transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] A quick question that everyone knows that listens to the space show. You guys, did you two meet on the television show Lightning Bug?

Speaker 2:
[00:08] It was called Firefly.

Speaker 1:
[00:10] Oh, in Germany, they, okay.

Speaker 2:
[00:22] I tend to play weird people, usually aliens and robots and things that don't have romance.

Speaker 3:
[00:29] I once didn't get a job where they were looking for a Nathan Fillion type. Once We Were Spacemen.

Speaker 2:
[00:38] Once We Were Spacemen.

Speaker 4:
[00:40] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Once We Were Spacemen. Because at one time, we were spacemen. And there hasn't actually been a time since that time that once we were that thing, that we have not been that thing. We are still spacemen. But we are still spacemen is a crappier title. Ha ha ha!

Speaker 2:
[01:08] That's it.

Speaker 5:
[01:09] That was, got a little esoteric in there.

Speaker 2:
[01:12] It got, yeah, it got, it got in it, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[01:14] I was trying to track the logic.

Speaker 2:
[01:16] I think the ending where I just say, and that's it, sort of undercuts the grandiosity.

Speaker 5:
[01:21] Yeah, you have to state the obvious. It's probably not obvious. Okay, well, I'll work on it.

Speaker 2:
[01:25] I'll keep working.

Speaker 5:
[01:26] This is the highlight of my day. Ladies and gentlemen, Alan Tudyk, we have today a lovely guest, Mr. Flula Borg. Flula, welcome.

Speaker 1:
[01:34] Thank you, and what a rousing and wonderful introduction. Alan Tudyk, is it the same every episode?

Speaker 2:
[01:40] No, never the same, shockingly.

Speaker 1:
[01:43] Oh, like a snowflake.

Speaker 5:
[01:45] Yes, it is the snowflake of the podcast.

Speaker 2:
[01:48] Yes, but like a snowflake in a heavily populated city, so it's the kind you don't want on your tongue.

Speaker 5:
[01:53] Flula, you are one of the people that I know, that I work with, that I also hang out with outside of school, and not long ago, I just saw you, we did a, Alan, you weren't available, we did like a dinner party, weird kind of murder, spooky thing called The Willows.

Speaker 2:
[02:16] You killed someone together?

Speaker 5:
[02:18] Of course, as one does. But what I didn't realize was because it was, that was one of my like little birthday celebration thing. Instead of throwing a party, I did this little event with a couple of people. And Flula came along, but it was the day after my birthday. Alan, you're a March baby, you were March 22nd.

Speaker 2:
[02:35] I feel like I was available, keep talking.

Speaker 5:
[02:37] Yeah, you were a March baby, I was a March baby 27th, we went on the 28th, which happens to be Flula's birthday.

Speaker 2:
[02:44] Oh, no way.

Speaker 1:
[02:46] Yes, I told no one, that is my way. I enjoy a little secretive birthday. Last year, I went to my friend Megan's birthday party on my birthday. It's a weird little prank I pull on myself. So.

Speaker 5:
[02:59] Do you secret birthday?

Speaker 2:
[03:01] Do you watch them unwrap their gifts with jealousy in your heart?

Speaker 1:
[03:04] No, I love it. It's a joy that no one knows. It's like if you could walk around nude and no one could see you're downstairs, that's kind of what this is like.

Speaker 5:
[03:12] Now, here's the thing though, but are you concerned at all about when people find out it's your birthday and went, I was with him, I was with him on his birthday and I didn't know, and you cause that kind of emotional response?

Speaker 1:
[03:22] Well, I'm shocked that you knew this, because I like it if no one ever knows. It's like you open a can of beans, you put it right to the middle of the hallway of your dormitory and just see what happens.

Speaker 5:
[03:34] I think it was a reminder on my phone that I clearly ignored on the day of and looked back through it, went, because clearly I knew at one point.

Speaker 2:
[03:41] Why would you put the beans? I did a different kind of school. Great.

Speaker 1:
[03:46] Exactly. Listen, this is the reaction, the desired reaction of seeing the Pintos. Just there. That's all I want.

Speaker 5:
[03:55] Now, I've been looking forward to this podcast because I think it's fair to say you fill a narrow niche, yet at the same time, you never stop working.

Speaker 1:
[04:05] It is the narrow. Is it even a niche? Just to assume the niche exists is kind.

Speaker 5:
[04:11] It's like when you make a puzzle and sometimes you're missing the last piece and you go, oh no, this is more like if I made a puzzle and I was all finished and there's one more piece and I go, where would this go? I'm finished.

Speaker 1:
[04:22] Under the puzzle. You just slide it under and just hope no one notices the bump.

Speaker 2:
[04:26] I feel like it's more of a nationality. It's where you are representing a certain section of the globe.

Speaker 1:
[04:34] Well, yes. Alan, it's the western portion of Erlangen, which is in the southern part of Franconia, which is in northern Bavaria, and I will proudly represent everything west of the Markuskirche. So, yes, you're correct.

Speaker 2:
[04:49] Thank God. Somebody needed to take that place.

Speaker 1:
[04:53] Listen, yes, there's no elected representatives. I elected myself. And also, I shall tell you, I was once voted the third sexiest north Bavarian male. So, I mean...

Speaker 2:
[05:01] Was that what you're doing, that slap dancing with your feet in the slap-ta-ta-ta-ta?

Speaker 1:
[05:06] Thank you, Colt Schuplattler. Thank you for just absolutely offending everyone. Got it.

Speaker 2:
[05:11] Sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[05:12] No, it's fine. That was actually what I did in celebration. So, they put me on a tour with a hype man. And then I began Schuplattler-ing more actively as a paid vocation.

Speaker 2:
[05:22] I've seen this. My wife's a choreographer. So, I have watched a lot of dance. And I have watched this. And I've seen it where there's women involved, sometimes only men, and sometimes there's women, and it's a couple's dance, and the man pushes the skirt up, swats their skirt, almost like, look here, that's her knickers.

Speaker 1:
[05:43] Yes, watch out, the mosquitoes have arrived. Usually what happens in the second half of the dance is also in coordination with kind of dusk, you know, and that's when the mosquitoes come. And so, they operated this into the dance.

Speaker 5:
[05:57] Keeps the tics off.

Speaker 1:
[05:58] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[05:59] Because all the blood's already gone.

Speaker 1:
[06:01] Yes, Lyme disease is an issue, and we're trying to prevent it one dancing move at a time.

Speaker 2:
[06:07] Wow, that's incredible.

Speaker 5:
[06:08] Flula, you were born in Germany. Erlangen?

Speaker 1:
[06:12] Thank you, yes, Erlangen, yes, Erlangen.

Speaker 3:
[06:14] Erlangen, Erlangen.

Speaker 5:
[06:15] Do they miss you?

Speaker 1:
[06:17] Well, certain sections, yes, that would be the section where my parents live. I think most people have a confusion around what it is that I'm doing, why I am here, what occurred, which also, hey, guess what? I share this confusion, as Nathan, you do too. The niche doesn't exist. Somehow I have received employment. I don't really deserve it. I'm just grateful for calories and hangouts.

Speaker 5:
[06:39] When you go back to your hometown, is there a statue of you in the town square? Are you received welcome? Oh, he's come back to us. What is the reaction of your home folk?

Speaker 1:
[06:53] You are referencing the way the city of Chicago reacts to the 1991 champion Chicago Bulls upon arriving at O'Hare. That is not what occurs when I arrive. It's literally just the water fountains spray in the same and normal direction as before. And the only statue that exists is the very small one I made out of clay in the eighth grade that now resides at my parents' living room.

Speaker 5:
[07:14] Do they know of Flula? Do they? You're not the hometown boy done well. I mean, you've cut so much. You have like a IMDP page as long as my arm.

Speaker 1:
[07:23] Well, I have not seen your arm recently. And I would say it's definitely longer than this imidibi page. And, you know, I like as I like to sneak into a birthday party that was not my own, I like to sneak into my town, which is also not my own. I don't own much other than this T-shirt and 28 fanny packs. That's true.

Speaker 5:
[07:40] You do have a lot of fanny packs.

Speaker 1:
[07:42] Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[07:43] You do have a lot of fanny packs.

Speaker 1:
[07:45] Germans, you know, I've been taught, don't get too proud, but I am a little bit probably too proud of my fanny packs.

Speaker 2:
[07:51] Why wouldn't you be with a fanny like that? And I'm just I'm thinking back to your work on Suicide Squad. Sorry, I don't want to jump into the jump all the way to there.

Speaker 1:
[08:04] Oh, my fanny. Well, yes, James Gunn confirmed I had no butt pads in this.

Speaker 2:
[08:08] Yeah, that was a big.

Speaker 1:
[08:10] Yes, 100% pure double F, fluid of fanny, yes.

Speaker 5:
[08:13] Now, when you decided, I'm going to be in the entertainment industry, I'm going to go entertain people, and you fled from your hometown, was there a parental reaction? What did your family and your friends think when they discovered you? Was this your first vocation? Did you bounce from something else to this?

Speaker 1:
[08:33] Yeah, thank you for saying I fled, which is true, I did. I was prior to this a techno DJ, and so I would DJ a techno. And what occurred was I accidentally won a hype man contest sponsored by Scion. There's clips online if you want to, if this is ever a video, we can show those. But yes, so I accidentally won this, and then that was a little note to me that I wrote to myself, but wasn't a note, it was me winning this thing that maybe, Flula, you should come to Los Angeles and try to receive more jobs. Somehow.

Speaker 2:
[09:05] Can I ask, what is a hype man? I thought a hype man stood behind the guy who's doing the thing.

Speaker 1:
[09:10] Alan, exactly. So I also did not know what is a hype man, and this is why I won. I did not understand what was going on, and this was, you know, like sometimes a perfect idiot is like the greatest man to cross a 10-lane highway because he doesn't know what's occurring at all, and that's what that was.

Speaker 2:
[09:27] 10-lane, and so, okay.

Speaker 4:
[09:29] And so you came, you came west.

Speaker 1:
[09:31] Yes, I flow in that direction. Yes, I could have gone the other way, just would have been significantly longer, and I would have touched down in Taipei.

Speaker 5:
[09:38] The door to Opportunity creaked open by accident. You saw some light and you said, I'm going to just go for that. There was a sliver of an opportunity, and you grabbed it and changed everything. Is that what I'm gleaning?

Speaker 1:
[09:52] I did not see the banana peel. I fell on it, slipped through the open door, and then someone dumped yogurt into my mouth as I was unconscious, and that yogurt was employment in Los Angeles.

Speaker 5:
[10:04] So when someone says, Oh my gosh, I want to do what you do. What advice do you have to give me? What could you possibly tell them? That path was so accidental.

Speaker 1:
[10:13] I think they are all accidental. Then if you want to do what I did, then begin as a Schuplattler, as an 80 years old person, then befriend the man who DJs the polka music, who teaches you how to then make techno music in a real way, and then enter the Scion Hype Man Contest in 2008 and accidentally win it.

Speaker 3:
[10:30] It's a piece of cake when you say it like that.

Speaker 2:
[10:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:33] Time travel is involved, other items. But yes, pretty straightforward as they say.

Speaker 2:
[10:38] Do you still DJ? Do you still hype a DJ or whatever it is?

Speaker 1:
[10:42] Yeah. Hype a DJ. So after I won this, I became a host of hip-hop contests and also battles of the bands as everyone does. But I think we all DJ Alan. Do you not just wake up sometimes and say, I would like to hear some brown noise at 500 MHz for the next eight hours in my ears and you hit play?

Speaker 2:
[11:03] I've been really focusing on green noise lately. Brown noise. I need to get into that. I'm just now getting into techno, I have to say. I feel like I've missed. That is something that Europeans have a fondness for. I come originally from Texas and there are many people who listen to it in Texas. But I started off in the twang world growing up, listening to what my parents were playing, and it's taken me a long time to get to more electronic sounds.

Speaker 1:
[11:35] Got it. So you're now listening to techno, Alan?

Speaker 2:
[11:38] There's a band in, I don't know if it's considered techno. I think it is partly techno dance. There's a band in London called Chunky Mermaid, Mermaid Chunky. Do you know this band?

Speaker 1:
[11:51] They're called Mermaid, Chunky?

Speaker 2:
[11:54] Just one word altogether, Mermaid Chunky.

Speaker 1:
[11:57] I don't know. I will Google this immediately after hanging up.

Speaker 2:
[12:00] I stumped the hype, man. This is a new, I'm sorry, this is a new feature I want to add to our thing, Nathan, and it is a good time to bring this out. It is Alan Suggests One Song A Podcast.

Speaker 6:
[12:15] What You Listen To.

Speaker 2:
[12:17] Well, right now, I'd like to tell you I'm listening to this great two female band called Mermaid Chunky. They're from London and if you'd listen to one song, please listen to Chaperone. All right, that has been the first installment of What You Listen To.

Speaker 1:
[12:40] I thought you were going to say the new segment in every episode was going to be Stump the Hype Man. And then you said, if you've listened to one song, I thought you were then going to say you've listened to them all. So I'm glad you did not.

Speaker 5:
[12:54] No, Flula, I'm always interested in the journey. So if you were talking about a mentor, perhaps your polka DJ turned techno DJ on the front side, once you slipped through that metaphoric door we've been talking to, and now you're in Los Angeles, did you have a mentor in Los Angeles?

Speaker 1:
[13:16] I had not once that I knew in a real way. I would say it would be like a combination of David Hasselhoff and Falco. And so those would be my mentors that did not know me, would not respond to emails or letters. Falco passed away several, several decades ago. But his song Ragmi Amadeus, specifically the Salieri remix, really did touch me deep because it chronicles Mozart's life over a nice little rappy beat. And that was cool for me.

Speaker 2:
[13:45] And what part of David Hasselhoff were you besides the hair?

Speaker 1:
[13:50] Obviously, all regions here. He had a music section in our music world of music. Vom was a very popular, maybe is still a CD store, an album store in Germany. And he had his own section. And I was like, I don't know that David Hasselhoff is very good with singing. I'm not certain, but I know we love it. And so I could think if he can do this in Germany, perhaps I can do this in America with my techno music about Dirty Kitchens and also Clouds.

Speaker 3:
[14:18] He was the mentor.

Speaker 5:
[14:19] He didn't know you were his mentee.

Speaker 1:
[14:22] Correct. No one knew about the manatees. There was no sea life involved. It was just me kind of looking at him as an imagination person, you know.

Speaker 2:
[14:31] I had like a muse almost.

Speaker 5:
[14:34] Now, we three are all connected through employment. We, uh, Fula, I met you on Suicide Squad, and then you came and did, have been continuing to do, you have a character on a show called The Rookie that I am also on, you come constantly, you play Skip Tracer Randy, who continually changes his jobs all the time.

Speaker 2:
[14:56] Wait a second. I haven't seen you. Are you German? Are you German on the LA?

Speaker 1:
[15:00] Oh, it's a very different character from the person you're speaking to now. It's a totally different character.

Speaker 2:
[15:06] You're acting. You have an American accent.

Speaker 1:
[15:09] Oh, it was.

Speaker 5:
[15:10] No, he's still Flula, but in one episode, we did hit him in the head and knock the German accent right out of him. And he had a bit of an identity crisis.

Speaker 2:
[15:23] And so you can do an American accent. That's great.

Speaker 1:
[15:25] We can't reveal who did the ADR for those scenes, but I don't remember even shooting those scenes, so I don't know what happened, honestly. Nathan did the Men in Black pen before those scenes.

Speaker 5:
[15:37] Little bow.

Speaker 2:
[15:41] I want to, sorry for my interruption, you were saying, Nathan, we're connected because we haven't actually worked together.

Speaker 5:
[15:48] That's not true. But we're both in Ralph Breaks the Internet.

Speaker 2:
[15:53] Oh, we just learned a little something. The more you know, I didn't know I did that. Did I do? No, I don't want to say that. We're closer than we thought.

Speaker 1:
[16:04] Yes, you are. And then, of course, Alan.

Speaker 2:
[16:06] Who are you and Ralph Breaks the Internet to?

Speaker 1:
[16:09] I played in A Secretary Named Maybe. And as you know with these films, no one really ever makes eye contact directly with other people in an animated film. It's very rare.

Speaker 2:
[16:20] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:21] You might meet on a press junket tour later.

Speaker 2:
[16:24] Yeah, but even then, I never do press junkets.

Speaker 1:
[16:28] Yeah, famously you do not.

Speaker 2:
[16:30] Yeah. I mean, don't even ask. It's rare. Like those types of things, they bring just like the top. The top like Sarah Silverman and Ralph. Ralph. Yeah. Those two will go.

Speaker 5:
[16:45] You share that project and of course, you both share in the rookie because Alan, you participated in the rookie as well.

Speaker 2:
[16:50] Yes. I've done two episodes, so I've come back as well. I've reoccurred. I've grown as a character as well. I started out as somebody who just cleaned up crime scenes, and then that sparked my interest in solving crime, and I became an officer. Oh. I think.

Speaker 5:
[17:10] Yeah. Did you? Well, you certainly started training because you were like, I want to be prepared for danger, and then you actually kind of participated in like a big old fight. Whoa.

Speaker 1:
[17:20] Stole a cake. Stolen cake.

Speaker 5:
[17:22] Yeah. And we knocked out one of your teeth.

Speaker 1:
[17:25] I watched this immediately.

Speaker 5:
[17:27] Do you have, because we were talking about your journey from Germany, do you have siblings?

Speaker 1:
[17:35] Zero siblings that I'm aware of. No, which explains many of the things that I do. I was a lot of self-entertainment, lots of in a literal closet, making literal beats, but thinking metaphorical thoughts.

Speaker 2:
[17:49] So you were beating off in a closet?

Speaker 1:
[17:51] Correct. Yes, I would beat off in a closet a lot. Sometimes people could hear it, sometimes people could not, just based on the volume and violence of beating.

Speaker 5:
[18:01] Do you have any family traditions that might surprise me?

Speaker 1:
[18:04] Well, several probably. I would not presume to know your level of surprizability, Nathan, but after our tour of the haunted mountains and the houses, I think you are pretty high. So yes, there was one where it's a holiday that is called Frasierween. Frasierween is like Halloween, except everyone dresses up as a character or an animate object from the television show Frasier.

Speaker 5:
[18:32] Frasier, that's what I was going to guess.

Speaker 1:
[18:34] Yes. So the only rule about Frasierween is it never occurs on an actual holiday time, but it also does not have a fixed date. And also, no matter what, someone has to come as Frasier.

Speaker 2:
[18:47] Just one.

Speaker 1:
[18:48] Yes, come on now, Alan.

Speaker 5:
[18:51] There can be only one.

Speaker 1:
[18:52] It's not Frasierween, it's Frasierween, this one.

Speaker 2:
[18:56] Right.

Speaker 1:
[18:57] Yeah. So for example, I once was the space needle, dressed up as a space needle.

Speaker 2:
[19:02] You're right.

Speaker 1:
[19:04] And then I also, you can see what I do. I don't like to play the real catchers. I played a tossed salad.

Speaker 2:
[19:10] Who tossed it?

Speaker 1:
[19:11] It was, I bought some greens and then hung those from my head, like Poison, i.e. film, movie, Batman, whatever. And then I had two spatulas and I would just, I was kind of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know.

Speaker 2:
[19:22] But it was like a Nigel had tossed it or was it...

Speaker 5:
[19:26] It would have to be one of the characters from Frasier.

Speaker 1:
[19:28] Oh, sorry. So Alan, in the song, Frasier song, there is about something about toss salad and scrambled eggs.

Speaker 5:
[19:34] And scrambled eggs.

Speaker 2:
[19:34] Oh yeah.

Speaker 5:
[19:35] He was in the theme.

Speaker 2:
[19:37] Oh, you were, that's amazing.

Speaker 1:
[19:39] Yes. So I have to say that Frasier Wien, while it's from my family as well, two of my very close friends also celebrated Frasier Wien separately from me. And we have reunited via the Internet. Mamrie Hart and Scotty Landis, we are all, we now celebrate it as a family for us.

Speaker 2:
[19:56] Oh, that's great. That's bringing people together.

Speaker 5:
[19:59] Now, have you guys, have the two of you ever met in person?

Speaker 2:
[20:03] We've met one time.

Speaker 1:
[20:04] It was only one time. And that was at your very nice, intimate screening of Superman.

Speaker 2:
[20:12] Oh, that's where we met.

Speaker 1:
[20:14] Yes, you and I stared at each other's eye holes at the ball section before. And then we almost got into a conversation, but then something happened. I don't know, a glitch.

Speaker 2:
[20:24] Yeah, that's exactly it. We just started to meet one another and something happened.

Speaker 5:
[20:30] Okay, because I've been hanging out with you both a lot. And I didn't know if your paths had crossed.

Speaker 1:
[20:36] Well, there was also a very interesting time traveling U-boat based cartoon that someone in the animated space was like, oh, the two people that should play Ivan and Peter, which were the names of these traveling U-boat guys, were you and me, was what the idea was. It's from a very- Oh, I forgot, I'm terrible at names.

Speaker 2:
[20:59] Yes, I remember this, I do remember this. Did it never happen?

Speaker 1:
[21:03] It never happened, yeah, as most things.

Speaker 2:
[21:07] I remember the meeting though, I did have a meeting about that.

Speaker 5:
[21:10] Interests me, I wanna make this happen now, I wanna see the two of you guys.

Speaker 2:
[21:14] It was also music involved, you're perfect for that, cause it was like a DJ thing was involved.

Speaker 1:
[21:19] Well, Alan, after this, I teamed up with these two mythical people, Ivan and Peter, and released several tracks on the internet. Oh, jeez. Yeah, one was called Saint Tropez, another fancy day in Saint Tropez was one of them, Duck Cluck, these are real songs. And so anyway, there are several songs with F.Mula, Ivan and Peter, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[21:39] That's great, man. Wow, I've played German. So you're becoming, since now you're here and you're carving out this niche, you've killed a revenue stream for me, which has been doing German characters in on camera and in animation.

Speaker 1:
[22:02] I, is this true?

Speaker 2:
[22:04] I actually, I, right now I record two German characters, so I guess I'm still getting revenue from them.

Speaker 1:
[22:11] What do they call it? Just so I can casually ask my agents about it.

Speaker 2:
[22:15] Yeah, one I've been doing for a long time, so I don't know how long it's, it shows up every once in a while in American Dad, his name is Dr. Calgary, and they're almost the same character.

Speaker 4:
[22:25] He's very creepy and, oh, he has a helper that he built out of spare parts named Billy, who's always screwing things up.

Speaker 2:
[22:38] Then I'm a character, oh, in, I can't remember the name of it. It's on Hulu, we're in our third season.

Speaker 1:
[22:48] Is it Cake?

Speaker 2:
[22:49] No, it's with, I should know this.

Speaker 5:
[22:53] You also played a German character in one of the Transformers movies?

Speaker 2:
[22:56] Yes. So I played a German character in a movie called 28 Days with Sandra Bullock. His name is Gerhard Weinacht. It was when I was just 29, I think I was 29. His name is Gerhard Weinacht and he was a stripper. He was a full stripper, went to rehab because he had problems with cocaine, and drugs, and sex. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[23:18] I want to say you really blazed a trail for German characters.

Speaker 2:
[23:22] I think I was early trying to lead the way.

Speaker 5:
[23:28] Alivex.

Speaker 2:
[23:29] Well, yeah, I guess that's more what I was doing. Then I got an audition many years later for Transformers Dark of the Moon. They're like, he's a German character named Dutch, weirdly. He's John Totoro's character's assistant, and he has German accent, and he's very fancy. I was like, I did this before. You know what? Same guy. He was in rehab with Sandra Bullock, and then he got into the Armed Forces. That's where he met Agent Simmons, and he killed too many people. And he had a breakdown, and now all he can do is be his valet. And it worked out. There was a big scene where I pulled guns on a bunch of people in a Russian crime den, and I just dropped the guns and said, I'm sorry, that's the old me. And I started crying. Yes, yes. That wasn't in the script. Who's the director of the big Transformers movies? What's his name?

Speaker 5:
[24:31] Michael Bay. Michael Bay?

Speaker 2:
[24:32] Yeah, Michael Bay. That's the guy. He said, Alan, don't do that again. But God bless him, he put it in the movie.

Speaker 5:
[24:39] Yeah, he was worthy. That was a worthy bit. And then you were a vaguely European drug dealer.

Speaker 2:
[24:45] Oh, let's not talk about that one.

Speaker 1:
[24:46] What? Why not?

Speaker 2:
[24:48] That one was, I was in the, I don't want to talk about it. You know, people come up to you and they'll be like, I think you're great at everything you're doing. You're like, well, have you seen, nevermind, that would be one I would point them to. Be like, there was a thing. I played a Mexican named Pepe who was vaguely European. It made absolutely no sense.

Speaker 1:
[25:09] Perfect.

Speaker 2:
[25:09] But, so I have done that. I gotta find out this. What is the, John Hamm's, let's just go with the computer came in and said the name of the, cause the computer did come in.

Speaker 1:
[25:20] Grimsberg is an animated series that airs as part of Fox's Animation Domination, starring John Hamm as Detective Marvin Flute.

Speaker 2:
[25:26] Where I play a German character and he's also.

Speaker 1:
[25:29] Lethal Weapon 4.

Speaker 4:
[25:31] Lethal Weapon, that's it anyway. And he's also, he's a former serial killer, crime junkie who now teaches at a school for gifted children.

Speaker 2:
[25:45] And he's dangerous and he's troublesome and nobody's texting me the answer.

Speaker 4:
[25:51] All right.

Speaker 3:
[25:52] Yeah, let's get this back on track here.

Speaker 1:
[25:54] Let's keep trying to think of the name. I like, I like what, I'm kidding.

Speaker 2:
[25:57] I'm kidding. You like watching me in pain.

Speaker 5:
[25:59] Flula, you did some dance, you did some music, you got into entertainment, did a little comedy, but then you got jacked.

Speaker 1:
[26:10] Yes. Oh, yeah, I thought you meant the stolen automobile. Yes, I did.

Speaker 5:
[26:15] You became an action hero. You said, oh, I want to get, first of all, you're a big fella. You're a big guy. You're already in pretty good shape, pretty darn good shape. And then was it the Suicide Squad that said, I'm going to do this?

Speaker 1:
[26:30] Yes, I received the job for Suicide Squad as Javelin. And I just was like, oh, he's a superhero person. I must immediately, you know, become a man with larger than average, for me, my average, breasts and buttocks. And so I just went to town with a very, very great trainer, Italian trainer, Paolo Maschitti. Shout out.

Speaker 3:
[26:51] Paolo, yes, Paolo.

Speaker 1:
[26:52] Everyone knows Paolo.

Speaker 2:
[26:54] I love his cherries. Maschitti cherries are very good.

Speaker 1:
[26:59] Oh, Maschitti trainers, Maschitti cherries. Yeah, sorry. Oh no, fine. Have you had breakfast? Oh, so I was the gateway truck for Paolo, cause Paolo began with me and now he trains, basically, all of Detective Comics Universe. But yes, that's why. And then I loved the routine and I loved the protein and something else that rhymes with that. The go-lean, I don't know. And so now I like to maintain this. And that's why I do it. There's no really deep reason for it. It's just, I find it enjoyable to lift things up and down.

Speaker 5:
[27:30] Listen, if you had to go online and search, you know, Flula Borg jacked or muscles or shirtless, it's insanity. It's like you're carved at a marble. It's, I don't know how you maintain that. That is a full-time job. Being jacked now, what's the differences in both your job and your life?

Speaker 1:
[27:50] In the life, I eat more Greek yogurt than I was eating before. And so that can be very exciting. In the jobs, with the voices, you can do a voice, who cares? No one is seeing you. As you know, all of us, we have done these. Nathan, you were in the automobiles franchise.

Speaker 3:
[28:04] Cars, that's right.

Speaker 1:
[28:05] Yes, and you could wear anything you like, just as with this We Are Space Boys Currently podcast. And so that doesn't matter. But also, I'm not a crazy jack eater, as you say, because if I'm wearing shirts, I look like a normal man who is purchasing Trader Joe snacks. So it doesn't change too many things, but I have been able to play bad boys and rude boys and guys that are like doing pull ups before they say a word in a scene.

Speaker 2:
[28:33] Villains? Would you say villains?

Speaker 1:
[28:36] Yes, yes. My Spy Eternal City with Dave Bautista was, I was kind of the main bad guy of his, well, yes, yes. I was his main like, I don't like you very much. I also don't like you. Let's bang, bang.

Speaker 5:
[28:49] Right. His enemy, his...

Speaker 2:
[28:52] What movie was that?

Speaker 1:
[28:53] My Spy Eternal City is starring a Dave Bautista and Anna Faris.

Speaker 2:
[28:57] Oh, great.

Speaker 5:
[28:58] Was there comedy in that one to be done? Was it cream?

Speaker 1:
[29:02] Sorry?

Speaker 2:
[29:02] Comedy.

Speaker 1:
[29:03] Comedy. Oh, yes. I chose to not engage in the comedy because everyone else was so hee-haha. I was like, I will just not do this. And so I did not do that. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[29:15] That's another thing is your industry is a great deal of comedy. So would that be your dramatic role? Are there more dramatic roles for you now?

Speaker 1:
[29:24] Yes. I played in the... This is real. I'm not inventing this. There's a biopic called Bonhoeffer, which is about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is a figure in history in Germany who tried to assassinate Hitler. And so I play Hans Donani, who was one of his friends. So I played a historical figure, Hans Donani, who was not a skip tracer, Randy type. I mean, I was playing this actual figure in history. Yes. So I've... Yeah. Confusingly, I have done this.

Speaker 5:
[29:51] How does it feel? Because you typically go comedy. Is it hard to rein in the maniacal brain parts that are...

Speaker 1:
[30:01] Yeah. Thank you for elevating what I say with that description. Basically, I've decided my brain is a stable of horsies. And sometimes I bring out the silly pony, and that's typically who I ride around the town. But sometimes there's a little bit of a sea biscuit that comes out and we trot around, say serious words and no one giggles. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[30:20] A sea biscuit looks like a Clydesdale. I'm going to tell you right now. Oh, man.

Speaker 1:
[30:23] Let's have a Bud Light, correct?

Speaker 5:
[30:25] I remember the first time I met Flula was on a little in a van that they picked us up at a little hotel in Peachtree. Was it Peachtree, Georgia?

Speaker 1:
[30:38] Peachtree City, home of lots of golf cart paths.

Speaker 5:
[30:41] That's right. There we were without golf carts. I remember when we were working, they brought us to that facility, the sound stages in, can't remember what the town is, it's the neighboring Peachtree, and they pointed to a field across from the sound stages and they said, they're going to build a little city over there. And then two, three years later, there's an entire city across the street from the sound stages. And now that's where you stay when you go do some projects in Atlanta.

Speaker 1:
[31:13] It's crazy. It's like they just hired the Frattles. You know, they just sit up, hey, let's go for it.

Speaker 5:
[31:18] The Doosers.

Speaker 1:
[31:19] The Doosers, yeah, not the Frattles, the Doosers.

Speaker 5:
[31:22] Right. I know that reference.

Speaker 1:
[31:24] Oh man, wow. It is a city now. There's like a theater and homes and cobblestones.

Speaker 5:
[31:30] And a lake and a hotel and restaurants and a grocery store that doesn't have anybody working in it. You just take your stuff and leave.

Speaker 1:
[31:38] That was so, yes, very strange.

Speaker 2:
[31:40] That's where all the Superman people stayed.

Speaker 4:
[31:43] Yeah, I was there.

Speaker 5:
[31:44] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[31:45] And it's also a little bizarre man-made town that you can walk around and go, I think that's Willem Dafoe. Yes. Weirdly populated by a lot of film stars.

Speaker 5:
[31:56] Yes, if you're going to see somebody of note, you're probably going to see them just walking on the street there.

Speaker 1:
[32:01] A quick question that everyone knows that listens to the space show. And you guys, did you two meet on the television show Lightning Bug?

Speaker 2:
[32:09] It was called Firefly.

Speaker 1:
[32:11] Oh, in Germany they, okay.

Speaker 5:
[32:13] That's where we became friends, Flula, but we met years prior. We lived blocks away from each other when we were 22 years old. And then Alan was working at a restaurant that I used to frequent.

Speaker 2:
[32:25] I fed him for cash for tips. I fed him for tips and ogled his girlfriend.

Speaker 5:
[32:31] It's our paths mingled, mingled, mingled, but we never quite connected until years later in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1:
[32:39] Does the restaurant still exist?

Speaker 5:
[32:41] No, nor does the manager who fired Alan twice, does not exist.

Speaker 2:
[32:47] His name is goddamn Ron, but I mean, he might exist, but not as a manager of that restaurant. I understand GD on like he wasn't a healthy guy, but I think, yeah, had I still stayed on it would be open.

Speaker 5:
[33:01] That's probably where they that's where they lost their mistake.

Speaker 1:
[33:04] They messed up. Sorry, I just needed to know this little tiddy bit of infields.

Speaker 2:
[33:09] That's okay. I loved your work in Suicide Squad and working out that much makes sense why you need so many fanny packs, like you mentioned before, because there was a lot of butt shots of you and a very skin tight thing, a uniform. You were both ridiculous people in that movie. If you haven't seen this movie, check it out. It's really good. It's the Suicide Squad that's good. Respect, okay, and if you, well, you know.

Speaker 5:
[33:38] What's crazy is, Flula got into incredible shape for this role, and then they covered him head to toe. So you couldn't see, except for what was probably the shape underneath the costume, you couldn't see all his work. However, he channeled all that energy into his hair, which you could see.

Speaker 1:
[33:59] That's true.

Speaker 2:
[33:59] It was a blonde wig, wasn't it?

Speaker 1:
[34:02] It was someone's real hair.

Speaker 5:
[34:04] It was a real hair wig? Oh my goodness, that's high quality.

Speaker 1:
[34:07] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[34:08] But it really, it flowed in the wind and Fula embraced it. He couldn't wait to get that thing on every day.

Speaker 1:
[34:14] That's very true. I tried to, while I did successfully twice, leave set whilst wearing it, just so I could walk around TJ Maxx and kind of show off a little bit.

Speaker 5:
[34:23] I also remember those costumes for being very intricate and then they dumped us in what was like a fake ocean on a fake beach and there was little waves popping up and we just kind of, for an entire night, we just kind of crawled out of the ocean real slow. It was really, it was heated, it was beautiful. It was really wonderful to be in there. It was really nice, very relaxing evening.

Speaker 2:
[34:43] But did you pee in?

Speaker 5:
[34:45] Not in those costumes. Come on, you gotta keep wearing that thing.

Speaker 2:
[34:49] Respect, I just was, you know, I'm just saying.

Speaker 5:
[34:51] No, that's fair, that's fair, that's fair. But it did take a team of people to A, get it off of you to have to pee and then put it back on you. There's no real fly, they don't really attend to that kind of, they just say, no, cover it all up. Anyway, coming out of the ocean over and over and over again, the glue starts to come off the little bits and pee stuff off. I remember like a team of, like an army of ants would crawl up all over Flula and there'd be people up all over top of him gluing back the corners to his costume every take. They'd be in there with glue and pieces and pinching and cut.

Speaker 1:
[35:27] It was like the Smurfs had captured Gargamel and they're just now cleaning him up.

Speaker 5:
[35:31] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[35:33] It was the first time that that outfit had been exposed to any sort of elements and so it immediately disintegrated. It was very fun.

Speaker 5:
[35:41] It was fighting the ocean on the outside and flew the glutes on the inside. Neither can be contained.

Speaker 1:
[35:47] No, no, one salty. Won't say which.

Speaker 5:
[35:50] Okay, Flula, we're going to do a lightning round here. Are you ready?

Speaker 1:
[35:54] Oh, okay. Yeah, a lightning round. Great.

Speaker 5:
[35:55] Yeah. What did you call it?

Speaker 1:
[35:57] The lightning round.

Speaker 2:
[36:00] You called him a bitch, boy. No. That's not what you said. I'm sorry.

Speaker 5:
[36:05] Folding or ironing?

Speaker 1:
[36:07] What are we? For what?

Speaker 5:
[36:09] What is your preference? Would you rather be folding or would you rather be ironing? This lightning round is going very slowly.

Speaker 1:
[36:14] I'm sorry to ask you, but what are we folding and or ironing? Is it food?

Speaker 5:
[36:17] Probably clothing.

Speaker 1:
[36:19] Is it a burrito? It's what? Clothing. Clothing. Zero of the above. Hang dry that baby.

Speaker 5:
[36:26] I like it. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[36:27] Roller coaster or carousel?

Speaker 1:
[36:29] To look at? To ride.

Speaker 5:
[36:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:30] To be on it and ride it. Am I? Are the loopies on the roller coaster?

Speaker 5:
[36:34] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[36:36] The carousel is a standard 360 degree.

Speaker 3:
[36:39] All the way around up and down.

Speaker 1:
[36:40] Eight seconds, you're just in the same spot we just were.

Speaker 3:
[36:43] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[36:44] It's like a dead end job.

Speaker 5:
[36:45] Watching the world go by. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[36:47] Yes, roller coaster, yes.

Speaker 2:
[36:49] Lightning.

Speaker 5:
[36:50] Sharks or bears?

Speaker 1:
[36:51] I'm sorry, who?

Speaker 5:
[36:52] Sharks or bears.

Speaker 1:
[36:54] In franchises?

Speaker 2:
[36:57] Lightning.

Speaker 1:
[36:58] Then you want to go NATO all the way, baby.

Speaker 5:
[37:02] Cats or dogs?

Speaker 1:
[37:03] To do what with? Go on a trip?

Speaker 5:
[37:05] Make friends.

Speaker 1:
[37:06] To use as an element to make friends with others or for me to befriend personally with either of the animals?

Speaker 5:
[37:17] Let's go on the ladder to you making friends with the cats or dogs.

Speaker 1:
[37:21] For me to befriend the animal. How much time do we have for the friendship?

Speaker 4:
[37:25] A lightening amount of time.

Speaker 1:
[37:29] Oh, and sorry, what's happening Alan?

Speaker 2:
[37:31] It's a lightning round.

Speaker 5:
[37:33] He's being the lightning of the lightning round.

Speaker 1:
[37:37] And what does that mean? That means I should be dodging it. Watch out Ben Franklin.

Speaker 2:
[37:41] It's the speed of light.

Speaker 1:
[37:42] Oh, so just a quick, okay, then the answer is lemurs Nathan.

Speaker 5:
[37:45] Gotcha. Biking or hiking?

Speaker 1:
[37:48] Oh, I like that those rhyme. I'm going to say psyching because I enjoy to pretend to do something and then not do it and then, but I do it anyway, but maybe I will and maybe I won't.

Speaker 5:
[37:57] Flip flops or Birkenstocks?

Speaker 1:
[37:59] What's more fun to say Nathan?

Speaker 5:
[38:01] Birkenstock.

Speaker 1:
[38:02] What?

Speaker 4:
[38:03] Flip flop.

Speaker 5:
[38:04] Alan.

Speaker 6:
[38:06] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[38:07] Birkenflop. Flip and stock.

Speaker 5:
[38:09] Lions or tigers?

Speaker 1:
[38:11] Oh my, Nathan, what do you mean in terms of what? Going on a date with, perhaps having a little bit of a lunch snack.

Speaker 5:
[38:17] Like you're walking in a foreign land, you say, oh, this is beautiful and you turn around and one's leaping on you.

Speaker 1:
[38:24] What's he wearing?

Speaker 5:
[38:29] I'm saying, let's go black tie.

Speaker 1:
[38:32] Just a black tie, that's it.

Speaker 5:
[38:34] Well, black tie, a tie or so, formal wear.

Speaker 1:
[38:37] Lion, obviously.

Speaker 5:
[38:38] Okay. Chicken or beef?

Speaker 1:
[38:41] What are we doing with it?

Speaker 5:
[38:43] Eating it.

Speaker 1:
[38:44] Just straight up?

Speaker 5:
[38:46] I mean, it's the main course of a lovely meal. You like that with chicken or with beef?

Speaker 1:
[38:54] Is this a Portland main or Rangeley main? Where are we going, Nathan?

Speaker 5:
[38:57] It's free range.

Speaker 1:
[38:59] Oh, then I would go, I think I would just do, I would say, sorry, chicken, sorry, beef. I'm on a roll and I would just eat a little bit of tuna.

Speaker 5:
[39:07] Well, okay. All right. Lightning or snowstorm?

Speaker 1:
[39:12] Okay. Well, yeah, Alan. Alan answered that one for us.

Speaker 5:
[39:18] Thank you. Fantastic. Oh, winter or summer?

Speaker 1:
[39:22] And what again? So this is like your preference. Oh, in the song, You've Got a Friend by James Taylor?

Speaker 5:
[39:29] Sure. Let's do that.

Speaker 1:
[39:32] Oh, and this is which one I would prefer to hear him sing?

Speaker 5:
[39:36] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[39:37] Winter, fall, summer. I would go summer, winter, summer. I think the summer is more fun than the winter when he sings it. I hear you. Did you?

Speaker 6:
[39:50] That was a lightning round!

Speaker 1:
[39:53] Next up, Stump the Hype Man.

Speaker 5:
[39:55] That was an uphill lightning round.

Speaker 2:
[39:56] I'm going to tell you that right now.

Speaker 1:
[39:58] Well, listen, I'm glad to have participated.

Speaker 5:
[40:00] Flula, you have an incredible online presence. One of my favorite things that you have done online that makes me laugh a lot is when you are working out with your lovely trainer, Paolo, that we've mentioned before, he has a cleaning lady, who is clearly a very good sport.

Speaker 1:
[40:19] Yolanda, and Yolanda is Paolo's cleaning lady for realsies, and she is more talented than all three of us. If you put us in a blender and poured it into a little bit of an in and out milkshake, she would be more delicious than that.

Speaker 5:
[40:34] I want to be a fly on the wall for the first time you guys came up with a little sketch idea and said, Hey, Yolanda, would you do this for us? And she pulls it off every time.

Speaker 1:
[40:44] She crushes it. She is Robert De Niro of Nicaraguan origin cleaning lady actress. Yes. This was what happened. Paolo had this idea. Paolo, a closet director.

Speaker 5:
[40:59] Really?

Speaker 1:
[41:00] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[41:00] That was his idea.

Speaker 1:
[41:02] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[41:03] For those of us who haven't had a chance to see this yet, although I'm sure we're all going to go watch this immediately after this podcast, give us an example of one of the things that she does.

Speaker 1:
[41:12] Well, the first one was me. There's a little exercise called ropes, which is just you're going like this with the rope.

Speaker 2:
[41:19] Right.

Speaker 1:
[41:20] I don't know if it does anything, but it looks cool. In this video, I am doing the ropes, and in the background, Yolanda is cleaning, and then in a split seconds, we have reversed roles, and she is doing the ropes, and I am mopping the floors.

Speaker 2:
[41:34] It's like that. Real quick. It's like lightning, but not flight. Correct.

Speaker 1:
[41:39] Yes, yes. A little slow, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[41:42] There's a series of little sketches that you guys have done that are extremely entertaining, where there's an attractive woman in the gym with you, and the two of you are eyeing each other, and then you walk over, and you walk right past her to Yolanda, who has had your eye the whole time, and the young lady was mistaken, and like different little sketches like this, and then it all built up to what looked like a phenomenal magazine photo shoot with Yolanda. Correct, where you are like the man toy of a rich, fancy lady. There was a-

Speaker 2:
[42:21] And she did it?

Speaker 5:
[42:23] Oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[42:24] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[42:24] Alan, with enthusiasm and a plume, like she, I want to meet this lady, and just kind of understand her a little bit. Because she's like, hey, all right, sounds funny.

Speaker 1:
[42:37] She's the best. She is down to clown, as they say. Yeah, she's very amazing. And that is true. And by the way, the lady that you reference in this skit is fellow DC member Gabby de Faria.

Speaker 5:
[42:50] That's right. Gabby who plays the engineer. Everybody's kind of down to clown in these incredible shorts that you guys produce. It's fantastic.

Speaker 1:
[42:59] Thank you. Very fun. Really, much credit to Paolo and Yolanda. I'm just showing up. It's whoever said that, Thomas Edison. Let's just go there and then they did the happens.

Speaker 5:
[43:08] Yeah, I think I'm extremely impressed with Yolanda. And now knowing that that was all Paolo's ideas, now I'm equally impressed with Paolo.

Speaker 1:
[43:15] Yeah, yeah. He's an enigma, but a lovely Italian one.

Speaker 5:
[43:19] Yeah, you've had some wonderful YouTube bits, the doing DJ mixes in a rowboat on a lake, a co-wrapling stuff, trying to explain to fellow boaters that you're not screaming for help.

Speaker 1:
[43:33] I was merely singing the song Radioactive by Imagination Dragons and they freaked out a little bit.

Speaker 5:
[43:38] Another boat. Are you all right?

Speaker 1:
[43:42] Yes, and I did perform Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J in my automobile with my mama, which was very fun.

Speaker 5:
[43:47] With your mother, yes, indeed.

Speaker 1:
[43:50] Yes, so a very fun time. Shout out, Mama.

Speaker 5:
[43:53] For those of you who have not seen, please do a deep dive on Flula's internet presence. There's a lot of creativity going on there.

Speaker 1:
[44:02] So much confusion.

Speaker 5:
[44:03] There must be a supercut somewhere of all your...

Speaker 1:
[44:06] In my mother's brain, perhaps, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[44:09] One of my favorite things to see about you. And then of course, one of my second, I'll say my second favorite is when you come by and do your Skip Tracer Randy for the rookie. Tell me, has that changed your perspective or reaction at all? Have you noticed the rookie audience? They've always been very kind to me.

Speaker 1:
[44:27] They are wonderful. They are the greatest audience. And as you know, this show was very popular to a point that is so confusing that when I am in Germany, I get recognized as Skip Tracer Randy more than anything that I do.

Speaker 5:
[44:41] Is that right?

Speaker 1:
[44:42] Yes. Yes. It's crazy how popular this show is. I cannot believe it. Very wonderful. I love this delicious train and I'm glad to have just a tiny bit of gravy from it.

Speaker 5:
[44:53] That's, I love hearing that because you've been in the industry a very long time. You're very accomplished. You've done a lot of great things. You worked with my lovely friend, Elizabeth Banks. You did the Pidge Perfect stuff. You've done a number of animated movies. Trolls. You were in the second Trolls movie, the World Tour movie.

Speaker 1:
[45:13] This is your encyclopedic knowledge of my imidibi, Nathan, is very impressive. Yes, this is also an accurate statement.

Speaker 5:
[45:20] There are some times when I'm watching something and I'll say, who is that? And I'll say, oh my God, it's Flula.

Speaker 1:
[45:25] Yeah. And it is said with that level of disdain. Yes.

Speaker 5:
[45:30] Who is that doing this?

Speaker 1:
[45:33] Yeah, yeah, every time.

Speaker 5:
[45:34] What are they trying to get away with?

Speaker 1:
[45:35] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[45:37] That makes me really happy that you were, I'm assuming, pleasantly surprised when you got those reactions from Rookie Stuff.

Speaker 1:
[45:44] Oh, it's wonderful. Listen, you birthed this character for me, so I'm very grateful. And I get to do all kinds of silly goose type of things with professionals, where I am not a professional, as we all know. And so just to be involved in things that don't involve me, what I would normally do at home, which is just cover my entire body in Worcestershire sauce. It's fun to do things like the rookie.

Speaker 5:
[46:06] Spicy. Tell me, you've had a very varied career. Is there anything you would love to do over for any reason, be it to correct a mistake or to just relive a great experience? Is there any part of your career that you would like a do over?

Speaker 1:
[46:24] Zero do overs, but I would like to be the lead in a rom-com. I would like to be the lead villain in a horror movie. I would like to do a musical. I also need to do a stand-up special. And I also need to reprise the Die Hard prequel, which doesn't exist, where I play Hans Gruber. And the film is simply called Gruber.

Speaker 5:
[46:41] Oh, that's great. There's a lot of things there that I would pay money to see.

Speaker 1:
[46:47] Great. I will send you any amount you like.

Speaker 5:
[46:49] The prequel to Die Hard. What makes Hans Gruber Hans Gruber?

Speaker 1:
[46:54] Yeah, how did Gruber Gruber?

Speaker 3:
[46:57] Wow, that's great. I would pay money to see that.

Speaker 1:
[47:00] Well, question for you guys. Would you, is there a do over? Is there a redo in your guys' careers? Like, I would like this mulligan returned.

Speaker 5:
[47:08] Alan?

Speaker 2:
[47:09] Not a mulligan, but I'd like to do more Firefly.

Speaker 1:
[47:12] Hey.

Speaker 5:
[47:13] We just might, my friend. We just might.

Speaker 2:
[47:16] We're working on that or Nathan's working on it. Somebody's working on it. It's being worked on. Conversations are happening, damn it.

Speaker 5:
[47:24] We had a big announcement, Flula, that it went over really well.

Speaker 1:
[47:28] Oh, I know. Is this embargoed? We can speak?

Speaker 5:
[47:32] Yeah, yeah. We can talk about it now.

Speaker 1:
[47:33] Yes. It's the animated version. Yeah. The animated. Yes.

Speaker 5:
[47:37] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[47:38] Feature or a series?

Speaker 5:
[47:40] A series is what we're keeping for.

Speaker 1:
[47:43] Nappadocious.

Speaker 5:
[47:44] So lots of room in there for lots of characters. I'm just saying you might get a ring on your telephone.

Speaker 1:
[47:49] I might answer those directs.

Speaker 2:
[47:51] The Niska's ne'er-do-well nephew. I have to go buy a house.

Speaker 1:
[47:58] Congratulations. You go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[48:01] I'll wrap. Are we doing a know something about you or am I okay?

Speaker 5:
[48:05] Let's do it. You're right, Alan. Let's do it very quickly. Let's get to know you better.

Speaker 2:
[48:09] I know you and you know me. Let's get to know you better. OK.

Speaker 1:
[48:17] This one needs to be slow.

Speaker 2:
[48:19] It's just things we know about things. Tell us something we don't know about you.

Speaker 1:
[48:25] I was once very obsessed with the Trader Joe's chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzel bites. I would purchase one every Wednesday at the Trader Joe's near Hyperion. Before I arrived home, I would have consumed 50 percent of the bag. Then by the time the sun went down, the other half was also immediately gone.

Speaker 5:
[48:42] Are you an addict to those confectionary delights?

Speaker 1:
[48:47] I was. Prior to that, it was the vanilla Jojo's, which are also from Trader Joe's. Of course, spoiler, there are 42 cookies. I would place them in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, I would eat all of them before 10:30 a.m. I've seen the lunch you pack, Flula, when you go to work.

Speaker 5:
[49:02] I've seen the healthy salmons and broccolis. It doesn't look like chocolate covered peanut butter bites would fit into your diet.

Speaker 1:
[49:14] Listen, Nathan, there's a Jacqueline Hyde. Jacqueline loves salmon, Hyde loves those cookies.

Speaker 2:
[49:21] I did not know that. I don't know that we didn't know that about you.

Speaker 5:
[49:25] Alan, what's your, we didn't know this about you.

Speaker 2:
[49:27] Okay, this is, I have to like, I don't party that much. I don't drink too much. Okay. And if ever I'm in a position, if I'm down, I think that's probably the worst time for a person to actually drink. Like if that's the solution to being down. And sometimes that thought will occur to me. God, I just like a drink. And I go, well, this doesn't, that seems like the wrong way of going about this, handling what is, whatever ails me. And I have on more than one occasion to shake this feeling. I will go to Stock Photos, a Stock Photos website, and I will search alcoholism. Now, it's not the fear of alcoholism. It's not like gritty images of people throwing their lives away on a drug that is readily available. For me, what keeps me from drinking is looking at bad actors pretending to be alcoholics. Yeah, yeah. Bad lighting, bad situations where they're like, just some guy with his hands on his hips, with his head cocked, like, no, looking at a glass of poured wine. That will make anyone be like, God, what a, I don't want to be any, it's so bad. It's so, I recommend people look through these. They're terrible. People like looking at their phone and it's just terrible. And there's a bottle like on its side near them. And they're looking up like, Oh, why did I do that?

Speaker 4:
[51:03] They're the worst.

Speaker 2:
[51:04] It's the bad acting.

Speaker 5:
[51:05] How did you come to this practice?

Speaker 2:
[51:09] I saw some initially. They made me feel terrible because of the bad act. They made me laugh first, cause they were ridiculous, but it's just, it's sad. It became sad. And I apologize if you're a stock photo actor. I don't mean to tell you you're not good at this, but I don't know who's coming up with these ideas.

Speaker 1:
[51:30] They were compensated.

Speaker 2:
[51:32] They were compensated and they're terrible ideas of what is alcoholism. Like a kid who's supposed to be crying, who isn't crying, but looking like they are sad, and just a guy sitting on a couch. Alcoholism.

Speaker 5:
[51:49] In this scenario, is the kid the alcoholic or the?

Speaker 2:
[51:51] I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he's waiting for the alcoholic to come home. There's so much. It's bad production value, bad lighting, bad ideas in action.

Speaker 5:
[52:03] That's enough to turn you off of the idea of drinking when you're down.

Speaker 2:
[52:07] Yeah, I don't want to be any part of that.

Speaker 5:
[52:09] Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, man.

Speaker 2:
[52:11] I get that.

Speaker 5:
[52:11] Okay, mine is, you have to go, Alan. I'll share with Flula. I do. I do. I have to go. Go, go, go. I hate this.

Speaker 2:
[52:18] I'm going to.

Speaker 5:
[52:18] And we love you.

Speaker 2:
[52:19] It was really nice to get to know you, Flula.

Speaker 1:
[52:21] Likewise, Alan.

Speaker 2:
[52:22] God bless you.

Speaker 1:
[52:23] Purchase a mid-century modern home.

Speaker 2:
[52:26] I will not, but I'm in New York. They don't have them. No, no, no.

Speaker 5:
[52:30] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[52:31] Bye.

Speaker 5:
[52:32] All right. We'll finish us off with, this is a, because we were talking about families and traditions and whatnot. It's Easter right now, Flula.

Speaker 1:
[52:42] Correct.

Speaker 5:
[52:43] This is the Easter, happy Easter. This is the Easter time of year. Everybody loves a comeback story. I think this was Jesus'.

Speaker 1:
[52:50] This is the rocky story.

Speaker 2:
[52:51] This is the most Easter time of the year.

Speaker 1:
[52:52] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[52:53] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[52:54] In my family, and I didn't know this didn't happen for every family when I was younger. It took me a while to glean, you know, what was happening. But the Easter bunny didn't just bring little eggs and bunnies and chocolate confections and candies and stuff. But the Easter bunny was also the source of socks and underwear. I can tell by your face that wasn't what you were expecting.

Speaker 1:
[53:16] No. So this is how you received your underoos?

Speaker 5:
[53:20] That's right. For a long time as a child growing up, that's where socks and underwear came from was the Easter bunny. So we would be doing the Easter egg hunt around the house or yard or whatever it might be, weather dependent. And you'd find, oh, is a chocolate egg. Oh, there's a little chocolate bunny. I'll probably eat that years first. And then, oh, a pack of Tidy Whiteys and a pack of brown socks. Why don't I want brown socks? Oh, pack of white socks. I'll probably use those more. But they were hidden around the house along with the candies.

Speaker 1:
[53:56] There were other siblings, correct?

Speaker 5:
[53:58] I have one brother, Jeff. I think you've met Jeff.

Speaker 1:
[54:01] I have met Jeff. Were these labeled or is like, if he found all the socks, you're barefoot until next time Jesus makes a comeback?

Speaker 5:
[54:10] Typically, there were two sets of whatever we were looking for. I think we were pretty much generally the same size for quite some time. So we were all both smalls or both mediums or what have you. But if you found two sets of white socks, one was probably for your brother.

Speaker 1:
[54:26] Oh, and you agreed with another enough to then share the socks if you found?

Speaker 5:
[54:31] Yeah, we weren't looking to really stockpile the underwear at any point. We were like, oh, that'll do.

Speaker 1:
[54:36] Okay, not like a nuclear weapons store. No, I was just going to...

Speaker 5:
[54:38] But the idea of being with your friends and saying, wait a minute, where do you get your underwear? Because for me, it's the Easter Bunny. That was a weird moment.

Speaker 1:
[54:48] Yes, a mythical rabbit delivers you undergarments.

Speaker 5:
[54:52] Yeah, so right before you have like, if you have that conversation with your parents saying, you know, wait a minute, Santa isn't real. I mean, you have that kind of realization. I had that conversation with, hang on a second, the Easter Bunny does what now?

Speaker 1:
[55:05] What I love is the depiction of the rabbit. He's not wearing she, I don't know, not wearing undergarments.

Speaker 5:
[55:11] Typically pantsless, the Easter Bunny, yes. Alfresco, as they say.

Speaker 1:
[55:16] Yes, no carbonara to be seen, yes.

Speaker 5:
[55:21] So that's a family tradition. You probably didn't know about me.

Speaker 1:
[55:25] No, I did not know that. I want to adopt it and spread it.

Speaker 5:
[55:29] There you go. It's all yours. I have another question for you. Yes. What is your most dramatic role to date? Do you have an attraction to drama? I mean, you do a lot of comedy, you're very, very good at it.

Speaker 1:
[55:41] Well, thank you.

Speaker 5:
[55:42] I find that comedic actors can do drama very well. And sometimes dramatic actors can't do comedy so good. It's a different animal. But if you can do comedy, you can do drama.

Speaker 1:
[55:54] One I mentioned to you, the Bonhoeffer, a World War II biopic, I don't know what that's called. That was probably, yeah, bless you, the most dramatic. And then being a rude boy fighting Dave Bautista in My Spy is also one where it's more dramatic. But Nathan, you must know, it's fun to play bad guys. And it's nice to make a little giggle and make other people giggle, but sometimes you don't want to giggle. You want a little bit, uh-oh, what's happening? You know, that's not how I sound when I'm on my self tapes. I do actually, you know what I mean? I don't say, uh-oh, what's happening?

Speaker 5:
[56:27] No, but it's in your... Does it scratch an itch for you to do drama? Do you enjoy the drama part?

Speaker 1:
[56:34] Very much. I like it because it's a nice little switching of the gears. It's nice to ride around the 10 highway in fourth gear, but sometimes you just want to go into third and make that motor very loud.

Speaker 5:
[56:44] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[56:45] Nathan, you straddle both of them. You kind of go all over the mamby pool. Do you have a preference?

Speaker 5:
[56:50] You know, I think I've found a lot of joy in being the straight man who gets to play a lot of comedy if you do it right.

Speaker 1:
[57:01] Leslie Nielsen.

Speaker 5:
[57:03] Yeah, if you... You know what? I've made a career out of getting kicked in the nuts. Metaphorically. People, I think, like to see suffering. And the straight man typically has to deal with the crazy one, the weird guy. You and I have this dynamic on the rookie constantly. I am the straight man to your Flula.

Speaker 1:
[57:27] Listen, it doesn't work if you're not there. Then I'm just an insane man that everyone doesn't enjoy. But if we get to watch you watch whatever they are doing, that's very great. It doesn't work. It's like there's a set up and there's no punchline if you're not there.

Speaker 5:
[57:41] I represent everyone in the situation that Randy subjects people to.

Speaker 1:
[57:47] Correct. And it doesn't work unless you are truly whatever it is you are feeling in that moment.

Speaker 5:
[57:51] Suffering through your... And I'll tell you this, Flula, this is something you do very well. No two takes are ever the same. And you do a little thing that I like to do as well, which is once the scene is over, it's gloves off. The scene's over, gloves are off. You always throw in a little something different at the end that always makes it to the air.

Speaker 1:
[58:16] Oh, it does. Okay.

Speaker 5:
[58:17] Something you do always makes it to the air.

Speaker 1:
[58:20] It's fun. I like that. I mean, of course, and then it's nice because the director's not PO'd or T.O'd because you've just tried it after you did what you were supposed to do. It's like you did deliver that very accurate bowl of cheering, but then, oh, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5:
[58:34] If they don't want it, they can cut it off because the scene's over. You've told the story, you've done everything that's required of you. But then you throw in a little flavor. And I think the moniker of accuracy, how accurate were you in, how useful is this piece, this flavor that you put in is, does it make it to air or not? And I think you are working at probably a 90 to 95 percent success rate.

Speaker 1:
[58:57] Wow, that's too high. I will endeavor to lower that. That seems egregious and I apologize.

Speaker 5:
[59:03] Are you having fun doing the rookie?

Speaker 1:
[59:05] Because, oh, what? Yes. Yes. You guys are writing for my silly goose brain. Yeah. I mean, it's very wonderful. Your writers are amazing. Your directors obviously know the show. And you guys are all such seasoned, seasoned professionals that you can handle anything, including a little bit of a chaos agent, which is me and others.

Speaker 5:
[59:27] Alexi loves introducing chaos. You are a wonderful agent of chaos. Also, you're a treat. You are a favorite of the casting crew. People get very excited to have you around. The Flula days are always fun days. Everybody's so thrilled to see you all the time.

Speaker 1:
[59:44] Listen, likewise, very confusing, but I really enjoy it and it is of course as mutual as it can get.

Speaker 5:
[59:50] Is there anything, Flula, that you would love to cover that we have not covered whilst you were here?

Speaker 1:
[59:56] Oh, in this delicious podcast? Nothing. I've very much enjoyed your lovely background. I've enjoyed meeting Alan in a more intimate way than I had previously. And I'm very excited for you guys to continue this episode series into the thousands of episodes.

Speaker 5:
[60:12] I'll leave you with this, Flula. When was the last time you cried?

Speaker 1:
[60:16] Oh, that was, I would say, nine days ago as I was watching Shawshank Redemption and then I watched Good Will Hunting.

Speaker 5:
[60:25] Shawshank Redemption is one of my all time favorite movies. I'll stop everything I'm doing when it's on.

Speaker 1:
[60:30] Yeah, same. Yeah, that is one of the best. When I first heard of the film, I didn't know two of the three words. I didn't understand what they meant in the title. So I was very confused. I did not know what I was going to watch. And then it was just one of the most lovely films of all time.

Speaker 5:
[60:46] The Shawshank and the Redemption part were tough.

Speaker 1:
[60:48] Yeah, I didn't know what those two things meant. Very confusing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yes, those are mine. What about you? Last time, Tears exited your eye holes.

Speaker 5:
[60:58] About the same amount of time ago, I was watching a video about a dog adoption video where they released dogs into a crowd of people and the dog picks the owner.

Speaker 1:
[61:10] Wonderful.

Speaker 5:
[61:11] A supercut of that. I got extremely emotional watching these people getting picked by dogs.

Speaker 1:
[61:16] Yes, dog things really do it for me as well. Reuniting of pooches, very tough.

Speaker 5:
[61:22] Same thing, right? I'm going to throw this one at you. This is something I'd like to ask. Okay, I've got a couple more questions for you. I am not wrapping this up yet. Okay, here we go. Yeah. Have you ever seen a ghost?

Speaker 2:
[61:36] No, no, no.

Speaker 1:
[61:37] As a child, I was like, oh, I think that's a ghost. Really, that was me very afraid of a sound that was not a ghost. It was science. Now, if you're asking, are they real? I have not seen one and I have not heard one, so I cannot confirm it for you. Other people will tell me they are real, but other people have told me other things are real or not real.

Speaker 5:
[61:58] What about UFOs? No, I have never seen anything like that.

Speaker 1:
[62:03] No, have you seen either or both of these things?

Speaker 5:
[62:06] Ghost? No.

Speaker 1:
[62:08] UFO?

Speaker 5:
[62:08] I saw something strange one time, I couldn't tell you what it was.

Speaker 1:
[62:12] Oh, okay, it's happened twice, but once I googled it, it was those Elon Musk satellites. Those are just satellites. And then one time it was just a very giant plane. That's just a big, quiet plane. Weird, but a plane. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[62:26] Okay. All right. And then the final question. When did you know that you made it?

Speaker 1:
[62:33] Oh, yes, I felt like I had accomplished a thing when I inadvertently won the Scion Hype Man contest. This was a message to me from someone who was like, Oh, this is a real thing. You should continue to do this. And then I just that. And then one time I made a video that was called I'm in Flula in Germany, where I was deportated. And so I wrote a song about my, I tried to turn that song into a fun lemonade. So I made a song about the things I love in Germany. And then I put it on YouTube. And then three years later, it received hundreds of thousands of views from Reddit, very randomly. I said, Oh, this is the best. Now I know I can. And it was like a signal for me. I chose to interpret it as a signal to continue to make fun things and stick around.

Speaker 5:
[63:15] Those are very early. You've had a lot of incredible successes that were huge. You just talked about working with Dave Bautista. He's a big movie star now. But those are so early on for thinking, I made it.

Speaker 1:
[63:29] Oh, Nathan, I cannot believe any of this has happened. This is a deep, deep confusion. As you said, this is a non-existent niche. Yet somehow, if someone said, give me your Venmo, and I was like, which is not even an address, but then they still give Venmo to this non-existent address. That's basically my career. Very confused, very happy. I see it.

Speaker 5:
[63:49] I understand it. You know what I love, Flula, about your journey is that you are clearly enjoying yourself. You are using it to its maximum potential to have fun with it. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[64:01] I like to make things that are fun and that other people find also fun. And that's the whole point because there's a lot of terrible things. So why not just make something fun to let people think about fun things?

Speaker 5:
[64:12] You do that for me constantly all the time with both your work, your entertainment and your company, Flula, I love clearly we hang out a lot outside of school. We've done, I don't know how many events and haunted houses and Disneyland.

Speaker 1:
[64:26] Nathan, you are a wonderful videographer and a person that you would be a very wonderful historian in the 18th century. You're very good at documenting and making sure that everyone is also enjoying. You are a perfect host and a documentarian. I salute you and a wonderful friend of course.

Speaker 5:
[64:43] You're such a lovely friend. I endeavored to hang out more with you all the time, Flula. What a weird set of circumstances it had to happen in both of our lives. A kid from Germany, a kid from Canada, for our paths to ever meet. I'm so happy that they did. I'm so happy that you did this little podcast. I am so happy that Alan finally left and we could just chat.

Speaker 1:
[65:06] I mean, that was... Honestly, the first hour was painful. I don't want to say and keep up this thing, but yeah. Awkward, awkward, but thank you for forcing me to do that. It's nice to kind of just get a little, you know, discipline in my life, you know.

Speaker 5:
[65:20] Lula, thank you very much for coming. Thanks for doing this. I hope it wasn't too painful.

Speaker 1:
[65:25] It was wonderful. Thank you very much, Nathan. Thank you to Alan, wherever you are. And listen, everyone, subscribe to Once We Were Spacemen, available everywhere you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5:
[65:35] It's true. Thanks for that plug, of course.

Speaker 6:
[65:40] Oh, my God. Thank you for listening. You just bless your heart. You know what? If you haven't yet, why don't you head on over to our Patreon. You're going to get some bonus content. That's extra content. There are longer episodes. There's more there. You know what's better than less? More. You also get a chance to get your hands on some incredible crap, the kinds you don't need to wash off after you're done. And if you love the show, please leave us a review and tell your friends. Once We Were Spacemen is a Collision33 production. The hell that is. The show is produced by Michelle Chapman, Siobhan Holman, oh yeah, and Josh Levy. I wear them jeans. He is of Collision33. It's all starting to make sense. It's edited and mixed and produced by Resident Records with special thanks to Courtney Blomquist and Adam Townsell. Our theme music is done by Carlos Sosa, the Groove Line Horns guy, yeah, and Joshua Moore artwork is done by Louis Jensen. Until next time, I swear to God I love you.