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• Mr. Nealon's official site
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• About Yes, You're Pregnant, But What About Me?
• Weeds

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Actor-comedian explains why he gained weight during his wife's pregnancy. (3:25)
 

Full Interview. (13:09)
 

Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Kevin Nealon back to this program. The former "SNL" star is now enjoying success on a critically acclaimed series, "Weeds." The show just kicked off its fourth season on Showtime. He's also a first-time father whose new book is called "Yes, You're Pregnant, But What About Me?" Before we get to that, here now a scene from "Weeds."

[Clip]

Tavis: I have to start this show with an appropriate introduction to Kevin Nealon which is really even more than I already said about him at the top. So for those not in Hollywood, there are these things called pilots. If you ever want to get a TV show off the ground, you have to do a pilot. So you got to shoot one of these things first to prove that you can do this. Never mind that I've been on TV for five years.

So I called this guy, Kevin Nealon, to come do a pilot with me to prove to PBS that I could do this and, lo and behold, the show killed and here we are now five years later on PBS. So, Kevin, I got to just say thank you for doing that pilot (laughter).

Kevin Nealon: Well, no. I remember when they asked me and I said, "Tavis who?"

Tavis: (Laughter).

Nealon: And I said, "Let's do it because the man is keeping him down and I don't want to be that man and I'll come and help out."

Tavis: (Laughter) And I appreciate that again.

Nealon: Yeah. You're welcome.

Tavis: I thank you (laughter). No, seriously. I mean, when you walked on the set, I said, "I got to remind Kevin." Of course, I thought you remembered, but we're here five years now and you were part of that pilot, so thank you. I appreciate that.

Nealon: Oh, you're welcome. You have come a long way since then.

Tavis: Well, I don't know how far we've come, but it's five years.

Nealon: Well, actually, you've come the same amount of distance because this is where it was. You keep coming the same distance every week, every day (laughter).

Tavis: (Laughter) All right. This show, "Weeds." What is this about?

Nealon: Well, the show is about - well, it's not so much just about weed. When I first got the pilot - speaking of pilots - the title was "Weeds." I thought, "Oh, I don't know if I want to do a stoner kind of a show." Then I read it and I thought, "Wow, this is really good. It's got a lot more depth than that and it's more about other dysfunctions and a lot of good character traits and it's kind of reality-based."

Tavis: So why is a comedian looking for depth and dysfunction? You're a comedian, Kevin.

Nealon: I am, and I think that's probably the hardest-hitting comedy is when you - I mean, the first time I saw Pryor in concert, I thought, "Wow, now that's comedy right there." You know, it was so soulful and deep and I thought that's hard-hitting and that's something you go home and you remember.

A lot of comics, you go home and you don't remember any jokes they said, but you knew they were funny. But with Pryor, you go home and you go, "Wow, yeah, and the heart thing and the…" Well, the heart thing. That's all I remember (laughter). You know what I'm saying?

Tavis: Yeah (laughter). Speaking of Pryor, we just lost Carlin, obviously.

Nealon: Yeah.

Tavis: You think of Pryor, you think of Lenny Bruce, you think of George Carlin. What do you make of this legacy of this guy, George Carlin?

Nealon: Well, he certainly blazed a trail in comedy, you know. Back then, it was very, you know, unacceptable to - you know, he did the "Seven Dirty Words," you know. On TV back then, that was unheard of and he blazed some trails. I got to meet him a few times over the years and he was a guy that, yeah, you thought he'd be around for a long time.

I remember the first time I met him was at a club called The Horn in Santa Monica. I was starting out doing comedy and he was sitting back at the bar. I remember he had a Mets hat on, I think it was. I walked by and he was kind of in the dark and he said, "Good job, man. Stay with it." You know, I still remember that to this day. You know, anything like that coming from a guy like that is pretty powerful.

Tavis: So you're pregnant.

Nealon: No, I'm not (laughter).

Tavis: (Laughter) What a great cover, first of all.

Nealon: That's a good cover.

Tavis: It's amazing. I love it.

Nealon: I didn't realize they'd show up that early at my house and snap it like that. That's from a paparazzi, I think.

Tavis: (Laughter) You wrote this book - I know what's in it, but what made you want to write this?

Nealon: I owed a lot of money (laughter). No, this is a book, and it's my first book as far as I know.

Tavis: Yeah (laughter).

Nealon: It's called "Yes, You're Pregnant, But What About Me?" I wrote it because my wife was going through a pregnancy and there was so much on my mind and I started kind of keeping a journal of things. When you're about to become a father, you start thinking about what your childhood was like and what you went through, and there was so much material there, I just started writing and so many avenues were opening up.

So it's kind of just about going through a pregnancy from a guy's standpoint. You know, there's a lot of books for women out there on how to get through a pregnancy, but not so many for guys, so this kind of helps the guy to understand what to expect and how to deal with their insecurities and anxieties.

Tavis: I'd heard these stories before from friends of mine who, you know, have obviously gone through the process with their wives of having a child, but the stories you tell actually mirror - I mean, much more funny - but they mirror the stories they've told me about how they gained weight, about how they have morning sickness, I mean, some of the same things that their -

Nealon: - well, you saw that clip from "Weeds." I was trying to button the pants. I couldn't get them closed because I still have the pre-pregnancy weight, you know, and I could barely get into -

Tavis: - (laughter) You gained how much? About -

Nealon: - I gained about thirty pounds.

Tavis: About thirty pounds.

Nealon: Yeah, and I'm still fighting with it. I almost fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans now and I got this elastic stretch band on the top, you know, and also down by the ankles because I had kankles. So they're like the M.C. Hammer pads, you know?

Tavis: (Laughter) So help me understand why does a guy gain weight just because his wife is pregnant?

Nealon: Because he's out of control. It's not him pregnant and he's eating everything. You know, you really can't do anything except watch and just kind of eat. You know, you make something for her because you want her to eat it and she doesn't want it. She wants to eat dirt or something, you know, so you eat it, you eat it.

I had cravings, you know. I had cravings for Old Spice. Not to drink it, but to wear it a lot because my father used to wear it when I was a kid. I using that a lot, and dealing with the woman's hormones, you know. I mean, guys - by the way, the first two chapters of this book are about my affair with Barbara Walters, but after that, it's memoirs and it's not just about pregnancy.

Like I said, I talk about my past as a child and even some stuff from "Saturday Night Live" and high school, how I had a crush on this girl in high school. You know, I've had a lot of opportunities to get pregnant in the past, Tavis. Don't think that this - you know, I've waited until I was fifty-three.

Tavis: But you wait until fifty-three to do this, though?

Nealon: Yeah, yeah.

Tavis: How does that impact your experience, do you think, waiting until fifty-three to do this?

Nealon: Well, I got rid of - you know, I don't have any regrets or resentments because I don't feel like - you know, I'd rather stay home at night now and be with my child. I don't think I'm missing out on the clubs because I went out and did all that stuff before.

I remember I actually had a fan mail from this woman from prison about five or six years ago. She said that she was in prison because she threw battery acid on her husband. She's a huge fan of mine. In fact, she wants to hook up with me when she gets out and have my baby.

Tavis: (Laughter).

Nealon: She was getting out in a year and I thought to myself, "This is crazy. I can't wait a year. I'm getting old (laughter)." So, yeah, I feel great now. I mean, it happened at the right time for me.

Tavis: Well, speaking of the right time, was this pregnancy, you and your wife's, by choice or by chance? I mean, you wanted this at this point in your life?

Nealon: It was a court order. We had to have the baby.

Tavis: (Laughter).

Nealon: It was an experiment that some court was doing. Yeah, this was totally planned, and how much time do we have?

Tavis: Go ahead. Take your time.

Nealon: My wife wanted - she said -

Tavis: - I have this show because of you. Take your time (laughter).

Nealon: Well, you'll edit it down to just the "Weeds" clip (laughter). She said, "Let's give it six months." I am an older guy and she's seventeen years younger than me. She looks even younger because she wears all the face cream. You know, the moisturizer.

Tavis: It doesn't work?

Nealon: Yeah, and that's a racket. They have moisturizer creams for different times of the day. From three to five, you wear this; from seven to nine, you wear this. It's crazy (laughter). In fact, sometimes I can tell what time it is by looking at her face. Oh, is it three to five already?

Tavis: (Laughter).

Nealon: So anyway, she goes, "Let's give it six months and if we don't get pregnant naturally, maybe we should go to a fertility clinic." So I said, "Okay, whatever. It's not gonna take me that long." So after a couple of months, she goes, "You should go to the fertility clinic." I said, "Wait. It hasn't been six months yet." She found some guy in the Yellow Pages in Beverly Hills, some Iranian guy -

Tavis: - in the Yellow Pages?

Nealon: Yellow Pages, yeah. The last time I used the Yellow Pages was to order pizza from Dominos, like in '89, I think. The only thing that this guy had going for him, this was his ad. His ad boasted that he was close to Beverly Hills. He was Beverly Hills adjacent. That was his big thing (laughter). Close to downtown shopping. Just a sperm swim away from Rodeo Drive, you know.

I go there and, you know, there's all these guys sitting in the room. It's kind of uncomfortable, you know. You feel awkward and they got all the magazines like Newsweek and stuff. Then they call you in and you walk across the room. It's kind of like a brothel the day the women didn't show up, you know? You're just there and they bring you into this little room and there's some video there and, you know, the TV and a little chair right in front of it. The nurse gets the - she's not even a nurse. I think she's just -

Tavis: - just there?

Nealon: Receptionist or something. She pulls the magazines and the videos and just the whole place felt dirty. A little Dixie cup. I thought we were gonna be doing shots of Tequila, you know?

Tavis: (Laughter).

Nealon: When she left, she says, "Don't worry, nobody's gonna bother you." Then on the way out, she goes, "By the way, I loved your work on Saturday Night Live." I said, "Okay, thanks (laughter)." She left and, like I said, it felt so dirty. I picked up the videos with like my elbows. You know, just curious to see what it was, I put it in the machine.

It was all I think what the doctor liked, like theses Iranian women that had like these bad boob jobs and lopsided nipples and stuff and C-sections. The one was even like a muscle woman like flexing on the couch with her bikini.

Tavis: Like Hans and Franz.

Nealon: Yeah, yeah. Then I looked over by the door and there's a sign that said, "Please Do Not Take Videos With You." You know, I'm gonna take a video (laughter). I even looked outside to see if something was more tantalizing, you know. The receptionist was there, but she was shaving her back, so that wasn't really anything worthwhile.

Tavis: How did the fertility experience challenge your manhood?

Nealon: Well, I had to show her that I was a man and I did not need the fertility clinic, which is what I did, Tavis.

Tavis: Right (laughter).

Nealon: You know what really cinched the deal for me? I started thinking about how sexy it was being adjacent to Beverly Hills in that room. Oh, yeah, I see you, you dirty little Santa Monica Boulevard, with all your euro trash hanging out on Rodeo Drive, yeah (laughter).

But anyway, so the book has a lot of that stuff, getting to that point and kind of making that decision finally about actually having it. It's funny, you know. You learn so much about the whole pregnancy and you feel like you're in a club. By the way, I'll never ask a woman if she's pregnant because, if she's not, you're in big trouble.

Tavis: I've been burned that way a couple of times. I've learned the hard way.

Nealon: I don't care if she's like in the delivery room and the baby's halfway out. You just say, "You got a little something on your leg over there."

Tavis: Yeah (laughter).

Nealon: "Oh, okay. Sorry. Congratulations."

Tavis: (Laughter) Yeah, I learned that the hard way.

Nealon: Yeah.

Tavis: I got this show in part because of Kevin Nealon and I want to keep this show after Kevin Nealon's gone (laughter). So let me tell you again that he has a new book out. It's called, "Yes, You're Pregnant, But What About Me?" Kevin, nice to have you here.

Nealon: Tavis, it's good to see you again.

Tavis: And congratulations.

Nealon: You too. Congratulations.

Tavis: Good to see you, but we'll be checking you out on "Weeds."

Nealon: Nice.

Tavis: Nice (laughter).