Actor-Director Rob McElhenney

Episode notes

Photo Credit: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

Rob McElhenney on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet and more

Rob McElhenney plays Ronald “Mac” McDonald on the hit FXX series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

The broad strokes of the series are closely based on the actor-director’s own life.

He was born in Philadelphia. Raised Roman Catholic.

He has life-long connections to friends he made in his youth.

The insecure and woefully ignorant “Mac” couldn’t be farther from his real-life personality, however.

He got the idea for the series in the early aughts as a struggling actor and developed the series along with cast-mates Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day. From there, Danny DeVito and Kaitlin Olson joined the cast, the latter eventually becoming his real-life wife.

The show is brash, controversial and very funny.

McElhenney could have stopped there, resting on his laurels as the creator of what will soon be the longest-running live-action comedy series in American television history. Instead, he decided to strike gold again and stepped in to co-write a new project called Mythic Quest:Raven’s Banquet.

He plays Ian Grimm, the creative director of a video game development studio. Ian has similar character flaws to Mac with the exception of actually having the intellect to back up his pomposity.

The show takes on the gaming industry and the charismatic characters that embody that world. In the midst of filming for its second season, he made the difficult decision to shut down production due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A special social distance episode called Mythic Quest: Quarantine was created in its absence.

We’ll talk to Rob about growing up without a Nintendo in the house, bringing honesty to his projects and how the recent pandemic impacted his show’ production. Plus, we’ll chat about some of his favorite games growing up. All that and more on the next Bullseye!

Both Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet and Mythic Quest: Quarantine are streaming on Apple TV+.

In this episode...

Jesse Thorn

Host

Kevin Ferguson

Senior Producer

Jesus Ambrosio

Producer

Richard Robey

Maximum Fun Producer

Daniel Huecias

Maximum Fun Production Fellow

Daniel Arón Speer

Video Editor

About the show

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney’s, which called it “the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world.” Since April 2013, the show has been distributed by NPR.

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