Actor Josh Peck joined Between Bells to discuss his upcoming memoir "Happy People Are Annoying." The actor and author talks about the impacts of childhood stardom on "Drake & Josh," dealing with industry pressure about his weight through humor, and his upcoming projects, "How I Met Your Father" and Christopher Nolan’s "Oppenheimer."

Between Bells

Josh Peck Reflects on Child Stardom in New Memoir, Discusses ‘How I Met Your Father’ 

friends between bells and cheddar news, I'm baker machado and new york and from childhood actor to influencer, right back to your television screens, Our next guest has cemented himself as one of Hollywood's elite in his new memoir. Happy people are annoying. The actor, writer, Youtuber and television star reflects for the very first time on his late teens and early twenties being raised by a single mother and also coming of age in the spotlight and actor and author josh peck joining us right now here on cheddar news, josh, great to have you back here, thank you so much for having me, this is great, Okay, so a lot of us know you and grew up watching you on Nickelodeon's drake and josh. So we all know that side of you, but what were things like behind the camera that fans finally will learn about you in this book here? Well, I think that you're right, a lot of people grew up with me and I, you know, my awkward adolescent years, a lot of people, they go through that and then they burn their yearbooks and swear their families to secrecy, but mine are in reruns. So I basically just talk a lot about what it was like being in the public eye at that age, feeling deeply insecure because you know, I was overweight and and sort of the challenges that I faced in an effort to kind of say, listen maybe if you watch me and thought I was living this specific, unique, privileged life and in many ways I was but I was also going through a very human experience and I want to share that as well. Yeah, and you definitely did throughout the book, and there's a couple of really big passages, I think that really stood out to me. I want to read one. This particular one in this chapter was called Too Fat for commercials in it. You write the beautiful byproduct of my appearance, the silver lining to it all was that I had developed a finely tuned sense of humor, like a consolation prize the world said you're going to be massively overweight. So, here be funny, was it difficult almost in a sense, to sort of relive some of these dark moments growing up, especially you're in the Hollywood spotlight, you're in the public spotlight. People are obsessing and combing through every detail of your life here. Certainly, I think that I you know, obviously it would have been easier for me to sort of just sort of put that away. But it was that that willingness to be vulnerable and to write something that I think is funny, but also to get raw and honest and tell my story and and express the things I've gone through, I think that was just really important. And um you know, it could have gone unsaid, but then, you know, my experience couldn't serve others and I have so benefited from people being willing to be vulnerable and transparent with their stories. So I hoped I could do the same what the other thing, I think that's really great about you is sort of, we get different generations of you throughout our lives as well. I mean I mentioned drake and josh the Amanda show, but you know, we now have you on the Helen show, How I Met Your Father, how do you sort of feel like you're almost sort of growing older with your audience here? I you know, I think that I've been lucky enough to stay in this business, you know, I think Chris Rock has a joke about like if you're in the business for 10 years, I like 20 years, I respect you in 30 years, I love you. Like sometimes it's it's truly not about having the huge hit or or having a moment of frustration in your career because that's unavoidable for many of us, but it's about like long term, if you can keep on keeping on on the topic of How I Met Your Father, you know, the big debate is is this a reboot or is this a sequel? Like what is this? Which is also sort of kind of amazing here, What do you think? Is this show a review? And does it kind of fit into reboot culture that we're seeing right now, I think I don't know I've done four reboots in the last two years, so if I'm on it, it's probably a reboot, but I think how I Met your father uniquely has done such a great job of sort of setting the stage for a new environment, these new characters, everyone so incredibly talented on the show. Um and led by Hillary who's like the Ultra Pro and while also paying homage to this thing that's really this nostalgic show that people so loved. So I think uniquely there's certainly some reboots that aren't, don't quite live up to the original, but I think how I Met certainly does Kobe's mothers is in is in this and she was obviously Robin and how I Met Your Mother, are we going to be seeing more original cast members coming to this show also? I hope so. I I think, you know, the writers, they're good dude, they know what the people want, they got their finger on the fandom pulse. So I think you can totally expect to see some some great easter eggs. Um so I wanted to go back to your memoir because there's another passage I think is really interesting and you talked about your time as a child actor on drake and josh and here's basically the passage that I thought was interesting. It said it was worse to have been on television in the past five years because producers had an image of who they thought you were until someone was willing to take a chance on you. That image was sort of impossible to break. You have basically now been announced and I don't think this is so amazing. You're in this new Christopher Nolan movie called World War Two movie called Oppenheimer? This is with matt Damon. It's got a huge cast in it. What does it mean for you to sort of join this a list cast and coming from sort of child acting to now basically being part of an a list movie here. I think it's, it's um, I mean it is a very small part, but it's such a cool thing to be a part of. And I've always sort of been lucky enough to to stay consistently working. It's just, you know, something like drake and josh entered the zeitgeist at a time where people were really ready for something like that and you can't pick your hit. So you know, you have this body of work and then inevitably there will always be like as an actor, your singles, those one or two things that rose to the top of the charts. So I feel lucky that with Oppenheimer and how I Met Your Father and my show Turner and Hooch last year and this and plus that I've been able to continue to challenge myself in new roles. Um you also really talk about Addiction in this book also and I think it's really amazing how open you are about this and I read somewhere you're celebrating 13 years of sobriety, is that correct? 14 yeah, congratulations mazel tov. That is so amazing. How has sobriety really sort of in many ways saved your life and changed your life and and and and how is sober living right now, um you know what for me, I realized that it started with food and then it sort of morphed in the sort of substance and then it became prestige and fame and ego and I realized that nothing can fill up that hole in the soul, anything of the outside world that I try to use to make me feel okay will never work. And so it's an embracing, you know, when I started to get into recovery and when I sort of embraced this life of a good life, being the result of good living um was where I finally found that contentment and peace and a little bit of that happiness that I talked about in the book. The other thing I love about sort of the revelations you have is when you know, acting roles weren't coming, you went back and went to acting school, you basically were like, if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna be on the sidelines, I'm gonna be the best and most prepared I possibly can for a lot of people if they're not working in the industry, they probably think, okay, I'm done. I I there's nothing more for me here. What kept you going that you wanted to say that this is what I love and I'm passionate about and I'm going to make it work if I can. Well I've always sort of just been a journeyman actor with these ups and downs and I think when you start with something as big as, as drake and josh, you think that it's only gonna be like one long sort of apex, but inevitably the life of most actors is sometimes you work really consistently and you can easily go a year or two where where it's just not quite connecting. So it was in those times that I realized that if I wanted to play at the level of something like an Oppenheimer or, or even how I Met Your Father, like really well done stuff, I needed to be totally ready and I knew I had some talent and I knew that things had worked out to a certain point, but I really had to have some fine craft if I was gonna, if I was going to be able to play at that level. Well, josh, congratulations on all the success, Congratulations on this book. It's really, really well done josh peck. The new memoir, Happy People are annoying and it is available everywhere. You buy your books