"Rashida Jones" 50:08

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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. 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. Sorry. What are the ages of X?

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? All right, welcome to Smartless. Smart. Live. Smart. Live. Smart. Live.

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 and sometimes we... And sometimes it's in the middle. And sometimes it's right in the middle. Fascinating.

But like, and sometimes we reach out to guests and then sometimes guests reach out to us. And it's just, it's just, it's just, it's a great blend, you guys. I should, I got to 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 laughed real hard last night.

And then I told you-- You know, 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. Sean says to me the other day-- And it was really good. He goes, "Hey--" Was it good, Sean? "You know what? 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. They're different. They're both excellent. Part two, Godfather 2 is excellent as well. Yeah, I kind of had to pause every ten minutes and be like, Scotty, who's that? Who's that? There's so many characters.

Oh, you're one of those. You remind me never to watch a movie with you. Okay, I'll never watch a movie. And then number three gets a bad rap, but I don't remember watching number three and going, this is terrible. I think he got a bad rap at the time, and then now people, as they look back, they go like they've had a different...

Yeah, I just found I just got he just said Coppola went back in and we cut it recently like in the last five years or so Oh, really? 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 Welcome to smartless hot takes on new face like the time Jason came up to me and said hey, you know what? I was you know, it's really Blues Brothers is a really good movie. Yeah 1980 film

I know. A band was humming the Flashdance song the other day, and I go, you know, never seen it. She goes, you're such a loser. I really am. There's so many. Remember last night we were talking about At Close Range, which is a good movie. I want to go back and watch it. 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 it. 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. All right, that's enough of the fucking Regis-Kathy Lee chatter. What are you talking about? It's the fun part. And so is the guest part. But this is fun too. I know, but I always feel bad for the guests. They 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 and

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 person,

She's also a very sought-after writer and producer. Oh, really? Yeah. She has written and produced Emmy-nominated stuff. She's produced and written big, huge animated films like, I don't know, Toy Story 4? Sean? You know, she's...

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.

That'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'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. It'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. Okay. Wow. It's happened so many times. I don't even know why we continue the whole...

Charade. Yeah. Look at your cute pink headphones. Listener, she's got some real headphones on. They're my dad's JBL. Really? He rocks a pink headphone? No, this is like his design. Oh, really? What's it called? It's JBL, but it's like the Q...

We'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 Tracy, your dad is Quincy Jones. Please continue. Okay. Yes, Tracy. That's also if you're not a listener. 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. Yeah. She's happy to do it. Rashida, welcome to Smart List. Where are we finding you in this great booth of yours? Thank you. I'm in my husband's studio. That's a question mark. 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, 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. You've both met him. Oh, that's right. But he didn't announce his job. He didn't give you his bio. No.

I 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 listing you? 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. - Really? - Well, you know why? Because I spent so many years assuming everybody knew who I was and then I had a very uncomfortable adjustment. - You peaked early. - I was like, I will never make that mistake again. Yeah, down the air on the side. - Everybody knows you're Justin Bateman. They know that. - That's exactly right. I get that once a day. - Justin Bateman and big fan. Not that big, not that big.

Rashida. You guys. It's so good to see you. Rashida. Tell me what you're doing like 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. I'm, I don't, what am I doing today? I'm like prepping for the summer. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Oh, how does one prep for the summer? Cleaning the pool? Just like a lot of reps. Got to cut a lot of vegetables. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, just like packing. Tanning booth. Tanning booth, of course. Where are you going? Just a lot of... Well, I'm doing some press for the show. Oh, yeah. That Will mentioned, Sonny. I didn't write it. I'm in it. I'm in it. But I produced it. Oh, 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...

husband dies. Missing. But they're on a plane crash. They're missing. Yeah. And the company sends, his company sends you a new personal robot. Yes. Called Sunny. 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. It's the only way I tee it up for you, Willie. I know. Um,

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. I didn't write 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 I've never been to Great. - 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 of weeks, but I was there for six months. - Wow. - Wow. - Well now, Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka. - Kyoto and Tokyo. We filmed in both, yeah.

So do you have it? Do you have, cause I hear if you go over there, you've got to have it wired. Like it's, it's a, it's a place you need to like, like have a chaperone or like very good notes or tips or, 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, onsens. Yeah. So Rashida, you know,

I loved Silo so much. I told you when I saw you and I was like, "Oh my God, Rashid is in this show that I heard so much about, that I love so much." And then you died in the first fucking episode. -That's-- -Oh, spoilers. Spoiler alert. 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. If you guys haven't seen Silo, it's so good. It's like James Dean. Damn, dude. It's not even 11. Guess how old he was when he died. By the way, 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, you know, like, "That's a man." I just watched The Giant with him and Rock Hudson and Liz Taylor. -Just Giant. -Just Giant. -More hot takes from Sean. -The Giant. Tracy, it's just Giant. -Yeah. -Okay?

How was that? Hey, you know what's a great movie? Gone with the Wind. You guys seen that? Nothing's really gone. Nothing leaves. I mean, there's a fire, but... 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.

Wait a second. Hang on a second. This is like... Yeah, Rashida's here, by the way. Rashida Jones is here. You're like a one-man Reddit thread. 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? 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 Nuts Landing was based on? Uh...

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. Sorry, I just thought we were doing random. Let's get to the guests. Will, do you have any questions for your guests? Yeah, would you back off? Come on. Your attitude is so shit. Go eat something for fuck's sake and then come back at me. That's too much oatmeal. No, listen. That's the problem.

Jason pulled up his shirt last night and I saw his abs, crazy abs. Really? Oh my God. Like summer abs? But not by choice, just from diet. No. Well, I'm playing workout. There's no sugar, there's no sugar, dairy. There's no food. There's no dinner. There's no food. There'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.

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 they say? You got to race to bed. You got 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 your experience with...

Everybody 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-- 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. - So cool. Was that like a conscious decision? You were 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. I think probably because I went to school with a lot of people who ended up writing for television. Harvard. 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 like pursuing that. And then a strike happened. Did you know Schur? Did you know Mike Schur at Harvard? Yeah. Mike Schur is the one who created Parks and Rec. We met freshman year. Wow. 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? Yeah. How was he? Yeah.

I'll bet he's great. Yeah, he was funny. He was great. Yeah, I bet he is great. Really good, yeah. 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 Schur through SNL but also kind of through you because you guys were friends.

Yeah, since we were 18. Yeah, that's amazing. We 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. Wow. I'd love to read your paper. It sounds hilarious. It sounds really funny. So bad.

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As most of our listeners know by now, and I'm sorry, I have to repeat it, but I portrayed Oscar Levan on Broadway, best known as a concert pianist, as well as a composer, conductor, and actor. But what a lot of people don't know is that he was totally ahead of his time in that he spoke openly about his mental health issues.

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in 2010. And it was really difficult. And I hit like this mental block. And so I sought therapy to get through that mental block. It was like, I got a little bit of stage fright, and I didn't know what the underlying issue was. And because of therapy, I made a major breakthrough and I could sing again, I could act again on live stage. It was a pretty big deal at the time, but therapy got me through it. And I'll never forget it.

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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? And 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. You know what I mean? Because they're not fantastic. Anyway, that's what I'm saying. I wasn't saying that about, no, I'm not saying that about. But you know what I mean? Like I saw the entire spectrum and I thought there's somewhere I can land that.

And, of course, I had lofty dreams because I grew up on Jim Brooks and Nora Ephron. And those were the kinds of movies I wanted to be in and I wanted to write. And I think having them holding each other's hands through the process, like we literally sat side-by-side and wrote our first script together, and I feel like that. How did that relationship start? How did you guys –

We were set up by his sister, Mary McCormick. I know and love. 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. So you guys still work together, you and Will? Yeah. We produce and we write together. That'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.

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. It was the first movie that we wrote in its entirety and went out with. Were you tempted to write about your relationship? 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, 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? No, bro. No. I'm old. No. So it was after you left? Yeah. That was like 2004. We had the Facebook, which was the Freshman Facebook, which is what the name is based on. And so you'd get to school and 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. I know. How old are you? 55. Look at his face. Wow. You're 55? That's amazing. Yeah. There's some gray in my beard. Somewhere under that beard, you do look great.

You look great. It's just a lot of beard. But I see it. This is a hell of a backhanded compliment. 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. When 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 backup on some albums and things like that. Yeah, I sang backup 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. That's like the last thing I want to do is try my hand at that. But I love it. Like I have a deep ache for music and I just don't ever feel like I'm good enough to do it. Like I'll never be good enough to do it. Again, like I want to remind people like your dad produced Thriller. Yeah. Right. So like that's so just...

Jim, 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 got like a record." Right? Like a platinum record or whatever. Like some-- whatever. And you go into Quincy's house-- - A museum. - And-- 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. What about that documentary you did was just so awesome. 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...

Well, I was gonna say, so, I mean, obviously, you know, yeah, like Jason said, it's a great thing to do and to be able to do with your dad, but 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 it. 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? Yeah. The great Jane Rosenthal. Who's a legend. And she worked for my dad years ago, like 30 years ago. Oh, wow. 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 like, like...

contributed to the world and culture. I wanted to do something that felt like it captured his personality 'cause 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. It's like waterworks.

It's so good. Keep on keeping on? Keep on keeping on. So Hicks, he directed that. We 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, nothing

No one's seen you just walking around with a camera in the house and talking to your dad. That was really cool. It just felt so privileged watching it. Yeah, it felt intimate and too intimate in fact because there's a whole scene where I mean he almost died while we were filming. We stopped filming and luckily my brother was like filming a bunch of stuff in the hospital like show my dad because he went into diabetic coma and you know

Luckily, the conclusion of the story was such that we could put it in and felt like the real triumph through that because my dad is a beast and he has cheated death many times. 91, still crushing it. Wow, that's amazing. You know, what was fascinating to me watching that was seeing you in the document because you're like, you have to check out this documentary. I ran home and watched it. And there's my friend Rashida Jones and I'm watching Rashida Jones

interview her dad, who's Quincy Jones, and I had this weird thing where like,

Wait, they're related? Which is a compliment because... That's really nice. I take that. You've become... You've made such a world for yourself separate from his huge world and you've both become hugely successful that it was wild just to see... Wow, that you both... Yeah. Well, it's true, Rashida. And that was also something that I wanted to get to which is like it's not easy, I can imagine. I can only imagine how two...

And it's not by anybody's fault or design that you have a dad who is larger than life, who is, you know, as you said, a musical genius. Everybody knows he's created incredible things. He's done amazing things. And to grow up with that, I can only imagine there's a lot that you can do.

Yeah, and then you go to Harvard. To create your own thing and to have your own incredible success, that's a real testament to your talent. I hope you recognize that. Yeah, to have the courage to even try, and then you nailed it. And now people are like, wait, she has a famous dad? You know, it's like you've already got your own thing. It's Janet and Michael.

Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson. I never think of them in the same family. Oh, his mother, Janet? No, but like, Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson are in the same family, but when I see them, I'm like, "I don't think of the other one." -Right. -You know what I mean? It's not a great analogy, also. It's too close. It's too close with Michael and stuff. -Like, that's-- -All right, sorry, sorry. No, I mean, we would cut it, but we want to shame you, so we're gonna leave it in. We might open the episode with it. Yeah, yeah.

Have you seen The Godfather? Just kidding. No, I heard you guys talking about that. And we actually did. We watched it recently too. We watched all three. And great films. Great films. I don't know if anybody knows, but really great films. And three, great film. I don't know. I think we watched the edited version, but I watched it because I hadn't seen it since I know Sophia so well. And just seeing baby Sophia in that movie. That was her first on screen, wasn't it? You know what's crazy about three, you guys? What?

It's about first cousins in love. I know. I just started watching it. And that's not the central conflict of the movie. It's just a B story. Well, so you mentioned Sofia Coppola. So you made a film with Sofia Coppola.

I want to say five, four, five years ago, right? On the rocks. Yeah. 2020. Well, it came out during lockdown. So yeah, 2020. Sorry. I don't know what you're talking about. I blank blacked that part out of my brain. Yes, we all have. I don't know what you mean. So you, and you, right. So you made this film on the rocks in 2020 with Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray.

-Yeah. -And you got a lot of great reviews for that performance. I mean, everybody loved it. And I-- Did you know Sofia before or was that where you guys kind of got to know each other? We had met-- We had met-- I was in an act-- I was like an out-of-work actor in an acting class in New York. And she came to the class to workshop Lost in Translation. -Hmm. What? -And so I played the like main part for--

-a month with her. -Wow. No, wait, wait. Walk me through that idea. What is that? So she works-- So I work with-- My acting coach, Greta, works a lot with Frances and Sofia. -Okay. -And they do, like, dream work around, you know... -Yeah. -...character, character dream work. -Yeah. -And so she kind of came to explore and enrich, like, the characters in the film. And so I was, like, assigned

to the lead part, to the Scarlett Johansson part. And then, you know, I had to do like dream assignments and come in and like, you know, embarrass myself by acting out my dreams. But it was really very cool. Like I got to play that part and work with Sophia for like a month. I was like 27 or something, 26, 27. Wow.

-Wow. -Wow, that's pretty cool. -That is cool. -Also shot in Japan. I didn't get the part, but that's fine. Didn't even audition. So, but you didn't get the part, but you got to have a sort of a really intense working relationship with Sabine. You guys stayed together, where like, we gotta do something at some point? That's the kind of vibe? I mean, obviously, I would've done anything for her, but we stayed friends over the years, and then I shot-- We did--

She directed a Calvin Klein underwear commercial that I was in. And then she did this Bill Murray Christmas special for Netflix.

And we had a little scene in that. And she was like, there's like something happening here. Like this is like a good dynamic. And I think she got the idea sort of from that scene we had together. Nice. What was that like working with Bill Murray? A lot of people. I know. I know. I mean, you know, you don't really talk to many people that work with him. I know. You know, they're as elusive as he is.

Yeah, that is true. Also, by the way, I never thought about that. That's true. We have, we, when we were doing that workshop, Sophia was trying to cast him and she had a dedicated assistant who sat outside our rehearsals with a phone waiting for him to call back all day, every day.

-God, it's amazing. -Yeah. By the way, she already had a relationship with him, had a successful film with him and stuff, but she still had to have that. No, no, no, that was for Lost in Translation. -That was before-- -Oh, that was for Lost in Trans-- Yes, that was originally when I met her and we were working on that. She had not cast him, she was still courting him.

And, you know, he's like a Loch Ness Monster. Because the story goes like you can only reach him via fax or something like that. I know. Yeah, I guess. I've never had that. He's got a phone number that you can call and leave a message. He had like a toll-free number or something for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that, yeah. But he really is like he did a guest spot. I had a show called Angie Trebeka. Yes. And he did a guest spot and he called me and I booked his ticket. He was like, I want to leave at 9 p.m.

Oh, no way. On Wednesday. I was like, okay. Are you serious? She had blue, yeah.

Yeah. That's funny. No way. Yeah. And is he just about as chill and sort of don't sweat the small stuff as he seems? He's pretty great. I mean, he is extremely charismatic. You know, he's like, and he's also what I didn't really know. I'd worked with him a couple of times before, but doing a whole movie with him, like he's so, he's so good. He's so good. I'm not saying anything you don't know, but he's such a good actor and he's so,

He's so present and he still works hard as an actor. He's not checked out. He could be checked out because his talent is undeniable but he works hard. He had a lot of big meaty monologues in that movie where he would talk about evolutionary biology and the nature of men and women and it was a lot. He had to run down some serious theories and he was fully committed.

I would love to have him on this show and ask him questions for an hour. Did you wait? First of all, why don't you wait out in the hall? Yeah. By the way, not good enough. Wow. Jesus. I'm already thinking about the next guest. I'm already thinking about old Bill Murray. We'll be right back.

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We want you to come in here and start mixing it up on the Toy Story. Bonanza. How'd that go down? I mean, this is, I love these Toy Story movies. I love Pixar movies so much. Yeah, I do too. Yeah, me too. And it was, yeah, I was on Parks and, you know, they have really kind of cool development where every, you know, they're development people, they're casting people, they watch indie films. Like that's how they get their ideas, you know? Like I had had some friends who'd written indie movies who'd written their ideas

And we went and screened Celeste and Jesse forever. And then we got a call to meet on a project, all very, very under wraps, you know, like they have to keep everything really. And we went and met and we got the job. And so I went to

Sure. And I was like, listen, I love you. I love the show. I want to be here, but I got a job. It's at Pixar. I have to move to the Bay Area. I'm like, but I need your blessing, you know? And he was like, he's the greatest. He's the best boss ever because he let everybody do everything they wanted to do while we were doing that show. Chris Pratt, they like filmed in London so Pratt could do the Marvel, the first Marvel movie he did. Right.

He just wanted everybody to be like the best version of themselves. So he was like, yeah, of course, you have to go. How long did you live in the Bay Area to do that? I lived there two years. Wow. Yeah. And you had to live there while you were writing it because the process is so sort of collaborative and back and forth? It's collaborative. It's iterative. You're rewriting a script every three weeks. It is not a WGA job.

I'll just say that. And you're working with the story artists and they're sort of writing within the way that they draw changes the story and then you have to change the script to fit the sequences they've... Yeah, one of the greatest documentaries I've ever seen is the Pixar story. Yeah. They sit down and show that to you on your first day there. Yeah, they should. It's so fascinating. Yeah. I see that. And...

I did Monsters University, that little movie. And so we went up there too and the whole facility is the coolest. Like everybody's just playing ping pong and walking around like-- Yeah, there's a vibe there. It's like college. They're so good at ping pong up there. They're so good at ping pong. That's the one thing I love about Pixar is how good at ping pong they are.

I did one movie. I did a ratatouille. It's not a big deal. Yeah. Back in the day. With Brad Bird. With Brad Bird. Who cares? That's a good movie. That's a very good movie. You played that great, you played that great big huge dude, right? The German. The nasty boss. No, he's the German sous chef. So good. Yeah. Fun movie. With Brad Bird is such a genius. That guy's a genius. Yeah, it's amazing. It feels nice. They send me a nice coffee table book every Christmas.

-They do? -Yeah. Just about different subjects each year? Just stuff from your friends at Pixar. Sometimes it's about boats. Very nice. I really appreciate it. I drink a lot of coffee tables. I drink a lot of coffee. Okay, guys. You and Jason both grew up in the Valley. Did you ever run into each other? Have you known each other or no? You always pass each other. You don't remember, do you? I want to know. I want to hear this. I don't remember yesterday. No, I definitely-- We've crossed paths.

Uh-oh. No, no, no, no, no. There's no raw stories. There's no raw story. I just remember like seeing you around and like,

You were cute. All my friends liked you. I just feel like there's so much crossover. 80s, Valley? Yeah, but like where in the, like, was this before we were driving? Were we at like kids' parties? No, because you were driving when I was like 12. Yeah. Or 11. Yeah, right. But I feel like there was like, I'm trying to think of the 80s parties.

80s clubs? Well, sure. Like Roxbury. Peanuts, Roxbury. It sounds like you didn't see each other. That's what it sounds like. Well, I wasn't remembering a lot back then.

But wait, let's go back to Flippers and Peanuts. Yeah, Flippers was a roller skating place where... You remember Flippers? Flippers is now the CVS on the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica. And you still go there. It was like Studio 54, but roller skates. No way. It was happening. And then there was a big club where the Beverly Center is right now. Oh, yes. It was called Odyssey, wasn't it? I think that was... Odyssey, yes. Roxbury, though, that was a spot. And...

And then above the Roxy on the rocks, that was a biggie. The whiskey bar at the bottom of the Sunset Marquee was a big haunt for me. Oh, that was banging. Yes. Me too. Yeah.

Yeah, it was good times. So, see, I do remember things. But just not her. Did you go to high school? Like, did you go to high school in Stets? This is a great question. Ish. I did not get any. Imagine a, okay, Rashida, imagine a school bus. No, no, that was eighth grade. The back of it has a bunch of massage tables. That was eighth grade. It's a massage bus, right? Yeah.

He doesn't know about the massage. You went to massage bus school. Yeah. Yeah. It was called Heartlight. It was an experimental school. It's just one year. And I also grew up with Amanda.

- Yeah, yeah. - Amanda, oh, Jason's right, Amanda. - I've known Amanda since high school, yeah. - Oh. - Yeah, we all go back. - Yeah. - Where did the acting bug come from? Was there-- - Well, what age? Well, your mom, obviously your mom. - My mom was an actress, yeah. - Was an actress for-- - She was encouraging there? - The great Peggy Lipton. - Yeah. - Yes, the great Peggy Lipton. Yeah, she was encouraging.

I was like, my rebellion was like, I'm not doing this Hollywood bull. I'm not doing entertainment. You've been surrounded by it, and you're right. Yeah. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted to be legitimate. You would have been a great lawyer, by the way. Yeah, you would have been great. For real, you would have been. What kind of lawyer? Yeah.

I wanted to litigate. Like, I wanted to be like, you know, Spencer Tracy in, in hair at the wind, you know, like I wanted to like argue the case. Yeah. But you could do that with, uh, with a lot of different kinds of law. Can't you? Yeah. Yeah. But there's no particular law that really interests you like, uh, environmental law or criminal law. I probably would want to have been like, yeah, like I would have been like a DA or something, you know? Um,

Rashida, with all of your success already, have you sort of like slowed down your dreaming? Like do you even allow yourself to – like where would you love to see yourself in –

five, 10, 15, 20 years? Is it more on the writing side, the acting side, like just like harmony, just with your family, like, or do your goals move as often as like mine do? And do you just, do you settle on anything? That, no, I don't know. I'm in a real, like maybe you guys can tell me because you're a tiny bit older than me. I'm having that moment right now where I'm like,

I don't know anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know anything. That's better. And by the way, you can do it all because you're already doing it all. I don't know. Am I? I don't know anything. Yes, you are. We're also like a person... I just started therapy. This is true. I'm going to get real for a second. Good. And I fucking don't know anything.

Anything. This is the most scared I've been in my life. Yeah. Is right now. That's good. That's good though, Will. Wait, why? Because it's really scary. I'm doing like... I can't even believe I'm talking about this. I had heavy therapy this morning and I can't believe it. It's scaring you because you're like... I'm petrified. You're like admitting that like...

you might not know as much as you're pretending to know. Yeah, that's the tip of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I do think there is something at this moment, there's something sort of like regenerative, and I'm sure it's coming for you, Will. Like right now you're sort of like...

resetting, which is scary, but most people I talked to who are 50, just turned 50, have this thing where they're like, who am I? There's like this full rebirth. Who do I wanna be for the next 50 years if we're lucky? What does my back half look like? What's actually fulfilling? What does my ego want? Do I need to fulfill my ego? Do I need to fulfill a deeper soul purpose? Like so much is coming up. I talk about all that shit in my therapy. I talk about all that stuff. Yeah, so good. Yeah.

Will, I'm excited for you. This is really exciting. I wouldn't be scared. I would embrace it. Embrace the fear of dying. But the fear's good because we're all scared. I had to put eye drops in just so that my eyes were white because it was rough. Wow.

Oh, really? I know. I had a really rough morning. Really? I love it. It's been a tough couple weeks. But good for you for doing that work because you could just, like, slide by and you could probably be okay and live in denial for the rest of your life. And the fact that you're going deep right now means you're going to rebuild and be, like, the best version of yourself. By the way, the best part is I told Polar yesterday, and she's like, oh, I'm so glad. I'm like, what do you mean you're so glad? She's like 20 years too late.

Oh, my God. Yeah, it's like... We're all here talking about, laughing about it on a podcast. I know, but it is so weird. You're right. I think at this stage of your life, you've done stuff like, you've had like this huge first couple chapters of your life and you have the work stuff and you have the adolescence and then the work stuff and then the kid stuff and then the work with kids stuff and blah, blah, blah. And you get to this point, you're like, okay, now what? Mm.

Right. And also that's all that stuff that you thought for your entire life was going to fill the gap. You're like, wait, it doesn't quite fill that gap. There's still a little piece missing. And what is that piece? And we're privileged enough to have succeeded in a way. But I think for everybody, they're like, wait a second. It's just going to be this forever? Like all the firsts are gone. Most of the firsts are gone. Wow. I talk about all that, Marceeta, in my therapy. But to your point,

Jason, like I think everybody here, including me, I want to do, I want to not to be overly earnest, but I want to be able to create from a, from like a real source, from a feeling of connection. So I'm like, I'm taking a little breath to figure out what that actually is and what that looks like and what I want to say, because it's,

You know, I don't know. I'm not going to, I don't want to just put shit out. And also it's hard to put shit out right now, but you know. All right. So wait, so Rashida, so then first of all, everything you're saying is like so well said. That's like so succinct and to the point and I love it. What is the best advice somebody has given you to get over what we're all talking about or to not get over it, but to kind of deal with it? Manage it.

Yeah, manage it. Well, like the thing I always go back to is my dad says, make decisions based on love and not fear, which sounds so platitudinal, but it's really not. Like when you think about it, Will, like, you know what you were just saying, like I have often looked at,

at my life and thought, let me just do this thing that I know is the kind of safe way to do it. Or let me do this thing that's going to make people love me. And because I'm afraid of not being loved as opposed to like really, really loving something and believing in something and not caring.

Worrying about the results. Yeah. Well, I realized that I have all these tricks. What I've come to sort of realize anyway in the last couple weeks is that I have a lot of these tricks that I can do that help me get over things and get by and I can kind of, and I can get to a place of okay and I can kind of put the,

things back on on track but but but there's a there are patterns there and I'm like nothing's ever going to really change unless I actually look at it that's the I think looking at it acknowledging it and then I would say my greatest gift is like just continuing to develop my inner life like something that has it is not connected to anybody else creating almost like a little

house inside, whether it's meditation or breath, whatever it is, nature. Yeah, that's self-sufficient and it's not reliant on external approval, gratification. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Have you seen Goonies? Yeah. I haven't seen Goonies in a while. Really good movie. Welcome back to Sean's Hot Takes. Hot Takes instead of hot cakes. Triple hot. Yeah.

Well, Rashida, you are real sweet to give us an hour of your day. Yeah. This is funny, guys. We appreciate you. Is that an hour? Wow. That's a lot.

That's an hour, yeah. Look at us. They're breezy. It's a breezy little stop here. So we were just getting into the meat of it too, right? I know. We were getting deep. I know. We just started to get real deep. You want to take another bite, Will? No, I don't. I don't. Should we talk about therapy some more? Another bite. I really, really don't. I can't believe we talked about it at all. I love that you did. This is good. I love that you did. It's great to be vulnerable.

Yeah. We always talk about that shit. It's good. It's good. Rashida, we love you. I love you. I love you guys. This was so fun. Thank you for having me. Thank you for doing this. And talking to me. Watch Sonny. Sonny. Watch Sonny. Now, Sonny, is that spelled with an O or a U? S-U-N-N-Y. It's on Apple TV+. Yes. Apple TV+. Sonny starting the incomparable Rashida Jones. Rashida Jones.

Rashida. Congratulations on that. Yeah, congratulations on everything. So much love to your family and continued success. You're great. Thanks, you guys. Love you. Thanks, Rashida. Bye, guys. See you soon. Oh, well, Willie, that's now, that's almost your kind of half-wife, right? Isn't she's best friends with Amy? Yeah, I mean, I've spent a lot of time with Rashida over the years. We've like,

A lot of time. We've vacationed together many times. We've just done, she and I actually went, well, not to, we asked her together to Mike Schur's wedding. I mean. What's, what's, what do you call her for short? Sheeda. Sheeda? Yeah, Sheeda. Sheed, Sheedy. Sheeds. Yeah, Jones, Jonesy.

Rashida Jones and me. RJ? Ever RJ? RJ would be good. Oh, RJ's good. RJ's pretty good. You're obsessed with the initials, Jay. Yeah, I do like it a lot. I call you Jay. Yeah. Yeah, she's lovely. She's so grounded. She's so, well, she's so smart.

And funny. And just razor sharp and has always been. And yeah, I always like spending time with Rashida Jones. And easy on the eyes. And easy on the eyes. But she's grown up in such a

a potentially privileged, isolated environment, yet does not seem that at all. No, she's very... Probably worked hard to not be. Very, very down to earth. If you didn't know that her dad was Quincy Jones and that she'd grown up in Hollywood, if you met her in...

a coffee shop in kansas city you'd be like oh she's just a somebody from any town in the usa yeah and who is just a smart you know awesome person um but she has no there's no um she's not spoiled to that way no no yeah really great um but at the end there i like that we got real real about it and uh i like talking about that stuff and i'm glad you're you're doing that well that's really great and i love when jason asked if when you know we weren't done if you wanted to take another

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