‘Everybody's Live with John Mulaney' Turns a One-Off Experiment Into Consistently Delightful Chaos: TV Review
'Everybody's Live with John Mulaney' isn't quite a new show. Instead, the series is the evolution of 'Everybody's in LA,' a pop-up concept — and apparently, trial run — timed to the Netflix Is a Joke festival last year. After producing six episodes in eight days, Mulaney took 10 months to retool the series into something less hyper-regional but no less idiosyncratic.
'10 months is the perfect amount of time to forget how to do this show,' Mulaney joked in his monologue. But the next hour made clear the comedian and his collaborators forgot, and in fact changed, very little from that initial sprint. (That Mulaney referred to — and kept referring to — 'Everybody's in LA' as 'this show,' not a separate one, was an accurate preview.) Richard Kind is still the announcer; the hour's centerpiece is still an expanding panel pairing celebrities with non-famous experts in their field; Mulaney still asks callers what kind of car they drive, because while everybody may no longer be in LA, he certainly is. The '70s-inspired set on a Hollywood soundstage proved a metaphor for the transition from one-off experiment to a three-month run of a dozen weekly episodes: mostly the same, with minor tweaks only apparent to a small subset of nerdy aficionados.
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That's great news for fans like myself, having named 'Everybody's in LA' one of the best shows of last year in my annual roundup. It's nonetheless surprising how non-expository Wednesday's technical debut was. The presence of Saymo the delivery robot, for example, went unexplained. Mulaney's four-wheeled friend needed no introduction for those who watched the bug-eyed apparatus develop into a full-fledged character last spring, but neophytes dropping in on a major launch from a worldwide streamer may have been left scratching their heads. Mulaney may have cracked that the name change came after focus groups showed audiences didn't like LA, but nothing else about the show felt focus-grouped or planned with mass appeal in mind.
'Everybody's Live' takes after its five-member panel, in part because the discussion took up the majority of the episode: often odd and offbeat, yet in a way that allows for a transcendent weirdness when the stars align. Without the ability to edit down and tighten a pre-taped segment, the chit-chat between actor Michael Keaton and personal finance columnist Jessica Roy on the night's selected topic — lending money to friends and family — could wander aimlessly. (Keaton sort of flubbed his delivery of a story about Jack Nicholson's '$500 junkie buyout' strategy, although his impression was pretty great.) Yet we were also treated to folk singer Joan Baez narrating the time she crashed her brand-new Tesla into an oak tree, much to the in-studio audience's delight.
Part of what made 'Everybody's in LA' so exciting was in how it took the cultural decline of the talk show as an opportunity. Rather than subjecting itself to the endless grind of daily headlines or relying on stars' promotional schedules to book guests, the show would embrace the niche fascination its genre was already trending toward — treating 'talk show' like an aesthetic to be tried on and toyed with, not a set of expectations to be met. 'Everybody's Live' maintains this spirit of chaos and curiosity, with all the risks that come with it. Despite a more regular schedule than its predecessor, the show is in no danger of becoming Netflix's answer to 'Late Night' or 'The Tonight Show.'
Broadening the focus from Los Angeles and its many contradictions to more general prompts has its growing pains. I didn't feel the same infectious enthusiasm from Mulaney for financial etiquette as, say, the O.J. Simpson case. On the other hand, it would be difficult to shoehorn a Willy Loman focus group into a Southern California-themed broadcast. That sketch, coming just before the episode's closing performance by Cypress Hill, was the hour's peak, containing all the promise of petty obsessions afforded airtime in a chorus of besuited actors shouting a monologue as one.
'Everybody's Live' will continue to have hiccups as it eases into its new schedule, because hiccups are built into the blueprint of a show that solicits live callers and has the host react in real time. (I have some follow-up questions about the Redondo Beach trainer's high-tech workout.) For all Mulaney's self-deprecation, though, there's still a confidence to picking right back up where he left off almost a year ago. Nothing else on TV vibrates at the same frequency as 'Everybody's Live,' née 'Everybody's in LA.' It's on us to attune ourselves.
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John Mulaney has learned a few things about life from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This sounds like the setup for a joke. But the comedian, late-night host, and low-key music obsessive has long been fascinated with the Cleveland institution, the artists it deems worthy for inclusion (or continually snubs), and especially the annual induction ceremony that can reunite bands, rekindle old feuds, and cause music nerds to argue endlessly. For example, to the yearly batch of inducted artists who seem deeply uncomfortable with the idea of the ceremony, he says, 'Life is hard, and when someone wants to give you your flowers, don't overthink it. Just accept it. Whatever terrible moment you're imagining with your former bandmate or whoever you might run into there, you're already having it in your head, so you might as well go, and it probably will be better than you think.' More from Rolling Stone Watch Jessica Pratt and Destroyer Perform Together on 'Everybody's Live' John Mulaney Breaks Down the Music Powering 'Everybody's Live' What Do Rock Hall Voters Have Against Mariah Carey, Oasis, and Phish? When Mulaney first broke down all the Rock Hall inductees and snubs for us in 2018, the plan was to make it an annual tradition, à la Billie Eilish's Vanity Fair interview on the same day every year. 'Covid and some personal problems got in the way,' Mulaney deadpans. But now, he's ready to recommit. 'Hey, listen, I'll make this an annual thing now.' Before we get started, does he have any other big takeaways from following the event each year? 'When you're in your twenties, take as many photos of yourself as possible,' Mulaney says. 'You are so good-looking. You are soooo good-looking. All these photos of the Cure, I was like, 'Look at these early shoegazers, so awkward. But they look great. Everyone looks great.'' Here, what Mulaney has to say about each of this year's honored artists — and the ones that didn't make it. Mazel tov, Bad Company. A friend of mine read these to me over the phone a week ago and he accidentally said Badfinger and I almost drove off the expressway. I was so blown away by the power of Apple Corps to get Badfinger into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I know the hits and I like a supergroup in [the Hall]. There's certainly other examples. Who's your favorite supergroup?Let's name some. Traveling Wilburys. Sure. Blind Clapton post-Yardbirds feels like a supergroup. Derek and the Dominos is up for Were there even Dominos? My favorite supergroup song is 'Highwayman' by the Highwaymen. It's an excellent use of each person's personality, in a way that [Traveling Wilburys'] 'Handle With Care' is a great song but it feels like they just divvied up… I mean, no, sorry, that's really well-plotted, actually. But 'Highwayman' is like each of those guys is singing the appropriate backstory for their character and I like that Johnny Cash is going to be on a starship. Bad Company's biggest songs: 'Feel Like Makin' Love,' 'Can't Get Enough,' 'Shooting Star,' 'Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy,' 'Bad Company.' Do any of those songs conjure up any emotion or feeling for you?Well, it's tough. No. What does 'Feel Like Makin' Love' feel like? It feels like walking into a bar I've never been in, like I have a memory of walking into a large pool hall kind of Dazed and Confused-like bar with that playing, but I think I just saw it in movies. I don't think that ever happened. But here's my mission statement: More groups in the Hall, not less. The Mulaney Hall of Fame would induct every group nominated? Why not? Do a whole weekend of ceremony. If it's about the ceremony runtime… Last year, they went more than five hours. That's pretty Steven Van Zandt gets to induct a bunch of 45s? Doesn't he always get a grouping? [Imitates Little Stevie] 'Doo-wop on my corner. Da Moonglows! Da Ink Spots! These were 45 records that changed the way I saw doo-wop that year. This cover of 'Bule Bule' changed the way that block in New Jersey dealt with noise complaints.' I was already psyched for him. Mazel, Chubby Checker. Knowing that it was part novelty I think is great. I'm a big proponent of novelty music. I'm a big proponent of 'Weird Al' getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This is one step closer, though I don't know why they need to be led via steps. 'Weird Al' brought more people to music than is recognized at all. I will, in fact, greatly devalue my coolness by saying [when I was young], it wasn't until 'Smells Like Nirvana' defanged 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' that I could enjoy 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' It was scary at first. It just was like, 'I'm pretty happy, I'm a kid.' I needed a way in. And after you laugh at 'Smells Like Nirvana,' you go, 'Oh, this is a really good song.' Let's talk about the ballot and the nominating process. So there are 30 people on the nominating committee who draw up all the nominees and around 1,100 people in the industry vote after aren't I on the committee? Is Boz Scaggs on it? He is not. I always thought he was in with that, but that's just based on nothing. Did you have any experience with 'The Twist' or 'Let's Twist Again'?Well, I really appreciate 'Let's twist again like we did last summer.' It's a very funny lyric for a reboot. I really, really like the bald-facedness of 'Let's twist again like we did last summer' — saying, 'Remember we did this song 'The Twist' last year? We're doing it again.' Also, I think 'Let's Twist Again' is a better song than 'The Twist.' I don't think I'm alone in that. Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like such a novel idea. Is Chubby Checker still with us? He is. He partnered with New York City two years ago for a with bikers in the lane. Sick. I didn't know we could partner with New York City. You could. Billy Idol did an with the city right before lockdowns in 2020. And people followed his advice because the whole world shut down. I do want to tell you about a 750-word letter Chubby Checker wrote to the Rock Hall in 2002 lamenting his lack of inclusion. It read, in part, 'Before 'Alexander Graham Bell'…no telephone. Before 'Thomas Edison'… no light. Before 'Dr. George Washington Carver'…no oil from seed or cloning of plants. Before 'Henry Ford'…no V8 engine. Before 'Walt Disney'…no animated cartoons. Before Chubby Checker…no 'Dancing Apart to the Beat.' What is 'Dancing Apart to the Beat'? 'Dancing Apart to the Beat' is the dance that we do when we dance apart to the beat of anybody's music and before 'Chubby Checker,' it could not be found!'I love this letter. I love every part of it. I love all the examples leading up to it and I trust him. He ends the letter with, 'Where is my more money and my more fame?'Ohhhh, you buried the lede. I had to build to it.'Where is my more money and my more fame?' Well, you know what? We have quotes at the beginning of each episode of my show and I think we just found the finale's. Bizarrely, I knew his cover of 'With a Little Help from My Friends' and I knew 'Up Where We Belong' and I didn't see [the 1971 Cocker documentary] Mad Dogs and Englishmen till I was in my late twenties. Lorne Michaels told me about it. It wasn't streaming anywhere. It was hard to find when I went looking for it. What did you like about the film specifically?Just how hard that tour was, like Festival Express. Just the hard living of it. And again, this brings me back to Chubby Checker and 'Weird Al.' It's like John Belushi's parody of Joe Cocker brought me to Joe Cocker as well. As a little kid, Cocker was upsetting-looking. He looked like he was in great pain and he looked like he was passing a kidney stone at all times. John Belushi defanging that helped me enjoy it more. And I'm very pro-Joe Cocker. He's not like Stevie Wonder, but he has a bit of that 'I Just Called to Say I Love You' phenomenon of, I sort of knew 'Up Where We Belong' and 'You Are So Beautiful' just as pleasant wedding music. And then you go back and indeed he was a Mad Dog. I kinda thought of Randy Newman's 'You Can Leave Your Hat On' in was a little do you think of the original? Love the take the laughs out. 'Turn on the lights. No, all the lights,' is a very funny line. I've never seen 9 1/2 Weeks, but I would love to have Mickey Rourke on my show. He was just fired from a few weeks ago for making offensive remarks toward Jojo Siwa and another was? Oh, then I retract saying I want to. We'll skip the about, John Mulaney Hasn't Seen '9 ½ Weeks'. But again, here we go and I'm not trying to force a through line but the humor of something [like Newman's original version] is our way in. And there's a Randy Newman connection coming up. I know. It's Lenny Waronker. I thought you might be stumped on not at all. I met Lenny Waronker when Randy was on Everybody's Live; he came. These dudes have known each other since they were three and he's at the gig with him and he's his guy. Their relationship was incredible to see up close. Then I was talking to John Cale [who did A&R for Waronker in the 1970s] after the taping of our show and he goes, 'I love Lenny. I loved all those guys. Everyone at Warner Brothers was very good back then.' It's weird to think of John Cale behind a that's why Cale is so brilliant and is the most relevant, because he produced so many people and was an A&R guy. He didn't do a couple vanity productions. He really invested in new groups and continued to develop and didn't escape into persona. What's interesting about the record business is they'll be like, 'Well, this is the single and we're pushing the single.' And I'm like, 'Isn't it just like people come to whatever song they come to?' Lenny, Randy, and I were talking about standards and practices and lack thereof on Netflix, and I said, 'Have you ever done 'Rednecks' on TV?' and [Randy] goes, 'No.' And I was like, 'Right, that makes sense.' And I said, 'But that's the big hit from that album,' and he goes, 'No, it wasn't a hit.' And Lenny goes, 'The first hit was 'Short People' [three years later].' If you're in the trenches looking at numbers every week, you don't go, 'Yeah. That a lot of people have come to it over the years, doesn't mean it's a hit.' But if Randy had asked to do 'Rednecks' on your show, would you have said yes?No. I think everyone would go, 'Let's not do that.' By the way, let me just be clear: No one asked. It wasn't like I said no to something. Everyone involved is smart. They're incredible and what a great treasure of American music. I love Jack in that way that he has what I love so much about David Byrne: just this desire to innovate and collaborate, be it Loretta Lynn or doing some music for a Maya Rudolph and Martin Short variety show or whatever it is. Meg White hasn't really been seen at all in more than 15 years. The big question is if she shows up. Just things the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is made of. This is no surprise. Such re-emergences into public life is the whole thing of the induction ceremony. Standard stuff. Most folks you see at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction you haven't seen in a while. That's the most fun of it. So do you think she shows up?Yeah, why not? I say 'why not' not trying to cause any controversy. I don't know if there's any issues. I just would say why not. I think the 'why not' is just having not been in the public eye for so long. Is the Rock Hall enough of an event to get her to come out?Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I'll make the case. Couple examples: Kurt Cobain's mother said when they were inducted, and I'm paraphrasing, 'Kurt would really love this, but he would act like he didn't.' And at the Radiohead induction, which I was at, I think it was Ed O'Brien who said, and I'm paraphrasing again, but this was the spirit of it, 'I wish the other guys were here to see it, because this is a big fucking deal.' And I think it's one of those things you might appreciate when you get there. Your first memories of , I assume, are probably in the mid-Eighties?Yep, The Goonies. It's the way the camera lingers on the TV in Goonies. I just remember being like, 'Well, they're making a moment out of this.' I didn't know if it was a clue to the mystery. It was one of those things where just the very fact, the way the camera hangs on her, I was like, 'Well, this must be someone.' I don't remember when I first heard 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun,' but it's obviously Eighties canon. I found her really funny and I found the whole persona fun and funny and still do. Any other Cyndi songs that you gravitate towards?I love Kinky Boots. I love her whole thing. I can't say I know more than the hits, but they're so singular and were so important for music and music videos that I'm just thrilled. Talk about people that really care about music. And André's career now is so interesting. What a great choice. It's one of those choices where you go, 'Well, let's do half a dozen of those each year.' You mean hip-hop or just groups that are universally beloved?Both. I so admire [André's] pursuit of music. It's just in every direction. And someone not taking the easy road is my favorite thing. I think it's like being a Prince fan. Who isn't a fan of Outkast? Really, really cool. Very cool choice. Very cool to go back and continue to celebrate those early Sub Pop artists and not just look at it as a montage of bands you mention after Nirvana. Kim Thayil how he was looking at as a possible model for what Soundgarden may do. Who could belt like Chris Cornell?I'll nominate Maggie Rogers just because I just had her on and thought she was so great. Do you have a favorite Soundgarden song?Again, I'm a hits guy. I think they're going to play 'Black Hole Sun,' so she'd be great at that. I'm so happy for them. Like Cyndi Lauper, just ubiquitous, especially 'Whatta Man.' Soundtrack of an era. So exciting and a great time in music to go back and revisit and honor. Did they do 'Let's Talk About Sex' on Blossom? Don't even fact-check it. I'm fact-checking, because I don't know the your source here feels they did and let's not even look it up. [Editor's note: He's right. Season Four, Episode 12, in 1993.] Immensely provocative and groundbreaking at the was. This is Tipper Gore central. And it's a great song, too. They're going to be great. Not a ton of knowledge. However, I think my senior year of college, he was very ill and his song 'Keep Me in Your Heart' was very popular with my roommate, Matt Albert, and I. [Matt is] now a pediatric doctor in North Carolina. Then I'm at the Mark Twain awards for David Letterman some years ago and Eddie Vedder played that song and it just was a very full-circle moment. Tons of respect for Warren Zevon. I'm surprised he isn't in already. He's someone that the music business loves, deservedly so. I remember listening to 'Werewolves of London' a lot and thinking about the lyrics and still kind of not understanding what it's about at all and I've never really looked it up. I like that they mentioned Trader Vic's. I always liked that the coolest place was this Polynesian restaurant. The organ on 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' alone. It's incredible how big [session musicians'] contributions are. It's bizarre the amount they affect the success of a track and their lack — and this isn't meant to be controversial — their lack of credit and, through that, profit participation. I'm not criticizing it, I think it's just what it is. Sonny & Cher had every verse of 'The Beat Goes On' and it was just this meandering song and then Carol Kaye, like 11th hour, just lays down [imitates bassline] doom, doom, doom, doom, and you're like, 'OK. So I guess she didn't write it, but you wouldn't know it at all [without her].' I am thrilled with Nicky Hopkins. I'm thrilled with the recognition of session musicians. Andy Samberg and I would really press Lorne a couple of times to have Glen Campbell on. [Kaye played on hundreds of sessions with Campbell.] I'm often wrong, but I thought it would've been great. I think it was when The Smile Sessions came out [in 2011], and getting into what the Wrecking Crew [the legendary group of session musicians that included Kaye] sounded like and just what they contributed was so amazing. I like the documentary a lot, and it's just night and day. It's just like, 'Well, I'm going to take my songs over to the best band in the world that's ever been assembled.' The Hopkins and the Carol Kayes of the world are like, it's not just a nice nod. They are 100 percent essential to these songs. If you think about how you take music in, they get authorship. I think about that with Holland-Dozier-Holland, who are not unknown, but nowhere near as big as the artists they wrote get a good shoutout in a Magnetic Fields song. Do they?Yeah, 'The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure.' Love [The Spinners'] 'Rubberband Man' [written and produced by Bell]. The audience load-in playlist for my Baby J Tour was a lot of Delfonics, Spinners, Thom Bell-adjacent stuff. The O'Jays' 'Stairway to Heaven' was the big song on the lead-up to my arena tour. Let's see. I just want to get this right. Take your had more Number One singles than anyone else? They're from Liverpool. Who has the second most? It's a travesty. I wouldn't even call it snobbery. There's a judgmental aspect to it due to aspects of one's life. I think we have all had our ups and downs in life, but her accomplishment is just unparalleled. It's a no-brainer, but the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame frequently doesn't have a brain. Sorry, they have less than one brain. I don't know much about the Gallaghers. I know what a casual acquaintance of their music would know, which is they're always pissed off about something. I know far more about their constant bitching than I have memories of loving their music. But they get a vote in my mind because they'd be disgruntled during the acceptance speech. You would like to see it just for the theatricality. That is a big part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: people of low character behaving badly. 'That is a big part of the Rock Hall: people of low character behaving badly.' Is there another group that you don't care about that you want to see in the Hall for the pure spectacle?Oh, man. OK. I mean, oh, my God. Pure spectacle. A lot of them are already in. Help me think a little. Butthole Surfers? Flaming Lips, they're not in, right? They're not in, I think [Wayne Coyne] would pop off. Liam Gallagher did once say, 'It's like putting me in the Rap Hall of Fame and I don't want to be part of anything that mentally disturbed.'Whatever. 'Wonderwall' don't mean shit to me, but I'm not trying to start anything. I remember Soupy Sales' Wikipedia page for a while was just debunking rumors and it was clearly him getting in there and it was like, 'Soupy never told kids to send him a dollar.' I was like, 'Dude, you're teaching me that you've had a lot of difficulties.' When I hear Jimmy Fallon do 'Wonderwall' at karaoke, I don't think, 'Wow, what tortured mind is behind this?' And also, I'll say that I like a difficult public persona very much. This is a crime. I haven't read about your Phish fandom. How deep does it run?I come on board around 1997 at age 14, 15. When I started listening to them, people at the shows told me, 'You really missed it. It's over now.' I think it was after A Live One came out, people were like, 'Well, you didn't see the early years.' How many shows have you been to?My numbers aren't high. Multiple nights at Deer Creek, Alpine Valley, things like that, and then I went two, three years ago. I'd go anytime, I just keep not being able to. Was it difficult to convince them to do the ? No, they were great. We talked about doing a variety of things on the show, but they were on tour and they had their time in Los Angeles and it was the greatest. I thought of it originally as, 'What if they did a play of Seinfeld?' I didn't know what this would be for and then I thought, 'Oh, it would be through the telescope we'd see them living as Seinfeld.' It was going to be an ad for a Broadway show of Seinfeld starring Phish. We made it more palatable, a little. So Phish is a no-brainer for you to get in?Yeah. Phish, String Cheese Incident, moe., Disco Biscuits, Leftover Salmon. On every level, this was hugely important music to us. It really kept bands alive. The idea of a band in 1999 playing fucking guitars, piano, and drums was not always easy to find. In that documentary [Between Me and My Mind about Trey Anastasio], Trey said that Tommy Lee saw them on the cover of Rolling Stone and went, 'Finally, a fucking band,' and the excitement of that. Now, on the business end, these people printed money. They are enormously successful. Most of my life being on the road, I have a real aversion to snubbing people that sell out football stadiums night after night but aren't necessarily propped up by the industry. It's not that the money's important, but whenever the music business has gone up and down and up and down, they have just consistently brought their music to fans at a huge profit. People pay and travel to see Phish at a time when it's hard to get people to click on Spotify. I wonder what it is [that didn't get them inducted]. So many people like Phish; I'm sure so many people on the committee like Phish. I bet it's oversight more than snobbery. The music they introduced my generation to as well was hugely important. I learned to be eclectic from them. They were always getting compared to the Grateful Dead, but they had this whole world of influences that was really fun to pick up on and cross-check … Getting back into the Talking Heads. Getting into Zappa. That was all them. They also made you want to go to concerts. They're just good for music and they have been for decades. People that keep it at arm's length and didn't want to get into it because they thought it was their friend with the hemp choker in high school or whatever, we're not dumb. They fucking rock. It's not all Gamehendge [the fictional setting for numerous Phish songs], if that bothers you. I love it, but if that bothers you, it's not all Gamehendge. It's not all mythology and everyone in the crowd knows when to yell. The songs are great, we're not stupid people. Do you have a preference between Joy Division and New Order?Both are extremely personal to me. During my worst drug times, I remember very bad moments and there's two lines in 'Disorder' [that go] 'Lights are flashing, cars are crashing, getting frequent now.' I remember just thinking about those lines when it was at its worst. That song, when I listened to it, I'm like, 'This is what it feels like when something you might've set in motion is accelerating out of your control.' So that's a little dark tangent. But then 'Atmosphere.' What's funny about 'Atmosphere' when I listen to that is, I was born right as this was coming out, and I always wondered if I was ever an infant in a taxi cab in Chicago when 'Atmosphere' was released. 'Leave Me Alone' is my favorite New Order song and that song, 'Ceremony,' and the rest are just songs I've listened to for 20, 30 years all the time. And I think about [my wife] Olivia with that line in 'Temptation,' 'Oh, you've got blue eyes / Oh, you've got grey eyes / Oh, you've got green eyes' because Olivia has really beautiful eyes. I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. Are you being diplomatic? No. I genuinely have no opinion. Do you remember when their big album came out or this was not in your wheelhouse at all?What's fun about music is you can be obsessed with a genre and not know a band at all. My blind spots are significant. That's fair. Maybe we just keep the one line, 'I have no opinion,' and that's it.I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. If that's the pull quote, we've got a viral story. 'I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. If that's the pull quote, we've got a viral story.' So Fred [Armisen] is a big Billy Idol fan and I've been trying to get more into it. I know 'White Wedding,' and he has real significance for me as this sort of MTV thing, but I'm ignorant of the rest of him. I think he means a lot to a lot of people. I think a big [thing] is some of the Hall is [about] teaching the audience and some of it is honoring the audience. But it should never be honoring the nominating committee. I am ignorant of them. Well, those are all the snubs. We haven't gone through the biggest snub. Who's that?The standing snub. The standing snub?Sonic Youth. Once again, It's been a pleasure to talk about all these inductees and nominees. Once again, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has completely disappointed the universe and all music fans by not inducting Sonic Youth. I think Smashing Pumpkins not being in is also a crime. Actually, you did mention that in 2018. You said the Hall had an 'anti-Chicago bias.'[Laughs hysterically.] Did I? with the headline, 'Is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Anti-Chicago?' and subhead, 'John Mulaney thinks so, but in reality, we may just punch below our weight as a rock town.''But in reality.' A lot of things I said in 2018 could be buffeted with, 'But in reality.' 'But in reality, John's a little off.' They said, 'Is it possible there's some truth to Mulaney's charge?'I like that they don't say, 'Well, John's just misguided and might be on speed.' They're like, 'Is there some truth? We won't say no,' but there's a ton of Chicago bands that have been inducted. A great way to clear this up would be to give the Musical Excellence Award to Steve Albini. Let's just give that to him next year. I actually think that would be a great decision all around. I doubt they really have an anti-Chicago bias. They're very blues-friendly. And white people loving the blues is, I think, the mission statement of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and that's most of Chicago. I think we've gone through do it next year. This will be called our annual Billie Eilish conversation. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
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Inside Olivia Munn's Private World with John Mulaney, Healing from Cancer and Why She Almost Quit Acting (Exclusive)
Olivia Munn opens up about her life with husband John Mulaney and their two kids Malcolm, 3, and Méi, 8 months, in PEOPLE's latest cover story The actress also reflects on her life-changing two years in which she battled breast cancer and welcomed Méi via surrogate After making a decision to quit acting, Munn reveals why she knew she had to be a part of the Apple TV+ hit Your Friends & Neighbors After two decades of acting, Olivia Munn finds that her toughest negotiations these days are with her 3-year-old son Malcolm. On the morning of her PEOPLE cover shoot in Orange County, Calif., in May, she had to tell him mid-tantrum that later in the day he'd come to set and a big party would be waiting for him, complete with his requests for balloons, cotton candy and a birthday cake and candles (his birthday is in November). 'This is a survival technique,' Munn explains prior to Malcolm's arrival. 'I guess we'll sing 'Happy Birthday' to him. Although he's 3, so I have no idea what's going to set him off. Any parent out there doing whatever they have to do to get through the day has my utmost respect.' Jokes aside, it would take more than a toddler tantrum for Munn, 44, to falter. After going through postpartum anxiety following Malcolm's birth and enduring multiple surgeries and treatments since her breast cancer diagnosis in April 2023, the Oklahoma-born actress — whose husband, comedian John Mulaney, and their daughter Méi, 8 months, were also present at the shoot — takes every parenting win and misstep in stride. "Just yesterday John was trying to discipline Malcolm, and I'm just laughing, tears are coming out of my eyes,' she says. 'Everything is funny and light and airy to me now, like 95 percent of the time, because it was so much to handle back-to-back.' Two years after her cancer diagnosis, 'it's so crazy to think that I'm sitting here with two amazing babies,' says Munn, who welcomed Méi via surrogate last September, amid her cancer treatment. 'I'm just so happy and grateful, and I'm really proud of what I've been able to do. I didn't know how much strength I had inside me.' Making things even sweeter is her career resurgence: The Newsroom alum currently stars in the buzzy Apple TV+ series Your Friends & Neighbors. Munn plays Sam Levitt, a soon-to-be divorcée who has a complicated sexual relationship with a friend's ex, Jon Hamm's Andrew 'Coop' Cooper. In the finale that aired on May 29, Munn stole the show as her character revealed her true involvement in her estranged husband's death. Before she took the role, Munn says, she'd made a 'strong decision' to quit acting to focus on her health and her growing household. "I love acting, but John loves performing more. Nothing I had worked on in the past five or six years felt like it was worth me taking time away from my family,' she says. 'I started thinking for the first time that maybe I need to be behind the camera, not that that's not also hard work, but putting myself in front of the camera felt a lot more vulnerable. I wanted to protect myself."She changed her mind when her agent sent her the Your Friends & Neighbors script and told her about the team involved. 'It was the thing I needed to energize me,' she says. 'When I told John I was taking it, he was just so happy. I had one more surgery to do, and by that point we knew that Méi was on her way. I just felt like I was ready to let go of the fears and worries that I had.' Mulaney, 42, knew that when the right project came along, Munn would want to 'dive back in' to acting. 'For the past three years Liv was just giving everything she had to her health and to being the brightest and silliest mom and partner,' he says. 'But I have to admit — and I've never said this to her — I didn't think she was done acting by any means.' Mulaney remembers Munn first told him about the part of Sam while they were staying in a hotel room with Malcolm, as their home was being sprayed for moths. "She was sitting on the bed and just lit up when she told me about this role," he says. "Then Malcolm and I and then Méi Méi got the chance to see our Olivia just expand and give her whole mind and heart to us and to doing this show: to see her come back from such a long break, to watch her prepare for this role while still in the middle of exhausting cancer treatment, and then like everyone else to watch week after week as she crafts this totally original, really funny, really staggering character in Sam … I'm just blown away." Since April, Munn has been filming season 2 of Your Friends & Neighbors in New York, while Mulaney has stayed with the kids at home in Orange County, about an hour outside Los Angeles, where he's spent the past several months taping his live Netflix variety talk show Everybody's Live. Munn flies back and forth every two days when her schedule allows, and she never goes more than two weeks away from the family. 'It's a dance right now with our schedules,' Munn says. 'We make it work simply because we have the mindset that it's a blessing.' From the start of their relationship, Munn and Mulaney have been accustomed to flying by the seat of their pants. Years after they first met at Seth Meyers' wedding in 2013, the two reconnected and began dating in spring 2021, amid Mulaney's early sobriety following a stay in rehab for alcohol and cocaine addiction. That November they welcomed Malcolm. 'I really had no idea what kind of a father he would be, what kind of a friend he would be to me ... but the day Malcolm was born, John's whole world just lit up,' Munn says. 'Somebody once said to me, 'The first child will look like whichever parent needed them the most.' And Malcolm looks just like John. Not to be too saccharine, but looking at John looking at Malcolm, I could see all that healing happening.' Munn, meanwhile, started experiencing severe postpartum anxiety about a month after Malcolm's birth. Around December 2022 her symptoms 'lifted,' she says, but her relief didn't last long. Four months later she learned that she has luminal B, a fast-moving and aggressive breast cancer influenced by hormones, in both breasts. After a clear mammogram and testing negative for the BRCA cancer gene, Munn was diagnosed only after an MRI — which her ob-gyn ordered after determining she was high-risk for breast cancer using the free online Tyrer-Cuzick risk assessment tool — discovered a spot in her right breast. An ultrasound and several biopsies confirmed bilateral cancer. 'It was a whole other perspective, because I had been struggling with life in postpartum, and now I was so desperate to stay alive,' she says. 'From the moment I received my diagnosis, it just became a march forward.' Munn had to pull out of an action movie she was scheduled to film in Germany a week after she got her diagnosis, and she questioned whether she and Mulaney — whom she married in July 2024 — could have another child. 'What happens if I can't carry?' Munn recalls thinking. 'There were all these unknowns, but I knew where I wanted to go: alive on the other side, healthy, energetic, with a baby on the way.' After a lymph node dissection, a nipple delay procedure and a double mastectomy, Munn had 'a window' where she could do an egg retrieval before being sent into surgical menopause from having her uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries removed in a hysterectomy with oophorectomy. 'It was important to do it at that moment, but it was also scary because my type of cancer feeds on hormones, and there are a lot of hormone injections with IVF,' says Munn, who later had reconstructive surgery. Munn's doctor put her on a special IVF protocol for cancer patients and was able to retrieve seven eggs (at Munn's age, about one in 10 eggs is healthy). After the eggs were fertilized, two of the embryos were 'strong enough to be tested for abnormalities and the gender,' says Munn, whose heart, along with Mulaney's, was set on a baby girl. "I remember I was on a walk with John, and I said, 'I really don't think that I'll be okay unless we get two girl embryos. I know this puts me at risk, but I just need you to support me,'" Munn recalls. "He said, 'Whatever you need.'" That same day, Munn's doctor called and told her they had two healthy female embryos. "That was a sign for me everything was going to be okay,' says Munn, who began the process of finding a surrogate. 'The first thing I worried about was if I would be able to find somebody who would love and take care of my daughter as much as I would,' she says. 'We were so lucky to find someone so kind who we bonded with so much.' At present, Munn is savoring every moment of this life she could only dream of during her initial cancer treatment, which remains a 'constant dance with my oncologist.' Munn beamed upon her kids' arrival to set, and her attitude was consistent whether she was taking a pause to feed Méi a bottle or to light Malcolm's impromptu birthday candles over and over again for him to keep blowing out. 'I'm so grateful to be on the other side. Everything feels easy in a way,' Munn says. 'I feel so at peace. If I can stay happy and healthy, then I just want to sail into the rest of my life.' Your Friends and Neighbors is streaming now on Apple TV+. Read the original article on People
