Produced by the I-Lab at WBUR Boston.

Hey, Sugar fans. This is producer emeritus Amary Severson, and this week we're doing something a little different.

We're going to feature an episode of the podcast as me with Shaneid Burke.

And in this episode, Shaneid interviews the actor Dan Levy, who you might know as one of the stars of Shit's Creek.

So here it is, and enjoy.

Welcome to As Me with Shaneid. I have an absolute treat for you today.

One of my favourite things to do, particularly when I travel as a way in which to take my mind off whatever it is I'm doing, is to watch some smart, well-written, funny, punchy, fast, protagonist-driven television with a hint of activism and advocacy within it.

And at the top of my list is Shit's Creek. I have talked about this to anybody who will listen, and this person for this week's episode of As Me with Shaneid has created that space and created the first pansexual character on mainstream television.

They're committed to making us and me and all of us laugh and think, and within this show they've designed a world in which so much of the bigotry that exists within our good-to-do experience is just not part of it.

This week's episode was with the extraordinary Dan Levy. We talked about the evolution of David and Dan simultaneously, and what it's like to work with his family.

My dad had it set in his mind that I should be wearing glasses for this character, and I felt very certain that he should not be wearing glasses, and that was a thing that like got into it in the early days of our show.

Because he was like, I don't know, I think he should wear glasses, and I'm like, well, I've been doing MTV for 10 years. I wear glasses on MTV. I really want to separate myself from who I am as a television host and who I want to be as this character, and I want out in the end.

And as a result, I wore contact lenses for seven years, which I hated every single day.

On my mind this week, after having a couple of days with a bit of a nasal cold and not feeling so great, and perhaps it's just coming to the end of a very busy year, I've been really thinking about, how do I not just take some time off, but figure out the boundaries that I needed just for me.

In a world in which we're always built for optimization, which I really learned from reading Trick Mirror. How do we learn to optimize ourselves to just be ourselves? Are you ready?

Let's go.

This week on As Me With Shunade, I have somebody who I would generally describe as one of my heroes, and they say, don't meet your heroes, which is probably the reason why we're doing this through studios in New York and Los Angeles.

But I could, this person has, I think, shaped a generation of people to view their own narratives within popular culture in a way that's not tainted by the biases that exist within the real world, but give us the freedom to dream who we wish to be in any and all spaces.

And it is, of course, Dan Levy, the actor, creator, nowhere of all things the hills on MTV, but most importantly, the person who has given us shit's creek. Dan, welcome to the show.

Are you wanting me to cry before this interview even starts?

Yes, please, that's really good for writing.

What a lovely introduction. Oh, my goodness, me. Thank you for having me.

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