Our next guest may not dance, but he has done it all in Hollywood.

Peyton Oswald is best known for playing Spencer Olsen in the CBS sitcom The King of Queens and for lending his voice to cartoon characters.

His stand up comedy show Annihilation, nominated for an Emmy Award, is touring the U.K. and the US this summer.

And it's a lesson in heroism in the face of adversity.

He spoke to our Hari Sreenivasan about his career and healing grief with laughter.

So while you're not doing standup, you're on, I don't know, six, seven TV shows, a movie or two.

So, yeah, I've got a movie was coming out, so that was animated.

The Secret Life of Pets, too.

Yeah, I did voiceover for us.

So that was a little more manageable than all that TV shows that I was doing.

That's still acting.

It's still very active.

It's very active.

But at least I didn't have to get into makeup and, you know, get in a costume.

I could show up in sweatpants.

So that's good.

Is that why most of Hollywood loves the voiceover gig?

They stay in sweatpants.

Voiceover is such a relief from me.

Okay.

Make sure your camera ready.

Make sure you're wired to make sure you're miked.

Or is our costume correct?

Voiceover is more.

Okay.

Are we are we in the character?

Good.

Let's go.

Let's take a look at a clip from that.

Ooh, first time here.

Uh, yeah.

Dr. Francis is the best veterinarian in that business.

You're gonna love him.

He specializes in behavioral disorders.

Behavioral disorders?

Yeah, but I don't have a behavioral disorder.

I mean.

I mean, I worry a little, sure.

But it's a dangerous world.

You'd be crazy not to worry.

Yeah, I'm fine, too.

It's.

It's by human.

That's.

That's.

I mean, you know, I. I bring a redhead, but she throws it out I bring her a dead mouse.

Right?

That garbage is not the.

Yeah, I don't go it that for your mother.

Okay.

It's an interesting premise.

Yeah.

I mean, well, it's especially interesting in that it's an animated movie where it's such a strong ensemble.

It's not just the one character.

I mean, obviously, I have a whole story where my character goes to a farm, which you would think he'd be very excited.

But then Kevin Hart is amazing in it.

His funny character.

Yeah.

I mean, first bunny washboard abs.

Jenny Slate.

Any plans today?

Eric Stonestreet.

We're going on a trip.

Really?

Harrison Ford.

First voiceover role.

Really?

Are you scared?

No.

No, I'm not.

Now you're talking.

You're not standing in a room together.

You're doing it with first time.

No, I'm not.

I was not in a room with Harrison Ford.

We are you know, the director was in France, so we were on Skype, was on Skype with him.

And then, you know, Harrison did it.

So everyone it's all technology.

Everybody can be everywhere and you can assemble them for an animated film.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Now, you are also you just finished up the second season of A.P.

Bio.

That's a show on NBC.

Yes.

You did work, girl on the one end.

You did Archer on maybe the other end.

Yeah.

That you've got now.

Happy.

How do I get one of these?

What are you now?

You're you're an animated horse or I'm an animated flying unicorn.

Pegasus imaginary friend, a blue horse.

You know, I mean, that not that I'm going to compare a word girl with happy because they're not the same thing.

But, you know, performance wise, you are playing these very, no pun intended.

Cartoonishly big.

Yeah, kind of.

No, boundaries, style character.

So you have to kind of bring the same thing to to both of those.

I don't really think of it in terms of, oh, well, this is a comedy show and this is an adult show.

I want to serve whatever the material is, you know, do the best thing I can with it.

And there were really, really funny, cool, hidden things on Wordgirl.

And there's very, very heartfelt sweet stuff on Happy.

You're also a comic book and sci fi fiend on a significant level.

Yes.

When did that start?

When I was a little, little kid.

I like superheroes and science fiction, but it wasn't until high school when it was like the 12 punch of discovering Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Harvey Pekar is American Splendor.

That I really felt like, oh, there's a whole other form of literature that's being reborn or at least being reinterpreted.

And that felt really because I remember at the time I was studying poets like you would read T.S.

Eliot and James Joyce, and you were taught that at the time this was a river illusionary thing, that when it dropped, when the Wasteland appeared, it, you know, literature was not the same afterward when when, you know, Howl appeared in the sixties.

So I had never been able to be alive and experience a thing that that appears and then changes the form of something.

So seeing that in what people assume was a very disposable art form, comic books was very exciting to me that suddenly these these multilevel darker interpretations were being put on a cartoon character like Batman was was really exciting to see.

And then also to see the form of comic books being used to tell these very everyday, non heroic stories.

The way that Harvey Pekar was doing.

It was also incredible for me.

Yeah, there is a I remember there's an outtake that you had at Parks and Rec where you did an improv, and it's like 4 million views on YouTube already, but you just go I'm assuming it was improv because nobody else could have written what came out of your mouth.

Please allow me to finish this, because it's going to seem like a bit of a jump.

We see Thanos, who was the villain, teased at the end of the first Avengers movie.

Now, Thanos, as you know, owned the Infinity Gantlet, which has the time.

Jim, the mind, Jim the Power.

Jim the space.

Jim and the reality.

Jim.

That's just the stuff that's going around in your head, floating around like you actually just I don't know enough about Marvel and DC and the Avengers and everything else where you are, but I think that that floating around in everyone's head on some level or another, we use stories, whether they're false you know what I mean?

False.

I mean fictional, like a myth or a heroic story in Epic, a comic book or even the stories that I think.

But like like a sports fan will put on their team or a certain players journey that they love that, you know, that kind of heroic, right?

You know, fall and rise over and over again.

I think we use those to make sense of everyday life and everyday pressures where you feel so on heroic a lot of days going, I am being I being ground down by the pressure of having to get my car fixed.

And you want to feel like, well, I could face the pressure of having to save the universe, but it's the day to day stuff that actually that we overcome that makes us heroic.

Why do standup?

I mean, you've got enough work to keep you busy.

What makes you go back to stand it?

Because standup is so much fun.

It's so much fun.

I love the form.

I love the hang.

I love working with other comedians.

I love the fact that it is it is the I think one of the last no comedy creative posts left where you it's what I think.

And I go up there and I talk and I'm not running it by other people.

I mean, if I do run it by other people, it's by other comedians.

And we're doing it for fun and riffing off of each other.

Yeah.

And that to me, it's just constant fun.

I can't imagine anything that would be more vulnerable than doing standup because when you're not funny, it's just you.

It said, yeah, said there's no committee.

You screwed up.

You didn't make it on you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there is it.

But but there's two sides of that because there is a vulnerability to stand up in that you are up there and it is on you, whether it, whether it succeeds or fails.

Yeah, but you do have a lot of advantages in that you are on stage you're above the audience, there's a light on you, your voice is amplified.

So you are coming at it from your bets have been hedged a little bit and you would think that if people have shown up for the show, they want to laugh, they want you to do well.

They're not showing up to go, oh, I hope this guy turns out I get to what you know, they so you have a lot going for you.

And then I think that comfort zone is what helps you become more vulnerable and honest and open on stage.

Your last stand up dealt with some of the current day events and then also some other stuff.

Let's just take a look at a clip from that.

Annihilation is what it was called on Netflix.

I'm genuinely surprised that you're in such a good mood, especially with what I'm sure you guys saw what just went down on Twitter like 5 minutes ago.

Did you you didn't see that?

No, I'm kidding.

Nothing happened.

But that's that's the world we're living in right now, basically, is every.

Oh, what did he do?

What?

Wait, what do you mean, I almost feel like I could get out of a mugging using that for the next couple of years.

Like if someone put a gun in my face, give me your wallet, you know, to take my keys, man.

It's over.

Go check Twitter.

What I just pulled.

Like, I can make it just suffice.

It's true.

And that couple of years is still going.

Yeah, it's really weird how this thing, Twitter, which was a very fun distraction.

Now it's like it feels like the fate of civilization hangs on Twitter into hell, which is not what I think it was meant to be.

Yeah.

You know, Facebook, Twitter, a way to connect us has also refocused us in some really, really bad ways.

And I think it's almost affected the rhythms of conversation.

And I fear that it's affected the rhythms of thought and how we approach problems.

And it's why someone like you, like someone who's older, like an Elizabeth Warren or, you know, sound so refreshing because they don't necessarily have the the Twitter syntax in their voice.

You know, like, oh, this person, that sounds like they know what they're talking what?

Because they're not talking in these weird, you know, limited character blips.

There's a kind now famous episode where somebody who wrote back to you in a harsh way, Michael Beatty, you ended up taking a very different tone and response to this.

Tell us a little bit about what happened.

Well, this guy, Michael Beatty, was, you know, just writing.

I forgot what he wrote, something vicious about, you know, because I'd said either something about Trump, my first thing was I wrote something back very snarky.

And then I, I don't know why, but I looked through his timeline and he was like, oh, my God, this guy's actually like he had facing all these health problems.

He's a veteran.

So I said, okay, let's maybe if we try to help them out.

And what I was saying was like, people like Bernie Sanders and all these people that you hate or actually they want to make the world better for you so that you can, you know, if you if you are sick or you are wounded, you can deal with it with some dignity without having to beg.

Like it's it's embarrassing that America has go fund means and Indiegogo is we America should be run the way like small gangsters run their neighborhoods where they brag about someone's he gets cut off in my neighborhood some little old lady I take care of that but like that's what we should be we shouldn't be bragging about the amount of weapons we have or the amount of strength we should brag about in our country go fund me had to close its doors because no one needs any more because when someone gets sick, we take care.

Like, are we?

We have things in place where no one has to go begging.

What were the details of his life that caught your attention?

He had he was a veteran who was he had suffered some kind of like a health problem, health problems with septic shock.

It was it was just really bad.

And he was like he was in a bad way.

And I was like, let's meet his his is go fund me goals so he can live with some dignity.

And, you know, unfortunately, that I've seen him since on Twitter, the way he responds to all these kind of going back to his sort of MAGA, which is like but, you know, but it was like it wasn't so much trying to yes, I was trying to help him, but I was also like maybe the act itself will get signal boosted in other people.

And by the way, I was inspired by Sarah Silverman basically did the same thing a year before where a guy came after her.

And then he she went through his timeline.

I said, oh, my God, this guy's back is all messed up and there's no one there to help him.

Can anyone like, you know, she just was like, oh, maybe I'm going to try that.

So so and again, I don't know if she changed this person's mind, but it was like her act made me do that, and maybe more people will do that.

Yeah.

One of the things that came out of your annihilation stand up and Netflix, the last one was you figured out a very strange way to help the audience laugh about a personal tragedy of yours, the passing of your wife.

Mother's Day will be at the airport and will travel.

And I'll make that day really fun and I'll fill that with adventure and I'll keep her mind off it all day and we'll be home and we'll deal with this all again next year, step by step.

So now we're at the airport.

We're walking up to the security gate, and I think I pulled this off.

Here's what he here's your ticket.

Give me your check.

She loves to hand up her ticket here, and it's like, Oh, here's your ticket.

She gives the lady your ticket.

I give the gate lady my ticket.

She's a very old, sweet Polish woman.

And we're walking onto the plane just as we're about to go down the tunnel.

Her hand falls on my shoulder and she says, I hear what happened to your wife.

She looks at Alice to your to your mother.

To be without your mother on Mother's Day.

I, I, my mother died when I was your age.

I never get over it.

I never I was still so sad.

My father never get over it.

It broke him.

He'd die alone.

And but one night when you are sad, what I tell myself is that also there are so many other sad people there's a section of that.

Maybe the last 15, 20 minutes where you could hear a pin drop.

It was almost like a bizarre, cathartic moment where people are just wondering what's happening here.

And and the rousing applause you get at the end, right?

It's.

They witness something happening.

It was really warming because I think they witnessed me being really, really frightened on stage and being in silence that long.

For a comedian, it is really terrifying and not knowing if you're going to pull out of it.

And even though at that point I have been doing this the show long enough that set and that material that I felt like I knew where the laughs were, even though there was long silences, I'm like, well, but there was still a fear in me that when I would get there doing the show and where everyone's seen the cameras, everything, and I had a fear the audience would go.

Now, this isn't cool.

I don't want to watch this, and we shouldn't be laughing at this.

Like I still.

So I didn't know that it would work until after it worked.

And it was really, really nerve wracking for me.

Yeah.

And you were very public about your grieving process, or at least there was a lot of information that was out there about it.

I know that you didn't obviously grieve completely in public, but why did you do that?

Because a lot of the stuff that got me through it were from people that had grieved in public beforehand, and they either wrote it down or I read C.S.

Lewis as a grief observed.

I was reading a lot of Annie Lamott and these those people were brave enough to very much put their grieving out there.

Sure.

Cheryl Strayed was another one of just whatever shipwreck they found themselves in they went, Well, I'm going to do this publicly, so maybe someone else can have a something.

So I kind of did that, like thinking maybe this will help someone else and then did the special the way that I did it, thinking Will down the road, maybe someone else will go through this and they can look at this and it doesn't need to be hidden.

No, I think we hide too much disease and grief.

So then when it hits other people, they feel like, well, I've never seen this happen, so I must be the only person going through this.

And it feels way more dire than it needs to be, you know?

And I was very lucky that, you know, I had it.

I and Alice had a grief group to go to so we could, you know, work through this stuff.

And it was not easy.

You talk about your daughter Alice in the stand up quite a bit and then other things.

How what have you learned about dealing with grief watching her go through it?

What she was the first thing that I learned was that children are way more resilient than adults, that children bounce back from stuff and turn turn damage and trauma into positive things way quicker than we do.

And I think mainly because they still see the world is new and newer and newer stuff coming on.

And I think as you get older, you like, well, I've seen a lot of this before and this grief is going to I don't know what new is coming down the pike for me.

So it sounds like she's helping you more than you.

Oh, she helped me again.

I remember three days into it or four days into it.

We were up all night.

We couldn't sleep at night was.

And then my daughter, who was, you know, was seven at the time, said When your mom dies, you're the best memory of her.

Everything you do as a memory of her, she said that, wow.

And I wrote it a rent I ran and I got a piece paper and I wrote that down.

But that was this.

And it wasn't her like coming up with something profound or.

No, her that was conclusive that she had been thinking of for days and how do I say this and how to articulate this.

It was amazing.

Was amazing.

You hit it like that was a huge help for me.

Because it made me look at her a different way of like, you know, this is not this fragile kid that has it.

She wants to go and be in the sunlight and experience life in order to assuage the grief of losing her mom.

Yeah, like the better the life she lives, the better it is for the memory of her mom that knows.

Well, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, man.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.