Joe Apollonio on Recurring Dreams, Bisexual Fantasies, and His Very First Erection

Joe Apollonio has squeezed a lot into his 33 years. He’s been sober for eight of them, and portrayed his own mother in a one-man play, and was even in Young Sheldon for one single episode before being recast. But most recently, the New York actor stars alongside Chloë Sevigny and Simon Rex in Amalia Ulman’s second feature, Magic Farm, a tongue-in-cheek indie that follows a bunch of useless “VICE-adjacent” journalists on a trip to Argentina in helpless pursuit of a trend story. All the while, the crew is blissfully unaware of an impending health crisis caused by herbicides slowly destroying the countryside. “There’s this sort of humor about the Americans ineptitude and inability to actually see what’s actually going on,” Apollonio explained. “They’re just worried about creating some banal fashion trend.” After getting back from the film’s premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Apollonio got on the phone with his friend and fellow funny guy Jack Henry Robbins, who subjected him to a litany of probing questions, from his dream threesome to his very first erection.

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JACK HENRY ROBBINS: What’s up, man?

JOE APOLLONIO: I’m going to vape during this. Is that going to make me seem insufferable?

ROBBINS: I mean, you haven’t even started speaking yet. As soon as you start speaking, that’ll be worse than the vape.

APOLLONIO: I’ve been working with a speech coach in preparation for this. Mel Gibson’s speech coach.

ROBBINS: I’m super nervous about this interview because you have zero media training and zero filter. I’m hoping that this interview doesn’t ruin your career.

APOLLONIO: No, don’t worry. I’m absolutely going to crush it, and everyone’s going to fall in love with me. 

ROBBINS: So tell me about the film. What the fuck is it?

APOLLONIO: It’s about these kind of VICE-adjacent documentarians who travel to Argentina to do a story on this musician that they’ve heard about. But they find out that they’re in the wrong country, so they basically decide to fake the whole story by hosting this audition for all the people who live in this small town in Argentina. Meanwhile, there’s this underlying theme going on through showcasing the people who live there, the Argentinians, that there’s a health crisis going on because of the glyphosates being sprayed over the soy plantations. So there’s this sort of humor about the Americans ineptitude and inability to actually see what’s going on, which would be a profound and good story to shoot. And they’re just kind of worried about creating some banal fashion trend.

ROBBINS: I was very impressed when you said the word “glyphosate.” That’s a pretty big word for you, Joe. 

APOLLONIO: I’m so much smarter than people think. I just look stupid.

ROBBINS: It’s one of your talents. What was it like working with Chloë [Sevigny] and Simon Rex?

APOLLONIO: Well, god, I’ve looked up to Chloë since I watched Kids when I was like, 19 years old. And I had seen her in other stuff like American Psycho and Boys Don’t Cry and really always admired her from afar. So it was an honor to work with her. God, actually like 10 years ago I was bar backing at this restaurant and she showed up and I had to serve her hot water for her chamomile tea at the table. My hands were shaking so crazily.

ROBBINS: Oh no.

APOLLONIO: I was just blowing it, looking like such a dork. I think she felt pity for me at the time. And then Simon Rex has always been so funny to me.

ROBBINS: He’s so good in Red Rocket.

APOLLONIO: Red Rocket‘s fantastic. I also really loved Dirt Nasty when I was in high school. That song “My Dick,” with Mickey Avalon.

ROBBINS: Of course. 

APOLLONIO: I know that song word for word.

ROBBINS: What are three words you’d use to describe this movie?

APOLLONIO: Subversive, funny, and can I say thought-provoking with a hyphen?

ROBBINS: Sure. Can you tell us a little bit about your Young Sheldon debacle? When I first met you, I knew you as this Instagram personality and a friend recommended that we work together. Then I looked at your IMDb and saw Young Sheldon, and boy was I impressed.

APOLLONIO: Oh my god, now you’re being a little smart-ass. So I got an audition for Young Sheldon as a guest star and my mom’s obsessed with The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon. So I put in my slate that it was my mom’s favorite show and I ended up getting the part the next day. I mean, it meant a lot to me to be in that show for my mom. But also I was starting to get some Bob Saget lore, where I could be kind of a crazy little psycho but be in family-friendly shows that people in Iowa watch while eating TV dinners and being like, “Oh my god, that boy’s so smart.”

ROBBINS: “He’s got an edge to him.” Yeah.

APOLLONIO: I got word that they were turning the character into a main role. I was going through a lot at that point in my life personally where that outcome was so important to me. And whenever you do that, you’re kind of just pushing that outcome away. So they auditioned me and they recast me, and I ended up finding out that they changed the entire character.

ROBBINS: Okay. I’m going to ask you a bunch of really quick questions. 

APOLLONIO: Okay.

ROBBINS: What was your first boner you ever got? 

APOLLONIO: I was watching wrestling when I was eight and there was this guy that got me hard. 

ROBBINS: Do you remember which wrestler it was? Was it WWF?

APOLLONIO: Yeah, it was Stone Cold Steve Austin.

ROBBINS: That’s pretty cool.

APOLLONIO: Shawn Michaels was my favorite wrestler, but I wouldn’t fuck Shawn Michaels because I don’t like pretty boys. But then a couple years later I got a hard on to Stacy Keibler, and then that’s when I finally masturbated. So my entire sexuality has been rooted in being a fan of professional wrestling.

ROBBINS: Really?

APOLLONIO: Low-key.

ROBBINS: Were you ever a Mankind guy?

APOLLONIO: Dude, Mankind was the shit, but I would never fuck him.

ROBBINS: Would you do Undertaker?

APOLLONIO: Yeah, he’s tall and stuff.

ROBBINS: And kind of goth. Okay, cool. What is your ideal threesome, if you could choose two other people?

APOLLONIO: Fuck, okay. Michelle Pfeiffer, present day.

ROBBINS: Why is that?

APOLLONIO: I’m bisexual, as you know, and when it comes to women, I have a thing for attractive, middle-aged, blonde haired, blue-eyed women. Michelle Pfeiffer is the sexiest woman in the world, in my opinion. And Tom Selleck circa Friends when he’s in a relationship with Courtney Cox’s character.

ROBBINS: Right. What’s your earliest memory?

APOLLONIO: I was half-naked dancing around my apartment before the first day of preschool, and my mom was telling me to get dressed.

ROBBINS: Nice. And do you have any recurring nightmares?

APOLLONIO: Trying to think. I’ve been having dreams about ostriches lately.

ROBBINS: Really?

APOLLONIO: Like having pet ostriches, seeing dead ostriches. And every time I look up what it means to see an ostrich in your dream, it’s always bad.

ROBBINS: Maybe you’re in a bad place, Joe.

APOLLONIO: I think I’m in a pretty good place right now.

ROBBINS: Yeah, you’re in the best place I’ve ever seen you, which is great. One thing I learned pretty soon after meeting you is you’ve been sober for a super long time. Do you want to talk about sobriety and how that happened?

APOLLONIO: Sure. Gosh it’s funny, my parents met in an AA meeting and then broke up while my mom was pregnant. I’d go to AA meetings with my mom while my dad was out there still drinking. It was just a matter of genetics, I think, and nature over nurture. I knew what the consequences would be if I were to drink and promised myself not to. But then I went to college and I started partying and experimenting and, long story short, became an alcoholic. Cocaine got into the picture, and that really brought me to my knees in the matter of two years and I went into a very dark place. I’m grateful that I grew up going to meetings with my mom because I knew what resources were there for me. But by 25, I had enough of slowly killing myself. 

ROBBINS: And you’ve been sober for how long?

APOLLONIO: A little over eight years.

ROBBINS: Congratulations, man. That’s awesome.

APOLLONIO: Thanks.

ROBBINS: What is one of the hardest things about staying sober? 

APOLLONIO: I think as you stay sober for longer, you see that the drinking and the drugs is not the problem at all. Those were just solutions that stopped working, and I’m deeply fucked up and I have a hard time navigating life. I have a hard time dealing with being romantically interested in someone who doesn’t feel the same way, or not booking a Young Sheldon spinoff. Also just with being in the entertainment industry, it’s so easy to make a certain level of external validation the very thing that defines your self-worth. Am I sounding pathetic?

ROBBINS: No, no. It’s interesting to think about it like that.

APOLLONIO: I just think that I’m naturally endowed with a certain level of neuroticism that exceeds the average person. So when life isn’t going my way, that’s the time when I want to self-implode. But I know exactly what to do from there, which is to call someone.

ROBBINS: Well, you’ve done a great job. So you have this just completely unhinged online presence, which I love and is how I met you in the first place. What do you love about doing online comedy and kind of just fucking around?

APOLLONIO: I don’t know. I know that, to some degree, I’m a little weird in that I like men old enough to be my dad and women old enough to be my mom as a sexual preference. I know that that inherently is way left-of-center than the average person’s sexuality.

ROBBINS: And has that been forever?

APOLLONIO: Yeah. I don’t know what my parents did to blow it that hard, but maybe they yelled at me at some point when I was three and I just internalized it. Also, I grew up an only child of a single mom, so there was so much time just being alone in my own world and laughing at my own jokes. There was a time where I wasn’t working really yet as an actor and I was just like, “You know what? Fuck it. I’m going to make my own stuff and show people what I can do instead of sitting on my ass waiting for some poorly written script to come my way and hopefully get the job.”

ROBBINS: Yeah.

APOLLONIO: I think I’ve gotten a little bit more tame since then, but maybe I’m completely wrong.

ROBBINS: A few quick questions: What would be your ideal way to die?

APOLLONIO: Getting like a really wonderful massage, then just getting assassinated by someone across the street with a sniper rifle. 

ROBBINS: At the end? Or during the massage?

APOLLONIO: During the massage. Absolutely oblivious to what’s going to happen.

ROBBINS: That’s good. Why New York City?

APOLLONIO: I actually don’t know anymore, I think.

ROBBINS: Really? You’re like, the one New Yorker who doesn’t have a strong opinion about why they live in New York.

APOLLONIO: I mean there’s a lot of people that I love who live here, but I don’t go out that much. I could probably live anywhere and be happy. I don’t know how to drive, so that’s probably why I live in New York.

ROBBINS: Oh that’s a big one. Would you consider yourself an ally?

APOLLONIO: Yeah, of course.

ROBBINS: Where would you like to be when you’re 60? 

APOLLONIO: When I’m 60? Damn. I would like to live in the Southwest.

ROBBINS: Really? And be an actor still, or what? A skateboarder?

APOLLONIO: I would love to act for the rest of my life. And I would like to also engage in the writing aspect of it too, and write things more than just a one-man show for the theater, or write films, TV shows. I would like to always be in this industry no matter what, but I would like to ultimately make a living doing things my own way.

ROBBINS: It’s your last meal on Earth. What are you going to eat?

APOLLONIO: Bacon cheeseburger with fries. Medium-rare.

ROBBINS: I want to ask you about Dimes Square. I mean, it’s like a cultural phenomenon now and I know you’ve spent some time there. What’s your take?

APOLLONIO: Let’s just say I like being in Times Square more than Dimes Square.

ROBBINS: That’s a good quote.

APOLLONIO: It’s so stupid. Every time I walk around there, I’m like, “Oh god, everyone’s so trendy.” And then I can’t help but wonder if there’s someone across the street smoking an American Spirit Blue looking at me being like, “Oh, that guy’s so trendy.” Then there’s an ad infinitum of the same sort of projection and wanting to be separate from the thing they’re very much a part of.

ROBBINS: Right. It’s like the snake eating its tail.

APOLLONIO: Then alternatively, when you go to Times Square, you’re just like, “Wow, those European tourists dress so bad.” 

ROBBINS: But that’s kind of cool now I feel.

APOLLONIO: It’s super sick. I’d rather go to M&M World in Times Square than Dime’s Cafe in Dimes Square. Wearing fucking vintage John Varvatos boot cut jeans from 2003. Am I associated with that culture?

ROBBINS: Every time I’m in Dimes Square I’m like, “I wonder if Joe’s around.” Is that offensive? 

APOLLONIO: Nah.

ROBBINS: What is hell to you?

APOLLONIO: Having a cold, being at CVS and purchasing DayQuil, and being in a long line that lasts for eternity.

ROBBINS: What music is playing?

APOLLONIO: Probably like Taylor Swift? I don’t really like her music.

ROBBINS: What’s something you wish was legal?

APOLLONIO: LSD is not legal, right? I think psychedelics should be legal.

ROBBINS: Right.

APOLLONIO: I mean, I don’t do them. Maybe down the line I will, because I do think that there’s purposes to them that are really inherently spiritual. And when I did them in the past, they presented me with a sense of death.

ROBBINS: I think mushrooms are the one substance that, even if someone doesn’t smoke pot, I say, “Once in your life, you should do this.” Even if someone doesn’t drink. The only people I’ve ever seen freak out on mushrooms are people who have really big issues with their identity, like frat guys or people who are at a really weird crossroads. 

APOLLONIO: If I had a beautiful home in the Southwest at 60 years old, I would be doing mushrooms. But that’s a long time from now.