Clayton Davis: Have you ever wondered what it's like to be on the set of a hit TV show?

Billy Bob Thornton: All I use as an actor is my life experience.

Clayton: Variety Studio invites you to listen in as A-listers break down the ins and outs of creating characters for the small screen.

Kathryn Hahn: I couldn't believe I got to do it.

It was just delish.

Clayton: With Sterling K. Brown and Natasha Rothwell, Kathryn Hahn and Kate Hudson, and Kathy Bates and Billy Bob Thornton.

Clayton: Welcome to Variety Studio "Actors on Actors."

I'm Clayton Davis.

Angelique Jackson: And I'm Angelique Jackson.

In this episode, we're hearing from the actors who starred in some of this year's most binge-worthy TV shows.

Clayton: As they reveal how they pulled off their memorable performances.

Clayton: Two of the year's most complex performances come courtesy of Sterling K. Brown and Natasha Rothwell, actors who know how to make audiences laugh, cry, and feel deeply seen.

Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown brings quiet intensity and emotional clarity as he faces world-changing events in "Paradise."

Xavier Collins: Sir, Terri is still in Atlanta.

They had her on the first flight out so CFA grounded everything, which I just found out because the cell phone towers are overrun, calls are dropping, not getting through, so I didn't know for like the last 10 minutes.

Now she's stuck there and you said that you were gonna get her a plane.

male: Agent Collins, calm down.

Where are your kids?

Xavier: At school, I think with your son.

male: Okay, then they're right where they need to be.

They're gonna get picked up with the other P-sci kids.

You can see them on the plane, okay?

Clayton: Natasha Rothwell headlines in the dramedy, "How to Die Alone," confronting reinvention after a near-death experience.

Melissa: I don't really feel much like a hero.

Terrance: What's up?

Melissa: Really trying to change, Terrance.

I keep hitting wall after wall after wall, and it's like I'm stuck.

And I don't want to give up, but it hurts.

Clayton: Rothwell also provides a scene-stealing performance, returning for a second season of "The White Lotus."

Belinda Lindsey: You go back in there and you tell him your mother takes things very personal.

She doesn't trust him, okay?

And if we don't make a deal, and we don't get the money, who knows what I'll do.

Zion Lindsey: Look at you playing hardball.

Yes, Mom.

Belinda: Tell him that your mother's a very honest lady, okay?

But he better come through.

He wants us to be scared, but we gotta make him scared, okay?

Sterling K. Brown: "Lotus," talk to me about the first season, getting that job.

Was it already having, like, a foothold in the HBO world that was helpful or completely independent of it?

Natasha Rothwell: I think I was in the family because of "Insecure," but it was 2020, like, peak COVID, pre-vaccination, and I think they were just like, who is dumb enough to leave their house right now?

And just, it was just a meeting with Mike White and I've been a fan of his, like, "Chuck and Buck," "Freaks and Geeks," like, obsessed with him for a long time so I was just like, yeah, I'll take a meeting.

Didn't know what it was about and then the meeting ended and the next day my agent called me and was just like, yeah, so he would love for you to play Belinda and I'm just, I hadn't seen a script, didn't know.

I was just like, "What?

Let's just pump the brakes a little bit.

Tell me a little bit more about it," and then I saw some scripts, and I think we both share a lot of the same hyphenates.

We're both writers, directors, actors, and so I was able to meet him as just like a fangirling over his writing.

And so I think that kind of helped it.

I want to talk about "Paradise."

Sterling: Okay, let's talk about it.

Natasha: How did you come to the project and are you as scared for the fate of humanity as I am?

Sterling: It's a great question.

So, Dan Fogelman is the writer-creator.

He's also the writer-creator of "This Is Us."

Natasha: A small little show.

You had something to do with that, I hear.

Sterling: I was on it.

I was on it.

And he said, "Look, man, I was writing this thing as I was going along.

I think I was writing it with your voice in mind.

Take a look at it.

If you respond to it, great.

If not, no big deal."

I responded to it because I wanted to know what happened next, you know what I'm saying?

I was like, "Well, yeah, I gotta do the show, so I can figure it out.

Natasha: But it's so totally different from "This Is Us," so to have that kind of artistry expressed by the same man, were you kind of caught off guard by that or you knew he had the capacity for a "Paradise"?

Sterling: I knew he had the capacity for anything and it was a sort of familial environment too because a lot of our crew from "This Is Us" carries over into "Paradise."

About 70% of the crew from the show is still with us, right?

So there's a familiarity and, like, just comfort that I have with everybody.

That allows--like, it made sense right now.

I think that what I do and what my ministry are, are parallel things but they're slightly different.

I feel like my ministry is to love and to share love in whatever form that it can come through and then the occupation that the universe, God, has given me right now is acting and so I can share love whether through the character or on set, and try to create an environment that is loving and that people want that love to be there.

Natasha: Yeah, same.

That's what--that was "White Lotus" for me.

I remember season one after I had wrapped and I pulled Mike aside and I was, like, emotional because I went to school for acting like you went to school for acting, we contain multitudes, but my entry point into the industry was comedy and as a writer, "SNL," and so like for me, it's so hard to get the industry to see all of me and so for Mike to give me Belinda, I was just like you opened up a cage that I felt the edges of, you know, and so.

Sterling: I think for me, I look at this acting thing as sort of controlled schizophrenia in that there's so many people inside of me and each character gives me an opportunity to let one aspect of self, you know what I'm saying?

That is my thought.

Is writing easy?

Natasha: I'm--.

Sterling: I find it painful sometimes.

Natasha: I love it and I also love acting, but it's just like they're two itches, different scratches, you know?

And so being able to have the power of the pen, it's intoxicating to be in control of the story and then it's an all reminder also that I have that power in real life.

Sterling: Is this a good segue into "How to Die Alone"?

Because you're able to take advantage of the heat, I guess, behind you and your name right now and get something made and I know how hard it is to get anything actually on the air.

Talk to me a little bit about just the feeling of getting something made.

Natasha: Woo, I didn't think it would happen.

I worked on the show for 8 years.

Sterling: Eight years.

So you're--while you're doing "Insecure."

Natasha: Multiple administrations came in and out of office.

Various versions of the show existed but nothing was, I mean it's still the same show at its DNA, but yeah, I was just trying to find a home for it and went through the process, but with that show in particular it's just like that needs to be seen by people because I think it can help someone and so I felt very much called to let it breathe when I needed to but it was--I knew it was never done.

I knew I needed to sort of fight for it.

Sterling: So in being in production, being the creator, being the runner or whatnot, like, number one on the call sheet, all this stuff like that, what was the experience?

Like, was it a--was it joyous?

Was it arduous?

Was it everything?

Was it what?

Natasha: It was all the things.

It was all the things.

I remember saying on set because people were just constantly surprised by the relentless energy I had and I do believe there's something that happens to you when you're walking in your calling and your purpose.

It doesn't make sense to the human mind of being able to be number one on the call sheet, executive produce, be picking out props, costumes, going to the show and tell, doing all this stuff, and it almost fed me in a way where I'm like, oh yeah, this is what I'm meant to be doing.

I'm meant to be, like, the slow clap.

No, but that's just real.

And so for me, I also know that I have to love the thing that I do that for.

Sterling: Sure, that makes sense.

Natasha: So, I don't think I could have done what I did if it weren't mine, do you know what I mean?

Because I knew that that needed to be out there.

Sterling: Yeah, absolutely.

Angelique: Our next two actors played best friends looking for love in the classic rom-com movie, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."

Now, Kathryn Hahn and Kate Hudson are bringing their comedy chops to the small screen.

Emmy nominee Kathryn Hahn plays the wickedly entertaining witch, Agatha Harkness, who goes from the world of "WandaVision" to being the lead of her own show, "Agatha All Along."

[chuckling] Agatha Harkness: Got it.

Got it.

Let's go find the next trial.

Last one there is a nice person.

Angelique: Hahn also brings her dry wit to "The Studio" as an eccentric marketing executive.

Maya Mason: All right, everyone, this meeting is gonna be a vibe.

Alphabet City has really got our engines revving, pun very much intended, and we think we can have a really dope run in theaters and really break through the clutter, and we are mad hyped to show you our early concepts.

male: That's what we're here for, so let's get to it.

Maya: Oh, love the enthusiasm.

All right, here's the first up.

Angelique: Oscar nominee Kate Hudson shows off her knack for physical comedy in the series "Running Point," where she pivots to become the big boss of a basketball dynasty.

Isla Gordon: First of all, we don't know we're not making the playoffs.

Second, we are not getting rid of Marcus.

I know the record doesn't show it, but this is a winning roster.

As much as I love getting berated by the three of you, I have a team to run.

So if you'll excuse me, no, wait, this is my office.

You get out.

Kathryn: Welcome to our weird room in the middle of nowhere.

Kate Hudson: I know.

I love this, I love this.

Kathryn: In outer space.

Kate: Our weird room with our succulents.

Kathryn: Yes, thank you.

Never sees actual sunlight in here, oh my God.

Wait, should we go back to "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"?

Kate: Yes, first of all, you make me feel so cozy.

Thank you.

We got to do that and we had the time.

We had so much fun.

That was just the best.

Kathryn: I feel like that was my first movie.

That was my first movie.

But we fell in love and then we had all of our little like fun things on set like we had these like weird things that we came up with, giant posters of, like, we had our own little mythology.

Kate: We had our own language, yeah, and--.

Kathryn: Like, the bar was then set for me on like what it was to be in like an ensemble that dug each other.

Like, the bar was forever raised after that experience.

It for sure was.

And then to see each other--.

Kate: Oh my God, and then we got to do years later, "Glass Onion," which was another incredible experience.

Kathryn: Which was another one of those experiences that I'll, like, never forget as long as I live.

Kate: And then, as we're doing that, you got the word of like the whole Agatha, right?

Kathryn: Yes, wasn't that--it was like I'd done "WandaVision," so it's like I got the word there that they wanted to do the Agatha show.

It was nuts.

Kate: It's so much fun.

That show is so much fun.

Kathryn: It felt like "The Goonies."

Like, there was parts of it, like when we were sliding down the slides, I was like--we kept being like, this is like we're in "The Goonies."

How fun is this?

Kate: What's your like touchstone for Agatha?

Like, what's your, like, you know what I mean, like, I always have this thing where I have like a key.

Like, if I lose sight of my character, like, what's my touchstone?

Like, what's that?

Kathryn: I wanna know yours.

I'm so curious.

Well, Agatha wears this locket around her neck with Hecket, which is like the maiden mother crone, which is so beautiful to me.

It's like all women are all things all the time and in the show she has--Agatha has a piece of Nikki, her son's, hair in that locket.

And my family, just before I shot, they gave me a little locket with their hair in it, not knowing that this was in the show.

Kate: Stop.

Kathryn: I know, I'm gonna start crying.

So I didn't, and I couldn't tell them that was in the show.

Like, I was like very--they didn't wanna hear anything.

So the whole time we were shooting it, I had just had that underneath.

So that was like a--like a trunk into the center of the earth and also just exactly what was underneath her the whole time.

So it's kind of weirdly matched up, but what was yours for this?

Kate: For "Running Point."

My touchstone for Isla.

Kathryn: I love Isla.

I want to be her sister.

I want to hang out with her, like, I want you--you need to have a long-lost sister now.

Kate: I wish I had a sister.

Kathryn: Honestly you do.

Kate: But that was my touchstone, which is like my life.

My touchstone is me being the only girl.

So like for me it was always like if I ever felt like I was losing sense, I would wait, hold on, like I just want my brothers to see me as able, you know?

And like, so, with all--because I think, you know, as you know, like, in anything that's like big in scope or comedy, like, you've got to have some sort of rooted foundation and mine is just like to be--Isla is just to like be seen as competent.

Kathryn: Have you done a long, long television before this?

Kate: This is the first show.

"Running Point's" the first show I've ever done.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not done.

I did a show with Octavia Spencer, but like that, like a series that I'm in, like, maybe for a long time.

Kathryn: How does it feel?

What was it about this one that you were like, yes.

Kate: I just read the log line, honestly, and I was like I wanna do this show.

I just knew it immediately.

They sent me the script.

It was loosely based on Jeanie Buss, who's the president of the Lakers, and you know, I love sports.

Kathryn: Yeah, you love sports.

Kate: I grew up with all brothers, all boys, and sports is such a huge part of my life.

So to play, like, a president of a sports team in a comedy, I was like, I'm gonna do this.

I just knew it.

Kathryn: It was crazy because we've kind of watched each other grow up and these like trajectories and like, to see your evolution because you're so powerful in it, like you--I buy everything that you do.

Kate: You know, I feel a similar thing with you, which is like when I finally--we hadn't seen each other for a long time, but then I got to be with you in "Glass Onion" and to see your career take off like from afar, what that felt like for me to watch you blossom and then to continue to watch you sort of hone your craft and do all of this, like, amazing work and you know it's so hard and challenging to be funny, but then to also, like, hit all of these, like, emotional moments like you do in "Agatha" and then "Studio" and--now how much did you have to do with your costume?

Kathryn: A bunch.

Yeah, we were able to like--it was a kid in a candy store, like, that adage of, like, take off one thing before you leave the house.

We were like put two more things back on, and like it was so many labels, like, label, label, label.

It was like it was a job to not have it--to not have it wear me so completely that I was just a--.

Kate: What is Maya hiding?

Kathryn: A big dark empty hole of nothing.

Nothing.

Kate: But what was your touchstone for Maya?

Like, did you have, like, people that you were, like, were there--.

Kathryn: There's definitely, like, vibes, not one particular person, but I mean, everybody knows, like, a person that has like that kind of energy that it's like everything on the outside and so I think for my touchstone, I mean, I never wear my nails long and so I think that that was probably it.

I still don't understand how people do it.

I don't understand that.

Kate: I do love a good nail though.

It's hard now, playing guitar.

It's hard, but I love my nails.

Kathryn: But you can pull--I could--I would start crying if I tried to unbutton my jeans to go to the bathroom.

Because I was like, I can't put 'em back on or I'd be like this and I'd be like, is that guacamole from snack?

Like, I don't know how people keep 'em clean.

Gotta have a brush on you all the time.

Kate: We have to do something again.

Kathryn: We have to do because it has been like this weight, it's been also really important projects in my life with that's been.

Kate: Like, yes.

We have to--.

Kathryn: "Glass Onion" was so fun.

Kate: That was one of the great experiences.

That was so much fun.

Clayton: They shared the screen in "Primary Colors," and now Kathy Bates and Billy Bob Thornton are back, anchoring two of the most popular drama series of the year.

Oscar and Emmy winner Kathy Bates breathes new life into a legal icon in "Matlock," stepping into the courtroom as a whip-smart lawyer with a homespun charm and a razor sharp mind.

Madeline Matlock: And our daughter died from a drug overdose, and I came here to expose the criminal who was responsible.

But I never expected to find you.

What you've done for me, how you've changed my life.

That was real.

I came here expecting to be invisible.

People don't see old women, but you saw me.

Clayton: Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton leads "Landman" as a crisis manager navigating power, politics, and personal demons in the high stakes world of Texas oil.

Tommy Norris: And believe me, if Exxon thought them -- things right there were the future, they'd be putting them all over the -- place.

Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world.

We don't do it because we like it.

We do it because we've run out of options and you're out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss.

There ain't nobody to blame but the demand that we keep pumping it.

Billy: Hey, Kathy.

Kathy Bates: Hey, Billy.

Billy: Long time, huh?

Kathy: Long time.

I just saw you a little while ago, like a few weeks ago.

Billy: A long time since we've known each other.

Kathy: Yes, it has been a long time since we've known each other.

When did we do "Primary Colors?"

Billy: "Primary Colors" was '96 and that was a first time that you and I had been in a movie together and I was just wishing that you and I had more, but then, of course, you cut to years later we do "Bad Santa 2" in Montreal and we got to be around each other all the time.

But there was another time I went in and read for Rob Reiner for "Misery."

Kathy: You did not!

Billy: I swear to God.

It was just a small part.

Originally, Richard Farnsworth, you know, he played the sheriff, Richard had a deputy.

And I went in, I saw Rob Reiner for it and Rob said, right in the room, he goes, "You're the guy.

We can send everybody else home, okay?"

Well, I was all set to go just a few days before I was coming up there, and I got a call from Rob Reiner.

He called and he said, "Listen, I've been looking at the script and been planning out what I'm gonna do with this movie."

He said, "You can come up here and shoot this, you know, for the money or the insurance or whatever you need, but I'm just telling you it's not gonna be in the movie."

And he said, "But I'll leave it up to you.

Do you wanna come shoot it anyway?"

And I said, "No, I'd feel weird doing that, you know?"

But I thought that was very cool of him to actually call himself and say that, you know.

Kathy: Yeah, very cool.

Can we talk about "Landman"?

Billy: Oh golly.

Kathy: Oh my God, I have so many questions I have.

Billy: I'm happy to answer.

Kathy: I mean, was this written for you?

Billy: It actually was.

Taylor Sheridan had asked me to do a cameo in "1883," his Western.

And he said, "Look, I'm writing a show, takes place in the oil business and I'm writing it with your voice," and he gave me a brief sketch of what it would be about and I was very interested and I said, "Well, I can't wait."

And then it was like a year and a half later or 2 years before we actually got around to doing it.

I read the first script and I was like, it was almost like reading something I'd written for myself, yeah.

And what a gift that kind of thing is.

Kathy: Yeah, did you have any time because the whole cast, I mean, Michelle Randolph and Ali Larter and the young man that plays your son, Jake Lofland, I think his name is and Colm Feore, all these amazing actors, did you have any time to get to know each other and create all of that, or did you just jump in?

Billy: We had to kind of jump in so I didn't know anybody in the cast except Demi Moore.

Kathy: So you didn't have any rehearsal time or prep time?

Billy: Nothing, we had one cast dinner before we started.

But over the first season we really did become a family and I know people say that a lot, but it really is true in this case.

Kathy: Yeah, I loved it.

The writing is great and it's a subject that I don't think many people know.

Billy: And one of the things I like about the show is it doesn't really have an agenda.

It's just saying here's what it is.

This is how it works in the oil business.

Here's how these people are and the sad thing is, is we don't have an alternative.

I mean, because I guarantee you people in the oil business if suddenly they found that they could run everything on Earth on water, they'd get in the water business.

Yeah, so, I told you one night when we were at a party that-- we were talking and I said I had done "Matlock" and you go, "You gotta be kidding me."

But it was the first television role I ever did.

I had one scene.

I played a pawn shop owner, and I'd watched the "Andy Griffith Show" growing up so I--it's like I'm gonna meet Andy Griffith and all this kind of thing.

We shot it in Little Tokyo down there.

Kathy: Well, I didn't--I didn't meet Andy Griffith and I didn't watch his show, actually.

Everybody always asks me that, you know, did I watch the show?

Billy: And that was a conscious choice.

Kathy: Let's say it was a conscious choice.

I think I watched a couple to see if what I could get out of it, but our show is just so different, you know.

In a way, I feel like this part was written with me in mind.

Jennie Snyder Urman created it, you know, and I'm lucky because originally they wanted to make her Andy Griffith's great-great-granddaughter, you know, so she'd be 30-something and--but Jennie said it came to her that she wanted to write something about older women and she just brilliantly put it all together that, you know, when I first read the script, I thought this is just episodic, you know, and I'm not interested in doing that, you know?

And then I finally got to the end and there's this twist where this woman is actually on a mission.

And that's when I just said, "Oh yeah, I'm in.

I'm in," because I really had one foot out the door.

Yeah, I just felt that I was getting small roles in films that I loved that people were not seeing and I just began to ask myself, you know, is this what I wanna keep doing?

Do I wanna sell the house and maybe move to France, you know, and call it a day?

And then I got this script and I thought, "Wow, I really like this and I think I wanna do it," and I don't know why but just the way this whole show came together at this particular time in my life, it's a really reflective period of time for me for some reason and I guess because the show is about a woman who is a lawyer but she didn't get to practice the kind of law that she wanted to practice, and my mother, who was born in 1907, was so smart, but because of the time when she was born, there weren't a lot of options for women and I guess because Maddie is invisible and my mother was invisible, and she's fueled a lot of the depth that I needed to get to, to create somebody whole.

I mean, do you feel that when you're working that you gotta go deep inside yourself to create a whole person?

Billy: Oh, for sure, you know, a lot of times, you know, the journalists, they want there to be some kind of complicated mathematical scientific formula so we seem really smart, you know what I mean?

It's like here's my process and then you tell about all the tricks you use to get here and there.

That bone's not in my body.

I don't have it.

All I use as an actor is my life experience, my own psychology, my own spirit, the things I've observed in life, you know?

Kathy: I wanna work with you again.

Billy: I do too, honey.

Kathy: I just love you.

Billy: I love you too.

Kathy: I'm so happy for you with the--with "Landman."

Billy: Well, I'm happy for you.

I'm glad that after all these years we still got a good job, aren't you happy?

Kathy: There you go.

Clayton: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Variety Studio "Actors on Actors."

Angelique: See you next time.

Natasha: I feel like you start a lot.

Sterling: I'm Sterling K. Brown, everybody.

This is Variety "Actors on Actors."

I'm talking with Natasha Rothwell.

Natasha: I'm talking with Sterling K. Brown.

Kate: And--.

Kathryn: Excuse me, I'm Pigpen now.

I just have bugs flying round my head -- ah.

Kathy: You came over to my house to do some weird Oprah thing.

Billy: Oprah Winfrey thing at your house.

Kate: Sorry, PBS.

Billy: Well, we're being chased off, Kathy, haha.