Good old Robert Downey Jr. is back for a second time, and his career has gone quite well since his last appearance, on episode 5 of Off Camera. It is now our 200^th episode, and Robert is here to remind us that great conversations should be unconventional, surprising, and sometimes just downright weird. Check, check, and check.

Since the last time he was here, Robert’s Iron Man legend has grown exponentially—thanks to the massive success of Marvel’s Avengers franchise and the recent release of the final installment, Avengers: Endgame.  But if we rewind the tape, Robert’s journey on the project, like director Jon Favreau’s, started at a low point. “We were two people who had a film we were passionate about come out on the same weekend and bomb. His was Zathura, and mine was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Their mutual comeuppance led to a creative bond, a big brother relationship. As Robert explains, “If that kind of synergy happens when you’re doing a movie, it’s going to be great. End of story.”

Finding people who encourage and legitimize his creativity has been a theme for Robert, who despite moments of personal turmoil, possesses a deep-seated work ethic. Growing up, he was “Bob Downey’s kid,” the son of a groundbreaking, counterculture filmmaker, whose view of the industry was the following: “Anybody can act. Few can direct, and nobody can write.” Talk about humble beginnings.

Robert joins Off Camera to talk about quitting (not getting fired from) Saturday Night Live after a year, why he thought (and still thinks) he could write a better script than William Goldman, and the great life advice he got from Figueroa Slim in jail.

If Scoot McNairy hadn’t found acting, it’s possible he’d be mowing lawns for a living. Scoot grew up relishing the outdoors of his native Texas, and started his own landscaping company at age 13 to make some spending money. Towards the end of high school, he had some thinking to do about his future. Since he was dyslexic, college seemed out of the question, so one day, his father asked, “What is the one thing that you could do every single day, that would get you up and out of bed, that would make you want to go to work?” Scoot’s answer: being on a movie set.

Aside from being outdoors, Scoot’s other great passion was watching movies. He was fascinated by the magic of it all. And as a kid who loved to take things apart, he wanted to know how everything worked. He decided to move to Los Angeles for film school but got relatively little out of it, and felt like he needed hands-on experience on a movie set. Scoot’s fastest way in was getting work as a background actor, also known as an extra. “I swear I learned more in two weeks as a background actor on The Practice than I did in the entire year I went to film school.”

Background work turned to commercial work which eventually turned to acting in television and film—thanks to an acting teacher who politely kicked him out of class so he’d start auditioning for roles instead of compulsively going to class. Because of his unconventional education, he approaches his job from a unique angle, creating very real and emotional performances in projects like Halt and Catch Fire, True Detective, Narcos, and the upcoming Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Scoot joins Off Camera to talk about the dark place he had to live in to embody his True Detective character, how growing up with a learning disability helped him embrace failure, and why the only time his heart beats at a normal rate is on a motorcycle.

As the child of first-generation Muslim immigrants, Ramy Youssef grew up with a sense of practicality about his future. He was drawn to comedy and performing, but he saw no one who looked like him on TV. Add to that the fact that acting isn’t exactly a pragmatic career path in the first place. “I had parents who gave up everything to move to America, and I’m supposed to call them and say, ‘Hey, can you pay a bunch of money for me to study the Meisner technique?’ I didn’t have the balls to ask that question.”

While in college, Ramy developed his stand-up and sketch comedy skills at UCB in his free time while studying political science and economics. He auditioned for a small role in the Nick at Nite series See Dad Run, and got the part, and decided to drop out of college and move to Los Angeles. That gig lasted for three seasons, and then Ramy got stuck in acting purgatory. According to audition feedback, he wasn’t good looking enough to be the lead; he wasn’t nerdy enough to play the nerd; and he wasn’t “ethnic” enough to play the ethnic guy. That’s when Ramy realized, “You never know where people are going to put you. It’s nice when you get to put yourself where you want to be.”

Ramy took charge of his own destiny. He had writing skills, plenty of personal experience, and a unique cultural point of view. What he came up with was Ramy, his Hulu series based on his experience growing up in New Jersey and coming to terms with his Muslim faith. It’s being hailed as the first American television show to feature a Muslim family, but more importantly, it throws away Muslim caricatures and depicts rich and complex human storylines about family, faith, and cultural differences.

Ramy joins Off Camera to talk about the moment his parents finally acknowledged he had “made it,” how puberty will be forever linked with global terrorism in his mind, and why stand up comedy makes everything else seem easy.

When David Tennant was a child in Scotland, he spent his free time running around the back garden pretending to be characters from the TV shows he loved. In honor of his favorite show, Doctor Who, his grandmother knit him a multi-colored scarf to wear, just like his favorite Doctor, as he let his imagination run wild.

During that time, David realized he wanted to become an actor—he just happened to live in a place devoid of actors. His parents were pushing him towards a more practical, stable career, but David was having none of it. “Becoming an actor was something I was very set on, and it was an idea that grew up alongside me as I began to understand more of what being an actor was. I never wavered from it.” At 17, David got into drama school, and the world opened up for him as he met like-minded people. His dream slowly became a reality.

Between his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, his work in shows like Broadchurch, and most recently, Good Omens, David has amassed a large body of work on stage and on screen. Of course, his biggest claim to fame in the U.K. was his role as the tenth iteration of the Doctor in Doctor Who. If fate didn’t get him that role, then perhaps it’s because he’d been preparing for it his entire life.

David joins Off Camera to talk about the self-critic that always seeks to undermine him, why losing your anonymity feels a bit like being flayed, and the retirement speech he prepares as a backup in case he forgets his lines on stage.

When Sienna Miller got her first big acting job on the short-lived FOX television show Keen Eddie, she had no grand plans for her career. Surrounded by a bustling crew and a shiny, big-budget production, she was simply happy to be there, and as a 19-year-old with zero drama school experience, she had no idea about the competitive side of the industry, which instilled in her a naïve confidence in auditions that led to early success.

Although Keen Eddie was abruptly cancelled, Sienna’s film career was taking off. Within the span of a few years, she made her mark in films like Layer Cake, Alfie, and Factory Girl. Of course, she learned relatively quickly that success and fame in her profession meant the loss of her cherished private life, and in the eyes of the prying, often aggressive paparazzi, she was perfect tabloid fodder. “When I was at work, I was completely immersed and serious, but I just didn’t understand why I couldn’t be very serious at work and very frivolous outside of it.”

Despite her challenges with the media, Sienna’s love for her work never wavered. In recent years, she’s taken on new, exciting acting challenges. Despite being initially terrified by the immensity of the role, she turns in a heart-wrenching, tour de force performance in Jake Scott’s new film American Woman.

Sienna joins Off Camera to talk about the self-torture inherent in the profession, getting bribed with a pony and a rabbit to go to boarding school, and what it was like to spend an hour in the shoes of Tippi Hedren, getting pelted with flying birds.

It’s been four years since Olivia Wilde last visited Off Camera, and a lot has changed—she’s had another child, taken a step back from acting, and embarked on a completely different career path as a director. “I almost feel like someone who’s come out of the closet. There’s this feeling of honesty about what I really want to do, and it’s a level of comfort that comes from being true to yourself that I haven’t felt in a long time.” Booksmart, her first feature film, offers a unique perspective on friendship and identity during one of the most tumultuous times in life: the high school years.

Being an actress for so many years allowed Olivia to see behind the curtain into the directing process, whether it was Martin Scorsese on set of Vinyl, Ron Howard on the set of Rush, or Reed Morano on Meadowland. But learning what not to do from her less positive experiences was equally important. “Knowing that my actors were walking onto a set that was the exact environment that I would want for myself felt really great. I used all my bad experiences for something good.” A perfect example of that was shooting a sex scene on a truly closed set on Booksmart.

At times, acting in TV and film was an isolating experience for Olivia, who would often be brought in to shoot a scene and then promptly whisked away to her trailer. She felt more like a caged circus animal than a creative human being, and she longed for a more collaborative environment.

Olivia joins Off Camera to talk about the importance of zooming out on your life every once in a while, why cell phones are the enemy of storytelling (and our souls), and how Converse high tops can double as chastity belts.

Fred Armisen is known as one of the funniest and most memorable Saturday Night Live cast members, but surprisingly, a career in comedy wasn’t something he originally envisioned. As a kid, he was obsessed with becoming a musician. Punk—his first love—was perfectly suited to his self-described “weirdo” sensibility. He and his band Trenchmouth had some success, but it paled in comparison to the record deals and acclaim his peers were getting. “The hardest part about watching all the bands around us get famous was that I wasn’t able to enjoy music anymore because I was so jealous.”

Fred wasn’t lighting the world on fire with his drumming, but he knew he had a gift for making people laugh with impressions—a valuable skill for entertaining band mates on long concert tours. Fred started wondering if he was supposed to be on a different path. “I worried for a moment that I was too late for this career, but the rewards were so huge that I made up for lost time. Within a few years, I was on Saturday Night Live. I went through the side door entrance, and even I wasn’t a traditional comedian, I had impressions and characters.”

That side door proved to be the right one. Fred spent 11 years on SNL, developed and starred in Portlandia with Carrie Brownstein, did Documentary Now! with Bill Hader and Forever with Maya Rudolph, both fellow SNL alumni, and he’s at it again with Los Espookys, an upcoming Spanish-language show on HBO about goths, entrepreneurship, and chocolate. He’s keeping it weird, and that’s just how he likes it.

Fred joins Off Camera to talk about finding a lifesaver and pen pal in director John Waters, why The Clash informs just about everything in his life, and the time he got sent to the school psychologist just because he wanted to burn down Main Street.

Acting wasn’t really on the radar of young Ian McShane, who grew up in Manchester, England in the 1950s. Even though his father was a professional footballer for Manchester United, Ian had a normal, working class upbringing. He liked to play sports with his friends, but when a broken leg sidelined him from the field, his geography/drama teacher asked Ian to audition for the play. “I walked on the stage, and suddenly, I thought, ‘I know what I’m doing.’” After nailing the ambitious part of Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac, Ian and his teacher convinced his parents to send him to acting school at the Royal Academy…and the rest is history.

In his nearly 50-year career, Ian’s developed a penchant for playing the rogue. The dye was cast early on. His first role ever was in The Wild and the Willing as a trouble-making college student who has an affair with his professor’s wife. The trend continued as he got older and grew into a natural gravitas. Take his performances in projects like Sexy Beast, Jesus of Nazareth, and American Gods.

Of all the rogues he’s played, Ian’s best known as brothel owner and entrepreneur Al Swearengen in HBO’s Deadwood, which was cancelled abruptly after three seasons despite lots of critical acclaim. The show marks a seminal moment in Ian’s career: “Very few things live up to the experience on that show in terms of the quality of writing and the quality of people that you’re working with. You get spoiled.” Luckily for him and fans of the show, Ian will don Al’s signature pinstripe suit once again—Al Swearengen and Co. are returning to HBO with a two-hour Deadwood movie.

Ian joins Off Camera to talk about his emotional return to the Deadwood set, his transformation post-sobriety, and the good old days in acting school, getting pissed with John Hurt.

Andrew Bird grew up no stranger to music, and he started playing the violin was he was four, using the Suzuki method. But Andrew argues he wasn’t “prodigy material.” Yes, he was naturally musical, but classical training requires strict adherence to rules and technique, and that just wasn’t his thing. “I always had this rebellious response to my teachers. I was trying to bust out of it before I had the basics. They would say, “Just learn what we’re trying to teach you, and then you can do that other stuff.” Of course, my response was, ‘But when?’”

It took a bit of time, but in his late teens, Andrew finally discovered a scene that piqued his interest. “When I came out of music school, I started going to the club Lounge Ax in Chicago, and I was perplexed by this thing called indie rock. The guitars were spitefully out of tune, and the singing was a little waif-ish, but I was fascinated by it.” The DIY nature of the genre was even more appealing—he didn’t need to wait for permission or for someone to say, “Okay, now you have earned a place in the orchestra.”

Once Andrew took the reins, he made a name for himself with his unique melodies and unconventional way of playing the violin. Over the years, he’s released music at a prolific pace—15 albums in the past 13 years. My Finest Work Yet is his latest, filled with infectious melodies, cinematic themes, probing lyrics, and his signature whistle. It’s clear that a large part of his success comes from his self proclaimed pride in “being the weirdo.” No wonder he’d love to call his early music teachers and say, “Hey, look! I’m breaking all the rules, and people are loving it.”

Andrew joins Off Camera to talk about the madness that drives his songwriting process, why he hates headphones, and why he whistles when he works, constantly.

Growing up on a little island off the coast of Massachusetts didn’t afford Jason Mantzoukas, an aspiring performer, much room to interact with the outside world, but it was a good place for Jason to hone his comedic skills. “I was a little Greek kid in a very WASP-y town. I very much felt like ‘the other’ and was subjected to lots of name calling and threats, but that’s where I came into being as a funny person—I diffused situations by making people laugh, and I never got into fights.”

Jason’s world started to expand when he got bussed to a regional high school. That’s where his talent and passion for performing really took shape—he wrote and performed in sketch shows, played in bands, and did comedy bits for his class.

After college, Jason received the Watson Fellowship to explore abroad. He was greeted by fear and loneliness the moment he landed, but working through that experience was essential to his growth. It’s why he got involved with improv and the Upright Citizens Brigade; it’s how he persevered through the rejection during his early acting career; and it’s why he writes, co-hosts a podcast, and has so much acting work on television and in film (The League, The Good Place, The Long Dumb Road, and John Wick 3 to name a few).

Jason joins Off Camera to talk about his nervous breakdown in Morocco, why he’ll never stop doing improv, and why playing a maniac in The League made him a target for drunk bros everywhere.

All it took for Canadian-born actress Sarah Goldberg to realize she wanted to become an actor was a preschool production of The Owl and the Pussycat. And as she got older, the joy of acting in plays only intensified: “I discovered that being on stage is this point in time where everything goes quiet, and you’re completely free.” With that passion for the craft driving her, Sarah headed off for London to hit the boards as soon as she could leave home.

After graduating from the London Academy of Music and Drama, Sarah found immediate success, booking a part in a play at the Young Vic Theatre, but it was the insecurity during the down time between jobs that she had the hardest time adjusting to. “Acting is a glorious job when you’re working. The job itself is a joy. We’re adult humans who dress up and play make-believe for money. But all the stuff around the job is really tough, like being unemployed for long stretches and being exposed in certain ways.”

Sarah moved to New York, leaving the relative security of London’s West End for a shot at a film and television career. Instead she found herself doing any job she could to stay afloat and pay her rent, including video game voiceover work and Best Buy employee training videos. One particularly tough lull between jobs in 2016 was the straw that nearly broke the camel’s back. Sarah, very much unemployed, was sitting in her bathrobe at 3PM considering her career options when she got the call that would change her life. She was cast opposite Bill Hader in HBO’s Barry, the critically acclaimed, Emmy award winning series. And with Barry now getting picked up for a third season, Sarah not only gets another year of stability on a successful television show, she also gets to bask in the joy of playing a real, complex woman.

Sarah joins Off Camera to talk about her most embarrassing audition story, about the Julianne Moore advice that completely altered the way she regards her job, and why being number two on the call sheet can be a good or bad thing.

For years, Weird Al Yankovic was dismissed as a novelty musician—here today, gone tomorrow—but it’s been 40 years, and his weird and wonderful career shows no signs of slowing down. “People often think that if something is funny, it has lesser value and doesn’t deserve respect. Obviously, not me. I embrace it, and I encourage the people I work with to let their freak flag fly.”

Al developed his “freak flag” pretty early on. “I was always a little outside the norm. Even in elementary school when everyone was playing together at recess, I would act out some TV show in my mind. I must have looked like a crazy kid, off by myself doing all these characters. It didn’t make me very popular.” An only child, Al did not make friends easily and had a hard time finding his crowd—a situation which was exacerbated by being two years younger than his classmates. But he was so smart and, well, nerdy, he skipped a few grades.

Al found solace by listening to the radio, particularly Southern California DJ Dr. Demento, who brought unique, funny novelty music to the masses every Sunday night. Al already had a unique talent—he played the accordion. So, he tried his hand at making his own musical parodies, and one of them, a parody of The Knack’s “My Sharona” called “My Bologna,” made it onto Dr. Demento’s radio show and quickly became the number one song on the program.

With wind in his sails, Al moved to Los Angeles to see if he could make it as a comedic musician, and the rest is history. After 40 years of success, he’s outlasted many of the artists that he’s parodied over the years, and as each new generation of twelve-year-olds rediscover Weird Al, his legend grows. “I’m kind of a novelty dinosaur at this point, but maybe society can only handle one Weird Al at a time.”

Al joins Off Camera to talk about why MTV was such a catalyst for his career, how he once gave Madonna a business lesson, why parents of only children should not be given binoculars, and just how white and nerdy he really is.

Believe it or not, the origin of Seth Rogen’s incredible acting, writing, and producing career traces all the way back to Bar Mitzvah class in Vancouver. That’s where twelve-year-old Seth met Evan Goldberg, a fellow movie enthusiast who loved writing just as much as Seth did. A creative partnership between the two began instantaneously, and they started writing what would become Superbad, inspired by their own high school escapades, by the time they were thirteen. “We always wondered if our very specific high school experience would be relatable to other people, because we were just writing what happened to us as Jewish Canadian boys in Vancouver. It seemed pretty niche.” Of course, it became one of the most successful movies about high school of all time.

As his writing career post-Superbad took off, so did his acting career. Within the span of a few years, he became the face of American comedy, working on hit films like The Pineapple Express, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Knocked Up. In fact, he had so much success over that span of time, he just assumed that was how the business worked: “I didn’t appreciate how miraculous that streak was. At the time, I was like, ‘Oh, great. You make a movie. It turns out great. Everyone loves it, and you make tons of money. Perfect.’”

Eventually, he learned that wasn’t always the case—and as the movie budgets got bigger, so did the stakes, with more creative pressure and input from studio executives. It took one bad experience as a studio’s most expensive movie for Seth to realize that it was more important for Evan and him to maintain their artistic freedom than make the highest profile movie. To this day, he holds onto that philosophy and it’s why he still loves making movies, including his newest film Long Shot, a political romantic comedy starring Charlize Theron and himself. “When Evan and I make a movie like Long Shot, and we’re able to sit in a theater and watch the audience laugh at and feel what we hoped—it’s really gratifying. It means they’re invested in the same things we are.”

Seth joins Off Camera to talk about why moving to Los Angeles for a role in Freaks and Geeks was his version of going off to college, how he and Evan turn an idea into a full-fledged movie, and why saying no to a role on a CW sitcom early in his career wasn’t a hard choice at all.

For over 20 years, Busy Philipps has been navigating the highs and lows of a being an actress in Hollywood. With unrivaled determination and a strong belief in herself, Busy left her home in Arizona at 18 years old for Los Angeles to pursue acting and briefly, college. Her dream came true sophomore year, when she was cast in the cult TV show Freaks & Geeks, and since that time, Busy’s been a staple of American television, with roles in popular shows like Dawson’s Creek, Cougar Town, and Vice Principals.

Despite her success, Busy hasn’t been immune to the uglier elements of being a woman in Hollywood. She’s dealt with body shaming, inequality, and harassment by male colleagues while also fighting the insecurity that comes with the job. But overcoming challenges is in Busy’s DNA: “I only do things the hard way. It’s the only interesting way to do anything, and it’s a part of my personality.”

In response to her traumatic experiences and as someone who has “wanted to be seen” ever since childhood, Busy chose to write a memoir, titled This Will Only Hurt A Little, to give herself a voice and to memorialize her story. Between the book’s success and the large social media following she garnered by posting snippets of her daily life, Busy had an epiphany: “Maybe I need to lean into the thing that people are responding to and saying is really interesting.” That led to the creation of Busy’s late night talk show Busy Tonight, currently airing on E!. She’s spent her entire career in the shoes of different characters, now, she gets to be herself.

Busy joins Off Camera to talk about the double standard that exists for female actors, losing a job she knew was hers because the television network deemed her overweight, and the first gig she ever booked…as a life-size Barbie.

When David Harbour was growing up in the suburbs of Westchester County, he was an outcast. A self-described nerdy and intense weirdo who preferred to march to the beat of his own drum over assimilating with the popular crowd, David explains, “I basically felt like an alien growing up.” But his isolation from the group and things like team sports led him to pursue more solitary, artistic, and creative endeavors, and along the way, he discovered acting.

On stage, David’s socially off-putting intensity was an asset, and it allowed him to explore all of the dark and complex emotions he was feeling at the time within the structure of a story. By the time he was 19 and cast as Hamlet in a regional theater production, David had hit his stride. “I played Hamlet, and I don’t think I’ve ever been better. I was so fired up and alive, so engaged with the world. Hamlet was just me. All the things he was feeling were all the things I was feeling.” As a naturally gifted actor who simply loved the craft, David made the choice to pursue acting as a career, and it was a no brainer.

Over the years, David has amassed a large body of work in things like The Newsroom, Revolutionary Road, Pan Am, the upcoming Hellboy remake, and much more, but his role as Jim Hopper in the beloved Netflix series Stranger Things has really blown up his career over the past couple of years. In large part, David’s success as Hopper is a result of the humanity he brings to his character, an internally broken leading man that we’re all rooting for. David, now in his 40s, has come to leading roles late, but with all of that life and career experience, he’s bringing much needed nuance to our idea of what it means to be a hero: “One of the traps actors fall into with leading roles is that they think they need to present a strength, but I think most people really want to identify with someone who goes through the same vicissitudes of life and brokenness that we all do.”

David joins Off Camera to talk about how a group of industry rejects turned Stranger Things into a massively popular phenomenon, how he dealt with the inner monsters that nearly cost him his life, and why he really doesn’t like his face.

When Joey King went to the premiere of her upcoming Hulu show The Act, she didn’t anticipate watching the entire thing through her fingers, but the role was so personally and professionally momentous that she couldn’t bear to watch herself with clear, open eyes. “I was sitting in a room full of people that I knew, but I was sweating the entire time. I was so nervous—I’d never felt so vulnerable about a performance before.” The show, based on a real-life story of Gypsy Rose (played by Joey) and Dee Dee Blanchard (played by Patricia Arquette), explores the dark and disturbing dynamic between a teenage girl who wants to live a normal life and a needy, over-bearing mother who suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and intentionally makes her daughter ill.

Although Joey’s been acting since she was four, she rose to global fame nearly overnight after the release of the unexpected Netflix hit The Kissing Booth, a feel good teenage romantic comedy. Prior to The Act, playing a typical teenager who navigates friendships and relationships in the gauntlet that is high school had been commonplace for Joey but she was dying to try something different, to lose herself completely in a character. “As an actor, we dream of doing things that take us out of our comfort zone that we never thought we’d get the opportunity to do—wear fake teeth, shave my head, sit in a wheelchair, and study someone else’s movements. As an actor, it feels so good to do something like that.”

Joey joins Off Camera to talk about why getting fired from her first pilot was a blessing in disguise, where she got her gift for tapping into emotions on command, and how she uses her social media platform (and her nearly 9 million followers) for the good of humanity and for changing chicken corsage protocol at KFC.

Brit Marling has created one of the most original, mind-bending, and creative shows on television with Netflix’s The OA; an exploration of near death experiences, inter-dimensional travel, modern dance, and much, much more. But the thing the sticks with you, and the thing that underlies all of the sci-fi excitement, is a very human yearning for connection and community. Between The OA and her films Another Earth and Sound of My Voice, Brit’s talent for tapping into her childhood imagination to create unique stories is undeniable.

In a case of life almost imitating art, Brit nearly took a radically different career path. The parent-pleasing, Georgetown valedictorian graduated with a degree in economics that landed her at banking behemoth Goldman Sachs. She spent a year crunching numbers and cans of Red Bull before she realized that she was terribly depressed. “I couldn’t understand why all of these bright, excited young people found themselves here. No one was asking us to reinvent anything. It was just, ‘Here’s the model. Plug the numbers into the model.’ I had a moment there where I was like, ‘I’m going to die—is this what I want to do day-to-day?’”

Luckily, Brit got a taste of a more fulfilling and creative career when her two college friends, both aspiring filmmakers, came to NYC with an invitation to make a short film for a 48-hour film festival. The thrill of the experience forced Brit to recognize, “Either I can have this career with safe, predictable outcomes, or I can work my butt off doing something I love. Yes, it’s dangerous, and yes, I may be broke all the time, but I’ll be happy.” Goldman Sachs was left in the dust.

Brit joins Off Camera to talk about how wading through the acting swamp led her to screenwriting, why collaboration is the key to her success, and why death needs a redesign.

If you look at Lauren Cohan’s acting career, it’s clear she has a knack for playing strong and feisty women. She’s played a zombie killing badass in The Walking Dead, a secret agent in Peter Berg’s thriller Mile 22, and now, she’s chasing down international baddies in the action-packed ABC series Whiskey Cavalier. Rolling on the ground, shooting guns, and doing stunts can be exhausting work, but for Lauren it’s the opposite. “I naturally gravitate towards action. As soon as I started doing it, I felt exhilarated. I have an excess of adrenaline, so it’s good for me to have a physical element to acting.”

Lauren’s career path wasn’t always so certain. She spent years slogging through auditions where the only requirement was to be a “beautiful woman.” She longed for the opportunity to do more, and that’s when Walking Dead came along. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be an actor and get work because people want to see you onscreen, but when I got the role of Maggie, I was so relieved that it was a stripped down character study. I finally felt free.”

Exploring the vast depth of human emotion is what ultimately drives her, even when she encounters moments or scenes that scare her. “I keep going back to this idea of embracing the challenge. It’s like, ‘That sounds painful and difficult…let me try it.’”

Lauren joins Off Camera to talk about the Walking Dead scene that terrified her so much that she almost quit, why there’s no point in being an actor if you aren’t willing to be vulnerable and uncomfortable, and why finding your inner lion is all part of a day’s work.

Before Ray Romano graced our television sets with Everybody Loves Raymond, he was a hustling stand-up comedian, hoping to break into television like his peers Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, and Rosanne. He followed all the proper steps—performing on late night television, selling out road gigs, and getting featured in HBO comedy specials—but radio silence was all he got from the powers that be. After eleven years as a full-time stand-up, Ray realized, “Maybe this acting thing just isn’t meant to be.” But that’s exactly when he got offered the development deal that would turn into the hit show Everybody Loves Raymond, and make Ray not only the highest paid actor in sitcom history, but one of the most recognized people in the world.

Despite all of his success and fame, Ray dealt with an unexpected identity crisis when Raymond ended. “It took about three months until the void smacked me in the head. It was this sense of, ‘What now? Where’s my passion? Where’s my direction? What am I throwing all my energy into now?’ I had this non-stop creative energy for nine years. And suddenly, I was empty.” But working through the existential void turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It’s what led to the creation of Men of a Certain Age, the show Ray co-wrote with his friend Mike Royce, and it led to a desire to flex his acting muscles in other, more dramatic areas.

Getting people to see him as more than a sitcom actor was difficult, especially after spending nine years in the shoes of one character that was loosely based on himself. “I didn’t want to make everyone forget about my sitcom legacy, because I was proud of it, but my goal was to do what I wanted—and what I wanted was to stick my little dramatic toe in there.” Since he made that decision, he’s evolved into a versatile and relatable dramatic actor with his work in projects like Parenthood, Vinyl, Get Shorty, The Big Sick, and most recently, Paddleton, opposite Mark Duplass.

Ray joins Off Camera to talk about the first and only time he was fired, how he turns real life into a comedic bit, and why it’s so hard for some men to say, “I love you.”

I was excited to have Patton Oswalt on the show, because I have been following his career ever since I first saw him on stage at the legendary Los Angeles club, The Largo in the mid-nineties, where he made me laugh harder than perhaps I have ever laughed before or since. But as I learned in this conversation, the road to that kind of insight and humor is a long uncertain one. As Patton says: “I worked for years doing very uncreative jobs, and for some people that’s fine, but for me, it felt deadly. It felt like a premature death in a lot of ways.” That’s how Patton felt before he was able to make a living off of his art, and it’s why he so values a career in the arts and specifically, those special creative moments, when a joke or an emotion lands and transcends all the social barriers we put between each other.

Early on, Patton realized that staving off “life in a coffin” would be difficult if he let his self-critical voice take over, but he was so inspired by the arts, fellow comedians, and filmmakers that the creative doors in his head kept getting kicked open, making him realize: “Oh, I can go further because of what I just saw.” Instead of shirking in the presence of great comedians like David Cross, Sarah Silverman, and Zach Galifianakis, he stayed in the room with them and focused on working harder and getting better.

With that work ethic, it’s no wonder that Patton has become successful in nearly every artistic medium he’s tried. He masterfully melds comedy and tragedy in his astounding Netflix special Annihilation, where he discusses the sudden and devastating loss of his first wife. He’s written two entertaining and insightful memoirs, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland and Silver Screen Fiend. He’s even developed a successful acting career with roles in projects like A.P. Bio, Young Adult, and Justified. There’s only one thing left for him to do now, and that’s to take on one of his first loves—filmmaking. And as I found out, that subject is a little more complicated.

Patton joins Off Camera to talk about the terrors he had to conquer to make Annihilation, why making his own film scares the daylights out of him, and why you should think twice before you get a bowl of noodles from Yoshinoya on your lunch break.

Over the last ten years, Norman Reedus has been kicking zombie butt and endearing himself to audiences around the world in the massively successful AMC series The Walking Dead. Ten years is a long time for someone who grew up with a serious case of wanderlust and a “day-to-day” philosophy on life, but Norman wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m so invested in The Walking Dead that I can’t imagine leaving on my own. I want to bookend it. I want to see it to its conclusion.”

Norman came to acting relatively late, but he traces his desire to be an artist all the way back to childhood, when art supplies were his go-to presents for birthdays and Christmas. Along the way, he’s tried just about every artistic medium, from painting, to photography, to modeling, and even to being a muse for music video directors. But it wasn’t until he discovered a rich creative and artistic community in downtown L.A. that he found his way to acting, and as someone with a self-described “chip on his shoulder,” it wasn’t even something he took seriously until he understood the personal and emotional stakes of committing to a role.

Prior to becoming a fan-favorite in The Walking Dead, Norman spent the majority of his acting career in film, most notably Boondock Saints. He’s followed a long, meandering path to reach this point, but now that he has, the road has opened up for him—and quite literally. These days, in addition to The Walking Dead, he’s filming his motorcycle travel/adventure show Ride with Norman Reedus, now in its third season on AMC.

Norman joins Off Camera to talk about why being on a motorcycle is a singular experience, the moment he discovered the power of acting, and why flinging dead squirrels is more nuanced than you think.

Before Daniel Radcliffe became the face of the global phenomenon that was Harry Potter, he was just a typical kid struggling to get through his schoolwork and get along with his teachers. Back then, his only acting credential was the BBC miniseries David Copperfield, but he made a good impression on fellow cast member Maggie Smith, who recommended him for the role that would change his life. Despite his parents’ initial reluctance, Dan was allowed to audition, and once they started filming, he discovered his happy place. “I felt pretty sh** at everything in school, so it was nice to be on a film set where my hyperactivity and all the stuff that was irritating my teachers was actually useful and encouraged.”

Now nearly a decade removed from Harry Potter, he still finds acting to be a constant source of joy. When he made his first foray outside of Hogwarts, Dan bravely decided to take a giant risk, choosing the dark and psychologically complex play Equus as his coming out party. “I couldn’t do something half-assed for my first thing on stage. It was my chance to get far away from Potter as possible, both to show people that I was in it for the right reasons and to test myself.”

From his work on stage to his other films like Swiss Army Man, Jungle, and Kill Your Darlings, Dan continues to challenge himself—his most recent example being his broad, playful, and comedic role in the hilarious new series Miracle Workers, opposite Steve Buscemi.

Dan joins Off  Camera to talk about pressures that come with fame, taking on uncharted waters as a “magical dead guy” in Swiss Army, and how to get through a Japanese airport without dying.

When Stephen Merchant grew to 6’7” as a teenager, he had a hard time blending in with the crowd, which was something he longed for. “Lots of kids in school would dye their hair pink, get lots of piercings, or do things to stand out, whereas I spent all my time trying not to stand out, trying to seem shorter, to be one of the crowd.”

Despite the unwanted attention, being tall helped Stephen develop his comedic sense—“If people were just going to point at me for being tall, they might as well point and go, ‘Oh, it’s that tall funny guy.’” By the time he got to university, he decided to make a career out of standup comedy.

Stephen put in the time experiencing the highest highs and crushing lows of life as a standup, but his career really took off after he teamed up with Ricky Gervais for the hit U.K. comedy series The Office. The two met while doing radio for XFM London, and their chemistry was instantaneous and undeniable. After years collaborating with Gervais and others on projects like Extras and HBO’s Hello Ladies, Stephen’s taking matters into his own hands, writing solo for the first time ever for the film Fighting with My Family, based on a real story about a wresting family in England with big aspirations to reach the WWE.

Stephen joins Off Camera to talk about the expectations that come with a hit television show, why he went back to standup after a long hiatus, and how he turned his awkward dating experiences into art.

Ever since Regina Hall showed up on screen as the hilarious, sex-craven Brenda in Scary Movie, she’s never had to worry about getting work. But what she did struggle with was getting the right kind of work, especially after discovering the flip side to success—typecasting. “I wanted great parts and interesting work. And as a woman, a black woman, I wondered if that was even possible.”

Despite her concerns about a career ceiling, she continued to push for roles that were more nuanced, and less broad. Luckily, she had a thick skin, honed by growing up with three brothers, which prepared her for the ups and downs of the industry.

While many female actors fear getting older in a business that values youth, Regina, now in her late-40s, is discovering that her career is blossoming with age. In the past two years, she’s been in the massively successful Girls Trip, has won multiple awards for her role in the outstanding independent film Support the Girls, and is now playing her self-proclaimed dream role in Showtime’s Black Monday, opposite Don Cheadle.

Regina joins Off Camera to talk about her earliest (and wildest) career ambitions, how her father’s unexpected death jump started her acting career, and why becoming a nun is a lot harder than one might think.

It’s been 140 episodes since Dax Shepard last sat down with me, and a lot has changed since—he directed a film (ChiPs), started Armchair Expert, which is one of the best and most popular podcasts of 2018 (after stealing all of my secrets, of course), and learned a lot about what truly makes him happy in the process.

In fact, his entire podcast is inspired by his fascination with true happiness.  “A lot of us go through life thinking, ‘I would be happy, if…’ ‘I would have self-esteem, if…’ ‘I would know contentment, if…’ But those are illusions that most people don’t get to find out are illusions.”

Dax had the dubious honor of learning that lesson first hand. Early in his career, he had all of the status markers and money that he thought would make him happy, but none of that prevented him from reaching one of the lowest points in his life, magnified by his demoralizing addiction to alcohol and drugs. Huddled in an airport bar, sucking down Jack and Cokes, Dax took a moment to evaluate his situation. “My whole life I thought, ‘Man, if I had a million dollars…’ Well, I had a million dollars, and I couldn’t get on a flight to fly 35 minutes from San Francisco to L.A.” It’s with that wisdom that Dax asks his celebrity guests, “You’re rich, and you’re famous. Did it cure all of the things you thought it would?” In general, it doesn’t.

Dax’s honesty is contagious—he brings it out in his guests and the people around him. It seems like his superpower is curating human vulnerability and talking frankly about the messiness of life, and that’s why he’s one of my favorite people to talk to.

Dax joins Off Camera to talk about the misnomer that is “rock bottom,” the magic osmosis that makes his marriage with Kristen Bell work so well, and why you shouldn’t compare yourself to your neighbor’s seemingly perfect life.

You may know D’Arcy Carden as the lovable, all-knowing, not-quite-robot-not-quite-human entity Janet on The Good Place, and while she may not know everything in real life, she certainly knew she wanted to act from the moment she saw her father in a local production of Thorton Wilder’s Our Town.

By the time she was nine, D’Arcy had her mind set on child acting, and she tried to make her case to her father. But he didn’t buy her “I can handle it” argument, and instead, she was forced to pursue acting at school until she graduated. It was a compromise she didn’t want to make—“You’re ruining my life!” was D’Arcy’s initial reaction. But in retrospect, she wouldn’t have it any other way, proving that sometimes, parents do know whats best. (that last line was directed at my children).

The struggles started soon after she graduated college and moved to New York City to conquer Broadway. “I shared a two-bedroom apartment with four, sometimes five people. I never had a dollar in New York, and I lived there for ten years. I kept auditioning, but I quickly realized, ‘It’s not going to happen right now. What the hell do I do?’” But through it all, she still tried to make a career out of acting, taking any job she could get, which often felt less like acting, and more like acting adjacent. This included being a temp, a waitress, a nanny, an extra, and even a tour guide.

But it took seeing an Upright Citizens Brigade show for D’Arcy to really find her place. “I was sitting in the front row at UCB’s ASSSSCAT show, and the cast was Amy Peohler, Seth Meyers, Jason Mantzoukas, and Rob Riggle. An incredible cast. And something electric happened—it was this weird religious moment where everything came together and revealed the clearest path. I realized, ‘I don’t care what I do for the rest of my life, I want that. I want to be on stage with these people.’”

D’Arcy immediately started taking improv classes, and discovered her authentic self by risking failure night after night. Over time, she gradually moved up the ladder at UCB, which ultimately opened up opportunities for television work, including her big break on Comedy Central’s Broad City. These days, she’s stealing the show on two critically-acclaimed television series: The Good Place and Barry. It turns out that nine-year-old D’Arcy was right—she really can handle the life of an actor, and she can only go up from here.

D’Arcy joins Off Camera to talk about the secret mantra that keeps her confidence going, the college professor who told her she wasn’t “dark enough” to be a real actor, and why you should always be nice to the interns at UCB.