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They're always playing and fucking around with dolls and fucking around with Legos and they're moving things around and they're using their mind to, they're drawing. They're doing stuff that's creative. It's just after a while, that part of their life just kind of goes way in atrophies. And then ...
[MUSIC]
>> Hey, Bradley Cooper, what's happening, baby?
>> You know what it's like when like a twilight zone episode or something.
>> You're watching the TV.
>> This is an episode where I'm watching the TV and then also you're inside the show.
>> And you're looking at me and I got the, yeah, I'm outside the show.
It's crazy.
>> It's weird for me too.
>> It's weird for me that it gets weird for other people too.
Like when I see people being weird about it, it's okay.
>> I feel comfortable just saying that.
>> Oh good, you look comfortable.
>> No, no, no, it's excitement.
>> It's weird for me.
I was trying to explain this to someone that people have a hard time being comfortable in the show.
I go, I kind of do too, it's fucking weird.
>> Yeah.
>> It's weird that that many people are watching.
>> Yes.
>> And then you start thinking like, oh, don't fuck it up, don't say that.
>> Right.
>> But if you think about it, the fact that you did this long form set up and that we live
in a culture where people at least say that it's all about short term.
>> Yeah.
>> It goes against it, the people are interested.
>> Yeah, well, the short term stuff does work, you know, like short attention span stuff
is very popular, even with me, like, but I have been resisting it more and more lately.
I'm like a fucking heroin addict, like slowly weaning myself off the drug.
And the more I wean myself, the better I feel, like physically better.
My brain works better.
I feel more relaxed, I don't feel like this, like Shugashan O'Malley, the USC fighter,
he said, even when I'm just scrolling, even if it's not anything about me, he goes, there's
just like a low level anxiety that I get.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, because like, you know, you're wasting your time chasing a
fix that you're never going to get.
And you're just like getting these short drips of like, oh, look at that, oh, look
at that.
>> Yeah.
>> Scrolls, scrolls, scrolls, but that's not what people really want, what people really
want is something engaging, something that's, wow, that's something, like a great documentary,
like which are still super popular, like a great documentary, they're still, you know,
huge on Netflix and huge on YouTube.
>> So this often Heimer was like three hours long.
>> Right.
Exactly.
>> People went.
>> Humans didn't change.
It's just you can hijack the reward system by giving them some short attention spend nonsense,
and it just like tricks their slow drip dopamine into like continuing to watch a stupid
shit, but that's not what they want, you know, it's not what I want, you know.
>> It's the difference between like, yeah, just a little drip of something that has the
illusion that I'm getting what I want as opposed to what I actually need, which is sort
of a reminder that I exist.
>> Yes.
>> Yes.
>> And that I'm communicating with somebody and I can relate to it.
>> Yes.
>> Which is a different thing.
And I only know this because I've never been on social media, but sometimes, there was
one time I got on, somehow got on TikTok and it was all police footage, you know, like,
and I was just, I remember laying on my couch, 40 minutes went by and I was just doing this.
And there was like the first part of the video and then what happened?
And then like the second part, part two.
And that was the only time I experienced, I thought I got to stay away from this because
I won't leave the house.
It's bad.
It's bad for you, too, because it programs you to think that that is going on everywhere
in the world.
Like if you have eight billion people that are interacting with people all over the world
and you only take the worst examples of that and broadcast it and then it becomes viral
and millions and millions of people, it rewires your way you think about human beings.
>> But the, and the other thing is about memory.
Someone was talking about Niagara Falls the other day and I thought, I've been there, right?
And I'm like, have I been there?
Or did I see a video where there was, or there was that one of the things when I put the
Oculus on.
>> Right, right.
>> Honestly, I can't remember, but I know what it feels like to be looking at it.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> So it's changing the way memory works.
>> 100%.
>> Yeah.
I've come, I've hit a wall in my memory, like a tangible wall because, and I think it's
connected to like Dunbar's number.
Like Dunbar's number is the amount of people that you can keep in your head, like because
we evolved in these tribal scenarios, we evolved with like 150 people.
And so the way Dunbar calculated it, there's like very close intimate, close circle people,
which is a small amount and then immediately after that there's a slightly larger amount
and then it gets up to like 1,000 people, 1,500 people, that's the most amount of people
you can keep in your head.
So it's like five people that like your tightest of tight and then 15 and like slightly outside
of that.
And it gets all the way up to about 1,500 people, recognizable people.
But I would think I'd be able to, that you could keep in your head.
>> Yeah.
But I'm way past 1,500 people.
So I'm fucked.
>> Right.
>> Like I am, like there's people that I know really well and then I see them and I'm like,
I don't remember his name.
>> Yeah.
>> 1,500 sounds good.
>> And it seems bad.
Like why can't I remember his fucking name?
>> I can remember his name.
>> I'm horrible with names.
>> But it's just because my hard drive sucks.
It's like I don't have enough room.
It's like you know when you, the old iPhones, it was like you've run out of, you know, Mac
Space.
Like, ah, Chase, I got to start deleting photos and videos.
>> Now do you get anxiety with that or do you sort of breathe through and say, well,
just the way it is?
>> I kind of just deal with it.
>> Yeah.
>> It is what it is.
>> Yeah.
>> But my memory itself is like very good and also very bad at the same time.
>> Yeah, me too.
I'm, I have a serious problem remembering people's names.
>> Well you think about how many people do you mean?
>> Like I was saying it.
I was like, and I've watched your social made sense.
I was like, Jamie, right.
That's Jamie.
Like as you were saying.
>> Right, right.
>> Do I remember any of the guys I just met, can't tell you what, I just met them, shook
their hand, looked them in there.
>> They say their names and it just goes in and out.
>> Yeah.
>> And some people get upset.
>> No, I don't.
>> Fuck it.
>> No.
>> You don't remember me?
>> No, I'm like.
>> You don't remember?
>> No.
>> What's my name?
You're like.
>> Well that's why in Hollywood people love to say, good to see you.
Instead of nice to meet you.
>> Yeah.
>> Like that you met me two years ago.
>> Yeah.
>> Like I don't remember.
>> Yeah.
Leonard Bernstein had a great thing that he would always be about.
I loved you and the last thing you did.
>> Yeah.
>> That's funny.
That's funny.
Speaking of which, I watched your movie.
Is this thing on?
>> Good.
It's really good, man.
>> Oh, thanks man.
>> It's one of the best representations of someone attempting to stand up.
It's a really good film.
But it's not really just about stand up.
It's about these people with this.
It's about, they're actual human beings.
These are complicated, real, not caricature-ish, not cartoonish people.
I get that these are real people.
>> Right, good.
>> They're complicated, real people that are trying to figure out their relationships.
>> Good.
>> In the context of this one guy, Will Arnette is tempted to do stand up.
>> Right.
That was great.
>> I'm glad you say that.
I moved to New York in '97 and then that was my introduction to any comedy world.
Other than with my dad, I used to watch Ronnie Dangerfield, New Year's Eve Special.
I used to watch it every year when it was Elaine Boosler and Sam Kennisin and Dyson.
>> Elaine Boosler.
>> I'm pretty sure she was on there.
I was obsessed with Dyson when I was like in eighth grade.
I memorized one of his records and I would do it in the train station with all of my friends.
Because back then, that's all you did, right?
You would memorize stuff.
There was no video to look at.
You wouldn't all sit around.
You would just memorize and then regale your friends and your impersonation of them.
Then Richard Pryor was my hero, hero growing up.
That was my idol.
I had this thing with Stand Up Comedy and I moved to New York and I'm all of a sudden immersed
with these clubs and upright citizens of Brigade at just starred.
I did this movie, What Had American Summer.
There was all these people.
I didn't even know about the state.
Remember that show on MTV?
There was a show.
>> Uh-huh.
>> All of this.
I just, you know, little by little, immersed myself in that world.
And I just became fascinated with the culture.
And then Zach Alfonakis, who I met, like in 2001, way before hangover.
I used to go and watch him do stuff.
And I just loved the culture.
And when Will was telling me about this, I was like, oh, let's set it in New York.
And the seller.
Because I just loved the geography of the seller too.
You go in the olive tree and you walk down into this place.
This is whole of their world.
And it just felt like, yeah, I really went like, can we pull this off where it's authentic?
Where you were watching it at home and you get a sense of the fact that you're saying,
that, you know, you feel like it got it, you know, within the striking distance,
makes me really happy.
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Terms apply.
Yeah, it's striking distance.
It's like one of the only films.
A punchline was an interesting film.
The Tom Hanks, Sally Fields.
Yeah, of course.
But it was bullshit.
Like you watch it like with it.
I got lockers.
Look at the fuck is this.
And also the comedy wasn't good.
It wasn't real comedy.
It was like a felt flat and fake and people were laughing at nothing.
The will stuff felt real.
Yeah.
It felt real.
You know, like the clubs felt like a guy trying to work out what it's like to be on stage and open mic.
And then the fact you got Jordan Jensen in who I love.
Yeah, she was fucking great.
I texted her afterwards.
Isn't she great?
She's great.
She's great.
She's so natural.
And the minute I started shooting her and I was like, oh wait a second.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was like, and the first thing I shot where there was one of her sets.
And I was just up there with the camera and I came around and her profile.
And actually I felt like I was in the starsboard.
She looked a lot like Gaga and Allie like singing shallow.
Oh wow.
And I had like this weird moment.
I was like, whoa.
And then she was just incredible.
And then as it went on, she had a larger part of the movie.
And then that whole thing when they're talking about the small penis.
And we go up to her and just her writing that down.
And she was just so fluid.
And I was like, oh yeah, she's got it, man.
She's got it.
She's great.
She's real great.
She's a really unique person.
Like a very unusual pearl.
Like even just talking to her profile.
Oh yeah.
We're up on a farm with two moms.
And yeah, amazing.
Yeah.
She could do anything.
I know.
She's so fun.
She's fun on stage too.
Like she's great.
Like very smart.
Very smart.
Very smart.
But like her character.
Like the way she interact.
I'm like, oh that's so realistic.
Like we should fuck.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
And then you were back to the like East Village or Chinatown apartment.
You know, they live in one room.
Yeah.
I believe it.
Yeah.
It was great.
It's like, you know, you're never going to really capture standup in a movie
because it's like to capture what it is, you would need like years.
And also you would need a movie dedicated to it.
Exactly.
The movie's not dedicated to it.
Exactly.
Do you know what I mean?
It was just about, can I make you feel like you're there?
Or that you're with him on stage?
Yes.
That could be like, you know, the silence.
And then the camera's boom.
There's nowhere to go.
How did you work out the standup scenes?
Did you have real audiences?
And then they just--
They were real audiences because you have to hit the quota of extras
with SAG and all that.
But we try to do it as authentic as possible, which was everybody that works
at the seller, they're there in the movie.
Everybody who agreed to do it.
So all the waiters and everything, the staff, that's all people that work there.
Liz, who's the manager, who plays the manager.
She's the manager of the seller.
So all those people are real.
But then the patrons--
I can't remember what the email was or what the ask was.
But people who like to go to standup comedy, who go regularly.
And then once they were there, I never told them what was going to happen.
I never directed them once.
It was like whatever they're laughing at, that's it.
And I don't do many takes.
So you're getting an authentic reaction.
Now it's hyped up because there's cameras there.
And it's a movie.
But they're not told what to do.
It feels like that.
And even in the mix, we never added anything.
There was no added laugh, nothing.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, yeah, it's all because I was like, it's got to be real.
Because I wanted Will to just, you know, I just don't want him to act.
Right, right.
And that's why Shane Gillis was kind of up.
The first time he went up was here at the mothership.
Shane gave him four minutes of a set.
And he and Will and I flew to Austin and were sitting in the green room.
And Shane was like an hour and a half late.
And Tony was there.
And he was so nice.
I'd never met Tony before.
And that's where I smelled the thing.
You know, I did this.
Oh, it smells like fuck me.
That shit is no joke.
Yeah.
And that was the first time Will ever went up.
And we were just trying some of that material and went up as Alex Novak.
Because I was like, when do you have an opportunity as an actor to actually do the thing
you're preparing to do?
Right.
And like, think about how much that would cost.
So you can go into a room with those real people.
Right.
And then every step that you're taking, you're in a club.
So he did that.
And then when we back to New York, he did like three times a week, four or five times a night,
for like six weeks.
Wow.
Just so he could understand what it's like.
And some people didn't know who he was.
You know, you get a lot of tourists come into New York City.
And there were nights where you knew that he, when he said Alex Novak, they're like, cool.
Right.
Not like you're not Alex Novak.
Right.
Okay, let's see what you got.
And so that was really, that was really great.
How did you, who wrote this film?
He wrote it with this guy Mark Chappell.
It was a movie that was more about his, based on this guy John Bishop, who's a real comedian,
who's a very successful comedian in the UK.
And he will met that guy on a barge somewhere.
And he was talking about his story.
And he was like, yeah, I was doing something else.
My wife and I were breaking up and I walked into a bar, a pub one night.
I didn't want to pay the cover.
That really happened to this guy.
So he put his name down and then they called him.
And then he was like, yeah, I'm getting a divorce and got a couple of chuckles.
But he just loved it.
Never done comedy, nothing before that.
And he kept going back.
And he like was obsessed by it.
And then like weeks later his wife, a strange wife, walked into a place he was doing
an open mic at with her girlfriends.
And he was doing a set about their relationship.
So that actually happened.
Wow.
I know. And then they got back together.
And they're still together.
And then now he like, he tours around the world.
Like he makes a living as a comedian.
That's incredible.
Yeah. So when he was telling me that I was doing another movie.
And I remember I was like, what are you working on?
Because we've been friends for like 25 years.
And he was telling me that.
And I was like, I just imagine Will.
Because I know him so well.
And he's so charismatic and funny.
And just has this presence that is kind of lacking.
I don't feel like there's like a male archetype now that fits him.
He's like, he's like Robert Mitchum.
He reminds me like a young Robert Mitchum will or not.
And he's telling me that I'm like his voice and like that face stand up cause.
I just couldn't get out of my head, Joe.
And I was like, hey, man, can I read it?
Like how far along are you guys?
And I read it and I was like, I didn't quite, because like you,
I'd never seen a movie that I thought nailed it.
And I love stand up comedy so much.
I was like, and I have no desire to try to redo it.
And also comedy is so massive right now.
And the specials are so great and cinematic right now.
That there's no reason to try to make a fictional movie about something that we can watch
as a documentary or a docu series or a show that is authentic.
I was like, so, but I still would really love to capture it cinematically.
So what if it's a foil and the movie is about the two of them?
That's interesting.
Yes.
And you suck.
That was one of the great scenes which Jordan was like.
Yeah, you're bad.
You're really bad.
And it's much more about just what stand up comedy with anything.
And you talk about this on your show doing anything that puts you out of your comfort zone.
Yeah.
Anything that pushes you.
You're going to, you're going to improve as a human being.
That was really what that, that whole thing is about.
And I just love the culture in the world and I thought there's so much tangible stuff there
for me to get excited about cinematically and story wise.
But really it's like, it could have been anything.
It's just something that he'd never done that had he had put himself out there
and that in doing it and doing it, he just sort of gets more comfortable, you know.
And then the mic comes off the stand and then he's leaning against the wall.
And by the end of it and then the way it was structured,
it allows him to do that vampire set at the end of the movie
where all he's doing is exercising what he's feeling emotionally
because he's comfortable in this setting.
Yeah.
Because the old him when he has that fight with her in the attic,
he just would have kept that all inside.
And he would have been cantonic at his kids assembly
where we meet him in the beginning of the movie.
Because you just don't know what to do with all that.
But if you have an outlet, something expressive,
you can, you know, exercise it in a healthy way.
Yeah.
So that's what, that's what, that really was the point of that whole part
of it being stand-up comedy and open mic.
What you really nailed is someone trying it for the first time.
You guys really nailed that.
You really nailed a beginner in comedy.
Like it seemed completely realistic.
Great.
Yeah.
And I think that's one of the reasons why Killtonia is so popular.
Yes.
You know, because you get to see, like you can't,
that raw reality of someone who has never done stand-up before.
Like there was people that went up at Madison Square Garden
in front of 16,000 people that had never done stand-up before.
No, no, no, that's, that's, you know.
Don't do that.
Yes.
You should be in a fucking smoky room.
Yes.
Well, not smoky anymore, but a tiny fucking room where of disinterested people,
where everyone's bombing and you bomb to it, it's not that big a deal.
Right.
Because you might have some potential.
But if you fucking bomb in front of 16,000 people, the pain of that,
you may never recover.
Also, just think about the audit, like because you're going to hear your voice
through the, you know, echoing.
Right.
It's can't be just in it.
Like, so there, I imagine there's an echo.
So you're not only bombing, but you're hearing it.
Right.
You don't really feel the echo.
You don't hear the echo because you, you have monitors on stage.
So it's going to be pretty flat.
I see.
Okay.
But the noise of your voice, where you've never heard your voice in a microphone
before, ever.
Right.
And now you're in front of 16,000 people doing it.
No, that's not.
And then Tony's sitting there looking at you and Shane's there and I'm there.
It's like a nightmare.
It's like you're, you're walking into a nightmare.
Well, what?
Just doing stand-up in front of like a guy like Shane Gillis is crazy.
Crazy.
He's sitting right next to you.
You've never done stand-up.
You're going to do stand-up right next to a guy who's selling out arenas.
Like that's nuts.
Yeah.
That feeling is nuts.
But it's wonderful to watch.
Because you're watching authentic reactions happening in real time.
Yes.
Okay.
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Yeah, it's true.
Yeah.
I think human beings really love seeing what it's like when someone starts out doing something.
Because a lot of people have these ideas like maybe I could try that or maybe I could learn how to play guitar.
Maybe I could do that.
But it's just the getting going and sucking at something in the beginning.
It's terrifying for people.
So when they see someone, just try it.
I think they're like, look at him go.
Look at him go, he's out there doing it.
He's on the bike.
He's moving.
You see actual people that are trying to do something that they've never done before.
And it's exciting.
And also, the one thing I wanted to touch on is the craft of it all.
That it takes a lot of work.
I know that it's not just the writing.
She says that one point.
She's like, you got to write.
Keep going up.
And I think most people at least I didn't know before I started going.
That people go up three or four times a night.
Like I didn't understand.
So that was something I thought was important to convey.
Yeah.
Just the work ethic that's needed.
Well, New York is really great for that.
And it's always had a culture of that.
It's had a culture of guys hopping from club to club and doing set to set.
Because there's so many clubs in Manhattan.
So guys would just, you know, I think the most guy I ever heard one guy did eight or nine sets a night.
Like they're just like that's how many clubs there are.
Right.
Just hop all over the place.
You start your night at like eight p.m.
Downtown.
Downtown.
Downtown.
Yeah.
You're all over the place.
It's, um, we've got a lot of that here now.
There's so many clubs in Austin now.
I mean, we went there.
What you've built is incredible.
Thank you.
It's culture.
It's fun.
I showed the movie to a standup who hadn't done standup in like 15 years.
And he said the only thing that's for sure you got wrong is the culture.
And I was like, what do you mean?
He's like, no, people aren't that nice.
And I was like, actually, I think you're wrong.
I was like, it's changed.
I was like, people are supportive now.
It's in where you go.
There's places where it's not very supportive.
But at least like I used to go to the seller like in early 2000s.
Didn't feel like it does now.
Right.
Well, I think Ari Shafir changed that a lot.
Like the culture of L.A. to New York, where you're like more supportive of each other.
It was always like dog against dog.
Because really the way it all started out was in the 1990s.
It was all about everyone was auditioning for a sitcom.
And if you and I were, if I showed up to audition for a sitcom,
like, oh, fuck, Bradley's here.
He's going for the same part.
Fuck that guy.
You know what it was?
Because it was like, that could change your life.
If you got that sitcom, now all of a sudden, you're fucking huge.
And I'm still like struggling to pay my rent, eat, and ramen.
And it could have been me.
Right.
And so there's this like serious resentment that happens in the 1990s.
Because everybody, like the golden carrot at the end of the stick was the tonight show.
Or you know hosting a late, if you could get your own late night show.
Oh my god, he made it.
He's a host of the tonight show.
That was like the thing that only one person could get.
And then there was like the sitcom.
Like if it really worked out, they'd make a sitcom around you.
You'd get a development deal.
So there was people would psychologically backstab people.
People would talk shit to people before they went on stage.
They would try to hijack their fucking mind.
Right.
Right.
Like really, it was dark.
Crazy.
And then the internet came around.
And then the internet instead of people being your competitors,
they became not just your friends and not just your colleagues, but also an asset.
Because if you're doing a podcast and you've got your funny friends on,
then your podcast is better.
Right.
And then if you tell people about their podcast and their podcast is better,
and then you go on their podcast, and that's better,
and everybody benefits from everybody else doing well.
So it became, it completely reversed the system.
And then it became much more about being supportive of each other.
And then everybody kind of realized like, hey, it's way more fun when we're all having fun.
You know, and since the television thing kind of died off,
the sitcom thing kind of died off with reality shows.
And then it was really just more about getting clips up on the internet
and about getting, and then there was Netflix special.
So it wasn't just everybody trying to get an HBO special.
There was way more specials.
And then you could just upload specials to YouTube.
And it became this way more collaborative supportive environment.
And then Ari Schaffer took that that we had kind of like established in L.A.
and brought that to New York.
And a lot of those guys ran with it.
Yeah, I mean, that's the way to go.
People always say, you know, there's a lot of room at the top.
Yeah.
There's a lot.
There's a lot of room and stand up for sure.
You know, and it's like, and everybody has their own lane,
even within this big highway.
Uh-huh.
And everybody wants to be with other people.
Who wants to be a lone wolf, really?
For a long period of time.
Yeah.
There's a few.
There were all psychologically destroyed.
They're just a mess.
Yeah.
Who doesn't want to have friends?
It's crazy.
Yeah.
I don't get it.
That aspect of the culture, I felt like in the movie, you guys nailed.
Which is a realistic aspect.
Good.
A realistic portrayal of what it's like, where a bunch of people just...
They were all busting each other's balls.
Yeah, you could be supportive and still honest.
Yeah.
That was the thing.
There's no lack of honesty or criticism.
Yeah.
It's just, it's not done with the hope that you're for your demise.
Yes.
That's the difference.
Yeah, I think the 90s, like poisoned a lot of comedians.
It poisoned them because it gave you this idea that the whole thing was about a means to an end.
And that end was a sitcom.
And everybody thought you just had to get a sitcom.
Got to get a sitcom.
And that was what everybody was working towards.
There's people that were developing their entire act based around a persona
that they could sell to the networks.
Were you doing stand-up before your sitcom?
Yes.
I see.
Okay, so is that how that happened?
Did someone see you?
And then they were like, oh, you got to, you got to try this show?
Yeah, I got, I got ridiculously lucky.
Like, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I work really hard to get on a sitcom.
Nope.
No, I got lucky.
I did the MTV, I never had any aspirations to act at all.
I did the MTV half-hour comedy hour.
I got a development deal.
And all of a sudden, I'm in living in LA and I'm on a sitcom.
And it happened in a couple months.
And a great sitcom.
I was on a bad one first.
I was on a bad one called Hardball.
I was on a sitcom on Fox, where I played a baseball player.
That show got canceled.
And unfortunately, I thought it was going to gut because I was retarded.
I was, you know, 25 years old, 26 years old.
And I was like, oh, this is going to take off.
I should get an apartment.
So I had a lease on an apartment.
But I'm sure people were telling you that it was going to take off too.
Oh, yeah, of course.
Everybody believed it.
Yeah, you're going to win an Emmy.
Well, the guys who made it, Jeff Martin and Kevin Kern.
They worked on The Simpsons.
They worked on Married With Children.
They were really good.
Oh, wow. But then the Fox people came in and just ruined it.
Like the executives came in and they brought in a bunch of hacks and just ruined the show.
Did you have fun doing it?
Oh, yeah, I had a kind of good time.
But I also missed comedy.
I missed New York people.
And I wanted to get out of there.
I was like, I got to get back to New York.
Fuck this place.
As soon as it was over.
But it was like, fuck, I got this lease.
So I had a lease for a year.
And then I got to develop a deal.
So how long were you in LA at that time?
Oh, I was only in LA for a few months.
Wow.
Yeah.
So I moved out there to do the show.
Right.
I got a lease almost immediately.
And then I was out there for a few months.
Shoga canceled.
And then I got a development deal to do something for NBC.
And they were going to do my own sitcom.
But as we were developing it, they said, hey, there's a show that we're doing.
It's called News Radio.
It's already been picked up.
We already did the pilot.
But we fired one person from the pilot and we want you to read for this.
And that's how I got on News Radio.
That's how it happened.
Like, that was the only second show I ever auditioned for ever.
Wow.
So I had one show.
That is a very unique track.
You had a very unique track.
That's nuts.
Stumbled into it.
100%.
I can't take any credit for it.
That's amazing.
This is my ability to keep it together in auditions.
Yeah.
And not track with no acting experience at all.
But it was just not, it wasn't something that I aspired to.
So it didn't have the kind of pressure that it probably had for a lot of people.
And it probably didn't have the same kind of relation, too.
Right.
Like, you probably, I assume it was not something you really wanted.
It was like, it was fun.
But you weren't like, this is, this is like, this feels right.
No, what it felt like is, ooh, I'm going to make get money.
Yeah.
And get some money.
Yeah, then something's wrong.
Something's wrong.
I was like, this is good.
I'm going to get money.
And I have to worry about money.
That's how I thought about it.
Right.
And then when I was doing it, I was like, wow, I'm so lucky.
Like, how do I stumble on it?
I'm here with Phil Hartman.
This is crazy, dude.
That's crazy, dude.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
It was a crazy cast.
Right.
No, it was Paul Sims.
Paul Sims, right.
Yeah.
Who would just left Larry Sanderson.
Right.
So he left Larry Sanderson.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
It was a crazy luck.
Just stupid dumb luck.
That's right.
Sorting to that other show with Jeff Daniels.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a lot of fun.
So, but back in those days, like everybody was working towards that.
And fortunately, I already had that.
So my thing was just like, continue to work on standup.
And just work on my standup.
And if this all goes away, I'll just go back to being a comic.
And doing standup in LA.
Yes.
Right.
So that was new.
Yeah.
And that's where I encountered the worst backstabbing I've ever seen in my life.
So you're coming from New York where you didn't feel that.
You didn't feel it as much.
Right.
You know, you felt like a lot of shit talking.
But that was fun.
You know, the guys would make fun if you bombed.
Right.
They were doing it to your face.
Yeah.
They were doing it to your face.
It was a more like, it was just a more ball busting like silly environment in New York.
Right.
It wasn't no one thought they were going to get famous in New York.
You know, they were all just right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But in LA, everybody had this idea to get a sitcom.
And then in the 1990s, they started giving out development deals.
That was the big thing.
You get like a $200,000, half a million dollar development deal.
And then all of a sudden, you have all this money.
And you're living it. And so everybody was working towards that.
So it became instead of like people working towards just being a standup,
it became standup was a means to an end.
And then all these other people, they were in your way to get that goal.
Jesus.
And then your agent was telling you that's what you had to do.
Right.
Because they wanted that money too.
Right.
So it was all like programming people to go after the sitcom.
So completely different culture in the standup community there.
Exactly.
But then that all went away.
It all went away.
And the idea of working towards a sitcom is not,
it's like working towards a career in ham radio.
Like, it's fucking went away.
Well, you say that Ari changed it.
How did he do it?
Because he brought the LA culture to New York.
Ari moved from LA back to New York.
And he, I mean, everybody that I talked to in New York is always like,
you guys are doing it wrong.
And people listen to it.
Yeah.
Well, because he was established.
He was a really good comic.
And they were like, okay.
I think he's right.
Wow.
And they would come to, they would come to LA.
Like a lot of guys like Andrew Schultz and a lot of these other guys.
They would come to LA and they were like,
"Bro, everybody's so fucking nice here."
And they're all just having a great time.
Like, why aren't we doing that?
Why aren't we just having a great time?
And so it shifted.
It's just, it was the culture of the internet.
The internet changed everything.
Because there was no longer this one thing that a hundred guys were trying to audition for.
Now it was anybody could just put up something online.
And then all your friends became assets.
They all became like valuable to you instead of competitors.
That's cool.
Yeah.
Do you go up in these cities ever now?
I do.
If I'm in LA, I also do sets in LA.
I haven't been in a while.
But you know, most of the time I'm at my own club.
Right.
It makes it wait.
Also, I have teenage kids in there.
I want to be home.
Did you do the seller?
Yeah, I did the seller back in the day.
But more I did, I did the stand.
I did catch when it was there.
Right.
I did, I always did danger fields.
Danger fields was great.
Because it was like a hole in the wall.
There was hardly anybody there.
Is that where he shot his special?
Yes.
Wow.
Yeah.
It was big in the 80s and then something happened.
And by the time I got there in the 90s, it was like fucking dead.
One time I went there and I had a spot at like 830.
And I don't remember what time the show started.
But there was a few people on before me.
And I got there and the people that were on before me were sitting at the bar.
I go, what's going on?
There's no crowd.
Mike, there's no crowd.
There's nobody.
And so then this couple walked up and they bought tickets for the comedy show.
And this guy, Bobby, who's the dormant, like, step right up.
He was a Scottish guy.
Come on in.
I have, yes, he did.
He seats them down.
There's no one there.
Just them.
They sit down.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Danger Fields.
Your first act and we all did stand up for two fucking people.
Wow.
Yeah.
The whole night was two people.
And they had a great time, I'm sure.
But it was weird.
It's like when you're doing stand up for just two people.
You're only looking at two people.
But you also realize how much of your act is bullshit.
How much of your act is like fucking dance moves.
It's just nonsense.
Like English on the cue ball.
It's like you're doing a lot of silly things that like don't even...
And you're not connecting with real humans.
Right.
And when there's two people there, it like cuts the fat out of all of your...
Yeah.
Of course.
And you recognize where the flaws and your writing are and the flaws and your delivery.
But Danger Fields was...
It was a wild little place.
It was like a classic comedy club that didn't have any...
No industry went there.
No agents.
No managers went there.
Always.
Yeah.
It was just like a bunch of weird degenerates and it was fun.
Wow.
That was fun place.
So I did that club a lot.
But a lot of...
I did the road a lot.
Yeah.
Because that was how I could make money.
And I could headline.
Like I do an hour.
Because if you're in the city, you're doing 15 minutes sets or 10 minutes sets.
Like, that's great.
But it's hard to piece together an hour at a 10 minute sets.
Because you kind of want to let the material breathe and put it all together.
Yeah, of course.
Composing to one big thing.
And you really can work on that a lot more if you're actually headlining.
Do you watch a lot of specials, comedy specials nowadays?
I don't.
I watch a lot of comics like when I see the club.
Right.
You're not like...
No, I probably should.
I probably should watch more of them.
But really comedy is...it's like an artistic form of hypnosis.
And the real way to see comedy is to be there live.
Right.
Because you're like...
And you know when the person's locked in and you know when they're not.
You feel it.
They got you.
Like they're thinking for you.
Yeah.
If I'm watching a tell.
And he's at like the mothership and he's killing.
Like we're all like this.
So we're like locked into his brain.
And we're letting him like take us on a ride.
Yeah, of course.
It's like a kind of a form of hypnosis.
Yes.
And I really think that a stand-up special is good as they are.
You're maybe getting 60 to 70%.
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And of the experience of actually being there.
That's why I enjoy watching them to see how different people make them.
Because there's all different types.
Yeah.
You know some are heavily edited, which always brings me out.
If there's a way to keep it so you feel like you're in the room.
Right.
You know I remember it was Mr. Tamberine Man or the Chris Rock special where
when he changed the tone of it.
And he started talking about jerkin' off to porn.
And how he became addicted to porn.
And it was that great filmmaker who's a comedian who does music.
He did that thing during COVID when he was in his house.
Bober.
Bober and I think he directed it.
Oh.
And the camera just keeps going on, keeps going on.
By the time you don't even realize it because you're hypnotized.
You're right here on Chris Rock.
And I think probably subconsciously just thinking about it now.
That's probably one of the things.
Because that's kind of the frame I use the whole time on Alex.
Yeah.
But I remember watching that going like when the fuck did this become a close-up?
You know.
But that's what it was happening.
So there was a synergy between the camera and what he was doing in the place.
At least made me feel like, cinematically, I was there.
And this is what he was doing hypnotizing me.
Right.
And then the opposite of that was the special that Chris Rock did where he changed clothes.
So he was doing a special where he filmed part of it in one place.
And another part of it in another place.
And he spliced the two of them together with different outfits.
So you would have him begin a bit with one outfit on and then end the bit with a different outfit.
And you're like, what do you do?
Who's idea was this?
Yeah.
Because in many you cut and edit in any way, you know, even podcasts audio wise.
That's the thing I've learned.
You know, some people, you know, they edit the audio of a podcast.
And you're like, that's not, someone didn't take a breath before they answered.
Oh, like cutting out in between.
Yeah.
It's a whole their rhythm.
Well, that's the YouTube thing, right?
YouTube for a long time was doing this things where they would cut out all the pauses in between people talking thing.
And it became like a style of editing where it's like shocking.
For my ears, it's impossible for me to get in.
Right.
It's just impossible.
Well, it's the short attention span concept.
Right.
You're just saying people are so fucking stupid you can't give many breaks.
You can't give many breaths.
You gotta keep talking.
Keep talking.
Keep talking.
And then did you do it?
Yeah, it's like after all it's just like this wash and yeah.
Yeah.
Just trying to keep you engaged as much as possible by editing instead of by having actually interesting content.
Compelling content.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's an interesting exercise.
Yeah, it's it's it's I enjoy watching like I think Josh Safdie did Sandler's one and he was and he did all this backstage and he walked up.
And then he was in many locations, but he was playing music a lot.
Yeah, I just like watching everybody's different, you know, sort of exploration of different stand-up shows.
Because it's such a huge, viable market.
So people, you know, it's it's fun to watch how they do it.
I think that's probably why because I watch so many of them I wanted to do it in a way in a movie.
Have you done stand-up at all?
Never, never, never.
No.
Have you thought about it?
No.
When you were doing the film, did you think about doing it?
No, no.
No.
Yeah, and I don't know why, Joe.
Yeah.
But no, I just it's not like one of those things that I feel compelled to do.
But would it would it be fun would I be scared all those things?
Will I try and open Mike one night?
Yeah, I probably should.
But it's not I didn't feel compelled to do it.
No.
The problem would be if you did it and it went okay, but you're like, I think I could do better.
And then I'm and then you're gone.
You know me.
I know everybody.
It's kind of the same thing with all of us.
Yeah, of course, dude.
There's always a part of you.
Yeah, I think I can do better.
And the next thing you know, like I got to leave, I got to go do a set.
Right.
What the fuck are you doing?
That I have any dinner.
No.
It's like all artistic pursuits, they can become an obsession and they become an addiction and they become a part of you.
Yeah.
And then it's like your brain naturally goes towards that pathway of thinking about that thing all day.
Yeah.
Which I love.
Oh, it's great.
It's a fun thing.
I remember being 11 and watching the elephant man and knowing at that moment.
You okay?
Yeah, sweat.
Yeah.
Just going to take this knowing at that moment that like, oh, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
When you saw the elephant man.
Yeah, really?
Yeah, I remember.
How was it that movie?
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I've thought about it a lot, obviously.
For David Lynch directed it.
I remember the scene, Anthony Hopkins.
I would loved film.
So I always loved film.
My dad loved film.
But it wasn't like a conscious thing where I was like, this is it.
And I remember, you know, in my living room, it's on the TV.
I saw all the movies on the TV.
You know, I never saw "Pocalypse Now" in a movie theater.
Godfather or anything.
Right.
The willingness to long as it's runner.
You know, none of it.
It was all on the television.
But I was watching the elephant man.
It was on HBO.
It came through Philadelphia where I lived.
Comcast.
And they would show like it all the time.
And it was Anthony Hopkins coming in and he's seeing Joseph Merrick, the elephant man for the first time.
And the way David Lynch shot it, you only see his shadow.
And then Hopkins starts crying.
And I don't know.
I was just like, I was there in that cellar with him.
And I was like, I forgot I was in the living room.
And then the whole movie was like that.
And it came out.
I was like, I just want that.
So was that like the first scene that was planted?
Yeah, that was it.
It was the first and only.
It was, I was 11.
It was like, it was like, bam.
It was like a shot.
There's a scene right here.
There's a scene right here.
Yeah, it's right here.
It's this.
This is it.
I look like young Anthony Hopkins.
Yeah, it looks.
Yeah, he was incredible.
Stand up.
Stand up.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Wow.
Wow.
That was it.
Yeah.
Wow.
That was it.
Yeah.
Wow.
It was like watching that now.
Yeah.
Thinking that that came to the sea to change your whole life.
I'm like, well, first I thought, wasn't it a shadow?
But that was before.
And then I'm like, oh, yeah.
And then, yeah.
And then I was just in it.
And then I was there.
And then I was like, is Joe in it?
Does he know what I'm talking about?
And then I was, and then as my brain started going,
the movie kept bringing me in it.
Yeah.
And then by the end, by that push, and I was like,
I'm just watching this guy look at this thing for the first time.
And then, fuck, look at this beast Anthony Hopkins.
I wonder what he was looking at when he was crying.
I know.
You know, because he pulled that out of your eyeballs.
Oh, dude.
And I wrote, so I went to grad school and moved to New York,
wrote him a letter because our dean said somehow he knew him or he had,
the school I went to, then I only got into because they let anybody in.
They did that show inside the actor studio.
Do you remember that on TV?
Yeah.
I remember that show.
And so Arthesis was the show.
There was a class, but it was a class, like technically a class.
And so all these incredible people would come on.
And Anthony Hopkins was there.
And I was there for that.
And then I wrote him a letter just telling him,
and I asked James Lipton.
That was his name, the dean.
Yeah.
And then, you know, and then never, you know,
I never heard from him ever.
And then, you know, and now I know him, dude.
You know what I'm saying?
How weird.
It's crazy.
It's so weird, right?
I never get over that.
Me neither.
Ever.
Ever.
And there's some guys, I don't know if you feel this way too,
like there's some guys, like then they become your friends.
But still, I still feel a little bit of like extra energy when I'm around them.
Like it'll never go away.
Right.
Yeah.
For sure.
It's crazy.
For me, one of the big ones was Tarantino.
Like hanging out with Tarantino.
Yeah.
It's so odd going to dinner with him.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah, it's so odd going to dinner with him here.
Him coming to the club.
He come hang out in the green room.
It's nuts.
It's just weird.
It's like that's Quentin Tarantino.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it never goes away.
It's close as you get.
And even when your brain's off.
Right.
Because that's always the limit.
It's my brain off when I'm with the person.
Right.
That's like when like, okay.
Right.
And even like Clint Eastwood, who I did American sniper with.
I mean, it was always Clint Eastwood.
And I got to the point where my brain was off.
You know, but still I'm just like, what if my dad was alive?
He would flip the fuck out.
What was like doing that scene with the fake baby?
Was that weird?
It's so funny.
I was just talking about that two days ago, dude.
And you know, I've come full circle.
Yeah.
I actually think it's dope.
Really?
I mean, it's fucking dope.
Why?
Because it's so just like, wow, look at these people fully invested.
And it's a doll.
And he's like a scene where you like kind of like move in the hand.
Yeah.
I could tell you the whole thing.
So we had three sets of twins.
And Clint likes to shoot fast, which I loved and love.
And they were crying and they weren't ready.
And he was like, you know what?
Let's just put the doll in.
And I was like, okay, I was like, all right.
And I had the doll.
And I remember it.
And I made a joke on set.
And I was like, I'll just save you 35 grand.
Because I moved his hand with my thumb.
You know, like I saved visual effects like 50 grand.
Like made a joke about it.
And then we got to post and we were in Vancouver at the doing the meeting.
But you know, everybody defers to the boss.
I still remember being in a room.
And I'm like a theater.
We're watching.
And they're like, okay, Clint.
So we did this.
And you know, the tank has dirt on it.
And you know, whatever visual effects they had done.
We get to the baby.
I'm like, okay, Clint.
This is this scene.
And it ends.
And I'm literally behind Clint.
I just see the back of his head.
And I'm waiting for everybody to raise their hand.
Like we got to spend more money and make the kid real.
And I think the kid had like two fingers too.
Like they weren't even.
It was like, yeah, yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that's it.
That's me.
I'm doing that.
That's it.
But dude, it's kind of dope.
I love it now.
I've come full circle.
And I raised my hand.
And I was like, Clint, I just think that it's clear, you know,
that that's not a baby.
And what would we do?
Can we at least just find out what the cost would be?
And no one said anything.
And then I remember, he was like, I think we move on.
Wow.
And that was it, dude.
And I was like, okay, okay.
And I remember talking to the other producer.
I was like, this is going to come back.
I was like, bro, this is going to come back to haunt us.
And I remember he said, no, Bradley, you're too close to the movie.
I was like, I don't think so, dude.
No, everybody's like, this is crazy.
That's a rubber baby.
Crazy, dude.
There's another one too.
And like, yeah, yeah, it's crazy.
What is it like doing a film like that where you're playing an actual human being?
Is that, is that different?
Then like a written character that has no physical body that you can kind of become
who you think the words represent.
Yeah.
But when you're playing a guy like Chris Kyle, you're playing a human.
Yeah.
And you're trying to figure out a way to make it as realistic as possible.
But you're acting like, what is that like?
I mean, the thing that just popped my head is the pressure.
It's like night and day because there are people that you have to serve.
You know, especially with Chris Kyle, we started making that movie.
He was alive.
He got killed while we were, he was still negotiating with Warner Brothers.
I know, I think we just closed his deal.
And then he was murdered on February 2nd, I believe.
And it was just like, whoa.
And then, but in fact, we were like, now we really got to make this movie.
And then Clinton, I flew to Midlothian, Texas and met with his family and his widow
and his parents and then the kids.
I did the alpha man.
I did as a play in my thesis in grad school.
And then I did it at Williamstown and I actually did it in New York and London.
And that, and even though it's a long time ago, that was the first time I felt that responsibility.
I actually loved that guy, Joseph Merrick.
And I felt that responsibility to him.
So I had done something like that before.
But this was the first, this was the next time.
It was massive, Joe.
But I think that that it's like, you're always looking for what's the fuel that's going to allow me to work as hard as I can.
And the fuel when you're playing a real person is like, there's like four extra canisters.
Or like, that's a firepower for you to work hard.
Because you're just, you know, you're looking across the eyes of somebody.
Say, I'm going to serve your son or your husband or your father.
It's a major responsibility.
Maybe even more major because he's now he's deceased.
Yeah.
It was mind blowing.
But it terrified me.
And also, like, I'm 185 pounds at that point from Northeast Philadelphia.
This guy's from Lothian, Texas.
Sealed team three, you know, it's like how and the way Clint works, the way we did work.
You know, Kevin Lase, who was a Sealed team three with Chris, was in the movie plate, "Dauber".
Jacob Chico is one tribe, which is what I'm wearing.
He was a Marine that, did you ever see American sniper?
Yes.
Yeah.
There's that scene where he goes to the hospital and there's all the guys that have been wounded.
Jacob Chico is one of them.
You know, so there's real guys.
It's all real.
So I step in.
You know, I've got to, I'm going to die unless I believe I'm quick.
Right.
Like, so I have to do whatever I can so that I believe I'm Chris.
If I believe I'm Chris, then I have a shot at everybody else potentially going along with this illusion.
I just have to, I have to be absolutely fearless when I walked on set.
So I just, it just made me work so hard that I'd never worked hard.
That if it's a created character, you know, it's different.
But it comes with a different set of challenges.
You know, it just depends about it.
But I do know, and then with Leonard Bernstein, I do the same thing, huge responsibility.
Like massive that I felt to his kids, to people that loved him.
But mainly his kids, all three of his son has passed away since then.
But there's three kids who are like, okay, you know, they're like handing you, you know,
it's like if someone went to your daughter in 12 years and said, here's this movie about your father.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
And this guy's sitting across and be like, okay, I'm going to play your father.
That's just a whole other thing.
Because the truth is, like if it's good, it's going to last a long time.
And it's going to be a thing that marks their journey.
Right.
So I'm a part of whatever little part of Chris's journey.
So you give somebody, you, the faith that whoever has the power to give to that artist is just, you know.
So it just made me work, you know, like you just, you just don't stop working.
Do you get to the point where you believe you're him or you believe that he's a part of you?
Something's working.
Did you meet Chris Kyle?
Never.
Just talked to him on the phone once.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So what did you, like what did you train?
Oh, yeah.
Like what did you do to try to like, yeah, well, he's, it's interesting, right?
It's like, well, I couldn't do anything that would ever achieve what he achieved.
But it's like, what can I do to look like a master?
Right.
Right. So there's three weapons, the 338 Lapua, the 50 cal, the rifle.
It's like, what can I do?
How much time do I have?
I think I'd like six months.
Also, luckily, we're the same shoe size, same age.
He has a hole in his ear.
I do.
You find things that like, you know, same height.
I was like, oh, this is great.
And then I just like, but he's 2038 pounds.
So the first thing was 6,000 calories a day, found a trainer and just.
6,000? Yeah, 6,000 calories.
I'll first I did it with real food.
And that was a big mistake because I couldn't get up.
I remember the first week I did it had an incredible chef.
And, and, and then I would, I couldn't get up.
Like I couldn't move, like I couldn't move my stomach.
So then we, I think we split like half of it into protein shakes.
But it was still 6,000 calories.
When you say you couldn't get up, like, what do you mean?
My stomach wasn't able to process that much food.
Yeah, whatever, whatever happened, like just getting blocked, getting blocked.
Like major pain, like I was giving birth or something, what I would imagine.
So then we changed it and it would be like huge meal shake, huge meal shake.
Worked out twice a day, five, I had three rest days, no cardio.
Because all about strength training.
And then, and then it was all focused around deadlifting.
Oh, okay.
And it was Guy Jason Wallace who I worked with.
And, and I did that.
So it would be like Monday, Monday, 5 30 a.m.
And then a 4 30 p.m.
Or like 3 30 Monday, Tuesday, rest Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, rest Saturday, Sunday.
And did that.
And I got up to 230 pounds.
And a lot of it was like, 'cause I was thinking about him, his neck.
And so I came like, I would do all these, all the next stuff.
And it was his shoulders.
Like I just wanted to see you could shoot over.
And it's like, you know, which we did all the time in the movie.
Where the guys just, you know, Chris.
Yeah.
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How much weight did you gain?
I went from 185 to 238.
And all naturally.
Because I, cancers in my family, I've had skin cancer and like I'm terrified of anything.
So I was like not going to do that.
So, you know.
Did it create anything?
To create teen.
Yeah.
Which by the way, I just started again like three months ago.
Oh, it's amazing.
Dude.
I'm on this push-up thread with a bunch of dads at my school.
And we do 100 push-ups a day.
And if we don't, you have to pay $10 into a pool.
And then when we get to 800, we go to Chinatown.
And I'll have a meal with the money.
And then I started taking creatine like two and a half months ago.
And we just up to 150.
I was like this is because I could only do, and we'd like YouTube the perfect push-up.
Which I didn't know.
Which is like a whole other world.
And then now it's, I mean, creatine is incredible.
It's incredible for your brain.
I know.
I've heard you say that.
Like I can't tell that.
Because I also take zins all the time.
So it's like, I don't know what's doing it.
Yeah, me too.
I didn't say good.
But yeah, where was I in the Chris thing?
You were talking about gaining weight.
Oh, yeah.
So then I worked with 38.
And I worked with the guy who, so I was doing that in conjunction with learning about sniping
and working with Kevin Lace's guide, Dober.
We would go up to the Disney Ranch and work with like 600 yard head targets prone
that I would just do all the time.
And then once we cast the rest of the team, we did all this stuff.
But really, Kevin Lace, this guy, Dober was the guy because he was there.
And he was there through the whole shooting just so everything would be real.
And we just drilled it.
We became a group.
Like, you know, we did the work.
But it wasn't so much about like, I was like, I have this amount of time.
Doing like seal boot camp will do nothing for me.
Like, that'll just give me the brain of like, how hard this is and will I be broken.
I've done this not that I couldn't have, maybe I would have been broken.
But I felt like, I do understand that.
Like, I've been through certain things where like, I understand what it's like to push myself to be on my breaking point
and what that looks like and feels like.
What I don't know is when I'm looking at a target and I have to factor in the, you know, the curve of the earth.
You know, like that's the stuff I want to learn.
Yeah.
So that's where I focused with those three weapons, you know, live rounds, gaining the weight.
So I felt like I was.
Here we go. We're back.
That's like all of a sudden you're like, oh, you didn't take the drug.
You know, you know, I'm not on it.
And then, and then so was those two things in conjunction.
The curve of the earth is nuts.
Yeah, I think about that.
It's crazy.
Long distance.
And then the fact that these guys stayed up 24 hours with pee in there, you know, never get up to pee.
Just pee right there, right in the room.
You know, I mean, I said no.
And then by the way, it's a human being.
I mean, it's just, yeah, forget it.
And then just working with this guy, Tim Monoc on like his voice.
To me, it's all the voice is everything.
It's all about the voice and like where he's from.
And Chris was interesting because his accent started to change, you know,
because he once he got out and then he did that.
He did a couple of shows.
You know, he wrote that book, which is how I came across and then gave it a clint.
So he had an interesting accent that kind of changed a little bit.
But yeah, just the voice.
Just hitting the voice.
I worked this guy five days a week, you know, you know, and I had tons of stuff.
I had so much information that Tae and Kyle had been so generous to give me.
So many home videos, you know, correspondence.
You know, I used to work out to his, which I just did the other day.
It's so funny we're talking about this.
I literally just did it two days ago.
Worked out to his playlist.
I had both of his workout playlists.
Oh, wow.
And I blew up two huge posters.
And one was him just like this.
And one was his gun.
And I would do that and look at him every morning.
It was just like this beautiful ritual that I felt like I was with him every day.
How long did you take to prepare?
I'd have to look back.
I think I did it fast, but I think we had about six months or five months.
But like, you know, full on, that's it.
Nothing else.
I didn't have a kid back then.
It was like, that was it.
Yeah.
That's, there's something very unique about someone doing a film about an actual person.
Yeah.
Like a great actor doing like De Niro when he played Jake Lamata, Raging Bull.
Of course.
Like that.
That was one of the first one.
I mean, he became a different person.
Yeah.
Yeah, you have to.
Yeah.
You have to, there's like emerging of you and that whatever that idea, the soul, whatever of the person.
It sounds so hokey.
You know, I get it.
But if you ask me what my memory is of, of making a sniper, like memory like on in scenes,
it's not that like I was acting.
It's just, that's not my memory.
What is the memory?
Of like, okay, now we're going to do this and it's like me as him doing it.
Wow.
You know, that's, that's.
Was that a mind-fuck when you stop when like the movie wraps?
Well, the good thing is you do a Clint who takes the piss out of fucking everything.
Oh, yeah, so we would go to dinner at night.
And, and I learned from Christian Bale in American Hustle, like he just stayed in, because I didn't understand this,
staying the character all the time.
You know, you hear these stories, but you don't know what the real is.
Like, how does that work?
You see a cell phone?
Do you like lose your mind?
Like, how do you, what is it?
What, how do you do it?
And Bale.
It's like, oh, I overthought it.
Bale just, he was, played this character.
There's from New York in, in American Hustle.
And I go in there.
The first day I met him, he was his accent.
And the rest of the movie, even like on weekends, it was, it was him, Christian.
And I could, we would talk about stuff in his kid, but he would just speak in that voice.
And I was like, oh, it's that simple.
Like, it's not some big thing.
Like, once you get the voice, that is weird.
You know, but I took it.
I mean, and it's wonderful.
Because then you feel like you're not acting and you're in the voice.
And I do it all.
Like, so, so I would be in that voice of Chris for the whole movie.
And then we would go to like a restaurant when we were like up in Lancaster shooting or something.
And Clint would then make fun of me in my accent as Chris and order a steak.
And it was just, it was great.
He's fucking sabotaging your performance.
He's making himself conscious.
That's crazy.
It was awesome.
That's crazy.
I always wondered what it's like to be around someone is like method.
But I don't know that's, I wouldn't, you know, method is also a term that, you know.
What does it mean?
Well, the method, well, what how it started in Russia, right?
And then, you know, that book on acting that I should know, you know, what's his name?
He came and then the group theater started and it was like, you know,
and all these people then disband and there's Harry Meisner and there's, yes, Stanislavsky, exactly.
And there was another guy, Vok Tangoff, that I'll also talked about that every rehearsal.
It's very interesting.
And I read all this in grad school.
And then the group theater came in and then Ilya Kazan was a huge part of it becoming popular
because you had this guy that was sweeping floors of the actor studio and then started directing plays.
And then all of a sudden, he's a huge movie director.
And he's putting Marlon Brando, who's part of the actor studio, starring in his movies, you know,
and he's doing it.
And so it all just sort of erupted.
But then it branched out.
And so there's people that are dogmatic about it, about it's only using your, you know, your substituting.
So if I'm doing a scene with you, like, you aren't, you're my brother, you know.
Right.
But it's evolved into, it's like, what works for you?
To me, it's like, you use your own experience plus your imagination.
You know, but that's the sort, that's the, you know, sort of a very layman's 50 second,
you know, telling of what the origin of the method is.
But I went to the actor studio, which is based in the method.
That's where I went to grad school.
Is it?
And it's very valuable because I didn't know shit before that.
I mean, I did a couple of plays at Georgetown.
I didn't know any, I mean, I just loved acting, but I didn't do anything about it.
I was terrified as a kid.
Like, we did this thing in high school where we did, as seniors, we would put on our show,
where we would make fun of our teachers.
And I like, I could do my Latin teacher, Mr. Burke.
I was like, and I actually sang in it, we sang it.
And I was like, but I was terrified, Joe, for the whole year.
It's sleepless nights for a year leading up to it.
That's how scared I was in public.
I remember doing like a fifth grade presentation with the poster boards about lock-and-hops
and the poster shaking so hard because I was, because I was so nervous.
I was like, how am I going to, what's this fear thing?
Isn't that weird?
I know, but then in college, I did a couple of plays, but I still didn't know what I was doing,
but I loved it.
And I was like, little stuff.
I was like, as long as the server in dangerous liaisons.
But I still remember like, I closed the door in a rhythmic way and people laughed.
And I remember I was like, ooh, although this feels good.
And then, so I applied to grad school there.
And then all of a sudden, there was like, I got a huge foundation of like, what I could do.
So that your insecurities are actually your attributes, your fears or stuff that, you know,
all this thing that you're a sensitive kid, this is all good stuff.
And I never felt that way before about any of that.
And I had this teacher, Elizabeth Camp, who was incredible, who then passed away in my house years later.
She got sick.
Yes, crazy.
Pass away in your house?
Yeah, in Venice, California.
She was sick, so we put her hospice there, but she was incredible.
And she did this basic technique class.
She was the first time ever, because I didn't grow up therapy, and none of that was even, you know,
in the vicinity of talking about your feelings, you know, I love my dad.
But I grew up in, you know, the 80s in Northeast Philadelphia with an Irish Italian upbringing.
That wasn't part of the deal.
And then all of a sudden, in grad school with other guys and women were like laying down.
And she wants us to go through an experience of loss in betrayal when we were children.
It's like, what the fuck?
And actually, I could take all that stuff I've been ashamed of and I could use it and bring it into art.
I don't know, really clicked with me in a huge way.
So, and I use it even to this day.
All the movies I do, I always get the actors together and do like a workshop for a week that's based on dreams that she also taught me.
And I just find it invaluable.
Any way you can just, how can I just get to a place where we're just talking to each other?
And I don't, you know, and then all this stuff, I feel it's okay.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, you're doing a guy like Chris.
It must also be kind of easier to keep the accent than to try to reestablish it right before we see it.
You just said it.
It's a logical thing.
Yeah.
That's it.
It's a logical thing.
The idea of me talking with an accent or even thinking that it's an accent.
Because you don't think about it anymore.
The whole point is I'm not doing an act.
If I'm doing a scene with you and I'm thinking about how I'm talking, it's over.
It's a wrap.
Right.
It's not real.
Right.
And it happens to be the voice that I've been working on for a however long time.
Then we're in it.
We got a shot.
Yeah.
And if I'm stopping it, there's no way I'm not thinking about it.
So yes, Joe, that is the reason.
You know what's a really underappreciated talent is voice actors who do audiobooks?
I was watching a video of this guy because I never knew how they did it.
And I kind of assumed that whenever they had a change accents, they probably had a pause.
But there's like, there's a video of a guy doing the voiceover for Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Rings audiobook.
And he goes into smegel.
He goes into the golem character while he's doing narration.
There's no break.
He just smoothly transitions into smegel.
It's fucking incredible.
No, it's nuts.
It is absolutely masterful and completely underappreciated.
Yeah, I agree with you.
Because if you watch this guy do it, I don't know the gentleman's name.
Who's the voiceover actor.
But I love audiobooks.
This, that guy.
Listen to this guy.
Oh, it's Andy Circus.
Yeah.
It's holding a debate with some other thought that used the same voice but made it squeak
and hiss.
A pale light and a green light alternated in his eyes as he spoke.
It's me, your premise.
Set the first thought.
Yes.
Yes, my precious.
Kane the answer.
Amazing.
Fucking amazing.
Like that.
What a master.
And you're talking about a master actor.
Yes.
Yeah, you know, because he's been in a lot of movies.
He's directed.
He's directed to that great movie that was like a jungle book, a version of jungle book.
The Christian Bale actually played the Panther I believe.
He's incredible.
And I got to meet him.
He's like, this guy's like a one-off generational talent.
Yeah, he's insane.
He have to be.
Yeah, yeah.
To be that good voiceover actor.
Yeah, and he's just a great actor.
Yeah, you have to be.
Yeah, I agree.
And my mother watches this.
She'll kill me that I'm saying.
My mother watches.
First of all, she loves Turkish soap opera.
She watches everything.
She's Turkish soap opera.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why them specifically?
I don't know.
She just graduated from hallmark into Turkish soap opera.
And then she's evolved even further.
She just watches a screen where there's two people, AI images.
And it's just a person telling a story.
And I often, I'll come down making breakfast because when she stays with me in New York, she has the room down there.
And I'll be making my daughter breakfast and I could hear it, or I'll go to the bathroom, which is right next to her.
And I was like, "Wow, these guys, these boys..."
I mean, the guy's carrying it on.
It's just an image.
And she'll watch it for hours.
And I'm like, "What's going to happen?
Is he going to make that...
Is the firm going to hire him?
Is she going to...
Did she see the note?
Like, he's...
It's a maid.
I was like, "Yeah, it's really an art form.
"Turkish."
Yeah.
I remember the first time I came down.
I was like, "Oh, no, what happened?"
Because I'm just hearing it.
I'm like, "What happened?"
And I walk in and I'm like, "Mom, what are you watching?"
He's like, "Oh, no, this guy's the best actor in the world.
This guy."
And so she just reads the subtitles.
And she did it for like...
She's watched, it's called...
Ugh.
Ugh.
Ugh.
If you look up...
Oh, he's like...
What's it called?
Circle.
Ugh.
Is it dove bird?
Bird something?
How could I forget it?
Oh, baby.
Is that it?
Early bird.
Early bird?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Explain this?
So it's a soap opera.
There's like 360 episodes.
She's watched them all like five, four times.
And she'll come in.
She'll like do a marathon session, come in to make some food.
She's like...
That's the guy.
She's the way he moves.
This guy's the best actor.
That's him.
That's him.
Yeah.
That's him.
That's him.
Is it speaking?
Yeah.
That's him.
Is it speaking in Turkish?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, here's what it is.
Oh, here's what it is.
This looks like...
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, there he is.
And he...
Yeah, there he is.
And she likes this.
And she does the voice-o.
She reads the...
No, so that was the middle stage.
Now she's graduated to...
It's different now where she just watches two AI images
and it's a story.
But she did this for a good like eight years.
But why was she...
All through COVID.
Why was she into this?
I don't know.
She must have come across it one day on somewhere
and then that was it.
She's got hooked.
Oh, I mean, hooked isn't even the word.
Yeah.
By the way, it's pretty good.
Yeah, yeah.
You watch it?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he's great.
And the woman in it, it's great too.
Yeah.
Do you consume a lot of films?
Do you watch a lot of acting?
I watch a lot of everything.
Yeah.
I watch a lot of television films.
And then, you know, like eight months ago,
I know I'm late to the game.
Came across podcasts.
Only eight months ago.
Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah, yeah.
That's interesting.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What made you get into that?
I can't remember, but it was your podcast.
And I'm trying to think what it was.
And then it was like, oh, and then I came...
And then, you know, once you watch something on your phone,
it suggests other things.
And then, you had two guys on that I thought were really interesting.
And then, they do a trigonometry.
Yeah, trigonometry.
And I find that very fascinating.
Other great.
Yeah, great.
And so, that's how I just started.
So now, it's like a huge part of...
Like, I have this whole little thing.
Like, often I'll go to bed and my daughter's listening to your voice.
But I do put on headphones sometimes.
Because I love, like, just at the end of the day, listening...
Listening or watching, I'll put it on the side table.
Yeah, it's...
The podcast is incredible, and it's very soothing.
Very soothing.
That's interesting.
I hardly ever listened to them anymore.
I love TV.
I love it.
Yeah, I take in a lot of content.
Have you watched The Beast and Me on Netflix?
I did.
Oh, dude.
Holy shit, dude.
And that guy...
Kerry Russell's husband, Matthew Reese, dude.
The bad guy.
Yeah.
How fucking good is that guy?
He did a movie with him years ago called "Burn About a Chef."
And we had never met, and there's a scene where my character...
He was trying to get sober, and he went off the wagon.
And he goes into this guy, their old nemesis...
They were nemesis with each other.
His restaurant after hours.
And it was like a pretty dark scene that we never met.
Me and this guy, this actor, right?
Before we shot.
And I come in, and then...
I don't know what was...
I was pretty locked in.
And there's one scene which wasn't really scripted.
And I took, you know, those sous-v-bags.
And I put it over my head to try to...
...kiss his trying to kill himself.
Which, by the way, I was like, "Oh, this could work."
[laughter]
If I don't get help, those things are strong and tight.
And then we had this experience, Joe, where then he was ripping it off me,
trying for me not to kill myself.
And I don't know him that well, but we had...
That's the thing about, like, making art together.
Like, we had that, it'll never...
Every time I see him, I've seen him maybe six times.
Like, certain things or something.
I always feel like we're bonded forever.
Just based on this one experience that we had.
And he's an incredible actor.
And the end of that show, him and the end of that show.
Oh, God.
And Claire Daines is like...
Off the chart.
Did you see that show she did with Jesse Eisenberg?
What's up?
There's another series she did.
Homeland? No, no, no.
It was, like, Fleischmann, something with Fleischmann.
Yeah, Fleischmann, there's this now.
Yeah, she's incredible in that too.
There's a scene where she's basically having a mental breakdown.
And you're watching and you're like, "This can't be acting."
Yeah, it's that show.
Fleischmann's on trouble.
Yeah.
It's on FX.
And never even heard of this.
Yeah.
It's really good.
Yeah, I enjoyed it.
And I enjoyed her at the end.
There's one scene that, like, really rocked me where I just fully...
I mean, that's just like I just saw this movie "Hemnet."
I don't know if you guys saw that or not.
No.
That's what I love about movies.
So Jesse Buckley in this movie,
it's basically playing like the most difficult role ever,
the loss and all that stuff.
And I fully, Joe, I'm watching and sitting there,
fully believing that this person is going through this.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
When you do that, when I believe that you're actually going through it,
I mean, that's it, that's, and like, her performance in that movie is so...
She's so good, dude.
Dude, dude.
Did you jump into Claire Danes or Jesse Buckley now?
Jesse, Jesse.
No.
Well, Claire Danes.
Yeah.
Claire Danes and Jesse Buckley.
Yeah, they're both amazing.
But Claire Danes is so good in "The Beast and Me."
There's moments where her fucking lips are jubbling.
No, I'm not.
No, she's touched.
Her eyes are darting back to the level.
She's touched, she's touched.
Yeah.
No question.
Yeah.
No question.
Yeah.
And then this very crazy...
She was creating fucking Homeland, too.
Yeah.
She never saw Homeland.
Oh, it's great.
It's really good.
She just locks in.
She locks in in this very strange way.
Well, you fucking 100% believe her.
Yeah.
Like, believe it behind the eyes.
That's the greatest.
Yeah.
I mean, that's what, that's the heroin for me from this industry.
It's like, when you're around and you're creating this thing and it's just,
and all of a sudden, it's like, whoa.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, holy shit, it's happening.
But it's like, I had this conversation with Ethan Hawk.
I was, 'cause I was asking him about...
But I felt like that with Will, just real quick.
You know, that vampire scene.
That's, 'cause I was, I was operating it, right?
I, I, I, I don't know how you felt watching it.
This scene when he was on stage, yes.
At the very end.
Yes, yes, yes.
I was like, I fully believed it.
Yes.
And those people, and then when I went to the audience and they're just like...
Right.
'Cause they didn't know what the fuck's going on.
Right. Right.
Like, that was one of those moments I had on this movie where I was like,
"Oh, my man is locked."
Yeah.
The fucking.
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, 100%.
You felt that.
Yeah.
Yes.
Oh, 100%.
Definitely.
I was, I have this conversation with Ethan Hawk about that.
I go, "What is happening when I believe someone?"
Like, I was talking about the scene in that movie with him and Julia Roberts.
Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.
There's, there's a scene with him and Kevin Bacon.
Yeah, when they go to the house.
Yeah.
Also, there's three guys in that scene.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, from Moonlight and he's been tons of stuff.
Green book.
I know him.
Yeah.
Jamie will pull it out.
I can't, I'll fuck his name up.
I pronounce it.
Sorry.
What is it?
Sorry, I want more.
Um.
Oh, wow.
It's a martial law league.
That's it.
Martial law league.
Martial law.
Yes.
I believe it.
I know that's Kevin Bacon.
I know that's Ethan Hawk.
Right.
I believe he's going to shoot him.
Yeah, no question.
I believe it.
Yeah.
I go, 'cause it's almost like a form of hypnosis.
Yes.
And he's like, yes.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, you have to actually be there.
You have to actually be there.
Like, yeah, you're saying the lines you're supposed to say.
But what's happening is, like, you really are there.
You really believe it.
And if you don't believe it, the audience doesn't believe it.
And we've all been there before.
Like, one time I ate an edible.
And I want to go see one of those Marvel movies.
And in the middle, I was really high.
Right.
And while I was watching the middle, I was like, this guy's acting.
You know, it's just like, of course.
It just made, you know, really sensitive and tuned in.
I get angry because I'm like, I want to go on the ride.
I'm like, the best watcher.
Because I want to, I want to let that thing start.
Yes.
I want to go on the ride.
I want to go on the ride.
Yes.
Like, like, him and Denzel in training day.
Yeah.
Like, there's a few scenes where you're like, okay, this is really.
Oh, yeah.
This is in the car.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
This is really happening.
Like, this is real.
Yeah.
And we talk so good in that movie.
Yeah.
He's great.
Yeah, he's great in everything.
But he's sick in that movie.
But he's also, when you talk to him, you realize, okay, this is an actual artist.
Yeah, he's a unique dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's not a guy who, like, trying to be a movie star.
No, he's an artist that does movies.
Yeah, but I don't know how many people.
I don't know.
It's like how many comedians who just want to be famous are going to look.
I don't even know how you could do it.
You have to love it.
Right.
It's just too hard.
That's not enough of a fuel.
Yeah.
It's not.
That's not enough fuel.
It won't take you far enough.
It's just not a fuel to keep doing it.
Right.
Because if you don't love it, I think you would find it monotonous and maybe boring and tedious and inconsequential.
You're going on a road trip with an eighth of a tank of gas.
You're not going to make it.
You're not going to make it.
You're stomping on the gas and trying to pull out the parking lot.
But it's not that.
Yeah.
It's a long drive.
I've been in this experience in the 26 years.
I've been in this.
It's like most of the people, if not all, that I've worked with.
They love it.
Yes.
They love it.
They have to.
Otherwise, yeah.
If you want to be great as something, you have to love it.
Yeah.
I can't imagine.
Because it's not even that you want it.
Yes, you want to be great at it.
But you just love doing it.
Right.
That's it.
Right.
And the love is how it becomes great.
And then the fear is when you get famous or people get popular early,
that can be confusing because you start to have like,
I have to maintain a certain, you start getting careful.
Like, I was thinking about when you said like,
what is that thing when it just, it's hypnosis.
The key to that is willing to fail.
That's what I learned as an actor.
It's like, oh yeah, just don't take it too seriously.
Here we go.
We're rolling the camera.
Let's just, here, let's see what happens.
I'm going to go on a limb.
Maybe it won't work.
But like, yeah, be willing to like completely fail.
And then many of you do that.
It's like, oh, and all of a sudden there's this reservoir of space in your head
and your soul to actually create even more of an imaginary circumstances.
Now, if you haven't done your work, you're fucked anyway.
But like, but once you're there, it's like, once you're like,
oh yeah, everybody, we could just fail.
Let's just, let's just fail.
How do you make sense?
It makes sense because the only way you're going to really find out what it is
is to like try it all kinds of ways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was just having the conversation, you know, Brian Calon, our mutual friend.
He texted me last night.
It's like, I got a new bit.
I just ate a dick.
I have to go up on stage with it tonight.
It's fucking terrible.
He goes, but I know there's something in there.
And we were talking on the phone right before the show.
He's like, dude, at my pocket, a new bitch is bombed.
It's a dick last night.
I don't know what to do.
But I know there's something there.
It's like, you've got to be willing to bomb.
You got to be willing to eat a dick.
If you don't, I don't know how.
Yeah, I don't know any of it.
If you're careful, it's over.
You can't.
Careful is death.
I talked to Chris Rock once and he told me that, that bit that he did,
it was one of his all-time classic blitz bits.
I love black people.
I hate N word.
Right, right.
He goes, that bit bombed for like a year.
Right.
He couldn't get it to work.
He's like, I know there's something in there, but I have to find it.
Yeah.
And it took a fucking year.
I think, we're talking about a year of going up at the store,
going up at the improv, going here, going to the laugh factor,
going here, going there, fuck pulling your hair out, fuck.
Trying to figure it out, a fucking year, man.
And when you're Chris Rock, you're already Chris Rock.
And you, you know, you can talk about getting your dick sucked.
You can talk about something.
People laugh.
And you're like, I think there's something here.
I gotta grind this fucking thing down till I get an edge to it.
And it took him a year.
Yeah.
Like you have to be willing to fuck around.
And to suffer through all that.
Yeah.
And enjoy the suffering.
You start to like, once you do it enough, fail enough in front of people,
it starts to be easier.
Yeah.
And then you come out on the other end, you're like, woo.
Yeah, and I'm so glad I did it.
I'm so glad I did it.
Yeah, I did it.
This wasn't as big as I thought.
No.
And then you have to do it again.
That's, and then you put out a special.
And then once you put out a special, you start from scratch.
And then you're fucking terrified.
Because now you're a famous comedian with no material.
Right.
For a terrible material.
And you have to figure out a way to make it good.
And that plays in what I was talking about.
Like when you have, when you've achieved something,
and then there's that pressure that you put on yourself
that it has to be that good or better.
Right.
And then all of a sudden, you're in a different game.
Then just like the doing.
I think that that play its safe game is the scariest game.
Or, yeah, or, or somehow think that it's,
it's somehow that controllable.
Because really all this stuff we're talking about,
it's really kind of out of our control.
You know, when it's working, I don't feel in control at all.
Right.
You feel like a passenger.
Yeah.
And that's by the way, that's the high.
Uh-huh.
There's nothing fun about controlling everything.
There's nothing fun on that.
But when you're like, whoa, wait a second.
What's happening?
Like the zone is a passenger.
Yeah.
It's like being an observer of something.
Sports too.
I think it works in every field.
Oh, yeah.
They talk about it.
You know, it's like, yeah, that's it.
That's it.
And it just takes a ton of year of doing the thing.
You know, because there are moments that I can even think of where.
Because you do think, that's okay.
It doesn't matter.
There are a couple where like, actually,
if this moment doesn't work out,
like it may not be over,
but you're definitely going to go down along the ladder.
Yeah.
And it's like, okay, and that's that pressure.
You know, yeah.
You got to love it.
How do you pick a project?
Like, how do you decide what you want to do?
And how much time do you spend deliberating on it?
Hmm.
Because you're in a unique position where you can do a lot of things.
Yeah.
You can kind of do whatever you want.
So it's like, what gets your juices going?
Like, how do you decide what to do?
It's all about something igniting in me that, like, for example,
when I was little, I thought, like,
oh, obsessed with Vietnam.
I was obsessed.
As a kid.
Vietnam, the war in Vietnam.
And my math teacher was a, was a recon in Vietnam.
Bill, calm.
And I was like, obsessed with this guy.
And he was fascinating, fascinating.
He was a polevolter.
And that was his cue for the chalkboard.
Was it broken?
One of his broken polevolts sticks.
Oh, wow.
And he would always, and he always wore sweatpants.
And he would lean against the thing.
So all day long, half of his sweatpants would be full of chalk.
And he would always smoke cigarettes on the athletic field
and stand on the bench.
And so he'd always be perched there.
And like my dad, he would never put out his butts.
He would always save them.
So he always smelled like tobacco his hands.
And then this other guy, his father came and talked to him.
His father came and talked about this book, Guns Up,
which is an incredible book about machine gunner in Vietnam.
And then I asked my dad if I could go to the military academy.
Like, I would do something.
And then like, you know, thin red line destroyed me.
The Tarantum Alec movie.
And the apocalypse now, I was like obsessed with.
And all these films.
And so I always wanted to do something about playing.
I always felt like I had a love enough and an interest enough
that playing a soldier would be something that I felt like I had a reservoir.
So that led me to Chris.
That was that.
It's all specific things.
It was just Joseph Merrick, you know, the alpha man.
Like when I was, I had no money and I took it.
I got a one, I'm tower air went to London.
And like what it tracked his, his steps at hospital road and worry went out.
Just because I was obsessed with this guy, Joseph Merrick, the alpha man.
And then I wound up, you know, then making it, you know, doing the play
and Broadway where they originated.
You know, and then stars born was really about.
I just love, I always wanted to direct.
I don't think I dreamt that big.
But I really realized what I loved about the process of the industry.
And then is the making of it.
I never felt like I fit in just acting.
I never felt like I thought like the first, like like you.
Like I went to LA with a job.
Like I went to grad school in New York.
I thought I'd just be a theater actor if I was lucky.
If I could make a living as an actor, this is a home run.
My dad was terrified, you know, because he came from North Philadelphia.
He only got to come out of the neighborhood kind of, there were a couple other guys.
But then he became a stockbroker.
And then his son's going to do acting and be 70 grand in debt in grad school.
You know, Fannie Mae, thank God.
But like, you know, and I didn't know if I was going to pay it off.
But that said, we grew up like upper middle class.
But still, I was like, I'm paying for grad school.
It took a loan out.
And then, so he was terrified.
And then I got a job on this show, Alias, it brought me to LA.
But the minute I got there, I didn't know anything about.
I checked the gate, I didn't know nothing.
You know what I mean? I didn't know nothing.
I just love movies.
And so I was obsessed, Joe, obsessed.
I would go in the editing room.
And I found out, like, very hard when I went there.
I got very depressed.
I was like, this is high school all over again.
Me too, that's exactly what I got.
I was like, what, I mean, I could, I went to grad school.
I'm in New York City.
There's guys that I can relate to and talk about movies.
I was in heaven.
Then I get this job that I think is going to be the Holy Grail.
And I'm miserable.
Living in the first floor of this woman's house.
Just like, it was crazy.
I was like, I didn't know I could be this depressed.
I mean, depressed.
Like, I need water.
And like, the idea of going to the right aid on Sunset
and Fairfax was like too much.
Yeah.
And yeah, that was rough.
It's depressing.
Yeah.
When you first go, especially when you're in that.
Why don't you get a weird environment?
And no one, just no.
And I was on a show that was awesome.
And everybody was exploding and like, no one.
It was like, who's this guy?
So not only that, I'm there.
And everybody's like, you know, I'm just like, you know, a ghost.
Right, right, right.
So there's that.
So your insecurity is just, you know, example.
It's just, you know, astronomical.
It was for me.
It was also one of the first times that I ever moved somewhere
where I didn't know anyone.
Me too.
I knew nobody.
JJ Abrams hired me.
And then Burkey this guy was the only guy that I knew
that he introduced me to.
And then I met Jennifer Garner, who was like the second person I met.
And then yeah, I didn't know anybody.
It's weird.
Yeah.
I remember I was on the set of the show.
Brian Klaugman.
I didn't know that guy.
Who's like one of my best friends.
Great.
You know Brian Klaugman?
No, I know who he is though.
Yeah.
We grew up since we were like nine.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I was on the set of the show and a girl gave me a hug.
And I realized, no, it had touched me in weeks.
And the hug she gave me, I was like, oh.
It was like my battery got recharged.
I didn't realize I needed a hug.
No people said you need a hug.
Like I never thought like nobody needs a hug.
No, I fucking needed a hug.
I was very similar.
She was like, give me a hug.
She hugged me.
I was like, oh, thank you.
I felt so good.
It's weird.
It's a weird feeling.
It's a hell of a place to go.
It is like, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had a hard time.
The whole environment of LA is so strange because you have the primary industry.
If it's not the primary industry, it's most certainly driving all industries.
It's a bunch of people trying to make it, right?
So it's a bunch of people with a hole in their soul.
They need to fill up with other people's attention.
And they're coming there to try to get attention.
They're coming there to try to make it.
And the one thing that they have to do is audition.
So you have to try to be accepted by someone.
So you would be judged.
You go in there and you get rejected over and over and over again.
Which just fuels the same need that's inside you.
It makes it even worse.
And everybody's concentrating on this one thing.
Like trying to get success.
And then you realize like, oh, my doctor wanted to be an actor.
Oh, the waiter's an actor.
Like everyone's trying to do this thing where you have to get chosen.
So then people calculate how they behave and talk.
And what their political philosophy is and their life philosophy is,
based on becoming, ingratiating themselves with casting directors.
And with executives, like getting these people to like you.
And then these people realize that.
So they have like they're controlling the twigs that work the puppet strings.
And it just becomes this very strange environment of a complete lack of any like real critical thinking.
And any real like embracing any alternative perspective, some things.
Everyone is just trying to align their stars correctly so that they can make it.
I mean, that was my experience with more because I went there with a job, right?
And you know, New York for me, I don't know, I went on 2000 auditions.
Like I remember when I first booked a job with Sex in the City.
I booked some commercials and extra work, which was great.
But the first job I booked, I remember I was like, I was terrified because I got to the point where I was a door man at a hotel.
And I would audition. And that was a great life.
And if I got a call back, it was great.
But then when I had to do it, I remember literally like, whoa, whoa, I have to do like wait, wait, what?
I'm actually ready to do it.
What was it? What was the first thing?
I played Jake the downtown smoker in the Sex in the City with Sarah Jessica Park.
And I couldn't drive a standard and never learned how to drive standards.
They sent me to Odell, Odell's driving school.
And all I thought about was like, don't have her head hit the dashboard.
When we pull into the corner.
And I still messed it up and they had another guy do it.
And then I just had to do this thing.
You know, when the camera's here and you go, you okay?
You know, like you're pulling in.
Yeah, but I worked so hard on it.
No, but LA for me, it was, I think it, for me at least, was the geography.
You know, going from New York City where, you know, you can go to bar six, which is on 6th Avenue.
No matter who you are, you go with your couple of friends.
Like you just feel like you're in a cool place or a place that's vibrant.
LA, it's like, if I wasn't at work, I was in that first floor of the house or my car rental car.
And that was it.
And like, and the world which I could feel because I was seeing posters everywhere and billboards,
which I had never been, except for driving to Atlantic City.
You know, and seeing who was going to, you know, going to be, you know, as a residency.
That, it was really the stimulus, the stimuli of that city aesthetically and how compartmentalized it is.
So what I felt like, like it's, if you're not in, you're out.
Right. And I just remember thinking like, somebody somewhere in this town is having a ball right now.
And it's not me.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
And then that just leads to how can I cope, you know?
And like, you know, not getting into bars, clubs, you know, and like girls not really looking at you.
You know, and all that stuff and all of a sudden it's like 7th grade.
And I'm 25 years old.
And it's like, and I should be happy because I paid, by the end of this year, I'm going to pay off my student loan.
But I'm fucking miserable and what's wrong with me.
You know, but to me was the geography of it.
You know, New York City is so wonderful because no matter what you're thinking, like when I did the Alpha Man,
I would take the subway to 42nd Street.
And my preparation for the play was getting off the subway, going to the theater.
Because the amount of thousands of people that are forcing me to be present.
Yes.
It was wonderful. It was like doing a 12 minute relaxation because you're just, it's life.
Get through, you know?
And then by the time you get to the theater, you're like, "Okay."
You know, but LA, it's like you're in your car.
And the thing, you pull up to the studio.
The thing, to that, you walk.
And then all of a sudden it's like, "Okay, here we go."
And you're like, "Okay, hold on a second."
Yeah, that thing that New York has that LA doesn't have is all walks of life.
They're all intertwined.
You're walking down the street together.
There's a billionaire and a homeless guy and a fucking, you know, Nair Duel and an office worker.
And everyone's walking to where they go and they walk into restaurants.
And they get in cabs and they get on the subway.
And everybody intermingles.
And in LA, it's you get in your car, you drive to a place, and then you go to your house.
And you don't ever walk away.
And if some weird interaction happened on set or someone said something,
you're like, "Oh, then you're just a home."
Thinking about it, right?
You know what I mean?
Well, I went on and did this after that.
And I actually took up golf, which is crazy.
And I would play at the Malibu Hall.
This is public golf course.
And I would say, "I gotta do something."
Because I'm an early morning.
I wake up early. I've always had.
So I'm up at like 5.30.
And so I did like a 6.40/7 tea time with these two guys.
And I would play.
But like, you just try to find something that, you know,
I just need to interact and do something else.
Something that makes you human.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But I have to say, like, I do love, oh, it's interesting.
Yeah. Michael Vartan, who was on Alias.
Huge. Did you ever play pool with him?
No. Oh, he was, he would go all the time.
No kidding. Yeah. Oh, we should have met him.
Yeah. He would go all the time.
He had that one place that had like tons of, I'm sure you know it.
Probably Hollywood Billiards. Maybe, yeah.
Hollywood Billiards was the spot. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's in New York.
That was a big thing for me too.
It was like almost hijacked my comedy career.
Because I was doing, I was playing pool like eight hours a day.
I was playing in tournaments. I was traveling around
and going to tournaments.
And when I came to LA, that was like one of the few things
that made me, that made sense to me.
Like, oh, I get it. Pool players.
I know pool players. Right. Right. And hang out with them.
They're normal people. That's a great asset you had there.
Some having something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Marshall Arts was always like that. Huge.
But having something where you have something that you do.
Because if I was only doing.
And I lose your mind. I go crazy.
And I went there and I fell in love with the movie making
getting back to my original part.
And I would go and, so I had asked JJ Abrams if I could sit
in the editing rooms.
So I would basically shoot my one scene a week,
which was like, hey, how was your trips?
And you know, I didn't have a big part.
Right. And then, but I would spend the rest of the day
in the editing rooms. And then I would ask Kendall
and who was so generous that one of the showrunners
if I could just shadow him and just be around all the time.
And I would take. And I would take.
And I would take everybody's daily sum.
Back then it was in VHS tapes.
It was Carl Lumley, Victor Garber, Ron Rift,
and all these great Victor and Ron were from New York.
These great New York actors that came out.
And I would just watch their daily and learn.
You know, just learn.
And that's when I was like, I love this.
Like I fucking love this.
Well, that's what I love.
I love when people love things.
Yeah. And I do, man.
Like I can't get enough of it.
100% fascinated with people that love what they do.
I can watch people make furniture.
There's a guy that I watch on YouTube
who just makes desks and tables.
Right.
What is it called live?
What is it called when they take it
and then has the actual outline of the wood?
What is it called? They take slabs.
It takes like slabs of walnut.
It makes these tables and he narrates
while he's building it and describes the process of it.
How he's trying to precisely align
all these joints and these, you know,
he's like, he's got pegs and holes.
Yeah, it's the best.
Slide it into play.
That's it. Live edge.
That's the other great thing about what I get to do.
So you do a movie like a sniper
and you get to be with these people
who have dedicated their lives to this thing
and you're watching them do it like in Maestro.
I got to go with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Each person,
since they were four,
the unicorns and stars weren't all these musicians.
It's like even burn. I got to go to these restaurants
and study under these people.
I mean, that's the thing that's like,
that's the greatest thing in the world.
It's nuts. It's nuts.
And like even this movie,
the access I got to have to the seller
and all the stuff and all the people.
I learned so much more than I ever knew.
What expands you as a human?
Oh, no question.
You know more about what it is to be a human.
It just plays the flute.
We were talking in the Green Room last night
about Andre 3000.
Was that what was his name?
I'm saying it right.
I almost said 5000, but that's wrong.
Andre 3000 from Outcast.
He plays the flute now.
That's all he does.
He plays the flute.
A friend of mine ran into him in downtown in Colorado.
He said he was in Denver
just walking around with his flute
and no one was bothering him.
He's just fucking playing the flute.
That's the guy who loves what he does.
I mean apparently he made an entire album
where he just plays the flute.
Yeah.
And he's just like not into doing anything else.
Yeah.
Just into like being an artist and playing the flute.
Yeah.
Stop. Right.
Yeah. That's like the fuck I wish I was that guy.
But you don't seem to be.
I mean you do hunting and billiards
and already you've got like two up on most people.
Why is what you already do?
By two things that I think are going to help me figure out who I am.
And I think the only way you really figure out who you are
is to do difficult things.
Yeah.
And when you're doing difficult things
you kind of learn about yourself.
You learn about why do I have this desire to take a shortcut?
Why don't I go with the law?
Why don't I do it the right way?
Getting good at something. I mean I think me at my base.
I'm very lazy.
I think everybody is. I mean it's a default setting.
Yeah. No question.
The fault setting for humans.
Goggins talks about it.
Like Goggins talks about like one of the things about Goggins
is he always talks about how when he was fat and lazy.
Like he used to be fat and lazy.
Now he's like the most disciplined human that's ever lived.
And he forced himself to become that.
Yeah.
But he's default.
So he goes he goes even now he goes sometimes I look at my shoes
half-hour footpost mother fuckers on.
Yeah. I mean I'll be doing something during the day
and I'm like I can't wait till my daughter's in bed
and I'm upstairs and I'm just laying down on the couch
and I'm just whatever's on.
Yeah.
And that's my goal for the day. I'm like what's going on here?
Sometimes that's good though.
I view that as a reset.
I think it's important.
I enjoy it. I don't kill myself over it.
No.
But I do recognize that there is a feeling.
But then I look at you know I look at this sort of landscape.
I'm like well it's hard for me to categorize myself as lazy.
If I just look at the facts.
But I do feel and it's what you're saying.
It's that default setting.
But I think with everybody it's like normal
for human beings to seek comfort
because it's difficult to acquire.
Especially tribal societies.
Back when we were just hunter and gathers
and just trying to figure out how to stay alive.
Like the idea of relaxation was impossible.
Yeah.
And if you could get there.
You want to stop chasing antelope.
Just look and take a nap.
Or maybe they found a relax state in that.
Because when you're doing those things
you know for a long period of time
I feel like I am relaxed in that.
But it just takes a lot of work.
You know a lot of over and over.
But the bet that the true high is
when you're doing these things where it first started out
and you were horrible at it.
And then all of a sudden you're going out on a hunt
or whatever.
And you're like I'm relaxed.
Relax on a hunt.
Well I've never hunted so I can't go into that.
It's not a relaxing thing.
I mean it is a fulfilling and rich thing.
I think I mean physically relaxed.
Like your body's not tense.
Like because the one thing I do know you can't shoot a gun
if you're tense.
And possible to hit what you want.
That's a beautiful thing about shooting.
It's like you know on the exhale and stop.
Like all that stuff I was like oh this is I had no idea.
Because the first couple of times they just shoot it.
See how you do.
It's like a deviant.
The path of the bullet over.
You know a lot of these guys are shooting a mile.
No it's nuts.
I remember the first couple of times with no training
or like see I mean it wasn't even near the target.
Yeah.
You know I was like oh yeah this is a whole.
And all you're doing is this.
It is squeezing a trigger.
And how much is involved in that?
Like the synchronization of the mind, the eyes, the breathing.
But even the requiner of the first time
I didn't have my boot.
Like my boot was up and not like that.
And they didn't say anything.
And then the recoil through my shoulder down to that was like oh yeah.
Now I understand why you do that.
Yeah.
Because it all just goes out.
All those things it's like wow.
But I think through those things you learn more about who you are.
Through difficult things and getting better at difficult things.
That's where you learn more about who you are.
And you realize like oh I can kind of apply this mindset to everything.
And you see with your children.
Oh yeah my daughter who loves to draw.
If she sees somebody who's drawing.
I have a daughter that loves to draw too.
It's amazing.
So I bet if my daughter drew with your daughter she would stop.
Because you would see how good she is and she gets so frustrated.
This just happened the other day.
And you know and she'll just rip up what she's doing which is wonderful.
I have it right here.
So I saved this.
I was like don't rip it up.
She did this yesterday and I was like don't rip it up.
I'm going to make it my bookmark.
It's a process of like dealing with difficulty.
And just trying to explain like it's okay.
And being frustrated is okay.
But I could see myself and her and what everybody goes through.
But isn't that awesome when you're watching your kid go through these things?
It's just the greatest thing in the world.
It's awesome watching people get obsessed with things and then progressing.
And when it's your own child.
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
You're forever to learn it.
And now she could do it.
And I was like you just keep at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's learning through someone else's eyes that happens to be your child is one of the most magical things ever.
It's magical.
It's the it's it man.
Yeah.
It's it.
It's a different kind of happiness.
Oh yeah one that I never knew was what I was capable of.
I'm so glad I had kids late because I'm 51.
And I had my daughter's eight.
It can be nine in March.
And like I just got lucky that I was able to be in a place of my career that I could choose.
Like you said, what I do and work from home.
And just I'm just there through for all of it.
And it's awesome.
As much as I love the heroin of being in the moment.
You know, an acting and a great shot or whatever you're doing and everything's together.
There's like seven of those every day with your kid.
Right.
Like seven.
And by the way, she was so excited I'm coming here because she hears all that.
I was like daddy tomorrow.
But we're sitting here in a restaurant and I'm just looking at her and a little little hat on.
And I was like, this is the guy and I'm like, isn't this the greatest thing in the world?
And she's like, yeah, it's the greatest thing.
And I'm like, that's it.
That's it.
It's crazy. It's like free joltz.
Right? You just get these free joltz through.
And you never know when they're going to come.
Right.
It's like walking up to stairs together.
It's the best.
Yeah, it's a very different experience.
And I feel bad for people that never get to feel it.
It's one of the few things.
I don't think everyone should have children and I'm not that guy that says.
Yeah, me neither.
If you don't have kids, you don't have a life.
I don't believe that.
Everybody's different.
Everybody's different.
And I think we all need to respect that.
Everyone's different.
Shutter at the thought of being who I am right now, if I had no children.
I don't know if I'd be alive.
I would be different.
I wouldn't be nearly as compassionate.
Dave Chappelle said something to me once that was brilliant.
He said, not only have children, as having children, changed the amount of love I have,
he goes, it's changed my capacity for love.
Yes.
And understand everything.
Everything.
There's like before and after.
Oh, it's just true.
It is true.
There's no doubt about it.
It also made me think of everyone as a baby.
I used to think of people as static.
I used to think I meet Bradley Cooper, he's 51.
That's a 51-year-old guy.
But when I, you know, had children and raised children,
you start saying, oh, this is a baby that became a person.
And it's just life experiences, genetics, environment,
all these different factors.
Here you are now.
But you are a product of this path and this journey that you've taken through life.
And I give people way more grace because of that.
Yeah.
I give them way more charitable, way more compassionate, way more understanding of even people that suck.
You know, when I meet someone that sucks, I'm like, I wish I could have met them when they were five
and see what it was and maybe to help them.
It's hard for me to hate people. That has not served me so well over the years.
But ultimately it has.
But yeah, it's hard for me not to feel just any other human being how hard it is to be alive.
Right.
It is. There's just like, I don't know.
I think it was hardwired to me.
I had nothing to do with anything just like, yeah, it's hard for me to,
even people that are like mean to me.
You know, it's hard for me to like stay mad at them.
Yeah.
My wife said something the other night.
As I get older, as you get older.
Yeah, it's when you're young. It's like, fuck that up.
No, yeah, yeah. I'll never forget it.
Yeah, yeah. I got to remember that.
Yeah. I saw your true face.
Yeah, yeah. It's true.
But yeah, as I get older, oh, no question.
My daughter was talking about some horrible story in the news
of someone who fucked up their whole life and all these different things.
And my wife listens to her and goes, it's hard to be a person.
Yeah, man.
It's hard to be a person.
Being a person is hard.
We were all just sitting there like nodding our head like, yeah.
Yeah, you can fuck this up.
And we're all going to fuck it up at one point in time.
And maybe when you think that you're never going to fuck it up again,
you fuck it up the worst you've ever fucked it up.
And you're like, how did I do that?
How did I do that?
I thought I had it together.
And I fucked it all up worse than I've ever fucked it up before.
'Cause nothing stays stagnant, nothing.
Everything's changing all the time.
And it's just hard to manage all these different things.
It's hard to manage your emotions.
It's hard to manage conflict.
It's hard to manage relationships.
It's hard to manage life, work, balance, pressure.
It's hard.
And even in the macro or a simple level,
it's just hard to be existing in a world where you really,
we don't know anything.
And the only thing you do know is not going to last.
And you're going to be gone.
And you're bombed on by bad news.
The news is just bad.
It's all the time.
It's people getting shot and run over.
And war and bombings and invasions.
It's just exhausting.
And that's like in the background of your mind constantly
when you're going about your day.
It's like this is fucking algorithm that you're being fed.
It's like, whoa.
And at the same time,
it's a miracle to me that the democratization of information
that we live in now, that you can choose points of view
to learn about what people think in a way
that when I was growing up,
three stations, news, there wasn't--
Right.
There's something wonderful about it too.
I've just talked about this the other day.
Everybody's algorithm is telling him.
So the truth is-- You're not on it at all?
No. I don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about.
So I should do it for two.
My friend was like, go on for two weeks.
And he's right, and I'm going to do it.
Just to experience it, what is that experience?
All I have is that one tick-tock moment for 20 minutes.
I was like, I got to stay away because I'll never leave.
You've never had a desire to get on it?
I do. You know, I do.
Just the same way I don't put a television in my bedroom.
Which is like, if I do,
I may never get out of bed.
Yeah. You know, it's fear.
I was like, I don't know, just all that stuff.
I was like, you know, I just want to learn to do people.
People, you know, the world will get smaller.
I feel included.
Because the main thing is like, I just don't want to feel alone.
Right? And to me, it feels like social media is a place
where you don't feel alone.
Because you're just learning about it.
And there's all these people talking to you.
Yeah, but you do feel alone too.
Ultimately, because it's the drip as opposed to the real--
What we got back to when we first started talking,
it's the illusion of it.
Yes.
But it is worthwhile too.
It depends on how you contextualize it, right?
And like anything in life.
Yeah, I think there's a value to it.
Oh, no question.
And by the way, the fact that I can watch you show
and then go on, I mean,
and the guy who went to the prisons
and you're the KKK guy and the guy who's the musician
blew my mind.
And I learned all this stuff in those three hours.
Just because I chose to, you know,
and that's one of the great things about your show
is I can feel your curiosity.
And then I'm learning from your curiosity
what things that I would never normally know how to go on to.
Yeah, that's the most valuable gift of this show for me.
It's the best.
Is that I get to pick who I talk to.
So I only talk to people that I'm fascinated by.
Or someone who's interesting to me.
Or something like, oh, this is going to be cool.
Like, I don't-- I don't go.
I've got to do this one.
There's never that.
It's always like, ooh.
How do you fucking study that?
How'd you get involved in this?
Where'd you learn that?
And I'm like glued to it.
It's not like it's in the background.
I'm like, bam.
You know, because you're so interested.
And it gets back to like the acting.
If you're really interested or not,
then it's going to be hard for me to listen to watch it.
Yeah, that's why I think the only reason why it works.
Because there were some conversations.
For sure, Joe.
You can't sit there and say like, here's the pitch.
It's over three hours basically unedited.
They're like, it's not really where we're at.
It's going to-- no, the most people will listen to it.
I'm sorry.
But it's like, no, the nuclear fuel is, no, I'm actually going
to be curious about what I actually want to learn.
And then it's like, oh.
So we're actually going to watch two human beings talk to each other.
Oh, that's kind of great.
But that's your nuclear power.
That's why the show's so magical.
Well, that's the only--
I mean, the crazy thing is there was no point.
And the way you don't edit it.
The way that the pauses are there.
You know, even so much is when you're like,
I gotta take a piss.
And then like, it's back.
I'm always like, whoa, what just happened?
Yeah.
When are we supposed to go to the bathroom with them?
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I'm so sucked down.
So maybe we should start doing that.
Maybe we should start following people to the bathroom.
But do you know what I mean?
It's such like, wait, what?
Yeah.
Wait, what do you mean?
How come at just-- where'd the time go?
Wait, what just happened?
Right.
Yeah.
Because you create that room that I'm in the room with you.
Podcasting is weird because it kind of just appeared.
And no one thought anybody wanted it.
It's fascinating.
I mean, think about it.
I do think about this a lot, especially
because I've watched your show in the last eight months.
It's like, in the world that's moving into this one direction,
there's this other deep, deep need for connection.
Yeah.
You know, and then this is one of the examples.
This deep, you know, live theater, live stand up.
You know, we still do need to communicate.
That hasn't gone away.
In that way, in a carnal-- not carnal, but in a human to human interaction.
When I love AI, I talk to AI with my daughter.
I think it's dope.
I think it's fascinating.
Fascinating.
But it's not the same yet.
No, it's interesting.
Very interesting.
It's like, I use it as a companion, like a writing companion.
So what I do is I have, like, I put my phone up,
and I've got it on, like, a little kickstand.
And I put perplexity on when I write.
So I'm writing about, like, the Mayan and Aztec civilizations
and what happened when they got invaded.
And as I'm writing, I ask questions.
Like, how many people did Cortez come with?
600.
How many muskets did they have?
13?
They conquered the entire fucking country of Mexico with 13 muskets.
Like, and you find out things.
And so I use it, like, as someone I'm asking questions.
It's all knowing, you know, entity that sits on the desk with me.
And I just-- and I do it always with my voice.
I just press the little button and I say--
I do it with voice too.
I do all-- I love talking to them.
It's incredible.
It's so good at recognizing what I'm saying.
It's a weird name, like, to no-chit lawn.
Like, oh, I've got to spell that one.
It's not going to understand what that temple is.
But once you use it that way, it becomes, like,
like, a genius that you're hanging out with talking to.
I haven't gotten to that level.
I go, like, how was your New Year's?
How did you do that to it?
You asked the AI.
Yeah, I'm like, I'm curious how they're going to process
and, like, how they're going to try to communicate.
But also, it changes and becomes more, like,
what you're asking from it, which is weird.
Yeah.
You certainly use your rhythms and vernacular.
Yeah.
So CES, the computer electronics show,
they just highlighted a sex robot that's connected to AI.
And I'm like, this is the end.
This is where it's going to, like, get really fucking weird.
You can actually purchase a companion that interacts with you.
Have you seen it, Jamie?
Have you seen the new one?
Nope, I'm looking at it right now.
Let's see.
It's fucking weird, man.
It's fucking weird, because this is the thing
that everyone's been afraid of, and that this is coming,
that you're going to have an artificial human being,
that instead of learning, like, oh, when I act shitty,
this person doesn't like me.
When I act nice, they like me.
I feel good.
They feel good when I say something nice to them,
and you see them light up, it makes me feel good.
It makes them feel good.
You hug them.
Everybody feels good.
It's like we're learning to interact
and communicate it with each other.
But there's a lot of people that aren't doing that right now.
They're just at home.
They're fucking playing video games.
They're interacting with people only online,
and they don't get contact with the outside world.
So this is, yeah.
Lovence, the AI doll.
It's like, right now, that doesn't look real.
It's not more than your average AI companion.
Like, basically, but what they're not telling you
is you're going to fuck this thing.
That's what's weird.
It's like, look, go back to the options.
Co-worker, Jim Crush, Goth, Raver, or Tradwife.
I'm the woman of your dreams.
I can be more than one version of myself for you,
whether you want to roleplay an exciting scenario
or design a whole new personality.
Your wish is my command.
Well, you're never going to develop a real personality then.
Like, like, kids now are so fucked.
Touch me like you mean it, and I'll respond.
With built-in sensors in my thighs, breast, butt, and vagina.
Feeling your caress brings out a moan.
Like, bro, this is dark.
Like, that's the actual sex robot.
That thing you're looking at right there.
What?
My soft textured skin.
My supple curves.
The tiny, sensual details of my body.
Everything about me is meant to feel natural.
This is fucking creepy, man.
Because all the things that are a part of being a human being
that are designed to emphasize
and enhance our interaction with each other.
And there's this mutually beneficial cooperative environment of a community.
They're all going to go away.
You're going to have this thing that loves you no matter what
and does whatever you want it to, no matter what.
And you're going to have like a whole nation of fucking sociopaths
that only interact with their AI companion.
Yeah, maybe.
[laughter]
But whenever these, like, you know, think of the AI
and I read this great book called The Maniac by Benjamin Lebatou
to talk about Jan Newman.
And like, I stopped fearing AI and it's all about like,
it's just like, you know, there's so much I don't know.
The older I get, I don't know anything.
I just keep knowing less.
Right.
And it feels like that's the evolution.
That's the evolution.
There's so much disparate communication now.
Porn is such a huge thing.
It's just another level of porn.
Right.
You know, it's a carnal level of porn, really.
But when I think about me as a human being,
that's really the only litmus test.
I'm constantly like, is this person telling me
what they really think?
You know, is this real?
Right.
I think that they're, at least if I was doing that, right?
And I was sitting at home.
There'd be a part of me that knows that I'm, again,
I'm controlling all of that.
Uh-huh.
And that's not what really makes me feel serene.
You know what it's like?
You know what I'm saying?
It's like playing a video game on God mode,
where you can't die.
Right.
They're no fun.
And you know what?
For some reason, I never video games.
I had Nintendo, tech mobile, you know, double dribble.
But I never Zelda, you know, but I never got it.
I just never got into video games.
I never want to control everything.
It's like, I want to be in the thing.
That's surprising.
And I'm having to recalculate and understand why I feel this way.
Yeah.
So I don't know if it'll, I think,
I think the thing that maybe will change
society where everything is just the lack of jobs
and how we find purpose in life, you know,
is a huge, that, you know, what that transition
civilization will be.
Yeah.
But this feels like just another progression of our escape
through porn in terms of the sexual,
which does affect our intimacy with our partners in a massive way,
because your brain is cycling back through your,
that rush, whatever was released in your brain,
from that other thing, now you're with this person
and it's not the same, you know, markers of stimuli.
So you're like, how are my, you know,
that's where it fucks up to, that's where that,
I can understand that.
And why it's not healthy for me to look at porn,
because then it affects my intimacy.
Well, they really say that about young people,
because a lot of young guys, before they ever have any sexual
interaction or watching porn.
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
I mean, watch these guys have come on the studies.
Yeah, I mean, clear.
It makes sense.
You know, I didn't grow up looking at, you know,
I didn't, my dad didn't have playboy.
I didn't grow up.
I still remember they were like cards
in the back of a bus that had, you know,
solicit, you know, naked women on the back of playing cards.
I remember in the school bus one day, I was like,
I saw a car and I picked it over and it was like a naked,
I was like, what's that?
You know, I didn't see my first like porn video
until I was like in my late teens.
So I didn't grow up with any of that.
Yeah.
But, you know, it's, it is what it is.
It's where we're headed.
But all the more reason to create environments like this.
Right.
And that's why I do love what I get to do.
Like if I can somehow
explore something cinematically that I'm personally,
again, that goes back to like what's, yeah,
I can't explain it.
It was will, the thing, I'm just going to explore this.
If there's something I feel like I want to do it,
if I can explore it and be real,
maybe someone is going to attach to it.
Like I'm a huge believer in art.
Yeah.
You know, I think art is, you know, in any form,
is a key to our communicative ability
and like not feeling alone.
It really comes down to me at least,
just not feeling alone part of a community.
Yeah.
That's it because me alone, me alone,
and if I'm controlling a robot,
it's still me alone.
I guess that's what I'm saying.
One, some part of my brain, even though it's,
even if you could create a world,
like virtual reality doesn't really do it for me.
Like the world's created, I'm like,
you know what I want to, I want to live on Mars
and you're a dinosaur I'm talking to.
And we're married, do you know what I mean?
You know, like whatever it is.
It's like, I still know I'm controlling it.
And I don't know if anybody else.
So I don't know how, I don't think it'll ever really solve it.
Right.
It's not a really resonate.
It's not a really resonate.
I don't think so.
I don't.
It'll be escapism.
Yeah.
Which we do.
Many other things.
Smoke and weed is young.
You know, whatever it was for me,
you know, or whatever it is.
Not that weed, that's a communicative thing, that actually.
But like anything that's escape,
it's just a higher form of it.
Well, it's a disconnect, too.
That's what I mean.
It's a disconnect.
Art is a connect.
Right.
It is.
When it works, it's a connect.
The great art is expression of someone's humanity
that you can feel like this person did this thing
or they're doing this thing right now and I'm watching it.
Like, wow.
Like going to see live music for me.
Well, music is like our touch to God, no question.
That's why the first move I wanted to make with music.
It's like music.
Two people singing to each other that in love.
That's it.
Yeah.
First of all, I'm sure you've sang a little bit.
If you're not loose,
it's going to sound bugget horrible.
Like, we're wind and string instruments.
Both, right?
We're wind and then strings with our vocal cords.
Like, and if that's not loose,
the sound's going to be horrendous.
We're not going to be able to communicate.
But if you're loose and you're singing to somebody
and they're singing back to you and you're in love,
you're actually in love.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Wow.
That must be crazy.
I feel like people that do a duet that are in love
with each other and they're on stage, like 16,000 people.
No, I mean, the little taste I got during the stars,
because we jumped on real stages and sang live.
It was fucking crazy, dude.
Crazy.
We went to Glastonbury Music Festival, 80,000 people.
Chris Christoffersen gave us four minutes of a set.
Me, Maddie Libertique, the DP, Steve Martin, the sound guy.
I had my like costume in my bag.
I went into the bathroom, came back out as Jackson main.
And we had four minutes and sang.
I was like, what the fuck is going on, dude?
I mean, Joe, talk about, you know, it was crazy.
Oh, that's well, so wild.
And then doing it with Lady Gaga, who's actually like,
I made my band with like this, you know,
so I could pull it off and I could believe it.
And then I'm singing with her and the minute she opens her mouth,
it's like that thing comes out.
Yeah.
And your whole body is tingling.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Yeah, you can't replace that with AI.
I don't think so.
No, no, it's impossible.
It's impossible.
But you can get oddly close with some music.
Like--
And everything, like art too.
Yeah.
You know, you look at AI art, it's incredible.
Well, that spooks me out.
Like, how do you feel?
I mean, this is one of the things that's really
going to be a giant problem for movie making,
is you can create AI characters that are assembly--
they're like, what they've essentially done
is take a conglomeration of all of the acting
that's ever been done and all the range
that anyone has ever shown.
And they can manipulate it.
Make it more morose.
Yeah, we make it more agency.
And using prompts of real people.
Yeah, we dealt with that with the SAG Strike.
That was part of the thing.
It was a whole AI element too.
Right.
And like, where we landed, it was--
What was the thought from the people from SAG?
Like, what were they--
Well, it was just protecting our ability
of our ownership of our likeness
so that you can't use it without a compensation.
Right.
Because they were doing that.
Well, I mean, I think to build these machines,
you have to prompt.
So that-- and then you're prompting
using what's existing.
Yeah.
And then how do you--
it's just reframing.
How do you allocate funds to someone
when you're using a prompt that's based
on the human being who's an actor?
And you know, do you pat in your likeness?
We're just moving in-- it's the Wild West.
Yeah.
It's the Wild West.
But--
Uncharted.
Oh, yeah.
In every way.
You know, there's podcasts that are AI driven now.
Oh, yeah.
You can watch a discussion and that would be a podcast.
I think Glenn Beck just released the first
Glenn Beck completely AI podcast.
Right.
He was like, OK.
But does that scare you?
No.
It doesn't scare me either.
No, it doesn't scare me with that with podcasting.
Because I think one of the things that people
come to podcasting from is this desire to be--
like a dose of humanity is how I describe it.
I want real interaction between two real people
and I feel it and I know it's real.
And there's something about that that gives me comfort
when I'm driving my car or when I'm on a plane.
You know, I'm listening to these two people interact
and I'm thinking, like, how would I--
what would I say?
What do I think about this?
Oh, I get where he's going from.
OK.
Oh, wow.
That's his perspective.
Oh, that's interesting.
And then it makes me like rethink things.
Or think about things with fresh eyes.
I don't think you're going to be able to do that.
But also, if I know it's AI, if you tell me it's AI,
I'm not going to trust anything it's saying anything
on that level because it's not me I'm listening to.
Right.
It's fascinating for a while.
And then it's like, well, I kind of want to just not feel alone.
Right.
Back to that.
Well, there's an emptiness to AI music.
I love a lot of AI music, but there's an--
I love AI covers.
Like, they've done some AI.
No, I've heard, you know, the 57 ones.
Oh, yeah, bro.
How good is it?
Yeah, no, it's sick.
It's sick.
I was like, if that guy was alive, there's a real person.
He'd be like one of the biggest artists in the world.
He's a fucking dynamo.
Yeah.
But there's an emptiness to it where you know, like, there's no human.
There's no humanity.
There's no soul.
There's no-- you might enjoy it in the moment,
but you better have some real shit too.
But the truth is, I listen to that.
I don't know that there's no soul because I'm not seeing the person sing it.
Right.
You know, and so much music is manipulated anyway,
the voice where it goes through the system.
And, you know, but if I'm watching a human being,
that's why people love to go watch people perform live.
Yeah.
You know, I don't know that guy that, you know, that AI thing,
that 50 cent is a-- if you told me that was a guy,
I'd be like, oh, I can't wait to see him.
I would have no idea that's not a guy.
We play in the green room when no one's--
No, I know.
And they're like, do is this guy?
Yeah, it's not a person.
But of course, how would you know?
But everybody has the same reaction.
Like, oh, no.
Right.
Right.
That's not the reaction.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, no, no.
I don't know it's wrong with me, but I don't feel that.
I'm like, cool.
Yeah.
I don't know.
But we've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
Yeah.
We've been through things before, you know?
Yeah, we've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
We've been through things before, you know?
Like I'm not the same person I was five years ago, of course, you know?
Some people don't think that, you know?
Like you're always the same.
Like I don't think that.
Those people are silly.
Yeah.
I really people change.
People change.
They change by the minute.
Yeah.
But I mean like major changes.
Yeah.
So, you know?
Do you ever think back in your life and you're like,
I've lived so many lives.
Yeah.
Like it's crazy.
If you live a good life, I think that's the case.
I don't like, how?
Why not?
Why not?
Yeah, maybe if you don't live so many lives.
Did you just nail it when you were 21 and ride that fucking boat right into the rocks?
No.
Because everything else is changing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, you have to change.
But it's just, this change is a strange change because we're essentially creating an artificial
life form that it can interact with us in, right now in a way that you can manipulate
like this AI sex bot, but eventually it's going to interact with you and you're not going
to be able to manipulate it.
It's going to be a life form.
Yeah.
That's going to be something.
Yeah.
The entertainment aspect of it is just a side effect.
I don't even think the entertainment, yeah.
That's not even the thing.
The thing is life's going to change.
That's what I feel like too.
It's like, oh, the storytelling.
I'm like, I don't think that's our main thing.
It's going to be certain.
Yeah.
The storytelling thing is going to be weird.
But like, we're talking about it like a minute to minute life existence change most probably.
It's essentially going to be a life form.
And, you know, there's a lot of technologists that are looking at it and they're saying this
is should be studied by biologists and not by people that are involved in technology.
Right.
Because this is kind of a life form.
It's just a life form.
It's fascinating.
And human beings, what we do.
It's like it's a Mark Zuckerberg building the size of Manhattan for a place to be able to create and generate a computer for an AI.
You know, like the amount of energy that we're, you know, it's fascinating.
Human beings.
Well, they need their own nuclear power.
Yeah.
But isn't it fascinating?
It's just like.
Yeah.
And then if you have an enemy, there's competition.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
And if you better create one so that you could be motivated.
It's really interesting.
I just, you ever stop and think like, what does 50 years from now look like?
Oh, it's, you know, I think about, again, with kids.
My daughter and I, we walked through because I live in New York.
We talk about it all the time.
Like, what's going to be here when you're my age?
It's like, what do you think we, you know, we talk about it all the time.
But whether she even needs to get a driver's license, you know, she's eight, you know.
It's really fascinating.
Right.
Like, or way more.
But when I was eight, as opposed to now.
Right.
I was eight.
I mean, I remember having a beeper, you know, and I thought that was like crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And a star-tack phone.
Yeah.
I was like, whoa.
I got one when I moved to LL.
Oh, man.
I remember that start of it in the fucking future.
Yeah.
I could, any excuse to fucking pull up the antenna with Motorola.
Yes, dude.
I got the extended battery.
Oh, shit.
Yeah.
In the course.
Of course.
Yeah.
I can call people whenever I want.
Yeah.
I remember when Blackberry died and I phone.
I was one of the last people I kept that Blackberry.
I kept the Blackberry down deep into the game.
Me too.
I needed that keyboard.
I was like, I don't know.
This is not going to work.
Right.
Yeah.
My thumbs are too big.
Now I hardly ever even actually type.
Well, I do want to write, but when I talk to people, I just talk text.
You do.
I do not do that.
Yeah.
It's so good.
Yeah.
But it's so much quicker than I should do that.
I always have a hard time turning it on and then knowing it's not a voice memo or the thing.
I got to look at it.
You know, I'm talking about just slide.
Yeah.
Go up.
Yeah.
It's the embracing of it is inevitable.
But it's like, where is it going and what is it going to lead us to?
And how many different jobs are just going to vanish?
That's what's really scary, like giving people purpose and meaning because so many people,
their purpose and meaning is their occupation.
And if your occupation is completely irrelevant, it just doesn't work anymore.
It's like, you know, again, I think back to me and my upbringing, my grandfather who was
a beat cop for 35 years, I don't think you would say his purpose was that.
You know, I think his purpose was his family and my purpose is, my purpose is my family.
And it's not my job, even though I get to do something I absolutely love.
I don't know the people's purpose innately is their job.
You know, I think it's a, I do think for me, I just like, you know, God's in all of us.
It's like whatever you want to say of God, like the need to communicate to create experiences
that we don't feel alone because it's fucking terrifying being on this little thing who
knows where we are and then we're gone.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a horror movie.
Yeah.
So we got to band together and communicate.
Well, I've thought about that too and people say, you know, the jobs are going to go away
and we're going to have universal basic income and the problem is that no one will have any
motivation and a lot of people lost without meaning.
Like why? Why? Because when, when did working even become your purpose in life?
Like this is a human instinct to provide, you know, but it's a construct.
Yeah.
It's not the only way human beings can live.
And if we've learned anything about ourselves as a human species, we can adapt.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, highly able to adapt.
Right.
But what does that adaptation look like and how do you educate people to not just seek
a safe job that's going to provide for your family, but instead seek a purpose, seek a
thing that gives you fulfillment, a thing where you feel like you're contributing to the
world or like maybe it'll lead to an explosion of human created art because I think one
of the things that's going to happen for sure is people are going to really greatly appreciate
things that other human beings have made because like you've got to go, oh, this is where,
but this is handmade.
This is made by a guy in Wisconsin, you know, he's got a shop.
You can watch a shop on issues.
It's all huge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We just got to get more people to embrace that kind of life, like giving them purpose
in creation.
And I think most people are creative.
It's just that creativity is probably like pushed out of you when you sort of conform
to society's ideas of what you're supposed to be doing with your life.
Or you feel like you're told in a competitive environment that you're not creative, right?
You know, if you're not, if you're not helped along the way in those developing years
by at least somebody, right, it could be knocked out of you.
Yes.
Yes.
No question.
Yeah.
I mean, I even look back and think of like a couple of people that today is why we wear
the uniform.
ABC tonight, the rookie returns to ensure the safety of all Angelinos trying to mess
it up.
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Last thing, like a day in the job to remind you how quickly life can change.
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I believed in me.
And I'm like, yeah, without that, I don't know.
Oh, yeah.
Even with how much I love it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, you know, children are almost all creative.
They're always playing and fucking around with dolls and fucking around with Legos and
they're moving things around and they're using their mind to, they're drawing.
They're doing stuff that's creative.
It's just after a while, that part of their life just kind of goes way in atrophies.
And then they embrace the grind.
Yeah.
So, it could lead to some sort of person.
Yeah.
The hard part's going to be people that are already setting their ways and when their
job just goes away when it just becomes irrelevant.
And that's about governing.
Yeah.
And what do we do?
Yeah.
No, it's the government's terrible at everything.
They're not going to be getting people to be creative.
But more, just like, how do we deal with it?
You know, any transition can be various states of volatility.
What do you think movie making is going to be like?
I mean, how much of a play is AI going to have in filmmaking?
I mean, it already has a play, you know, in terms of what certain houses use, you know,
whether it's writing or special effects or I don't even know how much AI is used, you
know, I'm sure it is.
I'm sure it's used at every level, just like in every other aspect of the workforce.
But no, I don't know, you know, I don't know.
All I know is like, again, telling stories where you don't, that you feel like you can relate
to it, no matter how.
And what's wonderful is, you know, I'm watching Avatar.
Like I saw a movie the other night that I didn't believe anybody in it, you know, and
if I'm not believing, I just, I can't stay awake, you know, and I just, I love Avatar.
I love, you know, and I love sci-fi stuff a lot.
And I, and Leah and we were watching, because we watched three, then two, and we were watching
one, so in bed, we were watching one, parts of one.
And I was like, I'd just gone from watching this movie that like, I didn't believe anything,
anybody was doing the whole time.
So I was out of it.
And then I'm like, watching Avatar for two seconds, two people are telling, yeah, they're
on a thing and they're blue, but they're talking to each other.
Right.
Right.
I don't know.
Whatever they're doing, they're talking to each other.
Yeah.
So Avatar was fascinating because of Avatar depression, you know, about Avatar depression.
No.
There were so many people that loved Avatar so much and connected with the idea of living
on Pandora and being in that world and being the Navi that they wished that they were
there.
I get it.
So they were developing Avatar depression.
It was like, they were talking about it, like it was a psychological condition that people
were affected by.
That's how good that movie was.
Yeah.
The gay people depression, they weren't a giant blue person.
The color blue, that alone, you know, and the color of blue that James Cameron landed
on.
Just what do you think that is?
I don't know, but that blue is pretty wonderful.
Do you think it's the ocean when the sun hits it?
It feels like, you know, the Caribbean or something.
Right.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's like white sand and overhead light through water.
Yeah.
It is weird.
Yeah.
Because if they were red, by the way, I'm like, one's four and five.
Come on.
Right.
Right.
I haven't seen three yet.
Is it great?
I loved it.
I loved one and two.
Yeah.
I fucking love those moments.
Me too.
Yeah.
There's a great ride at Disney World.
I heard about it in Orlando, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can't wait to go.
Fucking amazing.
Are you on the, yeah.
It's a VR ride.
It looks like a motorcycle.
Oh, my goodness.
And then all of a sudden, like, you feel wind.
It's got like, like, physical elements to it and smells and mist.
Yeah.
You're flying on one of those dragon things.
Yeah.
You're flying around.
It's incredible.
But that movie was so impactful that people got depressed that they weren't living there.
Yeah.
I get it.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it happens all the time.
They just have a term for it now.
Yeah.
But I'm sure it happened with Star Wars.
Dancing with wolves.
Yeah.
Oh, really?
So many people wanted to be a Native American and live with the Native Americans because they
saw Kevin Costner do it and like, oh, this is better.
This is better than living in the town with all those assholes going to the saloons.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's something about that, you know, there's something about like living in harmony
that appeals to people, you know.
And I think that has always been the appeal of, you know, there's a lot of people that
were kidnapped when they were young by Native American tribes, like, there's a photo outside
in the lobby.
I don't know if you saw it of Kwana Parker.
He's the last of the Comanche chiefs.
And there's a lot of like city, city streets and areas all around Austin that are named
after Comanche.
There's like Kwana Parker Lane and all these things.
And his mom was Cynthia Ann Parker.
She was kidnapped by the Comanche which she was nine.
They killed her family, wiped out her whole family in Oklahoma.
It's documented in the book Empire of the Summer Moons, incredible book that all talks about
the conquering of Texas and the Comanche fighting the Texas Rangers.
But this woman was kidnapped when she was nine, married the Comanche chief and her son
was Kwana Parker.
So her son was half colonizer, half native, half Comanche.
And he became the last Comanche chief.
And this lady, they rescued her when she was 30 and she kept trying to escape, she wanted
to go back.
Right.
Like, no one ever like went to the Native Americans and then wanted to go back to regular
Western life.
They all wanted to stay with the Native Americans.
They all, they loved that life.
There's something about this ancient way of living, subsistence hunting, living on the
land.
Well, you talked about it on your show about the need to go out in nature.
Oh, yeah.
I couldn't agree more.
I mean, it's like, oh, right.
You know, it's very important.
I think it's a vitamin.
No question.
Yeah.
Yeah, Native American.
And also, like, you think about, I mean, yeah, I'm a fan of all that.
And this has got great writer, M. Scott Mamade and Sherman Alexi, you know, just writing
about it.
It's pretty, yeah.
It's fascinating.
Yeah.
But people that were, that went and lived with the Native Americans never wanted to go
back to the West, but people that, but that lived in a Native American life and then
moved to the West, they always wanted to go back.
Like, it's never, it never went the other way.
But somehow or another, the way of the Western people, the way the settlers won out by like
sheer volume and numbers and this concept of progress.
Yeah.
Technology.
Yeah.
I mean, that was the reason why they were able to pull it off in the first place was the
cult revolver.
Because without the revolver, they all had muskets.
And the command she had like five, six arrows and they would run at them and she gives
in movie.
Remember the end of the Mel Gibson movie?
Which movie?
Apocalypse, oh yeah, you know, we finally escaped and it gets to the beach and then the boats
are coming.
Yeah.
Oh, fuck.
Yeah.
And we just watched them go through the whole thing.
Uh huh.
Like the muskets coming.
Yeah.
The muskets and then the rifle.
Yeah.
And then the revolver.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it was just steel.
You know, that was the crazy thing about the Aztecs in Cortez is just they had steel armor
and, you know, they were riding horses and I was like, these guys are gods.
Like this is crazy.
They have metal.
And that's all it took.
Thirteen muskets.
Thirteen muskets.
Six hundred men.
Yeah.
Concord Mexico.
It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's weird the way progress moves.
It's really, because I mean, you can call it progress, but is it even better?
What is progress?
It's like technological innovation and adaptation to it.
I don't know if it's progress.
It all feels very overwhelming.
And I think that's where the downside of our ability to have so much access to information
or me have so much access to information is that it starts to take my breath away.
Mm-hmm.
And then that's why it's like, what's just simple?
Well, that's why it's smart to do not on social media.
Right.
Yeah, because that's the, that's the main tap into the overwhelming.
But I still feel overwhelmed, you know, even though I'm not on social media, you know,
whatever my news feed is, the very, you know, I mean, what I can actively look up and
listen to is still, you know, a hundred times access when I was a teenager.
Oh, yeah.
You know, the fact that I even have a phone to do it, you know, so I even feel that, but
you're right, I can't even imagine what social media does.
It does a lot.
And it does a, it really does a lot for young people.
They're just being wired in a way that no human being has ever been wired before.
Like just their whole, all of their interactions are different than anybody that's ever lived.
Yeah.
Which is so strange.
It's like, because there's been minor changes over time that have led to like just the
invention of cable, right?
Just that.
Change everything.
Yeah, change it for me.
I probably wouldn't have wanted to do this.
I mean, there was a movie theater, my backyard was train tracks and the movie theater.
Loved it.
Watched standby me a hundred times.
Would walk at the pretend I was there.
But then like, Comcast came through and Prism and HBO and all of a sudden I can watch
Taxi Driver 14 times and the elephant man and Popeye and apocalypse now and raging
bull.
Like, you know, yeah, from, from 12 to on that I would never have had.
It was like platoon for six months.
You don't even mean it's like there's one, one choice.
So yeah, it's interesting.
Well, it's weird too now that you have instantaneous access.
Like now it's not even, oh, apocalypse now is on at eight o'clock.
We just pulled up the clip that I was talking about, which is instantly in the middle
of a conversation.
Which is wonderful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great.
If it doesn't overwhelm you.
Yeah.
If you use it and it doesn't use you.
Yeah.
But the problem is.
I feel like that with so many things don't you it's like, yeah, that's why I love books
though.
I still love books.
It's like a physical.
Yeah, I do.
I love books.
Yeah, I don't necessarily read books very often.
Most of my interaction with literature is just audio, just because of a time thing.
Right.
For me, my time is just, it's too difficult for me to manage.
I have a hard time staying with audio books.
Yeah.
Retaining it.
I start thinking about the rhythm of the voice and the, my brain goes to other things.
Like, who's the person talking?
You know, where are they sitting?
I don't know.
Like, it changes.
Well, that's probably why you're a great actor.
Yeah, maybe.
I mean, it has to have something to do with it because you're in this, you're considering
this as a human being, absorbing their humanity.
Right.
Well, this is like words and like, unlocks my imagination.
Yeah.
It's like, I'm here.
And it's like, I don't know what's going to come.
Right.
The words are in your head.
The voices are in your head.
Yeah.
And you don't necessarily have to assign a, a sound to them.
Yeah.
They take on, and they change, and they morph, and you don't know what's going to happen.
What's probably a real value to that just in terms of the enhancement of your own intellect,
just to constantly be doing that.
And as you're reading this, be in, in, in, in grossed and absorbed in this person's writing.
And then like, being taken on this journey.
Oh, yes.
It's like stimulating all these parts of your mind.
Yeah.
I was just on the track in Rome, in the Olympics, you know what I mean?
And the guy was just coming in and taking, you know, wearing two sweatshirts to like intimidate,
you know, like, yeah.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
But it, the good, the thing that's maybe changing is like, it does ask a lot of the reader
or the viewer to use to come out of it with their imagination.
Yes.
And then there's something about, you're taking all that away and you're just receiving
that'll be in, it's very new.
Yeah.
And then, yeah, that's a huge change.
There's not so much communication going on.
It's just receiving.
But there's all those, the mastery of like that guy doing Lord of the Rings and like the,
the taking in what he's doing, you know, yeah, then realize this one fucking person is
doing all these different voices.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
But it's, you have more access now to other people's creations than ever before.
Like you can be absorbed in other people's work all the time now, instantaneously on your
phone.
I'm sitting here.
I'm bored.
Let me just get someone's creation and plug it into my head.
Or somebody's thoughts on something or research they've done.
Yeah.
That's what's amazing.
Oh, yeah.
That's what, and that's what I've learned on your show too, just every, you know, that
just that, I didn't know one had access like to that or, or it was frowned upon or
like, well, you're not smart if you talk about this, right?
You know, like let everybody decide.
Right.
That's true.
We don't know fucking anything.
No.
Well, there's a lot of gatekeepers when it comes to what you should or should not be interested
in.
Yeah.
Or should or should not be discussing.
I remember being in college and there was a student, African-American student who I really,
I was friends with and I remember him saying like, man, the one course he's like, it's
just not, they're not telling the story.
And I remember anyone and he talked, this is a 1995 or 4, wait, and I graduated in 1997
from college.
Yeah.
He was a sophomore and like, he was just what he was talking about was like other, other
ways of looking at history and like, can't we just look at other stuff and it's fascinating.
You know, now it's like, there's whole, you know, courses on it or sections that you
can read and learn and hear what people, you know, that's kind of amazing.
Yeah.
It definitely is.
I think it's amazing as long as you could be, you know, like, it's not strict, but
as long as you can be, you know, what's the word, you know, you're like, okay, I'm looking
at it.
This is not, you know, the Bible of what it is, but let me just see here, this take, you
know, that's only healthy, I think.
100%.
Yeah.
The problem in the fear is like, oh no, you're going to get, and then the cult and the
group and the thing and all of a sudden there's a movement and, you know, but whenever that
happens anyway, there's so much infighting and the thing gets diluted anyway.
Like, it's, there's no, it's never going to work.
Right.
That's the thing about the Bible itself is the Bible is a series of stories that were
an oral tradition for who knows how many years for it eventually wrote it down.
Then they translated it from dead languages and eventually to English, you know, like,
what is this?
Like, what, what was the original, what, what, what is the meaning of this?
Like, what, and you don't even have to go back that far.
It's like just how we take it, you know, label, you know, all of it, all they are labels
of what's words, language, you and our communicate using these system of symbols, vocal symbols
that we both think mean something.
Yeah.
But when I say protein bites, it's like, you're looking at that differently than I am.
So it's so impossible anyway.
We're just desperately trying to communicate.
Yes.
That's all we're doing.
Yeah.
And have a story.
Like, what's our story?
What's our story?
What's going to be the weirdest aspect of communication through technology is that we're
going to get to a point where we're communicating without words.
That's going to get really weird telepathy.
That to me is scary because I don't trust my thoughts.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, if I learned anything as I've gotten over, I was like, oh, yeah, let that wash through
me.
I don't have to judge myself for that.
That was crazy.
Right.
Whoa.
Right.
No, no.
It's okay.
Let it wash through.
Judge me about my action.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then managing the thoughts and deciding what to act on and what not to.
And imagine like trying to consciously control your thought.
I mean, all of us talk about control trying to control.
Well, I think it's going to be a completely different way of interacting with each other.
That's going to be as crazy as internet communication and what we're dealing with now.
That's going to be another level of crazy because we're essentially going to be telepathic.
And that's inevitable.
That's in the war.
I mean, Elon said that to me because you're going to be able to communicate with no words.
It's like, okay, what does that mean?
Yeah.
What does that like?
What language is it going to be in?
Is it going to be in a new universe?
It's kind of exciting.
It's very exciting.
Yeah.
It's well, it's very weird.
Yeah.
It's both.
We're going to be different.
Yeah.
I just hope I'm around and experience it.
You will be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's going to happen fairly quickly.
I think it's going to happen within the next couple of decades.
It's going to be unrecognizable.
If less than that.
Yeah.
I mean, that's just being like really charitable.
Yeah.
That is.
That is.
It's probably going to be five years.
Yeah.
I mean, you've talked to enough people that are on the front lines of it.
And there is one sort of constant thing that it's sooner than you think.
And everyone on the front line is fucking terrible.
I know.
All of them.
I know.
All, even the ones that are working towards it.
I know.
They're all like, that's true.
Well, I don't know.
It's good.
Yeah.
I know.
Yeah.
I know.
Strange stuff.
Hey man.
I'm glad we did this.
Oh, it's a lot of fun.
Joe.
You know, it's real quick.
It's just fun.
Let's see the progression of it.
It's like I'm here.
And then like the elephant man, by the end of it, I just see your eyes talking to me.
It's like I forgot the room and Jamie and the whole thing.
Yeah.
I understand the gift.
I get it.
Well, it's because we're locked in.
Yeah.
But I get it.
Yeah.
I get it.
And then through the time, you just start to see things just start to shed off or it
gets more awkward or like the rhythm gets off and it's just so fascinating.
And so I was so honored to be able to be in like, you know, the seat and experience
it.
Oh, it was my pleasure.
Yeah.
I'm honored to be able to talk to people like you and to be able to experience.
You know, as you're talking, I'm experiencing life through your eyes, getting a better sense
of what it is to be a person.
And it's just like these little thin layers.
Like you're building a mountain with one layer of paint ahead of time.
That's it.
Yeah.
Everything is that.
Yeah.
Everything is that.
Yeah.
If you're living a good life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think you're definitely living a good life.
Oh, thanks, man.
And it's been a pleasure getting to know you, man.
You're cool as fuck.
Yeah.
Thanks, Joe.
My pleasure.
All right.
Everybody is this thing on.
Is out now, right?
Yeah.
And so today, as this podcast comes out, correct?
Yeah.
And go check it out.
It's awesome.
Thanks, man.
Bradley, you're the man.
Thank you.
All right.
Bye everybody.