CHARLES ROGERS, JEFFERY SELF & THE TROUPE OF JEST

Swaying between reality, fantasy, sentimentality and sarcasm, the two particularly in-tune buds swap jokes, memories and more — touching on everything from stoned food nights to the psychedelic nature of Mrs. Doubtfire the Musical and learning how to make a cult show.

With its sharp, visionary writing across its five, riveting seasons, the Search Party universe has birthed a generation of extraordinary comedic-dramatic performers, cementing itself as one of Buds Digest’s most notable inspirations. And while Search Party will be missed, the troupe’s continued search for enlightenment is guaranteed to impact media forever.

CHARLES ROGERS: Well, first of all, it's so funny to Zoom with you. I just wanna say that. 

JEFFERY SELF: This is weird to talk on the phone to you, as well – or anyone for that matter that isn't my mom or my therapist.

CR: I do sometimes send you voice notes and then I feel like you're wondering whats wrong with me.

JS: I know that when you send a voice memo, it’s clear that you're deeply going through something.

CR: It's me talking about something that happened at CVS.

JS: Yeah. Sure, let's go with that. You’re still repped by CVS?

CR: Oh, yeah. I just left Walgreens, but I'm at CVS. Walgreens just wasn't doing it for me.

JS: That was a big thing with the whole writer's strike and Walgreens… The packaging. 

CR: Yeah. Well, they were writing with toothbrushes. It was just not working out.

JS: No, no, no, no, honey. I did have dental floss – an overall deal – for many years. And they just, they wanted me to do too much. They wanted me to work twice a day. 

CR: Yeah, you gotta floss twice a day. I know.

JS: I had to go down to Duane Reade. I'm gonna give you five guesses as to what I had to buy. I needed one thing and they didn't have it.

CR: Vodka.

JS: No, but good guess.

CR: White wine.

JS: No, I'm gonna go ahead and help you out…

CR: Weed? 

JS: Nope, got that.

CR: Trazodone.

JS: I've got that. You wear it. Something you wear.

CR: Marc Jacobs. 

JS: It's not Marc Jacobs. I had to try to buy underwear! I dropped off my laundry on Thursday and then I forgot to go pick it up until today. But it's Sunday and they're closed. I have to leave at five-thirty in the morning for work and I'm out of underwear. 

CR: That’s the problem with New York. The simplest things are impossible. You can't even buy underwear. But that's the price you pay to eat at Balthazar, surrounded by other people not wearing underwear. 

JS: I mean obviously I could walk to a store that you would buy underwear at, but I don't wanna travel tonight to go buy underwear to wear tomorrow morning. So, I went down there to get cheap underwear from the drug store and they only had double extra large. 

CR: You should have bought a sewing machine. They do have those at CVS.

JS: They have sewing machines, they have spinning wheels, they have Rumpelstiltskin. They have…

CR: It's just the FAO Schwarz from Big. Wait. I feel like we should be talking about being gay. Quick. Tell me about when you came out.

JS: Well, speaking of Rumpelstiltskin, he was my first top. I was tasked with spinning straw into gold or else I wouldn't be able to keep my first baby. So, I was in this dungeon doing that and he shows up and I'm like, “Okay, you're hot.” He fucks me and a couple days later I've got (A) tons of straw into gold and (B) I'm gay. 

CR: You know how I know this story's true.

JS: How?

CR: The second you left his apartment, you couldn't even guess his name.

JS: You had to remember his name or you would be gay.

CR: You have to say his name three times while he’s topping you.

JS: I love that you were emboldened by jewelry.

CR: I remember my dad was friends with the jeweler for some reason. We would always go into his jewelry shop and he'd tell us to pick something out. I'd always pick out something like a palm tree or something that a kid would like. I have a distinct memory of wearing the ring and drinking a cup of apple juice while my parents were watching David Letterman and grabbing the cup like Betty Davis, basically. Just grabbing it with the energy of tens of thousands of years of archetypal women and just being like, “Well, this feels right.”

JS: “And you're all flops! Each and every one of you!”

CR: All gay kids are possessed by the ghosts of out of work actors.

JS: That's very sweet. Did Miss Rosie tell everybody?

CR: She probably did. I mean, what else was she living for? Actually, it does remind me of another thing. When I was in eighth grade, you got paired up with a junior who would be your "mentor" and the school forced you to be friends. The teacher who was in charge of pairing students up told me in this really knowing way, "I think you and Logan will find that you have a LOT in common!" and then lo and behold my mentor, Logan was clearly gay. It was obviously meant to be a good thing but I felt so like "fuck you, how dare you have my number".

JS: What did you do this weekend?

CR: I just flew to Austin to be with my family. I spent the whole week recovering from our Halloween party. And then I hung out with your husband and our friends Gideon Glick and Perry Dubin – went to Perry's birthday party.

JS: Oh, did you come to Republique?

CR: Yeah, it was really nice. You were missed.

JS: I was sad to not be there. I'm in New York and on Thursday night when y'all were doing that, I got super, super, super stoned and went to see Mrs. Doubtfire the musical on Broadway. 

CR: I'm scared to hear about it.

JS: So, in act two, Mrs. Doubtfire is like, “Oh, I've gone too far, I don't wanna be Mrs. Doubtfire.” And has this sort of number: Am I gonna be stuck with Mrs. Doubtfire forever? And they do this really fun thing that I genuinely loved. Now, mind you, there had been an intermission and I'd gone out and smoked more. There was a scene, literally everyone in the entire cast dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire and they are all marching on stage with these brooms in this menacing sort of stormtrooper way. And they're like, “You'll always be Mrs. Doubtfire! You’ll always be…” It was genuinely terrifying. 

CR: Doubtfire nation. 

JS: So brilliant. I’m all for it. I want more of that. More of that in all shows.

CR: That was definitely the first thing they thought of.

JS: My one complaint was that the entire cast was in Mrs. Doubtfire costumes, except for the two little kids and I thought it would've been funnier if the little girl was all of a sudden a teeny-tiny Mrs. Doubtfire.

CR: That would be cute. I haven't watched the movie in a while, but for some reason, it's a movie that everyone has seen over a hundred times. And the last time I watched it, I was struck by how crazy it is that Sally Field is like, “Which dress should I wear to this date?” And Mrs. Doubtfire is like, “Well, you'll just look like a slut in this,” and she's like, “Oh, okay.” You have to fire this woman. You can't let this woman, who calls you a slut, take care of your kids. It's almost like who is the more unfit parent?

JS: 100%. She just lets this woman into her life and immediately moves on. First day, she’s like, have at it, enjoy the kids.

CR: So ready to not be a mom.

JS: The musical definitely makes you want to go home and watch the movie again.

CR: That movie would never get made today. Which is maybe for the best, actually. Imagine vacuuming to 'Dude Looks Like A Lady'.

JS: I highly recommend a trip to Mrs. Doubtfire the Musical, stoned.

JS: So, you created Search Party with Sarah-Violet Bliss. That was how long ago?

CR: God, I was thinking about it today. We shot the pilot in 2015. Isn't that insane? That was six years ago. How long have I known you? Have I known you since 2014? Seven years.

JS: We met in a “general meeting.”

CR: At a vegan Mexican restaurant. Sarah-Violet was there. You and her just talked about Blue Jasmine the whole time and I thought you were so cool and it made me withhold. And then afterwards SV told me that I should date you.

JS: Was I single at the time? Probably.

CR: No. I think you were with, um…

JS: The Australian. I had a big food night last night. I got stoned and had a big food night. Do you like to get really stoned and have a food night?

CR: Very few times have I felt extra yummy energy from being high. I don't feel that like other people do. If I'm too high, I'm more overwhelmed by the idea of trying to eat something.

CR: My theory about that is that I think that Gen Z – not to date us – but I think that Gen Z is not used to 20-somethings playing high schoolers. Everything up until now was always 20-somethings playing high schoolers. Now, they have high schoolers playing high schoolers and they don't know that it's americana to do it.

JS:  Then I had sesame chicken, so many egg rolls, and scallion pancakes.

CR: Where did you order from?

JS: Some place called Hunan Village. 

CR: The Hunan Village in Hell’s Kitchen is like, you could have named any other restaurant in New York…

JS: I guarantee you it's in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis. Then I had the vegan peanut butter ice cream from Van Leeuwen. It was a great night, but let's circle back to Search Party, the television show that we are both involved in. We just finished the new season. 

CR: Season 5. The last season, which I have not even wrapped my head around yet, but it's for the best.

JS: You've been doing it now since 2015. What do you feel is the biggest part of your life that's changed since you began the show? 

CR: I think I became an adult. I will always feel like a kid deep down of course, but I was so scared of all of it, of doing it, of going through the motions of it, of proving myself. It was a very big class in learning who I am for myself. And I learned how to make a show. That's the other thing. 

JS: Do you feel a lot older than you did six years ago?

CR: I just feel like I know myself more. I don't feel older in the sense of being more tired or anything. Anything that makes me anxious, I feel like I probably didn't know exactly where it was coming from back then, but now I know why I feel what I feel, and that's such a relief.

JS: You’re more of a label machine now.

CR: Yeah, and then once you label everything in the house, you're finally at peace.

JS: You can walk around and know what a doorknob is, what the cabinets are…

CR: Label your wife. Label your kids. Label your internal organs. And then sit back and take a deep breath because there's no way life will ever trick you ever again. What about you? How do you feel about the fact that…

JS: I feel much older than I did when we started it in 2015. Right around that time, I met Augie. I mean, basically, I was married to him the next week.

CR: We were all disappointed in you. It was weird and fucked up that you guys got married.

JS: TBS almost didn't pick up the show because of it. I feel like so much has happened in that time. Because so much time had passed between the last season and this one, it felt like such a shift in how I felt as a human between that fourth and fifth season. I think a lot of that has to do with my lobotomy and that's sort of what I'm here to talk about today.

CR: I will say one of the nice things about the whole process of making the show has been getting closer with you. You've become one of my best friends in the whole world. That's a really nice part of the journey.

JS: It's been nice because we've had this friendship in our lives when we're not doing the show and it's fun, fun time. And then we have this weird anchor of professional work time in the middle of it and it's a nice balance of hanging out fully coherent and hanging out incoherent.

CR: Absolutely. It's so sad that now it's just incoherent times.

JS: I think to close this out, we should explain what you did for my bachelor party.

CR: Oh, you're right. Truly one of my favorite memories of you. You had a bachelor party with a group of our close friends, four years ago, in Palm Springs. I organized with a couple friends to have a secret stripper come at nine in the morning and wake you up. A male stripper came in a police outfit and I ran into your room and I woke you up and I said, “Jeffrey, Jeffrey, the cops are here. Somebody hit your car. It's a mess. You have to fix all of it.” You got up real fast and this guy, who was very much in a stripper outfit – like short shorts…

JS: He wasn't even wearing a real police outfit. He was wearing a swat team jacket…

CR: It was sleeveless. And you walk up to him and shake his hand and go, “Hello, officer, how can I help?”

JS: I talked to him for a second before I realized he was there to strip. I asked him if I could go brush my teeth before we do this. Then it was just the most uncomfortable stripping experience. There was only one girl there and the stripper was clearly straight.  

CR: We played Broadway tunes the whole time for him to dance to. Honestly, every straight man should have to do this. It's reverse conversion therapy.

JS: I forgot we made him strip to Hello, Dolly. He kept saying, “This is really hard to do.” And it's true. Stripping to Hello, Dolly is really hard to do.

CR: There's no business like show business. I think that sums it all up for our friendship.

JS: Well, Charles, I love you very much. 

CR: I love you too.

JS: I hope we get to get stoned and take photos on the beach in Malibu in very cool outfits again.

CR: Me too. That relies on this magazine.

JS: Yeah, good luck transcribing this by the way.