Please welcome James Marsden.
Hi.
How are you?
I'm good.
I'm so excited to talk about the show and how great
you are in it and how different this character is,
playing the twin brother.
And we'll get to that in a minute.
But tell me what you've been up to
and how you're doing during this quarantine.
This is kind of it.
I haven't been be doing anything.
Yeah, it's been weird hasn't it?
I mean, when it all started, I think
I had really, really big ideas about what
I was going to do with my day.
I actually wrote down a whole daily schedule.
It was, like, wake up at 8:00, have an hour of meditation,
eat something healthy.
11:00, go for a walk, social distance, come back.
And then that lasted about a week or two.
And then I realized that it worked really well
as toilet paper.
Yeah, I did the same thing.
There was a lot of outside walking at first.
And now I'm pretty much in the house and eating pizza
and drinking wine.
Yeah.
Now, it's like how fast can I get
through a pint of ice cream?
What are you binge-watching right now?
Are you watching anything?
Schitt's Creek, I'm catching up on, which I'm obsessed with.
I think that's my big one that I'm
spending my most time watching.
And I'm surprised that I went as long as I did,
that that flew under the radar as long as it did,
I think it's brilliant.
And Catherine O'Hara, to me, is--
she's the Meryl Streep of comedy.
Well, you're the Meryl Streep of comedy.
Catherine O'Hara is a close second.
Let's say that.
[LAUGHTER]
Good catch.
Yes, it's a brilliant show.
It's really, really funny.
And when I get a chance, I'll introduce you.
Because your other celebrity crush you had on Helen Mirren,
I fulfilled that fantasy for you.
You did.
You are quite the facilitator.
So wait, you're saying that maybe you
can do a little celebrity matchmaker
game with Catherine O'Hara now?
She's at your door.
If you go to the door, Catherine is at your door right now.
She's wearing a mask.
You're so good at this you're making me look to my door.
And that doesn't make me feel comfortable.
So you've been in so many things throughout.
I mean, really you're range in acting is--
you're funny and I'm just a huge fan.
Well, thank you.
And you were in Hairspray.
You worked with Twitch.
I did, yeah.
Twitch was, of course, one of the dancers.
And we briefly got to know each other a little bit.
But that role came about--
I was sitting down with Adam Shankman, the director
and Craig Zadan and Neil Meron at the time,
at an empty restaurant off Broadway in New York City.
And we were just talking about the potential of me playing
the role of Corny Collins.
And in the middle of the interview--
it was an interview, because I was trying to get the job.
I had a tap on my shoulder, and it was Julia Roberts.
And she was standing there, and she said,
I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt.
But I just wanted to tell you that you're
in my favorite movie, The Notebook.
And I love what you do in the film and congratulations
on it and nice to meet you.
And then Adam Shankman turns to me
and he goes, if you didn't have the job already,
I think that sort of seals it.
So I have Julia Roberts to thank for that.
She was the one who cemented me getting cast in that role.
Very cool.
All right, let's talk about Dead to Me.
I am so happy they found a way--
I texted Christina right away going--
wait a minute.
How is this happening?
And then they figured out a way to put you in.
How clever is that, that they came up with the idea
that he had a twin?
Yeah.
I mean, at first, I was like--
oh, a twin?
Like the kind of classic soap opera trope--
I was like, can we pull this off?
I don't want to ruin anything.
But at the end of first season he dies.
And I called Liz, or I sent her an email.
And I said, congratulations on his success.
Is there any way I can survive a head trauma, drowning?
Is there any way that this guy survives this?
And we laughed about it obviously.
And she emailed me back about two weeks later and she said,
I know you were kidding.
But what about bringing you back as a twin brother?
And so I was all for it.
I know that it's kind of a silly concept to begin with.
But I like how Liz leaned into the soapy element of it
and took a big swing.
And the guy's very, very different.
He's a much nicer, much kinder guy.
He's a little bit of a nebbish goof.
But it is fun.
It was fun to play that contrast between the two guys.
Well, and also this character, the twin, did the worm.
And a wonderful dancer you are.
Yeah, there's a scene in this season
where I'm sort of cheering Christina Applegate's
character up.
And it was written in the script that Ben does a little tap
dance.
And I again called Liz and said, when does this shoot?
She goes, oh, Thursday.
I said, it's Tuesday.
I said I can't tap dance.
It's not something I can just pick up.
And she said, well, whatever dances you can do.
And I said, I can dance like somebody who thinks he's good.
Will that do?
So she just kind of let me make a fool of myself essentially.
I went back to high school and did my--
oh, gosh.
You know, I haven't even seen this yet.
Oh, boy.
Yep.
Let's take a break, Ellen.
Yeah, see?
Ellen, we've got to take a break.
Yes, we will take a break.
Andy's telling me we have to take a break.
James, we got to take a break, bro.
I love that show so much.
All right, we'll take a break.
We'll be back.
Hi, I'm Andy.
Ellen asked me to remind you to subscribe to her channel
so you can see more awesome videos, like videos
of me getting scared or saying embarrassing things like ball
peen hammer, and also some videos of Ellen
and other celebrities if you're into that sort of thing.
Oh, [BLEEP]!
God[BLEEP].