Bob Odenkirk Would Like to Remind You That Life Is a Meaningless Farce

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You can find more at NYT Cooking.com. From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm David Markazzy. Bob Odenkirk has had one of show businesses most wonderfully improbable careers. After decades as a cult hero in the comedy world,

thanks mostly to his 90s sketch series Mr. Show with Bob and David, he became a mainstream success as of all things a serious dramatic actor.

First in a supporting part is the shifty lawyer saw Goodman on Breaking Bad,

and then to further acclaim as the star of that show spin-off that are called saw. Lately, his career has taken another turn that few could have seen coming. To action movie star. The latest example is called "normal". In it, Odenkirk plays a small town Minnesota Sheriff facing off against

among other villains the Yakuza. You might think that at 63 years old, Odenkirk would be pretty pleased with the way his career and life have shaken out. But you'd be wrong. Here's my conversation with Bob Odenkirk.

“Bob, I think we're good to go if you're good to go.”

This is a big production, as they said to you, I know we were just sitting down. It just feels very important in a way that scares the shit out of me. But onwards. All right, I don't want you to be scared. There's nothing to be scared of. It's all in your head. There's nothing bad that's going to happen.

It's all in my head, yeah. All the bad stuff. But thank you again for being here, and just before I was told that we got the green light to start, you were telling me about a novel you just read. And how it affected your thinking maybe about something important that happened to you. So take up where you left off. Yeah, so almost four years ago, I had this heart incident.

One of the tributaries of my widow maker, our artery was shut down, completely by a plaque buildup. And I was really out, and I went to the hospital. I got two stands. I went down on the set of better calls all. And it was really scary, especially for everyone around me, not for me, because I don't have any memory of it. But I've talked about it many times, and people have asked me many times, how did that affect you? And I think first people want to hear that you saw a

white light, then they would love to hear that you watched your whole life pass before you on a film reel. And I kind of wished that happened to me. That would have been cool, but that didn't happen to me. It was a blank for me for a week. I came to essentially a week later. I came to the next day, but I don't have any memories till a week later. So I've tried to answer this question to people,

what did it impact you? And I've had a hard time doing it, because I've always felt I don't do

justice to the feeling of the experience of it. Okay, so then I'm reading this book that novel that's called on the calculation of volume. And I'm reading this book. And the character in this book is having a very unique experience of time. And she's relating her experience of

“reliving the same day over and over. And I come to these passages. And I'm like, that's how I felt.”

That's exactly how I felt for weeks after having this heart attack. And there's like a couple passages in here that I marked because I'm like, I've never been able to express this to people. Yeah, can you read one? Yeah, I'll read you a section to show you what I mean. She says that in this unfathomable vastness, these infinitesimal elements are still able to hold themselves together. She's talking about the world around us and ourselves that we managed to stay

afloat, that we exist at all, that each of us has come into being as only one of untold possibilities. She goes on like that. And I marked that whole passage, but then later, and I'll just read this one section. I had a day to go and I went with it. There was no plan. There was an outline, one which I could follow floating gently. There was no goal, no prey to be caught. I was not a circling raptor, a vulture, a shark, a big cat poised to spring. I was not on my guard.

ticket with no itinerary. I journeyed through the minutiae of the streets in a universe for pleat with minor incidents, a host of objects and occurrences and sensations all crowded together in my memory. Well, there's a few more passages, but gosh, to hit upon that and think,

“this, that's what I should tell people. I just couldn't believe how much these couple passages”

expressed this way of living that we had something to do with experiencing time. Obviously, this

term being present, but it took no effort and how amazing it was. It was really a beautiful way

to live in the world. And I knew it would go away, too. This is going to go away a little at a time as I go forward. And I have to try to remember it. I have to try to live this way. I just the degree of freshness to the world around me and the amazement of that and the beauty of it was something I got to be in. And so I thought that might come up that question. And since I just happened upon this, these passages, I wanted to share them. Yeah, it was going to come up.

But something else I was interested in about that experience is related to what you just described.

The awareness that that feeling of being present was going to fade. Yeah. How effectively can you get that back? I was going to finish your sentence without ketamine or some mind-altering drug. I think you can. I really do. Honestly, just reading those passages made me go. All right,

“right, right, right. That's what's going on here. That's how I can be in the moment and live in the”

world. It's still close enough to my sense of I can get there. I think I should challenge myself

to do it more. But even the burden of saying I should challenge myself immediately starts to ruin it

with guilt and responsibility. And you know, as she says in the book, no, I'm not a raptor. I'm not I'm not ready to spring. I'm not a jungle cat, ready to spring. I'm not. We live in a world that is about achievement. You don't want to live without purpose, but all we're about is getting. And it seems to be the only way to feel a value is becoming a millionaire. So you want to be a millionaire. What's that? Who wants to be a millionaire? Who wants to be a millionaire? Well, I guess everybody,

but who wants to be happy? I'm about that for a TV show. Well, in a weird way, it's possible that the path to being a millionaire is clearer than the path to being happy. Oh, it's surely is. It's surely is. Yeah. And of course, most people think being a millionaire is what makes you happy. But just

“go talk to a millionaire. Well, you're a millionaire. I would share. Sure. Did that make you happier?”

There's no question that the security that you feel from not being afraid of a health issue or what housing, whatever, you know, is a great comfort and helps you to be more at peace with life. There's no question it should help you. It's just not as much help as you think it should be. I mean, yes, you can eat steak every night, I guess, but then you get sick of steak. You know, there was a clip of you from an interview that I saw earlier this year that's been

kicking around my head since I saw it. And it's you were being interviewed by Mike Burbiglia. And he asks you if there's anyone you're jealous of or something like that. Yeah. And the way you answer the question was by saying you're jealous of anyone who has young kids at home. Because when you had young kids at home, you had no questions about what your purpose was. You know, it's like your job was to take care of the kids and do dad stuff. Is it the case that you understood that

in the moment or you only understood that in retrospect? No, no, I understood it in the moment.

I've got to add and it's not just a sense of feeling valued and feeling purposeful.

It's entertainment. There's nothing more entertaining than a little kid. So I knew like that this could be the best thing you could do. And I still think that way. I wish, you know, it's funny. I left that interview with Mike Burbiglia. And I didn't think about that specific quote, but I did talk think about that section of the interview. I thought I think they'll cut that out because isn't that kind of depressing that this guy who has had so much achievement in his career

that really should be the most rewarding thing and is missing a chapter of his life that has gone now. They cannot come back. I mean, you can be a grandparent and sure that's great. But he's obviously

“saying the best thing, the best chapter of my life is behind me. And I know that. That's kind of sad.”

To say, and I always feel bad when I see people who are doing well, well enough to be interviewed

and talk to and they seem kind of depressed. I'm always like, "Oh, come on. Can you be happy?" You know, but what can I say? I was just being honest. That's how I feel. I feel like there's nothing I can do. I can't sit down to try to write a great movie or learn a wonderful script or direct something or I don't, there's nothing. Climb a mountain. There's not a freaking thing I can do that is going to match the value that I felt for life

of being a parent of kids between zero and, you know, music around 14, 15, they're like,

“they're done with you. I think it would have been more depressing if you said the thing”

that brought you the most value and purpose in your life was being in better call Saul.

Imagine a kid's hearing that answer. You know, it's funny. I have so many people. Obviously, this is the biggest thing I did was better call Saul so far. And I can't imagine doing anything bigger than that, either. But I just forget that I was in this show completely. I lived so much of my life before that. And I lived it. And I achieved things that I cared about a great deal, almost to a strange extent when I was writing my memoir. I wrote so much about sketch comedy.

And I called it comedy comedy comedy drama because I was worried that people would go, oh, this is the better call Saul guy. I'm going to read about his journey to being on that show. And it's like, no, I'm going to talk about, you know, 45, 50 years of caring about and writing sketch comedy. I'm barely going to talk about the thing that you know me from because that was such a small part of my life. And and still when I was writing the book, I was thinking,

“this is some wrong with this guy. It's an interesting thing. You should write,”

anybody should write their memoir when they get around 50. And you may see what I saw. We're like, this guy's like a, and we all are. But this guy's like a broken toy. He's got something wrong with him. And he keeps going in this one direction. Like I'm writing about me. And I'm like, well, you give it up already. You know, you've already been on Saturday night live as a writer. Give it up. Stop even after Mr. Show. I'm still doing, you know, try to help

him an Eric or being a part of all this sketch type comedy. And I just think, well, there's nothing to say, but there's something wrong with me. And I don't know what it is. And it makes me go in this one direction. You know, the idea that you were sort of like a broken toy that kept pursuing sketch comedy. Yeah. I'm glad you did because I've really gotten a lot out of your comedy over the years. And to such an extent, that's still what I watch a movie like normal

or the nobody films. I'll have moments where I think where that Bob Oden Kirk is like blowing people away. It's very weird. What cultural itch do you think these kinds of action movies that are about an unassuming middle-aged man who sort of inner hero comes out, what each are they scratching? Why are they proving to be so successful right now? Well, I thought about this a lot.

that is so clear and obvious that it's worthy of our anger, which these movies do, especially the nobody movies. There's a point in both movies where you trip over into James Bondland. And a real guy who's been established and who has tensions and sensitivities and struggles that feel very real. And that's partly because of it's me playing them. And I'm not magically delicious. I'm not super handsome, young, muscled up, any of that. You can relate to all these things.

They're very grounded at moments. And then there comes this point in the movie where that guy, you, are living in a movie. And you can do things that you can only do in a movie. The same thing happens in normal true, but it's normal is a little elevated from the get-go. I would say it's a little like inside of a snow globe world right from the start, whereas the nobody films make

“a real attempt to be living in the world. And so I think we go through life. There are frustrations”

everywhere. There are big ones and small ones. There are ones that have to do with our inner lives that we simply can't sort out easily. And you can't act on those frustrations in a physical way. You can't do that. We can't live in that world. We have to be decent to each other. In a movie you can do it. So you did breaking bad and better call Saul. And there was sort of an indisputable popular success to that stretch of work. And prior to that, when people would talk about Bob Oden

Kirk, it was often attached to a term like cult success or cult favorite, which of course is a backhanded compliment for like not really successful at all. But prior to this big career like double bump you had sort of relatively late, did you have moments where you thought, I don't know if I'm going to get the success I want, or I don't know if the career's really working. I did have doubts and concerns, but they weren't about that. My bigger problem was once I was

finished with Mr. Show, which was so much of what I wanted to try to achieve in sketch comedy. Like what now? I got a chance to do it. I got a chance to do it really well. I got total

freedom to do it and incredible support. David Cross and I couldn't be better partners for what we did.

Now what? Now what do you want to do? That's going to drive you through the next 20 years of a career. And I was lost because I had already achieved in sketch comedy and with the cult success that I had.

“I had achieved everything that I was aiming at. That's what I was aiming for.”

We put what gives your life purpose now. Trying to find the next thing to do that will give it purpose. Trying to find the next thing that will feel rewarding and impactful and a value. You have had the opportunity to work with people that I would consider comedic geniuses.

Like people like Genie and Garofflo or Chris Elliott who had success but kind of never went

gangbusters. And then you've also worked with people like Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Jack Black, who got as big as someone in comedy reasonably expect to get. Do you have any understanding of why that person and not that person? Is there something innate that leads to

“massive success? I think that some of the people I've known who have great talent and haven't”

achieved what you might call a massive success that might be on the level of their talent. My experience of those people is that they don't really want it. There comes a level of point in their journey where they see this thing and they go, oh yeah I don't want that much pressure.

I don't want that many people looking at me. I want this many people. I want 15 million people, not

Look when my kids are about eight and ten years old we were on a vacation and I remember we were

“in a supermarket and we were getting lunch and somebody came over to talk to me because they knew”

me from Mr. Show and this was before breaking back and I thought this is the perfect level of success because I can go out in the world and be myself and if there's a person in the room who knows who I am I can tell you who they are they will have a tattoo from one of my shows that they will love me a lot and then everyone else in the room will not know me at all and I can just be myself and then with breaking back then you get into a level of now I'm in an elevator at the mall

and everyone in this elevator knows who I am but the difference has been how they know me

is wildly varied. One of those people knows how I look at the world the person who's watching Mr. Show they know how I see the world the person who knows better call Saul that that's just not not even close they don't know me they they know this character I played that's not me at all and the in yet I appreciate that they like that work and that they know me and I I'm thankful and

“yeah so I think when you ask about that the question part of the question is is there a choice”

yeah do you get to see this thing coming your way and do you get to choose I'm going to go ahead and be more famous and then I'm going to live in a world where there's a little bit of this courtesy between who I am and how I'm known I get I get why people go no thank you I'm going to say in my little or world where when you know me I know how you know me and that means something to me that I'm okay with I I don't know if this whole chapter of our

interview is weird I think weird is good I think we're just good okay but something I've seen you mentioned a few times is this idea that sketch comedy tends to be a younger person's game a

“little bit yeah do you find that at your what 63 now yeah is your relation to sketch comedy different”

then it used to be well it is simply because I've spent the last 15 years doing drama and action and I've and I've had to think a lot about those things so for instance my friend David Cross and I are working on a project right now and it's a play I did Glenn Gary Glenn Ross yeah and while I was doing that play I was thinking a lot about the mechanics of a play because that play is perfect that play is a machine it's a machine of drama it's a machine of laughter it's

unbelievable it's tight as can be and so just being a part of it thinking about it I started to see you know some of the you could say the mechanics of it and think about how great they were and how maybe I could try to steal some of those you know and make something too in that world that might have some value in my work it's similar that when I was at Saturday night live for four years and I didn't help all that much I pitched some jokes that Robert Smigle would use occasionally

had a sketch that would get on but basically I sat around listening to El Franken and Jim Downey

and Robert Smigle and Conan O'Brien and Jack handy and Bonnie and Terry Turner and I watched these people write great sketches and my brain went oh I see what they did oh I see what you did and it kind of deconstructed it and then I used it to make Mr. Show so David and I are writing a play and we'll see if we get there but you know our great desire to make it is make it it's kind of got sketch comedy in it but it's not a sketch it's something more hopefully and but we want to

make it a sketch because it's too fun and sketches are over in five minutes and they're done and you get to move on to the next idea so I still have an instinct for it but I now I do feel what I've said is true that doing sketch comedy when you get older is a little strange why it's a little like it's like a young person's energy is right for it it fits and when you get older it's like what are you doing what are you doing be so silly and what are you doing being so it becomes

I don't and it loses something to what's comedy that speaks to you now where you are in your life oh

pretend movie review show that is on the internet by my friend Tim Hightaker and it's again you know

for me sketch comedy and this is kind of a sketch comic thing but it's drawn out and slowed down

“and I think sketch comedy I'm sorry to say it is the most profound”

expression of human existence there is really I don't think any Kubrick movie or Freudian analysis or Shakespeare or Shakespeare says as much about how humans operate and what is the ultimate problem with us as a species then sketch comedy and I wish it was not true I wish the drama grand drama I wish that we were worthy of being taken apart and and and and and and and observed

in subtle and complex ways but I don't think so I think that ultimately

there is nothing more profound about people than you can say in a sketch they're fucking idiots people are sadly limited so limited that you can you can define them and you can share everything

“that's important about them in four minutes we maybe this is related maybe this is related”

right near the end of your memoir you write that uh you know show business is not curing cancer

and that it's a distraction yeah and and the way you put it is which is in arguably key to life on earth

yeah because life on earth is so bleak and painful yeah and the only and best response to that is to look away yeah um you want me to repudiate that statement I wondered if you were being sarcastic when you wrote that because it struck me as bleak pretty bleak to sat I don't know what to say man pretty much do think that's true but I do think that obviously I think there's joy and reward in being alive and in in the ways in which we look away in whatever way in which

you find to transform that or the horror the horror and whatever way you find to transform that into something good entertaining beautiful comforting to another person helpful

“that is that's beautiful and that's the joy of of life is turning shit into gold”

comedy gold well whatever gold you can make it into whatever kind of alchemy you can do is I guess to me that's that's the good part now little kids and if we want to go back to where you started yes that's what I was gonna do yeah they do that by kids do that by being alive by by watching them be alive you I think you feel that that magic that when you come to fully grasp life and it can be taken away from you a bit by bit until it's all gone but you can reconnect

with it and yeah I don't know I mean one of the challenges of this interview was I have no unified field theory of myself I'm a bit of as you can see from my career I kind of go in a lot of directions and I don't have a very solid justification for the whole thing I can't characterize the whole thing and my and the only thing I could say is there's a risk there's a great risk

let's say I made a huge ass of myself in trying to do action films well so what so what I mean I can still do comedy and claw my way back I guess we should end on that now

“but I I hope I didn't make an ass of myself I think that the bigger question for me is what”

do I do now because well I guess I I just do what I've always done look for the next thing

that that seems curious worthwhile surprising I'll I'll find a hard time beating action movies I can tell you that I will have a hard time finding anything I can pursue that is as far away from where I started as that genre of film erotic art house I guess does that still exist I don't I don't think that exists anymore after the break I talked to Bob again and he tells me the problem he sees with some of

today's most popular comedy it's definitely about low hanging fruit big time it's like

“literally on the ground it's fruit that's on the ground rotting pick that shit up and eat it”

this is A.O. Scott I'm a critic at the New York Times these days there are so many movies and books and television shows and songs that it's hard to make sense of it all if the New York Times with the critics do is sort through as much of that as we can to come up with advice with recommendations to guide you toward the stuff that's worth your time and attention but we don't only offer guidance critics are here to help you make sense of things to get you thinking

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it's not just here the headlines but here's the way everything fits together if you'd like to subscribe please go to nytimes.com/subscrib Bob thank you for talking to me again I appreciate it yeah happy to do a David thanks for the interest I appreciate it yeah something I was curious about is you know we we talked a little about the beginnings of of your career in the 90s with kind of what people called the alternative

“comedy scene yeah and back then I think it was pretty clear to people what”

alt comedy was alternative to sure you know was uh i'll turn it into a kind of like slick show busy style of comedy that was sort of the dominant form of comedy at the time and I wonder do you think there as far as you can tell is there any sort of alternative comedy now like what what is the comedy that that someone would be rebelling against right now well this is going to sound weird but probably what do they call it the bro the manosphere stuff manosphere comedy was

was because I think we're starting to put it in the past already which is great but I think the manosphere comedy was the reactionary comedy movement of the last five years and um i don't think it has a lot of depth to it so it's kind of running past pretty quickly it's it's uh dissipating

but uh it was a powerful movement it seems to me of the last five years what's next I don't know

but you're not wrong the what I call the alternative comedy scene and what I came up in after working at Saturday Night Live and you know in the world of Janine Grafalo Margaret show okay at the Griffin Padden Oswell great parent uh David Cross uh you know and then that became and then mark Marin and that kind of infiltrated comedy slowly over about five years and and then it kept proliferating

really lent itself to a lot of what we were doing which was more um impromptu uh genuine

“personal uh sharing and then now it's everywhere why do you not find the what we're going to”

call manosphere comedy to be particularly interesting or funny oh well um it's definitely about low hanging fruit big time it's like literally on the ground it's fruit that's on the ground rotting pick that shit up and eat it throw it at people um I I don't have a lot of opinions on those guys it's more of uh it's a movement that I I'm happy to see transforming into something else and disappearing or dissipating you could say why do you think it's dissipating that's not necessarily

the sense I get because there's a it's because it's uh dead end it's just gonna be boring after a while it's like what let's let's use the stage to be as crude as we can be and as clumsy and

oh fish as we can be and that's kind of funny always that's funny to hear that voice I think it's funny

to hear that voice but not from everybody and it's not I don't think uh I think anything you do

“on a stage is a performance that sounds obvious but in other words if you want to say something honest”

then you should get off a comedy stage if you know a lot of comedians get credited for being honest or uh or they get lambasted for the things they stay in their act and are asked to explain that or justify it or pilloried for it and the bottom line to me is if you're on that comedy stage that's a show you are not you you are pretending to be a person named you everything you say is of of construct everything if you don't like that and you want to tell an audience something genuine

earnest and honest then get off that stage because that stage is only a show it is not real and it is not genuine and it is not direct no matter how much you act like it is and so I just think we have to I wish everyone saw it that way then if you if you know that if you know that when you watch anyone do uh play or any kind of performance then you then you can safely watch almost anything and talk about it afterwards and let it um whatever that does for you whether it's

cathartic and let's that voice out of your head or whether you can point to that voice now and argue about it whatever that is it can offer you can have a lot of benefits but the problem we got into there was comedians uh and maybe the alt comedy scene led us to it with the degree of you know self-revolution that was being done a sense that whatever set on that state is incredibly genuine

and a direct look thing is the internet is hers I'm gonna ramble here for a second keep going

one of the reasons the internet has hurt is you can tape somebody at 2 a.m. in a comedy club and put the mod tv and you're watching them at 10 a.m. at your breakfast table that's not right because that thing was said at 2 a.m. in New York with a bunch of drunk roudy people after you talk for 45

“minutes already so whatever did I help clarify anything I think that um the distinction you're”

making about if a comedian or performer is saying something in sort of a performance context that should change how we uh receive the thing they're saying presumably that applies to podcast also right it's like a Joe Rogan or an Andrew Schultz the see I'm not sure it applies to that but why not like those are those are performing on the podcast and the point you have for people a place to speak honestly and directly like you and I are doing right here you know this is not me doing a character

and uh I don't I I think it I don't know I I don't know how to delineate the line but there

has to be a line this is something I feel strongly about and um I'm never going to get everyone to agree

you know it's I'm even trying to understand exactly like how those distinctions make a difference like

expressing honesty and truth is you know if you talk to someone like a if you were to ask someone like a

Dave ship hell are you talking honestly to your audience I think he would say well yeah that that's

“what I do and that's what comedians do and you're saying that's what you don't think he would I don't”

know I think he'd say I'm performing I really do I mean we should ask him yeah but you know my friend David Cross gets on stage and he says crazy stuff and he doesn't believe everything he says he just knows it's a point of view that is funny to express and that to some extent people need to

hear or be surprised by to get some perspective on their own point of view and uh yeah so I just I

I I'm just thinking everybody has to understand what that line is it got blurred in a way that I think was very damaging to what we can do as artists we we need to be able to do and say crazy shit but it's also interesting because I think you're saying that sort of the flip side or sort of the negative repercussions of the legacy of the alternative comedy was that it's emphasis on authenticity or seeming authenticity yeah led people to almost give too much credence to what

comedians were saying in a way that led to this line blurring and and led to some like sensoriousness

in a way that's damaging to comedy that's interesting but and I'm also saying that it goes to ways it's the audience has to chill out and and watch it as a performance but the performer if they really have something to say should not be doing it there or should not it's not that they shouldn't do it there it's that if they really want people to understand it directly they should get off that comedy stage and and say it somewhere else where it's me talking genuinely me and not for laughs

not for the sake of laughs you know can I there's there's sort of like a holistic observation I want to make about the conversation so far and it's one that kind of before the camera started

“rolling before we hit record you yourself actually kind of alluded to I think you said you”

know sorry if I was being negative or something earlier but sort of thinking back to what we talked about previously you know you talked about how the best times in your life or when your kids were little yeah you know those times are over the the art form you love the most sketch comedy that's a young man's game I asked you sort of like a life philosophy question and you sort of like yeah you know it's all kind of a farce and now you know it's I know maybe middle age is a is a time

of a certain degree of like resignation or or acceptance yeah but is there anything that you're you know that in your life or work now that you think like uniquely well this this is great or or you know I'm looking forward to this thing that might come or is it kind of just like a managed decline oh god I'm sorry to be a bummer I feel it's real yeah I have a I have a new avenue opened up in front of me with a dramatic act it um this was something that I moved into slowly

starting with barely doing some of it in breaking bad and then numerous other projects and then better call Saul was like this big you know jump off a cliff and then you could argue that action film making is conceptualizing that dramatic intensity sometimes do a pretty humorous extent and then Glenn Gary Glenn Ross was a really exciting discovery and challenge and I feel like I found a new avenue here to work in that I'm excited by that is something that at least attempts

to address life in a more sensitive and a way with some deeper resonance than sketch comedy

“can do but yeah if you want to hear something positive here's my positive hit me you we got to keep”

trying in the face of what I consider the limitations of being a person which are strict and seem immutable and there's no way around so what we got to keep trying I don't know what

I do have some I have to have some wind beneath my wings all right good a little bit just a draft

there's a breeze beneath my wings you know but you you just alluded to with Glenn Gary Glenn Ross and maybe with some other work doing stuff that has some more resonance than the silly stuff but you know when we spoke before you said you thought that like sketch comedy was the most

“the best vessel for I know David and I and I thought about what I've said a lot and I think it's true”

and I'm sorry to say that I still think it's true but within that we got to keep trying I'm not

giving up I is all I'm saying is I'm not giving up but I'm afraid to say you know look

my hope lies in some kind of evolutionary growth for the human creature but without that or until that happens and I don't know how that happens we all have to take some we all need more vaccines to change our DNA well who thinks that's a bad thing if you met a human being whatever it takes to change our DNA or RNA or whatever any DNA let's start changing it because it doesn't work the way it is that's a good thing

“everybody get more vaccines if that's what they do if they change our DNA or RNA or however”

those two are associated let's take lots of them and make this creature a better creature because where we're at I do stand by what I said I think a comedy in the end all the philosophy in the world all the theories in the world all the hope in the world all the

grand a pronounce the greatest poets never lived all the great poetry existential thinking

of a read the Franklin's voice yeah all of Abraham Lincoln's speeches and it all boils down to Shakespeare's sounded fury you know signifying nothing and you might as well laugh at it I mean

“I do think in the end that's what we're going to have to do until until we change”

way Bob if what you're saying is true and sketch comedy is the best way or is best able to encapsulate the human condition yeah what is what is the most profound sketch you've ever seen talk show at sea it's a Jerry springer show we did it on mr show and they're on a lifeboat and they're dying they have no food or water and they're still arguing about who is in love with who and who got who pregnant and that that to me that sketch that's humanity you're dying

you're gonna die you we have no fresh water we have no food and there I go and hey cheated with her I love him and it's really really awesome and it's to me I don't know what else to say that's that's the world that I see you know I really enjoyed speaking with you and I appreciate you taking all the time and and I hope that the sort of pitiful little fart like draft beneath your wings is able to carry you far into the future it will it will

don't forget I also have my kids are so wonderful and so you know there's lots to look forward to I yeah there's lots to look forward to that's Bob Oden Kirk his new movie normal is in theaters now to watch this interview and many others you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@symboltheinterviewpodcast this conversation was produced by Seth Kelly it was edited by Paola Newdorf mixing by Sophia Landman original music by Diane Wong

Rowan Nemisto and Marian Lazana photography by Devany Alkin the rest of the team is pre-a-mathue white arm, joe Bill Munoz, Eddie Costas, Catalino Brian and Brooke Mentors our executive