I’m so excited for Spinal Tap II, even though I know it’s not a Christopher Guest film, it’s Rob Reiner and sort of the thing that created that. But I want him to return. I want more of those movies. It’s the moment for them.
I feel like there’s so many people who are really famous like Ariana Grande who love those movies and talk about them all the time and could make one really successfully.
Guffman is a formative text for me. It’s like Guffman and Strangers With Candy. There’s a few things that sort of raised me, and Guffman is absolutely one of them. And all of the Christopher Guest films, but that was the one that really, you know, at sleepovers at 14, I was like, ‘This is the funniest thing that’s ever existed in the world.’
3. What discontinued food or beverage would you like to see brought back?
Oh, I know this one down. So, I have lived in Williamsburg for 16 years, and weirdly I’ve only lived off the same subway stop. There’s one stop on the L I’ve lived on as long as I’ve lived in New York. I keep moving three blocks. North Williamsburg. I love it. For 11 years, there was a pie shop called The Blue Stove. And when I say their apple pie was the greatest bite of anything I’ve ever had in my life. They closed down after COVID and I miss it every day. So, I would bring back Blue Stove’s apple pie.
Did they make other stuff too?
They made incredible pies and pastries and stuff. Honestly, everything there was good but their apple pie I dream about.
I wish I had tried it.
I think the woman who runs it, who I knew, moved upstate and probably is living a better life. And probably still makes her pies sometimes for the market. But I need it just on my block again. It was called Blue Stove because she had her grandmother’s old blue stove there as a centerpiece. She wasn’t cooking with it, but it was like this antique stove. And I moved around the block from it and obviously I would go there and get the pie all the time but I’d also go there as like a coffee shop to work in. Because you would just be in a room that smelled like pie. Even if you weren’t having pie, just like smelling pie for an afternoon… there’s no better point of being alive than to just sip on a coffee and write on your little laptop and to smell apple pie. Jesus Christ! What is better than that!
4. Who was your first pop culture crush?
JS: In an era where I was not definitely not out and I think also not totally honest with myself that I was gay… it was Shia Labeouf in what was it, Even Stevens on Disney Channel? When I was… Wait, how old is Shia LaBeouf? Let me look that up. [googles] Oh yeah, we’re the same age. When I was his age, watching him on TV, I was like, I have such a crush on Shia LaBeouf in Even Stevens.
5. What would you consider your biggest pop culture blindspot?
Marvel movies. I’ve seen Black Panther and Shang-Chi, of course, I’m not a monster. But I haven’t seen a single minute of Marvel’s other… 37 films. It was shocking to Google just now and learn the number was that high. I can’t even say I’m anti. I’m more just [shrugs].
6. When were you the most starstruck and by whom?
JS: I’m going to give you a good answer. I’ve met a fair number of celebrities and become friends with some, mostly through my more famous friends. In general I don’t get starstruck because I think it’s important to treat everyone as humans, be they high on the social status or low. But the other day I was at a Barry’s Bootcamp class and I swore to God that in front of me was Orna from Couples Therapy. It turns out I was incorrect. It was just a woman who looked like Orna, but thinking I saw Orna gagged me in a way that— I think part of it was the context. Seeing Orna in a Barry’s Bootcamp class is jarring. Or thinking so. But that really got me in a way where I went, ‘Wow, I guess if I do see Orna in the wild, it’s gonna stop me in my tracks.’ So I’m gonna say the day that I inevitably run into Orna will be that.
That sounds like something that would happen on Broad City.
Legend. Orna. Legend.
7. What piece of advice that you received coming up in the industry would you say is no longer applicable to new artists?
I had so many managers telling me to start a Twitter and I never did it. And now I think time has proven me correct. I mean, I know there was a heyday where people were getting jobs off of it, but good god, now that it’s like a neo-Nazi pedophile hellscape, you know what I mean? I’m glad I never had a Twitter.
I had to get off—it felt so bad after the inauguration specifically.
It’s just not how my comedic brain works. Pithy little one-liners and quick culture takes? It’s just not really how I do my thing.
Are you big on Instagram or any of the others?
I’m begrudgingly on Instagram. That’s the only one I’m on. And I would love to be a person who’s off, but I’m not. And I tell myself it’s for work related reasons and that’s somewhat true but I’m sure it’s for phone addiction reasons as well in equal measure. So that’s the one I’m on, and I do hate it while also being there.
Are you a poster or just a lurker?
I’m a poster. And that even feels better than being lurking. Like I would love to never be on there unless I’m doing a post. I try to get in and out as quickly as I can. I get out there and quickly, with typos, go ‘Tickets for this thing are on sale and here’s a picture bye!’ Know what I mean?
8. Who’s someone new in your field that everyone should be paying attention to?
I’m just going to give a couple of names that come to mind. I know that I’m forgetting so many of my daughters and my icons. I love Jo Sunday, I think Charlie Flynn‘s really funny. I love this little sketch group called Honey, Drop It. I’m gonna send love to those people.
Are they all comedians?
They’re all comedians. They’re all young comedians. So many young comedians I love. I want put in print that everyone I haven’t named right now, I love equally to the ones I’ve named. This is just under the gun, what the synapses in my faulty brain served to me in this moment.
9. What is your biggest travel pet peeve?
This happens often at the airport, but anywhere where people don’t understand the thermodynamics of how lines work. Which is that you don’t plant yourself and wait to be called and the line gets further and further away from the thing you’re going to. You all step up in motion. When that sort of thing happens, where it’s clear some person has sort of decided to not keep stepping and now there’s like a 14-foot gap between what is now the emerging front of the line and the point of service. I hate that.
I saw some discourse about this recently, where people were defending this woman who was standing still–
Under what auspices?
They were kind of just like, she’s not actually doing anything wrong even though she’s upsetting the social mores.
But you know, in these crowded spaces, it creates like these physical cluster fucks that are all rooted in one single person. I agree, she may not be doing anything wrong, but she’s created a problem for everyone else. And it’s an easy solve. It’s in defiance of everything you know about how lines work.
10. Who was the last person that you FaceTimed?
We’re going to look that up and see. Oh, my dad. I FaceTimed him yesterday. You know, my dad loves to do family facetimes. So, I would say like once or twice a week, me and my brothers and my dad, we’re getting on. We’re all gabbing. We’re looking at each other’s faces. We’re cracking jokes.
Are you all in different places?
Mmm, yes. One is in the same city as me, one is in LA but moving to North Carolina, and one is in another part of North Carolina. So there’s sort of some slight convergences happening, but, yeah.
11. What is your earliest memory?
I have this memory, which is one of those where I don’t know if this is a memory or like a memory of a photograph, you know what I mean? But I have this memory of being a toddler or being in a stroller at Disney World and hearing a barbershop quartet. And I can picture how they’re in their little like, whatever they’re called, pillbox hats, and the red and white stripes. I have this vivid memory of, like, being wrapped with a barbershop quartet. That I think is a memory but can’t tell if it’s a like a picture or video I’ve seen of me as a baby doing that that’s been supplanted. I’ve never found this picture or video since then, but yes, that’s my earliest memory.
I believe that that happened.
In a very young way, probably like one years old, pre-memory, but one of those rare ones that I guess got through.
From Glenn Howerton: How we should handle the emergence of AI as actors and writers? How do we deal with the possibility of our likeness being used? Is it incumbent upon us for the artists who are coming up?
Glenn Howerton. Good God. Thank you for the question, Glenn. We should be paid for this. I mean in general, I’m anti-AI. I don’t even like it in a cute way. Not just because of its dangerous role in our future, I also think it’s actively bad right now. Recently, a publication in an interview for this, got several biographical details wrong about me. Blatantly wrong. And then I was talking to a friend about this, and he goes, ‘Oh my god, recently a publication did that for me and it was so dramatically wrong that I was like, dude, all of this is wrong. And they’re like ‘Oh, that gets me for using ChatGPT to write your bio.’
It’s become one of those things where because it’s the computer, you assume it’s right. It’s actually still so bad and wrong. So I don’t even like it in a cute way. I’m just like, I don’t want to be on my phone, period, much less talking to this AI. I don’t really have a concrete answer for what we should do to fight against it. You know, I strongly support our unions in their fights for that. But mostly, I just don’t even engage with it in a cute way. Not to be full philistine, I’m shaking my fist at the steam engine. I’m also just like, it’s bad. It’s still not even worth using to me.
Using it to write an artist’s bio is really crazy because you can just ask the person.
Ask their goddamn manager who has it on file for sure, my guy! Or, ask the person. Or just do like the smallest amount of research, which I thought to be your job. I’m just sort of anti, in a spiritual, philosophical, what-world-do-you-want-to-live-in way. And I understand that it’s this emerging tool that is a part of our culture and I’m using it without even wanting to because it’s immersed. But certainly in my personal life, in the same way that I’m trying to be better about being on my phone less, this dystopic device run by evil tech bureaucrats that we’ve all willfully addicted ourselves to in a way that now defies social norms and logic. I’m trying to be more conscious about things like that. It’s a thing that’s not fun or cute to me. I’m not about that life really. Maybe I’ll change my mind in 18 months when AI can get a fucking bio right. Right now, it’s like a calculator that only works half the time. Why the fuck do you want to use that calculator?
Without knowing who the next person we speak to is, what would you like to ask them?
Last night at an Italian restaurant, I had a dessert that was just sort of like sweet strawberries and cream. And when I ate it, I was like, “Goddamn, this is why we’re alive.” Like, nothing’s better than this. What is a small simple pleasure that you’ve had recently that made you go, “Well, damn. This is why we’re alive, right? For this? Isn’t this wonderful?”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
