Rainn Wilson: This Beets Everything (Re-Release)

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1:53Rob Lowe:Rain, we're both wearing hats. You've got kind of a fishing, what would you call it? Is your podcast about hats? Oh, so they didn't tell you. Oh, they didn't tell me.

2:13Rob Lowe:Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. Rain Wilson. Rain Wilson. He doesn't get more iconic than the beloved Dwight Schrute, but he's so much more than that. He's an amalgam of many different things. He's not just a comedy icon, as you're about to see when it starts to rain. See what I did?

2:42Rob Lowe:How have you been? I love you. You're the best. Thanks. Good to see you. So you're one of my favorite funny men in the world, but you're also a great dramatic actor. Oh, you're very kind. I need to tell you how much I loved Backstrom, by the way. Oh, thanks. Yeah. You and 17 other people watched that, and I really appreciate that. If only I'd been a Nielsen family. I know. Because, dude, I think Nielsen families represent 500 ,000 people. I think that's the way it's broken down. At least it works. Wow. That's the way they do it. Wow. That's incredible. Well, it's interesting because Backstrom, for those of you who don't know, was a 13 episode arc I did on Fox as a disgruntled, alcoholic, self-hating police detective who was also brilliant at solving crimes, of course.

3:34And we got canceled after the 13 because our ratings, we were just right on that cusp, you know. But we got canceled like a 0.9. But then next year, all the shows got like a 0.8 and a 0.7 and a 0.5. And now there's like network shows that have like, I don't know what the viewership number is. Oh, dude, a 0.9 is a big, big, big, big hit now. And that was about seven, eight years ago. We got a 0.9. And we should have stayed on the air. We would have done great.

4:02Rob Lowe:That's happened to me a bunch of times that I was in a show that people thought was the ratings were not good. And what they were were the new normal before they were accepted as the new normal. That's exactly the point I was trying to make. That's exactly right. We were right in the middle of the new normal for broadcast television. But they were like, oh, these are trending downwards. Guess what, folks? All the numbers are trending downwards. It's unbelievable. I mean, when Parks and Recreation was on, it was always a jump ball. and do you remember if the office had tremendous crazy ratings my sense of it was that it was it was a rating success but it wasn't like it was blowing the lid off the place just people just loved it it was just beloved but in terms of ratings i don't think it was a big yeah it's a really interesting thing because for the first season we got terrible ratings and the first part of the second season was really really bad we were on the verge of cancellation uh for month after month after month and then very slowly in the second season we started creeping up the ratings roster and then all of a sudden we were nominated for an emmy and then we were we were good to go at that point but you're absolutely right we were the number one comedy on mbc always no offense to parks and rec but um you know when you looked at like the shows we were like number 37 of like all the shows but they you know when they when they they also do a finer investigation of television numbers is this too inside baseball no no it is not okay the when they and when they do that they realize like oh here's who's watching the office college kids and rich people yep so we became a very very valuable audience to them i mean the west wing had the um that that was a broad uh ratings hit too but one of the things that they loved was not just the ratings but they loved the socio-economic breakdown right yeah of who was watching i it's so funny to go back and look at that was it wednesday nights office thursday nights thursday nights and it was at one point it was a community parks and rec office 30 rock yep that's right dude i mean that's a solid lineup unbelievable what's you know what it is it's the lineup that made netflix i mean when netflix didn't have anything it had those shows it's so funny because a lot of people said years ago hey when the net when netflix loses the office what do they really have you know what do they really have and and we're seeing the evidence of that now it took a little while it took a year and a have two years for the office to leave, but they don't have that back library and they don't have the office and people are leaving in droves ultimately.

7:01Rob Lowe:So I'm doing a show for them. I thought you were on like 911. Lone Star. I am. I'm on two shows at the same. I'm doing two shows. It's kind of unprecedented. That's nuts, but you're such a workaholic. It was inspired by my son, John Owens, online trolling of me. And it kind of became people, it kind of became a thing that people reported on. And there were segments on Seth Meyers and Ellen and Kimmel and Good Morning America. And like people took notice and it kind of took on a life of its own and kind of got away from him. And in my social media, literally feed was like, I'm just here for John Owen.

7:43Rob Lowe:I'm just waiting for the son's comments. Like they could. So he and I were like, I wonder if there's people like this thing, whatever this thing is. I wonder if there's something here to mine. So, you know, we just thought and thought and came up with different ideas and different worlds and different story pitches. And what we settled on was the spirit of it is what people like. And it's the spirit of a, you know, a larger than life father who probably hasn't lived in reality, you know, since 1981. And, you know, the world kind of sees him one particular way. And then the son knows what it's really like behind the curtain.

8:21Rob Lowe:And is the only one who can sort of speak truth to power. And so that's the dynamic that we've built on. And in it, I'm playing like an Elon Musk, sort of world famous, highly eccentric, maybe insane, genius entrepreneur businessman. And then he's the son who's moved away from, just can't get out of that shadow no matter how hard he tries. So he is a flutist or flautist. in New York. Is your son playing your son or is someone else playing your son? He is playing. He co-created it with me and a man named Victor Fresco who... Oh, I remember Victor Fresco. I've auditioned and not gotten into many of his shows over the years.

9:04Rob Lowe:We could have had you audition and maybe gotten into this one. I don't know. I didn't get the call. Sorry, Rob. All right. Well, I'm going to fix that. That's fantastic. One of my favorite shows... You're talking about Backstrom. It's a canceled show. One of my favorites was The Grinder. Oh, thank you. I love that show. It was so funny. Thank you. It was so weird and funny and wonderful and dark and twisted and surprising. It was, that was a real failure to not keep that thing in the air. And right back at you, brother, because I think we were, it was around within the same couple of years on Fox.

9:38Rob Lowe:I mean, I would have loved to have seen Backstrom and the Grindr, Anchor and Knight. And I've missed having that kind of a character. This is hopefully we'll capture, it feels like it. Like we've table read all the scripts already and it feels very like a companion piece. You never want to try to recreate something, obviously. But you know what it's like when it feels, has the same feel. Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. It's been fun watching my son. How, you, you have. I have one son, 17. Yeah. Okay. So 17, he's, what is he, a junior? He just finished his junior year. Yep. Now, so the junior year was it, is insane for him and you.

10:17It was junior year in my kids' lives for any number of reasons was like it was a slog.

10:24Rob Lowe:It's like getting ready for college, taking the tests. Am I going to go to college, not go to college? You know, friends are partying. It was nuts. Yeah, it was a challenge. But, you know, first of all, it's a challenge raising a teenager under any circumstances. Secondly, it's a challenge raising a teenager in contemporary society. with social media and, you know, this mental health crisis that is really out of control with young people. I asked my son, Walter, the other day, I was like, Oh, how's your friend? Blank. He's like, Oh, yeah, he's out of school because he attempted suicide. And he's institutionalized.

11:05He's like, Oh, wow. Okay. Didn't know that. But then you throw COVID into the mix. On top of that, and being a teenager in COVID land, which like this year was definitely rough, but he got very good grades and he pulled through. He did a good job and worked hard. Last year, he almost flunked out on Zoom school.

11:27Rob Lowe:Doesn't surprise me. How could anybody ask a teenager to sit on a screen? I mean, I can barely sit in class for six or seven hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And learn. It's one thing to be there it's another thing to like deeply learn yep yeah so well congratulations that he's gotten through it because i mean as you allude to so many so many don't yeah indeed i i have such empathy for when i hear oh my my son or daughter's a junior i'm like okay yeah yeah we'll see we'll what surprises senior year has in store you are such a specific um and that's the thing anything that i love is a specific is has is a very specific tone voice thing do you know i don't like anything that's general like in performance in music in art and i think that you know not not many people occupy the place that you can occupy as a as a actor and ironically as much as we love that stuff, that's often the hardest thing to get people to see and hire early on.

12:40And I'm curious what your knocking on the doors of show business was like. Yeah, that's a really interesting way into that question. And I appreciate that. So I did theater in New York for like 10 years before I came to LA and tried my hand at TV and film. And I was so far down the rung of actors in new york uh with tiny little kind of useless agents i didn't even get an audition for law and order being in new york for 10 years wait wait wait that is an audition

13:16Rob Lowe:not even an audition okay for those of you don't know so law and order has 17 shows all being shot in new york they they have think of all the act it's like it's a factory i mean like yep it's Every episode has, you know, five or six guest stars and like seven or eight co-stars. You need someone who's the deli owner or the truck driver or the janitor or what have you. Yeah. Yeah. That's a bad agent. I tell you. What kind of auditions were you getting then? But here's the thing. You're talking about a specific voice and it's like I was a weird looking. Here's how I define myself. A weird looking leading man.

13:59Rob Lowe:I like that. Because, and people didn't know what to do with that. I wasn't like. No, let me ask you a question. Why do you say leading man and not character actor? Because that, everybody goes, oh, character, weird looking. Oh, that equals character actor, which of course we know it doesn't. But why, how did you know that? Because I feel like character guy is like, you have the big fat jolly guy. He's like, hey, how's it going? And he's like the character guy and he plays the big fat jolly guy. Right. Now I really am at heart a character guy. but like capable of playing lead roles in a way that like Paul Giamatti is capable of playing lead roles, but looked a little offbeat, but not so, so weird that you couldn't say, Oh, he's the jolly fat truck driver or, or he's the psycho killer or something like that.

14:46Um, so they just, people didn't know what to do with me. I mean, it's just what you said. It's like, um, they had no idea how to cast me and they, because I did a lot of theater, I did Shakespeare and tours and whatnot, that people just thought of me as a theater actor. And they lacked the imagination to kind of go, hey, what if this guy could play a role on a TV show? And he's just plays an offbeat character, you know? And it really wasn't until, so I had zero success in film and TV in New York, came to LA and then by hook or by crook, got in a few kind of smarter casting directors offices and they were kind of able to see like oh this guy has a thing that um we can we can find a place for him in the in the great wide wonderful world of the entertainment business so that started um it was a long slog but that started when i came to la so in a weird way i have this kind of resentment against new york because New York is supposed to be, oh, it's so artistic.

15:49And it's the land of theater people. And they're doing strange and interesting things. And oh, now they're doing performance art. And now he's in a film. And now he's on Broadway. And now, but it was very, very limiting to me. Whereas in LA, people were like, oh my God, this guy could play drama. This could do comedy. He could play a psycho killer. He could play a nerdy paper salesman. He could be, you know, in films. he could be in six feet under uh play mortician like they they were able to kind of see me in an imaginative way so that specific voice that you're talking about uh right away as soon as things started especially around six feet under but even a little before that people were the people in the industry got very excited they knew and my manager at the time this guy mark shulman we don't work anymore, but he was such an amazing manager.

16:43He believed in me. I had zero credits, Rob, zero, zero, zero, zero credits, not even on audition for Law & Order. And he was like, you're going to be lead actor. You're going to be on TV shows. You're going to have your own TV show. And he saw that vision. And I was like, what are you talking about? Because he was able to see that voice thing that you're talking about. Yeah.

17:05Rob Lowe:It is amazing how important someone with vision is. And, you know, the stories of casting directors, as you say, smart ones, seeing somebody and seeing what other people are just missing.

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18:12Rob Lowe:A wallet, sneakers, even the haircut. From watches to cologne, Macy's Father's Day online gift guide makes it easy to upgrade dad's go-to favorites. Same vibe, better version. Give his wardrobe a refresh with a Tommy Hilfiger printed floral linen shirt or level up his signature scent with a Rabanne 1 million elixir. gift set. Does dad basically live at the grill all summer? Set him up with a Cuisinart Deluxe stainless steel 14-piece grill set. For the watch collector, ooh, yes. Macy's has instant favorites like a Casio men's digital vintage gold-toned stainless steel bracelet watch. And for dads who never met a sport he didn't love, that'd be me, shop at an Adidas World Cup fan jersey or an Under Armour golf polo.

19:07Rob Lowe:Plus, you don't have to splurge to make dad feel appreciated. Macy's has a whole lineup of gifts for$50 and under, including Perry Ellis dop kits and Levi Chino shorts. This Father's Day, give him something he'll actually use, something that feels unmistakably him. Let Macy's be your guide to gifting for Father's Day. Shop now, online, or in store. Summer always changes how you get dressed. You want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable, things that are easy but still put together. That's where Quince comes in. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton.

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20:47Rob Lowe:New York theater. What did you enjoy? Not enjoy. Like, were you a big Chekhov guy? Did you did you like to do the bar? Did you do some shepherd more? Like, what was your vibe? Did you play the Guthrie? Did you play around the country? I did. Oh, I trod the boards, Rob. I trod the boards, indeed. Yes. I did a little Broadway. I did a little off-Broadway. I did the Guthrie, the arena stage. I did a lot of regional theater. I did some tours. I did a Broadway tour.

21:20And I guess what I really loved about it, and it's something that I still love to this day, is my training at NYU as a theater actor was to be a repertory theater actor, to be, hey, tonight you're doing a Stephen Sondheim musical and tomorrow night you're going to do a virtual play and then the next night you're going to do a weird movement performance-based thing. Then you're going to do Chekhov, then you're going to do Shakespeare, and then you're going to do a farce. And you've got to be ready to go into all of those different kinds of styles of acting. And I love that idea of the actor as someone who transforms into characters depending on the needs of the play.

22:00It's like, who am I this time? You know, that whole thing. And I still really enjoy doing that as an actor. And, you know, it's been an interesting challenge after The Office, because I'm so well known for one iconic role. But I'm really happy and proud of the stuff that I've gotten to do since then. I've done cool indie films, a zombie film, a horror film, a big blockbuster shark film, The Meg. The Meg is legendary.

22:33Rob Lowe:I mean, not a day goes by where my sons and I don't talk about The Meg. I'm not being a dick. It's absolutely true. The Meg is one of the great titles of all time. Come on. I'm not sure if I believe you or not. That's true. I'm telling you. But I'm not trying to brag about my career, But I am saying that the thing I was trained in to transform into very different characters is something that I get to do in my career, which is a great segue. I don't know if I'm doing this too early. No, go ahead. To Bill and Jerry and Marge go large. Yes, I'm obsessed with hearing about this project. So, yeah, Jerry and Marge go large.

23:18It's coming out on Paramount+. Plus, I'm really excited about this film. It's Bryan Cranston, Annette Bening. It's based on a real story about a couple in Michigan that figured out that with this certain lottery game, if you played it in the right way and enough, you would actually make money. You were guaranteed to make money from it. Wow. True story. And they won millions of dollars, but they also brought in their friends and their family and people in their town, which helped revitalize their town in Michigan. And this is one of those rare movies that Hollywood doesn't really do anymore that it used to do so masterfully, like in a Frank Capra way, like regular Americans, good hearted people, small town Americans getting along, doing good people, doing good deeds for other good people.

24:08And I really it's very warm hearted. It's uplifting, but it's not treacly. It's very funny. And I play kind of the comic relief Bill, the slovenly owner of a liquor store where they buy all their lottery tickets. And he goes in on it with them and is taken along on the journey. And it was just a buttload of fun.

24:30Rob Lowe:Tell me about Annette Bening. Annette Bening is one of those rare, like, she's iconic. Like, to me, she's like a contemporary Faye Dunaway. Yes. Like radiant beauty, interesting, magnetic. And as I was, I never get starstruck working with actors, but I was working with Annette Bening. I was like, I just kept thinking like, wow, I'm acting with Annette Bening. Cool. I mean, I loved Valmont. I loved the Grifters, Bugsy, so many amazing stuff that she's done over the years. and she is just so lovely and sweet and kind and cannot say enough good things about her. Well, Cranston is just a breathtaking actor.

25:19Rob Lowe:I mean, the fact that he's had to talk about, he's had two iconic characters, both of which you think you would never recover from. And his book, have you read his book, by the way? I didn't. I've heard great things about it. Oh, you have to. Some great stories, right? Oh, it's the best. His, I mean, it truly is a great book. If you're interested in him, obviously, or any Breaking Bad or any of his work. But the process of acting, his, I mean, he very much goes into his philosophy of acting, which is always really brave, I think, when actors are vulnerable enough to share their actual process and not shroud it in generalities because it's a very personal thing and it's also super easy to make fun of so right um it's great the cranston book is great and he's also as you as you know one of the nicest men you'll ever it is that is very true did you read the uh the wilson book the rain wilson um yeah the bassoon king of course i did how did you find writing Do you have any interest in doing multiple books?

26:28Yeah, well, here's the thing.

26:30Rob Lowe:By the way, The Bassoon King is a great title, I have to say. Yeah. Very evocative. Thanks. Yeah. Although I think, you know, it sold okay, you know, just to be a little insidery baseball. Like, it sold fine. It was not like a runaway bestseller. I didn't really expect it to be, you know. People aren't lining up to buy a book. But I kind of feel like I've been thinking recently, like, I wonder what would happen if I would have made it more Dwight specific just to sell some fucking copies. You know what I mean? Like if I called it the bear king. Yes. You know, or the bear lover or, you know, this beats everything beats B-E-E-T or something, some Dwightish pun or tip of the hat.

27:15Like, even if it wasn't really about that at all.