053 - Interview With Comedy Writer Matt Lawton

Well, we were going to talk about imposter syndrome, but we got so much more! Had such a fun time talking with my good friend, comedy writer Matt Lawton.

Matt has written for Community, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Superstore and is currently working on the primetime animated series The Great North! You can watch it on Hulu in the states, or Disney + elsewhere! He's a hilarious fella, a great friend, and has some wonderful takeaway insights for you! Enjoy!

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

You guys, I don't know how to introduce this podcast. Usually I say, oh, you never never experienced this without and then we when then we go in, but I don't I don't know how to do it for this one. Uh I had a great interview. It was fun. Wanna hear it? You are listening to ADHD Big Brother, the podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD and comorbid depression symptoms. I'm your host, Russ Jones, author of The Standing of the Top, believer that you can actually have a smile in your life despite this diagnosis. So let's make some sense out of this struggle. Let's learn some stuff, let's laugh at some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff. Welcome to the podcast, you guys. How are you doing? Oh my gosh. Uh first of all, let's do uh let's do the F Topies. Uh this podcast is brought to you by the ADHD Big Brother program. Guys, we've the program's done. It's out there. If you're struggling with task paralysis, if you're struggling with getting motivation, if you're struggling with finishing the things you start, this program, I built it for you. It is going to be your game changer. So head over to adhdbigbrother.com. You can check it out there. Today is an interesting day. I like to keep these podcast episodes short and sweet, but I can't with this one because I had uh a really long conversation with Matt Lawton and I wanted to share a lot of it with you. I'd mentioned this in the previous podcast. Matt Lawton is a good friend of mine. He is a successful comedy writer in the motion picture television industry. He has written on shows such as Community, he wrote for Brooklyn 99, he wrote for Superstore, and now he writes on uh The Great North, which is a hilarious animated series, and he'll tell you all about that. But we were gonna talk about imposter syndrome, and we ended up kind of going off the rails and going into some other stuff. I don't even have a good opening for this because we all talked around everything. So we're just gonna dive right in. I mentioned that he's a writer, and off we go. And without further ado, maybe we should do some of that music. Let's let's re-bring the music in to bring it back down. Is it there? Here we go. And let's learn about some stuff. Let's laugh about some stuff. And ladies and gentlemen, here's Matt Lauden. You are a writer in television? Yes, sir. And so what are you working on right now?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Uh I'm on the show The Great North at Fox. Uh, we just started season four. I've been there for the whole time. Um, before that, I did a stint on Superstore. I worked on Brooklyn 99 for a while. I was on community, and then a hundred other things you've never heard of.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

So you're uh you're basically you are a successful writer. You've you've succeeded at the job of writing in television.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

The other thing I'll tell you is I'm seven years sober. Congratulations, by the way. Yeah, I knew that and I'm super stoked for you, dude. I'm seven years sober on Tuesday, which is the day we started playing DD together.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Wow, wow. Wait a minute. We started in September. Yep. Side note everybody not only is Matt sober, and not only is Matt a successful writer, but Matt and I also play Dungeons and Dragons. Where where I am where I am an imposter for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Where we all we all pretend to be people we're not. I've always felt like a fraud because I had a I I had a learning disability as a kid, which seems to be something called reading OCD, which is just where you it's just where you read the same thing over and over again. You can't escape your own thoughts, and your own thoughts take over, and you can't get lost in a book. And um wow, it seems pretty it seems like a processing thing, but also it's it seems very akin to ADHD, which is what you have, right? Um, I oh I'm gonna tell a quick story. Uh oh god, here we go about ADD. What's the deal with these fucking ADs? What's the deal with these initials? I'd almost flunked out of high school, which I'll get to in a little bit. But um, I always thought I had a learning disability, so I took this add test uh at Portland State University. You went down and find out if you have ADD, and I was like, Oh, this could be it. And then I I was two points short, I was two points short of having ADD.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Ah, you failed the ADD test.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

That was a failure. I know I was like, nope, you're just dumb. Wait a minute, this is just telling me that I'm just lazy. I'm legitimate. I'm like, I can take it again, I can do worse. It seemed like I did have a learning disability, and instead of doing anything about it in high school, I did a drugs, uh, which you know didn't help. Did you do drugs as an escape? As an escape and also as a desperate attempt to find some kind of identity.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Because I didn't feel like I had an identity. We moved from outside of Washington, DC, Rockville, Maryland, to Montana when I was 11, which was a real big which was a which was a real big culture shock. And yeah, it was just it was a real culture shock. And I ended up falling in with like the punks, you know. I I you know, I heard minor threat and the sex pistols and all that kind of stuff, and sort of like gravitated towards that kind of identity and playing music, and then that whole sort of crowd, you know, moved into getting drunk and doing drugs, and yeah. And uh, so long story short, at 16 I got sent to rehab, and then uh I got out. My life had fallen apart. All my friends were I did I couldn't really hang out with any of my friends. I felt guilty. Um I felt guilty for all of this happening. I felt guilty with my parents, and I wanted to like you know, not do any of that stuff. But when I got out, I couldn't concentrate on school, it was completely flunking out. You know, my girlfriend was dating someone else, and um uh the only thing I looked forward to at that time was watching SCTV at 8:30 on Nick at night. Yeah, like John Candy and Eugene Levy, and yeah, and and it really was a formative experience because it was like it was like comedy was like a complete savior. It's the only fucking thing I like. I was so it was like one of the worst moments of my life, uh definitely the worst moment of my um you know teenage years, and uh, but eventually I I saved up some money and I found this alternative high school I wanted to go to in Seattle, and my parents wouldn't let me go, so I got on a Greyhound bus at lunch and went to Seattle and stayed with some people. Wait, what how old were you? 16. Oh wow, so I you took off on your own at 16. I took off a couple years early, like while my parents were at work, which was very dramatic. Wow, and I ended up doing this alternative school, and I never really addressed any of my learning disability stuff because the alternative school just kind of you know it was I you know, I got PE credit for playing chess and pool, and all the all the all the all the classes were great uh pass fail. And I remember my math teacher was stoned out of his mind when he signed my my my my pass slip really, which I'd only done like half of. And um, so that you know that sort of perpetuated that sort of imposter syndrome. Like, oh I I have to like I'm not smart, I have to lie, I have to like I have to finagle. Oh yeah, you have to trick people into thinking that you are what you want to kind of I got into Portland State and I you know I I did, you know, which at that time anybody could get into Portland State. It was usually uh it was usually me and like you know, 10 returning divorcees in class. And um it was a great it was a great school, and I had one teacher who made it all worthwhile. This guy Jack Featheringill, who was like, you know, so he had studied with Sanford Sanford Meisner. I don't did he study with I think he did. I know he's right on. He studied with Uda Uda Hagen and you know he was a dancer in the music man movie and just like you know worked a million jobs on Broadway. And what was he teaching? He taught acting. Yeah, he taught acting, he taught directing. Um right on. My last year I got to direct a play under his guidance and like sort of made the whole just having him in my life made my the whole college experience worthwhile. And but you know, I never I never really um I never really tackled my reading issues because I thought it was stupid, so I would get a really hard book to read and try to force myself to read it. Just just to like prove that I was smart, you know, like and um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Well, talk about like so you at some point you're you're you're uh you're deciding I'm gonna be a writer, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah, which was what's stupid because I I had a hard time reading, and I'm like, what am I doing? Like, but I could write, but I there was something in me that believed in my potential more than believed in the imposter syndrome, because I could finish a script, and at that time I could probably finish this like a short half hour script faster than I could read a book. For the first script I ever wrote was uh was a Christmas special called The Boy Who Loved Christmas Too Much, which was terrible because I always because I was obsessed with Rankin and Bass Christmas specials, you know. Wait, those are the old old ones with the it's they're not claymation, but they're yeah, they're weird, they're not claymation, they're like puppets, they're like they're these weird felt puppets, yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, those are classics. I was obsessed with those things, and they're and uh sorry wrote one and I worked at Will Venton Studios at the time, which was an animation studio in Portland, Oregon, which is now Lyco, which makes they make like the box trolls and okay, uh stuff like that. And um, but I remember I gave it to Will's assistant and she read it, and you know she's nice about it, but it's if it had no it had no, it had a funny title.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Thanks, Matt. Thanks for trying.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

The title the my title was great, The Boy You Loved Christmas Too Much. I still wish I could do something with that.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

I love the boy who loved Christmas too much as a title, but yeah, what everybody in town is like, God, it like that kid would just chill out about Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Well, people thought the title was funny, at least, and that it was it was a funny idea. Uh then I wrote another script called Little Man Football, which was sort of like it was like I would always describe it as taxi driver meets a bad news bearers. Uh it was like it was kind of like if Travis Bickle uh coached a uh football uh TV football team. And uh and um and that got a little attention, you know. Uh I really didn't know structure well at all. I didn't know, you know, I was still like, well, you know, you can just like film like a uh you know a stationary plant for two minutes, and that's cool because that's life. I had no concept of structure or how to break a story, but I but I could write decent scenes and I could write like I could write scenes that seem like they should be in a movie, but I had I had I had uh trouble hanging them all together. And then so and then you know, I got I got a job on this show called Gary and Mike in Portland, and uh the showrunners were these guys Fax and Adam, and I and I uh I came down to LA and I just harassed this guy Fax till he gave me a job and he did, and and he gave me uh I was a script supervisor, which is fine, and then I was their personal assistant, and then I was their writer's assistant on the first year of the Jamie Kennedy experiment, but I was like I was definitely funnier than I was good at my job, so they made me so they made me a writer, you know, because I'd put a lot of time in with them, and uh you know, I was never a great assistant, but I always cared. That was it, like I was always like, Oh fuck, I forgot that, and I would like run, and they thought that was funny to see this giant lanky kid running. There's a kid that gives a damn. Hey, and uh, and sometimes sometimes that's all it takes because with a job, it's like you just gotta fucking care.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

You see, like there's a difference between people that care and are struggling, and people that don't give a shit. I was always in I was always in the cared and struggling phase, yeah. Oh, by the way, so as you know, I know we're walking all the way around impossible. This podcast is probably just gonna be about learning about Matt Lawton, which I'm happy to do. Yeah, is one of the things that really tripped me up in life. Um, and you know, back we knew each other 20 years ago. That's when we first met. And I remember in sketch comedy. So the and this is just insight into my brain, uh, is I could write sketches because I could see them. Um, but I was always held back by the fact that uh I I never felt like like I never felt like I was good enough. Like I always felt like the the things that I'm doing aren't perfect. I'm gonna get on stage, people are gonna see me as uh they're not gonna laugh, or and so that was one of the things that I struggled with just throughout, even during the time like there was a stint of about 10 years where I was doing commercials, I was I was doing good, but in acting, you're you're rejected 90% of the time. So it lends itself to feeling like you're getting lucky, man. You are lucky that you're getting lucky. Um, and I know there's a component to that, but it was such a hard thing. Like, did you go through uh uh any of that like in in the writing world?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

I remember thinking, you know, when I was drinking, I you know, um well, my daughters, my first daughter's born in 2007, and my other daughter was born in 2010. I was like, How can I support these people? You know, my wife was uh stayed home with the kids, and uh and like you know, I'm still I we still have the house we've been renting forever because we ended up buying a place in Canada. But uh I I remember sitting in this house and just thinking, how can I do this? How people don't like me enough, I'm not funny enough. How how can I possibly support these people?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

And you and that's kind of like when you know I got into trouble uh drinking and such, but um it's when the I I gotta say, when it when life weighs on you so hard, it's very hard. I was the same way for a while where you you you have to get a break from hating yourself, or you have to take a break from feeling uh hopeless, and so I would drink or I would uh smoke pot back, and this is back in my 20s.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

That was my that was my that was my default was thinking like that and and and having that imbalance of like I'm great, I'm great, I'm terrible, I'm awful, I'm great, I'm terrible, I'm great, which is so you know, I have a lot of opinions on this now because you know that is one of the most narcissistic ways you can break things down is to be either the great, the greatest who deserves adulation and praise, or the worst who needs to be like pitied and cared for. Oh, they're two horrible extremes that's like gross on both sides, you know. And I I but it's hard, yeah. I've I've done that so many times, and but I remember almost feeling like you know, I got this I needed a job so bad, and I and I applied for this sitcom called Men at Work. And the producer called me on the first day of and we needed money so bad, we'd just been piling up debt, piling up debt, living, you know, on you know, just wanting to be keep up with the Joneses and and in uh in family stuff and preschool and uh you know traveling back to see Jess's family, and we just got so in debt. I needed this job so fucking bad. And the produce and we were on our first day to kindergarten with our daughter, uh Nola for her first day of kindergarten, which is supposed to be a uh a special day, and I got a call on the way that said I wasn't getting this job. And I remember saying out loud, like, I'm a fucking failure, and like just like sucking the energy out of the room and put and like putting all my eggs in this, you know, and and kind of fucking up this day for my wife. Uh and uh, but it was you know, it was hard. It was, it was it was a hard position to be in. I didn't deal with it the best I could, but uh, you know, that's life, and um, but then a day later I got the job.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

They they said no, and then they said, just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

I don't know what I don't know what happened. I don't know if the producer went to bat for me or whatever. And then I and I remember waking up in that writer's room, hey, what are we having for lunch? And you know, all of a sudden you're making all this money again, and uh people are ordering from fucking uh katsuya or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

And you're like, I brought I brought a peanut butter jelly sandwich, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, and like um, and every time I woke, and especially when I was drinking, I'd always feel like I'd always look around the first day, be like, How the fuck did I get here? How did I get here? How did I get here? Never for once thinking, oh, maybe I had a good sample, and and maybe or maybe you earned it, yeah, right? And and may and maybe I'm funny, yeah. Maybe maybe, but in my head, it's like, oh, I've completely tricked these assholes. Yeah, what is up with that? Well, that stopped that stopped for me. That that's like I for the first time that stopped when I was a young man of 45.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Isn't it beautiful how age brings insight? And I think it's the gray in our beards, Matt. It does. So, what do you do? What is your process? Like, is uh what do you credit to getting through past imposter syndrome?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

For me, it was sobriety. That was a big one. Okay, check, get sober. I may or may not be part of a secret organization that helps me stay sober, but uh it's called Dungeons and Dragons with your buddy Russ Jones. Yeah, yeah, it's called Dragons Anonymous, Dragons Anonymous, and and um I also I go to therapy every week now, you know. I you know, I've got health care and I I'm using it to the hilt with my mental health stuff. That's amazing. And I also stopped worrying about, you know, it's a lifelong practice, but worrying about the results of everything. You know, everybody goes into like, oh, this is gonna be the thing that changes my life. This is gonna be the thing that changes my life, this is gonna be the thing that changes my life, yeah. And nothing's gonna change your life. It might make it easier in one aspect or another. You might have a little respite from thinking about stuff because you you're making some good money and you're comfortable, you know, but nothing. There's no there's no silver bullet for anything in life, you know, and I and I think a lot of people grow up thinking there is, and then when that silver bullet's not there, or they're not the best person in the room, or they're not like uh, or they're not like the ad, you know, the genius who deserves all this adulation that they dreamed of being, or the type of success, it's like there's a real gift and power in putting your head down and doing the work and leaving the results to whatever you think God is. And this is sounding very uh like sober talk.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

That's great. Do you have any pamphlets that you could hand out?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's uh but it's true, it's absolutely true. No, I agree. I absolutely just like um don't be a slave to your own expectations and be humble enough to actually experience things as they are and not as how you need them to be. And you can get up, you can get up every morning and write down the things you're grateful for and the things you have, and and like which which helps. And you know, I I you know, give yourself the same break you give other people. Like, think about how you talk to yourself and then think about how you talk to other people. Like I have um I have a friend who quit drinking, and he at his worst, he was drinking he said 60 beers a day.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

What? That's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yes, 60 beers a day. He got huge, he never left his house. He be he he became this like sedentary. I mean, it was a disaster. And uh and he quit and uh you know he Doing a lot better now and he's hard on himself about other things. And it's like, you know, think about how you talk to your friends who've done stuff like that. If your friend told you that, said, Hey, I just quit and I used to drink 60 beers a day, you would you be like, that's no big deal. What are you doing today? You know, would you would you right, right? Would you talk to your would you talk to your friend the way you talk to yourself? You know, uh, or like, hey, I I just got a job. It's kind of in my field, but not quite. Doesn't seem that great, doesn't seem that close to your field. You know, would you would you would you talk to would you talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself in your brain all day? And I think the answer is probably no.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

I think it's like, you know, you're at least where you're at least worthy of treating yourself as well as you treat your acquaintances with a little bit of respect. And a little and a little bit of uh a little bit of patience.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah, but yeah. Sometimes I think about well, what would I say to my son? Yeah, I wouldn't be like, come on, what's your problem? Yeah, yeah, you're an idiot. That doesn't sound right.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah, think about the person you run into at work in the kitchen, and that you don't know very well. Uh at least treat yourself as well as that person.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

I think my takeaway, uh, because I'm learning and growing all the time, is that I I want to uh get more in touch and be more cool with my intentions and let that be what maybe drives me as opposed to my what I think I need to be or who I think I need to be. I'm just going to take the risk and be. Yeah. And then see where that lands. And if it's jail, then I'll call you.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

That'll that'll be what'll have to happen. I mean, the other thing is, you know, this is all sober talk too, but like oh, did you want to get shit faced real quick and and tell us yeah? This is if you're like Matt, this is a this is a part of the podcast where we do a shot.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

I know you're sober, but could you break rules just as yeah?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Yeah, this is called uh Russ's Jaeger Corner. Little buzzers go off like on a radio show, you know, Jaeger time. Somebody shows up at my door with a bottle of Jaegermeister. How sober are you, Matt? I mean, it's like I can't tell you just how much it helps me just to show up for other people and just try and make that small extra effort once in a while. And I've not always been good at it, but you know, like I've been down here without my family, and it's kind of hard to be down here with this family. This is the house that I was like an alcoholic in, you know, and like and like and I and I see remnants of the kids' childhood, and and you know, nothing ever there is nothing ever crazy. It's like I mainly just drank by myself and I wasn't as present as I should be, was was was most of it, but it's uh you know, I get I can get really in my head down here and be like, Oh, this is where they were little, and I I fucking wouldn't do as good as I should have. And and my therapist always says, like, well, what did that what does that get you? I'm like, Well, okay, it it gets me. I get to fucking just feel sorry for myself and lay around and not take foundational action. I just get I just it's like regret porn, you know, it's it's uh I just get to veg. I just I get to veg out on regret porn instead of like focus on like the amazing relationship I have with my kids, or like uh or um you know how I'm doing in my career, or you know, or my ability to connect with people and it, you know, and I came down here and sometimes I'm like I'm scared to be down here by myself because it's when they when my family used to go by themselves to Canada, I would just fucking tie one on by myself, you know. I'd go to go to the store, get a big bottle of vodka, and just fucking go to town, you know. And um for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

By the way, do you you know that uh so I have an agreement with my brothers because of depression that uh you know if if we ever get um you know, if I ever get too dark that their phone call away, you uh that's uh if you are ever in that place, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:48

You know that you could always call me and we'll I have a I have a little I have a little uh button on my wall that says Russ. It's a big red button. Yeah, you'll see what it does when I press it. Gross.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Yeah, I don't want to know what happens when you press it. Okay, so before this has been a very, very long podcast. This is one for the books, Matt. So before you go, you are on the great north. That is a freaking hilarious show that you're on right now. Uh my kids sing the theme song. Where do we watch it?

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Uh on Hulu. Hulu in the States and on Disney Plus in Canada. Okay. The Great North, it's freaking great.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Are you allowed to call it cartoon, or is that you guys know we're an animated series?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

We find that offensive. You know what? You know, Jeff Dunham is the uh control. Yeah, once I had a pitch with him, this was like uh 15 years ago. Uh-huh. I had some pitch with him, and his manager told us before the meeting, he was like, Don't refer to them as puppets, refer to refer to them as his characters. And I and I feel like that's kind of the same. I don't think people like like how's your cartoon?

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah, how your how's your Crayola Crayon show going, Matt? Yeah, is get your stick figures drawn.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, I'll wait on a uh prime time cartoon.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

We have a prime time cartoony, it's a fun little drawing show.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Um I wrote the I actually wrote the premiere, which is uh gonna air on September 25th on Fox after The Simpsons. Oh a very Al-Anon themed episode. Uh I hope people like it, but it's probably the only Al-Anon themed primetime uh half an hour there's been, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, man. You're just in the biz doing biz stuff in the entertainment biz. Uh talking biz talk. Yeah, has to biz stuff. Um awesome, man. Well, thank you for thanks for being on the show, dude. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

I felt like we were we were there was one thing I wanted to say.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

No, we're good. All right, see you later.