- When I walk on, into a scene,
I just don't want the film to come to a grinding halt.
(upbeat music)
Hi, I'm Paul Reiser.
I have been an actor for almost 40 years,
almost 90 if you count grade school.
And here's what I've learned.
So when I started, I was in an acting class in New York
and I thought that that was gonna be the ticket to launch,
but actually what happened was I got my very first break
because I walked into an office by accident
where they were casting "Diner,"
and I wasn't supposed to be there.
And they said, would you come back tomorrow with a picture?
I said, no, I'm not actually, I didn't mean to be here,
I was, because my friend was auditioning.
And they said, yeah, but come back tomorrow.
And so then I met with the director and in fact,
I was trying to show all the skills and wonderful things
I had learned in acting class and he said,
yeah, none of that, just pretend like you're having coffee.
I went, well, but then why do I go to acting class?
Because I could have coffee without acting class.
He said, yeah, but this is a movie about guys having coffee.
So I threw everything I learned out in acting class
and I had coffee and then I was in a movie,
and that's how I got started.
Coffee and accidental office.
You gonna finish that?
Aliens was a very different thing for me
because it was the kind of movie that I would
never imagine myself being in and it was a fantastic read.
I have never had this experience where actually
being out of breath reading, flipping pages.
I remember having to stop in the middle to breathe
because it was so intense on the page.
I was very aware that this was a, gonna be a huge hit
and I just thought, wow, this is James Cameron
who'd already done "Terminator," Sigourney Weaver,
Bill Paxton and all these great actors.
So I knew I had this part of a big pie and if you just
do your part, that's all you have to do.
That was something that I learned just being part
of a big ensemble, but the other thing
was because of just the way the shooting schedule was,
I didn't speak for like a month.
I was just in the background, and it actually taught me
to think a lot more about, what are you doing in the scene,
because it's not just about dialogue.
And as a comic, I'm used to talking a lot
and it's like, oh, I'm actually in this scene
but I'm not saying anything.
So then it makes you go inside a little bit
and think of what you're doing.
So if you look carefully, you'll see me going like this
a lot in the background, just, you know,
to entertain myself, but a lot of that was cut, I believe.
I always tell people I'm not smart enough
to make anything up, so I can only write about things
that actually happened to me,
so "Mad About You" was really something that grew
out of my standup and my standup was really growing
out of what was happening in my life at the time.
I was newly married and it all seemed kind of funny
and challenging and interesting
and bang-your-head-against-the-wall kind of funny,
and that's the kind of show I would write about.
And the only reason I ever became a writer
is because I didn't know how to describe things.
I would pitch things and they would sound terrible.
I went, let me write it.
You'll see it's different.
Then I would write it and they would go,
well, this is sort of good but is that gonna be funny?
I went, watch when we do it.
Every morning, you're snapping and folding and creasing
like an origami festival.
(audience laughing)
And then you turn the pages and you lick your finger,
gotta lick your finger, grab a little page,
and you just go, lick, lick, then your thumb
and then you lick it.
Hey, hey, hey.
A lot of the comedy is not something
that you would see on the page.
It's all behavioral and it's all character stuff,
so when you have a long-running show,
people are invested in the character
and they will be engaged in tiny moments
and it has a lot of weight because
you've lived with these people, but it's not necessarily
something that would be on the page.
So that's one of the great advantages of doing
a long-running series is you don't have to end it.
You can, it's all little bricks in the same wall
and you want to build this relationship over time,
which is a nice place to be.
(audience laughing)
You're a very complex woman.
When I first met The Duffer Brothers
about "Stranger Things," I presumed that these guys
who were clearly sci-fi fans, knew of me from "Aliens."
Turns out they said, well, actually,
we grew up watching "Diner."
I said, well, that's even more absurd
that you would watch "Diner" and go,
we should put that guy in this.
But for some reason they had me in mind
when they were writing this and they said,
we actually had it in the script,
he was called Dr. Reiser. And then it came time to cast it,
we thought, well, why don't we call Paul Reiser?
I said, well, that makes so much more sense
because if you had, you know, somebody else
and it was called Dr. Reiser, they'd be confused.
See these patterns here are really pretty.
I like the design.
It's almost psychedelic.
- This is a joke to you, huh?
- No, it's not a joke.
I just, I really, I don't understand
what this has to do with me, chief.
Part of the fun of it was people
automatically had this resonance from "Aliens,"
and they said, hmm, this guy's no good.
In truth, I didn't even know myself
if he was gonna turn out to be good or bad.
They didn't tell me.
That was the first question I asked and I said,
well, is he a good guy or is he bad?
They go, we don't know.
Or they did know and they chose not to share.
So I was halfway into that second season
still not knowing if I was good or bad,
which is a really interesting challenge to play
because like, it has to work both ways
when you get to the end of it and go,
oh, oh, that's why he.
So it was sort of finding this middle ground,
which was a lot of fun to do.
And people still thought, well, he was a bad guy.
I go, no, I wasn't, I was very good.
I actually saved people.
Do I get credit? No.
Jesus Christ.
Here's what I've learned.
Get a good night's sleep.
Stay away from the craft service table
because it'll kill you.
Know your lines.
Listen to the other people,
and then be as good as you can because to suck is not good.
We hope you've enjoyed this little crash course
and we hope you've learned something, or not really,
but more importantly, check out "Horse Girl" on Netflix.