-Welcome back. -Thank you very much.
Thank you for having me again. -We're so, so happy to have you
back in New York City. -Yeah.
-So thrilled.
-That's very nice of you. Thank you very much.
-And you -- This is nice to have you here.
You're obviously working. That's why you're in New York.
But you get to do Thanksgiving in New York.
-Yes. Yeah, yeah.
My girlfriend and I are hosting for the first time.
-Is that something you've done before? No, first time.
-No, I've never done that before.
So, yeah, I thought I'm just gonna make myself --
you know, I can't cook.
So I'm gonna just make myself as useful as humanly possible.
I thought I was gonna be doing some maybe chopping of things.
I found out yesterday I'm not gonna be trusted with chopping.
-Wow.
-That's probably a good decision.
-'Cause chopping is the lowest as far as --
-No, no, no. Stirring is the lowest.
-Stirring is -- You're right. Stirring is lower.
-Stirring is lower.
-So are they gonna have you doing a little stirring?
-I'm gonna be stirring.
I'm gonna be maybe crushing things.
-Oh, that's good. -If that's required, yeah.
-And how many people are you hosting?
-Nine. -Okay.
-Some families will laugh at that paltry amount of people.
But for me, that's more people
then I've, you know, had in one group.
Outside of this kind of room in a long time.
-Turkey though?
-Yup. -Okay.
-Turkey and then a bunch of sides.
And, yes, we've got a vegetarian.
So we sorted them out. They've got an option.
I've got a friend who's allergic to nuts.
They're sorted.
So, yeah, I've really just -- it's been a week of finding out
everybody's dietary restrictions.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, that is the new problem in this day and age.
-Yes. -Raises the level of difficulty.
-Will you watch -- we've talked before.
-Football. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-You became a football fan, an American football fan.
Will you be watching?
-Absolutely, yeah. -Okay.
-That's -- that will be the, sort of, soundtrack of the day.
And my girlfriend's from Michigan.
So we'll be -- there's always a Lions game on Thanksgiving.
-Oh, that's good.
-With the misery or joy that that entails.
-Yeah, more often than not, misery, yeah.
-It has been. -Yeah.
-But, you know, it's -- I feel like there's a certain --
heartbreak is part of being a Giants fan.
-Oh, okay.
-In a way that is sort of about a lot --
you know, being an English football fan is also --
sort of in some way --
well, growing up was, you know, mixed in
with a lot of heartbreak and missed penalties.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-And was the World Cup exciting for you?
I know in the end it ended in tears.
-No, but that's the furthest they've gone in my lifetime.
That was amazing. [ Laughter ]
Don't laugh at that.
Just 'cause you're America and you win stuff all the time.
[ Laughter ]
I remember the first time I -- We were in Germany.
The date that everyone in England grows up knowing is 1966
is the year England won the World Cup.
And that's engrained in all of us.
And I remember the first time I went to Germany
and realized no one there has any idea
that's what happened that year or in any other country.
It's not famous. It's just that we really hang on to that.
I was like, "Oh, no, you've won it so many times,
you don't hang on to the one year
that you won it 50 years ago."
-Yeah. But it gets sadder with every year that passes
'cause the thing that you're proud of gets a year older.
-Further and further away, yeah.
But I was in Germany this year for the World Cup,
which was great, 'cause, you know,
they got knocked out kind of early
and we did really well. -There you go.
-For once. -There you go.
That's something to hang your hat on.
So, this show, this is a play where you play a fact checker.
-Yes.
-And you're dealing with a reporter who maybe
doesn't have the same love of facts that your character does.
-I should say he's not so much a reporter as he's an author.
He's written, kind of, an essay.
And he deals in, sort of -- it's --
it is about fact checking, but it's --
the thing that you can't --
we're not a particularly political play
where you can't say the word "fact" at the moment
without it kind of becoming a political statement.
And this is -- and that is obviously --
we're very topical in that way.
But we're not dealing with Trump and that stuff and fake news.
We don't, kind of, get into all that.
But it's more about, kind of, a debate about artistic license
and how far you can push something as a writer.
But it -- all that other stuff is encompassed as well.
And it's 85 minutes long and really funny.
So, yeah, that's me selling it to you.
-That's a good sell. [ Cheers and applause ]
You went --
You actually went and worked a job as a fact checker
at "New Yorker" -- at "The New Yorker."
-Yeah, they let me -- they very, very kindly --
"The New Yorker" invited me to spend a day with their --
or a few hours with their fact-checking department.
And they were -- who were all amazing
and just these super bright, young people who, you know,
I'm very grateful for existing.
And we -- yeah, and they -- I didn't really take it in
when they said "Oh, you're gonna come
and we'll make you fact-check an article."
I was like, "Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll come and see stuff.
What's going on?"
And then I went and they were like,
"No, you're gonna get on the phone to somebody
and actually fact-check this restaurant review."
And I suddenly -- I did.
I got way more nervous about that than I do
about doing the play every night or anything.
Just because suddenly you're on the phone
with somebody who expects --
He knows he's getting a call from "The New Yorker."
He doesn't know it's an actor
playing around at being a fact checker.
-Right. [ Laughter ]
-He's expecting a level of professionalism
that I didn't know if I had in me. So, yeah.
-How do you fact-check a restaurant review?
Do you call up and say, "Was the soup cold?"
-Yeah. -You do?
-You literally -- you track every --
That's when I started underlining the article,
which is what you do when you start checking something,
and underline everything you think is a fact.
I was like, "Oh, every -- every ingredient counts as a fact."
So I guess I got to ask him about,
"Do you put all these things in?"
And it was -- you know, my -- my big moment was finding out
that something was not, in fact, seasoned with Old Bay.
It was seasoned with adobe and chili.
-Wow! -Yeah.
And that was -- that was -- and but, you know --
you don't know how much satisfaction I got from then
seeing that restaurant review with the correct information.
-Yeah.
-Knowing that I had been a part of that.
-That is thri--
I mean, that's a fact checker's dream is to catch one.
-Oh, God. -Yeah.
I mean, I would have gotten off the phone.
And even though it doesn't make sense,
I would have screamed, "Stop the presses."
[ Laughter ]
-Quickly! We can't run it like this!
But, yeah, no -- and it was -- it's really like --
I don't know.
There was something really inspirational about going into
"The New Yorker" and seeing how it's all done.
And also, I did almost feel like saying at the end,
"You know, if you've ever got any really low-stakes articles
that you need checking, I'm happy to do that."
The guy I had to call was a very, very nice chef
who made my job very easy.
I wouldn't like to be doing that job if I did have to call,
you know, Sarah Sanders or somebody
who does not want to hear from you.
-Yeah, that's true.
She might not want to hear from anybody, though.
[ Laughter ]
There are certain people that just don't like it
when the phone rings. -Yeah, yeah.
-Yeah. -That's fair enough.
-And a wonderful cast, obviously.
Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale,
which all should be noted.