What Really Happened With James Corden?

The industry is strange. I'm just used to my attitude, which is probably not the best attitude, is that no matter how good of an idea I have or how interesting it is, the studios or whoever I'm pitching to won't get it. They might get it, but they're like, well, we don't know what to do with it. But that's not just you. The industry is in a bad, bad place. Yeah, but you'd figure they'd probably want to make some investments at some point to see what's next and what's possible. Well, when I watched your special, I was like, I want to commend you because it's just like, nobody would do that. Nobody would make a special from the perspective of 1998 and pull it off, especially nowadays with the way things are and what gets eyeballs nowadays. So it really hats off to Veeps for seeing that vision. Yeah, for 100%. I think Veeps was, I definitely am so grateful for them wanting to do a special because I was trying to do a special for like, I don't know, eight years, nine years, something like that. And I had JJ Abrams on board with Bad Robot, was there at pitch meetings for this concept that I had for a comedy special and nobody went for it. And I'm just like, well, if I had Bad Robot and JJ Abrams at the height of his powers, not being able to push something into existence. It's definitely not them. The issue's not them. It's like there's something else. I had heard Jimmy Kimmel pitch something to ABC and they said no. And that's Jimmy Kimmel. Yes. The face of the network. Yes. Yeah, I know. It's bizarre. And what's weird is I've pitched things that have intentionally been very low cost. I'm like, this is low cost, low risk, and people still don't do it. So it's not money. When you were doing Corden for, gosh, I think you did it for six or seven years, something like that? Eight and a half years. Eight and a half years. Were you itching to go out and be Reggie Watts? Did you feel constrained in that? As good as probably a gig it was. Yeah, yeah. No, super rad gig. I mean, I definitely wanted to do more of my own stuff. Yeah. Because you couldn't go out and tour or perform if you have to be there five nights a week. Not really. Not really. I mean, we were only doing four days a week, which was, again, it's the most… That's a lot, Reggie. Four days is a lot. Yeah, I guess so. A live show every day. That's true. The only thing I can compare it to is I live stream, and it's exhausting. It's a full day. And then when you're done, you're just like, you need a couple days to recover, I'm sure, after four days of shooting. Well, I mean, to be fair, I worked the least amount of hours out of anybody in that entire show. No, you're up there for the whole hour. No, I am, but I'm only there for about an hour and a half to two hours. Oh, that's really good. But James Gordon predicted that. What did he say? When I met with him at the hotel, and I apologize to everybody for all my sniffling, I have allergies, so I'll try to do my best to move the mic away as I sniff a lot. Sir sniffs a lot. But yeah, he invited me to this hotel in Beverly Hills for a meeting. There was a meeting set up, and this was after I quit Comedy Bang Bang, like immediately after I quit. You had an idea, maybe this is for the band leader's job. Yeah, well, yeah, maybe, or no, they did tell me, they told me, yeah, my management said, like, yeah, this is for, he's got a new talk show, it's taking over Craig Ferguson's slot, and looking for a band leader, and I was like, okay, cool. Met with him, which was weird, because I'd just quit, you know, a show where I was a one-man band leader on a fake talk show, and now this guy wants me to be on an actual talk show as an actual band leader. And anyways, we went to the hotel, very charming guy, very cool, Ben Winston, who's the showrunner, his best friend, he was there, and I could tell he was analyzing me, because he wasn't very sure about me. And James just kind of talked to me, and he just had it in his mind, he was like, this is the guy I want for the show, he's the perfect dude, and we talked for a while, and he said at one point, he's like, listen, he's like, you roll into the studio, you know, 20 minutes before the show, and, you know, your car is running already, you do the show, you get out of the show, and you get in your car, and you drive off. Wow. He spoke your language. And it was exactly true, because, I mean, I kind of crafted it that way over time, because, like, in the beginning, they wanted us to be there earlier, you know, the band to be there earlier, and to go through rehearsal, where they run through his monologue and all this stuff, and I just found it really tedious to be there for that, because it doesn't make my job easier to watch the monologue, and then when the show comes on, for me to fake laugh through the stuff in the monologue, I wanted it to be spontaneous and real in the moment, and so eventually I just stopped going to the rehearsals, and then I remember the showrunner, Ben, chimed in one day, and he's like, he's always, like, chewing on something, he's British, he's like, I read you. I actually think it was a good idea for you to not come to rehearsals anymore. And I was like, oh, that's cool, I'm glad you see that, because, like, it wasn't me being lazy, for me, I want the moment to be full of life, and to be fresh, and to feel like the audience is discovering it with me as I'm discovering it, you know, and that's my role in the show, is to stay fresh. And so, yeah, so eventually, yeah, I would show up, I think, when did we tape, it was so long ago, I think we tape at four, so I would get to work around, like, 3.30, 3.45, and I'd, like, go straight to makeup, and I made it so all I had to do was slip on a jacket, so I just put on a jacket, do makeup, walk out on stage. Come with a clean shirt. That's it. That you're wearing. Yeah, just whatever shirt I'm wearing. Whatever, yeah. Because the jacket's fancy, so it's very distracting. Yeah, so it covers it. Yeah, yeah. Not that I was, like, purposely being a slob or anything like that, but it'd be, like, me wearing this, I probably would wear a different t-shirt, but I might wear this, but the main thing was, like, just wear a jacket, because when I was in Comedy Bang Bang, I had, like, a whole band leader outfit, and I was changing into it, and I just didn't, it just didn't feel good. I'm not really an actor in that sense, where I'm, like, I need to wear my wardrobe. Unless it was something I created, and I want it to be a specific look or something, then I'm super down with that. Or, you know, or if it's a friend's project, whatever, that's fine. But, like, as for something that I want to do regularly, like, dealing with wardrobe drives me. It's all the finicky, persnickety needling that gets me after a while. Sure. This has to be correct, this has to be correct, which it gets. People doing their jobs is what they're supposed to do. But the intensity, if I have to do that over and over again for a long period of time, it starts to get to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm like, this feels inefficient to me, you know, for my creativity. It's inefficient for my creativity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how I felt when I used to, if I would get hired to be an actor or something, I would go, mostly what I do is, like, YouTube and podcasts, which is just like, oh, you go, you shoot, you're done. Yeah. Awesome. You be yourself. You wear what you wear. And then if I would get hired to do something, it would be like, oh, what? Yeah, yeah. Like, no. Yeah, I know, which is so lame, because it's like, it's work. You know what I mean? It's work, and it's like, there's thousands and thousands of actors that would be like, oh, I would kill for that. So that's not lost on me, but also at the same time, you work the way you work. And also, if you've been doing it long enough, I think you earn the right to figure out how you like to work. It's the same thing with, like, if you were a construction worker, you know, like, if you put in enough time, you'd probably rise in the ranks or whatever, and you have an opinion about how you'd like the team to work, you know, and all that stuff. So I think I made myself feel a little bit less bratty, you know. Sure, sure. Well, your excuse of wanting it to be fresh is good, because that's an honest take. I think that's what, I'm glad you said that. I need to hear that. Be more improvisational, make things more organic. Yeah. And that's why he hired you. That is, yeah, totally. I know, I kind of realized that. That's literally one of your biggest assets. Yeah, I realized that later, too. Somebody who's, like, flying off the cuff and can pull it out in the moment. Yes, and that has the audience's best interest at heart. Like, I'm there as the kind of grounding. And even though I'm absurdist, it's, like, more emotionally connected and more momentously connected. Yeah. Because I always want the audience, not on my side, it's not about that, but I just want them to know that we've got them. You know, like, if I'm at a show, I want the audience to know that I'm there for them. Yeah. I mean, I definitely need to do it because I'm a psycho, but I have these dumb ideas and I want to share it with them. Or this dumb experience and I want to share it with them. And I want my audience to feel like, yeah, this is for us. This is for him. But it's also for us. And we can tell.