Jason Sudeikis (Re-Release)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes" – Episode Featuring Jason Sudeikis (Re-Release)

Release Date: July 16, 2025

---

Introduction

In this summer re-release of “You Made It Weird,” host Pete Holmes welcomes his longtime friend and acclaimed comedian Jason Sudeikis. Recorded in 2018, before Jason’s breakout success with "Ted Lasso," the episode provides an intimate look into Jason's early career, his experiences in improv comedy, and his journey to becoming a prominent figure in the entertainment industry.

---

Early Days in Improv and Second City

Jason Sudeikis opens up about his formative years in comedy, particularly his time with Comedy Sports in Kansas City. He explains how performing over 500 shows across five years helped him refine his comedic timing and stage presence. “Kansas City was a great place to build my laugh quotient for life” ([15:10]).

Transitioning to Chicago, Jason discusses joining Second City, a pivotal move that exposed him to a thriving improv scene. He emphasizes the importance of continuous performance and adaptation in honing his craft. “I showed up in Chicago having reached my laugh quotient,” he remarks ([15:22]).

---

Journey to Saturday Night Live (SNL)

The conversation delves into Jason’s path to SNL. He recounts his audition process for Second City’s touring company, highlighting a memorable scene where he calmly explains how to play darts. This understated performance secured him a role as an understudy, marking the beginning of his ascent in the comedy world. “I was trying to make jokes before knowing what they were expecting” ([54:12]).

---

Relationship with Music and Personal Reflections

A significant portion of the discussion explores Jason’s complex relationship with music. Despite being musically inclined and playing instruments like piano, guitar, and drums, he admits, “Music doesn’t exactly grab me entirely” ([06:35]). This reflects his broader struggles with finding emotional resonance in creative endeavors outside of comedy.

Pete Holmes shares his own challenges with music, creating a reflective dialogue on artistic expression and personal limitations. Jason adds, “I want to be more in the music place, and I can be sometimes” ([07:52]).

---

Mentorship and Influential Figures

Jason pays tribute to mentors and influential figures like Mick Napier and Peter Gwynn, underscoring their role in shaping his comedic style. He shares anecdotes about learning the importance of listening and adaptability in improv. “They’re like our ancestors, building a rich tradition for young sprouts like us” ([19:14]).

---

Personal Anecdotes and Magic Interests

The episode takes a personal turn as Jason discusses his interest in magic. He shares stories of performing tricks and the parallels between magic and comedy in creating wonder and surprise. One notable memory involves a childhood magic trick that left him in awe, illustrating the deep connection between performance art and personal passion. “Magic is about making the invisible visible” ([85:02]).

---

Challenges and Growth in Comedy

Jason reflects on the inherent challenges in comedy, including self-doubt and the pressures of success. He emphasizes the philosophy that “The harder you work, the luckier you get” ([171:36]), highlighting the dedication required to excel in the competitive entertainment industry.

He also touches on the importance of having “big ears” in improv, a lesson from mentor Del, which signifies the need to be receptive and attentive during performances ([171:44]).

---

Family and Personal Journey

A poignant segment covers Jason’s personal journey to uncovering his father’s history. This revelation was a heavy but enlightening experience, significantly impacting his perspective on life and comedy. “Learning about my father’s past was both heavy and enlightening” ([141:00]).

---

Understanding Comedy and Creativity

The dialogue delves into the essence of comedy, with Jason advocating for authenticity and the importance of the creative process. He asserts, “Don’t get in your own way of getting to who I am now,” stressing the need to remain true to one’s artistic instincts ([175:00]).

---

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode concludes, Jason and Pete share mutual appreciation for each other and their shared experiences in comedy. Jason emphasizes the balance between personal endeavors and creative work, advocating for continuous learning and staying true to oneself. “Success is about loving the art in yourself versus yourself in the art” ([175:00]).

The episode wraps up with heartfelt remarks, celebrating the enduring friendship and collaborative spirit that underpin their comedic journeys.

---

Notable Quotes

1. Jason Sudeikis at [15:10]: "Kansas City was a great place to build my laugh quotient for life."

2. Jason Sudeikis at [54:12]: "I was trying to make jokes before knowing what they were expecting."

3. Pete Holmes at [06:35]: "Music doesn’t exactly grab me entirely."

4. Jason Sudeikis at [171:36]: "The harder you work, the luckier you get."

5. Jason Sudeikis at [175:00]: "Success is about loving the art in yourself versus yourself in the art."

---

Key Takeaways

• Perseverance in Comedy: Jason’s extensive experience in improv and continuous performances were crucial in shaping his comedic abilities and leading to his success on platforms like SNL.

• Mentorship Matters: Influential mentors and peers play a significant role in guiding and refining a comedian’s craft.

• Balancing Personal and Creative Life: Navigating personal challenges, such as uncovering family history, can profoundly impact one’s artistic journey.

• Authenticity in Creativity: Staying true to one’s artistic instincts and embracing the creative process are essential for genuine and impactful comedy.

• Interplay Between Magic and Comedy: Both art forms share common elements of surprise, wonder, and the ability to create magical moments for the audience.

This episode serves as a rich exploration of Jason Sudeikis’s early career, his personal growth, and the foundational experiences that have defined his approach to comedy and creativity.

Transcript

[Jason Sudeikis]

You made it with. You made it with. You made it with. Oh yeah, you made it with.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, you made it weird.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You made it weird with Pete Holmes.

[Pete Holmes]

What's happening weirdos? This is a summer re release of Jason Sudeikis, who you know from snl, Horrible Bosses and Ted Lasso. But this was released before Ted Lasso was even a thing. This was released after in 2018 pre pan. But it's fun to know the whole weirdo community gets this in our feed and we are relistening to Jason Sudeikis this week. So glad you're here. It's a fun one. Do keep in mind that it's 2018 so there's a lot we don't know, but it's still a fun chat and I'm glad you're here. Not much to plug up top. Just thank you to everybody that came to Houston. Coming up next is Edmonton, Alberta. We're at the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival with Kumail, Nick Kroll and Anthony Jeselnik and all of these tickets are on PeterHomes.com DC Boston. We got St. Louis, Cleveland, Florida, Chicago. We just added New York, New York, New York. That's Manhattan November 14th and Atlantic City on November 15th. All of those tour dates are on PeteHomes.com this is my favorite tour that I've ever done. This hour is my favorite hour so I hope you can be there. Peteholmes.com let's go New York.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Let's do it.

[Pete Holmes]

Also no, no official ads here but I am going to just plug a couple promo codes. No no copy. But like get yourself some leisure drink from our friends at dadgrass dadgrass.com weird leisure drink is the most delicious. It's a yuzu flavored sparkling drink with 3mg of THC and 6mg of CBD. It's a wonderful buzz without sending you into outer space. It's the perfect dose. You can get 20% off by going to dadgrass.com SL weird. We also got shocked and use promo code Weird shaky mats which is an acupressure mat. It's a mat with thousands of tiny little pokies that you lay on and gives you relief on demand, increasing blood flow and melting away tension. That means you can unfurl a massage whenever you need one. Great for the friend that has everything. Go to Shakti matt.com and use promo code weird30 for 30% off. S-H-A-K-T-I-M-A-T.com weird30 and try Mojo the supplement. The supplement that is absolutely changing my life. I'm not just saying that is revolutionized my whole being because it is the natural way to boost healthy testosterone production. It lowers your cortisol, which is your stress hormone, which lets your body make more testosterone. And as a result, my energy, my mood, my drive, as well as blood flow and everything that implies. Wink, wink, are all incredibly improved. 20% [e-mail] with the promo code weird K-I-N o b-y.com and get yourself some modern mammals, for crying out loud. Modern mammals. My shampoo that cleans your hair but doesn't dry it out and fry it out, making it look fluffy and terrible. It looks perfect every time you step out of the shower. It's the only shampoo I use. It's non shampoo shampoo that cleans your hair like shampoo but doesn't dry it out like shampoo shampoo. Go to modern mammals.com. use promo code weird at checkout or modern mammals.com weird. All right, everybody. So glad you're here. Enjoy the re release of Jason Sudeikis. Get into it. Oh, my God. I thought you were Val Kilmer's the saint.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Master of disguise switched into my podcast.

[Pete Holmes]

Please come in. How are you? Nice to see you. This is the Katie.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

This is the guest chair, if you don't mind. Not at all. Thanks for being here. It occurred to me, I was like, what if he doesn't come? I guess that occurs to me almost every episode when you think that, oh.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Gosh, he or she may not show.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, just, you know, we confirmed and stuff. I don't know. I figure you're a busy fella and just part of me is like, did we like ultra confirm? So it's a long way to say I'm just happy to see it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Likewise. Glad to not let you down.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Has it happened?

[Pete Holmes]

It's all, you know who it did. Another snler. Yeah, Horatio Sands. I completely forgave him. He thought it was an 11pm show.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That would make sense. Yeah, he skews that way.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, he skews. The night time, I one time woke up and heard some rustling in my garbage cans and it was. It was Horatio.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That's not a fat joke. That's actually a nighttime nocturnal joke.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, I get it. I play on both levels.

[Pete Holmes]

If it adds to the idea that he's eating cabbages, then laugh at that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, that's what I want.

[Pete Holmes]

I want a flashlight on his face. His eyes go pure white. Or red and he runs away.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I had him dressed up as a raccoon in my mind. If we're going there. Like, I was in my. I was like. I was like, oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

How did you have him?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I had him.

[Pete Holmes]

Isn't it? How do you. Don't you love hanging out with comedy folks? We are recording, by the way. It's not a trap. We just like to begin.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm familiar with the format.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, are you?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Get it. Oh, that's right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You listen.

[Pete Holmes]

Derek Delgad.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I've been. I've been listening to so many of them. I was driving up to, like, Chatsworth and, you know, like. Like, you know, 45 minute commutes and. And even though we have that stuff in nyc, I have a tendency to spend my subway time on, like, music. I'll listen to music.

[Pete Holmes]

It's just.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, that too. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't want to be Transfix.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

I need my wits about me.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, no, there's.

[Pete Holmes]

New York has more of a. Put a soundtrack to me quality.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, you want to listen to Gershwin.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. And you're just like, wow, look at the outtakes. All of Gershwin's outtakes. Well, of course I meant the shit. Ira, just. It's fine. Ira, just play it. It sounded fine. No, I'm starting over, George. I can't. Ira, you're too hard on your.

[Pete Holmes]

You have stepped into maybe my favorite thing, which is music. Yeah, music. The making music process. Nothing is funnier to me than someone being like, purple. Forget it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yep. Who am I kidding? Are you musically inclined at all or just from the place of a fan?

[Pete Holmes]

That's a great question.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't you do it? No, I'll happily answer it. Because we're in the early stages, but of the chat. But one of the ways that I can feel like my crazy family.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I really do feel like my family is really one of a kind.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Great. Yeah. Good.

[Pete Holmes]

And one of the ways that I.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Can identify with who owns the rights to them.

[Pete Holmes]

Sadly, I do.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Okay. All right.

[Pete Holmes]

Because there's all these emotional hurdles and trying to capture them.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But the way that I can sometimes feel left out of society is I'm like, I know this is crazy, but music doesn't. I don't fully understand it almost in the way that Seinfeld has been. Like, I don't get, like. Because he's a little bit on the spectrum. If I want to feel a little on the spectrum, I think about how I don't understand music.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right. Let me.

[Pete Holmes]

Let me pitch it to you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, please.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes music is all we're doing. Sometimes it's just part of what we're doing. Meaning it's behind a scene.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

But you would never put comedy behind a scene. I get comedy. Comedy is like baseball. It's just we're hitting baseball. Music is like, la dee dee doo dah. Sometimes it's in line at a coffee shop. Sometimes I'm sitting at the Hollywood bowl just thinking about it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Paid good money.

[Pete Holmes]

Paid good money to have a sometimes background thing be the foreground thing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

That being said, I've been on drugs and been like, I get it. But most of the time I'm like, music is not exactly my thing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

What do you say?

[Jason Sudeikis]

So you don't. You don't play anything?

[Pete Holmes]

I love playing music. I love singing music.

[Jason Sudeikis]

In fact, can you play an instrument?

[Pete Holmes]

I love playing piano, guitar, drums. I'm musically into it. In fact, don't get me started. Jason, what have you done?

[Jason Sudeikis]

What do you mean? I'm curious.

[Pete Holmes]

You're very serious.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Intentionally? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I'm gonna throw it right back to you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Please.

[Pete Holmes]

But when I'm done, of course. You know, Val hypothesizes that one of the reasons why music isn't. Doesn't grab me entirely is because I have some musical inclinations. Meaning I go to Hamilton. I'm like, I could do that. I know that sounds. But you're an improvise. I go like, zip a da. Flip a flip zip. I could.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's not.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not impressed with rhyming, right? Very, very. Unless it's phenomenal, sure. I'm not impressed with music. I was just listening to. I wanted to listen to the song the Last DJ by Tom Petty. On the way here. I was loving it. And then I listened to some. It's not a. It's not one of his good records, right? And a lot of the songs, I was like, I could have improvised that song. I'm not saying it was bad.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Rest in peace. I mean, rest in peace, obviously, but Tom Petty, not improv. Improv's still going strong. It'll never die. We just went to see Cockroaches Will Be Improvised.

[Pete Holmes]

My brother in law's band called Lonely Avenue, we went and saw them in Bakersfield and they cover a couple Tom Petty songs. I told my brother in law, Derek. I was like, I'll give you so much respect if you play Learning to Fly. And as everyone's applauding, go, we miss you, Elton. That is what comedy is. To me.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm with you there. A bit that I tried. I pitched and it went over well, but we just. We didn't find a place for it in Horrible Bosses, too. Was us, me, Charlie Day and Jason Bateman. Like, when we're trying to figure out what crime we're gonna commit or whatever in a bar. And Blackbird is On by the Beatles. And I just hold up my phone, and then Charlie's like, what are you doing? And, like, I'm Shazamming this. I love this song. And then Charlie's like, are you kidding me? And Bateman's like, what? This is. Who are you kidding? And then Charlie's like, you're an idiot. I go, why? He goes, I wanna know who it is. He goes, it's the Monkees. And then Bateman' like, no, okay, I'm out. But I love holding up my phone just in the background. Shazam. Beatles are Rolling Stones. So that is. I'm writing.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm writing comedy. That's comedy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's also. It's. It's also. Yeah, it's. It's being disrespectful to people that can do something I cannot do. I. I know what you mean in regards to, like, feeling like you could, but I always feel that way about seeing anybody that's great at something. I think it's a little bit about being.

[Pete Holmes]

Help me, because I want to be more in the music place, and I can be. Sometimes.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't know if I can get you there in, you know, the short time we have together now. But, you know, if we did. If, you know, we took. If we took it offline, you know. Yeah. I would. I would obviously produce your first. Not a. No, I just like it. I can fake the drums. I would say I'm a drummer, because I own a drummer, but I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, what you like to do is listen to music.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Not a lot. Not really. No. No. But I'm. But I'm moved by it. I've always been moved by it. I love it. I have a lot of friends that play music.

[Pete Holmes]

I can gauge how open my heart is, how, like, responsive I am to the world by whether or not music is grabbing me, which is why I don't like my answer.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

When I'm like, I don't like it, I could do it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I am who I make fun of. In that moment, I go, you fool.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's. That's half the battle. If you. If you can. If you know that about yourself, then the other half is getting, you know, Moving through that. But at least you know that you're, you know, you're, you're, you're saying something that would make a lot of musicians scoff at you and for sure.

[Pete Holmes]

And if you. I, I. We've had a lot of musicians on the show, and I can bond with them and, and believe me, I'll put on their record and I will find a way to love it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I just never would have necessarily put it on if I wasn't interviewing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Okay, I got you.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? I was like, oh, I guess I will listen. Like, Like Death Cab for Kitty is a good example.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I put it on.

[Pete Holmes]

I was like, wow, this is amazing. And I interviewed Ben.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And, and I, it's not. I should have heard of them earlier if I was a music.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, yeah. See, I'm, I'm, I'm not a culture vulture like that. Yeah. Like, like I'm not cultural. I, I'm, I am, you know, Entertainment Weekly, you know, Rolling Stone at best. But that's, but that' grown up, I think, in Kansas, in the Midwest. Like, I'm used to getting things late, but I get them before a lot of my friends there. Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Kansas or Australia.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. They love Hall Pass in Australia. Do they? They did.

[Pete Holmes]

That's hilarious.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But I do believe, going back to my point about when you see someone do something excellent.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Jason Sudeikis]

With excellence comes with most things, effortlessness. So, like, you're interviewing a fellow that bought a pair of tap shoes after seeing Savion Glover on, like, the Tonys, like, when Bringing the noise, bringing the funk, I was like, oh, yeah, I could do that. I bought tap shoes. And both my younger sisters, one is still a dancer, choreographer, but they took. I was around dance classes all my life. And so I thought, oh, it's in there, it's in there. I'll find it. I'll just have to shake this puppy free. And what that entails is buying a $75 pair of, like, size 12 tap shoes. Easier to come by than you'd think in Kansas City. And I wore them once. I was like, I can't do what that son of a gun's doing. He's a prodigy. He's a geni.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, this is. Again, this goes back. I've been talking about this guy, Joshua Moon, who I met on this press tour, and he's like 14 and he's a piano virtuoso, so.

[Jason Sudeikis]

American.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, American.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Nice. Yeah, it's Olympic fever. I got it.

[Pete Holmes]

And, you know, I think it adds to the story Young black man. I think he's from Chicago. And I'm just like, fucking. Hey. This is an incredible story. I don't know, Joshua. Forgive me if you're not from Chicago. I was in. I think I was in. I was in Chicago. Anyway, who cares? Here's how I'm full of shit. You play Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, right now I'll cry.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right? Of course.

[Pete Holmes]

But I hate this. I wish I was more open to music. I guess I had my feelers out for a lot of things.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And for some reason, music always eluded me, and I wish it wouldn't.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Did you have friends in bands growing up?

[Pete Holmes]

I was in a band.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You were in a band?

[Pete Holmes]

I was playing music, yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I was playing jazz.

[Pete Holmes]

I was playing punk. And I was always rehearsing, like, we were the loud people.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's fascinating. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And it went away. Let me ask you this, though.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, Please.

[Pete Holmes]

Because you're talking about buying tap shoes, and I'm kind of fascinated by this. Because you are swm. Standard white male.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Standard white male improviser.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Standard white male improviser. Like the loud. Like you're talking to one of your own. We're loud. I bet I can dominate a game of freeze.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Sure, sure.

[Pete Holmes]

You were a bit much. Maybe not much.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes. I grew out of it. I was lucky enough to get out of that stuff, like, in many ways, out of it. Within my first year of moving to Chicago because I had done a bunch of stuff in Kansas City.

[Pete Holmes]

This is my experience. And then you went to Chicago and you realized that wasn't gonna play. What had you done in Kansas City that wasn't gonna.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, Kansas City was a great place to. I was the youngest in this great group of people that were at comedy sports. It was called comedy sports then.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I remember comedy sports.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. So I. Short form. Exactly. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm supposed to say it like this. Short form.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes. You know, I think it's an amazing. Yeah, I think it could be done brilliantly. I think any medium can transcend. It's all about the, you know, the artist. I really do. And so. And so the way I sort of looked at it, or may have put it, was like, I kind of showed up in Chicago having reached my laugh quotient, like, for life a little bit. I'd done it for five years and 500 shows, like, for, like. Or more shows, like, for a paying audience, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

In Kansas City.

[Jason Sudeikis]

In Kansas City, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Before, how had you done all these shows just because you got into Comedy sports.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Kansas City comedy sports was, like, wicked popular. Like, it was second to only two. I think the original one in Milwaukee that, like, Dick Chudnow started. It was like, we were like, Thursday through Sunday, two shows on Friday, two shows on Saturday. We did, like, a comedy courts show where it was like a fake courtroom on Wednesdays because we had people that would call and want to go. Yeah. So we were able to do shows, like sketch shows, and even try our hand at, like, long form after, like, midnight shows, really, because we had people that liked it enough. And I learned about it.

[Pete Holmes]

This is Chicago. The standup scene was like this. There was a huge appetite for this. And here you are in Kansas City. You caught me being Kansas City. Like, oh, it must be small time.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you were in a thriving scene under the showbiz radar a little bit.

[Jason Sudeikis]

100%. And so from there, I could just, like, I was just trying on people, like, you know, like, you know, like, what fun, you know, now I'm. This week, I am. I'm just. And I'm not doing it consciously. I was just influencing in, like, the, you know, in the comedy hurricane. And. Yeah. And so everything was whipping around at that time. So, like, I remember vividly being like, okay, I am doing, like, looking back. Oh, I'm doing Sandler. I'm doing. So like, when doing, like, a game, like, changing emotions, like, shut up. You know, I mean, just straight up jacking moves, trying them on.

[Pete Holmes]

But around that time, you realize that every funny person, you know, was doing somebody.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

When you. I say this all the time, but when you go back after being a comedian, you go back to your regular friends and you're like, oh, you're doing Farley.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You're doing Ferrell.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're. I don't mean to pick all SNL people, but, like, it would always be. You're doing Jim Carrey would be a thing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Jim Carrey's a huge one. Like you. I can still. I can still see, like, you're saying fellows of our ilk that still haven't gotten their Ace Ventura. You know what I mean? And I can see it a mile away. And I just think it's a big part of. That's why you do the reps, like, so that you. That thing fuses eventually with your spine versus it still being, like, the only currency you have to catch.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. You want to put it in the blender.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Blend it up.

[Jason Sudeikis]

So that was the luck that I got to do with it. I mean, I mean, Ellen. Anthony Clark. I mean, Anthony Clark, I remember seeing him and he's the funniest guy ever. And then just sort of doing, like, jacking their essence. Totally.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, but this is so key is like. And I worry about our people that we don't have the incubation place. Like, if you did that now, it could be a video or it could be like, people might. Because we can journalize each other. We can be like, what a scoop.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Sudeikis is doing Sandler.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? Whereas you need to have that sort of like, it's a puppet show by the bed feel.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

To get all of that stuff.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. To get it out of your system. Work through it, I think. And, and to keep. What is.

[Pete Holmes]

Work through it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't just put it aside.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You.

[Pete Holmes]

You get. You walk through the T. Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Because if. Yeah. You could do it now. Yeah. You do it on YouTube. And next thing you know, like, you know, you're, you're, you're. You're thrust into a situation that you're not. You don't swim in because you haven't, you haven't developed.

[Pete Holmes]

But that incubation period, especially being in Kansas City, where no one expects.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

A great thing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Shame on us. But I'm just saying, like, Chicago has that as well, and I really appreciated that. But you got the hours. Talk about the Beatles.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You got to do this over and over and over, and you got to. What was it like? Feeling.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And I was always the youngest, and I only put young because it was also not just chronologically, like, age wise, but also like the newest person. I just had a little bit of a knack for it and then was able to be. One of my favorite things I like to be is try to be like the dumbest person in the room, you know, and then just learn from these, from the, from, you know, these, these men and women.

[Pete Holmes]

Fun like that. There's a lot of Yodas and a lot of Obi Wan's and you're just like, you. You were at the annoyance. So, like Mick Napier, these guys, you're just like, who's this? And I say this with love. Who's this strange guy?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, he just seems like someone that might be in line 7, 11 with you. And then you talk to him for 10 minutes and you're like, oh, these guys have all been before us. They're like our ancestors. And that's not an age thing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

They're building a Rich tradition that all these young sprouts come in.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

And they're putting us to the test.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Just dazzled by, like, you know, Mick was a great example. Everybody, you know, like, so many English once getting to Chicago, where. And the annoyance was a great place because they focused really on the individual more than, like, you know, IO and improv. Olympic, as it was called then, was like, about, you know, team building. And then Second City was obviously like the granddaddy. And the reason, I know I personally moved to Chicago to attempt to work there someday, but that was using, you know, improv as, like, a process, you.

[Pete Holmes]

Know, which always felt dirty to me.

[Jason Sudeikis]

As a process. Yeah. Oh, see, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't mind it because it got me out of my head. It like, it got me over the. What would be dubbed, like, the imposter syndrome of, like, oh, I don't know how to write because, you know, like, not knowing what writing is. But Tina, when I first. When I first started working in SNL was like, if you can improvise, you can write. Because I got hired as a writer first. So it was like this. It was, you know, I just gave.

[Pete Holmes]

Some of that speech. I was like, it's not special people writing things.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, but you think that. You think that. I mean, you. I mean, and I think it's important to. To a certain degree. I mean, as long as it doesn't. As long as you don't suffer from, like, perf paralysis.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, you can have reverends, but don't be debilitated.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Say that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, Reverend, yes.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. Yeah. But if. Yeah, if you think, oh, every sketch I write has to be the dead parrot sketch then, or the cow or cowbell, then you're like, oh, no, no, no. Right. Every. Every hundred. Right. And that goes for probably John Cleese and, you know, McKay as well, because.

[Pete Holmes]

More cowbell to me, seems like such a last minute kind of idea. Like, in the good way.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It feels dreamy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And somebody got the giggles going. I just think it would be funny. Like, I felt like when I saw that sketch, I was like, I feel like. And this is a compliment, I also noticed the cowbell. Whether or not that's true.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

It didn't matter. We all felt like we were in on a personal joke.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's a good impression, can do that. An impression that's not just, you know, imitation.

[Pete Holmes]

You realize that. You notice that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, I can. Oh, now I. And then you can do it. It kind of unlocks it for you. Same thing with when you buy. I drive a scooter in New York and like, when I first bought a Vespa, like, then you start noticing him everywhere. It's the same thing with kids. I have two kids now. Like, now. Oh, gosh. Hey, I'm asking everyone, how old your son. I didn't care. He was just another human being. But now I kind of like. Commercial. Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't understand how.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I do it for the discount. I do it for the discount.

[Pete Holmes]

You know who doesn't get a Lowe's commercial? I didn't get no discount. No, no, sir.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And then you got a shitty agent.

[Pete Holmes]

I want to go back to pre comedy sport. And you're just seeing tap dancing and thinking you can do it because there is something. Talk about kids and stuff. The ambitious gene. There's something that our ecosystem sometimes I think of as like giant gigantic genes forming bonds and stuff. Just like it is inside, it is outside. And there's something about the dumbest guy in the room. But who buys tap shoes? Who believes he can do it? And talk about short form. I mean, something must have given you that confidence. And I'm actually, I think this is a generous question. Can you remember those sweet moments, summer camp or class that you were like, I think I'm. I think I might be a special comedy one. You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, boy.

[Pete Holmes]

Cause you had to get it somewhere.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I do know what you mean. Through looking through the, you know, the rear view mirror. I don't know if I ever felt it in the moment. Maybe on rare instances you didn't feel.

[Pete Holmes]

Like a funny boy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, no, I did. But I didn't know. But I didn't know why. But I mean, you know, my standard joke has been that I used to get in trouble a lot for what I get paid for now, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

But I say you were a clowny clown.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But. But just talkative, just like, you know, and. And didn't do a lot of homework. And so would. Would, you know, would try to keep the class from getting to the discussion. I don't want to talk about current events because I could always. Hey, I was right, you know, I've been ready for, you know, to be on Politically Incorrect or Real Time, you know, since I was like, yeah, not doing homework when I was, you know, six. I'm ready to talk about current events and listen to smarter people and then just make, like a dumb joke for the, you know, for my folks. But. But I don't, you know, for me, it was Never. I just loved laughing. I just loved being around funny people. I love making people laugh. I think I was very lucky to be born into a family that had a great sense of humor as well, but always gravitated towards. Always. Always. I. You know, and then we were lucky enough to get a video camera when I was in sixth grade. And so then I now, now, you know, my memories. The one good thing I think about smartphones, it maybe makes our memories a little more vivid because we're looking back over ourselves so often. Yeah. So I had the opportunity to look at myself at, like, you know, 12 years old and see. Oh, gosh, I had, like, I had, like. I was doing comedy moves that I'm sure were just, you know, me doing Eddie Murphy or Chevy Chase or. Or Bugs Bunny, you know, or whatever. I was watching.

[Pete Holmes]

You know who we did a lot.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Was Mike Myers.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

He doesn't really get included.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I didn't. I didn't.

[Pete Holmes]

You didn't do the Michael Myers?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I didn't, no. For some reason, no.

[Pete Holmes]

Wayne's World was such a big deal.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know, I know. I think I skewed more like. Like, I did more. I was always more Chevy Chase than. Than. Than Dan Aykroyd.

[Pete Holmes]

That's.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know what I mean? Like, and Chevy. Over.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not saying over. That's not.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But just for me personally, just the one that I gravitated towards, which it was my father.

[Pete Holmes]

What I'm saying is you're. You've just helped me understand that there, like, a Beatles Stones thing going on with Javier Aykroyd a little bit.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And there was something about Dan Aykroyd that felt less. I couldn't access him as cleanly as I could. Chevy Chase. I feel like I understood what Chevy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Chase was going for in some way. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

But maybe I just saw it more.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It was definitely. I just loved Ty. I just loved Ty Webb because I didn't ever believe that. That. Well, you know, the biggest thing that I realized recently, with the. With the luck of, you know, of being alive in a time with something like Netflix and all that, where you could just go back and watch something from your youth is. I forget. It's in the first season of Cheers. It's Pick a con, any con. There's an episode, and I talked about this recently, oddly enough, with the people that I'm talking about here, but there's an episode with. Where Ted Danson and Harry Anderson, when he played the character of Harry the hat on. Not, Not. Not Harry Stone from Night Court. But when I watched that episode, I'm like, I must have saw this within the same. Within the same nine months that I saw Beverly Hills Cop, that I saw the Ghostbusters. Because Bill Murray obviously is a bit like that nonchalance that, that level of just kind of like ease. Easy breezy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And it didn't matter if the guy was, you know, he's playing a con man. Well, certainly Harry Anderson is in that one. But it's a whole. It's. Coach gets ripped off by a guy in a poker game who's. Who's just like an outsider. And so Sam's like, wait, sounds like this guy's ripping you off, Coach. Okay, we're gonna get Harry in here to help you rip this guy off. There's like four turns. It's incredibly written. But I'm watching these two grown men, like in their 30s, probably, or, you know, like as. As a grown up now, and I'm like, I steal these moves on a day, on a daily basis, anytime. If I hear action, I am doing one of these two dudes. Yeah, a little bit, A little bit. Like, like, and, and it's not really coming out that way. It's just. It's like the way. It's like the same way that I sometimes in the times I've done mushrooms, as I'm coming down off the. The huge laughing high that I think I'm Jimmy Stewart. Like, like I'm not. Not even close in a million ways.

[Pete Holmes]

But you think you've got.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But I want to.

[Pete Holmes]

But back in you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I just literally am just.

[Pete Holmes]

I just am him.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. And I'm probably more like a version of him from like, you know, a film.

[Pete Holmes]

It is a mushroomy thought to go, who am I doing?

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm always trouble. Not troubled. Interested people are like, oh, you remind me of John Ritter. And I'm like, well, that makes sense. I look like John Ritter, but then I also sound like John Ritter. And then I'm like, which of these things happen? Like, I used to love. I think he had a movie called Remote Control or something like that. Anyway, and Problem Child, obviously. But I never really saw Three's Company, but I saw enough of those movies. Did it get in? Of course it did. But why would I look like. Why would my genes go like, well, let's take a hard left and look like this.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, we gotta give this guy the right frame to get this stuff out.

[Pete Holmes]

Was I. Was I on track to look like him?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I must, you Must.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, any scientist would say, yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Cause I don't look anything like Eddie Murphy. And that was probably my biggest influence at large. And, yeah, I got. I got.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, and those guys, though, they were doing people.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, we're all imitating. We're mimics, and we're imitating. And you're imitating somebody that imitated somebody. Like, there was that. Speaking of Ace Ventura, there was a sketch. I don't know who did it. I want to say it was Monty Python or something, where it had so much Ace Ventura in it, you wouldn't believe it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, really?

[Pete Holmes]

And this isn't to say Jim Carrey's a thief. That's not the story. The story is Jim Carrey saw this and was like, look at this. Yeah, look at the guy that I'm trying to think of exactly what he did. But it had. Basically, it had like, the thrusting into the air, like, do you feel me? Like, stuff like that. And you're just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, everything kind of comes from somewhere.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah. Without a doubt.

[Pete Holmes]

It didn't break my heart. But, I mean, we're stealing from the.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Steelers, and it doesn't. Yeah. And it doesn't always have to come from, like, a comedic place either. Like. Like, the joy of it now is, you know, I mean, when writing at SNL and you're just creating, destroying, creating, destroying. Like in a high, intense, you know, some would say competitive atmosphere. But I think that has more to do with the form than it does with the way it functions behind the scenes. At least in my era that, like, that I stopped watching comedy, like, for the. Just suffering the anxiety of influence. I mean, growing up again, us being similar age, like, the stuff that I tried on in the 90s was one thing, but then the stuff that I was truly. That truly had me gravitate towards wanting to do better and better work or at a higher level and try to find another room where I could be even dumber than the one I was in. It's something like Mr. Show. So, like, the anxiety of Mr. Show, when you're sitting at a keyboard getting ready to write a sketch is debilitating.

[Pete Holmes]

For me to overcome.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, it's really, really difficult because it just. It transcended. It made me, in the Midwest feel like I was in on all this stuff that they were satirizing.

[Pete Holmes]

But then you're like, I hear that. But then also, you know, more cowbell, Mr. Pumpkin. So many sketches. Were you in the Beauty and the Beast? One, the Ass Castle. Do you remember the Ass Castle?

[Jason Sudeikis]

That was with Jared Butler, if I remember correctly.

[Pete Holmes]

Might be right. I just remember Mulaney wrote it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I think that. But I don't think I was.

[Pete Holmes]

But yes, what I'm saying is we see the hurdle, the insurmountable hurdle of Mr. Show, and then, like, so many of the things that get over the hurdle are, like, pure silliness.

[Jason Sudeikis]

100%. Oh, I know I would have been better served if I had the mentality, if I hadn't hit my own personal comedy bell curve where I was against fart jokes unless they were a flatulence joke. You know, like, there's a little bit of that comedy snob sort of journey you got to go through. I feel like I would have been better served had I been hired, like, out of Chicago, you know, when I should have been in level five. Yeah. And that. The show really does serve that. But at the same time, I. I, you know, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to, you know, I mean, not that I was in the mix at all, but I just know for myself, like, oh, if I would have put more that. That joy. Yeah. Which is a journey that, you know, when you. Again, looking back over it, because you don't know when you're in it, you sort of even forget people watch the fucking show because you're just, you know, you're on to the next one, and then you're walking around on Sunday and people are like, hey, good job. You're like, oh, all right. Thanks. How'd you get in? Oh, right, it's on tv. But. But it's like this sketch that we did that the first time we did it was that Gerard Butler show was this thing called what up with that? Yeah, that. You know, Kenan Thompson and Brian Tucker. So silly and so excellent. Like, all I did was dance in it. And it is. If people come up to me 75%.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I mentioned you were doing the podcast, and it was like, hey, what's up with that?

[Jason Sudeikis]

And people love it.

[Pete Holmes]

That's crazy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And yet. And you're dancing.

[Pete Holmes]

But that is what I think of.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But that dancing is what I used to do when I was, like, 15 and the only white kid or one of the only white kids on an all black basketball team when I was the Jim Carrey of my AAU team.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

To make, you know, the black kids, you know, dance. And I was, you know, watching House Party and.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, and so I knew all these. All these moves, and. And I. Then I did it, like in a play, like, in college. And then I did it, literally the episode before I got hired into the cast, when we did, like, a Super Bowl Shuffle thing with Horatio Sands that he played Ditka in, like, doing Just the Fucking Running man has been, like, such a thing throughout my heart. Yeah. That. It's that here. Here I go through Second City and improv Olympic, and I, you know. You know, I go to Boom. Chicago, and I work there. I work in Second City in Las Vegas. I get hired at snl. I take all these class, you know, hired snl. And I think for me, it's me, like, the thing I'm, you know, that I get the most, you know. You know, geeky kind of comedy thrill out of is knowing where the frame ends and knowing when I jump in from the side that it looks like I'm jumping off of something versus just jumping into it. Like, that's the thing I'm getting geeky about. And yet everybody's just like, no, man, that dancing, that joy that you have when you dance is the same joy that I had when I was 13. And it's like such a. Like a very moving lesson to realize where it's like, don't lose anybody that does anything for a living, which is the majority of us, luckily, with unemployment being so low, as we hear that. Find that joy somewhere. Find it somewhere within it and just own it.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Those are your magic beans.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you actually start. It's kind of mythic. You start with what you have later. You know, like, it reminds me, like, Kumail, of course, our dear friend, never talked about being from Pakistan or anything. And then, you know, with. With, you know, good reason, I said he wanted to just be known as a comedian. And then when his number comes in and he writes his movie, he writes it about being from Pakistan and that experience. Similarly, you had the Running man at the beginning. Well, you have at the beginning. When the time is right, you represent it. And then, like so much of our job, I feel like now is trying to find and reconnect to that. That innocent, wonderful, joyful time when comedy was just about the second show on Saturday in Kansas City.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Yes, I would 100% agree with that. And SNL and that time, my life. It was tough. It was a toughie is a way for me to say tough and tricky. It was a toughie. It was tough to get there for me. It really was. But that's like. I never would have necessarily wrote that for myself, but, like, Colin Jost wrote a thing for me. Like, for me. And Fred was in it too early on, like the first man in the history of the world to dance. And it was me dancing silent, but no one would know it was me because we had tons of caveman makeup on. And then. And then, like, what up with that is, you know, which someone else had to write for me. And, like, Brian Tucker just had to write, you know, Jason hip hop dances, Fred plays saxophone, Jason hip hop dancers, and that's it. And so. So it's that for me, it always. I needed the. Needed to be the permit. I wouldn't choose silly for myself when I was at snl, but when someone was, you know, kind enough to write it for me, I tried to do it to the best of my ability.

[Pete Holmes]

What did you think was gonna be your thing? That's very interesting at snl because you do have that. You got the deep voice. You have a look that could almost be. Although Parnell, they used to make him be silly all the time. That became, like, the joke. But I could have seen.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But he could play it so serious. You know, he was so gifted at.

[Pete Holmes]

What did you imagine for yourself if it wasn't straight silly beans at snl?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I think it was gonna be. I thought. I think, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Cause you could have gone, like a Daily show route. Something that's not. Something dry.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I auditioned for Weekend Update before Amy and Tina did it and then before Seth and Amy did it, and, you know, and I feel comfortable in that space being like, you know, that version of myself.

[Pete Holmes]

But I love that I said Daily show when there is a Daily show thing on snl.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Some would even say it was first, but. But, you know, I'm sure. I'm sure we can prove.

[Pete Holmes]

We can prove that it was first.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. That makes me think of one of my favorite jokes and stories of all time with Norm MacDonald. Yeah, I think it's okay. But, yeah, Norm, I hung out with him. This is several years ago. I got to be on Dennis Miller's podcast with him. Like, these are two of my favorites. Yeah. You know, despite whatever, you know, people feel about Dennis and his politics now, like, literally shaped also how I thought jokes were said going back to our earlier thing. And it was just a thing that I would listen to with my father on the way to school when I was in trouble. And by the time I'd get to school, we'd be laughing instead of being in trouble. It was like, so it was a very romantic moment. But then afterwards, Norm and I go get Food. And he said he had been. You know, I had been showing my kid these, you know, videos of me on YouTube there. You know, the YouTube. And I'm like, showing them old things that I did. And he looks at me, goes, oh, dad, you're doing Seth Meyers. And I. And I go, oh, no, my kid doesn't know how time works. And I. I still, to this day, I don't know if he ripped that because we were just talking about, like, just like, update or. Or. Or. Or like. But it was just. It knocked me out. Like, when you said that, I was just like, oh, my kid doesn't know how time.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes it's so good, you just want to say it. You just want to try and say.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's how I have to say it every time it comes up. Like, the time travel. It's so brilliant. And just to your point, about, like, you know, like, Seth. Like, any of us were, you know, we grew up, you know. Yeah. Which one I saw recently that I loved is. And this is because I do. I feel like I have a decent knack for this. Like, if all goes to shit, I'm gonna go into image consulting. What is that? I don't know. I don't know yet. It'll be on the business card under my weird last name, image consultant. But, no, I've been watching a lot of. With our little boy, a lot of Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And I have. I have reason to believe, and it's not a dig, but I believe that Dick Van Dyke was a heavy influence on George Clooney.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I see it everywhere.

[Jason Sudeikis]

There's just a little.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you watch Paul Newman and you go, oh, Brad Pitt should write him a check for every part he's ever played.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I mean, you know, come on.

[Pete Holmes]

That sounds like shots fired. It's also just a compliment. Paul Newman was fucking dope as shit.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

And we paused a Paul Newman movie once, and we were like, you could ask A hundred people, 100 people would say, that's Brad Pitt.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Oh, no, kid. Just the look.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, just the look. And then you just kind of do a minimal thing and look that way.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I mean, if you charming both those guys, like, just, you know, you know, with the sound off, like, Handsome as hell. Right. Like, I'd, you know, give anything to have any of that going on, but then to also have the ability to manipulate. Manipulate your emotions and serve a story. Yeah, go nuts.

[Pete Holmes]

He's good.

[Jason Sudeikis]

World's yours.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, these guys are good.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm make popcorn and give all the proceeds to charity. Like, Jesus, man, Man. Leave us no room to be excellent left on earth. We can't hit that Newman bar. We can't hit the Newman bar.

[Pete Holmes]

You can have a Newman lemon bar.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's true. Okay. I do like his lemonade.

[Pete Holmes]

He does have a good lemonade. He brought lemonade back in a big way.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. The country time guy was like, I'm out. I'm tapping out. He's like, Newman's like, I'll take it. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'll give all the money away. But first I want to show you how much it is in a frame check and then give it to charity because I don't even need it because I'm Newman. You wish you were better looking. I mean, this isn't one of those shows. We're just two guys talking. I'm curious.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That, like, I wish I looked like Paul Newman or Brad Pitt.

[Pete Holmes]

Because every comedy. You're, like, very handsome.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, that's very kind of you.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's also very mean of you to say no.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? You're not Brad Pitt.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, in the world. You're kind of one of our top guys.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, that's very sweet of me.

[Pete Holmes]

Think of some of the names you mentioned. Horatio Sands.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Fred.

[Jason Sudeikis]

These are weir great faces. Very photogenic. Like, literally.

[Pete Holmes]

But you're comedy handsome guy. Like horrible bosses. They're like, we need somebody that's comedy and handsome.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I don't feel what. But I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're married to beautiful. Like, I'm interested. Like, you seem to like beauty.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm. I've been married.

[Pete Holmes]

You're married to a very beautiful woman.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I am. I am very. I mean, we're engaged technically, but she's. But she's very beautiful. No, that's not a bad thing.

[Pete Holmes]

I guess that would. That's what put it in my brain was. I was like, oh, Jason likes beautiful things.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Sure. Yes. Me and Rufus Wainwright. Beautiful things. I. I do.

[Pete Holmes]

And then I was like, how does that reflect on you? And then I caught. Not caught. I heard you say something like, I wish I looked like Brad.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But I mean, those specific. You know, I mean, specifically, Paul Newman, I think is like. Is like a bonkers. It would be nuts to look like that.

[Pete Holmes]

But would you rather be the funny guy you are?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'd rather be me.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. At the end of the day, I'm comfy there. But I do know that there's the perception that you're talking about I understand, but do not accept because I don't see myself. But I know how I feel. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

And also, how good looking do you feel?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like six. I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

It fluctuates. I have to imagine it fluctuates.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Sure, sure. Yeah. Sometimes you wake up and you just have like one of those small dick days, you know, you're just like, I can't.

[Pete Holmes]

Did I just get out of the pool?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. What's going on?

[Pete Holmes]

I can't even dream about a pool.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, no. Someone put some gu in my pubic hair. Nope, that's my dick.

[Pete Holmes]

Smell like grape.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But I feel like. But, yeah, no, but, but I think that that's. But I'm. I mean, I'm. I'm okay with that.

[Pete Holmes]

In high school, were you the not as attractive guy in the group of friends? I don't. Here's what. Let's just get to what I'm getting. Like, what are we. I'm noticing just how much healing I've gotten from comedy. Like, you referenced feeling dumb, and I felt dumb so much of junior high and high school. So what you said really resonated with me was put on a show, keep it from getting to the book that I couldn't read because nobody, like, taught me how to read. I knew how to read, but nobody, like, taught me. Like, look, it's boring. Sometimes you're gonna start the paragraph over.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And over and over.

[Pete Holmes]

But that's what reading is. I just thought I was bad at it, so I gave up.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I remember in the reading comprehension test, like, reading the question and then going, I do. They say to read the whole thing and then answer the. I would do it the opposite. I would read the question, then go hunt for the answer. So I wouldn't get through it, you know, because that takes a lot longer.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, we were looking for little hacks around. I hated all that stuff.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I was. I wanted to be. My mom wouldn't let me see Ferris Bueller in the theater because she was like, you'll get. You'll get a. Bad, bad ideas. And that came out like six, you know, again, like sixth, seventh, sixth grade.

[Pete Holmes]

She's not wrong.

[Jason Sudeikis]

She's not wrong. I read the fucking book. Remember when they do, they do, like, novelizations. I read the book Ferris Wheeler's Day Off. Not a real book, just literally just, you know, know the script.

[Pete Holmes]

I read the book of Batman.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I did too.

[Pete Holmes]

You did? Do you remember that it mentions, like in the opening scene, the. Who are you? I'm Batman. That whole scene.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it mentions that the guy shits his pants. So then I would watch the movie and I'd go to my friends and go, he shits his pants.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's in the book. That's how they were talking about the Tim Burton one. The Michael. Tim Burton. Michael Keaton. I was. Yeah. No, I was so fired up. We saw that. Me and my buddy Ryan Landry saw that. Noon at Glenwood Theaters.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Like that's how fired up we were. And I read the book before him.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, really?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Before, Before.

[Pete Holmes]

There's also a comic book. Did you read the comic book?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I never, I'd never, Never aware of that. No. I Knew that's the Batman 66 show, but I, I never really.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I didn't mean that. I meant there was a comic book of the movie.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, no, I didn't know that. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That wasn't.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I thought you were being a smart ass. No, no, no. There's a comic book. Oh, no, no. The source material.

[Pete Holmes]

There was a comic book of the Tim Burton and you'd still enjoy it. It's just a drawing version of that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Do they draw like, like, like Jack Nicholson as the Joker?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's basically him. Mick Napier.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, Jack Napier.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Jack McNapier.

[Jason Sudeikis]

How about that? That was, you know, the second time I heard that last name, I was like. And he did not, he did not live it down. Mick's incredible guy.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you remember a great lesson he taught you, Mick? Yeah. Because you, you, you're in the improv. You're in the improv.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're like I said as a joke, the standard white male improv star.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

At some point you are going to have to learn some pretty interesting lessons that I'm hoping we could talk about.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

To help. Because we guys like us that got into improv, that had the tap shoe confidence.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Thought we could all move to see.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I think it's ignorance.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

A little bit ignorance, which is what goes a long way.

[Pete Holmes]

A little ignorance that we were like, I think I can do this.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. That's that Dunning Kruger thing that like. I remember you and Derek having just listened to the podcast where you guys were on, talking about that, like the Trump thing. Like, well, you don't know. You're not supposed to be where you are.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you, you need to have a little bit of that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Hopefully it's not toxic, but you get that confidence. I can do this. But then you move there, you realize that you just got off the bus with 50 other white dude that were funny in improv in college or whatever. What helped you refine the process? Because I still don't understand how you stood out. It's a. It's a. It's a. Looking back, you have to go, like, the numbers were kind of crazy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, very crazy. Very crazy. I still. To the point now that when, you know, the conversation of representation and diversity, which I completely agree with and I'm all for, I'm kind of like, oh, but are there enough? Are the horses there? Because I just think of like 20 kids every. During my time, every eight weeks, starting in class and it being 16 white dudes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, and then maybe within those white dudes, there's like, you know, two lefties, you know, and like, maybe a gay fella. But, like. But it just. But now I'm sure it's. It's quite different. And now I.

[Pete Holmes]

You're right to bring that up. We should check our prevalence. We should have like a sound effect.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I would hope. I would hope with like, you know, Amy and Tina's influence, like just in the zega. Every. I mean, every amazing female that. That there are more parents that are kind of like, you know, laughing at those women thing and then when their daughter does something funny, that it isn't like, marginalized. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or whatever. What are they doing? Yeah, I assume.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, talk about the way that we learn from things. We were talking about who we learned comedy from, who we were imitating and stuff. Culture is dictated by something. It's crazy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, meaning you're saying Dean and Amy made us more likely to laugh at young girls. And that's 100% true.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, it was Ellen for me. Like, Ellen. Ellen was right up there. That was another one that I tried on. That's another cadence and personality like I.

[Pete Holmes]

Had, which I would argue she was doing a lot of Letterman too. Not in a bad way. She just reminded me of that sort of. We're in the back of the classroom.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I could see that. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Just a little bit.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But Letterman, obviously a huge influence too. Right. But I don't know what it was in Chicago. I could. I. I know. I know something was happening. Something was. Was coming off me immediately. That was responded to in a way that I think was jarring to. To other folks. Like, I mean. I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

What kind of jarring? Bad during.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Good jarring. I mean, I think a little bit of. I mean, a little bit of both. It depended. I mean, it's weird to talk about because I'M not, I'm not bragging. Like it literally happened, but it felt. I was a little embarrassed by it. I remember the very first scene, like at Improv Olympic, like first class. And it was a scene in Charna Halpern, the matriarch of the place. And Del was still alive at this point, so that's who everybody was trying to get to in level five, have him take his classes. But it was like the first scene and she paired me up. She paired us up, you know, two at a time. And, you know, eight different couples had gone. Then it was myself and another fella. And it was all about doing scenes that usually resonate in conflict. And I was like, you two are ordering a pizza. And I remember just sort of latching on to what didn't know it was called then. It's just the way we joked around. But it was also probably the influence of playing improv games, short form games, that then when you found all you're doing is manufacturing the games that they teach, like at ucb, you're just. You're. They're doing it from the outside. Like the referee is doing it. Okay, now, now do this, now do that, you know, Right. You can just choose those games within your head. Was sort of, I guess how my brain snapped into it. Yeah, it just. There's nobody blowing a whistle and.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And telling you to do it now. Do the game now. It was like. And it was like, okay, let's order, let's order. It's like, what do you want to get? And you know, I'll get pepperoni. I was like, okay, but we gotta go to this one place. And this was my suggestion, like, was like, we gotta go to this one place. A girl brings it to your door. And it was just like, okay, fine, I don't care. But what do you want to get? I go get whatever you want, man. I don't care. We just gotta order it from this place. Because you understand a girl brings to your door. And it was not implying anything about it being actually prostitution. It was just. I would just keep coming back to that. I'm like, you know, 21. Like literally just 21. Just having September of 97 before my.

[Pete Holmes]

And it got a big laugh the.

[Jason Sudeikis]

First time you said, yeah, the class. Yeah, the first laugh. First laugh. And then the second laugh is bigger laugh. And then. And then after the scene, it was just this. It was just Sharna going, that was great. Who are you? Like, and that. Who are you? Like, was weird.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the best. Who are you? I've ever heard.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But it's. But it's like. And if you've done this before, this work before, I was like, why did, like, comedy sports in Kansas City? She's like, okay, well, you're very good. And like, it was like, swear to God.

[Pete Holmes]

And.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But I didn't buy it because that's.

[Pete Holmes]

What I wanted so badly. I would die.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Always waiting for something. It makes me. It makes me, like, a little emotional to think about because. Because then you're kind of like. At the same time, it felt weird because the same thing kind of happened in my Second City classes. And what happened there. Well, just the same.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that story. And by the way, no one thinks you're bragging. These are those great. Something I say on the podcast all the time is you follow the dream that's also following you. Right. So you're getting this.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But that's why it makes me emotional, because it's like. Because that's what it felt like. Because it's the same reason why I believe. Yes, American Idol was fascinating because you had the three judges and you had the one guy being mean. But also what we love more than anything is like, you know. Right. Yeah. One's mean, but he's British. It's okay. It's okay. Like, all that. Their chemistry was fascinating. All that. But I really do believe at the end of the day, it's about, like, someone like Carrie Underwood who's just, you know, singing her brains out, probably at church. We can only assume in Oklahoma. Who then goes in for this and then is like, you're saying, like, what, you know, the chicken or the egg. It's just. And so here I make this.

[Pete Holmes]

Her dream was following her, and she didn't even win that show.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I can't remember if she did or not, but she didn't win. Yeah, but, like, it doesn't matter because.

[Pete Holmes]

She'S clearly doing what she's supposed to do.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

We are drawn to people that are doing what they ought to be doing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

We like books to tell time. We like comedians. And you're right. I can see it. I'm in that theater now. That's why I love that story. What happened at Second City? Do you remember the scene?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, no. Second City, the Second City weird thing that happened was I got in on my first audition, which you were told well before, and this was, like, a gift from a number of people that Mick Napier included. You know, we get paired up again, and we had an odd number in our audition. This is to audition to become an understudy for the touring company. And we had an odd number. And the first scene I did was with my buddy Ed Goodman, who I did perfect improv audition.

[Pete Holmes]

Buddy, man.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But he's also, like, one of my dear. He was my. He was my hero before, like, Scott Adsett and Kevin Dorff and, like. And Tina at Second City, when I first started comedy sports, I would drive downtown to see if his Volvo was in the parking lot because I didn't want to call and ask who was playing as a new. As a new person.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Because, well, you know, this person is. You know, if I was looking, if they listed to me, like, oh, the eight people that have been there forever, but not, like, Ed or Eric or Corey or Jeremy. These guys that ended up becoming my. My teammates, like, my sketch group and everything in Kansas that, like, so that's. So Ed was my. You know, so to get to do it with him, we do a scene that. Because we had a head class with Mick and he knew our vibe, and so he put us up there and gave us a good chance to shine. And then the last guy I had no idea was a guy that came in every single year because it's an open call. You don't have to be Equity or anything like that. And Mick was like. And, you know, Jason, one shoe. You know, do it with this guy. And I didn't forget his name or anything. And we started doing a scene. You're playing darts. Okay. So we start playing darts. And the guy. I don't even realize it. And I think this is. And I've done this has been the case with everything all my life, especially with the performance side. It's like, I don't get into a judgmental mode. Like one's in it. Like, we're in the boat together. Like, if it's sinking, like, I don't know, because I'm in the boat with you. Like, it's just right. We're getting taller or shorter. I don't know what's going on, but we just start throwing darts. And I guess looking back on it now and again, the only reason I have an awareness of this. Of this scene is not because of. From doing it, but from the way it was spoken about later in life. But we're doing a scene, and he's asking questions the whole time, and I'm just answering questions. And it's like a.

[Pete Holmes]

You mean in the bad way?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes, one would say in the bad way. You're not supposed to. And this was something that. This is a guy that, like I said, it was like an Elvis impersonator who would. He didn't. Wasn't in character, I understand, but he was one of those guys.

[Pete Holmes]

Until this moment, though, I wasn't sure you were going to be like. And that person was Will Ferrer.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know what I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I thought this was one of those.

[Jason Sudeikis]

This was a guy that. They're like, well, if anybody can, like, make. Make something out of this. Mick told me later, was like. Was like, well, I thought maybe you could do something with it. And you did. And at that time, what I didn't know was, was that a teacher of mine, a guy, a really great writer, really outstanding, like Chicago and New York improviser named Peter Gwynn, who started Baby Candy, he was sitting off to the side. He was in touring coming this time, and I guess he was sitting off to the side. And again, the only reason I know this happened was because there was a fellow named Jason Chin who had this website who. In the improv communities. He's since passed on. But Peter wrote a thing about the Second City auditions, like, to everybody in Chicago.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, how to audition?

[Jason Sudeikis]

How to audition.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I read that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Do you know the dart scene? Have you. Well, I don't expect you to remember. There's a scene he plays verbatim. He doesn't say, it's me, but he goes, I only know one person that got into Second City on their first audition. And it didn't say who it was me. But he goes, it was based on this scene, and it's that dart scene that he wrote verbatim. So that's how I'm aware of this being a thing. All I know is that I was just trying to make. I literally thought this guy was a wizard. I thought he was brilliant. When I came off there, I go, well, that guy fucking. That guy was great.

[Pete Holmes]

You thought he was great?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes, yes. And so there's like, some lesson.

[Pete Holmes]

You weren't playing it snarky. You were there with them.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I was. It's an. It's an. It's a scary thing to like. Yeah. Be right next. To be. Have the. To be outside the thing that you want that I moved to Chicago to possibly do, like, Second City, you know, next to my buddy Ed. Like, that's a. Which. Who I will always be, you know, deferred to in many, many instances, even though externally people may think otherwise, but that's the way, like, Lauren would always talk about, like, the Beatles. He's like, you know, George is still the baby around Paul. I can't I? Worst Lauren impression ever, but we'll get there. But it's like, that's how I thought the guy was a genius. But then Peter wrote this thing and when I read, I was like. I was like, I'll be darn. I didn't know that that was.

[Pete Holmes]

When you said Peter Gwyn, I was like, I remember his rules for auditioning. He's like, you only have a couple minutes. Get mad.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He's like, if nothing else is working, just get mad. How dare you. Sit down.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Show friend range. Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

He was like, you cannot not sit in that chair at a time like this. He's absolutely right. Isn't that good?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, because like, Most people, like Dr. Nice Guy Improv, like, wait for them to talk. It's everything the annoyance was against. Can you.

[Pete Holmes]

What did you do? So you're playing darts and what was. Do you remember any of the questions that he asked and how you kind of turned that into something?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I think it was like, literally, you know, I think it was like, just the same thing. I believe it helps any male and female getting a partner beyond maybe their. Their looks would necessarily provide is listened. It's literally about listening and even listening to the point of like. Like, if he was like, okay, so what is this? It's like, oh, yeah, this is darts. You know, like. Like, like listening and considering and maybe not even speaking the line of whatever the thought is beforehand. I. I can't really. I. I may be able to pull it back if I looked at the. If I looked at the dialogue itself. Yeah. But it was kind of like I may be thinking, oh, you know, oh, this guy's crazy. But only within the reality of this dartboard scene, not the audition.

[Pete Holmes]

We have to look it up. Can I look it up?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, if you can find it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I bet we can find it. I used to read that all the time.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I love Jason's website because he also had access before I moved to Chicago. McNapier's journal, because he was. Jason was the stage manager of this amazing show Paradigm Lost, which was, you know, was Adsit Dorff, a fellow named Amazing Guy, Jim Zulavec, who's passed on. Jenna Jolovitz, Rachel Dratch and Tina were the three and three. Three males, three females. And he wrote a whole journal about making this show that was just thrilling to read in Kansas, knowing that I want to move to Chicago. So I knew about and of Mick Napier in the early days of the Internet because he was kind enough to write through his process of Directing that show that then he published on Jason's website. So that's how I even knew about this website. So then to be anonymously referenced. But those are the. Those are the instances. So it was like, you know, and then I got in. So. So then by the time. So I never. Here it is. You did. You found it.

[Pete Holmes]

We found it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm so sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

You are real show businessman. You're a broadcaster.

[Jason Sudeikis]

How about that? How about that?

[Pete Holmes]

You kept the yarn going.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I loved it. Sorry, I'm just thinking. You think unintentionally, but I love it. Yeah. I watched it, read it two years ago. Of the guy who got hired in his first audition. He got hired largely thanks to this exchange with a guy who had apparently never taken an improv class. A is playing darts. That's me, I guess. B says, what are you doing, Jason Sude? Yeah, exactly. And I say, I'm just playing darts. He goes, how do you play? Well, you just stand behind this line, throw the dart at the board. Is that the line? Yes. That's probably how I would have done it. No, in here now. Yeah. And so. Yeah, so if you play B. Yeah. What am I doing?

[Pete Holmes]

Let's do the whole scene from the beginning.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Okay, here we go. All right, so I'm playing.

[Pete Holmes]

This is the word worst for context. This is the worst improv thing turned into the best.

[Jason Sudeikis]

There we go.

[Pete Holmes]

And you start playing darts. What are you doing?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, you know, I'm just playing darts.

[Pete Holmes]

How do you play?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, you just. You want to stand behind this line and you throw a dart at the board.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that the line?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah. Yes, it is. Is that a dart with this? Yeah, this is. This is a dart.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I try?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, sure. Here you go. Okay, now, Peter writes here, excise, two minutes of B not throwing the dart. Finally, B throws the dart and it's clear from the look on A's face that B has thrown a bullseye. Which was true. Like, I remember that. I remember that.

[Pete Holmes]

And then I say, I missed the board.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I mean, it was everything. It was like. Was everything. It was. And just to.

[Pete Holmes]

But it was like, you know, it's very snl. Like, you didn't panic.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

You got a part. So you got the thing. This is for Second City Touring.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Go. Yeah, I got. I got hired. I got shortlisted to be an understudy for the touring company for Second City.

[Pete Holmes]

Which was at the time.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Which. Which. But I'm just saying, like, you know, but for me. But I mean, that was it. I was on my way and it Was like that validation of like, oh God.

[Pete Holmes]

But you didn't panic. See, I think a lot of people go in thinking, I'm gonna be. I know I did. I went in being like, I'm gonna be super hilarious. In fact, I remember the other people auditioning and what they did. It's almost like a car crash. You remember every detail. I remember my terrible scene. I still remember. I sing it sometimes. There's this guy and he was very good. He was kind of like you, like, he was playing it small. It's an audition. He was being very cool about it. And this other guy was playing in a little bit more comedy sports, just for laughs, gags. Not to put it down, but he was really trying to get laughs. It was too late for that. Like everyone was tired in the room. It sucked. And the guy goes, yeah, I was in a. I was in a musical called Humans. And the other guy did. This is the guy that I thought wasn't as good necessarily was like, well, gee, I'd love to hear some of it. You know that move? Yeah, he practically played it out to the audience. Like, well, gee, Dale, yeah, sure would love to hear some of it. And this is what the guy did. He went, we're all humans, every one. And that's all he did. And I really appreciated that. He didn't try to make like a flourishy rhyme schemey impressive thing. He just sang that and was like.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Dude, get out of my fucking face.

[Pete Holmes]

And he was more. He kind of did what you did. Meaning the audition is. I'm not gonna panic, I'm gonna stay sure footed. And when I say it seems snl, it's like the audition isn't about going like, oh, shoo diarrhea on my fucking encyclopedias. It was about just playing the scene.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And the joke became how bad the other guy was. But not in a mean way, in a beautiful way.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I literally had no idea. I vividly remember thinking like walking out with Ed being, hey, how was that last scene? That guy was good. Yeah. Like you like that kind of like that kind of vibe. So, so, so, so to read that like when I was still living in Chicago. I forget when, when Peter wrote that, but. But I was, I was kinda like, oh, wow, okay. I didn't know that.

[Pete Holmes]

It sounded like 2014. Is that too late?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, much later. Earlier than that. Earlier.

[Pete Holmes]

Somebody replied, posted it. This is what Pete says he wrote. Everybody appreciated the fact that a Jason Su day twice. I've made you laugh at that. Had just let this guy drive the Scene supporting his moves. Since B wouldn't support A's, then A made the guy a dart prodigy. He made him look great. B's last line notwithstanding that there is something going on in improv. That's kind of why when I said I thought it was dirty that Second City would improvise to write a sketch. Now I don't care. That's a great way to do it. But at the time, there was something kind of reverent and special about the capacity for improv. To be beautiful.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

To be kind of healing like you should have been eye on. I want this. I gotta be funny. It should have been taking you out of it how bad this guy was.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't have that, but it's almost.

[Pete Holmes]

Like it reminds me.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Sports. I think sports got that. Got that out of me a little bit.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. For some reason that, like. Yeah, but I know what you're talking about and that you didn't want to crush it. Yes. But not, not you did, but you didn't.

[Pete Holmes]

Not at the expense of your spirit.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It does not mean other people.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Like, like I. I Anagasai told stories about Will Ferrell being similar. Like he just kind of wants to get laughs. He wants to be silly and fun and do it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He told the story of like he signed up for a line dancing class and then he also got this like scholarship thing. But if he took the scholarship, he couldn't do the line dancing. And he was like, I just want a line dance. So there's something similar about, like you weren't in that moment thinking what was owed to you, what the timeline you were on.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I was told that the first audition is just for the next audition. Right. Like, you know, I just want to, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

But isn't that beautiful? It's like the no mind thing. You're swinging the samurai sword. You're not thinking about it. You have a little bit of that Zen vibe. And you did very well.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And the reverence towards the place, like, and towards, you know, Mick, you know, who, who was a giant influence and in many ways still is because he's one of those, one of the, you know, the Greek chorus members that are sort of always in our head, you know, that we sort of perform towards or wonder what they would think. Yeah. It only gets bigger as you go throughout life, but he's definitely one of them.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you get to study with Del?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. One class.

[Pete Holmes]

You did?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Yeah. I was right towards the end. I was in town there.

[Pete Holmes]

What Was that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It was. I mean, I had a good foot rooted in the history of the city, too, because my aunt. Uncle had done Second City and knew Dell is like a director. George Wendt, George Wynd, and my aunt, Bernadette Burkett.

[Pete Holmes]

Please only mention George.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, right. No, she loves that. But, you know, like the. She loves that. But then through him, I had, like, this tremendous access to this great generation that was like Pat Finn, Dave Koechner, Kev, John Glazer through just. And George would be like, if I had any questions about the improv world, he'd ask Pat. Pat was there more recently. So I'd pepper Pat with questions. And he would say, with Dell, even at that point. And so you're talking about, like, 98 with me. He's like, he could end up talking for three hours, but he will say something in that three hours that will be unlike anything you'll get from anywhere else in that city or from anywhere else possibly on earth. So it's worth it for that because.

[Pete Holmes]

He would be kind of. I don't want to put him down. Not droning on, but he would leave.

[Jason Sudeikis]

In the middle of scenes to go pee. I mean, you know, we didn't know he was, you know, as, you know, like, it was a lot of throat clearing and stuff in the middle scene. And like. Like, violent throat clearing, like, where you also. Where you could hear, you know, stuff cooking in there. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't just like, oh, it's loosening. Yeah. So it's finally. And then he'd leave, go one walk down the hall and go to the restroom, and you're seeing. You're kind of like, do we keep going? But then there were all my contemporaries or people that had only been there for a couple years that were a little bit against them. Not against them, but, like, loved and rightfully so. And I understand why, like, going to take class with Mark Sutton or Susan Messing or Joe Bill or Mick Napier at the annoyance, because it was just like reps. It's like you just did so many scenes, so much focus on the individual.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Del was trying to, you know, do this big thing that worked, clearly. I mean, he influenced so many people from, like, the people we mentioned from early SNL days to, like, you know, just as recently and as beautifully as, like, the ucb, you know, gang, that I was a little bit more leaned in there as opposed to arms crossed, because I was waiting to hear this one thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you remember any of the one thing?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, there are a few. Probably my absolute Favorite. And I don't believe it was him that said it originally, but he said it to me originally was remember two that it's important to. And I want to get. It's a little bit of wordplay. So I want to make sure I say it right. Is it's more important to love the art in yourself versus yourself in the art. And that comes back. I come back to that all the time. I actually have a tendency to for a little bit sign people off that when they. When it becomes more about the messenger than the message is the other way.

[Pete Holmes]

That people say that's the ickiness of showbiz. I suppose you can start to lose yourself.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But it happens in politics, too. It happens everywhere. It happens every like, you know, fame is a motherfucker. And it's intoxicating in a way that.

[Pete Holmes]

Can really going back to doing the running man, the magic beans. It's been a real theme on this podcast. I don't know if you listen to Mark Duplass, for example. We talked about Soul points.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And people listening. Knew I was going to bring that up is because that's been my fascinating thing is like Dell seemed like a soulful person. And while I enjoy the reps, I was a reps guy too. It's like, let's get reps. Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Have we lost something with the, like the. And I say this lovingly, the like, quiet kind of geezer archetype. That's like in the mountains.

[Jason Sudeikis]

They're still there. There's always the. The old drunk judge on the hill. They're like, you know, I think there is great, you know, like, you know, like, you know, in our mut of magic, you know, like, that's why I love Dai Vernon, because I'm kind of like, oh, that's especially the one that when they don't get. If they remain anonymous in some way. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

They don't get their due or they.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Don'T get their due. That I'm kind of like this.

[Pete Holmes]

You mentioned Ferris Bueller, which is what the few movies that do.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. That's so true. That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

He didn't really get his due.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No. No. And people know. People just know him. He can be used as like a punchline to a degree. But that's still a life well lived.

[Pete Holmes]

The modernity wanting. I feel the temptation to myself to go like was really Hammer. Is it something. We can get other places. But there is magic that comes in like a quiet time with an old man.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

An older, crazier man.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, yeah. He was, he was bad news. I mean, I. He was. Yeah. But like. But I mean, not. I don't think. Yeah, I think he stole, you know, I don't know, like, not at that age. But I mean, you know, he was. I think he drove people crazy with his, with his addictions and his vices and his. Yeah. And his closed mindedness and his sexism. Yeah. I mean he. I don't think he would. I don't think he'd play very well in these days. But. But the things that he had to say that were outside of his own, like when his baggage wasn't getting in the way of his intuition, he had beautiful things to say. That's what Pat was referring to. The other thing I always talked about was like, you know, you gotta have big ears. He's like, as a jazz. You gotta be like a jazz drummer. You gotta have big ears. And he was always, you know, play at the top of your intelligence.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, so that one got passed down.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah. Those three big things. So like, if you would use a word like, you know, versus militude on stage, he would call it out afterwards. Nicely done. Like, he would make a point to do that. Like someone, you know, like a coach setting a back screen that led to a pass, that led to a layup or something. Like he'd see the. Those moves and be like, that's right. Like the scene could be hilarious. That could be the funniest guy. Farley throwing, you know, falling through the day. But you said versus Militude in context, right? Good job, man. That was great. What's your name? And he forget. You forget it by the next scene. You know, like if you got to do another scene, you do it, you know. But it was so. It was, it was neat, you know, like, but, but I. But yeah, that just. But the whole thing about going there and I think anybody like starting out, it's just. For me it's about seeing as much stuff as possible, reading as much stuff, watch as much stuff nowadays, you know, with like, you're doing an amazing thing for the kids in Kansas, like myself that like to hear people talk about what they talk about and how they talk about it. Because all we had were talk shows back in the day and these people all dolled up and like, you know, phony. Yeah, yeah. You know, pre interviews and all that.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes they get the email where it's like, do you have any advice? I'm like hundreds of hours. You know what I mean? That's what I want to say.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen to Hundreds of hours. Yeah, send them a link. You kidding me?

[Pete Holmes]

Here's a link.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That was like. I remember getting to see, like all these Chicago stories are coming back to me now. But Ed and I going to see David Mamet talk at the Goodman Theater. Actually, no. No relation. Otherwise, you know, Ed would have told me. He's very modest, but he's going to read his book deal. This is when Truth and True and True and False had just come out. His acting book, which was just shitting on acting schools all over, which there happened to be and I didn't. Wasn't totally where I remember four within, like, you know, it was like Columbia College, you know, Northwestern, DePaul, all the second City. Goodman had their own stuff. He's trying to read that book. That's what he's there to do. I'm sorry, he's not reading True and False, he's reading the Old Religion, this other book that he had come out that was about Judaism, but like a fictional book, like maybe, you know, historical fiction or something. I can't quite remember because all I was there was, you know, talk about the plays and whatnot. And so he'd read a chapter and then he'd take questions. And the first two questions would be about that book. And then someone would finally be brave enough because he's a pretty intimidating guy, especially on a stage at a microphone and spotlight. And someone would ask about, you know, like, you know, sexual perversity in Chicago. Then the next nine questions are Glenn Garrett, all about the plays. And he'd go, okay, we're gonna get back to the book. And at some point, like about if it was 45 minutes long, an hour long, he was like, do you have any. You have any, you know, any secrets? Any. Any, you know, like, any tips? Any, you know, hacks, as we now say, you know, showbiz hacks? And he was just at his wits end. He goes, look, here's all I can tell you. Write a plan play, have your friends do it, find somewhere to do it, see what happens. That's all I did. That's all I can tell you. He's like the Pulitzer Prize winning David Mammon. A guy who has his own style and many, many influences that he's influenced. And he's just like, there's no secret. You gotta just do it. Can I please read this book that I'm trying to sell?

[Pete Holmes]

Right? All right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And the other cool thing about that night is that Ricky J. Was there, who I'd just seen in Boogie Nights. And I knew who he was from that I got to introd myself to.

[Pete Holmes]

Great magician.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Great magician. Great. Great historian. Great brain.

[Pete Holmes]

You met him?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I met him. I just introduced my. Hi, my name. My name's Jason. I'm taking class at Second City. But I'm a big fan of your. Your work. Even. Even the. The unmentionable movie that you're now in, which was Boogie Nights, which is a dumb joke. I'm just trying to. But the other. But the best part about the whole story was Ed, because afterwards we get the book signing. I had True and False with Ed, forgot his books. He kind of spontaneously came down there with me to this thing. So he's like, I don't. I don't. I don't. I like. And he loves Mamet. And he's like, I can't believe I don't have him sign a thing. I go, I got. Why don't you have him sign. Sign this? And I had the hardcover version of Naked by David Sedaris, which kind of had a similar coloring to True and False. About the same size. It was like blue and white.

[Pete Holmes]

This is like, miss you, Elton.

[Jason Sudeikis]

This is like. So we're in line and I. I have him sign. He signs mine. You know, Jason, you know, David Mamet, you know, whatever. That book. Not the. I didn't buy his other book. So he was probably like, non plus or uninterested and signed the thing. Then Ed's right behind me, and I hear Ed's rap. He goes, Mr. Mamet, I'm so sorry. I. I thought I grabbed your book. I accidentally grabbed David Sedaris book. You know, this, like, wow. You know, effeminate, erudite, you know, like, you know, NPR voice. Voice of a generation. Generation. And Mammoth takes the book, looks up at Ed to see if, like, this is pre Borat or like, is this guy with me? It's just like this town, like it just any signs it and then hands it back to him. And we go outside and I'm laughing so hard. I go, you just punked America's greatest living playwright. He's like, I can't believe you did that. You're such a. And we're just laughing about. Because he loves them. So it's just weird. That opens it up. Mamet had signed to David. Sarah.

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Of course. So he got. Fuck, yeah, he got him. He got. We were laughing. We were like, oh, he got you back. So then cut to two years later when the Me Talk Pretty comes out, I think is David's next book. He goes to See him on a Borders bookstore back when they had those things? Sure. Borders and bookstores. We're trying to get the Borders back, though. We're gonna build the Borders.

[Pete Holmes]

And Barnes and Noble is gonna pay.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Come on, Internet. Where have you been? We've been sitting on this puppy forever. I haven't seen not one meme with that take. We're gonna build the wall.

[Pete Holmes]

And Pink Floyd is amazing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Just one long bookstore. Nobody's in it. Bezos, like, yeah, go for it.

[Pete Holmes]

It's the easiest to break into our country. Cause you just come in and use the bathroom and then go out the other side. I just took a shit and went to the other side.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It was super easy. It cost a nickel. We go. See, I didn't go with him, but I gave. Well, no, no. He goes to get Sedaris, because he was a huge David Sedaris fan, too, to go get him to sign his book. And he shows him that David Mamet signed naked as he goes, will you sign this? Will you sign true and false as David Mamet? And he did. And so Sedera signs David. You know, signs it as David Mamet. And then with all my love, David Mamet. A little heart above the eye.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Jason Sudeikis]

So then I gave Ed my. So he has the complet copy of all the books. Isn't that great?

[Pete Holmes]

I really hope David Mamet this somehow gets back to him.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I would, too.

[Pete Holmes]

I feel like he doesn't care about much.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I would hope he would like it. I would hope he'd think it would be funny.

[Pete Holmes]

I love the David Mamet quote that I love is somebody said, where do you get your ideas? And he goes, I think of them. I think that's so perfect, because there is something going on here, like what you're telling us about your improv success, for example, and we were kind of touching on it. It's like it just was in you to do. And that's what. And that's what, man.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Funny friends. Funny friend. Funny friends. Growing up, literally, that's all that Matt Bale, Ryan Landry, those video cameras. It really. It really is.

[Pete Holmes]

But then there's also something. Your note, your musical note fits in the scale of comedy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, in the way that Mammoth just started writing plays with his friends. Yeah, that's true. And there's probably dozens and lots of love and respect to them. People that did that and it didn't work out. But Mamet is a playwright, and you know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I mean, he did. I mean, he just. He Put fingers to keys. That's the scariest, hardest thing on earth to do for an artist, I think. You know, like a paintbrush to a blank canvas and all that, whatever. Choose your medium. But because there's so many options to just judge yourself with improv.

[Pete Holmes]

Back to what you were saying.

[Jason Sudeikis]

There's no time. SNL was very, very.

[Pete Holmes]

Would you improvise on SNL when you were trying to come up with ideas? Would you use that?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, but that's what I mean. The big debate for me is improv as a process or a product. And I don't mean debate, but those are the two schools tools of thinking. So it's like. So the second city would be like, it's a process. Like, you know, we'll play some improv games here and there, but it's, you know, it'll be. Usually be structured within a show, but then IO is like, no, the process is also a product and.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And.

[Pete Holmes]

But it doesn't translate to tv.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I know, we're.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I mean, I. Does not. It doesn't.

[Pete Holmes]

In fact, it upsets me on tv.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It can be like. Yeah, it can. It can upset me in films and television, too. When I. When I. When I feel a scene that. That. Yeah, yeah. When I see a movie that. That goes to the. Well too many times.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And because I'm just like, oh, okay. That's like, what about the work that was supposed to be done before this? Because I believe in plussing things. I think, you know, you go roll into something that I know the scripts that get, you know, like, on a studio level that have, like a nice chunk of change behind them are going to be, you know, like 120 pages.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

So now you're just. I always just. I just think about the boom guy, the poor guy. You know, when they're. When, like someone's riffing, like their seventh take of, like, just, you know, la de da. And it's, it's. It's, you know, the tone is all we. I mean, I was talking to Fred.

[Pete Holmes]

Armisen about this, and there is a type of improv that, like, we've all gotten wise to. I like to think of myself as an improviser. I mean, I'm not really, but I started in that way, and that was kind of like what inducted me into all of this.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So I like to think that. That I know the difference because there's a style that's just become very mainstream. Meaning even people who don't improvise are doing it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And a Lot of it. For some reason, Fred and I were laughing at the idea of, like, orange Tic Tacs, which is something that I sometimes say, which is just like, the specific. Like, well, I guess I'll just go home and eat some orange Tic Tacs. Like, just like, something really specific. But when you think about it, you're like, nothing happened. Like, nothing really was said. It's just the improv of, like, I.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Know he's improvised, but sometimes it's how you say it or why, you know, why you say it. I can sometimes retrofit. And again, if we get out of our own way and you're really in the scene, and I mean, like. But also in the piece, if you're able to go into the macro of, like, what the scene is and what the need is and what the relationship is that we're trying to forward. And then you can go, like, you're into the micro. Excuse me. But keep with you, like, sort of the moves which I imagine you have to do on your show, not knowing how much you're called. But it's like, you know, the shot, you know, you know where it's. Where the forward is. So you're not gonna violate that. And you'll know it if you do, because you'll know. Oh, but I just came from this where I was sad and I can't get too laughy.

[Pete Holmes]

That was a big season. One lesson for me was every scene I would improvise, I was the boom guy's nightmare. Yeah, because not. Not really.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No. Because you're paying the. You're paying the bills. You're allowed to. I'm talking about, like, when you're like, you know, just like, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Although, you know, it's funny, day players would come in. That was one of the things that I never knew, that I was probably the annoying day player that would come. Come in and improvise too much because.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Debatable. It's debatable. I've seen good things.

[Pete Holmes]

You're a good man. You never know how tired the other people are. That's one lesson, I'll say.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's a big part of it.

[Pete Holmes]

But you love magic, too. This is how we got into this. You reached out because you loved the Derek Tilg audio episode. I'm interested in your relationship with that. You mentioned meeting Ricky J. And how did it start, your interest?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Magic. Yeah, it was like it. And this is something I've been going through because, you know, being out here in LA for a little while, we. I've been going to the Magic Castle. So in support of that, I believe, you know, I want to join and be a member and, you know, pay my dues and not just rely on, you know, friends getting me in or whatnot. So I've been thinking about this a lot. Like, how did it start? I even had to, you know, write a little thing for my application. So if this sounds. If this sounds rehearsed, I apologize, but it's because it's.

[Pete Holmes]

You take off your hat and the doves lie down. That was very rehearsed.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I'm sorry. You got it with doves.

[Pete Holmes]

Can you imagine? Ricky J. Had a conversation like this and then he got up and there was a block of ice behind his menu.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Remember that story?

[Pete Holmes]

That story.

[Jason Sudeikis]

God, that's Max Molini, though, isn't it? Or did Ricky J. Do it too?

[Pete Holmes]

He did it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He did it too, at a homage to that person. So it's awesome.

[Pete Holmes]

And the woman that he did it to, they were doing press and she was like, we were in a restaurant.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was interviewing him for an hour. They were talking about that trick. And at the end, he moved his menu and there was a block of ice there. And she was like. It was in the scene and it had only just started melting. Just like. I love that magicians are trying to think of the things that we think of when we try and think of how things are done. Yeah, well, it's ice, so it must have melted. It was probably there a long time and they find ways around it. The ice hadn't melted that much.

[Jason Sudeikis]

There's a term for that, too. Like, Derek's got that in his show a lot. But it's the same. It's literally the same advice that I was given by. I mean, it could have been Tina, it could have been Steve Higgins or Dennis McNicholas, anybody that was the upper brass, like, on the writing side. When I first started working at SNL and the writer could probably capacity was don't just write. And it's the same thing that Rob Zabrecki, who's a great magician and all around artist, like, said recently to me when I saw him at the Castle was like, with the sketches, like, just write the sketch. We'll figure out how to produce it. Like, don't think. You gotta, like, you know, put it right, put it in the box of television. Like, oh, can they build that set? Like, no, just put what's in your head onto the paper. With this horrible template that we had. If it doesn't out.

[Pete Holmes]

And even writing scripts now I have to go. Like, do I really want to be on the subway? Like I know what it takes to close down a subway. Fucking just write it. Write it from the dream place. Produce it from there.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly. You can. You can get back in there. And Zabreka is the same way. No, if think of it. If you think of it, think of an illusion, an effect, and then we'll figure out the method later.

[Pete Holmes]

Which I love. That's what I love.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's life. I think that's. I think, like, yeah, I. I want to do that with my attempt to do that with my children where it's like I need X finished.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Figure out how to do it, then it's his. Then I think it's our job to like do. And especially in this day and age is like a big. You know, again from listening the podcast where we do similar in the Pete's projects I have. I definitely go on my tangents and I'm a big self learner and you know, never a student. Always. Always or no, never a master, always a student, never a master. That sort of thing. Like I just. That's where the tap shoes was an early version of that too.

[Pete Holmes]

Val could tell you. Take you on a tour of my current tap shoes. Like there's always something.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Always. Yeah. Liv has the same thing going with me and it's very patient and enthusiastic about it, which is just one of the many reasons I love her. But Olivia, I don't know Val, but sounds like she's doing great. You love her. I love her. Flagbird starts playing. You hold up.

[Pete Holmes]

Shazam. Wait, how did that start playing?

[Jason Sudeikis]

So the way I remember my oldest memory is of my father's friend Jack Soden being over at our house in Kansas City where we first moved there. Not right away, but we lived in a duplex. My dad got transferred, transferred for his job and so we ended up in Kansas City. They're from Chicago. I was born like outside D.C. and Jack Soden was just this, you know, this man that was from Kansas City that my dad actually happened to have met. They went to college together in Colorado and so he was over at the house all the time. He's just one of those names. I know. I remember all my dad's friends names because they're all great names and fun to use in the skits. And Chuck Lodge, Kurt Gasper, Terry Leiwicke. Like these are great names. So yeah, great people.

[Pete Holmes]

Anytime names are improvised. Those are real people.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But absolutely, it really Is. Is. And a lot of. I would use a lot of friends and sketches.

[Pete Holmes]

I would see.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It would help me so you can remember them. That's why. For sure. That's the trick.

[Pete Holmes]

If someone was like, what was that guy's name again?

[Jason Sudeikis]

And people thought that that's a magic trick where you're like. But you just made it up and go, yeah, I made it up here. But it was. I'm not making up all these words. This is English.

[Pete Holmes]

My junior high class was only 12 people or so, so I knew all their names. And I always. On an episode of Crashing, I was talking about my wife and I as friends. And they're all real people.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I go to Kalatasi's. That's Tom.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's somebody I grew up with the best.

[Pete Holmes]

It's every single. Every single name. We say the Ungers, whatever it is.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And they get. They get so much juice from that back home. I love it. So Jackson puts a quarter on our coffee table, covers it with, like, a tumbler, like a glass tumbler, covers it with a newspaper. And I'm gonna make. Jason, I'm gonna make the quarter disappear. And he lifts up the. The. He snaps his finger, says, abracadabra. Lifts it up, and the quarter's still there. I'm like, oh. He puts. Puts it back, does it again. Quarter's still there, puts it this. This time he says the magic words and he just slams his hand down on the thing. The tumbler's gone. He just smashes the newspaper, lifts it up, and the quarter's still there. And the cup's gone, the glass is gone, and I'm probably three or four. I remember it vividly. I remember it, like, just like. I was aghast. I was shocked. I was like, I get it. I was like, you know, solidified. Good.

[Pete Holmes]

Good performance, too. Very, very good. That's a kind of common trick. Yeah, that was my. One of my first magic tricks. Still is.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Could need a good mint napkin.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yep. Yeah. He used a newspaper, but.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, newspaper is better. Newspaper's better.

[Jason Sudeikis]

We had one by. It was. That's what. That's the other thing. Like that. That style of it, like. Oh, we were drinking. He used a quarter from his pocket water here.

[Pete Holmes]

But it has a comedy element to it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I like about that trick, is it. It really hammers home the idea of the misdirect that the quarter. The focus is on the quarter, and this isn't ruining it for anybody. That helps in the vanish of the glass. Because everyone's looking at the quarter.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And this is something that is a fundamental of magic and it's in there. And it actually made it easier to perform because you knew everyone was going to be looking at the quarter. And as much as you sold the story, keep your eyes on the court.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know I fell for it. Hook, line, sinkers. Any good 3, 4 year old would be. Yeah. I'm also just, you know, a decent host. You know, he was in our home. I didn't want to call him, but like. Yeah. And there's also something too about the style of it that he's failing at what he's saying he was going to do. So there's like, there's a little underdog element, but he walks out of there as being a magic man. Yeah. So it's like that. That style. So what I said, what I realized recently is like, that introduced me to the world of magic. But I do believe that there was a fissure that happened in my brain that also allowed me to possibly look for the magic in the world too. Like a little bit like. Because it's just right in that time where kind of like what. And then my grandfather in Chicago would do card tricks. He wasn't, you know, but he was good. He could do like color changes and sleight of hand stuff and had all these, you know, old school books, you know, Modern Magic of, you know, Professor Hoffman, I think his name is. These different books that I. Eventually, when he passed away, my Aunt Nancy gave me and along with like his a little magic kit which is, you know, really great. I mean, you know, this stuff really holds. Holds up. Yeah, but in some of the stuff, I didn't know what it was.

[Pete Holmes]

Bone balls don't age.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Nor do real balls, nor the real balls. So that's where it started. And then. And then it was just like. Then we had a great magic shop in Kansas City called.

[Pete Holmes]

So you got into it. You liked performing?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, I. But no. Well, I didn't perform them for anybody. Yeah, I still. I still really don't.

[Pete Holmes]

I would do it myself too.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm a little bit like, you know, that. Did you see the Vivian Meyer doc?

[Pete Holmes]

Which one?

[Jason Sudeikis]

The. The photographer. The nanny who was a. Finding Vivian Meyer. It was nominated for an Oscar a couple years ago. Great documentary about this. About this nanny in the 50s and 60s who took hundreds and thousands of photos on this like roller flex or a Leica. This young fellow, John Maloof, who from Chicago went to an estate sale or like some, you know, like when A storage room got closed down. She had passed on and bought all this stuff. Didn't know it was in there. Open it up, looked at it, started going through the. Getting the negatives developed. And she was like a savant who never shared her photos with anyone. And so now, you know, there's like, you know, a following. And people buy her photos and whatnot.

[Pete Holmes]

They were like, really good. They weren't accidentally good.

[Jason Sudeikis]

On a medium format, you get 12 shots, basically. And she would. Her hit ratio was like 11 out of 12. You can look at her contact sheets and be like, winner, winner, winner. And not like all of the same thing. Like, literally like, you know, a dog drinking out of a sink. And then here, this is a, you know, a garbage can with like.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're not shitting a hundred shots. You're taking that one, you're taking that one.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Then she'd walk however many blocks. I mean, someone has probably gone through it. I'm sure John knows. Would certainly know this better than I. But. Yeah, it's dazzling and. But. But then the thing that I connected with is that she did it. Why did she do it? We don't really know, but that's how I feel a little bit with like, a lot of these, like, my Pete's projects. If someone's interested, interested, oh, I. I will send you, you know, like, like, like we did. Like how I shared that, right. That blog with you, like, where I'm like, oh, if someone. If someone's, you know, wants to lean in and ask about, you know, stuff like, oh, I got you. But I'm not gonna. I don't. I can't force it on anybody.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right, right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm like. And nor am I gonna force my photographs on you or my magic tricks on you.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

My family, I will like, like my folks. I take pictures. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the pictures I've sort of. I. I have been flow a lot of the photos that I haven't been carrying my camera around as much because I found myself taking the same photos over and over. Yeah, a little bit.

[Pete Holmes]

So what does that mean? One guy in the lower left.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. Yeah. Horribly. Composition. I was just like, I'm just not getting better. Like, I need like, you know, I still take pictures of the kids and stuff, but sometimes the spontaneity lends itself more to the. The phone and phone, you know, pictures are solid and you can send them quicker and all that. But I shoot mostly film. Like 75% film. Yes. I just.

[Pete Holmes]

What is it about it? I always imagine Delayed gratification. Is that right?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Film specifically?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, just photography in general for me.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It gets me out of. If I know if I'm shooting black or white or color. Black and white. I'm looking for form. Color. I'm looking for, like, it's. I can. It's not. It's assonance or, you know, like. Like almost like whatever. The alliteration. Whatever alliteration is for color. I'm looking for, you know, like, you know, structure of the color. Yeah, if that, you know, so, like, oh, there's a lot of green in this. In this moment right here.

[Pete Holmes]

Alliteration for color.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't know what that is. I'm sure there's a real.

[Pete Holmes]

They understand right away. But when you're doing it, do you get out of your head? That sounds what you were about to say.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm allowed to participate without being there. So I took. There's a whole season of SNL that I took that. I refer to it as the season before things got weird. Which mostly means before anybody was even from my generation was even thinking about leaving. So this would be, you know, and then specifically, like before, like Horrible Bosses or Bridesmaids or, you know, before just. We all knew we were there. Like, there was no. There was no. And anybody was like, maybe talking about it.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right. You were in Kansas City.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. Yeah, well, to a degree, but yes.

[Pete Holmes]

You were in the Kansas City of escape.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

You were still in on as a. No, it was like it was before show business got in the water. Yeah, to that degree.

[Jason Sudeikis]

To that degree, yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Nothing wrong with it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And it was. It was funny because I hadn't done any seasons before and I'd sort of gotten into it again. I'd always liked it. And then. And then I. Then it became like a little bit annoying. I'm sure in the first week, as taking photos around friends is, especially if they're used to having their photo taken for good or bad reasons. And then eventually I disappeared and there's like amazing stuff there that I haven't really shared with anybody. Little things here and there, gifts here and there for people. But I would have it on, like my Apple TV when people would come over in New York, you know, whatever, play catan or some nutty thing, and I would just have it up there and we would lose the train of thought on any given moment because it would come up and then we would just all get sucked in. You know, that Ken Burns effect makes everything seem romantic. But then as we get further and further away from that time, they're really, really neat. I'm glad I did it, but it allowed me to participate, be around in the show the way I was, but then also sort of have, like, I was on the outside.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like a cigarette.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? I don't smoke either, but it's something you're doing at a party. You don't want any. It's not that you don't want any trouble, but you're like, spoken for. Steve AG do you know Steve?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

He goes to Largo a lot. He takes photos. And I see him and I kind of envy him. I'm like, look, he can kind of float around. He blends in. He's out, but he's in. You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

And he gets tremendous. Because everybody knows him and really cares for him. Like, gets tremendous access.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, and trust and. Because, I mean, you know, you've taken enough photos that, like, you know, a lot of times it's just about getting out of. Getting out of your own way, getting out of your head. And especially for those of us that. Again, despite. Despite you hitting on me earlier, saying how attractive I am, you know, those of us that don't necessarily. That. That's not the currency. We're always. That's not the biggest bill we carry around. You know, it's our looks. We don't feel it is. Then. Yeah. It's like in those candid moments, and you're just sort of capturing it. You let people just sort of forget you're there, especially if you're always there.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

With or without a camera, which is really. Which is really neat. I had tremendous, tremendous access. You know, I'm taking pictures in between Dress and Air and Lauren's office of, like, people walking into a room and seeing their sketch, you know, on the right side of the board that had been cut and, like, there. And I have, you know, you know, Kristen's face dealing with that or Andy's face dealing with that, you know, with, like, Paul McCartney leaning around a corner in the background, you know, out of focus.

[Pete Holmes]

It kind of hits every corner of possibility. Meaning there's a pop culture element that's fun. There's some humanity that's fun. There's some pain. That's fun as a photograph.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But then it's. For me, it's all like, well, are these photos good enough? Despite their amazing subjects and despite the person that took it, being someone that people recognize and potentially. And, you know, so they're not all. But that's just One year that I think about that, like, oh, I guess that's a book or something someday. Or like, Tumblr account, I guess. I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

To do a book of people looking at flight information at the airport.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's great. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Because they make the most human face.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes, they do. I love that idea.

[Pete Holmes]

It's everything. And I'm at airports a lot.

[Jason Sudeikis]

The one that I've always wanted to do. And someone can do it because I have good ideas, but not industrious enough for all this stuff. If someone wants to just put me in the special. Thanks. You can find out how to spell my name online. Is taking a picture when people ask you to take their photo or whatever. If you're walking around, like, if we just went down to look like, you know, like ground zero area, and people, you know, want to take. With the Freedom Tower, the statue behind you, take a photo of them, their group. That's one photo. And then give them. Then let them. When they're looking at the photo, take that photo.

[Pete Holmes]

Take the photo of them looking at the.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, because that's like you're saying that's a much more joyful moment or questioning. They're more real in that moment, in that than they.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, it's on the record and off the record.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you can watch people being, like, on the record, and then they're really being who they really are. And that's why when you. When you're like, it's delayed.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's like a very real, 100% very, very real moment.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you remember any of the great. Like, I've been more interested lately having these wonderful people on the podcast.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

To get those nips of wisdom. Do you have, like, an SNL moment where somebody said something. Lauren told you something about writing about comedy? Anybody?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Or something. You realized yourself because it's a wonderful opportunity to feel feed our ambitious artistic peoples.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Sure. Yeah. I mean, a few. Tina had a couple. I said, one, if you can improvise, you can write. You know, that was that. And I think she was speaking as much for herself, believe it or not. Even though she's honestly, you know, on our Mount Rushmore of great writers, regardless of gender.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that she said it then. You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, she was very, very, very, very sweet. I mean, she. I mean, you know, people think she's.

[Pete Holmes]

Writing with, like, a T square. You know what I mean? On a drafting table, like, clean white.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Paper being flown in that shows up. That happens after you do it. You know, SNL is Kind of. If you're good with metaphor, you are learning show business in a way that is unlike anything. You'd have to spend 20 years at a studio or a network to get what you can get in one season. Because you're coming up with an idea, be it a pilot or a spec script. You're trying to attach talent to it. The host, you're casting it with, you know, the people in the. In the. In the cast. You're trying to appease a network or a studio head. Lauren. Yeah. You know, and you're doing it, you know. Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

The number one worst Lauren impression on this podcast.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Listen. I know you love to listen to this on your way home. Listen to mine earlier. I don't even know what it was. Very weird, but that was a big one. The other one that Tina had that I violated about 12 episodes in from a Place of. Maybe it was only like eight episodes in from a Place of. Just. I don't know why I did it, but not that I thought she was wrong, but I didn't realize how right she was, was, don't write something for someone that you can do yourself. Now, what she might have been saying to me there that I didn't realize was like, you'll be in the cast someday. Or, you could be in the cast someday, or something. Something like that. But I used to do the Second City show that I got hired out of in Las Vegas, Me and my buddy Joe Kelly, who's a great writer, and we wrote this Dr. Phil sketch where it's Dr. Phil talking a guy off a ledge, a jumping ledge, but he's kind of, like, pushing and pulling, like he's saying nice things. Hey, dummy. You know, like, being hard on him. And I'm gonna go like, no, no, hold on. For me, it was just like. It was a Groucho. I was just playing, you know, Groucho Marx with his big tape mustache. That. Which was a move that Rich Talarico came up with.

[Pete Holmes]

And I can't believe you just said Rich Talario. He was my hero.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Amazing guy. Amazing.

[Pete Holmes]

I was spending a good portion of you talking about your great comedy heroes, Peter Gwyn, Rich Tallerico. I saw you had an obsession. I'm sorry, I'm. But you had an obsession with. Was it Goodman or somebody?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes, Ed Goodman.

[Pete Holmes]

Excuse me. You get these obsessions. I had an obsession with Rich Tillery in Chicago. In Chicago.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I would go and see him. I. And I watch. I believe. I don't know if it was pinata flu.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I forget what it was called after.

[Pete Holmes]

That, but it was after that and I would go. It opened with the dentist sketch.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Which by the way. And I say this out of love. I remember that. That's. That review started with, I'm so sorry, you have breast cancer. And then I think, I forget who it was. The guy goes, you're our dentist.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was like, I was so blown away. What a perfect way to start the show. Since then I've. I've just recognized. And I say this to demystify.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Not to put down. That's a standard joke.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't know.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I knew it then either. What the fuck? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That's a joke my father, I'm sure knows and has heard, but it didn't matter.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But it was new to me specifically like breast cancer or like.

[Pete Holmes]

Or just the idea of like, why were you feeling up my breasts? Like, you're dentist. Yeah, just. Just the, like, dentist is a type of doctor. There's some news they shouldn't be able to give you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And. And that's that how that show began.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then. But Rich Tall Rico was in it and he was playing some. He kept coming out going, I'm Mark Brown. It was like, who was a local politician? And I didn't even get that. But I was just talking about like the darts thing. I just couldn't not watch him. I actually bought sneakers like his.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'll be damned.

[Pete Holmes]

And my wife called them. My first wife called them my Mark Brothers Brown shoes. Because I was. So it was a Peter project.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I was like, that guy is the deal. And I want to do everything like him. And I. I still remember improv scenes he did in lines.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He said, no. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There was a girl who hugged him and he smelled her head and she said. And he said, you smell like talc. I guarantee if you watch footage of me improvising at some point, I'll say, you smell like talc. It's just in there.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

So is 50 foot Jesus with laser beam eyes. Because he was doing a song and he was. And it wasn't going well.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It wasn't going badly, but he was just kind of like. It was one of the built in improv moments and he realized he was kind of losing them. And then a Jesus, a 50 foot Jesus with laser beam eyes. And suddenly it was just killing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I was like that guy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, he. He's. He was. And he was special, like in a way that, like at young too. Like really. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just really one of the. One of the great, brilliant, like, comedy minds. Just funny in his bones. Funny.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like, and just. And just can get it out every which way. And.

[Pete Holmes]

Why did you bring him up before I.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Why did I bring up Rich?

[Pete Holmes]

We're talking about people who need people. I looked at Katie. She's just panicking.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Talking about the great wisdom.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, yeah, so. So, so. So don't write something that you would. Right for your. Right for yourself was what Tina said. And so I did this Dr. Phil thing, and I wrote. I wrote a Dr. Phil piece when. When Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson hosted Back when the heyday of the newlyweds, and everybody was fascinated. And it was all about, you know, her being, like, dim, like, blonde. You know, it was basically like a living blonde joke. Like, that whole show. And like, their. Their. The thing that they were playing on. And the bit was for. For Jeff Richards, who did a good doctor Dr. Phil, but. And a bunch of other things, but he. The whole premise was Dr. Phil saying, like, okay, hey, I understand. Like, okay, it sounds like she's a little bit of, you know, you know, like a little dim, but she's hot as hell. So I suggest you just, you know, like, deal with it, you know, like, that was kind of the premise of it. You know, I think what the line was, like, you know, she looks like her body was carved out of marble by a sex maniac, so you should just like, cut her some sleep black. It was all that. And Jeff and I worked on it all night, and Tina was very. You know, I'd show her pieces on Tuesday night, and she was like, this is one of the best things that's been written for him in a while. Just because that show has that weird thing where people, you know, stop thinking about other people and can only sort of, you know, try to survive. And we go in there and we do it. And Jeff, the voice that he was doing the night before, you know, in the. He. You know, he's had to read 45 sketches. You know, I didn't know that at that time. You know, I didn't empathize with that. Even though I was in the room, I was just thinking, like, okay, just do what we did last night versus him having, like, 17, 20 other things in his mind just to find it. And the handle didn't come in, and then it just. It just played flat. And I felt really mad, and I felt mad at him, which was what she was trying to get me from doing, because it doesn't help It. It doesn't help me. The heat in my back, in my body as I'm sitting there, that's both embarrassment and anger of, like, I could do it because I don't do it. He's doing it. I'm not in the cast. He's in the cast. And walking around that place thinking, you should belong somewhere other than where you are anywhere in the world, but especially there is just a bad look. And then I was upset about. It was like, oh, damn it. She was right. My big sister was right. And it's one of those things because.

[Pete Holmes]

You'Re mad at a number of things in that moment.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I wasn't. I wasn't really mad at him. I don't get, you know, I'm not gonna get hot at a, you know, a hot back from fella just not clicking into his Dr. Phil. It was. It was me. It was. And the story that she always told was like, you know, like, Bob Odenkirk writing Angry Old man for Danny Carvey. Yeah. Because, you know, he liked it. He's like, bob can't do that anymore.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, because it's his now. And you give those. You give those babies away. It's like, you know, Bob figured it out, though. Bob's fine. Bob's fine. Bob's gonna be just. He became an angry old white man, and now he's everybody. Everybody gets it.

[Pete Holmes]

He has a great line in that far. I was thinking about him this morning, and I swear it wasn't because I was talking to you. I think about him all the time. When he said in the Farley doc, one of them, he goes like, yeah. And that's when all this drug use stops being so fucking magical. Remember?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, but I haven't watched that doc. But that's a great line.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's a great line. And it's that sort of elephant in the room. We love to mythologize and we love to be like. But we know the truth is when there's people that are using drugs. You mentioned Dell. Yeah, these legends. Dell, you know, worked with Varley and Belushi, and there was, like, something going on. I don't mean that. I don't mean he turned them onto drugs. I just mean, like, this is an archetype.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But, like, at a certain point, the people that were dealing with it, it wasn't the story.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That we got. It was just kind of a fucking annoying, not very magical not very fun.

[Jason Sudeikis]

There's a Ben Folds lyric that I always think of when it comes in regard to that, and I think it's from their first album, Ben Folds Five, the self titled. Like, I remember when Misery thrilled me much more.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, it's kind of saying like, oh, yeah. Remember when, like when drugs used to get you high and then like being, being, being miserable was like the only way you thought you could make something good, you know, or like, or like, or the only way you felt like you were, you were alive is if you're in pain. I know I felt that way, like, especially.

[Pete Holmes]

Have you got gotten over that? Yeah, go ahead.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't know if I have honestly, to a large degree, but I think I'm cautious to get too high on my own supply on the off chance that the majority of it is from external things, whether it be my children, like my partner, or having a moderate amount of success in a work that I really care about. But I don't, I don't know if it's all. If it's all gone from within. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Does pain get in the way?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes. Especially with comedy. I think there's only one. I can only think of one piece that I wrote from a place of pain when sitting up on 17, like during SNL. And I love it and I stand by it, but a lot of times, you know, chicken or the egg, I'm always like, well, but you know that, that debate is like, what comes first, the good mood or the good idea.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, and, and that one happened to be like, just like a. I.

[Pete Holmes]

Need, I need a good mood. I need that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I need a good mood too.

[Pete Holmes]

Mania.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I need a good mood too.

[Pete Holmes]

I would so much rather be the Pete. That's like, everything I say is great because we're waiting to hear about the third season. It's a little intense and I, I just haven't been as funny.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, you can't. It's tough.

[Pete Holmes]

It's tough too, as, as confident as I am on the show, especially because I'm lit up from talking to people I like. I catch myself going, like, maybe everything you've done is garbage. You know what I mean? Like, I was just.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Then you gotta celebrate just getting it done, man. You know what I mean? Like, that's like at the end of the day, like, like that's what I have to say about any of these things about movies, when people are. When's it coming out? Like, what are you working on next? You know, Like, I don't mind. What are you working on next? I think that's a genuine curiosity. But when things come out, I really don't know. I don't. I don't know because it's the process. Like, I have very little concern over how it's sold, who buys it, when it. When it appears, like in what order in comparison to how. The chronological order of when I made it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And it's like I'm kind of like, yeah. I don't know, man. Like, it's like, I just love, you know, I just love the process of making.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And there is a lot of surrender.

[Jason Sudeikis]

In that process, for sure.

[Pete Holmes]

But I was shocked even to myself, that I caught myself having a thought where I was like, maybe I'm just no good.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was like, I do so much self love work.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I feel like I do pretty good at it. And here I was just at a. Like, one week longer than I thought I was gonna have to, and I was like, maybe I'm fundamentally a cursed person. Like, what are you doing?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, that's. You start stacking.

[Pete Holmes]

I share that for solidarity. Just so people don't think I'm always like, happy, go lucky or whatever.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, that's. That's when. That's when. Yeah, you got. That's all. What is it called? Like, cognitive therapy. That's just when your cognitions are getting in the way and all or nothing.

[Pete Holmes]

Lifted up the carpet and there was all this like. Like the upside down strain, Stranger things decay. And I was like, oh, I thought.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I worked on that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I thought I worked on it. It turns out I still really need. As much as I work on it and practice and study, I still have a need for someone outside of me to go. Good boys.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's natural, especially, you know. Yes. I. I do the same kind of thing. Oh. I don't do this for this or that reason.

[Pete Holmes]

When things are up, it's really easy to be like, I do it for the love. And then you realize under the carpet is a guy going like, is this my love time? Are you gonna eat those fish heads?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, we feed them fish heads.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You got him. You got him in different ways.

[Pete Holmes]

How are you in that place? You've been at this a long time. Do you ever feel like it's enough? I know that's a weird question, but it being like.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like the juice, like the.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, do you have the fantasy of, like, I'm gonna take my children and I'm going to live in Ecuador?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, not yet. But I. But I do have, like. I make jokes and references to, like, plan B or plan C. Yeah. I feel like I would be. I would have. Liv and I and the kids would have a warm reception if we were to, you know, go back to, you know, Kansas City. Kansas City and open up like a improv theater. I would never not be able to not do it. Do some form of storytelling. What do you call it? Like, storytelling? Like, I don't do. I've never done stand up. I've done it once for a page gig. It's. It's. It's not. It's not my bag. It's equal parts not why I love what I do as far as, like, the response that laughter gets. Like, I'm just have a team sort of feel about it. And then I'm also just flat out scared of it because of that, you know. So, you know, if I'm being honest with myself, is it like a little column A, column B there? But to go back home and you know, like, oh, you know, or host a fucking game show.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's probably plan C. If Kansas City's like, no, right? You're like, okay, I'll go back. I'll go to. I'll go to LA or New York or host a game show.

[Pete Holmes]

There's two Kansas Cities to choose from.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's true.

[Pete Holmes]

You have either one.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's true.

[Pete Holmes]

If one says, no, just go to.

[Jason Sudeikis]

The other two has better taxes. What's the one's better? State tax? Missouri.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm with you, though. Whenever I have my escape fantasy, I'm like, I'm sure, like, oh, let's just go to Ojai. I'm like, I'm sure there's some sort of theater there. Like, that's like my next thought. I'm like, wait, as long as I could work out two or nothing crazy. Just two or three times a week.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's all you need. Yeah. Just to scratch the itch. But yeah, I don't think about every now and then, but it more comes in the form of like, oh, my shit. Yeah. Like, it's really, like, I don't pay very much. It's really funny guy and philosopher in many ways, because I've heard him say numerous things that I remember, but fellow named Rob Meader who I met, I think produces stuff with Will Arnett maybe, but they're good friends. But Rob. Rob Meter. No, he's great.

[Pete Holmes]

Meter.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, Rob and he had this great. I was talking about something. Well, there's two. Liv. Just heard one recently at a Soul cycle class. Like, don't. Don't cheat on your future with your past from this amazing one. Which I was like. And then the way Meter put it was like, you know, there's a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

I was like, fuck, dude, those are good ones.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like, are you kidding me?

[Pete Holmes]

It's real.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And so I don't really look back all that often. And when I do, that's the only way I find out, like, oh, God, I actually have done something. There must be something working here.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

There's not a desperation looking out the window. I'm not racing towards anywhere. And I never felt like I was maybe at certain spurts of my life, but literally throughout my life that may have manifested in themselves during, like, you know, showbiz times, but, like, the rest of it has, like, all been like, just, you know, stay steady and try not to look to the right and left. You know, if you're on, like, a motorcycle, you know, if you look this way or that way, that's how you get. That's how you're crash. Right. So on a scooter, on a motorcycle.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm sure a lot of people in your field, standard white male, going for snl, you had to have a lot of people that were also running with you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

100%.

[Pete Holmes]

I think if you look at them too much, you fall.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I would, I would.

[Pete Holmes]

It's definitely true for stand up or.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Or you won't ever reach your potential.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like, that's the. That's. That's. That's the other thing that I. That I would get worried about if to, like, you know, pull the. Pull the parachute rope and just, you know, get the F out of Dodge. Yeah. And move to Dodge. Would be letting myself, like, letting my. Letting myself down a little bit and what I'm not. But not the me that is me sitting here before you, but the me that's like, that has. That's able to, like, think of the me that allowed me to not get in my way of getting to who I am now, if that makes sense. That's a little too cute, but that's the way it feels. So then when I have those instincts of, like, ah, let's just, ah, screw this, and I do it a little bit. It's a little bit of fear of success, a little bit of fear of failure, too.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, sure.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But, you know, it's like I'm just trying to do it all in real time.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that's good.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's tough. I think that's the main reason. Reason why, quote unquote, like actors or like, I'll say, you know, famous people become like, friendly quickly with other famous people. Yes. You know, their work. And so that. That helps in one regard, but then it's also. How do you articulate things that. If I'm talking about success from the outside looking in. Right. You know, there might be a young fellow, a young gal that, like, moved to Chicago this, you know, last September from. Because of watching me, it's like, well, that idiot can do it. I can do it. I just got to do it. And I get a little bit. I'm glad that I can at least provide that example. I lost my train of thought there for a second because I was thinking about that.

[Pete Holmes]

But also your level of success is different from what they would consider success.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Because for me, success is not the external stuff. Except for maybe. No, it's not. Those are like award. Those are the rewards.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, it's funny, with all my soul points, conversations, that's a very privileged conversation. And I have that with. With a lot of the more successful people. I'm like, how do you maintain the balance of what's real? Your kids and your. Your fiance and all that stuff and the present moment and all that stuff. When I was young, I. I didn't have any interest in that. I was just like, we just need to ring the bell.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

It was like, G.I. jane. I need to crawl and ring the bell. Except ringing the bell meant you quit, but you know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I thought that meant you got up to the thing.

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. That's like American Ninja.

[Pete Holmes]

I think we're gonna GI Jane with American Ninja.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It happens.

[Pete Holmes]

It happens every day in this bar.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I think we're in a bar. Pop cultures. We're in pop cultures. Pops culture. Pops culture.

[Pete Holmes]

I also serve cheese.

[Jason Sudeikis]

The culture.

[Pete Holmes]

We do talk about the meaning of life. And what are your thoughts on that?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Boy, oh, boy.

[Pete Holmes]

Because here we are playing this game, and it's certainly not just about that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Or maybe it's about nothing. I don't know what it be.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Would.

[Pete Holmes]

What do you feel?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I think it is about something. I've done too much improv and mushrooms enough times. I was gonna say too many mushrooms. What do you.

[Pete Holmes]

Why improv? Because of the magical group mind.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I mean, and team sports, too. I think you can watch any, like, any, you know, half court set by fucking the San Antonio spurs and be like, oh, wow, that's five gentlemen thinking as one. Yeah. And I don't think it's.

[Pete Holmes]

Val and I have been reading each other's minds a lot more lately. It's crazy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like the longer we're together, we're just kind of like, what's going on? Like, why did you sing that song out of nowhere? Because I was just singing in my head. Yeah, I know that. I kind of just ruined your good, concrete example of watching a basketball game by the kind of metaphysical thing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Come on.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just watching mergings happening.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Both make people feel excluded. Sports and metaphysical. Like sports and, like, you know, metaphysical. Will you. You lose a lot of folks. A lot of folks. But we're covering them.

[Pete Holmes]

You see, in improv, something very, very beautiful will happen where.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

An intention is set. It feels like a little ritual.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like on this night, at this time on this moon, we will do something that's never been done before.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It literally is like the sand sculptures of Tibetan monks and stuff.

[Jason Sudeikis]

We're gonna do it. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And we're gonna sweep it away.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's. It's. It's a big part of, you know, what we get to do for a living is making the invisible visible to people. And some people have a real hard time with that. And so they go into, like, being agents or, you know, executives and stuff like. Like that. But nobody. Nobody grew up saying, I wanted to be a movie executive. They wanted to be an actor, writer. They want to be a creative person. And. And some are brilliant at it and know how to, you know, pull people together. And.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's my favorite Lauren quote. He says, talent isn't fair.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

People say show business isn't fair. I say talent isn't fair.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I always took from that was he wanted to be. He wanted to be Chevy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Of course.

[Pete Holmes]

Of course he did.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, he was Lauren and Hart. He was in a comedy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He wrote for Woody Allen and laughing. You know, he was like. Yeah. I mean, he's. He's. Yes. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So you've seen the man.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He's an artist soul with. With a producer's checking account. Because he still laughs. You know what I mean? Like, he loves to laugh. He's a. He's. He's a good. He's a good laugh. That's awesome. Which. Which.

[Pete Holmes]

Can you think of a time you saw something hinting at the divine or whatever, or a little bit of meaning in it? Improv, like a show or a moment or maybe something you were a part of?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Golly. That's A great question. I. Not specifically because it wouldn't. I don't think it could manifest itself in specific because it would be squashed by simply a laugh. You know, it would be. You're not gonna get anybody crying. And even if you did, like, they're crying because of what is being the manifestation of the magic. Like, this is. Like. This is like. One of the reasons I love Derek's show is that he talks about the beginning of his show, that. That when he saw. The first time he saw a magic trick, he didn't fall in love with what he saw. He fell in love with everything he couldn't see. Yeah. So that's what I'm talking. That's. That's the magic that I'm talking, where it's. It's like.

[Pete Holmes]

And his point is, a lot. If I just told you what I'm doing, it would lose everything.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. And I've done that. And I've done that even in my recent foray back into. Into doing, you know, magic and learning stuff and studying and doing tricks, like, where I'll. I'll, you know, show, you know, like, Liv or my sister. Like, well, here, you know, I'll just show you this one little thing. I did it one time, and immediately afterwards, they were like. It's like, you. I shouldn't have. Yeah, I shouldn't have. Because of the creed hose on us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But they were also like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've been that person at a magic store, you know, buying, you know, a trick, you know, not as recently as when I was a kid, but. So if there's any one specific, it's. No, unfortunately. I wish I could.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I'm glad you can't, because I think that's the point. If something happen greater than the sum of its parts in the retelling, in the yanking of that memory of something magical happening in improv or otherwise, and yanking it into our language centers, it completely ruins it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Which is why I was dazzled and so overwhelmed and effusive with Birbiglia after I saw his most recent movie. Because I was like. He captures that magic where I was like, I've watched so many people try to do this I've attempted to try to do. I was like. I mean, I don't know if I have the text anymore that I sent him, and I don't expect him to have anymore, but. But I just, like, let it. Let it out. I just let it roll and. Because I was, like, flabbergasted by It.

[Pete Holmes]

You should see what I texted. This is. Don't think twice. When I texted him, I was like, this. This movie is everything.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I was. I was really, really dazzled by specifically.

[Pete Holmes]

Specifically the improv.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. The story and the direction and acting was in. The cast was all, you know, thumbs up. But that being able to capture that magic. And again, it's not the magic of, like, oh, wow, I can't believe you just said that.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's like, for me, it's the pick before the pass, before that score shot. And that's the stuff that. And there's people that are so gifted at that that'll never know because it's not rewarded the same way. And so they wouldn't know how beneficial they would be. They're still making things up for people for a quote, unquote, living where that special gift that that guy or gal has that they make maybe, you know, getting a little bit. They could. They could buy a house for their parents with that fucking gift if the right person, you know, saw it. Like, there's a fine line between. I think between. And I think that fine line is mentoring and, like. And just flat out luck is from the woman from Catfish and Matt Weiner, you know what I mean? Like, she created a whole fucking world in her head with all those multiple characters to try to excuse herself from the pain that she was going through, that maybe she thought, I don't know enough about her or, you know, but. And I mean, the movie Catfish, not the TV show, but Matt. Why don't you hear these stories? There's great stories about him sort of like walking around and talking to all the characters and stuff. It's like, same thing. She's doing it just right. You know, he disabled a channel and, you know, made an iconic television show. You know, pays the bills with it. You know, she's just trying to. They're probably both scratching the same itch, you know, in some big way.

[Pete Holmes]

I think about that all the time. Eckhart Tolle as that really funny thing where he's like. We see people talking to themselves on the streets, and we're like, look at that lunatic. And he's like. You're just thinking what? They're like, they're having a fight with their boss or their lover in their mind, but they're doing it out loud. You're doing it in your head all day.

[Jason Sudeikis]

All day.

[Pete Holmes]

What I should have said was, and then I'd take out the pencil. I'd say, this is the pencil that you threw at me. When you fired me 12 years ago. You know, like, same shit, this guy's just doing it out loud.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but you're right. When does that sort of craziness, or so so called craziness become Matt Weiner's Mad Men?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I only say Matt Weiner's Madman.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes, that's right. Like Bob Stoker's. You know, Stoker's Dracula? Well, you know the box.

[Pete Holmes]

The box that says Matt Weiner's Madman.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, does it really? Yeah. Well, good for him. You know, hey, you know, none of us would be here without him. Use him as a reference, so.

[Pete Holmes]

Intelligent universe.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, is that a. Is that. Is that a term? Is there.

[Pete Holmes]

Is there an intelligence behind this? Certainly there's a consciousness.

[Jason Sudeikis]

We can agree with that. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

So there's awareness.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't think we're the only ones, if that's what you mean. Like, you mean. No.

[Pete Holmes]

Is there like a deity sort of thing?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, but I think it might be. You know, there's rumors. There were rumors for a while there that Banksy was more than one guy. So I think God might be more than. More than one thing. Yeah, but I mean. But I mean, but they're all connected. They're like the Spurs. God's like the spurs group mind. No, like, I mean, God is in details. God is love. All the holiness. Next to it. Next to it. Not actually.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm sorry, that's not actually.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Pull up the quote. Pull up that quote. What did Pete Quinn say about that? But, yeah, no, I think there's something out there. We didn't. I went to Catholic school, you know, and Jesuit, all boys high school for a couple years, but it was never about the religion for me. It was all about the. I was. I dig the contrarian side of all those things. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That's comedy, right?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly. George Carlin, specifically, when my folks had those albums. But I. But also not being willing to, you know. Yes. And religion. And see it as probably the metaphor that I see it now. Yeah. I've heard you talk about in different places, whether it be the one with Pen. I've just listened to it so many. So I don't know where they were for you in your time, but. But Penn was fairly recently.

[Pete Holmes]

My son doesn't know how time works.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Nor does I. Nor does I. But I. But. Oh, she was a metaphor. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I thought you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, there was something that you had said. Oh, fuck. It doesn't matter.

[Pete Holmes]

God is a metaphor for a mystery.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. I can't. I can't. Oh, oh, oh. About. About having someone finally sort of teach the Bible from, like, a place of like, oh, he didn't multiply the loaves. He just talked people into sharing.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that what he said?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Is that what I said? No, no, no. But this was the version that I had. But just that the Bible might have been, you know, that there's. That there are. That there's more metaphor in there that maybe, like, you know, a Catholic school in Kansas were teaching it as. It was an evolved thought that may have even been passed down for my sister. My sister. I have two sisters, both, you know, awesome and fascinating and not just because I'm related to them. Like, you know, I know the fix is on there a little bit, but they truly are on their own. And my youngest sister was a nun for five years, so I got little pops of wisdom, you know, from her all the time that, you know, were. I was. When she said she's going in the nunnery, the first thing I did was buyer. Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell. Oh, really? Yeah. I was like. I was like, the story that you're going to tell everybody has existed many times over. Yeah. Whether it's Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, Moses.

[Pete Holmes]

The story of Moses predates. It's like, I believe it's. If not hundreds, it's thousands of years. They're like, in Samaria, the woman puts the baby in the basket. He watches up, the royal class finds him. And it's like, this is so long before Moses. It's preposterous.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And it's just.

[Pete Holmes]

It's so fun, though.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I love it. And it wasn't to say, you know, dummy, like, all these things. It's the belief that there are many, you know, gods out there, whatever God is to people, but that, like, I want you to be able to connect with anybody. I want you to be able to. I want you. I want you to be able to, you know, if you just take the, you know, the big three, you know, like, I want to. You to be able to. To. To. To speak with them and understand similarities. Yeah. And. And. And love those similarities and not try to convert to anybody, because that's where I get a little. That's where I get down on religion or politics is when it's used to.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, make you think clones out or yourself.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's.

[Pete Holmes]

We turned it into imitation.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, totally.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, that's Ralph Waldo Emerson, I think. Or I didn't come up with that.

[Pete Holmes]

Which Is funny because when you think about the first. What's up with that? I think about this all the time.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So you strike gold, and then it's not just snl, it's everything. And then we're like, well, let's do it again.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm glad there's every single. What?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But there is something interesting where it's like, it was straight lightning in a bottle. It was straight jerking off, smoking dope, whatever. Woke up from a nap with an idea magic that made the idea, and then it becomes this thing that we ring the bell as many times as we can until it's over again. That sounds like a critique of snl. That's just what we do.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I would say that they're times that I would be critical of when we did it, but that became a. I look back at when people ask, like, do you miss it? I go, I miss my people, my friends. I miss, like, you know, the action, you know, like, and having a reason to get up in the morning and knowing where I'm gonna be, you know, and for what purpose. You know, living with intention when it's thrust upon you. Thrust upon you. You can be a little lazier with making those choices. But the other thing I always bring up is, like, the energy that would occur before. What up with that in those. Those later versions? Because it was the one sketch we. We would. It always found itself right after updates. So they would, you know, the amazing, you know, men and women tear that son of. That. That fake news set down that Daily show set. I was going to say, I got you. I got you. I saw. I felt it. I felt it. I saw you. I saw you coming. I saw you coming down the lane. And I was like, no, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it.

[Pete Holmes]

Tina said, don't let anyone shoot it. If I could shoot it myself. If you did it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But, man, when they put that thing together, then they'd start sitting. Keenan would come out there as the character, Abby, the audience, as if, like, the original, like, cast, like John Belush came back. Like, it was like. It was like this fervor that would happen that. That was so joyful. Became excited because it was the whole cast. Like, I love. I love that. Like, it was fun to rehearse because we're all out there, you know, together. A bunch of fucking class clowns, you know, Kenny among is, like, tapping his watch, you know, like, more or less. Our line producer, you know, he's like, hey, buddies, we got gotta. We got Other skits. We gotta rehearse. Yeah, I know. Board, you know, whatever. The host always had something fun to do. You had your standards. Then we started putting in, like, you know, Al Gore and Robin Williams, you know, like.

[Pete Holmes]

Like the joke became who would get bumped, who didn't get to talk.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

The first time that guest didn't get to talk, I lost my mind.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's so great. Yeah, I think it was. I'm pretty sure, you know, shout outs to Kenan Thompson, Brian Tucker, and I believe, Rob Klein. I think there might be one more name in there.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's funny, I tried to bring up the fact that sometimes when something works, we just keep doing it. And that's sad. But here's a great example of how much joy I'm getting. That's what we're after.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Fucking and babies. Like, we're all here. As you know, someone found something that worked and stuck with it.

[Pete Holmes]

Spread the word.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't want to assume. I don't want to assume. But you will.

[Pete Holmes]

Is everyone kissing? I really want to know.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No kissing. Kids don't kiss anymore.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't. I mean, like ancient Rome, right? Not TV Rome, Real Rome.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Do we know they were kissing? Ancient Egypt. Were they kissing? Is that built into us?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I believe so. If you only look back over just the recent, like, history within our lifetime, how it's gone from, you know, it's never been hugs as the formal greeting, but it definitely was handshakes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, handshakes.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Then high fives, now fist bumps. So we're getting further and further apart.

[Pete Holmes]

That's true.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, like now we're punching each other. So it must have been. If you think about that, you know, if we take it all the way back and we keep. It had to have been kid. We probably slept with each other before we really knew each other back then.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, there's probably more. Fucking, definitely. And then there was the man shake, which is grabbing each other's forearms. That seems to be agreed upon in movies for, like, glad gladiators, centurions. It's like, ah, brother.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah. But you're still grabbing that meaty thing.

[Pete Holmes]

But maybe they were kissing each other gently on the lips.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Probably. I would assume just like a gentle little kiss. I mean, don't they. I feel like that happens in Europe. I can never. The moment it takes to hear someone's accent and then realize, are they gonna kiss me once, twice, or three times? I'm not good at yet. I don't know if I ever get good at it. I kind of like the. The moment of like, not knowing and be like, oh, oh, we're third. Oh, oh, a third. The second someone goes four on me, I'll be like, okay. Haha. It's like the ordering the beers and Inglourious Basterds. I go, you're from space. Nobody does four. You had a scratch on your DVD that skipped it and made it look like it was 4.

[Pete Holmes]

The DVD you were studying.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's how they study. They study it with DVD and they.

[Pete Holmes]

Didn'T notice that there was a scratch?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No. They come down here, they see thumb drives, they're like, we gotta get out of here. They're further along the way, we thought.

[Pete Holmes]

But even not as a greeting in. In ancient Egypt, did they kiss? How we kiss? I really want to know the answer. I don't know if we'll ever know.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, in France.

[Pete Holmes]

You think so?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I don't know. I'm just thinking because we kiss based.

[Pete Holmes]

On, like, the TV that we've seen. Like when we kiss, we're imitating things we've seen.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I remember doing a scene in a movie, you know, which would make sense, called Good Old Fashioned Orgy, which I love.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that movie.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I do too.

[Pete Holmes]

Nick Kroll.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yep. Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Great movie.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, great movie. Unbelievable cast. I like, you know, whole other story about that thing, but like. But there's a scene when I think. Yeah, I think it's Nick and Lake are next to me, and then me and Lindsey Sloan. And at some point we're just in the background because it's Martin Starr and Angela Seraphian. Like in the. In the foreground. It's their scene. And so we're just in the back, sort of like. Like, okay. And we're kissing and I remember. I hope she doesn't mind me saying this, because I think it's a dig on me. That's the way I heard at least. And not even a dig, but just like. But she goes, do you like. Okay, cut. All right, all right, we're switching the camera or reloading, whatever. It's like, is that how you really kiss? Or you just kiss like that because we're on camera? That's so funny. And I. I don't know if I could answer. I still don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

So funny.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's like. I think I kiss like that, but probably because I've seen it on camera. That's what made me think of it. It's like, yeah, but I think I was like, God, why? How do. I didn't even. I Was so. It made me so. I mean, you know, I'm wearing. We're wearing basketball shorts. Just seeing our shoulder. You know, we're not really having sex. Movie magic when you're in that.

[Pete Holmes]

See, this is all it takes for me to believe in stuff.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You were saying, I can't tell by the accent how many kisses are coming my way.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right, right.

[Pete Holmes]

And I thought, based on your accent, I feel like a Frito pie is coming my way.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, that's nice of you.

[Pete Holmes]

Which is fine. But I didn't say it because I was like.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like, I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

What is that joke? I'm fine. You're doing great. And I was like, I don't need to interject. Then you mention this movie.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That movie. The orgy is described at a Southern, like, white trash party.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

That features Fredo Puck.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's very true. That's the opening scene. Me and Leslie Bibb have that conversation.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's all that I need.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's it. It's like.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just like, there's order in the order.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly. There sure is. No, I, I, I, I. I've had such a joy listening to spending time with you on this podcast. Not just this one here, but the one. But all the ones you've said. It's. It's a. It's. And, you know, the neat thing. And I know we're probably. I'm getting the sense we're wrapping up, so I don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, it's really up to you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm good. But, but, But I. My folks just got in town last night, and my dad.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, let me guess.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Sudeikis.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He's Lithuanian.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm Lithuanian. Oh, you are. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm gonna guess his name is Tony.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, it's Dan.

[Pete Holmes]

Dan.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Dan and Kathy. Oh, sorry. I thought. I thought. I thought it was only the Latin.

[Pete Holmes]

Never would have guessed. Kathy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Excellent. Great. Dan and Cath. Dan and Cath.

[Pete Holmes]

Can you get Dan and Cath in here?

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's such a good one. It's good. It really is.

[Pete Holmes]

It's great.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's the kind of you talking about an accident, like, that's an accidental thing, you know, that I grew up, like, hearing Dan.

[Pete Holmes]

Dan.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Cath.

[Pete Holmes]

Ca.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, never. Kathy. Always. Hey, Cath. Oh, that probably sounds more like him than I even realized. But I told him last night, I go, I had sent him because he's, you know, he's in the autumn of his years that, like, Very spiritual guy. Didn't have a father growing up, so, you know, he kind of raised me specifically blind. But, you know, gets down with the get down. Loves watching television. Has impeccable taste. Like, he's the one that turned me on to Mad Men. His favorite person on SNL when I was on it, Fred.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like, and that's not a great Santini thing. He just, he was calling it he Big Bang Theory. He was like, he's like this guy and he's like the, the fellow that plays Jim. Yeah, Jim Parson. He's like, he's excellent. Like, and he's not, he's not like, he doesn't, he's not a showbiz guy.

[Pete Holmes]

He's not doing it as a parlor chick.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He's not even doing it to, like, gain, like, it's like he inundates me with the text about, like, you know, watch it. It's just whenever. What are you watching? Like, I'm always curious. Yeah, what do you watch? He's just got his, he just got plugged in. But I, I love it.

[Pete Holmes]

My dad's always got Antiques Road show on with the sound off.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Trying to guess. That's not worth anything. That ain't worth anything.

[Pete Holmes]

Where they find that and turning it off before he could be proven right or wrong.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We'll never know. They should have brought that in a garbage can. That's where it's going to end up. I, I, I said, I sent him a, like a week ago. I go, hey, if you, you should check, if you listen to podcasts, like, you know, you should check out Pete Holmes, show this guy, this fellow Pete Holmes. And so then last night, when he, he, he goes, he goes, hey, I haven't gotten in that podcast. I don't know. I, I, I, I don't know exactly. Sure, I just downloaded one recently, but, you know, I love Pete Holmes. I go, are you kidding me? I go, really?

[Pete Holmes]

Just stop.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He did any in the. And the reason he, he, for years, like, he's seen every episode of Crashing. No. Swear to God. Seen every episode. You know, his other favorite is, Is Mulaney. Mulaney. Like, he went, I am more honored. I was doing a charity event in Kansas City with my buddy Billy the same night that Mulaney was also performing. My folks went to go see Mulaney and then came to the charity event afterwards, which I knew they were gonna do. And I told John, he's like, oh, you know, like, just in the fact that John's from Chicago and everything. Like, my folks, like, they love him even more. Annie went to Ignatius the same high school. My dad one, too, so a bunch of reasons why there. But. But yeah, my. My sister's ex. Wife like, tipped him. Tipped my dad to your podcast. And so he's been. He hasn't been listening to podcasts. He just, you know, stand up. I. I think maybe books, because he's a pretty voracious reader. But then. But then the. All. All of crashing and so he was, like, super fired up. Like. Like, like, were it for it to come around to me to say, suggest something that he was like, oh, I know, but I didn't know that meet him in that medium is exciting. And that's the medium that I thought he'd be the most jazzed about. So he's gonna be. He's gon. I gently toyed with the idea of bringing him here today.

[Pete Holmes]

He could have come.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know, but, like, the episode it would have been. I'm okay with that, but I didn't know if you would be.

[Pete Holmes]

It's always the guests episode. Sometimes people bring people.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He's. Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah. So you're in. You're, you know, you're just getting started, buddy. He called it. Yeah, he called it.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm Jim Parsons.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You're Jim Parsons. You're Mulaney. You're Matt Weiner. I love. You know.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I tell you, whenever I was a kid. Whenever I was a kid.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Yep. Whenever that was, whenever I get to be a kid again, my parents would.

[Pete Holmes]

Take me to that theater, and every show I would go to, I was waiting for them to come out and say, we need a small boy. One of the cast members isn't here. If there's a small, doughy boy who could come on stage, you don't need to know the lines. You just kind of. Whatever you do will be great.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That was my fantasy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And as you were talking, my fantasy, I remembered that feeling as a boy. I was like, man, I hope this story circles back to me. And it did.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Thank you for your honesty. That's what everybody thinks. With any. Any, like, not just you. When anybody starts talking.

[Pete Holmes]

I hope this circles back when you were like, I'm in a vulnerable place. We're waiting to hear, so I need Papa Sudeikis.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And I just. I prefaced it with like, are we going over? Because. Oh. Oh, he's about to fucking lay into something here today. All right, let's see what else seems about to spin a yarn over here.

[Pete Holmes]

I wonder if he knows I'm Lithuanian. Your dad. No one cares.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't know if he does.

[Pete Holmes]

It might be.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't know if he cares because, again, his dad died. So, like the Lithuania, we only recently got back in touch with that side of our squad because I did the show. Who do you think you are? A few years ago. That's a genealogy show where they literally, like, it was a few years ago. It was like. It was like six, seven years ago now, but. And that was the journey that I went on, was to find out, because he never knew how his dad died either. It was a big mystery that my grandma Graham, we called her, who's since passed on, told him that he kind of spun a yard. Oh. He was walking out of church, and he fell and broke his neck. And then my dad never really. And then he just then, probably about 10 years ago, started wondering, is that the truth? I should go look it up.

[Pete Holmes]

They build churches on the top of cliffs.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. And so then I went on this whole journey to find out and.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, you did.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. But, I mean, they took me on it like I was. It was. I mean, as profound as anything, you know, like. Yeah. To be able to. The show starts off with you meeting with, you know, the family, and then you go off to this adventure. You don't know where you're gonna be the next day. You know, I had to break mine up a week at a time because of snl. So I did one week and then had two weeks off, then did the other one week. But. But.

[Pete Holmes]

And they took you to, like. This is the bakery.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Papa Sudeikis.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Well, the. You know, the. The punchline, I guess, is like, my gram wasn't wrong. She didn't lie necessarily. What she did, what she left out, though. And that's a lot of ways lies manifest themselves, is not the. Not the abject, like, untruth. It's the, you know, the lack of information. He was. They. They got divorced. He was a big drinker. He was basically homeless. And he was sleeping in this park across the street from a church, and one night, tried to probably go in there to get warm, but there was ice on the thing. It was locked. It wasn't open. So he fell asleep, broke his neck on a church because he was going to sleep in there because he was a drunk homeless guy. Whoa. And so then to give that information to my father, because then we went into. My dad's. Dad's name was Stanley, then go into his father. Father, basically, we found out that I was the first Sudeikis male to be raised with his father since they've. Since we've been in America. So, yeah, it was heavy. Heavy. And the cutest thing was my sister, you know, when they, you know, we do. We do all that, and then, you know, whatever, six months later, four months later, it's on television. Me and my sisters, who they both live in the east coast, were over at my apartment at that time. We watched it, and we had a few people over, like, live, and folks were. And they show the whole episode and, like. And my summation at the end, like, you know, telling the information that I got from this journey. And Lindsey was like, ah. It's like, wow, what's wrong? She goes, they cut out the part where you said this. I go, oh, yeah, Linds. But I said it to dad. It hit its target demo. Like, it's like, it's okay. It's okay. She was genuinely bummed at, like, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was like. It's like, no, no, no. The journey.

[Pete Holmes]

We got it to the best possible.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it was. It was a very, very. If it was 14 days that I went out, like, day four, I was like, why did you pick me? How did you. Like, this is nuts. Like. And they're like, well, we do a little research.

[Pete Holmes]

They knew they had something good.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Can you still watch it?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I haven't watched.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, is it out for people?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, yeah. I think it's on probably, like, itunes or something like that. I haven't watched it since the. The airing. I would like to, because there's. There's. You know, it gets. You know, there's. There's specifics that I love to be reminded it up again.

[Pete Holmes]

And speaking of, who do you think you are? Do you. Do you feel any of that? Like, I guess it's a Hindu idea that we are all sharing a little piece of God. How do you think of God? Because we're talking about multiple gods. That's one way to think of multiple.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Gods, but it's multiple gods. I do believe that. Like, I'm putting. I'm webbing them all together. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like a. Like a. Like a good net, like a tapestry. Like, we sort of like, you know, one of those things that. Like, you know, one of those examples that Del would give or anybody, but. And you know that even when we make a mistake, you know, you try to weave the mistake into the tapestry. We can't help but do it now. But. But I. Yeah, that's why the mushrooms and improv sort of are.

[Pete Holmes]

Can you tell me about a mushroom trip that had divine influence?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I couldn't be more interested.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I mean, my favorite one is when I went to go do Boom. Chicago. My.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you're in Amsterdam, where you can buy them.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah. But. But it's still, you know, I mean, I have few. Because I did it in Vegas quite a few times, too. I haven't done it in 10 years. Last time I did it no longer than that was. I haven't done it since December of 2003. I went back, or no, Thanksgiving of 2003, because I had just left Las Vegas, went to SNL, came back to Las Vegas. Only a couple weeks. And so I was Take mushrooms and hang out with all our friends from Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil and whatnot. People. I'd seen that, like, I was. You know, I'd lived there almost two years, nine months. So this was, like, people that I was very comfortable with. So there's no, like, you know, possibility of having a quote, unquote, bad trip. And I take them. And I forgot that in the time that I had left, even though it had only been, like, two weeks that I roll in there and people are like, jason. And it's all about, like, I had the cool. I forgot I had acquired the most interesting job, you know, to people in the world. What's it like? How so? And so. So it was all this attention. Bad trip. Went outside, puked. It was also, you know, this is. I'm sorry. This was New Year's Eve because there were fireworks and we were off the Strip enough that all I could do is see smoke from where the Strip was. So I'm like, okay, Al Qaeda. Like, I was. It was like, puked. My brain got all of it. My. My McCormick and Schmick surf and turf. Got that out. That's on a lawn. As I went inside, smoked a joint, sat in a room, and I got to feel like Rick Rubin the rest of the night. Like, I was. I was a Buddha, but, like, spinning yarn of how talented.

[Pete Holmes]

You turned it around.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, but through puke. Through the magic of puke.

[Pete Holmes]

But you were still tripping.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Still tripping, but, like, on that mild, like, Jimmy Stewart line. On that down, like, you know, like, where it's still. You're still feeling it and it's, like, still, like, sexy, and you're still seeing the joy and the love and the connectivity of the world. But. So that was the bad that was that last time. But my favorite was Boom Chicago. I'm there. And there's a fellow there who's not there anymore. He's actually got a bookstore in Brooklyn now called Quimby's. A fellow named Steven Zimberski who went by the people called him the Wizard. And he was the sound. He was the stage sound and tech guy like that ran the board. And Boom Chicago had every bell and whistle, lasers, smoke, like for a sketch show, like, but you're like, oh, well, it's in Amsterdam. Like, like normally I, I, you know, none of that stuff is needed. He, throughout his youth, loved Jesus Christ Superstar and listened to the concept on the Brown album, the original, a lot, all the time, to the point where he got sick of it. And he only listened to it once a year now he only listened to, to it on Easter. He knew I was a huge fan and so he was going to do for me. He had been at Boom for a few years at that point. So what he would do now is he'd listen to it on Easter and he'd do him get, perform. Take mushrooms or get stoned and perform. Do a light show for himself in there. So myself, yeah, it was like, I was like. And he gifted me when he knew because we knew we were only going to stay till January. This is me and my ex wife, Kay. And we weren't married at that time, but we were doing great at that time. And but we were going back in mid January. And this is, you know, December. This is Christmas, Christmas Eve, in fact. And he, and he. I want to get this for you. I'm gonna do the light show for you tomorrow if you want to go. I was like, yes, yes. We had no shows. The theater was dark that night. So that, that afternoon it was like, I feel like we may have went at like 11 or noon. It was me, my good friend Brendan Hunt, we both took shrooms. And then my other good buddy Josh, Jordan Peele, smoked a big old joint and we watched the show. And he had it down where, like, lights were certain characters. I mean, he like. I mean, it could not been better. And Jordan and I used to have this like, little catchphrase whenever we'd, you know, get hired, do mushrooms together in Amsterdam, where we'd kind of look at each other and go, a lot of stuff going on up there, huh? Kind of gesture. And so I remember we said that a couple times and just, you know, Brendan, I mean, it got to a place where I was like watching, you know, I think is Again, towards these metaphors and these myths. I don't think I'm Jesus. I'm not, like, you know, gonna say that, but I was in this story, or I may have been also some Judas, you know, like, again, that part of me that believes it's the message is more important than the messenger. And that's what that version of the Christ story is really, in my opinion, about. And so I'm watching, like, script pages, like, go by me. I'm seeing Kay's face emoting in the smoke. All these different things as the light as. I just noticed this baroque thing right here in front of me. Oh, my go. That, bro. Yeah, that's me. Oh, is that you? I thought that was Barack. It looks like Obama, like, yelling, but that's great. That does look like Obama. We in the negative, right? Yeah, in the negative space. And it was. It was. And it was just. It was stunning. It was like. It was like this gorgeous, you know, experience with that music, you know, jacked way up and a dude playing every bell and whistle in that theater that it had, like, they were people. And that's part the mushrooms talking, but that's also a credit to Stephen's knowledge of that board and that music. And I remember walking out of there and just being like, holy moly. And then going to meet Kay and. And she was mad at me because I was. I was like, half hour late and understandably, because I, you know, I kept her waiting because we had just jibber jabbered after the whole thing and. And that being like, oh, right, like life, like. Yeah, but that was one of the faces I saw. Yeah, exactly. No, but, you know, she's. She's fantastic, but she was not on mushrooms like I was. And nor had she just gone through this, you know, this intense experience. But was there. That was a really special one. And, you know, it was something else. I wish I could tell you I didn't pull anything from it other than, like, you know, I mean, the echo of the. One of probably the best song or most well known song, I should say, you know, everything's all right. Yes, Everything's fine. You're like, I hope so. Fucking hope so. Because I knew I was gonna be going to Vegas, you know, I knew. You know, I'm only looking at my phone because I want to make sure I'm not late. Yeah, but that's. That's. That's. That would. That would be the mushroom one. We did it in Vegas a lot, too, which is fun. If you ever do. If you ever Get a chance. Do mushrooms in Vegas.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that super fun?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, you get to feel like a Marx brother. I seek out my life trying to feel like a Marx Brother, like, to be anti. Like, that's what I always felt when SNL got to go to these fancy things. Lauren's very nice about, you know, writers. At least during my generation, writers and cast were very equal footed and got invited to a lot of the same things. Maybe a little different now, but, but when we would get to go to like some hoity toity thing because, you know, Lauren's A, you know, 1 percenter now, you know, like and, and, and we were the not ready for primetime players. But I always loved us getting up dressed, you know, decked out in tuxes and nice dresses and then, you know, getting to like hobnob with, you know, fancy folk. And so when being on mushrooms in Las Vegas before, we had to be, you know, good, you know, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the show and the network and blah, blah, blah. Right. You just find we'd go to the Bellagio and just, just, I mean, just, I remember my friend Dan back at all pretending he was the choreographer outside the Bellagio of the Fountains, like literally like a choreographer and keep getting pissed at them for missing their, their, you know, their marks. Like he's some sort of, like he's some, like he's Bob Fosse or something. Just getting so mad at them. And we would just, we would just like a group of like five or six of us, you know, would walk around and just see, you just see chaos. You could, I remember being at the Hard Rock Hotel and be able to see people walk into the bathroom and then come out and they look like skeletons because they probably went in there to do cocaine. I'm not very, I don't know cocaine very at all, at all. Very well. But yeah, you could see people's, you could see people's auras. In essence, it's, yeah, it's a magical thing. I look forward to doing it again at some point.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I had that experience being on my, you get that sense like, you know who you can trust too.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like I don't, I love you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't trust this.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Something on an animal level that you're picking up on.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I was, I was a big advocate of trying to talk like I wanted to, I want, I was seated here when you were talking about it with Penn Gillette. I, I, I'm not crazy. Like, I, it really, it was really fascinating. Like he sounded scared. Scared Scared like, Like, like, and. And also, like. Like, he is not.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, Penn sounded scared.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Pen Penn Jillette, Because. Because of his aversion to. To drugs and thinking what it would do to his brain, which I totally.

[Pete Holmes]

Scared of drugs.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Scared of drugs, Right. Scared lot of you.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I thought you were really. Oh, my God.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No. Good job, man. No, but I've heard people in my life, and I do that, and I was definitely one of those people, because I think. I don't like, the second my brain goes. I got nothing else to give this.

[Pete Holmes]

Time around, which is the weird message of drugs. It's like, we're gonna move aside what you think you are, and we're going to show you that you exist apart.

[Jason Sudeikis]

From it, which is what you were trying.

[Pete Holmes]

Very frightening thing. No, it is frightening.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It is.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like, do you want to give up everything?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

As Rob does. Would say, we're looking for volunteers.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like, well, that's crazy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's something that we all have to do at some point. Like, I sometimes think about, like, death, and I'm like. I think it's interesting that I don't necessarily have copious amounts of courage, like my friend Shane Moss to, like, smoke DMT or something.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right. I'm like.

[Pete Holmes]

Which is weird because we all do smoke dmt in the end. Like, you will trip on whatever. Dimethyl tryptophan.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's just.

[Pete Holmes]

It'll just be when you die. And you already have, too. It's when you were born. Like, you've already been on one of those trips.

[Jason Sudeikis]

So Otis. Otis is. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

[Pete Holmes]

I sometimes see psychedelics as death rehearsals. And, yeah, that. That is the way that our culture is. That is certainly something to be avoided or to be afraid of.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. No. Nancy Reagan and Len Bias, you know, the fellow. The young fella that died from an overdose after he got drafted by the Boston Celtics. Like, I think it might have been the next night or something. Like, he diet, like the. That got me, like, cocaine. Like, yeah, yeah, the mushrooms. I was kind of like, I want to see. I want to. I want to. I want to see pendulette on mushrooms. No, I don't want to see him. I want to. I want to. I want to see what comes from it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I want to hear him talk about.

[Pete Holmes]

I think he will. I think he will, too, based on the podcast. And then afterwards, he was like, he. I think he was open about it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He was.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm open to it, and I'm interested.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Again, you've done many more of these since, so I don't expect you to remember. But, and I don't mean references, please, but, but maybe it'll get people to listen to one besides me. Yeah, yeah, many more, hopefully. And, but yeah, I was like, I was like, oh, he sounds, he's. I could, I could hear the 12 year old him. Yeah. Like, it, like. And I've, and I've had that feeling with other, that experience with other people and, and mushrooms. I could, I was, I feel like I'm a good Sherpa. At least I was when it, when it was something that I did like once every three months, you know, I would need one myself, you know, probably.

[Pete Holmes]

But there's something about it, you know, their mind manifesting drugs. And there's something about a brain like pens getting turned into a fun house.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm like, I just want you to know the feeling, you know, that part of you pen that knows how to cook. What if we take that part and make it a bouncy house and you can just go in there and bounce around in all of your knowledge on how to cook and come out and tell me how the universe is an egg. You just be like, it's all in the egg, man. Like that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Go on. Yeah. While you're hiding. Hot. Do it. Roll. No, I'm with you. I think you'd spoken to him about it or said it before because the people say it opens doors in your mind and I think it leaves them ajar, which is important. I think it's a very, very important. I think it's a very important thing. And I don't think it only can happen through that. It happens through reading books and talking to strangers and looking people in the eyes and getting out in the world. But sometimes, again, when your baggage gets too far in the way of your intuition, it can be nice to reset. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Wonderful thing that we have this like little release button and here.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And yet it's here all the time, always. And it's criminalized. And it's fascinating. Like why, Why? I know.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, my wife just had a bad experience on them. And I think I told this when the doctor was saying like, you know, these drugs are no good. I was going like, this person doesn't.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Know what they're talking about.

[Pete Holmes]

Even though my wife was going through a bad thing because of them, I was like, still, we maybe overdid it, but that doesn't mean we should stop.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Doing them all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that being said, I always People always ask me the rules and they're. You got to do them with the right people in the right circumstances.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's where I've been lucky.

[Pete Holmes]

I say, don't have anything on either day. Like, do them on day B. There's abc. Nothing on those days. Do it on day B. Deal with people you're comfortable crying or vomiting in front of.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Not that you'll cry or vomit, but.

[Pete Holmes]

Those should be the quality of friends.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes. Well said.

[Pete Holmes]

And quiet yourself and. And yield and it'll be over.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I couldn't go underwater on them, really. I could not hold my head underwater. I still don't know why.

[Pete Holmes]

We were on mushrooms on our honeymoon and I was swimming and I was like, I can stay under here forever. I had one of those moments that's.

[Jason Sudeikis]

More, we're different and yet we work.

[Pete Holmes]

And yet we work. But I was like. It was true, though. I was staying under insane amounts of time, I bet.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

With no. Because I had no fear. The part of my brain that was like, in charge of going, like, scare him. Like, the Jewish mother in my brain that was like, you can't be underwater was silenced. And I was like, I can stand her here. Wait. And this is what David Blaine does. This is what all the great breath holding people do, is they learn how to meditate. The part of their brain that regulates that type of panic.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And they tell it to take a couple hours off and then they break records. And I did it because I ate a plant.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Towards. I mean. I mean, look at this little, pretty little piece of synchronicity is. I remember the same time when I realized, oh, I can't hold my head underwater. I was hanging out in the pool. This is in Las Vegas. And it's the only time that I've ever freestyled rap. And I was on fire. I was spitting fire, as they say, and, you know, towards what we were talking about at the beginning. Like, when you hear rap, you're like, I could string together some things like that. And I've always felt like, I've always been like, you know, enjoyed wordplay or, you know, all that. That. And. And, you know, people would. Would confuse me with being quick every now and then. And a lot of that's just again from listening. But it's. But. But when I got out of my way, I. I was. I was like, Joe was beatboxing and I. I feel like if I asked somebody, he'd go, oh, no, you were. There was something going on. I go, yeah, I was on mushrooms.

[Pete Holmes]

I was just what is that? Your potential was there.

[Jason Sudeikis]

All the Dr. Seuss, all Eminem, Beastie Boy. It was like everything. Everything came out just like with Near. I remember. I remember it very, very well, but it was. I got out of my own way.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like sometimes I dream that I'm rapping. And even in the dream I'm like, this is really good. Now, that could be wrong, obviously, but there I've also had those experiences. Me and Ian Carmel were looking for a parking spot, and we were a little drunk. Not too drunk, maybe stoned. And we're driving around in circles listening to Zombie, the song Zombie.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Was this recently because you just passed? No, before she passed.

[Pete Holmes]

And freestyling over it. And we were very good. And it was because he's the most. Do you know Ian? He just looks like Dom DeLuise. He's just like, hey. He's just like a happy, friendly guy. And you're in the car that's so safe. Not going anywhere. Literally going around the block looking for parking, but not looking because we're having so much fun. That place can be manufactured, like you said, through conversations, through friends, through eye contact, or sometimes with a drug. But if you go into that safe, special place, that's where good improv is. It's where good sketch. It kind of goes back to what you're saying about writing sketches just getting out of your own way. The elevator critic. You don't have to write the next great Mr. Show. It can just be David S. Pumpkins. I'm aware that that's not your season.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, I do. I 100% agree with you.

[Pete Holmes]

People critique me sometimes because I mention seasons of things that people are.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm not in that one.

[Pete Holmes]

Exactly. Like you would say. Yeah, I don't care.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Why watch the show.

[Pete Holmes]

I know you care. I'm not saying that to you. I'm just like. We're just trying to talk.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

This isn't Larry King.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I say that all the time. When there's like. When people. When there's like a. Yeah, like when people are trying to say. You know what I mean? Like, we're trying. Like, I'm talking. That's like a couple fight. That's not. I know I said that. That's not what I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Not. Not helpful. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly. Oh, come on, Kath. You know what I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

Let's do the speed round.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, we talk forever. Yeah, we're doing well, this probably won't be the last time we talk.

[Pete Holmes]

No, absolutely. Absolutely not. Let's make. You can't smell or taste.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I can't smell. And so therefore we believe you can't. Yeah, I think it's all taste bud based, I think, but no nuance. So like again, walking through the Bellagio on mushrooms and Ed, who was there, Ed Goodman was like, oh, my God, I feel like I'm back at my dorm room freshman year. And I was like, yeah, man, I don't have that trigger.

[Pete Holmes]

So it's the smell of the carpets.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's the thing that I want to get down into is like. Is like with the smell and I don't know who to talk to, but it's like, how does it affect in my memory? Because that's.

[Pete Holmes]

It triggers. They say it triggers more.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's the number one. Yeah. Yeah. That I. That it's. It's a. It's a weird thing. Like, you know, I could, you know, taste like Diet Coke and Coke right after one another. I can tell you what's. What's what, but like Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi or like Coke Zero Diet Coke. I wouldn't be able to tell a different. Really? No, I don't think so. Not after a time. Not after a certain amount of time.

[Pete Holmes]

Interesting.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It would be like, it's all fresh. You're like momentum, literally. Turkey, chicken. Like, I don't think would be. I don't. I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference unless I had just had it recently and someone told me what it was and then I can sort of hold it in my. My ram.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you only have it there for.

[Jason Sudeikis]

A moment, I think.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't even know short term taste memory.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes. But it's still.

[Pete Holmes]

So can you just eat like.

[Jason Sudeikis]

This is spicy. Spicy.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no, no. Even worse. Can you just eat super healthy? Because who cares?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Kind of, but I don't. Yeah, because people have more fun when they don't. And I like, I love going out to eat and hanging out with people and. But I'm always very hesitant to recommend places to people unless I've taken like, unless Liv's going with me.

[Pete Holmes]

You need to have the taster. You have a taster like a king.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I really do. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Is this as good as.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I presume I have a taster fit for a king. I'll say that. You know, anybody would be lucky to have live and taste their food for them. But yeah, when people. So like when I like some of that, like, on set, you know, like. You know, like, they drop some food and I eat it. And someone was like, how is. Makes me so anxious. Yeah. Like, I'm like, it's pretty. It's good. I don't want to say it's good because. Okay, great. I'm gonna go get it then. Ah, this is awful. It's like they're. You get it.

[Pete Holmes]

Welcome to my world, baby.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I can't tell. Don't ever ask me anything. My preference.

[Pete Holmes]

That's so funny.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It really does. It just happened two days ago. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, I don't really know. Yeah, you have to be the waiter that goes, what do you like here? I'm a vegan.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Like the vegan table.

[Jason Sudeikis]

What do you mean? You can't smell. Then you got to go through all that again. Oh, my gosh.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. What is hard time? You've laughed.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, you know, I do, because I. And it's one of them. But. But the one. I mean, literally, from the first time, you know, when I listen to Derek's. And then every time since, the one that keeps popping up is.

[Pete Holmes]

I think I forgot to ask Penn, which.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, really?

[Pete Holmes]

Still bothers me.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, yeah, the teller is naked.

[Pete Holmes]

You knew. It was a great one.

[Jason Sudeikis]

So good.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm wearing a ring.

[Jason Sudeikis]

So good.

[Pete Holmes]

I start punching, punching him in the forehead.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's so good. Oh, my God. That's really, really good.

[Pete Holmes]

I have beginner's luck.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, I know.

[Pete Holmes]

I won't try it again. I have now retired my pencilette impression.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I believe in that. That's when Mike o' Brien did Seven Minutes in Heaven. We came up with this bit where it's like, just like micro impressions, where it's just like. Just make. Just do the sound. Because I used to do that.

[Pete Holmes]

Jeff Bridges was.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Whoa. Yeah, it was great. Here's Gene Hackman. Just his laugh. Wait, hold on, hold on, wait, hold on, hold on. You watch, like, Royal Tannenbaums. It's everywhere, but it's like, what do you do? It's so.

[Pete Holmes]

My brother would do Paul Giamatti, and he'd go, jack. Jack. Which is sideways.

[Jason Sudeikis]

For my snl, my second SNL audition, I did Chris Rock sang Paul Giamatti. That was it. I just go, paul Giamatti. Paul Giamatti. That was it. That was it. That's good. The hardest I've ever laughed today, man.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that really?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No. Wouldn't that have been sweet? Not been sweet, no. But I have disturbed. I know, I know, I know, buddy. The. No but when I was thinking about it, I was like, the time that got me the most was. And I can't remember where we were, but I was in touring company with Second City and it was. It was a college town. We had just had a good show and we were spending the night there. So it was far enough away from Chicago that we had to spend the night versus a lot of times they'd, you know, hey, wrap it up, and we're driving four hours to get you back home. So it could have been like Ohio State or something, I don't know. But we were. We were. We were somewhere. Good sized college town. For some reason, it feels like it was in Pittsburgh and. Or at least Pennsylvania. And in my touring company. Great people. But the specifically the one that provoked this laughter was a fellow named Pete Gross. You know Pete.

[Pete Holmes]

Pete Gross.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, Pete Gross. Sonic. Great Sonic, you know, but him and T.J. jagadowski.

[Pete Holmes]

Two of the greats.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Two of the greats. Two of the greats, absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a shame. I tease myself for calling them the Sonic guys. Those are two of the greats.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know, but I mean, but that's.

[Pete Holmes]

How we know them. Yeah, they're from the Sonic.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That's how people listening. But. But then. But I mean, like, you know, TJ is Chicago royalty. Pete is written everywhere. And, you know, Veep done a ton of stuff. Great actor. But he was also. He just incredibly, incredibly, like, impish. You know, he's like, very playful and. And even though he's very, very smart and. And it was really cold and we saw. We were outside like, like these kind of windows and we were inside the. I'm sorry, we're inside the bar, but outside there was one patch of ice that was just having everybody as they walked across kids slip. It was just like, you know, like when. Like the, you know, black ice or whatever, like where you can't tell and it's fine. It's fine. And so we were watching people slip, like a lot, and that can. And. And it did get us a good one. Slips are good, especially when they get up. Right. You know, we don't want to be your great grandfather. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Hips are bad. But what's that old joke, like, comedy writer? Like comedy is falling down the stairs.

[Pete Holmes]

It's Mel Brooks.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. What is. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He goes, if you fall in a manhole, that's comedy. If I bruise my elbow, that's tragic.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Right? There's that, but. But there's what. What makes people laugh are people falling down stairs and getting up what makes comedy people laugh is someone falling downstairs and dying or something. Something like that. I forget butchering it. So, but so then at some point, I don't even remember when it was because we're all just. And it was. We're right by the front window. And now other college, now kids, now it's like a thing. We're far enough away that people don't notice. And at some point, Pete slipped away, put on his scarf, his jacket, and then. And went out the back door. And then we just see him. And you don't know it's him immediately. We didn't. Those of us that the five, you know, six people that know stage manager and piano player and everything with all these strange, you know, college kids. Stranger college kids. Meaning, you know, not odd, but you get it, right? And then it's Pete. And then he gets up and he falls down again. And now I realize, Now I realize it's Pete. We all in our group and the crowd is just going crazy. More people are joining and Pete keeps getting up and, but like all believable. Not like, not, you know, no, just genuinely. And he's, you know, milking it. But like, he could totally get up and get out, but he just keeps doing, like, to the point he does it for like three straight minutes. And I'm dying laughing because it's hilarious. And it's, but it's also.

[Pete Holmes]

How do you get there?

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's a ruse. He like being around. Just like being at a wake, you know, and everybody's around you crying, and even if you don't know the person, you're going to start crying. You know, like communal thing. Like we're just billows of laughter that are only getting as far as this, you know, this bulletproof glass or whatever. And he's doing it now. Campus police pull over because they help him to help him, and he's falling down and he's like almost pulling them down. It was, it was, it was so brilliant and so beautiful for like five minutes. And I, that's what I thought of when I, when you first asked that question.

[Pete Holmes]

One of the best.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I, I, I mean, Pete Gross.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, one of the best.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It was, I mean, he has always reminded me in many ways, in the best ways of, like, Groucho. And it was, it was so Mark's brother. I mean, it was more him, you know, channeling hard boy in that moment.

[Pete Holmes]

In the 1930s. It would play in the 2000-30s.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes, absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

That is amazing.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It was, it was, it was something else. But that's that's the one I. That's the one I always think of. Or that's the one I've thought of.

[Pete Holmes]

When that is now my memory.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I put it in the bar across the street from Second City.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. There you go.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that what it is?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, this was. It was there in Pittsburgh. It was like. It was where. Some college town. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's gonna be just a great night.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like post show or like, you know, I remember a friend's band, Ultimate Fake Book, was on the jukebox. Like, oh, my God, a Kansas band is playing in this bar. It was like just one of those nights. And I didn't really drink a lot at that point in my life and. But. But it was just one of those wonderful, wonderful nights that just. The cherry on top was just Pete just doing killer pratfalls, like organization organically.

[Pete Holmes]

A very smart, silly person. Do you know Josh Lee by any chance?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know the name.

[Pete Holmes]

He ran Fallon.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's how. That's.

[Pete Holmes]

And he and I were in a room together. And it's. It's not gonna even touch your story. Meaning, please lower your expectations.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Already done.

[Pete Holmes]

He was just. Just so effortlessly bought into the premise of that he was an alien. We just kind of. Someone pitched that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He.

[Pete Holmes]

He did something that was weird. And then they were like, it's like, you're from another planet. He's like, no, I'm not. And then he picked up a piece of cake and smelled it. There's cake in the room. Then he picked up a flower and ate it. And it was the way that he did it. He did it faster than I just explained it. As soon as someone said, you're from another planet, he started smelling the cake and then he ate the flower. And it involved not the same level of commitment, but he had to eat a flower.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And he's like a high producer on the show being a silly willy.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I died. Left. And I'll never forget it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That made me think of another time that I laughed really hard that like. And this goes back to the idea of, like, where, like, you know Micaiah Stice. Micaiah Stice was a walk on at the community college that I played basketball at. Like, it was me and three fellas from the same high school. We got scholarships. Micaiah was down there and he's just like a knucklehead. He's just bad news. I mean, you know, we eventually got arrested for trying to protect. Break into a fucking car wash in January. Like, nobody's using a car wash. We're trying to break in with a car. We got arrested. I spent the night in jail. There's a whole thing. My head was shaved at this time. This is like. Yeah, this is a whole thing. But Micaiah, we would. We would, like. The team would have to get up at like, you know, six in the morning, go lift weights. And then we'd be. Then we'd usually be in the cafeteria first and foremost. And the big thing you would do in the cafeteria that. That time, you know, little tiny glass a little bit bigger and shot glasses. You get milk. And he. We would line up the front of our tray. Like, everybody would do it, you know, with all the beverages. They're so small. Yeah, he had like 10 chocolate milks in a row. But because we had just like lifted weights, his muscles were a little twitchy. And he. And now people are filling it around us. You know, we just were. And so it's buzzing and everything. And he goes to pick up his chocolate milk and we're all sitting around, like 10 of us or whatever at the table. He's going. And his muscles are twitching and his hands a little shaky. And he. And it drops. He drops it. We're all. Everybody's like, oh, you know, like, he's good. So now he's got, you know, he's sweaty as hell still from like, or workout. He's covered in chocolate milk. And we're all like that laughing. And just like you're saying, just as quick as Josh probably reached for that flower, he then, just as we're laughing, just picks up the. All 10 of them and just starts dumping them all over himself. Just like one after another, just very casually, very quickly. Like, you know, not. Not speed. Just like. Just like as if he meant to do it and then just eat his food. And I, I was like, I. I mean, if that. That like Mikayo is that funny all the time and just needed like whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

Like mushroom freestyle moment.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Or comedy sports. Yeah. You know, need to have, you know, Cam Lynch.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's what was nice about those, was that take people like you and Josh and this guy and spin them into a situation where they shouldn't thrive. But that's actually the only place we can.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. If I. If I. If I were like starting an improv theater in Kansas City, I would immediately go to every high school and I'd say, who are the. Who gets in trouble? Yeah, show me. Kids get in trouble because they're. They're like, you know, the like, 8 and up. Or like 42 and up. Like that. Like that documentary. I want that same documentarian, or at least someone to bite that style and do it with. What's it.

[Pete Holmes]

It's called like, 8 up. 8 up.

[Jason Sudeikis]

8 up. And then. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then 18.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I want so many to do that. With kids in right field that chew their glove.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I want to watch that document. I want. I want to follow boys, girls. Yeah. Or the ones picking dandelions.

[Pete Holmes]

Featuring a short film of my making of people looking at the sign at the airport.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Exactly. Yeah. That'd be like the Pixar cartoon at the front. We can do this. I know, but I'm so jammed. Just so jammed.

[Pete Holmes]

I love it. Let's do this. I'm gonna be late to my thing. I don't care. I keep booking these things, and then they go long. What podcast do I think I'm hosting?

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

Why do I have plans after the podcast?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I canceled everything. I was like. I was like. I don't. I assume he just edited it down.

[Pete Holmes]

You're a good man. You really are. You've got. You'll have covered some of these.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

But don't feel bad about repeating yourself. What's the greatest lesson you've learned about show business? Give me a little.

[Jason Sudeikis]

There's power in the word no.

[Pete Holmes]

What you say no to defines you.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Bernie Brillstein, you know, great. I mean, a character in himself, but really great mind. I mean, literally, like, on the ground floor in the 70s of SNL, Muppet show, and Hee Haw all at one time. Wow. Like, that's remarkable. Like, produced all. You know, helped produce the. And managed all the people involved. But, yeah, a business career is what is made out of what you say no to. I love it.

[Pete Holmes]

What about improv? Greatest lesson of improv.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Listen, have, like, Del said, like, the jazz drummer have big ears.

[Pete Holmes]

Listen, I love that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I do, too. I love it.

[Pete Holmes]

Have big ears. Like a jazz drummer.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

The bass solo.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

There's something profound. When the drummer gets quiet for the bass solo, I go, that's it right there.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, when they. They know. I mean, I know there's. There's a language there. I. And I don't know it. Don't speak it, but. But. But, you know, we had.

[Pete Holmes]

It's his song.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You ever go pop into the smalls, like, down there in the West Village?

[Pete Holmes]

I was right by it. I never went in.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, it's worth. It's, you know, Knock on Wood season three and all that. If you end up back there. Like, you know, it's. It's a good one to dive into.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I got to. Yeah, I got to.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Just because you. It's even fun to go like a little drunk little stone, and then sit back and don't even go for the music. Go. Just try to, like, suss out the. The hierarchy. Like, it's fascinating.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, who's in charge here, who's in.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Charge, but also who's the baddest motherfucker in here. Cause you can tell right away it's the same thing. You feel. I'm sorry. Like, I'm like, walk in the cellar and, you know, Chappelle's there. Or, you know, we get that with improv, too. Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Who's the alpha? I know. We're all a pack.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But someone is the heart of America 100. Because that's how I felt when I saw TJ.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Absolutely perfect.

[Pete Holmes]

Jagadowski.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

I was watching TJ Miller, too, but I was watching TJ Jagadowski, and I was just like, yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh.

[Pete Holmes]

And it wasn't apparent until the end of the Herald for everyone or no to me, because I was a click. Clearly, he's great. But then at the end, I was like, oh, he was the one that was paying attention to the whole show.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's incredible.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, he's got big old ears.

[Pete Holmes]

If old big ears hears this.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I could, you know. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Put us in touch. Writing. Greatest lesson.

[Jason Sudeikis]

All writing is rewriting. Yeah. I don't think it's gonna be. Don't think it's. And that. That was probably Judd. I think Judd said that to me, if I remember correctly. Yeah, but all writing is rewriting.

[Pete Holmes]

Let me try.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, Already Writing is rewriting. Yeah. That's pretty good.

[Pete Holmes]

Bill Hader does it, and he. He would go, oh, writing's rewriting. He finds a way. I can't do that. I just keep the high.

[Jason Sudeikis]

He puts it away in his nose, too, I think.

[Pete Holmes]

He puts what way in his nose?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, I'm doing it in my nose.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm doing that from bills, for sure. Family. Greatest lesson you've learned about family. You can take that with your own family growing up or your family.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I think family in general. Even family beyond that. Family is a group of people that you had no choice in. Right. So it can also be the. You know, the people. You know, when you have your family that happens to be your, you know, your. Your improv team, that you get sort of cold. You know, I was very cynical to that at the beginning. So I don't know any of these people. I just left this great group of fellas at this theater in back in my hometown and then move here and then they put you squeeze you together on a team with strangers and then you're supposed to have this connection. And a lot of it is done through booze, which I didn't drink at that time. So I was there to work, you know, to learn.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And I didn't. I confused that sometimes, you know, that play is work, you know, and works play. So there's a little bit of like.

[Pete Holmes]

The theater companies that all have sex with each other.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or they call it rehearsal, I think. Action Trust.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, all right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

That I believe that you gotta love people for who they are and where they're at and not where you think they should be.

[Pete Holmes]

That's brilliant.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know, you could have taken a.

[Pete Holmes]

Four hour break and not had a better one. Because that's something my uncle said to me.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And he cracked my whole family. He passed, but he was amazing. He was like, love them for who they are, not who you want them.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Did he say it, like, as he was passing, like, was that.

[Pete Holmes]

He did it wisped out of him.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm just kidding you.

[Pete Holmes]

You were joking, right?

[Jason Sudeikis]

No, I mean, towards the end, like.

[Pete Holmes]

We knew he was passing and that's when we started talking on the phone more.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Gotcha.

[Pete Holmes]

And I've never. I'm not a good family person, but he and I really hit it off.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. And no, I could stand to be better. Yeah, I'm. I could be better. Should be better.

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't know it was something you learned. Like, I learned to not be great at family from a not great family. And I would say that if they were sitting here. I love them to death, but we're not good at being.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, that's your cousin.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like, we just don't have.

[Pete Holmes]

We don't have any of that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know. I don't have the guilt attached to, like.

[Pete Holmes]

It's good.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's liberating.

[Jason Sudeikis]

But I mean, like, like, I can't get guilted into things by my.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no, I know, I know.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Like, Liv will read a text from her mom and be like, oh, she's so mad at me. And then I'll look at it and I'll be like, what do you mean? She just says, okay, yeah, yeah. But you know, I'm like, I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

That's funny.

[Jason Sudeikis]

It's like a great key and Peele sketch too.

[Pete Holmes]

God love him. Jordan Peele Smoking.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Rest in peace. Rest in peace.

[Pete Holmes]

He's alive.

[Jason Sudeikis]

No. Oh, he is. Oh, thank God.

[Pete Holmes]

Miss you, Elton.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I'm so glad.

[Pete Holmes]

Miss you, Elton. Got on here. And finally, comedy. What is the greatest. I know it's hard to summarize, and you've said so many great things, so let's not even feel pressure. But what is a great lesson you've learned about comedy?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, boy.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that, that soundscape.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I do too.

[Pete Holmes]

It just went by right then.

[Jason Sudeikis]

People, people pay thousands for that. And you, here you are getting just free for free.

[Pete Holmes]

We have to get a release from that guy. Oh, hell, that's what Katie and the dog are here for.

[Jason Sudeikis]

They go, boy, find that cop. Golly. I mean it. It's probably almost a combination of everything I've said thus far.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

You know what I mean? Like, really, it's like, you know, be ready. Be ready, big ears. Well, there's a great, you know what? There's a great with comedy. I don't know if it's comedy, but, but, but it's, there's a great. John Wooden, the great, you know, UCLA basketball coach has so many aphorisms. Right. Isn't that what we would say? You, you, you, you should get his. You know what? Don't. You don't get it. I'll find someone to get it for you. But like Miami me. But, but he's a great book of, of, of all his, you know, teachings, philosophies, thoughts, whatnot, Maximus and. Yes, exactly. And one is like, you know, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Now, I don't think it's, it's unique to him necessarily, but I know it's in that book. Book. And I believe that. So, like, with comedy, like, like, you got to do it.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like Derek, Derek, the hardest working magician. Yeah, the great hardest working show person, maybe.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And, and he seems like he's magical.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That's another way of thinking about, like, he's lucky.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah. Right. I think you gotta, you gotta do it. There's no, there's no shortcut. There's, you know, sometimes you're blessed with a. Having an essence that fits in the vessel that you're given, you know, like, I don't know if any of us would be smart enough to receive Melissa McCarthy if she was the same size as like Kate Micucci, you know, but like, but like Kate and Ricky, like, they're like, you know, they're salt pepper shakers that essence reverberates off them. Right. As individuals. But then it certainly is a duo with the Sound Off. You know, Melissa, like, has such a capacity, like, to play within the essence of her vessel. Right. You know, so there's instances like that. And I'm not saying that both. All three of those gals didn't work hard, because clearly they all have, and they're fantastic. But they.

[Pete Holmes]

They worked hard at figuring out who they were with the sound.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Elizabeth McCarthy with the sound off is like, I bet she's threatening me. Like, it's always. It's always like a. I will break your fingers, make you play the piano. I love it.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I love watching. I remember watching Scott atsit at Second City and Kevin Dorff at Second City, and those were, you know, after Ed, you know, at comedy sports, watching those guys. And the thing I'd always say about them, and Rich was very much like this, too, but Rich had a little bit more like sort of Bugs Bunny playfulness to him. But they. You couldn't. If you weren't listening to them, you couldn't. You couldn't tell if they're performing comedy or drama. Wow. And I think that that's. That's. That's a style that a Steve that I like. You know, I love Martin Short. I love Jim Carrey. Like, I think Jim Carrey is one of the most remarkable in the times I've got to, like, work with them or even be near them. It's. It's. I love. I love a good, you know, broad moment. Yeah. Silly moment, you know, to pieces. But. But they have so much more, you know, they're so great because. Because they're so much more than simply that. But. But they worked hard at it.

[Pete Holmes]

Better than a dramatic Jim Carrey.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I love it. I love it. I love it. You know, I. I like when he's on Actor Studio and he's talking about. He's gonna burst into a, you know, ball of light. Like. I'm like, yeah, man, go on. I don't. I've got. I got. Jordan plays baseball. Harry Kynes Jr. Plays funk. I go. I go with him. I'll go with anybody. Anybody that's like that, you know, needs. Cause as an artist, as a human being that has, like, an artistic soul, even, you know, like, which I think. I think Jordan definitely does. You just look at a picture of him dunking from the free throw. Free throw line. It looks like poetry. It's like a dancer. It's so articulated, every move, but it's like, yeah, you. You got. You don't like. I want to be in Blue Man Group. Like, all my friends in Blue Man Group were like, don't. You know? I was like, no, I want to, but it's because I had to. Like, I tried. I tried in vain. I tried. I mean, I flew out to. I got flown out eventually to Chicago, New York, and did the. Did the auditions, the whole bit, and saw myself bald and blue, which did not look anywhere near as cool as all my friends because I don't have cheekbones. But, like. Like, they were in the. In the cast, but I was like. But I wasn't a good enough drummer, you know? I mean, I could have learned it, but.

[Pete Holmes]

But you could catch the Mallows.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah, exactly. I could do all the acting and stuff I could do and the timing and everything. I love that show to pieces. I used to watch that when I lived in Vegas all the time. And I think of Tubes.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I haven't seen the new. I mean, they probably switched out. Like, they've updated things, you know, smartphones in there now. But it's all the same. It's all. All the same voice because those original guys are still very much in the thick of it with that. But, yeah, so it's. The harder you work, the luckier you get. The hard. Yeah, it's. And I kind of. I'm kind of a believer of hiding the hard work. That's the former athlete in me. Like, go, like, get to the gym early.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Shoot your 200 shots. Like.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

We're kind of like. We're at a point right now with art where, like, the process, like, we loved hearing, like, that. That one year of, like, boyhood and Birdman. Like, oh, it's all in one shot. Or, like, oh, he lived inside of a bear for six hours. I don't care.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I don't care. I know we got to fill up all these web pages and all these, like, entertainment networks and everything now. But, like, I kind of. I kind of don't want to hear we don't know how the sausage is made, as they say.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I've always fancied that. That move. And it's all, you know, the facade that you put on.

[Pete Holmes]

Mystique.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. And. Yeah, mystique. But also, like, my mystique or facade would be like, oh, I've got it right. Which is. Which. Which, you know, worked well at SNL and playing, like, you know, being in. Playing people that were in cold opens a lot. So, like, before the show opens, I could, you know, fuck around with the audience and make jokes before 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And that's all. That's all. Just me. That's a manifestation of me believing that we shouldn't show them that we're nervous.

[Pete Holmes]

That's so.

[Jason Sudeikis]

At least my essence. Some people. Some people, their essence of being nervous is, you know, gift from God. But. But that's not.

[Pete Holmes]

They're just in a dark corner with an owl.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Just petting an owl.

[Jason Sudeikis]

And people are like. People can't wait. They're like. When they come out, they're like, oh, shit, there he is. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But enough about Horatio San. I really do have to go.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I hate that we would have talked more. Just know that.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

George went. I'm just kidding.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you so much for doing this.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Thanks so much.

[Pete Holmes]

Pleasure. And we're gonna go to the Magic Castle.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Well, I hope so.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. I mean, yeah. With our gals, no less. We should. We should do that. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I would love that. You'll love Valerie. And I'll love live as I've come to know her.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Please.

[Pete Holmes]

Actually don't know your wife. I know I mentioned that she's beautiful, but I don't know who she is.

[Jason Sudeikis]

She's fantastic.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm only saying that so you just don't think I had some weird agenda about, like, so you have a hot wife, some morning radio show. Actually don't know who she is. I just know she's beautiful.

[Jason Sudeikis]

She is.

[Pete Holmes]

All right, buddy. Would you say keep it crispy? It's how we.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Oh, yes. No. Yes, please. I'm getting a character. No, please, keep it crispy. Sometimes it just doesn't show up. I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

That was like going down a slide.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Yeah. Yeah, it was. That's. What.

[Pete Holmes]

It had a twist.

[Jason Sudeikis]

I know. I didn't. I didn't know where it was going to start. I didn't know where it was going to end.

[Pete Holmes]

It was great.

[Jason Sudeikis]

Ah. You just got to trust yourself some. Thanks, pal.

[Pete Holmes]

That was awesome.