Last Things First: Matt Knudsen

Episode #421

Matt Knudsen is one of those character actors with a face you can’t quite place, which is why the memoir he’s writing is called, “Have I Seen You In Anything?” One of Knudsen’s first big breaks in show business was playing Jesus Christ as a therapist to Bryan Cranston’s character in Malcolm in the Middle. He has since been seen in episodes of Boston Legal, Big Love, Men of a Certain Age, Key & Peele, The League, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, NCIS, The Big Bang Theory, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, and plenty of national TV commercials. Knudsen is one of the first faces you see, in fact, as a patient of Jason Segal’s in the new Apple TV+ series, Shrinking. As a comedian, Knudsen has released three albums, performed on Conan and The Late Late Show, and earned millions of views for his Dry Bar stand-up special, Good News. Knudsen invited me into his home near Los Angeles to talk about his early life in the merchant marines, how running marathons prepared him for the grueling world of show business, and more.

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This transcript has been edited and condensed only slightly for your convenience.

Congratulations, Matt Knudsen. I had to ask you, because soon as I started watching — Shrinking, is a great new show, from Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein starring Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams and special co-star Matt Knudsen, America's new favorite Joy Boy.

You know, I have to say that part of the episode was improvised. We did this improvised therapy session. And I volunteered that from my life because that's what my parents had called me forever. So to have friends and colleagues now calling me Joy Boy in some way, you know what I mean? It's what my mom still calls me and she's like, 80. It's meta. Am I using that term correctly? It's meta.

As long as we clarify that we're not talking about the company owned by Mark Zuckerberg. We’re talking about the actual word.

Right. It's meta, that it's kind of existed in both hemispheres in my life. It makes me laugh.

So is this something that actually does kind of like sit with you, because it came up in an improvised therapy session? To be known as Joy Boy, was this while you were still in Hawaii, or after you’d relocated to the mainland?

No, no, my whole life. That's what my parents had called me because growing up, and to this day, I kind of have like a pleaser vibe. You know what I mean? It's like, hey, life's a party: Can I freshen your drink? Is everyone OK? How can I? And I'm still that guy. But growing up, my parents, they would just tell me to do something, and I would behave and not be too problematic.

Do you have siblings?

I have two older brothers and a younger sister. So classic middle child! Pleasers, pleasers, but then, you know what had happened: We were doing the episode of Shrinking and Bill Lawrence was like, Well, hey, let's just improvise a therapy scene. We did 10 minutes. Jason (Segel) is a phenomenal improviser and a great listener, and you're just looking at him and you know, he's really present and listening. And so Bill, he came by, Jason didn't hear him, Bill goes: ‘When he asks what's wrong, say it’s my mother again.’ So, in my mind, that was his suggestion for what this improvised scene was going to be about. So I was just pulling information, and it wasn't like, ‘She slipped in dog shit!’ It was grounded, real, adding information. I think I remember saying something to the effect of like, ‘You know, my mom, she doesn't want to use a walker, but she falls all the time. It’s so frustrating.’ And that's not funny, but that's just like, as your parents get older, there's a certain age where they're just like, yeah, you need some help.

We’re a very similar age. So, right, if our parents are still alive, we have to deal with that.

Yeah.

So are your parents still with us?

My father passed away in 2015, it was actually his birthday last week (in February). So there's always that like family text or photos and like calls and checking in and my mom is still with us and actually, she's social and outgoing and has friends and has all these other interests. Not that you ever get over the death of a spouse but she's tries to stay active.

But how did she feel seeing you mention Joy Boy?

She laughed. Well, she just got Apple TV recently. And I told her about it. She watched it. Sean, there is no bigger fan of anything I've ever done than my mother. Anything that I’ve ever done, you know, she just thinks it's great — and my wife, too — but like, my mom will always kind of chime in and let me know that we saw you on something…

I can totally related. My mom is listening to this right now, cheering me on.

We all are.

Going: Why aren’t more people listening to this podcast?!? This is the best podcast! OK, so I'm looking at all these medals on your wall.

We are in my home office right now.

All of these medals. These are not from the Merchant Marines.

These are not Merchant Marine metals. That is actually — I ran the Los Angeles marathon for 10 consecutive years. And the one on the far right is the medal that they give you if you do it a decade straight. It's a replica of the Olympic medal they gave the marathon winner when the games were in LA in 1984. I got to like five or six or something like that, and they came out with this new medal — like 10 year challenge. I only had like three left. I was like, Well, I gotta do it, then! I was really surprised at how emotional I got when they gave me that medal on my 10th year, because when I think about the past decade, and you know how many things have happened in my life who's with me who's not, ups downs, all of it. It kind of like, was handed to me in this one moment of like, Hey, here's the past decade to reflect on. Also, I had done it as a fundraiser for St. Jude. And it kind of became a thing that, you know, every year, people would reach out: Are you doing it again? To do it again, and again. So, it became bigger than, than just me not to sound too corny.

Were you always I know you mentioned being a people pleaser, but do you always also a runner or an athlete as a kid?

No.

This is a new thing. This is a midlife crisis?

(laughing) This is a midlife crisis! Here's what happened. I had never run a marathon in my life, but it was like on the bucket list. And then like, you know, when you're like in your 30s you're like I'm gonna do it before I turn 40. So I did it one year, and I didn't train at all. I just, I went and I bought a pair of shoes. I ran it without training at all. And it was the best time I ever did. I never did a better time than the first one without practicing or focusing at all.

You didn’t even know what 26.2 miles felt like.

I did not. But once I basically what you do for Los Angeles, you run from Dodger Stadium, all the way to the Santa Monica Pier. And then along the way.

You're running home.

You're running home. Yeah, exactly.

Because you live in Santa Monica.

You've run past almost everything that people come to Los Angeles to see. Chinatown. Downtown. Silverlake. Hollywood Boulevard. West Hollywood. So I did that first year and then the second year I was like, you know what? I can do better than that. If this is what time I did without trying. So I really trained. I really pushed it. I wanted to break five hours. That is when I had a heat stroke at mile 26. Yeah, I was 10 blocks from the finish line. It became a bit, but if paramedics weren't there, I probably wouldn't have made it, because I woke up in the hospital. And I mean, the joke that I tell onstage is when I was in the ambulance, I thought I was being kidnapped. I like woke up and I was panicked. It was fight or flight. I tried to fight the paramedics.