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[0:00] Bobby Steggert: I'm Bobby Steggart, and this is The Quiet Part Out Loud.

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: Satire is a way of exploding reality by emphasizing its inherent absurdities. It's holding up a funhouse mirror to the lives that we've become desensitized to. At its best, it shows us who we really are, absent our handy denials and through the invitation of humor. It says, look at how ridiculous we are. Can you fucking believe it? Not that satire is merely comic in its revelations. What comes to mind is the recent film Don't Look Up by Adam McKay. In it, he uses the metaphor of a humanity-ending comet hurling towards the Earth as a stand-in for the existential threat of climate change. In it, powerful people from presidents to tech billionaires to social media influencers are too busy building their wealth and personal brands off of the disaster to actually digest that they will be dead in a matter of weeks.

The power of the film is that while it's filled with imagination and humor and killer performances like Meryl Streep as a Trumpian American president, it's also hard to watch, to consider its ultimate message of an impending doom that we are simply too selfish and distracted to truly do anything meaningful about. Successful satire is funny, yes, but it also cuts to an undeniable truth. Its creator must use a highly attuned sense of observation—that of the world, its cultures and power structures, of human psychology, the way that we relate to one another, the things we attach ourselves to, and how we protect ourselves from threat. A successful satirist is a keen observer of humanity. Now, I admittedly am not of the TikTok generation, and even when friends send me reels on Instagram, I have this resistance to watching them, maybe fearful that I'll get sucked into hours-long rabbit holes.

This includes grandpa-like nostalgia for the good old days of Instagram when you'd just take a pretty picture, slap a filter on it, and call it a day. As for today's algorithm that knows me better than I know myself, the reels I'm currently fed are populated by AI babies dressed up as baked goods. If you know me, that makes sense. But in general, I'm not all that into internet humor as a form of meaningful communication. This is all to say that when one of Tyler Joseph Ellis' videos was fed to me by the robot overlord, something about him made me pause. In fact, I watched the entire thing instead of swiping past it after three seconds, and before I knew it, I found myself in a genuinely captivating rabbit hole of his mix of intelligence and silliness and social commentary.

What he does sounds simple. He takes a well-known cliché about actors acting. A favorite is, POV, you're watching an actor say his exit line. So niche, so specific, and yet you know exactly where he's going with it, giving us delicious examples of well-meaning but perhaps self-serious actors really making a meal out of their final moments on stage. Yet somehow, through his pointing to the ridiculous, Tyler also gives us permission to celebrate the world we love. In the wrong hands, this risks mockery. It can defend and divide through cynicism. But Tyler connects us through his own love of the theater and its many characters. One of my favorite things about this project is getting to highlight the unique intelligence and perspective of people, new and old, who I admire.

And Tyler is someone whose observational gifts, born out of difference like so many queer kids, have been forged into a kind of brilliance. He's also of the younger generation of theater actors who continue to fascinate me in their capacity to create and share and perform in ways that were just plain foreign to us a generation ago. Perhaps it's that I was one of those somewhat self-serious actors who existed so fully in the bubble that I wasn't able to appreciate what was equally wonderful about its ridiculousness. Tyler holds it all together in one beautiful, complex love of an art form, its sacredness as powerful as its absurdity. And it's what makes him more than an actor, but an observer of our times.

Tyler, the reason I so wanted you on the show is because I admittedly don't love online humor. I just don't. That's just not my thing. I'd rather read an article or something. I'm just nerdy like that. But I find your stuff so wonderful. And the one that I told my partner about this morning when I was thinking about interviewing you is the trope of the actor saying the same line twice in different inflections. It's in almost every show. You'll catch it in almost every single set. It's something that we do. I don't know. It's something we do. They're the strong acting choices. Acting beats. Acting beats. You're like, it's there twice and better be different both times. That's what every teacher growing up tells you.

If you say, I know twice, it's like, I know. I know. Like, it has to be like that. I love looking at the intricacies of it and breaking down the building blocks of it. And then in doing that, you can see how objectively silly it is. But I think that's why we all get into it in the first place. It's like this thing that on paper seems so ridiculous, but it can really be transformative when you're watching it. But when you break it down to its parts, it can be illuminating.

[5:45] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Yeah. And it's wonderful to, in a loving way, just underline how seriously we all take ourselves at times and how we don't necessarily need to in order to be artists.

[5:56] Tyler Joseph Ellis: That's nail in the head there. The goal for ever making these videos has been like, I really want to make theater people laugh. And I think that is my calling. I think maybe for the rest of my life is just no matter what shape or form and no matter what thing I'm in, there's always something that I'm like the theater kids. It's a special breed. And I think catering to them, it's been a fun purpose for the last a little bit more than five years for me.

[6:18] Bobby Steggert: And I know from reading about you that you graduated from college in 2020, and that has probably a lot to do with it. But how do you remember very early on having a very sort of observational center to you?

[6:31] Tyler Joseph Ellis: That's a great question. I'm a middle child. And the birth order stuff, I think it's like astrology. It's like you can apply it when you want to. But with me, the middle child syndrome always really resonated with me, always was very independent, always was the one that's send me to sleep away camp. I'm good. I'll see y'all in five weeks. I was just always very independent kid and a very observant kid. I was trying to be the least problematic, the one that always had a level temper and always tried to be very good in school. I think it all goes back to things that you've discussed in other episodes. I knew I was gay from a very early age, as I know you've mentioned that you did. And since the third grade, which I believe is pretty early, but I just knew.

And I think from a young age, I knew that I wanted to compensate by excelling any way I could. And part of doing that was observing. It was like, OK, I need to observe behaviors of people around me to make sure that I'm not like a word that was used. I was in elementary school. There was a teacher during a parent teacher conference that was like worried about my behavior and worried about how affected I was, which is the word that she so kindly used. Affected meaning like gestures and like, yeah, just big, large in the life. I think effeminate would be another sort of more charged word that the teacher maybe didn't want to use with my parents. But I think there was something then that my parents reiterated that to me.

It's like, hey, maybe let's not try to be so affected. That'll be the title of my memoir. It's just something that really, it really stuck to me just because it felt I thought that I was observing well enough that I could see my own behavior and I was doing a good job. And then it was like a teacher being like, no, actually, we're seeing something that you don't see in yourself, which is my worst nightmare. So I think that just made me observe even more. And I had some tumultuous friends growing up that you just always had to be on your toes. So observing was a survival tactic and a survival instinct, especially when you get to middle school. You're like, if I observe everyone around me and then myself first, then I have control over all these social situations.

And that lent itself really well to comedy because it's like I would have a zinger or something like I started loving to be the funny one, like with a smart remark. And what I actually started making, I forgot about this part of my life. Stint in middle school where I would make sketch comedy on YouTube with a few of my friends, we would do like YouTube videos to like Kesha songs. We have a YouTube channel, essentially, when that was firing at all cylinders.

[9:00] Bobby Steggert: In your terms of childhood, were you guys all on social media very early?

[9:04] Tyler Joseph Ellis: We sort of were on like, as we were in middle school, that's when like Snapchat came out. So it would have been like late middle school, maybe early middle school, Instagram was coming out. I secretly had a Facebook in like fifth grade. So yeah, it was all becoming a thing around the time where you're like developing a real like adolescent personality and like those really big years, which I think I'm so glad that I grew up when I did. But also, I wonder what would happen if I were three years older? Like what would change? I have no idea. But yeah, I was very much in it in the birth of a lot of these apps that we now they're like stalwarts our phone.

[9:28] Tyler Joseph Ellis: And was it just for fun?

[9:34] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Yeah, it was literally just for it was us after school, we just had a flip video cameras like the time of those like vertical flip video cameras that lasted for so short a time. But we were like, Oh, let's like make something and then we make a one shot of someone accidentally flung into a tree and then we put it on YouTube and no one would see it. But it was for us like a fun creative outlet. And then when all of a sudden we started getting perceived by our peers and like people around us and like we're wearing wigs and doing like iCarly spoofs and everything. That's when I think one of my friends especially freaked out and that's people were nervous. I don't want to be called gay or that kind of thing.

And we deleted the channel, we deleted all the videos on it. It's one of my biggest regrets. There's so much fun, creative, juicy adolescent stuff that I just don't have access to. It's lost because when you work off of shame, you don't have the foresight to be like maybe one day I'll want to see this. You're like absolutely not like a cool guy at school mentioned that he saw a video. So if I'm to bring it back to observing, I think as soon as I was observing that we were being perceived and that this fun thing was like for other people and could be judged and could like harm whatever kind of facade I was trying to uphold, I think that's when I went kind of back. I did a musical in fifth grade and then was signed up to do drama in middle school and quit after the first day because I realized I'm like no I can't do this.

I played the cross in middle school. I was like no. Even though everyone knew I was gay, I was like I really don't want people to know. And so I made sure that I steered clear of the drama thing until high school. So I think a lot of people assume especially because of the videos and stuff that I have been doing this forever that I'm one of the people that like grew up doing theater and that really wasn't the case. I really started doing it in high school like furiously but fell in love with it obviously.

[11:20] Bobby Steggert: So you wanted to be seen but not exposed which are different things.

[11:25] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I didn't mind being seen at all. Like I think being seen was so fun but on my terms. I liked having lots of friends. I liked being like a person in school that was like a leader. I spoke at my middle school graduation, spoke at my high school graduation. I was on student government. I loved being a leader. That was something that I pride myself on being but again like a leader in my terms not like a vulnerable leader. And I think it took, I'm still learning about how vulnerability leads to better leading because you can lead by example as opposed to leading by the person that you want people to think you are. But yeah that's me Bobby. That's the whole thing.

[12:00] Bobby Steggert: I find humor to be such an interesting thing because like any part right it can be a cudgel between people and it can also be an invitation to connection. And when you were younger was it more about reputation management and image control or was it something that also brought true connection to you?

[12:16] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I always loved making people laugh. I never thought I would continue and try to make a career off of doing but I loved being someone funny but I was also very much a people pleaser. I wouldn't, the term class clown doesn't really fit me because I feel like class clown has like a connotation that like you're gonna make people laugh even as if it's at the expense of a teacher or like throwing like spit balls or that. Like I definitely wasn't that kind of guy but I loved making people laugh. And then once I was in high school doing the shows I was always cast as the funny person which is interesting because I wasn't cast as anyone funny in college which is fascinating. But yeah I think it was I found a group of friends and then I quickly realized if the group of friends if you're laughing together that's the

[12:52] Tyler Joseph Ellis: When so I think I valued sense of humor in my friends from a very early age and growing up watching the hard comedies like too young. I was watching all the scary movie movies when I was far too young to even understand what they were about and those broad sort of like white chicks and then of course when the Bridesmaids came out like I was a little bit older but I was like that kind of humor like hard humor was my bread and butter. That mix between relationship comedy and gross out comedy and physical comedy. Exactly. All of that really made me laugh and made my friends laugh and it was also the time where YouTube was coming about. Those like YouTube comedians that were just starting doing the grassroots really low quality funny videos.

The early internet culture I think really did inform a lot of my sense of humor and my older brother was a really good tastemaker for me and you've got to see this video and it's something so stupid but he was the one that kind of ushered me into different corners of the internet that my three years younger self didn't have access to.

[13:50] Bobby Steggert: When we say stupid are we saying?

[13:56] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Fun stupid. Fun stupid which is I think my favorite brand of anything is fun stupid. As I was developing my humor finding the comedians that then I fell in love with independently like the Bo Burnham's of the world he was a huge influence on me which whenever anyone compares me to him I'm like thank you very much. He's also a musician right? And also a musician or someone like Jim Carrey. I'm like Jim Carrey I get compared to more than anyone in this world and all of his movies were like The Mask and Ace Ventura like growing up with all of those movies was very much like hard physical comedy but I was also very keenly aware that he was able to do something like The Truman Show or was able to do something like Eternal Sunshine and I think when I was grappling with wanting to be an actor I did look at someone like Jim Carrey being like I guess you could get away with doing a lot of things and you could get away with being vulnerable. I think that was Jim Carrey's sort of secret weapon is that just when you think that he's like a broad comedian he could kind of make you cry. Look at Robin Williams.

[14:54] Bobby Steggert: Oh Robin come on growing up with Robin Williams movies that was he's a perfect example as well.

[14:59] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Yeah I think growing up I was like being an actor didn't really seem actually like a viable thing especially because of the gay part I was like I just know I'm gay and I'm looking at the gay people on TV right now and they're like kind of no one and there's no characters and all of them I'd be like oh a gay character and I'd look them up and they're straight in real life I was like maybe this isn't a viable thing and then Glee came out and Glee broke me apart and then I was like maybe I can do this but it took me about until senior year of high school to actually come to terms I'm like I got a major in theater.

[15:28] Bobby Steggert: So what about the part of you that is observational to systems to how things work to the absurdity of the things that might have led you to see the absurdity in the way that we conduct ourselves as actors do you remember other versions of that?

[15:38] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Oh my gosh I think that's such a good question Bobby. I think in being I love shows like how it's made or like how it works so I was always curious about how anything worked but what I'm thinking of at least first is my older brother was a really big athlete I come from a family of athletes they were not performers not by any means.

[16:02] Bobby Steggert: What kind of sports?

[16:06] Tyler Joseph Ellis: My older brother was kind of like a star lacrosse player but he also played football and he played everything.

[16:11] Bobby Steggert: Was he popular and hot?

[16:15] Tyler Joseph Ellis: That's a good question he was like the jockey guy yeah he was in that sort of group he's three years older than me and just very different he's very sensitive but he's very different than me he like works with sensitivity different than how I do but I understood from a young age like playing sports that it just all seems so silly to me and it seems so important to the people around me and if you're talking about systems I think systems of athletics always fascinated me and then also really frustrated me it felt like this thing that we all decided to care about like even as a kid I remember having to pretend to be into if we were at a game of some sort or especially like my brother's games I remember performing being interested and being like oh yeah good and I remember that getting a really positive response from my parents because they were like oh my god yes finally time for showing some interest in athletics and I think that just observing and being able to fool my parents feigning interests I grew up going to like tournaments of my brothers and no matter what sport it was it was like we would travel like hours to go to these things like he was an athlete with a capital A and I remember always thinking how stupid is this it's all these people hitting each other and throwing a ball and these parents are crying if they're losing or crying if they're winning and I'm like these are teenagers it just all felt like the stakes couldn't have felt lower to me and it made the high stakes of the people around me all seem so foolish and I don't mean that I judge people who love sports in fact I love people who love sports because it's like theater it's a type of theater it's Greek but I think for me just the system of it as maybe a means to get into college or an extracurricular that the parents get so into it just especially when I started doing theater and it would be a Friday night and everyone was at the football game and I was stuck doing the play that no one went to that always really frustrated me so I think that would be an example was even when I was younger understanding the athletic system being silly.

[18:05] Bobby Steggert: That is such a wonderful comparison it's just as tribal as theater is.

[18:12] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Oh yeah for sure at its core I understand why people turn on the game and scream at the tv I do understand it's just that the synapses don't fire with that and it never have and it's like nature versus nurture they did all the nurture they possibly could have to get me to care and I just didn't and I think that me finding something that I cared equally about as my family cared about sports was such a gift to me because I really didn't understand the enthusiasm my dad went to UC Berkeley he was just at the Cal game the other day it is still so important I'm like actually if I were to draw the parallel and I still lived by I went to USC and LA like I would see the shows I'm like they're doing League LeBlanc in the spring you think I wouldn't be there seeing League LeBlanc like cheering them on but that would be an example of the system that I always observed very much as an outsider and even from a very young age knowing that I wasn't a part of it.

[19:03] Bobby Steggert: Oh that I love that was Jenny Barber your teacher?

[19:08] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I just missed Jenny Barber and but I'd met her through still being in the USC sort of fishnet I also long admire Jenny like that Encore's new Brain album are you kidding that's everything to me so and I know you too I've seen all the clips like I'm a theater kid first so I'm like oh great I've seen the Lincoln Center clips of you two singing so I just missed her but I've met her and adore her and I think she is such a star and I wish I was able to have her as a teacher it's been so much fun but you know who I did have as a teacher was your Grand Manor co-star Kate Burton my god she taught at USC.

[19:42] Bobby Steggert: Oh yeah as she taught me Chekhov can you imagine you're learning Chekhov from Kate Burton like playing Tuzenbach in class with Kate Burton being like so when I played Three Sisters it was some of the most rewarding parts of college was whatever class I took with Kate and she became like a quasi mentor to me and she's gonna be back at Lincoln Center this year with Tokyo she's gonna be in that show and I'm just like I can't wait to see it I'm like so pumped but the fact that you two have worked together just like warms my heart she's such a legend.

[20:07] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Oh she was so good to me she was just so supportive I remember that more than anything and she's so classy but also talk about not taking yourself too seriously I imagine that she'd have a similar story what an interesting guest she would be on this podcast about observing like when she was a kid she probably didn't ever get to be a kid like having Richard Burton as a father that I think is a similar thing she's able to approach acting with the seriousness in which she does but also understand that it's silly like she grew up knowing it was silly and that's why she's able to take it so seriously.

[20:35] Bobby Steggert: That's right she knows how the sausage is made.

[20:39] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Oh my god she yeah oh yeah.

[20:49] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back so let's move on to how you got into theater more formally you said your first show was Oklahoma you played Slim.

[21:02] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Yes oh my god very good you've done the research yeah I played the starring role of Slim very important I'm currently in San Francisco with the tour of Shafton tomorrow the director of Oklahoma will be seeing the show I'm very excited but yeah I grew up seeing the school musicals I come from a very small town and I had a friend with an older sister that was in the theater program so grew up seeing the plays and just fell in love and finally my freshman year auditioned for the musical I auditioned for Oklahoma and I was at every rehearsal not every rehearsal I was called at I went to every rehearsal including the principal rehearsals I just showed up.

[21:36] Bobby Steggert: Were you like shadow directing what was happening?

[21:39] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I oh my can you imagine no I'm like actually I think you need to go here I know not a thing about theater I'm like can you go stage left no I just couldn't get enough of it I finally found the fill that going to after-school practice the bliss of that experience when I look back on it is it was devoid of irony there was no irony I wasn't observing a thing that was false or that wasn't even commenting it felt so precious to me it felt like every single rehearsal I was like I feel like I'm learning so much music rehearsals being like harmonies like learning what that meant I just didn't know the world at all I was very much a stranger in it but so hungry to learn more about it and just fell in love with that process like a friend at all the upperclassmen that were the leads in the show and they were very kind to like let me just intrude I really did go to their rehearsals and they would drive me home we'd stop for ice cream after and I couldn't get enough of it and I remember when that show ended it was like four shows during a weekend it ended and they call it post-show depression but I remember having a really hard time letting go of it and I remember my younger sibling also having a really hard time letting go of it because it was like such a big part of my family it was so like oh foreign and very exciting for them they're like okay someone on stage this is so weird and I look back at that process and I can now look at the silliness of I had maybe four lines but I was chugging throat coat I was like oh god like I was like throat goatee and honey but I was like oh okay gotta warm up and gotta be ready and I came in just saying two bits like I almost had no dialogue but just all the bells and whistles of what it meant to be in a show I just couldn't get and it's like Oklahoma but I and I'm actually very grateful that it was Oklahoma because that show is so important in the history of musical theater I feel like I really got my start where musical theater got its start so when I started being really obsessed with the musical theater history and theater history in general my starting point was great because I'm like oh I actually know everyone's referencing Oklahoma this whole time because it's like the book musical so I got my start doing that and then really I couldn't get enough after that once the gates were open it was like every waking moment I was trying to do a show in rehearsals for one show while performing another I was doing as much as humanly possible looking for any excuse not to love it because I was like I'm really scared about pursuing this because it seems so scary but maybe if I keep doing it I'll find something that I hate about it and finally they find I won't major in it and it never happened.

[23:53] Bobby Steggert: What about your talent was most immediately reflected back to you?

[23:59] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Oh that's a great question I would it was I think oh that's such a good question because I didn't have a good voice I didn't have a great voice as I should say I could hum a tune I had no technique whatsoever so it wasn't my singing voice but I think it was just my enthusiasm I wanted to be there so bad and I think you could feel it and people responded to that and even if I wasn't the best one or just had no idea what I was doing or messing up the choreography to Kansas City for the 800th time I was a huge smile on my face and took it really seriously like when Judd falls on his knife you bet your ass I was aghast I was like trying to I was like oh my god that I can aid in like telling a story felt really exciting and these are the seeds of the content that you do now in terms of these sort of overblown cliches on stage because you have to start there and I and I think a lot of I'm like I need to remind people I'm like I'm making these videos because I am these videos it's not like I'm floating above them that I'm able to do it and comment on is that I am the biggest proponent of saying things twice one softer one louder I'm I do that don't you worry like I once you see me in a play where there's two lines in a row you will see me do that but with intelligence but oh that is very kind I would like to think so but I think that was it I think people saw that I loved it and my theater teacher in high school Kim Taylor was like the first really to be like you clearly have the passion for it so let's figure out ways that you can get better at it so like doing summer programs constantly being challenged in that way finding community theater outside of school to broaden my horizons like will I be able to get good parts even outside of my high school level really she was responsible for a lot of amazing young actors like Zach Peyser or Chloe Fineman or Kay Sybil who.

[25:45] Tyler Joseph Ellis: In six right now there's a lot of actors that she saw and was like you clearly want to do this so I'm going to help you do this and she was one of those people but I think she just saw that in me I was willing to put in the work because I loved it and I think that's what was most important is that I didn't have a lot of raw talent and I'm not trying to be humble or anything because looking back I don't think I did but I think everyone saw the passion for it so I think to answer your question like the talent reflected back to me was like you really look like you belong on stage was the compliment that I was given which isn't really like a it's not a talent but it was something and it was something that I loved hearing.

[26:22] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, I think to be an open channel and to keep it open is connected to talent and it also sounds like your enthusiasm was what fueled your hyper observation of everything around you. It allowed you to absorb it all.

[26:34] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I felt like I was behind because so many people they knew how to read music they knew what a ball change was I really went in completely unknowing of any of the terminology so I found myself as I told you that I prided myself on being a really good student I pride myself on being really adaptive and adaptable and I was just like don't know this world I'm fascinated by it so observing was also part of survival in that way and that's partly why I went to every single rehearsal I was like if I can watch I can learn and if I can learn maybe I'll be good at this because I had so much admiration for people who were and then throughout high school it became a time where my taste and my abilities shift there was a moment where my taste exceeded my talent or my ability and that was actually a really frustrating time in my life listening to a voice like Gavin Creel and not having vibrato and being like I don't sound like that and I know I don't sound like that and it really frustrates me that I don't sound like that but I made me work that much harder because I wanted to meet my taste level because I all of a sudden had taste in this field I was just in a production of Oklahoma and loved it but then a few years later I mean like a few more shows in understood what it really meant to like nail a song and there were things that I was like okay I'm not quite there yet my voice isn't quite there yet I remember that being very frustrating because I was observing myself from the outside being like oh you're not there yet babe it's exactly like a young gay kid being like you're not quite a real boy yet babe exactly it's all of that.

[28:02] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I had the privilege of coming out early high school I was like I saw in high school I like tried coming out in middle school and it like just backfired like it was it didn't work it was like the gunshot blinks it was like no one really it was just it just didn't go well shoved it back down and I went to a summer program the summer after my freshman year high school called California State Summer School for the Arts and when my parents drove away I went okay I'm just gonna act like I've been out and I'm just gonna act like I'm gay I'm gay and if anyone asked did you say yes and it was like four weeks of that and the bliss I watched Jonathan Groff speak in San Francisco when I was in high school actually at the Curran which is where I'm currently performing Shucked it's very full circle and I remember his talking about coming out and it feeling like he was breathing for the first time and then you wonder like why was it holding my breath for so long that is how it felt I really did feel like I could breathe the first time which of course in turn made my acting better because I wasn't playing two parts at once I just got to focus on one and that's when things started changing I wasn't worried anymore about people calling me gay because I'm like yeah you're just calling me like oh you have teeth it's yeah it just was a part of me so I think being unencumbered by that sort of monster on my back is when I actually started being like oh okay cool I can explore a character and not think the first thing you think of is okay be straight first and then approach the character you can just approach it and my acting teacher was smart enough to give me I had to do the Joe Harper scene from Angels in America like my freshman year before I came out and she was the first adult I came out to really because she was like I'm giving you this scene and I'm like okay she's from Angels in America and I'm like okay and she's it's about a guy he's a Mormon I'm like okay and he's gay and I went all right and then she's is that okay and I went are you asking if I'm gay and she said maybe I said yes because she's a lesbian she's the gayest of all time so I think she she just was like you're not gonna be able to do this scene well until you just come to terms with the fact that's and of course that scene changed I was like I can be a dramatic actor I owe everything to Kim Taylor she'll probably listen to this.

[30:11] Bobby Steggert: Oh she sounds amazing.

[30:11] Tyler Joseph Ellis: She's the best so you get to USC and you said before we started recording that they didn't want to make you a comedian which I find interesting.

[30:20] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I went to school knowing exactly the kind of work I would end up doing really yeah I knew I would be like the young ingenue I was singing this stuff I'd end up singing it was very clear sure so what did they try to push you towards?

[30:32] Tyler Joseph Ellis: When I went to USC my high school teacher always saw as my superpower which was humor and comedy I think because I was taking myself so seriously and also I look at the shows that we were doing when I was there my four years and we were very serious my first show was a student production of Heathers and then after that it was just a lot of more serious stuff it wasn't taking comedy classes I was taking like Chekhov and Shakespeare and it was always trying to get the most dramatic thing I don't know I don't know what it was but I always had the funniest group of friends and still I'm super close with my friends from college and the laughs we have together my god but my second role I played in college was Bobby in Company and I think that was really how I showed the school who I was or I guess that's who they thought I can play the straight guy that's charming and then a lot happens around him and that's who I played and I got to play George on Sunday in the Park with George which is like the dream role of dream roles which is like looking back I'm like you should have made me Franz Denis but I was like so grateful to be able to sink my teeth into that but ultimately when I graduated oh and I was getting my equity card doing a production of Passion I was doing like sometimes Passion at a regional theater and I was like oh here we go I'm a serious guy I'm going to count Ludovic of Austria I'm going to be singing Sondheim's Passion and then it's all gone and I think in the making videos and stuff I just forgot that I was a silly goose because you go to theater school and I think there's a lot of people that identify with this it's you aren't encouraged to be silly you're encouraged to take it seriously as you you know understandably but I think the school didn't view me as a funny guy so I think if you would have asked me right before COVID hit like what I thought my career would look like it would definitely be trying to do serious regional theater in LA and then maybe one day moving to New York and seeing what would happen but I'm so grateful for COVID because no one can say that but I'm grateful that there was something that stopped me in my tracks before in my professional career because I was on the wrong path.

[32:34] Tyler Joseph Ellis: You'd be Raúl in the national tour of Phantom of the Opera right now and no tino shade to Phantom of the Opera but I think I'd be miserable but it's what I was ready to do I was ready to right like sing pretty if I could I got my voice got better after many years of training but I'm still self-conscious about my voice come on but in starting doing the videos and realizing that people were responding to my sense of humor on the big scale and I have so much fun doing this this isn't torture so I think maybe following the funny was the move.

[33:06] Bobby Steggert: Was it born out of creative necessity because of the pandemic?

[33:06] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Absolutely I was about to graduate college I and worked so hard to get this freaking degree theater and a minor in marketing and I was like let's go I and had all this creative energy just completely stifled and I knew that if didn't go anywhere it would go somewhere bad and I smoked a lot of weed my god that was a lot of weed I look back I'm like that was a good amount Tyler during COVID we all had our vices were you creating the content with the weed?

[33:27] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I'd create the content and then as a gift to myself for creating that content that day would then go to the weed so it was never really in tandem at the same time but with the creative energy that I did have for theater and this thing that I loved and spent every waking moment doing it shifted just a little bit into this thing on my phone which felt so antithetical to my degree because degrees in performance and it was in like the importance of keeping theater alive and etc etc but when that is completely gone and you don't know when it's coming back I did cling to it I needed it more than it needed me at the time it was definitely saving grace for me and of course my videos didn't do well at first no one's does because unless you're very lucky only my friends followed me and it was just a way to do something creative during the day and when I started making videos about theater that's when things started changing because I realized I'm not the only theater kid stuck inside and I was like oh wait if I can make theater kids laugh it's like my thesis statement for my life then I did something productive during the day because I made someone that didn't get to do their production of Into the Woods laugh.

[34:38] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Oh I love that this is something I always think about I truly don't believe I would have succeeded if I had come up into the theater while always watching myself so free of videos and recordings I just went my heart my body went right yeah so what was that like for you to be in that phase constantly creating content always looking at and observing yourself what did that do good or bad?

[35:02] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I think there's something really freeing as an actor of getting to know how you look on camera I think there is something painstaking about it like it used to be hearing my voice especially for gay kids like when you just when you think you're pushing it up enough you look and it's you feel like it's just like the gayest thing you've ever heard and that was I had such dread listening to my voice growing up but I think in so many years of filming something and watching it back have grown desensitized to how I present like you have a double chin when you speak cool the little intricacies that you have that you wouldn't know otherwise I think there's a bad side because now when I'm ever acting for the camera getting out of my head and getting out of knowing what that that third eye I think that one of your episodes about that I'm very much related to that being outside of yourself and looking at yourself and talking about being an observer that doesn't really help you especially when you're acting on camera but you're acting at all I do find myself thinking about how I'm looking I'm presenting how the line's coming out there is a sort of control that I still need to let go of in terms of performance but I think it has really helped me know how I look I know that I can do subtlety I'm like if I do this if I squint a little bit more it'll portray this emotion more than the other way I now have a tool a little bit of knowing how I present and then what emotions can be conveyed through that but it's both I I love knowing that I know how I look and then also what a treat it would be to be in your position I think the grass is usually always greener but I'm looking at if I just didn't know I think there'd be so much freedom there but I think I found a path that I'm happy with I'm not scared of seeing myself anymore which is good.

[36:38] Bobby Steggert: Yeah and I always was even when I would do TV I hated watching it because I wasn't used to it I wasn't desensitized to it we're not really meant to look at ourselves like from evolutionary standpoint there were very few opportunities to look at your reflection and when you were looking it was your reflection so when you're seeing is especially not like the mirrored version of yourself you're actually just seeing how you look it is it's spooky.

[37:08] Bobby Steggert: So what happened that then allowed you to consider the idea that you got to be not just an actor but a host and a writer and a commentator someone who observes life through all of those different means?

[37:16] Tyler Joseph Ellis: It goes back to me and the it's the freshman in high school wanting to be in the room it was like I wanted to be in the room I loved this community so much the Broadway community in particular I would watch all the Broadway.com vlogs the videos you and Jenny Barbara singing I know this industry I've really felt an observer of this thing from afar I grew up in the Bay Area in California and I felt myself yearning to be a part of this thing with Broadway Flea is about to happen and like Side by Side by Susan Blackwell she's like my hero so I think in coming to New York and being like here I am and then all of a sudden people knowing who I was on the street because of these videos what an absolute delight like running into people being oh my god you're the guy from that oh that's so fortunate the most fortunate everything in my life since 2020 stems back to doing the content thing because I wouldn't have done the commentating or hosting on red carpets if it weren't for people already knowing my face and who I was and that has been such a delight I think there's a little nagging part of me that's all but will people take you seriously as an actor if you're doing this it's the eternal multi hyphenate curse it's like everyone wants it but as soon as they see it they put you in a box because that's what people are trained to do so I am trying to let go of that especially now that my year with Shucked is almost over and I'm.

[40:38] Tyler Joseph Ellis: I had my first panic attack, like a bad panic attack, which I had not struggled with before. And the ambulance had to be called. I couldn't move. It was very scary and I obviously had to miss the show but that goes without saying. But then that sort of opened the floodgates to a lot more panic attacks. I was starting to have panic attacks a lot of the time on stage. And that's very dangerous, because I didn't really have sensation in my feet, but I was jumping on things and it was just not very good. And finally, was able to see a psychiatrist a few months after and beginning the stages of figuring that out for myself. But I think I was really surprised that I mentioned to you, I was like the middle child that wasn't supposed to have any problems.

And here I was like calling my dad not able to speak because I was having panic about I think just everything. But I think my mom being diagnosed was like the thing that kind of broke me open and have been struggling with that since on tour and refinding the joy in it and trying to deal with panic wherever it is coming from. And yeah, there's a lot I think the gift of the show has given me in doing eight shows a week and like finally getting to the part that you have wanted. This is what I wanted so badly. And then getting it and it being magic, but also unlocking parts of yourself that you're like, oh, you got to work this out has been a huge learning curve.

[41:54] Bobby Steggert: That's so intense. Have you felt really torn between doing what you love and needing to be home?

[42:01] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Yeah, I think you have nailed it. And especially doing a show like Shucked. It's a show that doesn't allow you to experience any emotion on stage. It's like the opposite. And my character is a narrator and he's supposed to just be thrilled to be there. Wiping your tears and then going on stage and singing about corn has been a really interesting challenge. And most days are fine. But the days that aren't are really hard. And the gift now that I'm calling it from my dad's office, I get to be home for my mom's last infusion. Her last chemo infusion is next week and I get to be home for it. And there's this odd sense of serendipity that my work actually took me home so I could be home for her last one and I looking I'm like it worked out.

But yeah, being trapped in a city that you don't know anyone in and then knowing that your mom is sick and your mom's getting chemotherapy and you can't be there and the show must go on. It's that eternal the show must go on situation and it's been hard. And that's why this podcast ultimately Bobby has been such a source of comfort for me because it's so many of my heroes talking very candidly about their realizations like hearing Gavin Creel say it's I don't even know if I love this. I don't even know if I want to do this. But I know I'm really good at it. And hearing him say that the person that I grew up being like, if you can be just all you have to do is be Gavin Creel, Tyler, and then you'll be happy.

If you're Gavin Creel, you'll be happy. And then hearing him a year before his passing just being like, I don't know. It's been such a salve for me. Because I think everyone around me thinks, oh, wow, you finally did it. And aren't you the happiest you've ever been? And I'm like, Oh, I'm happy most of the time for sure. But oh my god, I'm dealing with a lot mental health wise that needs to go address when I'm back in New York. What's the first thing you're going to do? And I said, find a therapist. That's what I keep saying. I can help you with that. I and Bobby, if you think I'm not going to be texting you asking, then you are mistaken, because I will be. But yeah, it's been tough. And also the biggest gift and I have loved doing this job, but nothing can be good 100% of the time.

And this included. And I think it's I remember before leaving telling a friend of mine who's like a Broadway that being I can't wait to know what it feels like to wake up and the last thing you want to do is a musical because I've never experienced that. I'd never done H's week. I've never woken up being like, like roaning at the fact trying to do musical. And then when that happened for the first time, I went and now I'm a working actor. I'm like, great. And I have to do it anyway.

[44:29] Bobby Steggert: I'm just curious about perhaps a part of you that thought you maybe needed to leave tour and why you didn't.

[44:36] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Yeah, there was a big part of me, especially dealing with something as severe as a panic attack I had, I think the thought of leaving was there. And I ended up taking a few days off in a city to go home and to be with my family. And but it was what two performances I look back and I'm like, I thought and they really think I wouldn't be in the company. But I think just like the atmosphere was like, it's a two whole shows off. I think there's this thing still I think people are like, oh, it's changed so much like hasn't really. Because it's like the culture is still you got to do the frickin show. Don't call out of the show. And so I took two shows off and was able to go home for a couple days.

If my mom ever were to have said, I would really love one of you here, I would have called it quits. But I think she was so determined. She's been an eternal optimist. And it's been like, it's six rounds, then I'll be fine. We caught it early, it'll be fine. I'm doing everything, it'll be fine. She really did, in such an impressive way, maintain really solid, whether that is a true indicator of how she was really feeling or if that's just what she was telling, like showcasing to us. And of course, that who's to say, but finally, she finally broke down to me on the phone once when she was going through one of chemo is brutal. It really is. And she finally was like, today's one of the awful days and the one of the woe is me days and like, why is this happening to me days.

And finally, when that happened, I was like, okay, perfect, because that was a little issue able to like talk to us? Or is she just trying to protect us from everything? I think to answer your question to go back to the thought of leaving tour, I knew that I had four weeks off in July and was like, okay, I have a month off. So knowing that I had that time off, and knowing that after that four weeks in San Francisco, I'm living at home. I think my mom would never would have forgiven herself. She's the kind of person that she is such a helper when she gets chemo. She just wants to be by herself because she wants to experience it all by herself, which I relate to. But I think the thought of leaving was very present.

And there was a few weeks where doing the show is so painful. And I was also doing the Broadway cares equity fights aid speech every night. And I remember doing one of the speeches and being like, one of these organizations actually really helps people with breast cancer. And I started crying during the speech. And I was like, sorry, I was in Baltimore, I was like a positive to the audience. And they're like, what's going on? And I was just continuing as long as I can perform and do the show, then you're doing something right. But I think it was in negotiating if I was going to do a second year of tour, it continues to June of next year, it was July. And I was going back and forth in my team.

And I found myself in my brain, being like, okay, so the show's in Detroit during Christmas. So I'll have to negotiate a personal day, at least one personal day before Christmas, and then after Christmas, and then I'll fly back to Michigan. And then I stopped myself and went, I'm not doing the second year of tour. What Rory was saying in his episode, he's like, the only thing I care about right now is my family. And that's how I felt. I went, if I'm negotiating time with my loved ones, especially after this year of what my mom's gone through, there's no room for that. It doesn't matter if it's a dream job. It doesn't matter if I don't know if I'll ever work again, that eternal actor thing that I'm so proud of you for getting away from, honestly, I knew that it wasn't worth it.

And that was a scary thing to come to terms with, because I was like, but this is the thing that for 27 years of my life, I thought was worth everything. That is the journey going into this next part of my life is realizing that things are important because you deem them important. They're not important for any other reason. I think Yeah, I'm very confident my decision I have four and a half weeks left of tour, and I get to be home for the holidays. I don't care that I won't be singing about corn. I'd rather be home for the holidays. So yeah, it's been a journey, Bobby for sure. But one that I'm very grateful to be if I think I was just delaying the inevitable, I always had anxiety and mental health things that I was like, Oh, that was a weird day.

And then kept going. When you do eight shows a week, it's like an eraser being ground down, you're going to get to the metal at some point. And I got to the metal, but in a way that I'm excited about. I'm excited to get to know myself in this way, because it feels like I've avoided it for a long time.

[48:27] Bobby Steggert: Thank you so much for sharing that. That means a lot to me that you're open to sharing that. And I'll be thinking about your mom.

[48:32] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Thank you. I appreciate that. I guess to end, it's a pretty open ended question. But in terms of observation, and you've already spoken to this a little bit, how are you most observing change within yourself as you grow older?

[48:43] Tyler Joseph Ellis: Wow, what's sad is that the first thing that I went to just being a gay man and having just experienced another summer as a gay man with a social media account, I immediately go to the changes in my body, which is unfortunate. I'm like, Oh, that's not like so observing changes and trying to be better about looking in the mirror and being like sick, like whatever's happening there. Like it's getting me through. I'm trying to be a little bit better about that. So observing the changes physically, that's where I am. I'm trying to be a little bit nicer to myself and understand that I'm like, Oh, okay, I'm able to do eight shows a week. What an amazing thing your body does. But observing the changes, sort of on a deeper level.

I'm really excited about observing myself and not knowing the answers. Because I feel like even if it was a fallacy, everyone always said I was an old soul. Everyone's like, really seems like you know yourself. That was something that I would get from a very young age. I loved it. I was always friends with people older than me, which I always took as a compliment to myself. I was like, ah, like the maturity. And I think now seeing that there are unaddressed cobwebs in various corners is very scary. Ultimately, I don't like not being in the driver's seat. And it feels very much like recently I've been in the passenger seat in terms of my mental health. And that's strange. But I'm excited. Again, first thing I do is finding a therapist.

And I'm excited to get to know myself in a more holistic way. I'm like very much feeling the beginnings of that turning 27 because I do feel like I'm in a new sort of phase of, okay, you maybe have the basics of understanding who you are. But I think there's a lot more to be unearthed, especially after you've got everything you wanted. I'm putting air quotes around this listeners that can't see me. Because I wanted this job more than anything. I wanted to play this part and be in shot on tour more than anything. So it's like now that you've reached it, and that it was harder than you may be assumed. And also the sacrifice that you make when you're doing it shows a week, both in seeing your family, as I mentioned before, but also just like having dated, I think I'm excited to get to know myself, all returning to New York, and then figuring out maybe next step if it's dating, if it's figuring out what eight shows a week looks like to me, if that's of interest to me immediately after this, because maybe I need a break from that.

Maybe not. I don't know. There's something admittedly really exciting about not knowing the answers. Because I feel like a lot of my life, I spent a long time trying to trick myself into thinking I did know them. And I think the surrender of knowing that you don't is a kind of freedom that in a free fall that I'm not used to. It feels like you're on a roller coaster and it's like that stomach feeling that is, oh, that's nerve wracking, but also I love the loss of control.