Bradley Whitford

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dan Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Emmy -nominated Monsoon Monica.

[3] Hi.

[4] I flipped it.

[5] Monica Munsoon.

[6] My name's getting real crazy.

[7] It's two men.

[8] Maximum miniature monsoon mouse padman.

[9] Today we have one of our favorite actors on.

[10] We love Bradley Whitford.

[11] Every time he pops up in a show, I get a burst of excitement.

[12] He's such a natural good actor.

[13] He's so unique.

[14] He's got a real fingerprint.

[15] He's an American actor.

[16] He's a political activist.

[17] He's been nominated for three primetime Emmy awards and won one for his betrayal of White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman in the West Wing.

[18] Great show.

[19] Obviously, he was also in Get Out.

[20] He was incredible.

[21] And then we have most recently fallen in love with him all over again in The Handmaid's Tale.

[22] So you should check that out.

[23] Caviot.

[24] This was recorded before the many, many protests.

[25] So please excuse Bradley, myself, and Monica's silence on the topic throughout the interview.

[26] But we do talk about it in the fact check.

[27] The fact check is of the day.

[28] It's on point.

[29] All right.

[30] Please enjoy Bradley Whitford.

[31] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[32] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[33] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[34] Hi.

[35] Is this happening now?

[36] Are you recording this bullshit?

[37] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ABR.

[38] ABR, always be recording.

[39] We're mega fans.

[40] Big time.

[41] Legitimate mega fans.

[42] Of course, I go straight to imagining what you're like on a set.

[43] My interest in you on set is just know that I'm trying to round out a fantasy I have about you as a huge fan.

[44] So just know that that's where it's coming from.

[45] I actually love to be on a set.

[46] No matter what the material is, I firmly.

[47] believe that the best preparation for any kind of acting is just to fuck around as much as possible.

[48] We must have gone to the same school of acting.

[49] Like to a fault, I'm a little too much, you know, like a puppy, you know.

[50] I remember when I started doing movies, I couldn't act until I got a, like, a laugh out of the crew.

[51] Yeah.

[52] So I think to a fault, I'm kind of a people pleaser.

[53] Like, I don't get in fights with directors or any of that shit.

[54] But if I'm totally honest.

[55] Yeah, be honest, because I'm going to admit to all my shitty behavior.

[56] Anytime any director has ever said anything to me, I go through three silent beats.

[57] Fuck you.

[58] I suck.

[59] Okay, what?

[60] Yes.

[61] And I think every actor does, to a certain extent, it can be a marital dynamic as well.

[62] And I think most of us get to, okay, what, quickly?

[63] There are some people who live on, I suck.

[64] There's some people who live on fuck you.

[65] Can I add a fourth tier to that?

[66] Which for me is, I fucking did that.

[67] So I also have, in my head, I go, I just did exactly that.

[68] So I'm defensive, no matter what they say, right?

[69] And even if they say something completely novel and new, I in my mind still, I did that in the last take.

[70] And you must have missed it because you weren't paying attention.

[71] So that I have to.

[72] to filter through that one too.

[73] What's really sad about this is the repressed nature of it because on a set, and I really love directors and I really get along with them, but I have fantasies about doing to directors what directors do to actors, like just stand behind them and go, yeah, that's shots, you know, I don't think you're, I don't think you're getting it.

[74] Just like, like, note the fuck out of their direction.

[75] Yeah.

[76] I have fantasies of that.

[77] And preferably before they've even made a decision, right because that's kind of my favorite set of notes is like after a let's hear the words out loud rehearsal and then you get some notes and you're like hold on stow your saber i haven't even started this thing you haven't even seen me suck yet i do feel very bad for them though you must as well especially on west wing to walk in and shlami i don't know best tv director of all time are up there yeah creates this very specific tone look everything the walk -in talk and that everyone's famous for.

[78] And then you got to kind of, it's almost like if in the middle of a Tarantino movie, they let someone come in and direct a few scenes.

[79] It's almost preposterous, right?

[80] Well, and even in a less exalted television situation, they're in a terrible position because they are outsiders who have to pretend to be authority figures.

[81] Well, right.

[82] And it's an impossible, unresolvable quandary.

[83] It's like transferring to a new school and then assuming the role of president of the school in your first week.

[84] Like, no one's going to like that, dude.

[85] No one's going to like it.

[86] And they should make every, actually, John Wells used to do this.

[87] John Wells would encourage actors at a certain point to direct because it's a great thing to do in a long -running show because it makes your actors a lot more sympathetic and cooperative to the production.

[88] Needs a production.

[89] Oh, I couldn't agree more.

[90] So, yeah, I was on Parenthood for six years, and I loved the freedom we had.

[91] We got to improv in every scene, and then I directed.

[92] And I was like, what a fucking shit show this is.

[93] And wrangling in 14 cast members who have been given total carte blanche to improv and then trying to land the plane each scene.

[94] It was exhausting.

[95] Yeah, Mark de Plas, I'm stealing his line.

[96] He was being interviewed on NPR, and they said, so, you know, what a career.

[97] You know, you're an actor, you're a writer, you're a director, you're a producer.

[98] Those experiences different, and he starts to laugh.

[99] And he goes, yeah, yeah, it's different.

[100] If you're a producer, writer, or director, you have the burden of parenthood.

[101] Like, you're parenting this project and an infinite responsibility to bring this thing to fulfill its potential.

[102] When you're an actor, it's like your drunk uncle who comes over and gives the kids a bunch of Oreos and lets somebody else put him to sleep.

[103] And it's absolutely true.

[104] And I got a chance to write on West Wing.

[105] Well, I was going to bring that up.

[106] I got to say, of all the people I've interviewed, many of us have gone to direct.

[107] but the notion that you ended up writing two episodes of West Wing blows my mind, and I have more respect for that than anything else.

[108] I mean, I noticed this coming up in the theater.

[109] It's not like these great playwrights come along, and they're just people who can't act them.

[110] You know, they're always there.

[111] Acting skill is common.

[112] And, I mean, that was the miracle of West Wing, Aaron just like cranking out at this insane pace that will never happen again.

[113] He wrote 22 one -hour episodes for four years.

[114] That's the equivalent of 11 feature films a year for four years.

[115] It's not possible.

[116] I've never seen anyone on a role like that.

[117] And for us, you know, the experience, it all feels like upstream.

[118] Like, you know, the material sucks.

[119] You're being rejected.

[120] Nothing really works.

[121] I guess it's your just your vanity sort of keeping you going, but it really feels very upstream.

[122] And then, like, it just felt like, oh, whoa.

[123] Like, I'm not swimming upstream anymore.

[124] I'm surfing on top of this freaks writing, you know.

[125] Yeah.

[126] It was a mind -boggling thing.

[127] Obviously, people know he's a great writer.

[128] an unacknowledged intuition and skill of his, he could pick up on and exploit what different actors could do was stunning.

[129] Richard Schiff, he played Toby, and he was a guy whose brother happened to be my roommate in college, and I had known Richard forever.

[130] Richard's like a brother, and there's a tension in that that nobody would know.

[131] And Aaron just intuitively picked it up.

[132] And it actually has to do with what we were saying.

[133] I'm like this pathetic floppy puppy, you know, wanting everybody to like me. And Richard doesn't give a shit and he's kind of dark.

[134] My joke about him, I'm sure he hates it when I say this.

[135] But my joke is Richard's doing a one -man show.

[136] The only problem is he hates the cast.

[137] But there was this opposites.

[138] dynamic between us that Aaron immediately picked up on and put into the political arena.

[139] And Aaron saw what was happening with Janelle and me, who played Donna.

[140] He just saw it happen.

[141] And because he wrote late, it was really interesting because now, as you know, we're doing six or 13 episodes and everything gets mapped out.

[142] If we had done West Wing that way, we never would have discovered kind of the relationship Josh and Donna because Aaron's like watching the dailies writing the next script and going, oh, God, you know, let's do that.

[143] There's such a benefit to the fact that things are mapped out and they become so serialized and obviously it's best exemplified in handmaids and I love that.

[144] But you're right, you don't have the freedom to like recognize some magic two characters have and then double down on that or increase their storyline over the next three things.

[145] Like, yeah, you lose some freedom.

[146] It's interesting because it just occurs to me, and I've never said this or thought this, but what was interesting about working with Aaron, who is notoriously, like you treat him like a playwright, meaning you make every word work.

[147] You don't go, I've said to be or not to be, do we need to say that's the question?

[148] Right, right.

[149] You know, you figure out a way to make it work, and when you're doing Aaron's stuff, you realize that there's this real rhythm to it.

[150] So there's a real structure to what you're doing.

[151] But with Aaron, you feel like the writer's improvising brilliantly as opposed to crafting and presenting.

[152] It's just coming out of him and then you get to do it the next week.

[153] It's a weird combination.

[154] Yeah, I had a friend that did a show of his sports night and yeah, he said they would often be literally sitting on set and they'd be like, the pages are going to be here.

[155] Everyone just stay.

[156] They're coming down and he would literally be upstairs writing that scene that everyone in Wardrobe 4 and at Final Duchess.

[157] Now, for you to try to write an episode is audacious at the very least.

[158] It's something that he said, do you like, hey, do you want to write one?

[159] Because can I just tell you personally, I stupidly sent an episode of Parenthood to our creator, Jason Ketams.

[160] It's like, hey, I wrote this episode, and it did not go well.

[161] And in retrospect, yeah, it shouldn't have.

[162] Like, it was a very serialized thing.

[163] And I wrote this one -off episode, and I don't know what the fuck I was doing.

[164] but it was a rough, rough go.

[165] This was really weird the way it happened.

[166] Aaron and Tommy left after the fourth year.

[167] So then it became a more conventional, John Wells is running the writer's room.

[168] For people who don't know, he was the showrunner on ER for a...

[169] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[170] What's incredible, and I asked John once, how did you allow, like my own mother was like, during those first four years, what if Aaron Sorkin gets hit by a bus?

[171] Like, what happens?

[172] Even food poisoning would fuck everything up.

[173] I know.

[174] I asked John, I'm so grateful you did trust Aaron and Tommy with this.

[175] But it goes so against the way you like to run a show.

[176] How could you do it?

[177] And without missing a beat, he said, when extraordinary talent comes along, you let them run free.

[178] Which, you know, the show would not have worked without John, perhaps reluctantly, taking his ER swing and just putting a cone around Aaron and Tommy and the rest of us so that we could do what we want.

[179] When Aaron and Tommy left, it was like David Koresh leaving the Branch Divideon.

[180] It was like, you're going somewhere else?

[181] It was totally disorienting.

[182] David Koresh.

[183] If you were sitting in the house and he was walking down the driver and you're like, is David got a suitcase with him?

[184] Yeah.

[185] Is he leaving?

[186] I sacrificed a child for him.

[187] Season five, you know, suddenly we have a writing room.

[188] And everybody was sort of trying to do an imitation of Aaron.

[189] And then in the last couple of years, I think the show kind of found its post -Aaron voice became a little bit of a different show.

[190] Anyway, I had an idea, and I had started pitching ideas And then I was supposed to direct for the first time.

[191] And I went to John and my dear friend, Eli Addy, who was a writer who used to be a speechwriter for Al Gore and worked in the Clinton White House, was a dear friend.

[192] And I said to John, I have this idea that I want Eli for the episode I direct.

[193] And he said, what's the idea?

[194] And I told him.

[195] And he said, give me a one page outline.

[196] And I said, I don't know what you mean.

[197] And he said, just write the story in a page.

[198] And I said, okay, so I wrote the story in a page, and then the next day he said, okay, three pages.

[199] So I did that.

[200] And then he said, look, I think this is a good idea.

[201] I think you might be able to write this.

[202] If you can give me basically 70 pages in a week, I'll put it on TV.

[203] And I was in his office going, what?

[204] Had you written prior to this?

[205] I had written some love notes.

[206] Some poetry, yeah.

[207] Some apologies, some apology cards.

[208] Some apologies, some deepest regrets cards.

[209] But I was excited about it.

[210] Writing is something that I had always wanted to do, but I was not pitching myself to write.

[211] And I think it was a Monday.

[212] And he was like, you know, if you can give me 70 pages by next Monday, if you fail, you know, we'll step in.

[213] Yeah.

[214] Anyway, it was terrifying.

[215] writing is a particular mind fuck.

[216] You're bobbing in a sea of failure alone.

[217] Yeah.

[218] And I loved it.

[219] And so it was so weird because, like, I had never written anything.

[220] And then, like, two weeks later, Allison Janie's doing a monologue.

[221] There's nothing like it.

[222] Yes.

[223] I still have not, honestly, have not seen all of West Wing early on.

[224] I just realized I don't want to watch.

[225] What specifically?

[226] I told to people that West Wing was actually a, seven -year saga of the tragedy of a receding hairline.

[227] Oh, I mean, there's nothing like tracking something like that on a screen, right?

[228] You know, actors are, I think the reason a lot of actors are like alcoholics waiting to happen is because you are this tiny percentage of humanity that wanders into a Broadway play and goes I want to do that.

[229] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[230] Like, it's a very fucking assertive, you know.

[231] Well, entitled.

[232] I'm going to use the word entitled.

[233] Like, yeah, I should do that too.

[234] Yeah, it's arrogant and then you become an actor and you are rendered entirely passive.

[235] You are at the mercy of somebody writing something.

[236] You're at the mercy of getting chosen.

[237] And there's no resolution to this incredibly.

[238] assertive, pathetic need to be in public and then being rendered just totally passive.

[239] I had a very funny moment.

[240] I haven't thought on this a long time.

[241] This is like a long time.

[242] It was before West Wing.

[243] And I was at my brother's house in Boston and his daughter was having a birthday party and this like sweet like you know five -year -old girl came over to me and said, are you an actor?

[244] And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, sweetie, I am.

[245] And she said, are you acting now?

[246] And I said, no, no, no, no, no. And she said, are you acting tomorrow?

[247] And I said, no, no, no. She said, well, what do you do all day when you're not acting?

[248] And without missing a beat, just informationally to this child to explain, I said, I I drive around L .A. and I try to make people like me. Yeah, that's the literal description.

[249] And she kind of nodded and walked away.

[250] And I was like this fucking checkoff play, like weeping on a tree.

[251] Oh, like once upon time in Hollywood, she was the little girl that got through to Leonardo.

[252] That's true.

[253] Okay.

[254] Speaking of that, where do we think it all comes from?

[255] So you're born in Wisconsin, then you moved to Pennsylvania, you grew up in a Quaker household.

[256] I have a very limited knowledge of what a Quaker household looks like.

[257] I just have the oats, obviously, in my kitchen.

[258] It looks like a very wholesome picture and lifestyle.

[259] Do you have an explanation for desiring this attention?

[260] No, well, no. First of all, I hope everybody knows that it doesn't mean we're Amish.

[261] Well, I'm glad you clarified because I do think people think that.

[262] Further compounded by the fact that you guys moved to Pennsylvania, which home to the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Amish, right?

[263] Isn't a big Amish country?

[264] Yeah, it is.

[265] They have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

[266] And my parents became Quakers.

[267] They wanted to raise their kids as Quakers.

[268] The main thing about Quakerism is there's no mediator between you and whatever your experience of the divine is.

[269] There's no rabbi.

[270] There's no preacher.

[271] It's a group meditation.

[272] I've heard, yeah, a friend of mine currently is into it.

[273] And it's like a town hall meeting, right?

[274] There's no hierarchy.

[275] And it's like someone can present an idea.

[276] And then ultimately, it's all about kind of world service.

[277] Yes.

[278] The main thing I got as a kid was that your religious experience was meaningless if it did not mean taking action on behalf of others out in the world.

[279] Nonviolence is the other basic tenant and it's a powerful thing that I struggle with because I am appalled by violence.

[280] I've never been in a fight.

[281] I would never go near any sort of physical altercation.

[282] But it brings up a lot of questions, especially as I get older, it's very easy to be physically nonviolent.

[283] But being emotionally nonviolent in a world where Donald Trump is president and Harvey Weinstein, Einstein's the most, that's one of the most disturbing things to me raising kids is that, you know, Harvey Weinstein was the most successful, adored producer in the last 50 years.

[284] Donald Trump is president.

[285] Apparently, you know, being a malignant narcissist works.

[286] Yeah, I mean, I think you could argue that many of the people in the history books were, well, first and foremost, narcissists, and then whether they were malignant or not is.

[287] I guess up to interpretation.

[288] We have interviewed a bunch of surgeons.

[289] And we see this like parallel between different occupations.

[290] And the surgeons in general just, you know, overgeneralizing, very arrogant.

[291] Oh, so fucking arrogant.

[292] And at the same time I'm going, thank God they're arrogant.

[293] I don't want the guy opening up my skull to doubt himself.

[294] Right or wrong.

[295] Pick a fucking direction and go there.

[296] So it's like we have all these little niches in the way.

[297] world where all these different personality types ultimately bear fruit, but then they got to live in real life.

[298] They got to go home and be a husband and a dad, and that can't serve them well in that situation.

[299] Right.

[300] I have a funny story.

[301] I'm from this weird.

[302] My parents had three kids and then basically a 10 -year break.

[303] Then my brother, the mistake, and I'm like the mistake's friend.

[304] My mom's earliest memory were funerals during the flu epidemic.

[305] Oh, my gosh.

[306] Oh, my gosh.

[307] She was born in 1914.

[308] Wow.

[309] So I lived in this house where it was, you know, direct experience of this, you know, through my mother.

[310] And I would always remember her kind of looking up at the ceiling and going, it was the second wave, you know.

[311] Really?

[312] Yeah.

[313] Wow.

[314] But I have this, a brother -in -law who's in his 80s and he's a retired surgeon.

[315] His best line ever was, I said, how would surgery go?

[316] And he said, it was tough.

[317] We lost this guy.

[318] And I said, what did he die of?

[319] And he goes, number one killer, bad luck.

[320] There's no fucking cure.

[321] Oh, God.

[322] Again, I want the person fiddling with the.

[323] inside of my body to have that.

[324] Oh, you know what I'm saying?

[325] I don't want someone who's squeamish or emotional.

[326] I want a fucking fighter pilot in there.

[327] Yeah, I don't want a surgeon who, you know, his hobby is haiku.

[328] No, no, no, no, no, no. I have a question about Quaker.

[329] Yeah, Quaker follow -up.

[330] Was everyone around you also a Quaker?

[331] Were you in a Quaker community?

[332] No, no, no, no. Was that hard in school, if you're sort of like nonviolent, you have sort of one path, but the kids around you don't, and there are fights and stuff?

[333] I don't know.

[334] It was easy.

[335] You know, nobody picks on Quakers.

[336] We pick, you know, people pick on immigrants and Jews.

[337] This is America.

[338] Brown people, first brown people.

[339] Yeah, you're like, Quakers is like seven probably behind, like, homosexual.

[340] They're like, we'll get to you after we finish off the...

[341] We got a guy with a weird pinky.

[342] We got to fucking run him up on the flagpole.

[343] We're not sure if it even functions.

[344] It just kind of hangs there.

[345] We're not even done with the quares yet for God's.

[346] People underestimate the to -do list of a bully.

[347] It's, you know, there's a lot on their plate.

[348] Yes.

[349] We got a guy with thinning hair in 11th grade.

[350] This guy has to be taunted.

[351] There was a guy in my high school, Madison East High School, lost his hair.

[352] His name was Ken Seaman.

[353] Oh, double whammy.

[354] Yeah, Kenny Cumb.

[355] I mean, it was Kenny Cumb.

[356] His hair came right off his head.

[357] Really, really, really sweet guy.

[358] No, but I don't want you to.

[359] My parents became quake.

[360] That's a, that's a movie.

[361] I haven't thought about Kenny a long time.

[362] But.

[363] You better pop him a line on Facebook today.

[364] My parents became Quakers because my mother liked Quakers because they have this idea.

[365] It's the reason you don't have a minister that God is in everybody, whatever God is.

[366] She hated organized religion, hated it.

[367] Hated some, as she would put it, goddamn man up there in a costume telling me what my religious experience would be.

[368] My mom, I think, was actually wonderful about this.

[369] She would say the spiritual party tricks of organized religion, you know, turning water into wine, miracles.

[370] She's like, if you can't look into your child's eye and know that there is a God, then nothing's going to help you, but spare me the party tricks.

[371] Oh, I like your mom.

[372] I like your mom.

[373] The only thing she wanted in her obituary was proud atheist.

[374] So strict Quakers didn't even have music or anything.

[375] So I think I was, I used to have fantasies of like a, you know, in the middle of this silent meditation of like a white piano being wheeled out to the middle of the room and James Brown and a red jumpsuit.

[376] Hold on.

[377] There's something there.

[378] I want to know, in general, in life, as you enter a room and you assess everything in the room, do you immediately figure out what the very worst thing you could say would be?

[379] Yes.

[380] Me too.

[381] I've made absolutely terrifying jokes.

[382] It's something about you want to stick your finger in the fan, you know?

[383] I feel like every room I enter has the stakes of a high -rise that I'm standing on top of.

[384] Like, I know what I could do to ruin everything in a second.

[385] Yes.

[386] All do things.

[387] Like, this is a joke that I made.

[388] I was working with somebody and I realized that a really horrible thing.

[389] their child had done and was in jail forever.

[390] This is ripe for a joke.

[391] Well, why would I, so, and I love this guy, and I'm hearing this extraordinary, I mean, the worst nightmare possible.

[392] And we were good friends on the set, and I knew he was safe, but he really opened up to me about the specifics of the horror of this event, I said to him, I know how you feel.

[393] I did a couple of pilots that didn't get picked up.

[394] Did he appreciate it?

[395] He actually loved it.

[396] He said, thank you, thank you, thank you.

[397] Because probably everyone's being so, which is a trigger for me, is probably people are being patronizing in some way to him.

[398] Everywhere he goes, he's got this terrible news.

[399] Everyone knows he gets this kind of this like, you know, really predictable sadness and then yeah for someone to make it novel probably is just like oh i mean that's what i tell myself when i make those same jokes like i'm gonna break him out of this rut right right right well like you want to rationalize it like you're doing a public fucking service oh exactly the bigger the target the more you want to do it i did i did one with clin eastwood thank god it was fine but it was a A big, big swing for the fences?

[400] It was a big swing.

[401] I have to say, I said this before, but Handmaid's Tale is a particularly funny situation because that the crew, they're genetically, stereotypically, they're Canadians, and they're just the sweetest people in the world.

[402] So you'll hear things like, okay, I don't want to rush you it, but I think we should get the nooses on the girls.

[403] Oh, no, you gotta spread your legs a little.

[404] We can't see.

[405] Oh, thank you, thank you.

[406] The gentility combined with the horror is.

[407] Elizabeth Moss is like she's doing Sophie's Choice, the fucking TV series.

[408] No, she's the best actor to ever be on television.

[409] Like her and Gandalfini for me are just tied.

[410] Acting with her, you know, I got to work with her when she's a kid.

[411] She is not only giving this performance.

[412] And, like, it is the weirdly the sweetest set in the world.

[413] Really?

[414] Yeah.

[415] It seems so heavy.

[416] We constantly, we watch it.

[417] My wife's like, how do you live in that world 65 hours a week?

[418] We'll be like, okay, okay, we're ready.

[419] And she, you know, just explodes, you know, with this camera grinding down on her face.

[420] And they'll go, we got to go again, you know, focuses off.

[421] She's like, okay.

[422] She is unbelievable.

[423] In fact, we had to shut down.

[424] She was directing for the first time.

[425] Oh, bummer.

[426] You guys were in production when this started?

[427] Yeah.

[428] Oh, what a bummer.

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

[430] We've all been there.

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

[432] 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.

[433] 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 jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

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

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

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

[437] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[438] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon music.

[439] What's up, guys?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[447] I do wonder what is it like to enter.

[448] Did you like the show prior?

[449] I have to assume you had seen it and liked it.

[450] Yeah, my wife was obsessed with it and I watched it and I was absolutely completely.

[451] I come out of the school of verbal torrents, right?

[452] Oral diarrhea.

[453] Yeah.

[454] And things like handmaids, like they Hemingway the fuck out of those scripts.

[455] You know, they're very sparse, and there is such power when you have time to act around it.

[456] Did it cause any insecurity for you?

[457] Did you feel like your superpower was a little bit neutralized going to that set?

[458] Dana Reed, an Australian director, who's fantastic.

[459] I was working the first day, and she kept saying, I think you can take some more time.

[460] and then she said okay i think we have it and i said can i just do one more and she said sure the action was in the middle of a conversation i get up i go into the kitchen i come back and i open a beer and i pour it and just as you know for fun once we had it you know instead of opening it on the way back i came i put it down i put my glass down i found the opener i took the time i pour it.

[461] And, you know, I just took like two minutes to pour this, this fucking beer.

[462] And that's the take we used.

[463] No shit.

[464] And she's like, that's it.

[465] And then I felt like I had incredible license.

[466] There's real freedom, emotional, internal freedom when you're liberated from the technical obligation of spewing lines.

[467] Yeah.

[468] But that character is just such an interesting, at the risk of sounding pretentious, but I've been so lucky that I got to take a turn late in a career where the acting got more interesting.

[469] Yeah.

[470] And the common denominator was, and this sounds really stupid, it's just like acting is not about narrowing the aperture of behavior, but like finding in these characters where you can open it up.

[471] Like, and get out.

[472] There's several things happening at once.

[473] And then I got to act, I'm going to name drop with Meryl Streep.

[474] And standing in front of her, you realize, oh, she's playing five pianos.

[475] Like, there's 35 things going on.

[476] And it sort of opened up this kind of exciting different ways of sort of thinking about it, which is not narrowing, but opening it up.

[477] And in that character, it's a very, fertile ground for a lot of contradictory things going on.

[478] I think of him as sort of like Robert McNamara who prosecuted the war in Vietnam.

[479] It's somebody whose humanity got obliterated by their big brain.

[480] Yeah.

[481] And now the humanity's kind of like, you know, peaking around.

[482] But it's in play.

[483] You know what I mean?

[484] Yeah.

[485] Yeah.

[486] Well, what's so fascinating about your character on Handmaids is like you're just always riveted about whether he's good or bad.

[487] Like, we'll pause.

[488] We watch all these together, Kristen and Monica and I. And we pause and we'll have like a fucking 12 -minute conversation.

[489] And I'll make my case, all the clues I've gathered about you while you're ultimately going to be good or bad.

[490] And then they make their case.

[491] And I mean, what more could you want?

[492] Someone would pause and debate whether you're good or bad.

[493] That's like the fucking dream, I think.

[494] You know, on a lesser show, a character like this who is objectively evil would have have an epiphany and become a hero.

[495] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[496] Which would be a total insult to the integrity of the obstacle that a character like June would have to face.

[497] It would be way too easy.

[498] There's a scene where I, all the commanders are over and I make her walk across the room and get a book.

[499] And there's several things going on there.

[500] One, the commanders are fighting.

[501] so let's just bond over some basic Gilead misogyny.

[502] The other thing is that I'm testing her.

[503] You know, I'm potentially going out on a very dangerous limb with this person.

[504] And what's interesting is that in that series is she's leading us, and we don't even know it.

[505] Yeah.

[506] Oh, it's so goddamn good.

[507] It's so good.

[508] You brought up Get Out, and I was just putting the pieces together that's so cool that you've, been a part of these two projects, Handmaid's Tale and Get Out, that are so culturally relevant to the African American community and the feminism community.

[509] Like, there's like anthems for both.

[510] And you're in both.

[511] That's so cool.

[512] And that is just luck.

[513] You know, people always ask because of West Wing, like, how have you shaped your career?

[514] And it always makes me laugh because in, it was like 94.

[515] I did this movie with Clint Eastwood.

[516] And I brought the New York.

[517] Times up to him in the arts and leisure section said something like Clint Eastwood's vision of America.

[518] I said, hey, did you see this?

[519] And he just started to laugh.

[520] He said, vision of America.

[521] It's like 10 years ago, I was working with an orangutan.

[522] Now they think I'm Gandhi.

[523] I was working with an orangutan.

[524] There's a fantasy or some illusion that people are charting out these trajectories and it's just not the case.

[525] I mean, I think I said, why did you cast me and he said, that it would be funny to see Josh Lyman take the top of someone's head off.

[526] No, but he was clearly playing on, you know, the good, liberal, white dude.

[527] Yes.

[528] I loved that.

[529] Because I got to say, you know, the white nationalists, we're very aware of it.

[530] But when you tell him right out of the gates that you fucking love Tiger Woods, I'm like, ouch, I mean, so accurate, the whole white liberal, the Martin Luther King's speech, beware of the white, liberal.

[531] It's all like...

[532] It's played so perfectly, too, because you really, you know that you believe that that's a good thing you're saying.

[533] Listen, I did not think that I would vote for Obama for a third term was a laugh line.

[534] It was just so eye -opening to like, yes, every time they fucking have to deal with one of those white people.

[535] Either option's bad.

[536] That stuff was so fun that excruciating you know hey man oh how long has this been going on but i can tell you like like i read that script at this desk and i closed it and i went in and talked to abie and i said oh my god Like, it's a forehead knocker because horror movies are about shit we can't talk about.

[537] Yeah.

[538] You know, sex and death.

[539] And nobody had pressed race through that.

[540] It's really interesting in all of these things that have sort of culturally landed.

[541] It is because these creators, in addition to their genuine political point of view, are just, impatient showman.

[542] Like, you know, Jordan is strapping you on a roller coaster ride of horror that will make what he was talking about resonate in a way.

[543] No essay ever could, you know, but it's very generous to the audience.

[544] Oh, yeah.

[545] It's covered in candy.

[546] Right.

[547] And Sorkin, in a different way, although people go, yeah, but they're talking so fast, Aaron is throwing interesting characters, you know, comic elements.

[548] You know, I want to let them, got to give them that fourth act swell.

[549] Aaron was aware that you do not want to serve civic vegetables.

[550] If you want to penetrate the culture, you have to be focused on storytelling.

[551] I mean, what's amazing, just about Jordan, I loved Key and Peel so much.

[552] And I was always going, I will, just let me, I want to do a background cross.

[553] Yeah.

[554] You know, and then that show ended.

[555] And then the script was incredible, but you don't know if it's gonna work.

[556] We're shooting in Alabama.

[557] It was supposed to shoot in LA.

[558] The highest expectation of this thing was, it would be a little smart art house, weirdo, horror thing.

[559] We weren't finishing the takes going, yeah right you know and i remember jordan called me into loop and i said how is it and he goes i think it's really fucking good i actually think it's really good and i'm like i love you but like you know you have to think that i mean you've just spent you know two years doing this and he's like no i think it's actually i think it's kind of working for for other people uh and he wouldn't let me watch anything other from what i had to loop and then i saw the screening at some Sundance was this midnight screening.

[560] And man, I had never seen a souffle rise like that.

[561] Yeah, it's crazy.

[562] So I have a quick question for you.

[563] Did you transition from I'm never going to work again to you know what?

[564] I have a skill set and I'll work.

[565] Like I have a thing and I will work and I can stop obsessing about that.

[566] Did that happen for you?

[567] I always say like my career goal has always been like to have money to die in a single room.

[568] I just...

[569] Right, right, that's a good goal to have.

[570] Yeah, I just don't want other families there.

[571] I would just prefer to be alone.

[572] Although, it's a constant state of insecurity.

[573] Right before Get Out, that feels relatively recently, you know, like five years ago, I was going, is this going to work anymore?

[574] Right, right, right.

[575] Do I have to reevaluate a bunch of...

[576] I did a play on Broadway, and there was a person who had won a Tony Award, in the 80s and was now an understudy and was leaving to go become a school teacher now in any other the equivalence of winning a Tony Award if you're a lawyer is like arguing a case in front of the Supreme Court if you ever do that you're going to work forever there is a constant kind of unsettledness about this that I never quite get used to if we ever go back I'm doing I'm playing Stephen Sondheim in Lynn Miranda's movie.

[577] As Sondheim, from the outside, it almost looks like he's trying to destroy his career.

[578] Like, yeah, I'm going to do this about a painting.

[579] This is about a mass murderer.

[580] I'm going to do a musical.

[581] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[582] And I think the danger in show business is when you think you know what you're doing.

[583] First job I ever got in New York, I got out of school, and I was very lucky, but I was like catering and proofreading.

[584] And then suddenly Bill Pullman drops out of this production of Curse of the Starving Class.

[585] And they were moving from off -off to off -Broadway.

[586] Kathy Bates was in it.

[587] Sam Shepard play.

[588] Sam, you know, was around.

[589] And it was this phenomenal job.

[590] And do you know that play?

[591] No, never seen it.

[592] In this play, there's a moment where the character Wesley just suddenly walks out.

[593] on stage, straight towards the audience, completely buck naked, dripping wet.

[594] Okay.

[595] And then squats, because that's what you want to do when you're naked.

[596] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[597] And picks up a live lamb named, who I named Merrill Sheep.

[598] And later in the play, this, he takes the lamb and slaughters the lamb off stage, and then he freaks out and starts throwing food in his mouth.

[599] And one night, one night I'm on stage and I'm weeping and, and I'm on the floor, I'm literally eating the props, you know, this food out of the fridge.

[600] And I feel this electric sizzle gag in the back of my throat and it goes down.

[601] And I come off stage and I get salmonella poison, which is, if you've ever had it, is just you're spewing.

[602] Yeah.

[603] And I have not yet learned that if there is anything that does not have to go on, it's the show.

[604] Right, right.

[605] So, and I had an understudy, but, you know, I didn't want to miss the show.

[606] And, I mean, the salmonella was, like, active for, like, three weeks.

[607] Oh.

[608] It was so close.

[609] Oh, I know exactly where you're going.

[610] And if that had happened, the only.

[611] thing you would know about it was it would be like oh yeah i know him didn't he like shit on himself didn't he evacuate in front of uh 500 people okay so i've got to ask you about your new documentary not going quietly uh when does that come out where does that come out what's it about it will be out soon it's about adi barkin who a lot of people know i'm from the flakes on on a plane thing when he confronted Senator Jeff Flake.

[612] Adi has ALS when he was 31, just had just had a child, was having his anniversary dinner.

[613] His hand felt weird.

[614] And by the end of the week, he was diagnosed with ALS.

[615] And Adi was before the election, he's a progressive activist who led a thing called Fed Up, which was about making sure that economic policy at the Federal Reserve reflected low income and unemployed people, an amazing, amazing guy and struck down so early.

[616] And I ended up doing some things for the dreamers with him.

[617] And he became a dear friend.

[618] He actually performed our marriage.

[619] And he's just gone through this extraordinary paradox of actually losing his voice and finding his voice political.

[620] in the fight for Medicare for all.

[621] And he's one of these just rare human beings that they build religions around who somehow transcend their personal suffering by trying to alleviate it in others.

[622] And he's just a dear, dear friend.

[623] And he's funny as hell.

[624] Yeah, I like that part.

[625] You said he's, because it sounds heavy, but he himself had a lot of levity throughout that, yeah?

[626] Yes.

[627] He's an extraordinary guy.

[628] And I found out that a crew had been following him throughout this entire process and got their work over to the Duplas brothers who fell in love with it.

[629] That's awesome.

[630] I'm excited about it.

[631] How old are your kids?

[632] You have kids, right?

[633] Five and seven, two daughters.

[634] You have two daughters, yeah.

[635] I have two daughters and a son.

[636] Yeah.

[637] Yeah, I got to imagine you being on handmaids is cool, right?

[638] For them?

[639] That you're a part of something that is, pointing out something that's so ubiquitous and just right there and we're not even looking at it and that you're helping tell some story that benefits them.

[640] I think that's cool.

[641] Yeah.

[642] I mean, the reason that show resonates is that misogyny is at the reptilian brainstem of all right -wing white nationalist movements and that's what's, you know, what's happening.

[643] My kids are, and my son is like really interested in politics.

[644] He's never watched West Wing.

[645] It just makes their skin crawl, which I understand.

[646] You know, I would not want to watch, you know, my father 20 years ago flirting, you know, with Donna.

[647] I wouldn't want to watch that.

[648] I'm experiencing one of the most unique things currently, which is, so I have five and seven year old.

[649] I was the writer and director of Scooby -Doo for about a year and a half.

[650] I left.

[651] I have so much baggage about that experience.

[652] And it came out.

[653] It came out two days ago.

[654] My seven year old has watched it six times.

[655] She came into the bathroom.

[656] She goes, Dad, it's the best movie I've ever seen.

[657] And I have nothing to do with it.

[658] I mean, the script doesn't resemble it.

[659] None of my work is in this thing.

[660] And she loves it more than she's ever loved anything.

[661] But the irony that it's her favorite movie she's ever seen is it's really something yeah i grew up in this weird family right where my older brothers and sisters were raising kids you know i have a niece who's 50 and one thing i learned was if your kids when they're toward the end of high school don't find you stupid irritating and the way you have conducted your life basically depressing they won't leave.

[662] Good point.

[663] It's absolutely a biological imperative.

[664] They will find it, whether it's the sound of you, you know, chewing wheat thins or your stupid advice.

[665] Perfect Harmony on NBC.

[666] Yes.

[667] It was a complete and total joy to do.

[668] Do you know Jason Weiner?

[669] Jason directed modern family and also executive producer.

[670] And I loved that show.

[671] And he came to me and it was just a really joyous, fun.

[672] I mean, I was trying, you know, Jesus, it almost seems naive.

[673] I wanted to put radically different Americans in the same room and, you know, sort of transcend the divide with music and laughter.

[674] And it was a real joy.

[675] It was so funny because when I was doing press for it, you know, I'd come up with this really pretentious thing because you know, we'd all say, when people sing together, it's really hard not to get along.

[676] except CSNY, the Beatles.

[677] Right, right, right.

[678] As soon as you add a lot of money to the mix.

[679] It was like a good, it was a good talking point, but it didn't make sense.

[680] It's a musical?

[681] He plays a professor at Princeton, and he ends up coaching this religious choir into becoming great out of a personal vendetta.

[682] Oh, cool.

[683] I watched the pilot, and I loved it, and I thought you were hysterical.

[684] Because you really just walk in and you just cut, I don't know, there's six people in the room, and you give all of them nicknames immediately and they're all brilliant.

[685] There's some weird shared DNA with you and Bateman.

[686] Oh, I love that.

[687] I love that.

[688] Yeah, you guys both have this ability to be shitty at all times.

[689] And I asked Bateman, I'm like, how do you get away with being so shitty?

[690] And he said, well, I have to let you know that the weight of what I'm dealing with has made me so miserable that you're not mad I'm acting out.

[691] Like, I have to be put upon for the shittiness to work.

[692] And I'm like, that's awesome, you know the math of it.

[693] There is math to it.

[694] Right.

[695] And that's why he gets away with it, you know?

[696] Right.

[697] I mean, you know, the other thing that allows him to get away with it, I think of him mostly in terms of his television career.

[698] I know, you know, I know he does movies and everything.

[699] But I think a lot about, you know, when Tony Soprano walks into the kitchen in year five and is, you know, really short with his wife.

[700] As an audience member, first of all, you're in bed with them, probably watching it.

[701] Yeah.

[702] You have five years of experience.

[703] So that is so loaded.

[704] You know, you've seen his weight boomerang.

[705] You know, he's cheated.

[706] You know they've resolved.

[707] But the relationship with an audience and with a character is part of the reason, like Jason and I can get away with that stuff because in a feature you're not, you just don't get to have the familiarity.

[708] Yeah, you're right.

[709] You're right.

[710] Yeah, yeah.

[711] You kind of haven't earned it in some weird way.

[712] Well, Bradley, I totally adore you.

[713] We got along just as I suspected.

[714] I do hope we get to do it in person someday.

[715] And I'll be looking forward to whenever you guys resume handmaids, we're waiting with baited breath for more.

[716] Well, who wouldn't want to watch a dystopian misogynistic nightmare of the future during a pandemic.

[717] That's right.

[718] Just keep piling it on.

[719] So we got to reach critical mass before we figure out what's on the other side.

[720] I know.

[721] I know.

[722] Monica, it was great to meet you.

[723] Nice to meet you.

[724] Thanks for coming on.

[725] Hope to bump into you in real life.

[726] Me too.

[727] Thank you so much.

[728] It was fun.

[729] All right.

[730] Bye.

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

[732] And now my favorite part of the Show the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[733] Hello.

[734] Hi.

[735] First, I have to say, I'm sorry.

[736] To me. To everyone.

[737] Oh, okay.

[738] To you and to everyone because I didn't do my job correctly.

[739] Well, compounded by the fact that I'm going away.

[740] Yeah.

[741] Because you would have had more time.

[742] Yeah.

[743] Yeah.

[744] But I didn't do a fact check for this episode.

[745] I did not have time or energy, more likely I didn't have energy.

[746] Probably no appetite to do it, which would be totally fine.

[747] I just felt like I didn't have the mental headspace yesterday.

[748] To worry about those facts?

[749] To like really get detailed into an episode.

[750] Yeah.

[751] So I didn't.

[752] So we don't have any facts for this episode, and I'm sorry.

[753] But we still wanted to chat.

[754] Yeah, yeah.

[755] We still wanted to chat.

[756] and there's still so much going on.

[757] But in facts aside, boy, was I charmed by him, Bradley Whitford.

[758] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[759] Oh, my God.

[760] I found him so charming.

[761] Me too, me too.

[762] I've always found him charming.

[763] Yeah, because you're a longtime West Wing fan.

[764] Yeah, you've said it to him and you said it to Rob Blow, and I feel a little fraudulent every time you say that.

[765] Why?

[766] Because I love that show.

[767] Right.

[768] And I've watched it a lot.

[769] And I'll, like, sometimes put it on at night in the background and stuff.

[770] But I haven't, like, watched that show from A to Z. Oh, me neither.

[771] Should we do that?

[772] Yeah, I would love to.

[773] Oh, me too.

[774] Yeah.

[775] But I feel like, because you keep calling me a super fan.

[776] Oh, that you're going to get busted.

[777] I can't take that on if I haven't even watched the whole thing.

[778] Well, I don't know.

[779] I'm a super fan of Friday Night Lights, and I didn't watch the last season.

[780] But I didn't watch the last season for the same reason.

[781] Do you know I have a Bukowski book I've never read?

[782] Because you don't want it to end?

[783] I can't live in a world where I've read every Bukowski book, that there's none left for me. And likewise, I just, I can't bring myself to know the end of Friday Night Lights.

[784] I just, I need, I need it sitting out there in moments where I'm pessimistic to know I still have something to look forward to.

[785] But there's so many shows and so many things to look forward to.

[786] You're doing yourself a disservice.

[787] Okay, but I was so emotionally connected to Friday Night Lights.

[788] Like heartbroken, in love, want to marry both Coach T and Tammy.

[789] Me too, me too, me too.

[790] I just want to be in their marriage.

[791] And I think the last season was a little truncated, right?

[792] It was like a half order maybe.

[793] I think so.

[794] It was a little different, yeah.

[795] And so I was about to start watching.

[796] I was like, I'm already depressed.

[797] This isn't a full season.

[798] How will I feel when it's over?

[799] Worse than this?

[800] I think you're strong enough.

[801] I think you can do it.

[802] Strong enough to be my man. I like that song.

[803] I love Cheryl.

[804] Oh, my God, Lance Armstrong documentary.

[805] Oh.

[806] We loved it.

[807] He talks about her in the dock a little bit.

[808] Yeah.

[809] Yeah.

[810] Yeah.

[811] And I didn't.

[812] That is the part where I was like, you liked it the least.

[813] Mm -mm.

[814] You are not cool.

[815] You're not a cool.

[816] And I also, I don't like that.

[817] I'm very charmed by him.

[818] Yeah, he's charming as fuck.

[819] Which I don't like.

[820] And he's really handsome, too.

[821] Yeah, he's very handsome.

[822] But he's also charming.

[823] I think he looks like Channing Tatum.

[824] And I think their voice sounds so much alike.

[825] I couldn't get any, you guys didn't.

[826] Yeah, I couldn't know traction with you and Kristen on that.

[827] No, I didn't agree.

[828] You didn't see it.

[829] Yeah.

[830] Also, also, we're going to talk about important stuff too.

[831] I just I don't want people to think like, these people don't, what are they doing?

[832] Anyway, we watched him and the way he talks about that relationship and basically how it just doesn't work if two people are in the light.

[833] Yeah.

[834] I was like, that's only if you're a narcissist.

[835] Well, of course, I was watching it going, well, I'm married to someone that's in the world.

[836] Exactly.

[837] You know, it's all what you make of it.

[838] Yeah, if you go out and go to events and shit and have your picture take, yeah, sure, it's probably overwhelming.

[839] But if you just fucking have a family and hang and watch TV every day, like we do, what are you talking about?

[840] I'm unaware of the fact that either of us are in the light unless we're at a premiere.

[841] Yeah, I feel that it was a very narcissistic thing to say.

[842] Right now, we're probably burning any bridge of getting him on.

[843] But let's go on.

[844] I actually disagree, which this was part of his charm.

[845] He seems to be very aware.

[846] He is not, like in the Michael Jordan doc, when he's watching the videos of people basically saying, like, he was so hard on us, he pushed us too much or whatever.

[847] Yeah.

[848] He got emotional about that, which I loved.

[849] I was like, oh, that's a human.

[850] And you love boys crying.

[851] Well, yeah.

[852] A lot of things happen and a lot of layers.

[853] A lot of factors.

[854] But he was said as you should be.

[855] You should be taking in that info as people saw me. me this way, I didn't know that, or, oh, that hurts my feelings.

[856] I was misunderstood or something.

[857] Lance does not seem to have that.

[858] He's very aware of how everyone sees him.

[859] He agrees with a lot of it.

[860] He disagrees with a lot, but it's very almost like pragmatic.

[861] And again, there was something charming about that.

[862] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[863] Very straightforward.

[864] Something that I kind of, I don't know what the right word is, but the fact that he's honest, yet not shame -ridden, Yeah.

[865] Is for me, there's something about it I liked.

[866] I've dealt with all this or I've owned all this.

[867] I went down.

[868] I lost all the contracts.

[869] I've been sued and paid out.

[870] And I'm on the other side of this thing.

[871] And I'm not going to walk around the rest of my life feeling shame.

[872] I can be dead honest about it and I can own all the mistakes.

[873] But it's not my obligation now to make it right by living in shame for the next 40 years.

[874] Right.

[875] I kind of liked that part.

[876] But I need him to write the wrongs, like the.

[877] big, big wrongs, like the suing of the people, the, you know.

[878] Oh, yeah, that's the stuff.

[879] Well, you know, as I've said before, I never gave a fuck that he was doping.

[880] I was always of the assumption.

[881] All of them are doping and it's pretty clear most are.

[882] And it's got a long history of it.

[883] Didn't start in the, in the 80s or 90s.

[884] Yeah.

[885] And also, who cares?

[886] It's a fucking bicycle race, the 21 day bicycle race.

[887] Why do I care if they're doping?

[888] I just, so.

[889] Part of me is just like, they need to just make that a part of that sport.

[890] I totally agree.

[891] Because people can take beta blockers when they perform in the symphony orchestras.

[892] They can have fucking 2015 vision through Lasic surgery if they're a sharpshooter.

[893] There's all these augmentations we accept.

[894] Right.

[895] And then for whatever reason, we're like, no, we're drawing the line there.

[896] Yeah, yeah.

[897] But the bully stuff he did is terrible.

[898] That's the stuff that I hated.

[899] Like the suing people that were just good people or the team, she wasn't a physician, but she was like, she worked on everyone, I guess.

[900] She's like a physical.

[901] go therapist type and he like dragged her through the mud yeah that that stuff's rough that's got to be the stuff that haunts him because i can't imagine he feels a lit guilty about cheating in a sport that everyone's cheating and i'm sure he feels like yeah guess what i still won seven times and everyone else was i am still a phenom he still is a phenom there's no questioning it yeah you and i could take 3 ,000 liters of EPO and we couldn't climb one of those hills no no no yeah i agree with that and he did take some responsibility for some of the things the documentarian like basically, what do you feel regretful for?

[902] Yeah.

[903] What's your biggest regret?

[904] And he mentions those things, and that's good.

[905] I also think I was kind of uniquely, not uniquely in that there's tons of addicts, but the parts where it's like, how did you look in the mirror?

[906] How did you say that?

[907] Yeah.

[908] That part I related to entirely, which is like I have this enormous secret that's occupying probably half my life.

[909] Yeah.

[910] And then the other half the time I'm at UCLA and I'm at the groundlings.

[911] And then the other half, I'm smoking crack with strangers in a hotel room.

[912] So I, you learn to compartmentalize.

[913] That's true.

[914] I totally related to the notion that, oh, no, there's just a vault door in my head.

[915] And I walk through it and do this thing.

[916] And then I walk through it and do this other thing.

[917] I just could relate.

[918] Yeah, because she asked, was it hard to look in the mirror or sleep at night?

[919] And it was like, no. Right.

[920] And I also agree.

[921] I think, I think humans have to compartmentalize.

[922] They justify things all day long, every day.

[923] that they can get through it.

[924] And if you're, yeah, you're holding a secret like that.

[925] Well, your brain is protecting you.

[926] Yeah, and I think we have some good engineering and evolution to do that because I think so often in the first 100 ,000 years we were on the planet, we had to do gnarly ass shit occasionally.

[927] And I just think that mentally you couldn't compartmentalize that.

[928] It would kill you.

[929] Yeah.

[930] Anywho.

[931] So that was a doc we watched.

[932] That was good.

[933] It's really, really good.

[934] All right, you were about, you were just on the verge of telling me something about Hussein did.

[935] Yeah.

[936] When we started this, I was.

[937] saying Hassan.

[938] Hasen had a good, well, there's, as in Thursday's episode, we noted, there are so many videos, there are so many things circulating, there are so many things to watch, and no one can expect everyone to, like, watch all the things.

[939] But Hassan, Monash, posted...

[940] Nikki's brother.

[941] No, posted a kind of, like, short kind of episode, essentially.

[942] And it was speaking, like, very directly to the Indian American community.

[943] about getting involved and acting and not just like looking at it from afar because we're benefiting from civil rights.

[944] We are benefiting.

[945] If the Immigration Act was like piggybacked on the civil rights movement, you know.

[946] You say there's some obligation.

[947] Yeah, there's an obligation.

[948] I mean, I've been thinking about this for days and a few people have asked my thoughts on all of this because I said it on here a hundred times that I just wanted to be white.

[949] I always wanted to be white and that's true that's a part of my story I did I wanted that and I did everything in my power to like strip away my otherness my Indianness all of it so that I could blend in as much as possible which is I think a human thing to do but I've always looked at it in like a it was a defense mechanism that I feel like I created or something like that I was unique and like figuring out how to how to like put this otherness aside.

[950] And I haven't, I've never really thought to examine it from a little bit more of a bird's eye view, which is like, why did I feel like I had to do that?

[951] Right.

[952] And it's part of this whole conversation we're having, you know.

[953] And I also blame myself because, you know, sometimes me and you will have these debates or me and Eric was having a debate yesterday and like I'll have like quote debates and they're like intellectual debates about these topics and they affect me a lot more than if we had an intellectual debate on um you know on like cris sleeping with your sister on vacation yeah moral dump out yes like and for a while it was like why am I feeling this so much like I couldn't even recognize why I felt emotionally tied in a deeper way.

[954] And at one point I was like, oh, yeah, because I am a person of color.

[955] Yeah.

[956] And often in these conversations, in these debates, I'm the only person of color.

[957] Uh -huh.

[958] And that is something I did.

[959] Like, I created that.

[960] I created this system where I've basically...

[961] Yeah, you didn't go to baby.

[962] I'm not, I'm not regretful.

[963] I love the way my life is turned out.

[964] I'm teasing.

[965] I just, I just started thinking like, oh, every decision I've made since I was like five has been just surround yourself with as many white people as possible and blend into their surroundings and their situation and be like them.

[966] And now I'm expecting you guys to defer to me because I am the only one who has experienced what it feels like to be judged based on the color of your skin.

[967] And I'm expecting other people to like defer and not have a debate about it and just be like, okay, sure.

[968] But how can I expect that if all I've done is tell you I'm white, I'm white, I'm white, I'm white.

[969] Like, why would anyone take me seriously?

[970] Well, hold on, no. I think so that certainly could be part of it.

[971] But I also think that, and this is a part that is always hard to reconcile, which is nobody on any topic wants to be in a conversation where they're not allowed to have an opinion about it.

[972] It's like, well, that's just being taught.

[973] So I might search out going to class or I might search out going somewhere where I'm going to switch into just, I'm just absorbing information.

[974] But any backyard conversation, no one's entering it with the thought, okay, I'm going to enter this conversation and I'll have nothing to say.

[975] So like, you're right.

[976] I cannot, I cannot relate to your experience.

[977] I haven't had that experience.

[978] And that's dead true.

[979] But that's not to say I don't have tons of opinions about the white patriarchy and how we guide ourselves out of it or what's productive and what's not productive.

[980] That's not the emotional part of these debates, though.

[981] You know that.

[982] I'm not like, don't have solutions.

[983] No, I'm not saying that.

[984] I'm just saying there's no reason that the topic of race would be the single topic that everyone doesn't have an opinion on.

[985] Like everyone still has an opinion.

[986] Whether or not they can, they've experienced it doesn't mean they don't have an opinion on it.

[987] Right.

[988] But everyone now is noting, oh, there's so much I'm not privy to.

[989] There's so much happening underneath that I don't see every day.

[990] Everyone on Instagram putting up a black post saying muted, I'm listening.

[991] Muted I'm listening means I'm listening.

[992] I'm listening to these stories.

[993] I am putting my opinion, whatever.

[994] And I guess I'd also like the idea of an opinion.

[995] Yeah.

[996] I mean, I guess I don't really, this doesn't feel.

[997] Well, like, just to isolate the single thing you and Eric were debating about, it was literally the question of is a black Harvard law school graduate and a white Harvard law school graduate.

[998] Do they have equal opportunity in law?

[999] Mm -hmm.

[1000] So you can have an opinion.

[1001] on that.

[1002] That's an opinion.

[1003] Well, it's actually, it's not.

[1004] Like, we're having opinions on it, but there's real facts about it.

[1005] Well, there are.

[1006] And so in Eric's case, who he hired lots of lawyers, he was actively in search of black lawyers who had gone to law school.

[1007] Yes.

[1008] And then my other friend who came over an hour after that conversation, who also is a partner at a law firm, he said they have been actively looking for black attorneys for a decade.

[1009] And so, you can have a debate in that without having any experience being a black graduate from Harvard.

[1010] I think it's okay to have an opinion.

[1011] That is totally true.

[1012] But I also think everyone is again looking at it.

[1013] I said this to him, like, you are talking about a law firm in Los Angeles.

[1014] And he's like, yeah, the Fortune 500 companies do.

[1015] And that's true.

[1016] But the problem is, it can't just be the Fortune 500 companies.

[1017] It can't just be the lawyer you were talking to is at a big, big firm, very prestigious.

[1018] And that's amazing that those places are doing it.

[1019] And they should.

[1020] They should lead by example.

[1021] But it has not trickled down all the way.

[1022] Totally agree.

[1023] So this is where it gets so tricky.

[1024] So just the original conversation being about two Harvard grads, the truth is also that someone who graduates from Harvard Law is.

[1025] going to the law firm that my friend works at.

[1026] Yeah, yeah.

[1027] And he is going to Erick's and he is going to L .A. or New York.

[1028] So it's all about these very specific points.

[1029] It's like, what is the argument about?

[1030] I don't think the argument for, well, I know the argument from Eric's point of view wasn't, it's a dead equal playing field.

[1031] What happens is you start spinning into these particulars and details and you do kind of ignore the emotion.

[1032] The thought experiment that he presented to you was, would you rather be a black man in America?

[1033] Oh, no. A Harvard, a Harvard grad.

[1034] A black man in America with a Harvard degree.

[1035] That was his question.

[1036] And by the way, the answer should always be no. The answer still no. You, if you were black and you had your personality, would be dead.

[1037] I already said that.

[1038] Yeah, 100 ,000 percent.

[1039] A, if I weren't dead, well, I'd most certainly be dead because my interactions with the cops would have gone terrible.

[1040] That's what I'm saying.

[1041] That's exactly what I said.

[1042] When I know for sure, I don't know if I'd be dead, but I know for sure I'd be in prison.

[1043] Well, yeah, but that's because of, like, drugs and stuff.

[1044] But I mean, literally, let's say you didn't do drugs.

[1045] You just have taxes.

[1046] No, you've seen me argue with the TSA.

[1047] Yeah, I'd be killed.

[1048] I could not possibly have my entitled, I fight authority point of view if I were black.

[1049] You wouldn't be able to survive it.

[1050] Totally agree.

[1051] Even if you had a Harvard degree.

[1052] Yeah, totally agree.

[1053] So I've just been thinking a lot about that in my part.

[1054] And I can still say, moving forward, this was a part of my.

[1055] childhood, like trying to remove my otherness, because that's real.

[1056] And I also think that's a big part of the story.

[1057] But as we move forward, I'm going to have an add another sentence, which is that's sad.

[1058] I don't want that for anyone else.

[1059] I wish that wasn't the case.

[1060] Yeah.

[1061] Because that's an important part of that conversation that I never say.

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] I could see if I were you, I would think that's very implicit.

[1064] Yes.

[1065] I don't know anyone that here.

[1066] is that, that you wanted to be something other than you were and thought that that's a positive message.

[1067] That's a very sad message.

[1068] But I think what I need to make clear is that didn't help me. Me getting rid of my otherness was a disservice.

[1069] When I'm talking on this, I'm on this popular podcast and I work with you guys and I have a life that looks and is amazing.

[1070] And I would never want like a 10 year old Indian girl to listen to that and think, oh, that's the path.

[1071] I need to get rid of my Indianness.

[1072] I don't want that to happen.

[1073] I'm not, I'm not saying I would change one thing.

[1074] I just don't want someone to like listen and be like, oh yeah.

[1075] I should just try to be white too.

[1076] It'll all work out.

[1077] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1078] Just don't feel like you being different is a problem.

[1079] I thought that.

[1080] Well, and confirmed by real life experiences where you like somebody and they didn't like because you're in.

[1081] So, you know, you didn't imagine it.

[1082] Yeah.

[1083] It's good that everyone's having to think a little bit.

[1084] It's easy to just not, you know, because it's stressful and intense.

[1085] Yeah.

[1086] I saw today officially there's been protests in every single state.

[1087] Oh, really?

[1088] Yeah.

[1089] Oh, that's cool.

[1090] All 50 states plus 18 countries participated in hashtag Black Lives Matter, protests as of today making it the largest civil rights movement in world history.

[1091] Wow, that's awesome.

[1092] Yeah.

[1093] There's a few topics in this country that seem insurmountable.

[1094] Yeah.

[1095] And there's all these, you know, assault rifles is one of them at the risk of getting into that debate.

[1096] I'll just say, you know, you watch school shooting after school shooting.

[1097] You keep thinking, which will be the one?

[1098] Yeah, exactly.

[1099] that I'll give people the appetite to make sure it doesn't happen again.

[1100] And then it just seems like it's not.

[1101] Yeah.

[1102] And it gets really discouraging.

[1103] And then, you know, Ferguson, you're like, during Ferguson, I'm like, wow, you might actually see some structural change.

[1104] Because that's what it is.

[1105] I mean, just everyone walking around asking people to think differently.

[1106] It's just, as lovely as that is, it will not address the problem.

[1107] There's just like these.

[1108] Well, you have to think differently in order to vote differently.

[1109] So that's why I say that.

[1110] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1111] I'm not calling anyone out.

[1112] I'm just saying, to me, it's kind of like thoughts and prayers.

[1113] Like when there's a massacre and someone says thoughts and prayers, and it's like, that's just not going to solve any problem.

[1114] Totally.

[1115] Likewise, I'm only 45.

[1116] I've been through five or six of these to see the mayor of L .A. say, well, we're going to funnel some money to preventative causes as opposed to end of the line.

[1117] Yeah.

[1118] That's just the kind of structural thing.

[1119] In the past, you've seen a lot of politicians get up and kind of be sympathetic.

[1120] Right.

[1121] But no one has really grasped the momentum and made any kind of hard, pivotal change.

[1122] And it does appear that that's happening, which I'm such a pessimist.

[1123] Like, again, I've seen this several times as everyone has.

[1124] And I'm so discouraged at all times.

[1125] And I'm like, wow, could this really be the one where we have a list of things we try to accomplish?

[1126] Yeah, exactly.

[1127] I'm glad people are putting out lists.

[1128] You know, what is it that would help?

[1129] And just looking at the system is awesome.

[1130] Anywho.

[1131] Anywho, I love you.

[1132] I love you.

[1133] And thanks for engaging in these conversations.

[1134] For sure.

[1135] It's a good practice for me because I'm so opinionated.

[1136] I think everyone needs my opinion on every single topic.

[1137] You do a good job of dissecting things to the bone.

[1138] That's your mode of operation.

[1139] It's a great thing.

[1140] And I guess for me on emotional topics, which I don't have very many.

[1141] Right.

[1142] Yeah.

[1143] I don't have very many emotional topics.

[1144] Mine was, by the way, because this is your total childhood.

[1145] And mine was, that was me in COVID.

[1146] Mm -hmm.

[1147] I'm like, just listen to these people.

[1148] They know what's best for you.

[1149] Just do the thing they're telling you to do.

[1150] No, I don't like this.

[1151] You know, like for me, that was very emotional.

[1152] Yeah.

[1153] I mean, I guess I was emotional on that, too, to be fair.

[1154] So there's a few things lately that I've...

[1155] By the way, it's kind of like recognizing the context and the long -term scope, 120 years from now, people go, fuck, you know, because COVID, people have been inside.

[1156] They were emotional.

[1157] They already felt.

[1158] Like, you can't underestimate the context by which this one actually seems to be getting some momentum to change.

[1159] And it's all in the stew.

[1160] Absolutely.

[1161] And you almost make you believe in God.

[1162] Like, wow, that's crazy.

[1163] This thing served this purpose.

[1164] Trevor Noah said that he had the such a good I would I would really encourage people to go to the daily show page and watch it.

[1165] He had like an 18 minute video on that and the domino effects.

[1166] Uh -huh.

[1167] And he says that.

[1168] He says, you know, we can't disregard that we're sitting on top of the backdrop of a pandemic.

[1169] Yeah.

[1170] And everyone's in their house.

[1171] Yeah, that's part of the dominoes.

[1172] And then he says in his head, the, um, Amy Cooper.

[1173] bird watching was like just the last domino to really set this thing in motion and and it's really good he talks about how society is simply a contract yeah social contract it's just a contract how can you expect one group to uphold the contract when the other group isn't he says like what does looting the target help you know and and he's like well what does looting the target not help.

[1174] For them, it's all, who cares?

[1175] Who cares?

[1176] This doesn't help me to not loot the target.

[1177] So, you know, I'm not, and I'm, by the way, I'm not for looting.

[1178] And there's separate things.

[1179] There's looting happening.

[1180] There's protesting happening.

[1181] It's completely separate.

[1182] Yeah, yeah.

[1183] And people are melding them together.

[1184] And the news is trying to meld them together.

[1185] And they're not the same thing.

[1186] They're not the same thing.

[1187] There's a good episode of the Daily that had the mayor of Minneapolis.

[1188] This was yesterday's episode.

[1189] And it was really good.

[1190] He was saying that.

[1191] He was like, there's separate things.

[1192] And yeah, looting has to stop.

[1193] Like that has to stop.

[1194] There's no getting around it.

[1195] The thing I don't understand.

[1196] I feel like the best solution to this would have been.

[1197] The cops have to be there.

[1198] There's been looting.

[1199] They have to be there.

[1200] Yeah.

[1201] They should have just blended into the crowd and marched everywhere they march and said, hey, we're going to join you.

[1202] Yeah.

[1203] And we'll be around.

[1204] And if we see someone breaking windows, we'll stop them.

[1205] But we're not, there's not a line here.

[1206] And you guys are there.

[1207] I know.

[1208] We're in this with you.

[1209] And we're in her merge.

[1210] and we want change to and let us just hang with you and protect you and do the thing that we're good at.

[1211] Some are doing that.

[1212] Yes, some are doing that.

[1213] But I just think, like, if that would have been from the jump, yes.

[1214] It kind of like my unpopular opinion that if you, like, tallied up our expense in Afghanistan, which now 20 years in or however many fucking years it is, you know, it's in the trillions, three trillion.

[1215] It's like if we would have had the foresight to go, like, we're going to end up spending $3 trillion on this and we're going to have to turn the country back over.

[1216] What have we spent $3 trillion?

[1217] on infrastructure opportunity, blah, blah, and then no one dies.

[1218] And then the outcome is, you know, at worst, it's going to be neutral with what the outcome was.

[1219] I have a real hunch.

[1220] It would have been much more favorable to have this great ally that benefited from our benevolence than more destruction.

[1221] Absolutely.

[1222] Yeah.

[1223] Anyway.

[1224] Anywho, love you.

[1225] Love you.

[1226] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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