Adam
Well, last week, another little girl had pushed her facedown into a gymnastics mat. She got a scratch on her face. I guess it’s kind of fresh that I feel protective of her. I just had this fantasy of, like, a grown man shoving her aside or slapping her across the face or something. I went through this whole thing where I just beat the shit out of him, and I started sweating and getting aggravated. While I was watching her.
Marc
You’re sitting there beating the shit out of a guy you made up who just pushed your daughter out of the way.
Adam
A fictional person.
JIM GAFFIGAN
I was dropping my kids off at soccer camp, my older ones, and I brought my three-year-old. I turn around and some eight-year-old is bullying my three-year-old and I had to hold myself back from punching this kid. I do this, my wife thinks I’m crazy, like if anyone’s ever rude to my kid, I go right up to them and I go, “What are you doing?” And she’s like, “Jim, you look crazy.” I’m like, “I don’t care.” Maybe my kid will say, “My dad is crazy, but he’s got my back.”
I grab this kid and I tried not to squeeze—I grabbed him.
My three-year-old was wearing a baseball cap and three-year-olds, they’re like orangutans, right, they don’t know what they’re doing. This kid flipped it off my son’s head and he was kind of, like, pointing it at my son. So I grabbed him by the arm and I said, “You’re coming with me.” I went to find a camp counselor. It’s a soccer camp. The guy, it’s just like this summer Manhattan soccer camp, it’s nothing fancy. This guy’s like, this beats being a janitor.
I said, “This kid was bullying my three-year-old son,” and he looked at me like, “I don’t care. I really don’t care.” And I was like, well, at least I did the right thing.
STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY—ACTOR
While I was in Memphis doing Great Balls of Fire! is when I found out that Ann, who is now my wife, was pregnant. I had to tell somebody. I had to find somebody to tell. The first person to come in was the maid. She’s knocking on the door and it was like dawn, and I said, “You know, it’s a big day for me! I just found out my girlfriend is pregnant!”
She said, “I’ll pray for ya, honey.” That didn’t cut it.
I called my mother and father, that was going to be the “Mom, Dad, guess what? I’m going to make you a grandparent again!”
Mom said, “Oh no, Stephen, no! Maybe you could get an abortion.” So it wasn’t exactly the vote of confidence.
I said, “No. No, we are having this child.” I’d been through an abortion before with my first girlfriend. I think it was responsible for the end of our relationship. I’m not going to do this anymore. No way, man. I went down and there in the cafeteria was the stuntman of the movie, Dick. I went in and Dick was eating his eggs and grits.
I said, “Dick, I got big news, big news today! I just talked to my girlfriend. She’s pregnant. I’m going to be a father.”
Dick just stopped and he looked at me and he said, “Well, Stephen, you’re in it now. Let me tell you, pal, when you have a child, your life will never be the same again. Ever again.”
My heart kind of stopped. I was like, “Oh, okay, okay.” For years, my story was the story of telling the maid, and calling Mom and Dad, and saying, “Ann, we’re going to get married. We’re going to have a child,” and Dick’s solemn blessing to me or curse or whatever it was.
Okay, the addendum. Fourteen years later, Ann and I now had two children. We’re eating sushi in Studio City, California. Suddenly, I feel a pat on my shoulder. It’s Dick!
I stand up and he says, “Hey, buddy!” He starts punching me in the stomach and I hate it when guys do that.
He says, “We ought to play golf sometime.”
I said, “Yeah,” and I look up at him and he has these huge tears coming down his face. I said, “Dick, are you all right?”
He said, “I just lost my firstborn. She died of an asthma attack. She couldn’t get to the doctor in time. I had to tell someone. I’m walking down the sidewalk and I’m looking in this restaurant and I see you and your wife sitting in here eating. I knew you would understand. Let me tell you, Stephen, when you lose a child, your life will never be the same again. Ever again.”
You know, a story isn’t an event. An event is something that happens, but a story has a beginning, middle, and an end. You don’t know what’s going to happen until something else happens.
That was the addendum.
BOB SAGET—COMEDIAN, ACTOR, WRITER
I held a baby last night. This all sounds bad when I say it, but I held my friend’s baby.
It sounds worse.
Adorable little girl.
It just gets worse. I really shouldn’t be allowed to speak any more. There should be an injunction.
Anyway, she was just adorable. It made me think, I’m fifty-four. For me to have kids again, it’s unusual. You don’t want to be eighty years old and have a kid in high school. I don’t want to die on my kid. Then again I wouldn’t mind having a football player kid, like an eighteen-year-old boy that’s a big strapping strong kid just drag me around because I can’t walk anymore. Carry me like the Revolutionary War days.
HANK AZARIA—COMEDIAN, ACTOR
It freaked me out so bad, becoming a father. And my wife put no pressure on me. She was like, “I don’t know if I want to do this either.” I was like, “Well, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to do this now.” I got obsessed with it. I started asking all my friends at my weekly poker game, “What did you guys do? Is that what you wanted? Is that why you got married, because you wanted kids? Did it change your life? Is it worth it?” They were like, “Shut up. Just have a kid or not. We don’t give a shit, do whatever you want to do.” I felt a lot of guilt, which was why I was so torn about having a kid.
Once that kid’s born, what I didn’t realize was that you’re just—and especially with a preemie that comes ten weeks early—you get so grateful that they’re okay. Your first thought is, “Oh my God, is he going to be all right?” Your second thought is a selfish one: “Am I going to be all right?” Am I going to be okay, if he’s a special-needs kid or whatever happens? And that’s part of the whole journey of this. Then you realize, just for him to be okay, you’ll take it. You’ll do whatever you need to do in exchange for them being all right.
For me, a selfish, narcissistic, egotistical actor, it was the only thing. I can say that he’s first. Genuinely, in my heart, I can’t say that about anything else.
JACK GALLAGHER—COMEDIAN, PLAYWRIGHT