You might not think of John C. Reilly as a romantic — he’s best known for starring in comedies like “Step Brothers” and “Talladega Nights” — but these days, the actor is leaning into that side of himself.
His new vaudeville show, “Mister Romantic,” came from a moment of deep reflection.
“Three years ago, I was looking around the world thinking, ‘Man, it’s getting really divisive out there,’” he says. There’s a lot of strife among people. What can I do? And I thought, ‘Well, you can sing and dance, tell people you love them,’ and that’s how ‘Mister Romantic’ was born.”
With a quartet of musicians behind him, Reilly takes the stage as Mister Romantic, his alter ego who has no memory of the past. All he knows is that he must perform — and if he’s lucky, he’ll find someone to fall in love with him by the end of the night. The stage performance, which makes a stop at L.A.’s Palace Theatre on Oct. 10, follows the release of Reilly’s debut “Mister Romantic” album, a collection of love ballads he gathered and reinterpreted over the years. The result is part crooner, part cabaret — with clear nods to Frank Sinatra and Old Hollywood romances.
“We’re taking this message of empathy and love out to the world and having a lot of fun at the same time,” he says.
Reilly used to live near Pasadena, but after losing his home in the L.A. fires, now resides “all over.” With his children grown and most likely “doing their own Sunday things,” his ideal Sunday is spent with his wife and other important people in his life.
“Sunday is kind of like this safe space,” Reilly says. “It’s a chance to just check in with someone who might need a little company.”
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
7 a.m.: The joy of pajamas I want to encourage everyone to get into pajamas. I’m a big fan of pajamas. I like the traditional kind with stripes. You know, like the old dad pajamas from the 1950s. So you’ll see me in my pajamas if you come to my house on Sunday morning.
I usually wake up about 7 o’clock, but it takes me about an hour and a half to even get anything going — I’m a very slow riser.
8:30 a.m.: Pick up pastries in PasadenaI usually like to hit a bakery early on because it’s a fun thing to have on a Sunday morning — some fun bakery items. There’s this bakery I love in Pasadena called Seed Bakery that has all the hits. It’s this amazing couple, just the two of them — they make all the amazing French stuff that you’re familiar with and killer ham-and-cheese croissants.
One thing that my grandfather used to do when I was a kid: Sunday would be the day he would come over with stuff from the bakery. If you want to be like the most fun uncle out there, you can also just go to a friend’s house with baked goods.
11 a.m.: Take a hike at TreePeopleThere’s this great place called TreePeople that I love that is up at the top of Coldwater Canyon. It’s a famous conservancy started by this kid in the ’70s — he was a teenager who was concerned about pollution, and he heard that trees and plants can help take pollution out of the air.
It’s one of the great hikes of L.A. It has these paths that kind of crisscross back and forth. It’s very peaceful.
It has this mission of not just preserving the trails but also teaching people about ecology and why trees are important. We definitely need some trees after all this fire that we’ve had in L.A. Trees are a really important part of the city.
2:30 p.m.: Afternoon at Moonlight RollerwayI love the Moonlight Rollerway, an amazing roller rink in Glendale. I’m a longtime patron of the place. I’ve filmed in there a couple different times. We shot some of “Winning Time” in there.
It’s like a throwback kind of roller-skating rink. It reminds me of the places I used to go when I was, like, 11 or 12 years old, in the late ’70s in Chicago — and it really looks exactly like that. I don’t think they changed the concession stand since the ’70s.
I really love roller skating. During COVID, we started this gang called the Rebel Skate Rolling Club, and we would just go to parking lots, like the Target parking lot at 11 p.m. Everyone would descend with matching jackets and go roller skating.
Moonlight Rollerway is always there. It’s always air-conditioned. It has beautiful wooden floors, so if you fall, it’s not the end of the world. I’m a big fan of it because you don’t drink. There is no alcohol served there. It’s good clean fun, is the way I would describe it. You can have a hot dog at the concession stand.
There’s something really cool and energizing about roller skating — it’s the closest thing to flying that you’re gonna come across without sprouting wings.
5 p.m.: Bike to dinnerMe and my wife love to get on our bikes while it’s still light out, and ride our bikes to a fun restaurant near us and have a nice meal, maybe a couple glasses of wine, and then you’re riding back on your bike in the dark. It’s so fun — it feels like an adventure.
There are a lot of cool restaurants all along Mission Street in Pasadena — that was adjacent to where we lived, and it was easy to bike there.
8 p.m.: Catch a show at Largo or the ElysianThere are two places that I have a really strong connection to that are theaters in L.A. One is Largo at the Coronet, where you can see so many amazing comedians, but I love going there for the music. I can’t tell you how many nights of extraordinary experiences I’ve had at Largo.
The other theater I love is the Elysian Theater on the Eastside in Silver Lake on Riverside. It’s gonna sound crazy for people that are not aware that there is a clown scene going on in L.A., but there’s a huge clown scene going on in L.A. There are a lot of people in the clown scene that work out of the Elysian Theater. But if you’re into alternative comedy or queer stuff, or just voices that you are not going to hear at, like, the Comedy Store, then the Elysian is a really great hub for you.
It’s a nonprofit. It’s a place that encourages alternative voices. It feels really intimate when you’re there. I’ve done my show “Mister Romantic” there a bunch of times.
10:30 p.m.: Yoga as a nightcap I like to do a little yoga before bed. People think of yoga as, like, starting the day with yoga, but actually stretching out before you go to bed is really good, because then you let go of the tension and stuff you’ve been holding from the day and can sleep better — so I recommend a nightcap of yoga. I usually go to bed around midnight.
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