Off Camera with Sam Jones

When Stephen Merchant grew to 6’7” as a teenager, he had a hard time blending in with the crowd, which was something he longed for. “Lots of kids in school would dye their hair pink, get lots of piercings, or do things to stand out, whereas I spent all my time trying not to stand out, trying to seem shorter, to be one of the crowd.” Despite the unwanted attention, being tall helped Stephen develop his comedic sense—“If people were just going to point at me for being tall, they might as well point and go, ‘Oh, it’s that tall funny guy.’” By the time he got to university, he decided to make a career out of standup comedy. Stephen put in the time experiencing the highest highs and crushing lows of life as a standup, but his career really took off after he teamed up with Ricky Gervais for the hit U.K. comedy series The Office. The two met while doing radio for XFM London, and their chemistry was instantaneous and undeniable. After years collaborating with Gervais and others on projects like Extras and HBO’s Hello Ladies, Stephen’s taking matters into his own hands, writing solo for the first time ever for the film Fighting with My Family, based on a real story about a wresting family in England with big aspirations to reach the WWE. Stephen joins Off Camera to talk about the expectations that come with a hit television show, why he went back to standup after a long hiatus, and how he turned his awkward dating experiences into art.

Ever since Regina Hall showed up on screen as the hilarious, sex-craven Brenda in Scary Movie, she’s never had to worry about getting work. But what she did struggle with was getting the right kind of work, especially after discovering the flip side to success—typecasting. “I wanted great parts and interesting work. And as a woman, a black woman, I wondered if that was even possible.” Despite her concerns about a career ceiling, she continued to push for roles that were more nuanced, and less broad. Luckily, she had a thick skin, honed by growing up with three brothers, which prepared her for the ups and downs of the industry. While many female actors fear getting older in a business that values youth, Regina, now in her late-40s, is discovering that her career is blossoming with age. In the past two years, she’s been in the massively successful Girls Trip, has won multiple awards for her role in the outstanding independent film Support the Girls, and is now playing her self-proclaimed dream role in Showtime’s Black Monday, opposite Don Cheadle. Regina joins Off Camera to talk about her earliest (and wildest) career ambitions, how her father’s unexpected death jump started her acting career, and why becoming a nun is a lot harder than one might think.

It’s been 140 episodes since Dax Shepard last sat down with me, and a lot has changed since—he directed a film (ChiPs), started Armchair Expert, which is one of the best and most popular podcasts of 2018 (after stealing all of my secrets, of course), and learned a lot about what truly makes him happy in the process. In fact, his entire podcast is inspired by his fascination with true happiness.  “A lot of us go through life thinking, ‘I would be happy, if…’ ‘I would have self-esteem, if…’ ‘I would know contentment, if…’ But those are illusions that most people don’t get to find out are illusions.” Dax had the dubious honor of learning that lesson first hand. Early in his career, he had all of the status markers and money that he thought would make him happy, but none of that prevented him from reaching one of the lowest points in his life, magnified by his demoralizing addiction to alcohol and drugs. Huddled in an airport bar, sucking down Jack and Cokes, Dax took a moment to evaluate his situation. “My whole life I thought, ‘Man, if I had a million dollars…’ Well, I had a million dollars, and I couldn’t get on a flight to fly 35 minutes from San Francisco to L.A.” It’s with that wisdom that Dax asks his celebrity guests, “You’re rich, and you’re famous. Did it cure all of the things you thought it would?” In general, it doesn’t. Dax’s honesty is contagious—he brings it out in his guests and the people around him. It seems like his superpower is curating human vulnerability and talking frankly about the messiness of life, and that’s why he’s one of my favorite people to talk to. Dax joins Off Camera to talk about the misnomer that is "rock bottom," the magic osmosis that makes his marriage with Kristen Bell work so well, and why you shouldn’t compare yourself to your neighbor’s seemingly perfect life.

You may know D’Arcy Carden as the lovable, all-knowing, not-quite-robot-not-quite-human entity Janet on The Good Place, and while she may not know everything in real life, she certainly knew she wanted to act from the moment she saw her father in a local production of Thorton Wilder’s Our Town. By the time she was nine, D’Arcy had her mind set on child acting, and she tried to make her case to her father. But he didn’t buy her “I can handle it” argument, and instead, she was forced to pursue acting at school until she graduated. It was a compromise she didn’t want to make—“You’re ruining my life!” was D’Arcy’s initial reaction. But in retrospect, she wouldn’t have it any other way, proving that sometimes, parents do know whats best. (that last line was directed at my children). The struggles started soon after she graduated college and moved to New York City to conquer Broadway. “I shared a two-bedroom apartment with four, sometimes five people. I never had a dollar in New York, and I lived there for ten years. I kept auditioning, but I quickly realized, ‘It’s not going to happen right now. What the hell do I do?’” But through it all, she still tried to make a career out of acting, taking any job she could get, which often felt less like acting, and more like acting adjacent. This included being a temp, a waitress, a nanny, an extra, and even a tour guide. But it took seeing an Upright Citizens Brigade show for D’Arcy to really find her place. “I was sitting in the front row at UCB’s ASSSSCAT show, and the cast was Amy Peohler, Seth Meyers, Jason Mantzoukas, and Rob Riggle. An incredible cast. And something electric happened—it was this weird religious moment where everything came together and revealed the clearest path. I realized, ‘I don’t care what I do for the rest of my life, I want that. I want to be on stage with these people.’” D’Arcy immediately started taking improv classes, and discovered her authentic self by risking failure night after night. Over time, she gradually moved up the ladder at UCB, which ultimately opened up opportunities for television work, including her big break on Comedy Central’s Broad City. These days, she’s stealing the show on two critically-acclaimed television series: The Good Place and Barry. It turns out that nine-year-old D’Arcy was right—she really can handle the life of an actor, and she can only go up from here. D’Arcy joins Off Camera to talk about the secret mantra that keeps her confidence going, the college professor who told her she wasn’t “dark enough” to be a real actor, and why you should always be nice to the interns at UCB.