Tony Shalhoub talks about his new 'Monk' movie, his lasting connection to Green Bay and Taylor Swift at Lambeau

As if all the Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards weren’t enough, it turns out actor Tony Shalhoub is also really good at something else: graciously sharing the spotlight with Taylor Swift.

The Green Bay native was back in his hometown for the “Sunday Night Football” game between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas Chiefs at Lambeau Field. A Packers fan since he was a kid growing up with nine brothers and sisters on Doty Street, Shalhoub was smiling and waving down on the sidelines in his cold weather gear as he chatted up folks before the game.

Swift flew in on her private jet to cheer on the Chiefs and her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelce. NBC cameras captured a glimpse of the music megastar (and now Time’s Person of the Year) in a headline-grabbing Stella McCartney red teddy coat high up in a luxury box with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes' wife, Brittany.

It’s hard to compete with that, as Seth Meyers made sure to point out to Shalhoub during his appearance Wednesday on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

“You were on the sidelines, and it must’ve been a rare case where nobody cared about you at all,” Meyers joked, as he showed a photo of Shalhoub at Lambeau.

“It was,” Shalhoub said. “My thunder was not only stolen but actually sent out into the stratosphere.”

During an interview with the Green Bay Press-Gazette in the week before the game, Shalhoub kidded around about the possibility that he and Swift could both be at the game.

“It’ll be me and Taylor Swift, just sharing a bag of cheese curds,” Shalhoub said. “I’m hoping I get a chance to meet her and say hello. I want to introduce myself as ‘Tony Not So Swift.’”

The cheesy meet-up never happened.

“It’s funny. Everyone asks me, ‘Are you going to see Taylor Swift? Did you see Taylor Swift?’ As if there’s like one box in the stadium,” Shalhoub said on “Late Night.” “I was disappointed I didn’t, because she is such an enormous ‘Monk’ fan, you know what I mean?”

That was Shalhoub kidding around again, but with or without Swift, there are many “Monk” fans who have been eagerly awaiting his return as Adrian Monk 14 years after the TV series ended its popular eight-season run in 2009.

“Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie” begins streaming Friday on Peacock. It reunites the original cast and creators for a film in which Monk, a former San Francisco homicide detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder, comes out of retirement to try to solve a case involving his stepdaughter, Molly, as she prepares to get married.

Cast was 'over-the-moon enthusiastic' to reunite for movie

There’s a scene in the film where Monk tells his therapist, Dr. Neven Bell (played by Hector Elizondo), that working again as a detective is just like riding a bicycle. For Shalhoub, stepping back into the shoes — and phobias — of the character after more than a decade was a little unnerving.

“I had a great time when I did the series, and I remember it fondly, but when you’re away from a character that long you wonder ... do I even sound the same? Has my voice changed? Certainly my face has definitely aged 14 years. So you have all these questions going in and it feels somewhat daunting,” Shalhoub said.

“On the other hand, the writers did such a good job of re-creating the voices of all these characters, and yet at the same time have them evolve into people who are older, people who have experienced more, people who have maybe even lost more, gained more, whatever, depending on the character, so it didn’t take too long the first day for all of us to kind of get ourselves back into it.”

The idea for “Mr. Monk’s Last Case” was born out of the pandemic when suddenly everyone became a germophobe like Monk. Peacock played off the “we’re all Monk now” notion with a PSA featuring Shalhoub repeatedly washing his hands to "99 Bottles of Beer" and running his grocery store produce through the dishwasher. Traylor Howard (as Natalie Teeger), Jason Gray-Stanford (as Randall Disher) and Ted Levine (as Leland Stottlemeyer) joined in via Zoom.

Excited by how much fun they had working together again and encouraged by the response from the public, the “Monk” team approached the entire cast about reuniting for a movie.

“Everyone was just over-the-moon enthusiastic,” Shalhoub said.

It took some sweet talking to get Elizondo back as Dr. Bell. At 86, he has mostly retired from acting. Without him, it meant the writers might have to explore a storyline where Monk found a different therapist all these years later.

“I really balked at that idea. I needed Hector,” Shalhoub said. “We called him and said, ‘Look, it’s two scenes. We can shoot you out in one day.’ ... And he went for it.”

He flew from Los Angeles for filming, and Shalhoub thinks his scenes turned out to be some of the best in the movie.

He still gets back to Green Bay and Door County to visit

When Shalhoub, a Green Bay East High School graduate, was back in his hometown in 2022 for a film event at The Tarlton Theatre, he did a Q&A with members of the audience. His critically acclaimed TV career also includes “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Wings,” and a Tony Award for “The Band’s Visit,” but it was his role as “Monk” that overwhelmingly dominated the questions.

It was another reminder of how beloved the character is, but even after all these years, Shalhoub isn’t sure he can put his finger on why people adore Adrian Monk so much.

“I honestly wish I knew,” he said.

“Part of the appeal might be that Monk is a bit of an underdog. People underestimate him. He’s got a lot of problems, and people have problems. And he’s socially inept and I think ... a lot of people, they can put a certain face on it, but a lot of people feel somewhat awkward socially and feel somewhat out of place like Monk does, I guess.

"And then there’s that aspect to him where he turns his disability into an asset, so maybe that gives people some kind of hope that they can turn things around for themselves.

"The other important aspect is that it’s a family show. People can watch it with their kids or their grandkids,” he said. “It’s not like one of those shows that’s just geared to a young audience or just geared to an adult audience. It sort of satisfies both.”

More: A star-studded Packers-Chiefs game at Lambeau with Taylor Swift, Simone Biles was a night to remember

Shalhoub frequently speaks of his parents, childhood and growing up in Green Bay with fondness in interviews. He’s been gone from the city since the early 1970s and currently lives in New York but says he still remains connected to the area. He has a lot of family and friends who live here, and he visits quite often. As a season ticket holder, he gets back for Packers games whenever he can.

“We have some property in Door County, so we visit Door County a lot. It’s where we spent all of our summers in our childhood when we were growing up,” he said.

Being born and raised in the Midwest and staying connected to family and friends here has kept his life more in balance, he said.

He laughs when he's told that any news story or social media post in Green Bay about him inevitably brings a flurry of comments from residents who have a cousin who went to school with him or a grandma who lived on the same street or a brother's best friend who knows his oldest sister. It’s Six Degrees of Tony Shalhoub. It comes with the territory when you have so many brothers and sisters who all have friends and went to different schools, Shalhoub said.

Just how much is that kid who grew up in Green Bay like Mr. Monk, if at all? Well, Shalhoub prefers things to be orderly, neat and clean and done in a certain way, so there's some overlap.

"The way I load a dishwasher or put things away in the fridge or in the drawer or in the closet. Sure, there’s definitely some parallels. I’d like to think that I’m not quite as bad as Monk, but my wife disagrees.”

Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert. 

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Tony Shalhoub talks 'Monk' movie, his Green Bay roots, Taylor Swift