On paper, Drew Tarver and his The Other Two character have a few things in common — Tarver also grew up in a small town and moved to New York to pursue an acting career — but their personalities are decidedly different, a comparison that feels especially important as season three viewers watch Cary descend into full villain territory. But, throughout the course of a recent interview, there is one similarity that stands out: They both love to watch people watch their work.

“There are so many jokes per minute, and when I’m with friends and family I’ll have to be like, ‘Hold on, you guys were laughing over another joke that just happened and I want you to hear that one,'” the actor said with a laugh over Zoom on a recent gloomy Los Angeles day. “I’m very needy.”

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Tarver, 37, has been working through the improv scenes of both New York and L.A. for over a decade, but the Max (formerly HBO Max) comedy about the often wayward 30-something siblings (Cary’s sister Brooke is played by Helene Yorke) of the uber-famous pop star Chase Dreams, was his first project to break through on a major scale. He stars opposite his former comedy heroes Molly Shannon and Ken Marino (who also doubles as his sometimes-roommate, more on that later) in the series that has become a critical darling for its ability to skewer the Hollywood machine so specifically and gracefully.

As its third season winds to a close, Tarver’s Cary is at a professional apex (he recently voiced the first openly queer character — a glob named Globby — in a Disney movie; his fantasy series Windweaver is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) but a personal rock bottom (he’s alienated the queer community after exploiting his role as Globby, who didn’t even turn out to be unapologetically gay as promised; he’s abandoned his friends for his pursuit of fame; his relationship is falling apart). Here, Tarver speaks to The Hollywood Reporter about what he’s learned from Cary’s mistakes, his favorite moments from filming, and that time we incorrectly reported that his starring role on How I Met Your Dad was greenlit when it, in fact, was not.

What was it like getting back into the swing of things this season? Are you guys able to get into a groove quite easily by now?

The first thing I filmed this season was a phone call, a walk-and-talk, which seems like it would be easy. And maybe it is for most actors (laughs). But there’s something about talking to somebody who is walking backwards holding a script behind a camera four feet to your right that was tough for me. But as soon as I’m back in a scene with everybody, it clicks in pretty quickly. Unless I have a 4:45 a.m. pickup, I’m back on that horse, baby.

On Succession, the actors will make themselves available for the phone scenes. Matthew Macfadyen famously talked to Sarah Snook while it was the middle of the night in London …

(Laughs.) I guess I’m now outing myself as not showing up as much as the actors on Succession. But for the most part, when it’s somebody’s phone call, the other person is asleep. I suppose if there was a huge death scene, I would stay on set and be chilling off camera with a fake phone to help my co-stars.

Has the show changed your comedic senses at all?

Chris and Sarah’s writing is so good that I want to be as funny as it is. And this season, after playing a guy who’s kind of sad for months, you do kind of go home and it takes a second to recalibrate and be like, oh yeah, I’m not angry at my friends’ successes. I definitely am aware of more pop culture references than I would be otherwise.

As someone who came up through UCB, do you think that process would have been helpful for Cary? Would it have kept his ego in check a little bit more?

This season you’re getting to see some of his descent into how he’s engaging with fame. I think he’s struggling to catch up to how quickly they went into the spotlight, like how do I cobble together my personality and what do I do if a lot of people are watching me? For me, UCB gave me a place to go and fail before anybody was looking, and that was really helpful. Cary doesn’t know how to make mistakes now that people are looking at him.

How easy, or hard, is it for you to empathize with him during this period?

Cary is at his worst this season and he’s taking every wrong turn. The writers have done such a good job of laying the groundwork to see how he got there. His desperation has been building. I don’t agree with him here, but I can see how much he wants it and how tightly he’s holding onto things, trying to control them. He’s crossing these milestones like he’s always wanted, but they’re not feeling how he thought they would feel. I think we can all relate, to some extent, to the feeling of, I reached my goal and now what? Am I taking time to let it sink in, am I noticing where I was three years ago versus now, am I telling myself good job? I think it’s fun to play out the idea of, your career is technically going well but why are you so miserable right now.

Do you let yourself do what you just described? Do you think about, holy shit, I’m doing X or Y?

I try to. I’ve downloaded every meditation app and done them for four days and not finished. My whole last page of my phone is meditation apps that I’ve done 3.5 minutes on. I feel like I can grab gratitude, but can never quite hold onto it long enough. You get it for a few minutes and it’s like, oh, if only I could keep this feeling for days.

For me, the best way to harness that feeling is to go stand outside an old apartment — specifically the crappy NYU summer rental I had during my first internship.

That should be an app. You meditate for one minute and then a van comes and picks you up and drives you to an apartment you used to have. Then you go and sit in your old bedroom for 10 minutes and you’re like, OK, I’m grateful.

What are some of the coolest things you’ve done because of this show?

Watch What Happens Live was amazing. Being there with Molly and Helene while they referenced Bravo shows that I knew nothing about. Luckily Molly knows a lot about this recent feud between, uh, Raquel and whoever. Just getting to do panels where I’m sitting next to Molly Shannon is really cool. Like, wow, people are here to listen to us talk about this thing we did that they like. Or when people stop me on the street and tell me they like The Other Two. I have to stop myself from being like, “You wanna hang out?” I want to be like, “Wow, that’s so nice of you, let’s chill for the next three hours.”

That reminds me of the episode where Cary does the cameo and then shows up to the guy’s get-together at Kettle of Fish …

God, that was so devastating. That was a tough moment. Now I can be like, see, don’t do that.

It seems like some of the moments on the show are mined from your own experiences, like the episode where Cary has that hellish self-tape. Do Chris and Sarah talk to you guys for material, or are they just that tapped-in automatically?

It’s not necessarily based on us. Writers who work on the show are performers as well, so they’re familiar with the experiences Cary would have. A lot of times we’ll read the script and just think, wow, you nailed it. I was just doing that, trying to make a self-tape and get the lighting right or whatever. I think because they come from SNL, they have such a good handle on taking something that’s grounded and real and heightening it — like putting me in a knight’s costume in a museum. That’s what it is, right? A costume. Definitely not a suit of armor.

How much of the current strike situation do you think will make it into season four, given how moments like COVID and the insurrection have found their way into the Other Two universe?

Well, first of all, did you hear about a season four? Is there something you know that I don’t?

Ha! I guess I’m speaking hypothetically. I know Hollywood Reporter was the outlet that did first report that How I Met Your Dad was greenlit so we’ve definitely burned you before on this …

That’s right! My life changed for seven to 12 minutes with that. But I remember Chris and Sarah discussing their process with referencing the pandemic at the top of this season, and it was because we left off season two with the big joke about Night Nurse starting production on the day lockdown hit. So I think it gives us the idea that the show takes place in the same realm that we do. It’s slightly behind our timeline, so I could see a reference to the strike in season four. Or maybe it jumps five years ahead of our timeline and we’re making jokes about what the world would be like. Just get real sci-fi.

Have you ever had a meta moment where you’ve met someone that was in a joke on the show? I’m thinking about the way that Beanie Feldstein was in Night Nurse …

Right. I haven’t met Beanie Feldstein but obviously I’d love to, and it would probably consist of me going up to her and being like we were fake co-stars. I’m trying to think if anything like that has happened. We did do that fake episode of WWHL before going on in real life. That was a fun moment, because years ago he did us such a big favor to let us come in and film after he’d done a real episode. He was like, what is this show?

You mentioned on WWHL that you lived with Ken Marino during filming, and I wanted to ask you to elaborate on that.

We both live in L.A., and it started while we were finishing season two. Normally he would fly back and forth all the time, because his family is here, but we had to quarantine a bit then so we decided to just get a place together. We’d gotten really close over the first season. It’s so crazy to have someone that I’ve admired for so long, and loved his work, and then all of a sudden I’m like, “Should we get this cereal? What cereal do you like, comedy icon? What are we ordering for dinner later?”

They haven’t given me the screener for the finale yet, so I’m going to use a tactic from my interviews with the Succession cast — when I see the episode, what is something I’ll wish I had asked you?

I guess it would be, does Cary finally get what’s coming to him? Comeuppance — is that the right word? Brooke kind of gets called out, and after episode seven you’ve seen a piece of it. And Cary gets called out by Curtis, but it doesn’t feel like he’s learning anything from that moment. The lesson is right there and he’s not listening. I think by the end of the season you’ll see him, with this train that he’s been on, finally come into the station.