You Knew Drake Bell Then—This Interview Shows Where the ‘Nickelodeon’ Star Is Now

You know Drake Bell from his years on set with Josh Peck, trading one-liners and chaos on Drake & Josh. But when he shows up on The Good Guys, the energy is different. The jokes are still there, but they’re threaded through something quieter and more revealing: what it looks like to grow up, keep working, and become a dad without losing yourself in the process.

Below are the highlights from the episode, adapted from The Good Guys podcast.

Drake Bell Interview: Life, Touring, and Fear on ‘The Good Guys’

How did touring change once you got older?

“[I] definitely have to tour differently…back in the day, dude, I could burn the candle at both ends. Oh. I’ve got a show. There’s shows now where they’re like, ‘Oh, what time do we start tonight? Oh, it’s a late one. We go on at 11.’ And like that’s past my bedtime. Like, how am I gonna wait? I have to perform, it’s gonna be an hour and a half show. Not home until one o’clock. And I got a flight in the morning. Before I’d be like, ‘Cool. And then where are we going after that?’ And then we’d go straight to the airport and then I’d sleep on the plane, but you had the energy to do that…But I can’t go out. I have to be like, clearheaded at home and with the kids.”

What does a year of touring actually look like for you?

“We had a crazy year last year, we did like 91 shows. We got to do some appearances together, which were really fun. So we got to go out on the road and see the fans and we’ve done some really cool stuff. And now, it’s cool. I’m here being able to relax for a minute and it’s not freezing…

…[We performed] like in a dozen [countries]. We didn’t do Europe or anything. We were all [over] Latin America. But the last leg was all Argentina, Peru, Montevideo, Chile. I mean, it’s all over. And it’s crazy. I was trying to figure it out, but it’s like 91 shows and each one of those shows is like a round trip flight…So it’s either direct or it’s connecting. I mean, we had like 150 flights.”

Why don’t you bring your family on tour?

“Family stays home. It’s tough. I mean, we’ve gotten used to it…[the kids] get time with mom, you know, Wednesday through Thursday and [they’re] with dad Sunday…it’s just kinda the same thing, just longer blocks. I carve out tons of time to be home in Florida with my son and I have a place out there and, you know, so I do get to wake up in the morning and get him ready for school and take him to school and have routine with him and all of that. I just have a job that takes me on the road blocks at a time.”

Why do routines matter so much in your house?

“It’’s not just getting your baby in the routine. [His wife] is getting her routine. You are getting your routine. You’re going, ‘Okay, so around this time of night, the lights go lower, the baby’s getting ready for bed. This is how the house is gonna feel’…And that’s so important for kids. Like even if you’re in the sort of the situation that I’m in with my son with traveling so much and not being able to be there every day, every morning, every this, but as long as there’s structure routine, okay, this is how it goes and this is what I can expect and it’s gonna happen…

…Like that is really important for a child….What a lot of couples don’t realize is that between when your baby’s sleeping through the night, between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. is it’s you two…You wanna watch Netflix, you want to want to, you know, snuggle, you want to hang out, you wanna do your thing as a couple. It gives you that time.”

Tell us about the diving show and what made it scarier than you expected?

“My agent calls me, he’s like, ‘Hey, would you like to do a Diving with the Stars [show]?…And I’m like, ‘Okay,’ so I’m imagining like a little diving board at the pool and we’re gonna be spinning and doing funny things and maybe we’ll be in funny costumes and it’ll be ha ha ha. So I say yes, and I get to the pool, it’s down in Pasadena, this Olympic swimming pool, and there’s this 33 foot high dive that’s a three story building high dive. I get there and…they don’t want you to see anything. They’ve gotta get your reaction on film. You don’t get to see anything.

So I’m in this robe…And they have the people walk out one at a time, and I walk out and I’m like, oh, ‘What the hell is that thing?’…And then Greg Louganis walks out on the high dive and does an arm stand, somersault right into the thing, and then comes out and shakes all of our hands and goes, ‘Are you guys ready to go up to the high dive?’… 

…I’m already afraid of heights, dude.

I’m afraid to be on the balcony of a hotel. I get sweaty palms in airplanes…And there was just no way I was gonna do it. So they have us walk up just to experience what it’s like to stand up there. And when you see those movies where someone’s high and the camera goes, that’s what it feels like, bro…And then you think you’re gonna jump head first. Off of here. That’s insane. It’s not possible…

…I’ve got all these other guys around me there, and everyone hyping people up. Some of the girls are jumping off and, and I’m like, all right. So peer pressure comes in, I’m like, ‘Hey, I’ve jumped off of a cliff before,’ but not something this high. So I jump off just feet first and kinda get a feel for it, but then I’m like, there’s no way I’m gonna do this. “

How did you get through it anyway?

“Long story short, we end up doing all of the practice on the trampolines and the harnesses and learning how to do flips and learning how to do all of this stuff. And then you move it, we go on the small boards, then the 5 and 7 meter boards, then we’re up at 10. And then once you get to 10, it’s just muscle memory. You basically just, they’re like, just do exactly what you did on five and seven. Don’t change anything. And then you just do it and your body just does it and you land and you’re like, ‘Oh, it, it worked.’ It’s crazy.”

Why did this conversation on ‘Good Guys’ matter to you?

“I don’t have very many friends that have kids…all my friends…they don’t have kids. They don’t get it. So it’s cool to hang in a room with two other dads…It’s hard to try and explain stuff to people who don’t have kids…Like, it doesn’t really [translate].”

To hear the full conversation with Drake Bell, listen to The Good Guys wherever you get your podcasts.

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