Calling these hilarious people over the past six months was an injection of joy in this weird year: @BobBalaban @Realeugenelevy @edbegleyjr @janemarielynch @JENCOOLIDGE @MJMcKean @Real_JMHiggins @hitchmichael @realjimpiddock—even the late @Fred_Willard. https://www.theringer.com/movies/2020/9/29/21479754/best-in-show-oral-history

Things I had to cut for space: multiple castmates praising @JENCOOLIDGE's wizardry with non-sequitors, and her saying it's because she drawing a blank. "I think it comes from not having anything to say and your brain desperately trying to function. It’s just a survival thing."

I also had a whole section about how intimidating Christopher Guest is. Catherine O'Hara said she decided early on to just assume/pretend everything he says is a joke, because his delivery is so dry it's impossible to tell.

Coolidge said she has often made a fool of herself by just rambling on in conversation, because Guest will never save you with a courtesy laugh. "He's just standing there with an emotionless face, like, 'Keep going, Jennifer.'”

Piddock: "If you've made Chris laugh, you've really hit the jackpot. And he does, absolutely. But you won't know until he just comes up and says, 'You hit that out of the ballpark' with a completely straight face, as if he was saying, 'I'm afraid your mother just died.'”

Catherine O'Hara said they originally had her in mind for another character, and Levy would have been single. She petitioned to make them a couple.

Guest said he only later discovered that one of his English ancestors was a ventriloquist. "I thought, this is me 200 years ago. It gave me a real chill."

McKean got his first manicure for Best in Show, at Guest's insistence. "It steals the picture, of course."

Lynch's poodle was replaced in the middle of filming, so it's a different dog in the competition than the rest of the movie. "The new one didn’t have the suntan. So if you’re looking really close, you can see that she had pink skin, and the other dog had more of a brownish skin."

The absolute best part of this experience, besides talking to my comedy heroes, was 1: Fred Willard telling me he never got that close to Guest and didn't know what Guest thought of him—and getting to tell him how Guest gushed about his talent more than anyone else in the cast.

Fred said: "Well, that was very nice of him to say that. I hope he meant it in a good way."

And 2: Fred singling out Bob Balaban as a "personification of great improvisation," and me getting to pass that compliment along to Balaban several months after Fred died. He was clearly touched.

I know 2020 has been an awful year for so many people and for so many reasons, but this project was one of the most joyful gigs of my life and I'm just so stupidly lucky and grateful.