Actor John Early Says Keeping Taylor Swift News a Secret is Not Easy

You know John Early from his many TV and movie roles. He's been in projects like The Disaster Artist, Search Party, Other People, Wet Hot American Summer (2015) and Would it Kill You to Laugh?

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John is out promoting his brand new comedy special "Now More Than Ever" which drops on September 13, 2024. We had a chance to chat with John on the Wednesday (08/27/24) edition of the I-95 Morning Show, these were some of our favorite moments.

Dave: Jon, whereabouts are you from? 

John: "I'm from Nashville Tennessee originally." 

Lou: Yeah, I didn't want to do a Wiki interview but I have to ask you this question. You're from Nashville and if your Wikipedia is correct your dad was a Presbyterian minister, your mom was a minister and now you're on stage doing jokes about a---, which we love but how did you get from there to there? 

John: "Haha, well I think that I was really a good boy, I never rebelled. I didn't drink until I was in college, I was very much a good little Presbyterian boy. I think comedy is so embarrassingly like this delayed adolescents, you know? It's an opportunity for me to be like nasty and wild on-stage in a way that I never really did, when you're supposed to as a teenager. My parents are so cool, they are this kind of chill branch of Presbyterianism. They were always really accepting and encouraging of me as a kid and let me watch crazy comedy stuff as a kid that was totally inappropriate. But yeah, they are in the audience, in the special, on the album and I kind of torture them and make them listen to me talk about a---." 

Lou: You did the TV edition of "Wet Hot American Summer" back in 2015 and played Logan, nailed the audition in front of Amy Poehler. The first thing I thought to myself was, man if I was in his shoes I'd be so worried, wanting so bad to impress Amy. Did you have any of that going on? 

John: "Oh yeah, I did. It was right at the beginning of me starting to work . It was very high-stakes for me but it was mostly high-stakes for me because that movie Wet Hot American Summer is like one of the foundational texts for me, it's like biblical. I know every single second of that movie so it was really surreal like a hundred years later to be on that set and to be inside of it and to see all of those actors that are such heroes to me including Amy Poehler obviously. I don't know because of that, I was so prepared. I was more prepared for that than I've been for anything I've ever done. I was like I have to nail this, it was a dream I went home after shooting that and I was like I felt like I had a crush on Amy Poehler. I had the chemical response of like when you have a crush. She was so genius and so charming, she was so cool." 

Lou: What I love about Wet Hot American Summer, look like doing this job, our job and trying to entertain people, we're weird. Sometimes when you take weird chances you can feel people pulling away from you and when I saw that movie for the first time, it made me feel better like oh, there are people as weird as me, it was a good feeling. 

John: "Exactly, That is how I felt when I was watching it! I was like 14 when I saw it for the first time and I was like Oh, there is a place for me somewhere." 

Lou: You got to be in the video for Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero. I saw that you told Andy Cohen you wish you'd been more discreet about it. Who did you tell? 

John: "Anyone under twenty-five I told. Like, I 100% signed an N.D.A and I was on a set, working on this movie and there were these crew members that were all really young and cool and I like found myself being like you gotta keep this a secret but I'm in the new Taylor Swift video. I was telling anyone who would listen." 

I could not resist shouting one of his lines at him at the start of the interview. What can I say, I'm a pro so I shout "that's gaslighting mama" at my guests.

You can listen to our complete interview with John Early below.

Part 1 - John told us more about "Would it Kill You to Laugh," what we can expect from the special "Now More Than Ever," and growing up in Nashville. 

Part 2 - John spoke about his difficulties with the business of show business and his growing aversion to screen time.  

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