- [Voiceover] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part
by MFI Foundation,
improving the quality of
life within our community.
Also by Hillco Partners,
a Texas government
affairs consultancy.
And by the Alice Kleberg
Reynolds Foundation.
- I'm Evan Smith, she's
a comedian and an actress
whose credits include Mr.
Show with Bob and David,
The Larry Sanders Show
and, most memorably,
24 and its miniseries
reboot, 24: Live Another Day.
She's Mary Lynn Rajskub,
this is Overheard.
- [Evan voiceover] Let's
be honest, is this about
the ability to learn,
or is this about the
experience of not having
been taught properly?
How have you avoided
what has befallen
other nations in Africa...
You could say that
he made his own bed,
but you caused him
to sleep in it.
Now you saw a problem and,
over time, took it on and...
Let's start with the sizzle
before we get to the steak.
Are you gonna run for president?
I think I just got
an "F" from you.
This is Overheard.
- [Evan] Mary Lynn, welcome.
- [Mary Lynn] Hi.
- [Both] Nice to see you.
- Very nice to meet you.
So, I'm catching you now
as you're out on tour
doing stand-up, which you do
a fair amount of these days.
- Yes. Thank you
for catching me.
- [Evan] Well,
happy to catch you.
- Everybody coming here
at the last minute...
- [Evan] Thank you
for being caught.
- [Mary Lynn] It's exciting.
- [Evan] Good to have you.
- Many of us know you through
the front door as an actress.
We know you from 24 or some of
the other stuff you've done.
You've been a comedian
for a long time.
Do you self-define these
days as a comedian who acts
or as an actress
who does stand-up?
- It's hard to say at this
point. I don't really know.
- Maybe there's no one
or the other, it's both.
- Yeah, I kind of change
once I get on the road.
Last time...I just
got into Austin,
so things haven't
gotten too crazy yet.
Last night was pretty mellow,
but I was just in Atlanta,
and when I landed,
I called my husband,
"I miss you, I don't
know what I'm doing,
"why am I doing this?"
And, then had a great
show, and I don't usually
go out that much, and then
the comedians were like,
"Come out with us!" and then
ended up going out, having
a crazy night.
- [Evan] Yeah, it's a scene.
You enjoy it, still.
You've been doing this a long
time, but you still enjoy it.
- I enjoy it, it's just
the transition between,
"Why am I doing this?" and then,
once I'm on the
road and doing it,
there's really nothing like it.
- And is it possible to
do both at the same time?
Can you act during the day
and then do stand-up at night?
Or do you have to take
off a period of time to do
a season of 24 when
you're filming?
- That's a good question.
The last installment
of 24, we were
in London for five months, and
even preparing to go to London
was sort of like
you're mentally in
the space of 24.
And we were bringing the
show back after four years.
And so...
even though I did
have down time,
enough time to go do stand-up,
I was really focused on that.
But by the end of my
five months in London,
if I knew I was gonna have
a stretch of days off,
I started sort of
investigating the scene
and going to comedy rooms
and stuff like that.
- Ready to get back in
front of an audience.
- Yeah.
- A lot of people who do comedy,
and especially these days
where people talk a lot
about the things that
influenced them as
a kid, they'll say,
"Well, I listened to George
Carlin's records as a kid,"
or "Steve Martin,"
or "Andy Kaufman."
And, my understanding
of your backstory here
is that you didn't
necessarily think, as a kid,
"I wanna be a a comedian,
I wanna do stand-up."
You don't necessarily
have that same story.
- No, no, not at all.
If anything, it was more
of, "I want to be an actor."
But I didn't even
really think that.
I didn't really have the
capacity to think that I was
somebody who could do
something like that.
You hear that a lot
from people, maybe,
"I didn't know that
was a possibility," or,
especially with
comedy, I just thought,
"I'm female, I'm kind of odd,
"I'm kind of an
interior person."
And comedy was something
where it was mostly
a guy talking about his
thoughts and being real...
- Right, extroverted.
- Extroverted, but
as time went on,
it started with me
doing performance art,
and then people...
my performance art was always
performer-audience based
and I started getting laughter
in places where I didn't
necessarily intend
to get laughter.
- Sometimes good,
sometimes not, right?
- Exactly, and then I kind
of started intersecting
with my art school
performance art world in
San Francisco with
other comedians,
and that was sort of a good...
I like how you called
acting the "front door."
It was a good back
door into comedy
in that it wasn't
so intimidating.
It was the same
for me with acting.
I moved to Los Angeles
to do live performance.
If I had gone there
thinking, "I'm gonna do this,
"I have my head shots,
I've changed my name."
I would have known that
I was gonna do it...
- No, no, Raskjub is awesome.
I wouldn't actually...
It's good. How many
Raskjubs are there, right?
- [Mary Lynn] No. My family.
- [Evan] Not very many.
- So, let's come to San
Francisco in a second.
So, family...so you
grew up in Detroit.
- [Mary Lynn] Yes, yes.
- [Evan] In a suburb of
Detroit...Family is not in
the entertainment business.
- Absolutely not.
- They must have thought,
"How'd you end up...?"
For them, this thought
that you wanted to do
what you're doing now must
have been an interesting thing.
- I did some acting as a kid,
and definitely in high school.
- Like community
plays and theater...
- Yeah, and in high school
it really was the only thing
that I could focus on
or had any interest in,
and thankfully there
was a pretty decent
theater program at the school.
So they supported me
in having that interest
and they certainly
love what's happened,
and it's been really
exciting for them.
- But it wasn't an obvious
choice for you as a kid,
given the environment
in which you grew up,
or the place you grew up.
Detroit in those days, a little
bit of a different Detroit,
maybe a more optimistic Detroit
than there is now, right?
- Yeah, I don't know,
depending on who you talk to.
I haven't really been
back in Detroit properly
in the city for a while,
but some people say
there's a great art
scene there now,
which I would like
to go and check out.
Lots of stuff happening, and
hopefully a rebirth
at some point.
- The city's coming back.
You went to art school
in Detroit first,
before going at San Francisco.
- [Mary Lynn] Yes.
Different experience than
being out in the West Coast?
- Absolutely, I mean,
I love Detroit a lot.
That was a really exciting
time in my life because
I kind of went to art
school because I wasn't a
good student, I didn't...
study very much.
College wasn't...I just thought,
"Ehh, I don't wanna do that,
"I'm gonna have to take
subjects over again
"that I was never interested
in the first place,
"or I'm gonna have
to get a job."
So I found art school just to
- [Evan] Perfect pause.
- [Mary Lynn] to not have to
do any of those, and I thought,
"Oh, let me try
to draw something,
"and get a portfolio,"
not really knowing
what I was doing,
and once I got in
there, it was just like,
it spoke to my heart
in bigger ways.
- It took immediately.
- It was really exciting because
I really didn't even know
what a sculpture was, so
it was really exciting
to get a basic
understanding of everything.
And being in Detroit
was really fun.
But there was a lot of, like,
"Found Scrap Metal
Object" art making.
There was one class
where we had to
document churches that were
falling apart in Detroit.
- [Evan] Uplifting.
- [Mary Lynn] Very uplifting.
- So you made the decision
to go West, because
you thought, "Maybe there'll
be a different vibe out there."
- Yes, and I loved San
Francisco immediately.
It's such a gorgeous
place, and that was just
really exciting and fun for me.
I just rode the bus
for fun, you know.
- See the environment out there.
I'm interested in
what you said about
the performance art giving
way to what became comedy,
or even "alternative comedy"
is the phrase that we hear.
You were part of a scene
out there of people...
We talked before
about Patton Oswalt,
somebody who you saw
early, and who actually has
recently, in his book,
documented what that scene
was like at the time,
both in the Bay Area and
then migrating down
to Los Angeles.
Seems like a really
exciting time, and a lot of
really great people came
out of that comedy world.
- It really was,
I feel very lucky
because I was meeting
comedians in San Francisco,
because a lot of comedy
clubs were closing,
but the alternative
scenes were starting,
so they were mixing
with local poets.
And it was Patton Oswalt,
Greg Behrendt, and then a
group of people said, "We're
going to LA to do live shows."
And I had no reason
to go or not to go.
I just thought, "Well,
that sounds fun, and
"that's what I'm
interested in doing...
- That's the next thing to do.
- [Mary Lynn] live shows."
and it was Jack Black,
and David Cross,
and Will Ferrell,
just tons of people, it
was a really amazing scene.
I felt really lucky
to have happened
into that group at that time.
- How did your style develop?
You are not the sort
of person I imagine
writing a bunch
of jokes and then
going out on stage
and then, tell a joke.
Your personality is particular,
and your comedy is particular.
So how did your
own understanding
of your own version
of comedy develop?
- Well, in LA at that time, it
was a great time to do comedy
because everybody,
the comedians...
like Patton Oswalt,
he was very polished,
and he knew how to be funny,
but in these smaller rooms,
people were much more
personal and the comedy was
more storytelling and it was
more therapeutic, almost.
You would see comedians
saying things that they
would never have the opportunity
to say in a comedy club
where it was all about the
joke and all about competing
to be the best in
that environment.
So that's what was really
exciting to me, was that people,
those moments between
the joke where you see
somebody's personality,
and a lot of the shows
at that time were all
people's personality.
But for me in particular,
I was just really...
socially...
kind of terrified,
but for some reason,
I was really drawn and
compelled to perform.
I think, looking back, it
was sort of my own neuroses.
I needed to do that in
order...not to survive,
not to be that dramatic,
but it really was something
I couldn't really...my
personality is probably more
of a painter, but
I really needed to
communicate and
be around people.
- It was an outlet for you.
- It was an outlet in
more ways than one.
I was driven by needing the
social scene and needing
the creativity and
needing the expression.
- Were you influenced
by anybody?
I'm trying to think about an
equivalent to your style...
Steven Wright, somebody
who was more of an
observational person, who
kind of comes at things
from the side rather than
the way you'd imagine.
I'm trying to think about
if there are people who
you might have seen as
influences or people who maybe
you might have admired
at that time and thought,
"Well this is the kind
of comedy I enjoy."
- I was very much influenced by
the people that were
around me at that time.
- Right, your contemporaries.
- We'd talk backstage, it was
Karen Kilgariff and
Janeane Garofalo and
all the people we
just mentioned.
That was so exciting, to
see people doing things
that were out of the box
and doing stuff because
they felt like
doing it, you know?
- Jumping ahead now,
I think about it,
a lot of the people
you've mentioned have
gone on to be very
mainstream big successes.
Will Ferrell's the
obvious example of that,
Janeane Garofalo, David
Cross, Karen Kilgariff,
there were a number of
other people who were
associated with that
scene in San Francisco
or Los Angeles who went
on to be part of either
Mr. Show or the
Ben Stiller Show.
Before that, some of the
people who were associated
later with Larry
Sanders, as you were,
that's some extraordinary
comedy you're mining.
Those people, and to see
how that scene has become
kind of the mainstream
scene...it's been
a real transition.
And of course, you ended
up on one of the most
popular network shows
of our lifetimes, right?
- [Mary Lynn] Yes, that was...
- [Evan] Hard to imagine?
- Also, unexpected.
- Something you didn't
necessarily set out to do.
- I was around for a lot
of those early Mr. Shows.
I don't know how much it really
happens like this anymore,
with the internet and people
filming their own things
and having the ability
to quickly do that,
but it was Bob Odenkirk and
David Cross doing live shows
to test the material that
would become that TV show.
And they would throw
me in there and
I was almost kind
of like a mascot,
I didn't really know
what was going on.
I loved performing, but
I almost feel like it's
only now that I'm a
more well-rounded person
and kind of putting
together the pieces of...
It's not all some big
experimental art piece.
- But if you look back
at the chaos that was the
basis for that show, as you
describe it, it actually
held together remarkably well
and really was something.
And people generally
regarded it,
I know there was a
Rolling Stones story
that talked about it
as one of the greatest
sketch comedy shows of all time.
- No, yeah, those
guys were brilliant.
- Look at how influential
it was on so much else.
- Absolutely, I think I was very
chaotic in my own
approach, I didn't really
know what was going on.
Those guys were always
brilliant and very focused
and kind of magical together,
worked very hard to make that.
- I wanna ask you about
Larry Sanders because that
still looms large
in everyone's mind,
and you know you had a
great opportunity there.
And I wanna ask
about how you got 24
and the experience of
making that program,
because again, we have
all now kind of embraced
long format, episodic
television, that kind of a drama
you can throw a rock and hit one
these days on
television and off.
24 was kind of revolutionary in
its own way at the
time that it came on.
Talk about Larry Sanders.
How daunting it must be to
be with some of those guys,
Shanlding and Rip
Torn and Tambor
and all those guys who are
just amazing, even back then.
- It really was, and I
feel very lucky that I was
sort of able to
learn on the job.
Per episode, I would
have a scene or two,
or three, maybe,
so it was just enough
to keep me from
not completely freaking
out and melting down
because I really was learning
while I was doing it.
I remember I just learned so
much about acting and comedy.
There was one moment where
Gary Shandling said to me,
it was some line of,
"Yeah, I'm gonna do that later."
Some normal line,
and he looked at me
and said, "What
are you thinking?"
And I said, "I was thinking,
I'll do that later."
Kind of just thinking
just what I said.
He's like, "No, well, but what
else are you thinking about?"
He just called me
out in that moment,
and I sort of never looked back.
He was telling me
about subtext, which is
the bedrock of being
a good actor is that
maybe you have other
things going on
inside of you other
than the thing
that you're saying, and
he completely recognized
that I didn't have any
other intentions or thoughts
or feelings in
that moment, and...
again, I had already filmed
a couple takes, and so...
- Just changed everything.
- It was really fun for me.
And I had a proclivity
for that, so I was going
in the right direction, I
just was very untrained.
- So how did you
get from that to 24?
If you think about Mr.
Show and Larry Sanders,
they're both subversive shows,
and they're clearly
comedy shows.
24, subversive in its own way,
but the exact opposite
of those shows.
- It's funny, because
a lot of places I go,
people only know me from 24.
I recently, a few years
ago, did a guest spot on
Modern Family, and
one of the creators,
I said, "I think I know
him from years ago,
"and I don't know
if he knows me.
"I know they know me enough
to give me this job."
And he came and he sat down
next to me and he goes,
"Now, can you believe
you were on 24?"
And that was the way
he said hi to me,
and I just had a
good laugh because...
- He knew you from the old days.
- Yeah, and there's a lot
of people in the business
that are now sort of, "Oh,
she's doing comedy again,"
because there's a huge
chunk of time where
I was just something
completely different.
- [Evan] You were just Chloe.
So, how did that happen?
How did it come to you, and how
did you decide you
wanted to do it?
- I got a call from
my agent and she said,
"They want to read
you for this."
And I rarely got
drama auditions,
and I had recently had a
horrible drama audition.
I think it was for
CSI or something...
For like, you
know, Abused Woman.
- [Evan] Dead Body.
- [Mary Lynn] Dead Whatever.
It's weird because
it's not that I...
I believed in my
ability, but it's almost
the transition of coming
into the audition room,
and once I did the part I
believe I was good and fine,
but it was walking in
the room and going,
"Hey guys, so this woman
in the scene is all..."
I'm sure they were like, "What
is wrong with this girl?"
I was just being probably silly
and uncomfortable and odd,
and they were all so serious,
and the part was so serious,
and I thought, "Well
that was horrible, and
"I don't wanna do that again."
- Not gonna get it,
it's gonna be fine.
- And so my agent said,
"They really wanna see you."
And I said, "Ah, it's hot today.
"I don't wanna drive.
"I just had this CSI thing."
And she said, "They
really wanna see you."
(sigh) Okay.
So, it's the next day and
I watch two or three...
and I started Season 3
- [Evan] You came in Season 3,
you were not there
in the beginning.
- So it was already
kind of a thing,
so I crammed as many
episodes as I could
before the meeting,
and I go in there,
and Joel Surnow, the creator,
he meets me in the hallway.
This never happens, and
again it's one of these
awesome...he says,
"Well, I think you're great, and
"we wanna write a
write a part for you."
- We're gonna write
a part for you.
And there was a
part on the page,
but really there was
nothing to it yet because
every time they start a new
season, they've gotta cast
the whole...each
different plot line
they have a cast of characters,
and there's always
new people in the CTU,
and so it was just,
"Yes, Jack." "No, Jack."
And I said, "Well, thank
you, I can go home now.
"You just validated
me whether..."
I didn't believe it was
gonna happen necessarily,
but really, as an
actor, you're like,
"Great, that's gonna keep me
going for another year or two."
The fact that someone
would even say that because
you don't know if it's
gonna happen or not.
And we're talking and he says,
"So, what do you
think of the show?"
I said, "I think it's great."
He said, "You don't really
watch the show, do you?"
Because he knew that
once people watch it,
they love it, and since I had
just watched a few episodes
to kind of cram it I was like,
"Yes, it's a fantastic show."
And he called me out, he knew.
"But you're not
really a 24 fan."
And I was like, "No, I just
watched it last night."
So he had seen me in a movie
called Punch-Drunk Love,
directed by Paul
Thomas Anderson,
and I play a bossy
overbearing sister to
Adam Sandler and he
liked that quality,
that special quality
that I had, and...
I think it was...
- That may have
been the best thing
that came out of that
whole movie, right?
It's a pretty good movie.
- I like the movie.
- But look what it did.
So he liked that, and he said,
"I want Mary Lynn
for this show."
And they didn't imagine this as
a character who would
be on the show for...
- [Mary Lynn] Absolutely not.
- [Evan] You had the most
episodes of any character in the
history of the show
other than Jack.
- It's amazing.
- [Evan] Other than
Kiefer Sutherland.
- And when I
started it was like,
"Okay, we want you
to do two episodes."
"Okay, we want you
to do four episodes."
And it was like that for
a good three, four years.
- No guarantee it
was gonna keep going.
- No.
What's Kiefer Sutherland like?
Did you enjoy working with him?
- [Mary Lynn] Yeah.
- [Evan] You know,
his reputation is kind of big...
What did you think
about working with him?
- He's great, he's one
of those guys who...
We all know his
history as an actor.
He's somebody who has the
pedigree and the dedication,
and he comes out of a
certain school of acting.
I really learned a lot
from him about how to...
He's a star, he's
the star of the show.
He drives that show,
he's the real thing.
And for somebody like
me, I tend to try
to avoid things or,
even things that I love,
I'm just like, "Nyuh,
we'll see about that."
And he's somebody who
really jumps into it,
and really has a dedication,
and he sets the pace
for that show, and I
think that's a really...
That's a really hard
character to be,
if you think about it,
because half of 24 is...
I don't wanna say ridiculous,
it's an amazing show,
half of it is
like, unbelievable.
- It's fantastical.
- It's fantastical. You're like,
"No way would that ever happen."
The other half is rooted in
real things that are happening.
And he rides that line.
- He threw himself fully
into every episode.
- But in a sense
that he didn't...
I don't know quite
how to articulate it,
but it's not like he...you
believe him as that guy.
He's not over the top, and
he's not too understated.
He knows how to play
it, and I think there's
very few people that
can pull that off.
- Except that you made
that character you,
and indistinguishable
from you, and in fact,
we've talked to you for
a short little time here,
you get a sense of the
personality that you have
and the personality
of the characters
are not that different.
- [Mary Lynn] Really?
- Don't you think you made that
character to be more like you?
- Yes.
- Was the character necessarily
written to be that way?
Or did it just basically happen
because of how you evolved it?
- They wrote to me,
and I did my version
of what I would be like if
I were a computer genius
who could save the world
from a terrorist attack.
- Right, nothing big, no.
But if you go back to the
time you were in art school,
or the performance art you
did, or the comedy scene
on the West Coast,
would you have imagined
that this would
have been the part
that would have been
the defining part?
- [Mary Lynn] Never.
- [Evan] You would agree
that is the defining
part of your career?
- [Mary Lynn] Yes.
- [Evan] People probably
see you on the street
and, if they're
gonna yell anything, they'll
probably yell, "Chloe."
- Absolutely.
- You're comfortable with
that, you're good with that?
- Sure, what am I gonna do?
- Well, nothing.
It wasn't the answer exactly
that I was looking for.
But that's okay.
- I'm learning, I'm learning.
- We have a couple minutes left.
So TV has been a
big part of your...
you've done a bunch
of parts in movies...
- That was the worst...I
give the worst answers.
- No, that's okay, it's
fine. I just keep going.
- I'm such a petulant
child, "Yeah, I dunno.
"What do you think?"
I'll work on that.
- We'll just edit
that out in post.
- For my Oscars speech, "Yeah,
cool, you guys. I guess."
- You're continuing to work
in TV, or what passes for TV.
You had mentioned that you had
just done a pilot for Amazon.
- [Mary Lynn] Yes.
- [Evan] I guess that's TV.
Right? Do we think
of Amazon and Netflix
- [Mary Lynn] Sure is.
- [Evan] ...and Hulu and
all those non-connected,
cable-corded shows as TV?
- In Hollywood, in the world
of getting acting jobs,
it's as much TV
as anything else.
- In fact, if you look
at the award nominations,
which you know are worth
basically the statues
that are produced
for them, so what?
But it's all Netflix and
Amazon and a lot of the
cable programs that
maybe once upon a time
wouldn't have been
thought to be...
- Right, from my end as
an actor and a performer
you look for interesting, good
material that has integrity,
and then you hope
for eyeballs on it.
Obviously you hope the
project comes together,
and then you want viewers,
so that's the
interesting part for me.
I loved working with Amazon.
They really took time and care
to put together all
the aspects of it.
We'll see how it comes out,
we'll see if people watch it.
- And the principal creative
force behind that program
was somebody who had
been connected with
the film Nebraska.
- Yes, the writer of the pilot
wrote the movie Nebraska,
the directors...the husband
and wife team that directed
Little Miss Sunshine,
and it's about a kid who
sees imaginary people.
He's 19 years old.
I play his mother, Chris
Parnell plays his father,
and we're very well-meaning,
and we don't know whether
to have him committed or
not, and we support him
but we let him know
he's not normal, and...
- I'm guessing it's a comedy.
- It's a comedy, it's
a very dry comedy.
But the people that he's
talking to, you see them
as an audience member,
you see what he sees,
so it was Shaquille
O'Neal and Flea...
Actually, I don't know
if I'm supposed to be
saying this or not...you'll
cut this out if I'm going
to get in trouble, right?
- [Evan] Nobody on PBS knows
who Flea is except for
you and me, so it's okay.
- I think that's supposed to
be a surprise announcement
for later, I got carried away.
With the relaxed
atmosphere here.
- I like you carried
away, that's good.
Mary Lynn Raskjub, great to
have a chance to talk to you
and fun to go back and
listen to your stories.
- Thank you. Thanks
for having me.
- Good luck with
everything you're doing.
Mary Lynn Raskjub,
thanks very much.
- [Voiceover] We'd love to
have you join us in the studio.
Visit our website at
klru.org/overheard
to find invitations
to interviews,
Q and A's with our
audience and guests,
and an archive of past episodes.
- The fictional TV show
that's in Californication,
I play a writer on that show,
and I was surrounded by men,
and I really hated men,
and instead of being nude
and having sex like
everybody does on that show
I got to trade that
for vomiting, so
that was a really...
- [Voiceover] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part
by MFI Foundation,
improving the quality of
life within our community.
Also by Hillco Partners,
a Texas government
affairs consultancy.
And by the Alice Keberg
Reynolds Foundation.