- Hey, I'm Colin Hanks, and you're watching
In Studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
- Colin, thanks for stopping by, how's it going?
- You are The Hollywood Reporter?
- The Hollywood Reporter.
- Just like the Ohio State.
- I'm doing pretty good.
- It's going well? - Yeah, thank you.
- Good.
Life in Pieces, you're back.
- We're back.
- [Laela] Can you believe it's four seasons in?
- Crazy.
It's crazy pants.
Yeah, it's kind of surreal.
I've never been on a show longer than maybe one,
so it's kind of a strange thing
when I try and remember specific episodes,
or I see one and I have almost no recollection of making it.
Yeah, it's a weird experience, but it's fun.
And I love the show.
- Bringing it back to when you first got cast,
what jumped out at you when you first read the script?
- I think the unique structure of the show.
I thought it was something that was really sort of,
I hadn't seen it before, especially
not on network television, this idea
of having three short stories that make up a larger story
all about this extended family.
That led to some really interesting ways
to be able to tell stories, to be able
to tell jokes, to be able to do comedy.
All of that really made it a very appealing proposition.
- Yeah.
Now, when the first show came out,
a lot of times you had mentioned
that you would tell the writers
something that had happened in your own life,
and then they would kind of write to that.
Four seasons in, is that still happening?
- Absolutely not.
I stopped giving them stuff to write about a long time ago.
Yeah, I learned the hard way on the pilot,
don't tell them any stories,
'cause it will end up in the show.
So I'd much rather be reenacting embarrassing stories
that happened to our writers.
That's a whole lot more fun.
(laughs)
- Now one of the episodes that I saw
was about push presents.
Was that something you knew about before going in?
- I did not know, well, do you mean going into the show?
- [Laela] No, going into that episode.
Did you know what a push present was?
- Yes, no, I knew what a push present was
'cause I had to get a few.
(both laughing)
Yes, so there's certain things about it,
and I think that's actually one of the great traits
about the show is it takes all of these commonalities
that people have either as parents
or as sons or daughters or grandparents,
and we're able to sort of play in this great sandbox
where we're able to tell all of these
very small quick stories, but they're all relatable.
It's all stuff that people have gone through.
And that is, I think, when the show is really at its best,
when we're able to sort of capitalize on those moments
and then tell it in a way that is maybe
a little bit unique with our structure.
- Yeah.
Now, spoiler alert for those of you out there,
the Short family goes on a couple vacations this season.
- Yeah, we go out, we go out.
- And I heard you went to the Bahamas?
How'd you get that gig?
- All you had to do was be on a show for four years.
No, yeah, we shot our season finale in the Bahamas,
which I'll be honest, I didn't quite really understand
why we were going, but within two minutes
of getting in that water, I was like, yeah,
this is fine, this is great, this is going to be a great week.
- Just whatever you need me to do.
- Yeah, it was pretty much, yeah.
- Find me in the water.
- And as luck would have it, that was the easiest
shooting schedule I had the entire season.
- [Laela] Oh, wow.
- Normally I sort of, we all would complain
that we had the hardest shooting schedule,
each separate actor, but on that one
there was absolutely no doubt I had the best schedule.
- How does your shooting schedule work?
Now, do you guys film kind of each family's,
individual family's stories in one day?
- Sometimes, yeah.
It really depends on the script
and the locations within a certain story.
If Zoe and I, for example, if Greg and Jen have a story
that pretty much just sort of takes place in their house,
we can actually film that in a day.
And then we have our table read days,
which are normally family days.
And that's when the story that has
the most amount of family members,
that's when everyone is in and doing that.
So, you know, oftentimes it's two days a week,
which is, I mean, that's kind of hard to beat.
- So let me get this straight, two days a week,
you go to the Bahamas.
- Yeah, let's not talk about this anymore,
'cause it's all too good.
- [Laela] You have the dream gig.
- It's pretty great.
- [Laela] Another dream gig, we saw you in Jumanji.
- Yeah.
- [Laela] Quick cameo in that.
How will your role expand in the next chapter?
- I am not allowed to discuss or confirm or deny
anything involving the Jumanji sequel.
- [Laela] I tried.
- With the exception of I am in it.
- You are in it. - Yes.
- So we have confirmation.
- I am in it.
- Boom, you heard it here.
- But I can't say anything else.
- Have you been to Hawaii lately?
- No, I haven't.
No, I got to go shoot all my stuff in Atlanta.
- Got it, okay.
For those of you that don't know,
it started shooting in Hawaii,
so that's how I thought I was going to get around this.
- Yeah, yeah, no Hawaii, no Hawaii.
Since I was one of the characters
that existed outside of the game,
I don't get the plush tropical locale.
On that job, but on other jobs I do.
- Yeah.
Now you play your doppelganger Nick Jonas in this.
- Yeah, yeah. - [Laela] You can see
the resemblance. - Or is he my doppelganger?
- [Laela] It, I think that's it.
Watch out.
Are you going to be a stand in
for the next Jonas Brothers music video?
- I won't be a stand in,
but I'll definitely run craft service.
- [Laela] Oh, there we go.
- Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I can definitely do that.
Yeah, it's been funny 'cause every now and again
people just sort of look at me and go, fake Nick Jonas?
And I go, yup, that's me.
- Is that what they call you on set?
- No, that's not what they call me on set.
But it's, every now and again someone
will call me that and it just makes me laugh.
- Now many people are binging Life in Pieces.
What are you watching right now?
- Game of Thrones!
I mean, is there anything else that anyone,
like why are we talking about this, let's do a deep dive
and get into some cool Reddit conversations, right?
Come on, is the Night King a Targaryen?
Let's talk about it, I've got theories.
No, really.
I mean Game of Thrones is obviously a big one,
but my wife and I, we are very late to the game
but we started binge watching Parks and Recreation.
- Oh, that's a good one.
- Which is just one of the most enjoyable things
I've seen in quite some time, so I've been enjoying that.
And in this modern era that we live in
where TV lives forever and is there
for your viewing pleasure, it's nice to know
oh there's at least one thing I want to watch.
It's nice.
- [Laela] You can zero in on that.
- Yeah.
- You yourself have directed a few projects in the past.
What's your next passion project that you have an eye on
that you want to maybe get your hands in?
- Definitely sort of developing
a show in the scripted world.
I've been able to do two documentary features
which have been incredibly rewarding and great,
you know, crash courses in filmmaking and that.
And so really sort of one of the things
that I'm looking forward to is being able
to try and sort of combine the two disciplines
and sort of work in the scripted space
in terms of trying to, you know,
develop a show and hopefully be able
to direct an episode every now and again
as opposed to just--
- [Laela] We'll be looking out for that.
- Directing people as to where craft service is.
- Now, if you didn't pursue a career in Hollywood,
do you think you would've pursued music or sports?
'Cause I know you are passionate about both.
- Yeah, passionate about both.
So if it's a choice between those two, it's got to be music
just because I don't have any athletic skill whatsoever.
- But in what realm?
- You know, I don't know.
I'm not really sure.
I am such a huge music fanatic
that sometimes I feel like I would not be able to focus
in just one genre, because I am kind of weird like that.
But, yeah, I don't know.
I played in bands in high school and in college
and it's something that I've always been
interested in and I have a lot of friends that are musicians
and so it would probably be music.
But if the acting thing doesn't work out,
I also make kerchiefs now, so that's sort of, you know.
- I hear about this side hustle that you got going on.
- Got to have a side hustle.
Ladies and gentleman, you got to have a side hustle.
- 'Cause once they find out about the Bahamas gig,
you know, that thing you have too good.
- Well, you can't wear makeup
and pretend to be other people forever.
- [Laela] This is true.
- Yeah, so, you know, it's good to have something
to help take the makeup off, hence Hanks Kerchiefs.
Yeah, it's been fun to sort of throw myself
into something totally and completely different
from what I've been doing for the last 20 plus years.
And so it's been interesting, it's been a good time.
Very steep learning curve.
Much steeper than documentary films.
But it's been really rewarding, and it's really nice
to be able to sort of have a project that is,
absolutely no one was expecting.
That's been really fun.
- Except for the play on words.
It's a great brand.
- I mean, it helps.
- Is that something that we can find in stores soon?
- No, right now it's just online.
But we do, we're getting a wholesale operation
and all that stuff, I don't want to go
too much into the weeds on that.
But yeah, I mean we're, we definitely have some big plans
for the company going forward, so, you know, baby steps.
I'm trying to keep it like a cool little sort of like,
almost kind of punk in that you know,
very, very simple designs but also limited editions
and we'll see how fast we can grow it.
- Do you have or do you envision that that will stay
in that realm, or is that going to expand
into a bigger brand, like a lifestyle brand?
- I don't know.
I mean, that's on the table for sure,
but right now I really want to just try and make sure
that instead of doing a bunch of things poorly,
it's good to do one thing really well.
So I want to make sure that we get that done really well.
- Now, bringing it back to Hollywood as an actor.
Give me your best backhanded compliment
that you've received about your work.
- Oh, jeez.
Yeah, I think probably, if I had to do it,
it would just be like, it would always be like
oh man, you look and sound so much like your dad
and he's my favorite, which is like,
them trying to say like he's really good
and we really like you too, but it's not really about me,
it's more about him, and so you just sort of say,
oh, well, thank you, I appreciate it.
And you just sort of move along.
- Move on. - Yeah.
- Well, we enjoy you.
- I appreciate that.
- We are so excited you stopped by.
- Thanks for having me.
- Thank you so much, and be sure to check out
Life in Pieces on Thursday nights on CBS.