Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.
The actor: Zach Woods has been part of two of TV’s most unflinching, hilarious comedies. He might be best known for playing The Office’s awkward Gabe Lewis or Silicon Valley’s sad-sack Jared Dunn (a performance that, by the way, should have earned him an Emmy). But those roles only scratch the surface of his comedic capabilities. He’s also appeared in a number of other impressive projects, ranging from a satirical must-watch by Armando Iannucci and heartfelt films like Other People to Steven Spielberg’s The Post and procedurals such as The Good Wife. And now, he’s going all in on Peacock’s new series In The Know, a delightful stop-motion comedy he co-created, co-wrote, and co-directed. In The Know is set in an NPR-like workplace and Woods voices a narcissistic radio host, bringing him closer to his lifelong dream of becoming a version of Terry Gross.
Woods spoke to The A.V. Club about the artistry behind the show’s stop-motion, his anxiety about joining The Office, his favorite memory of Peter Capaldi while filming In The Loop, and improving delirious insults on Veep.
In The Know (2024)—“Lauren Caspian”
The A.V. Club: How did you and Mike Judge develop the idea for In The Know? Was it always intended as a stop-motion comedy or did you ever think of turning it into a live-action series?
Zach Woods: Mike was a Silicon Valley co-creator and co-showrunner, and he noticed that, conversationally, I would end up interviewing people a lot. I’m curious and fascinated by people. I would also improvise a bunch, and he noticed an NPR bent to a lot of it. There was an unfortunate coastal beta maleness to the whole thing. He called me and asked if I wanted to be part of this stop-motion TV show. Yeah, he always envisioned it to be stop-motion and set in NPR where the host is interviewing real guests. I thought, sure, I could be this guy called Lauren Caspian whose girlfriend’s name is also Lauren. I called my co-writer Brandon Gardner, a co-showrunner for In The Know, and we talked through it. The stop-motion is partly because Mike wanted it and partly because, given the characters, a medium in which the show is populated by these twee, delicate, precious puppets being controlled by forces beyond their awareness felt appropriate. We’re depicting characters similar to me, so a delicate, artsy medium felt like the perfect thing [laughs].
Our goal is to make characters who feel multidimensional and aren’t an archetype. There’s a winnowing down that happens to people nowadays, whether algorithmically or politically. We are whittled down to one demographic. It happens artistically all the time, this endless typecasting. In reality, of course, we are many things. We are contradictory and irresolvable. What’s wonderful about stop-motion is each character is being played by one person with voice acting, but also by 30 different animators, so they contain multitudes. Each person is adding their special sauce to the mix. A lot of care went into every detail of the sound and the wardrobe. Those who created the puppets did a great job writing the biographies of the characters into their faces. You can tell a lot from their features and wrinkle lines. That level of care was carried throughout the whole thing. For each animator who came on, we’d have an hour-long meeting to talk about the characters in detail. We didn’t want them to feel like punching bags, we wanted them to feel like people.
AVC: What was the process of playing Lauren and evoking emotions using voice acting knowing the camera isn’t on you?
ZW: It’s interesting. In The Know is the first thing I’ve appeared in that I’ve also written and directed. What was fascinating to me was how much estrangement I had from my voice. When I would hear it, I would think of him as Lauren. It felt like a different person to me. I don’t know why.
In terms of the performance, what we insisted on was most of our recordings happen in a room with the whole group together. I hate going into a voiceover booth and recording alone. You tend to feel crazy talking to yourself in a soundproof room. It’s almost psychiatric. We had everyone together. At the core of the show, we wanted two things. One is a sense of warmth and humanity even if the characters behave in egregious ways. They have an understanding of each other. Having a group dynamic feels important. I also wanted mess. I love messiness; it’s an antithesis to that winnowing down I was talking about. People spill over the edges of their personas all the time. Having a recording with crosstalk, people interrupting, people breathing felt real. It didn’t feel like the acting was not in front of a camera because you could still look at people and feed off of their energy.
AVC: How did you figure out who to bring on for Lauren’s interviews and what topics would be covered? He speaks to an eclectic range of people, including Tegan & Sara, who I’m shouting out because I’m a fan of their music.
ZW: There was a time in my life when I had Tegan & Sara’s “Living Room” on repeat. It was the soundtrack to at least a year of my life during my twenties. The guests, who include Mike Tyson, Kaia Gerber, Jonathan Van Ness, Finn Wolfhard, were filmed remotely. The way it would work is, that they would never see my face until the end. We would just put up a picture of Lauren. Brandon would tell them to think of it as a regular NPR interview. He would go, “If something makes you laugh, laugh. If something sparks a line of thought, please explore it. React authentically.” People were incredible about it. They played along. In addition to being funny, they were revealing. We’d hoped for that. People who exist in the public eye are so well-versed in their talking points and can reach for the life preserver of an answer they’ve given 1,000 times. Having them in an environment where they’re talking for an hour to a stop-motion puppet radio host puts them in an uncanny valley enough they start to eventually depart from their talking points and reveal aspects of themselves that are interesting and surprising. I loved that part.
AVC: If you had to host a radio show, what would it be about?
ZW: I love interviews. I would want to do that. I always say I want to be Terry Gross when I grow up. That would be the most fun job, to find people you’re curious about. I mean, you do it, right? It must be such an amazing thing to go like, “I’m interested in this person. Now I can pick their brain, and I can find out how their heart, brain, and imagination work.” That sounds like a lot of fun.
In The Loop (2009)—“Chad”
AVC: I want to take us from In The Know to In The Loop. The film was your first project with Veep’s Armando Iannucci. What was your impression of him at the time and what was the experience of shooting the movie?
ZW: That was the first big movie I had ever done. It was shot in London and it was such a Cinderella experience for me. I remember it was this SAG thing where they’d fly you out. I remember taking off from New York City to fly there in business class, looking out of the window and seeing the city below shrink and become all glittery. I looked up at the stars and they were all glittery. It was like a night sky on the bottom and top. I was looking out at that and feeling “What is this adventure going to be?” I arrived in London and they took us to this beautiful old Victorian hotel where we were staying. They flew my dad out to visit. James Gandolfini was in the film. He was the kindest, funniest, most inclusive person. What an experience.
One of the things that immediately made an impression about Armando is he seemed counter to the TV and film people who existed in the Hollywood sphere. He was not glossy or schmoozy. I thought, “Oh, he’s my people. I know how to talk to him.” I don’t know how to talk to the wheeling and dealing producers, but Armando I had a kinship with. There was no ego. He was like, “Do you have an idea? Try it. Improvise. Pitch a joke.” He was egalitarian in that way, and it was electrifying. I’d walk around London on the brink of tears feeling grateful. It seemed unrealistic, and it still does, that it was something I got to do.
AVC: What was your biggest artistic takeaway from In The Loop as your first big film?
ZW: A sense that my value added was not just saying the lines. That’s what it taught me. If I want to contribute meaningfully, I need to help author my character. I didn’t have a lot of acting experience at that point but I had a ton of improv experience. So if people were hiring me, it’s for that and not because I just fell out of Juilliard and had done a million Tennessee Williams plays. They want me to have a role in shaping the character. Another thing I took away was Armando would have these outrageous situations and would play them so straight. He wouldn’t usurp the reality of the story to make a joke. He would find a way to include the joke within that reality. It’s an important distinction.
AVC: Do you have any memories of working with the cast, including Peter Capaldi and James Gandolfini?
ZW: The thing about Peter Capaldi and James Gandolfini is, well, okay Peter plays Malcolm in The Thick Of It. The character is plainly cruel. He flogs people with his words. He’s brutal. James Gandolfini, of course, played Tony Soprano in The Sopranos. It’s these two formidable characters. But when I met them, they were soft-spoken, self-effacing, warm as can be guys who you just want to fall asleep with your head on their shoulder. Peter told me something that made me laugh when he was like, “Don’t be a furniture toucher.” It’s what actors do during dramatic scenes and be tactile in their environment. They’re touching all the scenery and being ostentatiously sensual. Thinking about that always makes me laugh.
Veep (2013-2014)—“Ed Webster”
ZW: I had helped Armando out with the auditions. By that time he was my friend and we would hang out whenever he was in L.A. With Veep, he wanted someone to improvise during the audition process when they were doing callbacks. And so I came in with [casting director] Allison Jones’ office and I would improv with the actors, including Tony Hale and Matt Walsh, all these people who were so brilliant. They wrote Ed’s part and asked me to do it. It was fun. Anna Chlumsky and I had been in In The Loop together. It was a treat.
At that time in my life, I was terribly sad. So [what] I remember was such an odd combination because I was thrilled to be on the show, but then on off days, I would go to the Baltimore Planetarium in a three-day beard. I was wearing a tracksuit and I went to the dolphin show by myself and watched it. I started asking all these questions of the person working there, and then I looked over and a group of school kids were there who she hadn’t been able to talk to because I kept asking sad-ass questions. I was miserable. But the experience of Veep itself was fun. Then we went on to do HBO’s Avenue 5 together. Armando’s been great to me. I love that guy.
AVC: Veep’s humor comes from insults, and as Ed, you get to dole out one of the most quoted ones about Jonah (Timothy Simons) being “the draft of a man.” Did you get to do improv much with these insults or did you stick to the script?
ZW: No, no, a lot of that was improv. I mean, it was a mix. The good thing about Veep is the stuff they write is so funny that you don’t feel like doing improv or correcting anything. You just want to add to the fire. They had written the line, “You’re like a Frankenstein monster made entirely of dead dicks.” I remember improvising with “You’re an early draft of a man” and something about Jonah being a long skeleton. I don’t remember it.
Avenue 5 (2020-2022)—“Matt Spencer”
AVC: Since you brought up Avenue 5, the show only ran for two seasons and didn’t garner the kind of acclaim it deserved. Do you guys ever talk about that or think it was a comedy ahead of its time?
ZW: No. I don’t know. I feel like there’s so much vying for everyone’s attention, if people don’t respond to something or it’s not the right number of people watching, it’s okay. I guess I’ll contradict myself because then there are things I’ll see and go, “This is beautiful and no one knows about this.” Did you see The Quiet Girl recently? It’s this beautiful Irish movie, it even got an Oscar nomination I think, but it somehow got lost in the noise. And I kept thinking everyone should get to see it. I loved doing Avenue 5, I loved the people involved, but I also can’t begrudge people if they don’t respond to something.
The Post (2017)—“Anthony Essaye”
ZW: The Post was an interesting experience. At that point, the only sex scene I’d ever shot was with Jesse Plemons in Other People, where I played his ex-boyfriend. There’s a scene in it where he’s like...I don’t know if I should say it. Well, this is The A.V. Club, so we can talk about anything, right?
AVC: Yes, that’s recommended.
ZW: Great. So that scene is where his character is masturbating on my chest. It was funny to go from that to reuniting with Jesse for The Post where we’re both playing lawyers in suits. Someone could make the weirdest supercut to make an interesting little short film about us.
I was nervous because of Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. Someone told me a story from the set. I wasn’t there for this day so take it with a grain of salt. But someone said on one of the first days, everyone was together and nervous because these guys are such an institution. Everyone has trepidation about it. Tom Hanks walks across the giant bullpen, and this person told me, and again I don’t know if it’s true or not, but Tom walks past these gazillion background actors and the supporting cast and yells loudly, “Oh God, I’m so scared, what if I suck? What if I can’t do it? What if I’m not good enough?” He was shouting about the insecurities he was feeling. It seems silly and funny, but it’s true leadership because it punctures the balloon of tension in the room and gives everyone permission to own their nerves and be self-compassionate. When I heard that story, I thought, “Okay, he’s a class act.”
AVC: How did you calm your nerves and be on set and work with them then? What was your takeaway from that?
ZW: I mean, I played a relatively bit part, but it was interesting to be a fly on the wall. I noticed [to] myself, “This is a bit of a turning point.” There’s Spielberg, Streep, and Hanks, and they’re like Mt. Rushmore. But you have a suspicion they’re just people, and that’s what I would tell myself. It made me feel I could never let prestige be an incentive to do anything because it doesn’t do anything for me. I remember going to some dinner thing with everyone. I’m a huge Streep fan, and I adore her work, but even being there I remember thinking, “My mom is in town, and now I want to go see her.” The stardust doesn’t work. That’s what I realized during The Post. These are the biggest names in the business. They’re lovely. I like them and appreciate their work. I love Meryl Streep. But also, it’s not magic, it’s the work. If the work is good, it feels good. No amount of ultra-celebrity will get you through the night. It was nice to realize that. These are incredibly talented people. It’s an honor to meet them and work with them, but I don’t want to chase this. Does that make any sense?
AVC: It does. It’s a surprisingly cool takeaway to have from a project this big, that ultimately the art is what matters.
ZW: That’s exactly it.
The Good Wife (2013-2016)— “Jeff Dellinger”
AVC: With The Post and The Good Wife, your first TV drama, were you trying to move away from being known only for comedic stuff? It circles back to the typecasting thing you mentioned earlier.
ZW: I can’t remember if I auditioned for The Good Wife or if they offered it to me. I had seen some episodes and I thought it was good and smart, a great version of a procedural. I thought it’d be fun for me. For me, on that show, the first Broadway play I ever saw was when my mom took me to a show starring Nathan Lane. There was this moment when I was filming TGW and sitting with Lane, who was so much fun to be around; he had old war stories about acting. I would improv a little bit and he was excited to play around with that. It was a memorable experience. I don’t know if I worried too much about being typecast. The decisive question was, “Do I think it’s good or not? Do I like it?” If I felt like I was repeating myself in some fundamental way, that could be less interesting. Mostly it was about good writing, and that applied to The Good Wife.
Other People (2016)—“Paul”
AVC: Other People is such an underrated film. It works because it’s not melodramatic despite a difficult subject matter. How did you come across it?
ZW: Saturday Night Live’s Chris Kelly, who went on to become writing partners with Sarah Schneider and co-created The Other Two, wrote the film. I had known him for years because we both performed and did improv together for the Upright Citizens Brigade. I read the script and thought it was gorgeous. I said to him, “If you need any part from me, I’ll do it. I want to be involved in whatever capacity.” And it’s because of exactly what you said in that it’s powerful and moving because it was unsentimental. When movies have a laugh every 10 seconds or are unremittingly bleak and punishingly serious, I might enjoy them but they don’t feel like life to me.
Real life is a slurry of funny, achy, painful, glorious moments. Other People feels like that to me. I also hate that song by Train, “Drops Of Jupiter.” If somebody asked me least favorite song, that’s the one I would say. The lyrics to that song are, “She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo / Reminds me that there’s a-room to grow, hey, hey, yeah.” What? There’s also the line, “She listens like spring and she talks like June.” What is he talking about? They used to play it over and over on the school bus, and I would sink deeper and deeper into a dark pit. I cannot fucking stand that song, or I couldn’t, until I read the Other People script. The fact that he made me love that song through the course of that movie, that’s when I knew, “Shit, there’s something here.”
Terrorists (2004)—“Drugstore Cashier”
AVC: Do you have any memories from the set of Terrorists? It’s your first film credit from two decades ago.
ZW: I was thrilled to be part of a movie. We shot in New Jersey. I remember this one scene where we all had to jump into the back of a pickup truck that was peeling out. Now, it’s not the most glossy production. This other guy is supposed to hop into the truck, but he didn’t make it all the way in and started to fall out. This wasn’t scripted; it was an accident. He starts to fall out of the truck, and I see this gigantic hand reach out and grab the back of his belt, lift him up, and get him into the truck. I look up and it’s Rob Riggle, who as a marine and I think saw active combat. I remember thinking, “Thank god he’s here because anemic comedy boys weren’t going to save the day.” That’s my biggest memory of Terrorists, watching Rob quietly and unshowily saving another actor’s life.
AVC: Did you envision a certain type of career path for yourself after you filmed Terrorists? When you look at it now in retrospect, what does it look like?
ZW: [Long pause]
AVC: Sorry if that’s a loaded question.
ZW: Not at all. It’s a very nice question. It just ... it looks like unfathomable good fortune. I mean, I worked my ass off. I try to do a good job and take it really seriously. I try to care about the characters I’m playing and try to love them all. Something I talk about constantly is The Velveteen Rabbit passage where they talk about how love makes someone real. I feel that way about my characters. If they become real to you, they become real to the producers, to the writers, and hopefully to the audience. It’s this little love-based reality bomb that can go off and have a big blast radius if you’re lucky. That sounded like word salad. What I’m saying is, I try to love everyone I write or play, which is not to say I sentimentalize them. I’m going to be honest about the less savory parts of them.
The truth is no one deserves the insane life that working actors get to live. It’s It’s crazy. To get well-paid jobs, to be around people who you love and admire, for an audience that is so gracious and appreciative for the most part. It’s demented. I feel awestruck and grateful. I also feel some responsibility where now I’m more and more interested in writing and directing. I’ve had access and opportunity, people have been generous with me, and now I have the confidence and the urge to make these very specific projects. Someone told me this quote where it’s like, “Making a movie should feel as urgent as having to pee.” I feel that kind of urinary urgency all the time now.
AVC: What are some of the things you’re developing or hoping to make?
ZW: I’m developing a feature film with Brandon that we wrote. It’s called The Accompanist. We’re in the process of getting financing for it. A wonderful actor named Fred Hechinger [The White Lotus] and I are developing another TV show that I hesitate to say too much about because it’s early days, but I’m very excited about it. I also love directing. There are these specific stories I feel responsible for telling and eager to tell.
The Office (2010-2013)— “Gabe Lewis”
AVC: You recently were in an episode of Office Ladies, a rewatch podcast hosted by The Office’s Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. What was it like to reconnect and go back to this important TV show after all this time?
ZW: Jenna and Angela are lovely. I also just directed a commercial—I do those sometimes to, you know, pay the bills. I directed one with some folks from The Office. They are all still so funny and easy to be around. With the podcast episode, seeing Jenna and Angela after all this time was nice. I loved talking to them. They’re a good example of people who I think are deep but not precious. They’re not pretentious and high off their own supply. So it was nice to sit down and reconnect with them.
AVC: You joined The Office in season six, and you say in the podcast that you were already a huge fan of the show by then. What was it like to step into that world? Was it stressful or enjoyable, or both?
ZW: I was frightened. I hate exercise, but I would run three miles every day. Me running three miles is what it’s like for a normal person of sound body to run a marathon. But I was in a constant state of anxiety because I had some sense of, “Oh, wow, this is a crazy opportunity and I don’t know if another one of these will come my way.” It made matters so much worse that I already loved The Office as a viewer. Not only did I feel a personal responsibility not to fuck up my own life, but also an artistic responsibility to be additive to this thing I loved. It took me a while to start enjoying the show and enjoying working on it because there was so much marinating in fear.
AVC: The Office is comfort TV for me, so it’s fascinating to hear that perspective. Do you have a version of comfort TV or stuff you keep going back to as a way to reenergize you?
ZW: Weirdly it’s often sad stuff. I love going back to movies like Ordinary People, You Can Count On Me, and Scarecrow. It’s old movies from the ’70s. I love watching boxing. I find it to be really comforting. I admire people who can live in their bodies. That applies to dancers; I love watching ballet and modern dancing. People who live beautifully and ferociously in their bodies, I’m like, “Oh my God.” Oh, I also like rewatching American Ninja Warrior. I try to go see old movies in the theater all the time. I revisit the German movie Lives Of Others. I think about it constantly. It’s almost a liturgy, something when you watch these movies enough times, they osmose into your imagination. It’s less like a conscious thing where you’re like, “I was inspired by this to make a movie about this.” I watch things more for the aesthetics and sensibilities.