Ryan Reynolds Celebrates Nature's Unsung Heroes With UNDERDOGS Trailer, a Boundary-Breaking Natural History Experience
'Getting to work with National Geographic on UNDERDOGS was a dream come true—mostly because I can finally watch a project of ours with my children. Technically, they saw 'Deadpool & Wolverine' but I don't think they absorbed much while covering their eyes and ears and screaming for two hours,' said Reynolds. 'We're so proud to elevate the unsung heroes of the natural world to the top of the entertainment food chain and can't wait for everyone to see.'
Each episode of the five-part series showcases a different aspect of these underdogs' bizarre mating strategies, surprising superpowers, deception, dubious parenting skills and gross-out behaviors. UNDERDOGS features a range of never-before-filmed scenes, including the first time a film crew has ever entered a special cave in New Zealand - a huge cavern that glows brighter than a bachelor pad under a black light thanks to the glowing butts of millions of mucus-coated grubs. All over the world, overlooked superstars like this are out there 24/7, giving it maximum effort and keeping the natural world in working order for all those showboating polar bears, sharks and gorillas.
With stunning imagery from the world's leading wildlife cinematographers and music by multiple award-winning composer Harry Gregson-Williams ('Shrek,' 'The Martian,' 'Gladiator 2'), UNDERDOGS is edgy and informative. It's the unexpected superhero blockbuster of the summer that celebrates the oddballs and outcasts while highlighting remarkable survival techniques, mental resilience, and exceptional instincts. ' Underdogs (Original Series Soundtrack)," which will consist of Harry Gregson-Williams' score, will be released on Hollywood Records on June 13 and will be available everywhere you listen to music. Global rock superstars Green Day wrote the original theme song for the series, which is featured in the trailer. Green Day's deluxe edition of their latest album, 'Saviors,' includes seven newly added tracks, including the UNDERDOGS theme song 'Underdog.' 'Saviors (édition de luxe)' is available everywhere you listen to music.
Episodes include the following:
'Superzeroes' Premieres June 15 at 9/8c on National Geographic
Ryan Reynolds assembles a team of 'Superzeroes,' apparently pathetic animals with unexpectedly awesome superpowers. Forget about the cheetah's speed, the eagle's eyesight or the elephant's brute strength, and say hello to the invisible glass frog, the indestructible honey badger and the pistol shrimp who can fire bubbles that are as hot as the surface of the sun.
'Terrible Parents' premieres June 15 at 9:54/8:54c on National Geographic
Ryan Reynolds reveals some highly questionable parenting strategies from the animal kingdom's worst parents, the underdogs. From a goose who lays their eggs on the top of a cliff to a koala that feeds its baby poop, it's uncertain if they are bad parents or just misunderstood. But no matter how bad you think you may be at parenting, you can't be as bad as these guys.
'Sexy Beasts' Premieres June 22 at 9/8c on National Geographic
Forget the birds and the bees, Ryan Reynolds reveals the steps to finding 'the one,' underdog-style. From the 'first attraction' in giant-nosed proboscis monkeys to the importance of wingmen in turkey courtship to foreplay in flying foxes, these guys have re-written the rule book on messy and complicated relationships.
'The Unusual Suspects' premieres June 22 at 9:53/8:53c on National Geographic
Ryan Reynolds puts the spotlight on the underdogs who get ahead by sneaky tactics. From the master-of-disguise frogfish to a butt-biting jackal and a multi-headed caterpillar playing the decoy, these are the masters of deception and deceit. And bringing all these hustlers together is the greatest con artist of them all—a cunning macaque who feeds on the spoils from unsuspecting tourists.
'Total Grossout' Premieres June 29 at 9/8c on National Geographic
Ryan gives his unique take on the animals who use gross-out tactics to achieve their goals, from defending their home to finding a mate and wining at the game of life. His cast includes manatees that use flatulence to control their buoyancy and cave-dwelling fungus gnats that create beautiful, illuminated fly traps from the mucus lit by their bioluminescent butts.
UNDERDOGS is produced by Wildstar, a Fremantle company, in partnership with Maximum Effort for National Geographic. For Wildstar, Mark Linfield, Vanessa Berlowitz and Dan Rees are executive producers. For Maximum Effort, Ryan Reynolds, George Dewey, Ashley Fox and Patrick Gooing are executive producers; Sophia Travaglia and Molly Milstein are producers. Polly Billam serves as co-series producer and writer. For National Geographic, Tracy Rudolph Jackson is the executive producer, Janet Han Vissering is senior vice president of Production, Charlie Parsons is the senior vice president of Development, Bengt Anderson is the executive producer and senior vice president of Unscripted Production, and Tom McDonald is the executive vice president of Global Factual and Unscripted Content.
About Maximum Effort
Maximum Effort makes movies, tv series, content and cocktails for the personal amusement of Hollywood Star Ryan Reynolds. We occasionally share them with the general public. Producers of the Deadpool films, Free Guy, The Adam Project and Welcome to Wrexham.
About Wildstar Films
Wildstar brings new perspectives and fresh ideas to high-quality natural history content, all powered by an open mind, a diverse outlook, a desire to work with the best in the world, and a commitment to sustainability. Led by co-Founders Mark Linfield and Vanessa Berlowitz whose extensive credits include Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and multiple wildlife feature documentaries for Disney Studios, Wildstar's rapidly growing team is a blend of exciting young talent and experienced hands who have won all of the major industry awards including BAFTAs, Primetime Emmys® and RTS. The company's recent output includes: Queens (Disney+/National Geographic), Secrets of the Octopus (Disney+/National Geographic), Tiger (DisneyNature for Disney+), Tigers on the Rise (DisneyNature for Disney+), America the Beautiful (Disney+/National Geographic), Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory (Disney+/National Geographic), America's National Parks (National Geographic), Elephant (Disneynature), and Monkey Kingdom (Disneynature).
About National Geographic Content
Representing the largest brand on social media with over 780 million followers and 1.1 billion impressions each month, National Geographic Content's award-winning and critically acclaimed storytelling inspires fans of all ages to connect with, explore and care about the world through factual storytelling. National Geographic Content, part of a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the National Geographic Society, reaches over 532 million people worldwide in 172 countries and 33 languages as a digital, social and print publisher and across the global National Geographic channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO), National Geographic Documentary Films, and direct-to-consumer platforms Disney+ and Hulu. Its diverse content includes Oscar®- and BAFTA award-winning film Free Solo, Oscar-nominated films Sugarcane, Fire of Love and Bobi Wine: The People's President, Emmy® Award-winning franchise 9/11: One Day in America and JFK: One Day in America, Emmy® Award-winning series Animals Up Close, series Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller, Life Below Zero, and Secrets of the Whales, in addition to multiple National Magazine Awards, Pulitzer Prize Finalists and Webby wins. Visit nationalgeographic.com and natgeotv.com or explore Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit.
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Vox
23 minutes ago
- Vox
Meet the Substackers who want to save the American novel
is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater. In book world, the summer of 2025 is officially the summer of Substack. Over the past few years, Substack has been slowly building a literary scene, one in which amateurs, relative unknowns, and Pulitzer Prize-winning writers rub shoulders with one another. This spring, a series of writers — perhaps best known for their Substacks — released new fiction, leading to a burst of publicity that the critic, novelist, and Substacker Naomi Kanakia has declared 'Substack summer.' Vox Culture Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. 'Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack?' asked the New Yorker in May. Substack 'has become the premier destination for literary types' unpublished musings,' announced Vulture. Can Substack move sales like BookTok can? No. But it's doing something that, for a certain set, is almost more valuable. It's giving a shot of vitality to a faltering book media ecosystem. It's building a world where everyone reads the London Review of Books, and they all have blogs. 'I myself think of BookTok as an engine for discovery, and I think Substack is an engine for discourse,' said the journalist Adrienne Westenfeld. 'BookTok is a listicle in a way. It's people recommending books that you might not have heard of. It's not as much a place for substantive dialogue about books, which is simply a limitation of short form video.' Related How BookTokers make money Three years ago, Westenfeld wrote about Substack's rising literary scene for Esquire. Now, Esquire has slashed its book coverage, and Westenfeld is writing the Substack companion to a traditionally published nonfiction book: Adam Cohen's The Captain's Dinner. That progression is, in a way, par for the course for the current moment. All the sad young literary men that are said to have disappeared are there on Substack, thriving. With both social media and Google diverting potential readers away from publications, many outlets are no longer investing in arts coverage. The literary crowd who used to hang out on what was known as 'Book Twitter' no longer gathers on what is now X. All the same, there are still people who like reading, and writing, and thinking about books. Right now, a lot of them seem to be on Substack. What strikes me most about the Substack literary scene is just how much it looks like the literary scene of 20 years ago, the one the millennials who populate Substack just missed. The novels these writers put out tend to be sprawling social fiction about the generational foibles of American families à la Jonathan Franzen. They post essays to their Substacks like they're putting blog posts on WordPress, only this time, you can add a paywall. All the sad young literary men that are said to have disappeared are there on Substack, thriving. On Substack, it's 2005 again. Substack is a lifeboat in publishing… or maybe an oar Writers can offer Substack literary credibility, while Substack can offer writers a direct and monetizable connection to their readers. In a literary landscape that feels perennially on the edge, that's a valuable attribute. 'As long as I've wanted to be a writer, as long as I've taken it seriously, it's been mostly bad news,' said the novelist and prolific Substacker Lincoln Michel. 'It's been mostly advances getting lower, articles about people reading less, book review sections closing up, less and less book coverage. Substack feels like a bit of a lifeboat, or maybe an oar tossed to you in your canoe as you're being pushed down to the waterfall. You can build up a following of people who are really interested in books and literature or whatever it is you might be writing about.' Substack summer, however, is not about the established big-name novelists. Substack summer is about writers who are not particularly famous, who found themselves amassing some tens of thousands of followers on Substack and who have recently released longform fiction. They are the ones whose works are getting discussed as central to a new literary scene. In her original 'Substack summer' post, Kanakia identified three novels of the moment as Ross Barkan's Glass Century, John Pistelli's Major Arcana, and Matthew Gasda's The Sleepers. To that list, Kanakia could easily add her own novella, Money Matters, which she published in full on Substack last November. 'No other piece of new fiction I read last year gave me a bigger jolt of readerly delight,' the New Yorker said in May of Money Matters. It wasn't quite Oprah putting Franzen's Corrections in her book club, but it was still more attention than you would reasonably expect. When Barkan and Pistelli's novels came out in April and May, they garnered a surprising amount of attention, Kanakia said. The books were both ambitious enough to be of potential interest to critics — Glass Century follows an adulterous couple from the 1970s into the present, and Major Arcana deals with a death by suicide at a university. Still, both books were from relatively small presses: Belt Publishing for Major Arcana and Tough Poets Press for Glass Century. That kind of book traditionally has a limited publicity budget, which makes it hard to get reviewed in major outlets. (Not that coverage is all that easy for anyone to get, as Michel noted.) Nonetheless, both Major Arcana and Glass Century got reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. A few weeks later, Kanakia's Money Matters, which she published directly to Substack, was written up in the New Yorker. It wasn't quite Oprah putting Franzen's Corrections in her book club, but it was still more attention than you would reasonably expect. 'I was like, 'Something's happening,'' Kanakia says. ''This is going to be big. This is going to be a moment.'' 'Had this novel been released two or three years ago, it would have been completely ignored,' says Barkan of Glass Century. 'Now it's been widely reviewed, and I credit Substack with that fully.' Pistelli's Major Arcana is even more a product of Substack than the others. Pistelli originally serialized it on Substack, and then self-published before Belt Publishing picked it up. The book didn't garner all that much attention when he was serializing it — Pistelli's feeling is that people don't go to Substack to read fiction — but after it came out in print, Substack became the peg for coverage of the book. 'A lot of the reviews, both positive and negative, treated my novel as kind of a test of whether Substack can produce a serious novel, a novel of interest,' said Pistelli. 'The verdict was mixed.' The theory that Substackers have about Substack is this: As social media and search traffic have both collapsed, the kinds of publications that usually give people their book news — newspapers, literary magazines, book specific websites — have struggled and become harder to find. Substack, which delivers directly to readers' inboxes, has emerged to fill the gap in the ecosystem. 'It's very easy to talk to people and it's very easy to get your writing out there,' said Henry Begler, who writes literary criticism on Substack. 'It feels like a real literary scene, which is something I have never been part of.' While there are lots of newsletter social platforms out there, Substack is fairly unique in that it's both a place for newsletters, which tend towards the essayistic, and, with its Twitter clone Notes app, a place for hot takes and conversations. The two formats can feed off each other. 'It creates an ongoing discussion in a longer and more considered form than it would be on Twitter, where you're just trying to get your zingers out,' says Begler. The buzzy authors of the Substack scene are also all associated with the Substack-based literary magazine The Metropolitan Review. Barkan is co-founder and editor-in-chief, and Kanakia, Pistelli, and Gasda have all written for it, as has Begler. 'Basically, we're just a group of friends online who read each other's newsletters and write for some of the same publications,' said Kanakia. For Barkan, the Metropolitan Review is at the center of a new literary movement, which he's dubbed New Romanticism, that is 'properly exploiting the original freedom promised by Internet 1.0 to yank the English language in daring, strange, and thrilling directions.' Barkan's idea is that the kind of publications that used to host such daring, strange, and thrilling speech no longer do, and the Metropolitan Review is stepping into the breach. He argues somewhat optimistically that the Metropolitan Review, which has around 22,000 subscribers, is 'one of the more widely read literary magazines in America.' The combined mythologies of Metropolitan Review and Substack summer have given these writers the beginnings of a cohesive self-identity. The world they've built with that identity is, interestingly, a bit of a throwback. The literary culture of 2005 is alive and well Here are some characteristics of the literary world of 2005: an enchantment with a group of talented young male writers who wrote primarily big social novels and a lot of excitement about the literary possibilities of a nascent blogosphere. Here are some characteristics of the Substack literary scene: a lot of young male writers, a lot of social novels, and a lot of excitement about the literary possibilities of newsletter essays. Glass Century and Major Arcana are both big, sprawling novels that take place over decades, and Glass Century, in particular, reads as though it was written under the influence of Jonathan Franzen. That's a departure from what's been more recently in vogue, like Karl Ove Knausgaard's titanic autofictional saga. 'I think there's a lot of nostalgia for a time when the novel was maybe a more discussed form or a more vital form or trying to capture a lot more of contemporary society.' 'The big trend in the world of literary fiction for the last decade or so was really autofiction, the idea of you would write a slice of life first person narrated often in a kind of transparent, not very adorned prose,' said Pistelli. 'I think there's been some desire to get back to that bigger canvas social novel that has been lost in the autofictional moment.' Literary Substack in general also seems to espouse a desire to return to a time when literature was more culturally ascendant. 'I think there's a lot of nostalgia for a time when the novel was maybe a more discussed form or a more vital form or trying to capture a lot more of contemporary society,' said Begler. 'It's partially just a shift from one mode of thinking to another, and it's partially a nostalgia for your Franzen and your David Foster Wallace and whatever.' This desire is, in its way, very Franzenian. Franzen famously wrote an essay for Harper's in 1996 in which he describes his 'despair about the American novel' after the jingoism of the lead up to the first Gulf War. Franzen thought that television was bad for the novel; he hadn't yet seen what TikTok could do to a person. While the Franzen mode pops up a lot with this crowd, there are outliers to this loose trend. Gasda's Sleeper is very much a product of millennial fiction (detached voice describing the foibles of Brooklyn literati), and Kanakia's work on Substack, which she calls her 'tales,' tends to be sparse, with little attention paid to description or setting. There's also the question of gender. The amount of men in this literary Substack scene is particularly notable in a moment so rich with essays about the disappearance of men who care about and write books. Some observers have drawn a lesson of sorts from this phenomenon: The mainstream literary world alienated men. They had to flee to Substack to build their own safe haven. 'The literary establishment treats male American writers with contempt,' wrote the writer Alex Perez on his Substack last August. His commenters agreed. The answer, they concluded, was building a platform and self publishing. 'I'm a middle-aged, straight, white, conservative, rich male who writes literary fiction. It's like a demographic poo Yahtzee. I don't stand a chance,' wrote one commenter. 'But I have 85K Twitter followers and an email list with thousands of people, so I can self-publish and sell 5,000 copies of anything I write.' 'These aren't manosphere men who are constantly raging against the influence of women on fiction. These are men just writing.' For the Metropolitan Review crowd, the amount of men in Substack's literary scene is mostly value-neutral. 'I do think there's something to the fact that when I got on Substack, I was like, 'These are people that are producing work that I'm actually interested in and I actually find compelling,' and that they were probably majority men,' said Begler. 'Overall, it's a rather welcoming environment for all,' Barkan adds. 'These aren't manosphere men who are constantly raging against the influence of women on fiction. These are men just writing.' Kanakia thinks the narrative about literary white men is more complicated than literary white men let on, but ultimately harmless. 'In 2025 the varieties of men advocating for themselves — most of them are very horrific. This variety is not so bad,' she says. 'If they want a book deal at Scribners, like, fine, if that'll make you happy. That'll be great. I have no problem with that.' In the meantime, literary Substack keeps expanding. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon just signed up. 'It's smart of him,' says Barkan. 'If I were Michael Chabon and was working on a novel, I would be on Substack. I think more literary writers who have platforms already should be there.' The closest antecedent to this moment did not last. The literary moment of 2005 was blown apart the way everything of that era was: under the pressure of the 2008 recession and the so-called Great Awokening, under the slow collapse of the blogosphere as social media took off — and everything that came along with them. Will the same thing happen to this crowd? It's hard to know for sure this early. At least for right now, Substack is having its summer.
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Let's break down ‘The Pitt' premiere's many ‘Easter eggs,' character by character
'7 a.m.,' the pilot episode of 'The Pitt,' introduces viewers to the organized chaos of a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room and the doctors and nurses who spend their days going from medical crisis to medical crisis. 'At the center of that wheel with all the spokes' is Dr. Michael 'Robby' Robinavitch, says Noah Wyle, who plays the caring and beleaguered chief attending physician. 'You can identify who is who in the show by how Robby is treating them. Am I being deferential to their expertise and education, or do I assume that they don't know s— and I have to babysit them?' The episode, written by series creator and executive producer R. Scott Gemmill and directed by executive producer John Wells, also hints at story arcs that will play out over the 15-episode first season. 'There's all kinds of little Easter eggs in there if you go back and look,' Gemmill says. The Envelope chatted with Wyle, who also serves as an executive producer on the series, Wells and Gemmill about how the Emmy-nominated '7 a.m.' establishes 'The Pitt's' core characters. Dr. Michael 'Robby' Robinavitch (Noah Wyle)'This is an emergency department. Not a Taco Bell.' The series begins with Robby walking to work listening to 'Baby' by Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise. 'One of the things that you're always trying to do is just tell the audience who you're going to follow,' Wells says. 'Who's going to be your character that introduces you to this world?' Robby is the only character viewers see arriving to work. 'We really wanted our characters to be learned about through the exposition of their workplace environment,' Wyle says. 'It was a conscious and thoughtful decision to not wake up in his apartment, not get a sense of his home decor, what his diet is, who he sleeps with,' he adds. 'Those were all defining things that would immediately take him from being an everyman to being a specific man.' Nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa)'You sure you're cool being here today?' The first person Robby checks in with is Dana, the charge nurse, who Gemmill refers to as both the 'den mother' and 'air traffic controller' of the ER. 'Robby's relationship with Dana is very special,' he says. Dana and Robby's first conversation is about Dr. Jack Abbot (Shawn Hatosy), the ER doctor who works the night shift. Dana tells Robby that Abbot has gone to get 'some air.' Her choice of words is significant because Abbot is actually standing on the hospital roof on the wrong side of the guardrail. 'You know from the look on Robby's face that he knows what 'getting some air' means,' Gemmill says. 'There's a lot of things that are not said but that are understood between these two characters.' Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball)'If you need me, I'll be saving lives.' Immediately introduced as the cocky senior resident , Langdon is later revealed to be stealing prescription drugs. But they were cognizant of keeping Langdon's story arc a secret from viewers. 'There was one sequence where we showed him with a slightly shaking hand,' Wyle says. 'We felt like it tipped a bit too much. We ended up taking it out.' Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif)'I'm a 42-year-old R2. So I have my own haters. Trust me.' In the pilot, McKay, who is older than the other residents, gets involved with two cases. She immediately picks up that something isn't right between a mother who has come in with her sullen adolescent son. She also instantly knows that the mother who burnt her hand on a Sterno is unhoused. 'What she lacks in not having [started] at a younger age, she makes up for with life experience.' Gemmill says. Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones)'I got 50 bucks says she doesn't last through this shift.' Intern Trinity Santos comes in hot with a palpable ambition. She openly mocks her fellow residents with derogatory nicknames, but her outward bravado belies her backstory. 'She has a history of abuse and trauma that has made her want to wear a suit of armor and tell the world to go f— itself before she has a chance to be hurt again,' Wyle says. 'And we peel that layer to the very end of the run when you find out about what happened to her. Her compassion and empathy really comes into the fore in the latter half of the season.' Dr. Melissa King (Taylor Dearden)'I can't tell you how excited I am to be here today.' Nothing seems to get in the way of second-year resident Mel King's outwardly cheerful demeanor. 'She was a tricky one,' Gemmill says. 'We walk a fine line with her. She's fairly obviously neurodivergent, and I just wanted to really introduce a character like that and do it justice and do it properly, and Taylor has done a great job embodying that.' Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell)'I'll be this lady's age by the time I pay off my student loans.' Fourth-year medical student Whitaker doesn't start off well. His phone rings during a moment of silence for a deceased patient and he injures his finger moving a patient off a gurney. 'He's very much the comic relief in the early episodes,' Wyle says. 'He's the guy that we put through a series of degradations and humiliations, but like the Energizer Bunny, he keeps coming back. By braving all of these things, he becomes extremely endearing.' Dr. Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez)'I've earned the right to be here.' Twenty-year-old prodigy Dr. Victoria Javadi is the daughter of two doctors. In the pilot, the third-year medical student faints the first time in the exam room and has painfully awkward exchanges with her peers. 'You imagine that she was never with anyone her age,' Gemmill says. 'Imagine a study group when she was in med school and she's 14 or 15 years old. No one's going to want to hang out with her. She becomes like a mascot to them. Her thing is to overcome that mascot image and become a person unto herself.'
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Rob Delaney on the ‘emotional budgeting' required to make ‘Dying for Sex'
Whether crossing the Atlantic to marry someone who's not all that into it ('Catastrophe'), sacrificing body parts to the schemes of a femme fatale ('Bad Monkey') or enabling a terminal cancer patient's dominant desires ('Dying for Sex'), Rob Delaney's become an expert at portraying men who'll do just about anything for their women — or man crush, if you throw in his 'Deadpool' appearances. Delaney first came to prominence making jokes on Twitter back when it could still be funny. He was previously nominated for an Emmy for writing an episode of 'Catastrophe' with co-creator and co-star Sharon Horgan. And now, with 'Dying,' adapted from Nikki Boyer and the late Molly Kochan's podcast about the latter's end-of-life erotic adventures, he's received his first acting nomination for playing Neighbor Guy opposite fellow nominees Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate. Delaney, who lives in England with his wife, Leah, and their three sons (a fourth child, Henry, died from a brain tumor at age 2½), spoke to The Times via video link while visiting his hometown of Marblehead, Mass. Does Neighbor Guy have a proper name? Not really. They thought about it and they just never gave him one. Unlike Nikki and Molly, Neighbor Guy is not one guy, he's an amalgamation of people and also some people they wished that Molly might have met. How would you describe him? He starts off as a real guy with neuroses and problems and foibles. He goes through a mini-enlightenment with Molly, who is so focused on the present and cognizant that her time is limited. Neighbor Guy makes the great decision to go along for the ride of the way she's living her life, and not to try to make it about him — and in so doing really benefits himself. While their dominant/submissive games generate a lot of humor, Neighbor Guy's not portrayed as a clown, as is the usual case for masochists in media. The real heavy lifting there would have been done by [showrunners] Kim Rosenstock and Liz Meriwether, who wrote it. The intent for him was to start as a slovenly, annoying neighbor, but under Molly's gaze transform into something more special, warmer and open. I was never worried about tone, the balance of humor, sadness, fear, anger and confusion. But were you ever embarrassed? Oh, sure. Masturbating with Molly on the other side of the wall and I'd catch a grip's eye while grunting or whatever. It'd be, 'Sorry you had to see that,' then we'd go eat bagels at the craft table together. How was working with Michelle? Everything you'd wish and more. She's really a kind person and an incredibly curious and generous performer. And she's very game for all the silly stuff, like making Neighbor Guy eat cake out of her hands. Styling each other's hair with lube in her hospital bed was kind of both wacky and lovely. Kim and Liz provided us with a great variety of scenes for our characters to get to know each other, challenge each other and help each other. Your sickroom lovemaking in the penultimate episode is like nothing I've seen before on television. We spent close to a week in that hospital room. Emotional budgeting was required. I did a lot of crying during takes and in between takes. That's the last stuff we shot together. By that time, I'd really gotten to know Molly the character and Michelle Williams the friend. So it was very difficult to watch her, at the height of her powers, dying. What do your characters from 'Catastrophe' to 'Bad Monkey' to 'Dying for Sex' have in common? I'm glad that my three biggest TV roles have been men who are striving, bleeding, failing, bargaining with women, because that makes the best stuff to watch. A man's going to work on a puzzle one way, a woman will another way. Work on it together, they can solve it. Or, alternately, kill each other. Either of those makes great TV. How has your 19 years of marriage influenced this work, and vice versa? 'Catastrophe' felt more like the first decade of my marriage, which was very confusing, trying by hook or crook to shed bad habits that I had. Now I've endeavored to be like an old dog who can learn new tricks, so humility has been the watchword for my second decade of marriage. You've coped with alcoholism, depression and catastrophic loss. Any lessons to impart? I'm almost 50, and now at least know that everyone has seasons of difficulties. I would say that acknowledging those realities ... I mean, it's not bad to be an alcoholic if you acknowledge it, don't drink and work through it. It's true I've been through some things that I would not wish on others. But the older I get the less unique I feel, which is great because nobody's unique.
