Paul Giamatti

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

[1] I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by the Minister of Mice.

[2] Squawk, Swag.

[3] That's me. Squeak, squeak.

[4] Warning.

[5] Monica's not in this episode.

[6] Yeah, the Minister of Mice was tending to the Papa Mouse.

[7] I was tending to the Grandpa Mouse.

[8] The Grandpa Mouse.

[9] So I had to miss this, which was really, I hate missing interviews so much.

[10] It really stirs up stuff.

[11] I don't, sure, sure.

[12] I don't want to make you feel worse.

[13] I really wish you had been here because it was really fun.

[14] He's really delightful.

[15] I'm a huge fan, really.

[16] He's such a good actor.

[17] Oh, it's insane.

[18] Paul Giamatti.

[19] What an actor.

[20] He was in sideways, billions, big fat liar, John Adams, Cinderella Man. And his new movie that is out now is awesome.

[21] I enjoyed it so much.

[22] The Holdovers, which is an Alexander Payne movie.

[23] We trust Alexander Payne.

[24] Very trusted brand.

[25] Also, Paul has been nominated for a Golden Globe since the record.

[26] Probably because of the record Well, I actually do want to say that That's probably true So if anyone in the future Ever wants to get nominated for anything Yeah, you don't even have to be enacting Like if you're Mick Jagger And you want a Golden Globe Come on the show Come on this show And it happened to Willem Defoe as well Okay great, that neutralizes it Because I was gonna say they might If they're superstitious think They have to come when you're home dealing with Don't say that Well I'm just saying the example Paul He's probably gonna lose because I was here Oh, my God, don't you dare.

[27] Don't you dare say that.

[28] Paul's going to win.

[29] He should win.

[30] He must win.

[31] We love Paul.

[32] And so will you please enjoy Paul Giamati.

[33] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

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

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

[36] This is very nice.

[37] Has it been offered everything?

[38] I have.

[39] I'm having some tea.

[40] Okay, great.

[41] I'm going to put this here.

[42] I know you don't want it, but if you change your mind, there's a water.

[43] I love this stuff.

[44] It's fun, right?

[45] Yeah, it's really funny.

[46] When we were kids, there was no attempt to make water cool.

[47] No. It's very bizarre, the whole water thing.

[48] Yeah.

[49] Very straight.

[50] Oh, there we go.

[51] Oh.

[52] Don't you find that you sound 10 % smarter?

[53] I sound smarter.

[54] I sound more attractive.

[55] Uh -huh.

[56] Now, you have a podcast.

[57] I do.

[58] And I'm wondering if when you would be out promoting movies and stuff and they'd make you do radio, did you find that you loved it?

[59] Yes, I actually generally enjoyed the radio stuff more.

[60] Yeah.

[61] And I think because of that, they used to make me do the radio stuff a lot more.

[62] Radio in general, audio just sounds stuff.

[63] I still like to listen to like old radio drama and stuff like that.

[64] I love those things.

[65] There's a whole station that's all old radio shows.

[66] Oh, wow.

[67] Wow, wow, wow.

[68] Well, now that you do a podcast, can't you imagine how much work those things were?

[69] It's insane.

[70] And I was just saying the whole thing is so much more work than I expected it to be.

[71] The podcast.

[72] Yes.

[73] And it's not even written, right?

[74] It's not like these radio plays.

[75] I wish people did that stuff still.

[76] And I don't know why they don't.

[77] They do it in England still.

[78] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[79] And it's great.

[80] Yeah, I just met a dude who writes for a radio show in England.

[81] There's one that's been on for like 70 years called The Archers, which is only for, 15 minutes a day and then on Sunday they play the whole week's thing and it's episodic and it's been a forever and some people their entire career has been being on the archers playing one of these farmers like these people on simpsons or or the soap operas we're going to talk about soap operas oh absolutely very good back to it being on for 70 years the only thing i have in my life like that is 60 minutes which my grandparents had it on every sunday when i was there and then when i watch it on Sunday.

[82] It's like the only thing I have that reminds me of tradition and this thing that I've been doing forever.

[83] Super comforting.

[84] A little while ago, I was in a hotel.

[85] It was like a Sunday night.

[86] So I watched the CBS evening news and then 60 minutes.

[87] And I was like, this is so sane feeling.

[88] I got the news.

[89] I got what I need to know.

[90] I don't need 24 hours of it.

[91] And a panel of experts like rehashing the same thing.

[92] I don't need an argument.

[93] No, no, no. I got plenty of those in real life.

[94] I don't need an opinion.

[95] I don't need any of it.

[96] I got it.

[97] I got it.

[98] really gently.

[99] I got just enough than 60 minutes.

[100] I got three different stories.

[101] I was like, this is what it used to be like.

[102] And there's some genius to the construct of 60 minutes, which is I generally want five more minutes, which is probably the sweet spot.

[103] That's right.

[104] Yeah?

[105] You do want a little bit more and that's smart.

[106] Yes.

[107] It's a bit of coitus interruptus.

[108] Yes, it is.

[109] In a great way.

[110] But you're right.

[111] It leaves you wanting more, which is nice.

[112] And if you think about pitching 60 minutes today, there's some devices in it that seem almost off -putting.

[113] Like, it starts with an actual stopwatch.

[114] It's almost like a task.

[115] It's like, oh, you've got 60 more minutes of this.

[116] Yet it works and I don't know why.

[117] Yet there's something exciting.

[118] We've started.

[119] It's kind of like, boom, the starting gun, and you're going.

[120] So it gives it that too.

[121] Yeah.

[122] And that's always been the thing.

[123] Even from the beginning, it's had a stopwatch.

[124] It started in the 60s or earlier.

[125] I'm embarrassed.

[126] I don't know the history.

[127] This is kind of my nature, though.

[128] I'll be so into something.

[129] I've been in AA for 20 years.

[130] I don't know one thing about the founding of it or Bill W. I get the gist of something, which almost feels better.

[131] I want the spirit of everything.

[132] Exactly.

[133] I'm not a big details guy either.

[134] Yeah.

[135] Okay.

[136] Now, have you had the fun experience watching 60 Minutes where for all of my life, none of the commercials pertain to me at all?

[137] It was for a Viking cruise down the Rhine River.

[138] Medication for very old people.

[139] Geritol and stuff like that.

[140] Yeah.

[141] It's been amusing.

[142] And now 75 % of the commercials.

[143] I literally will go, I should ask you to talk about that medication.

[144] Maybe I should get Centrum Silver.

[145] Yes.

[146] And then the Ryan Cruz looks incredible to me now.

[147] I used to think it looks so boring.

[148] And I'm like, wait, you sit down and Europe goes by out the window.

[149] What a heck?

[150] A cruise in general looks kind of amazing.

[151] Yes.

[152] Those giant cruise ships, it's like a building.

[153] It's like a skyscraper on its side.

[154] It's just crazy.

[155] Yeah, it's like a city block.

[156] It is.

[157] And they're so fucking tall.

[158] That's the overwhelming thing when you see one in real life.

[159] They're freakishly fucking giant.

[160] And then they conceive of something going so horrible.

[161] a ride, like all the toilets break down or something.

[162] It's fantastic.

[163] And somebody hasn't really done a good movie like that, have they?

[164] Everybody trapped on a thing crapping in plastic bags?

[165] Has somebody done it?

[166] Close.

[167] Did you see Triangle of Sadness last year?

[168] No. Oh my God, Paul.

[169] Listen to me. Please watch it.

[170] I've heard it's really good.

[171] And there's a 30 -minute set piece on a yacht that's going to give you everything you wanted in the world of pukeying and toilets malfunctioning.

[172] Okay.

[173] All right.

[174] And people have urged me to watch it.

[175] Oh, it's delicious.

[176] Okay.

[177] You know, I don't know that I...

[178] Well, let me start by saying I'm an enormous fan, genuinely.

[179] Yes, I love watching you.

[180] You're like 60 minutes.

[181] I could watch several hours more every time I watch you.

[182] But you're, in a great way, kind of an enigma.

[183] I don't think I have even a theory of what your background was.

[184] But yet, I have to say I'm kind of shocked to learn your background, which is like a father that was a professor at Yale, and then the president, and then the president of MLB, and so academic.

[185] And you're like third generation.

[186] Uh -huh.

[187] My question to you is, what did you think my background was?

[188] I've gotten this frequently for years.

[189] Oh, yeah.

[190] What a shock.

[191] Well, let's just say that my fantasy of the life you had, everyone looks like a Kennedy, and is on Martha's Vineyard all the time.

[192] Oh, you mean, my actual background.

[193] Sounds like it must be all Kennedys playing football on the lawn.

[194] Yes.

[195] Like the East Coast, Blue Blood, sweaters around a neck.

[196] I was around people like that.

[197] My family is not exactly like that.

[198] I have a weird, giant.

[199] Yeah, I looked at pictures of Bartlett.

[200] Yeah, your father.

[201] He's Italian guy.

[202] Right, so it's not the waspy thing I was imagining.

[203] No, his mother was wispy, sort of.

[204] Okay.

[205] And so there's one line of waspiness.

[206] His mother was from New England.

[207] She has roots that go back.

[208] May have lost a family member to witch burning or something.

[209] That's perfectly possible.

[210] I would love to find out.

[211] Have you been tempted to do that genealogy show?

[212] The TV show?

[213] That asked me to do it once.

[214] And I was like, I'd like to know first what's going.

[215] on and then maybe I'll be okay with everybody knowing.

[216] There's a certain degree to which I have enjoyed people not knowing.

[217] That's why I think I didn't do it.

[218] But I would like to know.

[219] So my thing is, I don't want to roll the dice and find out I have slave owners.

[220] And there's an excellent chance that it might be true.

[221] Double digits.

[222] Yeah.

[223] You don't want to find that out.

[224] And I don't know that I want to know that I had an answer to sort of burned women at the steak.

[225] Right.

[226] It'd be interesting.

[227] Also, I'm not someone who gets great pride from my previous generation's accomplishments.

[228] You know, like, I meet people and they go like, Beauregard, whatever was, and I'm like, you didn't show up for work this morning.

[229] Like, that's what you did.

[230] Right.

[231] Yes.

[232] It doesn't really matter that much.

[233] It's not trickling down to me. I don't have that either.

[234] You can find something very unexpected or something strange.

[235] Maybe somebody was murdered.

[236] Something like that could be interesting.

[237] I've been writing about my family.

[238] And yes, a couple of my great uncles were murderers.

[239] Now that I'm insanely interested in.

[240] Great uncles.

[241] That's not that far back.

[242] No, I grew up with them.

[243] The honchels from Kentucky.

[244] Amazing.

[245] Crazy.

[246] That does give me pride.

[247] I'll tell you why.

[248] It's like a reverse pride, which is they were bat shit crazy.

[249] My dad was partially crazy.

[250] And I'm like 30%.

[251] That's me like, I see improvement.

[252] Yes, absolutely.

[253] The alcoholism has been bad through all of it, but not as bad.

[254] It doesn't always degenerate.

[255] Actually, things can get better.

[256] And it isn't that thing of the sins of the father visited on the child all the time.

[257] It doesn't have to be that.

[258] Right.

[259] It can be a clean slate.

[260] Yes.

[261] Now, you've got a lot of things going on because I, to him a younger brother and you have a very dynamic father.

[262] Did you have a sense that it was going to be hard for you to shine in this family?

[263] My dad was a very down -to -earth person.

[264] So there wasn't ever some sense of expectation was such that you have to measure up to something.

[265] You have to be this or that.

[266] And you didn't inherit that generic American like you got to do better than your parents.

[267] Well, just this notion that this country is based on you sacrifice for your kids they have a better opportunity like it keeps getting higher and your father's the president of yelling you're like where do I go from that good point no I don't think I did but I will say other people in the world would look at who he was and be like well you got a little up to that shit don't you so any sense of that came from other people and you have to deal with that because there's expectation but I didn't get it from him okay and what's the age gap between you and Marcus six years Do you grow up thinking you're terrible at everything, and then you're around peers, and you go, oh, I'm not as terrible as I thought I was at everything.

[268] Yes, and definitely in terms of athleticism.

[269] My brother was a great athlete.

[270] My sister was a really great athlete.

[271] I actually come from a lot of athletes.

[272] My great -grandfather was a champion long -distance swimmer.

[273] Which explains why you were on the swimming team, probably.

[274] So swimming's a big thing.

[275] My grandmother was an Olympic diver on the Olympic diving team.

[276] No way.

[277] My mother was some kind of champion.

[278] synchronized swimmer, which always makes me laugh.

[279] My mother's father was this big football coach sportsman, so all this sports stuff.

[280] I was like, that ain't me. I think what happened was you looked around and you're like, well, I'm not going to be the president of Yale, and I'm not going to be the Olympics, I better just pick my own fucking path.

[281] Well, no, I think my dad and I looked around and were like, not us.

[282] So my dad and I bonded about books and movies.

[283] It was an artsy family, so it wasn't surprising.

[284] Well, yeah, your sister's a jewelry designer.

[285] She was a jewelry designer and she was a ballet dancer.

[286] She did a lot of things.

[287] Can I ask you one really inappropriate question?

[288] I've noticed that the professional divers, they have the best bodies.

[289] I don't know what it is about that activity.

[290] When you want to see Olympies, you're like, yeah, those are good fucking bodies.

[291] Yeah, better than the swimmers, too.

[292] I think grandma back in the day did.

[293] Yeah, the pictures of her, she's foxy.

[294] You're right.

[295] The divers, men and women, they get these incredible bodies.

[296] And it's got to be aerodynamic to hit the water and cut into it nicely.

[297] Yeah.

[298] Yeah, I think all the rotating, like the abdominals are great.

[299] Probably, yeah, probably.

[300] Okay, so is your sister in the middle?

[301] My sister is in the middle.

[302] She was three years older than me. She passed away this year.

[303] It was a sudden thing, and it was several months ago.

[304] Oh, my gosh.

[305] I'm so sorry.

[306] No, I appreciate it.

[307] Thank you.

[308] But she was an amazing athlete.

[309] One of these kinds of physical geniuses.

[310] Anything you threw it or she could take it up and master it.

[311] So were you the baby of the family?

[312] What was your role?

[313] I was a little bit that kind of hammy.

[314] I mean, everybody was funny.

[315] But I was definitely clowny a little bit, and it was not the most uncontentious household that I'll say.

[316] And so I think I was also not the peacemaker, but I was a little bit, the jester, going to make a joke.

[317] Yeah, relieve some tension.

[318] I'll be over here reading a comic book.

[319] I'm going to stay out of the way.

[320] One thing I've noticed about siblings, and I'm watching it with my own two children, I think one benefit is you really learn to take it on the chin.

[321] You get blasted nonstop.

[322] If you have siblings, they tell you the harshest shit.

[323] Brutal.

[324] And maybe the whole family's having a good laugh at when you fell.

[325] Yeah, there was a bit of a teasing, ragging culture through the whole family.

[326] My parents ragged on us, and it was affectionate a lot of times.

[327] Sometimes I forget I have that, and other people don't necessarily love that.

[328] I have that, too.

[329] Well, also, I married an only child, and so her appetite for being made fun of is generally lower than mine.

[330] And then my sister will be over, and we're just so cruel to each other.

[331] And we love it.

[332] It's like such a sign of endearment.

[333] Yes, nothing would make me laugh more of my sister just ripping this shit out of me. Yeah, it's perverse, but you learn to love it.

[334] Yeah, you do.

[335] I think it's an advantage when you interact, because the beatdowns are endless.

[336] I think that's a good point and very true.

[337] You developed a pretty thick skin already.

[338] Did you do good in school, and what kind of kid were you in school?

[339] If I was interested, I did well.

[340] I could fuck off a lot if it didn't interest me, but also I'm pretty much math illiterate, major blind spot.

[341] Yeah, like it's incomprehensible.

[342] Demoralizing and incomprehensible.

[343] I can have a count on my fingers and that's tricky.

[344] We'd make a great team because I'm dyslexic, so reading was not for me, but math came very natural.

[345] That's very interesting.

[346] My brother had some stuff like that, and he's actually pretty good with math, and I'm the opposite.

[347] Somebody told me there is such a thing as discalcula, which is sort of numbers dyslexia.

[348] I wouldn't doubt it.

[349] You know, we give these very arbitrary names to things we observe.

[350] And all they're observing, because I was labeled that as a kid, but then when I was at UCLA, I had to go through really comprehensive testing to have that label.

[351] And what they're looking for is some baseline of intelligence and all these categories, and then a huge trough.

[352] Because that's inconsistent with how most people's intellects are.

[353] That's right.

[354] But if you just have this fallout, like clearly you have, that would be a learning disability these days.

[355] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[356] I think back in the day, I can remember somebody saying to me, maybe you just have this sort of thing.

[357] Nobody did anything about it.

[358] Well, what could they?

[359] Nobody gave any shit.

[360] I was at the phase where they knew how to label dyslexia, but they had absolutely no way to help you with that.

[361] Yes, I can remember that, and it's terrible.

[362] I remember kids where it was just miserable.

[363] There was no help for it, but you had this stigma of something attached to.

[364] It was terrible.

[365] I was chewing?

[366] I was, yeah.

[367] You know what happened is you were early, so I came down a little early.

[368] Oh, I'm saying, no. I always get places early.

[369] They usually have to build lateness into my schedule because I get everywhere early.

[370] Sorry.

[371] No, no, it's admirable.

[372] It's on a resolution every single.

[373] year, but I had mapped out perfectly, like, yeah, I'm going to get a dip in, I'll be 20 minutes, and I'll finish up, and then I'll see Paul you came, and I was like, we're going down with a difference.

[374] Did you ever do that as a kid?

[375] I would do it sometimes.

[376] I had roommate in college who really did it a lot.

[377] Where was he from?

[378] Chicago.

[379] Oh, okay.

[380] He did it a lot, and some other guys that I knew growing up did it a lot.

[381] It's disgusting.

[382] It's disgusting.

[383] It is the grossest habit.

[384] It really is, and I've had a lot of nasty habits, and that was one that I couldn't.

[385] I mean, the Like you right now, the audience can't see where you're looking, but you're just staring at my spittoon.

[386] At a bottle full of spit.

[387] No, and I'm remembering.

[388] I'm remembering how my roommate there were like big gulp cuffs sitting around just brimming with fucking spit.

[389] You know, we would all do it, and it was disgusting.

[390] But also, it just tasted bad.

[391] Now, I smoked cigarettes like nobody's business.

[392] Me too, what was your brand?

[393] When I was young girl, it was marble.

[394] Yeah, oops, I just said, but it switched.

[395] But that's where you started.

[396] and that's where I started.

[397] I started with Marlboro Lights.

[398] And then I landed on Camelites.

[399] Yes.

[400] I could tell.

[401] Now, I couldn't tell your background, but I knew you smoked Camelites.

[402] And let me tell you something.

[403] I was elitist about this.

[404] I made assertions about people based on what cigarette brand.

[405] We both know.

[406] If someone's smoking Parliament, like that's a certain thing.

[407] It really is.

[408] You need attention.

[409] I mean, I do too, but you're going to be what European?

[410] What are you doing?

[411] But parliaments were the ones with the weird filters, weren't they?

[412] Yeah, I think they had like a triangle at the top.

[413] Oh, yeah, it was that thing.

[414] But just seemed to me, I don't need some gizmo.

[415] I don't need so fancy gizmo by cigarette.

[416] I just want the straight delivery system.

[417] Here's my fantasy.

[418] They're going to come out with a pill.

[419] Well, let's just ask you, if they came out with a pill that inoculated you from lung cancer, would you return to smoking?

[420] Oh, wow.

[421] That's a really good question.

[422] It's a hard one, isn't it?

[423] No, I think I'd say yes.

[424] No, I think I'd absolutely say yes.

[425] Even though when I quit, I'm quit now, and I have no desire, The first time I quit when I was about 32, I smoked a lot.

[426] And I was like, I'm going to die.

[427] A couple packs a day.

[428] More than a couple.

[429] Okay.

[430] And if we're drinking, we're going to.

[431] Even more.

[432] And I was like, I'm going to die.

[433] And so I stopped.

[434] And I thought about it all the time.

[435] And about six years later, I started again.

[436] Then I was getting back up to a couple for sure and then edging over that.

[437] And that time I quit, now I don't think about it ever.

[438] I don't either.

[439] But.

[440] But?

[441] I'd still do.

[442] that i wonder if we have the same trigger especially if i'm back in the midwest or on the east coast where it's raining and i'm in a car and i go oh i want to roll the window down and fucking that's kind of there's something about it's generally that kind of thing in a car with the rain yeah i know what you mean oh baby yeah i know you mean the sound of the rain the smell in the car there's more humidity the smoke's thicker it's burning different like a lot of things happening it's very romantic yes it is all growing up my father we go to his house in the weekend he only owned a corvette so there's one seat for two boys and he fucking killed listen to this vantage menthol one tens wow what what are you doing dave what the fuck is that we would drive to 10 gas stations paul so he could find his cigarette well yeah benson and hedges 10 thousands or whatever they were my father and there were these giantly long things and he was the guy who was like lighting two of them at once, forgetting he still had one going and lighting up the other one.

[443] Yes.

[444] And so actually, I think probably the first time, I can't believe I'm talking this much about smoking.

[445] We're kind of promoting it.

[446] I like it.

[447] Totally.

[448] Probably the first cigarettes I ever smoked were his that I stole.

[449] My mother smoked, too, but not quite like my dad.

[450] So I think those are probably the first things I started with with those Benson and Hedge.

[451] Would you light one up now?

[452] Never.

[453] Because like you, I quit at 30.

[454] I have not gone back.

[455] We're going on 20 years.

[456] Yeah, I quit at 32, and then I quit 10 years ago, again, at 46.

[457] Have you ever gotten ensnared in the vape?

[458] No. I found that unpleasant.

[459] Oh, great.

[460] I worked with a guy who was just sucking on that thing all the time, and I tried it, and I was like, no, I don't care for this.

[461] Yeah, so I'm glad that was your response.

[462] I, at 17 years off cigarettes, during COVID, I was up at Lake Arrowhead.

[463] Have you ever been up?

[464] Yeah.

[465] Through in the mountains, it's snowy, and my friend was visiting me smoking cigarettes.

[466] And again, there's something about those pine trees.

[467] Yeah, the snow.

[468] desiring it.

[469] Another guy was vaping.

[470] I'm like, well, I want to smoke so bad that I'm going to pacify myself with this vape.

[471] Look up a year later.

[472] And I'll tell you why I'm so glad for you, you never got on it.

[473] It gives you what you always wanted out of the cigarette, which is you want to hit the cigarette nonstop.

[474] That's why you were at three packs a day, right?

[475] Yes.

[476] It's not lit, but it's always in your hand.

[477] And you can smoke all day long.

[478] The hand thing was a big part of it for me. The prop thing, the physical nervousness or whatever it was of having this thing to play with.

[479] It's huge.

[480] I could see that with those things.

[481] I mean, please, a little gizmo like that.

[482] I mean, it's great.

[483] It's a fidget.

[484] Yes.

[485] Okay, so I'm really glad you don't like those because then I had to fucking quit that thing and I was like, wow, there's just like quitting smoking all over there.

[486] Maybe worse.

[487] Probably worse.

[488] Nicotine level was through the root.

[489] Right.

[490] Let's go to the boarding school.

[491] You weren't a boarder.

[492] I wasn't.

[493] But I don't know why because I do have this chip on my shoulder about the elite class and snobby people.

[494] Sure.

[495] All that stuff.

[496] Yet, many of my favorite books take place at boarding schools, whether it's Tobias Wolf or.

[497] or Catcher in the Rye.

[498] I do also have this.

[499] Sure.

[500] It's a really great fantasy.

[501] Yes.

[502] And you experienced it.

[503] The fantasy around it's really powerful.

[504] I really genuinely think it starts with the English.

[505] Because the whole thing is a knockoff of the British system of those fancy boarding schools.

[506] All that fucking eaten boarding school, all the guys in the swallow tail coats walking around with the bow ties on and going to their classes.

[507] It's really all Harry Potter is.

[508] It's a boarding school story.

[509] And it's that British.

[510] British boarding school story.

[511] And people love that shit.

[512] That British cozy tea time...

[513] Tradition.

[514] Scones.

[515] And then I'm playing field hockey or whatever the hell it is.

[516] And I have my school master and I'm doing all this stuff with my scarf wrapped around my neck.

[517] I think it comes from the fantasy of the British.

[518] And it's transplanted here.

[519] I agree with that.

[520] But what do we think is so appealing?

[521] I'm spitballing because I don't think this is it.

[522] But is it like the notion of being with all boys.

[523] It's almost like summer camp forever.

[524] think there's that too.

[525] And there's this idea of like being a rascal and fucking around a bit, trying to get away with shit.

[526] Yeah.

[527] Boys will be boys.

[528] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[529] Together, young men being formed.

[530] But again, that all comes from the British, man. Yeah.

[531] All this notions of kind of young men and tradition and all the stuff.

[532] So you went to Choate?

[533] I did.

[534] Which is very much one of these schools, right?

[535] There were people that were, you weren't boarding, though, were you?

[536] No, I was a day student because I wasn't that far away from New Haven where I grew up.

[537] I didn't want to board anywhere.

[538] My parents didn't want to send me to a boarding school.

[539] But it was a good school academically.

[540] Right.

[541] And then it puts you probably on a trajectory if you would want to be on one.

[542] For sure.

[543] I guess I'm always, I don't want this to sound judgmental because I don't know anyone's story.

[544] But the notion of me sending my children away is insane to me. I'm already panicked that they're going to go in eight years.

[545] Devastating when they go.

[546] Yeah, so sending them out at 12.

[547] I agree with you.

[548] I would never do it either.

[549] My son, I liked him.

[550] I really like him.

[551] I want him around.

[552] Right.

[553] I like hanging out.

[554] with him.

[555] He's great.

[556] I don't want to send him away.

[557] Now, I suppose if your kid's a nightmare, maybe you want to send him away or need some help or whatever.

[558] But it's a weird notion to me, too.

[559] Were you going to school with kids that their parents were hedge fund people or whatever they were?

[560] For sure.

[561] I don't think I knew what the fuck a hedge fund was at the time.

[562] I still don't really exactly.

[563] I was on a TV show about it and I still don't know what the hell it is.

[564] Yes, it's interesting.

[565] I grew up at this institution that was the next step in the process of this sort of elitism and stuff.

[566] like that.

[567] So I was around all of this, but I was around it in a different way.

[568] I was around the academic part of it.

[569] I was around the professors.

[570] So to me, that place like Yale was a place of scholarship.

[571] You went and studied old manuscripts.

[572] It wasn't, I'm going to go be the head of the CIA if I go to this place.

[573] So even when I then went to Choate, I was like, oh wow, there's kids from New York here.

[574] I had not had any experience of that myself.

[575] Crazy stuff.

[576] And kids who have like, expensive drug habits at young ages.

[577] And it was just revelatory and shocking and strange.

[578] Did you feel on the inside of it or the outside of it?

[579] No, I'm very much in the outside.

[580] You felt like an anthropologist there.

[581] That's exactly how I would describe it.

[582] And I think at those places, if you're a day student there, it's that to begin with.

[583] You're outside of it now anyway, because it's a completely different experience to live there.

[584] I imagine.

[585] I don't know.

[586] I didn't live there.

[587] Well, imagine you get so much closer to everybody if you were living there.

[588] Absolutely.

[589] You're living in these dorms with the teach, I mean, it's crazy.

[590] It is wild.

[591] And the interesting thing too was, not me, but a lot of the other day students were scholarship kids from the area.

[592] And so they weren't that thing.

[593] It's a working class area around that school.

[594] And a lot of those schools, which is actually in the movie that I'm in, the holdover, it's not movies all about class.

[595] There's a couple big, big metaphors that are happening currently that are really prevalent in it.

[596] But it is interesting because on the surface, you're like, yes, this is a wonderful thing.

[597] Let's take people that don't have a lot of opportunity and give them the apex of opportunity.

[598] But in then doing that, I mean, I felt less than in a town where there wasn't much income inequality.

[599] So I don't know what I feel like if we're on welfare and I go and these kids are going to veil.

[600] Yeah, I was coming from a place.

[601] And I was like, this is fucking wacky as hell.

[602] No, I can't even imagine.

[603] And the interesting thing is so many of those kids were the smartest.

[604] The ones that came on scholarship.

[605] So fucking smart and interesting.

[606] And then they're next to like fourth generation.

[607] Totally.

[608] So the movie's so beautiful in doing this because I think, and I'm curious if you've had this experience.

[609] So I grew up hating rich people.

[610] And then lo and behold, I got a bunch of money.

[611] And now I feel that ire.

[612] And I'm like, well, wait.

[613] It's a really interesting dilemma and very American.

[614] Yes.

[615] I love this movie because I feel like I've lived on both sides of it.

[616] And I think I've learned that, yeah, both sides suffer.

[617] There is the illusion that this thing's going to solve everything.

[618] And And then even your character, you live in a world where you too are in judgment of these lackey kids who are spoiled.

[619] Yeah.

[620] He's not socioeconomically from that background either.

[621] But he's in this world and he's comfortable in this world, but not really.

[622] And then of course, as you come to find out, the money's not solving anything for these people.

[623] Not for any of them.

[624] In fact, it's probably making everything worse in some ways.

[625] So it's very fair.

[626] Yeah, it is very fair.

[627] But I mean, you know, it sucks to be a human being.

[628] Right.

[629] It sucks more for a lot of people than other people, but it kind of sucks to be alive sometimes.

[630] It's hard.

[631] It is.

[632] It is.

[633] It's really hard.

[634] Do you have nostalgic feelings for Choate?

[635] Do you have friends that you made there that you're still friends with?

[636] Very few.

[637] I had a rough time there.

[638] Those places, I don't think they're the same anymore.

[639] Like bullying's overlooked or not even thought of?

[640] Sure, but it wasn't even necessarily the kids.

[641] It was the teachers.

[642] That teacher that I play when I went there is only 10 years.

[643] on from when the movies said, it was still those guys, and a lot of them were guys.

[644] The idea of conveying learning was harsh for a lot of those people.

[645] And they're pissed off about a lot of things.

[646] They're unhappy.

[647] They're like Uber intellects, but they didn't get to the upper strata.

[648] No. And some of them were better and more rigid and more rigorous even than college, because maybe they have something to prove themselves.

[649] It was harsh.

[650] Yeah.

[651] And so, you know, I didn't have a great time.

[652] I'm not going to lie.

[653] I'm not going to lie.

[654] I I'm not going to lie.

[655] And the friends I have are great friends because it's the boot camp thing where you're like, okay, we got through that.

[656] Common suffering, really, it does bond people.

[657] Did that experience make you at all suspicious of what the YAL experience would be?

[658] It was a place I was more familiar with.

[659] Would you visit Dad there?

[660] Sure.

[661] I can remember when he was teaching, going to his office and stuff.

[662] He must have been so proud of him in general.

[663] To go visit him.

[664] Oh, sure.

[665] It was awesome, too.

[666] His office when he was a teacher, it's all this fake medieval stuff.

[667] It's all this phony fantasy.

[668] It's an awesome fantasy library.

[669] Life's a fantasy anyways.

[670] It's all fantasy.

[671] It's a really seductive fantasy.

[672] This is a kid and a kind of nerdy kid like I was.

[673] It wasn't a big athletic kid.

[674] There's books everywhere.

[675] And his weird eccentric colleagues are all sitting around there, tweed and that fucking corridor.

[676] Some pipe smoking.

[677] Pipe smoke was a really evocative smell to me. Yes.

[678] Because it's like they're all smoking their pipes and sitting around and talking.

[679] I mean, a lot of the time they're sitting around talking about baseball because they're all baseball nerds.

[680] I don't know.

[681] this is too anecdotal, but they're specifically baseball nerds.

[682] They are specifically baseballers.

[683] Yeah, right?

[684] The elite school people, that's their sport for the reason.

[685] They're not obsessed with football.

[686] Not the same way, because I think it's the - I think it's the stats.

[687] I was just going to say, I think it's the statistics.

[688] It's all of that kind of like pouring over all the statistics and all this shit.

[689] Yeah, all that stuff.

[690] Being able to quantify humans so easily.

[691] Yes.

[692] I need to take a lead.

[693] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[694] Does this happen after you?

[695] Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[696] We can step out or we can stay.

[697] No. Okay, great.

[698] Stay here.

[699] Record the entire thing.

[700] Okay, great, great.

[701] I applaud that you're confident enough to advocate for yourself when you have to pee.

[702] I can't pretend that you.

[703] Sorry.

[704] Does it happen?

[705] Oh, no, totally.

[706] It happens probably one in ten interviews.

[707] Okay.

[708] So we had that line there.

[709] Yeah, we've been thinking about installing a mic over there.

[710] In fact, it happens so often.

[711] You may be wondering to yourself, why don't they have a door?

[712] And, uh...

[713] Well, we've entered the stage of this experience.

[714] where we've become superstitious, because, you know, we all suffer from imposter syndrome.

[715] So this is too good to be true.

[716] So now superstition's afoot.

[717] So we can't alter this place at all.

[718] Like the garage you saw when you walked in that's almost done, the black one, that was built as a new studio.

[719] And we decided that's too dangerous.

[720] There's mojo in here.

[721] And we'll just live with no door.

[722] Yeah.

[723] Stay tuned for more Firechair expert.

[724] If you dare.

[725] We've all been there.

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

[727] 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.

[728] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had to be.

[729] had been cremated or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

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

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

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

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

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

[735] What's up guys, this your girl Kiki And my podcast is back with a new season And let me tell you it's too good And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest Okay, every episode I bring on a friend And have a real conversation And I don't mean just friends I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on So follow, watch and listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app Or wherever you get your podcast Okay, back to Yale, the pipe smoke, the statistics, the statistics, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[736] Baseball.

[737] I can remember my dad just sitting around these guys talking about baseball all the time.

[738] Weird, weird.

[739] So was he still there when you started, Yale?

[740] No. How old were you when he died?

[741] He died very long.

[742] I was 22.

[743] He was 51.

[744] But he had already left Yale and he was probably in between going to MLB.

[745] Yeah, I think he was not really doing anything.

[746] He kind of took a year off.

[747] I think he still was sort of teaching.

[748] What did he teach?

[749] It's funny how vague it is in my mind.

[750] He was a comparative literature professor.

[751] He taught Italian and English literature of a particular period.

[752] Oh, interesting.

[753] And then you majored in English.

[754] I was an English major, yeah.

[755] And when you entered there, were you already set on what you wanted to do?

[756] No, I wanted to be an anthropology major.

[757] Uh -huh.

[758] You said to an anthropology.

[759] 80 % female major.

[760] That's right.

[761] I wasn't quite sure what that meant to me. I was interested in a lot of things that anthropology seemed to cover when I had to take a statistics class.

[762] I was immediately like, well, I see numbers, and my fucking brain just shut down.

[763] So I can't do this because I couldn't get through that class.

[764] And then I wanted to be a fine art major because I draw too.

[765] I took a class and he kind of persuaded me. He was like, you should think about doing this.

[766] And then I thought I'm just going to be sitting in a studio drawing all the time.

[767] I'm at this place and I should do something that is more expansive and I can do a lot of different things.

[768] And English seemed like a thing where you can jump around, do all kinds of things.

[769] Did you have any fantasy about what you were going to do as a job or a career?

[770] Did you think you would be a professor?

[771] It's some weird way.

[772] There was some sort of default thing that it was like, I'm probably going to be a teacher because everybody's a teacher.

[773] When we didn't mention your mom taught English for 20 years.

[774] My mom taught English and her parents were high school teachers and my father's father was a professor and everybody was teachers.

[775] My cousin's teachers, everybody.

[776] How does acting come up?

[777] I'd always loved acting since I was a little kid.

[778] So from the school play in grade school, I was excited to do whatever in it.

[779] My mom had had some aspirations to being an actor.

[780] She didn't do it.

[781] She took us to theater a lot, took us to movies a lot.

[782] Encouraged it to some extent.

[783] My brother was really into it.

[784] And he was more definitely into it.

[785] At some unconscious level, I think I always was going to do it.

[786] But I was telling myself, you could be an academic.

[787] You could try and do graphic design stuff.

[788] You could do these other things, but I didn't really want to.

[789] Right.

[790] And so they have a theater program, Yale.

[791] I didn't have anything to do it.

[792] with it.

[793] Okay, you got your master's there.

[794] I got my BA in English there.

[795] I got my master's.

[796] I went back to drama school, to the graduate school.

[797] Having not acted any of the four years.

[798] I acted extracurricularly.

[799] There was a big scene of doing that.

[800] You'd do plays wherever in the dining hall.

[801] Okay, so you were doing that while you were.

[802] I was doing it constantly, but I was not doing it as an actual discipline.

[803] Right.

[804] I was just doing it for the fuck of it.

[805] Because there was some part of me that was just like, you're not really going to do this, but I loved it more than anything else.

[806] Okay.

[807] Now, no, let me ask you this, and I'm going to recognize how delusional this is, but at the time, it wasn't my delusion.

[808] I loved movies.

[809] I was looking at it, and I was like, where am I in this?

[810] I don't feel like I'm goofy enough looking to be a comedian, and I don't think I'm handsome enough to be an actor.

[811] So I'm wondering if any of your trepidation and committing to it is that you're not looking on screen and going like, yes, you know what I'm saying?

[812] That could be mildly offensive.

[813] No, no, not at all.

[814] Not at all.

[815] It's a very funny question to me, because I don't.

[816] I don't think I ever thought as a child, somebody asked me this recently, because I'm doing all this publicity stuff, somebody said, so did you want to be an actor as a child?

[817] And I said, no. And they said, really, you didn't?

[818] I said, no, because in that case, I would have had to play a child.

[819] And that wouldn't have interested me at all.

[820] Like, I don't want to fucking play a child.

[821] And so the person said to me, did you see something that made you want to be an actor, somebody, something?

[822] The immediate thing I thought was Telly Savalas in the dirty dozen.

[823] When I was kid.

[824] I looked at that and I went, that fucking guy is amazing.

[825] He's crazy looking.

[826] He's crazy sounding.

[827] He's playing a crazy person.

[828] This movie is fucking amazing and insane.

[829] I can't say to you that I wanted to be Telly Savalas.

[830] Right, right, right, right.

[831] It just turned some imagination.

[832] My imagination was gripped by constantly things like that.

[833] I think if there was something that I looked at when I was in college and I went, I do want to do this.

[834] It was Dennis Hopper and Blue Velvet.

[835] Oh, no kidding.

[836] With the ether.

[837] What a performance.

[838] And still that movie.

[839] But as a kid, I loved movies and I loved watching.

[840] Planet of the Apes movies, things like that.

[841] Oh, it got me excited.

[842] That makes sense.

[843] But if your brother was already on the path, and he's like a big athlete, I might just be like, well, yeah, that's for him.

[844] He's like a stud athlete.

[845] I think so.

[846] He'll probably make a living athlete.

[847] Yes.

[848] And he did.

[849] And he does.

[850] Now, when did you start overlapping with Ron and Edward in graduate school?

[851] No, that was undergraduate.

[852] Oh, okay.

[853] I don't know.

[854] They were theater majors.

[855] I was doing these extracurricular plays, and both of them were in some of those.

[856] Ron was my age and was in my class.

[857] Okay, and then Edwards, a little one year, two years younger than me. Do you remember watching him or anything?

[858] I remember doing a play with him.

[859] Okay, well, that's probably quite memorable.

[860] I don't remember seeing him in anything else, but I remember being in a play with him.

[861] And we both had tiny parts in the play.

[862] It's pretty fucking cool that the two of you are...

[863] It's funny.

[864] It is.

[865] I mean, you guys are on a very short list of people over the play.

[866] the last 30 years that have just been mind -blowing.

[867] Well, he's amazing.

[868] As are you.

[869] I appreciate it.

[870] Yeah, yeah.

[871] But he was a lovely guy.

[872] I remember him well, and he was very funny, and we had a good time in this ridiculous play with these little parts that we were playing.

[873] He and I had to have an idiotic sword fight in it.

[874] Oh, okay.

[875] That's fun.

[876] It was great.

[877] All right, so now you get your master's in this.

[878] That's in the graduate school.

[879] In the graduate school.

[880] And then is the decision, I imagine, next move to New York?

[881] I actually moved out to Seattle after college.

[882] What happened is my dad, died and I think I was a little bit disorientated by that.

[883] So I went out there for three years.

[884] Three years.

[885] Yeah.

[886] I ended up living up in Capitol Hill.

[887] Capital Hill, baby.

[888] That's where I did all my drinking.

[889] Oh, sure.

[890] What a great place.

[891] I live right up on the top at 17th and Republican.

[892] Oh, wonderful.

[893] And it was so great up there.

[894] Now, did you live out there?

[895] I did it a girl for nine years that was from Marysville, Everett.

[896] And so we were up there nonstop.

[897] She'd gone to UW.

[898] All of her friends lived on Capitol Hill and we would drink 40s at Gas Works Park and go to the troll and I just loved it.

[899] Coffee and booze.

[900] It was just fantastic.

[901] Talk about a place to smoke.

[902] Cigarettes.

[903] It rains nonstop.

[904] It's raining nonstop and sitting in the car.

[905] Absolutely.

[906] No, I loved it out there.

[907] Yeah, so great.

[908] So what were you doing there?

[909] I moved out there at a girlfriend.

[910] Okay.

[911] It was from out there.

[912] That'll do it.

[913] A small town across the Puget Sound.

[914] And so lived out there and there was a whole kind of cadre of people from out there.

[915] And then a bunch of people I knew who were acting moved out there.

[916] So again, my instinct took me out to where acting was going on, but I kept telling myself I'm going to do something else.

[917] I was working in a little black box theater that these people were running.

[918] And then I did odd jobs and stuff and I thought about doing other things.

[919] And then I got an agent.

[920] And at this time, there was a shit ton of work out there.

[921] You could actually make a kind of weird, very minimal living.

[922] But I was doing industrial films for Boeing and doing this weird theater.

[923] And so I think because of that experience, I was like, this is really what I actually want to do.

[924] So I'm an idiot.

[925] I should just go back to school to actually learn what it is.

[926] Even though you had that all the on -the -ground experience, you're entering a world of theory, going to graduate school, having not ever studied it.

[927] I was glad I had that real -world experience.

[928] Yeah.

[929] But you're actually doing a lot of plays, and you do a lot that you're never going to do again.

[930] And so you've got actual real experience actually acting.

[931] But yeah, there's a lot of theory, and you pick and choose what suits you or works for you.

[932] So then after Yale, do we go to New York?

[933] Yes.

[934] We go to New York.

[935] We go to New York.

[936] And is that scary for you, or you're excited?

[937] I was excited to actually be in New York doing it.

[938] Absolutely.

[939] What year did you graduate from getting your master's degree?

[940] 1994.

[941] Okay.

[942] So you were on Broadway while you were there?

[943] When do you get your first?

[944] I think that happened maybe the end of 94 or 95.

[945] I'm not sure which year it was.

[946] But I ended up in a play at Lincoln Center.

[947] You did back to back there, yeah?

[948] I did.

[949] Nicely done.

[950] Thank you.

[951] So.

[952] I'm in.

[953] I even had a look at the date.

[954] I know, I've listened.

[955] I'm amazed you knew that at all.

[956] I spent about a year or so working there, which was unbelievable.

[957] There's two things you've probably detected that's already of interest me. I want to know what chips on your shoulder you inherited from your childhood.

[958] And then I'm also very interested in, and we just talked about mine, which is these evolving fantasies of where you're going.

[959] Yes.

[960] I love these.

[961] So I'm wondering at this period, in your mind, are you going to be a Broadway actor?

[962] Fantasy and imagination about yourself is fascinating.

[963] Yes.

[964] Because I genuinely think it's pretty much all we're doing most of the time.

[965] I think our capacity for fantasy and imagination is the primary function of consciousness.

[966] That's an interesting question.

[967] What was I imagining I was going to do?

[968] Post -Yale.

[969] Because to me, the theater seems way more open to you.

[970] As an actor in general.

[971] Yes, and I think you're right.

[972] That's true.

[973] If you're fucking great.

[974] Yes, I think you're right.

[975] There's a lot more expansiveness and thinking about what you can play.

[976] Ability trumps a lot.

[977] I had no experience of doing anything else, but I also loved it.

[978] I mean, I still love it.

[979] I don't do it enough anymore.

[980] My guess is you miss it so much, the visceral experience of staying on stage, and then the notion of doing eight a week is just insane.

[981] That's where my wife's at.

[982] She's like, I'm going to die if I'm not there, and if I'm there, I'm going to die.

[983] Particularly if it's not a good play.

[984] If you're in a bad play, it's 10 ,000 times worse than being in a bad movie or a bad TV show.

[985] Yes, because you've got to repeat.

[986] It's an incarcerated feeling.

[987] And yet, even in a...

[988] a bad experience like that when it ends you're kind of heartbroken almost more so with the bad experience is more so than any film or tv thing i've ever experienced oh really the sense of sadness that you're going to leave these people it's still like that yeah it is more intense yeah it's what we were saying like it's so bonding to be yeah it's super bonding and i think that's a lot of what i liked about the theater was bonding with the other actors and the audience and stuff like that i've talked about this too much recently because i just had this experience where christin joined all of my old groundlings, friends and troupe.

[989] You have one day to learn a musical they did chorus line.

[990] I got it on Tuesday.

[991] They performed it on Wednesday.

[992] It's a mess.

[993] It's so funny.

[994] She got to drop into my old life.

[995] And then so I was so nostalgic because it's over 20 years since I was there.

[996] And I was just really remembering my favorite memories of the whole experience is when we would write a sketch.

[997] We'd put it up and it would just eat shit.

[998] And then we'd grab our props and we'd walk backstage into the green room and we'd look at each other like, holy sin.

[999] That's exactly.

[1000] Exactly right.

[1001] Most of that thing go up and forth.

[1002] Absolutely.

[1003] There's something so intimate about that moment.

[1004] That they're my favorite moments.

[1005] They're my favorite moments, too.

[1006] And I also have a real taste for when something just goes wrong, too.

[1007] Whatever it is.

[1008] Something unexpected happens.

[1009] The reason I like that is that now we're playing by different rules.

[1010] It feels funnier.

[1011] It's fantastic when something goes wrong.

[1012] You have to take control of it.

[1013] There's also something I love.

[1014] It's akin to those moments that you have, I have them on stage.

[1015] have them in movies too where you pop outside of yourself for a moment and you're like what the fuck am I doing yeah this is how the draw what I'm doing is and it's a reminder too of something I like about it which is that we're fooling people yeah I like fooling people it's a benevolent con game it's delightful it's helping people by fooling them yes okay so 95 things start kind of moving for you I mean I have to imagine this is one of your favorite years to look back on I guess so it's all a little bit of a blur to me but you're in a Woody Allen movie you're in a Sydney Pollock movie, and then you're in Tonn's Stoppard's Arcadia, all in a year.

[1016] And it's not like you weren't doing things, it's just, but now this year hits hard.

[1017] Yeah, no, and it was a surprise.

[1018] And I do think I thought I was just going to be doing theater.

[1019] I didn't think I was going to be on Broadway.

[1020] That was a surprise.

[1021] I had a lovely, funny, little weird supporting character part in that, which was just great.

[1022] And the movies I was doing, barely anything to do with them.

[1023] Yeah, but it was great.

[1024] You're sitting on a Woody Allen's sad.

[1025] It's crazy.

[1026] I got to act with Woody Allen's.

[1027] And I had two lines or something.

[1028] And then Sidney Pollock and all this stuff.

[1029] So, yes, I was around that stuff and it was a trip.

[1030] Yeah, now the fantasy starts evolving.

[1031] Because now you've experienced it in real life.

[1032] Yeah, you experience it.

[1033] And yet I talk about how important fantasy is.

[1034] But there's a part of me that's extremely pragmatic and realistic.

[1035] Could we say maybe you're pessimistic?

[1036] We could say that.

[1037] That's exactly right.

[1038] And skeptical.

[1039] So I don't think I was sitting there thinking, I got it made now.

[1040] And everything's just going to be smooth sailing now.

[1041] And I had no conception that film or TV would be anything that would pan out as anything.

[1042] This is amazing and sort of surreal and fantastic.

[1043] But I thought theater is what I'm going to probably actually do.

[1044] And then that was actually exceeding my expectations too.

[1045] This is the one benefit of being very pessimistic.

[1046] It's like everything that happened for me. I was like, wow.

[1047] Still, everything that happens to me exceeds my expectations.

[1048] So private parts is a big, big.

[1049] Yes.

[1050] And of course, this is where I become aware of you.

[1051] As someone who loves Stern, can't wait to see that movie, Can't wait to see who's going to play pig vomit.

[1052] I'm primed to like this.

[1053] And then lo and behold, the movie turns out fucking great.

[1054] It's a really good movie.

[1055] You just blast into the world like out of a canon in this role.

[1056] It was a really great written part.

[1057] And I do think that I had been doing a lot of this wonderful little bit part stuff, but it was very confining.

[1058] It's very stressful, I think, doing those little things.

[1059] Incredibly stressful.

[1060] Having two lines is way harder than having a hundred.

[1061] Way harder.

[1062] And I have nothing but the high.

[1063] highest regard and respect for the people who come on a set and have two fucking lines.

[1064] Me too.

[1065] Or they have to be the bartender who has a whole fucking ballet with all the glasses and drinks and they have to repeat it every time.

[1066] Or they have to come on and burst into tears for one scene.

[1067] They're the heroes of the whole thing.

[1068] They are the heroes of the whole thing.

[1069] But you're there in private parts.

[1070] And now you've got enough to do that you're, well, I'm guessing, you're working enough that you get a rhythm going, you can get in the zone.

[1071] I suppose so.

[1072] I mean, I didn't know what was going on.

[1073] I'd done some film stuff, but I still really didn't know what that.

[1074] the hell I was doing on film.

[1075] And I got this really great part that allowed me to just go bonkers.

[1076] I mean, there was no cap on it.

[1077] Right.

[1078] And that director, Betty Thomas, was amazing.

[1079] And I learned a ton and we rehearsed.

[1080] I mean, I've never done a lot of this since, except working with like Alexander Payne or something.

[1081] The rehearsal and that.

[1082] Yeah.

[1083] There was a lot of caretaking with a movie that really had no right to.

[1084] No, I know.

[1085] You could have made any piece of garbage you wanted with that.

[1086] It would have been fine.

[1087] Certainly the people financing and we're like, give them anything, and that audience will go see it.

[1088] The betty of it all, what a breakthrough.

[1089] And it gave that movie actual hard and actual, yes.

[1090] No, it's a really good movie.

[1091] Did you get on with Sternwell?

[1092] Yeah, he was great.

[1093] He's so lovely, right, in real life?

[1094] The nicest guy and really fun to work with and sincere, curious, really game to do whatever, playing himself in that thing, which is not an easy thing to do and actually doing it really well.

[1095] Yes.

[1096] The whole thing was great.

[1097] It spoiled me for most movie stuff for a while after that.

[1098] Yeah.

[1099] Things really take off.

[1100] The fact that you drop into...

[1101] No, you know what?

[1102] You already did that.

[1103] No, when did you do...

[1104] Oh, no. Yeah.

[1105] Saving Private Ryan.

[1106] I mean, I think it's insane.

[1107] You're in that movie.

[1108] I can't remember whether that's before...

[1109] It's...

[1110] Well, at least it came out after.

[1111] I don't remember.

[1112] You know, you have a couple lines and stuff.

[1113] Then you have private parts where you steal the movie, and then boom, you're in a Spielberg movie one year later in a World War II movie.

[1114] It's bonkers.

[1115] I have never had a plan.

[1116] So everything was going to be surprising to me. And then it's hugely surprising to be.

[1117] doing something like that.

[1118] Okay, we're going to talk really quick about, for me, the next big thing is American Splendor.

[1119] So I'd seen you as pig vomit.

[1120] Now I see American Splendor and I'm like, oh, this guy is kind of on another level.

[1121] And especially when they were intermixing the real footage of Harvey with you, I was like, oh my God, he's doing the most incredible job imaginable.

[1122] You know, you play a real person you can get away with stuff, but the real people were there for all of us, which was great.

[1123] I mean, I remember Judah Friedlander who played Toby Radloff, the very peculiar friend of things.

[1124] Yes.

[1125] And people were like, well, this guy.

[1126] That was the one that I thought was over the top.

[1127] Of course.

[1128] People were like, this is ridiculous what he's doing.

[1129] And he was underplaying it.

[1130] Fantastically, too.

[1131] The actual guy was more than that.

[1132] You're 100 % right.

[1133] I almost think they should have showed him the real guy first.

[1134] Because I was watching going like, this guy's swinging way too far for the fences.

[1135] I guess so.

[1136] Except the guy's a genius.

[1137] And then, of course, sideways.

[1138] because now you go from, even though you're a pessimist, probably started entertaining the notion of like, oh, yeah, I'm a character actor that's going to work and come by a house.

[1139] This is going to be a profession that I'm not going to be uncomfortable in.

[1140] I think I felt some degree of maybe I'll be able to do this for a long time.

[1141] I'll probably be able to find a job.

[1142] I'm lucky as hell.

[1143] But I did have this feeling, I think it'll be okay.

[1144] Because I didn't feel that, and I still don't entirely.

[1145] Probably wouldn't have chosen this industry.

[1146] Yeah, probably not.

[1147] So, yes, I definitely felt a bit more of a sense of security.

[1148] So when you step into doing lead roles, do you have any apprehension or fears?

[1149] Or you just saw the character and you knew you could play it and you're like, yes, let's go.

[1150] I guess so.

[1151] I mean, that part I really wanted to do because I just thought, wow, what a crazy, colorful part.

[1152] And it was a bit of a fluke by gutting that part at all.

[1153] But it was a great thing.

[1154] I look at it, and this isn't false modesty or something.

[1155] I don't consider myself playing the lead.

[1156] I don't consider myself a lead actor.

[1157] I think it's a different thing.

[1158] I feel like I've been lucky to play maybe the central character of an ensemble.

[1159] And I don't say that to be Pollyannaish.

[1160] I think really being a proper leading actor is something different.

[1161] That's intimidating to me. I don't know.

[1162] Hold over your straight, the lead.

[1163] I don't think of myself that way.

[1164] And again, it's not because I'm some kind of great guy or something.

[1165] I have a big ego.

[1166] I'm an actor.

[1167] But I don't somehow think of it ever as feeling like I have to carry this thing.

[1168] You know, I watched Denzel Washington and equalizer three on the plane, which was amazing.

[1169] And I'm like, I could never do what this guy does.

[1170] I don't have that.

[1171] What is the actual element you think?

[1172] I don't know what it is.

[1173] Okay.

[1174] Well, because one thing we could say about like movie star leads.

[1175] I don't do that.

[1176] Clearly I don't do.

[1177] But let's try to define what they're doing.

[1178] And I'm not putting myself down either.

[1179] I just don't think I do that.

[1180] I'm going to propose to you what the thing is.

[1181] is.

[1182] Yes, please.

[1183] And then why I think you have it.

[1184] So I would define like a true leading man or a leading lady as someone you can watch just exist.

[1185] They don't need much story in that moment.

[1186] They don't need any action.

[1187] De Niro for me is the prime example.

[1188] Like him in Casino, he could walk down the street if it went on forever.

[1189] I would watch it.

[1190] Okay.

[1191] Clooney in the back of the car at the end of Michael Clayton taking a cab ride.

[1192] It goes on for 11 minutes.

[1193] I wish it was 18.

[1194] You're absolutely fascinated with the human being's face and whatever charisma is just falling off of it.

[1195] And that, to me, is what the leading person is.

[1196] Has to have.

[1197] Yes.

[1198] Well, I appreciate you saying that.

[1199] I still am skeptical.

[1200] Okay, that's fine.

[1201] It is that compulsive watchability.

[1202] I try to see myself.

[1203] I can watch you shuffle around your shitty room in that fucking prep school for eternity.

[1204] Like, have a couple drinks, do it.

[1205] I don't know.

[1206] It just exists in that little shitty room.

[1207] Well, that's nice to hear.

[1208] I appreciate it.

[1209] Okay, we must touch down on Sideways because for several reasons, A, we're coming up on 20 years of it coming out, which I think must feel insane to you.

[1210] It's freaky.

[1211] Are you having those feelings?

[1212] Oh, for sure.

[1213] I mean, I have them all the time.

[1214] He hit 50 and it suddenly becomes this very different thing.

[1215] It starts accelerating even more.

[1216] That's hard for me to believe.

[1217] And it's the strangeness.

[1218] When you're a kid and you're 25 and somebody's 35, it seems a lot older than you.

[1219] Now I'm 55.

[1220] Somebody's 75 doesn't seem that much older.

[1221] Well, percentage -wise, it's less of a gap between.

[1222] 25 and 35.

[1223] It is.

[1224] I know you don't like math, but that's two -thirds versus 5 -7.

[1225] I understood that.

[1226] That gets freaky.

[1227] And to be able now to think in decades of time.

[1228] Oh, yes, I journal every morning and almost every day that I write the date, I go, oh, my God, it's already November.

[1229] Oh, it's already November.

[1230] I still can't deal with it's the 21st century.

[1231] I'm like, we're living in 2020.

[1232] You know, that's crazy to me. And think when we were growing up, because you would still meet someone's great grandparent that was born in 1890.

[1233] I think about that all the time.

[1234] Yes.

[1235] My neighbor.

[1236] growing up.

[1237] That guy was alive.

[1238] He knew Civil War veterans.

[1239] And from the 1800s.

[1240] And shortly we'll be from the 1900s.

[1241] But that's freaky to think actually how close all of that stuff is.

[1242] Yes, that's the other thing that starts occurring to you is like these lives are so short and all this stuff has happened so quickly.

[1243] In all of human history.

[1244] It's really freaky.

[1245] I've reached a phase.

[1246] This one's scary to me. It makes the whole thing feel very precarious.

[1247] I'm like, oh, these life are so short.

[1248] How do people get things done?

[1249] How are we moving things forward?

[1250] By the time someone figures it out, it's over.

[1251] Over.

[1252] But it's the sheer mass of humanity is just moving shit forward.

[1253] But then it isn't conceivable because you're like, Thomas Edison, it may not be the greatest example, because apparently it's kind of an asshole.

[1254] Well, everybody was.

[1255] People's inventions and stuff like that.

[1256] But it's like, how did you do all of this?

[1257] I'm 56.

[1258] And I'm like, I'm running out of time.

[1259] How am I going to contribute?

[1260] I'm not really.

[1261] But I suppose we all are, whether we know it or not.

[1262] There's a line in the movie that brought me to that place I've been honing in on, which is like, oh, we're just recycling ideas.

[1263] I think because you're talking so much about, well, you give someone the Stoic.

[1264] Marcus Aurelius.

[1265] Marcus Aurelius.

[1266] It was that that fucked me up.

[1267] I was like, Marcus Aurelius knew more than we know.

[1268] Or at least was new stuff that we feel like we're just getting to now or something.

[1269] Or maybe providing scientific evidence to.

[1270] Yeah, but you're right.

[1271] Like, he had this shit figured out then.

[1272] But then you're like, maybe even being the emperor of Rome, he had more time to sit around and actually think about shit.

[1273] Pretty boring, I think.

[1274] I think there was a lot of time to kill, even for those guys.

[1275] Yes.

[1276] They must have been.

[1277] And then now I wonder, we're so entertained will we ever progress?

[1278] I guess AI will do all the progression for us.

[1279] I suppose so.

[1280] It is this movie, though, that really amplified my feelings surrounding it because you're a history teacher and you're teaching.

[1281] All these old school classical.

[1282] Western civilization.

[1283] They're defunct.

[1284] Yeah.

[1285] And they are our culture.

[1286] They're the software we run.

[1287] Totally.

[1288] whether we try to avoid it or not.

[1289] It's so deeply encoded and everything that it's there all the time.

[1290] Yes.

[1291] It's crazy.

[1292] So you have this incredible experience in 2004 and with Alexander Payne.

[1293] Now I'm going to be honest, I really debated whether or not I would bring this up because it puts you in a very tricky situation.

[1294] Oh, my God.

[1295] But I've heard a few interviews with him where I thought like an NPR and I was like, does he like actors?

[1296] Oh, interesting.

[1297] Yes.

[1298] Does he come across a sign like he doesn't?

[1299] Yes, maybe we just get in the way of what he's trying to do.

[1300] That was the same.

[1301] Once I got, but then I was reading about how beautiful your guys' collaboration is.

[1302] I think he liked actors a lot, actually.

[1303] Oh, okay.

[1304] To some extent, knowing him as well as I know him now, there's a bit of enjoying playing the contrary and enjoying undercutting things.

[1305] Okay.

[1306] And undercutting expectation.

[1307] And if somebody says something to him that strikes him as a little schmaltzy, he's going to take the piss out of it a little bit.

[1308] Yeah, someone's trying to be saccharin about the experience.

[1309] Or something.

[1310] He can't help himself, but sort of like to undercut it.

[1311] That makes sense.

[1312] Because I think he actually likes actors very much.

[1313] Okay, that's a great ex -well.

[1314] I think he might have just been being sassy and sarcastic.

[1315] He's a little sassy.

[1316] I think he's gotten less so, actually.

[1317] He's mellowed over time in my experience of him.

[1318] Still, though, his nature is to just be contrarian.

[1319] In irreverent.

[1320] I mean, I will say he is one of my all -time favorites.

[1321] There's these, I live for them when I'm watching a movie where, and I can name them, where you're watching it, you think it's this, you think it's this.

[1322] One thing happens, and you go, oh, we're on this right.

[1323] The movies are also full of all this, not irrelevance.

[1324] But kind of ancillary stuff that's like, do you really need to see this person?

[1325] It's not the flashy stories.

[1326] No, but it's also all these kind of private moments of people doing shit.

[1327] You don't need to see me throw a football in this movie.

[1328] Right.

[1329] But somehow it feels really important to see this private moment this person's having.

[1330] But it's filled with stuff like that.

[1331] Well, and then later when you guys are playing pinball, is that what it's called pinball?

[1332] The Little Ball?

[1333] Candlepin.

[1334] So when you're doing Candlepin though, the kid is helping you.

[1335] And it's kind of a very sweet moment.

[1336] Very sweet.

[1337] And because we've seen you throw the football, it's a payoff in a way.

[1338] That's true.

[1339] Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that.

[1340] But all those private moments, me watching the kid ice skate.

[1341] That's nice.

[1342] Well, this movie, it's beautiful.

[1343] It's so nostalgic in the best way.

[1344] It's very meticulously shot to look that way.

[1345] Like, it's a throwback visually.

[1346] But I was shocked with just how wonderful the photography looks.

[1347] It's so rich.

[1348] A cinematographer was great.

[1349] So I'm watching it last night.

[1350] Kristen's just blowing through the liver.

[1351] room to get the roller skates to take the kids to a birthday party, right?

[1352] And I'm on the couch watching it.

[1353] And she just walks in her and she's, oh, what are you watching?

[1354] And there's a close up of you.

[1355] And your character is, as they say, wall -eyed.

[1356] But at that moment, she just looks over and I haven't heard you called wall -eyed by another person.

[1357] In the movie yet.

[1358] In the movie yet.

[1359] And she goes, wait, is Giovanni's eyes like had a real moment where she's like, have I missed for the last 20 years that Paul has...

[1360] Listen, I had a friend I've known since I was five years old.

[1361] saw the movie and he said for the first 20 minutes of it, he felt bad because he was like, have I never noticed that his eye was like this?

[1362] Oh, it was phenomenal.

[1363] Almost the very next scene, students are complaining about you and they call you all.

[1364] And I text her, oh, it's a character thing.

[1365] Yeah, it's a character thing.

[1366] We were all really happy that it worked out that well.

[1367] It's incredibly convincing.

[1368] You didn't want to tell anyone, but then you were on Stephen Colbert and they found in the credits.

[1369] Did it annoy you to have that in?

[1370] No, not really.

[1371] He gets you there early to rehearse and stuff.

[1372] So I wore it around for about two weeks.

[1373] to get used to it because I didn't want it to be.

[1374] I also have a real thing about don't come near my eyes.

[1375] I'm not squeamish about practically anything except my eyes for some reason.

[1376] And the idea of the fucking contacts and stuff.

[1377] So I wanted to make sure I got used to it at first.

[1378] And actually, they're really amazing.

[1379] You don't really notice them.

[1380] I mean, you can't see, but you get used to it.

[1381] Maybe he can't see either.

[1382] So that actually contributes to it.

[1383] We just had Willem Defoe on last week.

[1384] That was great.

[1385] He was super interesting.

[1386] Yeah, isn't he incredible?

[1387] Yeah, he's amazing.

[1388] But he was talking about those teeth he had to wear and David Lynch's wild and hard.

[1389] Oh, yes, that's right.

[1390] He has crazy teeth.

[1391] He's like, I put him in and then the character was just there.

[1392] Sure.

[1393] I love stuff like that.

[1394] Okay.

[1395] I don't know when I asked this question.

[1396] Oh, geez.

[1397] It's kind of to the movie star thing.

[1398] The breathing and existing that you do is so natural.

[1399] It's everything in the performance.

[1400] The dialogue is incredible.

[1401] And your mastery of all that complex historical stuff seemed very challenging from the outside.

[1402] I'm like, I would not want to learn any of these.

[1403] Complicated language.

[1404] It's not just that you have to memorize it, you have to know the point you're making.

[1405] You have to understand the material you're referencing to be relevant.

[1406] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1407] So was there like a little crash course on this stuff?

[1408] No. Somebody said to me the other day, like, what kind of part would you like to play?

[1409] And I said, I'd like to play a guy doesn't talk very much.

[1410] Right.

[1411] Actually, because I frequently get the guys who talk a lot.

[1412] You've got that great voice.

[1413] Whatever it is.

[1414] I figure I have to play these hyper -articulate people.

[1415] I'm used to having a lot of words.

[1416] So it's not like it's easy, but I think because I've had to talk a lot.

[1417] And I think, having done theater, it's like you'd get more proficient in talking bigger chunks of dialogue.

[1418] But you're always so articulate in all these roles.

[1419] And yes, you always have heavy lifting that if I don't meet you, my assumption is you talk like that.

[1420] No, I don't.

[1421] But like Edward Norton, he actually talks like that.

[1422] He's a very articulate guy.

[1423] Right.

[1424] So.

[1425] I'm less so.

[1426] I like that.

[1427] I used to be very bad at articulating.

[1428] Okay.

[1429] Anything.

[1430] I think I've gotten better at it.

[1431] But I'm not the most articulate.

[1432] Have I tanked this whole interview?

[1433] No. No, no, no. But I was just blown away with how naturally all that stuff came out.

[1434] But it takes work on my part.

[1435] It's not easy.

[1436] And I look at it and go, I could have done that better.

[1437] It could have been delivered.

[1438] Oh, definitely.

[1439] Especially that kind of stuff.

[1440] I kind of go, oh, no. I don't know if you really are understanding what I said.

[1441] I don't know if you really follow what I said.

[1442] Oh, I believe that guy is one of these geniuses that lacked either ambition or had some personal, there's so many, I knew so many people.

[1443] Yes, it alienates them from others.

[1444] Totally.

[1445] And then they're so insecure that the only thing they have the security in is a thing that further alienates you.

[1446] It's a vortex.

[1447] It's that hilarious tragedy of the person too who just loves their own wit.

[1448] He did as a little boy get people rewarding him for it.

[1449] It's not so attractive in a 56 -year -old man. Okay, now your other knack that you have, you must be aware of it.

[1450] I'm going to weirdly compare you to my wife in this.

[1451] way.

[1452] She can play an unlikable person on paper and she does it perfectly, but she has a spirit that you're attracted to.

[1453] So you keep doing these kind of impossible roles.

[1454] Sideways...

[1455] They're challenging.

[1456] What a fucking blowhard asshole.

[1457] That one's...

[1458] I actually think the guy in this movie, I like him better.

[1459] I actually think he's less of a blowhardt.

[1460] I do too.

[1461] He's not self -pitying.

[1462] There's something about this guy I like better.

[1463] The other guy, I don't like as much.

[1464] I agree with you 100 % but if we never go into the second or third act of this movie, you're a fucking asshole.

[1465] Yeah, making good points, but he's doing it all the wrong way.

[1466] And he's just harming people.

[1467] Yes, he's not doing it right.

[1468] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1469] And I would love to point out as well, Divine Joy Randolph.

[1470] I love that this storyline was put in this.

[1471] Totally.

[1472] So really quick, you're teaching at this really elite school.

[1473] Nobody likes me. I'm a prick.

[1474] You're there to.

[1475] keep the integrity of the education alive and punish these rich kids.

[1476] You're clearly resentful that they're spoiled.

[1477] And this gal is the cook, and her son got to go there.

[1478] Yes, he got to go there, and he's been killed in Vietnam.

[1479] Right.

[1480] Because it's 1970, 71.

[1481] Then there's another kid, there's a student who's family sort of abandons him.

[1482] Dominic Sessa, his name is.

[1483] Yeah, he was never acted before.

[1484] No. Did you not know that?

[1485] No. That's the first thing.

[1486] Oh, what an asshole.

[1487] I know, right?

[1488] Fuck, Dominic.

[1489] Now, to me, that's a far more incredible thing.

[1490] He does those long monologues in one take.

[1491] He did him in one or two takes.

[1492] They found him at one of the high schools we shot at.

[1493] No. How old is he?

[1494] Now he's 21.

[1495] He just turned 19.

[1496] He was still in school at the school we shot at.

[1497] Brilliant.

[1498] Never done it before.

[1499] You've had this experience twice.

[1500] Win, win.

[1501] That kid was a real estate champion.

[1502] That's true.

[1503] I met him.

[1504] And he, to me, I'm like, well, here's the new Sean Penn. Amazing.

[1505] And that was interesting.

[1506] because I remember Tom McCarthy, the director saying I can either get an actor and sort of make him look like he wrestles or I can do the wrestler and hope he can act, which was the smarter thing because I think you really need a kid who knows how to do that.

[1507] And he found this kid who, again, it never acted before in his life.

[1508] His wrestling makes that movie.

[1509] It does.

[1510] If you don't see him do that shit, the movie's not grounded and I don't care.

[1511] You gotta get the kid who really knows the world of it and is that thing.

[1512] And he turned out to be brilliant.

[1513] Brilliant.

[1514] Okay, so with this kid, wow.

[1515] The interesting thing is there was another kid they were thinking of putting in it, who was a much more seasoned kid.

[1516] And good.

[1517] Everything about Dominic, though, I was like, just look at the kid.

[1518] And he looks like he's from the 70s.

[1519] My wife, that was the other thing she said.

[1520] She said, how could that actor be alive today?

[1521] His hair was like that already.

[1522] It was just something about his face.

[1523] Yes.

[1524] When I was young and my brother's friends are older kids who were in high school, they looked like they were 40.

[1525] And if you look at them again, they still look at a high school yearbook from them.

[1526] And they all look like they're 40.

[1527] And they wear business suits and stuff.

[1528] Yeah, they're all like the big white ties, glasses and stuff.

[1529] Driving Buwicks.

[1530] Yeah, they all look like they're 40.

[1531] So he has that quality of looking like a kid and looking older, too, like the 70s.

[1532] And I thought it was great, too, because he's making this kind of memory movie about the 70s.

[1533] And if you're doing that, do the 70s thing and put the kid who's never done anything in it.

[1534] Which was also a thing.

[1535] Like Bud Court or like the woman in Days of Heaven, Linda Mann.

[1536] Do the really cool 70s thing and put the person's ever done.

[1537] This is also a very Alexander Payne thing to do.

[1538] I think so, yeah.

[1539] Chris Kleinie did that with.

[1540] Yes, in election, there seemed to be a few people that...

[1541] I'm like, are they hackers?

[1542] And he'll do that with small parts, too.

[1543] If there's somebody who's the store guy, why don't we put the guy who actually runs the store in the movie?

[1544] So he does that too.

[1545] Did you have a beautiful time doing it?

[1546] I mean, so often on these movies, I think people would be comforted to know that what you're seeing on the screen is weirdly kind of happening.

[1547] In this movie, for sure.

[1548] And the other movie I did with him, too, also the case.

[1549] He creates his sort of atmosphere where it's very intimate.

[1550] Yeah, I read in an interview you were saying that your character on sideways in retrospect kind of paralleled what you were going through in real life in a sense.

[1551] Yes, I think so.

[1552] You were getting divorced and you were going through a lot of stuff.

[1553] I've been a little bit past that, but yeah.

[1554] And then you feel like in some bizarre way these two are connected.

[1555] There's a similarity in the characters and then in the movie, yeah.

[1556] Now, it's a whole weird loop that gets closed now 20 years later.

[1557] And in some ways, not the same character, but it's similar.

[1558] And it's like you're seeing this guy 20 years on.

[1559] Yeah.

[1560] I didn't finish the point I was making.

[1561] So you do these kind of impossible characters where they're so unlikable.

[1562] And then yet your heart is breaking for them and you want so bad for them to be embraced and welcomed in.

[1563] And I wonder when you're reading things, do you ever think like, oh, this is unlikable?

[1564] Do you have the inner confidence that you go like, I can pull this off?

[1565] I have to take a leap.

[1566] Oh, good, good, good, good.

[1567] Does it happen to talk?

[1568] No, I love this.

[1569] I generally pee every 25 minutes, so it's comforting to know you're on a similar schedule.

[1570] We should get some kind of a sponsor specific for this one.

[1571] Like, there's some medicine that helps you not pee in the middle of the night, I think.

[1572] Or flow something.

[1573] Or adult diaper.

[1574] Sure, sure, sure, depends.

[1575] Might want to step in.

[1576] It's depend, actually.

[1577] Oh, it is.

[1578] Yes, it is.

[1579] Because I remember I was sitting around once with a bunch of people.

[1580] And I discovered a friend of mine was the voice of Outback Steakhouse.

[1581] Oh, wonderful.

[1582] And I was like, you're kidding me. I didn't know it.

[1583] He was Australian.

[1584] I thought the guy doing that was not actually Australian.

[1585] And he was like, well, they make me exaggerate even my existing accent.

[1586] We were talking about something, and we started joking.

[1587] about like can you imagine being the guy who has to do depends and we were all laughing about it and one of these guys had gotten kind of quiet and he said it's depend actually oh no and we said really it's depend no it's depend he goes no it's depend because i'm the voice of depend oh wow and it was just yeah exactly the reaction i was all worried it was like no really chris are you wearing them that would have been my assumption no it wasn't i'm in fact maybe wouldn't have even asked any follow -up questions no i had to i had to know how great so you had three because you already have your liberty.

[1588] What campaign did you do?

[1589] Did I do?

[1590] You did an insurance.

[1591] Yeah, that's amazing.

[1592] You remember that.

[1593] Yeah.

[1594] So what a room to sit in.

[1595] We've got Outback.

[1596] Really auspicious.

[1597] No, I know.

[1598] It was really tough.

[1599] It would have walked in and then a GMC commercial.

[1600] Totally.

[1601] The Outback Steakhouse thing blew my mind.

[1602] Yeah.

[1603] I'd like to meet the guy who does Foster's Australian.

[1604] Yeah.

[1605] And what's really funny to me is that I could have sworn this was not actually an Australian because it sounds so hokey.

[1606] The accent.

[1607] And he was like, well, believe me. They keep making me make it even more extreme.

[1608] they're selling the fantasy you're going to the outback exactly the fantasy bloom and onion so do you ever read these scripts you get offered and think they're going to hate me at the end of this i don't really worry about it that much the one thing i read and i thought well this is going to be a lot was the john adams show that i did because i thought this is a lot of an unlikable guy and i thought i'm going to make him really unlikable because that's not the expected thing to see one of these guys be a huge pain in the ass and not a very nice guy and kind of crazy.

[1609] It's like nine hours of watching somebody just be a pain in the ass over and over and over.

[1610] Yeah, yeah.

[1611] It's interesting, though, because I had read the McCullough book.

[1612] Yes.

[1613] And I loved him.

[1614] I actually came out of it not liking Jefferson and thinking, what an asshole.

[1615] And I've now read like five other books of that period.

[1616] And I've yet to read the one that's positive about Jefferson.

[1617] I know.

[1618] Other than he was brilliant.

[1619] I was completely surprised.

[1620] I thought he was the good guy.

[1621] Right.

[1622] You're growing up, you think that.

[1623] What an asshole, actually.

[1624] And also like a real politician.

[1625] and kind of backstabby and full of shit.

[1626] Born rich, died in debt.

[1627] Fucking traveling Europe with a 13 -year -old girl.

[1628] All of them.

[1629] I mean, it's just vile, dude.

[1630] Weird double -crossing people.

[1631] I had no idea.

[1632] In fact, I've made it a mild commitment.

[1633] I'm like, I've got to read one positive version.

[1634] I think probably you've got to have to go back in time.

[1635] World War II era or pre -World War II.

[1636] Those biographies.

[1637] When people were not going to write a hatchet job about one of those guys.

[1638] Right.

[1639] But the McCullough thing, because you're right.

[1640] He's much more.

[1641] appealing.

[1642] He has integrity.

[1643] Yeah, well, he does.

[1644] So does the guy I play in a holdovers, by the way.

[1645] He's got integrity.

[1646] Yes.

[1647] But it's coming out in the wrong way.

[1648] I read that book and I thought it was much more admiring.

[1649] And I was like, hmm, it got to be other shit going on.

[1650] And so I read another biography of him.

[1651] It wasn't that it was negative, but it was much more like, wow, what a weird dark guy.

[1652] And then just kind of looking at stuff and reading stuff about the family and the kids.

[1653] His kids were messed up.

[1654] Yeah.

[1655] And I was like, this couldn't have been so great.

[1656] And then thinking about being a parent was different.

[1657] They treated kids.

[1658] I mean, you were 10, you were an adult now.

[1659] You go out into the world.

[1660] And I don't think the idea of children, the way we think of it now, that comes along later in human history.

[1661] Let's start with the fact that you lost half of your kids.

[1662] I think about this all the time.

[1663] Like, you couldn't have been as close to them because that would have been insufferable.

[1664] There had to be some level of detachment.

[1665] I mean, you think about Abe Lincoln being in the White House, he's already lost two or three kids.

[1666] And he's leading the country.

[1667] But also, most of the times you're going to need the kid to do a job around the house.

[1668] You can't have this preciousness about it in the same way that I think we did.

[1669] Well, you hear about different cultures.

[1670] As we talked about, I did major in the useless major anthropology.

[1671] A lot of cultures don't name kids until they're two or three years old.

[1672] Let's see how this turns out.

[1673] Yeah.

[1674] So I do think it was different and hard for us to comprehend.

[1675] Yeah.

[1676] The whole idea of people are the same.

[1677] Human nature is the same.

[1678] I don't know that I buy it entirely.

[1679] I think a lot of things are different.

[1680] Consciousness changes in some word way.

[1681] Yeah.

[1682] I'm inclined to say I like it.

[1683] I love liking my kids and loving...

[1684] Sure.

[1685] I'm so, no, me too.

[1686] Absolutely.

[1687] I'm inclined to go with the way we're dealing with it now.

[1688] But I can also admit I would be of my era.

[1689] I think a lot of people have a hard time...

[1690] It would not be the guy like breaking the mold?

[1691] Yes, I think people have a hard time accepting that.

[1692] Bill Burr has a great stand -up routine.

[1693] He's like, all these white people are like, if I was alive, then I would have been setting.

[1694] No, you'd have been doing exactly what you're doing now.

[1695] Nothing.

[1696] You're tweeting.

[1697] I think that that's a really harsh truth.

[1698] Yeah.

[1699] Talk about fantasy and wanting to fantasize about who you are or would have been or anything yeah so what got you over the hurdle with john adams well i think it was looking at that book and thinking to myself i don't know these guys seemed kind of crazy in some ways i mean it's a very different world and they seem sort of insane and i've talked about this a bunch of times but it is interesting a guy in the makeup department because i had to age in it yeah so these guys did a lot of research about him physically so they'd be able to say well this happened to me he lost his teeth and he went blind and we didn't do all that stuff.

[1700] Do you have gout too, do I remember?

[1701] I'm sure he did.

[1702] They all fucking did.

[1703] None of them had teeth and they all went deaf and went blind.

[1704] And he lived to be 90, which was like crazy.

[1705] And he died on the same day as Jefferson.

[1706] They both lived.

[1707] They'd be very old men.

[1708] But he found some scholar who'd put together from all of his letters, particularly his letters to his wife, but other people, every time he mentioned something about physical ailments.

[1709] And it was pages and pages and pages and pages and pages.

[1710] I have the shits.

[1711] I have a headache.

[1712] My eyes hurt.

[1713] My teeth hurt.

[1714] I can't.

[1715] can't walk, depressed all the time, taking to your bed, which was the thing that people did when they were depressed.

[1716] Yeah, they would lose months, some of these people.

[1717] Months, he would.

[1718] He would have huge burst of activity, and then he'd be prostrate in bed for weeks.

[1719] And it would be all this like, my eyes hurt, my teeth hurt, I can't breathe, constant hypochondria.

[1720] But again, life was really precarious.

[1721] So, I mean, yeah, constant.

[1722] And a lot of it might have been imagined.

[1723] But I thought, this is the guy.

[1724] That's true.

[1725] I worked with someone who worked with someone who was led to.

[1726] a prick and a great actor.

[1727] And I was like, how did you do with them?

[1728] Because this dude was kind of alpha and older and so was this dude.

[1729] So this actor said, you know, at first this guy was a prick.

[1730] And I was like, yep, he's what I thought.

[1731] And then I noticed a few weeks in and I asked him, do you have back problems?

[1732] And he said, oh, I can barely live.

[1733] My fucking back is so messed up and has been.

[1734] And I work through it.

[1735] And on some level, I don't think anyone should ever be an asshole, but you go, yeah, I don't know what it's like to be in crazy.

[1736] crippling pain all day long and have to work and the sort of bound up thing of that that's like what even caused the bad pain because you're fucking stressed out and grinding away at everything and tight and that's exactly what it was right so it's like i'm comparing my cheeriness to john adams and i have air conditioning i drive around in the car and i have food in my fridge every day and fucking i've never been attacked by an animal that's a really good insight yeah they were living a fucking brutal life You couldn't drink the water, you'd get dysentery.

[1737] So everybody was like slightly hammered all the time.

[1738] And he didn't drink.

[1739] He did actually, though.

[1740] Well, he didn't drink, but he'd have a big tankard of hard cider in the morning.

[1741] They were all fucking half -cocked about half the time.

[1742] Yeah, he's very judgmental of other people's drinking.

[1743] Sure, sure.

[1744] He only drank in the morning.

[1745] He wasn't drinking.

[1746] I'm just having hard cider.

[1747] Okay, thank you for indulging me on that.

[1748] There's two last things about the holdovers I want to ask you about.

[1749] One is simply, I shot in that same cute little town as it.

[1750] in the Berkshires?

[1751] The one with the waterfall, there's a little dam in town.

[1752] North Central Massachusetts.

[1753] So I was there doing this movie called The Judge.

[1754] There's no place to stay really there other than bed and breakfasts.

[1755] So this bed and breakfast was myself, Jeremy Strong, before succession, in Robert Duvall at the end of the hallway.

[1756] Wow.

[1757] And I would go down the hallway and I'd sit at the end of Robert's bed while he was in bed with the covers up and he would just tell me stories for two hours.

[1758] Back to your point of looking at your current position on the planet in time and space and going, how did we end up at the foot of Robert Bulls bed asking him about Coppola?

[1759] Amazing.

[1760] But anyway, just watching the movie.

[1761] That's amazing.

[1762] Watching the movie made me very much 10 years ago.

[1763] I was at a thing once I saw him and I was like, I can't even be in the same room.

[1764] They were like, do you want to meet him?

[1765] I was like, no. I don't want to meet him.

[1766] They brought him over anyway.

[1767] I had to meet him.

[1768] I was just like, oh my God.

[1769] I saw you in the thing with the thing.

[1770] That's what he, but I felt ashamed.

[1771] How do you think I felt?

[1772] You're a brilliant actor, one golden globe.

[1773] I was this crippling sense of shame, just being in his presence.

[1774] And there was an awkward silence, and he did.

[1775] He said, he goes, so where are you from?

[1776] Like that.

[1777] And I was like New Haven, Connecticut goes, hey, pizza.

[1778] Best pizza in America.

[1779] Pizza.

[1780] He goes, hey, yeah, I was saying that's pizza.

[1781] That wasn't so good.

[1782] I was like, oh, God bless you for finding something to fucking talk about.

[1783] Because I feel, I feel shame.

[1784] If you are in a pinch with Duvall, you'd just talk about food.

[1785] Because he knows the best food in every place.

[1786] That was what we talked about.

[1787] At what point he goes?

[1788] What do you think the best barbecue is in Texas?

[1789] And I go, I love Salt Lake.

[1790] Oh, Salt Lake.

[1791] Salt Lake.

[1792] Salt is like, Smitties is the best.

[1793] He, like, lit me out because I didn't know Smitties was the best.

[1794] And he got pissed at me and he was just like, oh, that's not so good.

[1795] That's not so great.

[1796] It's so great about it.

[1797] I remember patients in Chicago.

[1798] And I just was like, okay.

[1799] I'm not going to argue with you.

[1800] Dueling Duval, too, this doesn't happen very much.

[1801] I'm so glad you had that experience.

[1802] Okay, so anyway, that town made me really nostalgic.

[1803] Now, did I understand you correctly in an interview?

[1804] I think what I heard you saying is that there's no video village.

[1805] Not on Alexander's movies, no. Does he watch playback somehow?

[1806] This time he occasionally had one of those clamshell things to look at, and that was different from Sideways, but he very rarely ever looked at it.

[1807] And no, he doesn't have any video.

[1808] And on Sideways, when I first walked on the set, I was like, where's all that stuff?

[1809] Yeah, for people who don't know, on any set, you have the stage or where the action's happening.

[1810] And just off to the side, you have a bank of monitors, usually two or three monitors.

[1811] The director's watching what the camera's catching.

[1812] It's a live feed from the camera.

[1813] And if you have three cameras going, there's three different screens.

[1814] And then that's all being recorded digitally, and you can review the take afterwards, which is very common.

[1815] Jerry Lewis invented it, supposedly.

[1816] Oh, I've heard that too.

[1817] I don't know if it's true or not, but I'm told that he came up with it.

[1818] Because he was directing himself.

[1819] Yeah, you want to choreograph a thing in the front.

[1820] like that, it really makes sense.

[1821] So, no, there isn't one.

[1822] And do you even feel, because it's a period piece, and it's being shot like it's in the 70s, and your co -star looks impossibly like he's from the 70s?

[1823] And then there's no video village.

[1824] Did the whole experience feel a little bit analog in a great way?

[1825] Yeah, but Sideways did, too.

[1826] It's like he makes 70s movies anyway.

[1827] The feeling of it, I imagine, is what it felt like making a Hal Ashby movie.

[1828] It feels very Hal Ashby movie.

[1829] That's my fantasy about it.

[1830] But for sure, on this one in particular, yeah, it really felt 70s.

[1831] And the sound was done.

[1832] that way.

[1833] Nobody was miced.

[1834] It was all boned.

[1835] Oh, really?

[1836] You were not miced.

[1837] He wanted it all the sound that way.

[1838] But the absence of the video village thing's huge.

[1839] It's a completely different ballgame without that stuff there.

[1840] Oh, it sounds so intriguing.

[1841] It's great.

[1842] We certainly won't hire me now that I've said disparaging things about the interview I heard.

[1843] But now it's been cleared up.

[1844] You pointed out that, no, I would love him.

[1845] Yeah, no, I think you would.

[1846] Okay, I do want to ask you one thing about Chinwag, your podcast.

[1847] Thank you.

[1848] First of all, who is Stephen Asma?

[1849] He's a philosophy professor at Columbia College in Chicago.

[1850] No way.

[1851] He teaches philosophy at an arts college.

[1852] What a great co -host.

[1853] He's amazing.

[1854] You hear philosopher and you think it's going to be one thing that it's not.

[1855] He's not like that at all.

[1856] I don't think that.

[1857] Our favorite guess, we just had it where the person started as a mathematician.

[1858] They now teach law at Yale, but also a master's in philosophy.

[1859] They're my favorite people to talk to because I just love the pushing on every angle of every thought and is like, oh, this is cultural?

[1860] Is that really amoral?

[1861] Why?

[1862] Explain that to me. And if they have the ability to convey stuff simply like that, it's the best.

[1863] You really are like, I can ask you anything.

[1864] Yes.

[1865] You're going to have some interesting answer.

[1866] And you are going to start from a place of saying to me, this isn't the ultimate answer.

[1867] Yeah, love it.

[1868] It's that ability to just go, there's always going to be another step beyond this to think more about this.

[1869] He's amazing like that, Stephen.

[1870] How did you become?

[1871] I happen to see him give a talk online because I am very interested.

[1872] and have been all my life in very strange things.

[1873] And as I keep talking about fantasizing and imagination and consciousness, I'm very interested in stuff like this.

[1874] But I'm very interested in UFOs.

[1875] I'm very interested in the Sasquatch.

[1876] I'm very interested in why people believe in this stuff.

[1877] And he gave a talk about imagination and consciousness.

[1878] And I'd happen to see it was during a COVID lockdown.

[1879] So I went and watched it and thought, this guy's really interesting.

[1880] And he's really cool, seeming.

[1881] It's very accessible.

[1882] He played professional guitar with.

[1883] Bo Diddley, backup guitar.

[1884] So he's got this whole other thing going on.

[1885] So I just got in touch with him.

[1886] And then we just started talking a lot.

[1887] And then he was like, oh, we should just do, you know, I had no idea of doing something like this.

[1888] And then somebody was weird enough to actually give us money to do it.

[1889] Yes.

[1890] I've really enjoyed it.

[1891] It's been amazing because I love shit like this.

[1892] And I've not really ever talked about it much outside of a very small group of people.

[1893] Yeah.

[1894] You know, it's interesting because that stuff doesn't appeal to me. No, I'm going to tell you.

[1895] why it doesn't.

[1896] I think it's all about your childhood.

[1897] And I was thinking about the fact that your father was a member of the scroll and key.

[1898] He was, yes, which is one of those secret societies.

[1899] That's a secret societies.

[1900] That's very fantastical.

[1901] It is very fantastical.

[1902] And I think you're probably right that that goes in there at some level.

[1903] And again, it's all that British fantasy of the library with the secret books and the secret hidden panels and all that shit.

[1904] Yes.

[1905] I think, too, though, I happened to take in a lot of things as a kid.

[1906] the culture I was consuming, I was unsupervised a lot of the time.

[1907] So I was watching a lot of universal horror movies in the Twilight Zone was a humongous thing for me. And in search of my child in the 70s, this stuff was everywhere.

[1908] Yes.

[1909] Easter Island and all this shit.

[1910] It just went in there.

[1911] My character defect is I was deceived by many stepdads, by older brothers, by adults who expressed one agenda, and it turned out they had another one.

[1912] And so if anything, I am on the highest alert for being fooled.

[1913] Bullshit.

[1914] Yes.

[1915] I'll say I'm kind of good at it, too.

[1916] Like, we do this show where we interview people about crazy stories, and we don't know the stories.

[1917] But I have this knack for predicting where they're going because I'm just on high alert for being fooled.

[1918] So anything like Sasquatch, I'm like fucking bullshit.

[1919] That guy's in a suit.

[1920] And it gets in my way.

[1921] I actually rob myself of probably enjoying some fun.

[1922] No, that's a really interesting question, though.

[1923] Yeah, and it sounds like your dad was pretty good.

[1924] trustworthy.

[1925] He was pretty trustworthy.

[1926] So why am I interested in this shit?

[1927] I have a very good friend who is a voting rights lawyer.

[1928] He does a real important thing in the world.

[1929] And he has frequently known him for a long time, been like, why are you wasting your fucking time on this?

[1930] And I'm always like, it's a really good question.

[1931] Am I wasting my time?

[1932] I think the reason Stephen was so interesting to me is because I see it in a larger way.

[1933] Like I'm interested in why.

[1934] Yeah, what's the function of this?

[1935] Why is Sasquatch even a thing?

[1936] Why are conspiracy theories?

[1937] And that, which is why I think.

[1938] anthropology was interesting to me. Why do people believe the weird fucking things they believe?

[1939] I'm fascinated by the whole alien abduction thing that happened in the 80s and the 90s.

[1940] People are being kidnapped by aliens.

[1941] And I've always said, if you could prove to me it was actually aliens, I might think that was less interesting than if it was just something in people's heads.

[1942] Because why the fuck is that happening?

[1943] That I'm supremely interested in.

[1944] Well, ultimately, that is what it comes down to a lot for me. Can I add two wrinkles as well?

[1945] One of them I did learn in Anthro and one I learned washing cars in Detroit.

[1946] So when I was in Detroit, I worked with like seven Filipino dudes who were all from the Philippines.

[1947] Yes.

[1948] So all of them had ghost stories from the Philippines.

[1949] Very, very detailed.

[1950] One, they hit a witch on the road and the blood was dripping down the window as they were going 90 miles.

[1951] Yes.

[1952] Even though I'm a skeptic, I'm on a bullshit thing, I have great respect for culture.

[1953] And so I have often said this and it infuriates Monica when she's here.

[1954] I will say they do.

[1955] have ghosts.

[1956] I don't have ghosts in my culture and in my world.

[1957] They do.

[1958] I'm telling you all seven of these dudes.

[1959] They do.

[1960] But this is that thing that I'm saying too about human nature has it changed.

[1961] People are different.

[1962] People are different.

[1963] Cultures are different.

[1964] Shit happens there that just does not happen here for whatever reason.

[1965] It's not a sense of exoticizing them or something like that.

[1966] It's actually just honoring what they're telling you.

[1967] Yeah, I 100 % agree with you.

[1968] Japan, 99 % of the population believes in ghosts.

[1969] And I'm like, there are ghosts here.

[1970] Now, I happen to believe in ghosts.

[1971] Yeah, great.

[1972] But that's because...

[1973] I'm glad you do.

[1974] If you're doing his show on ghosts and you didn't believe in them.

[1975] Well, no, because Stephen doesn't.

[1976] Oh, okay.

[1977] Steven's completely skeptical.

[1978] But I've had enough experiences that I can explain away skeptically.

[1979] You have the sword situation when you were playing...

[1980] Well, I go...

[1981] That one I can't explain.

[1982] There's a handful of ones I can't explain and therefore I can't say I don't believe in them.

[1983] But there's plenty that I can go, I doubt my own experience.

[1984] I don't think that was something super...

[1985] I've had weird shit, and I just don't have an explanation, but I'm kind of comfortable with not having an explanation, if that makes sense.

[1986] I think a lot of people are very uncomfortable not having it, and so they come to a conclusion.

[1987] You're comfortable with ambiguity.

[1988] You're comfortable with things not being closed off in a neat way?

[1989] Yeah, exactly.

[1990] I'm okay with the fact that it's a mess.

[1991] I like things that don't have a solution or an ending or an ambiguity.

[1992] I like it.

[1993] Me too.

[1994] That takes a lot of tolerance.

[1995] Yes.

[1996] So the second story is this professor I had at UCLA, she had done her.

[1997] field work in sub -Saharan Africa.

[1998] And the actual class was on witches and magic.

[1999] And so where she did her field work, people get spells put on them a lot.

[2000] She became really, really sick while she was there.

[2001] Now, I cannot tell you how much I trust this woman.

[2002] She's empirical as you could get as a human being.

[2003] She goes, look, I was there for a long time.

[2004] I got ill. I saw some doctors.

[2005] Nothing was working.

[2006] Nothing was working.

[2007] This older woman who was recognized as kind of a healer pulled me inside and said, you know, you have a spell.

[2008] I'm pretty sure who put it on you because you're an outsider and this and that.

[2009] And of course, she's like, I respect that they believe in that.

[2010] But of course, I don't have a spell on me. It got worse and worse and worse.

[2011] And she went and had the spell taken away.

[2012] And it happened.

[2013] She was relieved and she was fine.

[2014] And she goes, look, what I'm telling you is that that couldn't happen to me here.

[2015] But I'm telling you that happened to me. It happens there.

[2016] That is the power of it.

[2017] And so I do believe in the power of it.

[2018] I do believe you could be under a spell, even though I don't believe I could be under a spell here.

[2019] And again, that's some kind of intense generative power of imagination.

[2020] I think it's a genuine sensory organ, like sight, smell, taste, and you can generate.

[2021] And if it's an entire culture believing in this, something's going to change.

[2022] I know this all sounds very kind of kooky.

[2023] I do buy it, but I'm still somewhat skeptical about it.

[2024] Yeah, I basically just have this kind of worldview where it's like, I know what's real for me. I'm not arrogant enough to think that's what's real for us.

[2025] everyone else.

[2026] Yeah, that's nice.

[2027] That's a good worldview.

[2028] Oh, this has been lovely.

[2029] So you talk about ghosts and Sasquatch.

[2030] All kinds of things.

[2031] We have expert guests, but we also have, like, Tom Hanks will come, and we'll talk about time travel.

[2032] And hopefully it's nice for people to come on and they don't have to talk about what they might always talk about.

[2033] Yes.

[2034] I think it'd be so fun to come on and just chat about this weird thing you believe in.

[2035] It would be great if you did it.

[2036] Yeah, I'd be joining Stephen probably in his point of view, but we could really rip.

[2037] And that's great.

[2038] But we also talk, because I'm interested in Roman history.

[2039] We talked to a Roman historian.

[2040] We talked to a guy who's a big researcher and psychedelics and stuff like that.

[2041] We talked to a dream and sleep expert.

[2042] Psychedelics is another thing.

[2043] Fascinating.

[2044] Oh, well, I got to tell you, Paul, this has been a delight.

[2045] It really was a delight.

[2046] They've been so delightful.

[2047] I want everyone to check out the holdovers.

[2048] It's a fantastic movie.

[2049] If you like Alexander Payne, it is bullseye Alexander Payne and just a beautifully shot movie and you just get to spend two hours in another time and space.

[2050] And you're just fucking brilliant.

[2051] Thank you.

[2052] to get nominated and the kid is impossibly good i hate him now that i know it's his first thing and devine it's amazing yes it's just oozing out of her and then listen to chinwag podcast available i presume everywhere everywhere thank you sir all right be well next off is the fact i don't even care about facts i just want to get in their pants so update okay you're sad oh that's an update yeah yeah you're sad because you're grandpa Yeah.

[2053] People were following along.

[2054] Yeah, yeah.

[2055] I don't look at the comments, but I assumed maybe some people asked or, I mean, the holiday special was a lot about that.

[2056] Yes.

[2057] People really liked that.

[2058] They did.

[2059] I read a lot of comments about that.

[2060] I think a lot of people said that they were grateful that you had shared that because they too were missing someone they loved and that, you know, for so many people, Christmas is hard.

[2061] brings that exact thing up so it's largely ignored everywhere else so to hear you share about going through it i read a bunch of comments that said they were grateful that you shared that yeah that's the purpose of uh -huh sharing it that's right is hopefully people feel seen but um yes so at that point felt like the end but it was not the end well that's the tricky about these people at the end of the line it's really hard to nail down i know yeah two days before my dad died I got a call from my uncle, Randy.

[2062] Like, when I left, he was nonverbal.

[2063] Yeah.

[2064] He was like just, there's a body laying there.

[2065] And he called me teenage late and he's like, this is miraculous.

[2066] Your dad woke up and he's, and I'm like, selfishly, it's like, oh, my God, I don't know if I can do another round of it.

[2067] And then the next day he died.

[2068] Oh, well, they, you know, they call that the rally.

[2069] Oh.

[2070] It's called that.

[2071] Okay, well, he had a rally.

[2072] And then the next call was like 36 hours later on New Year's Eve.

[2073] and it was the hospital saying he passed.

[2074] Yeah, it's very confusing.

[2075] Well, you know what's really confusing is there was a different year there because of the time change.

[2076] He died in 2013 there, but 2012 here.

[2077] Weird.

[2078] Yeah.

[2079] What is, but his death certificates is 2013?

[2080] If you want to acknowledge that as being a legitimate certificate.

[2081] We don't have to.

[2082] Okay.

[2083] This is relativity.

[2084] This is Einstein's relativity.

[2085] My dad died in 2012.

[2086] But your brother's dad died in 2013.

[2087] No, he was in Oregon.

[2088] Oh, shit.

[2089] My uncle's brother died in 2013.

[2090] Weird.

[2091] It's like a riddle.

[2092] It's a riddle.

[2093] Delta brought home a math riddle yesterday that was so pleasing.

[2094] It was?

[2095] Oh, my God.

[2096] What is it?

[2097] Well, I solved it.

[2098] Did you want her to come up and say it?

[2099] Shit.

[2100] Should we get her up here?

[2101] Maybe.

[2102] Yeah, let's do it.

[2103] Let's do it.

[2104] Hi.

[2105] Would you ask Delta if she would come up to present her math riddle from yesterday?

[2106] Yes.

[2107] Thank you.

[2108] We're working on it up.

[2109] We're working on the school audition.

[2110] Dad wants to know if you will go up and present your math riddle to him in the attic.

[2111] Why?

[2112] We want to record it.

[2113] We want to record it because it's a good riddle.

[2114] It's worth repeating.

[2115] All right.

[2116] She's on her way.

[2117] Okay, thank you.

[2118] D -Money!

[2119] Oh, my gosh, we have the most best.

[2120] Oh, you brought the piece of paper, too.

[2121] Perfect.

[2122] Here, sit here, my love.

[2123] Hit everyone with the riddle.

[2124] It's so good.

[2125] So the problem was how can you add eight fours together so that the total adds up to 500?

[2126] Yeah.

[2127] How do you?

[2128] You have eight fours to work with.

[2129] How do you get to 500?

[2130] Don't spoil it yet, Doughty.

[2131] Oh, God.

[2132] What the most.

[2133] Rob, don't search for the answer.

[2134] No, I'm writing.

[2135] I'm writing four.

[2136] Yeah, I'm writing fours down too.

[2137] Okay, how do you, to get to 500?

[2138] Yeah.

[2139] And Delta, because I'll probably embellish, but how long do you think it took me to figure out the answer?

[2140] It was one of my proudest moments.

[2141] Three minutes.

[2142] Three minutes.

[2143] Wow.

[2144] And is it a riddle or is it like math?

[2145] It's not bullshit.

[2146] Yeah, it's a math magical wizard challenge.

[2147] We do it every week.

[2148] Math, magical, wizard came on.

[2149] Okay, can I use a calculator to try some stuff out?

[2150] Yeah, do some stuff.

[2151] Make some moves.

[2152] Delta, how was your day at school?

[2153] Good.

[2154] It was good?

[2155] Anything eventful happened?

[2156] No. I'm going to leave soon, though.

[2157] What do you mean?

[2158] I'm going to have played it with Freddy.

[2159] Oh, he's on his way over?

[2160] No, I'm going to his, because everyone's coming over tonight, so.

[2161] Oh, Aaron and Ruthie and all that?

[2162] Yeah.

[2163] And you want to be out of here?

[2164] No, and the grandparents are going to be here too so it's too much mom says it's too stressful to have freddie here over too oh oh oh oh oh so you want to hang but it makes more sense to go to his house because our house is so full and we might be able to make pizzas because his mom's a cook oh that's so cool I know and I always keep your friends private on here because I don't know how their parents feel but I think I feel okay saying that Freddy's the coolest dude I've ever met.

[2165] Yeah.

[2166] Isn't he radical?

[2167] Yeah.

[2168] I mean, what a guy.

[2169] I don't think I can do it fast enough for this to be, like, you know, good.

[2170] Do you want me to walk you through the answer?

[2171] Yeah.

[2172] I've got an answer for it.

[2173] Oh, you did it.

[2174] Did you look it up, you piece of shit?

[2175] No, he did it.

[2176] Okay, tell.

[2177] What are you going to do?

[2178] It's 444 plus 44 plus 4 plus 4 plus 4 plus 4.

[2179] Yeah.

[2180] 414.

[2181] Good job, Rob.

[2182] Plus, what was it?

[2183] 444, plus 44, which gives you 488.

[2184] Uh -huh.

[2185] Plus 4.

[2186] 512.

[2187] Plus 4 plus 4.

[2188] Yeah.

[2189] Isn't that good?

[2190] I was doing, I was in my multiplication.

[2191] I hadn't got yet to adding.

[2192] That would have taken me so long to figure it out.

[2193] Nice.

[2194] That's a fun one, isn't it?

[2195] I really liked it.

[2196] It was very satisfying.

[2197] That is good.

[2198] Yeah, because I started going like, okay, four times this.

[2199] Yeah, there's a lot.

[2200] Well, none of that, you know, eight four is all.

[2201] only adds up to 32.

[2202] Uh -huh.

[2203] Now how do we get, how are we going to get to 500?

[2204] I'm surprised you guys got it so fast because there's so many things to try out.

[2205] That's right.

[2206] But you have to first get yourself as close to 500 as you can, right?

[2207] That's what I did.

[2208] Mandy, do we're going down a whole other route doing like a ninth grade problem that was way out of a third grade was lead, but then we told Dad the problem we could just figure it out.

[2209] Two seconds later.

[2210] I use that as a clue that it's a third grader problem.

[2211] Trying to figure out what kind of math, but they would have been using.

[2212] Yeah.

[2213] Because you start squaring stuff and you're like, oh no, that would be a cabillion.

[2214] So it's not like.

[2215] Yeah, I thought there was going to be multiplication and then addition and then subtraction.

[2216] Oh, that would be a good wrinkle.

[2217] Like using it all.

[2218] Yeah.

[2219] But no. Well, if you needed to use 10 -4s, you could have done that.

[2220] You could have added an extra and then minus an extra.

[2221] Yeah.

[2222] Maybe you should hit TJ with another problem.

[2223] How do you get to 500 with 10?

[2224] Fours.

[2225] Not only give TJ the answer, give them a riddle.

[2226] Yeah, the Math Magical Resorting Challenge is our homework, and it's, like, really fun.

[2227] Sometimes there's, like, how do you get the guy across the river?

[2228] He has a chicken.

[2229] A fox.

[2230] A chicken fox.

[2231] Seed.

[2232] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2233] Yeah, yeah.

[2234] That's a great one.

[2235] That's a classic.

[2236] Do you know that one, Monica?

[2237] Say it one more time.

[2238] There's a guy with a boat, and on one side of the river, he's on the side of the river with a boat.

[2239] He's got a chicken, a fox, and seed.

[2240] Right, wait, yes.

[2241] He can only bring one thing in the boat at once, and he can't leave the chicken and the fox together because the fox will eat the chicken.

[2242] He can't leave the chicken and the seed and you can only bring one thing in the boat at once.

[2243] How does he get all three across the chicken?

[2244] the river.

[2245] What does he do?

[2246] He takes the feed over.

[2247] No, because then the fox would eat the chicken.

[2248] No?

[2249] Oh, yeah.

[2250] You're right.

[2251] He takes the chicken over.

[2252] Then he sails back.

[2253] The chicken's on the other side.

[2254] Then he grabs the fox.

[2255] He brings the fox over, but then grabs the chicken and brings it back.

[2256] Then brings the seed over.

[2257] We did a different version of that instead.

[2258] We did two kids and two parents, and they had a boat.

[2259] um either only one parent or two kids could go on the boat at one time so it's the um the two kids get on the answer is the two kids get on one of the kids drops off the kid the other kid on the other side one of the kids the one of the parents um and then um goes to that side then the parent gets to that kid switches with the parent that was on that side, so now there's a parent on that side, rose back, then, oh, are you trying to get, I got it, the whole family over.

[2260] And then the, um, kid takes the other kid back there, then there's one kid, and then the parent, um, and then goes back, switches with the parent, then the kid that's on that side, goes, grabs the kid, and then sails over to the other side.

[2261] There's a lot of trips, but you do get the whole family there.

[2262] Wow.

[2263] Great.

[2264] I love this.

[2265] These are really fun.

[2266] Well, you keep, maybe we'll do like monthly riddle segment.

[2267] Are you up for that?

[2268] Yeah.

[2269] Okay.

[2270] I think people love riddles.

[2271] They would love it.

[2272] Yeah.

[2273] I love it.

[2274] Well, I love you.

[2275] I'll miss you while you're at Freddy's.

[2276] Have fun at Freddy's.

[2277] Yeah.

[2278] Okay.

[2279] Make some good pizza.

[2280] Love you guys.

[2281] Love you.

[2282] I was about to take off my seatbelt like.

[2283] Let's go.

[2284] Bye.

[2285] Bye, Buttercott.

[2286] I'm glad you're feeling better, Bunny.

[2287] My Lord.

[2288] You're a magical human being.

[2289] Gosh.

[2290] That'll clear up the blues.

[2291] Yeah, she does help.

[2292] That's why I feel like I kind of have to have a kid so that my parents feel happy again.

[2293] Oh, to make them happy.

[2294] Yeah.

[2295] Do they want that for you?

[2296] I think they'd be totally happy.

[2297] Right.

[2298] If I had one.

[2299] But they've done a good job of telling me that they don't need that.

[2300] Okay.

[2301] They are nice to me. They are nice to you.

[2302] But I can say from my point of view, grandkids would be fun at some point.

[2303] But the big reward was having the kids.

[2304] I don't really need more.

[2305] It might be a fun, like, thing later, but, like, you're the reward.

[2306] Their little deltas out in Hollywood doing all this stuff.

[2307] I know.

[2308] It's actually, they don't know yet.

[2309] But if they had one, I do, like, I know, ding, ding, ding, why I'm so sad, that relationship is so special.

[2310] So special.

[2311] Although it would never be the one you have because you're not going to be dropping your kid off there.

[2312] I know.

[2313] But your parents can be a different version to the grandkids.

[2314] And I feel sad a little bit that my parents don't get to do that.

[2315] They'd be so fun.

[2316] Oh, my God.

[2317] Your mom would love cooking all the food for her.

[2318] Making so many sandwiches for this little baby.

[2319] Yeah, milkshake.

[2320] Come home, nice layer of fat on every time she returned.

[2321] And the kid wouldn't be like, me who gets annoyed over every like everything right they would love it yeah they'd love it and it's too bad she can't do that and my dad would love it he'd love having this little baby around to educate explain how the world works and she would like it from his unique point of view she wouldn't mind if he's repeating himself or taking positions we're not sure he even holds yeah she might even say can you explain that one more time right that's exactly what he wants to hear i'll do that that for them next time around.

[2322] Yeah, so I do, I think they would be incredible grandparents, so I feel sad about that.

[2323] At best, they'll have the relationship my mom has with my kids, which is like, once a year they're going to see twice.

[2324] No, but they'll, they would come along.

[2325] They're going to live here.

[2326] How long do you think you're going to allow that?

[2327] I know.

[2328] I know.

[2329] But they want to play with my little baby.

[2330] I know they do.

[2331] And that's very sweet, but at the 12 -day marker, when they're living in your house, you're going to be like, okay, let's schedule another one in a couple months.

[2332] But if I'm a single mom, I might like it.

[2333] Yeah.

[2334] We'll see.

[2335] Anyway, who knows?

[2336] A brand new baby plus your parents now living in your house?

[2337] That's a lot of change.

[2338] I know.

[2339] If I get pregnant soon and it's a boy, I think it'll be my grandpa.

[2340] Yeah.

[2341] Also, I'm going to be your children's grandpa.

[2342] Well, you'll be their uncle.

[2343] Why do you have to be there?

[2344] Because I'm your dad.

[2345] Oh, yeah.

[2346] Yeah, do the math.

[2347] Jesus Christ.

[2348] How soon you forget.

[2349] You'll be there Los Angeles Grandpa.

[2350] I will, and I will spoil her, and it's not my fucking responsibility, whether she turns out to be a piece of shit.

[2351] You're going to be so upset when I have a boy.

[2352] Yeah, I will stop.

[2353] I won't talk to you or that.

[2354] He won't be there, grandpa.

[2355] Yeah, I will.

[2356] Boys need grandpas, too.

[2357] No, because I just had an experience recently.

[2358] I was around a little boy.

[2359] And what was clear to me is, like, he worshipped me. Like, he wanted to be me. God.

[2360] And I was like, oh, this would be fun to have a little guy that was trying to be like you.

[2361] You would be so cute and sweet.

[2362] Oh, no. This is the worst case in here.

[2363] My little boy comes over here and plays.

[2364] And then he comes back over to my house.

[2365] And I say something.

[2366] And then they say, that's wrong.

[2367] Dax says this.

[2368] Well, no. Like, get out of my life.

[2369] You're missing the point for me, which.

[2370] is if they want to be like me, now I have a buddy to go ride motorcycles with and go to the dunes and like, you know what I'm saying?

[2371] I think my baby's going to be more into math.

[2372] I wasn't around a little boy and I was like, yeah, I guess I would have liked a little boy.

[2373] You would have liked whatever you had.

[2374] For sure.

[2375] You would have loved whatever.

[2376] But I'm never going to be my children's heroes.

[2377] It's like it lines up gender wise a little bit.

[2378] Can we say what happened?

[2379] What happened?

[2380] You'll be reminding me. We can cut it if she wouldn't like it.

[2381] Okay.

[2382] But the sweet, I mean, the sweetest thing happened.

[2383] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2384] On New Year's Eve, we were at the Richardson's, and you guys had just landed home and came straight to the Richardson's.

[2385] And Lincoln and I had spent the whole flight working on her admittance essay for this school she wants to get into.

[2386] Yes, she wants to get into a school.

[2387] And one of the essay questions was, who alive or dead do you admire?

[2388] Yeah.

[2389] And why?

[2390] And she wrote about me. It's much better than that.

[2391] The list started.

[2392] The list was Monica, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Taylor Swift.

[2393] To be honest with you, Monica, and I love you, I was like, pick Taylor Swift.

[2394] Because you're going to have so much to say about her, and you know her whole life story.

[2395] This is going to be a slam dunk.

[2396] And she picked you.

[2397] She picked me It's the best thing that's ever happened to me Or will ever happen to me It's so flattering, it's crazy And she started this exercise By looking at Kristen and I immediately And she goes, I'm not gonna pick either of you Like be warned She also, that was probably smart Because if she picked one of you She might feel And I think you two would be very happy If she picked one of the other of you I prefer she picked Kristen over me Yes, of course But she as like kid that's hard to do to like pick between your parents and then they're both sitting there on the airplane and it's like ah now i saw it as a totally different thing and for the record christin doesn't really buy this theory and you likely won't either but what i took from it was really comforting to me she wants to get in this school she is a very smart person very she knows people are interested in us a lot.

[2398] Oh.

[2399] She had a bit of a layup and she didn't take it.

[2400] And she didn't want to take it.

[2401] Oh.

[2402] To me, that was her displaying some integrity.

[2403] Like, I want to get in this school and I want it to have nothing to do with either of you.

[2404] That's a very interesting point.

[2405] Could be.

[2406] I like to think that's what happened.

[2407] Like, I was, you know, I was working on the other questions with her.

[2408] I think it's just she really admires me a lot.

[2409] That's.

[2410] The bottom line is you beat out Taylor Swift and Ruth, Peter Ginsburg.

[2411] So however it shook out, you really came out on top.

[2412] Mine is me. We have the same people we look up to.

[2413] So I also appreciate that.

[2414] Those two would be on your list as well.

[2415] But then I'd pick her.

[2416] Lincoln.

[2417] Yeah.

[2418] I'd pick her.

[2419] I look up to her.

[2420] Yeah, that's how I interpreted that thing.

[2421] Look, some kids go to a party and they go, my dad's on the white socks.

[2422] Yeah.

[2423] And cheated the opposite of that, in my opinion.

[2424] Yeah.

[2425] I think that's great.

[2426] You admire.

[2427] I admire.

[2428] Anyway, it made me feel so good.

[2429] As it should.

[2430] And I was, yeah, I was so glad.

[2431] They adore you, both the girls.

[2432] Oh, I love them so much.

[2433] Congratulations.

[2434] Thank you.

[2435] You beat out RBG and T .S. Eliot.

[2436] And T .S. Eliot.

[2437] Yeah.

[2438] He didn't even make the cut.

[2439] You make the cut.

[2440] But I do feel very grateful.

[2441] You beat Obama.

[2442] I beat it every.

[2443] You beat everyone.

[2444] You beat everyone in the whole world.

[2445] You beat Jesus.

[2446] I love winning.

[2447] Yeah, you won.

[2448] It's a real privilege to get to be around them for so many, so many days of their life.

[2449] They don't have a memory without you.

[2450] Well, they have like vacations and stuff.

[2451] But I'm there.

[2452] I mean, they don't have, they can't think of a time in their life when they didn't know you.

[2453] Yeah, I know.

[2454] It's so special.

[2455] It is.

[2456] Oh, yeah.

[2457] I was just in the house earlier and there was this.

[2458] I guess it's a...

[2459] Squishy?

[2460] No, it's like a pencil holder maybe or something.

[2461] Okay.

[2462] That Delta made Kristen for Christmas.

[2463] Uh -huh.

[2464] And she saw all these little pictures of her as a baby.

[2465] It's so cute.

[2466] It's so cute.

[2467] But then there's a small picture of me and a small picture of Carly.

[2468] Oh.

[2469] Well, her old, you know, in front of her bed, she has this little picture wall.

[2470] And there was a moment where there was like six pictures of you and none of me. Wow.

[2471] And I was like, this is, we got to, we got to make a little more effort for me. You got to put a couple.

[2472] Oh, come in.

[2473] Ooh, be there.

[2474] You're back.

[2475] Hi, we were just talking about you.

[2476] Yeah.

[2477] In a good way.

[2478] About the cool present you made, Mom.

[2479] What's up?

[2480] I just said Aaron's here.

[2481] Oh, Aaron's here.

[2482] Oh, should we bring him up too?

[2483] Tell him to come up.

[2484] Okay.

[2485] Also, I haven't talked about my grandpa yet.

[2486] Well, let's talk about him.

[2487] Okay.

[2488] Well, he died.

[2489] Yeah.

[2490] A couple days ago.

[2491] We did talk about it on sync that's coming up.

[2492] I always feel a little guilty about that.

[2493] Double -dipping.

[2494] Yeah, when I was doing F -1, I would try to pick what I was going to talk about.

[2495] And then sometimes it would be, it seemed insane that I wasn't going to talk.

[2496] Like, I'd already talk about it there because that was Monday morning.

[2497] And then I would just break it.

[2498] Well, yeah, you have to break it because this is the main hub.

[2499] This is the golden goose.

[2500] Yeah, this is a golden thing.

[2501] It does.

[2502] So then it gets confusing.

[2503] Of course, I would talk about this multiple times.

[2504] This is a big deal.

[2505] And it's the first time I've experienced death, which is so lucky.

[2506] It's crazy.

[2507] It's kind of wild.

[2508] It's the first time my mom has, and she's in her 60s.

[2509] That is.

[2510] It's so lucky.

[2511] It's unbelievable.

[2512] Yeah, as I told you, I was younger than you when my dad died.

[2513] I know.

[2514] My dad was 18 or 16 or something when his dad.

[2515] dad died.

[2516] Oh, really?

[2517] Yeah.

[2518] And his mom is, you know, he's experienced it.

[2519] Yeah.

[2520] Well, hello.

[2521] Hello.

[2522] Welcome.

[2523] You have to let Aaron sit there.

[2524] Can he sit there so he can say hi?

[2525] Come over here.

[2526] Uh -oh.

[2527] Come over here, the bunny.

[2528] Do you want to sit on Aaron's lap so you can be next to the microphone?

[2529] Or you want to sit on my lap next to this microphone?

[2530] There we go.

[2531] We made it all work.

[2532] Do you want my headphones?

[2533] Are we recording?

[2534] What the hell else would we be doing in here?

[2535] Just chatting with headphones on?

[2536] That'd be insane, wouldn't it?

[2537] It'd be cool, though.

[2538] I would do it.

[2539] You're not wrong, and then I would do it.

[2540] Sharon, pull your microphone closer and tell us you're just back from the slopes.

[2541] Yeah, just pulled up.

[2542] How was it?

[2543] Mayamah, first time skiing at Mamet.

[2544] First of many trips to Manhattan.

[2545] Was it fun?

[2546] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2547] I can tell you it was not 40 and sunny.

[2548] Day one and two, it was like 12.

[2549] That's rare there.

[2550] Oh, yeah.

[2551] Yesterday was freezing and whipping wind.

[2552] Oh, boy.

[2553] But you kind of want that.

[2554] Oh, I don't care.

[2555] Yeah, you're used to.

[2556] Today was that day, though.

[2557] Oh, it was.

[2558] It was warm and sunny.

[2559] Oh, man, it was gorgeous.

[2560] So Ruthie Niskeed till noon, then we hopped in.

[2561] Drop back.

[2562] Then Delta just welcomed me, and I pulled a suitcase in, and she told me to come on up.

[2563] To get your ass upstairs.

[2564] Yeah.

[2565] What are you waiting for?

[2566] But the diesel truck needs a name.

[2567] I wanted to say, like, you know, how did old Tony do or whatever?

[2568] Old Tony is good.

[2569] I think it's pretty bad, old Tony.

[2570] How old Tony roll?

[2571] It sounds rusty.

[2572] Old tone ran great.

[2573] Yeah, Ruthie was like, God, you look good in a truck.

[2574] Oh.

[2575] And it sounds so sexy.

[2576] Oh, wow.

[2577] She loved that diesel.

[2578] Oh, wow.

[2579] Well, that's a Bama girl for you.

[2580] Yeah, right?

[2581] Roll Tide.

[2582] Don't say that ever again.

[2583] Listen, go blue beat roll tide.

[2584] Thank God.

[2585] It was hard for me. I was finally, I reaped what I sowed because it was playing a New Year's Day at the Richardson's U of M versus Alabama.

[2586] And I kept peek in my head and I said, How's the tide rolling?

[2587] And they were ahead most of the time.

[2588] But then Gold Blue came and said, no more roll tide.

[2589] Gold Blue's here.

[2590] That's right.

[2591] Happy birthday, Dad.

[2592] Oh, thank you.

[2593] Yeah, thank you.

[2594] Yeah.

[2595] And how was your accommodations up there?

[2596] Was it nice?

[2597] Yeah.

[2598] The girl, Adelaide, or Madeline broke her nose on day one?

[2599] Madeline.

[2600] She struggled.

[2601] And we had a little to, a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of, it's scary up in those big mountains.

[2602] I mean, last year I was my, I was terrified when we went to bail.

[2603] Yeah, yeah.

[2604] It's overwhelming when you pull up and you see the hill.

[2605] You're like, ooh.

[2606] It looks very scary from the street.

[2607] I felt for them, but at the same time, I was very happy that it clicked for me. How many crashes did you have?

[2608] Only two.

[2609] That's not bad at all.

[2610] You're going to ski circles around me the next time we go.

[2611] That's the goal, yeah.

[2612] No, but I can party with you.

[2613] I don't care what color of hill I go on.

[2614] Oh, great.

[2615] Daddy, can I tell you a story after this?

[2616] Yeah, of course you can.

[2617] You can tell me a story anytime.

[2618] No, but on here.

[2619] Oh, yeah, tell me. Okay, that today, everyone was putting their shirts over their nose and I'm yelling about that someone forded Because it's staked on the carpet Oh It's stinked on the carpet Yeah So someone, if they farted it went through their pants Into the carpet And then permeated the carpet And yeah And it smelled on the carpet Were people sniffing the carpet No Like dogs?

[2620] Was it poop?

[2621] Did someone poop themselves?

[2622] I don't know Did you ever figure out who did it?

[2623] You didn't figure out who did it but you have your theories yeah it's got to be a dude was it a boy you think yeah boys are stinky fart all the time poop and fart like their butts in their nose hard boogers elephant shaped oh wow blast from the past a literal blast every time it always reminds me of the video the guy that like on the court that he narrated, the guy dumping his fingers into it.

[2624] Let's see if we can do it together, okay?

[2625] Yeah, yeah, let's do that.

[2626] Okay, so let's start with, we're trying to cut away?

[2627] Yeah.

[2628] Okay, three, two, one.

[2629] We're trying to cut away, but our cameras are all fucked up, and this network is a mess, so I guess we're just going to have to hone in on this guy, dumping his fingers up to his knuckles in his asshole.

[2630] Come my.

[2631] This is our favorite family video.

[2632] We watch over and over again.

[2633] Wow.

[2634] So I guess we're just going to have to hone in on this guy, dumping his fingers knuckle deep into his asses.

[2635] Our cameras are all fucked up.

[2636] This network's a mess.

[2637] So we're just going to have to hone in.

[2638] On this guy.

[2639] Dumping his fingers.

[2640] Oh, my God.

[2641] Oh, wow.

[2642] That was pretty incredible.

[2643] Child Protective Service may come pick you up.

[2644] Yeah, I'm leaving that in.

[2645] All right, well, let's get this ship back on course here.

[2646] Yeah, we must.

[2647] Let's see if we can land this plane a little bit.

[2648] You guys are just in time to hear some facts about Paul Giamond.

[2649] Well, oh, I love.

[2650] Or not, or lack of fact.

[2651] No, there's some.

[2652] I was just going to, I was finishing my story.

[2653] Oh, please.

[2654] I know, it's very, you know.

[2655] It's really, it's chaotic.

[2656] It's chaotic and it's not, not thoughtful.

[2657] It's okay.

[2658] We were talking about Monica's grandpa died.

[2659] My grandfather died.

[2660] died yesterday she was crying when this started and now we're talking about dumping fingers so we've really been disrespectful to the whole grieving process it's what we do I guess sorry about grandby oh it's it's thank you thank you it's one of those weird ones to respond to yeah because he was in his 90s and lived a amazing great life but you want to say it's okay like when people say I'm sorry you want to say it's okay well I have been saying It's okay.

[2661] That's what I hope.

[2662] But it's not really okay.

[2663] Well, like, what if you get to keep your Papa Bob until you, or, you know, you just get to know him that much longer.

[2664] Yeah.

[2665] My Pop Bob died when I was 20.

[2666] I know.

[2667] So it's, it's okay.

[2668] But it's still really sad.

[2669] Basically, we put you in a position where you have to say thank you to us.

[2670] I guess it's good.

[2671] We did talk about it on sync.

[2672] because this version of it is different.

[2673] Thank you.

[2674] Anyway.

[2675] So, all right.

[2676] Couple facts.

[2677] When did 60 Minutes start?

[2678] debuted in 1968.

[2679] 68.

[2680] Seven years before we arrived on Planet Earth Aaron.

[2681] Oh, man. They were already in their seventh season when we hit the scene.

[2682] We weren't even a twinkle.

[2683] The nicotine length.

[2684] level in vapes versus cigarettes.

[2685] Well, we've got an expert here.

[2686] This is helpful.

[2687] Aaron knows all about them nicotine levels.

[2688] All right, let's hear it.

[2689] Well, I can tell you, yeah, I don't know, because the less I know, the more okay I am with vaping.

[2690] But I have gone up and down.

[2691] I think, you know, maybe the last time we were together, I was smoking this one that was so, I needed so much nicotine.

[2692] And so, like, I, I wanted to be one of those guys that pull off of the, like, a bottle full of liquid or whatever, you know, people are doing where they create a cloud that covers a city block.

[2693] Right.

[2694] Or you see it billowing out of a, bellowing out of a car window.

[2695] But I didn't want to be that guy, like holding a big.

[2696] Beer can.

[2697] So, yeah.

[2698] So, yeah.

[2699] Anyway, I got real finally.

[2700] And I'm like, okay, you can't.

[2701] because the button started going off and smoke was going like I think my pants caught on fire one from the oh my god it would just start letting smoke out oh yeah yeah yeah and like when I got that multi -srata I thought the motorcycle was on fire the first time driving down the road because I had it in the little holder oh yeah and all of a sudden just smoke was coming at me I'm like oh my god it's on fire the first time I drove it and it was the vapor Oh, God.

[2702] Anyway, I'm not a...

[2703] You're not an expert.

[2704] I really enjoy it still, but it...

[2705] Okay, well, a 20 milligram vape with 40 milligrams of nicotine.

[2706] There we go.

[2707] Is therefore the equivalent of smoking one or two packs of 20 cigarettes.

[2708] Yeah, so it's a pack.

[2709] Yeah.

[2710] Okay, you said that he met Ron and Edward.

[2711] at school, but I don't know who they are.

[2712] They're obviously famous people.

[2713] Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yes.

[2714] Ron Howard?

[2715] Nope, Ron Livingston.

[2716] Oh, okay.

[2717] What was the second name?

[2718] Edward Norton.

[2719] Edward Norton.

[2720] Oh, yeah.

[2721] Yeah, yeah.

[2722] Yes.

[2723] Okay.

[2724] So hopefully the listener is listening because that's...

[2725] I can't believe that's all I said.

[2726] Not said.

[2727] Okay.

[2728] Oops.

[2729] Well, thanks for clearing that out.

[2730] Yeah.

[2731] All right.

[2732] So Ron Livingston, Edward Norton.

[2733] They were in the same class?

[2734] He was, I want to say, Paul said he was two years ahead of Edward.

[2735] Well, also, Paul was there for his master's.

[2736] Some.

[2737] Well, he was doing plays extracurricularly during his BA with Edward, but he was two years ahead of him.

[2738] And then he came back into his master's and then did plays through that.

[2739] Right.

[2740] They're the same age, Ron and Paul.

[2741] Oh, they are.

[2742] Both 56.

[2743] Oh, wow.

[2744] Ron seems young.

[2745] Yeah.

[2746] Don't you think?

[2747] Uh -huh.

[2748] Did Thomas Edison steal inventions?

[2749] It says 22 people actually invented incandescent electric lamps before Edison did.

[2750] And Edison didn't steal their idea.

[2751] Rather, Edison improved on their idea by first understanding the market.

[2752] Yeah, there's a lot of, okay, Edison did not invent the light bulb, but I think he did.

[2753] Yeah, I had never heard that about Edison.

[2754] I've heard a lot of stuff.

[2755] Delta's got her hand raised.

[2756] Oh, Delta.

[2757] Shepard.

[2758] I have a question for you or daddy.

[2759] Okay.

[2760] Have you ever farted and has it ever been picked up by the mic?

[2761] It's a great question.

[2762] Yeah.

[2763] It has a couple times.

[2764] Not Monica with me. I've never farted in here.

[2765] Yeah.

[2766] And only during a fact check because I get I lower my guard a little.

[2767] I'm more professional when the guests are here.

[2768] Or pictures with the guests.

[2769] Well, one time yes with a pitcher.

[2770] With Liz.

[2771] Before Liz was our friend Liz.

[2772] I farted on her during the pitchers on accident.

[2773] It just came out and it was loud and we were both shocked by it.

[2774] But I don't know if we've ever heard the fart.

[2775] So nothing really.

[2776] Well, several times I've gone like, and then I stare at you because definitely I heard it through the headphones.

[2777] Oh.

[2778] But you were maybe distracted with your facts or something.

[2779] I don't think I don't think I've ever heard it.

[2780] Rob, do you remember hearing any over here?

[2781] I don't think so.

[2782] Okay.

[2783] Okay, Monica's got to get through these now.

[2784] No, that's it.

[2785] That was everything.

[2786] That's all the facts.

[2787] Did you like Paul?

[2788] You were hearing it for the first time.

[2789] I was hearing it for the first time.

[2790] Isn't he so fun?

[2791] I love his voice.

[2792] Great voice.

[2793] Yeah.

[2794] And he and I loved smoking.

[2795] We talked about smoking for 30 minutes.

[2796] I hope you left every minute of it in.

[2797] Yeah, we were talking about if they invented a pill where you would inoculate you from getting cancer, would you go back to smoking?

[2798] And we were both thinking, probably.

[2799] Yeah, I mean, at least with good company.

[2800] Yeah, you know.

[2801] Yeah, good friends and family.

[2802] Yeah.

[2803] Your children in the car.

[2804] You'd have to give them the pill as well.

[2805] All right.

[2806] Well, buddy.

[2807] What?

[2808] I love you.

[2809] And I'm sorry that you're granddad.

[2810] Granddaddy dad.

[2811] I don't have headphones on, so I don't even know.

[2812] Thank you.

[2813] Yeah.

[2814] I'm sorry that we were having a real moment and then all hell broke loose.

[2815] It'll happen.

[2816] I guess that's life.

[2817] I'm sorry, Mommy.

[2818] It's okay, baby.

[2819] Did you know her grandpa died?

[2820] Yeah, she texted me that she was going and she couldn't take me for the birthday trip because she was going to see her grandpa.

[2821] Right.

[2822] Yeah.

[2823] He didn't die then, which was a surprise.

[2824] He held on for a little longer.

[2825] I got to see him again.

[2826] He wanted to make it to 20.

[2827] Well, there is, okay, so, so I do feel not guilty, but yes, guilty.

[2828] My grandpa used to have this superstition.

[2829] If you start the year together, you end the year together.

[2830] That was always his thing.

[2831] So he was very superstitious around New Year's.

[2832] We had to be together.

[2833] We all had to be there.

[2834] I never, like, hung out with friends.

[2835] I just did family stuff.

[2836] Yeah.

[2837] And then I did break it before when I lived here and I had to work at Soul Cycle.

[2838] so I had to come back so I broke that no one died right but then this year we were not all together and then he did die a couple days later right but he under no circumstances would he have made it to the end of year I know I saw a picture of yeah I know I know so I mean he kind of self -fulfilled that prophecy he did that also in a weird way you were absolutely adhering to his policy which is you shouldn't start the year together if you're not going to finish it and we know we're not going to finish it together so it'd be bad luck to start it together oh i like that spin on the only way you could have seen them at the end of the year is if you two died and you were in her own right knock knock knock knock so true yeah okay that's another one of um uh math riddles tell tj well i love you love you love you happy to see you and i'm happy to see you too well love everyone happy new year still yeah How long do we say that?

[2839] It drives me not.

[2840] A long time.

[2841] There's nothing worse than like...

[2842] I'm going to say it in June.

[2843] Yeah.

[2844] Carry it through June.

[2845] All right.

[2846] All right.

[2847] Bye.

[2848] Bye.

[2849] Bye, you.

[2850] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcast.

[2851] You can listen to every episode of Armchair expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcast.

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