Jane Lynch: Stalking Tony The Tiger (Re-Release)

27:23G-L-E-E-K. And what are West Wingers called? Wingnuts. Wingnuts. Yeah. It was such a fantasy of such a good man in the in the White House and such a, you know, such high principles and everybody around him, you know, believed in him. And I think maybe Obama might have been as close as we've gotten to that. Yeah. I mean, Kennedy, you know, there's that thing. Aaron would never reference a president past Kennedy. So if you go look, that was part of the world of it, because if you started referencing Carter or Reagan or Ford or whatever you would, I think people began to like go, wait a minute, is this real?

28:03Is this not real? So I always thought it was fascinating that we lived in a world where there really wasn't a president after John Kennedy and the West Wing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes sense, too, because you start getting into people's point of view about the more recent presidents. And when you go to Kennedy, there's just kind of a glow around him. You know, people don't say bad things about John F. Kennedy, even people who are, you know, way to the other side of the spectrum. You know, he's kind of considered this in a bubble of this, you know, Camelot. Yeah, for sure. I'm having so much fun because I have your, right next to me, I have your filmography.

28:45And every time I look over, I see something that's more fun than the last thing. I see that you are, oh, this is too good. First of all, you're in The Fugitive. Yeah. Tell me about, I love that movie. That's one of my favorite movies ever. Was Harrison, what's that? I'm going to go back and look at that one, too. I was doing a play in Chicago. You know, we shot that in Chicago. That was shot in Chicago, all in Chicago. And I was living in Chicago and I did a play called The Real Live Brady Bunch and it was this ridiculous thing that we were doing at a little theater on the north side of the city.

29:18And somehow the assistant of our director, Andy, whose name is escaping me now, but he has a - I'm going to think of it too. Yes, he lives in Montecito. He lives in Montecito, yeah. He lives in Montecito. Nicest guy. And she said - Davis, Andy Davis. Andy Davis. Yeah, Andy Davis. His production company's in Montecito. And his assistant said, hey, there's this girl, I think she'd be great for the scientist. And he said, oh, well, hire her. And they offered me $8 ,000. And I was like, oh, that's so much money. And I got to work with Harrison Ford. It was the greatest thing in the world. And Harrison was very nice to me.

29:53And he was not happy with the way the scene was written. So he said, come with me. And he grabbed an umbrella because it was raining. We went into his trailer. We worked out the beats. And we came back and shot it. And we shot it that way. So I was like kind of working on the script with Harrison Ford and I was, you know, 29 years old. It was mind blowing. And he was this huge star. So that was pretty amazing. That is, that's, I was hoping that was going to be sort of the answer that like, that Harrison was great. And it was in there and that, I love the idea of you hammering out a scene with Harrison Ford and the fugitive.

30:30Yeah, it was really cool. It was like, I don't like these lines. We're going to work it out. And so we came up with our own thing and it was good. And it was good. He's such a stud. I did a TV series called Brothers and Sisters with his wife, Calista Flockhart, who I adore. And we would be, I have such a great memory of we were in, she was in this, Calista, this beautiful ball gown and I'm in this black tie with the Geary designed LA Philharmonic building and the moon is rising and it's late on a Friday. As you know, we always shoot late on Friday nights and the phone is, her phone is ringing and ringing and ringing and she's not picking up.

31:13She goes, it's Harrison. And I'm like, and I'm getting more and more nervous the more times he's calling and she's not picking up the phone. It's Harrison. I go, it's Harrison Ford. You should really pick up the phone. I mean, you don't let, I said, I said, Cluster, I don't want to hear that bullwhip. You know, I don't, that's not. So you're in the Chris Guest universe. Yep. You're a certified member. He's one of my favorite directors ever. I think I already talked about Waiting for Guffman. Didn't I already, I think I already mentioned that in this podcast. Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah. Were you, you've never done a movie with him though, right?

31:50No, I would love to. You're too famous. He would tell you you're too famous. to say yeah i'm too famous now too oh that's that's interesting he likes people who you when you look at them on screen you don't know who they are damn it yeah i know i'm screwed what but wait tell me about he directed you any frosted flakes commercial this is my favorite factoid ever do you know sean masterson the actor funny guy yeah anyway he's a chicago dude too but we were both out here and we auditioned for the christopher guest commercial we were both cast and we didn't know it was a Christopher Guest commercial and this was after Waiting for Guffman.

32:28And I, of course, loved that movie and had the preposterous fantasy of I wonder if I'll ever get to do that. And so we showed up for the callback for this commercial and I walk in and it's Chris Guest. And I know it's crazy. I did not expect him. There was no sign that said Chris Guest. And then after he cast me in that and then when we were shooting that commercial, he said, you know, I do movies. And I'm like, yeah, I know. And he said, maybe we'll get to work someday. And then I ran into him at a restaurant one morning and he said, ah, I forgot about you. Come to my office. And he offered me a role in Best in Show.

33:01He had completely forgotten about me. And then he saw me in this restaurant. And I was like, what if I went to a different restaurant? That's the way it happens, listener. Be careful what restaurants you go to. You're a struggling actor out there. It's all about where you eat. First of all, Best in Show is, I mean, we've already established how much we love dogs. So we're so in that world. It's what a frosted. I don't think of Chris Guest in a Frosted Flakes commercial. Was there anything about the Frosted Flakes commercial that I would watch and go, oh, yeah, I can see that that's Chris Guest.

33:35Absolutely. We improvised the whole thing. It was really goofy. And, you know, Chris Guest direct. I don't know that he does anymore, but at that time he was directing like a commercial a day. And anything you saw on. Yeah. Anything you saw on television that you laughed at, Chris directed it. In fact, he's the guy who started the what's the sports cable network? I forget. Oh, ESPN. ESPN. You know, those kind of weird commercials that I used to do where the athletes would be walking through the corporate offices. Yes. Shaky camera. And they were funny and and irreverent. That's Chris Guest. He created that.

34:10I had no. Yeah, I know exactly what those those commercials are absolute classics. So you have our Frosted Flakes commercial. If you saw that, you would see we're like out in front of supposedly the Kellogg's Corporation in Battle Creek, Michigan, looking for Tony Tiger, Tony the Tiger. You know, we're stalking him. We're trying to get a picture with him. And it's just so weird and crazy and completely improvised, just like Waiting for Guffman. And so, you know, because when the closest I've done to stuff like that would be Parks and Rec. Yes. There's certainly a lot of great improvisational people who, you know, at the top of their game.

34:47But there was always sort of a structure. Well, the scripts were great. They were great. We shot the scripts 98 % of the time. But then we would get a version where we could improv. On the guest stuff. Yeah. Is there any script? There's an outline, for sure. How does it walk you through the process? It looks just like a script. And it'll say like scene one exterior, the park, Corky and so and so talk about the upcoming competition. And that's it. And then it'll say scene number two, Chrissy and whatever Jennifer Coolidge's character's name are discussing dog kennels in their championship poodle.

35:30and there are some plot points he'll want us to get in. And he told us who our characters were. He gave us a backstory. And then he turns over the wardrobe people to you and he says, how do you want your character to look? And then you tell the wardrobe person and you shop with them. And then the set designer comes over and says, what do you think your house looks like? Or what do you think your office looks like? And then they go off and build it. I mean, it's crazy, crazy fun. And it's really kind of, you are calling the shots. Chris certainly gives you some great information about your character and what has to happen in the movie.

36:04And we know what the series of scenes are going to be. But how the character is expressed, how the character looks and sounds and acts is all up to you. And after a take, is there that moment where everybody huddles up and goes, okay, this was genius. Let's do another and do more in here. And maybe let's move away from this part. Yes, he will do that. he's very few words but after we do like the master and he doesn't know what it's going to look like it's just he rolls the camera and he rolls and he rolls and he rolls and you improvise and you're you're doing blah blah blah blah and then he'll finally yell cut and he'll say very good um he might not even say very good he'll say uh we don't need this part that when you talked about that we don't need that we have to make sure we get this in every uh every shot and that's it let's just do it again and the camera gets closer and closer and closer uh And we've kind of decided what the master looks like.

36:59And then we just keep shooting that. But at different angles, the camera getting closer and closer. And then on different angles. That sounds like heaven. It's fantastic. And it's not, the hardest part about it is what you do to yourself and your brain. Because it's really easy to do. And after about, by the time I got to A Mighty Wind, I was much more relaxed about it. And I didn't stress so much about it. Because you feel like it's all up to you. But as long as you've done your acting homework, you know who your person is. You know what you're wearing. You know how you sound. And what the person's point of view is, you just show up.

37:32It's that it is that easy. But you just have you kind of have to pack heavy to get there. You know what I like of Chris's that people forget about is is I had Marty Short on and we were talking about it is the big picture. Yeah, that was fantastic. That was a lot different than what he does most of the time, but he and Michael McKean wrote that. Those movies are just, you have my, I'm jealous, very jealous of that. How long have you been deaf in your right ear, just like me? I was, I had a really high fever as a baby and like an infant, and that's when we think it happened. How about you? Same thing?

38:11Same. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like, by the way, even the way you describe it is exactly what my parents say. Like, I don't know. It's like a really high fever when you're an infant. And like, we think that's when it happened. I'm like, how about some more details? How about when did you find out? No details were forthcoming. When did you realize that it wasn't? Because I thought it was normal to hear out of one ear that I didn't say anything about it. When did you realize? I, they, my mom tells the story that she knew something was wrong. It was before I could talk even, apparently. Because she put the phone up to me to say I had a grandpa.

38:50And there was like nothing going on in my face. And she said all of a sudden she knew something was wrong. She put the phone to the other side. And I was like, and then back. So apparently for me, it happened, you know, like within the first year. Yeah, I was about eight years old. And, you know, it had happened when I was an infant. And my brother, remember transistor radios where you put it in your ear? It's just one thing. It's an ear thing. And my brother was switching ears. And I said, you can't do that. And my mom said, well, why can't he do that? You know, her ears up. And I said, because you only hear out of one ear.

39:25And she was like, nope. And I went into a doctor and they tested my hearing and I overheard my mother talking to the doctor saying, will she live a normal life? And the doctor said, yeah. My mom worried about things. That's that's that. Nothing would instill good, solid feeling of quite like, will she live a normal life? And I was like, yeah. And the doctor said, I'm sorry. She will never hear the Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Dark Side of the Moon as they were meant to be heard. Exactly. I always wonder, too, are we missing anything in terms of we do have stereo sound because the one ear we have is really good.

40:11But I wonder if we're missing everything. I got news for you. I'm perfectly happily, very well adjusted. You are, too. But let's just be honest. We're missing a fucking shit ton of stuff. Oh, wow. Because I love music. Is there more? No, no. But I think if we, if one day we could both hear out of our other ears, first of all, I think our heads would explode. Our heads would explode. Yes, I think so. They would literally explode. Yeah. And then the other thing is, like, I would finally be able to stop doing what I hate. So I come home and I go, hello. And they go, hi, honey, I'm in here. I go. I don't know where here is.

40:52I don't know where sound comes from. Me too. I don't know where the sound's coming from. I have that too. I don't know where it's coming from. Like there'll be a phone ringing and I'm, you know, my phone. And I have no idea where it's coming from. Here's a good one for you. How about when those detectors in the ceilings? Oh, you can't find this. And then you change the batteries and you don't know where they're coming from. And you get worse. Exactly. Here's the other thing is I'm convinced that people think I'm a dick because they're surely been untold times. where people have come up to me on the street and got my bad ear.

41:26Yep, me too. Or in a crowd and be like, hey, I just want to say hello. And I don't even hear them because I don't react. They must think I'm a total asshole. Yep, my partner's always on the lookout for me. She'll hit me in the shoulder and go, she's talking to you. Oh, is it your right or your left ear, Rob? I can hear out of my left. My right is the one that's gone. Oh, me too. Exactly the same. Same as? Yeah. And then how about when we're doing acting and we have to talk on the phone? And they want you to use this ear? I can't even put the phone on my ear. It feels so weird. Because I've never done it.

42:01So I will literally put the phone receiver on my forehead. I have no muscle memory. Yeah. It feels weird on the wrong ear, too. Nothing feels right about it. No, nothing. I mean, somebody else famously was deaf in one ear. Stephen Colbert, I think. I think we should. Colbert. That's right. We should make it our own fun club. We should. How are you loving doing Hollywood Game Night? Oh, yeah. You know, it hasn't. We haven't done it in. Oh, my God, like a year. But we just did a quarantine edition where I shot it from my home and it's going to be on Tuesday. I'm sure these will. This show will come out after it's been on.

42:44But I shot it in my house and we had six celebrities and we shot at their house. So it was all of us together and it went off without a hitch. Technologically, it was really good. It worked out. And we raised money for Red Nose Day, which is, you know, that organization that lifts children out of poverty all over the world. It's a wonderful, wonderful organization. Have you ever had anybody who was terrible at the game? You're like, wow, I'm a big fan of this. But boy, they're stupid. Stupid. I never, you know, not so much. There have been a couple of people who were so self-conscious, they never got into it.

43:17And only like two that I can think of that were, you know, everybody comes to have fun. And it doesn't matter if you're good or bad. I don't even notice if you're good or bad. What I notice is how much fun you have at it. And there have been a couple of people who have, you know, just could not loosen up and, you know, no amount of booze loosened them up. But for the most part, everybody shows up and has a blast. Well, who came up with the actual game? Hollywood Game Night. Yeah. Well, the show was Sean Hayes. You know, he has really great. That's right. He has wonderful game nights at his home.

43:51That's right. And they were always crazy. He made up the games himself. And then he, you know, smart guy said, let's put this on television. And that's how I got the job. He's a smart dude. He's a smart dude. Yeah. And you definitely don't want to be on the other side of him competitively on any kind of a game. No, and he's on our show a few times, and he was on this one. And, yeah, he's great. He's the master. He's the original guy. He makes up his own games, you know. We have a team on our show that make them up now. But when I would go to his house and have a game night, he'd do the strangest, most wonderful games that he made up himself.

44:30who um like when i have sports people on the show i go name your top five basketball players if you had to put together your your top celebrity game team sean hayes for sure yeah sean hayes um uh let's see uh yvette nicole brown um she's brilliant anthony anderson is really good um who else is really really good uh kristin bell she was on our show the other day too She was great. She's so great. Yeah, she's wonderful. And she's really bright and and just real. She's really good at it. Yeah. Have you ever been on on a game show that wasn't your own? Yes. Have you ever been a contestant? Yes. It's called Twenty Five Words or Less.

45:13And it's Lisa Kudrow's new show and Dan Bukatinski. I don't know if you know them. They're producing. I love them. Yeah, of course. And it's on Fox and it's syndicated. And Meredith Vieira is the host. And I've done probably 25 of them. It's syndicated. So they shoot like four or five in a day, maybe even six in a day. And I love it. It's off the top of your head. It's like the fast thinking. The reference level is like you have to read People magazine. You have to know like pop culture. And it's so much fun. I love it. Yeah, I love doing that show. I did. Lisa had this great show called Who Do You Think You Are?

45:51Yes, you did that. Which is a genealogy show. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. It was one of the great experiences of my life. They come to you and they say, so it's a genealogy show. We're going to explore your family tree. Right. And we're going to take, like, however long it takes to do it. Yeah. It may take us a year. It may take us nine months. We don't know. But if we find something, we'll come back to you. are you willing to do the show, which would require you then to travel potentially for eight days? Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, I put it off. Like, how do you schedule it? I don't. And I put it off and put it off and put it off.

46:30And I finally said I would do it. And a year, a year later, they came back and said, your episode's ready. Get a passport and you are going to pack for cold weather. Oh my God. And that's all you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's all you know. Wow. And I went to LAX. You don't know where you're going. I flew to Washington DC and they, I went to the, uh, the library of Congress. And then I went, then I had to fly to Germany and the long and short of it was just, and the, the sort of mystery and the misdirects of how you get there is, is the beauty of it, but the long and short of it was that my five-time great-grandfather was conscripted into the Hessian mercenary army out of Fierstenhagen, Germany.

47:23I went and saw the house he lived in. I saw the church records from 1600. He arrived in Manhattan in 1776 and fought against George Washington at the Battle of Trenton. where Washington crossed the Delaware. Oh my God. So he was a mercenary. In that battle were three future presidents. Mm-hmm. And the first member of the Supreme Court, my five times great grandpa was taken prisoner and then was given his freedom if he would become an American citizen and then ended up raising money for the American revolutionary troops and thereby making me a son of the American Revolution in the most roundabout way imaginable.

48:11Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. Do you know, they did my stuff too and they didn't find anything interesting enough. See, that's true. If they don't find a story, they don't do it. And, you know, they're friends. You would think they would want to do this for their friend Jane and they didn't. You think they'd make something up? Yeah, exactly. They said we just didn't find anything. So, you know, because now my appetite was whetted. And so I had my agent get a hold of the Your Roots people, Finding Your Roots on PBS with Henry Gates. And I did one with them and it was it was fun and interesting, but nothing.

48:48There wasn't a big story. There wasn't. There was no big. I mean, there might be. Who knows? You have to really look into it. But there wasn't anything. I'm probably the most interesting person. So maybe 100 years from now, somebody will look back and go, did you know this girl who was in The Fugitive? is your great, great, great aunt. The fugitive. Yeah, the fugitive. And we'll be right back after this.

49:21I want to do with you with what I do with some of the, I don't do this with all the guests. I only do it with some of the guests. And you qualify. Oh, thank you. You have qualified to make it into, because it's all the talk about games, I think is what's piqued my interest in doing a round of questions called the lowdown. Oh, yeah. Lowdown. I get it. That's so clever, Rob. Isn't it clever? Isn't it just? It's just, I mean, because I've never, no one's ever used that ever when writing about me. No. No. So I've reclaimed the phrase for myself. There you go. And so I think the first question is Rolling Stones or Beatles?

50:06Beatles. That was quick. There was no. No, you know, I love the Beatles so much. And I think they went they were they did such a vast variety of music. And I like the Rolling Stones, but I don't love them. I haven't been attracted to them the way I feel about the Beatles. Well, speaking of attracted, that goes right to the next question. Has there ever been a cartoon character that you wanted to have sex with? Yeah. Because for me, for me, just I'm not asking you something I wouldn't ask myself or that I haven't thought of myself. Yes, yes. For me, it was without a question, the purple eyed cat in the Aristocats.

50:46So you were really attracted to that cat. I was six and it was maybe it was the Zsa Zsa Gabor's voice, I think. Oh, sure. Sure. Now, I felt that being of the lesbian persuasion, I liked Natasha from Boris and Natasha. Oh, I bet you did. Yeah, she was just very sexy and very dangerous. And sort of goth before there was such a thing, right? Very goth, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that kind of Eastern European goth spot, right? Yes, and she's also, it turns out I love Greta Garbo. She had the kind of voice like Greta Garbo. But I just did Russian, Greta Garbo was Swedish. But there was that throaty kind of sexy thing that, you know, she slit your own throat.

51:30How about this? What's the worst review you've ever gotten? Oh, I did. I was in a Shakespeare company in Chicago and it was Richard III. And I played the mother. I forget what her name was, but it's usually a part that is cut because it is so verbose and over the top. And the reviewer from the Chicago Reader said, after Jane Lynch's monologues, there was none None of the set remained because she had eaten it all.

52:01That's a good one. But I see that. I think that's also. I'm not sure that's a bad review, though. I got to just say, it's a disinterested third party. Yeah, right. I'm not sure that's a bad review. I think that's like, I could say after Alec Baldwin's always be closing speech in Glengarry Glen Ross, there was no set left. Yeah. Because Alec had eaten at all. At all. And that was masterful, though. That was quite masterful. How about you? Have you had a really terrible review? Oh, well, I have two of them. I remember there was a critic named Molly Haskell that everybody, she was like the, she was on the sort of level of, you know, Janet Maslin, who liked me, always liked me, Janet Maslin.

52:46But Molly Haskell did not. Molly Haskell, in a review, begged me to stop wearing so much rouge. But you weren't, will you? Because you've got that natural. I have never worn rouge unless it was in my private life. There's never been rouge on screen. I also got, I remember picking up Newsweek to see, I knew there was going to be a review of a movie I did called Class with Jacqueline Bessette, shot in Chicago, incidentally. I remember that. At the Lake Forest Academy. and I knew the review wasn't going to be good when the headline in the table of contents said, class, a vile concoction, page 73.

53:30It's not going to be good. If you, which would you rather see? A UFO, a ghost, or Bigfoot? And would you tell anybody? Yeah. These are the hard-hitting questions you get here on this podcast. You know, what's great about that question is I have kind of gone down the rabbit hole of UFOs in the last. Oh, I'm in the rabbit hole with you. So if you open this fucking Pandora's box, you better be down to clown Jane Lynch. Yeah, so I would say UFO. I'd be scared to death. But did you ever watch Joe Rogan? And he interviewed this guy, Lazar. I forget his first. Bob Lazar. Bob Lazar. Yeah, he's like Michael Jackson.

54:08Yeah, and that other guy that was in the Navy. I forget what his name was, Commander something or other. And he saw a UFO flying a plane. But yeah, I've gotten into it. I watched the movie about Lazar and the whole, this is like in the last week. So yes, UFO for sure. Before, okay, before I forget, I think it's on Netflix, Above Majestic. Okay. It's a documentary called Above Majestic. It's UFO? I stumbled upon, it's all of it. I can't even begin to tell you what it is, but the phrase Above Majestic is way above top secret. And it is, it makes Bob Lazar look like Mr. Rogers. Wow. That's amazing.

54:55Okay. But if you saw UFO, would you tell anybody? I'd tell you, Rob. Because - On a podcast, so nobody would know. Right, so nobody would, so we could keep it between ourselves. What if the reason that we can only hear out of one ear is because we've been abducted and we're the special chosen ones? I mean, do you ever think about that? Call me superstitious or conspiracy theory. You know, I don't know. I think there's probably some alien out there using the hearing from our right ear. That is it. Mm-hmm. That is it. I think you're right. I have one who, if you could take one drug as much as you wanted, whenever you wanted, with no negative side effects or judgments, and nobody would know, what would it be?

55:39Oh, boy. You know, I'm not a big drug person, but I do. Oh, I am. I'm huge. You know, I've never done ayahuasca and I've never done a mushroom type situation. Psilocybin. I would I would like to do and go on some trips, you know, the ayahuasca trip, mind trips with with some psilocybin or ayahuasca and have my mind blown, but not die. that's the problem because you you hear stories about it where people people have had amazing experiences and then you hear you know it's like the cautionary tale where you they did it once and they were never the same yeah and you know i don't think that happens a lot i i you know i don't know i maybe i listened to joe rogan too much he's a big big advocate for it but yeah yeah i uh And I just celebrated my 30th year sober.

56:39Oh, congratulations. Thank you. All my drug experimenting and all that is very much in the past for me. So I can look at it with a sort of different perspective. But the only thing that I miss is a good mushroom experience only about once a year because it would it took it knocks the shit out of you kind of. Does it? I just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. Yeah. OK. Well, you know, I'm able to, you know, I'm sober as well. And I was sober for about 27 years. And then I took. Wow. And then I took three years of drinking wine. and I did okay, but I needed to get sober again from it.

57:24I kind of went into some denial and now I'm sober again for, I guess, a couple of years. But, you know, when you add it all up, that's about 30 years. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing because I always, it's so funny you say that because I, this whole, the wine thing that started, it wasn't around, my era was go-go 80s and it was like, you know, kamikazes and fucking Heinekens and blow. And then, but then all of a sudden this whole wine obsession happened. And I, like the new tequila, that's another thing that was not happening for me. There was Cuervo Gold, that was it. Right, and there's so many.

58:07Oh yeah, like Steely Dan song, the Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing. Yeah. That was it. Now there's this fabulous, so there's all this stuff that I quote unquote missed. Missed, me too. So I've always thought about what it would be like to maybe go back and sample it. So how was your wine sampling? Well, you know, wine is an amazing thing. And I started out, you know, just being, you know, tasting. And then over three years, probably the last year and a half, I was drinking alcoholically. and how quickly you go into denial, even with what at the time was 27 years of sobriety in me.

58:50I managed to fool myself for probably about a year and a half that I was fine and I wasn't. And, you know, I have a partner who was like at one point she said, OK, so you're a drinker now. And I was like, what are you talking about? Wine with dinner. But wine with dinner was like, you know, four or five glasses. But I was I was telling myself that I wasn't doing that. So anyway, it was a pretty quick descent into denial. But there was about a year and a half where, you know, I would drink wine one day and not the next. But then, you know. Yeah, it's it's funny for me. Like they say that our addiction, no matter how many years we have sober, it's always in the hallway doing pushups.

59:33It's true. I'm here to tell you it's true. mm-hmm it's this is a this is amazing to hear i mean because you you very rarely meet people with that amount of time yeah who go out decide to go and experiment a little bit with it mm-hmm yeah i because i in a and i relate to the slippery slope i got um i was directing uh in canada about two years ago and there was a terrible like cold flu whatever going going around and a cough. And so I got cough syrup. What I didn't realize was in Canada, the cough syrup has codeine in it. Yeah, yeah. And I was such a little happy clam running home after rap to turn all the lights off.

1:00:23And take that. And listen to James Taylor and drink my Shazirup. Couldn't wait, right? Yep. couldn't wait um to hear you know copper line and just be whacked yeah on my cough syrup and then you and you go oh i see how this would play out yep but i was a nyquil person too before i got sober i was taking nyquil all the time to sleep and um i got really really sick in about 2000 and i took some nyquil and i although i didn't go out and start drinking i saw i saw that you know Oh. I could totally, this could accelerate easily. Easily. I don't like getting sick, but if I'm going to get sick, I cannot wait to have my NyQuil.

1:01:15Yeah. Can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that soft cotton. I mean, ooh. See, this is like, if you have never had any doubt about like, are we addict alcoholics? Normal people are like, it's fucking NyQuil. What's wrong with you? We're like, you don't really know. Right, exactly. It was cute. My 30th birthday and my family made me like a cake. And like it was really, really, really, really, really cool. It was a fun thing. I'm glad you're back amongst us. Yeah, I'm glad too. Yeah. And you know, it was, I got to tell you, it was like the first time I got sober, it was really like an act of grace. It wasn't something that I had to work for.

1:01:59It was like all of a sudden it happened and I was struck sober and I went, OK, I am not going to. I am so grateful for this and I get it. I got the message and thank you for making it so easy to let it go again because it was easy. It just happened. I was really lucky. I didn't have to suffer. That is I was the same. I got it the first time knocking on wood. But it's good to hear to be vigilant because it really is true. It's like you can, it's always, it's just, I think it's a part of our, well, I think it's kind of scientifically proven that it's kind of a part of our genetic makeup, don't you think?

1:02:35Yeah, I think that, you know, like my sister and brother have no problem with it, but I do. So it's, you know, my, it's the, it's my individual genetic profile that isn't necessarily a part of my family's. But I got it. I know I got it. Yeah, I got it. And then, and then it, and then it morphs. I like to say it's like whack-a-mole. Yes. Pound it down here and then it pops up over here and some other like new, like, ah, you know what? I think it'd be a good idea to gamble all my money away. That would be awesome. Or if I can knock that down, like, you know what you need to do? You need to eat yourself to death via Haagen-Dazs.

1:03:09Exactly. That's what I got. I will transfer it onto food or coffee. And you know what? So what about coffee? That's fine. Oh, okay. Let's talk about coffee. So I saw that in thing. It says, Jane Lynch is addicted to coffee. How addicted to coffee do you need to be to end up on my background saying you're addicted to coffee? You know, I'm an addict. I'm an addict, so I don't do anything halfway. And that includes coffee. It is everything to me. It gets me out of bed in the morning. Look what I got. Look what I got. Look what I'm holding. This is my afternoon one. Iced coffee. Yeah, this is my afternoon one, too.

1:03:44So I look forward to it in the afternoon. And sometimes I go to bed at night earlier going, the sooner I get up, the sooner I get to go to King's Road Cafe and get my coffee. And I love it. It's my favorite thing in the world to do. And it never fails to work. You and I think exactly alike. We're like the same person. I go to bed thinking about when I can wake up and have my coffee. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're like the same person. We got a lot in common. No, Midwestern, deaf in one ear, coffee freak, alcoholic. Alcoholic. Fucking amazing. Um, how much coffee can you, like, give me your regimen because then I'll give you mine.

1:04:23We'll see who's more addicted. Let's see. I, I order two in the morning. So I get two hot ones and I get breves. I get, uh, two, two hot breves. I put one in the car and then I walk through the neighborhood with one. So I have two. Uh, and then when I, when I get out of bed, I have one too. So that's my third by seven o 'clock. And then, um, I will, I will have one at one or two. and then I'll have like a decaf at around like five, six o 'clock and I'll try not to have another decaf until I fall asleep because even decaf keeps me awake if I'm not careful. I can do like espresso at dinner and be fine.

1:05:02Oh, wow. Good for you. Not me. Oh, wish I could do that. Yeah, I can do that. So I do a triple espresso when I wake up. If I'm on the set, I'll do another triple espresso sometime during the day. Yeah. Five o 'clock, five, six o 'clock is another triple espresso. So we're looking at nine espressos a day. Oh, my God, yeah. Right there. And that's if I'm kind of okay. If I'm really off the rails, it could be worse. And if I'm really trying to keep it together, maybe I don't have anything after three. Yeah, yeah. I hear you. That's great. It's too good. Well, this has been so fun. Thank you so much for this.

1:05:46This was a great way to spend an afternoon. You're a champ for coming and sitting in with all of us here. So happy to be. It was really, really fun. And will you talk to Christopher Guest and tell him to put me in one of the movies? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, you know, everybody's famous now that he works with, so he's going to have to work. That's right. I'm too famous. I forgot. My face is fucking me up again. Ah, God darn it. I'll wear a bag over my head. There you go. I'll wear a mask. Yeah. Well, you might have to. Yeah. I might have to. Yeah, right. It's perfect. Yeah. All right, Jane. Thank you so much.

1:06:21You were amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. For sure. Bye. Well, now I'm going to go and drink a ton of coffee. I'm going to drink. Here's the good news. I'm going to drink a ton of coffee. I'm not going to drink wine. That's the takeaway. This was a gift for me. I don't have to try and experiment with anything. That's what I got from Jane. I'm not kidding. I actually think it's amazing. Anyway, I hope you had as much fun as I did. And I will see you next time on Literally with me, Rob Lowe. You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe. Produced and engineered by me, Devin Torrey-Briant.

1:07:03Executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile. Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher. The supervising producer is Aaron Blair. Talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.