Casey Affleck

[0] Welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I am famed golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez.

[2] I am joined by Bingo Stretzky.

[3] Bingo.

[4] How are you?

[5] Is that a real person?

[6] Bingo Stretzky?

[7] Yeah.

[8] No, I made that one up on the fly.

[9] Oh, but Chichi Rodriguez is.

[10] That would be a good test.

[11] Like, which one of these is fake?

[12] I know.

[13] They both sound equally.

[14] You'd probably guess Chi Chi -Chi -Rodriguez.

[15] Who was I?

[16] Bingo.

[17] I've already forgotten.

[18] Bingo something.

[19] Bingo -Bingo -Bongo.

[20] Yeah.

[21] I'm joined by Bingo.

[22] Bango Bango!

[23] Bongo!

[24] We have an incredible actor on the program today.

[25] Academy Award winner.

[26] Academy Award winning actor.

[27] He's also a director.

[28] Yeah.

[29] He's also one degree of separation away from Monica's true love.

[30] Yeah.

[31] You might have already guessed it unless you think Matt Damon has a brother as well.

[32] That's won an Academy Award.

[33] But no, in fact, it's Casey Affleck.

[34] You know him from Manchester by the sea.

[35] Goodwill Honey and Gone Baby Gone.

[36] The assassination of Jesse James by the coward, Robert Ford.

[37] He is just a powerhouse of an actor.

[38] He has a new movie called Light of My Life out August 9th.

[39] I hope everyone will check that out.

[40] Yeah.

[41] Casey was wonderful.

[42] Yes.

[43] You, a little crushy, crushy?

[44] Do you feel a little crushy?

[45] Yeah.

[46] Yeah, good.

[47] I like when you get a little crushy crush.

[48] Anyways, for the rest of you, please enjoy Casey Affleck.

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

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

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

[52] He's an armchair expert.

[53] And do you also participate in like?

[54] I do, but kind of like as a Robin.

[55] I just pipe in when I need to.

[56] You don't have to call yourself a robin?

[57] That's an esteem.

[58] Yeah, that's a high watermark.

[59] You can just say you can be your own person, your own version of someone who's on a show and contributing.

[60] She is, but I'm definitely a poor man's Howard.

[61] I mean, that's who I'm trying to be.

[62] You want to be Howard.

[63] Of course.

[64] Yeah.

[65] Do you like Howard?

[66] Yeah.

[67] Yeah.

[68] I do.

[69] What an interviewer.

[70] Have you done his show?

[71] No. Would you?

[72] Definitely.

[73] Because I'm sort of late to the party on podcast.

[74] This is the first that I've done.

[75] I hate my voice.

[76] I have a weird voice.

[77] People have said I've got a voice for film and a face for radio.

[78] Uh -huh.

[79] So it's...

[80] A voice for film.

[81] Anyway, I would be honest to do it.

[82] He's a great interviewer.

[83] Yeah, I did it, and the night before I went to do it, which you already got to wake up at whatever, five or six in the morning, and I was on L .A. time.

[84] And then I just started, I was neurotically preparing for every question that might be scary for me. You know, like, I wanted to have a good twist to kind of dodge it.

[85] That's what I've done with you You've already mapped this whole thing out But I got there And he did bring up like some famous girls I had dated Mind you he was wrong about almost all of them But I just went into my addiction stories And that was tasty enough meat for him So the whole night being up all night planning Didn't come to pass Which is most of the arguments I have in my head In planning a fight that's imminent They never go down the way I've scripted them that's true man yeah even in like third grade people are like he's waiting for you out in the back of the school and you go out there and he's been told that you were waiting for him yes or one of you want to fight a hundred percent yeah that was nice of you to throw yourself under the bus and not discuss the women that you've dated and yeah i mean a couple i couldn't avoid um who no here we go what was funny is like you know you'll end up in you this happened to you i'm sure you go to something and you end up in a photo next to somebody there's a website who dated who that they're pulling from in their research and so he has a list of people he thinks i dated but they're just people like one time i was literally walking across the street in hollywood by just happenstance terra lopinski's walking through the same crosswalk it kind of appears we're together walking and that's someone i dated yeah according to that website i've been in photographs standing next to people who i am dating uh -huh and they still people wouldn't believe it oh right We wonder who she's dating.

[86] How many of her it happens to be standing next to the case.

[87] Yeah, yeah.

[88] I'm definitely not dating.

[89] Male pal.

[90] Now, what's funny about you and I is that we have been neighbors for 15 years.

[91] Do you realize that?

[92] No. Yes.

[93] I thought you just moved into the hood.

[94] This is the most specific.

[95] I live directly behind you and I have for 15 years.

[96] That can't be true.

[97] Yes, it's true.

[98] Why do you think I would see you pushing my children around in a stroller?

[99] I thought because you were moving in here and you were renting some other spot.

[100] No, I moved into the house behind yours 14 years ago.

[101] My shed opens into the little alley across street from your house.

[102] That's why I'm always coming up from that alley.

[103] I still don't know what you're talking about.

[104] Okay, great.

[105] So you know if you're in your garage, you're in your garage.

[106] You look to your left.

[107] I live there.

[108] Right.

[109] I see you in there all the time.

[110] You look to your left.

[111] There's a little alley that goes downhill.

[112] Yes.

[113] Downhill.

[114] Downhill.

[115] Nice lemon tree.

[116] Yes, that lemon tree is on my property.

[117] There's a shed door there and that's the door into my property.

[118] Amazing.

[119] But yes, we've been neighbors for 15 years.

[120] And this is exactly what I'm getting at.

[121] This is what's so funny is is we have been neighbors.

[122] I've been aware of it for 15 years.

[123] I had to learn about you for today.

[124] And it's a very unique experience to, I guess, investigate your neighbor to like, you know, like do a deep dive on one of your neighbors.

[125] Let's see.

[126] So we've talked, I'm going to say you and I have chatted in the neighborhood seven times over the last decade.

[127] And then we were one time in D .C. Do you remember this?

[128] no white house correspondence dinner okay you and summer were staying at the same hotel bell and i were and we sat down and had like a tea in the lobby together you do remember that okay that was a nice tea yes now in general is your memory what would you give it out of ten it was like a nine what really great tea you have a great no no no no no your memory oh my memory four okay okay okay and it's getting worse yes i'm almost 44 and i sometimes i forget like names of people who i I've known and loved for a long time.

[129] Yes.

[130] Do you think being a parent has something to do with that?

[131] Because I've noticed minds have been in a nosedive since we had kids.

[132] Yeah, I think so.

[133] I think it just ages you.

[134] It stresses you out a little bit.

[135] There's all of that worry, you know, inevitable, unless you're, like, Buddha parents, there's all that worry involved and the sleeplessness, you know, all that stuff contributes.

[136] Like, if you want to live long, be healthy, you know, keep your memory.

[137] Like, get some rest.

[138] Don't have kids.

[139] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[140] But so over the years that I've bumped into you, I've been always trying to got to have everyone's approval.

[141] Oh, okay.

[142] Everyone's Uber driver, you name it.

[143] Got to have it.

[144] It's exhausting.

[145] Yes, Monica who spends most of her a week with me, it gets tiresome.

[146] I'd like to think I've gotten a little better.

[147] But you just by nature, you have a very even temperament, right?

[148] Oh, you're crazy.

[149] No?

[150] I mean, maybe that's the veneer.

[151] Okay.

[152] You know, a practiced appearance of trying to stay, seem like, do they know I'm crazy?

[153] Okay.

[154] Let me just hold it together on the outside, yeah.

[155] Because here's the blanks I filled in, in my insecurity.

[156] All the times I've met you, I'm like, look, he could be a very laid -back guy, or option B, and I can put some real time into this, he thinks I'm a hack, he thinks I'm not a serious actor, and he is a serious actor, he thinks I'm money -hungry and I'll do anything, which is, by the way, completely true.

[157] When I'll walk away sometimes, I'm like, I just think of the list of things you're going through are like, oh, that guy, he's so arrogant because he's tall.

[158] What's going on with this guy?

[159] I didn't notice we're tall.

[160] Great answer.

[161] Let me tell you some.

[162] We are those two kids who have been set up to fight in the back of the school.

[163] I don't have those opinions.

[164] The one interaction I can remember with you or had a similar experience in my own head.

[165] It was Christmas Eve, I think.

[166] And I was walking with my kids.

[167] And sometimes what we like to do is go around and sing for the neighbors, which I've been asked to just mouth the words because I'm such a bad singer.

[168] But we were on our way back, and I was straggling.

[169] And I think I saw you.

[170] You were coming up that same alley you're talking about.

[171] And I called out.

[172] I said, Merry Christmas.

[173] Sort of within some holiday enthusiasm.

[174] And you sent back a kind of what to me I thought was you were mocking me. You went, Merry Christmas.

[175] Oh, like, it's not cool to say Merry Christmas.

[176] Like, this guy's going like, oh, ho, Merry Christmas.

[177] Uh -huh.

[178] But maybe that wasn't the case.

[179] Not at all.

[180] I've wanted your approval and friendship since I moved in behind you.

[181] In fact, I probably would have laughed, but I just hadn't gotten that yet.

[182] So I will not leave this neighborhood until I know you like me. I like you.

[183] There'll be a lot of projecting in this.

[184] Okay.

[185] Because I'm stuck in my own point of view.

[186] But a lot of parallels, you and I. First of all, we're the same age.

[187] I'm maybe six months older than you.

[188] We both have older brothers.

[189] We both have alcoholic fathers.

[190] We both have single mothers raised by.

[191] There's a lot of stuff.

[192] And I wonder, the fact that we would both have those assumptions, is that just the price you pay of being a younger brother?

[193] Because my brother was looking for any way in to fuck with me. And so I just had to get really good at, A, assuming his intentions were the worst, and then having some kind of prepared defense at all times.

[194] I could not possibly just mosey or around my house peacefully expecting benevolence to come from him.

[195] Is this a little brother thing?

[196] Maybe.

[197] Ben and I were pretty, I was tortured like any younger brother, you know, but I was pretty cunning at avoiding it and finding my own way to like see it coming and sort of sidestep in different ways.

[198] So I don't think back on my child that was being traumatized by someone older, bigger, stronger, you know.

[199] I do think back on us as being like really good friends.

[200] Right.

[201] Well, you guys are a little closer, right?

[202] Because what are you, two years apart or something?

[203] Three, okay.

[204] And my brother's five.

[205] I was a tag along much more than maybe you were.

[206] Right.

[207] I was probably more of a tag along than I felt, which is a nice thing.

[208] Yeah.

[209] You know, for nevertheless, I do definitely have those feelings.

[210] You know, you could spend a lifetime and I probably will analyzing your childhood what led you to become this person you are now.

[211] And then at 75, thinking back on your 40s, you know, seeing yourself as a kid of sorts and wondering how you got to become what you are at 75.

[212] It'll never stop probably.

[213] Right.

[214] But I asked my mom when she turned 65 what it was like, and she said everything glows, which she was being like intentionally cryptic, I think.

[215] But I interpreted that as being that it's sort of all the bad parts sort of were softened, but also memory itself was sort of blurring everything into a really nostalgic vision of her past, just in general.

[216] I sort of hope that that's what happens.

[217] Because I still, although my memories are four out of ten now, it feels that way, my memories have a sharp edge to them.

[218] Do you know what I mean?

[219] You're sure.

[220] And those sharp edges, I think, are the things that cut in to your ego when you think about, I yelled Merry Christmas and then he yelled it back in the same tone.

[221] And now he must have been mocking me. I'm disliked by everyone in the community.

[222] So, yeah.

[223] I totally agree with you.

[224] What's funny is I'm always kind of trying to debate in my head.

[225] Just stop thinking about that childhood.

[226] You're here.

[227] You like where you're at for the most part.

[228] And just be in today and forget about that.

[229] But all roads lead back to it.

[230] It's like if anything I'm triggered by or defensive by, it really is embarrassingly simple that it's really all based in those maybe even 10 years, those first 10 years.

[231] Like, it's ridiculous how hard it is to escape that.

[232] So part of me is like, oh, just put it to bed and move forward.

[233] Another part of me is like, there's no moving forward until I can kind of deconstruct that or unravel it all and just notice when something's, like, I think you're judging me for being a bad actor.

[234] You know, that's not really happening.

[235] What's happening is something from when I'm 10.

[236] That's kind of relevant for me to right size my interactions, you know?

[237] Yeah.

[238] And it's helpful to move through your day.

[239] You know what I mean?

[240] If you can go like, this dude's not judging me for being a bad actor.

[241] You probably don't care who's a good or bad actor, right?

[242] Like, I don't really care.

[243] Do you?

[244] No, not at all.

[245] And like, I also don't think of myself as being a good actor.

[246] Well, you're a great actor, by my estimation.

[247] Well, thank you.

[248] Yeah, yeah.

[249] But I think one thing it does is when you feel punished by the thoughts of others, you start to think a little bit about, okay, how do I perceive people?

[250] What are my inner thoughts about people?

[251] It's probably not so dissimilar to the experience People are more similar than they are dissimilar.

[252] So I'm probably feeling mocked.

[253] Maybe he's feeling a little bit mocked by me. And, you know, one thing that I do is to remember that, like, when you see others, you are looking through a dense fog of your own insecurities, of your own ignorance and inherited prejudice, all these things.

[254] Before you have any thought that you're going to hold on to, think about that first, that, like, fog that you have to look through before you see someone else and that everyone is having the same experience.

[255] Yes.

[256] Even physiologically, your eyes aren't functioning on the same level as mine.

[257] It could be better, could be worse.

[258] Our ears aren't perceiving the same, all the same registries and stuff.

[259] You know, we're actually taking in different information to begin with.

[260] And then we're putting it through this fucked up software we've developed over the last 44 years or you soon to be 44 years.

[261] But it's hard to remember that.

[262] Yeah.

[263] I had a moment yesterday.

[264] I visited my wife on set for her birthday.

[265] I was like talking to this guy.

[266] I love DDA, who I worked with on another show.

[267] And he was showing me some motorcycle videos and I was quickly trying to tell him about my motorcycle stuff and I realized in this moment I was like you're not eight trying to get the approval of the cool guys like he wants your approval and get out of your own way and give this guy approval yeah but I was blinded by my own like well and I did this and I've all written on that track and blah blah blah blah blah but and I was just like oh it's really easy to not be aware of who you are in the in the world to kind of to forget how about how other people are seeing you.

[268] Or even like I was the boss on two different movies.

[269] I directed two different movies at no point, although clearly and logically and intellectually, I was like, well, I am the boss.

[270] But I am still 12 in my head.

[271] And there's no way I'm the boss of anyone.

[272] And there's no, like, they're all in on the joke.

[273] And I'm just not seeing myself as a boss.

[274] And then, of course, no, years later, I'm like, oh, I was the boss.

[275] And I didn't take that in.

[276] And I should have.

[277] Some situations that you see come up, you're like, oh, I'm.

[278] I have a power over someone, I would have never thought I had a power over somebody.

[279] Yes, I've been a boss and not been aware of exactly what the responsibilities of that role entailed and not also thought of myself as the boss.

[280] Being aware of how others do see you or just specifically in a like professional environment.

[281] Sure.

[282] Is important, even if you are sort of behaving the way you should or have good intentions or you're aware that like everyone feels fine here, like your sense of decency as a human, your radar is intact.

[283] If you're not sort of abiding by or aware of the guidelines of a professional environment, you're vulnerable to people saying like, yo, you're not behaving responsibly.

[284] And that has all kind of tentacles.

[285] And so, yeah, being a boss means a whole ton of things that, like, I was not prepared for.

[286] This is I'm talking about the first movie that I directed.

[287] Right, right, right.

[288] I wish that I had understood that better.

[289] That doesn't mean to say that it wasn't a messy, situation.

[290] It's complicated, but certainly I try to look for like, no matter what is going on, like even if I feel like my angriest and most offensive and most victimized myself, look quick to feel how other people might feel victimized.

[291] Like do the dig, that deep dive on like, what is the other person's point of view?

[292] How does that other person feel?

[293] And what could you have done to make that experience better for them?

[294] That's the lesson in it for me. And on that a movie I directed.

[295] It was a love 10 years ago.

[296] I learned a lot of that.

[297] And then I did another movie recently, and I took a lot of that to heart.

[298] And I can give an example.

[299] We were watching the 60 Minutes special about some issues at Spotted Pig in New York, which is a restaurant I fucking love, and I've eaten there a million times.

[300] And so Chris and I were watching it.

[301] And this woman, an employee of one of the guys there, was saying, what happened is they were in a car together, and it was late at night.

[302] She was going to drive him somewhere.

[303] And then he leaned over and started kissing her.

[304] And she said, and I just froze.

[305] I completely froze.

[306] I didn't know what to do.

[307] And then we heard like the account from a couple other ladies that had the same reaction.

[308] And I had to think to myself, wow, that's new information for me. I never would have assumed when I went to kiss a girl if she didn't say, oh, no, thank you.

[309] Or move away.

[310] That would be my signal.

[311] I never, an option for me, I never would have thought of was like, well, she might freeze.

[312] that might be the reaction.

[313] And so I got to really check in with that.

[314] That's not something I, I'm, again, trapped in my own perspective, whereas if you leaned over to try to kiss me right now, I think, oh, no, thanks, or I'd move my body.

[315] And those are what I, that's what I think the options are.

[316] And then I just learned, I'm fucking 44, I learned a year and a half ago that an option is to completely get paralyzed with fear and freeze.

[317] And I was like, wow, when I start running my whole life through the fucking camera now and I think of that, I'm like, oh, was, did that girl just freeze?

[318] Like, you know, I take on new information and I get a little scared.

[319] I now know going forward.

[320] Fingers crossed, I won't have to find out because I'm married.

[321] But wow, that's good information for me to have going forward.

[322] I mean, every lesson like that when you're, like, honest with yourself, if processed properly, is good information going forward.

[323] And I think a lot of people go, like, what's the new rule book?

[324] And we don't know what's writing, what people, how people should behave anymore.

[325] where they kind of throw up their hands as a sort of underhanded criticism of the of the cultural shift that is happening.

[326] And I think that's not fair because there's always a kind of new rule book in some sense.

[327] People are always learning new things.

[328] And yeah, you're becoming a more thoughtful person.

[329] And just culturally, that's the way it goes.

[330] People realize there are lessons that they were taught, ideas that they were reared on that were deficient.

[331] And like you and I might have been taught.

[332] Well, no means no. That's a slogan, you know, like you ask somebody if I want to kiss you and if they say no, you leave Malone.

[333] And by the way, that was the bar for me. That was the bar.

[334] Growing up.

[335] Right.

[336] And why is that deficient?

[337] It's important for people to understand that not just to be told that, but to understand, well, it's deficient because, as you point out, someone might just be freezing.

[338] They might be that uncomfortable.

[339] Or because even if you just ask once and you ask very nicely and they say no and you leave Malone after that, still might be wrong because you're in an environment where it's inappropriate, like, for example, you both work in the same office or something.

[340] Yeah, yeah.

[341] So, reexamining the things that we were raised on and, you know, is sort of what I feel like we're all about.

[342] Yeah.

[343] I mean, keep getting better a little bit culturally.

[344] I can tell you right now, if I were single, I would not be operating the way I did 15 years ago.

[345] I have learned a lot in the last 15 years, and my behavior would not be the same.

[346] Like, I was raised in a paradigm where you tried to get laid as much as you could, and she was in charge of the brake pedal, and when she finally let up, you were good to go.

[347] That was the cat and mouse I was raised on, and that's not how it is now, nor should it have ever been, or going forward, should it be?

[348] But I recognize, like, I wouldn't live my life going forward the way I had in the past, which, you know...

[349] Good.

[350] Yeah.

[351] I mean, I think it's also okay that people are a little unsure of what's acceptable behavior.

[352] It's good that people are walking around on eggshells a little bit for the time being.

[353] Yeah.

[354] That's like a sign of like there's some growth happening.

[355] There's like conversations are happening that are making people feel like they aren't really totally sure if they should be, as you say, just like out there and trying to get laid and it's someone else's responsibility to put the brake pedal on.

[356] But I think that, like, one of the problems that is, and this has probably been said by a million other people, but, like, one of the things that is so blindly dumb about the Make America Great slogan is that, like, America has always been great because it was an idea.

[357] What makes it great is that it keeps getting better.

[358] So going back saying we're going to a regressive point of view, make America great again, implies that it was better back then some other time, which is antithetical to the whole spirit of the country and our culture, which is to always try to be a little bit better.

[359] Yes.

[360] The great thing about America is the declaration of the virtues it's going to pursue.

[361] And we just haven't achieved them at the levels that we still all aspire to.

[362] So yeah, it's all working towards this great declaration of what we're aiming.

[363] towards.

[364] And also, it's like when they say that if you half the distance between yourself and a door, you'll never reach the door because you're only getting halfway there each time.

[365] And so the improvements may become teeny tiny increments, but there's still improvements.

[366] We elected Barack Obama.

[367] What a giant leap forward.

[368] Still, he could not openly support gay marriage when he was elected.

[369] Now we have 72 different selections for gender on Facebook, even in the past eight years or whatever, taking a huge step forward there.

[370] And it's just going to continue that way.

[371] Yeah.

[372] Yeah.

[373] So yeah.

[374] Yeah, please.

[375] Thank God.

[376] I'm here.

[377] Yes, all that's true.

[378] And the only way to move forward is to listen to people and have conversations.

[379] So there's a current sort of negativity happening where people just don't want to hear the other side or they don't want to allow people to learn and they just want people to automatically know the right thing to do.

[380] And I think we have to be like, mistakes are going to happen in this process and you can't ostracize everyone who's made any mistake.

[381] It's a problem, I think, because everyone makes mistakes.

[382] There has to be a pathway to redemption and to forgiveness and all those things.

[383] Yes.

[384] You know, we can't just like one strike you're out for life.

[385] Yeah, which it sort of feels like right now, which I think is stifling some of the actual conversation.

[386] I think the only way to move forward is like really be talking about it in a real way, not in a fearful way.

[387] I agree with everything you're saying completely.

[388] I would only add to that, just like from personal experience, that in addition, there has to be a sense of curiosity about other people that what you think you know about them might not actually know about them.

[389] Yeah.

[390] That it's not just, should we forgive this person who've decided has made a mistake?

[391] Or should we also allow for the fact that maybe we don't know people as well as we think we know them when they're just presented in the public sphere?

[392] Right, right.

[393] Right.

[394] Okay.

[395] So let's go back to Massachusetts.

[396] We have similar dads.

[397] Dad love drinking.

[398] Yeah.

[399] Is he sober now?

[400] Or is sober, yeah.

[401] Is Mom like the most perfect human being to ever live?

[402] Pretty great.

[403] Pretty great.

[404] Yeah.

[405] Yeah.

[406] So for me, Mom is the number one gal of all time and always will be.

[407] And this man who fucking left her and didn't pay child support and kept the family home.

[408] Of course, he had to be the antagonist in this story and this narrative, both through his own actions and then just my.

[409] desire to punish him.

[410] I did not give him a chance really at all.

[411] You know, it takes time in having kids and perspective to like allow that person to be human and stuff.

[412] And I was just wondering if you had any of those complicated feelings about your dad.

[413] My feelings about my dad are less complicated than they used to be because about 15 years ago, after doing a lot of thinking about it, I decided to confront those feelings and myself, talk to him about it, talk sort of in my own like 25 year old version of that.

[414] I wanted to talk to both my parents about everything that happened in my childhood.

[415] We're going to talk about it kind of a thing.

[416] And things got a lot easier.

[417] You know, I don't have any hard feelings towards my dad at all.

[418] I really love him.

[419] And I know that getting sober at, I was 14 and he got sober, was a very, very hard thing for him to do.

[420] And I didn't understand it then.

[421] I didn't understand what he was going through, how painful his life must have been for the first 14 years of my life.

[422] I didn't know anything about his childhood and learning about the things that he experienced, which are way more traumatic than things that I've had to go through.

[423] I see that he sort of moved a mountain to make my life a little bit easier than his.

[424] He had a very, very hard childhood.

[425] And I thought my childhood was hard, traumatic, full of scary things.

[426] And I see how what he's done to be able to come through and be the person he is now.

[427] And he was about as bad as an alcohol as you could possibly get.

[428] He just went from like the time I could remember, which was around five or six years old, he just went straight downhill.

[429] He was homeless for a period.

[430] We had no idea.

[431] He was just a guy living on the street.

[432] Wow.

[433] We couldn't find him.

[434] Did it get accelerated by getting divorced?

[435] I'd imagine that like maybe the last five years from when you were nine to 14 nose dive?

[436] Maybe.

[437] Maybe.

[438] Maybe that was sort of what was holding it together a little bit or it started to happen and that was what precipitated the divorce.

[439] I remember the apartment up.

[440] our third floor above us, there was a stairway up.

[441] And I remember finding a mountain of empty beer cans and things hidden under the stairwell.

[442] So I know that even then at that age, I knew like, this is a secret, you know?

[443] Yeah.

[444] That was the first realization that, like, why is the drinking a beer a secret?

[445] You know, I don't know, it was probably six or seven or something.

[446] And you developed, did you, I feel like I developed spidey senses from not only my dad, but then I had a string of alcoholic stepfathers in the mix.

[447] and I just developed this very acute, like, reading everyone's temperature at all times, who's about to turn, how do I break the tension of where this is going?

[448] I can feel it coming.

[449] And I just have this sixth sense now about when things are about to turn gnarly.

[450] It's calling in a spiky sense is like a really putting a real positive spin on it.

[451] I think it's a kind of PTSD of dealing with unpredictable behavior when you're a little kid.

[452] Yeah.

[453] I mean, I saw the plane hit the tab.

[454] hour at 9 -11.

[455] I was there.

[456] I saw the plane go into the building, explode the other side.

[457] And for years afterward, the sound of a plane or a loud truck or things like that were very jarring.

[458] That isn't a spitey sense of something bad happening.

[459] That is just like dealing with the trauma of something bad that did happen.

[460] Yeah.

[461] You were physically standing in lower Manhattan and watch it with your own eyes.

[462] Watch my own eyes.

[463] Wow.

[464] Holy fuck.

[465] And did you go through the same thing all of us, viewers did where it was like oh the first thing was like wow what a crazy accident and then the second one you're like oh this is not an accident or did you feel when the first one you're like oh this is not i saw the second i saw the second one the first one was on fire and and i was standing at the window of my apartment and i was looking at the building on fire we were facing south we saw the plane coming up from the south and i just thought that plane is so low isn't it No connection between the two.

[466] Right.

[467] And that's too low.

[468] And then that banked at the last minute, it went into one side of the building and did not come out.

[469] You know, just a fireball comes out the other side.

[470] And it was so strange.

[471] It was like watching, you know, your dog just walk up and eat the couch.

[472] Right.

[473] Yeah, yeah.

[474] It didn't seem to physically be possible that like, how can a plane go into a building?

[475] There was nothing in my past experience to put that in context.

[476] And I just went, I think.

[477] I'm not proud of this, but I think I just kind of chuckled at the, like, it didn't fit as a real.

[478] I went like, that's so weird.

[479] That plane just disappeared into the, well, that's funny.

[480] I don't get it, you know.

[481] Yeah.

[482] Well, I don't know absurdity of it.

[483] Yeah, even as like a little kid, I was always kind of waiting for the fabric of reality to tear, you know?

[484] Yeah.

[485] And I imagine a situation that, you know, rare and extraordinary would make you a little bit just feel like, oh, am I in real?

[486] Yeah, like, what's happening to reality?

[487] Because that's not a possibility in the physics of the universe I live in.

[488] Yeah.

[489] Wow.

[490] Stay tuned for more armchair experts, if you dare.

[491] What's up, guys?

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[508] But yeah, I guess it means spidey senses in the way that I have been able to avoid and predict a lot of things that probably ultimately would have been tragic had I not predicted and seen it coming.

[509] Yeah, right.

[510] You know, so in that way, it's probably saved me in some ways.

[511] But it's also made me, you know, it's colored how I'm reading everyone.

[512] I think everyone's up to no good.

[513] The thing I say about my wife and I, the difference between us is if we see a stranger coming at us on the sidewalk.

[514] I think like, oh, this guy's going to try to steal my wallet.

[515] And she's like, I think that guy might cure cancer.

[516] Look at the look on his face.

[517] And we are literally seeing the world in that opposite of a way.

[518] That's really funny.

[519] You reminded me of a totally unrelated story.

[520] I have the same kind of thing about myself and about like basically a negative outcome is that like 99%.

[521] You know what I mean?

[522] That's probably what's going to happen.

[523] Maybe something else will happen.

[524] But I was, you reminded me of something different.

[525] which was that I was walking down the street in New York City one time and there was this guy in front of me I was much younger and this is why I was so stupid and judgmental and I'm following this guy and he's head to toe black leather boots, leather pants, a leather like trench coat.

[526] It's the middle of the summer in midtown.

[527] He's carrying this guitar, it's kind of long hair and I was like, look at this guy, you know like he's lived his life trying to be like a rock star and he just didn't make it and he won't like go of it.

[528] He's not going to like face the reality of it and every time he turned, it just just so happened that I was turning to like it's just one of those weird things where you're not following the person but they keep going yeah route and I was like so I had a long time to take him in and I was like being really kind of in my head sure very very kind of judgmental and just imagining what his life was and how hard it is to let go of your dreams and how you sort of not a good look to like hang on to it all yeah and he finally and I'm sort of get to a place of feeling like really sorry for him but also like bro and then I get to the corner like he stops because he's waiting to cross i finally catch up to him and i get up there in the corner and i sort of glanced at his face it's kevin bacon and i was like okay that couldn't possibly have been more wrong right uh yeah i think you know i think it says a lot about what we fear will happen to us for sure right you're just like you're just fucking projecting that's very ironic though because the first thing you ever did right was with kevin bacon you were 13 was i 13 you were 13 did you say like maybe you knew him or you didn't i feel like that would have been fun to say like hey i was 13 and i know i did that once i ran into him because on that set he met here sedgwick i was a little kid and i was only there because my mom's family friend was making it and they just needed like a little kid to be in this PBS show it was shooting in our hometown and so they let me do it i wasn't sort of like aspiring to.

[529] Yeah, I had no concept of a career.

[530] So he was there and that's where he met Kira Sedgwick and they were both really lovely.

[531] And I, I remember them being both super nice to me. And anyway, I saw them years and years later.

[532] This is probably like three years ago.

[533] I kind of saw them for the first time and I went up.

[534] They were in a car and I said, hey, I'm Casey Affleck and I was in a little kid and I was in this thing with you and when Kira was like, nice to meet you.

[535] And I said, no, no, I was in a, we've met before.

[536] I was in a TV show that you did.

[537] She was like she was kind of distracted.

[538] She was like, oh, great.

[539] Well, it's really nice to meet you.

[540] And I was like, oh, never mind.

[541] Never mind.

[542] Yeah, I guess then if you get kind of burned once, you're probably not going to bring it up again.

[543] You also then did another thing at 15, right, the Kennedy story.

[544] My mother's best friend was the local casting director in the city that we grew up in.

[545] And her daughter and I were kind of best friends growing up, this girl Shannon and I were kind of like sister and brother a bit.

[546] And so anytime there was like a job in Boston, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which used to be not very often.

[547] Now it is very often.

[548] But they would just bring us in for like a day off from school.

[549] You get to be an extra and a thing.

[550] And occasionally they'd give us bigger parts if they needed little kids to say something.

[551] Yeah.

[552] So that's how I got that.

[553] Well, never having met your mother nor heard a thing about her, just two things, two clues I'm going by.

[554] One is your birth name is hyphenated, right?

[555] You have her last name?

[556] So with that clue and the fact that she was Harvard educated, I guess, in the 70s?

[557] 60s.

[558] That makes me think your mom's a beast.

[559] Yeah, she's a beast.

[560] She's a beast, right?

[561] She raised the two of us.

[562] She did it sort of on her own, not only on her own, but dealing with a difficult relationship that ended when I was around seven or eight and they got divorced and then having to drive us over to see him.

[563] He's passed out or we can't find the apartment that he's staying in now or taking us to, you know, Alan meetings, Alteen meetings, all that stuff.

[564] That's the other insane parallel we have.

[565] I don't think I've met anyone that's also been to Allotene meetings.

[566] Those are horrible.

[567] Oh, man. Well, I started to go.

[568] Like, I moved in with my dad for 9th and 10th grade.

[569] He had no rules for Manhattan State.

[570] I was late as I wanted, whatever.

[571] The only rule was you have to go to a meeting once a week.

[572] So, like, that you're involved in this process with me, kind of.

[573] So the first thing was, like, go to Allentine.

[574] I went and I was like, this is terrible.

[575] This is like an after -school special.

[576] I'm just going to go to the AA meeting because I relate to those people.

[577] So I weirdly was in AA before I ever even became an addict because I thought Aaleteen was lame.

[578] Yeah, I mean, looking back, it was lame.

[579] When I was there, I was like, this is the lame shit.

[580] Don't drop me off.

[581] It felt like Bible study or something.

[582] It was.

[583] It was always in the basement of a church.

[584] You know what I mean?

[585] Which also, like, I'm not dropping my kid off of the basement of the church.

[586] Right.

[587] And you'd have to do like role playing.

[588] You'd have to pretend to be your parent.

[589] In front of a bunch of kids.

[590] I was always younger, I felt like they were teenagers and I was like 11s and Paris and they were cooler and kind of victiminess was rewarded there.

[591] It was like the more, you know, the shittier situation you were dealing with was kind of elevated you status -wise.

[592] And I just didn't identify with being victimy either.

[593] Right.

[594] So you were a kid sitting in an AA meetings with a bunch of addicts.

[595] Hardcore Detroit addicts.

[596] Yeah.

[597] And I would identify is, you know, you got to say your name and that you're an alcoholic.

[598] And I clearly wasn't yet.

[599] So I would say I'm Daxx.

[600] I have alcoholic tendencies, which proved to be very true.

[601] But I was like, I need something to, you know, be invited to this.

[602] They were fine with it.

[603] Everyone was fine.

[604] I think they thought it was the ex.

[605] Wait, one more quick question about your childhood before we move on to your stunning professional career.

[606] You guys went to Mexico for a year?

[607] My mother was a school teacher, fifth grade teacher.

[608] She was the tutor for a bunch of kids who are on a PBS show.

[609] show.

[610] There was a bunch of kids that was on a doc series.

[611] There was like an educational series to be shown in classrooms that my brother was one of the kids on.

[612] I was just dragged along because my dad wasn't taking care of me and my mom had to go and do this.

[613] And so we went to live in Mexico for a year.

[614] So I wasn't on the show.

[615] I was just there in Mexico.

[616] It was amazing.

[617] It's one of the best memories.

[618] Is it?

[619] It was great.

[620] That was amazing.

[621] What part of Mexico were you on?

[622] We were all over.

[623] A lot of parts that have now become sadly like really.

[624] just ripped apart by like tourism and destroyed ecologically or just culturally.

[625] But we were in Mexico City for a really long time and we were in all over the Yucatan.

[626] We were in places like Palenke.

[627] It was like ruins inside a jungle that hadn't even been cleared.

[628] You know what I mean?

[629] It was like not a place people were going to.

[630] And I'd have to get up because it was a set and they were making a show.

[631] They're still getting up before dawn and stuff.

[632] And I'd have to do that too.

[633] So I'd get up and dark and go into this jungle and spend all day like just hanging around this set where they were making this kind of just my memory at least.

[634] It's sort of just being on my own, you know.

[635] Right, kind of unsupervised.

[636] Yeah, and the way the kids used to be.

[637] And it was a great experience.

[638] But again, more checks in your mom being a beast category because taking two boys down to Mexico for a year is a pretty bold move.

[639] Yeah.

[640] She did it all.

[641] She was great.

[642] And she was very well educated.

[643] She probably could have done other things, but she was a school teacher and underpaid as they all.

[644] are, overworked, they all are, given a bunch of shit constantly through the bureaucracy of the school system, you know, and so she was a kind of a superhero.

[645] But you as a kid, you aren't aware of that, you know, you still resent your parents.

[646] And part of when I got older, I realized, you know, I unfairly resent my mom as being the person who was constantly correcting us, never letting us do stuff, never, you know, always punishing us and making me do my homework and making me get grades and all that stuff.

[647] And in a way that I don't feel.

[648] about my dad, but just because he wasn't there.

[649] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[650] Completely unfair.

[651] Yeah.

[652] That said, I love my father.

[653] I love them both.

[654] And I think he's become a guide and a great friend and a great grandfather, but definitely he was absent, you know.

[655] Yeah, he must be really charismatic.

[656] That was my other deduction.

[657] If she's like Harvard educated and he was like going from job to job to job, he must have been real charismatic.

[658] I guess so.

[659] Yeah.

[660] I mean, you know, your brain gets, and you soak it in booze.

[661] It loses a lot of its charisma, you know?

[662] I mean, when he got sober, I was like 14, 15.

[663] He went into this place called the ABC Club, which is basically for people who, it's like state mandated.

[664] Like, go there or go to prison.

[665] Go spend six months at the ABC Club, or are you getting locked up?

[666] It's not cushy.

[667] It's pretty hard.

[668] And I went out to visit him, you know, and I was like a junior in high school.

[669] I got to go out and visit him.

[670] And he was a different person.

[671] It was like meeting a stranger or someone I never knew because it just didn't remember.

[672] He had no person to have.

[673] when he was drinking.

[674] Yeah.

[675] So when you graduated high school, you moved to L .A. briefly, right?

[676] I moved out here.

[677] I got into doing theater in high school, and I thought, okay, this seems fun.

[678] I want to do this.

[679] And then I didn't really know anyone would ever really worked.

[680] So I got in a car with my best friend, and we drove out to L .A. And we lived in Eagle Rock, which we thought was like, you know, boom, here we are in Los Angeles.

[681] Mission accomplished.

[682] Yeah.

[683] And tried to find an agent.

[684] me all year to find an agent.

[685] It was a tough go.

[686] I was working as a bus boy because I wasn't yet 18, so I couldn't serve alcohol.

[687] And then I kind of got a couple auditions.

[688] And miraculously, I got one of those parts out of like the five auditions that I got that year, you know, it was mostly like, saved by the bell, saved by the bell, saved by the bell, save by the bell.

[689] Yeah, yeah.

[690] Some movie, they happened to be looking for kids from like the Northeast or something, and I got that job.

[691] And so I was planning on leaving LA and just going to try to go to college and do other stuff, I got the job, and I went and did it.

[692] It was a movie called To Die for, and then after that.

[693] Which is Gus Van Sant, right?

[694] Yep.

[695] This starts a friendship between you guys.

[696] Totally.

[697] Yeah.

[698] Sometimes luck, right, just kind of happens for your first thing to have been with him.

[699] Yeah, definitely.

[700] It was luck, and also lucky that he was the kind of person who likes being a mentor, you know, a beautiful guy.

[701] He was, like, you know, very open to, he let me be an editor on one of his movies.

[702] and, you know, he really taught me a lot.

[703] He was actually other than my neighbor who came down and knocked on the door on 9 -11 and said, hey, the World Trade Center's on fire and got me out of bed, and I went and looked out the window.

[704] So we stayed close friends, and I did a bunch of movies with him.

[705] But after that movie, To Die 4, I did not intend to keep working.

[706] I was kind of out of money at the time.

[707] I thought it was just going back to L .A. would be more, like, auditions for things I didn't want to do, and it didn't feel like I was having a ton of success.

[708] So I went to school.

[709] You went to two schools, right?

[710] You went to George Washington, and then you went to Columbia?

[711] Yep.

[712] I went to George Washington.

[713] My high school girlfriend was going there.

[714] That was sort of why I just wanted to go.

[715] So I went there, and I spent about a semester there.

[716] I'm glad you said that because I could feel a missing piece to this puzzle.

[717] It was like, you just do a movie.

[718] And then your first thought is like, I mean, I don't like audition.

[719] I'm going to.

[720] There has to be some other variable in the other.

[721] That was sort of it, yeah.

[722] And I also thought, like, oh, political science.

[723] I like that.

[724] Like politics, I go be in D .C. and go be with her a little bit.

[725] And that seemed to make sense to me at the time.

[726] And then that didn't work out.

[727] You know, it kind of fizzled a bit.

[728] And then I was like, I'll go live in New York.

[729] So I applied to school in New York.

[730] I went there off and on for a couple of years, sort of going, doing a semester, taking a semester off to try to earn money, which was, at the time, there were a lot of independent movies.

[731] And so it was kind of easier to find, like, little jobs.

[732] I didn't have to make much money.

[733] So you just.

[734] just go and take whatever job, literally, anything that they would hire you on, you'd do it, and then I would go back to school, and I loved it, and things were going well.

[735] I got a prefaceus by saying that, when I say it's her favorite movie, I don't think you'll ever really comprehend to what level it's her favorite movie.

[736] Monica has both seen Goodwill hunting in the hundreds of times, and all through high school, she would sit in class and just watch the movie.

[737] Then on VHS, and I would just watch it, and then rewind it and watch it and watch.

[738] I watched it so many times that in school I could just watch it in my brain.

[739] Frame for frame.

[740] And I would just zone out and just be there.

[741] Enjoy.

[742] It had such an impact on my life.

[743] What was it about the movie that like all the cute boys?

[744] I was an eighth grade.

[745] So that was part of it.

[746] That was part of it.

[747] I guess it was, I was used to seeing teen movies at that time.

[748] Like saccharin.

[749] Yeah, like rom -coms.

[750] those things.

[751] And I liked all those movies.

[752] But then I saw this and I was like, oh, this is a movie.

[753] This is doing something to me. I'm feeling something.

[754] I'm invested in these people.

[755] Yeah, I guess it was probably the first time I felt that.

[756] But it's still my favorite movie.

[757] And when I watch it now, man, it holds up.

[758] Yeah.

[759] It's one of my favorites too.

[760] But I have an actual theory on why everyone liked it and why it's so good.

[761] Also, I just want to add my first date with a girl I ended up being with for nine years was sitting on the floor of the AMC in Century City because all the seats were sold out and we just sat on the floor and watched that movie on the carpet my theory is we all feel we hope we're special and then it just hasn't been discovered like i think it's the ultimate wish fulfillment that we all have something really unique and special and brilliant about us that's waiting to be discovered i mean not to reduce it to this but we all feel like we're a genius that no one realizes is a genius on some level, even if you're like you recognize you're not a book genius or something.

[762] Do you have a theory?

[763] That makes sense.

[764] That seems like a good theory.

[765] I thought that it really had impact culturally and with so many individuals just because of my character.

[766] Yeah, yeah.

[767] Yeah.

[768] I think that goes without saying.

[769] Yeah.

[770] Sure, sure.

[771] Well, it's the only complaint about the movie is that you weren't in every frame of it.

[772] It's the only criticism of it.

[773] It's a beautifully written story.

[774] And also, I think that, like, what Gus took a script that was one thing, and he really, like, found a way to sort of make you root for the characters and root for the friendships in a way that he always does with his movies.

[775] The score, I know, these are sort of remarks.

[776] I think that both of you have articulated better than I am about why it sort of caught fire in that way and why it still, why it holds up and why it still be very moving, watching it even after 25 years, but like the little things, as I saw it sort of developed from like a draft of a screenplay to Gus coming on, to making the movie, all those things, all the little things that he brought, like, the score and like what he's sort of done with my own private Idaho of making those characters like these beautiful outsiders, you know, beautifully misunderstood people.

[777] Forgotten, looked over.

[778] Yeah.

[779] And that's sort of what you're saying is that like it captures that feeling of somebody feeling overlooked or feeling like there's more to them than others see and well i don't know if this is lore but i i had heard through the great vine that the original script there was a whole third act where matt goes to work for like uh the nsa and there's like almost an espionage aspect to it or a destruction from within fighting the system like was there a whole there was that oh yeah was in there yeah and then i don't think that was in the version that gus was ever going to do like it wasn't shot and cut out okay right it was just one one of the many drafts that they wrote.

[780] It's a great example of how a movie can go through like a million different lives before it finds its way to the screen.

[781] And that movie was a Michael Mann movie or this person movie or that person movie.

[782] And they all looked completely different.

[783] And luckily it became what it became.

[784] It found its own, like the best possible path.

[785] Sometimes I see movies and I think, I bet there's a better movie in there.

[786] You can see sort of had the wrong parents and sort of took a wrong turn.

[787] So when you did that, is that now the first, that's a hugely successful movie.

[788] And you must now be thinking like, oh, I have my foot in the door now in a big way.

[789] Or did you think that?

[790] If I was smart, I would have been aware of that, you know, but like looking back on my career, I have never, ever had that kind of self -awareness and or professional sense.

[791] I just didn't think like, okay, now let me use this to my advantage.

[792] This is an opportunity.

[793] I didn't even want to do that movie.

[794] I had sort of to be cajoled.

[795] I was in school at the time.

[796] I was like in liking that.

[797] I didn't really love the part.

[798] I was like, I'm not coming.

[799] I'm not going to leave school for a semester and go do like three scenes of the guy who just is also sitting at the table.

[800] Do you know what I mean?

[801] Right.

[802] Sure.

[803] There wasn't a ton to do.

[804] But I was like, I really loved Gus and my brother and Matt.

[805] And they were like, just come do it.

[806] It'll be fun.

[807] It'll be, it'll be, it'll be, it'll be, out there eight -raid, watching that movie over and over.

[808] Yeah.

[809] And I didn't have any sense afterward that, like, I ought to be capitalizing on its success.

[810] Right.

[811] And I still didn't think that way.

[812] I was, I did another movie that was like the assassination of Jesse James, which was a complete failure in some sense.

[813] I mean, just box office.

[814] It's also a really beautiful movie.

[815] And I had been, like, singled out as being like, oh, that was a good performance.

[816] And then I didn't work for two years or something, you know, and I went and did like some stupid homemade movie with my friend instead.

[817] I've never taken those kinds of opportunities, been a careerist or thought like a career way that never mind being shrewd or just even like common sense.

[818] I lacked in that department.

[819] What I feel like I share with you is I didn't move here because I thought I was going to be successful in this.

[820] I was like, I'll never make it, but I'm going to prevent a regret.

[821] I'll be very mad at myself if I have not tried this.

[822] I unknowingly or unwittingly manifested a lot of stuff, which you can do because you find what you're looking for.

[823] If you're looking for confirmation that the story you've told yourself is correct, you will find it.

[824] Yes, your brain is evil.

[825] Because in fact, I said this to Monica before you came here today.

[826] I was like, I watched the assassination of Jesse James and I think like a lot of people I was like oh my fucking God I cannot believe how good you are you're incredible in that movie this guy is a Christian Bailey like that movie for me made me a huge fan of yours that's very nice of you to say you got nominated for a golden globe for a sag for right yep and then you do gone baby gone right then as well right 2007 I did that movie before assassination of just James came out okay okay again i see that movie and i'm like now i not only go like oh he's an amazing character actor i'm now like those guys a movie star i can follow this guy through a whole movie i can watch him walk down a street i can watch him sitting at a table thinking about whatever's on his mind i'm all in i'm buying stock in you you lost a lot of money but then at that moment to your point a moment that you could have probably really capitalized in some way, you decide to go make a movie.

[827] And I wonder, looking back with the perspective of today, I mean, even the premise of the movie really is self -sabotage.

[828] I'm a huge self -sabotageer.

[829] It's my hobby.

[830] I've made an art form of it.

[831] I wonder, do you think on any level there was, this is too good to be true, this can't be happening, this is going to go away tomorrow.

[832] And somehow I'm going to prove that.

[833] Yeah, I'm probably.

[834] on some level.

[835] A little bit.

[836] Yeah.

[837] Again, never knowingly, right?

[838] You're not like, oh, I'm gonna go.

[839] I wasn't like, let me ruin all this.

[840] Goodwill.

[841] Yeah.

[842] But I also didn't see, I didn't see the opportunity sort of blossoming in front of me. I just didn't see it.

[843] But by the way, because you're not optimistic, right?

[844] So you're not thinking, oh, now great things are going to happen.

[845] You're...

[846] Right.

[847] But let me go back.

[848] That's very nice if you say all those things about me. And I don't mean this with like any false modesty.

[849] But I think it's just, just bullshit.

[850] I mean, I think that basically like anybody could have done those parts and you would be thinking exactly the same thing about them.

[851] No. My theory is, I disagree, my theory is that there are people who, it is largely like the director, the context, the whole thing is making that.

[852] And there's evidence of this, like Mike Lee movies or people who've never worked before and you put them in the right context and the performances are a spectacular.

[853] And you think, oh, is it a performance?

[854] Is it just this person?

[855] I don't really know.

[856] It is.

[857] is mostly all of it.

[858] It's like the director.

[859] It's the DP being aware of what they're photograph.

[860] Everything is working in their favor.

[861] I know for a fact that there are 50 people that could have done those same things, that Jesse James was a movie that was handmade by this director who knew every detail of what he was doing.

[862] And he would have gotten that performance out of a lot of people.

[863] By the way, I was like the fifth choice.

[864] Same for Gone Baby Gone.

[865] Ben asked if I could help him get in touch with Mark Ruffalo.

[866] He was like, do you have a phone number for this person that person.

[867] I really think that's true.

[868] It's true for you.

[869] It's true for Monica.

[870] It's true for anybody.

[871] No, I think you have a specific lane that is absolutely brilliant and amazing and captivating, and it's the most truthful thing.

[872] And you could have easily been a casualty, but you were allowed to do the thing you actually are a specialist at, and then people got to see that.

[873] So I actually think it's the dead opposite of what you're saying.

[874] I think you're a specialist, and I think it can be a very hard road for a specialist and often failure is pretty likely.

[875] But when you got to do the thing you can do brilliantly, you are brilliant.

[876] That's very generous of you, but here's my take on that.

[877] I think that like a director is building a house.

[878] Yeah.

[879] And it may be a very beautiful house that people really love.

[880] And I am one of the pieces of material.

[881] And it might be that like I'm better at some things, as you're saying, like I have a lane.

[882] I'm really good at this.

[883] I'm a nail.

[884] You know what I'm saying and this director is like, I need a nail.

[885] And it works perfectly and everyone like Manchester by the sea.

[886] Amazing, beautiful movie.

[887] It's 99 .9 % Kenny Lonergan.

[888] And then here are the tools that he used to put us in there.

[889] I am, in some cases, if a screw was called for and a director puts me in there and I'm a nail, he's like, I'm going to make it work.

[890] He kind of makes it work.

[891] It's not exactly, I'm not the best tool for that, but like the director makes it work.

[892] It's true.

[893] You can't put me into certain things.

[894] I don't do that well.

[895] like heist movies and comedies and those kinds of lighthearted things.

[896] There are people who are way better at that, but I can, if the director's really good, like Steven Soderberg or someone, you know, they'll find a way to like, fit me in.

[897] No, okay.

[898] So again, you're completely wrong.

[899] Here's the intrinsic gifts that you have.

[900] And I recognize it's all a facade as every one of us is a facade.

[901] You have the believable appearance as being someone who doesn't need approval.

[902] doesn't need to be liked.

[903] That is a very unique gift and thing that actually I don't believe.

[904] In fact, I've talked my wife out of doing roles that she could have done.

[905] There's no question.

[906] She's got the skill set to do anything under the sun.

[907] She does.

[908] But she is also intrinsically likable and she's intrinsically sparkly.

[909] And it's like, yeah, you could put all this work in into flattening all that and you could pull it off.

[910] But why would you do that?

[911] That's like asking Shaquille to take fucking.

[912] three point shots.

[913] Why do that?

[914] You have this thing.

[915] So I think you have this very visceral walking through life.

[916] I don't care if you like me. Again, I think it's a defense mechanism, but I think it's the real defense mechanism.

[917] I think it's rooted in all the truth of you as a person.

[918] Yes, I hate myself.

[919] Yeah.

[920] The good ones do.

[921] And that is a unique skill set to you that I disagree that you can plug everyone in.

[922] People could pull it off, but I think you definitely have, roles.

[923] There's been like five of them where you're like, no, I don't know who you're going to get.

[924] That's going to do that better.

[925] But wait, one thing about that.

[926] There are movies that are seemingly perfect that have bad performances.

[927] So it's not like just because I'm on Dax's side about this, about you being great.

[928] You can't just like put in a mediocre actor and get a great performance.

[929] I know.

[930] Although you're right.

[931] There are a couple directors that have made, that's their gift.

[932] the guy with three names sideways and Alexander Payne.

[933] Everyone in an Alexander Payne movie is perfect.

[934] I mean, even afters I disagree.

[935] Oh, you disagree.

[936] I disagree.

[937] Alexander Payne.

[938] I know.

[939] Third name.

[940] Andrew Payne.

[941] I was going to blow past that.

[942] I'm glad you called out.

[943] You're right, Mike Nichols.

[944] There's some people that really somehow, everyone's brilliant in the movies.

[945] Everyone's brilliant.

[946] Yes.

[947] The Coen Brothers.

[948] I mean, it's, look, you can't do it with a podcast.

[949] Do you know what I'm saying?

[950] Either you're really good at doing an interview or you're not.

[951] You know what I mean?

[952] Like you guys are clearly good at having conversations, making them interesting, getting into what's interesting about a person, all that.

[953] But I think with a movie, because there are like 300 people involved making the thing.

[954] There's a lot of like lifting up, other people lifting up.

[955] And the people that we celebrate, it's preposterous to have these awards shows where you've got one person on stage taking credit for a sea of other people's work.

[956] It's really ridiculous.

[957] And it's, done just for the purposes of really selling movies and selling TV.

[958] And it's become a TV show with great ratings and of itself.

[959] It's an industry.

[960] It's an industry.

[961] And it's ridiculous.

[962] I think the truth is between you and Monica and I. Okay.

[963] I think we're both right.

[964] Somewhere in the middle.

[965] Yeah, you can definitely be lifted by the tide of a movie, but you also, you know, if you're fucking brilliant in movies that don't even work, to me, that's a testament to how good someone is.

[966] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

[967] If you dare.

[968] So, so for Manchester by the sea, well, again, man, a heartbreaking, beautiful movie.

[969] I, I walk around feeling like I've done something like that, just in general.

[970] I really like, I'm, my dreams are that I've hit a dead body.

[971] I have a recurring dream.

[972] I've hit a dead body on this island and someone's bought the island.

[973] They're going to build a house.

[974] They're going to find the body I buried there in the 90s.

[975] And I'm, it's over.

[976] I just lived, I think it's from the years of being an addict.

[977] But when I saw that movie, I was like, yeah, I think maybe I burnt down my past family and I fucking blocked it out.

[978] It's strange how similar we are.

[979] I have those dreams.

[980] I heard once someone say something that stuck with me that's good people dream they're bad and bad people dream they're good.

[981] I don't believe that's true.

[982] I don't believe that there are good and bad people, but I do think that there's some truth in that, like, people who really care about being good spend a lot of time worrying about am I bad?

[983] Am I done something bad?

[984] Did I accidentally do something bad?

[985] And sort of beating themself up about it.

[986] And it manifests in these like bad dreams and all these fears that you have.

[987] And I've had been haunted by recurring dreams my whole life since I was a little kid.

[988] The same ones.

[989] And trying to figure out like what those are really has something to do with why I like movies and storytelling.

[990] I read Joseph Campbell's book.

[991] He talks about how, like the dream is the personalized myth, and the myth is the depersonalized dream that we have in common, all of us have in common.

[992] And I think that through like storytelling and just role playing that we go acting and creating these fake worlds has something to do with trying to understand those dreams.

[993] Yeah.

[994] I think also for me too, it's rooted in a little bit of like I was the golden child in my family.

[995] My mother thought I was going to become president.

[996] There was a Gumbag side of me who was not doing the things that I knew she wanted me to do.

[997] So I've always had this kind of bifuricated life.

[998] Well, I think like one of the things that I learned in parenting was that, you know, telling your kids all the time, like how great they are, how they can do everything, how they're so amazing, is a real burden, like psychological burden to them, because everybody, they know on some level that they aren't perfect.

[999] They know that they're not great at everything.

[1000] You're so great.

[1001] You're the best this.

[1002] You can do anything.

[1003] And that like an extension of that is that shame is a natural emotion.

[1004] Shaming somebody is a mistake.

[1005] And you shouldn't allow yourself to be shamed by others.

[1006] But feeling shame is a natural phenomenon as a human being that helps us course correct.

[1007] I've seen it with my kids at a very young age.

[1008] Like hit their friend.

[1009] He had a bloody nose by accident.

[1010] They're fighting.

[1011] It's too hard at the nerve sword, bloody nose, and retreats and just disappears.

[1012] And you find him in the corner in the other room as just feeling the shame of having hurt somebody, not knowing how to say it, not knowing what it overcame him in this nerve fight.

[1013] Yeah, he did not, you know, and it is natural.

[1014] And it's healthy in some way.

[1015] It's healthy if you understand it.

[1016] Yeah, it's tempting to rob your kids of going through that whole process, but that is where we get the tools that I seem to not have at a certain point in my development.

[1017] Yeah, and when your mother said to you, you know, had this like held you up and thought you were this perfect golden child, there's a part of you that was like, I'm not really, but I guess I had sex in our basement last weekend while you're out of town.

[1018] And my drug addiction, I kept so perfectly hidden from her.

[1019] But she'll even say at the stage, she's like, I had no idea that's what was going on.

[1020] The last thing I thought you were doing was smoking crack in the carport of your Santa Monica apartment, you know.

[1021] Well, that's strange.

[1022] Most people run and tell their mom right away.

[1023] Mom, have you tried crack?

[1024] I mean, it is a real pick -me -up.

[1025] Were you smoking crack?

[1026] Yeah, a little bit.

[1027] Only when I couldn't get powdered.

[1028] I prefer to snort it.

[1029] And then there'd be the point where the dealer would stop answering the phone at 4 in the morning.

[1030] And I'd go to ghost town in my girlfriend's car.

[1031] And then I'd sit in the carport, smoke crack in her car.

[1032] And then walk in at like 9 in the morning and act like I had been sleeping next to her.

[1033] I mean, just isolation, darkness.

[1034] How much time did you spend on crack?

[1035] Probably like, you know, 12 crack benders.

[1036] 12 total, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1037] That's a, that's, I will say.

[1038] Significant, it's significant.

[1039] I will say the only, I often say this in meetings, the only time in my whole life I've been high enough is we, me and three of my buddies got some in Detroit when I was at home visiting.

[1040] we're at a stoplight at like 4 in the morning we're passing the pipe around I take this big hit and then I like pass it to the passenger and I'm like I'm fucking having a heart attack but I'm having a heart attack back here no one gives a shit because they're just smoking the crack they don't care I'm having a hard attack the pipe comes back to me for the first time in my life I passed it forward oh I'm finally high enough like I got here I'm having a heart attack I'm finally where I want to be is having a heart attack and then it passed Listen, I wasn't having a heart attack, and I got in on the next go -around.

[1041] But that was the only moment in all my years of doing stuff where I was like, I'm there.

[1042] I'm dying of it.

[1043] I love the heart attack stories.

[1044] Everyone's got the heart attack story.

[1045] They're going to the ER, the walk of shame out of there when you're not having the heart attack anymore.

[1046] Okay, so let's talk about light of my life in the limited time that I run into you.

[1047] Generally, when I run into you, you're with your boys.

[1048] I actually will look at you and I kind of go, oh, that's the experience I'd be having if I had two boys instead of two girls.

[1049] You guys are like shooting baskets, you're playing wiffle ball, you're riding that ridiculous pickup truck you have.

[1050] I'm like, oh, this is the boy's life.

[1051] This is what it would be like.

[1052] Let me say, girls shoot baskets, girls play wiffle ball.

[1053] My girls ride dirt bikes.

[1054] There you go.

[1055] So, yeah, no, believe me, I've set the bar high.

[1056] I'm just saying it's a very boy existence over in the traditional outdated out mode.

[1057] Full of all facet, fuck you.

[1058] Be careful, brother.

[1059] Yes.

[1060] The dude house over there, right?

[1061] It's a dude house.

[1062] I think I saw a weight bench in the garage and I was like, oh, that's so like a 12 -year -old boy or however old.

[1063] Like, you've got to get that weight bench.

[1064] 44 -year -old boy.

[1065] I've got two sons, and they're both great fun, great company.

[1066] They love to hang out and do all those things.

[1067] They're super into sports at the moment.

[1068] They're fucking good -looking boys, too, not to be weird.

[1069] They're really, really much better looking than I was at that age.

[1070] I know.

[1071] They're doing great.

[1072] They got mostly mom's jeans.

[1073] It was a huge relief.

[1074] So I really love being a parent, man. It's definitely been the best thing in my whole life.

[1075] And it's the thing that's like always the most fun, even when it's incredibly challenging and tear your hair out hard and stuff.

[1076] And I'm already sort of like thinking about them leaving and like how hard that'll be.

[1077] But I hope that they.

[1078] Just to come around more than I go around my parents, probably not.

[1079] Yeah, I always think of that.

[1080] You can't expect them to do more than I'm doing.

[1081] I wonder if we share this at all where this has been the very first thing I've hung my identity on.

[1082] That is bedrock.

[1083] Like when I have thought of myself as a writer or a director or an actor, they're all bullshit.

[1084] They go away.

[1085] This is the first thing in my life that I'm proud of in a way that I deserve to feel proud of.

[1086] and it is an identity worth having.

[1087] Yeah, that's nice.

[1088] That's nice, and I feel like it's true.

[1089] On the other hand, I think that, like, my kids are all the best parts of them, all the beautiful parts of them, who they are, more and more I see that it's coming out of them and has very little to do with me. Yet I feel the same pride that you're talking about when I look at them, and when I think about how important the job is of being your parents and how I feel those same ways.

[1090] But I think they'd be fine without me or with someone else, you know, you raising them.

[1091] They'd be themselves.

[1092] Well, they'd be doing wheelies back there on something.

[1093] But you're right.

[1094] We have to police ourselves.

[1095] My wife and I were constantly checking each other.

[1096] It's like, it's very tempting to let them just fuel your own ego.

[1097] And in that, you'll look for ways they're similar to you.

[1098] And I think you can inadvertently box them in because there's something gratifying about seeing yourself in another being.

[1099] You know, it's like it's, it's very tempting to focus in on that part.

[1100] Like, oh, the four -year -old's not afraid of authority.

[1101] Oh, that's from me. You know, like, we'll constantly remind ourselves like, no, no. They're an original and just let them show you who they are and not, you know, but it's hard and it's tempting, I think.

[1102] I can't imagine anything else in life that makes you more reflective or helps you learn more about yourself and the way that you're talking about life than having kids.

[1103] you're constantly being taught lessons, you know, and reflecting on your own childhood, thinking about yourself at that age, seeing yourself differently, it's given me, made me both like incredibly self -critical.

[1104] And there's no critic, louder or meaner, about me than I am.

[1105] You know what I mean?

[1106] No one has ever said anything in the world and social media or movie reviews that is anywhere near as mean about me, as I say, about myself.

[1107] And still, the, like, epiphanies that I have and just sitting there watching them, I think, like, I feel the worst about like things that I've said or mistakes I've made as a parent.

[1108] Those sting the worst and last the longest.

[1109] Yeah.

[1110] And then, on the other hand, you watch them and you see a little bit of yourself as a kid and you suddenly have more empathy for yourself.

[1111] You know what I mean?

[1112] And sometimes when I think about what I should do in a certain situation, a very hard, like a crisis moment, I'm trying to figure out how to handle it.

[1113] I think, like, what advice would I give to my kid if this were happening to them?

[1114] And I try to give myself that same advice because I know that, like, I love them more than anything.

[1115] Yeah.

[1116] And that that should be the advice that I try to give myself.

[1117] And it's usually like, it's okay.

[1118] You're okay.

[1119] You know what I mean?

[1120] You made a mistake.

[1121] You did this or you did that or whatever.

[1122] You're okay.

[1123] Things will be okay.

[1124] Like, that's the kind of stuff you find yourself saying to your kids because it's true.

[1125] You believe it.

[1126] And you don't want them to feel the way that I feel that you feel that so many people feel about themselves.

[1127] And in that way, like being a parent helps you sort of grow up and parent yourself and love yourself a little bit more despite all the horrible fucking mistakes you make as a parent you know you get a tiny bit more empathy for yourself yeah i totally agree with that so when i read about light of my life i was like of course this is the story he's telling because my mind goes straight to i'm gonna like this whole thing is going to flip upside down and i'm going to have to live through some horror with my kids and i'm going to have to get them through and that's all on the horizon and i obsess about these things or what I will do to a guy who hits one of my daughters.

[1128] I can't kill him because going to prison is not, you know, I'm working out all these bizarre scenarios just because that's where my mind goes.

[1129] So, you know, everything's going to turn to shit.

[1130] So I share those, some of those dark day dreams scenario building.

[1131] My friend calls it future tripping, you know, thinking with the future, this horrible thing that's going to happen, how I'm going to deal with it.

[1132] And then you're like, none of that is happening.

[1133] I'm sitting in a room talking to, like, three nice people.

[1134] And that is, in some ways, the, like, genesis of that movie, this is a movie about a father and a daughter living on the peripheral of a post -apocalyptic society.

[1135] There's been, like, a biological kind of apocalypse or some kind of a...

[1136] Yeah, like, some sort of outbreak.

[1137] I love these kinds of movies, like outbreaks, post -apocalyptic movies.

[1138] And I think that I love them because they feel like, well, for one thing, I just like movies where there's a huge catastrophe, and then life goes on.

[1139] Do you know what I mean?

[1140] I think that's what's appealing about these apocalypse movies is that it's like the worst, most horrible stuff happens, and then life goes on.

[1141] And I also think there's some sort of fantasy about like stripping away the clutter of society and finding something elemental underneath.

[1142] What really matters.

[1143] So there's that.

[1144] And the other component of it was just that that's kind of all the dressing.

[1145] And the thing that I really really cared about, like that I got discovered while I was writing, it was just the like parenting.

[1146] You know, it was like in this big science fiction conceit, in this post -apocalyptic world, but really all the scenes are just like scenes that I've had with my kids about why they have to put their jacket on before they get out or whatever.

[1147] Like those small domestic quarrels that happen and me reliving them and then thinking, boy, I sounded like a real asshole.

[1148] I'm going to go to the computer and write it out as a scene.

[1149] Like, you know, and it was a way of processing it all.

[1150] And suddenly it became like 120 pages of a screenbook.

[1151] play and then you build in all this other stuff of like okay there was an outbreak i guess that's why they're living on the outskirts of society and he's trying to protect her from this violent you know what's become a very violent society and all those things sort of came in later to give it some other shape yeah and it was a great experience anna pinyowski was this girl who we found who's fantastic she's so so good and has this amazing presence it goes against like everything i say about like anyone can do a job.

[1152] She was like very magnetic and mysterious and could just step in and say any line.

[1153] And you're like, wow, tell me more, you know.

[1154] Yeah.

[1155] That would be the most stressful part of tackling what you just tackled is like what young actor is going to be able to do this.

[1156] That would be very stressful for me. Was that process lengthy?

[1157] Yep.

[1158] We looked all over at Avey Coffin was the casting director and she just kept endlessly sending tape so patient.

[1159] and it's a tiny movie, so no money to pay anyone.

[1160] All these people just did this work kind of for nothing.

[1161] And finally we found Anna, she was Canadian, which made it easy because we had to shoot in Canada.

[1162] But I do think that like any of the girls that were the finalists, these little kids, they also would have been fantastic.

[1163] It was just there was something about Anna, a combination of the right age and looking a little bit like me and all those things.

[1164] Well, Casey, first time I think a guest has ever walked here.

[1165] Very exciting to have you.

[1166] When does the light of my life come out?

[1167] It comes out for an audience of three on August 9th.

[1168] Okay, well, Monica and I will be two of those three.

[1169] That's right.

[1170] Casey, I adore you.

[1171] We're neighbors.

[1172] And I intend on staying here for a while.

[1173] Are you going to stay for a while?

[1174] Yeah, stay here.

[1175] Okay, great.

[1176] As long as they'll have me. So please know if I ever yell Merry Christmas at you.

[1177] It's coming from a beautiful, genuine place of wanting to connect with you and be friends with you.

[1178] Likewise.

[1179] Thank you.

[1180] Okay.

[1181] Good look with your movie.

[1182] Thank you very much.

[1183] Thanks, Monica.

[1184] Bye.

[1185] So we just finished.

[1186] And then we just started talking.

[1187] about the complexity of your situation, and we thought there was maybe more to say.

[1188] Very, very complicated situation, because you don't want to in any way appear to not being supportive of the Me Too movement.

[1189] Of course.

[1190] I can't imagine who would not be supportive of the Me Too movement.

[1191] I mean, unsumably, you have to say, like, that that's an idea that's even out there, that there are people saying, like, we do not believe in equality, and we think the workplace should be a dangerous place for certain people and not.

[1192] for others.

[1193] That's preposterous.

[1194] But it is very, very hard to talk about.

[1195] And it scares me, mostly because the values of the Me Too movement are values that are like at the heart of my being, just the way I was raised.

[1196] They're baked into my own value system, having been raised by a mother who was like didn't let us watch Dukes of Hazard when we were like eight years old because it was sexist.

[1197] You know, so it's really been the way that I've thought of by sometimes by certain people recently it's just been so antithetical to like who I really am that it's been frustrating and not being able to talk about it has been hard because I really wanted to support all of that but I felt like the best thing to do was just be quiet so that I didn't seem to be an opposition to something that I really wanted to champion.

[1198] Yeah, I was going to say basically here are the options on the table for you.

[1199] So you do a movie, you get sued by two of the women in the movie that the place was inappropriate and your options now are to go those two people are lying in which case you seem like you're trying to silence victims that's like risk number one right so defend yourself and go no that's not how i remember that whole thing going down so option one is you defend yourself and you appear to be silencing victims that's a shitty option number two is you acknowledge that while the workplace that you were the boss of was not a great workplace by today standards for sure and maybe not by 2010 standards either or were at the tail ends of when doing drugs on a set would be cool you can say look the work environment wasn't ideal I wouldn't do that again but I in no way was doing weird sexual stuff and that's ideally what you would want to say and then number three is you just ignore it and then in your silence you seem guilty and maybe shame ridden and then let me add in the component of by talking about it are you fueling more conversation on it?

[1200] Are you adding oxygen to the fire?

[1201] Or if you just be quiet, everyone will eventually get over it.

[1202] So those aren't great options.

[1203] It's a tough spot to be in it, especially if you really do appreciate and want to be a support of the side that seems the angriest and the anger is being directed at you.

[1204] And I sort of decided, well, I'll just stay quiet for, you know, mostly.

[1205] I've talked about it a little bit to honor that like, okay, this is someone else, experience of this.

[1206] And it is not my experience, but you have to respect that someone else had an experience and take that to heart and allow for it to be as possible as your memory of that experience, you know.

[1207] And I've also wanted to try to make certain delineations between, because I think that most people don't really care to look at details of things and they go, so suddenly your name is being mentioned in a group of people.

[1208] Well, again, I admitted to you when we were asked, hey, do you guys want Casey?

[1209] And I'm like, absolutely, I love Casey.

[1210] He's my neighbor.

[1211] And then I was like, oh, wait, doesn't he have a Me Too thing?

[1212] I better find out what the Me Too thing is before we give him, quote, a platform.

[1213] And then I read about it was like, okay, that's a little different than what I assumed it to be.

[1214] So I, myself, who know you and I'm neighbors with you, only knew that there was a halo around you.

[1215] And I didn't even know what that is.

[1216] And so I can't imagine everyone knows what it is.

[1217] But they just hear rumblings.

[1218] and then they just categorize, which is maybe unfair.

[1219] I think on the one hand, it's like a sweeping judgment.

[1220] And on the other hand, there's been a lot of talk about, you know, can we even make these kinds of distinctions between the worst cases and sort of what is perceived as the tamest examples of it?

[1221] And I think that there's some truth in that, you know, of that like it isn't about, oh, well, this isn't so bad, and that's really horrible.

[1222] It's that it is systemic.

[1223] It is accepted culturally at its, tamest manifestation of it, and that it's worst, and it all needs to be turned on its head, eradicated, not allowed for.

[1224] And that kind of lightning bolt, I think, is effective.

[1225] We have this homework room in my house, so the kids, like, do their homework.

[1226] They're never in it.

[1227] And on the wall is that put up these, like, speeches.

[1228] My oldest son was studying American history, and I put this speech up from Frederick Douglass.

[1229] And it's one of the best, and it's what to the slaves is the Fourth of July?

[1230] It's called.

[1231] There's something like, what is what, what is Fourth of July to the slaves, it's unbelievable.

[1232] And it's basically like, what is this holiday to the slave?

[1233] And then he says, just this is, I'm paraphrasing and not doing justice, but it's like, this is not a time to be moderate in our dialogue about things.

[1234] This is a time for fire and lightning.

[1235] And in some ways, there was a moment of words that had to be fire and lightning.

[1236] There was like justifiable, absolute outrage.

[1237] Yeah, a breaking point.

[1238] longstanding injustices that everyone thought was okay.

[1239] And anybody who was benefiting from a system that favored men, white men, et cetera, and wasn't kicking and screaming and doing a whole lot about it, wasn't doing enough, was to blame, needs to apologize, needs to acknowledge it, needs to shut up and let other people do the talking, do the correcting, and bringing justice to bear.

[1240] So, like, in general, that's sort of what I wanted to be a support of and allow to happen.

[1241] Does it mean no one really seemed to care to look into the details, you know?

[1242] Well, they were coming so fast.

[1243] It was almost impossible to keep up with the deluge of different things that were coming up, you know?

[1244] Yeah.

[1245] To be honest, it was like who had taught you read like a headline and you kept it moving.

[1246] Right, to the next person and the next thing and the next horrible example of how your industry had been pretty gross.

[1247] You know, it is and remains kind of an ugly, difficult, painful period of in this, you know, in our, in this community and in the industry and in the culture in general.

[1248] And so for me, it was pretty hard to sit by for years and feel like, even by people who I really liked in respect who didn't know me, sort of feel like piling on a little bit.

[1249] And to have to explain it to people that I, I know and love who even if they say like, dude, you're kidding me, don't have to explain this.

[1250] I know who you are.

[1251] You still feel compelled to do that.

[1252] Well, a couple of the women that were on the set did come out and were vocally supportive of you and said that's completely inconsistent with what I observed.

[1253] That's right.

[1254] And they run a great risk too.

[1255] That is a risky proposition for a defender or a supporter of someone when you believe in someone.

[1256] So that didn't come without risk, I'm sure, to them.

[1257] It didn't.

[1258] And that was very nice of them.

[1259] And I appreciate that.

[1260] And I think that it was true or they wouldn't have said it.

[1261] On the other hand, I think that, like, the lesson that I had to sort of learn and be humble about was I was the producer.

[1262] I was technically the boss.

[1263] And having a set that I didn't even know I was on a set.

[1264] I was making a kind of a quote -unquote home movie with a friend that grew and grew and grew.

[1265] There was a ton of partying because that was the content of this document, at times documentary, at times mockumentary.

[1266] And it's so it was - Yeah, you're recording everything.

[1267] We're going everything.

[1268] It's not a clear -cut undertaking from the get.

[1269] It was confusing for everybody, and it was deliberately so, and that's my responsibility.

[1270] The intention was to have the crew as a part of the movie.

[1271] I don't know how much they knew they were a part of the movie.

[1272] And I had, finally, I had my dad play Joaquin's father in the movie, and he didn't really know exactly what was going on.

[1273] And, you know, so it was a big mess, and it was not something that I would do again.

[1274] I really wouldn't, I would be way smarter, more sensible, more sensitive to, like, it being a workplace if I were to try to do this again.

[1275] And I think that, like, you can't change the world if you don't let the world change you.

[1276] I don't pretend to be changing the world in any way, but I just mean that, like, you aren't going to change the world's opinion of you.

[1277] You aren't going to make anything good or put it into the world in a meaningful way.

[1278] If it's, you're just set on transmit, you've got to be unreceived sometimes.

[1279] Yeah.

[1280] You've got to be open to people saying, like, no, man, you're not hearing us.

[1281] that was out of control run a movie set that way that was wrong i don't think having not been got or been there i don't think any your options are good i don't think there's an easy way out of any of this i think it's super unfortunate and um monica give me a female uh perspective yeah well all the things that have been popping into my head are i'll get in trouble uh -huh but but there's There is a component to this conversation, to this whole conversation that we don't like addressing, but that is true, which is that sometimes women aren't telling the truth.

[1282] So, again, this gets tricky because you don't want a victim blame and you don't want to ever make it seem like we shouldn't be listening to people.

[1283] but I'm a woman and I've lied like we're capable of doing that and I think sometimes that's missing in some of these conversations the nuance is gone it's just this person's right that person's wrong that's it the end and I wish that we could look at these things with a tiny bit more nuance and I mean every situation is is very complicated in any interaction with anyone there's a hundred billion things going on and I think everyone can relate to that so I wish it would get disseminated and kind of projected onto some of these bigger conversations.

[1284] Obviously, I'm a huge supporter, obviously, of women.

[1285] And I shouldn't say obviously, actually, because that's maybe a problem too, where everyone's like, maybe you've got to say it sometimes.

[1286] I support this.

[1287] Yeah, because you know, one of the weird tricky statistics that came out during the last election is like, people couldn't really figure out, like, how on earth could such a large percentage of women have voted for him and not her?

[1288] But that seemed very, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance there.

[1289] Like, how, how?

[1290] And then someone pointed out, like, statistically, white women are benefiting from the white male patriarchy.

[1291] They're married to a guy who is bringing down a shitload of money and they're actually benefiting from this fucked up system.

[1292] So they were voting in their interests, which is crazy counterintuitive to what I would think a female would want to vote for.

[1293] But, you know, you got to acknowledge, like, well, some people are winning by this system and they're incentivized to perpetuate.

[1294] the system.

[1295] And in a bizarre way, it's almost anti -feminist to say, like, the woman won't lie.

[1296] Like, they're a human like any other person, and everything's complicated.

[1297] Well, I think you made a really good point.

[1298] And it's, like, very compassionate and big of you to say, it's easy to be entrenched in your own point of view, the sort of gender politics, sort of, like, you know.

[1299] But I wouldn't say that it's helpful to say that, well, women lie.

[1300] Or to approach the argument from a point of view of who's lying actually doesn't help.

[1301] It's sort of like when your kids are fighting and they're both saying the other one's lying and you go like, I don't want to hear it.

[1302] I'm sure that you both might think the other person's lying.

[1303] Like, I don't think either one of you is fully lying.

[1304] If we talked about this for five hours and separately in your rooms and you were calmed down, you would probably admit like, okay, yes, he didn't throw the ball at me first, but I don't want to spend five hours talking about this.

[1305] And what really matters is that you guys resolve this in a way without hitting each other and calling each other liars.

[1306] Yeah, exactly.

[1307] It's not really the most important part of it.

[1308] Are women paid 70 cents on the dollar?

[1309] Are women constantly given a mountain of shit at work?

[1310] Our men believed over women and promoted over women, all that stuff.

[1311] And our screenplays written with male leads and with just like on and on and on.

[1312] Yeah, 100%.

[1313] That's really what is important and what has to change.

[1314] And And I think is changing, like, regardless of how much, definitely, regardless of what I sit here and say, but like, regardless of what all the talk and all the chat are like, that shift is happening.

[1315] Yeah.

[1316] And the next generation of kids coming up are like a giant tidal wave.

[1317] I think we're going to sweep through and make all of those social changes.

[1318] And like the NRA, you know, been impossible for my generation to dismantle.

[1319] Next generation is just going to be like, you're gone.

[1320] Yeah.

[1321] And the idea of having a gay president is going to be like not even a topic.

[1322] Or having a female president, maybe it will happen right now, especially because she's from Massachusetts where all great things originate.

[1323] But I think that I try to remember should be the focus.

[1324] So anyways, all I can thank you for is telling me your truth and your experience.

[1325] Again, I can't imagine.

[1326] And because even we were even subtly doing it in the first round, which is, well, there has to be a path to forgiveness.

[1327] And if I'm Casey, I'm going like, well, hold on, though.

[1328] I don't need to be forgiven about that.

[1329] I probably need to be forgiven about having a fucking bonkers work set with drugs.

[1330] Well, let me tell you something, dude.

[1331] You want me to be someone who admits fault?

[1332] Like, I'll sit here for seven hours and go through my life and talk about the mistakes I've made, the mean thing I said to this person or that person or the way.

[1333] there's a thousand endless list of things that I can go like I wish I hadn't done that that was a mistake or you know yeah for sure but I but you're right yeah even the way we were framing it was like inadvertently forcing him to kind of admit guilt yeah even by saying people should be forgiven it's fucking complicated and there's such a there's such an incentive to draw a conclusion which is frustrating when I don't know that there's conclusion to be drawn.

[1334] But I think for you personally, you do want closure to this chapter of your life.

[1335] You must desperately want closure.

[1336] I don't know if you ever get closure on things.

[1337] I constantly revisit things from my life, my past that are 20 years old and that, you know, relationships I had are things that, and I think about them and turn them over in my mind.

[1338] And I grind everything pretty fine and I usually looking for evidence of what a jerk I was or something of them is what mistake did I make you know that's that's my kind of default setting so I don't think there's like closure you know until the finally punch your the big clock you know it's going to just keep going and you sort of it shapes who you are and everybody in life has like gigantic challenges and even tragedies and they think they won't get through them and they keep going and life goes on And the challenges of this don't really compare to those that, I mean, I've seen people who have dealt with, been dealt much worse hands.

[1339] Yeah, there's about a million black guys in prison right now that didn't commit the crime they're serving time for.

[1340] So, yeah, I think it goes without saying, yeah, there's much worse plights or crosses to bear.

[1341] Yeah.

[1342] Thanks, guys.

[1343] Yeah, thank you.

[1344] Thank you.

[1345] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1346] Don't do that.

[1347] Okay, sorry.

[1348] You don't like beatboxing?

[1349] I don't think so.

[1350] What about when Justin Timberlake did it?

[1351] Yeah, I was better.

[1352] This is what if Weird L. Yankovic had redone that song.

[1353] Boom, boom, boom.

[1354] But don't boom, boom, bum, boom.

[1355] Yeah, you just can't.

[1356] I can't resist.

[1357] Yeah.

[1358] Well, just to make a toot sound inside of, what a song?

[1359] Is that senior eater or pass to the left?

[1360] No, it's...

[1361] I want to mean your money.

[1362] Rock your body.

[1363] Rock your body.

[1364] I'm going to rock that body.

[1365] Yeah.

[1366] Are you going to rock our facts?

[1367] I really love him and Anna Kendrick singing that song from trolls.

[1368] Oh, you do?

[1369] Oh, yeah.

[1370] You won't remember this, but years ago with Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake sang True Colors.

[1371] Oh, yeah.

[1372] The famous Cindy Lopper song.

[1373] Yes.

[1374] And they did it like in Cannes in front of a whole bunch of people.

[1375] Then I watched that on YouTube.

[1376] And then I was watching it over and over again.

[1377] Oh.

[1378] I was working at UCB at the time.

[1379] Mm -hmm.

[1380] And I was watching it.

[1381] And then you came to visit.

[1382] Oh, look at that.

[1383] Yeah.

[1384] You interrupted my watching.

[1385] So sorry.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] And I'll never forget.

[1388] I think Anna Kendrick has one of the best voices I've ever heard.

[1389] Oh, really?

[1390] One of the best.

[1391] I love the sound of her voice.

[1392] I'd like to get her buns in here.

[1393] Me too.

[1394] Maybe she'd sing for us.

[1395] If you're listening, I'd like to do a duet with you.

[1396] I would not allow that.

[1397] No, she could just sing for us and brighten our day.

[1398] Okay.

[1399] Well, that's your official invite.

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] And then good transition because she did a movie with my boyfriend.

[1402] Benjamin?

[1403] Yeah.

[1404] The accountant.

[1405] She did that movie and his little baby bro is on our show today.

[1406] Yes.

[1407] Yeah.

[1408] And he was great, I thought.

[1409] Yeah, me too.

[1410] It's funny to interview a neighbor.

[1411] True.

[1412] Everyone should do it.

[1413] Knock on their neighbor's door.

[1414] Yes, stop, push, pause right now.

[1415] Get over to your neighbor's house.

[1416] One on over.

[1417] See what's cooking upstairs in their brain.

[1418] Yeah.

[1419] They're gnauggy.

[1420] You never know with their stories.

[1421] No. What you could learn.

[1422] Okay, Casey.

[1423] So this was an interesting episode for us.

[1424] It was.

[1425] You know, during our last section, when we picked this back up, I said something that I was going to cut because I was like, ugh, that doesn't make me sound great or it does maybe sound victim blaming a little bit.

[1426] I mean, not even but sort.

[1427] It could be construed in a negative way by a lot of people.

[1428] And I was going to cut it out.

[1429] But I didn't because he sort of steps in and basically says exactly why what I said, is not incorrect, but really not even worth saying.

[1430] Uh -huh.

[1431] And I left that because, you know, I want people to hear that.

[1432] He was not doing it based on talking points or something.

[1433] Like, he believes the things he's saying about being on the side of this movement.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] Every time we talked about anything, I feel like it was very obvious to me that his compass for these things is pointed north.

[1436] Yeah.

[1437] And I wanted to leave those in because I wanted people to hear.

[1438] He's not like just trying to sell something.

[1439] This is just in him.

[1440] Yeah, I believe that.

[1441] So that's why I left that just definitely.

[1442] I'm probably going to get in some trouble.

[1443] That's okay.

[1444] We can get in trouble.

[1445] I can take it.

[1446] It's just a tricky thing.

[1447] Yeah.

[1448] Very tricky.

[1449] I liked him a lot.

[1450] Me too.

[1451] Yeah.

[1452] I'm glad he came in.

[1453] So he said that we have 72 different selections for gender on Facebook.

[1454] Now, in 2014, there were 58 genders.

[1455] Okay.

[1456] And then I did see on some forums that it was saying it was like a 2018 forum where somebody was like, why are there 71 genders on Facebook?

[1457] So maybe now there are 71, but I could.

[1458] Well, if there were 58, then there being 71 doesn't seem like a huge stretch.

[1459] I agree.

[1460] Yeah.

[1461] Yeah.

[1462] But I couldn't find that exact stat.

[1463] Right.

[1464] Absolutely.

[1465] But we know for sure it was at least 58 in 2000.

[1466] Do you say 15?

[1467] 14.

[1468] 2014.

[1469] Yeah.

[1470] Five years ago.

[1471] Oh, wow.

[1472] They were really kind of ahead of the curve.

[1473] That's what I was thinking.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] I would like to read what those say.

[1476] I'll pull it up right now.

[1477] Oh, this is the list.

[1478] A gender or a gender.

[1479] Androgen, androgynous, bigender, cisgender, cisgender, cis female, cis male, cis man, cis woman, cisgender female, cisgender, cisgender, cisgender, male, cisgender man, cisgender woman, female to male, F -T -M, gender fluid, gender non -conforming, gender questioning, gender variant, gender -queer, intersex, male to female, M -T -F, neither, Neutrus, N -E -U -T -R -O -I -S.

[1480] Nutris, that sounds right?

[1481] Nutris, non -binary, other, pangender, trans, trans, trans -female, trans female there's a lot of duplicates trans male trans male trans man trans man trans person trans person trans woman trans woman trans feminine transgender transgender female two spirit oh i saw that one what is that one i don't know maybe have both i assume both spirit of a female and a male yeah all right well that's a lot of the list lots yeah it's it is interesting though that it makes you start when you start looking at the list you're like wait what am i i mean i have an idea in my head of like oh i i would just i would pick woman but then i female or female yeah it didn't seem like they had that they had like woman and man that was in there yeah they were using all of it oh okay so yeah i would pick that and but then you're looking and it's like well there's so many like there's no way i'm just regular old woman right but so yeah it makes you think yeah great great I could care less what anyone wants to call themselves.

[1482] They tell me what they want to be called.

[1483] I'm happy to call them that.

[1484] Whatever makes people feel more comfortable, I'm down with.

[1485] Great.

[1486] Yeah.

[1487] That's good.

[1488] He talks about going to Mexico for a year, his mom.

[1489] He was 10 or 11?

[1490] Yeah, because his mom was the basically on -set teacher for that show.

[1491] And I knew that the show he was talking about was the voyage of the Mimi.

[1492] You did?

[1493] Why?

[1494] Because you watched it?

[1495] No, because I know everything about Ben.

[1496] Oh, right.

[1497] So I knew he was on a show called The Voyage of the Mimi when he was little.

[1498] Oh, he was a little boy.

[1499] Yeah, but I kept it to myself that I knew.

[1500] Yeah, you played it real cool.

[1501] Thanks.

[1502] And I never put you on blast.

[1503] Yeah.

[1504] I wanted to.

[1505] I'm glad you didn't.

[1506] But I didn't.

[1507] Thank you.

[1508] Yeah.

[1509] Thank you.

[1510] I watched that show in fifth grade.

[1511] You did?

[1512] It's an educational program.

[1513] Do you remember Ben as an actor on it?

[1514] Yeah.

[1515] Remember there was an episode where he got hypothermia or someone did and they had to get naked and Oh, wow.

[1516] Sleeping bag.

[1517] Monica, you got to get this episode.

[1518] I was a kid, so I shouldn't.

[1519] I don't think there was nudity in it, though, for the record.

[1520] Okay.

[1521] Ooh, that's an interesting question.

[1522] But what if your wife says I have pictures of me when I was 17 naked?

[1523] Oh, 17.

[1524] 16.

[1525] Or your husband.

[1526] Ew.

[1527] Your husband's like, I got pictures of myself when I was 16 naked.

[1528] Do you want to see them?

[1529] Oh, this is good.

[1530] I guess.

[1531] It's like a thought experiment.

[1532] Yeah, but.

[1533] Okay.

[1534] Yeah, I'd probably want to see.

[1535] Yeah.

[1536] But then also, I don't think I'd be attracted to it.

[1537] I would be like, oh, this is you.

[1538] Right.

[1539] And your old penis.

[1540] Well, but I'm not talking about a baby photo.

[1541] I'm talking like 15 and above, hair on the penis.

[1542] Penises, it's full size.

[1543] I know, but I just mean anyone.

[1544] I just.

[1545] Anyone teenager or even young 20s, to be honest at this point, I look at as like a young, young, young person and not in the realm of like actual attraction.

[1546] Oh, okay.

[1547] Because they're not an actual possibility.

[1548] Right.

[1549] Well, look, I've never been in this situation where Kristen has said I have these pictures of myself at 16 naked.

[1550] Yeah, but I guess, yeah, I would probably be like, oh, that's a kid.

[1551] Yeah, you wouldn't be like, I don't think you'd be attracted.

[1552] to it's hard to know though because i'm attracted to the person yeah let's ask jonathan height to do that as a thought experiment and is say whether the morals of that because that person isn't a minor now right i guess it depends on the age i think i feel like this has almost been something that's come up maybe i just dreamt it up but that someone put pictures of themselves out that were nude and they were a minor now is that child pornography if you yourself put out pictures of yourself yeah Is that child pornography?

[1553] I think so because if people are going to use it to jack off.

[1554] Yeah, but I wonder, yeah, I mean, but that just makes me question is the premise of our laws that we don't want anyone to jack off to an image of a young person or is it we don't want that because those images have to be taken to fuel that industry and so you're going to victimize children.

[1555] But if you took the photograph when you were 15 and you own it and then you want to release it when you're 40, it doesn't have the same implicit victimness.

[1556] And then it's just like, is it illegal to masturbate thinking of young people?

[1557] I think you're not the victim in that scenario if you are putting it out, but you're definitely contributing to the larger problem and to victims who aren't putting it out.

[1558] Right.

[1559] But let's just, how about we create a theoretical situation?

[1560] society where everyone takes photographs of themselves when they're teenagers naked and then at some age they decide whether or not to release them and there's no photos being taken of any minor by somebody for that reason is it okay then there's no victims this is where it becomes a good philosophical yeah and and it's so far out of like you they are they will be there will be victims as soon as people start liking that.

[1561] Well, but if a steady supply exists of adults publishing their photos, and in this utopian society, it's impossible to get kids nude and take pictures of them.

[1562] Okay.

[1563] In that case, if there's no victim, which we'd agree, there's no victim to the adults putting, then we can drill down on what are we legislating?

[1564] Are we saying it's illegal to fantasize about pictures taken 20 years ago against children?

[1565] Is that illegal or just victimizing children is illegal?

[1566] Mm -hmm.

[1567] Yeah.

[1568] I mean, I think it's that victimizing children is illegal.

[1569] Right.

[1570] Well, we agree on that.

[1571] The fantasy is probably not illegal, but the fantasy leads to these other things in real life.

[1572] In this scenario, I guess.

[1573] Who know?

[1574] It's fine.

[1575] Yeah.

[1576] But it's not.

[1577] But it's not.

[1578] Yeah.

[1579] It's actually not.

[1580] So it's like, oh, this is such a weird thought experiment because it's just finding a way to say it's fine and not the reality of the world at all.

[1581] Well, Nora is going on a European vacation with your sister and then having sex with her in the Jonathan Haight experiment, thought experiment there.

[1582] That's not realistic either.

[1583] But it's a fun way to get to the point.

[1584] That is realistic.

[1585] A brother and sister could go in this current world we live in and go do that.

[1586] They could, but I don't think it's happening.

[1587] Well, yeah, but still, the parameters of our reality are the same.

[1588] The parameters of the reality in this scenario are not the same.

[1589] Because it's a world where no kid can be victimized.

[1590] Yeah, which doesn't exist.

[1591] But, I mean, I guess the big question is, is fantasy illegal?

[1592] Right.

[1593] That's right.

[1594] Of course, fantasy is not illegal.

[1595] I can sit around and fantasize about cutting people up and all that.

[1596] That's not illegal.

[1597] But now if I acquire photographs of part of my fantasy now, is that illegal?

[1598] And then you're starting to take steps.

[1599] Assuming again that the photos themselves aren't illegal because it's only adults turning over photos of themselves.

[1600] Right.

[1601] So the material is not illegal.

[1602] Yeah.

[1603] In a conventional way.

[1604] Yeah.

[1605] I think it's like it starts becoming illegal when steps are.

[1606] are being taken.

[1607] I mean, this is like Aaron's movie.

[1608] Cannibal cop.

[1609] Yeah, cannibal cop.

[1610] Aaron Lee Carr.

[1611] Not cannibal corpse, the ban.

[1612] Cannibal cop, the documentary.

[1613] The documentary about the police officer who was fantasized about cutting up his wife and eating her.

[1614] And he was talking about it on chat rooms and stuff.

[1615] Yeah, this this whole thing is so, so tricky because yeah, it's like not illegal, not illegal until he kills her and eats her.

[1616] Uh -huh.

[1617] And then everyone goes.

[1618] Everyone's like, he told people.

[1619] He told people he was going to do it.

[1620] We're such idiots to have allowed someone the ability to just continue on like normal.

[1621] Yeah, but I did buy into the argument of the defense, which is Stephen King is sitting in a room thinking of the most horrific things.

[1622] He might even be ordering torture devices so that he can see mechanically how they work when he's going to write about them.

[1623] So there's like, it's way under.

[1624] But he's not, he's not presenting it out loud to other people as plotting.

[1625] What if he writes it in first person and all the stuff parallels his real life?

[1626] Still legal and encouraged.

[1627] Yeah.

[1628] You know, this is why life's fun.

[1629] There's, there's a lot of stuff that is not easy to pick an opinion on.

[1630] Yeah.

[1631] That's fun.

[1632] Tasty.

[1633] Most of our dinner conversations are about trying to pinpoint something that's dicey.

[1634] Who can eat who?

[1635] Yeah, that's all of our dinner conversation.

[1636] Who would eat who?

[1637] Who's the most likely person to eat someone in our friendship circle?

[1638] Oh, that's a good question.

[1639] Yeah.

[1640] Because we played who.

[1641] You think me?

[1642] Yeah.

[1643] You're likely to do all the bad stuff.

[1644] Wait, I was on board with that I was most likely to have murdered somebody, but eat them?

[1645] No, I'm going to pick Wobby Wob.

[1646] No. It's definitely a quieter person who eats people.

[1647] Definitely not.

[1648] Really.

[1649] So you're going to get a phone call in the future, and it's either going to say, is Detective Stonebrook from the Memphis Police Department.

[1650] How'd you get my number?

[1651] We have everyone's number.

[1652] Oh, wow.

[1653] Okay.

[1654] One of your friends consumed another human being.

[1655] We've got them on cannibalism charges.

[1656] And it was Rob Hollis.

[1657] No, it couldn't have been Rob.

[1658] Oh, you're right.

[1659] It was Dach Shepherd.

[1660] Yeah, that's right.

[1661] That's right.

[1662] That sounds about it.

[1663] No way.

[1664] It's always a quieter person.

[1665] No, because in order to eat, eat them you have to murder them first and you're excited about being the person that murders defending my family so you like that about yourself which is a big yellow that's a red flag yellow to red flag and so yeah i think you'd be like you know what i just got to eat this person hold on hold on no that's they look tasty that's where you've lost me that's where you've completely lost me yes i have a fantasy about ending a real bad guy's life who's threatening my loved ones.

[1666] There are no such thing as bad guys.

[1667] Well, there are Jeffrey Dahmer and stuff.

[1668] Well.

[1669] But yeah, I don't believe in evil in general.

[1670] I can't believe you think I would, that I would be the most likely to eat somebody.

[1671] Charlie would smoke somebody before I would.

[1672] And I mean, not smoke him like.

[1673] No, he'd smoke them.

[1674] He'd literally.

[1675] He'd literally.

[1676] Yes, he'd put him in a smoker, I think, before I would.

[1677] Don't you agree?

[1678] He could, like, convince himself it was.

[1679] like superfood for working out.

[1680] That's true.

[1681] But I don't think he would do the murdering part.

[1682] Okay.

[1683] Okay, so is the body already dead?

[1684] Yeah, I guess that could be a new, a new plot point is that, is this Ms. Padman?

[1685] This is Clark Finkelstein from the Tennessee State Police.

[1686] One of your acquaintances found a corpse apparently had fallen out of a hearse.

[1687] and apparently he originally did pick up the casket with the intention of returning it to the funeral parlor but in fact ended up taking it home and smoking it in a smoker do you have any friends that you can imagine that this happened to anyone anyone jump out at you I guess well do we know if it was cooked well was it delicious all that were left were the bones so we're inclined to think it was good.

[1688] It was good because...

[1689] Okay, I do have a friend who is an expert at smoking meat.

[1690] Is his name Charlie Curtis?

[1691] It is.

[1692] Okay, good.

[1693] We have her man. Okay, that's open and shut case for...

[1694] But I want to go back because the person that's dead...

[1695] Yeah.

[1696] Was Dax Shepherd around at any point?

[1697] Because I have a feeling that that person's dead based on his hand.

[1698] No, ma 'am.

[1699] The person died of a coronary episode.

[1700] a heart attack the age of 51.

[1701] That's what he wants you to think.

[1702] Oh, okay.

[1703] Well, we'll look into him for sure, but just to clear up this case of cannibalism where you do feel good about the fact that it's Charlie Curtis.

[1704] Yeah.

[1705] Let's see.

[1706] Then we did it.

[1707] I think you would eat somebody if, like, it got down to brass tacks.

[1708] Isn't getting done to brass?

[1709] tax.

[1710] I don't know what that means.

[1711] Negotiating something in a binder.

[1712] I do think you would.

[1713] I think in a brass tax situation.

[1714] All right.

[1715] Here's a good hypothetical.

[1716] So, you know, there are companies that are dedicated now to growing meat on its own, growing a tenderloin in a lab.

[1717] Right.

[1718] Right.

[1719] I forget the name of the company Sam talks about.

[1720] Yeah.

[1721] So let's say that they grew a butt cheek, a human butt cheek in the lab.

[1722] And then that was offered at a restaurant.

[1723] Yeah.

[1724] I'd take a bite of it.

[1725] of that see would you no you want it no why there's no ethical dilemma there I mean other than I've I learned that primates taste rubber bandy ew yeah puke mm -hmm first of all yeah that seems like it's not gonna taste good secondly and mainly this Delta's butt cheek no not her butt cheek but they we clone her butt cheek I would not I would not eat it I might use it as like kush balls or something.

[1726] But no, no, no. So this is similar to the porn thing.

[1727] It's like, yeah, there's no ethical problem.

[1728] It's not a real person's butt.

[1729] But if we start making this open to the world and people like it and then they like the taste of human, this is going to lead to big problems.

[1730] Well, this is where you and I disagree.

[1731] Fundamentally, if facts are weaponized, should we ignore facts?

[1732] And people fear when facts get out that they could be weaponized by either side, the left or the right.

[1733] This is a common thing.

[1734] People will hide facts because they're afraid they're going to be weaponized.

[1735] I never really agree with that.

[1736] And similarly, you're saying it's not unethical to eat a butt cheek grown in a lab.

[1737] Obviously, there's no suffering induced by eating it.

[1738] Agreed.

[1739] But now your fear that people will get so addicted to the taste of human flesh, they'll start murdering people, that's your fear of that being weaponized.

[1740] basically.

[1741] Yeah.

[1742] Yeah.

[1743] And I just think you can't not do things because you think people will obscure it in a way that makes it bad.

[1744] You know?

[1745] Yeah, I disagree.

[1746] Yeah, good.

[1747] Yeah.

[1748] I mean, look at our phones and our social media and all of that stuff.

[1749] That has turned into a big ethical dilemma now because humans don't know how to handle things responsibly.

[1750] So originally.

[1751] Especially when they're designed not to.

[1752] Yeah, but originally they weren't.

[1753] They were just flip phones.

[1754] They weren't.

[1755] A lot of guys were looking at their hands on here.

[1756] He slid into your Vince Vaughn.

[1757] Anyway, so, no, I don't think.

[1758] And do I wish that we still had flip phones?

[1759] I do.

[1760] I don't know how they'd listen to podcasts, though.

[1761] We'd be out of a job.

[1762] We would.

[1763] Yeah, yeah.

[1764] Yeah.

[1765] Oh, you know.

[1766] know he said something that I've never heard before.

[1767] Oh.

[1768] And of course I hear a million things I've never heard before, but it feels like it feels rare.

[1769] Uh -huh.

[1770] It kind of feels rare when somebody's like presenting something perfectly new to you.

[1771] Oh yeah.

[1772] It's so fun.

[1773] Absolutely.

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] And what was that thing?

[1776] I don't want to make it seem like I've heard everything in the whole world.

[1777] No. You don't know what you don't know.

[1778] Right.

[1779] Right.

[1780] But he said that he heard good people.

[1781] dream about being bad and bad people dream about being good.

[1782] Oh yeah, I had never heard that either.

[1783] I'd never heard it and I thought that was really interesting.

[1784] Did he make it up?

[1785] Did you do any research to see if other people say that?

[1786] Oh, no, I didn't look it up.

[1787] Okay.

[1788] Because I like that thought.

[1789] Yeah, let's just keep that thought.

[1790] Yeah.

[1791] Because that means I'm good.

[1792] Right.

[1793] You were talking about kids and how tempting it is to see yourself and your kids, like how it feels good to think like, oh, she got that for me or she's like me. I think that's so ironic because kids have the opposite feeling towards their parents.

[1794] Oh, yeah.

[1795] Like, you don't want to be associated.

[1796] Parents love doing that to their kids or they get like pride in it.

[1797] And kids do not get pride in it.

[1798] They get like angry.

[1799] I largely agree with you.

[1800] But I have had friends who like really idolize their dad.

[1801] And they did want to hear that they were just like big gym.

[1802] You're just like big gym.

[1803] Right.

[1804] You know?

[1805] Yeah.

[1806] I guess it's all like how much.

[1807] And I guess I liked when people said I was like my mom.

[1808] Sure.

[1809] I mean, the fact is blazingly obvious is I am a carbon copy of my father.

[1810] So that's probably why you like it when they say you're like your mom because you feel like you want it to be true.

[1811] Yeah, I want to be like my mom, not my dad.

[1812] But in fact, I am almost identical to my dad.

[1813] But you're not.

[1814] You're your own person.

[1815] Yeah.

[1816] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1817] But I don't ever want to be told that I'm just like my mom or just like my dad and having nothing to do with their personalities.

[1818] When you hear them talk, is there consensus over which one of them you take after when you hear them talk?

[1819] Them talk about me?

[1820] They don't.

[1821] They don't do that, though.

[1822] They don't?

[1823] Your mom doesn't go like, you're just like your dad.

[1824] No, I've never heard either of them say that about me or my brother, actually, except like in looks.

[1825] We'll talk about like the physical thing.

[1826] The features.

[1827] Correct.

[1828] But not the personalities.

[1829] I haven't spoke with your mother enough because your dad and I suck up all the oxygen in a room.

[1830] That's right.

[1831] So it's our fault.

[1832] But it appears to me you're very similar to your dad.

[1833] Yeah.

[1834] Loves the debate.

[1835] There's nothing.

[1836] You and I have the same disease.

[1837] There isn't a topic we don't have an opinion on.

[1838] Right.

[1839] I mean, there's nothing someone could bring up that wouldn't interest us and taking a stab at our opinion on it.

[1840] A lot of people, which is great.

[1841] These don't give a fuck or they don't, they're like, I don't know, who cares?

[1842] Yeah.

[1843] That seems kind of healthy.

[1844] It does.

[1845] Yeah.

[1846] It does.

[1847] But I don't think either of my parents have that.

[1848] They both have an opinion on everything.

[1849] All the time.

[1850] Yeah.

[1851] I love it.

[1852] Yeah.

[1853] It's fun to be around.

[1854] But my dad is different than my mom in the fact that she believes what she's saying.

[1855] Right.

[1856] Like she believes it.

[1857] My dad sometimes, I don't think he does.

[1858] He's just doing it because it's the opposite, yes, that it's interesting to give the opposite opinion and, like, double down on that.

[1859] Yeah.

[1860] That's very much like you.

[1861] But not, I don't think, do I do that?

[1862] Yeah.

[1863] I do?

[1864] Yeah.

[1865] In a healthy way, though, you've kind of forced yourself to make the other argument or you attempt to.

[1866] Yeah.

[1867] Yeah.

[1868] I think it's a great habit for people to have.

[1869] That's true.

[1870] To really force yourself to make that argument.

[1871] It's very hard sometimes.

[1872] Yeah.

[1873] But any time it's like a. big group of people that feel certain way it's like they can't all be crazy they they must be latching onto some value or virtue that I too believe and I just got to connect the dots correctly to get my mind straight about what they're actually arguing you know yeah I just think it's a fun exercise yeah I do do like you do crosswords so maybe you don't need to do that exercise but I don't do crosswords so I have to have an exercise like that anyway that's all all right okay I love you I love you Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1874] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

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