When you read about Jason Mantzoukas\u2019 ideal Sunday in Los Angeles, it\u2019s important that you imagine him holding a cup of coffee in basically every location and situation. He knows all the places around the city where he can get caffeinated before he goes on to do anything else.<\/p>\n
Fittingly, the actor, comedian and podcaster has brought an excitable, unpredictable and hilarious energy to his roles on shows including \u201cThe League,\u201d \u201cBrooklyn Nine-Nine\u201d and \u201cBig Mouth.\u201d Last year, he brought his gleeful sense of mischief to the U.K. competition series \u201cTaskmaster.\u201d And Disney+ recently finished airing the second season of \u201cPercy Jackson and the Olympians,\u201d where Mantzoukas portrays Mr. D (a.k.a. Dionysus), and he\u2019ll soon wrap up a stint on Broadway, where he stars in Simon Rich\u2019s play \u201cAll Out: Comedy About Ambition.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the continuously busy Mantzoukas, sometimes the perfect Sunday means never leaving the house. \u201cAll I want to do is make a whole pot of coffee, get the paper and a big stack of unread comic books, and sit on the porch.\u201d When he does explore the city, he favors the spots where he similarly can just hang out for a while. But before that, how about a refill?<\/p>\n
10:30 a.m.: First cup(s) of the day<\/b><\/p>\n
I’m a night owl, so on a Sunday especially, I’m going to let myself sleep in. Then I’m making coffee. My first three cups of coffee are all from home. I’m making a French press. L.A. beans though, either Counter Culture<\/a> or Go Get Em Tiger<\/a> would be my beans of choice. That and the newspaper are the beginning.<\/p>\n Almost immediately upon getting up, I’m going to start playing the radio. My mornings are either LAist<\/a> or Howard Stern if it’s a weekday. But on Sundays, I’m trying really hard to not do any talk, just music. It\u2019s KJazz,<\/a> or something like that. I’m also obsessed with a radio station called WYAR<\/a> that I can’t recommend enough. It\u2019s music from the \u201920s, \u201930s and \u201940s. It’s the teeniest, tiniest radio station out of Yarmouth, Maine.<\/p>\n Noon: Hike bros<\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019ve hiked with the same guys for years now. It’s all guys that I’ve done comedy with for 20-plus years. We usually do one of the Griffith Park<\/b><\/a> hikes because it’s convenient for everybody. The conversation topics are: What is wrong with us physically? What doctor recommendations do we need desperately? Then it is gossip \u2014 gossip from within our world, gossip from outside of our world. Then it is just earnest conversation, like checking in emotionally. And then quite a bit of dumb bits, like really dumb bits.<\/p>\n We do these hikes a couple of times a week, and it’s so fun and funny that we have started doing an improv show at the Elysian Theater<\/b><\/a> that’s called Hike Bros. It is just us trying to approximate on stage what it is we do on hikes. It’s ridiculous.<\/p>\n 1 p.m.: Comic book restock<\/b><\/p>\n After the hike, I’m in a good position to go to Secret Headquarters<\/b><\/a> in Atwater Village, which is my home comic book shop. They keep a list of what comics I want them to set aside each week.<\/p>\n There’s a series of graphic novels called \u201cHobtown Mystery Stories\u201d that are like, what if David Lynch wrote Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew-style teen detective books? I got super into them because I was in Secret Headquarters and one of the people there was like, “Oh, I bet you’d like that book.” On the internet, I miss having those trusted people.<\/p>\n 2 p.m.: Recording digging<\/b><\/p>\n I want to kill time in a way that is about discovery, exploration, but also, like, “Oh, I want stuff.” That’s record shopping. L.A. has always been Amoeba<\/b><\/a> for me, just in terms of I love wasting hours in a store that has a deep bench for every section of music that I’m interested in. And then if you want to do the extra work, DVDs as well. There’s a lot of great smaller record stores around town that I love, but there’s something about killing two hours at Amoeba.<\/p>\n 6 p.m.: Dinner hang<\/b><\/p>\n What I want from an L.A. dinner is I just want to hang there. Little Dom\u2019s<\/b> <\/a>is a great hang. You can spend hours there. You’re always going to run into people. My hope is that we can all just hang out and that we’re not going to be rushed out because they have another seating.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/b> The 27 best movie theaters in Los Angeles<\/a><\/p>\n 8 p.m.: Nighttime activities<\/b><\/p>\n I’m going to want to do one of three things at night:<\/p>\n I want to go to the movies, and I’m talking Vidiots<\/b><\/a> and the Vista<\/b><\/a> and the New <\/b>Beverly<\/b>. <\/b><\/a> We can all go to all the regular theaters and see all the blockbusters, but L.A. has fantastic theaters that are doing incredible programming,<\/p>\n If I’m not going to the movies, I want to see live music as much as I can, but on a much smaller scale than I used to. I’m excited when an artist that I love like Mary Lattimore or Jeff Parker has a residency at Zebulon<\/b><\/a> because I’m like, “Oh, great. That is not a big crowd. That is very easy, very manageable.”<\/p>\n Then I either want to be doing a comedy show or seeing a comedy show. There’s such a vibrant scene now. The Elysian in Frogtown is a great spot. We do Dinosaur Improv at Largo<\/b><\/a>. I think Largo is pound for pound, maybe the best venue in town. Dynasty Typewriter<\/b><\/a>, another great one. UCB<\/b><\/a>, the OG. Over the course of a month, these are all places that I’m doing shows at, but these are also places that are showcasing some of the best comedy in L.A.<\/p>\n 11 p.m.: The missing piece<\/b><\/p>\n At this point I’m done being social. I don’t want to talk to anybody anymore. My goal when I get home is a jigsaw puzzle \u2014 with either a podcast or jazz on in the background \u2014 until probably like 2 in the morning.<\/p>\n I do these puzzles from a company called Elms Puzzles<\/a> and they’re hand cut, so they’re incredibly difficult to do. It\u2019ll take me a month to do one. They are prohibitively expensive, so much so that I don’t buy them. They have a rental program. They send you a puzzle, you do it, you send it back to them, and they send you another puzzle. Which is perfect, I don’t need to do a puzzle more than once.<\/p>\n It is a great way to put myself into a frame of mind to go to bed, especially if I’ve done a show or watched a movie. If I’ve been stimulated, doing a puzzle for a couple of hours is a great way to decompress.<\/p>\n