In the world of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, it’s tough to intimidate possible serial killer, probable sociopath, and definitive egomaniac Dennis Reynolds, whom Glenn Howerton has for nearly 20 years imbued with a captivating mixture of menace and irrationality. But Matchbox Twenty’s lead singer, Rob Thomas, hovering with bloodshot eyes and furious silence over an institutionalized Dennis in the classic season-four episode “Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life,†does just that.
Alongside legendary comedian Sinbad, also playing a version of himself, Thomas bullies Dennis — who has been sent against his will to a rehab center as part of a convoluted plan involving his mostly fake sexual memoir — in hilarious and humiliating fashion. As Sinbad’s “bitch,†Thomas threatens to beat Dennis with his own shoe, abruptly smells him, and serves as a mostly silent hype man to Sinbad, who wants to steal Dennis’s autobiographical journal of “smut†for himself. Thomas’s only line in the aired episode is “Watch your ass, new meat,†which he lobs at Dennis with a hoarse growl completely in line with his berserk vibe.
The October 2008 cameo came together a few short months after Thomas and his bandmates invited the Always Sunny crew to attend one of their concerts at the Staples Center. “It was still early enough that they had a lot of fans, but all their fans felt like it was just for them. They were still at that level where it felt like your show,†Thomas says. “Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life†aired about a decade after the period when Matchbox Twenty was absolutely inescapable thanks to the success of their album Yourself or Someone Like You and Thomas’s megahit song with Carlos Santanta, “Smooth,†a pop-culture ubiquity Always Sunny pokes at through mockery that Thomas takes in stride.
After all, the self-described “television geek†got nearly everything he wanted out of his appearance on one of his favorite series, including the opportunity to mimic a McPoyle. And the deleted scene that held most of Thomas’s dialogue and a brief, bloody sequence he “thought more about … than probably anything else†when preparing his performance? Thomas is just happy you can watch it online — like he still does every so often. “I didn’t dwell on it too long. It’s more like, Aw, that’s too bad,†Thomas says of the unaired sequence in which he helps Dennis escape from Sinbad and the asylum and then dies by suicide. “And then subsequently through the years as I get drunk and we’re at an after-party in a hotel, hanging, talking about it with someone, inevitably we end up watching it on YouTube.â€
What were your first impressions when you met the Always Sunny crew in March 2008?
They were exactly what you thought they would be. They showed up really early, and we all hung out before the show and started drinking. Just listening to them bust on each other and mess with Glenn — they started going into this whole “When Glenn was on That ’80s Show,†and then, “I don’t know why it didn’t work. What do you think it was? Maybe because it was fucking horrible, maybe that’s what it was?†It was so beautiful watching them riff. But there was no intention to think that I was a part of the clan. This was purely me using whatever currency I had to get somebody that we were just watching on the bus nonstop — to just see if we could actually get them to come see us.
How did you things progress from “We hung out together at this concert and joked about it†to “We were serious about you being in an episode. Here’s a script�
In my memory, it went surprisingly fast. They make everything quick and it’s a very fluid creative process. I actually questioned at the time if they already had a Sinbad thing going on and thought, “Let’s put Rob into the Sinbad thing.â€
They’ve actually said you were first and then the casting of Sinbad was inspired by “Who is the most unexpected person we could pair Rob with?â€
[Laughs.] Who is the anti-Rob?
What was your first reaction to the script?
A messenger with a physical copy brought just my parts, so I didn’t really get a sense of what the rest of the story line was — which was even odder, because you’re coming into this erotic legacy but with no framing or reference for it. But for me, it was all about seeing the words and then, immediately, terror. How am I going to do this? It’s not my milieu. It’s not what I do. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a Matchbox Twenty video, but I have one move, and that move is “I just saw something in the distance, and I don’t know what it is,†and it goes like this. [Squints, slides his body to the right, and leans forward and squints more.] I spent so much time alone just hearing my voice vocalize these lines and trying to find ways to do them without overdoing them.
Did Sinbad being your scene partner add an additional level of pressure?
No, that was fucking awesome. If anything, that alleviates a little bit of pressure, because he’s a seasoned comedic veteran but also not a part of their world. They’re all part of a fraternity that I’m not a part of, and Sinbad knows what he’s doing, but he’s also an outsider in this situation. And the way it was scripted, so much of the heavy lifting, the big energy, was on Sinbad.
My only ask for the show was if I could, I wanted to be like a McPoyle. I want to be in my robe, and I want to look completely fucked up, and I want to look like I’ve been either on a bender or I haven’t had crack in ten days and I’m really jonesing for it. They let that happen. Getting to put that shit in your eyes that just makes them go all blood red, that was very fun.
I love knowing that the robe was a McPoyle reference, because I did have a question about why you and Sinbad are wearing matching robes that no one else has in this rehab center.Â
[Laughs.] Yeah, it had to do with that. You know what’s funny is I’ve later on become friendly with Jimmi Simpson, and when I told him that it was basically him that I was going after, he went back and watched it again and was like, “Oh, I fucking totally see it.â€
Aside from the robe, what was helpful preparation for you to get into that acting mind-set?
You spend time trying to figure out, I’ve got these lines — and there are very few lines — and how do I deliver them? And then I realized it’s more the physicality. It’s me there next to Sinbad while Sinbad’s delivering these lines. Him prompting “Get his shoe,†or when I would just smell him for no reason. That was my idea.
And then there was a scene that got cut where I shoot myself in the head. That to me was the one, and I don’t even know if they cut it because I didn’t nail it. I had to sit for a couple of seconds contemplating life right before I pulled out the gun and shot myself in the head, and I thought more about those three seconds than probably anything else. I feel like I can emote a scene pretty well, but if they’re like, “When I say action, I want you to pick up that coffee cup and walk over there and sit down,†that would look so unbelievably fake when I did it.
I rewatched the episode, and it’s exactly your physicality that is so funny. You’re rocking back and forth; you almost become Sinbad’s hype man; you’re shaking the memoir like it’s a Bible. I’m curious how much of that was scripted.Â
If you look at the script, it was meant for Sinbad to go all over the place. All those things were just me prompting more off of Sinbad. Sinbad had a couple of key lines, and I said, “Watch your ass, new meatâ€; everything ran up to that. And everything else was just like, “Do whatever Sinbad tells you to do.†Like you would in real life.
I’m really proud of the choices that I made. When I talk to people and they bring it up, nobody really mentions my one line. It’s everything else that I’m doing physically while Sinbad is talking. I’m proud that those choices kind of shone through and added a little more character for the whole scene, instead of me being just a blank space.
In that scene where you and Sinbad wake up Dennis, you’re in immediate crazy-eyes mode. How did you land on that specific expression?
Crazy eyes just felt right, in that I realized most of my participation was standing next to Sinbad and not saying anything. And I felt like maybe I wasn’t saying anything because everything inside was just rage. It would be great if the guy that brought you “3AM†and “Unwell†was just a kettle pot of rage ready to burst at any time. It made it so I didn’t have to sit there and be natural, because that would have been way harder. Completely reinventing my facial structure from the ground up saved me from having that weird dead look that sports guys have when they try to act, you know what I mean? Like when a sports guy does SNL badly.
Are there any specific sports guys you want to call out?Â
When I was growing up, Wayne Gretzky. Even as a kid, I didn’t even know what good and bad was, but I just remember, Oh, that wasn’t good. And I can say that ’cause he doesn’t give a shit.
Was smelling Dennis something you decided on in the moment? How did people react to it?
I think that I decided it in my mind ahead of time, but I didn’t tell anybody about it. Immediately Glenn thought it was hilarious. He was like, “Did you sniff me?â€
When Sinbad says, “Sing a song — shut up,†what song would you have sung if you weren’t stopped?
I was thinking “Long Day,†because I’d go, “Long day…†and that could be it. I thought that would be the funniest excerpt that I could do. I’ve been watching 30 Rock again, and there’s a scene with Tracy Jordan’s wife, Angie, who’s got her own reality show, and now she’s the spokesman for ham in America. Jack goes, “People do love the way she says ‘ham,’†and then it cuts to her, and she just goes, “Ham,†and that’s it. I feel like that would have been [sings] “Long day!†and then just go back to rage. I could have pulled that off.
Did you have to do any additional takes because you were cracking up?Â
No, I was so nervous that I didn’t allow that to happen. There were a couple moments — and I’m not saying it was even me, it was probably mostly Sinbad — where it did feel like everything started to get really comfortable, when everybody on this side of the camera was laughing along as we kept shooting the scene. I don’t think it had anything to do with my thing, but hopefully whatever my thing was wasn’t detracting from his thing, it was only adding to it. My favorite moment I wasn’t even in: When Dennis is like, “Rob Thomas and Sinbad were there,†and Rob is like, “Rob Thomas, ew.†And that makes total sense.
After Barbie came out, you spoke about feeling like Bring It On used Matchbox Twenty for mockery, whereas Barbie was celebrating “Push,†and I’m wondering where you think this performance falls in that spectrum. Because you do have Dennis and Mac being like, “Matchbox Twenty, ugh.â€
I think that we are a popular pop-rock band, and you have to have big, thick skin for all the stuff that comes with that. For Barbie, I got the message from Greta Gerwig asking to use the song, and I watched interviews with her talking about how growing up she loved that song, and it was genuinely something that she connected with. But my best friend, Paul Doucette, one of the founders of Matchbox Twenty with me, fucking hates that it’s in there. He’s like, “I did not sign up to be the soundtrack for the patriarchy.†I was like [mocking tone], “I don’t think you got it.†But I say that only because even within our own ranks, perception is perception. I looked at it like, “These are not my friends, but we shared a really nice moment, enough for them to ask me to be a part of something that’s important to them. And those characters would 1,000 percent not be Matchbox Twenty fans.†That was one of my favorite little nuggets: the disdain.
Looking back, I don’t think there’s any part of it where I feel like the butt of anybody’s joke. I definitely feel like I’m in on the whole thing, as we always have been. If you want to get us to help you make fun of us, call us.
The bulk of your dialogue is in that deleted scene. How did it feel filming that much dialogue?
I just wanted to keep reminding myself the comedy comes from the situation, so I didn’t want to play it, like, funny. I just wanted to be like, “Hey man, I got you.†I was throwing myself on the grenade for him, you know. I was bummed because I really was excited about the killing-myself part. To this day, I think the reason it didn’t make it in is because they just didn’t believe me when I did it. When the actual acting had to happen, they were like, “We could do without that.â€
Did you get an explanation for why it was cut out?
No, and I didn’t ask for one. I didn’t know if it was time, or if I didn’t do it well, or because it was too violent. They had that episode where the British soldier’s head exploded, and someone once told me that was comedic violence, whereas mine was actual suicide, and it might have been a little too dark. Of course, I was bummed, because I was a part of one of my favorite shows and any more screen time is better. But I didn’t dwell on it too long. It’s more like, Aw, that’s too bad. And then subsequently through the years as I get drunk and we’re at an after-party in a hotel, hanging, talking about it with someone, inevitably we end up online, watching it on YouTube.
Are there any shows on right now that you would want to cameo in? To continue the 30 Rock idea, I like imagining you on Girls5eva.Â
I love that show. I’m talking with this guy who’s one of the showrunners for Two and a Half Men and a few other shows. We’re in the middle of this idea called Rob Thomas Can’t Say No. It’s kind of a Larry David–style thing about a version of me that lives up here in Westchester and has a hard time saying “no†to people and gets myself in these bad situations where I’m trying to do the right thing, but no matter what I do, it just digs me deeper and deeper down into some sort of a hole and new obligation. But the whole thing hinges on me acting in it, so that’s why we keep going back and forth and trying to figure out if I’m comfortable with that.
Do people recognize you from the Always Sunny episode?Â
All the time. I mean, I don’t know that people recognize me from it, but I get associated with it. The people who know me say, “By the way, man …†That comes up way more than I ever thought it would. But as much as I love that show and loved it then, I don’t know that anybody saw 22 seasons or whatever for it. And I don’t mean that they couldn’t pull it off; I just didn’t know the world would allow that to happen and let them do it their way. But I will point out that because it was all a dream and I never killed myself on-camera, I could still come back somewhere in the last season. Because it’s obvious that I’m an integral part of the legacy of that show.
The gang has said that during that initial hangout, you brought up them directing or appearing in a Matchbox Twenty video. Is that true?
I think we definitely brought that up. There’s iconography that follows Matchbox around and it has always been pretty serious; “earnest†maybe is a better word. So it felt like, wouldn’t that be great, to have Rob or Glenn bring some of that absurdity into one of our songs? I’m sure that after a couple drinks I brought it up. Even if I didn’t have the idea going in, once you’re sitting in front of all of them and it’s going really, really well, you’re like, Let me take another gamble. Let me see how far I can push this. The fun of it would have been if the song could have been unbelievably serious. The one thing about Always Sunny is that there’s a deep, deep sadness that runs through it; there’s a Dickens-esque level of tragedy. I feel like anything would have worked and would have made it something completely different, which is something you don’t really get a chance to do for a video. Now that you brought it up, thanks, I’m sad that it didn’t happen.
Correction: An earlier version of this piece miscredited the showrunner of Two and a Half Men. It has been removed.