(audience clapping)
- I like your outfit
- Why, thank you, yours as well.
- Classy cass, I'm Into it.
- I, I am a classy casual man.
- This, these are the adjectives.
Okay, well, it's good to see in person,
last time it was over Zoom.
- It was the heat of the pandemic.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- So, yeah, it's nice, it's nice to be here,
lovely studio you got here, nice.
- I know. It's, it's nice, it's nice.
Alright, so your book, Yearbook,
is now available in paperback.
That means you're doing all right,
when it makes it there, so.
- Does it? I know nothing.
- Yes, it does!
So where'd the title come from?
- Um, the title? I just kind of like the title,
I like the word book being in the title.
So people knew what it was, I thought that was important.
- In case they were confused?
- I'm not someone who usually,
you don't associate me with books,
so I thought really rooting it in book would,
eh, be helpful. Um, it kind of goes through my life
and it focuses a lot on my high school and teenage years.
So I thought Yearbook was a good title.
There's a chapter called Yearbook.
I kind of viewed it like an album and sometimes in albums,
they name, uh, the album after one of the songs,
- [Kelly] Yeah
- And I kind of did that with one of the chapters.
And I'll never be cool enough to make an album,
so my nerd book of stories will be my version of it,
but uh, yeah, mostly, cause I just like the title.
- So you really go back to the beginning in the book, right?
- I do. - I didn't realize this,
[Kelly] you were doing standup at 12?
- Yes, I started standup comedy when I was 12 years old,
there's me. - [Kelly] Who does that?
- I do, uh, I guess, I was uh, I don't know why,
I just kinda liked it.
- Did you see something or like,
- My parents were big comedy fans.
- [Kelly] Okay.
- I'm from Canada where like, comedy is actually like,
appreciated and acclaimed,
and some of Canada's biggest celebrities are, are comedians.
- Yeah.
- And so, um, we really revere comedians in Canada.
So I think it's a, it's like a more aspirational job.
So yeah, I, I started doing standup comedy
when I was 12 years old.
My first show was in a lesbian bar, um.
- Yeah.
- It was called The Lotus, and uh,
it's - The Lotus.
- The banner had a very explicit lotus flower, uh,
symbol on it, um, and uh, yeah,
and the lesbians love me, it went over huge.
They uh, they were very encouraging
and supportive of me, yeah - Was that your first,
was that your first one?
- Yeah, that was my first ever show, um.
- Did you plan that? Were you like,
I'm gonna start out - I was like, I gotta get in
- at a lesbian bar. - front of some lesbians, yeah
They, they, uh, no,
that was just a happy, happy, happy coincidence.
- [Kelly] I love that!
- Yeah. And then from there I became, um,
I actually got hired to be a comedy writer for a Mohel
who wanted jokes for his act.
And if you're not a Jewish person, uh,
a Mohel is the person who performs circumcisions, um,
and so I was approached,
- And he needed jokes?
- He wanted jokes. He thought it would,
I don't know why he thought it would be,
I think cause it's a tense environment,
- Hell yeah. - You wanna break the ice,
and you don't want to be riffing I guess,
when you're there, so you wanna know you're loaded up
with 10 to 15 great jokes written to you by a,
written by a stoned 14 year old.
(Kelly laughing) And so, um, he hired me.
Yeah, He saw me do standup comedy and he hired me to write,
uh, jokes for his mohel, uh, routine, I guess as it were.
- Do you remember one?
- I do remember some of them, uh,
it's funny, they kind of seem in bad taste now I guess by,
- [Kelly] I can't wait.
- There was some about, and again it was icebreakers.
It was like, oh, he'll be the only kid in like,
pre-school to say he survived a knife fight
or something like that was one.
(Kelly laughing)
There was like a little, like a little off the top?
You just wanna, there was stuff like that.
(Kelly laughing)
And then what's funny is my mom was at a wedding recently,
and she sat next to a guy and he turns to her and he says,
I'm the Mohel that your son wrote jokes for,
and I still use the jokes!
- Are you serious?
- No. Yes, I'm serious!
- Oh my gosh. - Yeah.
Yeah, so if you're getting circumcised in Vancouver
- [Kelly] You're welcome. - anytime soon,
those are jokes I wrote when I was 12 years old.
(both laughing)
I was almost, yeah,
I was barely out of getting circumcised myself.
- [Kelly] Yeah. I was gonna say, you're so young.
- Yeah.
- Well, moving on to your twenties,
cause this has been fun, your teen years.
- [Seth] Exactly. Wait, I really mature a lot
throughout this time, so there you go!
- So Wait, speaking,
I love that this isn't you as a teenager,
this is you in your twenties, so.
- It was when I moved down on my own, yeah.
- Okay, is it true that your apartment in Knocked Up
was inspired by your actual apartment?
- Yeah so, they were trying to dress the apartment
we all lived in in Knocked Up.
And in the movie it's like six guys who lived together
in a disgusting disaster,
and they kept like, struggling to dress it right
and to make it look real.
And so Judd Apatow, the director, sent like a,
like the, the production designer with a camera
to my house to take pictures.
And this was my actual bedroom
when I was like 23 years old.
And we were making Knocked Up like,
while we were shooting Knocked Up,
this is how I lived.
- I love that he was like, bold enough to be like,
your place is probably perfect.
- Oh, he had been there,
he's like, you live in filth, let them go to your house,
take pictures of that, it's disgusting where you live.
And I was like, it is pretty disgusting where I live.
I found that couch in an alleyway.
Like, uh, that's the futon I grew up in
and I changed those sheets,
I don't even know if I changed those sheets.
Every once in a while I'd maybe just like,
put another sheet over it and like,
I think the concept of changing,
I didn't even know you had to change sheets, I think.
And then, um, my very forgiving wife,
I started dating around this time and she was like,
you gotta change your sheets man.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- [Seth] Yeah. - If you want me in them.
- Exactly, yeah, she,
I remember one day she just, she was like,
yeah, she told me to clean up or she was leaving.
- [Kelly] Yeah, yeah.
We've been going through the years of Seth's life.
So in your twenties you also met your wife Lauren,
so, how'd y'all meet?
- We met through a friend at a birthday party actually.
And yeah, we started dating, on our very first date,
we got in a terrible car crash actually.
Someone hit our, the car we were in.
I was driving and it was bonding,
it was like we survived a little action movie together.
[Kelly] Wow! - Yeah
- [Kelly] Like a bad one?
- My car was completely trashed, yeah.
We were on the freeway and a,
and a 16 year old who had taken his dad's car,
clipped the back of my car
and we spun out across the entire freeway
and wound up - [Kelly] Wow.
- facing the opposite direction,
we were going like 60 miles an hour.
- Gee. - It was, it was insane.
We're lucky to have survived.
And so yeah, it was like a very bonding experience early on.
She's a writer and director and a brilliant woman and,
I'm very lucky to be with her, yeah.
- [Kelly] So I'm just curious, y'all are so cute.
So just curious,
- [Seth] That's a, yeah, that's a long time ago.
- [Kelly] I mean, if your car is,
- [Seth] That's us now, still together.
- If your, if your, y'all are so cute.
So wait, how did you get home if it's totaled,
did y'all like?
- Her friend came and picked us up.
- Oh okay, okay.
- It was, it was very nice.
- [Kelly] So then you got to meet her friend,
you got right in there in the beginning, on the first date
- I got right in there, I hugged her, I phoned her after
cause texting didn't exist yet.
- Yeah, you called a human?
- I called a human, yeah, uh, yeah and uh,
and then we, we started dating
and it was a beautiful, a beautiful thing.
One of, I don't know if I should tell this story,
I'll just tell it and you can cut it if you want.
This story's gross.
So on one of our earliest first dates,
I had just gotten back from Mexico where,
I don't know if you've been,
but they tell you, don't drink the water
and don't eat, - Oh, Montezuma's revenge?
- washed fruits and vegetables.
- yeah, they've got that.
- I ate a lot of salad when I was there, don't ask me why.
And I came back and we had one of our first sleepovers
at my place. - Oh no.
- And I was gonna walk her to her car,
and I lived in like a second story walk-up and I,
and she lived, and she parked like a block away from me,
and, and I got dressed and I was ready to walk her out.
And I was like, literally remember like,
looking at myself in the mirror and she was like,
getting her keys and she's like, ready to go?
And I was like, Seth, like,
my first ever long-term girlfriend I'd ever had,
I was in my own apartment, she was there,
we'd just slept over, I was like,
this could be the beginning of a beautiful thing.
And then I (beep) my pants horribly.
(Kelly laughing)
Like, as bad as you fathom-ably could.
And then I heard a knock on the door and she's like,
ready, let's go. (Kelly laughing)
And I was like, I think I really love this woman,
I can't, I can't let her know, she parked one block away,
I have to walk one entire block having just (beep) myself.
- Oh!
- And, and I put my arm around her and I walked her
down the stairs and thank God,
- She didn't notice?
- It was a breezy day in LA, thank God.
And I walked her to her car and I, I, I hugged her goodbye,
and I remember her driving away,
and you don't wanna walk after you (beep) yourself,
let me be clear, you wanna freeze in place,
remove everything if you can,
like you've been in a chemical spill.
You don't wanna, you don't wanna move.
- And then have it go everywhere.
- I had, I had made a, a journey, you know,
and I remember standing there on the street just waving
at her being like, there goes the love of my life.
I have, I think I have to burn these shoes, yeah.
- When did you tell her that story?
- When I wrote the book.
So a lot of, around 15 years later, yeah.
- [Kelly] It took a minute.
- It, it took 15 years for me to be like,
- So,
- She won't break up with me if I tell her this.
- Let's move on to your thirties.
- [Seth] No, let's not move on, let's talk about that.
- [Kelly] Let's do it, no,
you got to travel a bit in your thirties,
so here you are at the great,
this is on the Great Wall of China,
that's amazing. - [Seth] Yes
- [Kelly] I, I've always wanted do that,
I've never done that. So who are these guys?
- So a funny thing happened
while I was at the Great Wall of China.
I don't know, has anyone here been
to the Great Wall of China? Raise your head.
- No.
- So it, it's, - You are on an island
- I guess, well, so you'll take my word for it here.
I, you go out there, I was there promoting this movie,
the Green Hornet and the guy in the Green Hornet,
this guy, Jay Chou, is like a pop star.
He's like the, the Taiwanese Justin Timberlake.
And so we went all around, um, Asia,
because he was very famous in Asia.
And, so we got to do press all over,
and they sent us to Beijing and me and my wife were like,
let's go to the Great Wall of China.
And it was January, so it was really cold,
and it's in the mountains, the Great Wall of China.
So we go up there and,
there's literally nobody there
as far as the eye can see in any direction,
except the Chinese lady with like a cooler selling beer,
and that's it. - That's all you need.
- And that's all, yeah, and so we're just like,
this is so surreal and weird.
And then over the hill comes this group of like,
what I can only describe as dudes, like,
and there were these three dudes
who were from Boston, I think.
And they rec, they see me, and recognize me
at this like, moment that they have were like,
you could see they all, they're,
they were there as tourists,
they're on the Great Wall of China,
and, and the only person other than them who's there is me.
And they genuinely like, lost their minds,
like they, they had a hard time like,
processing what happened.
- [Kelly] Oh, it's outta context.
- It was very outta context, I was confused why I was there.
I can only imagine that they wouldn't be,
and so anyway, we all bought some beers
from that lady and we drank them together
and hung out for a little while and took some pictures and,
and I hadn't heard from these guy,
obviously I hadn't heard anything about these guys in years,
and then one of them tagged me
in this picture on Instagram a few weeks ago
and I just saw it and it popped up and I was like,
oh yeah, those random men I met on the Great Wall of China.
- It's a random ass story
- It is, but we'll always, we'll always have each other.
- In 2015 you played a real person in a movie
for the first time, so you were,
- [Seth] Yeah.
- [Kelly] Yeah, you were Steve Wozniak.
- [Seth] I was.
- [Kelly] So what was that like, meeting him?
- It was cool. I, yeah, I got to hang out with,
Steve Wozniak for those, I didn't,
he, he essentially invented computers.
He invented like, the microchips that were able to produce
like, personal computers as we know it.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- So without Steve Wozniak, like,
computers would be the size of, you know,
like this room essentially.
And he's the guy who made them something
a person could own on their own,
and not only that, he's the person who conceived
of the idea - [Kelly] It's incredible
- that every person might wanna have
their own computer one day.
- [Kelly] Yeah. - um, and so.
- What a visionary, is that, did that,
was that intimidating to play him?
- It was until I, I and then you meet him,
and he's such a funny, silly guy, and I,
I actually went to the Magic Castle with him
and I don't know if anyone's been in the Magic castle,
but it's wild, and, and, and the Magicians love him,
a magician, you know, if you're a magician,
Steve Wozniak's a big deal.
Like, like, that's a real cross section of interest
I would say. (Kelly laughing)
Cause magicians spend a lot of time alone,
I'm just gonna say. (Kelly Laughing)
And so, so, and it's funny cause you're like,
what's he gonna be like, and, and, and he's a genius and,
and a little eccentric in some ways.
So at the end of the night what's funny is,
we're walking him out, him and his lovely wife,
and we're going to the parking lot of the Magic Castle
and I go to the valet, and I'm like uh,
it's dark out, you know and I valet, I hand them the ticket,
and I'm like, did you guys drive here?
And they're like, oh, we actually took Segways here.
And I'm like, oh, Segways, that's funny.
And I was like, I bet you guys were pretty early
on the Segway bandwagon, I would imagine.
And he's like, what's actually amazing is,
we have the first two Segways, ever.
Like serial numbers, - Of course
- one and two, and he's like, do you wanna see them?
And I'm like, obviously, and so he walks me and my wife down
to like a dark corner of the parking lot.
Where just leaned up against like a shed, are two Segways.
- What!
- And him and his wife get on the Segways and,
and and he's like, what's funny about these though
is cause they're the first generation,
they don't have lights yet.
So I was like, how are you gonna get home?
We're on Hollywood Boul, like what are you gonna do?
And he's like, we're staying a few blocks away,
and they literally pulled two flashlights
out of his pocket and I'm like,
you're just gonna Segway home holding one flashlight
with one hand and the Segway with the other?
And he's like, yeah, we do this all the time.
And him and his wife just hopped on the Segways
and zipped off down the road, like, literally holding,
and if you drove past them you'd be like,
oh, there's two crazy people.
But in reality that was the - He invented
personal computers - man who invented computers.
Yeah, he was really random.
- Oh my gosh.
- Yeah, Steve Wozniak - That's a random thing.
- He's very random, yeah, it was very random.
- So they weren't far I take it then because yeah,
that had to have been,
- They were staying at the W and we were at the Magic Cat,
that's a 20 minute, I don't know how fast segways go,
not that fast, I don't think.
(both laughing)
- Oh, my gosh!
Okay, looking to the future years,
you've been open about not wanting kids.
So is this still a thing? - Yes.
- Okay, you said hard yes.
- I still, I still don't want kids, yeah.
- Why, why? Like, you just never saw yourself as a dad
or you just like your time?
- It doesn't seem that fun.
(audience laughing)
- I can see how it seems that way.
- Yeah, it really does not, it doesn't seem fun.
And most of my friends who are parents, God bless them,
spend a lot of their time talking about
how much they don't like having kids.
And what me and my wife spend a lot of time talking about
is how much fun stuff we can do because we don't have kids.
- [Kelly] I think that that's actually pretty rad though,
- [Seth] Yeah
- because I, I never, I never wanted kids, like, whenever,
before I met my ex and then he had kids,
and I was like, oh, this is kinda cool.
- Yeah.
- I was like, and I got to kind of experience it, so,
- But yeah, that seems like a good version of it.
- So then I ended up having kids because I then, they're,
so I would, I wouldn't say it's like the most fun job,
- [Seth] No.
- cause it's like, overwhelming,
- [Seth] Yeah.
- but it's a beautiful thing and it's like,
nothing cooler for me.
But I will say though, I think it's important
because people always used to pressure me about it.
- [Seth] Yeah.
- About marriage and about having kids and like,
it's like, not everybody,
that's not everybody's dream is to do that.
- No, and a lot of people I think,
- I just think it's important you say that.
- Yeah, a lot of people have kids
and they don't even think about it.
I know they just think, we'll have kids, yeah.
- Oh my God, we call those people that have accessories.
- Yeah, yeah, or they just think
that's the next thing you do in life, you have kids.
And then they look back and they were like,
I didn't have to have kids?
- [Kelly] No, my, - Yeah.
- My friend was like,
that's a person that has a kid as an accessory.
And I'm like, that's not,
that's a lot of therapy in the waiting. Um, but anyway.
- But you don't need kids, there's so many kids.
- I know, and that's the thing too, yeah.
- Who looks at all the kids out there and thinks,
I wish there were more kids.
(Kelly laughing)
- I guess anybody that wants kids.
- Yeah, not me.
- But I think that's cool.
And your wife is the same way, right?
- She does not want kids, no. - Yeah.
- We get a lot of, I don't know,
I know people describe having kids, yeah,
as like, brief glimmering moments of beauty
amongst a sea of pain, it, it kind of,
whereas not having kids is just,
it's just lovely all the time.
There's, there's, there's none of that,
it's just great all day, I'm never like, I wish I had kids
and I'm missing something by not having them.
I'm more, I'm doing stuff all the time where I look over
at my wife and she looks at me and we're like,
if we had kids, we couldn't do this.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- This wouldn't even remotely be on the table.
- [Kelly] No, that's why,
- We couldn't do any of this stuff if we had kids.
- People with kids, that's what we call me-time.
- Oh yeah.
- So we have to carve it out, yeah.
- All the time is me, why would I, who, why would I,
why wouldn't it be me-time? Who, what? It's us time,
but me and my, we do it together, we,
- I think that, I think that's really awesome,
and I think it's so cool.
- [Seth] Yeah.
- To not pressure people and enjoy, your life
- No, I think there should be more voices of,
- [Kelly] Reason?
- that you don't need to have kids, yeah.
You don't need to have kids.
Also like, won't the world not be here in 30 years, so.
(Kelly laughing) - Are we all gonna die?
Oh my God! Well, I do love my children.
- They seem great. - They're great.
- They seem lovely.
- I'll call you for babysitting.
- Exactly.
- You and your wife would love it.
- We babysit, yeah, we hang out, I love,
I love my friends' children
probably more than they do it seems some of the time.
(both laughing)
- You get to play with them, hand them back,
- Yeah. - It's the best.
It's like a grandparent or aunt or an uncle.
- Exactly, yeah exactly.