- Hey everyone, welcome to In Studio
and we've got Matt Walsh here with us today!
How's it going?
- Great!
- Yeah?
- Lovely. Yep.
- "Veep". It's back.
- Final season, so sad.
- Final season. Is it bitter sweet?
- It is bitter sweet, yeah, it's nice to be able
to say goodbye on your own terms and get out
before the show stops working.
So, you want to go out on top, but it's sad
because it's been like a family for the last
seven seasons it's been really sweet.
- Why was now the best time to say goodbye?
- Well the show's still working, it's still successful.
I think the current administration is rather challenging
to satirize because it's more absurd than...
Oftentimes in our writer's room they pitch ideas
and they were like, no that's crazy that would never happen
and then low and behold
and the Trump administration, it would happen.
So I think it was challenging in this current administration
this sort of, satirize it or get ahead of it
and that intangible vibe of like,
you know I think Julie and Dave are like,
I think we've done everything we've wanted to do
so why don't we come home.
- There was a surprise to see you come back
because at the end of last season,
we didn't know you were coming back...your character.
- Well Mike, yeah no but I remember after like,
season five my mom called me and asked me
if I was off the show like because they gave,
they had an interview with Wayne to maybe take Mike's job
and then at the end of six you know that Leon
has been elevated to Selina's inner circle
and then Mike's gone but of course
Mike will find a way to come back.
Like Mike is resilient if anything.
- See we thought you were like a teacher
but now we see you coming back as a journalist.
- That's right, Mike is on the other side of the ropes
and he's trying to use his access
to get some good interviews for Selina's team
because he has, you know, he has friends there
so I think that's why he got the job.
He said why don't you use some of those relationships,
we'll hire you but again he's in the new media,
like Buzzfeed and places like that.
He has no idea what he's doing.
Completely out of his element.
- Well that's not too far from...his character.
(laughs)
- No, I think every season we see
Mike outside of his element and somehow he...yeah.
- How does Sarah Sanders compare to Mike
as a press secretary?
- I think Mike's better, I find Sarah to be...
Less charming? Than Mike?
And I also find Mike is a worse liar,
which I think is better for the country.
- There you go! From the outside looking in,
it seemed like Julia had all your support
and the whole cast support in coming back,
what was it like to see her return to set
and getting back in the full swing of things
after...
- Her health crisis?
It was very like, scary...you know she had cancer
and so she had to go through all of that
and she had a wonderful team around her,
her family and friends and we support her as well.
So when she started coming back
I think it was lovely to just sort of
have something normal to do together,
like almost not talk about it in a way.
Like we did talk about it a little bit but
I'm sure she was tired of talking about it
so it was just great to see her be okay
and see her like get back into it.
And I'm assuming she probably appreciated
having the show to go back to because
she loves comedy and she loves working on comedy
and so to have that sort of take her mind off of like
the things she had to go through I think
I'm sure it was a blessing for her.
- The cast and crew has been together for so long,
and you guys have already done filming.
Tell me about the last day on set.
- The last day on set, the things I...
I remember drinking too much tequila in the writer's room
with Clea...Clea doesn't drink but she was there,
and Dave, and Julia, and Brad, her husband,
and Tim Simons and all the writers
and it was this string of tearful farewells,
like dinners and parties and cast wraps and gifts,
and so there was a lot of tears but
I personally try to be connected to it
and not just joke about it but really express
how valuable and grateful I am to have worked with everyone
and what they meant to me
and we all did, quite frankly, and so it was sweet,
and there were some tears.
And when I got wrapped, personally,
I was one of the first regular characters to get wrapped,
my final day and so I played a dumb instrumental version
of "All the Single Ladies" and made everyone dance,
so I wouldn't cry, I just made something silly happen, so...
- [Laela] Aww, that's very sweet.
- It was good, it worked!
- Now, "Veep" is not your only project.
- It isn't.
- No, you were also recently in "Under the Eiffel Tower",
a great indie rom-com, and I will tell you it...
After drinking that all I wanted to do is drink wine
- That's good. You're our demo!
- Yes!
- It's aspirational.
You got to go to France, you got to drink some wine.
No, it's beautiful, we shot in Paris for 10 days
and Bordeaux for three weeks
and I got to bring my family and my wife
and it was heavenly, and it was fun to
dive into a genre and really unpack it
and figure out how to do your own take on it,
because we got to write and improvise a little
like I like to do in anything I approach, and so,
and I also dragged in all my friends
Reid Scott, David Wayne, Michaela Watkins, Gary Cole,
I said come on to France,
we're going to make an indie comedy...or rom-com.
- It was probably a really hard sell.
Come to France.
- I know, that's the beauty of it,
it was, and it was lovely like there was one night,
Gary Cole and I, and my wife, and Gary's girlfriend
were just sitting outside and we saw
like a shooting star like,
like story book it was just gorgeous,
just gorgeous come down.
So it was lovely and it was really fun,
I helped produce it so it was like start to finish
it was a great, tireless...
A lot of work, but great.
- Were you nervous to get into doing a rom-com,
'cause that's kind of a...
that's a genre that's kind of dying off right now.
- I was but it was fun to unpack it,
like I was with one of the people on the team,
Danielle who's our executive,
you know she was giving me like
all these Nora Ephron movies to watch,
'cause I don't necessarily go to watch a romantic comedy
when I have a night to see a movie.
- Shocker
(laughs)
- Yeah. But so it was neat to do a deep dive on a genre
and like, to know that like an argument has to happen
out of some miscommunication, that always happens.
And you always have to come back to get the girl
or she can come get him,
but somebody's got to come back.
And then you got to, you have to profess your love
and know in that moment that you're not guaranteed
it's going to come back at ya,
but you're willing to do that.
So like there's all these things that,
and you're like oh, yeah!
And so, and then some of those things I improvised,
like that moment where I'm on the train
and I try to get her to come back,
most of that dialogue was just whole cloth
doing multiple takes of like
what would you say in this moment,
like we had tent poles.
So it was fun to like, you know, see this.
And then you also have to see something in the woman
that no one ever has seen before.
You have to make her feel like, oh you get me.
And same with her, she's got to see me
for like an authentic thing that I don't
necessarily get perceived as.
And that's why that...and then the audience is like,
they are right for each other.
So it's fun. It was actually fun.
- I was a little mad at Reid Scott's character.
In the beginning, 'cause I was like hey,
you're not supposed to be the star here!
- Well she's a liberated woman, she takes...
She sees something, she takes it.
That's like, that's the other thing is like
you try to put a little spin on it,
like you don't always see the...
The woman going after a couple dudes
in the movie necessarily. - This is true, this is true!
- Or bringing home a couple dudes, yeah.
- Now I'm curious about your research, you know.
Tell me about some of the rom-com's you watched.
What were some of your favorites?
- Oh just, all the great Nora Ephron's.
Some of the old, like, "You've Got Mail",
or "The Bookshop Around the...
"The Shop Around the Corner", which is the older version.
You know, boy, you're putting me on the spot here.
I would say I watched like, 10 or 15...
- [Laela] Oh, wow.
- Yeah. Over the course of like two months.
Just and then a lot of them,
at night we would film and then I would go home
and my wife and I would pick a,
you know, a Netflix rom-com and just kind of
watch it and see how they executed that moment,
and just kind of feel it, yeah.
- The only thing that was going through my mind,
I said, I think the only thing you missed...
But then I realized that you did it on your own,
is there's always some sort of like
shopping montage, or makeover montage,
in all the typical rom-com's,
but then I remembered...
- The cooking!
- Yeah. Towards the end...
- Was it the cooking?
- Towards the end of the film too there's another montage.
- Where's the other montage?
Oh, yeah! When he's back Stateside?
Well that's more to set, he isn't happy.
That montage is more to set like,
oh he's incomplete, and she's incomplete, it's not just him.
You need to show both characters like,
oh they're not living as happily
as they were when they were together.
So that montage Stateside,
is to sort of reinforce that feeling.
- Got it, okay.
- Yeah. But the montage in the middle of the film,
the makeover if you will, is like him cooking.
- There you go.
- I think that's the closest thing
you're going to get to a makeover.
And them painting together I think is, in a way,
is him...
- Common interests, sharing, they've discovered...
I mean, I've seen a lot of rom-com's, so I know the formula.
- Yeah, did you enjoy it?
- I really enjoyed it, yes. - Thank you, yeah, thank you.
- It is really funny.
It is really funny.
Now your character in "Under the Eiffel Tower" was fired,
"Veep" you were fired, have you ever been fired?
- The one job I remember being fired from
I was counting tractor parts in Aurora, Illinois
for a summer job and it was like gears and things like that,
and the supervisor came by and he's like,
how many rubber gears are in here,
it was for tractors, and like,
I don't even know what they did,
and I'm like, uh, I counted but I lost track,
I'm like, "I think like 120."
He's like, "You think?"
And I'm like...he's like, "Count it again!"
And I'm like, "Really?"
And he's like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Alright."
So I count it again, and then again I lost count
'cause it's like so hard to keep focus.
And he's like, "What's the number?"
I'm like, "Uh, I think it's 116."
And he's like, "You think? You're fired."
Like, just instantly cut.
But I'm glad 'cause...I don't want that job.
But that was the one job
and the other job I was a dishwasher
and they just stopped putting me on the schedule.
And I was only like 16, so for a couple weeks after
I would show up and I'm like, huh, I'm not on the schedule,
and I couldn't figure it out.
I'm like alright, I'll come back next week.
And the sweet lady who fired me
never told me I was fired, she just took me off the schedule
and I would see her and I'm like, "Shouldn't I...?"
She's like, "Yeah, we don't need you this week either."
I'm like...and them as I'm walking home like,
oh, I'm fired like...
(laughs)
- Oh, so you got it? There's was no like...
Okay! So you never went back.
- But I was like, yeah.
But she was so nice to me, my boss,
that I thought there's something...
Well they just didn't need me this week! But...
- You've just had such an amazing career,
from your improv background, and Emmy-nominated actor.
You know, which of your roles would you say
were kind of the most pivotal for your career?
- Pivotal!
Well, I think "Veep" currently is
one of the most remarkable roles I've been
lucky enough to step into because the writing is excellent,
the collaboration we're allowed is, you know,
you never get that in any show.
And I think, the caliber of talent that we're...
Obviously Julia, but everybody is so good
that the show quality is excellent
and then on top of that it's that intangible of like,
we've all, or I've been fortunate enough
to make funny shows but nobody watches them,
so on top of that,
it's a show that people actually care about
and want to talk about with their spouse the next day,
so that's like, having all those ingredients
very rarely happens in an actor's career.
So I would say "Veep" right now is,
one of the greatest roles I could have ever dreamed of.
- Is there anything that you want to tackle next?
Any type of role?
- I'm ready to do some action movies.
If anybody's writing one.
- [Laela] The next Marvel movie, maybe?
- I'd love to do a Marvel.
What else...
No, the next thing I'm doing is sort of a,
it's not a romantic comedy but it's a kind of
a two-hander comedy/indie.
Another indie, I make a lot of indies.
That's going to be like a couple who goes to the desert
and decides we're not going to use screens
for like two or three days,
no iPhone no iPad
- Oh, wow! Okay!
- Yeah, that's the premise. Yeah.
So that's the next thing hopefully coming together in June.
- Got it. Like we'll see it in June,
or you're filming it in June?
- We're filming it in June and you'll see it...
Films usually take about a year, right?
- Got it. These days, yes.
- Yeah, takes about a year for you to see it.
So hopefully next June you'll see it.
- Awesome, really looking forward to that.
- Thank you.
- You got to come back tell us more about it.
- I will, I would love to brag about it. Absolutely.
- Come back, keep telling us more and more.
- It's going to be amazing.
All I can tell you is it's going to be amazing.
- That's great. Thank you so much for stopping by!
- Thank you for having me.
- This was great, be sure to catch "Under the Eiffel Tower"
available on demand, and "Veep" on HBO.
- Yes.
- Yeah. See you guys later.