"I SAID SHE DOESN'T WANT YOU SERVING TWO JIGGERS!"
ROB THOMAS: We initially sold Party Down to HBO, and at that time Paul [Rudd] was going to star in the Henry role. He was shooting Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and talking to Steve Carell about playing Ron Donald. And then we ended up turning in this outline to HBO, and we had one of those tragic meetings where you can tell that the two entities are on entirely separate pages. The first word out of the HBO executive's mouth was, "We know outlines really aren't supposed to be funny . . ." So we parted ways.
KEN MARINO, Ron Donald: Ron is pathetic, but he's a guy who means well and tries really hard. He just has this terrible, terrible black cloud over his head. He's his own worst enemy. It just seemed like a fun part to play, and in my head I had a take on him. When I showed up to shoot, I was like, "I see this guy with, like, a military crew cut." They were nice enough to humor me. Because to me that really informed who that guy was.
PAUL RUDD: One of the first things we kept thinking about when we were talking about the Kyle character was how he's just kind of in the handsome business. He's in this band, and he had come up with this song called "My Struggle," all about how tough his struggles were, and we were laughing that he would have no idea that "My Struggle" translates to "Mein Kampf." He wouldn't have any idea what Mein Kampf is. And he would start singing about his situation, about how he's branded a star and put on a midnight train, and all of this Holocaust imagery, and he has no idea. And then the idea of him belting this out in front of a group of elderly Jewish people—we couldn't stop giggling about it, but it never was going to really make it into the show. And then when Jane gets married in "Constance Carmell Wedding," we were able to do it. And I love it.
LIZZY CAPLAN, Casey Klein: I found out about the show probably the weekend before we started shooting. Adam and I have the same agent. And I had never met Adam, but my agent told me about this show he was doing. So I talked to Adam on the phone, and I don't know if he tries to play it cool or whatever, but he can be kind of charmless when he doesn't know you. So I had a pretty awkward monotone conversation with Adam and somehow that convinced me to do the show, even though he really was totally boring on the phone. I was like, "Who is this grumbly kid?" I had no idea.
JOHN ENBOM: The best props disaster we had—which I think is going to overshadow any and all props disasters you could ever have on any show—was our adult-video film-awards after-party episode. Our poor props person was carting around all this adult paraphernalia in the back of her car and was in a serious enough traffic accident that she had to be taken to the hospital, and when the cops showed up to check out her car, her trunk was completely full of dildos and sex toys and whatnot. She was in no position to explain what was going on.
DAN ETHERIDGE: We couldn't have been offering lower money, but people would do it! Bryan Gordon reached out to Steven Weber. We didn't know him at all, and I mean, he came so ready to play an Armenian mobster ["Celebrate Ricky Sargulesh"]. I think that's one of the best guest stars of the whole series. We didn't know him, and the guy just came in and just blew us away.
BRYAN GORDON: Steve's a friend of mine, and I called him up and said, "Do you want to come work on the show? There's no money, but there's incredible creativity." He e-mailed me back and said, "What do you think of Ricky having a creepy droopy eyelid?"
DAN ETHERIDGE: I wish we could claim that for our own. It was so genius.
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