WILL FERRELL—COMEDIAN, ACTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER
I had lunch with my dad one day when I said, “Hey, I’m going to try to go for this comedy thing. Do you have any advice?” And he gave me some of the best advice, which doesn’t sound like great advice, but he said, “Well, if it was all based on talent I wouldn’t worry about you. I’ve watched you now on these shows and I think there’s really something there. But you have to remember there’s a lot of luck and if you get to a certain point, three years, four years, five years, and you just feel like it’s too hard, don’t worry about quitting and don’t feel like you failed. It’s okay to pick up and do something different.”
For some reason, that took the pressure off. I’m like, “Oh, okay. Well, this is like the lottery. I’ll just give it a shot and if it doesn’t work I’m not going to feel bad about it.” Of course I desperately wanted to succeed like anyone else, but that weird piece of advice, if it was written on a piece of paper, would be the most uninspirational thing. But it’s practical. It came from a guy who’s been a musician for thirty, forty years and all of a sudden it just was like, “Oh, okay, well this is a crapshoot anyway. Let’s just relax and try not to squeeze the bat too hard and just have fun and throw it away.” I kind of tried to use that as my approach.
SUCCESS
“Bawling Your Eyes Out on a Used Futon for a Good Reason”
Despite several years of conversations on the podcast with very talented and successful people, talk of success comes up much less frequently than discussion of failure. I guess it makes sense. People are often driven by their failures, sometimes entirely defined by them. Success is fleeting and elliptical.
And yet the joy people exude when they talk about moments of success is undeniable and infectious. Whether it’s Michael Keaton telling me how he created Beetlejuice, or Tom Kenny telling me how he landed on the voice that became SpongeBob, or Julia Louis-Dreyfus telling me how she stood up to a studio trying to prevent her from getting her role on Seinfeld, everyone lights up when they tell a good story about things working out.
Defining success for myself was always challenging. It was never really about getting rich. I never thought about how to make a lot of money. I just wanted to be paid for being a comic. I wanted to be known for it. I wanted to be relevant. I didn’t even learn to consider my own success, outside of a joke working onstage or getting a radio job or landing a deal to make a show, until a few years ago. I guess I just assumed if I worked hard or at least kept working, I would be successful. Ultimately I found success. Not in the way that I ever imagined and not entirely about money, though that helps.
The bottom line is, I don’t really think about money, never have. I don’t spend much. I like knowing I have it because in this business you never know when or if you’ll make more, and no one wants to be broke. Especially as you get older. You never know what life events will rob you of your savings either.
I had no idea what would happen when I started the podcast. There was no way to make money. Neither my producer nor I were “business” people. Over the years we figured it out and learned how to build a business out of thin air with voices moving through it. From doing the show, other opportunities evolved. I wrote a book; I produced, wrote, and starred in a TV show; I sold out theaters as a comic; millions of people listened to the podcast. I am a success on all those levels. All my dreams have come true.
When you’re talking to other people who work in entertainment, you’re bound to hear great stories like this, about the moments when it all went right. Sometimes it was the starting point for a long and prosperous career. Other times it’s an anomaly, a brief moment of clarity in an otherwise fragmented life. They don’t necessarily have any larger meaning, other than marking a time when the person telling the story felt everything was okay.
These are stories about making it, in spite of what seemed like a stacked deck. These are personal triumphs amidst professional chaos. These are the things that happen when everything lines up in that once-in-a-lifetime way.
CHRIS HAYES—JOURNALIST, WRITER, NEWS ANCHOR
The difference between doing a thing because it will get recognition, and doing a thing because it expresses something or fulfills you, it is so hard to do in a media landscape that is, in a very literal fashion, built upon the endorphin rush of the ping of recognition.
Really early on, when I first started doing journalism, freelance writing, when I was in Chicago, I would write articles, and they would be in the alternative weekly. Then, poof, they’d be gone.
The first day that I had a byline was in the winter, and I got on the bus, and rode it south on Clark Street, knowing that the van that dropped off the free paper came from downtown. I went south until I hit a bookstore that I knew was south enough to have it, and I got it there fresh off the press, and grabbed it and saw my byline. I still remember that moment. Amazing moment.
What I came to realize is that it was going to be a path to misery for me if the way I valued the work was the reaction it got, because sometimes it would get a reaction, sometimes it just dissipated. I realized it in that moment. Now I have lost sight of that a million times since.
Marc
You fall victim to that because now you’re making a show that’s out in the world, and you’re like, “Did it go viral?” Or “Did anyone pick up on that?” “Did it get traction?”
Chris
As opposed to, “Did we make a thing that was good?” A good thing in the world that I’m proud of, as a thing. As a real thing.
“WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC—MUSICIAN, ACTOR
It really surprised me that people have said they’re fans of mine. I mean, I’ve become friends with people like Ben Folds and I got to direct his video as well. Just the people who even knew I existed.
In 1984 when I first started out, I met Paul McCartney at a party and I weaseled my way up to him because I was like, “Oh, this is my chance to meet a Beatle.” And he knew who I was! He turned to Linda and said, “Honey, it’s ‘Weird Al’!” Like, what? No, my brain cannot handle this. It was crazy.
He knew who I was, and then people were taking pictures of us together, and I was like, “This is the best day of my life.”
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS—ACTOR, PRODUCER
I got an overall deal at Warner Brothers Television.