On this week's episode, I have actress Mary Lynn Rajskub (24, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The Dropout, Brooklyn 99 and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also talk about her new stand-up comedy tour she is doing and how that came about. We talk about so much more, so make sure you tune in.

Show Notes

Mary Lynn Rajskub on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marylynnrajskub/

Mary Lynn Rajskub IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0707476/

Mary Lynn Rajskub on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lynn_Rajskub

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Autogenerated Transcript

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

I don't know what else to do because I am an artist. So it's always been tied to my personal life and my personal expression, and there's a therapeutic aspect to it. And I don't really, I feel like if I could have taken the route of, I don't know. I never had the ability to be like, I'm going to write scripts, so I just kind of amped up the thing that I am good at.

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.

Hey everyone. Welcome back for another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'm going to tell you what I'm talking about today. I'm talking with a wonderful actress named Mary Lynn Reup, who I worked with many years ago. I was introduced to her. She's doing her hair right now. How's

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Your side part going? Okay, go on.

Michael Jamin:

Many years we were teamed up to take a pilot out based on her life and many pilots that didn't go anywhere. But Mary Lynn is, you are one of my favorite Hollywood stories, and I'm going to tell it to you and I hope it embarrasses you because it was so funny. So we were working together on telling this pilot, and then it was a few years later, we were doing Marin, mark Marin, his show. We were running his show, and then we needed someone at the last minute to play themselves in an interview. So I text Mary Lynn, I got her number on my cell phone. I text her and I

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Say, oh, what did I do?

Michael Jamin:

I say, I say, Hey, Mary Lynn, I know this is last minute, but do you want to be in our TV show? And then you wrote back, yes, who is this?

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Nope,

Michael Jamin:

Don't need to read a part. And we script's are

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Important.

Michael Jamin:

I'll be there tomorrow. I just assumed I was in your phone. So I was like, whatever. And then we later had you on LX Buddy system, but for the people who are not entirely sure who you are, I mean, you've done a ton of stuff. Most, I guess your biggest role was Chloe on 24, which was a giant hit. So you're Chloe, but then I was also looking through your credits and you also played Chloe on Veronica's closet. And I wonder if that was just a trial run for the name

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Trial. Yeah, it's in the ether that the quirky awkward girl, oh, let's call her Chloe in Veronica's closet. She was androgynous and it was Wally Langham who played her assistant on that show, if I'm remembering correctly. Both of us. His character turned out to be gay. It was actually kind of a sweet story. And so we both were ambiguous sexually, and we both had crushes on Scott Bayo, which is not adorable, but

Michael Jamin:

Not anymore. Do you remember all the parts you've done like this? Do you have a good memory for everything you've done?

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

You've done

Michael Jamin:

A lot of parts.

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

What's funny is you're pulling the switcheroo on me because normally people will say stuff to me and I'm like, I don't remember that at all. But things like this, if you ask me what the part is and what the story is, I most likely will remember that stuff.

Michael Jamin:

But when you Go ahead,

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Yeah, but there are some things where either, I don't know, it depends. Sometimes I'm in stuff, I'm like, I don't remember being there. I don't remember you

Michael Jamin:

Really. You sometimes turn on the TV and see an episode of something you've done done a ton. And they go, oh, look at there. There I am. Do you not remember?

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Yeah. And it's funny, the way that you're saying it through the prism of the actual part, I'll remember that. But there's a certain, I don't know, there's certain events or one-off things or sometimes there's stuff on 24. There's a ton ton of guest stars because there's so much plot on that show, and there's so many people that get killed per episode, most likely. In that case, it's a person that I just wasn't on set with, and so I didn't have memorized the episodes of who all the characters are type of thing.

Michael Jamin:

Now you do a lot of, I see you posting, you're always on the road, you're always doing standup, but did you start as a standup?

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

I started in standup ish, yes. I was going to school for painting, and then it turned to performance art, and then I started making fun of performance art.

And then I was in San Francisco and I was going to bars and doing open mic shows. I was really attracted to solo performers, but at the time it was more performance arty. And then once I started just organically making fun of it, I started to encounter comedians who would come to these. There was a crossover between artists and comedians who would go to the same open mics. And I remember seeing the comedians and going, oh, that's, oh, that's somebody that knows their voice, their natural at storytelling, because I was seeing a lot of just poetry from their journal and stuff like that. And it wasn't until I started meeting comedians that I was like, oh, those are my people. But I still didn't understand necessarily how I was being funny.

Michael Jamin:

And then how did you find your voice then? That takes a long time.

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

Oh, I think I just found it last week.

Michael Jamin:

Well, tell me why, how you found it. What does that mean for you to find your, I know what it means for a writer. What does it mean for you?

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

What I'm realizing, honestly, lately within the past few years, especially within the past decade that I've gone on the road doing comedy in earnest, is that I do have a story to tell. It's just taken me a long time to hone in on what that is. And a lot of it is just come from my life experience and putting together, oh, that's what I thought about that, reflecting on stuff, because I think when I first started, I grew up sort of in a bubble and pretty naive, and so I just was putting a vulnerability out there, but I didn't know what I was saying or what I was doing. I got a lot of acting because of that

Michael Jamin:

Really. So you were vulnerable back when you were starting off?

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

A lot of times, and that's pretty much what I did on stages. I would improvise and I wouldn't know what I was going to say. And I can remember looking back, other people would be like, did you write a sketch packet for that? Again, there was a crossover between actors and comedy writers, and I used to just really beat myself up, and it's because I was so bogged down by whatever social anxiety and whatever my brain, the mechanism was geared towards performing, and I still can't quite articulate it, but I just know that I didn't have the presence of mind or the ability to, my brain just didn't work that way. I wasn't about to sit down and write a sketch packet. I had to go through it experientially year after year to be like, oh, I'm this type of person. That's why sometimes people will be like, they'll ask the generic question of who are your comedic influences? It's like, I never related to a guy on a stage in a suit with a tie going, here's what I think about this. It's only lately that I'm going, oh, I have an opinion on that, and it's a strong opinion, but it took me a long time to not be really reactive and really passive.

Michael Jamin:

But you still write out your material before as if any other comedian would, right? Or

Mary Lynn Rajskub:

No? I do. I do. And now that I've been doing it so long, things will come to me and it's always a joy. You, and I'm sure when you're writing, sometimes you'll get those one-liners really quick that you're like, oh, that's fully formed. I'd have one line that's been in my act forever, but I just love it. It's like, did you know you could do a bunch of yoga and still be an asshole? And that's just a real quickie. I didn't sit down trying to write that. And then I have a whole another scenario that follows that, where it's like the kernel of it is truths, but the way it comes out is pretty fabricated.

Michael Jamin:

Do you have a preference as to, do you prefer acting or standup, or does it not make a difference to you?

Mary Lynn Rajskub: