Note: Dead Eyes transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors. We advise you to listen to episode audio before quoting in print.

Dead Eyes, Episode 17 - “Lacking Warmth”

Connor Ratliff Thank you so much for doing this. I know that this is a very hectic time, so I really appreciate it.

Judd Apatow It is, but you know what? Everyone blew me off tonight and I thought, You know what? I'm going to come through right now for Connor. 

Connor Ratliff Oh, that's great. [Laughs]

Judd Apatow I'm going to come through the way Tom Hanks didn't come through. That's what—I'm going to make up for it.

[Flute and trumpet jazz waltz starts]

Connor Ratliff A few years ago, when I was doing the warmup for a taping of The Chris Gethard Show, I looked up and saw Judd Apatow in the audience.Judd Apatow writer, director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Funny People, producer of movies, like Bridesmaids, The Big Sick, and one of my favorite movies of the last decade, Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping.

I remember thinking, Oh, no. I wonder if I am being funny enough tonight. And then I pretended  he wasn't there. So I wouldn't be tempted to try and impress him.

I didn't try to meet Judd that night. I think the warmup was going well, and I didn't want to ruin it by approaching him and saying something stupid. And I have to admit that I was a little nervous asking him to talk to me for this podcast because, I've been looking at his name on so many of my favorite things going all the way back to when I was in high school, watching The Ben Stiller Show every Sunday evening on Fox.

[Music fades]

Judd Apatow Wow. At seven-thirty.

Connor Ratliff Opposite 60 Minutes.

Judd Apatow Yes. [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff That was one of those shows that I'm sure you, as a, as a self-proclaimed comedy nerd, you had those shows that you felt a certain amount of like pride of ownership and, and also like a certain outrage that..."Why isn't everyone watching this?"

I would read the Nielsen ratings when they used to print them in the paper as a, it would be like a list of, you know, 120 shows. And it really was like my sort of teenage badge of like, "I get this and other people don't," that I would look at it every week and I would just be furious that it was like, if not the lowest rated show in that bottom five on the list.

Judd Apatow Yes. And for a long time, so much of what I did would fail and disappear. You know, that was a very difficult period because I thought, Maybe I'm just completely out of sync with what people... like. But so many of my favorite bands weren't the bands that were the number one bands in the world. You know, I was listening Elvis Costello and people like that. And so I tried to take a pride in the idea that the crowd was not enormous, that there was hopefully a deep connection with the crowd, but it was small and maybe that was okay. And maybe that's all that would ever happen is I would do a series of things that would get canceled quickly or movies that would not do that well. But for a certain amount of people, they would be very special to them.

[Funk tune starts]

Connor Ratliff For a lot of people, Judd's TV series Freaks and Geeks was not unlike the music of Elvis Costello, attracting widespread, critical acclaim and a devoted fan base who knew that something this good, in a just world, would be significantly more popular. When it premiered in 1999, it was possibly the best show on network television, and the people who were watching at home knew it, but there weren't enough of them to save it from cancellation. The final three episodes of an abruptly-shortened, single season were burned off in one night, about a month after I was fired from Band of Brothers.

And for the next few years, the beginning of my wilderness period, I was keeping tabs on Judd's career, reading about all the TV shows with stacked casts that for whatever reason it didn't happen.

[Music fades]

Judd Apatow I remember walking around the Sony lot with Ben Stiller, and I think a bunch of my pilots weren't picked up and Freaks and Geeks was canceled and Undeclared was canceled, and I was with Ben  Stiller and he just said, "Man, you need a hit."

And that's what it felt like because also when you don't have hits, everyone challenges your vision because you haven't proven that your vision can work in a financial way by being a hit by having a lot of viewers or selling a lot of tickets at a, at the movie theater. So when you have a lot of these financial bombs, they start questioning all of your judgments, your casting, your writing.

Connor Ratliff At any point when you've been struggling, would you have that feeling where you'd look around at other people doing well, and would you be comparing yourself?

Judd Apatow Always, but I had that from a very young age, because I wanted to be a comedian so badly. And I did it for about seven years starting when I was in high school and I was running around with people who were...destined to be some of the greats. So I was living with Adam Sandler and I was friends with Jim Carrey and doing some writing with Jim. Rob Schneider lived across the street and David Spade lived down the street and you, and you can feel someone else's charisma.

[Theme music starts]

And I had this with multiple people and they were not famous. They were just charismatic and fascinating and interesting, great people. And you felt the room move to them. So when, when you, when you talk about "dead eyes," that's what I thought. I'm like, I'm the dead eyed guy. I'm not, I don't have the thing that's pulling that room like that.

Voice of God This is Dead Eyes, a podcast about one actor's quest to find out why Tom Hanks fired him from a small role in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

Connor Ratliff My name is Connor Ratliff. I'm an actor and comedian. Twenty years ago, I was fired by Tom Hanks. The reason I was told at the time was that he had looked at my audition tape and thought I had dead eyes. And that's the short version.

Judd Apatow It really was like being a guy trying to start a band, and your roommate's Bono. And you're going, I don't think I'm as good as Bono. And then you walk in a room and everyone is so into Bono.

[Theme music concludes, punky grunge rock tune starts]

Connor Ratliff I was living in England when Freaks and Geeks originally aired on NBC, so I didn't see it until it was put out on DVD years later. It was exactly what I needed to see at the time. A show about characters who are constantly being defeated, learning how to be okay with it. Part of the reason it was canceled was that network executives wanted the characters to have more victories. Judd's response was that the whole point was to show how they survived high school with their compassion and sense of humor intact.

In my eyes back then, Judd was a very successful person who couldn't seem to make that success last very long. I felt like a guy who had fallen off the ladder of show business completely, but I was lying on the ground looking up at him and he was climbing up a few rungs and then falling back down again and again.

[Music fades]

Judd Apatow I was doing standup once, and I was like, 20-years-old and an agent saw me and said, "Do you want to go out on pilot season"?

I was like, "Yeah, I'd love to be in a TV show." And so, you know, for people don't know, pilot season is when they do one episode of a show to decide if they want to do a series. So he said, "Let me send you to an acting  coach just to evaluate how good your acting is."

And he sends me this acting coach. He gives me a scene from the show, My Sister Sam, and the scene was really not funny. And so not funny that I didn't really even understand how to read it out loud. I've never, ever acted, not a sketch, not an improv, nothing. And I'm terrible.

And then the agent calls me and says, "Yeah, he said you're not a good actor. So let's not do this." And I never acted again, off of one person saying that. And I could write for these people. I would write jokes for Jim Carrey and I knew he would crush it. I couldn't believe how, how funny he was, but also I always knew, Wow, he's going to do it the way I dreamed I could do it.

Connor Ratliff Instead of having someone just immediately tell you you can't act, you think if you'd had someone who'd said, "Let's try it a little different," or "Why don't you try doing it like this?"

[Dreary flute and plucked string march starts]

If you'd been nurtured in that way that you, you—That might've been a path for you?

Judd Apatow I don't think there's any way to know, but I would say this, if that guy said, "Hey, go see that guy three times a week for the next three months and let, let let's work on this, and then we'll, we'll go do some stuff, I would have done it."

Connor Ratliff You probably would have gotten better. And it just would have, would have been a question of whether you got better to a degree that it was worth it continuing, I think.

Judd Apatow Yeah. And maybe I would have gotten better, but still not been interesting or who knows, anything could have happened.

Connor Ratliff After a twenty-five year break from standup comedy, he came back to it in 2017 with an aptly titled Netflix special called Judd Apatow The Return. And in it, one of the things he talks about is a specific piece of negative feedback he received early on from someone he looked up to.

[Music fades]

Judd Apatow Jim Henson was producing a show, he was looking to get a few comedians to drive cross-country with video cameras. And so I auditioned and I got a call where they said, "Jim Henson doesn't want you. But he would like to buy your ideas. Jim Henson said that he thought you lacked warmth."

[Slow udungu and kalimba piece starts]

And it knocked me out, to this day. It knocked me out because he taught me how to read. And this is the warmest guy in the world. This is the guy who took, felt and ping pong balls and made Kermit come to life. I mean, this, he was only joy and laughter. So for him to say I lacked warmth, which by the way, was my biggest fear on some deep level, a lack of charisma. A lack of some spark and to hear it...

[Music builds and stops]

And then like, a month or two later, he died. I think he had maybe he had the flu and had walking pneumonia or something and he died and that just locked it in, forever.

Connor Ratliff I heard you tell this story and I thought, This is the most relatable story I've ever heard. You know, if you, if you were to make a very, the very smallest quadrant of beloved and fun and likable and charming, and just every positive quality you could associate, you, you'd put Tom Hanks and Jim Henson in that little corner, that little pocket.

Judd Apatow Sure.

Connor Ratliff My guess is that your bond with like, Henson probably runs deeper even than my bond as a fan of Tom Hanks's. That it's—probably started earlier and it probably was, uh, even more kind of emotional.

Judd Apatow It's like a parent! And who knows how many hours I spent with him versus how many hours I spent with my [laughing] parents, as a little kid.

Connor Ratliff Why do you think that the message was relayed to you about lacking warmth? Like, do you think that Jim Henson wanted that message to be like, "Make sure he knows."

Judd Apatow Uh, that, yeah, that was part of it, which was, did he say it? Was what the casting director thought? Did it get re—relayed properly? I can't imagine Jim Henson would say, "Could you please let Judd know [laughing] that he lacks warmth." So is it an insensitive casting director, or is it actually the casting director's opinion and wasn't even what he said. But also, sometimes people tell your agent and your agent's not supposed to tell you!

Connor Ratliff Right.

Judd Apatow The agent's like, "Well, that, that—Judd shouldn't get that part, he's too old. And you're not supposed to go, "They say you're too old!" [Laughs] They're supposed to lie to you to keep yourself esteem.

Uh, there was someone that I didn't cast once and I was having a conversation with someone about it and they said to me, "They have dead eyes." And this is a very big actor or actress. And we thought about it. We thought about what it meant, you know, what, you know, we had a real discussion about accessibility, and did you—Are you experiencing this through this person? And one might say that that person's career was great because maybe they seemed a little more tortured, you know, you know, they played people with different types of struggles. And it, it wasn't really dead eyes. It was, it was emotion, it was pain, it was—

Connor Ratliff Right. They seem haunted.

Judd Apatow Exactly. There's something there that wasn't appropriate for this part. That, you know, we, you know, at the time were like, "Something's going on there and it's not what we're looking for at the time." But I think when you're in auditions, your job is to not say that to them. Your job is to inspire them, to get to that place where they can do the thing you want them to do. So if, if, if you think someone has dead eyes, then you want to be playful with them. You want them to be as confident as they can be. You want to do it a couple of times and, and see what's possible.

And I think a lot of what goes wrong is people give you one shot. I mean, I always say to people, the second you walk in and say, "I want to do it twice. I'm not good the first time." Just tell them. And they'll always say yes. They'll—and they'll always appreciate that you are aware. And a good director factors that in and gives you a little air and love and space because they're rooting for you to get it. They're not like, [menacing voice] "Let me check out it's this guy's got dead eyes." [Laughing] You know? And then you read it once, like, [Menacing voice again] "Okay. Yeah, you do! The eyes are dead!" You know, that's, that's not what you do. I mean, I've had people who've been so bad in auditions. And then I'll go, "Well, let's just improvise on it a little bit." And suddenly they are...fantastic.

Connor Ratliff How much are you able to take on the knowledge that every decision you're making in our process is creating this ripple wave of feelings that you may not be able to even be aware of? Uh, does that weigh on you when you're in charge of something?

Judd Apatow Yes, I mean, that's where I'm, that's where I'm as Jewish as I could be. And on one level, I think it...hopefully it leads to people being treated well, because I'm very concerned about what type of experience they're having. And on another level, there's something probably toxic and codependent.

I remember when we did Freaks and Geeks, we would do the auditions and Paul Feig was an actor for a very long time, a very good actor, and every time someone finished a scene, he would laugh and then say, "That's great." Every single time. And, you know, like, a, a very supportive, genuine kind of a laugh, not like, bullshit. Like, he loved every person who came in. He, he really did. He knew what that struggle was, and that pain was. But every audition he would go, "[Laughs] That's great!" And we made it like, a little montage of it, like as a joke. Because he always did it. But it was the most loving thing to do.

He, you know, and the best thing I've ever heard is when someone says, "Oh, I had so much fun auditioning for you." Where it isn't the nightmare of their life. That even if they didn't get the part, it was something really positive for them, that they had fun with us, and played and improvised, and it gave them confidence. It didn't make them feel awful.

Connor Ratliff I was working at a bookstore between—from 2002 to 2015, I was working at Barnes and Noble Union Square. And there was a point where I think Paul's second book had come out, and I told the person who arranged the events for the store, "You should get Paul Feig to come here for the event. He's great. His book is great. It'll be a big event. People will be really excited."

And so they did. And, uh, this is an em—this is a story that kind of haunts me, how poorly I handled this interaction.

Judd Apatow [Laughs] Wait a second, let me say this. It's the perfect story, no matter what's coming, because it's the exact story that fills Paul's life. Every story he told us during Freaks and Geeks was the most embarrassing story I've ever heard. And then we would always say, "How old were you when that happened? Like, thirteen?"

And he would go "Like, 18." Like, it was like, he was way too old for what it was. And then the show ended and he wrote a book of another like, twenty-five stories that he never told us in the Freaks and Geeks writing room, and then wrote another book of, of humiliating disasters.

[Cool electric guitar and drum piece starts]

And he turned all that into like fuel and comedy, and his career, so I love that it went wrong.

[Music continues]

Connor Ratliff Uh, hi, Paul.

Paul Feig [VOIP audio] Hey! Wait, I'm going to—let me hit record, here.

Connor Ratliff Great.

Paul Feig I am now...[clear audio] appear to be recording. Alright.

Connor Ratliff Hi, uh, very nice to, uh very nice to chat with you.

Paul Feig Thanks, Connor. You too!

Connor Ratliff When I was talking to Judd, I told him a story that you may or may not remember. My, my hope is that you don't remember in a way—

Paul Feig [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff —even though it would be better for the podcast, if you did,

Paul Feig Oh. [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff When we return, I'll be talking with Paul Feig, the creator of Freaks and Geeks, to ask him about what I said to him at that book signing in 2005. Dead Eyes will be right back.

[Music fades]

Connor Ratliff I had planned in my head  what I was going to say to you, thinking that it would, it would be a really, I really put a lot of thought into it and—

[Acoustic guitar piece starts]

 —they brought me into the green room where you were, and they said, "Hey, Paul, this is Connor. He's the reason you're doing the event."

You said, "Oh, well, thank you so much."

And I said to you, "I'm such a big fan." And, uh, you signed my Yearbook Edition. And I said, "Can I just tell you that Freaks and Geeks is my second favorite TV show of all time."

Paul Feig [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff  Do you have any memory of, of someone saying that to you.

Paul Feig [Laughs] I think I do, because I remember that event very, very well. That was very cool because it was a big deal for me as a burgeoning author, so yes, that's hilarious.

Connor Ratliff Paul, like Judd, is a multihyphenate. Writer-director-producer. He created one of my favorite TV shows of the past decade that not enough people have seen, the scifi comedy Other Space, in addition to directing big movies like Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, and Ghostbusters: Answer the Call.

But he started out as an actor. He even has a small role in Tom Hanks's That Thing You Do! We'll get to that in a bit.

[Music fades]

Connor Ratliff And you were very nice about it, but I immediately felt so bad that I had—

Paul Feig Oh, no.

Connor Ratliff —in my effort to make a very authentic compliment, I had delivered a backhanded compliment.

Paul Feig [Laughs] Well, we all have giant egos, you know that. So there's always part of us goes like, Wait a minute. Why, why isn't ours—my thing—the absolute best. But, um, but I think, I mean, I think I probably—I hope I took it with the spirit that was intended, especially since I got to work on the one that's your favorite show, as long as I'm involved. [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff Right. [Laughs] I also felt like I had handed you another Paul Feig experience—

Paul Feig [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff —uh, while also having one myself.

Paul Feig [Laughs] You know what, actually, that's, that's a great way to break it down because it, uh, had I done it, I would be beating myself up for years afterwards. I still have—think about things I said in my teens and I'll replay it and going, Oh God, I wish I could go back and [laughs] undo that, that thing.

[Guitar waltz starts]

But, but as the person that was said to look, I'm, I, I...you know, it's so nice for you to just get me there. And, uh, to be on anybody's favorites list is, is a great thing.

Connor Ratliff For the record, when I met Paul in the green room at Barnes & Noble, my number one favorite show at the time was Arrested Development, which Paul had also directed multiple episodes of. I sort of fumbled to try to explain this to him at the time, desperately trying to make it feel less awkward. Paul was of course, very gracious, signing my yearbook, "Connor—You rule!" But I always hoped that someday I would get the chance to talk to him about this, make it clear that I was not trying to weirdly neg him that day. Although he didn't seem to have a particularly vivid memory of how awkward it was, which was probably for the best.

[Music ends]

So much of your work is about defining what your success is and not letting it be defined by the larger world telling you you're a failure that, that there are small victories.

Paul Feig Yeah. I mean, there's the whole, the road to, [laughs] the road through the entertainment business is just paved with those, because that's all you're really ever confronted with. I mean, the victories are so few and far between. Judd was—Actually, the day that Freaks and Geeks premiered we were getting these amazing reviews. I mean, they were just coming in. It was crazy. I remember him saying, like he said, "I want you to stop and enjoy today. Just, enjoy it. Stop. Don't think about the show. Don't think about the stuff we have to do and the ratings and all this," he said. "Just enjoy it."

And it was such great advice because I, I sort of wasn't. I was kind of, "Oh my god, these reviews are great, but oh, what do we got to get this and get that? And then we gotta get this rating," and, "Oh, what happens if we don't do this?"

So you do have to, you do have to embrace those moments and enjoy them because you are just confronted with constant failure, [laughs] you know? It's why you're in the business and it's why, anytime somebody says to me, "I'm thinking about getting in the business," or, "Can you talk to my kid? He's thinking about getting in the business."

It's like, "No, I'm not—" Because, what am I going to say? You know, all I'm going to say to them is, "Don't do it," you know? And if they are going to do it, no matter what, then yes, they should be doing it. But if I, or anybody can talk them out of it, then you can't do it. You have to just be singular of vision and just have such...you have to have an ego. I mean, it is an ego and there's healthy egos and there's unhealthy egos, but it's still, you have to have an ego that says, "I can do this," when somebody says you're wrong, you're not right for it, or says you had dead eyes. [Laughs]

There's two ways you handle it. And it's kind of a combo of the two: one you go, "Yeah, I actually wasn't that good. When I went in there, I screwed something up or I just wasn't ready."

And then the other ones who just unfairly go, "You're not good enough," those are the ones that really drive you. And it becomes this weird combo. It's like when I was an actor and you'd have these auditions. And my thing was always like, if I stumbled over a word, I'd be like, "Oh my god!" So then I beat my, I beat myself up on the whole way home and all night if like, "If I didn't trip over that word, I would have gotten the part." And now that I'm behind the camera auditioning actors constantly, I've hired people that can barely get through the script, [laughs] you know?

Because you just go, "There's just something interesting about that person that I really like." And so you wish you could go back in time and go like, "All right, all this stuff you cared about so didn't matter." Maybe it did to certain directors, but it didn't really matter that to the people that would have understood what you did.

Connor Ratliff One of the first things I did, right when I got out of drama school and I had an agent, they were sending me to be the reader in auditions before I could get any auditions. It amazed me how, when a person walked in the room, how often that person got the part, just from the way they walked in the room, like how you got a vibe from someone.

Paul Feig Mhm.

Connor Ratliff I was almost always correct when they started reading and you'd be like, Yeah. It was the same feeling you got from them walking in the room.

Paul Feig Well, it's that thing that you can't, um, you can't teach, you can't predict, but it's charisma. I mean, that's it, it's weird. Some people just walk into a room and you're just drawn to them. They have this natural energy when they're reading the part or they're doing it. You're just—you lean forward. You know? And I always say, that's when I, you know, whatever I'm auditioning, I'm, you know, having been an actor, I give everybody the biggest shot in the world. Judd's joke was always, "Everybody leaves one of your, your auditions thinking they have the role—"

Connor Ratliff [Laughs]

Paul Feig Because I laugh and, "Oh my god!" and blah, blah, blah. Whether I thought they were good or not just because I don't want them to have that experience of walking out and beating themselves up.

But when you do it that way, you're always like, "Oh, that person could be good. Yeah, they're—" you know, I'm writing these notes. "They could be right, if we did this and this," and then the right person walks in and you're just like, "Oh my god!" And it just blows you out of your seat and you feel it, like you say, you do feel it...half the time you feel it when they walk in the room.

And other times, there's times when they walk in and you're like, "This person's not right at all." And the minute they start to read, you have this moment of like, "Wait, what, what?" And then, you know, after a few things, you're like, "Wow, wait, this is really good! It's just not what I thought it was going to be."

And I think that's the biggest mistake that a lot of directors and producers make is to go, "Oh my god, that person's so good. But I have something else in my head." And it's like, "No—throw that thing out of your head. Don't let the great person walk away. Rewrite the role for the great person."

Connor Ratliff I talked to Seth Rogen and he was  talking about, uh, working with, uh, his partner, Evan, almost the opposite dynamic because he said that he having been an actor was very aware of not wanting to give false hope to the actors in the room.

Paul Feig Interesting.

Connor Ratliff He said, Evan would say things like, uh, "We'll see you soon," or something. And Seth would be like, "You can't say that."

Paul Feig [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff "Like, you, you—They'll think you're going to see them soon!"

Paul Feig [Laughing] Yeah.

Connor Ratliff Do you ever think about that in terms of, of being nice enough that they feel good about it, but not so nice that you're setting them up for a crushing disappointment.

Paul Feig [Sighs, laughs] I mean, I hate the moment of when you go, "Hey! Thanks so much!" And you see their face go like, "Aren't you going to give me another adjustment," or "Aren't you going to help me out?" So I will actually give everybody an adjustment. And then, you hit a point where you're like, "Oh my god, [laughing] I can't be responsible for these people."

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Paul Feig And it gets, it gets very tiring. I'm always, I'm always exhausted at the end of a, of an audition day because I'm so worried about their—everybody else's psyche, because I was in terrible situations.

I mean, the worst just I ever had was I, I, I'm not going to name names or the show, but it was a very popular show starring this guy, very popular actor. And I was excited about it. And I remember walking in and he was sitting there. It was in his office. He had this big wooden desk, it looked like a lawyer's office for some reason. And he was back behind his desk, reading a magazine. And then the casting people were sitting in front of the desk.

I walk in, he's looking at the magazine, flips a page. He looks up at me. And then looks back down to the magazine and keeps reading the magazine and just reads the magazine through my entire audition. And I was just like, Oh my God, that's really, that's cold. 

Now, cut to, I was a regular on a show and they wanted me to come into the auditions to read with people, because it was for somebody I was going to be acting against. And there was this one writer again, I'm not going to name names. He was a Mr. Cool Guy kind of writer.

Connor Ratliff Mhm.

Paul Feig And this older actor comes in and he wasn't right for the role. Um, you know, but you know, we're all being nice and he's reading and this guy's just like laughing derisively and he's shaking and making all these things. And the actor stopped in the middle. He goes like, "You know what? I'm glad I could be your morning's entertainment. See ya." And he walked out and I was just like, [gasps] devastated. Because like, I felt I was guilty because I was with these people, you know—

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Paul Feig —with this guy.

Connor Ratliff By association, yeah.

Paul Feig And I never recovered from that.

Connor Ratliff [Laughs] Wow. I'm curious if you have a take on, you know, if someone else had told Judd, "Oh, you should try this or try this." Whether they...They might've like, stifled someone who would have been, could have been good at it, you know?

Paul Feig Yeah. Well, the, you know, the infamous story was when we hired Seth Rogen and we were talking to him after we hired him when we were on the pilot and he goes, uh, "Yeah, I had this acting coach there and in Vancouver and she told me I got to take voice lessons because if I talk like this, I'll never work." And it's just like the worst advice ever. Like, the man's super power is this fantastic voice he's got and the way of delivery. And those are the moments when I go, you know what? Nobody knows anything. And everybody's just trying to judge things from what came before.

Connor Ratliff Did you audition for That Thing You Do?

Paul Feig Yeah. I remember that very—Boy, I remember this, like it was yesterday. Um, I actually got called in to read for the lead role. And so was so excited about that. "Oh my gosh. And Tom Hanks is directing this, I'm up for the lead!" Up for the lead, [laughs] it means you can come in and read, but in your head—

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Paul Feig You're like, Wow, they must really want me! 

So, you know, I went in and auditioned, and it's that bittersweet thing where they're like, "Oh man, would you read this?"

[Laughs] And you go, "Oh, this hey, this is a one day...part...okay. Sure!" But you know, it was part of a DJ and I've always had that kind of DJ voice anyway.

And so I read it and it was just Tom and I, and he burst out laughing and he was just like, "Oh my god, that's the greatest!" And that was the greatest validation you could have ever had [laughs] as an actor, you know, just like, Tom Hanks is going crazy and saying how great it was. And I kind of knew in the room I had the part, it would just kind of, even more than my bullshit [laughing] when I, when I, you know, make actors try to feel good. I, you just, there were just, you just knew, you know, sometimes you just know and, um, so I got this part. But it was like, it was a one page scene. It was just all me talking for a solid page.

But the fun thing was, or the funny thing was, is that, you know, all this buildup for months of "Oh! Am I going to be on the set. Oh, we can do all these things that all—I'm going to try all this stuff—" and I had all of these like, lines I was going to...kind of funny lines, I'd come up with, I was going to try to improv and surprise Tom with and surprise everybody else with.

So we get in and we go to the set and they set up the shot and the camera's coming around and it does this big master shot. You know, we do it a few times and then they go, "All right! We got it! Great. Let's go! Moving on!"

And they scrambled because, clearly now I know, you know, making movies like, they said they were behind schedule. And I remember, as I walked off the set, I was on an empty stage. They'd had shot it in a, in a warehouse in this other location that was the record company. And I'm just walking around and go like, "Well, um, I guess that's it." [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff [Laughs]

Paul Feig And I got in my car and drove home. [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff Have you ever had I had to fire an actor or let an actor go because they—because something's wrong with them?

Paul Feig Yeah, I honestly, I think I only had it happen once that I can remember, but it was so terrible when it happened, because it was also somebody we'd brought halfway around the world [laughs] to be in this movie.

And it was somebody I really liked and thought was great and had done a really fun audition tape and all this. And it just, I think it was a combination of jet lag. There may have been something they took to try to wake themselves up [laughing] or something and just a different style of working, um, than I'm used to.

But I will do everything in my power to try to get a performance out of somebody and try to push past it. And it just was, it was a whole day of this person not being able to get their lines out, of them getting kind of belligerent with the other actors, and then had the night before had given my DP a whole list of ways that this person needed to be shot [laughs] and—

Connor Ratliff Oof.

Paul Feig And it was just like, "Oh, this is a problem. Damn it, this is a problem!" And, um, and the only reason I was kind of able to do it is because when we ended that day, when I just ended up, I would—just ended up spoonfeeding this person lines, like literally, "Say these two words, say these two words, say these two words." I was so exhausted at the end of the day that it was, it was easier to just say, like, "We've got to replace this person." [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Paul Feig You know, "I, I don't know what to do. Like, I can't, we can't go through this." And then, you know, the other actors were very, not happy with this person also, so, but it was a terrible, terrible feeling.

Um, and again, you, you want to just make sure that person knows that you, you still like them. It just, for whatever reason, something just didn't work. And, um, You know, everybody goes on to have great careers and you know, we're all professionals. So that's the good thing.

[contemplative string, flute and clarinet piece starts]

You know, it's one thing, it's harder if it's like, somebody you take a shot on who hasn't done anything before, but then, then your ego is like, "I'm, I'm going to make this work because I went out on a limb to put this person in this and I'm going to get a performance, no matter what. I don't care. [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

[Music fades]

Do you feel more in control as, as a filmmaker?

Paul Feig Yeah, very much so, I mean, yeah. I mean, that's why I could never go back to acting. I mean, it was really driven home to me. You know, when I was on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, because, you know, I'd been a regular on four other TV series before that, all of which had gotten canceled after the first season. And then finally I got on this show that was a hit, and it was just that thing of like, Finally, I did it. Oh my god. All these years of, of, you know, of trying to make this happen. I got it. I'm taken care of for seven years. This is going to be the greatest thing. End to the first season, and they called me up and they, they said, "We're, we're writing your character out because we don't know how to write for him." [Laughs]

And, and that was the moment of going—And I'd been, I'd been wanting to get into directing up until then. And I'd always been writing episodes I'd would write a spec episode of whatever show I was on and give it to the writers, and they always really liked it.  And then the show would get canceled, so that never had a shot of possibly getting produced.

But, um, but I kept on like, "Oh, but I got to, you know, my acting career." And even my wife was starting to go, like, "You should really, you know, maybe think about, you know, something different because just there is no control!" And that was the moment when it was like, if I'm going to be on a hit show, and still get written out for no, you know, no reason that I could see, I just didn't like that.

Also, the way, you know, actors' contracts are always terrible for TV series because they can get rid of you at any point, but you can't get out of that contract for six or seven years.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Paul Feig You know, not that you would want to, but at the same time, you know, that's not, that's definitely not control, you know.

Connor Ratliff It definitely, it definitely puts you in your place in terms of, "You can't leave."

Paul Feig Look, when you're an actor, it's—[laughs] all, all you can think about is the job and hanging onto the job and how do you expand it? And, you know, and I mean, yeah, but I have great sympathy for that. It's, it's so hard to be a jobbing actor. It's just, it's the hardest gig in the world, you know?

And then, you know, I mean, this, we know this, but I don't know people in the public know this, but you know how hard it is to be like a one line, two line. Actor on a thing because you know, like —

Connor Ratliff Mhm.

Paul Feig You're just waiting for that moment and, you know, "Dinner is served!" Or whatever, you know, however it is, but those are the easiest lines of screw up because, and you have no sympathy from anybody because it's like, "How the fuck can you screw that up? That—You only have one thing to say!"

It was like, "You don't understand! Like, if there's only one thing you can say in life and it's going to be in this one moment..." It's uh, it's, it's really, [laughing] it's heartbreaking.

Connor Ratliff Yeah, because you—There is a part of every actor that wants to make that one line, the most important line in the show.

Paul Feig Oh, of course.

Connor Ratliff Even though that reading of it will ruin the scene.  You know?

Paul Feig [Laughs] Well, that's all, I mean, that's all my direction always to the day players is like, "Do less, do less, take it down, take it, throw it away, throw it away. I know this is your big moment. Throw it away."

Connor Ratliff Well, there's one example I can think of, which is, I think the first time I saw Jack McBrayer on a thing and he had one line. I think it was an episode of Arrested Development, he had one line.

Paul Feig Mhm.

Connor Ratliff And it was the funniest line in the whole episode.

Paul Feig [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff And he underplayed it. He didn't, he didn't overplay it. He didn't sell it, but it—I saw that guy and I'm like, I don't—I didn't know who he was yet, and I was like, "I don't know who that guy is—"

Paul Feig [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff But he did such a good job with that line that I bet he just got onto another TV show.

Paul Feig You know, I, I think I directed [laughing] that episode, actually!

Connor Ratliff Really?

Paul Feig I have a weird memory of that because I met Jack before I, before I went on and directed a 30 Rock. And I always liked Jack.

Connor Ratliff It was one where he comes to tell Jason Bateman...it's like, an embarrassing moment where he comes to tell him that, uh, um, "There's a problem with your credit card. It's been declined."

Paul Feig Yeah, oh yeah yeah! Yeah, I did, [laughing] I did direct that one.

Connor Ratliff Really?!

Paul Feig Yeah! That was...isn't that the one where he has to wear the giant jacket and everything?

Connor Ratliff Yes. Yes!

Paul Feig Yeah, okay.

Connor Ratliff I promise this is not, I did not plan this. This is genuinely organic.

Paul Feig No, no no, I love that.

Connor Ratliff It's, he whispers it. He, he whispers it, but it's a stage—the McBrayer line. He whispers it, but it's like, a stage whisper. He says, "There's a problem with your credit card. [In mock southeren accent and loud whisper] It's been declined!"

Paul Feig Yeah. Oh my—Yes. Oh, I, you know what? I will tell you, having been there, we laughed so hard. We thought it was hilarious.

[Easy listening, upbeat horn waltz starts]

And I remember thinking like, This guy has really got something. And then when he ended up on 30 Rock, it was like, Of course!

Connor Ratliff Because it was the perfectly unexpected...it was like, a whisper that actually ended up being louder than the loud part of the, of the sentence. [Laughs] That's so funny because I don't even think on a subconscious level that I brought that up, thinking that that would be an episode that you directed.

Paul Feig [Laughs] I did six of them. So the odds are pretty good.

Connor Ratliff In a way, talking to Paul felt like a kind of test case for tying up loose ends on a minor kerfuffle that no one else was fixated on but me. I can now replace my feelings of embarrassment and shame at possibly hurting Paul's feelings, with satisfaction at getting to clearly express to him how much his work means to me. These things can end well.

And if Judd's feedback from Jim Henson is an example of a loose end that can never be tied up, his brush with comedy legend Steve Martin as a kid has a significantly happier resolution.

[Music fades]

Connor Ratliff How old were you when this happened?

Judd Apatow I think I was twelve or thirteen.

Connor Ratliff So right, right at the age where it's not like a little kid doing it. It's not like a, 5-year-old doing it. Like, you're right at the age where you're starting to transition from being a kid.

Judd Apatow Yeah. I, you know, I, I, I would drive by his house because my grandma lived in Beverly Hills and she one day told me that's where Steve Martin lives. So I would always force her to drive by. So anywhere we went, I'm like, "Just make sure you take Bedford!"

Connor Ratliff [Laughs]

Judd Apatow And, uh, and then one day he was just there. I didn't, I didn't go there just to knock on his door or anything. He was outside washing his car or something. And I just jumped out of the car. Uh, you know, and I said, you know, "Will you sign an autograph?"

And he said, "No, I don't sign autographs at my house." Which is what you should say.

Connor Ratliff Yes.

Judd Apatow You shouldn't—[laughs] You know...

Connor Ratliff Completely reasonable. Yeah.

Judd Apatow [Laughs] It's the right thing to say. [Laughs]

Connor Ratliff  It's the exact perfect precedent you want to set.

Judd Apatow Yeah. The amount of cameras I have outside my house right now?

Connor Ratliff [Laughs]

Judd Apatow The amount of security I have? I have two different security teams! [Laughs] But, uh, uh, and so I said, "Will you sign in the street?" And, uh...which I thought was a pretty good joke at the time.

And he said, "No, I'm sorry, because then a lot of people will come by and—" and he was very sweet and apologetic.

And then I just wrote him a vicious letter. Which I put in his mailbox. I didn't use a stamp, which I think is a funny, very aggressive thing to do. And I just said, you know, "You wouldn't live in that house if I didn't buy all your stuff! All your records, and go to your movies. And if you don't send me an, uh, an autographed photo of apology, I'll send your address to Homes of the Stars and you'll have tour buses passing by twenty-four hours a day."

And then I got books from him, and in it, he wrote, "To Judd, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was speaking to the Judd Apatow."

Connor Ratliff The thing I love about that is that's—it's a hilarious joke at the time, and then it transforms.

Judd Apatow Yeah.

Connor Ratliff That joke goes on a journey! Because now it's really funny that Steve Martin has, has written this to you, uh, and that it has a completely different meaning now that you are a professional.

Judd Apatow Well, I've given it a lot of meaning in the years since, and I believe this to be true, although maybe I just created this meaning, but what I like to think about it is, that I made him laugh and he sent me the books because the letter was funny and that in some way it made me believe I could enter his world.

That was my one moment of poking through and to have that person to acknowledge it with what felt like by the way, the most generous gift I'd ever gotten in my life, you know, this, this book and it was signed and it was thoughtful. And on some level he's telling me I'm funny. And that I can, I can do this. You know that's what I thought later, many, many decades later, I thought, That's the effect that had on me. 

Connor Ratliff Did he remember that whenever, like, later on, when you met as adults?

Judd Apatow I had one meeting about a project with him a long time ago and someone made me tell the story. And somebody said, "Steve, is that how you remember it?"

And he said, "Well, in my memory, I knocked on Judd's door."  [Laughing] Which I thought was a really funny response to it.

Connor Ratliff [Laughs]

Judd Apatow And then like, eight years ago, I was editing a comedy issue, issue of Vanity Fair. And we did a photograph, which was Steve Martin with a tour bus outside of my house and me in a bathrobe like, coming outside to complain that he was in front of my house. So I had like, this one day where we took this photo together and it was just the greatest full circle day, us making this little funny picture together that talked about that.

Connor Ratliff If you were looking at my dead eyes story, where do you think that story ultimately lands? Do you think this is something that's going to fizzle out and it'll just be something that I'm left wallowing in? Or do you think there's the potential for some other kind of ending to it?

Judd Apatow Well, first I would say, so did you—Are you saying that like you stopped acting after this for a long time? Off of that specific story? Or was it a culmination of things or did something happen after it had made you stop for awhile?

Connor Ratliff I think it's like, you can intellectually know that a stove is hot, but when you press your hand down on it, that's when you learn it. And the Tom Hanks moment was really like, it stuck with me in a way that's like, I don't want to go near that thing. I'll eat cold food.

Judd Apatow I think you're, you're doing the reverse of what I did, which was when I was sixteen, I was interested in comedy and all of this, and I wanted to talk to people about it and I wanted mentors and I started interviewing comedians and I interviewed fifty comedians when I was 16-years-old. And it was, you know, 1983, 1984. It was Shandling and Seinfeld, you know, before they had, you know, reach their heights—Leno.

Similar to what you're doing now, I had an instinct to try to understand what was coming. You're trying to figure out what the fuck happened and what it means. I was trying to understand it before it happened to me.

And so when I did those interviews, people would say, "It takes a long time. It's a lot of disappointment." And people talked about it as if it was brutal. Then they, they told all these stories of bombing and disappointments and things going wrong.

And so you have to go into it with that spirit, which is, "I love this, I'm going to try to get as good as I can. And I'm going to make things that I'm proud of. And I hope I can make a living and I hope it works out, but my core ideal has to be. I want to be good. I want to have this be a form of self discovery. I want to have fun and I'll be able to handle the brutal part."

Connor Ratliff Did knowing that it was going to be brutal in advance, did it really help you or when, when things started going bad, did you feel like it still was a sucker punch?

Judd Apatow You know, I was talking to a friend today about this book that Gary Shandling gave me. It was the first book I ever read about Buddhism. And it was called, Turning Problems Into Happiness.

And the premise of the book is that when something bad happens, you should be happy because it's an opportunity to learn and grow in some way. So you're actually happy that something goes wrong, because you're like, "Oh, I can learn patience, patience, now. I can learn fortitude right now." Like, so much comes from it that just in a Buddhist, you know, half smile way you think, Yeah, this is what life is. Life is suffering. And we, we fight on in spite of it.

Because to me, when someone says like, "He lacked warmth," what I know it means is: I'm self-conscious, I'm tight, I'm insecure. Maybe I'm having a hard time. And so it comes across as not, uh, vital in some way. And I figured that out later, but you know, at the time it's like the reason why it hurt was like, he nailed it.

You know, he called it, 'He lacks a warmth," but I think what he also meant is like, "He's, he's locked up." And that probably was part of where I was at at that moment. It's a kind of a young, neurotic, never been to therapy, never worked out all my issues, my family issues, my neurotic issues, and probably wanted that job so bad that I was probably weird [laughs] doing that audition.

I probably wasn't good and needy and not—didn't know who I was to get it across. It's always amazing when people really know themselves young and can get it across to people. But for a lot of us, it's a decades long challenge to figure out who we are and to get comfortable with it. And to not hate it, you know, that's a hard part too.

One thing that's always helped me—I always say this to my kids—you know, we're not supposed to agree on, on what we like. Metallica fans don't love Kenny Chesney, and vice versa. And so on some level you might be, uh, Metallica and Tom Hanks is Kenny Chesney or, you know what I mean? Like you're, you could be doing different things and have different perspectives or in that moment, he can't quite see what you are. He doesn't have enough time or the material doesn't even allow him to actually understand, what's interesting about you. There's a limitation to the moment you don't have enough to do for your thing to come out.

Connor Ratliff So, if you had to write an ending to my story, do you think it's that Tom Hanks and I are just oil and water? We don't connect?

Judd Apatow Well, I don't think that it matters either way. You know, there's a version of a story where you work together or where he appreciates something that you've made, or you have some other connection that is fun and pleasant and you know, those things are always nice, but they're completely unnecessary because him not wanting you is somewhat...meaningless. Because you're supposed to get rejected almost all the time. That was an especially painful way to have it done because it's a kind of, I think you have it, but it's not even a special story. It's kind of par for the course for what this is.

[Cathartic, upbeat 80s dance rock song starts playing]

There are big stars that got fired after one day. You know, Sean Penn was in a Terrence Malick movie and I think they like, cut his entire part out. Alan Arkin was in like Bullets Over Broadway. They cut his entire part afterwards. There's so many ways that this is painful, that I think it's just giving it no significance at all is the perfect ending. And then just making the thing that's meaningful to you.

Connor Ratliff If Jim Henson was the guy who taught Judd Apatow how to read, I think Judd and Paul were the guys who taught me how to fail. And sometimes you fail by doing your best, and then learning the right lessons from it when that's somehow not good enough. Often the ingredients for future success are buried inside those failures, if you're not too embarrassed to look at them closely.

When Freaks and Geeks was canceled, The Los Angeles Times published an article that was a series of journal entries written by Judd, chronicled his experience making the show all the way from writing the pilot with Paul to winding up in a hospital bed, because the stress of the show had led to a herniated disc.

In the final entry, one simple line stuck with me: "It is hard to find closure."

[Song ends]

Speaking generally, I can't say I disagree.

[Aimee Mann's "Stuck in the Past" begins]

Dead Eyes is a production of Headgum Studios. It was created by me, Connor Ratliff. It's written by me, and it's mostly me that you hear talking, including now. The show is produced and edited by Harry Nelson and Mike Comite.

Special thanks to my guests Judd Apatow and Paul Feig.

Also, thanks to Aimee Mann for letting us use this song that's playing in the background. It's called "Stuck in the Past," and you can find it on her Grammy Award-winning album, Mental Illness, available to buy an aimeemann.com.

If you like Dead Eyes, please do all the things that podcasts tell you to do: subscribe, rate, review. Follow us on Twitter @deadeyespodcast, and talk about us nicely on social media. If you want to reach out the email address is deadeyespodcast@gmail.com.

Please tell your friends about this show, especially if you are friends with Tom Hanks, who never appeared on Freaks and Geeks, obviously, but his first leading role in a movie was in the 1982 film, Mazes and Monsters. It's about Dungeons & Dragons, the role-playing game which figures prominently in the final episode of Freaks and Geeks, which takes place in 1981.

See you next time, stay safe, wear a mask. Please.

[Song ends]