Will Sasso talks about his 25-year comedy career starting on MADtv in 1997, his podcasts, and what it's like acting in big productions. He describes filming Game of Thrones where dragons were just tennis balls on stands, and explains how he built a comedy persona around wearing suits even though he hates them.
Questions this video answers
1997.
Suits.
Usually as tennis balls on the end of C-stands.
Chapters
Once this whole thing falls apart and we are climbing the kudzu vines that spiral up the Sears Tower, like they say in Fight Club, Bobby will go back to his gatherer form and be happy as a pig and shit. Just walking around in the loincloth with his bird hanging out, cracking jokes to people and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance or whatever he does.
You think some level of crazy is required for comedy? Like at some point?
Yes.
Have there been low points in your life?
Yeah.
The following is a conversation with Will Sasso, a comedian, actor, podcaster, and someone I've been a fan of for many years. Since MADtv in the late 90s to recently with the 10 Minute Podcast and now the new podcast called Dudesy. This is the Lex Friedman podcast to support it. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Will Sasso. So let's call it the elephant in the room. You wore a black suit in a recent episode of Dudesy.
Yes.
You wore a black suit again today. Shakespeare. Then Mark Twain said, clothes make the man. What kind of man does a suit make you?
Well, me in particular. It makes me a fellow who did not get this dry cleaned in between because that episode of the show, as we sit here now, was around a week ago. So that's, that's the kind of man it makes me.
Well, the. The nice thing is you're wearing pants, I think.
Yes, I am wearing pants.
I don't think you were wearing pants in the episode.
That's correct. I prefer to wear shorts, but this was a special occasion, so I'm wearing pants and I thought it fitting obviously to just wear, you know, the black tie and clothes do make the man. And I'm. I would not consider myself to be a man of leisure, but I do enjoy shorts because my legs get hot. So that's what kind of man the shorts make.
Often. Do you wear a suit?
I fucking hate wearing suits.
So what is this a statement of. Is it ironic or is it. Are you honoring the gods of this particular podcast?
I'm honoring the gods of this particular podcast would be a good way to put it. Yes. No, this is, this is in reverence of and. And dedication to you and our newfound friendship here.
Yes.
Which we are making on the podcast. You and I just met.
Yeah.
Everything that we're saying here is the. Are the first things that we're saying to each other. So I'm meeting you on common ground dressed like.
Well, I've been actually a one way friend of yours for many Many years since MAD TV. Oh, when did you start on MAD TV? So that was, I mean, in 90s.
97.
Yeah, 97. So I was a huge fan of yours and the cast was incredible. It was one of the funniest shows ever created. Your whole journey, watching through that was. Was incredible. From MADtv to Three Stooges to the podcast, the. The 10 minute pod and then the new podcast is incredible.
Cheers.
My favorite role that you played was the mountain in the Game of Thrones. What was it like working with dragons?
Well, the dragons are usually tennis balls on the end of C stands, but sometimes they. They hang out.
I am C stand.
It's like, you know, it's like a little like the thing you got the camera on here.
Oh, this is like film lingo.
Yeah, no, I understand. I'm trying to impress you with my film lingo. You know what a banana is?
Yeah.
When you walk like this. Oh, do it. A banana.
I take it back, I did not know what a banana was.
Yeah, see, it means something. Yeah. Because it's just a food.
Yeah. Normally fancy Hollywood folk with the lingo.
And I am. My name is Bjorn Hapthor Bjornson and I am 7 foot 4. And. Yeah. So dragons. Don't Dragonstone scare me. Even though they've been extinct for a while. You scientists, right? Does that check out?
Yeah, I actually. I'm really into video games. I don't know if you play video games. There's a. There's a Skyrim video game that's part of the Elder scroll series. And for the longest time there's a legend that there's dragons. Think it started in Daggerfall. And so I always. I grew up playing those video games and dreaming of one day meeting a dragon in a virtual world. And eventually you did, in Skyrim. So it's. Dragons represent. I don't know exactly what they represent, but they represent maybe this kind of mythical creature that is bigger than anything humans can possibly comprehend. Maybe because they're so. They're so. They show up so often in myth from the. From the religious stories, you know, of the snake and so on, the serpent and I don't know what that is. With his breathing fire. That's kind of weird.
It's interesting when I think about dragons because now that you bring it up, these are people that probably wouldn't have access to the fact that there used to be dinosaurs.
Right.
Maybe they did if they didn't. They're drawing things that look like, you know, a dinosaur cousin, but cool. That can breathe fire and has wacky wings and a spiked tail. Yeah, where the heck did they come up with that? Because they're clearly, of course, represented in mythology.
