(upbeat music)
- Jim, you've said if the Jeff Pickles role
were presented a few years before it ultimately was,
you wouldn't have been ready for it.
Why not, and what made you ready when it was?
(sigh)
- The struggle to maintain your innocence,
maintain that wonder and that divine spark
in a world that's seemingly cruel and out of control.
Also, the grief aspect of it.
How do you keep that together
when you've been hit by a freight train?
And, you know, I have, and I know what that's like.
I don't believe that any actor can really do a part
unless that part finds them.
You don't find parts,
they find you when you're ready to do them,
and when you're informed and you have those feelings.
So, to me,
when I paint, I'm being painted.
When I write, I'm being written.
And when I act, I'm being acted through it, you know?
It's there to express my truth, and it finds me.
(upbeat music)
They've never been disappointed ever with authenticity.
- [Jeffrey] Right
- And I was really frightened about it
until a few years ago when I started kinda sharing
how I feel about things and my truth,
and there was a voice telling me
that if I actually didn't score,
if I didn't hit a funny line every at least 30 seconds,
they would think I was pompous
and they would turn against me
and say "who the fuck do you think you are?"
And I've never had that reaction. Ever.
- I'd like to tell this (muffled speaking),
which is that your style of performance
was completely unique.
Like you'd never seen somebody give...
First he's absolutely roll on the floor funny,
but you'd never seen anyone put as much energy
into a performance...
- [Don] Yeah, physical, vocal, all of it yeah.
- [Sacha] Physical, vocal, I mean it was like seeing a
electricity somehow unleashed.
So I'm interested, when you were in the middle
of performance, did your state change? What was the feeling?
- It was like a fugue state really,
it's like a fugue state, but I, you know...
- Like a what?
- Fugue state
- [Jim] Like a fugue state, like you wake up afterwards
- Yeah, that's what it looked like
- But the performance is love, it's a dance for me
and I love actors who employed
every bit of their instrument.
You look at James Dean.
This is a man who was expressing everything
with every, you know he didn't just get emotional,
he was emotion.
"It was tearing him apart!"
Everything was in it, and I love that kind of thing.
I always think of myself as a kind of painting.
It's an abstract painting a lot of times.
So I know the method,
I know Stanislavski and I know Meisner,
and I know what's good from them for me.
I use it, and at the same time I'm painting.
So don't tell me the eyes can't both be
on this side of the head. It can.
- Unlike any other comic performance,
I think in television, in film history,
I've never really seen that kind of energy exuded.
I mean it's hilarious,
but I think it's completely, completely unique.
(upbeat music)
- What would you guys do with anonymity for a day?
What's the thing?
- I mean I feel like I kind of have it.
- [Lacey] You do?
- I have it when I sleep.
- Yeah yours is a little tricky.
- My dog makes a big deal about it.
- [Lacey] What would you do Jim?
- He's home, he's home!
- If you have a day where nobody would recognize you?
- I don't think I'd be that different, honestly.
I dropped the whole trying to be something for somebody
a long time ago.
So I pretty much walk through the world,
except when I wanna be funny or I wanna do
something outrageous, you know kind of tip the boat,
I don't have any trouble being myself
and I don't have any trouble saying no when I mean no.
I don't feel there is a pressing responsibility
to please everyone.
I'm not unkind to people,
- [Lacey] No.
- I love people.
I would much prefer saying hello and who are you
and what are you doing today, then...
- [Don] Selfies,
- Giving a selfie
because selfies stop the world.
They stop life, you then go (animated outburst)
like that and it's going on Instagram
to give people a false sense of relevance.
I picture Steve Jobs sometimes,
everybody's so ga-ga about Steve Jobs,
I picture him in hell,
running from demons who want a selfie.
(all laughing loudly)
(upbeat music)