Off Camera with Sam Jones

Believe it or not, the origin of Seth Rogen’s incredible acting, writing, and producing career traces all the way back to Bar Mitzvah class in Vancouver. That’s where twelve-year-old Seth met Evan Goldberg, a fellow movie enthusiast who loved writing just as much as Seth did. A creative partnership between the two began instantaneously, and they started writing what would become Superbad, inspired by their own high school escapades, by the time they were thirteen. “We always wondered if our very specific high school experience would be relatable to other people, because we were just writing what happened to us as Jewish Canadian boys in Vancouver. It seemed pretty niche.” Of course, it became one of the most successful movies about high school of all time.As his writing career post-Superbad took off, so did his acting career. Within the span of a few years, he became the face of American comedy, working on hit films like The Pineapple Express, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Knocked Up. In fact, he had so much su

For over 20 years, Busy Philipps has been navigating the highs and lows of a being an actress in Hollywood. With unrivaled determination and a strong belief in herself, Busy left her home in Arizona at 18 years old for Los Angeles to pursue acting and briefly, college. Her dream came true sophomore year, when she was cast in the cult TV show Freaks & Geeks, and since that time, Busy’s been a staple of American television, with roles in popular shows like Dawson’s Creek, Cougar Town, and Vice Principals.Despite her success, Busy hasn’t been immune to the uglier elements of being a woman in Hollywood. She’s dealt with body shaming, inequality, and harassment by male colleagues while also fighting the insecurity that comes with the job. But overcoming challenges is in Busy’s DNA: “I only do things the hard way. It’s the only interesting way to do anything, and it’s a part of my personality.”In response to her traumatic experiences and as someone who has “wanted to be seen” ever since childhood, Busy chose to wri

When David Harbour was growing up in the suburbs of Westchester County, he was an outcast. A self-described nerdy and intense weirdo who preferred to march to the beat of his own drum over assimilating with the popular crowd, David explains, “I basically felt like an alien growing up.” But his isolation from the group and things like team sports led him to pursue more solitary, artistic, and creative endeavors, and along the way, he discovered acting.On stage, David’s socially off-putting intensity was an asset, and it allowed him to explore all of the dark and complex emotions he was feeling at the time within the structure of a story. By the time he was 19 and cast as Hamlet in a regional theater production, David had hit his stride. “I played Hamlet, and I don’t think I’ve ever been better. I was so fired up and alive, so engaged with the world. Hamlet was just me. All the things he was feeling were all the things I was feeling.” As a naturally gifted actor who simply loved the craft, David made the choice

When Joey King went to the premiere of her upcoming Hulu show The Act, she didn’t anticipate watching the entire thing through her fingers, but the role was so personally and professionally momentous that she couldn’t bear to watch herself with clear, open eyes. “I was sitting in a room full of people that I knew, but I was sweating the entire time. I was so nervous—I’d never felt so vulnerable about a performance before.” The show, based on a real-life story of Gypsy Rose (played by Joey) and Dee Dee Blanchard (played by Patricia Arquette), explores the dark and disturbing dynamic between a teenage girl who wants to live a normal life and a needy, over-bearing mother who suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and intentionally makes her daughter ill.Although Joey’s been acting since she was four, she rose to global fame nearly overnight after the release of the unexpected Netflix hit The Kissing Booth, a feel good teenage romantic comedy. Prior to The Act, playing a typical teenager who navigates friendsh

Brit Marling has created one of the most original, mind-bending, and creative shows on television with Netflix’s The OA; an exploration of near death experiences, inter-dimensional travel, modern dance, and much, much more. But the thing the sticks with you, and the thing that underlies all of the sci-fi excitement, is a very human yearning for connection and community. Between The OA and her films Another Earth and Sound of My Voice, Brit’s talent for tapping into her childhood imagination to create unique stories is undeniable. In a case of life almost imitating art, Brit nearly took a radically different career path. The parent-pleasing, Georgetown valedictorian graduated with a degree in economics that landed her at banking behemoth Goldman Sachs. She spent a year crunching numbers and cans of Red Bull before she realized that she was terribly depressed. “I couldn’t understand why all of these bright, excited young people found themselves here. No one was asking us to reinvent anything. It was just, ‘Her

If you look at Lauren Cohan’s acting career, it’s clear she has a knack for playing strong and feisty women. She’s played a zombie killing badass in The Walking Dead, a secret agent in Peter Berg’s thriller Mile 22, and now, she’s chasing down international baddies in the action-packed ABC series Whiskey Cavalier. Rolling on the ground, shooting guns, and doing stunts can be exhausting work, but for Lauren it’s the opposite. “I naturally gravitate towards action. As soon as I started doing it, I felt exhilarated. I have an excess of adrenaline, so it’s good for me to have a physical element to acting.” Lauren’s career path wasn’t always so certain. She spent years slogging through auditions where the only requirement was to be a “beautiful woman.” She longed for the opportunity to do more, and that’s when Walking Dead came along. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be an actor and get work because people want to see you onscreen, but when I got the role of Maggie, I was so relieved that it was a stripped down

Before Ray Romano graced our television sets with Everybody Loves Raymond, he was a hustling stand-up comedian, hoping to break into television like his peers Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, and Rosanne. He followed all the proper steps—performing on late night television, selling out road gigs, and getting featured in HBO comedy specials—but radio silence was all he got from the powers that be. After eleven years as a full-time stand-up, Ray realized, “Maybe this acting thing just isn’t meant to be.” But that’s exactly when he got offered the development deal that would turn into the hit show Everybody Loves Raymond, and make Ray not only the highest paid actor in sitcom history, but one of the most recognized people in the world. Despite all of his success and fame, Ray dealt with an unexpected identity crisis when Raymond ended. “It took about three months until the void smacked me in the head. It was this sense of, ‘What now? Where’s my passion? Where’s my direction? What am I throwing all my energy into now?

I was excited to have Patton Oswalt on the show, because I have been following his career ever since I first saw him on stage at the legendary Los Angeles club, The Largo in the mid-nineties, where he made me laugh harder than perhaps I have ever laughed before or since. But as I learned in this conversation, the road to that kind of insight and humor is a long uncertain one. As Patton says: “I worked for years doing very uncreative jobs, and for some people that’s fine, but for me, it felt deadly. It felt like a premature death in a lot of ways.” That’s how Patton felt before he was able to make a living off of his art, and it’s why he so values a career in the arts and specifically, those special creative moments, when a joke or an emotion lands and transcends all the social barriers we put between each other. Early on, Patton realized that staving off “life in a coffin” would be difficult if he let his self-critical voice take over, but he was so inspired by the arts, fellow comedians, and filmmakers that

Over the last ten years, Norman Reedus has been kicking zombie butt and endearing himself to audiences around the world in the massively successful AMC series The Walking Dead. Ten years is a long time for someone who grew up with a serious case of wanderlust and a “day-to-day” philosophy on life, but Norman wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m so invested in The Walking Dead that I can’t imagine leaving on my own. I want to bookend it. I want to see it to its conclusion.” Norman came to acting relatively late, but he traces his desire to be an artist all the way back to childhood, when art supplies were his go-to presents for birthdays and Christmas. Along the way, he’s tried just about every artistic medium, from painting, to photography, to modeling, and even to being a muse for music video directors. But it wasn’t until he discovered a rich creative and artistic community in downtown L.A. that he found his way to acting, and as someone with a self-described “chip on his shoulder,” it wasn’t even somethin

Before Daniel Radcliffe became the face of the global phenomenon that was Harry Potter, he was just a typical kid struggling to get through his schoolwork and get along with his teachers. Back then, his only acting credential was the BBC miniseries David Copperfield, but he made a good impression on fellow cast member Maggie Smith, who recommended him for the role that would change his life. Despite his parents’ initial reluctance, Dan was allowed to audition, and once they started filming, he discovered his happy place. “I felt pretty sh** at everything in school, so it was nice to be on a film set where my hyperactivity and all the stuff that was irritating my teachers was actually useful and encouraged.” Now nearly a decade removed from Harry Potter, he still finds acting to be a constant source of joy. When he made his first foray outside of Hogwarts, Dan bravely decided to take a giant risk, choosing the dark and psychologically complex play Equus as his coming out party. “I couldn’t do something half-a

When Stephen Merchant grew to 6’7” as a teenager, he had a hard time blending in with the crowd, which was something he longed for. “Lots of kids in school would dye their hair pink, get lots of piercings, or do things to stand out, whereas I spent all my time trying not to stand out, trying to seem shorter, to be one of the crowd.” Despite the unwanted attention, being tall helped Stephen develop his comedic sense—“If people were just going to point at me for being tall, they might as well point and go, ‘Oh, it’s that tall funny guy.’” By the time he got to university, he decided to make a career out of standup comedy. Stephen put in the time experiencing the highest highs and crushing lows of life as a standup, but his career really took off after he teamed up with Ricky Gervais for the hit U.K. comedy series The Office. The two met while doing radio for XFM London, and their chemistry was instantaneous and undeniable. After years collaborating with Gervais and others on projects like Extras and HBO’s Hel

Ever since Regina Hall showed up on screen as the hilarious, sex-craven Brenda in Scary Movie, she’s never had to worry about getting work. But what she did struggle with was getting the right kind of work, especially after discovering the flip side to success—typecasting. “I wanted great parts and interesting work. And as a woman, a black woman, I wondered if that was even possible.” Despite her concerns about a career ceiling, she continued to push for roles that were more nuanced, and less broad. Luckily, she had a thick skin, honed by growing up with three brothers, which prepared her for the ups and downs of the industry. While many female actors fear getting older in a business that values youth, Regina, now in her late-40s, is discovering that her career is blossoming with age. In the past two years, she’s been in the massively successful Girls Trip, has won multiple awards for her role in the outstanding independent film Support the Girls, and is now playing her self-proclaimed dream role in Showtim

It’s been 140 episodes since Dax Shepard last sat down with me, and a lot has changed since—he directed a film (ChiPs), started Armchair Expert, which is one of the best and most popular podcasts of 2018 (after stealing all of my secrets, of course), and learned a lot about what truly makes him happy in the process. In fact, his entire podcast is inspired by his fascination with true happiness.  “A lot of us go through life thinking, ‘I would be happy, if…’ ‘I would have self-esteem, if…’ ‘I would know contentment, if…’ But those are illusions that most people don’t get to find out are illusions.” Dax had the dubious honor of learning that lesson first hand. Early in his career, he had all of the status markers and money that he thought would make him happy, but none of that prevented him from reaching one of the lowest points in his life, magnified by his demoralizing addiction to alcohol and drugs. Huddled in an airport bar, sucking down Jack and Cokes, Dax took a moment to evaluate his situation. “My who

You may know D’Arcy Carden as the lovable, all-knowing, not-quite-robot-not-quite-human entity Janet on The Good Place, and while she may not know everything in real life, she certainly knew she wanted to act from the moment she saw her father in a local production of Thorton Wilder’s Our Town. By the time she was nine, D’Arcy had her mind set on child acting, and she tried to make her case to her father. But he didn’t buy her “I can handle it” argument, and instead, she was forced to pursue acting at school until she graduated. It was a compromise she didn’t want to make—“You’re ruining my life!” was D’Arcy’s initial reaction. But in retrospect, she wouldn’t have it any other way, proving that sometimes, parents do know whats best. (that last line was directed at my children). The struggles started soon after she graduated college and moved to New York City to conquer Broadway. “I shared a two-bedroom apartment with four, sometimes five people. I never had a dollar in New York, and I lived there for ten ye