Actor Danny McBride is exposing the real reason he opted to ditch Los Angeles.
On a new episode of Rich Roll’s podcast, Roll asked him about his decision to move his family out of the “bubble” of L.A. to Charleston, South Carolina, in 2017.
McBride, who’s created and starred in shows like “Eastbound & Down” and “The Righteous Gemstones,” explained that part of the reason he likes living where he does now is that it offers him more creative freedom.
“When we were shooting ‘Eastbound,’ we were shooting in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the idea that there was not a direct flight, at that time, from L.A. to North Carolina, we noticed that the executives never came to set,” McBride said. “We’re like, ‘Oh, we just gotta choose cities that it’s not easy to get to from L.A., and then we’ll have more freedom.'”
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McBride also said that another plus to living in Charleston is that his children – he and his wife, Gia Ruiz, share son Declan, 14, and daughter Ava, 10 – aren’t as involved with social media as they may have been living in Los Angeles.
“In my house, I try to limit my kids having access to all this stuff,” he said. “I just try to be present in their lives. So, if they’re listening to anybody’s take on the world, hopefully it’s mine and my wife’s, and not a stranger online.”
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“I think maybe that’s part of the benefit of being in Charleston is like, we live on a creek and the kids in our neighborhood are into fishing, and they’re into, you know, getting out in the water,” he shared. “And I don’t know … it’s not as pervasive there, I guess.”
McBride told Roll, who is an author, athlete and a plant-based nutritionalist, that his life changed when he had his kids.
“It was really easy to do this job when I didn’t have kids,” he admitted, explaining that he used to “give all my time to the job.”
“And then once kids came around, it started to be like, ‘I don’t want to give that much time to this. I want to get the result, but I have other jobs now too. I want to be there for these kids. I want to be a good partner for my wife. I don’t want to push all these things off just because I’m making a TV show.'”
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“I have to find the balance of it,” McBride said.
What works for McBride is starting his day way before his kids wake up.
“And then by the time the kids go awake, I already have started something that’s got my mind working, that has me excited. I can sit down and be present for those guys and get them to school, and I drop ‘em off, then I come back home and I jam more,” McBride said. “I just try to find the time that works that doesn’t make me sequestered off while the rest of life is happening and I’m hammering away nonsense and d— jokes.”
