Justin Kirk

0:00Math. Johnson, how are you? How's it going? I'm going well. How are you? Pretty good. I'm in Los Angeles, California. How is the weather there? How are things you celebrate in the fourth year? It's on the fourth year. Wait, seconds. Yeah, I'm good. Yes, will I be here? I will indeed. I will indeed not be leaving because I'm making both weeds and animal practice this week. So it's a busy week. You're still shooting weeds. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. We're in the middle of episode nine of 13 right now. And towards the end of where are you? New York City? Toronto. Toronto.

0:45Very nice. Hunter and I went there and did a day of press a season or two ago. Oh, nice. Right around the time of the film festival. Lovely. Didn't get to stay long enough, but hopefully we'll get back to the festival in the near future. Absolutely. Sweet. That's really interesting that you're shooting both right now. So let's start there. So what your day looked like? Are you going back and forth or do you at least get a week here and a week there? Well, you know what it is, is that we have to do some reshoots on the pilot because we have a new actor. And so weeds, we get a couple little chunks through the season so we can catch up.

1:32And so I told the animal practice people stuff. Who are you doing off? That what my day is off for. So we just slid it right in there. But yeah, it's going to be a crazy one working through Saturday and Sunday as well. But you know, it could be worse. I mean, you know, you got to work a little hard if they give you a show. Are you looking for a sitcom? Did it come to you? How did this come about? I'm not looking for anything. I was doing a play in New York and Bob Greenblight emailed me who used to be my boss at Showtime

2:19and now runs NBC and said, want to come to a pilot for us? And you know, the head of NBC called you. You kind of got to say, well, send it over. Let me take. Well, it was cool. And then they came, the Russo brothers who are the directors, executive producers and the guys who wrote the pilot came out to New York and saw my play and we had lunch and sort of pitched, you know, what it could become. I mean, that's the thing about a pilot. You can't just go by. It's not like a movie or a play in which you can go by. Just what you've got in front of you. You have to think about what can it become? Who can these characters come? And you know, they said all the right things and it seems definitely like one of the cool

3:12things about it was that it wouldn't be farther from Andy Botwin. So it was cool that I wasn't just taking kind of version of Andy Botwin to a network. And it would be a chance to, you know, really try to do a totally different thing. And. I don't think it's similar at all. And that was so much so what it would have killed. How do you play that though? How do you make sure people don't see? Well, it is still my face and my voice and my, you know, whatever I bring to something. I mean, an actor isn't isn't a total blank piece of paper.

4:02Obviously, there's such a thing as casting. But it's best, I think, for the actor not to think about that kind of stuff. And the thing you can do is forget and forget anything you've ever done. Best thing an actor can have is no memory. And luckily I've got that covered. That's true. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, we're going to do it for a week in that. But then I'll finish weeds. But you know, at this point, Andy Botwin is pretty well ingrained in me. I kind of know what that is. And I mean, really it's all, it's all, you know, the pages give you the start and hopefully that sends you down the rest of the new actress.

4:57Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, by that, I mean, any show is any pilot is like that. If you, I think if you go back and look at pilots, you know, it's an interesting thing. Television and series television, because you start out with some ideas. And then once the pieces start to fall into place, it becomes whatever it's going to become. The actors, I mean, there are actors on our show that came in and it wasn't, it was, in any way how it was written in the original one. But then they found a person and they said, oh, this would be great. So let's make it into that. And so that's the exciting thing to see is it all grows from, from a seed, you know, and

5:42comes whatever it's going to become. And I don't even know yet. You know, we've done the pilot and now we're going to go reshoot it. But I am, I'm optimistic. I used to say cautiously optimistic. But now I'm going to just change it to optimistic. I mean, that is about the craziest thing in my career so far, I think. Well, that's crazy too. But, you know, the idea that our pilot is going to be shown commercial-free following the closing ceremony of the Olympics is not necessarily something I had envisioned. And so that's pretty exciting. Are you excited for the Olympics? Do you care about the Olympics at all?

6:28You may write, he chants USA, USA. How about, yeah, who, a good fucking question. Maybe you can help me. Who is he? He seems to be someone who is, has a touch of misanthropy to him, not always the best in social situations with people but a very brilliant doctor. And this place, the way he likes it run, and is set in his ways. and then a woman who he had feelings for in the past comes around and suddenly his boss.

7:17Throw in a monkey, there's a fucking TV show. It is. That's another thing. Honestly, this is one of the greatest things about being an actor is that I never imagined that. And then one day you wake up and say, oh, here's what you're going to be doing today. And that's pretty cool. I think, you know, we discovered Crystal in this, I don't mean we discovered her because she's very, she's already very famous. She's already a bunch more successful than any of us. But in terms of what, you know, the part for this is another thing that I mean about like shows becoming what they're going to become in the pilot, it's written as a chimp. But apparently you can't really work with chimp so much anymore because they'll eat your

8:05face. So not to be blaise or insensitive, but I guess at six years old, I'm told, they become very aggressive. So Crystal is a capuchin monkey. And actually, I think it works a lot better than it was than it was in with it, just in terms of she's kind of tiny. And so she's jumping around a lot. So she's cool. And then we've got, you know, then it's an unlimited amount of possibilities. Just in the pilot, there were cats and dogs and birds and a python and a pot bellied pig. So hopefully it'll be a regular Marlon Perkins. That's a reference for the old people.

8:53Was it Marlon Perkins animal? I think actually, was that called Animal Kingdom? Do you know what I'm talking about? No, no. Sorry. This is a show that was on PBS like in the 70s, I think, I went out with the child. Gotcha. Yes, yes. Me too. Me too. But it was more of a docu show, you know, it was not a, it was not a, a fictional narrative show, but it was about, about the world of the Animal Kingdom. So, um, so yeah, I mean, that's exciting to see what that could become. I mean, I'm assuming I will be killed or maimed by some sort of animal within the first couple of seasons. So you know what had a good run of a very special episode of animal practice. The lead

9:40actor is blinded by Armadillo. Yeah, I don't know. Sure. I don't know. That's a great question. And one I don't have an answer to. What do you think would be a great one? Let's say Armadillo. Yeah. I mean, I'd, I'd like just to remain injury free. So whatever, whatever maybe, maybe a cute kitten might be, might be nice. Uh, sure. In the first show, we have a, we have a thing where a Bengal tiger has, oh, I forgot to mention that. That was the gradient. Um, and, and is giving birth. But

10:30then once we did the scene with the cops, we just, um, what do you mean by that? I did say that, didn't I? Well, I guess, uh, yeah, and it was true. It wasn't just one of the things I say and didn't mean, which is usually the case. Uh, it's true. I mean, on the one hand, I mean, it was a great tradition of, of animal movies and, and television things in Hollywood. I'm also an old person reference. Uh, but I think that, you know, we, uh, this

11:15can be a kind of weird, smart NBC comedy at the same time as that stuff. So it may just, uh, I, I, it's old school and modern at the same time, old school and then, and something that I think is new and that we haven't seen before, you know? And then we've got, and most importantly, of course, the most important part is it was got like kind of a great cast of funny people in it. That's very important. He's insane. And yes, he is. Uh, Bobby is a,

12:04is a, um, as are many of the people in the cast, he's just a totally committed performer. He hasn't seen in the pilot where there's a pipe on wrapped around his face and, uh, he's just game to, to, to go for it. And what, and yes, he's extremely funny. And, um, I have a feeling I'm going to be hanging with Bobby Lee, like in our off hours because he's, uh, he was, I see, um, I hang out with Hunter, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, off set. Actually, um, you know, he's got a record out now. It's like, uh, it's like, you know, pop singer, songwriter music that's,

12:51it's great. But first of all, he was, he was, he was in two Broadway musicals in the last couple. Mary Louise and I and much of the crew came to see him play, uh, a gig in LA, um, last week. And it's just fantastic. I think a lot of my available on iTunes. Great. What, do you still play anything? You used to be in bands, didn't you? I did when, you know, a thousand years ago, no, I never even pick up a guitar anymore. Never. I, I'm much happier. I'm much happier just turning it on and listening to it. Yeah. I don't know. I just don't. I just don't. I guess you haven't shot me. You've seen the scripts or not for the whole season,

13:38but you're happy how Andy, you know, we never, we, we, I do. We, yeah, we don't know. And, uh, and actually for the last several seasons, I don't ask because it's more fun that way. So no, we get the scrims a day before it's, it's like, you know, it's, it's like, it comes up and I'm like, so we're just doing nine now. I have me. I don't have seen 10 and, uh, and I, yeah. Well stuff has happened. Yeah. But there's never, you never know what you're heading towards

14:26on leads. Things happen and then they change completely. And, um, so, uh, so, you know, uh, I, I've been working a lot with Jennifer this year, which has been really great. Jennifer Jason Lee, she did eight episodes. We shall see. Crazy. I said an actor just to be able to, you know, I don't think of things, uh, in a, uh, in a, like what's your dream, this or that or what is your goal.

15:17The best part about it is, like I said, you, you, you wake up one morning and, um, and you're doing something you never thought you would like about it. It's just, uh, every day's work, you know, what's cool. You think I'm going to answer that? Come on. When one of, when one of them could give me a job one day? Well, you know, that's, of course I can't ramble on, can I? The one who would answer. You can't. I'm, well, uh, I'm going to ramble anyway. Um, I'm, I'm,

16:06I'm, I'm only going to say Paul because I feel like he gets short-shrift in the world of really intergenius and, um, Paul McCartney is one of my great heroes. I'm a big, uh, uh, uh, pop nerd, like a power pop nerd and, uh, and he is the godfather of all of that. Once again, not going to do that. But I've worked with Al Pacino, so, uh, I'm most, like, you know, the next one is for where she was. Sorry, I haven't given you one proper answer. How you can do with,

17:10uh, with, but, uh, you can put, and then you can put, if you feel exasperated in, in parentheses before that.