Ken Marino’s characters have no chill. They’re needy, striving, flailing, and wildly funny, particularly when they don’t get the things they desperately want. (Which is most of the time.) See, for instance, Ron Donald, the heart of Starz’s revived cult hit Party Down—a supremely unlucky bumbler who manages to be schlemiel and schlimazel all at once. 

“He’s anxious about stuff,” Marino says in the latest episode of Little Gold Men. “He feels like he’s got a big black cloud over his head, but he’s hopeful and he’s optimistic. There are elements that I can relate to at certain points in my life. I don’t think you could talk to any actor who says, ‘Well, I don’t relate to anything that this character’—I mean, I guess unless you’re playing Hitler. But even with that, you have to find something.”

Marino does all that and more, both on Party Down and The Other Two, where he costars as a slimy but sweet music manager named Streeter Peters. (Think Scooter Braun, but a lot more lovable.) It’s almost a bonus that both are funnier than almost anything else on TV or streaming right now, which Marino doesn’t take for granted. “I definitely pinch myself at times, because I recognize that I have been given this gift,” he says. Read and listen below for more on Marino’s all-in approach to physical comedy, how it felt to be lovably negged by Martin Starr, and the revival he’s gunning for next.

Little Gold Men: Party Down finally returned to Starz this winter, a decade after airing its original series finale. Did it take a while to get back into the mindset of Ron?

Ken Marino: No, I feel like it snapped back right away. Ron has always been in there, inside my brain and heart and soul. 

And your haircut?

Well, the haircut had to change. So that was the biggest change. Everything else was sort of locked and loaded, ready to go.

You do so much physical comedy on the show. Ron breaks a finger; he loses his sense of taste and smell after having COVID four times; he has this terrible gastrointestinal episode. Is there a moment where you say, “Can they give Ron a break?” Or do you just want them to push as hard as possible?

On the contrary, I love when they give me that stuff. The more physical it is, the more excited I think I get. I enjoy using my whole body, and I enjoy physical comedy. 

Do you have to amp yourself up for those scenes, or are you just already there?

I guess I have to amp myself up. Some of them are pretty exhausting scenes.

What was the most exhausting of season three?

I would probably say the food poisoning one, because I was constantly straining and falling, and struggling to walk, and hitting the ground and bouncing back up. And when James Marsden shakes my hand and I collapse on a table. We did a number of versions of that, and I kept slamming my face onto the table, and so that hurt a little bit. I remember feeling it the next day. It's like when you work out and then the next day you're sore. You're like, you're proud of it. You're like, “ah, I worked out.” I like to feel the hurt, the pain of it. It reminds me that I did something fun and I committed to it.

You directed episode four of season three. Your costar Zoe Chao said you're also very physical when you’re directing. Can you talk a little bit about your approach?

I like to make my days. I pride myself on not going over while still trying to get as much material as I can, so when we are in the edit, we have a lot of options. I don't like downtime, so I try to have as very little downtime as possible. I think that ultimately creates good performances because for me as an actor, I don't like waiting between takes.

I read a profile of you where Martin Starr said he once told you he didn’t like anything he’d seen you in until working with you on the show. How did it feel to hear that from your co-star?

Well, I know Martin. I know everything Martin says comes from a place of love. And when he said that to me, I knew what he was ultimately trying to say, which is he really liked what I was doing on the show. I don't know what he watched prior to that, so I wasn't offended by that.

Maybe he's a closet Dawson's Creek fan?

Maybe he didn't like professor… Joey's professor. What was my name? Professor Wilder. He might not have connected to Professor Wilder's arc. He’s got such a big heart, but he hides it with dry, kind of sarcastic humor. But he is the sweetest, sweetest man. And so when he said that to me, I was touched.

If there's a season four, do you think Party Down will ever let Ron get a win? 

I feel like Ron does get little wins. It's just that he gets these gigantic shit sandwiches fed to him—shit pies in the face while he gets a win. If we do another season, , they'll continue to give them little wins—but then also, I don't know, electrocute him in a bathtub or something.

Streeter, your character on The Other Two, is similar to Ron in some ways. They’re both desperate for affection. But it seems maybe like Streeter has a better head on his shoulders.

Yeah, Streeter is a little bit smarter and a little bit more savvy. In terms of the business, he's a little bit of a mad genius. Just when you think he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about, you realize he understands exactly what's going on. I guess he would be a little bit more needy, and Ron is more just kind of desperate. Streeter's just looking for a connection with a family. Ultimately, deep down, that's what he wants.

I want to emphasize something that might be getting lost in this description of these two sad, needy men—that both of these shows are very, very funny, and have a lot of jokes. Which a lot of comedies right now don't.

Yeah, I agree. I think I'm enormously lucky to be on two comedies that are—the jokes per minute are ridiculous. So they're super funny, but they somehow managed to balance it with real heart and real pathos and real warmth. 

Instead of asking if Party Down is coming back for another season, I will ask if there’s going to be a third Wet Hot American Summer Netflix reunion show.

I mean, that would be fun. I have no idea. I don't know about any of these things. I just hope for them. And then most times they don't happen. And like I said in the beginning, as soon as I stop believing, I get a phone call or an email saying, “Hey, let's do this thing.”

I mean, I would love to do The State again. I don't even want to put it out there because if I put it out there, it definitely won't happen. But in all seriousness, I would love to. There are so many people in that group that have built such a wonderful career individually, and we all care for each other. I think there is a want for us to get together and do another short run of our sketch comedy. I think it would probably be better than what we did back when we were younger, because we're all a little wiser and smarter and still willing to hurt ourselves. 

Everybody, or just you?

I guess just me. I'll walk into a wall for a laugh until, I guess, I'm dead.