-Our next guest is an Emmy-nominated writer
and director behind films such as "Bridesmaids" and "Spy"
as well as shows like "Freaks and Geeks" and "The Office."
He directed, produced, and wrote "Welcome to Flatch,"
which premiered today on Fox.
And he also produced "Minx,"
which also premiered today on HBO Max.
Let's take a look.
-Like, when you give a pill to a dog,
you dip it in peanut butter first?
So my question is, what's our peanut butter?
-I'm sorry, are you waiting -- -It's nude men.
-[ Laughs ]
Did you say nude men?
-Not like a shvantz right in the face, you know?
Classy, with your modern, you know, lady point of view.
-Are you mentally ill?
-You're the one who came up with the idea.
-Yeah, that was a conversation of bon mot.
-Please welcome to the show Paul Feig, everybody!
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Paul, it is wonderful to see you, and you have brought us
martinis to celebrate two shows on the air today.
-There you go. I got these out of
Jeanine Pirro's dressing room, so, yeah, exactly.
-I hope you left something.
Leave a little money 'cause she will hunt you down.
Actually, during the pandemic, you made 100 cocktails, 1 a day.
-Yeah. -Live-streamed.
-Yep. -Which is a lovely thing to do.
Did you at some point, though, get a little tired of doing it?
-Never. Never making cocktails. No, but I vowed at the beginning
of the pandemic, I knew I wasn't a medical professional,
so I had to do something, so I thought,
"I'll make cocktails every day, 5:00,
for 100 days in a row, no stopping."
And we raised money for charity and all that
and made delicious cocktails every day.
-Well, you're very good at it. It's an excellent martini.
-Thank you so much -- With my own gin, my Artingstall's gin.
I have my own gin.
-Well, you dress like a man who should have his own gin.
-There you go. Thank you, thank you.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-So I want to talk about "Minx" first. That was the clip.
-Yeah. -So, this is about the sort of
launching a -- I guess you'd call it --
What would you call this magazine, a woman's magazine?
-Well, it's kind of a fictional retelling of the story of
how "Playgirl" magazine got started
but with all new characters and everything.
Ellen Rapoport created the show.
And, you know, Jake Johnson is so funny.
It's literally the role he was born to play.
And Ophelia Lovibond.
And it's just a really fun, funny show.
Takes place in 1971.
Lots of laughs and tons of male nudity.
-Tons of male nudity? -Tons of male nudity.
-I should note, male nudity presented very matter-of-fact.
I guess the way it would be
if you were about to put it in a magazine.
-Well, that's the thing. We didn't want the show
to be lurid, so it's about this --
Basically, Jake plays the publisher
of a lot of naked magazines, but for women.
So when you get there the first time and she, you know,
our star tours the place, it's just a bunch of people naked,
standing around, smoking cigarettes,
waiting to do their job, so it's immediately not sexy.
It's just like a workplace comedy.
-There you go. -There you go.
With lots of dongs. -Lots of dongs.
It's like "The Office" with dongs.
[ Laughter ] -That's the pitch.
-That's the pitch. But what was it like
when you went and pitched? -Well, we drove around.
Ellen had a trunkful of old "Playgirl" magazines,
and we would show up with a giant pile, spread them out.
Everybody loved to see those. Everybody had a great time.
And we'd have a great pitch.
And then we'd leave and go like, "Well, they bought it."
And then you get a call, "Well, they don't want to do it"
'cause it's too whatever.
-"But they will buy the magazines."
-"They will buy the magazines," exactly.
But eventually, HBO Max stepped up, and we got to make the show.
And it was just so much fun.
-So you moved out to L.A. in the '80s?
-Yeah, '81, to be a tour guide at Universal Studios.
-And how were you as a tour guide?
-I fell in Jaws Lake.
-Did you really? -Yes, I did. Yeah.
If you've ever been on the tour, they have Jaws Lake,
and you go out on this dock, and then it, like, tips,
and then the shark comes out and does all this stuff.
Well, this is '81. So, some lady was wearing clogs,
and the thing tipped and her clog fell in the water.
And so we come out, and she goes, "My clog --"
So I go, "Oh." So, I clamber back out
onto this dock, and I'm reaching out to get it.
And the dock resets, and I go headfirst into the water
as Jaws is backing up to reset.
So I almost got killed by Jaws in reverse.
[ Laughter ]
-Getting killed by a fake Jaws would be somehow less dramatic.
-Yeah, that's just a funny death,
but I don't want to have a funny death.
That's all I ask.
-So, "Flatch" is an adaptation of a British show.
And you also worked on the American "Office."
-Yeah. -And so was that helpful?
Like, going through that process again and taking
a beloved British property and making it --
adapting it to the United States?
-Yeah, it was, yeah, because "Flatch" is based on
a show called "This Country," which was on BBC.
And yeah, what we found out on "The Office" is that
American audiences don't love rooting for terrible people
as the lead character. -Yeah.
-And so, like, on that, the first six episodes we did
on "The Office," he was mean, but they didn't like it,
and then "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" came out,
and people -- "Oh, he's nice." So then we made him
more well-weaning. [ Laughter ]
And this one is just great. It's just about these
two cousins who live in this small town in the middle of Ohio
and just about the people in the town.
It's a lovely, super fun, comfort-food kind of show.
-And you pulled from your own small-town experiences
with "Freaks and Geeks," so is that nice to return to that?
-Yeah, it's really fun. It's fun to write scripts --
'cause basically these two characters are so kind of
"Arrested Development" that I can just bring up stories
that I did when I was a kid, and one of the things I wrote
that's an episode is they start a dance school.
And I did that. I started a dance school in my garage
and charged all the kids in the neighborhood a dollar.
And this was the dance I invented.
May I? -Oh, great.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Manage your expectations because here it comes.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
There you go.
[ Cheers and applause ]
And within five minutes of the class ending,
a bunch of older brothers came over and threatened
to beat me up if I didn't give their money back.
-I was gonna say I'm surprised
there hasn't been a class action.
When you first went to L.A.,
you thought you'd be in front of the camera, right?
-Yeah, I went there to be an actor, and I was an actor.
I was on a lot of -- I was a regular on five TV shows,
and I was Mr. Pool on "Sabrina the Teenage Witch"
for the first season. -Wow.
-Yes, "mitosis is," if you remember that.
-And so when did the moment -- When did it dawn on you
that your future path in Hollywood
was gonna be behind the camera?
-Well, I always wanted to write and direct.
And when we finished the first season of "Sabrina,"
I was like, "Oh, my God."
It was a hit show, so, like, I made money.
So I was like, "I'm gonna take all my money and sink it
into this independent film that I wrote and directed
and starred in that I shot in six days"
and finished that with all the money I had in the world.
And then they called me up and said,
"Oh, we're not gonna bring you back to the show."
So then I was out of work and out of money.
My wife was looking at me like, "What did you just do?"
And I had a terrible year of just trying to sell that movie.
Couldn't get it anywhere, but during that time,
then I wrote the script for "Freaks and Geeks."
-Well, it certainly I think ended up
being the perfect path for you.
And it's so nice to have you here.
Congratulations on two shows. -Thank you, Seth.
-You guys, that's Paul Feig.
"Welcome to Flatch" airs Thursdays on Fox,
and "Minx" is streaming on HBO Max.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night," everybody.