Digital cover story: ‘The Studio'

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

There are so many things we can't agree on these days, right down to which L.A. restaurant invented the French dip sandwich. (Correct answer: Philippe the Original. It's right there in the name.)
But there is one matter, I believe, that we can all see eye to eye on, a fact that unites us as Angelenos: LAX is the earthly embodiment of hell.
I'm Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. How do you cope with what my dear friend Sal Saperstein calls 'LAX bull—'? Other than driving to Burbank, Long Beach or Orange County, or just plain driving and not getting on an airplane. Please tell me. I need to know.
The idea was simple. Talk to the four Emmy-nominated actors from the delightful Apple TV+ comedy 'The Studio' — that'd be Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O'Hara and Seth Rogen — and ask how their characters navigate and thrive in Los Angeles. We came up with about a dozen questions and then turned them loose.
We ran through a lot of orders of chicken paillard (make sure it's pounded within an inch of its life), Musso and Frank martinis and dreams of having a dish named after you at Dan Tana's in order to arrive at some answers we hope you'll enjoy and, who knows, maybe use.
Barinholtz, for instance, has never summoned someone to his house to hook him up with an IV after he hit it a bit too hard the night before. But he has friends who swear by it.
'I'll just drink a little less and not have to put a needle in my skin,' he tells me.
But you know who from 'The Studio' has done the IV thing? Evan Goldberg, one of the show's creators and, with Rogen, its co-director. Not because he was hungover, mind you. Goldberg and his wife had planned a trip, just the two of them, eight days away from their two young children (whom they love dearly) and Goldberg started coming down with something three days before they were set to leave.
On a friend's recommendation, he went to this 'weird, trendy, odd place with cool music playing,' and they hooked him up to an IV. And he didn't get sick.
'It saved my vacation,' Goldberg says.
We asked the cast to share their characters' go-to wellness tips — 'Ayurvedic,' Hahn as marketing guru Maya Mason answered, 'but only because you can s— a lot. For her, it's all about the old-school colonic' — but I learned that most of the show's strange, 'health-forward' plotlines come from Goldberg's own experiences.
'Face lasers and red-light therapy; smoothies nonstop, smoothies carried in trendy mugs with gigantic straws ... I love that stuff,' Goldberg says. 'Cryo freeze comes out, I'm hitting the cryo freeze. I've never tried the red-light therapy, but I want to.'
What's the weirdest smoothie you've tried, I ask.
'Ant,' Goldberg answers.
Excuse me?
'I had a cup of liquefied ants once,' Goldberg says. 'It was at, like, a Chinese medicine place. And my buddy, he was a rabbi at the time, and he was like, 'Let me take you to this health place to have this super healthy drink.' And it was liquefied ants. And it tasted f— terrible. And I did not feel healthier afterward.'
There is no close second place to that answer, I tell him.
'This is the first time in my life I've had the chance to share this and it felt great,' Goldberg says.
He then asks AI about the nutritional value of ants.
'They're very healthy and can provide you a boost of energy,' Goldberg tells me. 'They have essential nutrients, but it is important to know some contain toxins, so you gotta be careful.'
In other words, don't do this at home. Leave it to the professionals.