"Rashida Jones"

0:05So, welcome to SmartList, everybody. I hope you have a full charge on your iPod. Do people still use iPods? No. I don't think so. I think they just use... Is that what they listen to us on? Their phones. Okay, boomer. What is boomer? What ages are boomers? 1946 to 64. I just looked it up today. Truly? Truly. Wow. What's a Z-er? Us. That's us. No, we're 10X, man. Oh, we're X. What are the ages of X? Uh, Gen X is like 19... Well, sorry, we keeping you up? You know we're rolling, bro. 1960. Are we rolling right now? Yeah, we're cold opening the shit out of this right now. Is this an all new Smartless?

0:48All right, welcome to Smartless. Smart. Light us.

0:56Smart. Light us.

1:02Smart. Light us. Oh. Oh, yeah. Will. Yes. Well, Will. Today's Will's guest. It is. Yeah. It is. How are you feeling about your guest today, Will? I'm feeling very good about my guest. Yeah. Well, because, I mean, I don't want to get into it too quickly, but because it's somebody that we all know, so. You'd think I would have a preference as to, you know, either your guests or Sean's guests by now. Like who ends up hosting better guests? Do you guys have a preference? I think it's pretty random, right? A lot of times we bring people on that we all know. And then sometimes it's a lot of times it's people, none of us know.

1:52And sometimes it's in the middle. And sometimes it's right in the middle. This is fascinating. And sometimes we reach out to guests and then sometimes guests reach out to us. and it's just it's just it's a great blend you guys I gotta listen to this show thank you for pointing it out this show seems great Jason it was good to see you last night we all had dinner last night and we haven't seen you in so long yeah I know it was so nice to see you and the dinner was super fun and everybody was funny all giddy all night yeah I know I laughed real hard last night and then I told you I'm real sweet on that Tig Notaro she's great she's so funny I just love her hysterical hysterical I told Will this a couple weeks ago Jason I finally saw The Godfather oh boy yeah Sean says to me the other day and it was really good he goes hey was it good you know what we watched we watched The Godfather the other night it's really good and I said oh did you think everybody was lying and then I just watched that part two like two days ago three days ago now they say that part two is better than the first I don't remember having a feeling either way Yeah, I think...

3:03They're different. They're both excellent. Part two, Godfather 2 is excellent as well. Yeah, I kind of had to pause every 10 minutes and be like, Scotty, who's that? Who's that? Who's that? There's so many characters. Oh, you're one of those. Remind me never to watch a movie with you. Okay, never watch a movie. Hey, and then number three gets a bad rap, but I don't remember like watching number three and going, this is terrible. I think he got a bad rap at the time and then now people have, as they look back, they go like, they've had a different... I just found, Scotty just said, Coppola went back in and recut it recently like in the last five years or so.

3:35Oh, really? Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, three and a half. Yeah. Anyway, check it out if you haven't seen it. Hey, yeah, if you haven't seen any of the Godfather films. Welcome to Smartless hot takes on new films. It's like the time Jason came up to me and said, hey, you know what I was, you know what's really, Blues Brothers is a really good movie. Yeah. I remember that. The 1980 film? I know. Oh, there's, so I said it was, a band was, humming like the Flashdance song the other day and I go, you know, never seen it. She goes, oh, you're such a loser. I really am. There's so many.

4:09Remember last night we were talking about At Close Range, which is a good movie. I want to go back once. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. I need to see it. Who's in that? Sean Penn and Chris Walken. Oh, yeah. I want to see that. Yeah, let's see. I never saw Flashdance. You didn't? No. Now that surprises me. What about Ghost? I love Ghost. Sean, I'm surprised you haven't seen Flashdance. I know me too because I dance. Because you like dancing. And you're flashy. And you're flashy. All right, this is enough of the fucking Regis Kathie Lee chatter. What are you talking about? It's the fun part.

4:41And so is the guest part. But this is fun too. I know, but I always feel bad for the guests. I got to sit there and listen to the patter. All right, fine. Well, everybody's got busy lives too. They're probably, you know, sending emails and texts and stuff. You think your guest is sending emails and stuff? Well, I know that our, I'll put it this way. Okay. This is a great segue. Our guest is a very, very busy person. Huh. Yeah, because in addition to being a very sought-after actress, she's also a very sought-after writer and producer. Oh, really? Yeah. She has written and produced Emmy-nominated stuff.

5:24She's produced and written big, huge animated films. like, I don't know, Toy Story 4. Sean. You know, she's acted in and she's written a new series that she's got coming out. Her new series is called, I think it's called Sunny. Yeah. It's the worst fucking intro I've ever heard. No, because I'm trying to... Just take a little time to write something down when you write something down. No, because I'm trying to disguise who it is. You wrote it. You're doing a great job. Because as soon as I say what you know her from, you're going to know who it is. Let's have it. Because you know her really well because you know her also very well from things like The Office and Parks and Rec and Boston Public.

6:04It's Amy Poehler? No, it's Rashida Jones. Rashida! Rashida, did you know you were coming on when I saw you last week, two weeks ago? I did. And I don't listen to your show, so I didn't know it was a surprise. I'm really glad I didn't say anything. Wow. It's happened so many times. I don't even know why we continue the whole structure of it. Yeah. Look at your cute pink headphones. I know. Listener, she's got some real headphones on. They're my dad's JBL. Really? He rocks a pink headphone? No, this is, it's like his design. Oh, his line. Oh, really? What's it called? Yeah. It's JBL, but it's like his, it's like the Q.

6:45We're happy to do some personal experience if you want to send some of those our way. You got it. By the way, for my sister. Yeah, go ahead. For my sister Tracy, your dad is Quincy Jones. Please continue. Okay. Okay. Please continue. Yes, Tracy. That's also, if you're not a listener of the... I heard about that. I heard about that. We referenced Tracy. Sort of a catch-all for those less informed. But there's no shot at Tracy herself. No. She's a very bright, sharp Wisconsin. She's representing the people. That's right. Yeah. She's happy to do it. Rashida, welcome to SmartList. Where are we finding you in this great booth of yours?

7:21Thank you. I'm in my husband's studio. That's a question. What does husband do? He's a musician. He has a radio show. Not a podcast, a radio show. Oh. But also a musician. Wait, Jason, do you honestly not know who her husband is? I don't. You know how old I am. I barely know what day it is. I embarrass myself hourly. You're kidding. On my kid's life, I have no idea who her husband is. Her husband, Ezra, is singer, songwriter, extraordinaire. Have you ever heard of a band called Vampire Weekend? Oh, no way. Yes. I didn't know that either. We both met him. Oh, that's right. But he didn't announce his job.

8:10He didn't give you his bio. No. He didn't lead with that. It's like when people come up to you and they go, oh, you're an actor. What are you in? Yeah. Do you want me to start listening? Well, by the way, still to this day, I assume nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows what I'm. People look at me funny. and I'm like, yeah, I know. I look like that guy you went to school with. Yeah. Right. At this point, really? Come on. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, you know why? Because I spent so many years assuming everybody knew who I was and I had a very uncomfortable adjustment. You peaked early. I get it. I will never make that mistake again.

8:42Everybody knows you're Justin Bateman. They know. That's exactly right. I get that once a day. Justin Bateman and big fan. Not that big. Not that big. Yeah, that's tough. Rashida. It's so good to see you. Tell me what you're doing today and what's going on. You know how much I love you. I love you. I love you. What am I doing today? This, I'm doing this. What am I doing today? I'm prepping for the summer. How does one prep for the summer? Cleaning the pool? Just a lot of reps. No, just packing. Tanning booths. Tanning booth, of course. Where are you going? Well, I'm doing some press for the show that will mention Sonny.

9:29I didn't write it. I'm in it. I'm in it. But I produced it. I thought you wrote it. But you produced it. Yeah. And you produced it. Which is a really cool, the premise is your character moves to Japan, lives in Japan, and her husband dies. Missing. But they're on a plane crash. They're missing. Missing. Yeah. And the company sends, his company sends you a new personal robot. Yes. In the future. In the future. Yeah, it's in the future. I had three callbacks for that robot. Did you? Yeah. They said, you know what they said? You know what the note was? Too robotic. Too robotic. Is the only way I tee it up for you, Willie?

10:08I know. Well, wait, hang on now. Rashida, you wrote yourself something that puts you in Japan a little bit. I didn't write it, you guys. Let's be fair. She produced it. I produced it. But yes, I put myself in Japan. Yes. I lived in Japan. How great was that? It was really great. I know. It was really great. Have you been before? Japan is the best. It's the best. I had been there like three or four times for a couple weeks, but I was there for six months. Wow. Well, now, Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka. Kyoto and Tokyo. We filmed in both, yeah. Wow. So do you have it? Because I hear if you go over there, you've got to have it wired.

10:47Like it's a place you need to like have a chaperone or like very good notes or tips or you can get lost there. Yeah, you can, but even getting lost is fun there. It doesn't really matter. There's no bad version of it. But yes, I was like dialed in because I had like the most amazing PA and like people who really knew the cities. And so like, I just went to the best, coolest restaurants, gardens, temples, onsen. Yeah. So, Rashida, you know, I loved Silo so much. I told you when I saw you and I was like, oh, my God, Rashida's in this show that I heard so much about that I love so much. And then you died in the first fucking episode.

11:30That's how I do it. That's how I do it. I was like, wait, what? Did that bum you out? No, that's why I took the job. Okay, okay. It's fun to make people like you and then die. Yeah. If you guys haven't seen Silo, it's so good. It's like James Dean. Damn, dude. Wow. Don't wait. It's not even 11. Guess how old he was. Hang on a second. Guess how old he was when he died. By the way, what? Not too soon, by the way. There's no fucking way that's too soon. Willie, guess how old he was when he died? 23? Yeah. Was he? That's so crazy. Isn't that amazing that he was never older than 23? I looked at him, I always tell you, he was like, that's a man.

12:12I just watched The Giant with him and Rock Hudson and Liz Taylor. Just Giant. Just Giant. Just Giant. More hot takes from Giant. Tracy, it's just Giant. Yeah. Okay. How was that? Was that part of the... Hey, you know what's a great movie? Gone with the Wind. You guys seen that? Nothing's really gone. Nothing leaves. It's got legs. I mean, there's a fire, but, you know. It's got legs. There's a fire. Yeah, I know. It was really long, but it was good. I didn't know it was based on... Dallas was based on it. The show Dallas was based on Giant. Oh, yeah? Anyway, let's continue. Yeah, James Dean. I think this is one of his last movies, or his last movie.

12:49Wait a second. Hang on a second. This is like... Yeah, Rashida's here, by the way. Rashida Jones is here. You're like a fucking... And you're like, what am I doing? Why am I clicking? But is that a known fact, or is that a weird Reddit thing that Dallas was based on Giant? No, the guy's name is JR. I mean, his initials are JR. And Giant, he's an oil king, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. You're sure? 100 % positive. Oh. Okay. And then what Knott's Landing was based on? I'd love it if Scotty just slid in on a rolling stool. Well, that was based on... Just for what it's worth, A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift is an amazing movie.

13:27Sorry, I just thought we were doing random. All right, Rashida, let's get to the guests. Will, you have any questions for your guests? Yeah, yeah. Would you back off? Come on, let's hear it. Your attitude is so shit. Go eat something for fuck's sake and then come back at me. I've had too much oatmeal. Now listen. Sorry, Rashida. Jason pulled up his shirt last night and I saw his abs, crazy abs. Really? Oh, my God. It's a leaky three-pack. Like summer abs? But not by choice, just from diet. No. Well, I'm playing. You just need sugar. There's no sugar, dairy. There's no food. There's no dinner. There's no food.

13:57There's no sugar, no dinner. That's the key. Intermittent fasting? That's what you do? It's unintentional, but it's, yeah, I'm playing. Intermittent eating. Yeah, that's it. Wow. Are you hungry all the time? Are you hungry and grumpy all the time? No, you get past it. You know what the, you got to race to be. You're going to say discipline. You have to get to sleep. You got to get to bed. You got to get to sleep. He thinks it's discipline. Oh, it is definitely discipline. It's mental illness, bro, at this point. People have different words for different things. So, wait. So, Rashida, I want to talk to you a little bit about, so, your experience.

14:30Everybody knows you from The Office and from Parks and Rec. And then, but everybody knew you as this actress and you were kind of working in comedy and TV. And then you started, you and, And I want to say that you and I don't know how long you knew Will McCormick for, but you guys teamed up. You started writing and you just started writing all your own stuff. Like you kind of made this shift at a certain point. Was that like a conscious decision? You're like, I've always had all these ideas and I'm sick of doing other people's stuff. I just want to do my own shit. Yeah, I always wanted to be a writer, but I didn't feel like I was good enough or anointed to be that kind of person.

15:06I think probably because I went to school with a lot of people who ended up writing. for television. Harvard. Did you really go to Harvard? And they were all like in the lampoon and they were like funny and the guys who were going to get the jobs and stuff. So I never felt like that. So I didn't feel worthy pursuing that. And then a strike happened. Did you know Mike Schur at Harvard? Yeah. Mike Schur is the one who created Parks and Rec. We met freshman year. We did a play together freshman year called Love, Sex, and the IRS. Love, Sex, and the IRS. It opened with us making out. Was he acting?

15:44Yeah. How was he? Funny. I'll bet he's great. Yeah, he was funny. He was great. Yeah, I bet he is great. Mike Schur, yeah, for Tracy, Mike Schur started SNL, and he was head writer of Weekend Update, and then he went to The Office, and then he went with Greg Daniels, and they created Parks and Rec, and then he went on to do Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Good Place, and tons of other stuff. He's a brilliant writer, and you guys have a long relationship. I feel like I kind of know sure through SNL, but also kind of through you because you guys were friends. Yeah, since we were 18. Yeah, that's amazing.

16:17We wrote a paper together in college, by the way. How stupid is that? We convinced our teacher that we should write a paper together for the class, the Warren Court. What is that? About the Warren Commission? About the Supreme Court Justice Warren. Aha. Wow. I'd love to read your paper. It sounds hilarious. It sounds really funny. So bad. And we will be right back.

16:51And now back to the show. Now wait, so get me back to the writing part of it. What gave you kind of the fuel to like say, well, you know what, maybe I can or maybe I should. Did it come from just getting more and more proud of your writing, or were you reading more and more things that were not great that were getting produced? And you were like, I can do at least that. I think it was that. I think you just read so much when you're auditioning, and even if you're not getting jobs, you just see the kind of landscape of what people are writing. And obviously there was good stuff, but I was kind of inspired by that moment in time that like the peak Judd Apatow, where like all those dudes were just like, just writing themselves, you know?

17:35And I thought I could at least do that, right? Even if it's not as good or as funny, I could find some audience. And I also had this feeling that like, nobody would ever cast me as a certain kind of thing. And if I'm gonna get that part, I probably have to write it for myself. You know what? It's so funny. When I was living in Chicago, I would watch certain channels that no longer exist. And on those channels were shows that no longer exist and they weren't really great. And I was really young and I was like, I know I can be at least that bad. like if that's all that's required there's got to be some job for me somewhere because that's not they're not fantastic I wasn't saying that about no I'm not saying that about but you know what I mean I saw the entire spectrum and I thought there's somewhere I can land and of course I had lofty dreams because I grew up on Jim Brooks and Nora Ephron and those were the kinds of mood I wanted to be in and I wanted to write And I think having Bill holding each other's hands through the process, like we literally sat side-side and wrote our first script together, and I feel like that.

18:42How did that relationship start? How did you guys? We were set up. We were set up by his sister, Mary McCormick. I know and love. Of course, we love Mary. I did a movie in the 90s, indie movie with Mary, and I was obsessed with her. She was like the coolest, funniest person I'd ever met. She was like, you should go out with my brother. You guys are soulmates. And she's not wrong. It didn't work out. We did date for three weeks. It didn't work out. But he kind of is my, like, work soulmate, you know? We still work together, so. Oh, you guys, so you guys still work together, you and Will? Yeah. We produce and we write together.

19:16That's awesome. I love Will. He's such a good dude and Mary is so amazing. So you guys start, so you guys kind of have this, you realize, you date, but it's not working out, but you realize that there is something else there on another, maybe potentially even deeper level. Yeah. Creatively. that you connect on. Yeah. And what was the first thing that you guys were like, hey, we need to write this. Like, how did that happen? We started writing, oh, it's so weird. No, we started writing a show in New York. I mean, we were just drunk. It's not even worth mentioning. The only thing we completed was Celeste and Jesse Forever.

19:49It was the first movie that we wrote in its entirety and went out with. Did you get, were you tempted to write about your relationship and how it did? Well, we kind of, kind of, yeah. it kind of was that a little bit of it. It was like an amalgam of the first kind of love that we had, our own separate loves, plus our dynamic as like a kind of somewhere in the middle of romantic and best friend ship. Yeah. You just made me think of, I'm sorry to bounce around. One of my favorite movies is Social Network. Was there any, your participation in that and having gone to Harvard, Was there any, was any of that happening while you were there at that time?

20:32No, bro. No, I'm old. No. So it was after you left? Yeah. It was like 2004. We had the Facebook, which was the freshman Facebook. Yeah. Which is what the name is based on. And so like you'd get to school and you'd have, everybody would pick their headshots, you know. Like a yearbook. Yeah, like a yearbook, but you submit your picture. Yeah. Was it digital or was it a hard copy? Hard copy. Digital. We had Ethernet my senior year. There was no Internet. Right. Yeah, we're about the same age. No, you're younger than we are. I'm younger than you. Come on. Look at her. Jason, you're the oldest one here, by the way.

21:13I know. How old are you? 55. Look at his face. Wow. You're 55? Yeah, I've got some gray in here. That's amazing. Yeah, I've got some gray in my beard. Somewhere under that beard, you do look great. A little crazy bird. It's just a lot of beard. But I see it. It's a hell of a backhand account. I'm playing a loser. So, you know. Oh, you are? Yeah. Oh, in the movie. Oh, in the movie. No, in real life. My wife and I like role-playing. And so this month, she's got me as a loser. This month. Hey, growing up around so much music, I'm sure. There's constantly music in your house, I'm sure, right? Yeah.

21:53When you were a kid? Yeah. And were you ever inspired to do that? Like, was your whole family like, wait, don't you want to come over here and do what we're doing? We're playing instruments, we're singing songs, we're producing records. I love it so much. And I kind of like sing for fun. I've written for fun. And I've sung back up on some albums and things like that. Yeah, I sang back up on the first two Maroon 5s. No way. And I sang for them live, yeah. That's so cool. That's so good. Wait, can you read music? Can you write music? I can write. My reading is limited, but my dad's a musical genius.

22:29That's like the last thing I want to do is try my hand at that. Okay, okay. But I love it. I have a deep ache for music, and I just don't ever feel like I'm good enough to do it. I'll never be good enough to do it. Again, I want to remind people, your dad produced Thriller. Yeah. Right? That's so... I remember one time, Rashida, going over to your dad's house with you, and being blown away, going downstairs and seeing, you know when you go into somebody's office, guys, and you see like, they've got like a record, right? Like a platinum record or whatever, like some whatever. And you go into Quincy's house.

23:04And well, it is, A, it's a museum. And B, the framed thing for Thriller has like 40 platinum records in the frame. Literally 40. You're like, what the fuck? It's like the granddaddy of them all. It's crazy. What about that documentary you did was just so awesome. Oh, thank you. Yes, that was so good. Yeah, so I was going to talk about it. So let's get to the documentary about your dad. Yeah. What a great thing to do for your, I mean, for your parents. It's just like, I don't know. Well, I was going to say, so, I mean, obviously we, you know, yeah, like Jason said, it's a great thing to do and to be able to do with your dad.

23:40But also, like, what was, do you remember the moment where you're like, how that, the sort of the genesis of that? What was the moment? I'm not going to take any credit. my dad is so well documented yeah like he had there was a doc series on BBC there was a documentary about him in the 80s and I was with Jane Rosenthal you know Jane the great Jane Rosenthal who's a legend and she worked for my dad years ago like 30 years ago and she said to me you have to make you have to make a documentary about your dad and I was like oh fuck I do I do don't I I didn't want to, but she was right. Because the truth is, he's so well-documented, he's so accomplished, that it's almost impossible to spend any time storytelling about who he is as a person, to cover so much ground with just what he's contributed to the world and culture.

24:37I wanted to do something that felt like it captured his personality, because nothing ever has. And so that was kind of the goal. And then Al Hicks, who I love. By the way, if you've never seen, he made a documentary called Keep On, Keepin' On, which is about Clark Terry, who's my dad's mentor, horn player. And his last mentee, who's this incredible jazz pianist, he's blind, Justin Coughlin. It's like about their relationship. It's like if you're ready to cry, that's what you turn on. Oh, my God. It's like waterworks. It's so good. Keep on, keepin' on? Keep on, keepin' on. So Hicks, he directed that.

25:13We met on my first day of filming in Montreux in Switzerland at the Jazz Festival. I had like a 5D camera. I was like trying to figure out what to do, how to do it. And we met that day and then I asked him to co-direct with me. Wow. That's great. Yeah. And I mean just the accent. So yeah, all that archival footage that people have already seen about your dad. No one's seen you just walking around with a camera in the house and talking to your dad. Right. That was really cool. This access, it just felt so privileged watching it. Yeah. Really, really touching. It felt intimate and too intimate, in fact, because there was a whole scene where, I mean, he almost died while we were filming.