Edward Norton

[0] Welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.

[1] I'm joined by Monica Padman.

[2] And Dax Schupperd.

[3] And Dax Schuperd's at the helm.

[4] Today we have a very exciting guest, a buddy of mine, Edward Norton.

[5] He is a Golden Globe winner, a three -time Academy Award -nominated actor and filmmaker.

[6] He's been an America History X Fight Club, Birdman, the Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, why even go on?

[7] So many wonderful things, I believe.

[8] It's first real movie, Primal Fear.

[9] he was nominated for him.

[10] He is top five best actors ever.

[11] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[12] And he has a new movie, Motherless Brooklyn, that comes out November 1st.

[13] Please check it out.

[14] We saw it.

[15] We loved it.

[16] He's fantastic.

[17] And you'll hear a fun story about how we had a misfire on our first meeting.

[18] Oh, I can't wait to talk about it in the fact check.

[19] Okay.

[20] Enjoy Edward Norton.

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[24] He's an armchair expert.

[25] He's an ultra expert.

[26] Well, Edward, you know, this is an interesting dynamic for me because we're friends.

[27] I know a lot about you.

[28] And you're infamously private.

[29] And I know you.

[30] know a lot about you.

[31] But I'm not private, so you can blast away, yeah.

[32] But I probably got some assets that haven't been deployed here.

[33] I wonder.

[34] Let's try.

[35] And like the time we met, which I wonder if you remember.

[36] Oh, a thousand percent.

[37] But on the flip side, I was a fan before we met, but then this all started happening.

[38] And then I think I wrote you, it's like the old hair club for men ads where they say, I'm not just the president, I'm also a member.

[39] You know, I'm sort of like, you know, I'm also a fan.

[40] I shouldn't have this, but I do, and at least I own it, is I have to admit people of high status, giving me compliments, feels extra good.

[41] And a few different times you've been a lot of wind in my sales, because you came to the hit and run premiere, and then you were very generous and gracious and said stuff publicly about it.

[42] That was incredibly flattering.

[43] You came to the Chips premiere, that was flattering.

[44] And, yeah, when I find out you listen to this show, it's still kind of hard for me to compute.

[45] There's almost two people in your head.

[46] There is the guy I know.

[47] So there's you who I know.

[48] And then there's Edward Norton, the movie star, who I love and is a thing.

[49] And Nary the tween shall meet almost.

[50] Have you had that with different people that you've come to know?

[51] Definitely.

[52] I mean, I, for sure.

[53] And I think that the interesting thing is that some people, the integration of those things goes down smooth and maybe even enhances like, you know, Bruce Springsteen, who I grew, you know, literally Route 95 Corridor came up on an enormous amount to me, like more than I can ever really say, like many people feel, right?

[54] But on meeting him, he not only does not disappoint, but the man, the person you get to know somehow is so, it doesn't diminish your ability to have the same experience with the work.

[55] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[56] In his case, there's so much that's authentic about who he is flowing up and into the work that there's not a disconnect, right?

[57] Yeah.

[58] Whereas, like, I got to know David Bowie, weirdly, who also for me was, he saved my life kind of people.

[59] You know what I mean?

[60] You feel like at a certain point in your life, it comes through the airwaves, and you're feeling less than in with the cool kids or you feel out or alone.

[61] he comes in and goes, the freaks are the ones to be, you're going to find your way into your tribe eventually and saves your life.

[62] You know, it kind of saves your emotional life in a way.

[63] But he was a man who created characters, right?

[64] Right.

[65] And a shapeshifter.

[66] Or like the prestige.

[67] Yeah, he was a magician.

[68] Yeah.

[69] Or like.

[70] Or the illusionist.

[71] I'm sorry.

[72] I should use that.

[73] No, no, no. Exactly.

[74] Come on.

[75] Like the right goddamn 19th century magic movie.

[76] and he would sit with you as like a fellow artist and just say oh yeah David Jones talking to you Edward it was calculated it was crafted yeah Ziggy Star does yeah yeah it was it was um that was a thing I put on I did that for a while that came out of this he was so open in the acknowledgement of what he borrowed from what he what he put together as a pastiche I loved that because very few people ever will be like a Springsteen will take their own life and turn it into the work that becomes everybody's anthem right most of us are definitely cobbling together cobbling together people we admire and want to be and it's impossible not to project a romance onto the ones who feel like it like rises up and out of them yeah this authentic thing it was really meaningful to me to bump into someone I admired that much who said, I'm a fraud.

[77] Yeah, who said, no, no, no, man, no, man, it's all good.

[78] You can be, in fact, sort of square.

[79] You can feel square and still do the thing, create the thing.

[80] He said to me, when I was maybe like 26, 27 years old, he said to me one time, he was like, you know, there's the icons and the tricksters.

[81] And he's like, you can be it or you can make it.

[82] Either way, it can be great.

[83] And I felt this enormous.

[84] sense of relief for that.

[85] Oh, I bet, yeah.

[86] Because in a way, it's like you can be like, oh, I don't have to be anybody, myself.

[87] Yeah.

[88] It doesn't have to be about me. Well, I think, the more you talk to people and the more you get to know people, you realize, oh, we all are suffering from some level of imposter syndrome, right?

[89] We're like, if we're lucky enough, we're waking up in a position that we're like, hey, how did I get here?

[90] Do I deserve to be here?

[91] Is this a big scam?

[92] Is it, am I going to be revealed?

[93] Yeah, license taken away.

[94] I just, the time for me that was a little bit of a breakthrough like that was similar to you who looked at Dustin Hoffman and that was encouraging to you because you're like oh here's a guy who's not like a stud who's gorgeous who's a movie star here's a guy who's what are you saying I'm saying I'm using your own your own quote is that you go oh this guy's just average looking maybe I can do this I similarly did that with Nicholas Cage and then I remember reading an interview with him where he was talking about, it was not until face off when he saw Travolta could do an impersonation of him, that he was like, wait, I can be mimicked.

[95] I am specific enough and unique enough for someone to do an impression of me and people will know that's not.

[96] It took him to that point where he was like, I mean, that amazes me about him.

[97] Especially watching his career.

[98] Because by the way, pause on Nick Cage, because people don't rank him the significance of what he did, you know, in our silly little craft.

[99] Yeah.

[100] People will talk about deservedly all, you know, Daniel Day Lewis.

[101] Yeah, and the post -brando generation of De Niro and Hoffman, Merrill Streep, and on.

[102] And then there's like the Daniel Day Lewis, Denzel, Washington, Sean Penn, all of it.

[103] Nick Cage, for us, oh, God.

[104] Nick Cage did a thing that is very rare.

[105] I think you could point to very few people in the modern era who did something original, like entirely original as an actor.

[106] And Nick Cage was like, What I'm going for, like, I'm going to go operatic surreal.

[107] Oh, he's like, Bowie.

[108] Yeah, I'm going to do a thing that's so heightened.

[109] And raising Arizona, I mean, I can't think of a lot of movies.

[110] I watched more, not only because of the filmmakers, but because when Holly Hunter punched him in the face and he did that lean take into the camera or when he gets in or, you know, he turns to John Gibbon and goes, well, I don't particularly think.

[111] I don't particular thing.

[112] You know, it's like, but you're talking about people.

[113] And, but you, you realize, like, everybody was looking at that and going, what is that?

[114] It's inimitable.

[115] It's like he has done his own thing.

[116] It's very punk rock.

[117] It's very brave and very, very bold.

[118] He's getting at the essence of a thing better than anyone playing it straight could get.

[119] And I bet if we were his age or contemporaries, we'd have been, like, probably just triggered.

[120] by his bravery and belief in himself and then started shitting on him.

[121] But I was young.

[122] And I was like, oh, I don't know what's good or bad.

[123] I know that this is the most entertaining guy I could watch.

[124] More and more, what I realize is that the culture at large has a very conservative impulse sometimes.

[125] We're all collectively more conservative than we think we are.

[126] And I think a lot of times there's this unconscious tightening up when a thing comes along.

[127] And you realize that in retrospect, what you really admire are people.

[128] people who just take big fucking swings.

[129] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[130] Big swings, big, risky swings that are often not understood fully.

[131] Yeah, or don't even hit the mark.

[132] Yeah, or they destabilize people enough, they can't celebrate it right away.

[133] If 50 % of people aren't made uncomfortable by it, it probably won't stick long term.

[134] Right.

[135] Well, that's, I think, our little primate group thing where it's like we all know to tow the line and to step out and to potentially be shunned by the group has such life or death consequences for us for so long that I think when we see someone do something that we're like, ooh, this could potentially have the result of excommunicated, we immediately like panic.

[136] Like I think there's some kind of primitive panic of like, oh, this person might get kicked out of the group.

[137] It's too out there.

[138] The funny thing is, is we remember Nirvana.

[139] I remember reading something with Neil Young, and Neil Young said, I heard that record and went in my garage and cried and played guitar harder than I've played it in a long time to try to catch the level of energy coming off that.

[140] And I remember thinking, always be like Neil Young.

[141] If you ever have the chance, never, never try to put the lid on what people coming after you are doing.

[142] Grab them and haul them up.

[143] But aren't you getting, I'm getting to an age where I'm having.

[144] to police myself almost daily now it's just happening it's natural i've gotten to an age you're becoming a grumpy old man yes i am yes in in ways that like i'm judgmental of the things i read now i recognize they're they're sensationalized so i will react but you know there'll be these studies about millennials they're not fucking or they you know if they're at a job and their bosses and invite them to dinner five times a week they feel betrayed and they quit you know like all these things i hear or the anxiety level and all this i will get old manning and go like let's get a little fucking and tougher.

[145] And then I go, no, this whole thing is this never -ending, evolving thing, and this is where it's going, whether you like it or not, get on with it.

[146] But man, I got a more and more daily pull myself out of a knee -jerk reaction of like, oh, is this world sustainable with this type of victimhood narrative?

[147] Yeah.

[148] I wonder if you have the same sensation, though, that when kids come into your equation and you're dealing with really small kids, that injects more of an impulse toward compassion, but also sort of I want to understand this because you want more resilient kids, right?

[149] And what you're saying is, like, what's going on here that's creating so much anxiety that within it is like a lack of resilience, right?

[150] Yeah.

[151] But it's funny.

[152] It connect, I think it does connect, because I remember thinking, I remember being 22, and reading like a screenwriter that we all revered William Goldman, right?

[153] I wrote some essay that was very put downy about The current crop of movies and writers.

[154] It was sort of like, where's the greatest generation that I was part of now?

[155] Where's the movies of 67 to 75?

[156] I don't see them.

[157] And I sort of remember going, if I list the movies of 99, I challenge you to name a better year.

[158] You know what I mean?

[159] Sure.

[160] Yeah, and it's kind of like, hey, man, like, what's the deal?

[161] But what I remember feeling was that a lot of what was flowing off a baby boomer generation was, hey, what's with all the negativity?

[162] What's whatever, never mind mean?

[163] We were the, we fought the war.

[164] We advocated for civil rights and equal rights.

[165] And I remember thinking, well, wait, wait a hold on.

[166] You grew up in the 50s.

[167] You didn't grow up on television.

[168] Like, you didn't grow up with the information flow that we have about the global pressures.

[169] Yeah.

[170] So let's say we have 10x, the intensity of information flow.

[171] If we were 10x, I get paralyzed.

[172] thinking about what it must be like to be a teenager in a world where the intensity of the narratives around you is so severe.

[173] Oh, yeah.

[174] The peer pressure at a level, we can't even really comprehend bullying through mechanisms.

[175] The most unthinkable thing in high school is that you'd hook up with a girl and the girl would tell people you had a small dick.

[176] And then you could at least plausibly deny that.

[177] Now the girl will show a picture of your penis that you sent to her in a, I mean, oxytocin -induced stupor.

[178] Granted, you'd have been sending that picture around, and I think you did to most of us.

[179] I've admitted many times.

[180] I don't even think we knew each other, and I think I got one of those pictures.

[181] Yeah, the whole world becomes your high school.

[182] Yeah, it's crazy.

[183] But all I'm saying is we have to grant that within these things, there are root causes these kids are dealing with that we did not have to deal with.

[184] Well, that's the better angel of my natures will say, well, they didn't get here.

[185] here by themselves.

[186] So whatever this thing is I'm, I'm frustrated with in them is a generational character, which is too broad, I get.

[187] But now I read more stuff about, oh, yeah, we started parenting different in the 80s.

[188] Kids don't have free time where they're exploring.

[189] They don't, they didn't have all the kind of things you and I had some kind of autonomy and self -assuredness that we gained through building a fort and all this crap and dangerous stuff.

[190] So that was largely denied helicopter parenting and not allowing them to develop coping mechanisms I grant it.

[191] So I am in a compassionate side, but I definitely have to work through it.

[192] And that feels like a new chapter in my life.

[193] And I think that's just age, you know?

[194] Yeah.

[195] The problem is too, though, in a weird way, like you think about it.

[196] Like even in the era when you were working out your dysfunctions, right?

[197] You've always been a particularly resilient guy.

[198] You've always believed in your own potency.

[199] And you're lucky that way.

[200] Yeah, big time.

[201] Yeah.

[202] I don't even know if you hated high school.

[203] You know what I mean?

[204] A couple of the years, I hated them.

[205] But then I found my way by 11th and 12th grade.

[206] But I want to go back to something really funny because you just said it.

[207] You just pointed out the being raised on television, which was basically when you were promoting Fight Club, that was the aspect of it you liked to focus on.

[208] Like, that was the thing that you, I feel like you related to and you connected to And for me, the breakthrough line in Fight Club was we were a generation of men raised by women.

[209] The last thing we need is another woman.

[210] And I heard that as a boy raised by a single mother, which again was a pandemic thing in the 80s.

[211] And I was like, oh, that's part of why I crave this male tribal acceptance and approval and all that.

[212] Like I've been, oh, no shit.

[213] Yeah, I guess I'm kind of responding to having been raised by a woman.

[214] but you had both parents, so the thing that was also very relevant and profound for you was that aspect of being raised with television and all this stuff.

[215] Yeah.

[216] And it's just interesting that the same movie you could walk away with two.

[217] Well, the very best things have room in them for everyone to take them in through their own prism and find something, right?

[218] So, like, I mean, we all get sent PhD dissertations on the homosexual theme lines in Fight Club.

[219] We've gotten divinity students, things on the Christian aspect of it.

[220] I literally have gotten sent stuff on how Fight Club is Nietzsche's Zarathustra because it's about going into nihilism and coming back up and out into self -recognition.

[221] Sure, I'll buy that.

[222] Yeah, and they're all right.

[223] They're all right, I think.

[224] The best things give you, you know, Joseph Campbell, not to get too academic, but like the thing I really always think about out of his lectures, you know, and the books to some degree, but those PBS series talks with Bill Moyers, where he talks about that myth, but stories, they function less well if they're opaque, and we watch them passively.

[225] They function powerfully if they're transparent.

[226] And you see through the story and see, this is really about me. It's about, you know, there's a narrator and it's Tyler Durdon, but it's not.

[227] It's really about Dax Shepard and my relationship to my mom.

[228] You know, then you go, holy shit, this is for me. Yes.

[229] And he says, it's more transparent if it describes a world that the person looks around them and sees.

[230] So he makes the point in one of those things that a young Navajo Indian listening to the Navajo mythology that included the sacred mountain to the north, which he could see, said, yes, I live right in that story.

[231] These things, I have to absorb them because I live within them literally.

[232] And let's say the further people's life experience gets in its detail from the detail of a text, the less activated it gets as a story, right?

[233] That might be my issues with the Bible.

[234] Absolutely.

[235] I have no connection to any of them.

[236] He says that the whole Judeo -Christian construct of stories gets more and more.

[237] difficult to access the further people get from a world in which they recognize themselves in it.

[238] Right.

[239] And by the way, that that's what a great rabbi or priest does is help you see it as transparent again, but it gets harder and harder, right?

[240] Yeah, yeah.

[241] So, like, if people see a fight club or anything else and see themselves in it, they go, wow, this is about me, this is about us.

[242] It becomes your document.

[243] Yeah.

[244] When I was trying to communicate to people about Motherless Brooklyn and wanting to make it, you know, you test your line out.

[245] Oh, yeah.

[246] I got to meet Robert Evans, the famous producer one time.

[247] The producer on the first movie I made walked me over to his office on the Paramount Lot.

[248] He goes, tell me what it's about.

[249] And remember, if you can tell me in one line, if you can tell me in three lines, it's a hit.

[250] If you can tell me in one, it's a blockbuster.

[251] You know what I mean?

[252] I love these rules.

[253] Yeah, and I was like, well, it's about a rabbi and a priest who are best friends, and they both fall in love with the same girl, he goes, that's a blockbuster.

[254] Which, of course, it was not.

[255] That was a great movie.

[256] I forgot about that one.

[257] That was the first one you directed.

[258] Yeah.

[259] Yeah, so I tried, I kind of would say to people, so this is like a big period, you know, epic about like, you know, what happened in New York, but all told through a Touretic detective with OCD, and people literally like their eyes cross and they're like, you know, they're like, they're like, we're in the old, we're in the O 'Rourdon business generally on this one, on this one, you know, they're like walking backwards to the door as you're describing it.

[260] But I actually, as I refined it, I started saying, Forrest Gump, Rain Man, Goodwill Hunting, as much as Chinatown or L .A. Confidential.

[261] Right.

[262] Because sometimes people look at genre and they go through a very, well, do.

[263] Am I into that or not, right?

[264] Right.

[265] But to me, what is really a truism is there are certain films, what they're functioning, the hook, is actually rooting for an underdog.

[266] Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[267] And what you're saying, Goodwell Hunting, Rain Man, Forrest Gump, these kind of movies, when you meet someone who's got an affliction and you root for them, not despite the affliction, but because of it, you feel better about yourself.

[268] Yeah, yeah.

[269] And number one, you identify because whether you're, a simpleton or a working -class genius, you're none of those things, but you go, I know what it feels like to be underestimated.

[270] And then you go anywhere that character wants to go.

[271] I think actually, like, you don't really remember the plot of Forrest Gump.

[272] It's a much more politically toothy movie than people remember.

[273] Uh -huh.

[274] But you just kind of, you go watching this guy navigate the world, I'm with him.

[275] The interesting thing about Forrest Gump is it's like, yes, it does that thing where we all feel misunderstood, right?

[276] But then that movie in particular, the reason it made a billion or whatever the fuck it made, is I can work and I can be kind.

[277] There's a roadmap to success, even if you don't have a 160 IQ.

[278] So it's almost like a triple wish fulfillment in a weird way.

[279] It's like you're misunderstood, but through the right actions and stuff I can control, I can still become.

[280] it sort of says that goodness is important and by the way that's what I mean you forget that movie is written by Eric Roth who is like one of the great it tends to get reduced to life is like a box of chocolate or I'm not a smart man but I know what love is right yeah which is the worst that was the worst Tom Hanks impersonation ever but you forget that he's horribly abused by people she is raped by her father gets AIDS and dies.

[281] It's about how America aid itself and did not treat each other well.

[282] The movie is about the country dissolving into unkindness while he stays kind.

[283] Yes, yes, yes.

[284] My favorite line is, sorry for ruining your Black Panther Party.

[285] Sorry for ruining your Black Panther Party.

[286] Okay.

[287] We've theorized on a lot of stuff.

[288] We knew we were going to solve a lot of things today.

[289] I think we both knew that.

[290] Yeah, we haven't even gotten into the things we love most.

[291] But despite probably what your desires would be, we're going to walk through your life a little bit.

[292] I also want to hear how you guys met.

[293] Oh, yeah, you want to start there?

[294] Because I remember in detail, and I'll own all my own baggage in it.

[295] Where did we actually meet?

[296] We were in a vehicle.

[297] Yeah, yeah.

[298] I picked you up when I was dating Kate.

[299] We picked you and Sean up from a very small airfield in Muscoca, in somewhere, Ontario, Canada.

[300] and we oh i can tell you verbatim what was said in the car i got very triggered i'm dyslexic as you know i carry around a lot of baggage that people don't think i'm smart and i said at one point while i was driving you were in the backseat with shana i go i'm a bit of a d yer and you were in the back seat and you go um you mean a d i yer do it yourselfer and i immediately was like who the fuck is this this guy thinks he's so smart and he's oh Point, yeah, I got, I was like, oh my, well, first, I admire you, so then, and then the fact that I was, and Monica's full -time job is correcting my, the many things I say incorrectly.

[301] I mean, it's a full -time job for her.

[302] Oh, I do.

[303] But you and me are like a joke, when a dyslexic meets an OCD.

[304] Like, like, that's not even, that wasn't even commentary.

[305] That was pure compulsion.

[306] Like, when a dyslexic meets an OCD, that's fantastic.

[307] And then we saw, we saw a bear cub in the road.

[308] We were driving and I stopped.

[309] And you were saying, the mother's going to be to the left or right.

[310] The mother's always around.

[311] Like, you started going into some bear knowledge.

[312] And I was like, I was on the verge of going, there's a baby bear.

[313] Let's just enjoy the baby bear.

[314] We don't have to be on the lookout for the mom.

[315] Like, it's a baby bear.

[316] Let me add in.

[317] Again, let me own all my own baggage.

[318] I'm already dating someone that I feel less than around quite often.

[319] And now someone has arrived who's even higher than that.

[320] And then he pointed out that I didn't say something.

[321] correctly.

[322] So I'm in a pretty big less than tailspin at this point.

[323] And then we go on into this boat.

[324] You put yourself in a hole.

[325] Yeah.

[326] Sean and I talked about it later.

[327] Because you were, I want to add the color in that you and Shauna were friendly.

[328] In fact, when I had said like, oh, who are we, you know, hanging out with?

[329] He was like, oh, my friend, he's so great.

[330] He's like, one of the funniest people.

[331] And she was like, and you guys will get on like crazy because he's actually a primatologist like literally like that and I was like new BFF coming my way I was literally like are you kidding you know blah blah and um and I was I was very excited like and she and I also didn't ride bikes at that time you know didn't all these things but you flew a plane you had flown your own plane no but she was like Dax is a machine guy you're a machine guy you're gonna geek out on these things and I was all I was all labile with like new male friend because I never I And then we were on a dock party, which was really fun.

[332] And then Kenny G landed in a plane called a beaver, the stainless steel 50s plane.

[333] And then he flew you guys back to your airfield, right?

[334] Yeah.

[335] Yeah.

[336] Do you have more memories of it?

[337] No, only I was sort of...

[338] Waiting for the good time, Charlie, Dax.

[339] Yeah, no, no, my experience was, and this just shows you, like, you stay who you are because I went through so much of my life feeling...

[340] isolated, not hated, but just unseen, you know what I mean?

[341] Or literally the kid who's driving around in the Ford Escort, trying to find the party based on the flow of cars.

[342] You know what I mean?

[343] Because no one's told me where the party is.

[344] Yeah, which way are they all going?

[345] Yeah.

[346] And I never, ever felt in with any tribe, any clique, any, anything.

[347] Yeah.

[348] So I'm like, I'm driving around alone, listening to the Smiths.

[349] Oh, I love the Smiths.

[350] Yeah, and Springsteen and the clash and going I gotta get out of here.

[351] Like, I gotta, I gotta get to anywhere where someone is like, come on, come play with us, right?

[352] Yeah.

[353] Or who even likes the same things, I like, but in my head, because when we met, you got set up to me as literally like this person's, like, all the things, I'm like, great.

[354] And then I probably started acting really alpha and aggressive.

[355] Yeah, no, and I thought, again, I was like, I went to, wow, I have, I have not rated.

[356] Like, I just, I just have not rated.

[357] rated.

[358] No boating.

[359] No boating.

[360] I'm not going to learn to ride a motorcycle on this hang.

[361] Oh, this is a sad story.

[362] And I was just sort of, and I end up, and I'm, I, well, I end up like, I also, I felt like shit too.

[363] We both did.

[364] Yeah, but I was sort of like, well, maybe Kenny G. will take me flying.

[365] It's not what I was hoping.

[366] It's not the cool quotient I was looking for, but I'll take it, you know.

[367] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

[368] If you dare.

[369] What's up, guys?

[370] This your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[371] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[372] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[373] And I don't mean just friends.

[374] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[375] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[376] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[377] We've all been there.

[378] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[379] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[380] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started joking, jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[381] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[382] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[383] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[384] Follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[385] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[386] Again, I just felt stupid around you.

[387] It's all my baggage.

[388] And then leap forward a couple years.

[389] And then you and I one time, Kristen's staying at your apartment in New York, and then I come into town and I join her.

[390] And then I go, I'm going to go get a coffee.

[391] Does anyone want a Starbucks?

[392] And you go, I'll come.

[393] And then about five minutes into this walk with you, I go, he wasn't talking down to me. He's just a very smart guy.

[394] And he likes to talk very in depth.

[395] And he wasn't condescending to me. He just, this is what he likes, had nothing to do with me. And then I fell in love with you on that walk to get Starbucks.

[396] I can remember the whole exchange inside.

[397] And so we went on this lovely walk, and then we walked all around.

[398] And then from that day on, I've loved you.

[399] And I checked my baggage at the door.

[400] So we all got there for sure.

[401] Good, good, good.

[402] But at beginning, it was all my stuff of feeling, like, embarrassed in front of Kate that I now was stupid on top of being a low actor.

[403] You already felt that way with her.

[404] Yes, that's what I said.

[405] I was already feeling very less than.

[406] Yeah.

[407] But also, I mean, you're leaving out one thing, which is you and Kristen pretty much got fixed up.

[408] By Shauna.

[409] Yes, a thousand percent.

[410] So, yes, Shauna invited us to her birthday, little dinner at some restaurant, and then we met there, and then we bumped into each other like a week or two later at this hockey game, and then we've not talked about a day game.

[411] The most beautiful thing is it culminates in, we all met at a vegan restaurant, Sage here, about seven years ago, to go out to lunch, and we had brought an ultrasound picture of Lincoln, and he, hit it somehow, and you guys had brought an ultrasound image of Atlas, and we were both somehow trying to surprise each other that we had babies, and it was the same fucking time.

[412] No, and I think what's really funny is my recollection is we both had the same impulse to hide it in the menu, and then turn the menu and go, and I think maybe we did it first.

[413] We were like, you know, we were thinking of having this, and your face, your face at that moment When you went, he goes, we're ordering the same cake, and he flips it around.

[414] That was crazy.

[415] That was crazy.

[416] That was really crazy.

[417] That was one of the more surreal of it.

[418] Like, wait, hold on.

[419] They're doing the exact same thing we're doing.

[420] I also think then, you know, like when you realize we got a couple of friends who were on the ride in sync, it's a good feeling.

[421] But I think also, I remember being way out in Malibu, getting home from a tiring day at about four and being told, are you going to flip around?

[422] and five because we got to go and I was like to where and to the staple center it's like I'm not driving to the staple center at four o 'clock in the afternoon from Malibu I like yes we are why because Kristen and Dax made this little indie movie and it's scree and I'm like this is beyond the limits of friendship I'm not in my mind I'm like the million dollar movie that they scraped together I love them I'm not I mean I'm not going in two hours of traffic for this yes we are So I get there in a very negative frame of mind We watch hit and run My recollection was starting to squint and go Wait a second, no way This is like really good dialogue really snappy And then the first car You know the first like thing with the cars And I can remember like leaning forward and going Motherfucker like what?

[423] Like not how, how you know And, you know, I think when you see people taking swings and finding a way to take what's authentic to them and hit it out, you know, really do it.

[424] And I'm not exaggerating.

[425] You saw Mother's Brooklyn.

[426] The movie opens with a car chase through North Harlem in the 50s, right?

[427] Yeah.

[428] We were told a lot about what we could do and we couldn't do.

[429] Needless to say, you can shut these three blocks for this amount of time.

[430] but we need 12 blocks.

[431] Yes, and we need depth.

[432] And I want 100 cars and I want this.

[433] We're figuring it out and there's the resources and there's the thing.

[434] And at least four times, I said to everybody, you go watch this fucking movie called Hit and Run and you tell me that we can't get this done.

[435] We can get this done.

[436] Like, we can do it.

[437] We're going to steal it.

[438] We're going to fake it.

[439] We're going to figure it out.

[440] And I would say we did.

[441] You did great.

[442] That first scene, I was like, this is fucking awesome.

[443] The shots in the car, the way you're connecting everything, like just the mechanics, the logistics, that kind of stuff I get really distracted by in movies, as I'm sure you do too.

[444] And they can really take me out of it.

[445] If there's like a break of law of physics, I get...

[446] And logic, yeah, a visual logic.

[447] And I was watching that full opening sequence of just the stakes building.

[448] And you killed it.

[449] It's fucking awesome.

[450] Yeah, I mean, directing, as you know, is kind of like, you say something that's absurd.

[451] You propose something that's just fundamentally absurd.

[452] You're like, we're going to do the 50s in New York at big scale, the whole film, like a big American epic, like an L .A. Confidential era.

[453] I want to make a big thing about this country and this city, and it's going to have great car chases and it's going to be.

[454] And we've got to do it for 26 million.

[455] You know what I mean?

[456] In New York.

[457] Yeah, in New York, in modern New York.

[458] And that is absurd.

[459] Like, that is completely absurd.

[460] But then you start to pile on people who buy in who are themselves insanely talented, right?

[461] One of the greatest DPs in the history of modern cinema, Dick Pope, a genius production designer, a genius special effects producer, a billion things.

[462] And suddenly this thing that can't be done is getting done by people who are so good and so turned on by the challenge that instead, of being an asshole in a way you start to look like a visionary you start to look like you know what you're doing but you look like you know what you're doing because of the force multiplication of these other people's talents it's like flubber stacked up on you you get them to yeah to buy into this challenge and you can see once they go like oh fuck can i get it done for this once that fire's lit now and then they make you believe in yourself and then you're making them and it starts to snowball and Look, if I was Martin Scorsese and I could get Netflix to give me over 200 million to make a movie.

[463] Yeah.

[464] Why not?

[465] You know what I mean?

[466] Sure.

[467] But I showed it the other night to like a room full of OGs.

[468] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[469] But Warren Beatty afterward said to me like, what, 80 million, 80 days, you know?

[470] And I was like, you know, I told him like 26 and 46, and he went, you're a lion's sack of shit.

[471] And I love, that was like one of the best compliment.

[472] also just to pause because he's again like reds is to me one of those things where someone at the peak of his fame and collateral and all of it he went and made a movie it's three hours and 15 minutes long it's about american socialists and everybody said to him you're going to flush everything you've got no one wants to see this movie and warren was like what is all this worth if I don't take at least one swing.

[473] Yeah.

[474] It's very inspiring.

[475] Now, the movie, Motherless Brooklyn, to me, the movie felt like a pretty poignant, relevant examination of gentrification, basically.

[476] Current gentrification.

[477] So the book expressedly deal with gentrification?

[478] Yeah.

[479] So the book, Jonathan Leatham's book, Motherless Brooklyn, the book is entirely the hook that we were talking about earlier.

[480] It's the afflicted underdog who you're just riding with him inside his head and outside his head.

[481] It's about a Touretic detective with obsessive compulsive disorder who has to solve the murder of someone close to him, right?

[482] Yeah.

[483] It's boss.

[484] And you start getting very aware of how crucial it is for a gumshoe to be able to present themselves as something, right?

[485] Well, that's the cliche, right?

[486] Yeah, they're always posing as a journalist or a super of a building, whatever the fuck it is.

[487] And now you add on the guy has Tourettes and can't get through any interaction without raising some red flags.

[488] How could this be done?

[489] Well, the book, I hope is the heart of the film too is the book is from page one, you're inside the head of this guy.

[490] So you can, you know him intimately immediately and then you watch this wild affliction that he's got, trip him up in ways that are hilarious and and very painful like yeah and he's a legitimately he's isolated and lonely and misunderstood and gets in his own way horribly but he's also really bright there are things to do with his condition that give him terrific capacities of memory and all these things yeah and the book honestly you hardly remember the plot you just remember the intimacy of being inside and outside this guy's head as he weaves his way through the world that actually to me, more than anything, what I wanted for the film was that relationship with the guy.

[491] You're sort of like, I'm on this guy's team, I'm on his side, everyone else is against him, I'm pulling for him, and whatever he takes me through, the fun of it is watching him try to be the type of detective Bruce Willis really is, except when he gets with a blonde at the bar, it's going to go disastrously badly.

[492] It's not going to be smooth.

[493] You know what I mean?

[494] I got to say my favorite aspect of it was the touching of the shoulder.

[495] Oh, my God.

[496] When Monica and I left, I kept touching her shoulder like that.

[497] It's one of the funnier.

[498] It's the least opportune time.

[499] And the recognition that is like, oh, it's happening.

[500] Yeah.

[501] Like, that was great.

[502] It was.

[503] But in a funny way, he does that when he feels affectionate for a person, which is why I like to.

[504] I didn't see the math on this, and I am curious, like, what moments are there that you let the audience know.

[505] it's okay to laugh at this stuff.

[506] Because I would imagine that's kind of the tightrope of the project.

[507] I think there's a couple things, hopefully, that work.

[508] One is that when Bruce Willis turns the corner and comes down the street into a stakeout and you go, that's the private eye.

[509] We're familiar.

[510] That's obviously the boss.

[511] Dick Tracy.

[512] That's the coolest guy in the room.

[513] When you see that Bruce Willis relies on him, loves him, and teases him purposefully triggers him and winds him up.

[514] and they have a laugh over it together.

[515] Yeah, that's kind of the permission.

[516] Yeah, you know there's a zone where affectionately you're allowed to get a smile.

[517] Back to the gentrification thing, though.

[518] Again, what I like about it was, whether intentional or just that's how it was, I found myself seeing both sides of the argument.

[519] There's a big part of me, the conservative in me or something that's like, oh, no, people got to get ugly and break bones and eggs to get shit done.

[520] If we all try to be nice and delicate, we'll never have anything.

[521] So I'm like kind of buying into this kind of who's going to build this city, who's going to add the parks, who's going to make it beautiful, who's, you know, that's not going to get done with unanimous approval by everyone.

[522] So like I'm on that side of it.

[523] And then I also recognize, oh, yeah, people are getting ushered out of their neighborhood because they labeled it a slum and all this stuff.

[524] And obviously, that's a very compelling part.

[525] And it is what's currently happening in L .A. And New York and Brooklyn and all these places.

[526] And it's like this very compelling argument.

[527] And by the way, when Do the Right Thing came out in 89, you get to the end of that movie, he puts up Malcolm's response and he puts up Martin Luther King's response.

[528] And it was like Spike was like, I'm laying it in front of you.

[529] And I'm telling you there's different ways to absorb this.

[530] I ain't going to tell you, you know, and the balls of that to not answer questions, but really to go, these are hard fucking questions about what we're dealing with in living.

[531] with each other.

[532] They are hard.

[533] There's richness in it all.

[534] There's hypocrisy.

[535] People say this.

[536] People say that.

[537] Here's what one of the great lights of African -American American spiritual leadership said about how you have to respond.

[538] And here's what someone else said that's very antagonistic to that idea.

[539] And here's a picture of them standing together.

[540] And that's the end of the movie.

[541] Go think about this and talk about it.

[542] Go argue it over a coffee.

[543] That's like movies, is making the conversation, forcing the conversation, right?

[544] I am most intrigued by something that at best there'll be 60 % in favor of that decision.

[545] And that's the most intriguing.

[546] Like the black and white stuff to me is not all that compelling.

[547] No, no, nor is stuff that just goes, I'm going to pretend to be controversial a little bit in the end.

[548] I'm going to make sure you know that everything's okay, right?

[549] Because then it's just like, I kind of stirred you up, but I gave you a Xanax at the end so that you don't have to make any decisions for yourself.

[550] Yeah.

[551] I think in a movie, especially sort of a detective movie, like, if you don't have a character who can take you through it, through the murk, in my movie, like, I wanted to flip the smooth detective on his head in a funny way.

[552] But I also think, to me, it's like a guy who's so mired in his own condition that he can't be heroic, who has to step out and seize other people who are fighting, spite it all and kind of goes, I got to get out of my own shit and find the bandwidth to swing back.

[553] Well, yeah, our hero, luckily, he has no position in this thing.

[554] No. Yeah, and it's more her.

[555] Yeah, the character doesn't go like, no, I got to save the poor people.

[556] Or I got to save the city.

[557] It's like, I got to save this girl.

[558] Yeah, or by the end, realize she's fighting the good fight.

[559] He's an African -American woman in the mid -50s who everyone thinks is a secretary and she's really a lawyer.

[560] She's fighting the good fight.

[561] And if I want to sit next to her, her, I don't get to be passive.

[562] Yeah.

[563] You know, I don't get to not pick a side.

[564] Yeah.

[565] I think most of the things we actually, like, that put the hooks in us, they have to do with movement, movement of someone from one place to another, that we kind of go, that's what I ought to be trying for in some way.

[566] You know what I mean?

[567] That, that maybe is a proxy for me instead of something that says, no, just eat your jujibis.

[568] Right.

[569] Because these people.

[570] Mix your milk duds with your.

[571] popular.

[572] Yeah, and these people will come in and do everything for you.

[573] You know what I mean?

[574] Yeah.

[575] Okay.

[576] Now, let me ask you a question.

[577] I'm wondering if your desire in the past to remain largely private, what it was driven by.

[578] Well, in the very beginning, there was a real tactical with primal fear.

[579] I argued to the studio that anything, I freaked out when I saw a piece of the trailer that showed too much.

[580] a number of us argued like keep our powder keep our punch like don't give it up and it was sort of like no one has any idea who I am in less interest why go on a talk show and blow apart the best thing we've got going is we don't know who we don't know it don't know what his voice sounds like don't know that he's not a stuttering you know naive who needs help right that's that's the whole mind fuck of the whole thing right yeah so it was a tactical decision that I think was a very wise one.

[581] Sure.

[582] Because I could theorize.

[583] I have got like three armchair kind of theories on it.

[584] Well, I've been affected by certain people.

[585] Their effect on me was enhanced by the bubble never being broken.

[586] Like Bob Dylan, I think when you watch that Scorsese doc, not the new one, which is incredible too, but no direction home.

[587] I haven't seen neither.

[588] No direction home like everybody should watch like once every couple years if you're trying to be an artist because you have this 20 -year -old guy 20 years old with a phalanx of people in front of him saying the voice of your generation and he goes that's nothing I can relate to man you know or saying what's it about and he's going I don't know what's about I just wrote it what do you think it's about you know and you kind of I watched it and go how does anybody at 20 years old have like the control of their own ego enough to say this will do nothing but screw up what I'm trying to to do.

[589] Even if I wrote something, I had no idea why it had the impact it would have.

[590] I would later ascribe an intention so that I could get the credit.

[591] Yeah.

[592] But honestly, sitting here now, we've talked more about a thing I've worked on than, like Dylan would ever say, ever in his whole career about his work.

[593] But I think that there are people that I think have enhanced the potency of what they do by not letting you behind the curtain.

[594] cutting in a little bit, there may becomes a point, I don't know, where you can't really, in the modern world, maybe achieve that as much as you could in the past, because we're in each other's faces so much and everything.

[595] And also, there's just Wikipedia.

[596] You can't really hide everything.

[597] Right, right?

[598] You also get older, right?

[599] You get less precious.

[600] I even think about the way I was just maddened by, you know, paparazzi photographing Kristen and I, or maybe someone would find out we are engaged, or that people would know, we were pregnant.

[601] Like, all these things I just were so crucial to me and I felt so violated by.

[602] And now through time, I'm like, now we're completely out loud.

[603] And I, I think I enjoy this more.

[604] You do.

[605] You know, like, there may be wisdom in that that I could absorb because I, there was two things to me for a long time that I felt comfortable within, not angry at all.

[606] I really thought there was a lesson in the primal fear thing, which is the less anyone's heard from me, the more when I come on and it was also rooted in a second thing which is I think you have to be self -aware and I do think there are two very very different types of actors who are shapeshifters and there's actors who are very iconic that's not about who's a good actor I think Harrison Ford is a terrific actor right but he's very iconic you go to them because they distill a thing that we all all want you know what I mean I want it over and over and over again yeah over and over again right and Tom Cruise yeah can jump off of something and grit your teeth the way only you can do yeah this is right my armchair theories just looking from the outside which is you've played so many guys incredibly convincingly I mean obviously most obviously in America history acts where you're just this fucking big indomitable tornado and you unlike me, I've had almost the opposite relationship acting, which is I'm just trying to figure out how to do what I can do at a party on screen.

[607] I'm trying to, you know what I'm saying?

[608] Like, I know I'm good at a party.

[609] I got to get more of that onto screen.

[610] I'm not taking big scary leaps like you've taken.

[611] Even as someone who's been in a bunch of fights like I have, I still be like, could I pull off that character in America History X?

[612] I don't know that I could.

[613] And I do wonder if there's some of it for you is you have your own magic trick in your head, which is like for me to buy into that I can be that guy.

[614] I don't really want to see myself on Leno and letting you in on the fact that I'm really not like that guy at all.

[615] Exactly.

[616] And that's tricky.

[617] That whole thing is tricky because it's very hard to resist the machinery that asks and needs you to support the business model on the film.

[618] The thing they just invested a ton of money.

[619] And what's really weird is even some of to me, the people who I would say, like you take a Daniel DeLewis, right, who's one of the great shape -shifting performers.

[620] Yeah.

[621] Of all time.

[622] Of all time.

[623] And who, to me, functions like the warrior monk ideal.

[624] He'd gone into the cave and you have no idea what he's doing or who he is, everything.

[625] He dissolves from the mind.

[626] And then he arrives.

[627] And you take it full stop, full, no dilution.

[628] There will be blood.

[629] I can't remember.

[630] remember him before and can't see anything else and it just slams you into the back of your seat.

[631] Then I ascribe all this integrity to him because he doesn't seem to then want to be acknowledged or celebrated for it thereafter in these public appearances on talk shows and whatnot.

[632] So then I even go, oh, he doesn't even need, he doesn't even need all the validation.

[633] He so deserves.

[634] God, this guy is, as you say, like a fucking monk, warrior, Jedi, something.

[635] Yeah.

[636] So that kind of builds into the thing.

[637] I think all, you know, everybody admires discipline when they can see it.

[638] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[639] Like in any form, just work ethic, discipline, resistance to the things we know.

[640] Willpower.

[641] Pull on our own ego, right?

[642] And you watch your own ego pull you into yeses.

[643] And you see someone else resist that.

[644] And it's like, wow, wow, wow, wow.

[645] I have two questions for you.

[646] One is a, I think you have this incredible integration in what I would call the iconic.

[647] thing.

[648] You're saying, well, I can't do it.

[649] I just tried to do what I do in a party.

[650] I'm not doing shape -shifting.

[651] But I think that you have a very, and I've always, I think, literally like kind of since punked, I think you to me have always had much more iconic presence for men and women, which is like guys want to be like you.

[652] Women think it would be really fun to hang out with you.

[653] And that's a thing.

[654] You know, that is a thing.

[655] That's super flattering.

[656] I don't think guys like me all that much, but continue.

[657] I totally disagree.

[658] I totally disagree because you do ride a motorcycle like a pro, you know what you're talking about on sophisticated subjects.

[659] Sometimes.

[660] Yeah, no, no, you do.

[661] But what's amazing to me about this show is I think, like, legit, like, you'll have Sam Harris on, you'll have your Hollywood pals, but you have Sam Harris and Esther Perel, which crushed me. I mean, like, you know, but you're doing the same thing you've been doing in the work, which is you've been integrating the totality of you into things.

[662] And people are like, I am psyched to be with him because I do think actually a lot of men aspire to achieving what I'd call a very high -minded straddle of the things that are like old school male.

[663] but with consciousness and sensitivity.

[664] Some self -inventory.

[665] Yeah, exactly.

[666] Yeah, not some, a lot, a lot.

[667] The question I have for you is, so for instance, like you blur the faces on your kids, which I support, I can't even go there.

[668] I would never, to me, that family and private is just like sacrosanct.

[669] Sure, sure, sure.

[670] Like, it's like they're not participating in this.

[671] I don't want to impose it.

[672] Yeah, they haven't chosen to be a public.

[673] And I do find, like, you know, you take what comes with it if you make the grown -up decision to be in the public eye.

[674] But when it comes to, especially, I think, kids, people in their private lives, I think the notion that you can't assert a space around you, no matter who you are, to me, is, like, that's taking our culture way down into a place.

[675] I don't think anybody would want to be.

[676] You don't feel bothered by the incivility of people doing the bullshit where they're in the restaurant and they pretend they're taking a selfie.

[677] But, you know, it's like I always want to say to people like publicly, everybody sees what you're doing.

[678] You're treating another person like an animal.

[679] Yeah.

[680] It's unkind.

[681] It's rude.

[682] It's not the way you were raised.

[683] Like, stop it.

[684] I have had low points and I've had high points.

[685] I'll admit to a low point.

[686] Chris and I were late for a flight.

[687] All this shit was going on.

[688] Maybe she left her license at home.

[689] You know, it was just chaos at the fucking kiosk for, you know, our flight out of LAX.

[690] And at a certain point, I turned in the woman that was just filming us, her camera was six inches from my face.

[691] At the height of me, like having an anxiety attack about making this flight.

[692] And I snapped and I said, I'm not a fucking animal and you're not at the zoo.

[693] And then...

[694] Amazing, because literally that phrase has come into my head.

[695] That phrase, exactly.

[696] And I walked away.

[697] I felt bad because the woman, I scared the woman.

[698] And then it just so happened that this woman was on our flight.

[699] She walked by us, and she put a piece of paper on the armrest of my seat, and then went into coach, and I read it, and she wrote like, I'm humiliated, I'm not that person, I'm so sorry.

[700] I then felt fucking terrible.

[701] I then got up and walked and found her in her seat and then I apologize.

[702] I'm like, I should never talk to you this way, right?

[703] And so my experiences with A snapping and confronting those things is generally I walk away feeling shitty.

[704] Like I could be better.

[705] And then globally, I have to admit to myself, I compare it to the traffic in L .A., which is I've lived here for 25 years.

[706] I'm getting irritated still every time I cross town to Bel Air to go to my AA meeting.

[707] And at one point on the ride, I was like, there's two variables in this equation, Dax, there's you and L .A. traffic.

[708] Which one's going to change?

[709] Can I change L .A. traffic?

[710] No. So are people going to film us all the time?

[711] Yes.

[712] Am I ever going to approach control over that?

[713] No. So aspirationally, I aspire to be like Seinfeld, who in that episode with Galaphnakis is like, yeah, you're getting filmed.

[714] And then what?

[715] And now it's over.

[716] And now you keep moving.

[717] I really want to become that.

[718] that where I acknowledge I'm the one that has to change, or I have to get facial surgery and stop doing what I love to do.

[719] Yeah, no, no. Well, I think that's extremely admirable and high -minded.

[720] I think that's true.

[721] Mind you, when I'm with the kids, it changes.

[722] I go backwards, three steps.

[723] Yeah, but nothing goes down well once you're into the rage response.

[724] Yeah, the escalation.

[725] The fact that you did that, and by the way, my gut goes, she deserved it.

[726] But she did, but your point was a human appeal would have been better than an angry slap, right?

[727] Yeah, yeah.

[728] And she might have responded the same way and whatever, but she went high and then you went high and that's all great.

[729] Yeah.

[730] The point is like everybody should try to go higher and be more human.

[731] And after my reptilian response dissipates, I recognize this is a person who got excited and they stopped thinking with their frontal lobe and they're in their reptilian.

[732] I got to somehow capture.

[733] This is exciting.

[734] It's like I can see all the levels.

[735] It's still rude.

[736] I do think, yeah, ultimately I wouldn't do it, but hey.

[737] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[738] Now, really quick to the Living Out Loud thing, here's an example of something I think you could really relate to.

[739] So I don't show my kids on social media, largely for their safety.

[740] But where it got tricky for me is this thing, this show.

[741] I talk about them and then I keep having this conversation in my head where it's like well at a certain age I'm going to have to stop talking about them because somehow their friends maybe will hear what I'm saying about them or somehow it'll enter their sphere and I'll have to stop then and I keep going well when is that point what age is that point and then I thought if I could go back in time and listen to my dad had a radio show and I discovered that my fucking dad couldn't go 15 minutes without talking about me that I was on his mind that much I feel like I would really love that.

[742] And so it's this decision of it's like I'm protecting their privacy yet I'm not being truthful which is I think about them every 10 minutes everything you say somehow it touches on their heads as it comes to me and so then I'm on that side of the argument and then another day I'll be on the other side of the argument and I don't know.

[743] And this isn't a counter argument but knowing you and you guys like if you did none of that the quotient they know in much deeper ways That's true.

[744] Your devotional commitment to them is, because you're a great dad and a devoted dad, they have everything.

[745] Like, they don't need that.

[746] It's interesting, the idea of the looking back or whatever.

[747] There's a part of me that hopes in a way that all our kids are so into their own lives.

[748] And my fantasy is like they're not that interested in the things we've done.

[749] Yeah, mostly I know they'll never listen.

[750] So, yeah, I start there.

[751] But I, let me ask you this way.

[752] it's almost like Hemingway's stories about soldiers coming back from World War I and he has this one thing about the guy sharing some of his experiences with someone else at the bar and feeling immediately sick inside that he collateralized the deepest thing that it ever happened to him right some of it to me is also that it's the thing of like do things lose their deep meaning when shared, you know, in that matrix.

[753] Like does Kristen still get something that's hers and hers alone and unique?

[754] Yeah.

[755] From me. So this is one of Monica's concerns.

[756] Don't you, do you have, is there a category that for you is like, it holds more weight to me if I know it's mine and it needs no affirmation, it's just me. The big ingredient, though, out of that we're leaving out of this conversation is something unavoidable, which is I had a life -threatening illness, and I got a treatment through this program, A .A. And so the whole premise is everyone comes together under a seemingly veil of anonymity and they share their dirtiest, raunchy, shittiest, scumbagious, most depraved thoughts, actions, everything.

[757] And then I've just watched the magic of people owning that thing and how healing that is and how helpful it is to everyone else sitting there that no longer feels alone in those thoughts and those behaviors and those actions.

[758] And so just in my unique case, the thing that saved my life was hearing other people own the fact that this thing is a fucking beating this, getting through this life and being accountable to people and not letting people down and being selfish and then owning it.

[759] You know, that stuff to me. Even in that mechanism, even in that community, though, there's the principle of privacy.

[760] There is.

[761] What you hear stays here.

[762] I've just identified for me personally that shame is one of the biggest things that leads to suffering in my life and the antidote to shame in my experience has been someone else saying i'm also a piece of shit that really helps me so i think half the reason and it's obviously compounded by social media and curated lives and all this stuff we're only seeing this version of people i think it's only getting worse i just feel like i need to say oh yeah so people already know christin and i are married that's a given so my only option is at that point to go along with the fantasy or publicly say hey we're couples therapy and we have been since we met and it's a fucking beating half the time like i i feel a responsibility to counteract this thing that i have no control over which is people know us and we're together and that's been how it is so i weirdly feel like this is my only way to claw back some honesty of that that's being told i would feel fraudulent to not be honest about that you know i'm saying no no that's and by the way it's very admirable the idea that you offer your own life to the high -minded pursuit of letting people see themselves.

[763] Right.

[764] Letting people see themselves in you guys, people not feeling as alone, you know what I mean?

[765] But I would like to own something publicly and admit, which is something I've hinted at and I think about often, which is I have a very outward proclamation of honesty.

[766] But I also can admit, I mostly just talk about shit I've conquered.

[767] I'm hesitant to tell you how I'm currently a scumbag.

[768] I am currently a scumbag daily.

[769] and I'm not super confident in it.

[770] Well, what I would call it.

[771] I have a question.

[772] I want to ask.

[773] What, when you, because I have, I have a thought or a question, when you say Monica's concerned or Monica brings it up, when you watch, when you watch it from the outside, where do you, where does your concern sit that there ought to be a barrier?

[774] Because I don't actually think this is a celebrity problem, and that's what I'm going to get to at all.

[775] I agree.

[776] Great.

[777] What's your concern?

[778] I was concerned when we started this that, okay, if I start being really honest, nobody knows me yet.

[779] Right.

[780] So if this is the platform for which I'm me and I'm single, so I was thinking of it in a very specific way.

[781] If I meet someone, if I choose to share an insecurity with someone, am I taking something from them that other people also know it?

[782] Like strangers know it.

[783] Like to me, I'm like, that should be something sort of sacred and people should get pieces of you.

[784] They should earn pieces of you.

[785] They should earn pieces and they should, and that's the relationship is like, you know things about me that only you know and the idea that like actually everybody knows that.

[786] So it's not, I don't know.

[787] I struggle with that and then they definitely live that life to an extreme.

[788] I mean, there's definitely things in your life that people don't know.

[789] Sure.

[790] But are the threads still there that are like yours only?

[791] Yeah.

[792] But, like, do you being part of all this and being so close with these guys, do you watch it and go, this is a line of concern for me?

[793] Like, I think this is a, you know.

[794] Yeah, the boundary.

[795] Yeah.

[796] Well, she edits the show, so she's regularly taking stuff out that I say to protect me. Yes.

[797] And then I also do work with her so closely.

[798] It's the same thing.

[799] There's a protection there.

[800] But, I mean, I guess I'll be honest.

[801] Like, nothing's ever happened that's made me think, like, yep.

[802] I knew that they shouldn't have said that or I was worried about that and look at this happened.

[803] Like there's never been any repercussions for being sort of living out loud.

[804] So it triggers me a little.

[805] The whole family had ringworm or whatever we had.

[806] No, pinworms, which are butt worms.

[807] And I was like, I don't know that that's something everyone needed to know.

[808] Like I even thought, well, you know, I'm not psyched people know that we had to take a drink to get rid of our fucking pinworms that were discussed.

[809] You know, thanks for telling the whole world, but not us when you came over with the kids.

[810] My God, I'm going to get the rug steam cleaned.

[811] Oh, that's a good point.

[812] We should sell pinworm cream.

[813] We really should.

[814] We've earned it.

[815] Yeah.

[816] Yeah, but it's not.

[817] So I think that it can sound awfully in the bubble, but I actually don't think it's, this is not to me in the slightest a celebrity public artist, whatever you want to call it, living out loud.

[818] because the whole world is becoming, I think, concerningly obsessed with personal narrative through every form of social media.

[819] And when you look at it, I find myself concerned for my friends, but I do actually find myself sort of concerned for humanity.

[820] Like the notion that we are living more and more of our lives, the narrative is cherry -picked to reflect a very managed and narrow view of who we are, but also in which we're essentially obsessed with telling each other that our lives are important as opposed to just doing anything, which would be fine maybe in concept, except for there's really serious social consequence to the amount of time.

[821] That you're looking at your hand.

[822] That you're looking at your hand.

[823] I just think the social cost of the hours people are spending, there's a lot of life to be lived.

[824] And when it comes into The VR, when you start to imagine, if you've caught a glimpse of where this is headed, seeing some of the latest write -ups on Oculus, you start to go, you can envision a world where people are descending into even more synthetic visions and never coming out.

[825] Yes, I'm sure you listen to Yuval Harari on Sam Harris.

[826] The one great counterpoint that you've all made was Sam was like, well, I don't like the notion that the future of humanity is living in a virtual reality.

[827] and you've all said, Sam, we've been living in a virtual reality from the beginning.

[828] We believe in a God and we think there's steps you take and you earn points and you get to the next level.

[829] This is not a new concept.

[830] People living in their minds from imaginary state.

[831] In fact, most of the time is spent doing that.

[832] And that was by no means made me more optimistic about it.

[833] But I was like, oh, it's helpful to at least acknowledge we've been doing this forever and we'll probably continue to.

[834] But two things.

[835] one, it cycles back to being old, right?

[836] Which is, I agree with you on all those things.

[837] I'm scared too.

[838] I'm nervous.

[839] Also, it's happening.

[840] So do you want to be on the sidelines going, everybody stop, which is not going to happen?

[841] Everyone's going to sell their horse and buggy and buy a fucking Model T that's happening.

[842] Or do you want to be a part of that technology that helps correct or remind people if I can start by posting a ugly picture of me or a failure or something that says, oh, I'm a piece of shit too.

[843] Is that helpful?

[844] Is that the solution?

[845] I don't know.

[846] I look at this more as not the realization of technology as much as the ultimate unavoidable conclusion of capitalism, which is we are now a product.

[847] We now have an ad.

[848] Our ad is our social media page.

[849] The currency is the likes.

[850] Is this not where it was all heading, where we all become a product we're selling all the time?

[851] Is it more the inevitable conclusion of capitalism?

[852] Mind you, I'm a capitalist.

[853] And I don't.

[854] want to get rid of it, but is it as much about the economic system we're in where we, of course, had to become a product ourselves?

[855] Yeah, I guess the question we're realizing in the last couple years is that it has as much potential as a tool of our ultimate enslavement as it does in any measure our true liberation.

[856] It's very tough to imagine how people voluntarily break the addictions that are designed into these these platforms there yeah for sure but do you ever then zoom even further out in a niche way go and what we're all just monkeys on this planet trying to stay busy till we're dead does it matter if we're fucking writing a book or we're sitting looking at VR does it matter I mean you have to first go there's some some greater cause that you'd have to believe in to say that one's better than another I mean all I can do personally go, how do I feel after a day looking at Instagram versus how do I feel about a day of riding a motorcycle or building something?

[857] I just personally feel better on the ladder.

[858] Yes.

[859] Yes.

[860] Yeah.

[861] So it's just got to be a truth for me. Yeah.

[862] I've been watching it's sort of, I'm not even called it a guilty pleasure.

[863] I just didn't know.

[864] There's this Netflix show Altered Carbon.

[865] Have you seen that show?

[866] No. It's really good sci -fi.

[867] Oh, really?

[868] It's like Black mirror.

[869] It's like, I'm watching it going, it could end up like this for sure.

[870] Yeah, yeah.

[871] And it's kind of detective noir future.

[872] It's got a blade running.

[873] I think we're all at least seemingly pretty scared of it.

[874] I mean, I don't run into someone who's not concerned about it.

[875] It'd be scarier to me if everyone was like, this is the greatest.

[876] Life's never been better.

[877] But there's so many studies of the anxiety rates are much higher with younger people.

[878] It's not like we're unaware of the problem.

[879] We certainly don't have a solution in sight, but it comforts me a tiny bit that we recognize there's an issue here.

[880] And I will say it goes back to I had an anthro class on the last day of class, my professor made this speech, and she said, look, man, you've been here for the shortest chunk of this experiment.

[881] I mean, you've been here for 150 ,000 years.

[882] We've been in civilizations for 10 ,000 years, and I want you to look at suffering.

[883] We're on the right trajectory.

[884] So if you look at the overall long -term, I'm comforted by the fact that we're on a trajectory, and it looks a little scary right now, but I do think it's continued to get better and better and better.

[885] I don't think that's disputable in any way.

[886] Sure, there's dips, there's bad spells, but we've been ever approaching what these ideals we set out to have, you know.

[887] But it requires you and I and everyone else.

[888] Absolutely, which honestly is why it's great to have a show like this.

[889] I really mean it.

[890] I think it's like they've got to elect to eat better, right?

[891] They have to.

[892] The sugar and high -fructose corn syrup isn't going away.

[893] People have to go, we're all getting obese and it doesn't feel good.

[894] We got to help each other eat better.

[895] We all have autoimmune problems.

[896] Yeah, we got to help each other think better, too.

[897] I mean, we do.

[898] I love that podcasts have done an end run around the media system and basically said, hey, look at this.

[899] People love having long, actually nourishing talks with each other, and we don't need you to do it in any way, shape, or form.

[900] You're no longer needed, thank you very much.

[901] We're going to have those conversations with each other, and a lot of people are going to tune in without your say -so.

[902] It's amazing.

[903] Yeah.

[904] Yeah, the democratization.

[905] of the info is nice.

[906] But we also have to be aware that, like, we're doing it through the exact same device that we also think is causing all these problems.

[907] Oh, yeah.

[908] So we have to have some, you know.

[909] I'm going to try to get one question of you.

[910] Yeah, fine.

[911] Yeah, one personal question.

[912] What I think I am drawn to you or attracted to you about is something I deeply relate to you about.

[913] And I think it's why getting filmed without your permissions an issue.

[914] I think it's why wanting to be in charge of the voice that gets put out, making sure it's your voice.

[915] I think you and I are deeply attracted to control.

[916] I think you're a pilot because you love control.

[917] I think you write and direct because you love control.

[918] And I'm wondering, have you isolated where you think that stems from?

[919] I mean, your dad was a Marine.

[920] Your dad was an environmental lawyer.

[921] Your father worked in the Carter administration as a federal prosecutor.

[922] This is a man who's fucking in control of his being.

[923] In the dimensions.

[924] Yeah, you just discussed.

[925] I think he would, he would offer up, all of us are in control and out of control and all kinds of ways.

[926] Right.

[927] No, I mean, my dad is a figure of inspiration in many ways.

[928] Control sometimes can also be equated with derisking, right?

[929] You can assume that people want control because it helps de -risk things or helps them manage.

[930] Variables and threats.

[931] Whatever it is, they're trying to achieve better.

[932] and they feel more secure within control notionally, right?

[933] Yeah.

[934] I think one of the things that you would have to really know my dad to know is, like, he's done all these incredibly accomplished things across his life.

[935] But two things that are really to me, especially Amber, is he never defined his aspirations around money, ever.

[936] Wow.

[937] Always chose what was intellectually adventurous and socially contributive as his, aspirations.

[938] Wow.

[939] And when many of his peer group, call it, chased money, he did not.

[940] And he's had a...

[941] It's incredibly.

[942] I could never resist.

[943] He could have been one of the top corporate litigators in America, among other things, easily.

[944] And he always went after the ideal of being contributive, which there's no limit to my admiration for.

[945] I also think that he'll say that, you know, Among other things, he studied Russian history.

[946] He got a master's in Russian studies at Columbia before he was in the Marines.

[947] He sort of cited the only good idea of the Soviets was the five -year plan, the idea that you check in and reboot.

[948] And he changed his career in ways that you would call it.

[949] For someone who was in control, he flipped the table up or pulled the cartridge out and put a new game in with regularity because he liked the challenge.

[950] He liked climbing the hill instead of the beginning of things, the starting of things, the hard work of the vision part.

[951] But he changed careers, full stop.

[952] More times in his life, it would make people white knuckle with fear the idea of that many restarts, right?

[953] Yeah.

[954] I think the thing of, even within control, the idea of taking risk is really important.

[955] I'm not evading the question.

[956] I think at a certain point, part of getting older and wiseries going, Well, if I want to exercise the many dimensions of storytelling, then I should just step up and do it.

[957] Right.

[958] And then, like as an actor, be disciplined and work with the people who you don't want control, who you enjoy the surrender to their vision, right?

[959] So, like, for me, like, and maybe there are choices to work on things in the earlier part of my career that today I think I would look at and go, I probably would say I didn't have that level of trust artistically on that and in a way now since I can make my own things maybe I prefer to make my own things and if you want to say shape them control them be the author of them but when Alejandro and Uridu comes along and says will you read Birdman by 8 o 'clock tomorrow morning like that it's the greatest feeling in the world to feel it dropping through you that this is a huge swing with one of the people I admire most in the world as a filmmaker and to step inside him and service him if he goes, you know what, I think it's got to be black and you go, let me put everything I've got into black and then he comes in and goes, I was wrong, it needs to be white and let me give you everything I've got to make it the other thing and you're just happy as a clam.

[960] Well, I imagine you thriving very well, under someone who does inside and out know it.

[961] And I imagine if you're in a position where you can start poking holes and stuff and you start losing confidence that it gets a little scary.

[962] Yeah, but you know, one of the things that happens in this clickbait world that we live in is that people build these very reductive narratives of antagonism or conflict.

[963] Yeah, you've got to fill an archetype around things that were the productive and righteousness.

[964] process of collaboration right so like you know like fin you talk about fight club right fincher's the most controlling well i was gonna say person in the word he's pound for pound pound pound across all technical departments of the craft one of the most talented people that i've ever worked with yeah and that may sound obvious because you're great filmmaker but people don't even realize that he's one of the best directors of photography you'll ever work with he can apply makeup i have pictures of of him fixing the glass in my hand when I fall through the cabinet, you know, knock myself through the cabinet.

[965] Yeah.

[966] One of my favorite pictures is Fincher doing the blood on my face and putting the glass just where he wanted it.

[967] Unknowingly, he'll give you a line reading that's funnier than the one you had in mind, right?

[968] So it's like soup to nuts.

[969] It's just like, whatever.

[970] But that doesn't mean that me or Brad or Andy Walker or Helena, In the mix, lots of times it was like, but wait a minute, shouldn't this be, you know, it's like everybody was throwing it into the mix, what people want to make it out to later of, they argue.

[971] It's like, we didn't fucking argue, we worked.

[972] Right, right, right, right.

[973] We were doing the work.

[974] It wasn't like me trying to assert myself.

[975] It was like, we're doing the work.

[976] This is the work.

[977] When a director knows that you love and respect their work and that you are inside their process.

[978] for them.

[979] There's room for all kinds of passionate conversations.

[980] Passionate conversations about the thing are not ego.

[981] Those are work.

[982] Even as your friend and as someone who has long respected your level of talent, it's staggering, I forgot a little bit.

[983] I watched Birdman.

[984] We went and saw Birdman, and I was like, yes, why doesn't this motherfucker do this?

[985] more.

[986] Like, I was like he's the greatest.

[987] Mother Time made me forget.

[988] Oh, right.

[989] He's this fucking good.

[990] It was like thrilling.

[991] Chris and I was like, it's nuts.

[992] Do it more.

[993] I mean, I understand you have a lot of pursuits and a lot of interests and it makes you a better person and a better father, but also, you know, I wouldn't mind that you did this once a year.

[994] Yeah.

[995] Would you like each one more if there'd been more frequency?

[996] I don't think so.

[997] I think you like.

[998] I think you it more.

[999] I like, fine.

[1000] But maybe every two years can you do it?

[1001] I don't, you know, yeah.

[1002] I mean, do drugs get better when you overdo them?

[1003] No, your tolerance goes up.

[1004] Yeah.

[1005] So I just think, I just think like, don't you, don't you want, don't you want the like, when it goes?

[1006] It is, it is fun to be reminded.

[1007] Is that something you think about?

[1008] Like, I'm pacing this out.

[1009] Sure.

[1010] I mean, uh, sometimes it happens by, is it is not something you control.

[1011] I would have made Motherless Brooklyn sooner if I could have gotten that cast together.

[1012] Yeah, I read the script three or four years ago, I think.

[1013] At least, yeah.

[1014] And I think, like, it's not like always by design.

[1015] I have one corner argument.

[1016] I watched Jordan play over a thousand games.

[1017] Each one was thrilling.

[1018] That's just my counter argument, but continue.

[1019] I'm going, I'm going to accept that you just sort of compared me to Jordan.

[1020] I did, I did, I did.

[1021] And let people sit with that for a second.

[1022] I sort of think that a little bit of distance with an actor.

[1023] I get a little worn out myself on the schick if I see it too often.

[1024] You know, it's like at a certain point you just go, ooh, I'm so excited to get a dose of, you know, so -and -so because they just don't do it that much.

[1025] It's great, you know, like.

[1026] I'm only laughing because what an opposite approach I have.

[1027] I mean, I'm just at max saturation.

[1028] It's like you can watch me on three different television shows or you hear me six hours a week.

[1029] That depends, though.

[1030] It's like, yeah, it depends on what you're trying to, if you're trying to get people to forget and go with a weird thing, it's different.

[1031] It's just different.

[1032] I think, and also I just think like, you know, even something like this, it's like I literally do get a little bit of anxiety, someone hears this and then it's like the movie opens and you got a guy with Tourette syndrome sitting in the front of the car and having shown it to a bunch of people who had absolutely no idea what was coming man is does it like is it fun to watch you know if you were on Fallon the night before what does it do that I hope not I don't think I don't I don't think it degrades it?

[1033] I don't.

[1034] God, I hope not.

[1035] And this is a compelling way to do it because at least we're getting to talk, right?

[1036] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1037] Well, I adore you.

[1038] I'm really glad that we got past our car ride, and I apologize publicly for, you know, behaving the way I'm prone to behave.

[1039] But I just, I thought you were really smart, and I got insecure.

[1040] And I love you.

[1041] I thought you didn't think I was cool, and I got really insecure.

[1042] And knowing that you were on the outside and didn't feel cool, and now you're a huge movie star that's cool.

[1043] Like that's a weird, that's a crazy reconciliation your brain has to do.

[1044] I don't know if I'll ever be immune to the way I felt like in high school that I'm slightly on the outside of things I wish I was more included in, which shows you how greedy the monkey mind is, right?

[1045] Because I love the work I do and I love the people I work with and I've got.

[1046] I am blessed beyond reason in terms of getting to do a thing that I love doing with the people who are the best in the game, right?

[1047] And yet the monkey brain sees around it, I see around me, you know, all the time I think like, oh, it'd be so cool to sort of be in that club of people who call each other all the time or you can't not look at like the Coens, right?

[1048] everybody wants to be in that club right like you everybody want wow you know wow like oh yeah will I ever will I you know and honestly like I've known Wes Anderson for we wrote each other fan letters early on when we were working like I knew he liked my work and he knew I liked his work yeah but it you know it took a while and then I got a thing and I would say it's probably one of the happiest probably put me in one of the happiest places because I always wanted to be in a repertory company.

[1049] I wanted the inclusion in a gang of people who get together regularly and put on a thing.

[1050] Even with all the things someone will list on your CV that credit that you're successful or a good actor, I just always felt like your own brain goes, sure, thank you, but where's my gang?

[1051] You know what I mean?

[1052] Yes, yes, yes.

[1053] Yes, 100%.

[1054] You can just be in something and be photographed well and be a great actor and be handsome and be cast as the quarterback of the football team.

[1055] And then now you kind of are.

[1056] We have peers where it's like, oh, I see a chasm between who they feel like and who they are publicly.

[1057] I guess maybe that's what I'm saying.

[1058] Everybody's got insecurities.

[1059] I don't trust people who don't admit that they do.

[1060] I've known Tony Robbins a long time.

[1061] Just by chance, I read one of his books, literally the week I got out of college and I thought it was really like empowering he's so capable he's got his things he's stuck his foot in his mouth he struggles with he acknowledges them all too but I often wondered does someone like Tony feel insecure I wonder yeah I think so yeah I think so but I think all you're doing is trying to get an upper hand on the voice in your head I just said I shared this in a meeting a couple nights ago Kristen's in Europe I was about to go somewhere and to hit her mouth on the corner of the island and my first two thoughts were fucking when is she going to look where she's going and then this better not be so bad that I have to go to the emergency room now instead of go to my meeting I've got to step over those two terrible selfish thoughts in route to oh my god are you okay let me help you and concentrate on you and I have to be okay and not hate myself that my first two thoughts are fucking shitty and selfish and I just I got to get as many tools as I can that help me get to the transcendent thought but acknowledge I'm gonna always have the selfish fucking how does this affect me that's step one for me right now that for me is just simply that when you put a thing out that you've put a lot into a piece of workout that you've put a lot into you've worked on hard that you're saying stuff you want to say with it's amazing like I know in my higher brain that the getting it done itself was what I was trying to do, but that more so I made pretty much what I set out to make.

[1062] I watch it and...

[1063] That's the only sustaining feeling.

[1064] It says what I was trying to say.

[1065] I'm proud of it.

[1066] You know what I mean?

[1067] And literally, it's like everything in me knows what more could you want?

[1068] Kevin Smith, when I was smarting over chips, gave me the very best thing ever.

[1069] he goes, and I'll say to you, imagine we go back to Maryland and we find 12 -year -old Edward and we say, guess what little guy, when you grew up, you're going to fucking direct a 1950s gangster picture with a gum shoe, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[1070] We know what your next question is.

[1071] You know, it's not, what did the critics think?

[1072] Or how much did it make?

[1073] It's like, how did I end up getting to do that?

[1074] Yeah.

[1075] Like, that's the question.

[1076] But you could say that to 30 -year -old Edward Norton.

[1077] And that would be the same response.

[1078] And I think the point is that the voices in the head that get going, the impact of the culture, the, nobody's immune to that.

[1079] I'm not immune to it.

[1080] Like every single day I'm doing an internal meditation or there's a voice in my head going just like ignore that, ignore that, ignore that, just it doesn't matter, let it go.

[1081] Well, I love you.

[1082] Motherless Brooklyn, we saw it yesterday.

[1083] We loved it.

[1084] Please go out and check it out.

[1085] As you pointed out, you don't get to see these movies anymore.

[1086] It's really kind of cool.

[1087] Like, just sitting down immediately, it's like, oh, it's been a decade since they made a movie like this.

[1088] Maybe more.

[1089] Yeah.

[1090] Good luck to you.

[1091] Come check it out.

[1092] Thank you.

[1093] You guys, I love what you're doing here.

[1094] I really do.

[1095] We'll plot on.

[1096] We'll have you back.

[1097] We'll really get into your childhood.

[1098] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1099] So I guess we should tell everyone that we escape death today.

[1100] Oh yeah, we were evacuated from the Bless This Mess film set.

[1101] Yes, due to a fire.

[1102] That was just on the other side of the ridge.

[1103] It was encroaching quickly.

[1104] So inconvenient for you and Wobbywob, because you guys had just arrived to record.

[1105] Yeah.

[1106] But it's okay because now we're here in the attic.

[1107] Yeah, back at home.

[1108] Back at home.

[1109] We made it safely.

[1110] And to my knowledge, everyone in the crew made it safely.

[1111] And then I was wondering when I was driving, I was driving really fast.

[1112] Oh, were you?

[1113] Did you pick up the pace?

[1114] Well, I didn't know that about you.

[1115] Well, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

[1116] I thought you drove medium.

[1117] I do.

[1118] I drive medium.

[1119] Okay.

[1120] I drive medium, but on the, I'm driving above the speed limit.

[1121] Oh, you were?

[1122] Oh, I always drive above the speed limit.

[1123] You'd limit.

[1124] 10 over.

[1125] What kind of MPHs were you hitting on the southbound five?

[1126] 87.

[1127] 87.

[1128] And that little Toyota, good for you.

[1129] Well, Prius was really taking me places.

[1130] Did you see me past you?

[1131] No, I was looking for you and I didn't see you.

[1132] How could you have missed it?

[1133] I don't know.

[1134] I was going a steady 115 -120 the whole way.

[1135] Maybe you didn't see me because I was going so fast, 87.

[1136] Yeah.

[1137] So.

[1138] All right, if you and I left the same train station.

[1139] Oh.

[1140] This is basically what happened because you left before me. I left before you, yeah.

[1141] I stuck around.

[1142] I kind of wanted to get into parallel a little bit.

[1143] I wanted to fight the fire.

[1144] I knew that's what you were doing.

[1145] Yeah.

[1146] Like, why isn't he just getting on his bike?

[1147] What's he doing?

[1148] Oh, he wants.

[1149] Oh, boy.

[1150] Logging.

[1151] Oh, my God.

[1152] I'm so sorry.

[1153] Oh, my God.

[1154] Oh, my God.

[1155] I tried to blow up your computer.

[1156] Rob, is everything okay on the circuit board over there?

[1157] No, the board not working.

[1158] What did you try to do?

[1159] I tried to pull back, and then when I would pull back my lazy boy ricochet, because I'm kind of reclines him so hot.

[1160] Because you kind of screamed out of fear in the middle of that sneeze.

[1161] It made it extra.

[1162] It did.

[1163] Yeah.

[1164] What were even talking about?

[1165] It doesn't matter.

[1166] No, it does.

[1167] So 87.

[1168] Oh, I knew that you were trying to stick around and try to get a little bit caught on fire.

[1169] Yes.

[1170] Well, I had a fantasy of me riding up the side of the mountain on my motorcycle with a fire extinguisher.

[1171] Oh, my God.

[1172] getting right on the front lines and saving like something.

[1173] I really wanted to be a hero.

[1174] I know.

[1175] You know what the lie I tell myself when I have these fantasies is that like people will basically be so proud of me and they'll clap and cheer and then maybe they'll even hoist me on their shoulders like the crew like at lunch they'll celebrate my bravery.

[1176] You don't want that?

[1177] What are you talking about?

[1178] Well, I would like it for saving everyone.

[1179] If I saved a small town.

[1180] I feel like you wouldn't want to be on people's shoulders.

[1181] Like, you'd feel dumb.

[1182] Yeah, I probably would.

[1183] I'd get self -conscious.

[1184] I want to do all that, and you're right.

[1185] As soon as I was on top of everyone's shoulders, I'd be like, this is a bad angle for my nose.

[1186] Exactly.

[1187] And you'd be like, ugh, and I might fart on these people's shoulders.

[1188] So anyway.

[1189] Did you post the picture yet?

[1190] No, sorry.

[1191] Well, because you haven't sent it to me. Yeah, I sent it to you the day we were talking about it.

[1192] No, you just showed me on your phone.

[1193] Oh, I did?

[1194] Yeah.

[1195] Oh, I thought I sent it to you.

[1196] Because we were at the ranch.

[1197] You wouldn't have been able to say.

[1198] send it to me. No, we were here.

[1199] No, we were at the ranch.

[1200] This is last week you showed me and we talked about it.

[1201] Oh, you know, to circle back to my memory, I was trying to think of some key players in my childhood.

[1202] I was even trying to think of some key players in my L .A. life Okay.

[1203] The other night and I was just bupkis.

[1204] I came up completely blank.

[1205] Well, your memory is bad.

[1206] We've discussed it.

[1207] It's getting bad.

[1208] Yeah.

[1209] And I guess I was thinking, who cares?

[1210] Yeah, sure.

[1211] I mean, the only thing that hurts about it is I had for years prided myself on my good memory, and that's just now not something I can be proud of.

[1212] Yeah, I think that's lackluster at the rest.

[1213] Part of why it happened, you were putting that.

[1214] Oh, because I was bragging.

[1215] Well, that's my theory on why my feet have turned so ugly.

[1216] So I used to brag about how elegant and beautiful they were.

[1217] I even showed him on Kimmel one time.

[1218] Yeah, I know.

[1219] So I was real cocky, and then God, even the scales.

[1220] That's right.

[1221] I did.

[1222] Okay.

[1223] So, I was going 87.

[1224] Uh -huh.

[1225] Did you feel alive?

[1226] Well, no. I thought this is the time for me to go fast.

[1227] Yeah.

[1228] Because a cop can't pull me over right now.

[1229] For one, the cops are dealing with the fire.

[1230] Yes.

[1231] Did you see the northbound fire?

[1232] There was like a hundred cops.

[1233] Yes.

[1234] And fire engines.

[1235] Yes.

[1236] I thought like, well, they don't have the time to pull me over because they're dealing with the fire.

[1237] And my rationale would just be like, I got to get out of this fire.

[1238] Yes.

[1239] And they'd be like, okay, you're right.

[1240] Go, go quickly now.

[1241] Right, go even faster.

[1242] Yeah.

[1243] Go as fast as that Red Ducati was going.

[1244] That's right.

[1245] So I felt fine about it.

[1246] Oh, good.

[1247] Yeah, you should.

[1248] So we had Edward Norton on.

[1249] Yeah.

[1250] Wow.

[1251] Wow.

[1252] Wow.

[1253] What a big fish.

[1254] The biggest.

[1255] I think it's the best actor we've had on here.

[1256] Can they say that?

[1257] Well, I'll agree to it just because I'm not even going to make myself remember who has all been on here.

[1258] Edward is the best actor we've had on here.

[1259] I'm going to say it.

[1260] Okay.

[1261] And I'm just, I also can't remember everyone we've had on and sorry.

[1262] But he's so good.

[1263] He is.

[1264] He is.

[1265] He's incredible in Birdman.

[1266] Because, well, I've just never seen him do anything like that.

[1267] The confidence, the arrogance, all that stuff.

[1268] It was so good.

[1269] He's so good in everything.

[1270] And he brought up quickly, but we didn't really get to talk about it.

[1271] His first movie called Keeping the Faith.

[1272] his first movie that he directed, called Keeping the Faith.

[1273] I loved that movie.

[1274] You let's one of your faves.

[1275] It used to be, but I forgot about it.

[1276] You forgot all about it.

[1277] I completely forgot about it, which...

[1278] Well, he didn't really allow me to go through his filmography.

[1279] Because I did want to celebrate some performances.

[1280] I mean, America History X. Oh, my God.

[1281] I was wondering if that movie would get made today.

[1282] He's a white supremacist, but then he has a, um, a black roommate in jail, jail cellmate.

[1283] And then he realizes the error of his ways and he tries to get his brother out of the organization.

[1284] What's wrong with that?

[1285] Well, I just wonder like a hero story with a white supremacist that finds his way.

[1286] You're right.

[1287] Some people would really not like it.

[1288] They would not be up for that.

[1289] But I am like, yes, isn't that what we want from all these white supremacists?

[1290] Yeah, but do you think the movie worked on a few levels where a ton of white supremacists just went?

[1291] because they were like, oh, our story's on screen.

[1292] But then do you think they got turned?

[1293] Oh, maybe they got turned.

[1294] I was attached to a movie called Burden for a minute.

[1295] And it was a true story of a guy in the clan who left the clan, same kind of thing down south.

[1296] And I'd have to say the N -word a lot.

[1297] And I was on Parenthood, and I was like, I just don't want to go in a movie and say the N -Word a bunch of times.

[1298] That's good.

[1299] And then go see Tyree at work and Joy at Work.

[1300] Oh, my God.

[1301] I'm so surprised.

[1302] Are you?

[1303] Yes.

[1304] Yeah.

[1305] I think playing monsters who turn good is appealing as an actor.

[1306] Like, of course you're drawn to that.

[1307] Well, and monsters would stay monsters.

[1308] Yeah, actors like to play villains.

[1309] Villains.

[1310] Yes, they do.

[1311] I defend the right for people to make that movie.

[1312] It was similar to America History X in that, ultimately, of course, they're not, you know, promoting racism.

[1313] Right.

[1314] But I just, I did, yeah.

[1315] It's called Burden.

[1316] It was made.

[1317] It was made?

[1318] Michael Burden.

[1319] Oh, who was in it?

[1320] A bunch of crackers Who was the director?

[1321] Forrest Whitaker was in it.

[1322] Oh, oh!

[1323] That's exactly what happened.

[1324] Andrew Heckler?

[1325] And that is when I had to officially pull out because they got Forrest Whitaker.

[1326] And so then it was a go movie.

[1327] Okay.

[1328] And I was like, I just, I don't think I can do it.

[1329] Really, I was just like, I work with Tyree every day.

[1330] Yeah.

[1331] I want him to see me in a movie saying that over and over again.

[1332] Yeah.

[1333] I don't.

[1334] That's nice.

[1335] Okay, anyways.

[1336] I knew I was going 87.

[1337] American?

[1338] No, no, no, America History X. Birdman.

[1339] Yeah.

[1340] Would they make America History X?

[1341] I did, I wanted to get into that movie because there's also all this juicy stuff about the director of that movie.

[1342] Do you know, like Tony Kay?

[1343] Uh -huh.

[1344] He...

[1345] Oh, no, his last name's Kay.

[1346] Yeah, yeah, he's English, I believe.

[1347] Okay, K, K. Well, slow down, slow down.

[1348] Well, well, well.

[1349] Tony Kay, I guess, at some point, I, again, this is a less.

[1350] This is a rumor I heard.

[1351] Tony Kay had the movie kind of seized from him by the studio, and they re -edited it.

[1352] And he got really bent out of shape.

[1353] And I think he took out full -page ads and, like, variety.

[1354] There was a big, yeah, it was a big circus, and I would have loved to have asked Ian about that.

[1355] Well, we didn't get to.

[1356] We didn't get to.

[1357] Because there were too many things to talk about.

[1358] Yeah.

[1359] And he's so smart.

[1360] Yes, he's incredibly intelligent.

[1361] And I wonder if the arm cherries were surprised by that.

[1362] Hmm.

[1363] And I would say only surprised by that because Edward is so private and you don't really get a sense of who he is at all other than him on screen being this chameleon.

[1364] Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen him on a talk show.

[1365] Me either.

[1366] Nobody knows who he is.

[1367] And this is maybe one of the only long form, and I'm sure there's some others, but long form interviews where you really get to like hear him and how he.

[1368] speaks and how he thinks about the world.

[1369] It's cool.

[1370] It's very cool.

[1371] He's so smart.

[1372] Yeah, he's a polymath, which I just learned this year.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] He knows a lot about a lot of topics, a lot of subjects.

[1375] Yeah.

[1376] And you were, you told the story about how you were so mean to him.

[1377] Well, you know, it's really funny because it was, it was really profound to hear his side of it.

[1378] Because in my mind, he was just a condescending jerk who was pointing out I was dyslexic.

[1379] And then I would never, again, would never imagine that someone who had that high of status, which I deemed as being very high status, would give a flying fuck whether or not I was cordial.

[1380] So I'm like, oh, he just thinks I'm an idiot and a dumb ass, and he's written me off.

[1381] I did send him a very long apology about five days later, because I kept thinking about it.

[1382] After our episode?

[1383] Yeah, I kept thinking like, wow, man, I'm totally out to lunch sometimes.

[1384] I would never imagine he would want my approval or would want to connect with me and you end up be i i won't say we i end up being mean to people because i'm trapped in my own insecurity yes you can say we everyone does that well yeah i'll just keep it to me i i realize more and more like i have you know a history i guess of doing that yeah well i think it's very human to do that first of all i would have given it um nine to one odds that he didn't even remember meeting me in canada i mean literally i was shocked to hear he even remembered me. He remembered it to and he remembered just as well as I did because we were both.

[1385] Yeah.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] It's real sad.

[1388] It's so, so sad.

[1389] Here's two guys that should feel confident.

[1390] You know, they're both on the telly.

[1391] And they've got money.

[1392] And they've got hot girlfriends.

[1393] And they're still feeling like the loser in high school.

[1394] Well, do you know why?

[1395] Because everything you just said just now, being on television, having a hot girlfriend and having money.

[1396] That doesn't give you confidence.

[1397] I know, but that's the fantasy I had bought in.

[1398] But that is not, no, but you had confidence otherwise.

[1399] Well, again, I had there, yes, there was zones of my life where I was too confident.

[1400] And then there's others where I, I'm not speaking.

[1401] But those three things are not even factors.

[1402] They're not, they're really not even factors.

[1403] But you got, how would you, you know, what's funny is I know, what's funny is I know you feel bad for him and not me. I feel so bad for him in that story.

[1404] You do.

[1405] And you don't feel bad for me. Well, no, no, no, I do.

[1406] No, you don't.

[1407] Be honest, it's okay that you don't.

[1408] Well, no, I do.

[1409] Well, no, I don't.

[1410] Mm -hmm.

[1411] But it's...

[1412] That's fine.

[1413] I knew it.

[1414] No, it's not that I don't feel bad for you, but you were the one that acted in a way...

[1415] Well, first things first.

[1416] He corrected me. I know, but to me, that should...

[1417] That's not a big deal.

[1418] You did say something a little incorrect.

[1419] I'll just, you said something wrong.

[1420] D .Y. I. Yeah, you said, which is fine.

[1421] Who cares?

[1422] But you said that wrong and he corrected it.

[1423] And so to me, that's a normal exchange.

[1424] Uh -huh.

[1425] But you took that in and then you lashed.

[1426] Yeah, because I was like already nervous.

[1427] He's not going to like me because I'm a low -rent comedian.

[1428] And then he corrects me. And now it's just confirmed.

[1429] I knew exactly.

[1430] Like all my inferiority complex was just confirmed.

[1431] I was looking for it and I found it.

[1432] Well, the real reason I don't feel bad for you is because yours is not real.

[1433] You are smart.

[1434] That's okay to have that insecurity.

[1435] Yeah.

[1436] But it's an insecurity that's not real.

[1437] Well, I'm not dumb.

[1438] No. But do I mix up letters?

[1439] Yes.

[1440] Did I get made fun of?

[1441] Everyone mixes up letters.

[1442] No, no, no. Dyslexics really mix up letters.

[1443] I know, but here's the thing.

[1444] You, because you're dyslexic, you think that, like, when you mix up a letter, it's that.

[1445] Like when you read my book the other day and you said little, fries everywhere and then I like kind of chuckled at that and then you were like you didn't I don't think you cared that I did no I didn't but you immediately credit that to dyslexia and I'm like I just did that five minutes ago okay so it might be the dyslexia but it might just be you read that fast and you and you said DIY a lot of people do stuff like that yeah and you just have something to credit it to and to blame it on and a history of it.

[1446] I'm feeling dumb about it.

[1447] Exactly.

[1448] And so, but yours I can see so clearly is just that.

[1449] Is this you in this pattern of that?

[1450] Uh -huh.

[1451] There's no reality to it.

[1452] Currently.

[1453] Exactly.

[1454] Yeah.

[1455] But you understand this is similar to me and guys.

[1456] Yeah.

[1457] Where you say that you can see that there's just so clearly this is not real.

[1458] Yeah, guys are hot for you.

[1459] But the point is, You've built a pattern that I know is completely false now.

[1460] Uh -huh.

[1461] I also don't think you needed to apologize.

[1462] No, I definitely did.

[1463] Now that I know I had a hand of making someone feel excluded and ignored, I definitely, that would never be my intention.

[1464] So I definitely need to fix that, which I did.

[1465] True, but that's nice and true.

[1466] Yeah, I just mean you both were under some assumption of a wrong, thing.

[1467] Well, I think he felt bad as well.

[1468] Like when I text him, he's like, oh, yeah, I've been thinking that, too.

[1469] He said the perfect thing.

[1470] He said, OCD meets a dyslexia.

[1471] Yeah.

[1472] Well, anyway, that was a really sad story.

[1473] It was.

[1474] I thought for sure it was going to be a funny story on my end, but it was not.

[1475] It's just so hard to be a person.

[1476] It is.

[1477] You make messes everywhere you go.

[1478] Or I make messes everywhere I go.

[1479] You can say we.

[1480] No, I don't like saying we.

[1481] I don't, yeah, it's against my policy.

[1482] Why?

[1483] Because everyone can decide if they agree with that themselves.

[1484] But I don't like when people say, when, you know, some spiritual guru says, we blank.

[1485] And I mean, I'm like, well, hold on.

[1486] There's a lot of variety on planet Earth.

[1487] So let's just be cautious with the we.

[1488] That's all.

[1489] Okay.

[1490] You said Forrest Gump made a billion dollars.

[1491] Uh -huh.

[1492] So the film had gross receipts of 330 ,252 ,182.

[1493] domestically, right?

[1494] In the U .S., yes.

[1495] Right, so I'm just going forward.

[1496] I'm always saying worldwide.

[1497] No, but normally you don't say worldwide, because normally I give numbers for worldwide and then you say you were talking about U .S. I probably whatever suits my argument.

[1498] You're going to do the opposite.

[1499] Yeah, sure, sure.

[1500] I wonder what it made, though, internationally, do you know?

[1501] Worldwide, 677 million.

[1502] Okay, yeah.

[1503] Worldwide 680.

[1504] Let's call it 680.

[1505] Okay.

[1506] 680.

[1507] that's not a billion it's not close but we could do well it's not really adjusted what's closer to a billion than not a billion okay you know anyway so you said that you watched michael jordan play over a thousand games and each one was thrilling so how many games do you think he played regular season regular season well why wouldn't we call playoffs because that's all i have okay okay okay no problem i'm gonna guess I'm gonna guess i think they play about 70 games in a year so times 10 years he played but maybe he played for like 12 but he retired for a few all right so i'm going to say i'm going to say 960 games okay well i'll give you a hint he played 15 seasons oh we did okay well then i'm going to say it that's about um 80 games a season oh it's 80 games a season 80 800 so 1 ,200 and 3rd and 3rd and No. He played 1 ,072.

[1508] Oh, wow.

[1509] So I really got close.

[1510] Yeah, you were close.

[1511] And that's assuming I never missed a game.

[1512] Exactly.

[1513] The other thing we didn't get to talk about is how hot his girlfriends in the past have been.

[1514] Oh.

[1515] Because Sean is so beautiful, his wife, Shawna Robertson.

[1516] What a 10.

[1517] But Salma Hayek, at the peak, they were longtime lovers.

[1518] Yeah.

[1519] Oh, wow.

[1520] Wow, wow, wow.

[1521] Um, that's all.

[1522] There weren't really no facts.

[1523] Well, hold on, though.

[1524] You just really...

[1525] What?

[1526] You took the fun out of the Selma Hayek.

[1527] I wanted to celebrate for a minute.

[1528] Okay.

[1529] Go back.

[1530] All right.

[1531] It's a celebration, isn't it?

[1532] You've known me for six years now, seven years, whatever.

[1533] 14 years.

[1534] 14 years.

[1535] And you've heard me reference Salma Hayek as being the high watermark for 10 many times, right?

[1536] Never, actually.

[1537] You haven't?

[1538] Never.

[1539] I've never heard you say that.

[1540] because you this is my problem with you you're you know what selma hyac was built like in desperado a brick shit house you no oh yeah no sure have you seen desperado let me look it up did you type in desperado yeah are you seeing what's happening yeah monica i could cut that head off look at this i could cut that head off and put your face on there and no one and i could post it and not one person would say like well oh what did monica do so edward was dating her then?

[1541] Yes.

[1542] So Salma Hyac is what now you call perfect 10 forever.

[1543] That's been the standard.

[1544] Well, probably since 97.

[1545] Or what year is desperado?

[1546] So you're happy for him that he got to be with her?

[1547] I really am.

[1548] Side note to the listener, 10 % of this fact check was usable.

[1549] Yeah.

[1550] All right.

[1551] I love you.

[1552] I love you.

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