps, but the argument is always. My doctor's argument has always been, I'd rather. If there's a hospital nearby, you go to a hospital. The pen is for really. If you are in a place where it might be difficult to get to a hospital or the reaction is moving so quickly that you think you might not make it to the hospital, basically the pen is kind of an emergency. It's for, we might not get there. The hospital's 30 minutes away. This is moving quick. I'll do the pen. You know, you're not meant to, like, oh, I ate eggs. I'll do the pen and go to sleep here at home. Because you don't know. You know, it's not. The pen isn't like a miracle cure.

[Ted Danson]

You know, so you even have to think, maybe I won't go down the Nile, you know, or the Amazon for sure.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

But yet, like, I still would do all those things. I still put myself into all sorts of places and all sorts of positions.

[Ted Danson]

So you either get terrified and withdraw or you go, fuck it. That I'm going to be super alert and full steam ahead.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Correct. But still, this is important. Terrified. It wasn't that I'm not terrified. I'm confidently thrusting myself out into the world. I think it was very much like, I have to do this. I want to drive myself forward and out of the bubble I'm in. But still terrified that I'll make some misstep, that I'll fuck something up and I'll eat something wrong, and it will be catastrophic.

[Ted Danson]

So by eight or eight or nine or whatever, you had already crossed over into, oh, yeah. Full steam ahead.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Little adult guy. Little adult guy.

[Ted Danson]

Jason, I love you even more because that's huge.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. Yeah, it's huge. It's very funny. It's one of those things that I did not realize for an incredibly long time was so important, this allergy and how it had affected me throughout my life. And I. Then I was. I listen. I was listening to Terry Gross, a Fresh Air interview with an artist, and he had a nut allergy. And he just said something offhand about, you know, he basically was like. The sentiment was like, no child should be so aware of and in charge of their own mortality the way that a kid with a food allergy is. And.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And I, like, started. I was driving. I started to cry in the car and was like, oh, oh, whoa. That's like. That really resonates with me, that. And I really started to unravel at that. Went into. I'd been in therapy for years at that point. I went into therapy and I was like, I gotta tell you, I think that I was listening to this thing on the radio and the guy said this thing. I don't think I've ever told you, I have this egg allergy and blah, blah, blah. And I said this to the. To the therapist. And the therapist was like, how has this never come up? He was like, now this.

[Ted Danson]

How old were you at this point?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

In my 30s. Wow. And he Was like, this now makes everything make sense. He was like, I was really thinking about you because we talk about this and we talk about that and we talk about this and we talk about that. And I've really been struggling with what's the connective tissue between all of these things. And he was like, it's just this, this is the Rosetta Stone to understand the rest of it. And truly. And he was right. All of the other elements in my life that I was struggling with were really about somehow.

[Ted Danson]

Just for example, you don't have to go into the. Whatever the neuroses or the. Whatever the pain. But for example.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So for me, because I need a 100%. If you were like, hey, try this drink, even though that absolutely wouldn't have eggs in it, right? There's a part of me that's like, I don't know, like, a bunch of years ago, they started putting egg foam in cocktails. Like, I kissed a girl after a date and had to, like, do the EpiPen and because her drink had egg foam. Anyway, so I need kind of. I've decided I need a guarantee to move forward with something for. With food. Right. I need to. I need someone to tell me 100% that's safe for you, and if nobody can, I won't eat it. Right. I was taking that same. I need 100% certainty in this relationship and applying it to romantic relationships, applying it to work relationships, group dynamics. I was applying it to everything safer as an island. I won't move forward until I know for sure my next step is safe. And that's, you know, I just got stuck a lot or I moved slowly a lot in those years, you know, just because I was too nervous, too scared too, you know, what if a bad thing happens? But bad things have to happen. They're not life threatening the way that a cookie or whatever is. So that's kind of what it was. That's the biggest way I think it impacted me.

[Ted Danson]

Gotcha. Hey, thanks.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Hey.

[Ted Danson]

Of course, it does kind of make you come into focus even more.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Wow.

[Ted Danson]

Okay. I've just learned about a serious but rare heart condition called attr, cardiac amyloidosis, or ATTR cm. If you have ATTR cm, you may experience symptoms related to heart failure, like breathlessness and swelling of the legs, but also have issues that seem unrelated, like carpal tunnel. There's a treatment option that may help called Atruby or Acharamatis. Atruby is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with ATTRCM to reduce death and hospitalization due to heart issues. In a study, atruby helped slow the progression of ATTR CM and reduce heart related hospitalizations by 50% when compared to people not receiving ATRUBE. Tell your doctor if you're pregnant, plan to become pregnant or are breastfeeding and about the medications you take. The most common side effects were mild and included diarrhea and abdominal pain. If you have ATTR CM, talk to your cardiologist about a Truby or visit attruby.com that's a T T R U B Y.com to learn more. Brought to you by Bridge Bio this episode of Where Everybody KNOWS your Name is brought to you by Primal Kitchen. Life is full of hard decisions. Choosing a cooking oil doesn't have to be one of them. Primal Kitchen is here with Pure Avocado Oil, a healthier, versatile option for your everyday cooking. Primal Kitchen Pure Avocado Oil works for every recipe, grilling, sauteing, baking, air frying or marinating. It's pure and quality tested, never blended with other oils. Its light, neutral flavor let your ingredients shine and with a high smoke point, it's built for high heat cooking. Plus, it contains healthy fats from avocados so you can feel confident using it every day. At Primal Kitchen, their mission is to make real food exciting and delicious so you can feel good about every bite. It's easier than ever to find Primal Kitchen Pure Avocado Oil because it's now available at Walmart. You can find Primal Kitchen in Walmart stores or online at walmart.com and primalkitchen.com youm probably think it's too soon to join AARP, right? Well, let's take a minute to talk about it. Where do you see yourself in 15 years? More specifically, your career? Your health? Your social life? What are you doing now to help you get there? There are tons of ways for you to start preparing today for your future with aarp. That dream job you've dreamt about? Sign up for AARP Re Skilling courses to help make it a reality. How about that active lifestyle you've only spoken about from the couch? AARP has health tips and wellness tools to keep you moving for years to come. But none of these experiences are without making friends along the way. Connect with your community through AARP volunteer events. So it's safe to say it's never too soon to join aarp. They're here to help your money, health and happiness live as long as you do. That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP learn [e-mail] wisefriend. All right, so go. Go to fame. Where was that line where you went, oh, fuck, I'm famous. Or ooh, people are recognizing me.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

What.

[Ted Danson]

What brought you up to.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Not until. So I'm an improviser in New York for many, many years. I do a number following.

[Ted Danson]

People knew you from that?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes. People might recognize me on the street and say, hey, I saw you at UCB or something like that. I was a big fish in that pond. But then. But still would. I would, you know. I wrote and performed a series of sketch shows with a woman named Jessica St. Clair, who's incredibly funny, incredibly talented. And we did a series of like Nichols and May style two person sketch shows. And we. So our first successes were we would do those as stage shows. We would sell those shows to one to Comedy Central, one to hbo. We would shoot a pilot, it wouldn't get picked up and we'd move on. And so had a bunch of successes in that realm, selling pilots, selling scripts, writing stuff, but really could not get acting work until my late 30s. I would come out for pilot seasons. I would test a little bit here and there, wouldn't get it very frustrating. But was still having tremendous success on stage. Was like doing a million shows, had a great setup in New York and was making a living as a writer, essentially. And then one year I was out here and I booked two shows just as a recurring character, just two small parts. One was on a TV show called the League, which was all improvised. And one was Mike White's show Enlightened with Laura, which was the opposite of improvised. It was very rigid. And those two shows were both so beloved, but also gave me such access to audiences who just hadn't seen me. Meaning because of those two shows, people hired me for other shows. Like, that's because of the League. I get on a Modern Family episode. That's when I get onto Parks. Amy very much, very wonderfully gets me onto Parks and Rec. You know, there's a bunch of stuff. And all those people, like Amy and Tina gave me a small part in Baby Mama, the movie Baby Mama.

[Ted Danson]

They did.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So, like there was a real. One of the wonderful things I can say about UCB was it genuinely had an ensemble. Not that there weren't rivalries or anything like that, but there was a real sense of like, a lot of my early jobs were like, Rob Cordry gets a deal to do Children's Hospital for Adult Swim, a very funny 12 minute show for adult Swim, and turns around and Hires all of us, our friends, our group to be actors and writers on the show. And those were tremendous successes for me. Even. Even in that. In that bracketed period where I'm like, just trying to hustle and trying to get a leg up. Like, a lot of it is my friends being like, hey, Scott Armstrong, let me help you get your movie pitch to these people. Or Cordry hiring me for children. Like, that stuff was hugely impactful. You know, just those relationships and the people that were willing to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're all going to benefit from this. And that kind of sense of community, which was very present at UCB at that time was like, absolutely huge for all of us. Like a. It raised all the boats, you know, in that way.

[Ted Danson]

Did you have. I mean, I'm a hired gun actor. I'm not stand up. I don't have my own voice. I'm not a writer. I'm the bridegroom who shows up at the last minute and goes, wow, look at all this.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Hey.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

They really built it all. Wow. Who wrote this? Looks great.

[Ted Danson]

I'm not sure I'll say this word that took three months to come up with. I have.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Well, that's better than me because I'm usually like, I don't know if I'm going to say any of these words.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, but you do, by the way, when you say you get carte blanche on things like that.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

No, no, I do.

[Ted Danson]

You really don't. You get a pass at the words.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

And then they turn you loose.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Correct.

[Ted Danson]

And by the way, here's another thing you're really good at. Then I'll get back to Heroes. I want to go back to heroes.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sure.

[Ted Danson]

A lot of times, improvisation. Actors who are good at improvising, you can a lot of times go, here's the scene. Here's this. I'm following the scene. And. Oh, here comes the moment at the end of the scene where this is a button place where they let the funny guy go and it stands out that way.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sure.

[Ted Danson]

It's very much not part of the scene anymore. And sometimes it's funny, but it has a consequence which pops you out of scene. I think that's my two sides.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Absolutely.

[Ted Danson]

You're really good at not doing that.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh. Oh, thank you.

[Ted Danson]

That may be UCB trained, folks. I don't know.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Ted Danson]

You know what? Sorry. A lot of times it's the stand up.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

And stand up's different. Cause standup is. I find myself going, please throw the football back. Yes, Please Throw it back my way.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And that's hard. And that is a real different. I will say a real difference between stand up and improv is stand ups are primarily have only themselves.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And it is an antagonistic relationship usually with the audience, us, me versus them, you know, like I killed. That's all that kind of language is. Or, and the, the. If it's not going their way, it's. They're attacking the audience. It's a almost combative dynamic or relationship. Improv is the exact opposite. Like we need them. Yeah, we need them. Even if it's just the tacit understanding that they've said the suggestion or whatever or you know, we do, I do a show where we talk to the audience a little bit. Just chit chat, talk to them about like oh, you know, what's the drama in your family right now? It's who's got, you know, like we just ask them very open ended but specific kind of questions about their lives and people will say like oh, this or that. And then that becomes the raw materials for the scene work. And the reality is an improv show, it only happens once. Right. There is no, we're not repeating any of these. This is a one night only.

[Ted Danson]

That's called something else that becomes descripted.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. So for us and the audience, there's a lot of forgiveness from them because they know we're making it up. Everybody's kind of in on it. So it's not an improv audience I find is a stand up audience is kind of like, okay, show me what you wrote.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And an improv audience is like, where are we going? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? And at first they're nervous because truly there's nothing worse than bad improv. Nothing, nothing. Absolutely nothing worse. You are trapped in a theater and people are flailing. It's awful. So it takes people, an audience, you really have to like come out and assert dominance over the room to be like. So the audience knows, oh, okay, phew. They got it. They know what they're up to. So now I can just enjoy it and laugh and that is.

[Ted Danson]

Or that's. Is that a trainable thing? You think that? Because in any art form you do as the audience or the observer of the art, want to be reassured immediately you're in safe hands, relax.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Correct.

[Ted Danson]

So what you just said about coming out and I don't know how you.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I said dominating. But like you just need to establish confidence. What you're saying, have I always been this Confident. Confidence is, like, absolutely essential, you know, on stage, you know, because the audience is predisposed to be nervous that you don't know what you're gonna do.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And that's part of it. And so. Oh, God, I hope this isn't one of those bad ones. That stinks, you know, and so you have to come out and. And basically let them know you can relax. We got. We know what we're doing. Don't worry about it, you know, and. And it's always, you know, that those first couple of beats are a temperature check for the audience. Like, are they with us? Are they not? Where are they? You know, what's this? You know, like, what's this? What's the vibe tonight? You know, is a very interesting. It's a very interesting component of the beginning of an improv show is like, oh, who are these guys? Oh, okay.

[Ted Danson]

Who are your heroes? Go back. Do you have anyone?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I mean, like, improviser type heroes or.

[Ted Danson]

As soon as I asked that, I went, well, you're not going to look at. Dick Van Dyke was one of mine.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sure.

[Ted Danson]

That's because he's in the same. You know, or Mel Brooks or any of those funny.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Well, Mel Brooks, certainly Carol Burnett show was instrumental. Like, the two sketch shows that I watched the most growing up were the Carol Burnett show and the Muppet show, you know, absolutely. Two foundational texts for me in sketch comedy, you know, and then eventually finding, like, Monty Python and Kids in the hall when those started coming out and being. When you could find those here, it's different, though.

[Ted Danson]

I'm guessing. Monty Python was not improvised.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Not improvised at all. Improv didn't exist, really, that I could, like, watch or access until Whose Line Is It Anyway? Started airing. British Whose Line Is It Anyway first started airing in the States, I think maybe Comedy Central or maybe it was called the Comedy Channel at that time was airing it. And then every once in a while you'd see Jonathan Winters would be on Carson and his whole thing was improvised and Robin Williams too. But Jonathan Winters especially, I understood what he was doing was very much improvising. And so that was. And that was cool to watch. But, I mean, I only saw him a handful of times because this. You didn't have VCRs or. I couldn't record stuff, but I. I saw it a handful of times and it was dazzling. What. What he would do was incredible, but it's really not until who's Lying? And then later, it was all theatrical improv. It was all scene shows that the UCB would do.

[Ted Danson]

So your happy place is group.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. Oh, ensemble. Yes. I'm not interested in being alone on stage.

[Ted Danson]

Me too. At all.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I need those other people, and I need those other people, like, to be. It's that thing I was saying. I make you look good, you make me look good. I'm not out here for singular glory.

[Ted Danson]

Basketball is what it is, a team sport. I wanted to be a basketball player, and when I couldn't and I then found acting, I recognized acting because it was like, oh, ensemble, team. I got it.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And that's what, like. And I feel like that's what a man on the inside has. That's what the good plays has all the way back to. For you. Cheers.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, like. Like what? Like that ensemble. Like the ability to bounce between. Not just. Not just like all these incredible actors, but these characters for whom you might be having a intense alcohol related story for Sam, while, you know, Rhea Perlman is having some chaotic, insane story that is hilariously and broad. You know, you guys were doing stuff.

[Ted Danson]

In that ensemble because the writers wrote brilliant characters. Partly. They hired brilliantly. They could go anywhere. Yeah, anywhere.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And did.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

That's the thing about that show that I feel like, because I've been rewatching Cheers as like a. Like, I'll always. Yeah, I'll always watch a sitcom at night, last thing before bed, like, all right, I'm ready to start winding down. And. And Cheers is absolutely one of the greats, because you don't anymore have storylines in half hours that are so emotional. And you guys had real emotional storylines, not just bits and jokes and stuff like that. You had real stories snuck in there. Heartbreaking stories for Coach. Like, incredible stuff.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. I think that's why I was allowed to go on to other things, was the character was fully rounded. It wasn't just a stereotype joke.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And it wasn't like, oh, Ted, dancing is just Sam Malone. It's just that. No, you could immediately go and be a different character.

[Ted Danson]

Talent is basically, I play Sam Malone over and over again, just in a doctor's outfit or it worked, so why not?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm just playing a maniac, just in different outfits. Absolutely.

[Ted Danson]

I only saw. I apologize.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

First of all, I don't accept your apology. I just want that on the record. Fuck you.

[Ted Danson]

I was so tired of watching it. I only watched part of it. That's not true. I only saw a snippet of the long, dumb robe.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

I say this a lot, but I. I really mean it. I. I Think you should be, like, doing leady man parts. Yes. Maybe with a quirk or something, you know, not kill your humor or your impulse or whatever. But you are leading man because you have such depth inside of you. And maybe some of the stuff of what you had to live with in life or just your humanity, you should be doing.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I love that.

[Ted Danson]

Out of the park. Different. But leading man, you really should.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Incredibly sweet to say that. I am a character actor. I am thought of as a character.

[Ted Danson]

Character actors can play leads.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, I agree.

[Ted Danson]

Absolutely. And they can play him forever. And I really. You should put that in your little magic.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I'm out here trying. I'm out here trying. It is tough. It is genuinely tough to get people to consider me for roles that are not the sketchy guy, the creepy uncle.

[Ted Danson]

No, I understand. Because you're so good at something that.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

They want it more.

[Ted Danson]

You're the perfect thing. But I swear to God, you will one of these days.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I would love it.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Yes, I would.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, I would love it. I would love the opportunity.

[Ted Danson]

Genuinely.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

All I want is to be a romantic lead in a rom com. Like, why can't I be divorced guy who's looking for a relationship now, you know, like, what's that? That would be.

[Ted Danson]

You will, bro.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, I would love that. Yeah. Oh, no. You and me, we're gonna do it together.

[Ted Danson]

But you were that. I didn't see the whole thing, but there was a calmness. It was still you.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

But there was a calmness to it.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

That was really the first time. I will say Long Dumb Road. Written and directed by Hannah Fiedel, fantastic writer and director. The first time that I'd ever had to consider a performance that would have to unfold over the entirety of the piece. I'm so frequently just, oh, you're in these two scenes or you're in. Just in this bit or that bit, or you're in the beginning in the end or whatever. I very rarely have to like, modulate and be like, wait a minute, where am I in the story in this scene? You know, and try and figure out how to do that was like a whole new thing for me for the Long Dumb Road. And it was difficult, you know, it was a real learning experience to try and. And I will say Tony Revellori, It's. Who's the. The young actor who's the opposite me in that. It's like a classic road trip 2 hander movie. Is an incredible actor. And so working with him, I was like, oh, this is helping me. He is so fantastic. And Hannah, the director, because of what I was saying earlier, because I'm so often a very strong spice added to a dish. Sometimes too much of that spice, if you're gonna. If I'm in the whole movie, that's like too much spice.

[Ted Danson]

Playing spice.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes, but not you, so. No, not me.

[Ted Danson]

No.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

But finding that was a challenge.

[Ted Danson]

Mary and I are nerd about acting. We both studied under the same technique. She went to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York in 1972. I went to Carnegie Tech, then went to New York in 72 and studied under somebody who had studied with Sandy Meisner.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sure.

[Ted Danson]

So it was that Meisner technique, which.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Is basically that Meisner technique, which is.

[Ted Danson]

All about getting out of yourself.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Which is all about getting out of yourself and repeating and repeating.

[Ted Danson]

Quite honestly, twirling your beard.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, twirling your beard. You're twirling your twirling. You're twirling. I'm twirling my beard.

[Ted Danson]

Fucking ever. Until you go, this can. This can't be good for me.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I took a class and I was like, I don't know.

[Ted Danson]

I don't know if this is for me. Right. But it does teach you to get out of yourself and not. But work off the other person.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes. Notice, react, respond.

[Ted Danson]

Which is funny because you are, on some levels, it seems like the opposite of the Meisner technique, but on the other side of it, you have to be paying fucking attention to always, literally everything that's coming out of the other person.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Always.

[Ted Danson]

You have a mission, all of you, to be funny and to be this and to be that. But you are working off the other person.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And much like this.

[Ted Danson]

I saw that. Sorry.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Working with you. And the last thing we just did together, which just came out, by the.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Way, a man on the inside. Season two.

[Ted Danson]

Season two. And you are very funny and a little wacky and all of that. But I remember trying to start to leave because we had a little side scene. And then the.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

The other scene was going on in the other room.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You needed to go join.

[Ted Danson]

That. I need. My character needed to go join. And so I was trying to get away, but you kept adding little very funny things. And then I start to walk. Oh, you're leaving. You know.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, you know, you would call out what you're doing, you know.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, you know, that's like a classic for me. That's a classic move to just say out loud what's currently happening in the scene to me, the actor.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Like, oh, are we done? Oh, okay. Okay. Oh, talk to you later. You know, like. Yeah, just like. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. Just. Again, seeding. It's what you were talking about earlier of like, oh, some people are chasing a big button. They think like, oh, and then at the end, I'm going to clobber it with this big line or this big joke or something or other. And I'd much rather sprinkle a bit of weirdness at the end. Like. Like something that's just like. What was that? What was that weird little. Little aside.

[Ted Danson]

But your weird thing didn't come out of nowhere, which is, I would argue what Sandy Meisor would hate. And you made up something before it came off of me.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It came off of exactly what you were doing, which was you were trying to extricate yourself from talking to me. Your character doesn't want to talk to me anymore. And so for me to just call that out was very funny.

[Ted Danson]

I have my version. Or actors who aren't good at improvisation have their version, which is. I really came up with something, a way to do this last night that I want to show you now while the cameras are rolling.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, no. And I think that's. That's. I mean, 99% of people on sets are prepared, you know, are. Have made choices already, are. Have worked on this. You know, I'm only now in life getting better at working on things like really script analysis and really digging in on stuff that. That's. I did it in reverse, you know, I mean, like, I am so. I'm so much more comfortable on a set that I can improvise on than a set that is. Requires me to be kind of word perfect, you know, That's a much harder endeavor for me and much more daunting.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, for me, too. My brain.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. But I will say, like, watching you, it seems effortless, you know, it is.

[Ted Danson]

I have a crapload of psoriasis under my wardrobe, I'm sure, as a result of looking effortless.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. But it really is like. It's. It is. You know, I've been watching you since I was a kid, you know, whether on TV or on sets as an adult. And it is. It's a cool process. It's cool to watch you slip into these guys, you know, and. And that, like, especially the Good place, that mischievous evil that, like, twinkle. That's. I mean, that's.

[Ted Danson]

I had no idea how to play the first season because I didn't know.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You didn't want to tip it?

[Ted Danson]

No, you couldn't tip it. You had to. If People were to look back, which they do because they watch it over and over again. That show, I love that. But you have to go. This is real in the moment for the audience watching because they don't know the twist. And if you look back, knowing the twist, it has to be real as well. And to the point where I couldn't go because not everyone knew this.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. On the set you couldn't ask questions because nobody. Yeah. And also you needed to play a character who in success you could continue to play in season two without having to make it a new guy who now is evil.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, it's. No, it's got to be.

[Ted Danson]

I heard so many directors who, who didn't know this. They only told the directors.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Didn't.

[Ted Danson]

No.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. I mean, one or two.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Who were in the beginning of Drew and whoever else got it. Yes. So I would go, I'd go, hey, I have a talking to the wrong person.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sorry. Where's Morgan? Oh, yeah, that. What, What a singular challenge though. Like, I feel like actors talk about having a secret all the time. Like I don't know if that's still a relevant thing, but you know, like that idea of that, that cliche of an actor has a secret, but like you really did have a, your character had a secret. And that is, that is a. I, I, that the. I didn't see. I think of myself as a very savvy TV watcher, movie watcher. That twist shocked me like I was, it got me. I was so, because I, I was so in on the show and then that I didn't, that I didn't see it coming was so incredibly delightful. I'm so rarely surprised that it really, it really got me.

[Ted Danson]

I can thank my friend John Krasinski for not being a blabber mouth because even before we started shooting, he was going off. I had just gotten a good place and we were about to shoot and he'd just gotten some big movie and was gonna go do this huge, probably the quiet place.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So you guys were both in place. You guys were both in places good. And the quiet.

[Ted Danson]

No, but it's kind of that story because I was slightly.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You guys mostly work in place based things.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, solely. And this is why he said what he said to me when I described, said, hey, I want him to know that I was going to do something cool too because he was going to go be a big fucking movie star. So I went, hey, I'm going to be working with your friend Mike Short. You work together in the Office. Oh, yeah. And yeah, I played this architect. It takes place in the afterlife. And I'm an architect who designs this whole village community for the afterlife. And I could see his eyes go, oh, okay, yeah, it's the Office, but. But in heaven. And I saw that and I went, no, no, you don't understand. Because at the end of the first season, I become the. You discover the devil. And he went, oh, that's good. And I went, yeah, it's good. And I walked up feeling. Going, oh, oh, no.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Why did I have to. Why did I have to beat time?

[Ted Danson]

But wait, moving back. Another thing that makes you such a good film actor, you UCB folks, is because it's the camera. I love this camera. I think I always want to act for many reasons, but one is to get it right. It's 50, 50 at best. And I'm giving myself credit to say, 50, 50, that I will truly be in the moment.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Right.

[Ted Danson]

You can get close to the moment and then a part of your brain goes, wow, look at me, I'm in the moment. And then you're out. And the camera sees that. The camera knows whether you are truly in a position to surprise yourself because you don't know what's coming because you're so lost in the moment, or no, you're just now giving me a facsimile. Something.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

Of being in the world.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes. And a lot of times I feel like that can look like what you prepared.

[Ted Danson]

But if you, Mr. UCB er. Are part of a group trying to find out where this group is going next, you can't be phoning it in. Everything it's going, yeah, it's all discovery. It's all curiosity.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

Which is my new favorite I love right now. At my age, maybe when I approached 70s, gratitude became a very valuable word. And real.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

You know, be grateful, Ted, you know, how'd you get everything you got? I don't know. Just say thank you. You know, how much more? I don't know. Thank you. You know, just stay there. My new word, though is curiosity.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Big time.

[Ted Danson]

Stay fucking curious.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And that is. And I will say one of the things that all my, like, all my characters have, it is deep curiosity. Like a lot of. They all want to know everybody else in the show more, but they're almost always people that everybody else in the show is like, can this guy get out of here? Can we get rid of this guy?

[Ted Danson]

Yes.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

But like Apollo on a man on the inside, like that Thanksgiving episode, all Apollo wanted To do, as far as I was concerned, was make friends. He's just there to make friends. You know, Calbert. Make. I'm making friends with Calbert every, you know, everybody that. That my guy meets. Curious. I want to know more.

[Ted Danson]

Your curiosity isn't to then have a one up or have anything that's on a negative or. Or sad or anything you're curious. The payoff is. Well, I'll be damned.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, my God.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

More specificity. More like. And you know what? And this thing we just figured out. I'm into it too. Yeah. And then you're just finding weird little pockets of stuff that a lot of times can just be ephemera that they're never going to use. But then every once in a while it makes it into the cut and I'm like, oh, whoa. They used that cool. You know, like the beat in the one we just. That's the Thanksgiving episode where. Where you've dropped. You've very kindly dropped the lasagna in order to cover for the mistake that Constance's character has made. And Mary Elizabeth is like, I'll go get him up. And I just improvised the line. I said, I'll go ask the neighbors next door if we can ask their trampoline if we can use their trampoline later. It's not related to the lasagna. It's not related to any of that. That's just. That guy is excited. There's a trampoline next door. I mean, I'm also helping because all of us want to use the trampoline. Right. You know.

[Ted Danson]

Unbelievable. You are not. Yet. Yes. And you're. Yes. And. Oh, my God, Yes.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

But it. I'm also. I'm very lucky that they let me do that, you know, and. And that they use it. I was so delighted that made it in, you know.

[Ted Danson]

Me too.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Because I. So much was going on probably in my head. I was trying to figure out something else. Whether I'd done the scene right when that line came out of your mouth. But you did several versions on your exit line. So when I watched it, you get.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

To see what they chose.

[Ted Danson]

I feel like I've graciously gone along with that. I'm 77, you know, like, wow, you're 77. Look at.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Da, da. You know, I just. And then I watch myself on TV and it's like, fuck, yeah, I'm 77.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

It's so disturbing.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I felt when I turned on this season of the show. I was like, oh, whoa. I'm so much Grayer than I was the last time I think I appeared on television. You know, even though I see myself in the mirror every day, my mind is lying to me. But when it's right there on tv, I'm like, oh, that guy's older. That guy's older than I thought he was.

[Ted Danson]

So my process is that I watch it again and I wipe my tears away going, well, I guess it's not that bad. And then I watch it a third time. I go, oh, fuck, there are other actors in this scene. Oh, you know.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah, good.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, this is good.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Like that thing you do. You. Because do you do this, like, let's say you're watching a scene from a man on the inside and. But one of these big group scenes. Do you watch yourself when someone else is talking?

[Ted Danson]

I'm trying to figure out what you mean by someone else is talking.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Well, you mean the other actor, but you know what I mean. Like, sometimes I'm like, why am I even looking at me right now? I'm not the one talking. Like, nobody's looking at me right now. Because sometimes I'll be like, in that way that I'm so oftentimes chasing a moment or something to improvise. I can sometimes see Jason the improviser there instead of Apollo or Derek or Adrian Pimento or whatever. I instead see me who just had a clever idea and is now. And is now just waiting to unload it, you know, And I'm like, oh, this fucking idiot. Why can't I even cover with a bit of a performance so that I can strike with a. With a. With a great line? But no, I can see all the mechanics in my mind, but it's almost always happening while someone else is talking. So hopefully nobody's looking at me because that's. That's what it is for me. It's that same thing of like, oh, man, I wish I'd done that better. I wish. I just wish I wasn't chasing that. That bit or that joke or whatever. I can quibble with all of it, you know, I'm confidently there, but when I watch it back, I'm full of self recrimination.

[Ted Danson]

I'm whoever my favorite actor is when I'm working.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

But when I watch, I'm just this judgmental dick.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Totally, completely. Oh, absolutely. I get that. I think we all are. And that's why I think a lot of people don't watch their stuff. Yeah, I do. I don't. Because I also think of it as kind of a learning experience. I get better because I watch it and it's humbling.

[Ted Danson]

Humbling is good.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh yeah. And I. And God forbid if I was out here not watching it back and just walking off sets being like, yo, just like Rocky, look at me, I fucking did it. And then I watch it back and I'm like, oh God, that's trash. What am I doing?

[Ted Danson]

Somewhere in between is probably true. So better to be there.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

And that is how I always feel. Somewhere in between is the actual performance.

[Ted Danson]

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[Jason Mantzoukas]

Okay.

[Ted Danson]

It's harder to kick back and be philosophical. People do and I admire that even more. You have a little bit of that get through the dayness in that you had to be very super, super conscious of sure what's going on in your mouth, what is So I don't know why I led you into that. So it'll be miraculous if you're philosophical.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I have no idea where we're going.

[Ted Danson]

Ted, but I want to know, like, the. You know, what are your. Do you think about dying? Do you think about.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Besides the fact that egg white may kill me?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

No, no. Just in general. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Do you think about. Are you an activist? Are you. What's going on in the world? Does it hurt? Do you let it in? Or how do you do. All right, here we're all surrounded with a little bit of sadness. A fucking huge dumpload of sadness. Sadness, fear, anger. That seems to be. Especially this country at the moment.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

We're inside of it for sure right now, right? Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

So how do you deal with that? You know, we're not politicians, we're not this, we're not that, but we are people in this mix. So how do you deal with.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So I'll say, like, on a.

[Ted Danson]

And I'm not asking you.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Psychological.

[Ted Danson]

I'm just wondering.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

No, no, no, I think I get what you're saying, so. Because you could answer a couple ways on a psychological level. Because I am prone to melancholy, and I will be consumed with, like, something like, the pandemic was a catastrophe for me. Like, I was a disaster. Things that for me seem to be truly. I am unable to get my arms around or feel in control in any way. In. I'm really a mess. And so. But things. Okay, like, here's an example. During this past elections debates, one of the debates took place right before I was gonna do an improv show. And what was clear is. And we all. I started watching it at home. I switched to listening to it in the car as I drove to Largo, the venue where we were gonna do the show. And then as more and more people pulled into. Of the performers pulled into the parking lot, it was clear. We were all listening to the end of the debate in the car. And it was the debate that had gone just disastrously, you know, for Biden. And we all walked in the venue. We're just kind of like, ugh, that was tough. Walked on stage and had an unbelievably funny show. And there was an element of it that felt like, here's the eight of us, very smart, very funny people who are now just engaged in, for us and the audience, some sort of a catharsis, some sort of understanding, some sort of bringing us all together to exorcise this horrible thing that has just happened. That feels truly like the beginning of an End of a certain end that now we see negatively in the future that has now befallen us, you know, but that for me, for me, the ability to get on stage and process my emotions is the place that I like. I, I am the most at ease on stage, not knowing what's going to happen because that is where I'll process all of my trauma, all of my anxiety, my ocd, all this stuff that's like percolating. I will put it all on stage. So that period of time in the pandemic where I couldn't perform was truly terrible. You know, it just was left to my own devices. My mind is just going to, worst case scenario everything, all the time. And if I can't get it out, then it's like poison, you know, it starts to make me crazy. So performance is a huge part of it. Community is, Community is a huge part of it.

[Ted Danson]

You need it.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Those people, finding those people, those collaborators. I'm still like, I still do a show called Dinosaur Improv that we've been. I've been performing with some of these people and another show called Soundtrack. Some of these people. 15, 25 years we've been doing shows together. And that is incredible. The idea that we'll still go and tour with like people that are now in their 50s. It's an improv show. It's an ensemble improv show. It's just a fun fuck around show I do with friends. But, but these are some of my oldest, dearest friends and we get to go do a funny show for 1500 people, then go and have a dinner and chat and hang out or a show here at Largo for 250 people or whatever. It doesn't matter the size of the venue, just the continued meeting backstage. Hey, what's going on? Let's get on stage. Let's do a show that is. I want to do that forever. You know what I mean? Like, that's the, that to me is the thing, that's the whole. If, if you were like, you can never be in a movie or on TV again, but you can still do this, I would choose this. I would choose the ability to a couple of times a week get on stage with people that I love and do just dynamite improv. That's, that's the thing. That's what's exciting. That's what remains exciting to me. And the fact that it's ephemeral. The fact that it's one night only, the fact that it's never recorded, that it's never to be seen or done again. That's pretty cool. And that is the vast majority of my time. My creative output is just that it is never to be seen. You can't ever see it or know it. You know, it is thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of stage shows compared to the very small amount of filmed work I've done. If that makes sense.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, I need a script. It's what comforts me. I. I color within the lines and the opposite, you know.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

I'm very fear based and that's what gives me freedom.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

And. But you're very playful within it.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, you are very. That's what's very fun. Because you're not rigid in any way.

[Ted Danson]

No, no, no, no, no. And I want to be surprised. I am delighted. I am aware of what's going on around me and when I'm doing it. Right.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

All of that stuff. But I have guidelines. You in essence don't. How do you know when you've crossed the line? Have you. Do you ever go shoot? I should not have put that out into the universe. Oh, shoot. That was to this or that.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It's less that I'm. I'm always worried about it, but I, I am going to always. So like on. On both Good Place and Man on the Inside, I will, especially in the beginning stages, check in with Mike, Mike or Morgan or if the writer is there or whatever to be like to calibrate me, you know what I mean? Because I'm still dialing this in. I don't know yet what this guy is. This is the first or second scene we've shot. Like too big, too small. Like where like figure go, you know, trying to dial in a character that's only going to appear in six total scenes across three different episodes. So I'm only going to get these moments. So I want it to feel like it's a cohesive character and a, you know, the same guy in episode eight that is gonna be in episode two, like help me figure it out. And so I rely on them, quite honestly. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do stuff and be like, is it this one or that? It's like the eye test. Number one or number two? Number one or number two?

[Ted Danson]

Okay.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Number two.

[Ted Danson]

Okay.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Now number two or number three? Number two or number three? So I feel like the first couple of scenes for me are the eye test. You know, it is calibrating the guy to go. To move forward and then once it settles in, then I feel pretty comfortable. It's not that I have it's not that I don't have guidelines. It's just my guidelines are wider.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, I'm willing to go hither and thither as long as they don't mind. Because I also will say to people on sets, like, don't let me waste your time. You know, like, don't. I'm not here to, like, cause a bunch of scenes to just kind of have to be done and redone and redone. Because I'm. I'm not here. I'm not fucking around. I want to be clear. I'm not fucking around, you know, or.

[Ted Danson]

Doing it for my pleasure or doing.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It for my benefit like this. I'm trying to, you know, I'm. I. If I think I can beat a joke, I'm going to try to beat the joke if you want me to. If you don't, no problem. You know, I'll. I'm prepared. I'll. I'll do the. I'll do it, you know, so. Trying to figure that out.

[Ted Danson]

Whoever bumped into. Probably not. Not because people know you so well, but every once in a while you'll bump into a writer. No, Just say the words. It's funny. Oh, yeah, it's funny.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah. Oh, I've.

[Ted Danson]

I've.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, I've. Absolutely. And then, you know, especially you'll. There have been. I've been on jobs where I know I've said something funnier, and they'll be like, let's get one as scripted. And I'm like, I know.

[Ted Danson]

That's.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

That's. That's the one they're going to use. They want. They want that line in as is.

[Ted Danson]

I always call that the People magazine cover where they go, all right, we got all this. Here, take this banana. Just put it in your ear. Click. You know, Cover.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, dancing goes bananas.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, boy.

[Ted Danson]

It's like, oh, but that's it.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

The minute you walk in and see bananas there, I'm like, oh, this is trouble for my People magazine cover. When I get there.

[Ted Danson]

You'Re beyond People magazine. Oh, my God. Your mom and dad alive.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes. Yes. They live in the house in the town that I grew up in. Suburban Massachusetts. Suburban Boston, I should say Nahant, Massachusetts, the smallest town in Massachusetts.

[Ted Danson]

Massively proud of you.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Very proud. Very proud. Like, truly, I think, to them, even still, it is mind blowing that, you know, also because my last name is so singular, for the most part, they now have, like, reflected fame. So, like, my mom will be like, the pharmacist knew who I was, knew who you were, you know, or you know, like, what did she say once? The dry cleaner. You're not going to believe this. I went to the dry cleaners today and he said, do you know that there's a comedian who has your last name? And I said, that's my son. And he said, you know, he has a very serious egg allergy. And my mom was like, he knew about your allergy. The dry cleaner knew about your allergy. And I was like, this is what it is now it's gotten away from us.

[Ted Danson]

You know, they have friends, I'll bet, that go way back, that got back in touch with them because of you. They called always. That happened a lot.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Always. They are always telling me, oh, we heard from this. And that person who just saw you on, you know, something was playing on TV and they saw you and they loved it. And I will say, and not for nothing, the idea. I think one of the things that really solidified my parents understanding that I was successful is that I knew you in a way, because for them, you are so totemic as a, like, actor. Tv, like Cheers was their show. You know what I mean?

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So the idea that I was then on a show with you and that you knew who I was really kind of blew their entire mind.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

That. And I did a movie with Robert De Niro, and I think you and.

[Ted Danson]

Robert De Niro blew my mind.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Like, those two things. They were like, so wait, what did.

[Ted Danson]

You do with them? Tell me.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I did a movie called Dirty Grandpa where, Ted, I'm so excited you asked about the movie Dirty Grandpa.

[Ted Danson]

I'm going to find it and watch.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Please do. Where Robert De Niro and Zac Efron, it's their movie. It's like a grandpa, horny grandpa, wife dies, wants, goes to spring break to get laid. And it is just. It's him and Zac Efron and then a cavalcade of comedians. They just keep winding their way through different comedians who are providing just an absurd series of adventures that they're on. And if you can believe it, I'm a pretty sketchy drug dealer anyway, but. And, but, like, it was. It's not the greatest movie, but it was a blast to make. And all my scenes were with Robert De Niro. So I was like, I'm absolutely going to do this, you know, and it was awesome.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, my God.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, But I think to my folks, it's things like that. It's the idea that I'm in a show with you or that I did a movie with Robert Jr that they start to really be like, oh, whoa, this is. This is a real thing. Getting their arms around that is like, you know, like my dad. Like, they, they both are just like, they didn't. They. They didn't have any friends in the arts or. This wasn't something that was meaningful to them in any way. You know, so it's pretty. It's very cool. And they are. I will say, and I'm so grateful. While have always been wildly supportive, never once was it like, which is such a gift. Thank God I was never hung up on the. I want to succeed to prove them wrong or to show them something or to bump, bump, buh. That I never had. That. They came and saw me.

[Ted Danson]

Love from parents.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

They came and saw me do not very good shows in not very nice theaters and were just like, you were incredible.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

How come you're not on Saturday Night Live? You know, they just, they had the wonderful. It was just. I was so. Always so grateful because then I wasn't. It wasn't an issue for me, the idea of feeling like, oh, I want. I want to make them proud. They. It was very clear to me. Always proud, you know. Thank God.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Do you have Greek pride in you?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Do I have Greek pride in me? It's a great question.

[Ted Danson]

My daughter is half Greek and I'm so happy for her to choose.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. I mean, I do have Greek pride. Although I will say I'm not like, I don't. Like, we did not grow up going to Greece every year like a lot of other, like, families did. We were raised Greek Orthodox. Ish. You know, we didn't go to church regularly. We went to church sometimes. You know, it was part of it, but not a ton of it. I did. I lived in Greece. Semester abroad in Greece. I went and lived in Greek monasteries. I was a religion major, so I did a bunch of that. So I. I learned a lot about that stuff. But from the outside, from, like, an academic way, not from inside. It was not a. We didn't spend a lot of time in church, and I didn't. One of my great regrets is I didn't learn Greek at that moment when I could have gone and taken Greek lessons.

[Ted Danson]

Your mom and dad did?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. My dad came. My dad's a Greek immigrant. Came here when he was a kid.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, I thought you're. You were three grandchildren. Three generations.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

No, my dad.

[Ted Danson]

America.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

My dad grew up in Greece. Came over when he was a kid, though. Came over and he was like 10, 11 years old. My mom born here, two Greek immigrants.

[Ted Danson]

Gotcha.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So. So like my. Everybody spoke Greek. My. My paternal grandparents didn't speak very good English.

[Ted Danson]

So where in Greece?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So my. My dad is from like northern Greece. Like like Macedonia.

[Ted Danson]

Mountain.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Hard scrabble mountain people like the don't.

[Ted Danson]

Appalachian with them folks do not with.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Them like truly crazy. Yeah mountain people. And my mom's family is from the Peloponnese. So southern Greece much more the what we think of as like a Zorba the Greek full of life and joy.

[Ted Danson]

Wait, where is Sparta? It's in the Peloponnese. No, Sparta.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Where is Sparta? That's a great question.

[Ted Danson]

I think it's Peloponnese.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It might be.

[Ted Danson]

It's not up.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It's not up north.

[Ted Danson]

No.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Thessaloniki and all that stuff is up north, but Sparta is down south. But yeah. Not sure if it's Peloponnese or not. This is a great question. This isn't. This is where my Greek stuff falls apart.

[Ted Danson]

I'm not super knowledgeable having been married to a Greek. Italians, you know. Oh vendettas and don't piss them off. Greeks got them way over them.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh yeah.

[Ted Danson]

You know, Medea threw her fucking kids off a cliff.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, my grandmother said something once to me that was amazing. I was dating someone and she was asking me like. Oh, she was asking me about the, the. The woman I was dating and she. She basically said this is all in Greek. She was like, she's not Italian, is she? And I was like, no, she's not Italian. And she was like, oh, that's good. Because if she was, she'd have a cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other and your dinner's coming out of a can. I was like, this is savage. Like what a crazy bird. Like, this is nuts. But yeah, Greeks are like, yeah, like fired up.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Tough stuff. The best.

[Ted Danson]

My father was an archaeologist and we went around Greece. It was our big family vacation is the whole family remembers 1965, driving around for six weeks in this old Peugeot all over Greece and.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

But like to have somebody who has that knowledge base show you all of those sites must have been incredible.

[Ted Danson]

Some he didn't know anything about, but he. So he just. He had friends that had dug on them. But so it was really. That's really amazing.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, I love that.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. And it was back when you could. I don't know what it's really like.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Now, but I doubt that you steal antiquities.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You could just. They'd be like take whatever you want.

[Ted Danson]

Chunk of the Parthenon you wouldn't believe, but you could walk up into the Parthenon, midnight moonlight by, you know, no guards, no fences, no nothing. It was so cool. Such a different. I love that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, very romantic.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah. That's incredible. That's gorgeous.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. So you Greek, huh?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, yeah, very Greek. Very Greek. But like I said, I wish I knew Greek. I wish I'd learned that language because it really impeded me getting to know my grandparents better. You know, I really. It. It made it difficult to get into a much deeper relationship with them because I just didn't have that facility. And they did. Their. Their English was only, you know, like so deep. And so that's a great regret. You know, like, things like that I wish I'd been better at.

[Ted Danson]

So when you went, you had a fellowship of sorts that took. Not of sorts. I can't remember, was it a fellowship?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, a Watson. I was a Watson fellow. Right, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

That. You. Your. I guess your written application wasn't that overwhelming, but as soon as you went in to talk to them, they went.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yes, it was a. It was a mediocre point application and a very good interview.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Thank God. Thank God there was a.

[Ted Danson]

To do what to do?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I. I did an ethnomusicology project in North Africa. Okay. So I did an ethnomusicology project in North Africa.

[Ted Danson]

Ethnomusicology.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So, like. Yes, so it's like I went and studied music in North Africa, in the Middle East. That is, the music's intention is to put you into a trance or bring you into a state of ecstatic union with something holy. A God.

[Ted Danson]

God.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, depending on where you are. You know, it is. It's sometimes God, or it's sometimes you're communing with demons or devils or other things, but it's all based on music. Music that's meant to basically put you into contact with something holy.

[Ted Danson]

And how did you know to even apply for that? I know you were a drummer and all of that, but that's a very specific. Amazing.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It was a real. So the Watson foundation just gives grants. They give 50 grants a year.

[Ted Danson]

Sorry, wait, go back the other piece. You said you went not to a monastery. A monastery. So was this spiritual music thing theme in your life? Spirituality, theology?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yes. So it was very much so. When I was in Greece, I went and lived in a place called Mount Athos, which is part of. It's in northern Greece, and it is this peninsula of land on which there are, you know, hundred Year old monasteries that are, that, that litter this, this area of Greece. And it is, it's technically not part of Greece. It belongs to the, to the Orthodox, it belongs to the Patriarchate. So it is all monks and monasteries. And so I went and stayed in all these monasteries. I wrote a paper about it and then. But I'm also a musician. So when I was coming up with a presentation for the Watson foundation, it was their whole thing is there are plenty of people who will give you money to do further education in your field of research. You know, you can get a Fulbright, there's all sorts of fellowships you can get to continue the studies that you are going to continue for an advanced degree. The Watson foundation is like, we only want to fund whatever you're not getting an advanced degree in, whatever you're curious about, whatever you are passionate about. So as long as you're not going to try and get a Master's or a PhD in this, we'll fund it. And so the projects end up being very uniquely personal to the people. So mine was a marriage of. I was a religion major and had done a bunch of that study. And then music, I was a musician and, and, and I'd already gotten incredibly curious and obsessed with a bunch of music from a bunch of these countries. That was exactly what I'm describing.

[Ted Danson]

How, how did you do that before you went?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

It always. I was the, I was the general manager and jazz director of the radio station at my college. And what I would do is I would sit in there and I would just pull records and play music for myself in the office or on air. And so a lot of the stuff that I found that I was.

[Ted Danson]

A.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Lot of things that I was not super knowledgeable about. I educated myself just with the records in the library and like international, what was world music at the time was one of those things. And so I just started sifting through that section of the library and so, and a lot of the stuff, Ganawa music from Morocco, master musicians of Jujuku from Morocco, all the whirling dervish stuff from Turkey, klezmer music and from Israel, a lot of. I was finding a lot of stuff that I was super compelled by and interested by. So that when I then was doing this, applying for this grant, I was like, oh, I can pull from all these kind of things that I like that I already like and know about and I'll just connect them all because they all are basically related to the religion that they are underneath. And so again, my application kind of mediocre, but When I got in there and was like, this is what I want to do, and explained it to the person, I got the grant, you know, and so it really was a marriage of my academic interests and my personal interests, if that makes sense.

[Ted Danson]

Yes. We're going to keep going for a little while. I love it, but I just want to kind of marvel at you because a lot of times I wonder, what with everybody, with people and myself, what am I doing? What am I putting out into the world? It's like, you need to be purposeful. You need to be nurturing. You need to, you know, and I look at myself and I'm curious about other people, and I was afraid, you know, it's like, because you are. Take your egg allergy and. And how that informed you and, you know, your. Your focus in life, and I was. I was afraid to ask what. What are you doing for the world? And stuff. And then I'm listening to you talk, and I'm just astounded at your. Your level of cur. What you're putting out into the world is so sweet.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, thank you.

[Ted Danson]

So bright. So, you know, you're Demi. You're curious, and that curiosity is, you know, that's an amazing message to people. You're grateful because you're still breathing and no one fed you an egg. You know, you're. You're focused on being creative. You're making people laugh, which has ripple effects that your parents.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Know about. But you won't probably ever know the extent to the ripples that you've put out into the world that make people feel good. I am. I am. And you're so intensely purposeful because of your condition that you grew up with that. You really are marvel. I really am.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You're gonna make me cry, Ted.

[Ted Danson]

No, but I really feel lucky to be talking to you and get to know you more than. Oh, my God, here comes Jason, who makes me happy and who's so funny. You are a marvel.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I'm really. I can't thank you. That was the kindest thing you've just said. You really made me tear up. I am always a fan of things, and I want to tell everybody about the things I'm a fan of. You know what I mean? Like, I'm excited to be here because I'm excited to talk to you because I love you. You know what I mean? I love that we get to work together, and I want to not talk about myself, even though I've been talked about myself quite a bit. But in service of talking to You. You know, because I'm a fan of you. I'm a fan of this show. I love to be able. Like, when I watched the season one reveal of Good Place, right, I wrote Mike an email to be like, I'm such a fan of this. This blew my mind. This was incredible. Like, I want to celebrate all of the stuff that I find exciting. And there's so much exciting stuff. There's so much because I feel like there can be a sense in our world of being like, whoa, is me. Everything sucks. It was better back then. It's never been worse.

[Ted Danson]

This is unheard of.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You know, it's so many conversations right now, as genuinely, our business is in weird upheaval, but nonetheless, like, boy, is there so much stuff that I still find to love about it and be excited to talk about it in any way, shape, or form. And this one, the one that we're doing right now, the kind of new podcasting, what a wild and strange new endeavor. Although not that new. My podcast has been going for 15 years. But that idea of being able to chat and kind of have an exciting conversation, I love this. We've had plenty of conversations, you know, in between setups on set and so forth like that. But this is lovely. You know, it really is lovely. This is wonderful. And this is. You know, this is just for us, right?

[Ted Danson]

Well, we might film something now, towards the end.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Have we started?

[Ted Danson]

I'm also not that guy who goes, hey, Jay, let's go have a beer. Yeah, I'm not that guy. Not at all.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I'm not. I'm much rather be at home listening to a podcast or music and doing a jigsaw puzzle. That's what I'll do today.

[Ted Danson]

I want to run home to Mary.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Yeah, great.

[Ted Danson]

You know, that's who I. Everything. My heart and soul bounces off.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Getting to see you and Mary on set together could not have been cuter. It was. I was like, oh, this is great.

[Ted Danson]

We hand out vomit bags for people who are standing too close. It is great because we are nauseating it, really.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

How long have you together?

[Ted Danson]

32.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

32.

[Ted Danson]

Married? Yeah.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Like, to see you guys, like, over there goofing around, right? Just alone. Just the two of you over there just goofing around with each other. I'm like, this is it.

[Ted Danson]

This is when I make her laugh or by being intentionally or unintentionally. I don't give a shit if I'm in the presence of her laugh. I am just.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Well, it's. It's such a good laugh. It's such a good laugh. But I don't. But she was. She's also like. She was. I mean, also incredible to be in scenes with. Could not break her. What? Unbreakable. She was. Maybe it's. We just didn't.

[Ted Danson]

I hate to tell you this.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

She's very easy.

[Ted Danson]

She must not have liked your work, Jason.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, no, but it was the. I was like, wow, she's very good.

[Ted Danson]

This is.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

This is incredible.

[Ted Danson]

She adores you. Oh, good. I'm glad. You. It made amazingly fun.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, I'm so glad. Oh, I don't doubt it. But I was just like, oh, she's. This is. I can't. I can't get per. I can't get to her at all. It was great.

[Ted Danson]

You did present character challenges to actors because you came in with such. Not you, but your character as written. Apollo.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Came in with, you know, was it a guinea pig or.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

All the guinea pig stuff was crazy.

[Ted Danson]

Crazy. And if you're acting against it or with it, you're like, yeah, what's going on?

[Jason Mantzoukas]

So now there's a guinea pig that's named Joni Mitchell and it's dying. What? And that's just a very inconsequential part of this Thanksgiving episode. Like, really weird.

[Ted Danson]

I love you. Thank you for coming in.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

I love you.

[Ted Danson]

I really, really, really appreciate it.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Oh, I. I can't thank you enough, both for having me and for all of the kind words. Truly. That was a very touching and very moving experience for me.

[Ted Danson]

Thank you, Jason, for spending this time with us. You can watch Jason as Apollo Lambrakis on season two of A Man on the Inside, streaming now on Netflix. It's a great show to get cozy and binge over the holidays, if I can say so myself. That's all for our show this week and come to think of it, for this year, getting to do this podcast has been such a joy and I'm excited to share even more of my friends with you in the new year. And being on this journey with my friend Woody Harrelson makes it even more special. I miss you, Woody. As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you're in the mood. If you like watching your podcast, all our full length episodes are on YouTube. Visit YouTube.comteamcoco See you next time. Where everybody knows.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow, our Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff, Robert Ross and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer. 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 Steenbergen and John Osborne. This is Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast, the promo and in 30 seconds I'm.

[Ted Danson]

Going to tell you why you should.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Check out the show.

[Ted Danson]

I the host Scott Aukerman have a.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Light hearted conversation with famous celebrities like.

[Ted Danson]

Jon Hamm, Allison Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Alexander, Natasha Lyonne, Bob Odenkirk, just to name a few things go a little off the rails when different eccentric characters.

[Ted Danson]

And oddballs drop by to be in interviewed as well.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Each week is a blend of conversations and character work from your favorite comedians as well as some new hilarious voices. Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast Listen every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know that parents rank financial.

[Ted Danson]

Literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can set up chores.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications. Kids learn to earn, save and spend wisely and parents can rest easy knowing.

[Ted Danson]

Their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place.

[Jason Mantzoukas]

Sign up for Greenlight [e-mail] podcast.