Drew, hello, how's it going? (audience applauding)
How are you?
I'm fine, I don't know. Yeah.
I'm doing okay, I guess.
It's a really great time for therapists, I imagine.
Yes. (audience laughs)
I hadn't been in therapy until recently,
despite my wife begging me for years,
(audience laughs) and I,
and I realized, first of all, it's so weird for me.
Because this dynamic that you and I, Drew,
are having right now, where I just sit here,
and talk about myself.
As narcissistic and as self-obsessed as I am,
this is not a comfortable dynamic for me.
(Drew laughs)
And so, a therapist is that, like,
it's literally just a guy,
and all I'm thinking is, this guy is so bored.
My complaints are so dumb.
There's real things happening in the world.
And so then I say stuff like that, and then we're onto that,
and it's like, well, what is broken about you
that makes you think you don't wanna,
you shouldn't be talking to me?
It's, I'm spiraling, Drew, I'm spiraling.
(audience laughs)
My new therapist, who I was referred to,
because my old therapist was like,
if you can't break this cycle, I can no longer help you,
and I finally broke the cycle. (Ben laughs)
But my new therapist, Baruch- Great, that's great.
He's just like super Freudian cliche perfection.
And he is, he is on the mountain top.
He is smarter than anyone I've I've met.
And I just love that.
I like that, I like, I wanna be a little intimidated
by the person who's in charge of fixing my brain,
you know, like, I don't know how I feel about it.
But like, my kid goes to a school near here,
and the woman that runs it horrifies me.
And I don't know what it is about me that loves that,
'cause I talk to other people who are like,
that woman's so mean and whatever.
And I'm like, she dresses me down,
she scolds me like I'm a child.
I'm 40, and she like pulls me into the other room,
and like tells me what I'm doing wrong.
And I go home and I say to my wife,
I'm in love with this woman. (audience laughs)
So, maybe that's something to work on in therapy as well.
Maybe I shouldn't be doing this on national television.
You know, wait, no!
We can talk about other things.
Ben, you're in a safe space here.
And it's true. Great.
I think because, you know,
you were in theater young, we both started young.
Like, I am looking for someone to, A,
not only, cliche, direct me and-
Yeah, exactly.
B, I don't feel like I've got the answers,
so I'm like, I want them, and I don't want
like a Bohemian childhood, like I had, for my kids.
So I'm looking for like these strict bumper rail humans.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You, that's, it's, yeah.
It all goes back to whatever,
I guess you weren't getting in childhood.
I mean, that's the cliche,
but I'm learning that that's a cliche for a reason.
What's it, how is it being a mom in COVID?
I'm doing the interview now. (audience laughs)
How are you doing?
Are you going insane?
'Cause we have two toddlers here and we're going insane.
Yeah, I cried all the way to work today.
(audience laughs)
Like, like so hard. Sorry.
That it was, I couldn't catch my breath,
and I just figured, let me get it out here in the car.
Yeah.
And then I thought I could nip it in the bud,
before I got to work, then nope,
it went into the first hour of getting ready.
But I will say, and I hope this is true for anyone who like,
is kind enough to come and visit us here,
while we're doing this, this show fixes things.
It makes me feel better when I'm here,
and then I go home and cry again. (laughs)
(audience laughs)
Right. But while I-
You go, you save the crying, and the freak out
for when you're home with the kids.
Here is the safe space.
But I just, and I wonder if it's like this with you
for you too, at this show that you've built for six years,
which is coming to a finale, and is so beloved by people.
Like, is it like that for you on the set?
'Cause there's a lot of chemistry with the show.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and first of all, it's a really,
I mean, look, one thing that you and I both have in common
with our current jobs is that we're not really
allowed to be in a terrible mood at work.
We have to be in a really kinda great mood
in order to do what we do for a living.
And I think that serves us really well.
I like, we're a comedy, everybody,
this cast is like, imagine if every single day,
you walked into a room with the like
seven funniest people you knew,
and you were the least funny person there,
but it didn't matter.
That's kind of what my life has been like for six years.
And so, you can't be sad, you can't be in a bad mood,
and everybody else is going through the same things.
And we had like, you know, since "Superstore" started,
there's been like 3,000 babies that have been born.
Like, there was one person who had a kid when we started,
and now we're all essentially like,
you know, old broken, tired parents.
(audience laughs)
So yeah. So yeah,
it's an incredible family, and it's an incredible community,
and it's gonna be missed for a really long time.
But I think we all, you know, we're actors,
so all we do is complain about everything
all day long until it's gone.
And then we just desperately miss it.
I did not expect that to go there,
but you really brought it home,
and it makes a lot of sense.
And by the way, Ben, I know that you are doing "Superstore,"
and that small businesses are really important to you.
And we have a small business gift guide that we do.
And we were wondering if you were interested
in contributing to it with voting, or letting us know
about a small business that you like.
Yeah, I mean, I know so many small businesses that I like.
Most of them involve eating, (audience laughs)
because it seems to be the only thing I care about,
(Drew laughs) you know?
I mean, it's hard to say just one,
it's really, honestly, for me,
it sounds like we have this in common.
Just keep doing everything you can to eat
at the restaurants that you love,
because they really, really got hit
insanely hard in the past year.
This pandemic will end,
and then we're all gonna wanna be able to go out,
and celebrate somewhere. Yep.
But it'd be nice to have options.
I commend everything you said,
and you put it so well, Ben.
Again, we've wrapped things up here,
you're very good at like telling a story,
which is not, you know, ironic,
considering you loved theater.
And I love the story of your parents, by the way,
like, bringing you to dinner and telling you,
and your friend you were gonna like get sent off
to New York to go on your first solo trip.
Oh, that's so crazy, you know that,
yeah, that was, by the way that was the coolest gift
I've ever gotten.
And my parents were divorced at the time,
and they were like, they were like, here's,
they came to dinner with me at the same time,
which was bizarre.
But they're like here, here's like a notepad,
and you open it up, and it was like, turn left,
catch a cab going west.
You're having dinner at so-and-so, blah, blah, blah.
And they did this whole New York trip with me and my friend.
And they got tickets to two plays.
"A Funny Thing Happened," with Nathan Lane at the time,
and then this brand new show
that just transferred to Broadway called "Rent,"
that they heard I would like 'cause I was like young.
And so, I got to see like the original "Rent" cast
on that trip.
That was a really cool,
it was like one of the coolest trips I've ever done.
Well, I loved it, loved it, loved it.
And I loved the takeaway of how they sort of
scavenger hunted this wonderful trip for you and your friend
for your big foray out into the world.
Yeah.
Ben Feldman, you're so awesome.
Thank you to you and your whole family
for taking the time to be with us today.
Tune into "Superstore," the series finale tomorrow
at 8:30, 7:30 Central on NBC.
(warm rock music)
♪ Oh-oh (Oh-oh) ♪