Yesterday, we posted a story describing what we learned in our hour-long sitdown with the cast and co-creators of FXX’s The League. We couldn’t fit all of the best exchanges between Paul Scheer, Nick Kroll, Mark Duplass, Katie Aselton, Stephen Ranazzisi and co-creators Jeff and Jackie Schaffer into that piece, but here are a few that just missed the cut:
On the ways in which The League resembles Entourage:
Paul Scheer: Although I have to say, the thing I think is so funny about our show is that we’re a bunch of just regular people in Chicago, yet we have to find these ways that we’re just bumping into celebrities—football celebrities.
Nick Kroll: It’s obviously the wish-fulfilment of that—a world where, it’s like if Entourage was living this crazy life where me and my dirtbag buddies are famous now, we get to meet football players and threaten them physically. That’s the craziest part.
PS: It’s like, A. We run into these football players, and when we do, it’s like there are no boundaries and often times they’re immediately our friends. In Entourage, it makes sense—they’re famous. So when Cameron Crowe or whoever comes over and is like, “Oh, I’m a fan of your movies.” We’re not. We’re like a doctor, a judge, a lawyer, a guy who works in like data entry and a real estate agent.
Mark Duplass: Are you denigrating The League’s verisimilitude in comparison to Entourage?
PS: I am. This is TIME Magazine, we need to break it down.
MD: We can’t all have such a candle as Entourage to hold us to, okay?
On having NFL stars at your fantasy draft:
PS: Well it is funny because a lot of the time too, the wish-fulfilment is definitely there, but I do like how somebody like J.J. Watt—we hire these people to hang out with us. Is that a thing now? You can hire Ochocinco for a draft?
MD: Ochocinco you can now.
Katie Aselton: And he comes at a very good price.
Stephen Ranazzisi: Terrell Owens will come for free.
MD: They need f—in’ money.
On the Exxon-FXX dispute:
Jackie Schaffer: That thing we made you guys do last week, they won’t let us air. There’s no way.
PS: Can we talk about it?… So basically, Exxon is suing FXX because they believe the X’s in Exxon and the X’s in FXX are too close.
JaS: Notice I did not say a word yes or no to answering this, he just stared talking.
PS: I mean it’s public. So we basically think it’s the dumbest thing of all time, you know like Exxon believes that’s infringing on their copyright.
MD: Those are their X’s.
Jeff Schaffer: So we happened to be shooting in Ruxin’s office when this news broke, so we just let the cameras roll.
PS: Ruxin happened to be defending Exxon in a case against a basic cable network, so we really just got into the specifics of what he was doing. He was on the side of Exxon.
JeS: And it turns out Exxon was really suing because they were so upset that DirectTV had given it to them for two week for free and then was going to charge them like $17 a month for what in reality, is just an hour of programming a week for FXX, which doesn’t even make any sense.
JaS: And Ruxin, who is the concierge to evil, understands this is a horrible, horrible slight against corporate America, who just needs an hour of comedic relief, and he’s arguing the case.
On what yesterday’s story should have been called:
PS: Please title this article: ‘You Can Suck a D—, But You Can’t Suck a C—: The Rules of TV’s The League.”
On other jealousies with fellow FX shows:
KA: Kaitlin [Olsen] has the best leather jackets on that show. She has great wardrobe, I’m just going to throw that out there. I’m jealous of her wardrobe.
JaS: I got upset that they had like the American Apparel 50-50 tees, and our merchandising would come out and it was be like bad Ft. Lauderdale airport, Spring Break crap.
KA: Oversized…
MD: XL Hanes Beefy Tee.
JeS: I wish. We were looking way up at Hanes Beefies.
On the best possible night for someone wearing a McGibblets costume:
KA: Yeah for a football game in Dallas, we all went out to a bar that night. They didn’t know we were going to be there, and we showed up and there was a McGibblets guy.
PS: Two, right?
JaS: They were literally doing a costume contest at this local Dallas bar, and they all walk in and the guy is entering the costume contest as McGibblets.
SR: He lost his mind.
MD: We all experienced it and it was all very surreal, we didn’t know how to say it. And then the McGibblets guy left and we were quiet for a second, and then Steve was like, “In no world in his mind when he put that costume on did he think that in Dallas, at this bar he could encounter the entire cast of The League.”
SR: Not even just one of us. All six of us were sitting there.
JaS: Like when he went online and payed $59.99, that was the best-case scenario of what could ever happen to that costume.
NK: Oh, there’s probably a couple other things that could have happened.
SR: Probably get laid.
JaS: A plushy fantasy.
SR: DP… Double-pen.
NK: Oh that’s what it is?
SR: Just clearing it up for TIME.com
KA: I told you we’re not classy enough to be in this building, from the beginning.
On the cast’s favorite couch to shoot on:
MD: My favorite place to shoot—we don’t shoot there much anymore, but there’s a special set of stages that are… in a not-so-expensive area of town, so we can get a good rate. And there’s a lovely yellow couch, that you may have seen in some of the party scenes, and I love shooting on that couch.
KA: We shot the Christmas episode there where we were playing charades.
MD: And we got a special image sent to us of another piece of art that had previously filmed on that stage—I guess we can print that on TIME.com, right?
SR: It was a filthy porn.
MD: I wouldn’t say filthy. It was an 11-inch rocket ship being inserted into something that we don’t even want to talk about. And that scene had been shot six months prior to us shooting there, all hanging on that couch all day.
KA: There’s literally a side-by-side shot of me sitting on that couch in a dress.
On the genesis of the Ruxin-Pete dynamic:
NK: I go into a room with Mark, and like a lot of auditions we do over the years are sort of improvising and you feel each other out. And I’m used to being to go in and have fun but also challenge—just be smarter than the person I’m in the scene with.
JeS: You’re used to winning.
NK: And I sat down with Mark and we were arguing in the scene, and I was like—I can’t out-logic him. And it was a very disconcerting feeling, but also very exciting, that it was like, “Oh, they’re bringing together these people who are right around my world, but not exactly my world.” and to see it all—
MD: Here’s a little secret I never told you—they already knew this about you before you came in the room. They already knew that you are extremely powerful and intelligent in this way, and my job was to see in any way possible if we could shut you down. Like they armed me with that specifically.
JeS: But it was so exciting to see it work.
JaS: And that’s exactly the what the dynamic of Ruxin and Pete is supposed to be on the show, which is, arguably Ruxin is probably the most educated in terms of secondary education, he’s probably got the highest-paying job, but he’s not revered in the group and that drives him crazy. But there’s something sado-masochistic about it, which we actually explore in his porn fetishes this year that he likes to watch with his dog. But there’s something about it that he loves—that he loves getting shit from the group that he probably doesn’t get from work or anywhere else.
On self-censorship:
JaS: That’s where FX doesn’t even need to get involved and we go, “No, we’re not putting this in there.” Every so often, we know we’ve gone too far and they don’t even have to tell us.
JeS: You can hear the take and just hear us on the monitors going, “Nooooo.” It’s always a sad no.
JaS: Sometimes it’s a laughing no.
JeS: “We would never stomp on your creativity, but I know we can’t do that.”
JaS: It’s us laughing going, “God we wish we could do that.”
SR: Nick never asks, he just does it. Sandusky’s back massages. Ariel Castro…
MD: Ariel Castro is in!
NK: Gotta take cuts, know what I mean? Gotta take cuts.
KA: Killing babies, just killing babies
MD: It’s usually you who has something timely and your face gets really red before it comes out.
JaS: I appreciate Nick’s moral compass because there are a couple times where he’ll stop himself and go, “I’m sorry about that.”
KA: Steve doesn’t stop himself.
JaS: There’s been a couple times where you go, “Oh my god, there is a moral compass,” it’s just very, very deep inside you.
NK: Yeah, closed mouths don’t eat.