- Without hopefully giving too much away,
I can promise you that Elizabeth Warren
has a six episode arc.
And she's both the A stories and the B stories.
To be honest, it's like, I thought it was a little much
because we really didn't have that much to do
cause it's just like a lot of Elizabeth Warren
sort of taking down big, under-regulated companies.
But that's the way they wanted to go.
HBO's pretty liberal with swearing and stuff like in content
but Elizabeth Warren, they had to like kinda edit around
cause she has a mouth on her.
She called herself the new Joffrey.
She just kept saying, "I'm the new Joffrey."
We're like, "What does that mean?"
She's like, "I'm gonna take, it's here."
"I'm gonna take it here."
Actually, I'd like to revise what I said earlier.
I think this season's been a fiasco.
Hi, this is Zach Woods and you're watching In Studio
with The Hollywood Reporter.
(upbeat music)
- Hey, Zach Woods.
- Hello.
- Welcome.
- Thank you.
- We just finished watching.
For everyone watching, they just finished episode three
- Right.
- of Silicon Valley.
Jared is going through a lot.
Tell me about episode two.
Let's start with episode two - Right.
- where you kind of snap.
- Yeah.
- What really made him snap?
Was it the break-up with Richard?
Cause you went from this very maternal.
The whole series, - Yeah.
- you are the self-sacrificing maternal character
and then you kind of are like a crazy ex-boyfriend.
(laughs)
Was it the break-up?
Was it what he was saying about Gwart?
What was your take?
- I think it's a hybrid.
I think the way I have thought about the season
when I was acting it, is that basically like,
Jared realizes that he needs Richard too much
and so he has to, it's almost like amputating a limb.
I did a scissors thing but I don't think you do amputations
with scissors, hopefully not.
And so, he has to sort of protect Richard
from his own neediness but that doesn't really work in life.
If you love someone, you can't just sort of
make a decision to stop loving them.
So, I think he needs Richard so badly
and it's so threatening when Richard comes over
because it's like, it is like an ex where you're like
I'm not, you know, you still make my heart flip-flop.
And then, when he start saying mean things about Gwart,
I think his vulnerability converts
to a sort of maternal rage on Gwart's behalf.
And then, it's just an endless torrent of prison slang
and lanky aggression.
You little, little bitch!
- I'm sorry, Jared.
- This is a place of business.
- Oh my God.
- Dope-led, peckerwood motherfucker!
- [Richard] Jared!
- What were some of your inspirations?
What were you sort of, did you?
What were you drawing from, from that?
Did you have influences or inspiration?
- Well, for the freak out? - Yeah yeah
- Well, we were talking a lot about like,
I've always felt that Jared is,
They hint a lot at his various dark pasts
that he's had and he sounds like he was a sex worker
and at least some members of his family were incarcerated.
I feel like he has a lot of experience
with the incarcerated community and so I think he,
the thing I kept thinking about is like prison.
Prison, prison.
Like takes him back to whatever brush
with the penal system he had.
So, a lot of the stuff that we're saying,
well, that Jared's saying in that scene is like
and I'm not sure how much of it made it into the final cut
but it's stuff like,
you wanna dance on the blacktop--
- homie. - homie.
Right.
I'm state-raised.
These are all, I think, prison slang or get checked-in,
which means like enter into protective custody.
It's like the worst thing you can say to somebody
because it means they're either a sex offender or a coward.
So, it's just a lot of prison stuff.
I feel like in his head when Richard insulted Gwart,
he was just like (snapping fingers)
back at San Quentin visiting his grandma at Christmas
and someone stepped to her and he had to defend her.
- Do you remember how much was written on the page?
Cause I know you, obviously, you have a background in improv
and the guys have said, I think in our interview
that we did with you guys last year,
everyone unanimously decided
that you do the most improving of lines.
Do you remember how much from that scene
where you're just screaming, were you improving also?
- I mean, the show, the vast majority of the show
is scripted so I don't wanna be misleading.
They had all these great stuff in the original script
which was like, I'm gonna knock your teeth out,
you bitch-made motherfucker!
Which is a really, has a strange elegance to it.
I'm gonna knock your teeth out, you bitch-made motherfucker.
Like the factory where you were made was a bitch. (laughs)
Anyway, so there were all these great lines
and so I don't remember.
It's sort of was like, once we all got excited about it
then everyone was sort of like pitching different things
and talking about like well, what if you did this?
What if you did that?
I remember Thomas pitched one where,
Jared is just like instead of being upset,
he's just like cold and like a trained killer
who's just like done this a million times.
Yeah, so the vast majority of everything is scripted
but they're very indulgent with us,
in that they'll let us noodle around a lot.
- All right, well whatever happened there
was definitely working. - Thanks.
- Okay and then in episode three, you're kind of also,
Jared also, is just not quite at such a 10
but still very different
from the maternal loving guy that we know.
What were you, when you first read that script,
what were your thoughts also and your inspiration
for how you're gonna play that episode?
- With the sunglasses - Yeah with the sunglasses
- Sort of standoff-ish - Yeah yeah yeah
and then, the tear.
- Well, so for this season, I sort of thought,
that the arc between Jared and Richard
is kind of a I can't quit you.
I'm gonna try and quit you a million different ways.
I'm gonna literally quit the company.
I'm gonna assault you.
I'm gonna wear sunglasses and be aloof.
I'm gonna find somebody else.
And none of it works.
He keeps trying to create distance.
Ultimately, to protect Richard and the company
from his own overwhelming sort of disorienting affection
for them and it doesn't work.
And so, I think that was sort of the over-arching idea.
And then, I always like, I know it's a half-hour comedy
so I don't wanna start talking about it
like it's King Lear or something.
But this is the thing that really made me interested
about Jared's arc this season.
I think one of the difficult parts of loving another person
is subjecting them to your own inadequacies
and your own imperfections and the ways in which you know
you're limited and watching them have to deal
with your mess and your broken parts and all that stuff.
I think that's a very very very difficult thing to do.
And a lot of times when people talk about love stories
it's like, oh, is that a deal breaker?
Is that a deal breaker in the other person?
But I think equally difficult is just being like,
this is the best I got.
It's me, here I am.
Is it enough?
I don't know.
Probably not.
I found it sort of moving in a bizarro world way
that Jared is having to learn how to subject
the people he loves, namely Richard,
to his own imperfections
and to accept that in order to love somebody
you have to be willing to be imperfect next to them
and in response to them.
- Why does he love Richard so much?
(laughs)
Why?
- I think and I just get so insufferable
when we're talking about Jared
cause I would get so earnest talking about him.
I think with Jared,
he was in this sort of gray world,
working at Hooli as Gavin Belson's henchman
and then he saw Richard Hendricks come in with this idea
that he was really passionate about
and not take the big money.
And I think for him that was like, oh, it can be like this?
It's like a whole new world became available.
And I think he imprinted on him like a duckling
on a mother duck in which it's like, this is my guy.
And he represents beyond just the charms of the individual.
He represents a whole type of sort of idealistic
conviction and passion and determination.
And so, I think he loves him for all those reasons.
(laughs)
- And what about, you we're talking about the arc,
are you sort of happy with how,
when you read that last episode, what was that like?
And are you sort of content with where he's land,
where we're going to watch him land, I guess at the end?
- Yeah, you know my mother once did this thing
that I think she didn't even know she was like
it kinda killed me that she didn't even know
she was doing it.
She was like, you know having kids is funny
because first they're here.
And she's sorta gestured to like her womb.
And then she's like, and then they're here.
And then they're there.
And then they're, and she sort of pantomimed like
the physical loss of your child
from having them inside you to having them on your knee
to having them growing up to having them kinda off
in their adult lives.
And I like, I was like, oh fuck mom!
What are doing?
This is so, that's so beautiful and sad.
And I suppose there is a version of that
when you play a character.
Which is like, the first season they're inside you.
You're trying to get them out, however violently.
And then,
and then before you know it, you're saying goodbye to them
and you've loved them in whatever weird way
actors love their characters.
So, you wanna know that when you're reaching the phase
where you're like letting them go and they're going off
into whatever fictional universe they'll continue
to exist in without you,
that they've landed in a good place.
And I was so happy with the finale, not just for Jared
but for all the characters.
I feel like they did a really good job of finding an ending
that felt honest and unsentimental and meaningful
to me at least, as someone who is invested
in the fictional world of the show.
- Do you have a favorite memory?
I don't know if it's a scene that you were filming
or just what are some of your favorite memories
from the series as a whole?
Like when you look back, what's the
- Yeah it's funny. - What's that thing
that you go to? - we we're just talking
about this. - I'm sorry.
- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.
We we're just talking about this.
There's so many. - Yeah.
- Well, one is, somehow we got this idea
that we should get these jackets,
these horrible purple jackets that said Rude Boys on the Lot
and had dice on the back of them
because someone had given us
free electric scooters, weirdly.
And so we were like, we're gonna be a gang.
And we all got these Rude Boys on the Lot jackets
and we got these scooters and we would ride them around
until like some of the security was like,
can you please not do that?
And we would be like, yup, sorry we apologize
like not really living up to our name.
But then, one day we were shooting a scene
and we were at this weird old power plant
and the sun was setting and we had a lot of set up time.
They were setting up the lights.
And we all started riding in formations
around the power plant in our Rude Boys on the Lot jacket
doing these like echelon left, echelon right, form of V.
And I remember just thinking like,
this is the most spectacularly lucky life
that I'm leading in this moment.
It's beautiful and I'm with the people I love
and we're in these dumb jackets on these idiotic scooters
and we're like in formation.
- How do you, I know you've done improv for a long time,
what's your trick to keeping such a straight face?
Because I don't know what.
- Editing. - I never could
- I mean, we laugh but then they cut it out. (laughs)
- Oh, really?
- But no, I guess it's like, you know what it is?
Well, it's two things.
It's like, either you laugh
or the audience laughs kind of, right?
So, if you're, like if someone else in the scene
does something really funny.
You really really really don't wanna mess it up by laughing
because who knows if it'll happen
in that particular way again
and the alchemy of that moment will be lost.
So you wanna just like, one behalf of that moment,
you just don't wanna like, don't.
And also, I think because it's probably
in interviews the liability because I think i can get
maybe slightly so serious but I really care about Jared
and so, when I'm acting the scenes,
I try my best to really invest in the stakes
as Jared would see them.
And then, hopefully after the fact, enjoy it.
But like I try to be like,
I try to sorta treat it like a drama.
Like my favorite comedy,
often dramas are actually funnier to me than comedies
cause it's like just the weird little minutia
of human behavior can be so funny.
And if someone is like asking for a laugh to hard,
if it feels to thirsty, you know?
Then, you can start to feel a little like.
So, I try to just commit to the stakes of it
as hard as I can.
You know, hopefully, that's funny.
There's probably some jokes that I've left on the table
because I was being very grave and somber
about my performance, you know, but.
It makes it easier not to laugh at least.
- All right, well, thank you for that.
So, you've played Jared for six seasons now.
What are you up to next?
Where can we see you?
What are you doing?
- I did another HBO show called Avenue 5
with Armando Iannucci, who gave me my first job.
So, it's back in London.
We shot it in London.
And it's a comedy about space tourism.
And it's with all these great people, Hugh Laurie is in it
and Rebecca Front, who's this incredible British actress
who I've loved for such a long,
it's like a murderers' row of all these incredible actors
who I was so psyched to get to work with.
Then, I did a part in a Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell
did this movie called Downhill, which is an adaptation
of the movie Force Majeure and I did a part in that.
- Is that also a comedy or?
- Yeah.
- Okay cool. - I think so.
I mean we'll see, right?
I think it's like a dark comedy, though.
I don't think it's like.
It was so exciting to get to,
like Will Ferrell is like, of course right?
Everyone feels the way I feel.
I mean, I love him like love him.
I used to watch his SNL Best of DVD
with my family on Christmas Eve.
But what's so cool, do you ever see Stranger than Fiction?
- Yeah!
- He is such an honest, interesting actor.
- He was great in that.
Emma Thompson. - He's so
Yeah, he's incredible.
It's like, the versatility is really bordering on obnoxious.
So to get to see him play a part that was sort of like
and Julia Louis-Dreyfus too, they're both playing
these parts that are like, it's not just comedy.
I think it's really funny - That's what's curious
- but it's like - because they both have
that edge to them - Yeah.
- You know, where they could go.
They're just such good actors - Yes!
- that they could kind of go either way.
- And I think it's gonna be really funny.
Like the script was really funny.
It was by Jesse Armstrong, who wrote Succession
and Peep Show and stuff.
But it's like, but they also are so alive in it.
It's really cool.
- Well, that's great.
I'm really excited to see that.
Thank you for giving us all the gift of Jared Dunn.
- Thank you for giving me like, you know.
- It's great.
You're great in the show and everyone continue
to watch the final season of Silicon Valley, Sundays on HBO.