I'm actor Ben Schwartz, Ask Me Anything!

Thanks for doing an AMA! What was the inspiration for using rubber ducks in your Playboy photoshoot last year? Are you and the rubber duck in your Twitter profile pic still together?

Ooh, great question! Yes of course, that rubber duck, I'm very very close with, I will never let that rubber duck down. It was, I think there was a series of props that the person brought for the shoot, and I was like, "That! I want that." Because we were supposed to shoot in a bathroom setting, and then I was like, "But how crazy would it be if I had a rubber duck outside of the bathroom?" So I think we had it in a shower.

But that's why, because I saw that prop and immediately was like, "I'm a child, I would like to have this next to my face and take a picture of it."

u/fuckswithducks, I'm loving the username. Keep going with it. Stick with it baby. I'm really into the idea of this, what you're about, and hope to hear more from you in the future. I hope I put myself in a situation where I talk about ducks enough! It may happen in the future. I can't tell you why but it may happen in the future.

You are my favorite guest on so many podcasts. Comedy Bang Bang, Jake and Amir, Doug loves movies. Any plans to start your own podcast?

This is a question that has come up many times, and Jake and Amir have their own network. I have a huge desire to do it, but I don't think I'd be able to do a lot of episodes and I feel bad just doing one or something like that. I hope that one day, I hope that I'll have enough time where I can concentrate on it, because I think there's so many funny people we can try to get in the same room to make something special. But the way, for me doing Comedy Bang Bang or Jake and Amir, it's like playtime. It's like me hitting the heavy bag, and just getting everything out and being so happy and excited. I love being the guest on all of them. I just did one yesterday, but I don't know when I'm gonna do my own. It is something Jake and Amir bother me about all the time.

It would be a travesty if you had a podcast on any other network than Earwolf. Gabrus is on Headgum and it just doesn't feel right, even though it's a great fucking podcast.

I love EarWolf. It's where I record most of my stuff. I do do Jake and Amir's podcast at Headgum, but I love EarWolf. Think of all the great people that are on both.

Love everybody! Why don't we love everybody guys? Remember that dolphin thing we talked about a while ago? But I do love EarWolf. I think the cast of characters they have that comes through there is incredible.

Ben, is a hotdog a sandwich?

So, I'm going to try and take you through my thought process. Is a hot dog a sandwich? Off the bat, I'm disappointed by the question, because a hot dog by itself could be just the actual hot dog. I feel like if you pop a bun on it and throw a condiment on it, then you've got a sandwich. But a hot dog by itself? No. I would say, like turkey by itself is not a sandwich. It's something that can make a sandwich. And I just feel like if you had another shot, you could have changed that question. And I apologize. But I would say no to hot dog, pop a bun on it and I'm with you.

What's your favourite Harris Wittels story?

Harris Wittels was a writer on Parks and Recreation who passed away very young, and he was so funny. If we're talking about Harris, I would urge for people who haven't heard of him or about him to look up his stuff. Go on YouTube, there's something that he did for Comedy Bang Bang that turned into something called Phone Corner, and it's him going through his phone and him saying the jokes that he wrote down that are so cheesy, and they're so smart and so funny, but he would deliver them in such a dry way.

I'm so happy you brought it up, because this is a chance for people to look up who Harris Wittels is, his stand up, his writing, everything . . . and also he acted on Parks as one of the animal control people! But go to YouTube, look up Phone Corner, and you would see how lovely and brilliant Harris is. Just a really good, good human being, and very sad that he passed away, but I'm so happy someone brought him up because hopefully it will make other people learn about him.

Hi Ben, how was the process of putting together the sounds for BB8 in Star Wars Episode 7 with Bill Hader?

So, I was lucky enough that when JJ Abrams was making the new Star Wars film, he came home on a little break and he said, "Hey I have this new droid called BB-8, and I want him to have personality. You know, everybody loves R2-D2, but I want to put him in situations where he can feel warmth, and he can be funny, and he can do all these things." Because he had these big scenes with Rey - and I can talk about it all finally - all these big scenes with Daisy Ridley's character, and John Boyega's character, and so the process was at the beginning. We wrote real dialogue for him.

So, there's recordings of me overseeing this. JJ would show me scenes, and I would say real dialogue as BB-8 in response to whatever Rey or people were saying. And then, the goal was to give that to LucasFilms and they would turn them into beeps and boops. So they tried it, and when it came back, I feel like it felt like… you can feel like it was a human being turned into beeps and boops. So then they gave me a synthesizer, and this great sound guy named Robby Stambler - when we were in the room for hours, I would call us “The Beautiful Boys,” because we both looked terrible. Nah, he's a great guy. But Robby Stambler, amazing sound guy, and we did this thing where I would take this microphone that was hooked into a computer, and I'd literally try to do the beeps and boops.

First, we tried it with words, and it didn't work. And then I tried to do the beeps and boops. And in the end, we did a bunch and bunch of scenes, and I was very fortunate and got to see the movie beforehand, and all this stuff and really work with it. I don't know how much of those are in it, but I was told by the editors that all the dialogue that I did for the film was used while they edited. So, if Rey, Daisy Ridley's character, is having a scene with BB-8, they would edit with my dialogue in there to know when to cut to back and stuff like that. And I was so excited, because I don't know how much percent of my actual voice is in there, hopefully there is some, but I know that all the editors were so kind to me in saying that it really helped with the way they edit, and the cadence.

Holy smoke... dear god THIS IS IT. What are your favorite books?

Oh, you know what I just read which I loved? When you're an actor, you spend a lot of time reading screenplays, so when you get time to read an actual book, what I do is I buy the physical book itself always, and I read "Ready Player One" and I was so in love with that book and immediately found out afterwards that someone bought the rights and I was like "Oh my goodness, I would do anything to be in it". But I remember reading that book and feeling a very strong connection with it. And Ernest Cline who is the author wrote a new book called "Armarda," and I bought it but it's on my desk but I haven't read it yet. But "Ready Player One". I loved it. I love love loved it.

How long does it take you to recover from a Solo Bolo?

Unbelievable question. So we usually rest up for the six months in between. So it's like we'll do a Solo Bolo, we'll go into a hyperbaric chamber, or we'll go surfing. We'll try to hit the same wave for a couple of months, so we'll try to ride that wave on different continents and stuff like that. Then we'll come back, we'll get ourselves hydrated, and then we'll stretch for a couple of days. So each time you hear Solo Bolo, it is the exact time it takes to recover from a Solo Bolo. So Solo Bolo, a couple of months to a year, and another Solo Bolo, and then we're just like skeletons, and then we slowly become human beings again. Unbelievable question, thank you for asking.

If you had to assemble a 5 person improv team to compete against aliens (Space Jam style) which improvisers would you choose?

This is so hard, because you don't want to leave out anybody I love.

Okay, I do a two person show with Thomas Middleditch. We do that in a place called Largo in LA. I would pop him on there. So far, that's me and one other person. I think Zach Woods is so funny! I'd pop him on those teams. I'd do three person improv with Adam Pally and Gil Ozeri, that would be five. I kinda want more.

If you can let me have a dream team, I'd put Amy Poehler on there, Lauren Lapkus on there. But if I could pick anybody, there's so many people I always wish I could play with that don't play as much anymore, like Tina Fey. I wish Farley was around, I think that would be the most fun in the universe.

I think Al Ramus would've be really fun, Bill Murray. I can go on forever. I'm very passionate about improv. But it's like if I could get Bill Murray onstage, or I do a show where it's improvisers mixed with people who have never done it before, I've been very lucky, I've got JJ, Jane Fonda, Helen Hunt, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But I've always wanted to get Tom Hanks and Bill Murray on there.

What was your favorite part of filming Parks and Rec?

My favorite part of filming Parks & Rec...

First of all, the cast is incredible.

Second of all, there's no show in the universe where you get a script that is so funny, every script you get is so funny. I feel like, if you watch that show, I'm like human, human, human, muppet, muppet. Like, I turn into a muppet so quickly on that show, I turn into a cartoon. The thing I love to do with that character is, as slimy as he was, his heart was really good. He always thought he was crushing it, so you kind of root for him, even though you're like, "What are you doing?!".

Amy Poehler used to say that it was like when a puppy does something wrong. You're like, "Aww Jean-Ralphio." You can't really yell at him because he's such… whatever he is. But, I loved working with that cast, and the words were so funny. I think that will go down in history as one of the best casts ever assembled and also one of the best writing staffs of all time. Harris Wittels was on there, Alan Yang, Megan Amram, Norm. There are all these huge, huge, important writers that what you're going to watch and see are all going to create their own stuff, or be a huge part of cinema or TV in a big way. And Mike Schur is a genius. He's a genius. And he's written on everything I care about and I got to be directed by him a bunch, so it was really good.

Ben! You may not get this a lot but coffee town is probably my favorite movie. So funny. So quotable. My question for you is how was it to work with glen howerton? And how involved in the writing process were you?

Thanks for everything you do!

I love that you've seen Coffee Town! It was an independent movie that not a lot of people saw. It was amazing! We became very close friends very quick. We clicked very well because he's so funny. We wanted to do these short films together because we had so much fun with each other, and we found that his Always Sunny character had attributes of my Jean Ralphio character. There was like, these douchey aspects of both. And we always want to play together.

I hope I get to do something else. He is in House of Lies this year. My TV show House of Lies with Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell, Josh Lawson. Him and I have 3 or 4 episodes together. He's great, he's amazing. And he gets to be dramatic and funny and it’s pretty great.

Benny Schwass! When's the new solo bolo and/or house of pies?

All joking a salad, who were some of your biggest influences for getting into improv?

Already into it! It's a Comedy Bang Bang reference . . . Already into it. So crazy, you don't know all those words make a sentence. So they do! Well, incredible question, and I don't know if Scott Aukerman is going to be mad at me for announcing it, but Imma do it anyway. We have done 2 solo bolos in the past; solo bolo and solo bolo dolo. We have solo bolo trolo in the can.

Scott Aukerman and I went to the musical Hamilton together to prepare for - what we do in these things is we just sing like idiots for an hour and change, and so we've already recorded solo bolo trolo and I think it comes out in a couple of months. Whenever Scott wants to put it out. But it has been recorded and it is just as insane as you would hope the third in the series would be. I'm excited for it to come out for the sheer pleasure of seeing people be like "Why do you keep doing these?".

UCB 4 were huge for me, so Amy Pohler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts. But then coming up, I interned for ASSSSCAT so I showed people where the bathroom was, I gave out tickets, I did the garbage in order to get free classes so could take classes there. So the people I watched there really shaped me where people like Jack McBreyer, and Paul Sheer was a really big one for me, Rob Riggle was really big, Andy Daley, all these people that I hope you guys will know. Brian Husky was so good. Seth Morris. All these people that, when I was coming out, I remember thinking that everybody was the funniest person I'd ever seen in my entire life. And they hadn't broken yet. Like, Jack didn't get 30 Rock yet, and it made me feel so scared that if the funniest people in the world weren't getting roles, I thought that I never would be able to do it. Then they slowly started to break and it was very exciting for me to watch.

god I love you.

if you had to give one grown man's belly a raspberry, why would it be Amir?

wheresthe_rumham

So, I've never seen episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I'll tell you something hilarious. I did a movie where I was a co-star with Glenn Howerton, WHO I LOVE. And everybody who has watched It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia tells me it would be my favorite show of all time, so I like can't wait. But there's 100,000 episodes, so I remember when Glenn and I first met, I was like, "Oh man, I heard your show is incredible. I can't wait to watch it" and he goes, "Have you not seen it?", I was like, "No", he goes, "Oh cool, don't even worry about it" and I was like, "I'm sorry. I can watch it tomorrow if you want" he's like, "Don't even worry about it, it's not even a thing" . . . then like, a month and half into shooting he was like, "I think you should watch an episode of my show!"

It was really funny. I think he had watched an episode of Parks and he was like, "I like it man, I think you should watch an episode of my show." But every time I see him I always make up a new character name and say, like, "Hey man, when's Timberlakley coming on?" and I always pretend like I'm going to be a guest star on Always Sunny, which I would do in a second because I love those guys. Every time I've met all Rob, Charlie, and Glenn, I think they're brilliant. They're like incredible human beings. I would do that show in a second. I did watch NightMan. Nightman's a thing right? Youtube clip. I watched the one where a kitten had socks. I know very little specifics. But, one time Parks was filming above Always Sunny, so I went down as Jean-Ralphio and took a picture with Glenn, which was really fun.

So, the question -

if you had to give one grown man's belly a raspberry, why would it be Amir?

You got to. Look at the frickin' face. How do you not want to give that guy a raspberry all the time. He's prime for it. And you know his laugh is going to be funny. And you know he's going to like cough up something. The second you see Amir, you give him a raspberry. It has to be, there's no other way. If you give it to Jake, he's going to be fine with it and he'll laugh, but Amir will laugh a lot and then be very uncomfortable and therein lies the fun.

Hi Ben! I love your work and your appearances on Comedy Bang! Bang! are always my favorite. What was it like to do a guest voice on the Simpsons?

Ooooo, great question, u/RichieDagger! It was incredible. It was fantastic. I've been to many table reads because I'm a very big fan of the Simpsons. The way that the writing is done on the Simpsons influenced the way I write today when I write films for places. But I was lucky enough to play a guest voice.

When I recorded, the woman who does Milhouse was right next to me. I saw her, and I got so excited, and I was like, "Milhouse is one of my favorite characters in the world in any form, regardless of animation, it would mean so much to me if you do my out-going message on my voicemail." And she was so kind. I said, "All you have to do is make sure you say, 'Everything is coming up Milhouse' and she did ," Hey, Ben isn't here, but guess what?! EVERYTHING'S COMING UP MILHOUSE HAHAHAA". Check it out!

That is my out-going message, and let me tell you how confusing that is to everyone in the world who doesn't know who Milhouse is when they try to call me and they get that. But it was one of the most exciting experiences. I took the script home where it says my name playing a character, and the second, I'm adult enough to frame things and hang them up on the wall. I will do that. I cannot wait to do that. It was a huge moment for me. Just because I had three things on my bucket list coming up: one was to do a voice on the Simpsons, one was to be a guest on Letterman because I started as a page and showing people the bathroom was on Letterman and the third one, which I haven't achieved yet, but hopefully in the next fifteen years, is to host SNL one day. So, that was one of the big three things that I was trying to do.

If Jean Ralphio could be in any movie between, wedding crashers, swingers or Wolf of wall Street, what would it be?

Swingers, baby! Jean Ralphio would be Vince Vaughn's character in Swingers in a heartbeat. Do you know how many times he'd get to say baby? Are you insane? It would be a dream of Jean Ralphio to be in the film Swingers next to Jon Favreau, I think that was the role he was born to play. Oh my god, guess who the big winner is. It's Mikey, truly Mikey, and that dance. Great question.

Is this you in the dildo factory at 0:28? https://youtu.be/j8FXC9fODQs

Yeah, this is an episode of House Of Lies, where we visited a dildo factory!

In the scene, we're going through a factory because we're trying to get the business of a guy who makes sexual toys and stuff like that. But that music is not in the TV show. It's us being like, ok, so that goes there - me, Don, Kristen, and Josh - but instead, they took the song from a famous 80's movie montage song called Push It To The Limit.

Oh god, these suggested videos after are no bueno. But that's incredible. And whoever made that and got 1.8 million views and put ads on it and now makes money off it is pretty genius. That's a scene from an episode where Adam Brody is the head of this dildo factory and we go there to try to get his business.

What inspired Jean Ralphio?

What inspired Jean Ralphio is well, I got the script!

The way Jean Ralphio started is this. I remember, Mike Schur or someone, I think they might have been auditioning for it, and then I got a call being like, hey they want you to play this character. It was a paragraph. That's all I was told. I wasn't told I was coming back or anything. It was a paragraph in one episode, and it was an episode where Ron Swanson, who was played by Nick Olbermann - who I think by the way should have been nominated for an Emmy every single year. I think he was so good in that character, I loved him. I think he's so funny.

But he was looking for people, and I was one of five people that he scrolled through to interview, but I was Aziz' best friend. And I remember, I went in there, and I saw the script. I was inspired just by the words, and I think Harris or Katie Dippold who is a writer on there who now wrote the Ghostbusters movie, and she's just genius. I'm not sure who wrote the dialogue first, but I did it once, and then Mike Schur, the creator of the show, I'm in my first rehearsal, and there was this scene where I come in and I pitch Swanson, and I remember talking about all these characters at the end, and I was like daaaaaamn! I forget why I said it though, oh because of the hot intern girl Aubrey. And Mike Schur comes up to me and says, yes you'll be coming back. I remember that was a huge moment for me.

Hi Ben,

I love your work, especially the videos you've done with Jake and Amir. In these videos and in other things you've done you seem to like to improvise a lot. My question(s) are this - what do you think the benefits of improvisation are and are there any disadvantages? Do you believe that improvisation is suited primarily to comedy, or do you think it has a place in more dramatic shows/ films such as in the films of Joe Swanberg. Would be great to hear your thoughts. :)

Oh nice! Jake and Amir have their own subreddit, r/jakeandamir, don't they? There must be a Comedy Bang Bang subreddit, it would blow my mind if there wasn't. There's a guy's username that just talks about ducks, there's got to be a subreddit for Comedy Bang Bang. These are great questions!

First of all, love Joe Swanberg, very badly wanna do a film with him. I’ve met with him, I think he's very smart, and I love how beautiful and fluid his movies are. It looks like nobody's acting, it looks like they're just there and he's capturing things. I love Joe Swanberg’s stuff.

Improv for me, Jake and Amir is a great example. What we do for Jake and Amir, when I joined their stuff or when we do contest videos for me and Amir, we get together maybe the night before, or a couple hours before we shoot, we think of just an idea and for me. We think about what occupation my character will have, and then we kinda script out some lines and beats. But, within those, we get to improvise and we really get to find it.

For me, I did a bunch of videos recently with NFL athletes out here in San Francisco for Courtyard, and what I like to do is I like to… I think improv helps you find the beats. If you're with someone who's done it before or you're with someone who can guide I think it's really really helpful, a really helpful tool. Sometimes if it's two people that may not have done it as much, or you can get lost in the improv, and if you're on lines, they'll get you so far to the right that you kinda lose the mass and the contents of what you're trying to do. But I think it's such a good aid, and if you can edit as well, and find it, it's such a good way to find your beats.

And also, while you're writing, improv is so fun while you're writing. I'm writing a movie or something like that, I'll play with the lines and figure it out like that. But I absolutely think there's a world for it for drama. For House of Lies, I get to improve in the dramatic beats. And I find when I do it, it's just a matter of trying to make it keep the cadence of someone who's a real human, or how they're talking.

So for me, there's a scene where - this is a huge spoiler - but I kill my father in House of Lies by yelling at him too hard. Which is kinda hilarious now that I think about it. But I remember in that speech, it's like word for word what it is but coming in and out of it, or just the moments where you're just stuttering and trying to find the words, and you find just human rhythms within it. I think it's incredibly helpful.

But I very badly want to make a movie that is outlined, and not totally written, and get these people that we talked about that are great improvisers and put them in a movie, and make it for not a lot of money, and see if people care about it. Which, I think there could be a cool world for movies like that. Now that people are more accepting of improv and stuff like that.

Hey b schweatshirt Hey man I know you got your degree in anthro. And I was wondering if you think being in school was essential to your improv career? I know it's difficult because you have your own style on stage and your are immensely naturally talented but do you believe your degree was at all nessecary for your career? Love everything you do man you are a true inspo for me I hope you are happy!

My father is behind me, guys. I have to answer this very… my father paid for my college education with my mom. I do. I had two majors. I was an anthropology major, and a psychology major, and I 100% believe that that stuff got me ready to be a writer, to be an improviser, to learn about cultures, and to learn about. It was a huge thing.

Education is a very very big part of my family. My mom has been a school teacher for around 45 years. 45 years. It was always something that was instilled in us to do well in school and to learn, and things like that. So I cannot emphasize enough how important it was, because without those tools, and without me getting the intelligence to learn how to write and do those things, I wouldn't have been as equipped to handle writing and situations like that.

And also just living, man! I feel like if you're just doing one thing. I learned that when I was doing improv too much. I would take classes at UCB, and then I would page UCB, and my whole life evolved around comedy. All of it. Every aspect evolved around comedy, and then I realized when I was performing, I was doing the same thing over and over again, and it was because I wasn't living my life. I didn't have anything to pull from.

If you want to do stand up or sketch or improve, you need real life experiences to pull from, and I remember that was a big moment for me where I was like, oh I gotta go out to the zoo, or go on a date, or go out with my friends, or something, and make sure you live life. And I think college and high school, regardless of the college you go to, it could be community college or night school, whatever. It’s a big wealth of all those things.

Who would win in a fight: Jean Ralphio or BB-8?

I mean, BB-8, of course. Even if BB-8's only tool is that little lighter he did the thumbs up with, he would still kill Jean-Ralphio. Jean-Ralphio would look at BB-8 and trip over something and fall, and BB-8 would just roll over him a bunch of times. But I don't think BB-8 is mean in nature, he's like a good.. it. Guy or girl, he's a good everything. He encompasses everything.

Ben! I am such an enormous fan of all of your work!

Biggest question I have: Is there any movement on El Fuego Caliente? Has Eva Longoria's Telenovela affected its chances for better or worse?

Again, thanks so much for doing this! Jean-Ralphio is an inspiration to me!

TheFreshestPrince

That's so mean to Will Smith! That's insane!

This is a real question . . . you're all a strong, smart community of human beings.

I wrote a script on the black list in 2010 or 2011. There's this list in L.A. run by Franklin Leonard called "The Black List," and it's the scripts that weren't made yet and it's considered the best ones that weren't made yet. I was very lucky to get on it. It was a remake of the movie "Soap Dish", I don't know if anybody's seen that from the '90's, but it was a remake and it was done in a telenovela sense. Something that I'm very proud of is, something like 90% of the actors in this film are of Latin-American descent, or just from everywhere. It could be a series of different places and the whole idea is to get Latino actors into this type of movie, and comedy, and stuff like that. It was very exciting for me. Don't know if it's going to happen. I hope it's going to happen. I hope it does.

We did a big live read of it. A guy named Steve Dresser made this beautiful poster. He's a great artist. We got 800 people to come watch, and it was very exciting for me. People loved it who came and were so supportive, but I'm not quite certain it will come out. But I push very hard, and hope that it can. I think because, for comedy, and for the Latino community, it would be really cool to get all these people together. I don't know if Eva Longoria's TV show helps or hurts, I'm not quite certain. I know that there are similarities definitely, but I'm not certain. But I'm happy that people even know about it. I wish people could see the live read.

If the Hot Sauce private jet went down and the three of you got stuck on an island, which person would be the first to go? Which one lasts the longest?

Wow. Great question. First of all, I'm happy that we landed safely after that jet went down. Second of all, you're insane to think that the three of us can afford a private jet. Third of all, we would probably… Gil would probably be the first one to go, and then I think Adam, and I would stick around, then I think Adam would kill me to eat me for my meat, and then Adam would win. And then I think Adam at the end would be like "Oh wait, there's a ship behind us". But we're already all dead except for him. But that's what I think. It would probably be Gil goes first, I go second, and Adam goes… Adam finds that ship behind us and writes a movie about it, and it makes a lot of money.

We did actually have an idea of us being trapped on someplace and improvising a whole movie about it, so it's funny that you brought that up, because I really think it would be really funny.