David Harbour

[0] Welcome to Armchair Expert.

[1] I am your host, Dack Shepard.

[2] I am joined by the ever -intriguing number eight, Monica Padman.

[3] What number were you?

[4] I think it was eight.

[5] Eleven.

[6] No, 11's our hero.

[7] Eight.

[8] I think it was eight.

[9] I wish it was 11.

[10] There was a super hot gale on the last season that bared some resemblance to Monica.

[11] Why am I playing the Stranger Things theme song, Monica?

[12] Well, for one, you love it.

[13] I do love it.

[14] I have this as a ringtone.

[15] You do?

[16] Yes.

[17] On my other phone.

[18] Oh, yeah.

[19] You love it, and we have a very special Stranger Things guest today.

[20] We do.

[21] We have your favorite Stranger Things cop, David Harbor.

[22] Yeah.

[23] And I got to say, I've run into David a few times socially, and I've just had this weird, fun connection with him every time I've seen him.

[24] But even with that said, he really over -delivered.

[25] Yeah, we talked to him for quite a long time.

[26] Some would argue too long.

[27] And we would have kept going.

[28] He was so interesting.

[29] He was really, really interesting.

[30] He's like a bit of a psychology historian of sorts.

[31] He's an armchair psychologist.

[32] He is.

[33] For real.

[34] And crazy honest and open.

[35] Yeah, yeah.

[36] So lovely.

[37] A lot to learn from him.

[38] He really would be more accurately put in the experts on expert category.

[39] That's true.

[40] Wait, can I say something about him real quick?

[41] Yeah.

[42] I think he was, well, first of all, you'll people will learn this, but.

[43] He got to do something very special.

[44] Very special, yeah.

[45] Let's leave it for the interview, but yes, a once -in -a -lifetime thing happened on this show.

[46] Well, yes, and he is a very masculine man, but I think maybe it's because he's so confident in his masculinity.

[47] He's also, he was also very sensitive.

[48] Very tender.

[49] And thoughtful.

[50] And it was so nice.

[51] If I could make an analogy, it was like inviting a kodiak bear into your house.

[52] and then you ask the Codiac bear what he'd like to watch, and he says, Beaches.

[53] Sure.

[54] Wouldn't you say that's pretty accurate?

[55] Okay.

[56] Like, you're really terrified of this Codiac Bear, but then the Codiac Bear requests that you watch beaches.

[57] But it wouldn't be beaches.

[58] It would be like, what's like a really movie?

[59] Terms of Endearment?

[60] No, a smart movie.

[61] Okay.

[62] Okay.

[63] Okay.

[64] Yeah, that's probably, maybe, maybe that's it.

[65] He wants to watch squid and the whale.

[66] Sure.

[67] Okay.

[68] Well, without further ado, please enjoy this tasty, tasty conversation with David Harbour.

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

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

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

[72] for me is happening today.

[73] Oh boy.

[74] For the folks that are only having an auditory experience, I just want to say, could you describe the chair you're sitting in?

[75] I'm sitting in a large leather, lazy boy -ish chair, although I have not extended.

[76] Is there a lazy boy factor to do it or no?

[77] It's just.

[78] Oh, it is.

[79] That's a lazy boy brain chair.

[80] So you can actually like pull the handle on the side.

[81] There's like a handle on the side.

[82] I'm sitting in, apparently, in Mr. Shepard's chair.

[83] This is not the guest chair.

[84] No. Oh, and in fact, I'm glad I did this because I'm getting, good night, sweet angel.

[85] I'm asleep for the rest of the podcast.

[86] You guys enjoy yourself.

[87] Please join us for a beautiful 90 -minute nap with David Harbour.

[88] Occasional, like, talking in my sleep things.

[89] This is so disorienting.

[90] It really is, isn't it?

[91] It must be the scariest for you.

[92] So weird for me. I'm so used to, but it's nice.

[93] It's nice to just look straight out instead of turning like that.

[94] Do you look at the guest or at Dax more?

[95] Mainly the guest.

[96] You do, right?

[97] So you're used to crating your neck this way.

[98] So this is going to be like a little bit awkward.

[99] No, I'm going to love it.

[100] No, it's going to strengthen the other side of her now.

[101] I can make her balanced.

[102] I'm going to even myself out.

[103] She's been walking crooked for six months now.

[104] It's going to be good.

[105] But yeah, this is like maybe the 50th interview and I've only sat from that perspective.

[106] It's kind of like when you're a passenger in your own car.

[107] Of course, you live in New York so you don't really.

[108] Can you relate to that?

[109] Do you drive it all?

[110] I mean, I have a car.

[111] Yeah.

[112] I bought a car, I came out here in 2013, and I did a very ill -fated television show, 13 episodes of a very ill -fated television show.

[113] And I just bought, like, because I love Stickshift.

[114] Uh -huh, sure.

[115] And so I bought a crappy Mustang sticks.

[116] But like a new, like, it's a rental car, is what it is, without serious radio and without automatic transmission.

[117] It's just a gray Mustang that I still have.

[118] Oh, you own it still?

[119] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[120] Yeah, yeah.

[121] Does it have the V8 or the V6?

[122] No, it's the cheapest brand of Mustang available.

[123] It was super cheap.

[124] It's great, though.

[125] But yeah, I love that car.

[126] Every other human being in my life thinks it's the worst car they've ever seen.

[127] Because of the douche factor?

[128] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[129] And also the fact that, like, it's not even like lime green.

[130] Like, it's like a solid gray.

[131] Like, it's taking itself.

[132] Very muted.

[133] No, like it's like, you.

[134] You bought that because you thought it would look good.

[135] You got an understated muscle car with the V6.

[136] There's a lot of red flag.

[137] And like it's new like 2013.

[138] It's not like a 65 or something.

[139] And it was like they offered me the 10 year warranty.

[140] Extended warranty.

[141] 10 year warranty.

[142] Did you get it?

[143] Can you have met?

[144] I'm so glad you didn't.

[145] You get the least warranty ever.

[146] Isn't that what you always do?

[147] I never get the best buy insurance.

[148] My father was a car salesman.

[149] all growing up.

[150] And yeah, that's where they're making their cheddar.

[151] It's all about the warranties.

[152] That's where the dealerships dip in their beak into the honey jar.

[153] Is that a saying?

[154] I mean, I don't know that slathering up their beak on.

[155] That weird bird that hangs around your kitchen.

[156] Yeah, I'm a little off kilter because I'm on the wrong side of the room.

[157] Yeah, this is going to be an interesting interview.

[158] Rob's also photographing the wrong side of my face.

[159] There's a lot of things that are concerning me right now.

[160] So everybody take it easy.

[161] It's going to be fine.

[162] You're going to guide us through.

[163] Did you always want a Mustang?

[164] Were you a kid that wanted a Mustang?

[165] No, you know what I wanted when I was a young kid?

[166] When I was 15 years old, or 14 years old, I wanted a Trans Am.

[167] Mm -hmm.

[168] With the like, because I think it was...

[169] Chicken Hawk on the hood?

[170] Smoking the Bandit style.

[171] Is that, I mean, I remember the Transam was the kit car from Night Rider, right?

[172] That's the one you wanted?

[173] No, I wanted the one with the eagle or whatever.

[174] Yeah, it's a chicken hawk.

[175] Okay.

[176] I'm sorry.

[177] Yeah, yeah.

[178] It is actually a chicken hawk?

[179] It's actually a chicken hawk.

[180] A chicken hawk is a creature.

[181] Yeah, that lives on planet Earth and on the hoods of many 70s transam.

[182] Is it a Pontiac?

[183] Pontiac, Trans Am.

[184] The Pontiac co -opted the chicken hawk.

[185] Yeah, I think it's the F -body platform.

[186] And on that platform, you got Camaro in the 70s.

[187] Camero, Berlinetta, Transam, Firebird.

[188] Those were your four General Motors.

[189] You're like a car guy.

[190] Yes, I am.

[191] Big time.

[192] I was like, I just slogged through the acting so that I, I can buy cars.

[193] I'm a little bit of a car guy.

[194] Not so much that stuff, but I remember like when I was, my first car actually was a 64 Volvo 122.

[195] Oh, sure.

[196] Do you know anything about the 122 series of Volvo?

[197] Okay.

[198] Well, it's interesting.

[199] They're built to last.

[200] This one had over, we think, over a million miles because the odometer had gone back.

[201] They don't have a million, the odometer had gone back to like 2 ,000 miles.

[202] And it was, yeah.

[203] And it had no. floorboards.

[204] Okay.

[205] So it was like a Flintstone.

[206] Yeah, you could put your feet on the ground.

[207] So we put plywood on there.

[208] And it had a block engine and a fuel pump.

[209] So I could do all my own repairs.

[210] It had no power steering.

[211] It was all rack and pinion.

[212] And it was also a stick, I'm imagining.

[213] It was a stick four on the floor.

[214] And it would, and a big stick.

[215] Like it would come like this off.

[216] Like a semi stick.

[217] Yeah, like big and loose too.

[218] Oh, yeah.

[219] A lot of play.

[220] Get it into.

[221] Yeah.

[222] It would be like, it was like conducting an orchestra.

[223] Yeah, and when you were driving it down the road, did you ever find that you just kind of play with it in?

[224] Oh, hell, yeah, you're like bat it around a little bit.

[225] And it was like, I remember it would leak brake fluid as well.

[226] Probably the worst fluid you could be leaking.

[227] Exactly.

[228] Because I'd be going down the highway at like, I was one time going on the highway at like, you know, like 60 miles an hour, and you press on the brakes and there just was no brakes.

[229] Okay, right.

[230] And I remember pulling up the emergency.

[231] break and that not doing anything either that was broken and so I decided to put it just into reverse because I'd ruin the transmission but I would stop the car right sure sure and I was so adrenaline junkied up because I was terrified that I was going to die that I pulled the stick over because the reverse was like towards you and up uh -huh and I broke the stick shift in now you you just broke your last remaining exactly and so I just wheeled it over this side of the road and there was snowbank so I just hit it on some snow banks and I finally it was a mission impossible situation I was like put Tom Cruise in an old Volvo and that's a movie because your your only option besides the snow banks was to open both doors create some wind resistance and try to scrub some speed I really wish you'd been there I really wish you were riding shot so we could have had that yeah experience where you were like dude open the window Right, pull the hook.

[232] Pull the hatch.

[233] Throw some sheets out the back.

[234] We'll make a parachute, man. Basically, yeah, when you're landing on an airplane, you see those flaps go up.

[235] And that's what it is?

[236] Yeah, that's what we'd be trying to replicate.

[237] That seems like very little material to stop an airplane moving at, what, 400 miles an hour?

[238] Yeah, well, I would imagine when you hit the runway, you're probably at around 100s, my guess.

[239] Really?

[240] When you're laying in a plane, you're only at 100 miles an hour.

[241] Yeah, that's my guess.

[242] Okay.

[243] They're flying at around 550 miles an hour when they're up at 30 ,000.

[244] But yeah, as they're, you know, because the reason they're dropping is we're scrubbing speed.

[245] And then as we land now, the thing about those cabs.

[246] We're actually dropping because we're slowing down.

[247] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[248] That makes sense, but it's terrifying when you think about it.

[249] And they're also angling the nose up, right?

[250] So now the bottom of the wings are creating all this forward resistance.

[251] But anyways, when those flaps, come up.

[252] I don't know if it's really to scrub speed as much as maybe force the nose then down or keep it up.

[253] I don't really know.

[254] Maybe it's more about the pitch of the thing, but I do know that they reverse those thrusters, right?

[255] So they're spinning one way, the fans on the jet engine.

[256] And then as you land, they reverse the thrust and they have to put some flaps up to help the air go in the right way.

[257] So they're actually start reverse thrusting.

[258] I have a, uh, Another.

[259] What if that was the moment you went dead asleep?

[260] I mean, I'm struggling to stay awake.

[261] That was too long.

[262] Again, I love it, but I am struggling.

[263] This is very comfortable, and the sun's just creeping over.

[264] It's very warm leather.

[265] Uh -huh.

[266] And then I'm bored the fuck out of you.

[267] This was crazy.

[268] So I had to get an MRI, it's not an MRI, but it's something for your chest.

[269] Okay.

[270] Like an MR or something.

[271] An image.

[272] For your heart?

[273] An image thing, yeah.

[274] Okay.

[275] Not an echocardiogram, though.

[276] No, like you actually go in the MRI machine.

[277] Okay.

[278] But he was like, I was talking to my doctor about the radiation.

[279] And he was like, yeah, it's about the same as one flight from New York to L .A. Really?

[280] Oh, wow.

[281] What do you mean, dude?

[282] Yeah.

[283] And he's like, oh, yeah, when you're up that high in the atmosphere flying six hours from New York to L .A., that's radiation.

[284] Oh, wow.

[285] And I was like, oh, God, I make that trip a lot.

[286] Well, think of the poor flight attend.

[287] Well, that's what he said.

[288] He said, apparently flight attendants have a higher rate of birth defects as a result of this.

[289] Oh, really?

[290] Because of all the radiation up there.

[291] Yeah.

[292] They should be getting hazard pay, right?

[293] Yeah.

[294] I read this in Monaco.

[295] We'll back it up in the fact check.

[296] But what I read is the discovery of a microwave oven, the one we used, the reason they figured out that it could cook food was that the radar on those planes and the nose of the plane was microwave radar.

[297] And they would leave it on when they were parked.

[298] and the guys that were cleaning the windshield...

[299] Would cook eggs on them?

[300] No, their insides would get burned.

[301] They'd have internal burns.

[302] They'd get all these stomach pains, and then it was finally discovered that they were having internal cooking, and that the microwave...

[303] Oh, that's awful.

[304] Internal cooking.

[305] I'm going to stop.

[306] I promise I'll stop after this, but the microwave, the way it's cooking your food, right, is that microwave light waves, they interact with water.

[307] They don't pass through water, so they hit the water.

[308] and they make the water accelerate and that's what creates the heat in your food is the water accelerating from the impact of the microwave so the microwave was going into the human's body and accelerating all the water in the human yeah is there like a microwave weapon out there is there like some kind of microwave gun so glad you asked I have one in the I have one in the garage that I want to use some DARPA you know like future weapon or something there has to be right Let's get, oh my God, I feel like this is a, we're already making the movie, Tom Cruise in an old Volvo with a DARPA microwave weapon.

[309] Yes.

[310] Oh.

[311] Yeah, the clash of super cutting edge technology and yet the old Volvo.

[312] Exactly.

[313] Just writes itself.

[314] You're a car guy, an airplane guy, and a microwave guy.

[315] And most especially a microwave guy.

[316] You grew up in New York.

[317] Did we introduce him?

[318] I did.

[319] I said David Harbor.

[320] I am David Harbor.

[321] Oh, there we go.

[322] I said, could you describe the seat you're sitting in?

[323] I'm sitting in the big chair.

[324] My name is David Harper.

[325] But you grew up in New York, and did you grow up up upstate, as we would call upstate New York?

[326] You know, people say upstate, but no. Westchester County.

[327] So White Plains, New York, which is, yes, it's 40 minutes up from the city.

[328] But what I consider upstate is like Albany and beyond.

[329] And so, and no one's using the term midstate, are they?

[330] No, suburbs.

[331] Okay, suburbs.

[332] Right, suburbs.

[333] So you're in the suburb.

[334] Yeah, the standard.

[335] you know middle affluent suburb what'd your dad do or your mom uh real estate i mean it's when we growing up we had like a very like modest house on one of those streets that looked like the 50s or whatever whereas like little um or like i actually went out to jersey recently with my girlfriend like they all look like this they're like little houses on like little plots and land so everybody's got a front yard and they're divided by uh fences and stuff but it's it was like a perfect looking street and just a million houses lined up in little front yards and like we all used to go out and play like box ball sure you ever play box ball I never have okay but I feel like I've seen it in a Scorsese yeah sure of course it's like chalk outlines and stuff like that and how does the box come into it you you you draw like four boxes in the street you draw like a chalk board of four boxes and then you have one of those balls like a kick ball like a red kick ball and you like you like hit it into each other's box and if it bounces off the person then they and you move around the circle depending upon your rank so not only if i played it i fucking loved it but we called it four square oh yeah four square okay okay four square yeah and i had fun i'm so ashamed to admit this but i had figured out a way to cheat at that game and i can't remember now how i was cheating but i do know it's one of the few times in life i cheated and i was really quite good at that game but solely because i was cheating i can't remember my hat it seems like a hard game to cheat I had figured it.

[336] I also cheated at the shot put.

[337] I was on the track team and I cheated at shot put.

[338] How does one cheat at shot put?

[339] Because you're not allowed to throw the shot put you have to put it from your shoulder right.

[340] Yes and you have to push it out but I I had refined this very deceptive throw like I was still coming from here but I think I was a lot of wrist and I was rotating a bit and not getting caught and I had a pretty good shot put but I know I know I was cheating at it.

[341] Do you think everyone was doing that?

[342] I hope so because I feel bad now as an adult because there were guys that were much like heavier than me and shit.

[343] And by the way, if you're like, if you're super heavy, that's your sport in school.

[344] I shouldn't be robbing that from you because I've figured out how to throw the shot.

[345] Amen.

[346] And representing all the heavy guys out there.

[347] Were you chubby as a kid?

[348] I'd like to say, fuck you.

[349] You should.

[350] Yeah.

[351] Well, as an act of apology, please sit in my chair for the remaining interview.

[352] Thanks.

[353] were you were you a chubby kid i um yeah like i mean i go through phases you know what i mean like i i have uh i would go through phases i do remember i'm only asking about your physique because i feel like i've got a right side how much women have to talk about their no i'm down for it i mean i think it's a fascinating thing it's just there i mean and our culture is obsessed with it and in fact i myself am obsessed with it and suffer body dysmorphia in many different ways as well me too and also one of the things that things that I would love to see just in general, in art too, especially, is like more embracing of bodies that are weird or different or what we consider weird and different.

[354] And like the things that are attractive about people is not so much these external things, but like, you know, who they are and who their soul is and how that is expressed.

[355] Yes.

[356] I'm always encouraging that.

[357] So I love to talk about my own body issues because I think it's a, I think it's a weird thing that Well, I think, by the way, about 99 % of us can relate to it.

[358] I don't care what you look like.

[359] You're not seeing in the mirror what other people see.

[360] That's just the only given.

[361] I know.

[362] It's a weird thing.

[363] I should have said this before I asked you anything about your body because there's been two great examples for me in the last couple of years where I looked at someone and I was like, fucking absolutely, that's how that person should look and they're so attractive.

[364] You're one of those people.

[365] I'm not kidding you.

[366] I'm not kidding you at all Oh my God Let me walk you just through Charmer No no I'm gonna be I'm dead fucking serious Here's what happened I think I first saw you acting In the newsroom I've already seen you act You were in Brokeback Mountain In a lot of movies I've seen So I've seen you act But in newsroom I like Became very aware of you And then of course Kristen and you Are friends from way back We'd know each other from way back But so I was aware of you And I liked you and I thought you were a very, very good actor.

[367] Oh, thanks.

[368] But within the opening five minutes of stranger things, when I meet you, I think we meet you in the shower or you get in the shower within five minutes.

[369] Yeah, I walk outside.

[370] I smoke a cigarette with my shirt off and everything.

[371] And I haven't had that moment since Poultergeist.

[372] Do you remember Craig T. Nelson and Poultergeist pushing his stomach in and pushing it out and pushing it in?

[373] That's how a man was when I was growing up.

[374] Yeah, yeah.

[375] And then something happened where every dude has a six -pack in movies.

[376] I know.

[377] And then I became obsessed with it.

[378] And I was watching, I don't know what your personal story is with your body, but when I was watching those scenes in Stranger Things, I was like, this is what a fucking man should look like.

[379] Looks like a goddamn grizzly bear is about to go out and do some work.

[380] He looks so fucking sexy.

[381] And, which I have no problem acknowledging when men are sexy.

[382] I didn't get that vibe in newsroom, but fuck did I get it in Stranger Things right away.

[383] You have such a masculinity.

[384] lenity it's so attractive it's crazy attractive but here's the interesting thing about all that stuff is that you there's something about um taking your shirt off that inevitably should be somewhat of a vulnerable experience and so often in movies when i see people with their shirts off it's like this armored thing where they're like psyched to like take it off or something i'm guilty of it I'm like, that's a vulnerable thing to do to expose yourself to someone, and it should feel vulnerable.

[385] It should feel intimate.

[386] And so whether or not you like it or whatever, like, it should feel intimate.

[387] And so in that way, yeah, I think that, you know, we, it is so weird because I think we do have to play these mental games with ourselves just to put ourselves in front of camera anyway.

[388] Sure.

[389] And I think one of those things is to perfect this sort of impenetrability.

[390] And so one of the big things for me, even going into that scene in Stranger Things, was to like be vulnerable enough to be embarrassed about my body or to just feel like human about it.

[391] You know what I mean?

[392] But you're also playing the mental gymnastics of you're alone in your home.

[393] So as much as I might think about my body once it's time to have a shower scene in something.

[394] Right.

[395] In my house, when the doors are closed, I'm walking around, I have fucking cellulite on my ass.

[396] God knows what's going on.

[397] I don't even think about it.

[398] I'm pretty liberated with no one's looking.

[399] that's interesting I don't know if I am oh interesting I mean I I don't know if I am I have a tendency for self -hatred that tends to pervade whether or not someone's observing it or not like I myself feel it or whatever like the amount of times that I'll pull up my pants during the day to get them at a certain thing or just like avoid a mirror is like another thing I love to do Yeah, yeah.

[400] But yeah, I think that, yeah, I think my self -hatred stays with me whether or not people are paying attention or not.

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

[402] We've all been there.

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

[404] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

[405] But for an unlucky few, these are.

[406] unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

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

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

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

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

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

[412] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon music.

[413] What's up, guys?

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

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

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

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

[418] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

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

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

[421] Okay.

[422] Myself, yeah, myself loathing's like always on fire.

[423] But not necessarily for the physicality when I'm by myself.

[424] Oh, interesting.

[425] Where does yours matter?

[426] Where does it take it?

[427] Oh, well.

[428] You seem like a really smart dude.

[429] Because of my airplane stuff.

[430] Because it's a microwave information.

[431] Like you seemed that.

[432] I mean, so I wonder if that's part of the neurosis.

[433] Of course it is.

[434] is like I'm going to study up and like find a lot of bullshit so that I can feel like I'm a smart person.

[435] Well, at the risk of making my listeners here over and over again.

[436] Yes, I was in learning disabled all through elementary school.

[437] I have a huge chip on my shoulder about being smart.

[438] It's nauseating.

[439] I leave every party I go to in the car going, dude, they get it.

[440] You're smart.

[441] Shut the fuck up.

[442] Wow, okay.

[443] That's so interesting.

[444] And yet, the other half is just real interest.

[445] I am really interested in a ton of stuff.

[446] And I really like talking about it.

[447] So it is tricky because some of it is my neuroses and some of it's just genuine interest in how an airplane lands, right?

[448] Yeah, yeah, of course.

[449] So it's always hard to figure out, right?

[450] Like how much is just, do you find that that's hard to navigate?

[451] Of course.

[452] Of course.

[453] That like, I mean, but also the things your neuroses make up your personality so much that it's like almost impossible to separate the two.

[454] Like I am interested in this because of the neuro.

[455] So the interest is genuine.

[456] Yeah.

[457] But also the genuine interest comes from the subconscious response.

[458] that's been going on since you were probably three years old.

[459] Yeah, rooted in some kind of trauma generally.

[460] Yeah, exactly.

[461] So when you leave a party in your like giving yourself a nice inventory on the right home, what kind of things do you think?

[462] Like, oh, that's interesting.

[463] Because you're not trying to impress people.

[464] I just don't go to the party.

[465] I, that's interesting.

[466] Yeah, I don't, I never think, I'm never, and this to my detriment maybe.

[467] Like, I never think I'm not smart.

[468] Great.

[469] Like, I'm actually the guy who I feel like.

[470] like I can hold my own with, and in fact, one of my things that I love to do is be provocative with people that consider themselves book smart.

[471] And I think that's part of my upbringing was like, you know, I went to Dartmouth and it was, uh, I was very much an artistic kid who was sort of trapped in this world of the intellect where the intellect was, you know, paramount.

[472] And people thought that they were, uh, knew what was going on.

[473] And I was like, I wanted to poke holes in that.

[474] So, you know, I remember I was like 24 years old and I did a Tom Stoppard play in New York.

[475] Okay.

[476] And I remember, you know, Tom Stoppard.

[477] I don't know Tom.

[478] Okay.

[479] So Tom Stoppard is like, in terms of plays, he's written tons of kind of brilliant plays.

[480] He also wrote that screenplay, Shakespeare in Love.

[481] Oh, that was, he's considered like one of the great intellectuals of, one of the great, he's checked, but like one of the great British intellectuals of like our time.

[482] Like, he's considered by very heady people to be very brilliant.

[483] And I remember being 24 years old and, like, just getting in vicious fights with him.

[484] Oh, really?

[485] Oh, yeah.

[486] Just wanting to attack his self -assuredness, just sort of rip apart intelligence in general and, like, show him that he didn't understand his own writing, that he didn't understand, like.

[487] What a great goal.

[488] So that's a thing where, like, I don't get intimidated by intelligence.

[489] I actually want to tear it down because I do often feel like that sort of self -assured intelligence can often be the worst, create the worst shit in the world.

[490] Yeah, absolutely.

[491] So, yeah.

[492] What was your general attack on him, if you can recall?

[493] I mean, for that particular thing, it would always be about that I understood his play better than he did.

[494] Like on an emotional level.

[495] Yeah, on a visceral level.

[496] I mean, experiential level.

[497] Just that like he's writing, about things which are concepts and ideas and they're clever and kind of fun but they that like the lived in nature of it was somehow false unless this particular thing was added to the character unless this happened or this happened he'd be like no you know it's just meant to be this it's just meant to be he's just saying to him like and I was like no no man like you're you're missing the whole point of like what you're wrong but I yeah that's just sort of been my general like I'm always I kind of and I think it's because I you know to a certain degree I grew up with it and then you know sort of going through the system like all the teachers and sort of various mentors and stuff there was just a lot of like intellectualism uh -huh and did you feel like you weren't getting something that that intellectualism was standing in the way of yeah because I was always like this weird artist who wanted to talk about things like you know the fact that I take a shit or whatever yeah yeah yeah like I also felt very...

[498] I have a younger sister.

[499] Yeah, much younger, seven years younger.

[500] Same year.

[501] Oh, really?

[502] You know, we're the same age?

[503] No, I'm the middle child.

[504] I have a brother who's five years older than me and a sister who's six and a half years.

[505] Middle child.

[506] Interesting.

[507] Okay.

[508] I'm the oldest.

[509] Right.

[510] And I was the only child for seven years.

[511] I had the same situation.

[512] Are you, you're...

[513] Eight years older than my brother.

[514] Wow.

[515] So you were an only child for the eight for eight years.

[516] And your brother came along?

[517] Was that an unplanned happy...

[518] Of course.

[519] Yeah, a surprise.

[520] Of course, big surprise.

[521] So you were meant to be sort of an only child.

[522] Well, I wanted to have a sibling for so long until I was like five and then I was perfectly happy being an only child.

[523] Okay.

[524] And then I, and then there was a big surprise.

[525] And so do you have only child syndrome?

[526] That's probably - Explain some attributes of it because I would be better to die.

[527] Tendency, tendency to be alone.

[528] Whether you like it or not.

[529] Oh, interesting.

[530] Like you search out separation and isolation Yeah And in that way is like living in I think I think it sort of relates to this Living in Fantasy to a certain degree That for sure I have yeah And also I think there's a certain amount Is shortness one of them Being short Physically Yeah like being physically short Yeah clearly that's worked on me No I think it's just sort of a I would say just a tendency to be alone.

[531] Like I do find myself as a result of, because when I was growing up, like interaction with people, like I was sort of safest.

[532] Whether or not I was happiest, I don't know, but I was safest and I felt the most at ease when I was on my own.

[533] Whereas people with brothers and sisters, they feel a lot of ease, like at parties or at like with other people.

[534] And I don't.

[535] I've never been that way.

[536] Yeah, that's really fascinating because our firstborn, who's only two years old, than our second born, but just watching her interact when she started preschool versus when the younger kid started preschool, it's night and day.

[537] Because she'd only interacted with adults.

[538] Well, that's the thing, right?

[539] You associate, you identify with parents as opposed to identifying with someone who just a couple of them.

[540] Yeah, every time we'd pick her up from preschool, she was like in a deep conversation with her teacher at like three, but she would not.

[541] As opposed to like pulling some other kid's hair, which you should be.

[542] Yeah, she's like, I don't get it.

[543] You guys are like, well, you're rolling around on the ground.

[544] For what, to what end?

[545] There's things to talk about it.

[546] Yeah, where's this going?

[547] Are you in route somewhere?

[548] Yeah, and then the littler girl, she's just like a social butterfly, you know?

[549] Yeah, exactly.

[550] It's kind of unavoidable these dynamics, right?

[551] I think so.

[552] To a comic level.

[553] Yeah.

[554] It's so predictable, right?

[555] Yeah.

[556] I mean, I, and it's funny, like, I don't know if I would change it.

[557] I think that you have a bit of an easier life.

[558] I think that the first child, the only child has more of a difficult life, I think a little more intensity about experiencing life in that way.

[559] Like, whereas I think that, but I don't know, like what's your experience in the middle?

[560] Well, what's really funny, though, is as you're, as I'm thinking about myself, I'm now wondering if this is, these descriptions are like astrology.

[561] Right.

[562] Where they appeal to everybody, right?

[563] So I was very much a loner because one kid was a teenager and nuts and the other one was a baby.

[564] And so I was just in my room by myself, like avoiding the, the warfare.

[565] You weren't seeking attention in that way?

[566] Fuck, yes, but I mean, look at me. I know.

[567] I'm wearing a sleevel's t -shirt and I have a podcast.

[568] It's disgusting.

[569] I went to tent.

[570] But I didn't seek it in the house.

[571] I sought it at school in amongst my friends.

[572] Right, right.

[573] Yeah, I wanted endless attention outside of the house.

[574] Right.

[575] But at home, I knew my role.

[576] My role was like alleviate the tension between all these people.

[577] That's probably accurate.

[578] Were you?

[579] I think very charming, making jokes.

[580] just trying to alleviate stress.

[581] Yes, trying to alleviate stress.

[582] Divorced parents?

[583] Yeah, divorced parents at three.

[584] You know what?

[585] Maybe it's something about the chair.

[586] Me too.

[587] Because you're definitely interviewing me. Yes, it's definitely switched.

[588] Just really interesting.

[589] You flipped it on me. I was trying to learn about your child.

[590] And now I'm like deep, beep in the recesses of my own.

[591] But this just happened.

[592] My stepfather died of cancer recently.

[593] And I was up there, and it was all of us kids and my mom.

[594] And I found like I just stepped right into it.

[595] I'm making the most inappropriate jokes you could ever make at a deathbed.

[596] And I'm like, oh, this is, yeah, this is what I do.

[597] Like I'm trying to cheer everyone up.

[598] This is stressful.

[599] And here I go.

[600] Let's get started.

[601] I mean, you're aware of it now, right?

[602] Yeah.

[603] Did it take you?

[604] I mean, it's so interesting because I struggle with these same concepts, right?

[605] Like the idea of like being myself.

[606] as opposed to like entertaining or being some version of myself that other people like.

[607] Did you ever struggle with that?

[608] It doesn't bother me. I have great acceptance over the fact.

[609] Like even in high school, I enjoyed being a part of so many different groups.

[610] Like I was super into cars, so I was around a lot of gearheads.

[611] But then I, that wasn't artsy enough for me. So I also had, I was friends with the snowboarders who were also artists.

[612] You know, like I wanted all.

[613] And I recognized that I just code switched as I went through all these groups of friends.

[614] Okay.

[615] And I've always liked that.

[616] I've never, like, fought that.

[617] I don't think it's your, you're fraudulent because you have facets.

[618] Do you feel fraudulent when you're exhibiting facets?

[619] No, but I do know that there is, there are ways that I hyper extend, let's say, in certain ways to entertain or please people that make me feel compromised in a way that, like, I wish I didn't do.

[620] Like, in a codependent way?

[621] I guess so.

[622] Like, you'll hurt yourself to regulate someone else's.

[623] emotions.

[624] Yeah, or I'll just like sort of feel this pressure to behave in a certain way where I wish, like I'm very bad with conflict.

[625] It's the reason why I'm drawn to acting or whatever, it's because I know the ends of stories I think that I tell and I know how conflict turns out or something.

[626] Like I do actually think that in some ways it's related to reliving trauma that I do like to do in some way.

[627] Did you see, I know everybody's kind of talking about it, but I just saw it a couple nights ago and it is I think it's the best thing on television I've seen a long time is that Nanette special with them we haven't seen it yet oh my god I mean it's beyond it's like half an hour of a comedy show comedy special on Netflix and then just halfway through it just changes and becomes this like performance art piece about rage where she basically deconstructs all of Western civilization she deconstructs comedy itself because she's says that like she keeps saying she has to quit comedy because she she has to tell jokes and these jokes can't be the full story because there's no release of the tension and at one point I don't know the way she she experiences a joke is that it's reliving a trauma without the actual full story without the full narrative and so she's sort of trapped in her pain in a certain way there's this one story where she's at a bus stop hitting on this guy girlfriend, the guy comes out and is like, you hit me on my girlfriend, and she tells a joke about it, but she can't tell you, and then at one point she says, I can't tell you the part where he came back and beat the crap out of me, because it's not part of the joke.

[628] So she constructs these narratives that are ultimately very, what she considers sort of self -hating, I guess, right?

[629] And reframes her narratives in these joke ways that are very destructive to who she is as a human being and actually to her own real story.

[630] which is like who she is and you.

[631] And so during the special kind of what you see is, you see her real story.

[632] You just see a woman emerge.

[633] That's awesome.

[634] It's stunning.

[635] I mean, I was, for hours afterwards, I was just like, like my nerves were, and I don't.

[636] That's a lovely feeling, isn't it?

[637] Kind of.

[638] I mean, it's unnerving to watch too.

[639] Yeah.

[640] But it's truly art. I mean, I watch it.

[641] I was like, this is why I make art. Right.

[642] This is why we do this.

[643] I said this to you the last time I saw you that you remind me so much of my TV brother and friend Peter Krausea.

[644] That's so funny.

[645] I used to get that.

[646] You know what was so funny.

[647] It was actually in terms of how I look.

[648] Like I used to get the combination of what was the show they were on about death?

[649] Oh, six feet under.

[650] Yeah, it was like him and Michael Hall with the brow or whatever.

[651] So it's like the two of them had a baby.

[652] Yeah.

[653] If that was possible.

[654] forget the physicality um you you he thinks so similar to you oh yeah that's why i love talking to him he yeah he has a very um thoughtful like in -depth way of uh evaluating the world that i love and i find really refreshing and we didn't you guys do a show together yeah parenthood that's right yeah and he's just the most the lovely with sally field close that was called damn it brothers and There we go.

[655] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[656] A lot of parents.

[657] Yes, family.

[658] Yeah, it's nearly identical, you fucking cock sucker.

[659] Watch every episode, apparently.

[660] On the ride over.

[661] I mean, brothers and sisters.

[662] I mean, brother.

[663] He, on the ride over.

[664] I loved you and Sallyfield again.

[665] Yes, I'm going to, I'm going to say I loved brothers and sisters.

[666] This is so pre -planned.

[667] I could smell it from a mile away.

[668] Yes.

[669] No, it is a quiet confidence.

[670] He has in, you have.

[671] Yeah, that Krause.

[672] Yeah.

[673] But he really.

[674] It's not so quiet with me sometimes.

[675] Really?

[676] Just blatantly solid confidence.

[677] Like loud, weird confidence.

[678] I can see in him that acting is very much a part of his own self -exploration.

[679] Which I don't really do, for better or worse.

[680] And I think it's really cool.

[681] I kind of wish I did.

[682] Would you agree with that?

[683] Like, you acting and you not acting aren't really two separate things.

[684] They're kind of like through acting you, it's just more self -exploration and evolution.

[685] Yeah, I mean, I do, hopefully I'm playing a character as opposed to just self, you know what I mean?

[686] I don't want it to ever be just a psychiatric session.

[687] Okay.

[688] But I am totally interested in deep wells of character psychology and exploring those things.

[689] And I do find that there is somewhat of a kismet to the roles that find me in the positions where I am in my life.

[690] and having to explore those particular things at that time.

[691] I do find a certain kisman in that.

[692] And if it's there, I'll, like, totally go with it.

[693] Like, this season, in particular, even season three of Stranger Things, Hopper has to grapple with these particular issues, which I myself am grappling with a lot.

[694] And so I love...

[695] Do you ever get suspicious the writers are like...

[696] Well, no, I mean, not as suspicious.

[697] I think it's confirmed.

[698] Oh, okay, you asked that.

[699] Yeah, well, also just...

[700] We're so...

[701] They're such good studiers of me, I mean, of human beings in general, but of me. Yeah.

[702] And they're writing for me. The best writers do that.

[703] And they, the insults this season that they come out with are so deeply personal.

[704] Oh, wonderful.

[705] I mean, they're just those things that I myself, you know, those things that.

[706] What if you just change your name midseason to David Harbour?

[707] Officer Harbour.

[708] Exactly.

[709] It's so amazing.

[710] I mean, I just read this recent episode that just came out and they have two insults in there that this guy says to me and I couldn't believe how mean and how accurate they were and I called them immediately and I was like I would be mad but it's just so accurate that I'm so happy.

[711] I mean, sometimes you know what's funny about that is like sometimes I get even when someone's insulting if they see you like if they really see you there's a euphoria to it it's like oh you've just insulted the thing that nobody sees like that's wonderful like I feel like really seen yeah yeah that would happen to me on brothers and sisters Sally Field would do that no she wasn't writing the show she wasn't writing the show yeah after I left she started writing the show but no acting is acting is a very personal thing for me. And I also, I mean, I do think it's what I'm built to do.

[712] And I take very, very seriously.

[713] Like, I don't take my life that seriously.

[714] Yeah.

[715] And I don't take myself that seriously.

[716] But yeah, exactly, exactly.

[717] But I take, but I honestly take acting like so seriously.

[718] And I like to go to deep, weird places.

[719] I read a lot of psychology.

[720] I read a lot of Freud.

[721] I read a lot of Lecon.

[722] I believe in a very old school approach to psychotherapy where you lie on the couch like and are dealing with a therapist who's a lot smarter than you but coaxing things out of you making connections that are not clear linearly making subconscious connections over a period of many many years consistently with the same person in a very safe environment where you go to that environment so that you can make gradual changes over the course of your life stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare So I totally agree with you about psychoanalysis, and that was your experience with it, and I believe that that works.

[723] It continues to be my experience with it.

[724] Yeah, I'm still in.

[725] I, on the other hand, have been in AA for 14 years.

[726] Well, I'm also...

[727] Oh, you are?

[728] Well, aren't we supposed to be...

[729] Isn't there a tradition that those were anonymous at the level of TV, present, radio?

[730] If I were to be in one of those programs, that would be...

[731] I'll talk that.

[732] Okay, please, go ahead.

[733] Jesus Christ, we'll never finish anything, but I love it.

[734] That's my favorite kind of conversation.

[735] In four hours, I'll go out.

[736] Okay, so you said you ever lived in New York.

[737] Wait, so you're 14 years?

[738] I had no idea you're sober.

[739] Oh, my God.

[740] All right, we could talk about this.

[741] Can we just, you of all people?

[742] Wait, can we just actually make this a meeting that we record, like one of those Russell Brand ones?

[743] Isn't it already a meeting?

[744] Yeah.

[745] Oh, so high.

[746] Came along.

[747] Unfortunately, the best radio is what it was like, not what it's like now.

[748] I know, it's true.

[749] It's true.

[750] No, okay, but oh, no, you're right.

[751] Yes.

[752] So listen, I already had this.

[753] The differences between A .A. and psychotherapy.

[754] Yes.

[755] Okay.

[756] First and foremost, I have this affinity towards you, and I don't know what it is.

[757] I know me too.

[758] Yeah, I just like, I don't understand it either.

[759] It's just called chemistry.

[760] Yeah, she knew you that excited me. Then on stranger things, I was just like, oh my God, this is my actor.

[761] This is my new Mickey Rourke.

[762] Like, I'm in.

[763] He's my guy.

[764] And then I met you, and then I felt like there were just fireworks.

[765] But I feel like you being sober as part of it that I didn't even know.

[766] know about, which is so exciting.

[767] But okay, so you know then through AA, or you don't know because you're not an A, but I am an AA.

[768] No. Because I already broken my anonymity.

[769] How often do you go?

[770] Do you still go?

[771] I'm going tonight.

[772] I go every Tuesday night.

[773] Wow.

[774] So you have a once, sort of a home group, once a week kind of thing?

[775] Yeah, spoiled, nice, at a house.

[776] Yeah, beautiful.

[777] Yeah, I love it.

[778] But through the process of AA for 15 years now, I've only been over 14, but I have been going for 15.

[779] through the sheer volume, thousands of guys trying to get sober.

[780] You can tell within five seconds of a share what they're fucking struggling with.

[781] Because we've all struggled with it.

[782] We'd love to say there's so many symptoms out there and so many issues.

[783] But when you really listen to someone's share, you go, okay, we all have fears.

[784] I can tell what this is one of the seven fears you have in a four step.

[785] I get it, dude.

[786] I have the same one.

[787] There's such a shortcut in the process of getting sober.

[788] because you're not going to spend 15 years to get sober.

[789] A dude's going to say bullshit, dude, that's not how it works.

[790] I know.

[791] You're lying to a liar.

[792] There's this like really confrontational bullshit.

[793] What's the reason why?

[794] Like, Bill went to Young, didn't he?

[795] Like, he actually met with Carl Young, and Carl Young was like, I can't cure you.

[796] You're, that's it.

[797] You're dead.

[798] And he also did.

[799] So he had to create therapy, right?

[800] Yeah, exactly.

[801] Walls over.

[802] Yeah, exactly.

[803] I want to do it.

[804] It's a little bit of a different time.

[805] Sure.

[806] But, but, yeah, that's the thing.

[807] Like, you do need an entirely different.

[808] program for getting sober because I do believe sobriety is a spiritual disease uh -huh right I agree so you need a spiritual solution but in terms of it's also an action program right so there's yes it's action oriented as opposed to thought oriented you'll never think yourself out of doing these so you just do it you you follow your feet as opposed to your brain yeah all these dumb cliches that are a thousand percent true those guys the crusty old guys at the pitch meeting yeah i got a dumb brain but Smart feet.

[809] Live and let live, kid.

[810] Easy does it, huh?

[811] By the way, New York's the other greatest place to get sober, I feel like.

[812] I got sober in East Village when I was 24 years old.

[813] Oh, wow.

[814] So I had a, I'll tell you about my little sweat that I had in Los Angeles 13 years later.

[815] But yeah, I was 24 years old.

[816] I got sober in the East Village and it was magical.

[817] and this was like 99 so junkies and good stuff yeah a little bit I mean it was gentrifying but it was still a little bit hardcore but it was a lot of people with tattoos like people that I wanted to hang out with for my whole life but I was the like nerdy loser at the bar who wouldn't and then you come into an A meeting and everybody's sober their skin is just amazing everybody looks dewy and fresh and yet they're so cool with those tattoos and so God everybody was so cool and it wasn't really like firm AA in the sense of like we weren't talking a lot about the solution it was more about being in the East Village and like crying about our lives like being really emotional but that's like what I needed at the time yeah and you know these pretty pretty girls being like being like come back next week come back and I was like okay I will but like in fact I'll go anywhere you're at so trash recycling facility yeah just I just, yeah, I just loved it.

[818] And we would all, like, go to lunch and smoke cigarettes and, like, oh, it was just glorious.

[819] Yes.

[820] It's really fun, isn't it?

[821] Yeah, yeah.

[822] It can be.

[823] And then you had a little slips, a little drinky poo or something?

[824] No, what I did was like, so I, I, what I do?

[825] I, yeah, I was sober.

[826] At 37?

[827] No, it, uh, I was 24.

[828] And then when I was 35 or 36 or something, I came out and whatever.

[829] This isn't his fault.

[830] I want to just say this.

[831] Because I was toying around with the idea.

[832] But I hadn't been going to meetings for a long time.

[833] Like basically I went, the first three years, I went almost religiously like every day.

[834] Well, also something happened early in my sobriety like a year and a half in where I was, I was, I discovered that I had bipolar.

[835] And so I sort of had some experiences with psychiatric hospitals.

[836] Is your permission or not your permission?

[837] Um, it was a voluntary admission, but only it was still, um, at least the first experience was a locked ward.

[838] So you, when you go in, uh, you know, they determine when you leave.

[839] Oh, wow.

[840] But you do voluntarily admit.

[841] And that was in sobriety.

[842] This was in sobriety.

[843] Because basically you didn't have your medicine anymore.

[844] Exactly.

[845] Right.

[846] Exactly.

[847] So I've been self -medicating since I was like 15 drinking and then I got to 24 and I and also like bipolar sometimes they used to say that at least at the time they would tell me that it starts sort of in your early 20s like that people really discover they have it when they're early 20s so yeah so that changed my relationship to AA too sure which is a tricky thing I don't want to speak because it can't hear about the program in any way it's you can by the way I well it's it saved my life of all things.

[848] It saved my life and it's an amazing thing.

[849] But also there is a, there can be in some people a tendency to feel like psychiatric medication is in some way cheating.

[850] Yeah, yeah.

[851] I think that's bullshit.

[852] And I mean, I'll tell you right off the mat for me, that's bullshit.

[853] Like if you really feel that way, then you have to let me stay in your apartment.

[854] Because like you'll see.

[855] a couple days.

[856] Buckle up.

[857] Let me take you for a ride.

[858] Yeah, exactly.

[859] Like, you'll, you know, and we'll, we'll talk about program all day.

[860] I mean, I got tons of theories about the universe that we could talk about, a coincidence and kismet that, uh, but, uh, but anyway, so that changed my relationship a little bit of days.

[861] By the way, I think that has evolved, though, don't you, don't you think?

[862] Have you noticed that that is a ball, that position?

[863] I do think it's evolved.

[864] Yeah, I think it's evolved.

[865] Yeah, I think it's evolved.

[866] But again, this is, you know, almost 20 years ago.

[867] It is tricky, right, because what you're kind of, the realization you're coming to in AA, uh, is is that any attempt to regulate the inside with anything from the outside is generally not going to bear fruit.

[868] Right.

[869] I mean, that's just the general principle, which is food's not going to do it long term.

[870] Gambling's not going to do it long term.

[871] Sex isn't going to do it long term.

[872] All these things we take.

[873] So it does break this paradigm a little bit to go.

[874] But there is medication you can take.

[875] That is going to help with the inside.

[876] Which, by the way, now is, at least out here, seems very embraced.

[877] Most of the guys in my meeting are on some kind of psychotropic, but exactly.

[878] I mean, I, you know, the jury's out for me in terms of where all this stuff will end up.

[879] Because, you know, 100 years from now, what will we think of mental illness as?

[880] Like, and what will the treatment be for it?

[881] Like, because now, I mean, we're certainly a lot better off than we were like, whatever, 60 years ago when we were lobotomizing people.

[882] I mean, I think that medications are a lot further along than that sort of idea.

[883] Yeah, but this whole concept that there are being more and more people diagnosed with mental illnesses and more and more of those mental illnesses are being defined, like the whole concept of mental illness has to change moving forward.

[884] Like 50 years from now, 100 years and now we're going to think about it differently.

[885] But as we move forward, yeah, we need to incorporate medication.

[886] And because I'm Medicaid, I'm a much better human being.

[887] And because I'm sober, I'm a much better human being.

[888] So let's just take it on better human being.

[889] Yeah.

[890] Like me as a sober guy, I admit.

[891] and agree that like me drinking alcohol as opposed to me not drinking alcohol better human being but me not taking medication worse human being yes and so i think that's a valid thing so i have a deep fascination with psychology uh and mental illness and do you find yourself ever asking why is it an epidemic like do you ever get curious of like so the thought i always have is is this the general nature of Homo sapien, has it always been for 200 ,000 years, is we always fought mental illness, A, or B, has something changed so dramatically that it's resulted in all this mental illness?

[892] And I have this armchair theory about that.

[893] And I'm curious what your thought is on that.

[894] All right, you tell me, you're, I'll tell you mine, you tell me yours.

[895] I show you mine.

[896] Yeah, yeah.

[897] My armchair theory is that for the 90 % of the time we've been on planet earth our life required a lot of rigorous physical activity to produce our food and we were rewarded for that physical activity with serotonin and dopamine and that people are just in general stagnant and that that i think part a big chunk of the epidemic is is that is physical stagnation and that we're not getting the reward that we need to be happy i think that sure could totally contribute to it i mean part of it too is i know that there's a piece of a component of it that's chemical And then there also, I believe, is a component of it that's upbringing that sort of is, there's a nature and a nurture thing, right?

[898] There's a genetic component.

[899] I know that my medication works to a certain degree, but it really works in conjunction with the deep psychoanalysis of like really staying present with a daily routine of that.

[900] For me, it's psychoanalysis.

[901] I think for other people, it might be exercise or might be, I mean, an exercise, again, is good, all those things.

[902] I think that one of the things, too, though, is that there's tremendous.

[903] moral conundrum to living in modern society sure and I think that that weighs on us in ways that we can't even describe or comprehend yeah um and the amount of information that we take in like it's so funny like we're all worried about junk food but like that's going into your mouth and going into your stomach right like think about the amount of information your brain takes in just from like watching a movie or just from watching the news for five minutes living in a world where you have to understand things like mass shootings or understand things like and still walk around in the world and feel safe and feel like you can go to the deli like that moral i don't know if the moral but just that behavioral conundrum like i find myself just being a sensitive individual like Sometimes I stop and wonder, I'm like, why are we not all just like, why is it not?

[904] And even the ceaseless, the endless progression of society, the endless need and hunger for more, more technology, more development, more like this like thing that society's doing, right?

[905] Yeah.

[906] That I think for sensitive individuals can be overwhelming.

[907] And so I think that like we're outpacing what we can handle.

[908] As primates.

[909] Yeah.

[910] And the other thing is, like, the weird thing about Homo sapiens, right, is like we have these brains that are, like, stupidly big for our bodies, right?

[911] Right.

[912] So, like, this brain, as it develops throughout the ages and as it continues to develop through maybe subtle evolutionary things, like, maybe it's just getting weirder and we just haven't caught up with it.

[913] And, like, maybe we do need to medicate it or maybe we do need to breed in different ways or whatever.

[914] but basically like the only thing that defines a mental illness I think is that it doesn't adhere to society standards right well that's what's dangerous about the DSM and having a objective diagnoses of these conditions because what you're accidentally doing is establishing what the norm is right because all mental illness we're saying is falling outside of the norm I mean it's just very tricky to to actually have some kind of, you know, recipe for what normal is.

[915] I agree with you and I disagree.

[916] Like, because I agree that yes, yes.

[917] And yet having it, I also know that it's something that's fucked up.

[918] So like, but like everything, it's not good or bad.

[919] It's just, it's, there's this great thing about it.

[920] And then it comes with a little bit of side effect.

[921] I do think that the, that our gifts and our illnesses are inextricably, linked.

[922] So yes, I do feel like it's part of our thing.

[923] And also, I do feel like it's kind of, I do still feel like it's an illness.

[924] So it's not like you're ever like, I have the flu.

[925] And it's like, but it's kind of good.

[926] Like you have the flu.

[927] And you're like, no, it's just, I'm not functioning at the level that I should be functioning.

[928] Yes.

[929] Yes, definitely the flu.

[930] But I think me being an addict is why I'm a writer.

[931] I think me being OCDs -wise.

[932] I can sit and write for nine hours, and most people can't.

[933] So it's definitely a double -edged sword for me personally.

[934] Yeah.

[935] I guess what I'm saying is, what the danger of it is, is we think of something like ADHD as being, you know, abnormal or something that needs correction in kids because they're not able to sit in that classroom and do what every other kid does, right?

[936] So we feel like it needs correction.

[937] But if you think about it in the terms of like a bee colony, and that some of the bees can't hang with the other bees, and they're the ones that go discover the pollen somewhere else because they've got to get the fuck out of there.

[938] Their attention spans not for that colony.

[939] But collectively, that's the danger of my eye.

[940] It's the same way multiculturalism is awesome.

[941] It's the same reason why diversity creates all these inventions and our most wonderful things.

[942] It's like having all these different viewpoints on the world and people processing the world around them so differently is how we get everything worth having.

[943] I kind of agree.

[944] And also I think that there's ways, that you can still have different bees doing different things and cut out those bees' illnesses.

[945] So in other words, like, yes, like, that's a weird fucking bee.

[946] And he just discovered the whole thing.

[947] But, like, also, that bee's not, like, running around, hurting itself while it's discovering other pollen.

[948] Eliminating the suffering.

[949] Yeah.

[950] And I think that medicine is working towards that better and better because there have been, and I think the medications are getting a lot better.

[951] Because it used to be you had to make a real sacrifice to be on medication.

[952] Yes.

[953] But, you know, it's, yeah, they're getting more sophisticated about it.

[954] But I do, I do feel like it's a weird thing because I, while at the same time, I do feel like our gifts and our illnesses are linked, inextricably linked, I don't ever want to romanticize the idea that because you're ill, you're special.

[955] Like, or to go off your medication because that specialness defines you in a different way.

[956] Like, I actually think that you're special because you're special.

[957] Right.

[958] and that you're also ill, and we can help you with that.

[959] That's a great distinction to make.

[960] And I, yeah, I would not want anyone to be embracing their misery because that's what makes them unique.

[961] Yeah, yeah.

[962] Or their, I mean, because the weird thing about, like, I don't know, the weird thing about society is like, you're right.

[963] I mean, it's contrary to the norms, but, like, there's acceptable limits of that stuff as well that are pretty much universal.

[964] Like, I know that when I'm, like, going through episodes and stuff, they're usually not as creative.

[965] But the funny thing is, like, the best representation I've ever seen of it is Homeland.

[966] Do you ever watch Homeland?

[967] Yeah.

[968] First season, she goes into the hospital at the end, right?

[969] Yeah.

[970] And there's a brilliance that she acquires right before she goes in, which is like she starts to make connections that she can't make without it.

[971] Yeah.

[972] But then she crosses over at tipping point, and people are like, we can't understand you.

[973] You're not making any sense.

[974] And she's like, no, she's figured it out.

[975] And that stuff, like, that stuff doesn't make her unique or special or interesting or smarter.

[976] It just, she's actually crossed a level where she's sick now.

[977] Yes.

[978] And she's just, her brain is making associations that like a cancer, like they're spreading in ways that they call it kindling in the brain.

[979] They're spreading in ways that aren't useful and aren't productive.

[980] And it's not like a, it's actually not like a negotiable thing.

[981] You're not like, well, it kind of looks more artistic.

[982] It's actually like just not.

[983] Right.

[984] It's like you're actually not making sense to anyone.

[985] Nobody thinks it's more interesting.

[986] It was great a couple days ago.

[987] So the perfect medicine, would you agree, would be not bunting or muting all of that, but allowing it to get to its like optimal level before, right?

[988] So for Carrie, if we could have let her go to the point where she was actually connecting all the dots, like basically the first six hours of a meth high and then you lob off.

[989] But the funny thing about you is you're such an.

[990] addict that you like want to exist at this level like all the time and I have to say you want to be like the most creative like all like there's something to be said for those weeks where you're just like napping yeah no like on like you're like a lot of nap in and like whatever dude like I'm gonna play some video games like those you know it's fun it's like to like as a as a man getting older as a person getting older there's all this emphasis on like I don't know I don't know if is my own neurosis, but like I'm taking these, like, things that, like, will make you younger or stuff.

[991] Yeah.

[992] There's something, or make you have more energy, something like that.

[993] And there's something about the organism itself, like, having a shelf life.

[994] Uh -huh.

[995] Like, in other words, the organism itself slowing down as you get older and, like, not being able to do as much as it was, like, this push to constantly, like, so that's a thing where - Well, you just describe me. Like, I will fight this with everything at science.

[996] Well, I see it in you.

[997] Are you getting?

[998] Like, I literally like, I can feel it with - off you when we're talking about mental illness you're like can't i get a little of that like yeah one hour of euphoria day is not i don't think that's gratuitous or selfish but but but i am fighting that and i will do things that are questionable uh and i also have full awareness that when you and i are about 75 you'll have much more serenity than me because you're right you're slowly slowing down and it's a part of the process and it's preparing your brain for all these things and I am fighting against it and I know I will be fucked at 75 so I have no illusion that this is going to pan out well but but fuck it I want it now and I'll deal with that one I'm 75 yeah there's I mean there is something there's something so extraordinary about the idea that because I look at my parents or look at, you know, older people.

[999] And I still look at older people, and I think that I will not be that.

[1000] Sure.

[1001] Like, they all start to look crappy.

[1002] They all start to break down and are in pain.

[1003] And I still have this associate.

[1004] So I think one of my journeys, as I'm in my 40s here, has been, and it's something I remember I used to go to this monastery and ask Indigo because I had a friend who was a monk there under Ticknahan and they would do meditations about death where you would actually see your body decaying and you would like do this medication medicine your body decaying and I'm sort of doing a meditation on aging in the sense of being like okay like in you know 17 years you'll be 60 and like it'll it'll really hurt and the waistline will be even larger than it is is at its worst now or what I mean like things like that where you're like I want to accept and they're like double chins will I would just want to I want to you know but even beyond that just the actual physical instrument will start to break down and I think that like the acceptance of that and also society will care about you less uh -huh like that that I think is that is like a fascinating white noise everyone underneath it's like I'm finding that like yeah even like with women like I've gotten to the age where it's like I have to remind myself that I am still a man I may like um sexless creature no I know no I'm like a unique to yeah it's amazing and it's a weird acceptance yeah yeah but it is it is exciting well yeah we just watched the marlin brando documentary okay was the one on showtime called like in his word is that talk to me marlin yeah I haven't seen it but it's interesting it's him like talking it's him It's all his recordings.

[1005] But it's such a good depiction of age.

[1006] Because you see this like perfect human.

[1007] He was so fucking beautiful.

[1008] He was the most handsome person ever.

[1009] Most attractive.

[1010] And then became like the ugliest.

[1011] To see a transformation of a body.

[1012] It's like, oh boy.

[1013] This is just what happens.

[1014] I know.

[1015] Yeah.

[1016] But he's like, talk about a presence.

[1017] I just rewatched Apocalypse now.

[1018] And like that.

[1019] the that's an impossible role like you give somebody a role that for two hours of the movie everyone in the movie is just like this guy he's amazing he's crazy he's the most incredible man ever and you think there's no actor that could ever live and the minute he comes on screen you're like this guy's amazing yeah yeah he's 400 pounds and he's amazing I want to look like him I want to be as troubled as him uh you've seen hearts of darkness I'm sure right yeah throwing the coconuts in the whole I was trying to explain it to Monica who hadn't seen that yet and I'm like so crazy because they go into that part of the documentary of him filming that when he was telling Francis you know that the character couldn't be this that and the other thing and I said you know when he's leaving out is that he just didn't read the script or the book he didn't do a fucking thing he just showed up and he had this crazy contract if you recall that every day over the 10 days it was like just bankrupting the whole production while he thought about what he might want to play yeah he went off into the before he got there.

[1020] It's just like it's so crazy because it's like everything I try to avoid as a human being and then you look at the results of it and I can't argue with it either.

[1021] So it's very tricky.

[1022] Because he delivers, right?

[1023] He does.

[1024] He's so fucking good.

[1025] I know.

[1026] But back to the human thing in like how we live differently and whatnot.

[1027] Monica and I were just talking this morning about privacy.

[1028] And what happens is I was driving my kids to school this morning and I looked in the every mirror and I could see my five -year -old was doing something a little bit mean to the three -year -old, right?

[1029] And then she caught eyes with me in the mirror and then she stopped doing it and also then looked out the window and acted like she had never been doing it, right?

[1030] And as I was driving, it just occurred to me like if I could give her two sense of wisdom that she would never take and I would never even waste my time giving her.

[1031] But I wanted to say to her, if you could pretend I could always see you for your whole life, you would never have a problem in your life.

[1032] You could live a life without a single problem If you just pretended I could see you in the mirror At all times, right?

[1033] I think she would have a life of tremendous problems If she would like imagine you in the mirror Oh my God, the horror But a shame that I would carry around with me Well that's true I guess she needs to log off If she wants some mastery Yeah, yeah, yeah And have sex with her boyfriend My God, I mean Jesus Yeah, and do drugs and stuff All right.

[1034] So that just was a launching off point.

[1035] Yes.

[1036] We were talking about the fact that...

[1037] Oh, you're talking about like an external ethics as opposed to like an inner ethics?

[1038] Well, here's what we were talking about is that over 90 % of the time we've lived on planet Earth as a species.

[1039] We lived communally.

[1040] We lived in a one room dwelling with all of our siblings, aunts and uncles.

[1041] And our life was on full fucking display.

[1042] You shit in front of people.

[1043] You eat in front of people.

[1044] You do everything in front of people, right?

[1045] And I do think one side effect of us having privacy, which started with multi -rooms houses and stuff, we all have this huge level of privacy that us as an animal probably wasn't designed to have.

[1046] And in that privacy becomes a lot of our perversions.

[1047] And I don't even mean sexual.

[1048] I just mean all these weird proclivities and weirdness comes from our privacy.

[1049] No, it's not, it's not, I don't think it's privacy.

[1050] I think it's ownership.

[1051] Like I actually read this guy Eric Fromm, who's like, um, he's, a bunch of crazy psychology books who's like this psychologist back in the I think it's like 40s and 50s but he studied some societies and basically like there was Society A, Society B and Society C Society A let's say was a communal society where like you owned nothing except maybe your own shovel or something but like you would sleep in different beds and blah blah and like and what they found was they found that sex was a very pleasurable activity but there was no sort of of, but that as you grew increasingly ownership driven, like in a capitalist society, where everyone has ownership over things, sex gets extremely fetishized.

[1052] That's interesting.

[1053] Yeah.

[1054] So I actually think it's more about ownership than it is about privacy, but fetishizes and makes sex a weird thing.

[1055] It's like, even the idea of bridling someone.

[1056] I mean, like marriage.

[1057] Oh, okay, okay.

[1058] Like putting them in that little net.

[1059] They're a bride.

[1060] You're bridling them.

[1061] Oh, like a horse.

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] Yeah, they're your chattels.

[1064] They're your, you know what I mean?

[1065] Like, they're your property.

[1066] I regret not putting a bit in Christen's mouth for our wedding.

[1067] I regret not seeing those in People magazine.

[1068] But there was even a thing, this is crazy, but like my sister got married into a Jewish religion.

[1069] There's something called a Catuba, which now has become like just a, it's become a watered down version of itself where it basically you go into another room with some friends and you say like, oh, if they're ever going to get divorced, like, you know, you promise.

[1070] to help them out.

[1071] But the derivations of it was that you went into a room and you discussed how much livestock that you would get with the wife so that, you know, how much you were being paid to take this woman.

[1072] Sure.

[1073] Off her dad's hands.

[1074] Yeah.

[1075] So in that way, like the transaction of marriage in that way.

[1076] I mean, the whole thing is like ownership driven.

[1077] It's evolved so much.

[1078] Our notion of what it is today with movies and say anything versus what it literally meant in the 1800s is they don't even resemble each other.

[1079] Yeah, yeah.

[1080] It was all business.

[1081] Yeah.

[1082] Similar breakdown.

[1083] And it is a book called On Killing by this psychologist who teaches at West Point.

[1084] It's a fascinating book.

[1085] In his examples, once we stopped, we started living in our own rooms and you stopped hearing mom and dad have sex, stopped hearing aunt and uncle have sex.

[1086] Your knowledge of sex was zero.

[1087] So you start filling in the blanks.

[1088] And that's what his theory is that's where the rise of fetish comes from because no one, you're not witnessing it.

[1089] You don't have any real contact with it.

[1090] And then he then maps that onto, we used to kill animals in our house.

[1091] We used to grandma and grandpa died in our house.

[1092] We buried him in the backyard.

[1093] We had all this interaction with death.

[1094] And now we have zero interaction with it.

[1095] That's true.

[1096] And that that's where our current fetishizing of murder and death in violence and movies is born from is having no connection to this thing we should have a connection to.

[1097] That's interesting.

[1098] That's interesting.

[1099] I dig it.

[1100] It doesn't need to be the full truth.

[1101] truth, but it's a compelling thought, right?

[1102] Yeah, I like it.

[1103] I wonder, like, it was funny, I was having this discussion about, because I feel like we're entering a new level of, like, non -empathy or something.

[1104] Like, I think we're seeing a new level of that.

[1105] Whereas, like, empathy, there used to be compassion, empathy that existed where it was like, oh, God, that person must be suffering.

[1106] Let me think about what that person is suffering.

[1107] And then there's just this level of self -interest empathy, which is like, that person could be me. like one day or that could be my kid yeah like I need to protect that because it could be my kid right no I feel like we're entering a new phase where it's like that'll never be me that's an alien that thing isn't even human like fuck that thing well which I feel like sort of exists on a new level now but I well I can give you we both heard this amazing podcast with a sociologist who wrote a book about empathy and how it's not what Paul Bloom Paul Bloom and that it's not what we think it is but one of the studies that's interesting is if you show one starving child a photo of one starving child the your average person's interest in helping them is let's just quantify and say it's a 10 you add two starving children to the photo and it goes to an eight you add three and it just it keeps going down and down and down no it's because narratives we don't understand numbers we don't right and i also think it's very easy to feel overwhelmed like the the problem is too big to solve I could take one person into my house and feed them and probably make them live for a while but 100 people I don't know how to solve that and so to your point about information we're receiving we're getting the information from all around the world 7 billion people we're supposed we're designed to live with 100 other people and you can you can manage those that level of empathy but I think just in general we see every bad thing that happens on planet earth and it just feels overwhelming and the roads are it is it is the I believe it's the conservative position, what modern day conservative position on the liberal hysteria around mass school shootings.

[1108] Is that the actual numbers of them are extremely low.

[1109] So the odds of being, and the fact is that they're just such very potent stories that we take them on in very personal ways.

[1110] I mean, I still think it's an insane argument, but the fact that it exists at all should be cause for alarm and concern.

[1111] But the argument is just that because of the potency of the story, the numbers themselves don't like the numbers of people who will die of, you know, any other thing that we could be.

[1112] Yeah, but the things that we could be attacking in society.

[1113] Well, that's extremely low.

[1114] That's like 5 ,000th on the list.

[1115] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1116] I think it is more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed in a terrorist attack in America.

[1117] Yes, absolutely.

[1118] I mean one of the refreshing things about the not understanding numbers thing though in terms of being an artist or a storyteller is that like narrative can be our salvation right like we get to focus on stories that are surrounded two hours people focus on one individual or one experience or a group of people that is small and understand so I think there's like a lot of power in personal narrative A .A. is the same way like there's a lot of power and if you were to just hear that hundreds of thousand people die of alcoholism like but when you actually hear someone's story yeah it's so much it's so powerful yeah that i do feel like humans are sort of hardwired to like stories to understand stories to learn from stories and to change the world through narrative in that way yeah absolutely um and in in a don't you think that one of the other magical ingredients is simply community which you really don't get anywhere yes i'm not religious so i don't go to church Yeah.

[1119] And if I had, it took me being in a age to understand the appeal of church.

[1120] Because there is something that happens in a group of people that defies description, right?

[1121] Yeah.

[1122] And when it's not about money.

[1123] Yeah.

[1124] I mean, the idea that that community exists without money and it hasn't been corrupted by money because of those traditions.

[1125] I mean, one of the greatest things, I think there's some story of Bill going to, like Andrew Carnegie or something and saying that he wanted a million dollars to start this foundation for alcoholics and I think it was like actually Carnegie or Rockefeller, one of them who said I think money would ruin this.

[1126] Yeah, I've heard that too.

[1127] Out of that was built this tradition where you can actually only bequeath AA at the end of your life.

[1128] Like when you die, even if you're billions of dollars, you can only give them a hundred bucks.

[1129] Oh, really?

[1130] That's the limit.

[1131] Oh, I didn't know that.

[1132] I'm going to challenge that.

[1133] Just like my anonymity.

[1134] No way.

[1135] I mean, like, the problem is that it's been, like, this rehab thing has been born around it where there's so much money.

[1136] Oh, there is.

[1137] Because, you know, money has to exist in any business.

[1138] But the fact that A .A. has stayed pure as a result of those traditions is, like, every group must be self -supporting through its own contributions, declining outside.

[1139] I mean, those traditions, like, you think the steps are good, like, the traditions are, like, the powerful ones of which we are breaking.

[1140] But, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1141] But I say that I'm breaking in an attempt to.

[1142] hopefully save a dozen lives.

[1143] I'm willing to be the black sheep of AASA.

[1144] If 12 dudes end up finding this thing and surviving, then they can fucking shoot me in an alley.

[1145] We never heard the story.

[1146] We never finished a relapse story.

[1147] Oh my God, the relapse story.

[1148] Yeah, yeah.

[1149] Okay, okay.

[1150] So I was, you know, I was over for like 13 years.

[1151] And you said clearly it was someone's fault.

[1152] Yeah, that's all I remember from the story.

[1153] It wasn't his fault.

[1154] It was someone's fault.

[1155] But I had stopped going to meetings for a while.

[1156] and I was out and I was out in L .A. because I did like do, I think I was auditioning in pilot season or something.

[1157] And I, Seth Rogan and I had done a movie a couple years ago and we have some mutual friends and I needed a place to stay and I stayed out of his house for a day or two in Malibu.

[1158] He's coming tomorrow.

[1159] He's coming tomorrow.

[1160] Yeah, I'm going to bring this up to him.

[1161] I don't think he even knows the extent of it.

[1162] I just spent like one night we played Cranium and like they were getting really high.

[1163] and I had never done I had smoked weed a little bit in college but it never really been interesting to me like I'd always been an alcoholic so it always been Irish whiskey I'm like an Irish guy like it always been whiskey and beer and just like drinking and so I was like oh and you call out to California and everybody here says it's medicinal and it's like just this thing and I was like and everyone's like it's not addictive and I was like great like what am I doing being such an up tight square like I can smoke this shit yeah so I was like past that over here guys and I got super high uh -huh and then I proceeded to white knuckle it for like I'd say like three or four months I was doing a couple movies and I just had to white knuckle it I would do it like once every two weeks on the weekend and then it would become just weed or drinking just weed I never picked up a drink so and then it became and then it became once a week and then and then i moved out to lae doing this show and it was one of these situations where i was working like i was a series regular but i was i had like one of five storylines so i they would shoot all my stuff in one day so i'd work basically once every two weeks i'd work one day for two weeks dream and nightmare for me because like i have no i'm not good with free time especially when you're not not at home.

[1164] So I was renting a little place in Venice and I was driving.

[1165] I would work driving the Mustang to Culver City to shoot at Sony and then would come back and have like 15 days off and would just and then I then I started like smoking weed and like getting the gummies and the soda.

[1166] You guys do it really well out here.

[1167] I mean you really know what you're doing.

[1168] And I have to say the.

[1169] first couple months of doing it, I was like, oh, I had found the solution.

[1170] Because the funny thing about alcoholism, that after you're sober for a long time, like I was, you forget that, like, that is the solution.

[1171] Like, it is what you want.

[1172] It's like, oh, shit.

[1173] Like, I'm high now.

[1174] Like, everything goes.

[1175] And then the problem is, like, you know, and then a couple months in, I was suicidal.

[1176] Right.

[1177] And I couldn't stop smoking all day long, and I felt like shit, and I couldn't do anything.

[1178] And it was awful.

[1179] And like that's, you know, that's the thing.

[1180] Like, I was the only guy who got addicted, apparently, to marijuana.

[1181] Like, I'm the only person who.

[1182] Oh, David, I've been addicted to halls.

[1183] And I mean, sincerely, Kristen will tell you, it would eat those, a family pack a day of halls.

[1184] Yeah, so you're like me, just a complete attic, right?

[1185] I could get a fucking dickens chewing paper.

[1186] I thought it made me feel different.

[1187] I could do it until my teeth fall out.

[1188] Oh, man. So I, yeah, so I was doing that.

[1189] And then I would go, so I finally, like, I was like, this has to change.

[1190] So I started going to a meeting.

[1191] And it was like a hardcore, like, old men's book thumping, like, meeting.

[1192] Where it's like they weren't going to take any bullshit from that.

[1193] You know what I mean?

[1194] Like, they'd all been sober thousands of.

[1195] of years.

[1196] Cumulatively.

[1197] Came over on the pilgrim boats of sobriety.

[1198] They, and, you know, I mean, and like, you know, a lot of famous dudes.

[1199] I mean, it was a cool meeting in that way.

[1200] Like, I was really excited.

[1201] But also, um, they, they were very, like, hard on me. Some guys were really, really nice.

[1202] But I remember some guy cross -talking me. I, I shared about, you know, I was like, again, I don't want to, again, is the disclaimer that I'd like to say.

[1203] I don't want a bad mouth the program because after this happened a ton of guys came up to me and were like that's not how we do it.

[1204] This guy's a cranky old jerk.

[1205] But I did say at a meeting.

[1206] I was like, I was like, I'm really suicidal and I feel like I had had 14 years and I just lost it.

[1207] And now I'm just counting days again.

[1208] Yeah.

[1209] And this guy was like, this guy like shared next and he was like, you're arrogant.

[1210] You know that?

[1211] That's your ego talking.

[1212] Like look at page 60.

[1213] What is it?

[1214] Like 62 or 61 or something he's like that's that's your ego you were you associating yourself with with the time how much time you had like you know you're just an arrogant like kid like you just think you're so special you can be so depressed sort of thing and I was like and I get what he's saying yeah like from the book he's true he's right I mean self -centered in the extreme and that there is a self -centeredness to self -pity yes but it was not what I needed Like, I was like, dude, I want to kill myself.

[1215] So, like, leave me alone.

[1216] The greatest magic trick of AA in my experience has been, for the most part, I'm not told what to do, because I have a big authoritarian complex.

[1217] I'm only learning through someone else.

[1218] Wait, you have that as well?

[1219] Oh, it's my worst character defect.

[1220] Is you just want to run the show?

[1221] I just don't like being told what to do.

[1222] I don't.

[1223] Like, if you ever read that I was shot by a TSA agent, you'll feel bad, but you'll also go, makes a ton of sense.

[1224] Oh, completely understands.

[1225] Yes, makes a ton of sense.

[1226] I've embarrassed Kristen so fucking bad at airports.

[1227] At one time in particular.

[1228] In Detroit, oh, did I lose it?

[1229] I lost it.

[1230] There's one of these things where you go in that machine and you put your hands above your head, but they've made me take my belt off, right?

[1231] Yeah.

[1232] So my pants sagged down because my belts off and my hands are above my head.

[1233] And the lady says, pull your pants up.

[1234] And I go, okay, I pull my pants up.

[1235] Now put your hands above my head.

[1236] Put my hands above my head.

[1237] Well, of course, the pants fall down again.

[1238] Dude, this is like a buster keith.

[1239] It is.

[1240] It was literally a Laurel and Hardy routine.

[1241] After two times, I recognize this will not get any different if we repeat it more.

[1242] Like I say to her, my pants are down and you're going to have to deal with it because I got to have my hands above the head.

[1243] I'm not going to do this again.

[1244] And she goes, you have to do it.

[1245] And I go, I'm not fucking doing it.

[1246] And she goes, I'm going to get my supervisors.

[1247] I go, get good.

[1248] Get them.

[1249] Get all of them.

[1250] Get everyone in here.

[1251] I want everyone to fucking watch what you think can be done.

[1252] Get them all.

[1253] And I'm like Gary Oldman and fucking the professional.

[1254] Get everyone.

[1255] And poor Kristen's sitting there.

[1256] She's famous.

[1257] She doesn't need this.

[1258] It's so embarrassing.

[1259] I just can't be a part of a bad plan.

[1260] It's just I have the hardest time going along and being complicit in a bad plan I had a one in it was like Germany or something it was some obscure and we were going through security right through the airport security thing everybody was really slow and I was really annoyed because we had to catch a flight like a connecting flight and it was really stupid and there was and there was like a big long line of like you know how in JFK now they have like the four tray system yeah where you go and like every everybody like one person would be in that front tray but you'll just slide in next to them and get in those other trays right and there was this woman who was in front of me and she was like at the head of the line but there was no one else like down the line but some this woman was dealing with her in a foreign language uh french or german or something they were talking about something and i was like there's all this empty space and all these cards and shit i'm just gonna go around and i'm just because why should you have to wait and it was like i had i mean i I mean, and I said that my girlfriend afterwards, I was like, it was so, she was like, you were wrong, but they shamed me so hard.

[1261] I've never, it was like everything stopped in the airport.

[1262] Like everybody stopped and was like, look at this American man, like thinking that he can, oh, save time, really, you're going to save time?

[1263] I was like, oh, my God.

[1264] and they just stood there and shamed me for what could have we could have expedited the process and all made our connection and what was your reaction but they needed to take the time and I said well first I said like in America we do it a little differently like in America we I know right you're already laughing because like that's not what you say to the you know you they were like oh in America I was like well we just you know go around and then I finally went I'm sorry I said you're right.

[1265] I'm wrong.

[1266] I apologize.

[1267] And they were just like, sorry.

[1268] Like that, like, not even that.

[1269] I was like, what, okay.

[1270] So we just, I was like, just bring it on.

[1271] Just shame me. Can I eventually go through security?

[1272] Or do you just like, let me know when this wraps up?

[1273] Good for you, though.

[1274] That's a much better reaction than I would have.

[1275] I don't, I, yeah.

[1276] I mean, I'm fine with being wrong, but it's just that it was the level like after because it was funny like my girl I was like was that crazy she was like well you were a little crazy to like go in front of her and think that would be okay yeah but they were a lot crazy to like shut the whole airport down and just be like let's shame but airport security I mean you can't that stuff is well you know my my hack for it now is is and if I'm not doing it out loud Kristen will remind me to do it which is right before we arrive at the airport I go I'm going to go inside there I'm going to be at to do something that defies all logic and that's that and that's what's coming and as long as I set the appropriate expectation you know the yeah a expectations or resentment's waiting to happen if I just set the the expectation is I will be asked to like balance something on my head yeah and staying on one foot yeah I got to do it another one because there's there's footprints they've fucking drawn on the ground I find it so condescending and they actually someone came over to tell me that my feet weren't in the footprints and I was still clearly in line and I go not doing it.

[1277] I'm not going to put my feet in those.

[1278] I just, it's terrible.

[1279] But anyways, if I give myself this speech, I go in there more times than not.

[1280] Nothing bad does happen, even though I'm expecting it, and then I'm delighted.

[1281] Yeah.

[1282] So what was the, you've worked nonstop since you were a kid.

[1283] I mean, yeah, a kid, right?

[1284] 20s.

[1285] Yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of.

[1286] Yeah, yeah, did a lot of plays, yeah.

[1287] And did you have your sight set on a certain actor or career you wanted that for years you were frustrated not getting or who did you want to be i mean i don't think i ever allowed myself sort of the dream situation that i feel like i'm in now oh interesting yeah never uh i always thought in terms of photographs like i always thought that the people in movies and television were impossibly good looking like i i always would look at like still photos of me and i always thought i looked yeah i just can't take a picture oh me either i still can't take a picture Like you, I mean, occasionally, if you light it really right and you get me in just the right position, you're like, oh, that guy's handsome.

[1288] Yeah.

[1289] But in general, like candid shots off the carpet, you're always like, I like that guy.

[1290] We'll just turn the page on that picture really quick.

[1291] Just like a lot of flesh and a lot of face and a lot of paleness and just sort of weird, yeah.

[1292] Yeah, my thing is like, how asymmetrical could a face?

[1293] I know.

[1294] Yeah.

[1295] Jesus Christ.

[1296] Is it even the same person?

[1297] I'm curious, I can understand you feeling that way about pictures, but when you watch yourself in Stranger Things, can you acknowledge that that person's charismatic and handsome?

[1298] Stranger Things has been the first thing that I've watched that I've enjoyed myself in.

[1299] Oh, great.

[1300] Yeah, it's the first thing.

[1301] How wonderful that all things came together.

[1302] And you know what?

[1303] I don't think it was an accident too, because to a certain degree, it was about me accepting myself in a deeper way.

[1304] Like, I actually went back to acting class before it started.

[1305] Oh, really?

[1306] I, you know, because I had been in a weird position in Hollywood where, like, I was in New York doing plays, and I'd been sort of a supporting player, like, number six and seven on the call sheet in the, like, Denzel movie or the Liam Neeson movie or whatever.

[1307] And I'd grown very cynical about those movies.

[1308] Because, like, I would just be, like, the guy running around with the gun and, like, even shooting the movies, like, it just felt like.

[1309] You know, the movies turned out, some of them turned out great.

[1310] But it just felt like a weird job.

[1311] Like a job.

[1312] Yeah.

[1313] And it just felt like.

[1314] Well, you start recognizing, right, your primary role there is to help drive number one on the call sheet story.

[1315] Yeah, exactly.

[1316] Which is a weird.

[1317] Just functional to the narrative.

[1318] Yes.

[1319] As opposed.

[1320] And, you know, I, of course, come from a very, like, I want, like you, too, I don't love to get told what to do.

[1321] And I want a lot of input.

[1322] Like, I want to actually create something.

[1323] Right.

[1324] like nobody's that and even if you're a good director like six or seven you're not really interested in them taking up a lot of space on your set yeah yeah are you difficult with directors yeah yeah okay i want to be um i don't want to hit marks okay i want to be um spontaneous i want to let something live uh -huh um and also i don't know that it's a difficult thing but i do i'm sort of methody which i'm realizing like may not be like if i'm if i'm supposed to have a you know a scene where I'm pretty messed up I just like to be messed up right and I stay away from people yeah but I just don't want to be charming and like fun right I think that one of the things it's underrated sort of in today's like there was television the explosion of television as opposed to film created something like I think they just started to overuse the close up oh yeah yeah and so I feel like every scene now is just like coverage and like just two actors standing talking to each other and it becomes subtle shadings of some particular eye movement or some particular whereas the idea of behavior to me has completely been lost where it's like if I'm sad about something I'll go I'll go fucking get I'll go fucking get a bunch of ice and like put it in my drink or whatever like I'll go like put on a different belt or I mean I'll just have behavior that's like specific to me and I I really like to find behavior this specific character as opposed to just meaningless emotion, which, and I feel like that's the tension that I always have with directors is I will be pushed into, you know, those realms where I feel like, and really what I want is I want, I want, I also want time to find the scene.

[1325] Now I can make that time because I'm, you know, higher up on the call sheet and I can say like I want time, private rehearsal, like we're going to figure this out.

[1326] Yeah.

[1327] But a lot of time, because of the nature of the beast, they want to move things along quickly.

[1328] They don't want to give you time to find the behavior.

[1329] They don't even want to give you time to explore on the set and things like that.

[1330] And I need that exploration time.

[1331] And I really want to make that for myself.

[1332] But I find behavior a lot more interesting than just emotion.

[1333] Right.

[1334] And do you think that comes from having come up primarily in the theater where you did rehearse for months or however long you guys rehearsed?

[1335] Yeah.

[1336] And you find all those things.

[1337] Yeah.

[1338] And also my own fears as well.

[1339] Well, like, I always thought my eyes were not very expressive.

[1340] Oh, really?

[1341] Oh, yeah.

[1342] I think they're very unexpressive.

[1343] They've always been dark and shaded by this brow.

[1344] Oh, yeah.

[1345] You know a pronounced brow ridge as the same anthropos.

[1346] And I also thought exactly my Neanderthalus brow.

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] But I also thought that they were unexpressive and mean and dark and ways that my friends who had light eyes, I thought were always so much more.

[1349] So I never really wanted, I never really wanted my eyes photo about.

[1350] You don't want to hang your hat on that.

[1351] Yeah, I wanted to like, I wanted to use my body to express behavior.

[1352] it came from like and I got really into like you know check off like psychological gesture things like that that were very much like full body experiences and then and behavior as well which I find is is actually more true to life like very rarely I think do people well sometimes I guess and our in our society now I feel like we're a kind of wetter society where it's like people cry more whereas like in the 80s like guys from the Midwest in the 80s like a guy like hopper would like you know like those people just wouldn't they grew up with my grandparents my my my grandmother i remember i got stung by a bee and i was crying and she hit me and said like boys don't cry right but it wasn't like she was a mean woman she was just like of this era helping you fit into the society you're in yeah um so i do like behavior a lot better because we all get sad or uncomfortable but it's just how we express that like some people are very willing to let the tears flow and and then some people just really want to wash their hands or just really want to and i find that to be a lot more sad.

[1353] It's like when you watch somebody do that and you're like, oh, dude, can't you just cry?

[1354] And they're like, no, I'm not sad.

[1355] I'm not sad.

[1356] I'm fine.

[1357] Yeah, yeah.

[1358] But, um, but, um, but you directed anything?

[1359] Um, I directed plays when I was in school, but, uh, but no, but I really do want to, I'm starting to understand a lot more about it.

[1360] But I think in terms of narrative and storytelling, I'm really good.

[1361] But in terms of the camera and stuff like that, I need to understand more.

[1362] Right.

[1363] You know, you do get more sympathetic to the.

[1364] I'm sure.

[1365] The other side of it.

[1366] The technical stuff?

[1367] Yeah.

[1368] Because it is interesting because the entire endeavor is a compromise between you, the actor, you have a singular job, make that moment real.

[1369] Right.

[1370] Yeah.

[1371] And you should be empowered to do that.

[1372] Yeah.

[1373] And then the director has the singular job of keeping this global thing.

[1374] Yeah.

[1375] Cohesive.

[1376] Yeah.

[1377] Those things are often at odds.

[1378] And there are scenes that you have to play in a way that's not real to set up the scene three scenes from now.

[1379] Yeah.

[1380] Right?

[1381] So that that scene will have all the weight, and that's where it's supposed to be weighted.

[1382] So it is tricky, you know, and I have certainly more sympathy now for directors when I'm acting and stuff, having been on the other side where it's like, you're dead right, you are right, that is real, that is what you would do.

[1383] But if you do that thing, I now either have to go rewrite the scene three from now, because you want to play the moment in this scene that I've written for you in four scenes.

[1384] Right.

[1385] So, you know, it's, it's informative.

[1386] But I want to ask you, do you think, in a spiritual sense, in a, in the, in a universe sense, that you got stranger things at the perfect time that you couldn't have got stranger things nine years ago because yeah, you would have made a mess of it somehow?

[1387] Oh, yeah.

[1388] Yeah.

[1389] I mean, I was, like, I was, it's funny, like, I feel like guys in their 30s as opposed to guys in their 40s.

[1390] Like when I, and in your 20s, you're just completely useless.

[1391] but then like I hit 30 and I was like oh now I'm a man I really understand myself and I was like and then and then I hit 40 and I was like oh now I really I mean I'm sure I'll find you say way but I do feel like there was so much ambition and narcissism in me when I was in my 30s that just kind of died in my late 30s and certainly like into my 40s where it's like, I just stopped caring so much.

[1392] I think I would have cared too much about the stupid shit.

[1393] Like, for example, like that first shirtless scene, I think I would have been at the gym, like hardcore.

[1394] And dieting for three weeks and beforehand.

[1395] I mean, I really do.

[1396] Like, I don't think I was ready to just play that guy.

[1397] That's why I don't have a stranger thing.

[1398] I still do that.

[1399] But I still think you look better than me. So, you know, we all win.

[1400] but I yeah I wasn't I wasn't ready to do that and also I was thinking about playing roles I didn't want to play that role I wanted to play five roles I wanted to play the five roles I'd get after Stranger Things Right I you know I wanted to be George Clooney Yeah I didn't want to just be Hopper And I think that the Stranger Things coming along at that time I was like because first of all I had enough I didn't think you know you got to understand that like pre -stranger things like I was not like an actor than anybody really knew like whatever you I would get recognized like once a month maybe in New York be like oh man like what you do or whatever is it but but to be at the level you gotta be into acting and actors yeah you got to really know actors to know and and I so I never expected that sort of thing and even when Stranger Things came along I thought it was like I'd have I've had a bunch of series in my past that have had like one season they've been high profile projects, people thinking that, you know, and then even movies, people being like, oh, man, your life's going to change.

[1401] Yes.

[1402] And like, and then like nothing happened, like, quick, like going into audition for the guest star.

[1403] Like the next week after, and you're like, oh, my God.

[1404] It's a great occupation for people who need to be humbled off.

[1405] Yeah.

[1406] So this, so when this came around, I was like, I might as well just, this isn't going to change my life.

[1407] Uh -huh.

[1408] Like, nothing's really going to come of it.

[1409] It's going to be like a niche Netflix show that, like, some people will find.

[1410] there's a million of them on Netflix.

[1411] I might as well just like play the hell out of it for myself.

[1412] Yeah.

[1413] Mainly because I love it.

[1414] And like maybe three people will like really like it.

[1415] And like, and then, you know, so I wasn't ready to do that in my 30s.

[1416] In my 30s, I would have, you know, I would have been bad.

[1417] And also I wasn't, I just wasn't kind of tired and over it enough, you know.

[1418] It's a weird asset, isn't it?

[1419] Oh, so much.

[1420] Yeah.

[1421] that's where I'm at and then weird things happen out of that that yeah I don't understand but yeah yeah um it's it's interesting because I I've been so guilty of that my whole life and in I I don't have advice for young actors but I will occasionally be talking to a friend of mine who's about to audition for something they're getting more and more nervous about this audition and I will say to them can I just guess that in your mind if you do great at this audition and you get hired it for this job that you're then probably going to get hired for this other job and they have like you end up building 12 other jobs yeah on this audition right you just keep layering on like well if I nail this then I'll get on there and then they'll like me and then they have another show and then I'll probably go over there and then I'll probably get my own show and then I'm going to do movies and then right and it's like you're going in to read nine lines and your whole life now is dependent on it the stakes are so high right and I've finally hacked my brain enough for it's like each things just for itself and that's enough and yeah i don't know it's it's maybe an age thing or or also you've you've you've worked long enough to understand that like i mean i do have a sense of mortality now i'm like i'm going to die so and this was a weird shift too like i remember really thinking in the room wanting people to like me or wanting them to think i was a good actor uh -huh right when i would audition yeah and now i think like why do you want them to think you're a good actor Like, you're just going to die.

[1422] So, like, everybody thinks you're a good actor.

[1423] Yeah.

[1424] You're still dead.

[1425] Why don't you just play it?

[1426] Yeah.

[1427] Because you like to play.

[1428] Yes.

[1429] Because you like to act.

[1430] Why don't you just do it for you?

[1431] That's opposed to, like, so let's say everybody in the world thinks you're a good actor.

[1432] Mm -hmm.

[1433] And then what?

[1434] And then what?

[1435] But you actually just get to play.

[1436] Like, just fucking do it, man. And that was a big shift.

[1437] Like, that actually happened.

[1438] after one audition, I feel like I had this moment where I was so worried about whether or not they thought I was good.

[1439] And then I was like, why?

[1440] Right.

[1441] Right.

[1442] Because, I mean, I guess the really good thing about 42 is like, had this happened to me and the success and sort of the fame and sort of the like celebration.

[1443] You're 43 by the way.

[1444] 43, yeah, yeah.

[1445] But I, but I just mean 40s.

[1446] But we're the same age.

[1447] So if I'm 43, I'm 43.

[1448] I just mean like had it happened at 30, I would have Or 33, I would have, um, I would have really taken on the Zyte guys.

[1449] Like people are, I'm being very celebrated right now.

[1450] And the show is being very celebrated.

[1451] You were nominated for an Emmy this year.

[1452] Last year as well.

[1453] And, you know, like I, and not, it was a golden globe and like, you know, sang awards.

[1454] What is your ego do to you and how do you?

[1455] Well, so the funny thing is, had it, had it happened to me at 33, like, I would have really thought I was something special.

[1456] Yes.

[1457] I would have been like, yeah, exactly.

[1458] Like, finally you all have figured it out.

[1459] Late to the party, guys.

[1460] A little late to the party, but.

[1461] And now I'm like, now I'm like, oh, you know, not that I think that I actually don't, because I remember hearing an interview with Zach Alfanakis, like, years ago when Hangover came out, and him saying, like, that he was flavor of the month and he knew it was going to end.

[1462] Uh -huh.

[1463] And I was like, I get that as well, but I, maybe it's my own delusion that I need to hang on to.

[1464] I'm hoping that my acting, my art will be able to transition.

[1465] and I'll continue to do really interesting good projects.

[1466] Yeah.

[1467] But in terms of the new celebration of me and of the show, like, I do know that there's a ticking clock on that and that all changes.

[1468] The odds of you getting struck by lightning several times are small.

[1469] Like the thing that happened to the stranger things happens if a luck, if an actor's crazy lucky, it happens once in their career.

[1470] Yeah.

[1471] And if they're crazy lucky.

[1472] If they're crazy lucky.

[1473] And at 40.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] I mean, I was 40 when the show started.

[1476] I'm started, you son of the time.

[1477] I'm 40 and a half now, but I was 40.

[1478] That's one of the things where it came about, too, was I was like, I think I was like 35.

[1479] And I was like, okay, like I will never be on the cover of a magazine.

[1480] And like, I'm great with that.

[1481] Like, I have a great career in New York where I do off Broadway plays.

[1482] I do guest stars.

[1483] I occasionally.

[1484] You do the thing you love doing.

[1485] Yeah.

[1486] And like I get, you know, I make an okay living and I, and I'm, you know, but I'll just never be that guy so I was fine with it and then you know and then people would always be like well look at Brian Cranston or like look at like and I was like that's the lottery ticket yeah yeah like that actually doesn't happen and then like it happened well what I was going to say to you which is funny is the thing that I accepted about three years ago is my fantasy has always been to play a superhero not because I have any interest in anything other than doing steroids I want an excuse I'll put you in Hellboy too Well that's what I'm about to say to you I'm about to say to you I just accepted three years ago I just so wanted to do like six months Have you ever done steroids?

[1487] I haven't I want to do six months of hardcore steroids Where I literally put on 25 pounds of muscle I shave up three years You care about your testicles and like your back name Oh so you don't need your testicles You could take them today when you leave I don't need them and a man I don't think I want them I have very little need for these testicles That's awesome Then you totally can do steroids Yes Yeah no problem Again I'll probably take off a couple years At the very end But that's a trait I'm willing to make today But what's so funny is If I just thought that three years ago Well I'm never going to be a superhero I've accepted that Oh no You too must have thought that And here you are a fucking superhero You did Hellboy I mean, I don't know what to say about that other than that I'm so pumped for you.

[1488] Yeah, it was crazy.

[1489] It's got more of a horror film tone.

[1490] It's a little more adult, it's a little more mature.

[1491] It's a little more, um, and so...

[1492] What universe does Hellboy exist in?

[1493] Its own.

[1494] It's called the dark, it's Dark Horse comics, so it's not DC, it's not Marvel.

[1495] But they do have a lot of amazing characters.

[1496] Like, I mean, you know, Abe Sapien, there's like a fish dude.

[1497] to get roided out.

[1498] Dude, I mean, there are...

[1499] I will do it.

[1500] I mean, look, this movie has to make money.

[1501] Even ninth on the call sheet, I'll go through the side sheet.

[1502] There are definite, like, parts in this universe.

[1503] Like, it's, uh...

[1504] Is there a character called steroid boy?

[1505] 50 -year -old steroid guy?

[1506] I think there's that potential.

[1507] 50 -year -old steroid boy.

[1508] But you've got to understand something.

[1509] Like, I don't know.

[1510] if I should reveal this, but I'm going to have to.

[1511] But it's so funny.

[1512] You know that's not my body.

[1513] Have you seen those photos?

[1514] I saw the photos and my assumption was that wasn't your body.

[1515] No. Because I don't think that's anyone's body.

[1516] Even the guys that are roided to the Max and Marvel don't look like that.

[1517] The Hellboy picture I saw.

[1518] Yeah.

[1519] I mean, they showed me, you know, they showed me the sketches.

[1520] What's really funny is I watched a five -minute video today of your workout routine.

[1521] Wait, so, yeah.

[1522] Okay.

[1523] And what's so funny is they keep showing the picture of viewing that up.

[1524] And I'm like, well, guys, this is a little deceptive.

[1525] But this is the thing where it was like, even my trainer who's great.

[1526] And he was like, because I went on, I think it was like, what's the show?

[1527] Kelly Rippa show.

[1528] And I went on that show and said it was a suit, it was prosthetics and everything.

[1529] And then like the next day I saw GQ online and was like, David Harbour gets ripped for Elboy.

[1530] It's a better story.

[1531] No one was like, but I read the story.

[1532] David Harvard bought a suit with muscles in it.

[1533] But I found these, I finally understood what fake news was, you know, this whole, like, thing that, like, for Donald Trump, I guess, works against him.

[1534] But for me, it's, like, well in my favor.

[1535] Like, thank you.

[1536] I do put that kind of commitment.

[1537] No, but here's the thing.

[1538] Like, I did actually, and I got strong for power and because I'm doing stunts in this thing that are crazy.

[1539] Well, that's the part that made sense to me is that you wanted to feel powerful.

[1540] Yes.

[1541] To exude powerful.

[1542] Yes.

[1543] And I wanted to be able.

[1544] to jump and run and move quickly.

[1545] But you getting down to 4 % body fat and being 235 seems a little implausible.

[1546] Exactly.

[1547] And what they showed me in terms of like the mask that, you know, because it was a full prosthetic mask as well with the horns and everything.

[1548] So it's the body has to be like it was like Schwarzenegger at his prime.

[1549] Right.

[1550] Mr. Universe six times.

[1551] The back on it and the shoulders and just the power of this instrument was just so large.

[1552] Do you feel, when you would look in the mirror, though, and see yourself in that suit, did you feel like a fucking God?

[1553] Well, yeah, so there was no way I was going to be able to do that.

[1554] Like, I actually could get, like, leaner and, like, a little bit bigger.

[1555] Sure.

[1556] But, like, there's no way I could do that without tons of steroids and, like, seven or eight months probably.

[1557] Right.

[1558] Right.

[1559] Like, I could get a little bit closer.

[1560] Yes.

[1561] Yes, it did.

[1562] Yeah.

[1563] And why didn't you take the steroid around?

[1564] Well, okay, first of all, two.

[1565] You had the perfect on a platter excuse.

[1566] Two reasons.

[1567] Two reasons.

[1568] Your testicles?

[1569] No, my, please, I don't care.

[1570] That's so much.

[1571] No, I, I, no, it was, because they actually told me this.

[1572] They said that if you were, if we used the suit, you'll be in the makeup chair for two and a half to three hours.

[1573] If we paint you red, you'll be in the chair for six hours.

[1574] Fuck that, yeah.

[1575] I was like, it's actually, so they basically said it's going to take much longer.

[1576] Right.

[1577] Was the suit hot as a motherfucker?

[1578] Yeah, but they did have a zip in the back where I could open it up.

[1579] Okay, let some of the sweat pour out.

[1580] It was pretty hot.

[1581] The weird thing is the silicon mask is in the worst part because like Ron for his movies, his was foam.

[1582] Okay.

[1583] I think, which is like the body was foam, but foam breathes better than silicon.

[1584] Uh -huh.

[1585] So silicon doesn't have anywhere for the water to get out when you sweat, right?

[1586] because the whole thing is covering your face.

[1587] So what you have is you have nose.

[1588] It can get out your nose.

[1589] It can get out your eyes and it can get out these horns.

[1590] So they would just come by sometimes and I would just like, we'd just put my head down and we'd press the mask and it would just like it would just pour out of like my horns and stuff.

[1591] Were you not claustrophobic in that thing?

[1592] Initially I was.

[1593] And then I actually started to love it like you talk about fetishizing it because i i would just when i get in the makeup chair and you you could fall asleep too like the mask took the most amount of time so i just put in my headphones and i would lie back and these joel and heather would sit yeah and they joel and hether would come and just like do this whole thing and then i would look in the mirror and i would feel like myself like i really had a transition because it totally looks different than I look.

[1594] Like you can see little elements, but it looks, it's like a real transformation.

[1595] Yes.

[1596] So I wouldn't feel myself until I was in it.

[1597] Because I spent so much time in it.

[1598] Uh -huh.

[1599] I spent more time probably shooting than I did just hanging out in Bulgaria.

[1600] Right.

[1601] And so I felt much more comfortable in that.

[1602] And even the feeling of just all the stuff, like the hand, like he's got this big, like fist thing.

[1603] Oversized fist, right?

[1604] Yeah, and he has a tail.

[1605] and he's got this like you know trench coat and these horns like breaking a lot like when you would get physical were you like cut your tail came off three minutes ago we can't use any of that it was pretty durable although it would get stuck in awkward position sometimes yeah like looked pretty weird would you ever feel just completely stupid like would you ever lose your mojo for a second like when the tail would get fucked up in between your legs and you just be like oh yeah what am i doing i'm a fucking idiot at one point i remember remember at one point I remember like we had I got this great show stretch oh dude it was like beyond like I remember at one point they had like because I got because I got like a fucking hand like the hand thing itself was a whole so you couldn't really use like the hand was pose like I could do things with the fingers right but I couldn't grip something right I mean I couldn't and also the hand extended beyond my hand so it wasn't even like I could lean on it because I'd just be leaning on to be bent back in a weird way.

[1606] But it's like it wasn't my hand.

[1607] So I couldn't, so I had no, this thing was like kind of useless.

[1608] I had a tail.

[1609] I had horns.

[1610] I had all this hair.

[1611] You know, so I just had all these things that I like couldn't use.

[1612] Yeah.

[1613] And it became accoutrement.

[1614] So frustrating.

[1615] Like I had to ride a horse in it.

[1616] Oh, boy.

[1617] And I had to ride a horse with my left hand.

[1618] Oh, geez.

[1619] My right hand would, would work.

[1620] work on it, like to seem like I was riding it.

[1621] To maybe pet the horse.

[1622] Exactly.

[1623] But I had to do everything functional wise with my left hand on a fucking horse.

[1624] With a tail too.

[1625] Where's the tail?

[1626] The tail kind of comes out the back and goes on the horse.

[1627] And like, you know, this body that was an...

[1628] And the horse itself was like kind of afraid of me. I would hope so.

[1629] Like, didn't like the look of me. We were fine in rehearsals.

[1630] But yeah, there was like crazy you know crazy like and so there was one sequence where I think we're in like a helicopter or something and I had I just like storm off to like the back and I like sit on this bench and I'm like kind of curled up on this bench and I remember they were like um you know just when your trench coat falls like can we make your because we don't want to hide this and then at one point like the tail was like and they were like can we just make sure when you sit like that your tail and I was like no I was like no I don't We do it without the, fuck the, I've got a hand, I can't move.

[1631] And I got a, just one thing I want to be able to do.

[1632] Yes.

[1633] But, you know, in that way too, like it was also, I mean, it's also really fun.

[1634] Well, it's just a full commitment thing, right?

[1635] It's a full commitment.

[1636] You got to buy in yourself or no one else is going to.

[1637] And the funny thing about it is you think, you'd think that like you would be doing less like being sillier with it or something and actually it was the opposite like I had to be more serious than I was with Stranger Things like I had to be a hero right detailed in my psychological work like detailed to the point of like I had to make this world like make sense now I don't know if you're talking about the same technique and again I didn't go to acting school but I remember I had an audition for and I'm going to let you go it's been a long time don't let me kill this is fun um i don't audition for like a movie that i think was airbender or something oh yeah the last oh wait oh i audition for that did you yeah it was m night yes it was uh i auditioned for like a bad guy i think i auditioned for a guy who had caught a bad guy but but the bad guy to my understanding we could have met years ago on the last airbander i was having like first of all i didn't understand what I was as an airbender.

[1638] I didn't know what that meant, right?

[1639] And I had captured a guy and I'm saying all this weird airbender talk.

[1640] I don't know what any of it means.

[1641] You know, the lines I don't know what it actually means.

[1642] I'm saying silly words that are made of.

[1643] They're kind of sci -fi sounding and the guy's guilty of something so bizarre.

[1644] I can't relate to it, right?

[1645] And I just kept reading this and memorizing these weird lines.

[1646] And I'm just getting nowhere with the whole thing, right?

[1647] And I was, my trick ended up being, this was before they had we got osama bin laden i was like oh if i caught if i happened to just fucking bump into osama bin laden and got him in my garage how would i feel while i was talking to him you know and then so i started i started what is this acting process well i would take a sadistic pleasure and torturing that oh yeah yeah i would enjoy the fuck out of that okay and so i just kind of mapped on my fantasy of capturing Osama bin Laden.

[1648] Also, I did two U .S .O. tours in Afghanistan, where I had convinced myself I was going to catch Osama bin Laden.

[1649] So it's not even like it was that far out of my own imagination.

[1650] I love that you think you're going to go USA.

[1651] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1652] I'm just the guy to do it.

[1653] It's perfect.

[1654] Well, because I'm going to disarm them with my comedy.

[1655] Of course.

[1656] And I know I can beat the shit out of that guy.

[1657] So there's more reasons to believe I could do it than not.

[1658] Oh, God bless you.

[1659] I wish we'd sent you over sooner.

[1660] so I did okay in that audition because I really I was just talking to Osama bin Laden the whole time so that was my trick and I realized that that's actually a technique right it's got a name personalization yeah yeah so were you doing a bit of that with the world and if you were what were you what were you anchoring the world into like a ton but also like I um like I thought it was so fascinating and I'll tell you for example I'll tell you a terrible idea I had that doesn't make it into the movie.

[1661] Any Hellboy fans that are listening, thank God it doesn't make it into the movie, but it was an interesting exercise, right?

[1662] Like, Hellboy is a creature who is spawned by Nazi occultists.

[1663] Interesting.

[1664] By this guy, Rasputin is working for Nazi occultists, and he spawned a creature into the world that is to become the beast of the apocalypse and to end the world for Hitler.

[1665] Okay.

[1666] And just at the moment that Hellboy has spawned, this guy, Broome and his men of Allied forces come and storm the castle sort of to kill this thing.

[1667] Yeah.

[1668] And they kill all the Nazis.

[1669] And he sees this thing and he thinks it's kind of beautiful and has a sweetheart.

[1670] And so he raises Hellboy.

[1671] Okay.

[1672] But he raises Hellboy as his own to fight crime, to fight monsters or whatever.

[1673] Nature versus nurture.

[1674] Yeah, exactly.

[1675] So he's still meant to be the beast of the apocalypse, right?

[1676] But he himself really doesn't want to be because he's a nice guy.

[1677] but he's an adoptee and theoretically English isn't his first language right theoretically demonic is his first language and he acquires English okay as he's with Professor Broome the also interesting thing so I did a ton of language work with a guy like a language coast this guy I found from like Wired magazine this guy who's kind of brilliant so one of these guys that's made up his own language or something no but he He actually, God, I'm forgetting his name right now, I wish I forget.

[1678] But he, on, if you go on, like, Wired .com, you can see he analyzes a bunch of people's accents in movies.

[1679] Oh.

[1680] Like, he does, like, Heath Ledger's Joker.

[1681] He does, like, and he does, like, 200 of them in this video, and he analyzes kind of, like, what they're doing, what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, blah, blah, it's like, it's crazy.

[1682] And I was like, I want to get this guy.

[1683] Yeah.

[1684] Like, I want to work with this guy.

[1685] And he was like a lovely guy and super smart.

[1686] And we went into these heady, heady places that were so cool where basically in the movie like Hellboy talks like a normal dude, right?

[1687] Yeah.

[1688] He doesn't have a British accent, which is interesting because his father's British or his adopted father's British.

[1689] But apparently you don't learn your accent from your parents.

[1690] Your peers.

[1691] Yeah.

[1692] So his peers are international and also from your idols.

[1693] So the thing that I was like interested in was I was like, what if this is some crazy language?

[1694] that like a French speaker, like my friend Tom grew up in Indiana or whatever, but he's from Paris.

[1695] Like he was born in Paris, and he moved to Indiana when he was like three.

[1696] So he talks like an American, but occasionally he'll say like, you know, the Cocoa Farro.

[1697] Yeah, yeah, right.

[1698] Goes into like a French accent.

[1699] Yeah.

[1700] And I was like, what if when Hellboy's talking, like he just talks like a normal guy, but then he says this word that's demonic, and he's like, oh, the way this casters pronounce Latino names.

[1701] Exactly.

[1702] Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.

[1703] But I just wanted it to be like this casual conversation thing where it just like this demonic just comes out of him.

[1704] And we sort of, me and this dude like came up with this entire, not an entire language, but basically like a way of speaking with these certain syllables and these certain phrases just for that one phrase.

[1705] And we were thinking that maybe at some point I would say some other word, but just basically for that one phrase.

[1706] and we did like all this work and then like we were like nah it's kind of crazy it's crap at all but like but it did inform like that was a thing where like I was just sort of exploring all these different threads where like the comic was a certain thing and then I was like there's a lot of stuff to explore here around this and then hopefully like that's a lot of what my process is like you just explore everything around it and then when you're in it something just happens well you just have so much material that it's not any more about one specific thing, it's about like a hundred.

[1707] And you could sort of pull from anyone in any given time.

[1708] Right.

[1709] Look, I am very grateful there are actors like you.

[1710] Like what you just described and how I do things are so different.

[1711] And I have an immense gratitude that there are people that do it the way you do.

[1712] And take that journey because watching you is that much more fun and it's palpable that you have all that stuff going on.

[1713] Oh, thanks.

[1714] Because we didn't even talk about K. Bell.

[1715] Oh, you knew in her infancy.

[1716] Yeah, totally.

[1717] You were around her as a young college student.

[1718] Totally.

[1719] No, no, no. It was first in New York.

[1720] Right.

[1721] She was going to NYU.

[1722] Well, maybe she was.

[1723] But is she younger than us?

[1724] Five years younger.

[1725] Yeah, there you go.

[1726] Okay, I was already young.

[1727] I was doing that Tom Stopper play.

[1728] You were about to get sober.

[1729] I was doing that, exactly.

[1730] I was doing that Tom.

[1731] I was yelling at Tom Stopper.

[1732] Let him know what he rode.

[1733] And then seeing K. Bell in the hallway.

[1734] Uh -huh.

[1735] Yeah.

[1736] She was doing the crucible or something.

[1737] Tom Sawyer, I think?

[1738] She was like...

[1739] But in a nutshell, did you think when she was 19?

[1740] What did you think?

[1741] No, I just remember that like she was dating a guy, this guy, Neil, who, so Neil, like, we were doing this show and, like, we were all...

[1742] Neil was like, like, didn't have a part in the show, really.

[1743] He had a great seat to a little tiny bar, but we all had, like, real parts, and he was dating this, like, and we weren't dating anyone.

[1744] We didn't have any cute, like...

[1745] And he had this, like, super cute girlfriend who was in Tom Sawyer.

[1746] She was, like, a lead in that show.

[1747] She was like, I think so, I don't think, I think we were less interested in her and more interested in, like, what Neil was doing or the injustice of it all.

[1748] Yeah, what colonial war?

[1749] Exactly.

[1750] Like, what kind of game do you have that you can pull this off?

[1751] He was most certainly wearing Dakar.

[1752] Or Polo.

[1753] Dracar.

[1754] Oh, Dracar.

[1755] I'm sorry.

[1756] Dracar duar.

[1757] Draccar noir.

[1758] I only know because I've worn rip -offs of it for most of my life.

[1759] No, eternity for men.

[1760] That was another big.

[1761] Oh, sure.

[1762] Remember that one?

[1763] Yeah, I went with obsession because my father had it and I would just spray myself occasionally to seem more sophisticated.

[1764] But no, yeah, so Kabel was, yeah, I just remember her being, like, lovely, really pretty.

[1765] And then, you know, that weird thing where, like, you're with a group of actors or a group of people and they're all doing sort of plays.

[1766] and then somebody just like breaks out and like has her own, didn't she have her own TV show?

[1767] Veronica Mars.

[1768] Yeah, Veronica Mars shows up and it's like a successful television show with her as the lead.

[1769] Yeah.

[1770] And so you're just angry.

[1771] Sure, sure.

[1772] More injustice.

[1773] Just another person.

[1774] Yeah, another person to be furious at.

[1775] Uh -huh.

[1776] That's right.

[1777] I love you, David Harbor.

[1778] I love you, I'm back.

[1779] So pumped about our shared sobriety.

[1780] Yeah, this is great.

[1781] It's been a very nice time.

[1782] Thank you, but peace.

[1783] It now begins my favorite part of the show.

[1784] Fact check with Monica.

[1785] Fatman.

[1786] Your facts are on my list because your facts are on my list.

[1787] Turn out the lights.

[1788] Do you even know what song I'm referencing there?

[1789] Yeah.

[1790] You do?

[1791] Your kiss.

[1792] Yes, because your kiss.

[1793] Your kiss.

[1794] Hall and Oates.

[1795] Daryl Hall and John Oates.

[1796] Top three band for me. Yeah, you love them.

[1797] Obsessed.

[1798] Because your facts.

[1799] Your facts are on my list.

[1800] See, I blew it right there.

[1801] Because your facts are on my list.

[1802] Fucking turn out lights.

[1803] That's pretty good.

[1804] Thank you.

[1805] Are you proud of you?

[1806] Every 25th note I get.

[1807] Yeah, it's good.

[1808] What kind of facts we got today?

[1809] Are they tasty?

[1810] Should I put on a bib for these facts?

[1811] Yeah, you're going to be drooling all over these.

[1812] I'm going to be slathered with facts.

[1813] Okay, so you said that you were like, maybe this is like the 50th interview, and David is our 29th guest.

[1814] That has aired.

[1815] That's aired, but even still, not 50.

[1816] No, all right.

[1817] Maybe in the 30s, high 30s, I said.

[1818] No, we have 10 in the can.

[1819] Fuck you, Rob.

[1820] Oh, there, I'm right.

[1821] Rob's like with Kristen, with the notes.

[1822] 36.

[1823] 36.

[1824] I feel far less accomplished now.

[1825] I was strutting around town going like, I don't really bagged a few guests.

[1826] I really put some meat.

[1827] I'm glad we're putting you in your place then.

[1828] I put some meat in the freezer.

[1829] That's a good thing to feel good about work, like non -laziness.

[1830] But strutting around town on it.

[1831] Well, productivity.

[1832] I think the goal in life is to strut around town.

[1833] Really?

[1834] But to anchor it in something that is, steamworthy.

[1835] That's interesting.

[1836] I think like production, shouldn't you, like, I went, when I see people in the car, there's something about the car, it's this little force feel, and I'll see people dance into music.

[1837] And people hit a 10 in their car all the time.

[1838] I do.

[1839] Yeah, me too.

[1840] And that's the goal, isn't it?

[1841] It's just to spike that feeling of, like, I'm feeling, because you'll see people, you can tell, they're feeling sexy, too, which is a hard place to get to where you're like, I'm desirable as fuck, or at least it is for me. And I'll see people sexy dancing in their car, and I'm like, they feel so attractive.

[1842] and I'm delighted to witness it.

[1843] Yeah.

[1844] But that's an external thing.

[1845] There's music, and then they're having fun listening to the music.

[1846] There's motion.

[1847] I don't think they're feeling like...

[1848] Blinking lights from the turn signals.

[1849] You don't think they're feeling sexy?

[1850] I don't think they're feeling like great about themselves.

[1851] Yeah, I think they're just having fun.

[1852] They're just in bliss, but that's not...

[1853] I do.

[1854] Like, if you're in your car and you click into a certain dance move, and it just starts burbling your self -esteem.

[1855] You've never had it?

[1856] No. I mean, I've had a lot of joy doing that, but it doesn't give me self -esteem.

[1857] It doesn't make me feel like I'm...

[1858] A sex machine.

[1859] Special or good because I can do that.

[1860] Okay, I've felt hot in the car, like listening to Michael Jackson or something.

[1861] And it comes on, and then I get sucked into the song.

[1862] But then you internalize it and make it.

[1863] PYT, pretty young thing.

[1864] I want to.

[1865] you love you.

[1866] And if I start jamming, I'm like, fuck, I want to love you.

[1867] Like, I feel like I'm Michael Jackson.

[1868] Okay.

[1869] Like, I have the dance moves and the outfits, onwards and upwards.

[1870] What, uh, so what did I do wrong?

[1871] Okay.

[1872] Oh, I haven't done 50.

[1873] Yeah, that was an exaggeration.

[1874] You haven't done 50 now.

[1875] And I'm not going to strut around town today.

[1876] I'm more going to just kind of slither.

[1877] You can just, you don't have to be that.

[1878] It doesn't have to be so, so polar.

[1879] It doesn't have to be your either you hate yourself or.

[1880] Or you're, you know, you just can't get enough of yourself.

[1881] 36 is a total abject failure, and 50 is a home run.

[1882] Oh, my God, all right.

[1883] You asked if dipping your beak into the honey jar is a saying.

[1884] And I found no evidence that that's a saying.

[1885] But there are some other interesting.

[1886] It's a honey pot, right?

[1887] Like hand in the honey pot?

[1888] Even that, I was looking, and even that was hard to find.

[1889] Although there's some dirty, there's some dirty.

[1890] dirty stuff with honey honey honey dipping oh naughty stuff what is honey dipping me it's pretty dirty this is your your opportunity to educate me like i did with ATM i know there were a few there were a few things one honey dipping term on urban dictionary okay was when a girl um puts her fingers in her self self okay right and then and then gives gives her neighbor a taste oh interesting yeah okay well that that there's a it holds logically yeah you know yeah makes sense absolutely and that's called what a honey dip or honey honey honey dipping there's some other non um sexual okay i just i do want to put it out there from a man's perspective i think any guy who got honey dipped on any given day laying in bed that night chalk it up to a victory a good day and then are they going to be they're going to be full of self -esteem and strutting around town they'll be strutting around their bed.

[1891] Ugh.

[1892] Why don't you want people to feel great and strut around?

[1893] There's a difference between feeling good and arrogant.

[1894] Exactly.

[1895] I think strutting around implies arrogance and feeling good about yourself.

[1896] Feeling good is just feeling good.

[1897] Well, what's that walk called?

[1898] Regular walking.

[1899] Why do you have to strut and show, like, be so, you're this, like, open bravado.

[1900] Because we need an adjective to describe walking around town with burbling self -esteem.

[1901] So what would you call?

[1902] that.

[1903] I think you got to call it strutting.

[1904] Why does it have to be outward?

[1905] You can have good self -esteem.

[1906] I'm talking shoulders back, chin up high, feeling good, feeling confident, feeling like you can tackle everything in front of you.

[1907] What's that, what's that walk called?

[1908] I think that's strutton.

[1909] I got a, did you ever, you're probably too young.

[1910] Did you ever see Saturday Night fever?

[1911] No. With our man, John Travolts.

[1912] The way he's walking.

[1913] The way he's walking.

[1914] down the street he has his insecurities you know he's he lives at home with his parents he's not crushing it financially but in those moments when he's walking with the leather jacket and his hair is styled to perfection he's just exuding happiness i think there's even a line in the movie in uh she's like what do you feel like doing he's like i feel like strut like he wanted to go out and strut right but i don't think he was arrogant are you sure are you sure he wasn't compensating for all this stuff and needing this outward outward show of of like i'm good?

[1915] No, I think that was he was a dolphin in those streets, those New York streets were his water.

[1916] Like that's where he That's where he had flow.

[1917] All right.

[1918] Okay, so a chicken hawk.

[1919] Yeah, a chicken hawk.

[1920] A chicken hawk is a very weird looking animal.

[1921] I looked it up.

[1922] We'll probably post a picture.

[1923] Okay.

[1924] It's a hawk of a type that is you know, it's kind of regular hawk just praise on domestic foul but it's also a person who speaks out in support of war yet has avoided active military service so that's a chicken hog too so the highest an odometer can go to because he said he thought that there was a million miles on his car but it had he didn't know rolled over yeah it's that's all dependent on how many digits your odometer has obviously some have many old cars had five five but then six no no i'm sorry yes six not yeah some did have five oh really yeah and then and then six and would roll over at a hundred thousand but none have seven do they have yeah everything's digital so it's it's infinite that's yeah then it's infinite although not even that because you are limited and how many little pixels there are behind there.

[1925] But presumably, yeah, they could go into the millions now.

[1926] Oh, yeah.

[1927] In 2013, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, this guy, Irvin Gordon, clocked his three millionth mile.

[1928] In a Toyota?

[1929] No, in a Volvo.

[1930] Really?

[1931] In 1966 Volvo.

[1932] Wow.

[1933] Yeah.

[1934] Wow, wow, wow.

[1935] And a Volvo is what David was talking about.

[1936] I love how you say that name.

[1937] Volvo?

[1938] Yeah, Volvo.

[1939] What is it?

[1940] I say Volvo.

[1941] Oh, I think you say it funny.

[1942] Say it again?

[1943] Volvo.

[1944] Well, now I can't say it.

[1945] He drives a Volvo.

[1946] Yeah, that's how I say it.

[1947] What is happening?

[1948] I used to really like that Volvo station wagon.

[1949] It sounds like you're adding an L to the end.

[1950] Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

[1951] But I'm not Volvo.

[1952] Volvo.

[1953] Volvo, but you say Volvo.

[1954] Yeah.

[1955] I guarantee you're right.

[1956] I'm not making any.

[1957] I mean, you're probably right because you're more into cars, but.

[1958] Well, I bet you're right, and I bet also us gearheads say it wrong, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say Volvo.

[1959] Really?

[1960] Yeah.

[1961] You hear Volvo.

[1962] I don't even know, did our guests say Volvo?

[1963] A Volvo.

[1964] Yeah, a Volvo.

[1965] Volvo.

[1966] Well, careful, because you're dancing around.

[1967] on Volvo.

[1968] I know.

[1969] We had a band in college, me and some girlfriends.

[1970] It was a rock band band band.

[1971] Oh, oh, like the video game.

[1972] Yes, it wasn't a real band, but we were a band.

[1973] And two of us had CRVs, and our other friend had a Volvo.

[1974] Uh -huh.

[1975] And our band was called CR Volvo's.

[1976] CR Volvo's.

[1977] Yeah.

[1978] But not with it you.

[1979] But that was the trick.

[1980] That was the devil on Tondra.

[1981] Oh, as in S -E -R -V -E -R -V -O -U -R.

[1982] Yeah, oh, great.

[1983] I just got it.

[1984] It took me a minute.

[1985] I know.

[1986] You laughed like it made no sense, and it does make sense.

[1987] It makes a tremendous amount of sense.

[1988] It was a good girl band name because we all have Volva's.

[1989] Yeah, that, that, you hope.

[1990] Volvo.

[1991] Hmm.

[1992] Anyway.

[1993] So, okay, some interesting stuff about airplanes.

[1994] Oh, okay.

[1995] All right?

[1996] Yeah, I was taking some big swings on that airplane stuff.

[1997] You were.

[1998] Okay, when an airplane hits the runway, you said it's about 100 miles per hour.

[1999] And then they fly at 550.

[2000] And a commercial Boeing generally does cruise between 550 and 6.

[2001] So that part is correct.

[2002] Great.

[2003] Okay.

[2004] Okay, so it's all dependent on like a billion factors.

[2005] Headwind, tail wind, weight of the airplane, all of these things.

[2006] So it's at just to pick a random scenario.

[2007] Let's say you're taking off from an airport at sea level 80 degrees Fahrenheit with 10 % of flaps in a 747 with a general electric CF6 engines on a calm day with no winds on a normal dry runway with no upslope or down.

[2008] slope and the airplane weighs 350 ,000 pounds gross.

[2009] In that case, your airplane would rotate at 164 knots, 189 miles per hour.

[2010] For takeoff?

[2011] Landing is about 10 knots under your takeoff.

[2012] Okay.

[2013] So in this case, it'd be 150.

[2014] 154.

[2015] And so it'd be, you know, between 150 and 170.

[2016] 70 mm -hmm for a landing for landing yeah in that scenario yeah but said also if you're taking up from an airport 8 ,000 feet above sea level let's say in Colorado on a hot 100 degree day can I guess sure you need you got to go faster because the wind's thinner up or the air's thinner up there so what's your guess that you have to go faster so I'd say like 200 miles an hour 2 .09 yeah so why do the fly on the airplane come up.

[2017] Extending the wing flaps increases the camber or curvature of the wing, raising the maximum lift coefficient or the upper limit to the lift a wing can generate.

[2018] This allows the aircraft to generate the required lift at a lower speed, reducing the stalling speed of the aircraft, and therefore also the minimum speed at which the aircraft will safely remain in flight.

[2019] Oh, so that makes sense.

[2020] Because they have to slow it down, and by slowing it down the wings creating less lift and they don't want to fall like a rock they put those flaps up which increases lift at a lower speed so it's really they're not trying to slow it down with that as much as create lift so they can softly float back down okay so I was wrong about that but that's interesting yeah the microwave oven you you said you gave the anecdote about the plane and all of that radar equipment and the Yes.

[2021] But, and maybe that's true.

[2022] I think there's maybe some different ideas floating around about what happened.

[2023] But the guy, the guy who basically invented the present -day microwave, basically, Percy Spencer, there was an article in Reader's Digest in 1958.

[2024] And his anecdote is, one day a dozen years ago, Spencer was visiting a lab where magnetrons, the power to, tubes of radar sets were being tested.

[2025] Suddenly, he felt a peanut bar start to cook in his pocket.

[2026] Other scientists had noticed this phenomenon, but Spencer inched to know more about it.

[2027] He sent a boy out for a package of popcorn.

[2028] When he held it near a magnetron, popcorn exploded all over the lab.

[2029] Next morning, he brought in a kettle, cut a hole in the side, and put an uncooked egg in its shell into the pot.

[2030] Then he moved a magnetron against the hole and turned on the juice.

[2031] a skeptical engineer peeked over the top of the pot just in time to catch a face full of cooked egg.

[2032] Oh, wow.

[2033] The reason the yolk cooked faster than the outside causing the egg to burst.

[2034] Wow.

[2035] So that's also...

[2036] That's where the man who invented it is claiming he got the idea.

[2037] Yes, but he could...

[2038] He probably is correct.

[2039] He might be or he could be lying.

[2040] Well, all these things could be...

[2041] Well, that's true to protect the litigants in a...

[2042] civil suit against the airline for their microwave radar equipment.

[2043] We don't know how ethical he is.

[2044] We don't.

[2045] But I bet he's telling the truth.

[2046] And I bet also some guys got their insides cooked before they understood microwaves.

[2047] Probably.

[2048] Yeah, probably.

[2049] Can you imagine?

[2050] I simply can't.

[2051] But I always think, my assumption, I don't know enough about biology to know this, but my assumption is that you don't really have any nerve endings in your organ.

[2052] So it's not like you'd feel your organs cooking.

[2053] It would have to be like the organs themselves rating enough heat to get to your skin or something.

[2054] But again, I could be wrong.

[2055] But I don't think like if they cut your spleen, you would feel that cut per se.

[2056] You'd feel them going through your abdomen and stuff.

[2057] But I just don't know that there's nerve endings in your organs.

[2058] I guess that's true because if you have mono and you have an extended spleen.

[2059] You don't feel that.

[2060] Yeah, you don't feel that.

[2061] that's why it's dangerous.

[2062] Yeah.

[2063] Or I think people can have lacerated livers and stuff and they don't know it until they get other symptoms like septic or something and then they go in there and go oh you're you split this fucker a couple months ago.

[2064] Yeah.

[2065] I love when this turns into a science class.

[2066] It's so fun with neither person knowing the tremendous amount.

[2067] But don't you think if water, if the water, Water in your body was boiling, you would feel discomfort.

[2068] Like you had to fart.

[2069] Or a really bad stomach pain.

[2070] Yeah, I would think that.

[2071] Like cramp, it would at least feel like cramping.

[2072] Yeah, I think you should get some light cramps.

[2073] But I don't think you'd feel heat coming out of your liver.

[2074] Probably not.

[2075] Tom Stoppard.

[2076] You didn't know Tom Stoppard.

[2077] Still don't.

[2078] he uh he's a very very famous playwright excuse me bless you it was a cough all of my cough sound like sneezes it's so embarrassing because everyone always says bless you and i never know if i should correct them i obviously gonna correct you but just take the blessing and keep it moving i do but it feels fraudulent yeah i could see where you'd feel like a fraud does it sound like that?

[2079] I don't know.

[2080] All right.

[2081] So anyway, he's a very famous playwright, very famous.

[2082] We had to read him in school.

[2083] So famous.

[2084] So famous.

[2085] And he's a sir.

[2086] Oh, so he's in English fella?

[2087] Yeah.

[2088] Czech -born, but a British person.

[2089] Yes.

[2090] And I think for me, his most famous play is Arcadia, but he has otherwise.

[2091] too and then yeah he's written some other some movies and stuff and he's received one academy award and four tony awards what was the academy award for i believe shakespeare in love oh that makes sense yeah i don't know for sure i really enjoyed that movie yeah even though it had two words in the title that were off putting to me as a young boy sure like shakespeare no thank you love i'll pass yeah honey dip bring it on but i saw it Despite that, and loved it.

[2092] Yeah, it's a good.

[2093] Wasn't Gwyneth Paltrow in that?

[2094] Yeah.

[2095] And Ben Affleck.

[2096] Oh, Benjamin Affleck.

[2097] Yeah, that's why I saw it.

[2098] Oh, okay, that makes sense.

[2099] Yeah.

[2100] That holds up.

[2101] I think they were dating at that time.

[2102] Ooh, on -screen, off -screen.

[2103] Mm -hmm.

[2104] Mm. Yeah.

[2105] I would like some on -screen off -screen with him.

[2106] Great chemistry.

[2107] Yeah.

[2108] Do you think you'd have great chemistry with, B .A.?

[2109] I think so.

[2110] yeah you do yeah because i have such a history in my brain yeah right so yeah when you when you fantasize about interacting with him there's always been a lot of sparks flying sure what would be the point of a fantasy if there were no sparks i feel like i have something that are realistic like i'm like oh alicia of leclander uh ex machina vikander vikana i'm like uh bump into her like first so it starts with like I'm bump into her at some party.

[2111] Okay.

[2112] Oh, she looks like that.

[2113] And then I'm like, hi.

[2114] And then I see on her face, she has zero idea who I am.

[2115] Okay.

[2116] And I'm just a big, lanky doofus.

[2117] That's a six.

[2118] Unless you know who I am, then I go up to maybe a seven, five.

[2119] But in my fantasy, I go, oh, yes, she just looks at me and is like, who's this guy?

[2120] Is he parking cars?

[2121] And he found his way in?

[2122] And that's the end of the fantasy.

[2123] See, it doesn't...

[2124] Yeah, like, I would never be able to masturbate to Alicia Vicklander.

[2125] Oh, my God.

[2126] Well, first...

[2127] Because it would be so implausible.

[2128] You haven't even taken the time to learn her name.

[2129] You have to put in some time.

[2130] Well, your crush is Ben Affleck.

[2131] I could definitely get that.

[2132] This gal's name has got 25 consonants in it.

[2133] What is it Vican...

[2134] Alicia Vakander.

[2135] But listen.

[2136] I can say Alicia.

[2137] You can't...

[2138] You can't expect her, even in your fantasy, to fall in love with you if you don't even know her name.

[2139] But I call...

[2140] What if I call her...

[2141] like a cute nickname right out of the gate it's like audio video she's not going to like it even the fantasy version is not going to like it if you don't even know her name all right okay step one learn Alicia uh -huh Vic Lander no Vic Hander you're adding an L like I did on Volvo yeah that's right it's easier than what it's the same thing with Vietnamese you're making everything a little bit harder for yourself so yeah I guess that there's more than like seven letters in anything, I just start seeing like a ton of letters in my head.

[2142] Yeah, you're just throwing all the letters at it.

[2143] When I picture her last name in my head mentally, it looks like super califragilistic exeologous.

[2144] So how would you pronounce the the girl in the movie we watched last night?

[2145] Well, first of all, I don't know her name.

[2146] Oh, another one.

[2147] Another one you don't know her name, but you fantasize about.

[2148] No, I don't never.

[2149] Oh, oh, the one, yes.

[2150] The mistress, not the lead.

[2151] We watched Gone Girl last night for our listeners.

[2152] And because we both enjoy that movie very much, speaking of Ben Affleck.

[2153] Yeah, it works on a lot of levels for us because I have David Fincher, the director I'm obsessed with.

[2154] Yes, I also love him.

[2155] And then you're getting, you're getting Ben Affleck.

[2156] Some eye candy.

[2157] Some mind candy.

[2158] A side of eye candy.

[2159] But yeah, the gal from the video.

[2160] Yes.

[2161] Ryshevik, Rishri Ryshevik.

[2162] Emily Roshnowski.

[2163] Radijakowski, I think.

[2164] Even I have a hard time with her, but I'm not fantasizing about her, so I don't feel like I need to learn it, really.

[2165] Emily Radjadikovsky.

[2166] Radijikovsky.

[2167] Well, and maybe this is, maybe I'm wrong.

[2168] This is why my Alicia Vickander does, the fantasy doesn't go far because I met Emily Rajowski at the Super Bowl a couple years ago.

[2169] Uh -huh.

[2170] And we were both stuck like.

[2171] in a holding pattern waiting for cars to arrive or something.

[2172] So we were next to each other for a good 20 minutes and she was with her dad and I like talked to her dad a bunch and I talked to her and I could just see on her face I look like a white lined sheet of paper in front of her.

[2173] Like there was zero there was I was of zero interest to her and so I've seen that look on someone's face and so I can quite easily transpose it on to Alicia Vikanders.

[2174] You said it.

[2175] Thank you.

[2176] Good job.

[2177] Well, we worked on it.

[2178] a lot yeah but um don't you okay so but that's kind of step one in the fantasy but you could make it like even more fun because she doesn't know you and then she i got to win her over well that's really yes so that is part of any fantasy i normally concoct um but i'm telling you this emily gal i was i was uh i was sprinkling as much fairy dust as i have and there was no she just was not buying what i was selling like she and i just i assume alicia You shouldn't assume in your fantasy.

[2179] You let your fantasy just be.

[2180] Okay, great.

[2181] All right.

[2182] Yeah, I should assume she just binged parenthood.

[2183] Yeah.

[2184] When I bump into her.

[2185] Well, it doesn't have to be that.

[2186] She doesn't have to know you already from being famous.

[2187] She kind of does because I'm not very good looking.

[2188] So I can't just walk up to her.

[2189] I could walk up to her.

[2190] You know what?

[2191] If I met her on a dance floor, my odds go up significantly.

[2192] So maybe I'll start fantasizing about.

[2193] bumping into her at Studio 54, circa 81.

[2194] Yeah, I think it's dangerous for you to think that your likeability lies in, in like, your work, because it's not true.

[2195] No, no, no, no. It doesn't.

[2196] It has nothing to do with being famous.

[2197] It has to do with you get to know my personality through my work.

[2198] You might like my personality.

[2199] So I just want to be very clear.

[2200] I don't think she'd be like, ooh, he's famous.

[2201] She would go like, oh, that guy's offbeat or something.

[2202] Right.

[2203] I understand that.

[2204] Yeah.

[2205] But she could get to.

[2206] know that in person pretty quick yeah yeah and this is all fantasy this is all fantasy okay so oh he talked about only child syndrome okay a little bit and he had some ideas of like sort of what that is which i thought were very interesting i don't know if if that is based in any research or if he's just decided sort of some of those things seem to be a bit of a psychology historian like He reads a lot of famous psychologists.

[2207] He was so smart.

[2208] Yeah, we'd love D. Harbor.

[2209] Really, really, really enjoyed him.

[2210] The common thought on Only Child Syndrome is like selfish.

[2211] Narcissistic.

[2212] Like really generally bad qualities.

[2213] Yeah, jerky, assholy.

[2214] Yeah.

[2215] And then I was looking it up, this woman that had done a bunch of research on it.

[2216] And it was interesting because she said, they tend to be.

[2217] very self -confident.

[2218] Okay.

[2219] Because they peer with adults.

[2220] Hmm.

[2221] So.

[2222] I got a hunch that she herself was an only child and set out to defend herself in this study.

[2223] I don't think that's fair.

[2224] Because what would be, why would someone be motivated to have that study?

[2225] I think it's fascinating.

[2226] We talk, what do you mean?

[2227] We talk about it all the time on this thing.

[2228] Oh, yeah.

[2229] Different sibling standings and stuff.

[2230] So if we're interested, why can't somebody else be interested?

[2231] All right, all right.

[2232] Okay.

[2233] yeah um but they tend to be so yeah they tend to be comfortable dealing with adult authorities and speaking up to adult authorities because they kind of put have always put themselves on that level that makes sense but what if her study concluded that um only child syndrome that the people were generally five foot eight and generally female and generally graduated from brown it was just a study of herself oh my god god okay but also they can be pretty hard on themselves um because when they say to themselves i'm in this family i can have an equal say to my parents an equal standing what they sometimes do is they apply equal standards and say i should be able to do as well as my parents and then they get exaggerated standards of performance oh uh -huh so that's kind of interesting but i have that as a as a younger brother of someone who's five years older than me like i was measuring all of my physical aptitude against a dude who was twice my age like yeah skateboarded or BMX or anything right I was like I suck at this that yeah exactly so I think everyone has that with their siblings but it's extremely exaggerated if it's an adult right if there's a 30 year gap yeah exactly and your your your your peer knows trigonometry or something but they're not very comfortable in conflict because I haven't had that much experience with it hmm very valued possessions become particularly important.

[2234] Because they're only friends.

[2235] Sometimes they have an attachment to things.

[2236] Right?

[2237] Like if you're by yourself and you only have your dolls and stuff or your fire engines, I could see where the...

[2238] Yeah, and you're not having to share them.

[2239] So it doesn't, they feel like very much yours, I think.

[2240] So then they have a heightened value, I'm sure.

[2241] Oh, that's another good theory.

[2242] We should publish our own paper on this.

[2243] We're just sitting here figuring all this out.

[2244] Oh, they also statistically do a little better.

[2245] school oh well that makes sense yeah also though there it could be because parents have more resources and money if it's just one that they can you know give to one so anyway that i thought that was interesting oh uh david mentioned that bill from aa talked to carl young and carl young had said like there's just like nothing you can do for alcoholism yes but i found the letter that carl young wrote back and he does not say that there's nothing but he he definitely gives like a spiritual solution it's like very which is sort of what a it ends up being yeah um we suffer from a spiritual malady yeah so maybe he got that from carl young because he said Carl young said i'm strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in this world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition if it is not counteracted either by real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community so it makes sense yeah i like thinking of the protective wall of human community of spirituality yeah me too because i think a lot of people who maybe um or maybe questioning whether they want to stay religious they then think by walking away from a conventional religion.

[2246] They're giving up spirituality and they don't really know how you can have it elsewhere.

[2247] And so I like that the option stated.

[2248] Yeah, you too.

[2249] You'd say a little bit about ADHD and B's.

[2250] If anyone's interested in that, Joel McHale's episode, Joel McHale is the one that told us about that, and it's in that episode.

[2251] And then you substantiated it in his fact check.

[2252] You gave the most concise, coherent.

[2253] Oh, you have so much information about that.

[2254] Easily digestible explanation of that study and that fact check.

[2255] So just check out that fact check.

[2256] So just listen to the fact, Jill McHale fact check.

[2257] You can even skip the Joel McHale episode and just listen to the fact check.

[2258] The Marlon Brando documentary is called Listen to Me Marlin.

[2259] And it's on Showtime and it's great.

[2260] Oh, he mentioned the Jewish Catuba.

[2261] And the Catuba is a special type of Jewish pre -up agreement.

[2262] It's considered a part of a traditional Jewish marriage and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom in relation to the bride.

[2263] So I did want to be clear about that.

[2264] It's like what the man owes the woman.

[2265] Okay.

[2266] Because I don't want people to think it's like, which it sort of was being presented as like.

[2267] A dowry.

[2268] Yeah, yeah.

[2269] Yeah, it's not a dowry.

[2270] Yes.

[2271] I think I was positioning it as a dowry, having never heard of it.

[2272] Yeah, I think that's what we were sort of leaning towards.

[2273] Traditionally, when the women are leaving their tribe to join the males, they got to give them a little money, you know?

[2274] I think it's more common that the bride comes with a small fortune.

[2275] It is, yes.

[2276] It's very common.

[2277] So that's why I wanted to be clear.

[2278] Like, this is not that.

[2279] The Jewish husband takes upon himself in the Catuba the obligation he will provide to his wife three major things, clothing, food, and conjugal relations.

[2280] and also that he will pay her a pre -specified amount of cash in case of a divorce essentially dictate security and protection for the woman and her rights in the marriage.

[2281] That's cool.

[2282] Paul Bloom is the psychologist that we talk about because we talk about this idea that the more when you hear a story on the news, the more people, the less humans care, the less empathetic people are.

[2283] And he gave an example that if there's a story about a girl in a well, people are like really up in arms and upset.

[2284] And that's because you can map your own life onto that.

[2285] So if you have a daughter, it's like, that's your daughter.

[2286] And if you add the brother in there, then if you don't have two kids that becomes less connected to you.

[2287] And then if you add five kids in there, it just becomes, it just becomes less and less something you can connect with, the more people that are involved in a tragedy, which is kind of crazy.

[2288] But, yeah.

[2289] And he, so, so he's on, he's been on Sam Harris a few times.

[2290] Episode 14, The Virtues of Cold Blood, Episode 16, The Dark Side, and Episode 56 Abusing Dolores.

[2291] And I think his very first appearance is my favorite.

[2292] He's so interesting.

[2293] He said on one of them, one of the, I think about it all the time, that we have as humans a betrayal bias.

[2294] So if something happens, if you're in a circumstance where you feel betrayed, the weight of that is so much heavier than a circumstance, an equally bad circumstance.

[2295] Yes.

[2296] Like.

[2297] Yeah, I'm trying to remember the example he gave.

[2298] He gave an example, a malpractice suit.

[2299] where I forget the details but essentially he was saying like if you go to the doctor and they you know misdiagnose you and you know you have a horrible time a couple months of like dealing with this and then you find out that you're fine but it was an accident it was a total misdiagnosis versus a situation where you go in and they misdiagnose you but it's on purpose like there was some actual case of this where some doctor was like diagnosing people with cancer or something so he could like benefit financially.

[2300] Sam brought up that part of it because Sam's obsessed with that person.

[2301] He uses that quite often as like the apex of badness.

[2302] Evil.

[2303] Unethical behavior.

[2304] Yeah.

[2305] Yeah.

[2306] But he was saying like in those two circumstances, what you're experiencing is the same.

[2307] Right.

[2308] But you, it feels like much more of an actual betrayal.

[2309] And so you wait that way, way, way more.

[2310] It was a doctor who was diagnosing people with cancer and then treating them for cancer and making them go through chemo and all the shit to sell the stuff and they did not have cancer.

[2311] Right.

[2312] But you would still be doing that in a misdiagnosis that just happened to be an accident.

[2313] But it feels way worse that this guy did it on purpose when really the outcome is the same.

[2314] Yeah, you're going through chemo.

[2315] for no reason.

[2316] Yeah, so we have this outweighed.

[2317] Yeah, it's called betrayal bias and I think about that a lot.

[2318] It's interesting.

[2319] Okay, so we talk about, you mentioned like the odds of getting killed by a terrorist, getting struck by lightning school shooting.

[2320] So the odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U .S. in any one year is one in 700 ,000.

[2321] The odds of being struck in your lifetime is one in 3 ,000.

[2322] That seems.

[2323] high.

[2324] It seems high, high probability.

[2325] Yeah, I know.

[2326] I kind of thought that too.

[2327] It was like, oh, it's happening more than.

[2328] I was thinking it was still way more like one in a million.

[2329] Yeah, I know.

[2330] It's not.

[2331] 3 ,000 in your life.

[2332] That means if you led 3 ,000 lives, one of those lives, you'd be struck down by lightning.

[2333] The likelihood of an American being killed in an immigrant -initiated terror strike in any given year is one in 3 .7.

[2334] six, four million.

[2335] Okay, so 36 divided by seven is five.

[2336] Okay, five takes you to 35.

[2337] You follow me?

[2338] So it's five times less likely, more than five times less likely you'd be killed by terrorists than struck by lying.

[2339] Yeah.

[2340] And that's where it goes into the betrayal bias, because one is intentional and one is accidental, and that's why it feels so much more important that we safeguard ourselves from the ladder even though we'd be better off building big lightning structures yeah um yeah yeah exactly that dovetail perfectly did you plant that little seed so i could pick that yummy piece of coincidental fruit off i wish i could say i did but i'm not going to strut around and say i did okay that's like inception you planted the seed and made me think it was my own idea well done mannequip had me. Okay, the statistical likelihood.

[2341] I know people don't really want to hear this, but it came up.

[2342] No, they do.

[2343] Oh, the school shooting?

[2344] Yeah, no, it is.

[2345] I think this is super relevant because I, when I see a school shooting, I literally, my thought is, okay, well, I'm not sending my kids to a public school.

[2346] Like, my reaction in my mind at that moment is that I'm homeschooling.

[2347] Right.

[2348] And I think that needs to be counteracted with some data.

[2349] Yeah.

[2350] As horrific as they are.

[2351] Yes.

[2352] Let's hear some data.

[2353] Okay.

[2354] The statistical likelihood of.

[2355] any given public school student being killed by a gun in school on any given day since 1999 is roughly $1 ,614 million.

[2356] Oh my God.

[2357] So guys, just really think about that.

[2358] Because so, okay, so, oh, boy, let me do the math.

[2359] This is going to be a big one.

[2360] Let's just say it was $1 ,000 ,700 ,000.

[2361] So, yeah, your kid's going to get struck by lightning 10 times before they get shot.

[2362] at school.

[2363] So that is really helpful.

[2364] That doesn't mean you shouldn't be mobilized to prevent this, but it does mean when you're worrying at home, you should at least compare it to some other stuff.

[2365] So no one's at home worrying about their kid getting struck by lightning at school, I don't believe.

[2366] And just imagine now that your kid's going to get struck by lightning 10 times before they ever get shot at school.

[2367] And that's only in any one year, 700 ,000 for lightning.

[2368] In your lifetime, it's one in 3 ,000.

[2369] So your chances are much.

[2370] Much, much vastly higher of getting struck by lightning than.

[2371] Yeah, so that's 200 ,000.

[2372] Your kid, I just did some fast math, and I hope someone will check this on a calculator, but I think your kid would get hit 200 ,000 times with lightning.

[2373] But listen, I also wish, you know, it also makes me question this whole idiom that we have.

[2374] That was not right.

[2375] That was not right at all.

[2376] That was not right.

[2377] I needed to take three zeros off of seven million.

[2378] wait seven we're making we're making we're making we're making we're making we're making we're making 6 .2 million seven million for ease what's 6 .2 minutes your kid had a 1 and 6 .2 million chance of getting shot 614 million oh my goodness yeah not 6 6 oh so 700 million oh so then I did do it correct it's 200 ,000 times your kid would get struck by lightning who once again you led me down that path to make me shine I thank you again Anyway, oh, but I wish we weren't using this idiom all the time, like, struck by lightning.

[2379] Like, it's a kind of common.

[2380] Yeah, but it's a good idiom because no one's worried about getting struck by lightning.

[2381] I guess.

[2382] That's true.

[2383] Okay, the movie Seth Rogen and David Harbour did together was The Green Hornet.

[2384] That's how they know each other.

[2385] Oh.

[2386] Okay, so he was saying, clearly he was saying in hyperbole that there is a million.

[2387] shows on Netflix.

[2388] There's, this is in 2016.

[2389] I tried to get an updated number, but my source is out of town.

[2390] Mm, okay.

[2391] But.

[2392] Because Monica has an insider at Netflix.

[2393] I do.

[2394] Yeah.

[2395] But she didn't provide.

[2396] But in 2016, they had 1 ,197 TV series.

[2397] How many?

[2398] 1 ,197.

[2399] In 2016, and they have more now.

[2400] So your odds of getting hit by one of those shows is three times more likely than your lifetime odds of getting hit by lightning.

[2401] No. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.

[2402] I just want to compare 1 ,000 to 3 ,000.

[2403] Oh, okay.

[2404] So you talked about, you talked about in.

[2405] Oh, my God, though.

[2406] I just thought of something really fun.

[2407] In any of your lightning strike research, did you find out how many lightning strikes there are in a year in America?

[2408] Because it wouldn't it be great?

[2409] If it was 1 ,000 per year, your odds if you live in America of having your own TV show on Netflix are the same as your odds of getting hit by lightning because there's the same amount.

[2410] True.

[2411] Although the likely, we don't know the percentage of people who tried to get a show on Netflix and then did.

[2412] No, but suffice to say 1 ,000 people on Netflix have their own show.

[2413] Yeah, so if 1 ,000 people have shows on Netflix and 1 ,000 people got hit by lightning, your odds are the same if you live in America of having a show on Netflix as getting hit by lightning.

[2414] That's true, that's true.

[2415] But also not.

[2416] true because you have to take into account so many factors right lightning is so random and getting a show on netflix is not no one's ever gotten a phone call and they said hey this is the netflix corporation good news you've got your own show can you be in l .a on wednesday I wish that's my fantasy the linguistic guy from wired magazine is david j peterson and he created dothraki and valerian for game of grounds which is cool and christin was not the lead in Tom Sawyer because she wasn't Tom Sawyer but she was Becky Thatcher which is the lead the female lead and I asked her to confirm that and she I was like are you the lead in Tom Sawyer and she said yeah she was cast as Tom Sawyer and then they realized that she was a girl and they cast her as Becky Patrick and I believed her and I almost and this is dangerous this is how good of an actress it was on Marco Polo so I could see her face and it was very believable.

[2417] And she's too good of an actress and it could lead to some fake news.

[2418] Yeah, yeah.

[2419] Yeah, so is a problem.

[2420] That's great.

[2421] And that's all.

[2422] Oh, wonderful.

[2423] Yeah.

[2424] Thank you, Manicapadman.

[2425] Thank you.

[2426] Those are great facts and I'm grateful for them.

[2427] Love you.

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