Name: Chris Sullivan | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes #podcast
Uploaded: 2024-09-11T14:00:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Chris Sullivan | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes #podcast' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-09-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Chris Sullivan | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes #podcast' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-09-11. Transcript available.

Chris Sullivan | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes #podcast

You made it weird, you made it weird, yes you did, you made it weird, yeah, you
made it weird, you made it weird, you made it weird, yes you did, you made it
weird, yeah.
What's happening weirdos? This is the wonderful, hilarious, talented, engaging
Chris Sullivan, who you may know from This Is Us as the character Toby Damon,
for which he was nominated twice for a primetime Emmy. Incredible.
He's so wonderful, he's an improviser, he's like down with almost, I mean not
even almost, with everything we talk about on this podcast, so it was a real
did we just become best friends kind of chat, I'm so glad you guys are here,
check him out on social, check him out on The Nick, check him out on This Is Us,
he's incredible, just check him out in general, and if you'd like to see me, I
am on tour, I'm in LA, once a month, go to
Largo-LA.com, in fact, I will right now. September 26th is the next one, it was
so fun last month, thank you to everyone who came, I'm working out a new hour,
lots of new material, hope to see you there, go to
Largo-Largo-LA.com, if you want to see me doing the hour that is before this
new material that I'm working on, but will still be new to you, meaning it hasn't
been filmed or aired anywhere, I'm going to be in Buffalo, then Milwaukee, I'm
going to be in Minneapolis, at the Pantages Theater, and then Denver, back at
Comedy Works, go to PeteHolmes.com for tickets to all of those.
We're also going to be adding Portland and Seattle, so keep an eye out for that,
we'll also be on PeteHolmes.com.
All right, everybody, I'm so glad you're here, here by Modern Mammals, modernmammals.com
slash weird, and enjoy the episode, get into it.
There's a real relief in actually liking your sponsor, and I'm so glad you're
drinking it, because when the guest declines up...
One of the things I'm going to make weird here is, I am, maybe other than Ryan
Hurst, your biggest fan.
Oh my Jesus, you know, Ryan came to mind as I came in, because I was like, this
is an actor, like a celebrated actor, who's done voiceover, and theater, and
film, and television,
and is a fan of the show, who I don't know very well, but I'm being real, not
just kind of trying to manufacture a rapport, have a strange feeling that we're
going to get along like gangbusters.
And I had that feeling with Ryan as well.
I agree, I agree.
Our lives have...
We've traveled parallel to each other, and I'm surprised that we've never met.
Well, I was in Chicago.
My career started in Chicago.
Yeah.
I knew Kumail.
What?
I knew...
I used to host a burlesque show with Jared Logan and TJ Miller.
No.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Really?
I saw...
Where?
At the Lakeshore Theater?
Oh my God.
Burlesque and comedy.
Listen.
Aren't they funny?
Yeah.
I think there's something so funny about how burlesque sort of sidled up to
comedy, or comedy sidled up to burlesque.
And it goes way back, obviously.
There was like Lenny Bruce doing stand-up in between burlesque acts, because
they were both at one time kind of theater of the perverse.
Sure.
Like eroticism and a guy saying fuck, and like, whoa.
Right.
And maybe the comedy doesn't make you feel as dirty for being there.
I think the comedy, you do need to lighten it up.
You're like, I'm here for the comedy.
This is all fine, but...
Totally.
This is all great.
It's the articles in Playboy.
I'm not even trying to be funny.
The articles in Playboy help you.
That's an element.
Oh, yeah.
I'm fasting today, so this is lifeblood.
Watch number two.
Let's get through them.
Drinkelement.com slash weird.
Magicmind.com slash weird.
What I'm saying is I've purchased from every single sponsor you've ever had.
I try it.
I trust you, Pete.
Do you want some Alphabra?
Listen, let's do a quick beard wash.
Yeah, beard wash.
Why not?
Pube wash.
Get that lustrous pub.
Chin pubes, yeah.
Oh, where were we?
I wanted to say this about burlesque, just to see, because we're not going to
forget to talk
about Chicago and how we feel like our lives are parallel, which is going to be
great.
But I always felt as a repressed religious boy who still, if I see a lady's bra
strap, I'm
like, I'm a little, I've said many times, I'm like the repressed people.
I don't mean overly like damaged, traumatized.
I just mean like if you grew up thinking that sex was kind of like forbidden,
it makes it
more exciting.
If you grew up like on a commune and everybody was naked, it's going to be
literally less
titillating, no pun intended.
Right.
So when I would go to burlesque, because I'd be doing comedy on a burlesque
show, and it
was like funny, like the girl would come out dressed like Barney the dinosaur
or something,
I was like, sure, but this is hugely erotic.
Like, I'm glad that you're doing it to like an ironic song.
Also stay in your lane.
There might have been a little stay in your lane, I didn't care.
You have pasties on under your shirt just for fun?
The pasty phenomenon, I was just like, again.
It's all legality, right?
It all goes back to the old laws about what you can show and can't show, right?
It does.
Pasties.
Where's that doc?
The pasty doc.
It starts here.
The nip slip doc.
It starts today.
But I remember being a, I also, women that do burlesque tend to be more, and
this isn't
that kind of show.
Nobody's tuning in to hear my, what does it for me?
No, no, go on.
But the women that do burlesque tend to be more real bodied, and this is not
virtue signaling.
That is just always going to be my cup of tea, over...
As compared to who?
Who would you...
Just like more the athletic, typical stripper, erotic dancer.
Sure.
I don't think you say stripper anymore.
I don't know if they'd mind.
Do they mind?
Call right now if you mind.
Look, if I type in stripper into my phone, 30,000 contacts come up, so I've had
a whole
thing.
No, I'm just kidding.
You've been on the road a lot.
I'm on the road.
Listen.
No, I've never been anything but flaccid in the strip club.
I can't...
It's a bizarre place.
The theater, you were in Hadestown, which I saw.
I didn't see you in Hadestown.
You saw it on Broadway?
I saw it on Broadway.
Forget and forget.
But I'm so taken that you were in that.
Yeah.
How cool.
Yeah.
The original workshop of it down at New York Theater Workshop, I did and left.
I had to leave two weeks early from that to start filming This Is Us.
Oh, wow.
And so the play was, or the musical was...
Wait, you didn't get to do it with an audience?
I did.
I did.
When I say workshop, I mean the original production.
Yeah.
Downtown.
But the future of it was kind of up in the air and they didn't know where they
were going
to go with it.
Yeah.
And it traveled around a bunch and it was one of the more...
I mean, obviously everything worked out.
This Is Us was a huge blessing in my life.
This is Dave Coulier, not exactly the same, but about to be on SNL.
Really?
And then he did Full House instead.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I think he didn't get it and I think he was bummed or it might have been even
more similar
that he did get it and then he passed to do Full House.
I think it's the first one actually.
But Hadestown still has a big piece of my heart.
It's so cool.
Have you seen it on Broadway?
Yeah.
It's great.
I saw it in early previews.
When you did it, did it have the swinging lamps?
Yes.
That's the end of act one, right?
Yes.
I really want to note just for theater fun.
Yeah.
Close the show on that.
That was the coolest thing that happens.
The second act can't follow the first act.
When I saw it, the turntables and the lifts and things weren't working.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, you were robbed.
The director, Rachel Chavkin, was so upset and I honestly didn't know.
Didn't notice.
Yeah, I didn't notice.
No, it's a great show with great music and it's super fun.
Yeah.
And for those that don't know Hadestown, it's Persephone?
Orpheus and Eurydice, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
So you get the fun of feeling like, I know Greek mythology.
That's right.
You know what I mean?
You really do get like, you're Hermes and you get the like, I know about spring
and the
myth of spring.
Well, it's a bit like Titanic because if you know anything about the story, you
know how
it's going to end.
You know.
Right.
And so how do you suspend people's interests and keep the stakes high?
With swinging lanterns.
With swinging lanterns is the answer.
And a very deep voice.
The guy that I saw playing your part was phenomenal.
Yeah.
Had a very, very, very, very, very deep voice.
Yeah.
You have a deep voice, but he had like a, what the fuck's up with this guy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You probably know who I'm talking about.
Oh, I can't remember his name.
The guy who won the Tony?
When did you see that?
Did he win a Tony?
Did you see the original guy?
Tony sounds like a fake award, I'm going to say.
It does.
I won a Tony.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah?
And you would think that it's named after an Anthony.
It's not.
It's an Antoinette.
It's an Antoinette.
Okay.
Now I like it more.
Yeah.
Now I like it more.
Now he's back on board.
All right.
We'll go back.
I do want to talk about your experience in theater, being in Chicago and all
that stuff.
But let's start at the start and then take it away.
My name is Simpson, Bartholomew J. Do you know that song?
It's been a long time.
That's Bart with an R and a capital B, that's Simp, plus S-O-N, that's me.
The Bartman?
It's the Bartman.
It's the Bartman.
Introductions aside, let's move right along.
I can still go.
I go.
We can all move.
You can all sing along at the sound of the gong.
Once upon a time, about a week ago, all of a sudden, trouble started to grow.
That's where it falls off.
Like, that's a weak rhyme.
Yeah.
That's bad.
Yeah.
And then Buzz was buzzing.
I was supposed to be snoozing, but I was refusing to let reality become an intrusion.
That's right.
When I was in dreamy dreamland, I was cruising, but the buzz kept buzzing.
It gets worse.
It starts really strong.
And do the Bartman.
Then you have to do the Bartman.
Which is?
I mean...
Like a bastardized Roger Rabbit?
Did Roger Rabbit have his own dance?
The Roger Rabbit?
The Roger?
Yeah.
Was it?
There's a dance called the Roger Rabbit.
Is it this?
No, it's the...
No, that's Pee-wee.
This one?
Oh, yeah.
Do you remember that one?
See, when I saw you in Hadestown, I saw you moving, and you're a big old fuck.
I'm a big old fuck.
And I liked that you could move.
It made me really proud of you, and I don't even know you.
Thank you.
Because I was like, this guy's going for it.
And you knew the only way to not look stupid is to do it.
To do it.
To do it.
To commit to it.
Is that a big philosophy of all of your performing?
Don't let me lead you there.
It seemed like that's what you were doing.
It's like, come on.
Yeah.
I mean, to go for...
To, again, stay in my lane.
To figure out that I'm not a dancer, but I can move.
I know my body well enough to move it appropriately in a given situation, at
least when it comes
to theater and things like that.
And didn't...
Did someone tell you those?
Is there a choreographer?
Oh, yeah.
Choreographer?
Yeah.
Full choreography.
Great.
That's something I started in college back at...
I went to LMU here.
Okay, fine.
And we had a movement class for actors.
Yeah, this stuff always made me want to run so far from acting.
Any walking around the room and pretending you're an animal, or you're a
fucking fried egg, and
the fucking actors that were like...
And then I flipped myself over.
I was like, eat every piece of shit you can find.
I can't.
I was like, I got into acting.
I really want to hear your comment on this.
No.
To smoke a cigarette at a bar and be like, well, that's absolutely right.
Like Ed Harris in Glengarry Glen Ross.
That's what I want to do.
I can't see Ed Harris being like, I'm an orangutan.
I can't see it.
I want to be cool, motherfucker.
I mean, there's a certain vulnerability exercise early on that's essentially
just trying to get
people to get over their egos, right?
Right.
And you could do that?
Then.
But now, if somebody tried to...
I thought a friend of mine runs 