Debby Ryan

[0] Welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I am Dax Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Monica Padman and Wabiwob from Chicago, Illinois.

[3] Monica, I didn't mention where she's from, but ATL, Atlanta, Georgia, Hot Lanna, home of Freakneck.

[4] Previously, I don't think it happens there anymore.

[5] I don't think it's a thing anymore.

[6] And I'm from Detroit, Michigan, home of the Detroit Auto Show.

[7] The what?

[8] Hot dog.

[9] Not the hot dog, but the conie dog.

[10] The cony dog.

[11] Same thing.

[12] That'll trigger people from Coney Island.

[13] I know.

[14] Is that even true?

[15] Well, look, I don't want to get in any culinary war with Coney Island, New York.

[16] Suffice to say, we are known for our chili dogs in Detroit.

[17] We call them Coney dogs.

[18] A real one has a nice natural casing on the dog.

[19] It's got that pop when you bite into it.

[20] It has a pop.

[21] It's got a pop.

[22] There's no beans in the chili.

[23] Not fucking around any beans.

[24] It's just a nice, nice chili.

[25] Yeah.

[26] You know what else has a nice chili dog?

[27] Who?

[28] You'd be so surprised and not surprised at all.

[29] Checkers.

[30] Crystles.

[31] Crystal?

[32] Yeah, without an S. Crystals with an S. I believe that.

[33] You know who else doesn't have an S on their name?

[34] Debbie Ryan and Debbie Ryan is our guest today.

[35] She's our youngest guest thus far at 25 years old.

[36] Just a baby.

[37] If you're a young listener, you probably know her as Jesse from the Disney Channel.

[38] A hugely successful Disney actor who's now on next.

[39] Netflix in a show called Insatiable.

[40] We'll talk about growing up in the public eye.

[41] It's very fascinating.

[42] Please enjoy Debbie Ryan.

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

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

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

[46] Debbie, welcome to Armchair Expert.

[47] You are our, I have to imagine our youngest guest so far.

[48] is a very excited.

[49] How old are you?

[50] Probably.

[51] I love superlite.

[52] At 25.

[53] Yeah.

[54] Yeah.

[55] Yeah.

[56] Right.

[57] Yeah.

[58] My mom is 67.

[59] Ted is probably the oldest one we've had.

[60] Yeah.

[61] And by the way, I hope the mics are picking up.

[62] Rob's hot cocoa.

[63] I got Wabiwob a little treat today at the grocery store.

[64] Let me brag for a second, Debbie.

[65] Please.

[66] I was at the grocery store and I saw hot cocoa pods.

[67] And I thought about the little mouse who works here and Wobbywob.

[68] And I thought they might like them.

[69] And now Wabi Wob's having the first hot cocoa.

[70] But Debbie, 25, this is very exciting for us.

[71] We're going to probably want you to educate us on a lot of things as we go if you're open to it.

[72] Listen, stuff moves fast, so I'm not as relevant as I used to be.

[73] Right, right.

[74] Hip to what happens, but I can...

[75] You peaked at 22.

[76] Yeah, truly.

[77] I left it there, and I haven't gone back.

[78] Can I take my shoes off?

[79] Please, please, please.

[80] So, you know what's interesting.

[81] I don't know if this will interest you or not, but I'm 43.

[82] I barely know.

[83] I don't even really know the people in my wife's kind of strata of age that are acting.

[84] I don't know why.

[85] I just, I looked up to everyone.

[86] I always looked ahead of me. So I know everyone above me, but I don't really, I mean, age -wise, not status -wise.

[87] I know all the actors that are older than me or my age.

[88] And then progressively, I know less and less as people get younger.

[89] So I decided to watch an interview with you.

[90] And do you know what the tipping point was for when I thought, yes, I would love to have her on.

[91] Oh, no. Your voice.

[92] Oh, yeah.

[93] I really like your voice.

[94] You're like, it doesn't matter what she's saying.

[95] She can barely thread words together, but that rasp quality.

[96] That's right.

[97] You could read from an encyclopedia Britannica, and I think I would enjoy it.

[98] Thank you.

[99] Yeah.

[100] Does mom or dad have this voice?

[101] Neither.

[102] I don't think.

[103] I've always had it, so I don't think that I have, like, a neutral perspective on it.

[104] Right.

[105] Other than the Netflix show that I'm doing right now is, like, primarily voice over that's threaded throughout it.

[106] You're the lead of Stranger Things.

[107] Yes, I'm the Stranger Things.

[108] Actually, I do know her name.

[109] Bobby Billy, Bobby Brown.

[110] Nice, dude.

[111] Millie, Millie, Millie, Billy Brown.

[112] Millie Bobby Brown.

[113] Millie, Billy Brown.

[114] We'll get there.

[115] Bill Billy Brown.

[116] And you think she looks like...

[117] Millie Billy Brown?

[118] You think Millie Bobby Brown looks like Tom Wilkinson.

[119] I do.

[120] It's so weird.

[121] Do you do this game while?

[122] Debbie, now I'm talking to you.

[123] Do you do this game when you're watching TV with Friends where the whole time you're like, shit, what actor does that remind me of?

[124] And then you get it.

[125] And sometimes it's so weird, there's no reason that they are reminding you of that.

[126] But for me, yeah, Tom Wilkinson.

[127] And you probably don't know who he is.

[128] Do you know who he is?

[129] I don't.

[130] Right, that's fair.

[131] Wait till I show you a picture.

[132] Is it Millie Bobby Brown and Jack?

[133] Well, this is one of the ones that I have, there's no consensus that I'm right.

[134] Okay.

[135] Yeah, so you see.

[136] you see the resemblance?

[137] I would like to.

[138] Yeah.

[139] You're with the rest of us.

[140] Yep.

[141] That is a big stretch.

[142] But I often have big stretches that people go, holy shit, it is.

[143] Every now and then.

[144] And I'll throw another one at you that makes no sense.

[145] Although I've not convinced a ton of people of this.

[146] I think Ashton Coucher and LeBron James look very similar.

[147] I would need a side -by -side.

[148] Yeah.

[149] But anyways, Friday Night Lights.

[150] is the funnest one to play it with because so many people look like so many people.

[151] So Jesse Plymonds.

[152] Oh, Matt Damon.

[153] Looks just like Matt Damon.

[154] Yeah, he does.

[155] It's incredible.

[156] And then Saracen look like John Stewart.

[157] Oh, I never thought that before, but yes.

[158] Erica and I played this game the whole time.

[159] We were watching Friday Night Lights together and we nailed down everyone.

[160] We had someone for everybody.

[161] I digress.

[162] Yeah, I'm so sorry.

[163] I'm back to your show on Netflix.

[164] I totally hijacked you.

[165] It was about your voice and it was about your show on Netflix.

[166] Yeah.

[167] No, I remember what I was saying.

[168] good for you the sword is out yeah but now I've learned who Tom Wilkinson is yeah which is important for Debbie we're about teaching people things on this podcast oh god welcome it's school for Debbie yeah the third person thing like as it happened I was just like I don't like that I started doing it and I was like I don't like that just now twice in one minute so I don't want you to think it's like a normal thing and it's in fact ending now I went in and there was like a lot that I connected with on the character and there was a lot that I was just like, oh, thank God.

[169] And then in conversation with the showrunner kind of just like opening up our guts and our damage and just being like, this is cool about this.

[170] Like, I've never seen this before.

[171] And tell me the name of the show?

[172] It's called Insatiable.

[173] Yes, insatiable.

[174] And I watch the trailer of it.

[175] I have yet to watch an episode, but it's set in high school.

[176] So the trailer's pretty misleading.

[177] Great.

[178] I love being misled.

[179] Yeah, I love to mislead.

[180] It kind of is set like in high Society in Georgia, like in a beauty pageant world, so there are, it's paralleling Dallas Roberts's character, Bob, based off a real guy, a lawyer by day and a beauty pageant coach by night.

[181] And then...

[182] Oh, this is a true -ish story?

[183] Yeah, based on a, you know.

[184] Lawyer by day.

[185] Beauty pageant coach by night.

[186] Wow.

[187] Dead.

[188] Dead ass.

[189] Wow.

[190] Yeah.

[191] And then I, as his client that he kind of has to take on who is prone to a little bit of violence and hot -headedness and has not reconciled her.

[192] her problems and her like damage and her addiction and just she's kind of looking for it everywhere but inside and all the crazy wacky places that that takes them anyway so he does a strong amount of voiceover I do a strong amount of voiceover and she said to me basically the same thing that you daxter said to me which is the tipping point was my voice and being like I could listen to that girl do ad well you know who it reminds me of who I had a tremendous crush on all growing up was Demi Moore or Demi Moore.

[193] That's actually how she would want you to say it.

[194] Yeah, and that voice just really took me on a ride.

[195] Very soothing, yeah.

[196] Very, very soothing.

[197] Occasionally I'll lose my voice and I actually prefer it when my voice is lost.

[198] Me too.

[199] You too?

[200] Oh, yeah.

[201] Yeah, it gives it a little extra.

[202] So something that I found to be fascinating about your life, Debbie, is that you mostly grew up in Germany, yeah?

[203] Yeah, which is like kind of what I point to as an excute.

[204] By the way, not as long as, like, it would warrant, but I point to it as an excuse for not knowing a lot of, like, pop culture references.

[205] Okay.

[206] For a lot, because I was homeschooled before that, and, like, private school, whatever, and then Germany, and I went to German public school, an American public school on the base there, and then it was homeschooled and kind of traveled around, and then moved back, was homeschooled more, homeschooled chess club, went into public school, I was the mascot, and then I started dance and immediately moved here.

[207] So I've been here longer than anywhere, but I...

[208] Longer than Germany.

[209] Just longer.

[210] Von Haustudansk -Gabortstadt?

[211] How do you say May 13th?

[212] I don't know.

[213] M, something I would say I'm January for my birthday.

[214] But I don't know Mays because it's not my birthday.

[215] Right, and you only know things that are pretending to you.

[216] In January?

[217] January.

[218] Yeah, yeah.

[219] In January.

[220] Yeah, January.

[221] Oh, wow.

[222] Okay.

[223] Do you speak German still?

[224] I can't forget it.

[225] Oh, wow.

[226] I was very fluent and I forgot a good amount, a very strong amount.

[227] I can, like, tell if someone's tracking shit on me in an elevator.

[228] Right.

[229] Shisha, you want to red flag that word.

[230] Shisha, shit.

[231] I took one semester of German 23 years, no, 30 years ago.

[232] And I remembered how to ask you when your birthday is if you're sad or happy or tired, kaput.

[233] And then how much your shirt cost?

[234] Great.

[235] Yeah.

[236] Yeah, Vival costed thine poolie.

[237] Yeah.

[238] Great.

[239] Fantastic.

[240] Like Fiatzen.

[241] It's from Top Shop.

[242] Like $14.

[243] Okay, great.

[244] Yeah.

[245] But what ages were you when you lived in Germany?

[246] I was seven when I moved there.

[247] Seven.

[248] And your mom or dad was in the Army?

[249] My dad worked with, like, the Department of Defense.

[250] Okay.

[251] As, like, a civilian, yeah.

[252] And he kind of just worked hand in hand with the government.

[253] And we moved there.

[254] And we lived on the economy, so we never lived on base, which was awesome.

[255] Who say that again?

[256] You lived on the economy?

[257] Yeah.

[258] Is that what you call it?

[259] Yeah, how the people on base would refer.

[260] to those of us who did not live on the base.

[261] But maybe that was just particular to Wiesbaden, Niedenhausnovi Elspach, which was like...

[262] Ooh, that got me. Yeah, I like it.

[263] Did they get your motor on it?

[264] Let's do the whole interview in German.

[265] It was me saying.

[266] What town were you closest to that we would know?

[267] Bezbaden.

[268] Vizbaden was like the closest town.

[269] Is that north -south?

[270] Do we know?

[271] Was it by Frankfurt or Munich?

[272] You know, I mean, they're all equidistant.

[273] You were seven.

[274] I was seven.

[275] And your brother's older than you by two years?

[276] Two years.

[277] Yeah, great math.

[278] And how did he, thank you so much, I pride myself on it.

[279] There's very few things I like about myself and that fast mass, one of them.

[280] 27 minus 25.

[281] Good job.

[282] I would imagine you're, you must get really close to your brother being in a foreign country and only having each other.

[283] Yeah, we were very close.

[284] We are still best friends.

[285] I was his best man in his wedding.

[286] Oh, you were?

[287] A lot.

[288] Best man. And you made a speech?

[289] I did.

[290] How'd that go?

[291] You know, I'm better off prompter.

[292] Okay, sure.

[293] So, like, it was, you know, you come in with this idea of what you're going to say, and then you just got caught up and wonderstruck by the magic of it all.

[294] And you're like, someone married this loser.

[295] It did move you.

[296] It moved me in a way that I did not anticipate because I either, like, feel everything or nothing, and it's kind of hard to move the needle a little bit.

[297] It's easier for me to just, I, like, I wouldn't say it's a choice, but I find myself quite often associating in order to pad my needle.

[298] myself from the more saturated range of emotions.

[299] And in that moment, I was just like, dude, yes, yes, you locked it down.

[300] And she's like ethereal and lovely.

[301] And they're just wonderful.

[302] They live here.

[303] They're fixing a moo.

[304] In your guest house?

[305] Yep, that was a yes.

[306] Wait.

[307] Formerly in my guest house.

[308] Okay, okay.

[309] And then we lived, we like shared a house together.

[310] And then now they live down the street.

[311] And we mostly just, we play video games together.

[312] So while they live like a few miles away, I just mostly see them on live.

[313] You don't have to say whether you do or not.

[314] But if you do and you don't care, and it's legal here and you want to say so, I just feel like that pairs very well with video games.

[315] They don't.

[316] They don't.

[317] And they game way more than me. Interesting.

[318] And, but I don't think that they don't, out of any reason other than they just don't, like, react well.

[319] I don't think it's ever appealed to her.

[320] Sure.

[321] I never liked it.

[322] Oh, yeah?

[323] I liked all the drugs, but not pot.

[324] Are you like a stimulant sky?

[325] I love stimulants, although like opiates as well.

[326] Yeah, but for me, I would smoke pot and I would, for the next three hours ago, what are you supposed to do with this high?

[327] Like sit on the couch?

[328] Clean your house, do the litter box.

[329] I don't know.

[330] Anything but draft an email.

[331] Yeah, you don't want to draft an email.

[332] Well, you could draft it.

[333] That's true.

[334] Leave it in your outbox.

[335] Also, in addition, the only other thing I like about myself other than my quick math skills is my verbal dexterity.

[336] and I smoke weed and then about five words into a sentence.

[337] I'm like, I've lost everyone.

[338] I'm not sure I know what I'm saying.

[339] It's an interesting thing because I think that when your motor runs really fast and you sometimes have concepts that you're anxiously trying to thread together into one cohesive pathway that you're trying to follow, but it keeps branching off into multiple things, that particular high allows you to follow one all the way into the rabbit hole, which is kind of nice.

[340] But there is something that happens where it feels like you want to move uphill a little bit.

[341] Like for the person who in school was like getting bored and doing things a little bit too quickly and would then create a reason to not do the assignment, like procrastinate until the absolute second.

[342] Like any way to make things a little bit more challenging for ourselves, the person who seeks that and whether that's, you're just masochistic.

[343] Like I don't, you know.

[344] Sure.

[345] But like there is a version of that which is like, oh.

[346] I'm like walking uphill in mud right now and can still be verbally dexterous or whatever it is that you would like to kind of sharpen.

[347] It's like when competitive swimmers grow all of their body hair out and practice like that and then shave it all before we chose.

[348] Like training at altitude.

[349] There you go.

[350] All these people, they get that hemoglobin up and those red blood cells are teeming by the time they get down to sea level.

[351] I always have this fantasy when we spend an extended period of time at elevation, like let's say we go to Jackson Hole.

[352] I think it's like 6 ,500 feet or something.

[353] I'm there for a week.

[354] And when I get home, I'm actually excited to go jogging because I've convinced myself that in that one week of acclimated and have more hemoglobin.

[355] But I don't think it happens that fast, just between you and me. You know, I don't think it's not happening.

[356] Oh, okay.

[357] It might not be a marked difference.

[358] Okay.

[359] But I'm not an athlete.

[360] Oh, wait, back to drugs.

[361] Yeah, so generally, right, I always quote this article, But people who do certain drugs, you can kind of tell what mental disorders they have.

[362] And we all know that people with ADHD, weirdly, you give them Ritalin or Adderall, which is a stimulant.

[363] You would think it's very counterintuitive.

[364] You would think a stimulant would make them even more erratic in their thinking.

[365] But it actually allows them to be laser focused.

[366] Sure.

[367] And that's what I found cocaine to do for me and other stimulants was, to your point, somehow weed for you or here for other people allows you to follow one of the thoughts.

[368] to me that's what cocaine allowed me to do is like follow a singular thought yeah and block out all the voices that were negative you drink a lot of caffeine right you came in with something and you accepted a coffee yes and that's an interesting thing too because I'm cutting down on coffee or caffeine for no other reason like it's not actually there are things that I find myself drawn to and attracted to and will prioritize and make time before and coffee is not one of those things really it's not one of those like I don't talk to me and so I'm in my coffee yeah I'm not that guy I used to be you just described me but continue yeah I'm not that guy thank God I'm not that guy I remember no I used to be when I was like 15 16 and I was working 12 hour days or whatever and now I think that it's just like water and supplements and moving my body and getting sunshine in because I deal with depression so for me it's fine actually if my brain is not at complete sharpness as long as I'm not like standing in the doorway like convincing myself that it's okay to leave the house when I get stuck in that place then it's like I'm like I gotta go for a walk or I have to hike or like get endorphine I have to like get high on that yeah and who prescribed that to you did you just look at other people that were wrestling with things and I found work for them yeah he just I just looked around and I looked inside and I listened to podcasts and I read articles and I just kind of tried stuff I will say that I do life with a person who found exercise to be incredibly therapeutic at a place where like really I never I wasn't raised like that my brother was like swim team captain and swing like 80 football fields a day like he was just constantly going and like taught lessons and was a lifeguard and I would dance but like cardiac like it never appealed to me it never was a part of my routine yeah I struggled through gym class and And I was, I also was like, is my surprise you.

[369] I'm like loophole queen.

[370] Like I love like any reason to not do the thing.

[371] What's loophole?

[372] Finding a loophole.

[373] Oh, right.

[374] Okay.

[375] Yeah, yeah.

[376] I thought it was a game for a second.

[377] I thought it might, you might call the game where you throw a ring on a, on a beer bottle.

[378] Oh, interesting.

[379] Yeah.

[380] I would imagine that like cornhole would be loophole.

[381] Yeah.

[382] Yeah.

[383] Okay.

[384] Although we're going to, Monica's going to find that loophole is what they call a cornhole.

[385] Exactly.

[386] Exactly.

[387] Yeah, in Sweden, I would, yes.

[388] If I just take a stab it, who calls it loophole.

[389] Loopole.

[390] Loopole.

[391] Loopole.

[392] Oh, you're right.

[393] You would go up.

[394] Lupole.

[395] Lupole.

[396] Oh, boy.

[397] Sorry, Sweden.

[398] We had to try it.

[399] But I want to go back to Germany for a second, okay?

[400] Okay.

[401] You were seven till ten?

[402] Yes.

[403] So that's like, well, you wouldn't know because you were homeschool, but that's like third grade till fifth grade, yeah?

[404] Or should have been.

[405] Would have been third grade to fifth grade.

[406] Sure.

[407] Does feel very.

[408] I have some.

[409] real memories of that period of time, and specifically my memories are, that's when I really was like, oh, you can pick friends and win over friends and be friends and, like, meet up to ride your bike and go to a field, all these things, which I would say is the pinnacle of being on planet earth is like being friends with people.

[410] Connecting with people, yeah.

[411] Yeah.

[412] So how are you doing that in Deutschland?

[413] In German.

[414] In German, with other German kids?

[415] Making plans with other German kids.

[416] Yeah, so is the question about being an American in Germany or about being homeschooled in a different culture?

[417] Yeah, I guess my question is it's hard enough at that age to navigate becoming friends with people because it's a skill you're learning.

[418] Yeah.

[419] And I would imagine being in a different country where you're not speaking your native language and you're innately a foreigner, that that gets challenging.

[420] Was it challenging or not challenging?

[421] I think it was.

[422] It was more, my brother, was like just old enough to where like bullying was a thing and and he got he got pretty roasted yeah yeah in a in a destructive way and I and was also just my hero like that that was my dude you know that was my the like cool older guy so I would play video games with him and hang out with him it comes back to video games which maybe I'm realizing is nostalgic I don't play as much as this conversation would indicate what if this whole thing's leading up to that you are the voice of a new video game and it was all just really layered in and at the end you go by the way i am starting in a new video game but it is when you drive around germany which i've done in a car it's pretty shocking how many american bases there are there's so many american bases it's like every 30 minutes yeah we have a little area of occupation it must be a little dicey for people in germany who have no recollection of world war two or any experience with that just that there Like I always think of we were driving around everywhere and there was just like, you know, Russian bases all over the place.

[423] It's a little weird.

[424] I think it's weird, but also I think everyone is used to Americans making themselves important in their culture and ingrained in their culture.

[425] So like it's weird for us because we're the ones who do that.

[426] It's weird because other people don't do that to us.

[427] Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[428] Pinky up, Jacks.

[429] By the way, always.

[430] Do you do that?

[431] And not intentionally.

[432] I naturally drink fluid like an aristocrat.

[433] And I don't know why, because I have a big class warfare thing in my mind.

[434] But here I am exposing myself as a thirst and howl the third.

[435] But there wasn't any, I guess what I'm asking, was there any like animosity towards you kids as American kids?

[436] My brother was literally dragged across the playground by kids and put at the foot of the teacher who looked at him and said, get up.

[437] Like there was not protection.

[438] There was, he was an American, and there was a Turkish immigrant in his class, and other than that, it was all Germans, all pretty Aryan looking.

[439] Sure.

[440] And so there was like a very visible other.

[441] Outside.

[442] Yes.

[443] And I experienced that as well, but also.

[444] Girls aren't as violent, generally.

[445] Girls aren't as violent.

[446] And it was like too young to be catty.

[447] Like that kind of bullying I experienced in America.

[448] In Texas.

[449] Public school.

[450] Yeah.

[451] But, um, in, in, Germany, it was mostly just kind of, to your point, of being like, oh, I can make a friend.

[452] Like, here's a person.

[453] And then I would go home with them for, like, a play date.

[454] And my mom would come pick me up.

[455] And they would be like, is her father German?

[456] Like, she speaks fluent German.

[457] We had no idea.

[458] And I would start to, like, cry and cry in German.

[459] So I think, like, maybe as a defense mechanism, I just assimilated.

[460] Sure.

[461] Which is maybe where the acting of it all started, which physically is where the acting of it all, like, became a thing.

[462] Because on the bases, they had a little, a theater.

[463] And that was, like, the only place that people might spoke English, really.

[464] played.

[465] Ah.

[466] So you started doing plays at the base.

[467] My mom, when we were in Texas, before that, would write plays and put them on at the school that she taught at.

[468] And so I would kind of just sit behind her skirt.

[469] And I was incredibly shy, apparently.

[470] Legend goes.

[471] And I would just, like, sit behind her skirt and just kind of watch her do this.

[472] So I had the fever.

[473] But on the performing aspect, it didn't happen until Germany.

[474] And actually, what's interesting is that I would, like, hide in the curtains and not talk to anyone and just be so terrified and shy and then I would go out on stage and hide in plain sight and character and I found myself through that and I found like safety through that and sure I can't imagine like when you found out hey we're going to Germany I can't imagine you're pumped about that so you're just inherently have zero control of where you're at no one being yeah yeah and then you go out on that stage and then for a little period of time you have like tremendous control over your life.

[475] Yeah.

[476] It's pretty intoxicating, yeah.

[477] Yeah, it was.

[478] I mean, just also feeling like accepted and like you had a place and if, you know, there's like all these kind of people who are also uprooted.

[479] And my friends there were, you know, I knew one or two other people from, like everyone had moved from a base in Korea or a base in Guam or.

[480] And so.

[481] Are you friends with any of those people still?

[482] No. Okay, good.

[483] Yeah.

[484] So it 10.

[485] Can you guys move to Texas?

[486] Can we move to Texas?

[487] In what town in Texas?

[488] Keller.

[489] Shout up to Keller, Texas, right outside of Fort Worth.

[490] Oh, okay, Dallas, Fort Worth, metropolitan area.

[491] We just, we just sped through there.

[492] Debbie, we just sped through there in an escalade with a lazy boy strapped to the roof.

[493] That was right about where we hit 100 miles an hour.

[494] Oh, we went through Keller at 100 miles an hour.

[495] Yeah.

[496] Yeah, we were just approaching Fort Worth.

[497] Yeah.

[498] Well, it was a precariously rigged lazy boy to the roof of this thing.

[499] And I felt pretty confident with how we had strapped it down.

[500] I just wanted to see how he was testing it.

[501] He was testing it.

[502] And it was stood the test.

[503] That's great.

[504] I'm very proud of this, Debbie.

[505] I hope you are too.

[506] And also on behalf of Keller, I want to thank you for feeding through the ground with a lazy boy.

[507] Not a comment on how quickly we wanted to get through Keller.

[508] Not at all.

[509] We would have loved to have luxuriated there.

[510] Is there crystals there?

[511] Crystal, by the way, just in case you're trying to know exactly what you're saying.

[512] Oh, Crystal.

[513] Oh, I know, I know.

[514] Crystal hamburger, you probably don't have those, do you?

[515] They're big in the South.

[516] They're little mini burgers.

[517] Oh, yeah.

[518] They're beautiful.

[519] Crystal with a K. Oh, yeah.

[520] I thought that you were asking if there were like, like, Selenite and, like, I was in a very L .A. place when you asked to that.

[521] Oh, that makes sense.

[522] That does make sense.

[523] Very interesting.

[524] Like cooked over crystals or something to imbued some spirituality into the beef.

[525] Give it back.

[526] We were on a search for crystals with a K. a fast food joint while we were heading through Texas and we couldn't find one.

[527] Yeah.

[528] We don't want to be disparaging about where we stopped.

[529] So I'll tell you off air.

[530] But we stopped at a hamburger chain that we stupidly were, I don't know why.

[531] We thought we were at, I thought I was at crystals.

[532] Was it Wadaburger?

[533] It wasn't.

[534] I love Wadaburger.

[535] It's a great burger and they got a nice shake.

[536] They do have a nice shake.

[537] Yeah.

[538] But at any rate, I was wrong and they didn't have many hamburgers.

[539] And when we went to pay for it, I kept saying repeatedly, oh, I really wish this was crystals.

[540] And that was making them laugh.

[541] But at any rate, sorry, I'm back to Texas.

[542] Is it a gigantic cultural shift, I'm imagining?

[543] Both of my parents grew up in Texas.

[544] Oh, okay.

[545] So it was the least, I would say, culturally, you know, jarring.

[546] What kind of stuff do you do as a kid in Texas for fun?

[547] You know, you drink out the water hose.

[548] I don't want to like perpetuate any of the stereotypes.

[549] We watched football, I guess.

[550] We would ride by, make ramps outside.

[551] I love stereotypes.

[552] stereotypes.

[553] Monica and I argue about it all the time.

[554] I was even, when you were saying when you lived in Germany, one of the stereotype I'll give to the Germans.

[555] So clean.

[556] Holy smokes, are they clean?

[557] Wouldn't you agree?

[558] And also, I came back and there was like 10 years where I had to wait for America to get soda stream and...

[559] Oh, they were ahead of the game.

[560] Very ahead.

[561] And Ikea and Nutella.

[562] Oh, sure.

[563] What the butter in Germany?

[564] The butter, it's like...

[565] It can't even be described as butter.

[566] It's so flavorful in in yummy, it's almost like it's cream cheese or something.

[567] Germans are very into soup and breads.

[568] They make the best bread, the butter is so good.

[569] You can just pile that butter on, have some soup, and it's nice, right?

[570] It is very nice.

[571] I love a bread bowl.

[572] I love poikin, which is like, you know, it's like the round ones that's hard on the outside.

[573] It's like an eggs on the top.

[574] It's good stuff.

[575] And, you know, you would go down the street and get truly your daily bread.

[576] Like, you would go five or six times, yeah.

[577] And everything's closed, like, on the weekends or whatever.

[578] Yeah, very counterintuitive.

[579] You go, like, to these cities on a weekend thinking you're going to go shopping.

[580] Get jokes on you.

[581] They're fucking.

[582] They don't work on the weekend.

[583] The Hunger Games.

[584] It doesn't sound.

[585] Sorry.

[586] Did you like The Hunger Games?

[587] What books did you?

[588] You were of the generation that would have loved.

[589] Harry Potter were you too late?

[590] I was like 20 when the Hunger Games came out maybe or like 18.

[591] But what about Terrence Posner, Harry Potter?

[592] I never read Harry Potter.

[593] My sister -in -law works at Universal Studios at Hogwarts as a wizard.

[594] Jess is up and so now I'm hip to it but you know coming up I didn't but yeah okay well I was just like to touch on the culture of things closing on the weekend I think it points to a culture where people understand that like people who runs stores and things are not a commodity and like have families like it kind of is right we used to have experts we used to have like masters and things we used to we still have some experts was singular yeah but like people who learned to trade and it was passed down and et cetera and that was the cobbler and that was the baker and the butcher or whatever and for us to live in a culture where that's not really a thing and we all kind of can access whatever on our phone to make us that expert that day on whatever we're trying to install or I think it's interesting to be in a culture that still honors like craftsmen and trades yeah and if you work from nine to five so does the person you get your bread from and if we schedule a doctor's appointment like we take time off of work to do that because they're not going to come in on the weekend so why should it not be the same with the people who stock the shit listen well they have they have a tremendous amount of respect for their workers like i worked for general motors for years and there was a division of general motors that was in germany opal and when we would have these combined car shows the way they treated their technicians versus how we treated our technicians like they were seen as with as much esteem as the engineers were or anyone else and they made a lot of of money and they treated them very well and yeah i think in fact that michael moore documentary says that we should be stealing some of their the way they they they treat their workers well they also go on vacation for like a month yes yeah yeah you're but it's like you're encouraged to do that and then people are less fussy at work because you get what you need and you're well -rounded versus this like american culture of constantly being like fully workaholic and proud of how busy you are and bragging about like yeah how much you're doing but still having as much to show for it it, you know.

[595] But logistically, how does it work?

[596] Like, if you're working from nine to five, when do you, like, how do you get the bread?

[597] You got to get it on the way to work or the way home?

[598] You got to go on your lunch break.

[599] But they all have a lunch break.

[600] They all have a long lunch break and a bit more flexibility.

[601] If you do have like a month off than taking a day off to go do your things, is like less.

[602] But I think, and this is not factual, this is like just a thing that I am seeing maybe now in retrospect.

[603] and maybe it's a generational thing.

[604] But I don't recall knowing a lot of families where both the man and the woman worked.

[605] Ah, I see.

[606] Like in heterosexual relationships.

[607] Got it.

[608] Well, that solves that problem.

[609] I will, I will.

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

[611] We've all been there.

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

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

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

[615] It's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

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

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

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

[619] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[620] What's up, guys?

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

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

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

[624] conversation.

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

[626] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[627] The list goes on.

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

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

[630] Well, the bottom line is it's getting done.

[631] They're all eating their bread.

[632] And they're respecting one another.

[633] They have watches and clothes and stuff.

[634] I've never seen a nude person.

[635] Well, that's not true.

[636] They love getting nude.

[637] Oh, yeah.

[638] Public parks.

[639] Yeah, public parks.

[640] Kitty's out.

[641] Oh, a bush out.

[642] Everything.

[643] Oh, yeah.

[644] Everything.

[645] And it's crazy.

[646] I would go and see, like, a mom with her, like, son and her son's friends.

[647] Yeah.

[648] She got her titty's out.

[649] Wow.

[650] Son has hair on his penis.

[651] He's with mom and dad.

[652] The whole gang.

[653] It's not weird.

[654] No one's weird about it.

[655] And they're just walking around the park going down the slide and stuff.

[656] They like to lay in the grass on a blanket.

[657] They go to these public parks.

[658] And my first experience with it, I was with my mom when I was 16 on a trip over there.

[659] And she was stayed in the room.

[660] Thank fucking God.

[661] And I went down to the hot tub in the hotel.

[662] Then I went into the sauna walk into the sauna and there's like nine or ten people bare naked in the sauna and some teens and listen how pervy this is what do you think I did I got bare naked yeah yeah and then I was in this sauna really enjoying the culture future anthropologists in the making and I was panicked the whole time that my mother would have somehow got a hair up or ass to go swimming and caught me naked in the sauna with all the adult Germans was it like gender specific oh no no no no We were all in one pot box together bare naked.

[663] Great.

[664] Yeah.

[665] It was very memorable.

[666] Blessing.

[667] So did you, did your mother continue the homeschooling thing when you got to Texas?

[668] So she is really cool and she wanted us to just fall in love with learning, right?

[669] So when we lived in Germany, we would study ancient Rome.

[670] And then they would put us in the car and we would drive to Italy because the neighbors like nine countries.

[671] Yeah.

[672] But so we could just drive to Italy.

[673] And we weren't bawling out.

[674] You know, we were like staying at little campgrounds and everything.

[675] But like trying local food.

[676] And then as we would study it, we would kind of travel to the different places.

[677] And she would, so we went to Austria and we listened to the sound of music soundtrack, nonstop, nonstop.

[678] The whole drive from Germany to Austria.

[679] The hills are alive with music.

[680] Is that the lyrics?

[681] The sound of music?

[682] We're getting that.

[683] Yeah, it's kind of in the title.

[684] There, yeah, you take a little creative license on it.

[685] A remix.

[686] The Hills were alive with the...

[687] Now, what's the title?

[688] It's...

[689] The Sound of Music.

[690] There it is, yeah.

[691] It's in there.

[692] I wonder if that occurred to them.

[693] Oh, you know what?

[694] Someone should tell them, actually.

[695] Coincidence.

[696] What crazy coincidence?

[697] No one's discovered until just now.

[698] So did mom continue to hold homeschool in Texas?

[699] She did, and then, you know, I was watching, like, Fresh Prince, and I was like, I want to go to school.

[700] I want to go to American school.

[701] That sounds fun.

[702] Yeah.

[703] Trill and so then we went And it was different Than fresh prince It was different than fresh prints Just because Texas isn't Bel Air And also You know I was watching step by step And full house and you know It was an adjustment And then in this situation My brother became instantly popular We did Yes and I He deserves it He really came up Yeah a glow up Yeah Is what the kids call it Oh a glow up A glow up We're gonna start using that I knew we were gonna learn Me too But I'm trying to I brought I like, we taught you about Tom Wilkinson and you taught us about the glow up.

[704] Okay, so he became a stud.

[705] Was he an athlete or something?

[706] He started to swim at that point.

[707] Oh, right.

[708] You said that.

[709] And people, like, called him the German kid.

[710] Oh, that's cool.

[711] Yeah.

[712] And so they kind of, you know, and he got frosted tips and his hair, you know.

[713] Oh, sure.

[714] J .T. style.

[715] Oh, truly.

[716] You're very good looking.

[717] Is he a good looking male?

[718] He's incredibly handsome.

[719] Uh -huh.

[720] And also is like an.

[721] unfair incredible human being like he is so special so intuitive he's warm and engaging he's freaking funny and quick but we'll go there with you and can switch it from having like a profoundly empathetic conversation where he will truly feel take your pain and weep on your behalf and then make you crack up and just make a fart joke yeah yeah no more elevated than that this is kind of um this makes the case for getting your ass beat for a while.

[722] I truly.

[723] It does.

[724] Chris Rock has a thing about that.

[725] He's like, everyone wants to get rid of bullying.

[726] Do you think Mark Zuckerberg wasn't bullied?

[727] Do you think Bill Gates wasn't bullied?

[728] And he just kind of goes through every person that we need in our society.

[729] Rising above is a good thing.

[730] Yeah, not one of those people did not experience bullying for certain.

[731] Well, it definitely makes you look for, like it makes you look for, I mean, what is my value?

[732] Like if I'm not, you know, I'm not able to do this enough or I'm not that enough.

[733] or whatever.

[734] Well, you've got to give it to yourself, because if you're not getting it from your peer group, you kind of got to just give it to yourself.

[735] Yeah.

[736] Well, I...

[737] Or from your teachers or from your mom.

[738] Like, I looked for it everywhere.

[739] I still look for it.

[740] And what age do you move to L .A. to pursue acting?

[741] And how on earth do you convince your Texan parents and DOD suspicious vendor, father?

[742] Do you go along with this?

[743] Well, we went to public school, and I wanted to continue acting, and I wanted to...

[744] do like film and TV and commercials.

[745] And I just was looking for theater outside of school and pointed to a commercial and I was like, that girl.

[746] Like where'd that girl come from?

[747] How's she doing that?

[748] I want to do that.

[749] And my mom was like, I don't know.

[750] And so classic, her, she's like, we're going to figure it out though.

[751] So she looked up talent agencies in Dallas Fort Worth.

[752] My neighbor was a photographer, took photos of me. And I sent them to every talent agency in Dallas Fort Worth and just begged them and begged them and begged them to really pursue this.

[753] They didn't want it, they didn't like it.

[754] My dad works a desk job and is like just a wonderful and smart man. Things make sense in his brain in an intellectual and clear way.

[755] Does he have an engineering degree or something?

[756] What's his, what's his?

[757] No, no, he's a master's in something.

[758] Okay, great.

[759] Yeah.

[760] I didn't go to college.

[761] Okay, cool.

[762] Yeah, I did the child actor.

[763] And yet you have a guest house.

[764] So you tell me what was the right.

[765] There you go.

[766] There you go.

[767] You can have one or the other.

[768] No, yeah, it's interesting.

[769] I think, like...

[770] Does that make you insecure?

[771] Not going to school?

[772] Yeah, having not graduated from college, is that something that you get ashamed of?

[773] I think in circles where education is, like, highly valued, but it's so rapidly becoming that, like, with an entrepreneurial spirit, people, my friends or peers or people above, like, mentors, are not typically using their degree as much as, the structure of learning to learn.

[774] And I fell in love with learning to learn for, you know, I still do and I'm still obsessed with it.

[775] And so I don't know if it's insecure.

[776] There's definitely times where I've toyed with the idea of going and doing it just to say that I have done it, which maybe does point to insecurity about it.

[777] I got the degree and I'm still very insecure.

[778] Yeah.

[779] Everyone's great.

[780] Even if you have one, you want a different one.

[781] Yeah.

[782] My deal with my parents, I do a lot of deal making with my parents.

[783] what my deal with my parents was if they allowed me to act or at least try to pursue this that my GPA could not go below a 3 .8 that my like duties and my chores would not slip and if they did then they could kind of pull this away so they never wanted it for me and for a year I asked and asked and asked and they said no and one time my mom came like into my room and saw me just like praying and I was just like please like I want to do this like make this boss she was like wow I really thought she'd grow out of this So then we kind of pursued it And she would drive me to and from Dallas Which is, you know, the big city That has the auditions, the four auditions a year For Walker, Texas Ranger, Friday Night Lights, Barney At that time, you know And you got Barney I got Barney.

[784] I got Barney.

[785] I got Barney I got two Hasbroke commercials and Barney I got a role as teenage girl And a straight to DVD Let's go to the firehouse Barney, I lost my dog Most certainly my nieces own that DVD They loved Barney.

[786] Yeah, I loved Barney.

[787] Oh, I loved it too.

[788] Oh, I loved it.

[789] Oh, wow.

[790] How did that song go?

[791] Um, I love you.

[792] You love me. We're a happy family.

[793] With a dick, not, I do like give a dog a bone.

[794] This old man came rolling.

[795] Rooney or saved that.

[796] A remix.

[797] Yeah.

[798] And then after Barney, fast forward me to Los Angeles, how on earth do you guys end up going to Los Angeles?

[799] Was it one of those things where you go to the Oakland?

[800] apartment and like hang for a month and audition and shit?

[801] No, so another one of the deals was that I would never when we moved to Texas they were like this is the last time we're going to move you.

[802] You guys are going to be here through high school and so I finally like laid roots and et cetera while auditioning.

[803] And in the same week I auditioned for a spinoff of an existing Disney show called Sweet Life of Zach and Cody about two twins who live in a hotel and they had a spin off where they go to a semester at sea and I auditioned for that in the same week as I audition for a an Ice Cube and Kiki Palmer football movie called The Long Shots, directed by Fred Durst.

[804] And so I, like, went through the audition process for that, sent my tape in, went through the audition process, got called back.

[805] That was in Louisiana.

[806] So my mom, like, fully drove me to Louisiana for that.

[807] And at that time, I was also a teacher's aide, so I was, like, getting extra credit, and I was in, like, accelerated classes.

[808] So I was, you know, very obsessive about making sure, like, my grades wouldn't drop and missing school now for acting, was getting serious, booked that, shot that, went home for Christmas, came back for reshoots, this is during the writer's strike, 2007, 2008.

[809] So, March or something, we wrap that, I come back, turn in all my assignments, I'm ready to finally dance.

[810] I'm a freshman in high school.

[811] I made it onto a varsity dance team, and that was competition season.

[812] So we were like very exciting.

[813] The best.

[814] Now you're speaking Monica's language.

[815] Yeah, I like a good competition season.

[816] That was a cheerleader.

[817] Were you?

[818] Oh, yeah.

[819] State champ, two -time state champ.

[820] Tumblr?

[821] Yeah.

[822] Yeah, we had to.

[823] I wasn't, I was definitely the least, uh, proficient tumbler on our squad, but I still had, I still had to do flips and what was your position?

[824] Hi, Flyer.

[825] You were a flyer?

[826] Yeah.

[827] Of course.

[828] Catch him by the pussy.

[829] The star.

[830] Wow.

[831] That's something we, uh, discovered on the fact track.

[832] We've talked about it before.

[833] That wasn't just a random.

[834] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[835] A random, I was like, does this man bothering you?

[836] I know, we are.

[837] I like a visceral reaction.

[838] You know, out of context inside.

[839] It's a real.

[840] Sounds terrible.

[841] Yeah.

[842] So.

[843] Sounds terrible.

[844] And now we know the importance of context.

[845] It's like a hydrogen bomb when you say it in context.

[846] Pretty messed up, Dax.

[847] Oh, boy.

[848] In fact, we went even further and suggested, like, what if this whole thing with Trump was just a mix -up and that he had been the person who caught the high flyer?

[849] And what he really meant is he just caught people by the pussy.

[850] Yeah.

[851] That could be.

[852] Yeah.

[853] He was a backspotter like a great baby.

[854] Exactly.

[855] You got to do what you have to do in those competitions.

[856] You're not going to drop her.

[857] No, no, no. No, when given the choice between catching him by the pussy or drop them, ethically you have a catch him by the bussy Catch them That's cheerleading 101 That's what they tell you First week of camp What of above like in the gym hanging with a huge banner About the doorway was When in doubt Catching by the pussy Okay Anyway dance Competition varsity Very exciting And obviously a big deal in Texas And so I did it You know on the fields During football season Before I went away This film And then I get a call From my agent in Texas which is just like, hi.

[858] Do you remember that thing you auditioned for six months ago?

[859] It's going now.

[860] And can you fly to L .A. in three days to audition for it?

[861] And I was like, you know, just fly to L .A. Like, you're either from L .A., like famous actors or you just visit there.

[862] And so I just was like, yeah, no, yes, obviously.

[863] And my mom and I were like, well, what does this mean?

[864] And what does it mean in terms of, like, moving and potentially booking it?

[865] And I think that before even really stepping into this, it was just, here's an opportunity, and I'm not going to wonder.

[866] I refuse to wonder what this could have been and what I could have done from this.

[867] And I asked, like, is there an opportunity?

[868] If I go and this pans out, am I allowed to say no?

[869] And they're like, yeah.

[870] Like, you signed the contract, but like, essentially, yeah.

[871] And I went, and I was one of three girls, they were both there talking about living at the Oakwood and having lived there.

[872] having done pilot seasons before and I didn't and was just like, well, clearly this is not going to happen for me. I was the only one called back, which I knew to be good but felt in that moment like I was distinctly the one they could for sure rule out or something, went back, finally began my homework assignments and was just like, hi, can you move to L .A. in six days.

[873] Wow.

[874] Start shooting in 10 days and it's on in the fall.

[875] It's already green.

[876] Wow.

[877] So, yeah.

[878] How many episodes did you do with that?

[879] What's the title of that show?

[880] A Disney Order.

[881] It's called Sweet Life.

[882] on deck.

[883] Okay.

[884] And so it was picked up for 18 and then they just kept adding however many on the back and so I think maybe the first season was 28 to 32.

[885] Oh my goodness.

[886] Yeah, that's a good nine, ten months of work.

[887] And with Disney, because it's internationally syndicated, every word and phrasing does have to be word perfect.

[888] It has to, because it's already gone through all of the standards of practices.

[889] And so.

[890] I wouldn't do well in that situation.

[891] I love it.

[892] I love it.

[893] I love when there is a right answer for something.

[894] And what's your understanding of money at that?

[895] How old are you when that happens?

[896] I'm 14, about to be 15.

[897] Okay, and do you understand that you're making money?

[898] I understood that I was making more money than when I mowed my neighbor's lawn.

[899] And that you're more money than your parents were making.

[900] Yeah, I don't think I understood that.

[901] I understood that I was choosing to do something that if I wanted to back out of it would probably be expensive to undo.

[902] Sure.

[903] I knew to save my money.

[904] And also, one of the deals that I made was that all of the money that I made from acting, which at that point was just going to be commercials and maybe Barney was going to go to put me towards Met School because I was going to be a surgeon.

[905] So in my mind, it was just like, oh, yeah, I had the jackpot.

[906] Like, I'm not ever going to have student.

[907] And I had just taken college ed in school.

[908] And so I was like, I now know that this is going to be very helpful.

[909] And I learned about taxes.

[910] I learned about like 10 % to every representative.

[911] And then I just saved a lot of it.

[912] Yeah, I got to say, if my child started earning like a few hundred grand a year, it would make my head spin.

[913] It'd be so wild to be the parent as well as the person making the money.

[914] But did they allow you to have access?

[915] Like, could you have said, you know what?

[916] I want a fucking Mustang when I turned 16.

[917] And you know what?

[918] I made a few hundred grand last year.

[919] I'm going to buy one.

[920] Dax.

[921] I'm so glad you asked me this question.

[922] Okay, great.

[923] So we have a week or two to move.

[924] I'm about to be 15.

[925] It's going to be just me and my mom going out there and then coming back and maybe my dad will join us in a year, whatever.

[926] My mom needs a car.

[927] Sure.

[928] I say, let's go in on it together.

[929] This will be my car when I'm 16.

[930] Guess who goes to CarMax and guess who gets a Mustang.

[931] Dang.

[932] Oh, wow.

[933] A 2004, 40th anniversary edition, silver, rattling.

[934] little, yeah.

[935] Uh -huh.

[936] And did you end up taking it over when you were 16 or 17?

[937] I did.

[938] I ended up taking it over.

[939] What a bizarre guess I just made.

[940] It was a very specific and great.

[941] I think that I am like who you wrote as a child actor.

[942] If you wrote a child actor, it's a girl who moves to California and wants a Mustang.

[943] I actually listened to, Rob and I were just talking about this.

[944] The hush sound was one of my favorite bands and I had like a Jack's Manicin album who's Andrew McMahon from something corporate, which is a very California album.

[945] The Hush Sound, which is like kind of Chicago, bluesy, it had some salt to it and some fun and some swing to it.

[946] And then the Hannah Montana meet Miley Cyrus double -sided.

[947] I'm so glad you just said that, because I was going to say, in my mind what you're listening to in the Mustang is they're playing my song and the DJ.

[948] Party in the USA, yeah, predated party in the USA, but yes.

[949] Yeah, it was songs about California and it was songs about like, you get the limo around front.

[950] And it was very much me talking.

[951] Yeah.

[952] Yeah, big fan.

[953] I got it from my Secret Santa and dance.

[954] Did you love Miley Cyrus?

[955] I did.

[956] I was a little old for Miley Cyrus, but I knew that that was what I wanted to do was like kind of broader multi -cam, like fun, fun capers and stuff.

[957] You did Hannah Montana, right?

[958] I did an episode.

[959] We had a crossover.

[960] So I played my character from Sweet Life, and she played Hannah and Miley, and we interacted.

[961] She came on the cruise ship.

[962] Okay.

[963] Did you guys get along?

[964] She was awesome.

[965] She's cool as fuck, right?

[966] She's so good.

[967] She, like, just is constantly, would just be like, I don't know, I saw this animal that needed a home.

[968] She just has the biggest heart, such a capacity to love, and knows who she is and came in and saw my friends now, who at the time were just absolutely roasting me and not nice to me. She saw them doing that and literally stepped in and was like, you don't, like, don't talk to her like that.

[969] You don't have to let them talk to you like that.

[970] And I was just like.

[971] She's got a husky voice, too, by the way.

[972] Yes, she does.

[973] Yeah.

[974] Yeah, she does.

[975] Her and Selena.

[976] People say that the three of us, you know, that I'm kind of like, there was a middle.

[977] I would say that that's generate.

[978] I would say that like I'm like the Costco brand of both of that.

[979] Well, no. I don't think.

[980] I'm the, I'm the accessible.

[981] By the way, Costco's my favorite place.

[982] I love Costco.

[983] I'm not sure that I'm taking it the way you meant it.

[984] I love Costco.

[985] Yeah.

[986] I should have the three of you on the same time.

[987] That way no one will really know who's talking.

[988] And then you guys can be dead fucking eyes.

[989] Yeah, I could be like, hi, I'm Selena Gomez, and then I could just make stuff up.

[990] Or you could even, you could divulge your darkest secrets, and then when confronted about it, you go, no, I think that was either Miley or.

[991] That's actually hilarious.

[992] Yeah, hiding in mind.

[993] Total deniability.

[994] We'll plan on that.

[995] They're both wonderful.

[996] And like Selena, Demi Lovato, a lot of these actors that came to Disney, they were all from Dallas -Fort Worth.

[997] We all went to, like, had the same kind of agent and acting.

[998] Yeah.

[999] Weird.

[1000] There's a couple of weird pipelines, right?

[1001] Because there's also Atlanta, Florida, and then Dallas.

[1002] It's very interesting.

[1003] I wonder what.

[1004] I, you know, I think that there's, in Texas, everyone's like, we can secede.

[1005] We like pledge to the American flag, and then we pledge to the Texas flag.

[1006] So it's about being kind of bigger than, it's being a part of something, but owning your large part in something.

[1007] Well, isn't it, the saying is American by birth, Texan by the grace of God.

[1008] Yeah, that is great.

[1009] And then after that, I should just say, fuck you.

[1010] Or you're welcome.

[1011] Now, how are you, you're working a ton, so it's not like you're out on the streets terribly often, but presumably overnight people, like young kids know who you are.

[1012] Yeah, it just, it happened, because I was making shows for people my age.

[1013] So anywhere that I would go at my age, I would be surrounded by people who knew who I was.

[1014] Yeah, the whole Disney brand.

[1015] when you're a face of it, it's not unlike being a beetle.

[1016] I mean, the fans that you have are rabid and have no boundaries because they're kids.

[1017] Yes, and also I was in the kind of first generation after the high school musical kind of craze and the Hannah Montana craze and people, you know, when I digested Disney shows, it never occurred to me what even Stevens, what like Shia LaBuff was having for lunch or what he was doing or if he had siblings.

[1018] If I wanted to connect with them, I would look in the back of a teen magazine and find family.

[1019] So to understand fame that way and then be in the first kind of generation where social media and accessibility is, it's so overlapping.

[1020] And there's so few boundaries.

[1021] I kind of just learned it in a very strange way.

[1022] There also happens to be like a pretty well -worn trajectory for folks that are, they start there.

[1023] So the beautiful actor, everyone loves.

[1024] Zach Epron?

[1025] No, well, him too.

[1026] Ryan Gosling.

[1027] Ryan Gosling.

[1028] Oh, yeah.

[1029] Ryan Gosling, Shailboe, Miley.

[1030] The pretty common trajectory is at some point, again, this is what I assume that they went through.

[1031] I don't know this to be true, but you want to shed this childhood persona really quickly.

[1032] You're like, I want to be taken seriously.

[1033] And I think it's led some people down some weird paths because you just want to shake it quickly.

[1034] So whether for girls, that's to like, own your sexuality very publicly and loudly to distance yourself from that or with Shia to just kind of be a crazy renegade whatever we would describe his behavior as did you at any point develop a chip on your shoulder of like okay great I'm grateful that I had this experience but I want to be taken serious and I want to be seen as an adult and how do I do that I think that it was more about the fact that a lot of people internationally had a perception of me but that perception they never saw a version of me that wasn't 24 minutes with everything getting tied up with a bow at the end and if you date and have a boyfriend they count kisses like you can kiss on the mouth like three times in one season or something so like it's never the idea of like going through those kind of growing up processes they're edited out and censored out in a way that keeps it neutral sure safe safe and I'm really thankful for that because it didn't lead people to make presumptions about my personal growing process and I was given a lot of privacy in being able to find those things but also there is not you know depression and anxiety portrayed on Disney I'm sure that there is now that the conversation is opened up and they are actively wanting to listen and kind of portray the world as kids are growing up in it now a little bit more, but certainly at the time that I was there, the idea of a complicated, messy growing up experience was only as messy as like, I borrowed these pants and now I got a stain on them, what am I going to do?

[1035] How are we going to get in there?

[1036] And we'll, like, dress in like a perfectly tailored waiter costume.

[1037] Right.

[1038] Because we see them, like, leaving the, you know, and then we march in.

[1039] And that is, like, problem solving.

[1040] And that is what people know of me as a young woman, problem solving, when in reality I'm like, I have a genius IQ, like, allow, me to introduce myself as who I am.

[1041] And I think that frustration certainly exists and definitely brings people to the confusing places.

[1042] What ages were you in the Disney world from 15 to what?

[1043] So I was 15 to 18 from my first show, like 14 and a half to 18 for my first show.

[1044] And so I did three seasons of a show, over 100 episodes of a show.

[1045] In three seasons.

[1046] Yeah.

[1047] It's hilarious.

[1048] Yeah.

[1049] They crank them out.

[1050] And also another thing is they only advertise themselves so they don't do commercials so they don't have branding and licensing.

[1051] So you don't get the kind of money that your friends who are maybe on Modern Family get.

[1052] You get significantly less.

[1053] And the way that they tell you is that they're building a brand and with that you can then monetize.

[1054] Interesting.

[1055] So what I will say is as they started realizing that building a brand being able to monetize it, like that is way different in the world of social media and they had an intention to keep up and then they created a few years in me being there a thing called Disney 101 and it would just, be like for all the new talent who's on the, because losing your anonymity overnight and being a teen who's meant to be the authority for millions of people on something that you haven't figured out yet.

[1056] And like the most caring and educated parents also did not grow up in this world.

[1057] No, it's new to everybody.

[1058] Yeah, yeah.

[1059] Yeah, so kind of there's no manual but we're the face of it and then we're meant to be role models.

[1060] Who are you dating in that period?

[1061] I'm not.

[1062] Didn't even consider it.

[1063] You're kidding.

[1064] Did not consider.

[1065] Zero boyfriends from 14.

[1066] date.

[1067] I had, okay, actually, this is a lot.

[1068] That's a lot.

[1069] Did you have your first kiss on screen?

[1070] No, I had my first kiss in Texas.

[1071] In a pickup truck.

[1072] I would never be allowed in someone's pickup.

[1073] No, in the bed of it.

[1074] In Texas.

[1075] I'd never be allowed with someone with a driver's license.

[1076] No, I dated one time briefly a person from out of town.

[1077] He lived not in L .A., and we met through like a common friend and he ran a charity for women and children who were sold into the sex trade.

[1078] He sounds much older than you.

[1079] He wasn't.

[1080] He started it when he was like 13, 14, got like a book deal and started writing, whatever.

[1081] I got very scared.

[1082] Like here's a guy trying to help kids from sex trade and he's 31 dating a 14 year.

[1083] A whole Disney kid.

[1084] I got scared.

[1085] No, no, no. He was young.

[1086] But I think that like there was a commonality of being the authority and not having any idea like us just kind of figuring it out yeah so and and that it kind of just wasn't a thing and there wasn't any boys on the show that you had like crushes on and then dated it didn't seem wise to date someone I worked with oh god I don't like that answer it's great it's the great answer no it's not yes it is you have one lifetime get messy I split up my family and uprooted us so I could have this thing which was like feeding like I'm not going to risk that for a dumb kid who I already know is, like, I hear him being stupid.

[1087] Yeah, right.

[1088] I should have risked it for an idiot, but there's still time.

[1089] No, it never really occurred to me. My brother, there was a girl when we were back when we were in Texas, and she really liked him.

[1090] She was hot.

[1091] She was on dance team, and I was like, what about that girl?

[1092] And he was like, mm, and I was like, why?

[1093] Like, she's great.

[1094] And he was like, okay, there's two types of girls.

[1095] There's kind of girls that you date and the kind of girls that you marry.

[1096] I only want to date the kind of girls you would marry.

[1097] And he said that.

[1098] He's like 16, right?

[1099] He said that.

[1100] And I remember being like, got it.

[1101] Can be that.

[1102] Like, great.

[1103] You transferred that on to your life.

[1104] Are you guys deeply religious as a family?

[1105] We grew up in a Christian household.

[1106] Okay.

[1107] And we're always encouraged to believe what we found to be true for us and to educate ourselves and to poke and to check in with our spirits and, like, what felt right for us.

[1108] and...

[1109] But at 16 for a boy only to be interested in getting married I need an explanation.

[1110] It wasn't interested in getting married but it wasn't taking a tour of people that he could not imagine investing in something real with that would like return back to him in a way that was like if I'm going to fall for someone and care about someone and learn love like it's going to be someone I'm never going to see again or it's going to be someone that you know I think he just had a very high moral standard which he still does and he married a princess if he had gotten a hand job from a strange at any point prior to this decision he might have felt differently about it he might have he might not have who knows we don't know and also maybe he had gotten a hand job from a stranger when he said that too maybe he didn't or maybe he liked it and realized wow that didn't fulfill me he's a very he's a very he's a heady guy oh he is he's just smart he's just smart and good he's just smart and good when i meet him and like like pseudo intellectual but he's smart and good okay when i meet him i'm gonna i really will get my hand job from a stranger i'll Well, I'll do that.

[1111] I'll start with a gentleman's hand job.

[1112] And then I'll really unpack all that stuff.

[1113] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1114] But when you then go and you do Jesse, right?

[1115] Yeah, so at 18, the show ended suddenly.

[1116] And internationally at that point, I also had launched Disney Channel like free to air in like Singapore and Turkey and London.

[1117] And so I had become, I had done two films for them, which I produced the second one.

[1118] I just came to them and was like, I have this book, it got optioned.

[1119] Like, let's, we should make this with these producers that I know from my last movie.

[1120] Like, let's do this.

[1121] And they were like, okay, great.

[1122] Because my last one repeated better than a lot of their original airings of DCOM.

[1123] So they were like, I don't know, there's something here that works.

[1124] And I was kind of the last person as the Hanna's and the whatever's phased out.

[1125] And those shows ended, people were very much like, I miss the old Disney.

[1126] I miss classic Disney.

[1127] And I was kind of the last person with a foot in both worlds.

[1128] and at 18 too old to be the lead of a Disney show but like prime age to be a relatable quirky authority figure So my showrunner from Sweet Life And I requested a meeting with the president of Disney Channel Which I guess that I didn't realize that you don't do at 18 But I was like, and I put on a blazer You know very much the way that you would take a business meeting at 18 And I was like, listen, I'm not done with you guys I don't think you're done with me Doing something, it works Yeah, you like me, I like you.

[1129] Let's be honest.

[1130] Yeah.

[1131] Let's do this.

[1132] And we pitched them Jesse and they loved it.

[1133] And it was the first show they ever greenlit without a pilot.

[1134] Ah.

[1135] And how many episodes of Jesse did you do?

[1136] Over 100.

[1137] Over 100.

[1138] We did four seasons and that was where I started shadowing and I got my first couple directing assignments.

[1139] So that's what got me into the DGA was Jesse.

[1140] Multi -Camp?

[1141] Uh -huh.

[1142] I love Multicam.

[1143] It's in my DNA.

[1144] It's great.

[1145] It's really a nice lifestyle.

[1146] So Jesse is even more successful than the previous show.

[1147] Is that right?

[1148] Yeah, I mean, however you qualify that, yes.

[1149] Right, because are numbers coming out for shows on Disney?

[1150] Did they publish their ratings?

[1151] There were like a lot of, they don't, but people do.

[1152] There were a lot of kind of just the trades and whatever, and we would get buzz of it did significantly well.

[1153] It premiered very well.

[1154] It stayed very well.

[1155] The reruns did really well.

[1156] On Netflix, it was like the most watched kids show, even four years after it went away.

[1157] And so it like had a lot of great success, which...

[1158] Were you a producer on that?

[1159] I was.

[1160] You were?

[1161] Oh, that's great.

[1162] Yeah.

[1163] So did you make some cheddar?

[1164] I got respect.

[1165] Okay.

[1166] So no. That's worth something, I suppose.

[1167] I did.

[1168] Yeah, it was, you know what?

[1169] Tell me. Yes, I was 18 to 22.

[1170] Yeah.

[1171] So, like, I didn't make modern family cheddar, but I...

[1172] I was making $8 ,000 a year when I was 21 to 28, just to let you know.

[1173] I made more than that.

[1174] Yeah.

[1175] I did make more than that.

[1176] And did you upgrade the Mustang to something else?

[1177] Yeah.

[1178] I totaled the Mustang.

[1179] Oh, you did?

[1180] Accidental, obviously, accidentally.

[1181] Uh -huh.

[1182] I was like 18, you know, 19, whatever.

[1183] and so I got a lease during Jesse actually during like the second season I got an Audi Oh there you yeah you did Also showing like some kind of growth and evolution as an adult Take me serious I am I see you pull up an Audi Skirt uh huh And um that ended at what age 21 That would have ended yeah yeah 21 or 22 And that was where to kind of circle back and touch in a very candid way on the evolution and discovering yourself and whatever because it didn't occur to me to do so while I was on the channel because there was such a global consequence looming at any amount of messing up or looking for it in the wrong places.

[1184] Towards the end of Jesse, I would, you know, I kind of like, I didn't drink until the year I turned 21.

[1185] Oh my goodness.

[1186] Like I just, I didn't consider it.

[1187] Like I would go to industry parties and I would be like, those people get drinks and I am here working.

[1188] Like I just was just like, I don't, you know, so.

[1189] Monica's loving all of this, by the way.

[1190] Oh, exciting.

[1191] We're under attack.

[1192] Amber Alert?

[1193] No, it's a test of the National Wireless Emergency Alert system, but no action is needed.

[1194] Presidential alert.

[1195] Oh, yeah, it's a new thing they're testing.

[1196] It's just like a direct message from him.

[1197] He's like, ratings for whatever just came out.

[1198] Terrible.

[1199] It's an alert.

[1200] I have to pee very badly.

[1201] Me too.

[1202] You do?

[1203] Yeah.

[1204] Let's put a pin in this for five seconds.

[1205] I'm so sorry.

[1206] I'm so.

[1207] glad you had to.

[1208] Honestly, Monica pees once a week.

[1209] I've never had to do this in my life.

[1210] Honored to be here for your weekly pee.

[1211] Okay.

[1212] Okay, we're back.

[1213] We took a union mandated urination break that was red flagged by Monica, which is so rare because Monica pees generally once a day.

[1214] Almost once.

[1215] I mean, sometimes I really do think it's once a day.

[1216] It's so weird.

[1217] I don't know anatomically what's going on with you, but I pee every 30 minutes.

[1218] Yeah.

[1219] This sounds like you're properly hydrated.

[1220] I'm going to talk to you a little bit.

[1221] I know.

[1222] I agree, but I'm functioning.

[1223] Look what Debbie's done.

[1224] Debbie has turned.

[1225] She's taken charge of her own microphone and she's positioned in a way that she can look at you.

[1226] It's very nice.

[1227] I like that.

[1228] I just, now that I know, I'm very invested.

[1229] You're concerned.

[1230] I know.

[1231] It's a concerning.

[1232] It's a concerning time.

[1233] Yeah, it's, I'm very passionate, actually.

[1234] I'm very passionate about people's digestion.

[1235] Why do you suppose you're interested in digestion?

[1236] Do you have Crohn's or any kind of issue?

[1237] No. You want to divulge here?

[1238] No, I just really like getting in people's business.

[1239] Okay, me too.

[1240] Me too.

[1241] That's what we're about here.

[1242] I became obsessed with nutrition and not like in any sort of...

[1243] Body dysmorphia way?

[1244] No, for sure in a body dysmorphia way.

[1245] Only strictly in a body dysmorphia way, yeah.

[1246] But like not in like a properly educated way.

[1247] It's just that I, you know, was on TV as my body began to change as a girl.

[1248] Yes.

[1249] And did you, did that make you insecure about certain things?

[1250] Oh, it made me everything.

[1251] Yeah.

[1252] Well, to be fair, I was insecure first.

[1253] I was like 12 or 13 and would just not put on bathing suits.

[1254] And it was like the age where girls started going into two pieces, bikinis, and would have like pool parties.

[1255] And I just wouldn't do it.

[1256] I wouldn't do it.

[1257] I would have breakdowns in fitting rooms.

[1258] And I would wrap myself in a towel and I would swim in like a t -shirt and short.

[1259] Did you want bigger boobs or something?

[1260] What is it?

[1261] Do you remember what you wanted?

[1262] Well, yes, I prayed for two things.

[1263] I prayed for an agent and I prayed for bigger boobs.

[1264] And I went from a double A to a C in like four.

[1265] months.

[1266] That's true.

[1267] That's a true fact.

[1268] The Lord does work in mysterious ways.

[1269] He works in very physical ways.

[1270] He's just very literal ways.

[1271] Did you say I must, I must increase my bus as you did those exercises?

[1272] You probably never even heard that having.

[1273] That was a generational thing for mine.

[1274] I have heard it.

[1275] Why?

[1276] I don't know where it's from.

[1277] But everyone knew that growing out.

[1278] I must, I must, I must increase my bus.

[1279] And you did a certain exercise to increase your bus.

[1280] Of course, Monica, they did too many of them.

[1281] I did a nonstop.

[1282] Yeah.

[1283] I didn't realize.

[1284] She's a champion.

[1285] Well, it took, you know, it took like two months before it started happening.

[1286] I didn't.

[1287] Delayed results.

[1288] Yeah, it's a cumulative dose.

[1289] It'll stay in your system.

[1290] So boobs, you wanted boobs.

[1291] I wanted a agent.

[1292] Uniquely Texas, if, again, I can stereotype, there is a Dallas stereotype.

[1293] Yeah.

[1294] Which is generally big boobs and blonde hair.

[1295] Fluffy, like big kind of fluffy hair and really, like, saturated makeup.

[1296] And, yeah, yes.

[1297] It's in the same way that there's.

[1298] like a different kind of look in California or like I've had my makeup done in Turkey and I looked completely different than when an Australian did my makeup just because beauty is different.

[1299] Sure.

[1300] It's cultural.

[1301] Dallas is definitely has a distinct style.

[1302] Okay.

[1303] So originally said you you weren't dating because you had such respect for your career and you thought it was potentially damaging.

[1304] But now as I get to know you more, I am curious, are you sure some of it wasn't also that that you didn't look the way you wanted to, and that you were also playing someone that got all this attention, but inside you didn't feel like the person that warranted all that attention.

[1305] Interesting.

[1306] I mean, I always played like kind of girl -next -dory characters.

[1307] Okay.

[1308] And it never occurred to me that my value would be strictly dictated by what I looked like.

[1309] My parents would always just be like, who's a smart girl?

[1310] You know what I mean?

[1311] Like it was every kind of, of amount of like affirmation that I got so I knew that I like had it going on but that's in a intellectual realization not an emotional interesting you know like you can intellectually know no I'm the type of girl that's going to bet on my smarts and I believe in that and that's the right thing to do but then you are just somewhere in a social group and some person's getting a lot of attention that dresses a certain way looks a certain way and then you just emotionally have a response to that that's you're not choosing it yeah I think that I don't currently remember any moments where I didn't feel like that could be me. But I feel like body -wise, it was definitely a thing.

[1312] It was just like a self -value thing of like the like good clothes don't fit the certain way.

[1313] The designers won't like dress you because they don't make the size that, you know, And it, you put yourself in this league of just.

[1314] Looking at you, this is all very hysterical.

[1315] I know.

[1316] I'm like, what are you?

[1317] I mean, I mean, not to not to.

[1318] dismiss what you're saying but it's like what are they saying yeah I'm a pattern of unhealthy behavior I'm glad it's working no that's not true um I like I'm actually like free for the first time in 12 years or whatever which is gorgeous I mean as free as any of us are free from your obsession about your image free from yeah like the kind of self -hatred and the toxic behaviors that come with dysmorphia and try like the insatiable quality of trying to fit what you think that you are to look like and also then seeing a very physical and provable like your numbers on social media go up when you post photos close to your face or if you wear the clothes or whatever people would say to me like I'm glad that there's like real girls on TV and that they're making like shows about real girls and how the and for me that was just cutting to me this just proves everything we always talk about which is it everyone feels this way I know everyone hears that let's say that I don't even know I would have to go back through your Twitter.

[1319] But I think you're 100 % telling the truth that you got those tweets.

[1320] I bet you also got several million that said you're a super model.

[1321] You're the best body in the world.

[1322] And I bet you disproportionately weighted those things that confirmed your own fears.

[1323] Absolutely.

[1324] I mean the negative ones are always so much louder and state, of course.

[1325] But it was never, it was never like you're the gorgeous girl.

[1326] It was like you're the one that I relate to who plays opposite the glamorous aspirational one.

[1327] So you're relatable and then there is aspirational and Disney always works in tandem of making sure that they find that balance of relatable and aspirational.

[1328] And I was the entry point.

[1329] I definitely don't think that you shouldn't feel that way.

[1330] I just think that these standards for people are nuts.

[1331] I mean, they're nuts that you are not put in an aspirational category is so backwards.

[1332] Well, what's interesting is that thank you.

[1333] But what's interesting is that now in my most recent roles after five, finally letting go of the obsession of it, or at least taking a backseat to allowing that to move me into toxic places and just being like, whatever, I'm going to, like, this is what it is.

[1334] And ultimately, like, I already, like, will look at photos and be like, I wish that I knew then.

[1335] But, like, at that moment, I was so unhappy.

[1336] And so, like, in a few years, we're, you know, we're only going to be as, like, young as we are right now, whatever.

[1337] And it's, like, prime of my life, whatever.

[1338] So it has become a thing that I at least, it's, dysmorphia is a mental illness and it will fuck you up.

[1339] So it's a thing that like, you know, it doesn't follow logic or reason.

[1340] And I also don't have context at all.

[1341] So I have photos of me and I don't know, photos of me looking completely different.

[1342] I mean, bleached blonde hair and red hair and dark hair and half pink, half green hair and shaved on the bottom and so, like.

[1343] Like, piercings and 15 pounds heavier and five pounds lighter or whatever.

[1344] Did you have any dodgy periods of eating?

[1345] Yeah.

[1346] Oh, yeah.

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] My life has been pretty littered with, like, disordered eating stuff.

[1349] Right.

[1350] Right.

[1351] Like anorexia, starving yourself?

[1352] No. I mean, you know, I've tried it all.

[1353] You've tried it all.

[1354] I've tried it all.

[1355] I've really taken a tour.

[1356] There's, like, that is a tricky thing.

[1357] The calorie counting thing is tricky or the, like, not.

[1358] not doing it as true because the greater thing behind it is this like transactional value system right of shame of I have allowed myself this therefore I deserve this which is me treating myself or I don't deserve this or now I must do this to atone for this and that it's such a currency and it's such a cycle that it was so lose lose and it brought me to places where I was just I just was like this is not sustainable like my body's dying like I'm not doing good thing like it was just like bad did you though enjoy the control of the whole thing because you you seem to me to be a pretty type a person the fact that you didn't drink your 21 and you're not going to date like this is like an exorbitant amount of self -control and then eating just like the greatest way to exhibit self -control wow that's interesting I have never considered myself great at self -control really I think that I didn't date because I didn't like want to date or think about it or if I met someone they just weren't worth the time or was like it was very logistic it was very clinical like it was like if I wanted to date I would have dated like there were times that I would just like I would have a thing called smores before horrors and people would come over and we would make spores it was mostly single people and we would just talk about like ethics and morals it was people from all like really just backgrounds and we would kind of think new thoughts together and like strike up against each other and bring up certain things.

[1359] And it was all of us as like a coming of age kind of thing, figuring out at different places, you know, hearing different perspectives and taking those into account and forming our opinions.

[1360] And that was a great place for me to invite people that I wanted to get to know better.

[1361] But unfortunately, I, and it's probably why I'm such a fan of the podcast, because the thing that I relate to so much is that I fall in love with people every day all the time so deeply.

[1362] And I like enjoy it.

[1363] I enjoy like discovering a person and charming a person.

[1364] and finding things with them and, like, asking about whatever.

[1365] So that sort of mentality got me...

[1366] Really quick, really quick.

[1367] Yeah.

[1368] In a pathological sense, in a, like, love addiction sense?

[1369] No. Oh, okay.

[1370] No. You love meeting people and learning about people.

[1371] Yeah, there was a bit of time where it was incredibly misguided.

[1372] And I wasn't able to compartmentalize and understand what it meant and what I needed and what I was getting from it.

[1373] And now I realize that my entire purpose in life is to meet people, connect with them and then connect them with other people who I also think are incredibly captivating and wonderful and we can all just like absorb one another.

[1374] Like in a community sense or just in like a one -on -one sense.

[1375] But here's the part I, a little bit, and Monica will yell at me in the fact check, don't worry, she will let me have it for this.

[1376] But I'm going to generalize and say, as much as you're saying all these things, here's what I know about human beings.

[1377] By 13 years old, you'd have a kid.

[1378] Like, for the vast majority of time we've lived on this planet, you're just hardwired, as we all are, to be getting a mate and starting having kids at 15 years old.

[1379] I mean, that's when you're designed to start having kids.

[1380] So the notion that you just had no impulse to do that, I just feel like there must also be some additional explanation other than you just weren't driven to experience.

[1381] that?

[1382] I think that I was, I was busy, man. Like, I think that if I had gone through a regular routine and pattern, Miley was busy as hell too, right?

[1383] But she was finding time to get it in.

[1384] Yeah.

[1385] And Zach, all these people somehow were juggling a similar schedule and also getting a little raucous.

[1386] Maybe, I don't know, just never did that, man?

[1387] Did they seem like cautionary tales to you?

[1388] Well, there was definitely that thing where people, would make the don't go on Miley Cyrus on it like they would make that like thing or be like all these Disney stars and listen like I fucked up you know I definitely did in like multiple ways of not understanding consequences of things and filling my plate too full and not understanding the weight of things and like I really and just looking in reckless ways and having delicately threaded things for so long that at the opportunity to just overturn the entire table and like watch things clatter to the ground seemed so appealing and sexy to me and there was a bit of time where I like took a little tour of all of that that I wondered about and realized like okay I didn't get me any closer to filling that void or like finding what I was looking for it and so a lot of people who look for it in dating I look for it and just like meeting connecting with people I'm on a set around a hundred people like ask them about their kids and whatever and relationships and so I'm at capacity with people the last thing I want to do is then go and maintain a thing and like prove myself to someone and and win someone over, and I just didn't have it in me. And, listen, not to say that I didn't date because I would, like, invite people to smores before horrors and talk with them.

[1389] And they got out with them in the foyer ever?

[1390] And you're 25 now.

[1391] Have you been in a relationship for any extended period of time?

[1392] I have.

[1393] You have?

[1394] Yeah.

[1395] For how long?

[1396] I met a boy when I was 19.

[1397] He, like, took me on a date on my, like, 20th birthday, and adopted me a kitten.

[1398] And it's been him ever since.

[1399] Oh, you're still with him?

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] Oh.

[1402] So you're virtually with the first boy that you liked.

[1403] It's he like, everything I know about love I learned in relationship with him.

[1404] Monica, you were on the verge of asking the question and I was kind of at a blistering pace.

[1405] You forgot.

[1406] Oh, it was about, I was saying that what Miley and Zach and whoever, they might be fucking around because they're compensating for something or they're having their own issues.

[1407] It's not like that's the default and she's doing something different.

[1408] it's that everyone has some pathology that's causing them to do all the things.

[1409] Monica comes just different.

[1410] Well, certainly, I was only trying to make the point that there is time in a day to both be on TV show and be romantic.

[1411] That was the singular point I was making.

[1412] And in the same sense that I think some 13 -year -olds are very motivated to, like, Procreate.

[1413] Learn and procreate and, like, go to school or, like, find a career or, like, conquer a thing.

[1414] There's, you know, you think about, like, Olympic athletes, and some of them date and some of them don't date.

[1415] Yeah.

[1416] And I think it is less about, because we make time and we prioritize what we want.

[1417] And certainly having been with this person for the last five years, kind of, you know, off and on of everything, you figure it out.

[1418] The Catherine Hanwan, where you were talking about her and her husband, having been together for so long from 20, and having gone through the, like, figuring it out together and the tiny apartment in New York together and like kind of going through that versus there was something that you expressed which I thought was really interesting and I like rewound it and I couldn't find it but it was it was something along the lines of like there was a part of you that was like when starting your relationship with Bao being like like all of that which I built and kind of figured out preceded her and she won't have known that person who had to figure that out you know yes that was a huge thing for me yeah which is very bizarre but it was a huge thing for me in kind of a regretful sense in a comparison sense i wanted to ask you about that have you ever seen eternal sunshine on the spotless blind okay it's one of the only movies that makes me cry and what weirdly makes me cry about it is those two falling in love and laying on the ice and making snow angels in the snow and they have nothing and they lay under a sheet and they have a flashlight and they entertain each other and they have the purest it's just them yeah i looked at is Brie and I's relationship.

[1419] Just shitty, one -bedroom apartment, cockroaches.

[1420] Like, if you can find love and happiness there, you can find love and happiness.

[1421] And I, yeah, weirdly thought, like, oh, if you enter my life now that I have money and we can take vacations and all this stuff, is it me you love, or is it this whole package of things I come with?

[1422] And then for her as well, probably.

[1423] She could do those things, too.

[1424] But I just had this bizarre suspicion that one thing was truer than another.

[1425] Now, of course, 11 years later, I don't really feel that way.

[1426] But it was something I wrestled with.

[1427] Yeah.

[1428] I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense and is interesting as well, you know, in a broader sense, people who speak about marrying their high school sweethearts where, you know, whether or not you do or will ever have the jet, you don't know each other.

[1429] Like, you know, you're not personally, like, financially independent.

[1430] You're not, like, the things that you get just as a person, the richness of life, That sort of thing comes, and if you meet someone when they have already evolved and realized those things and navigated a very, like, manual sense of communication, it does feel a little bit, like, kind of cheating, like it feels a little bit like you've hacked, you've rigged the system.

[1431] But there's, there's something which is interesting.

[1432] This boy in particular, he had had relationships before me, and he didn't, he's not like a serial dater.

[1433] He doesn't, he's not like, he doesn't find a lot of value in like the eyes of women.

[1434] Like, that's not ever been, thank God.

[1435] How liberating.

[1436] I know.

[1437] He should write a book.

[1438] I'm strong and very cool and very understanding.

[1439] And I don't think I could handle that.

[1440] Just walked around feeling cool because some girl flirted with him.

[1441] Being fueled by that.

[1442] Yeah, like even in a very like humans, totally justifiable sense.

[1443] You would hate me. Yeah, continue.

[1444] Yeah, yeah.

[1445] Well, I was just talking with a girl actually who.

[1446] who is engaged to a man and they are both, he's a performer and he's very charismatic and he is just a flirt to everyone.

[1447] And she was like, yeah, I couldn't be with him if I didn't get it.

[1448] And they talked about like the boundaries in their relationship and the flexibility there and it was a really interesting and cool conversation, not unlike some that I have had before and questions that I've like asked before, but that one particularly for someone admitting like, oh yeah, that's my fiance, he flirts with everyone.

[1449] all of the time.

[1450] It's part of his job and it's just who he is.

[1451] And I love him and I'm not threatened by it.

[1452] It's like a very cool thing.

[1453] And also, I'm not that person.

[1454] Yeah, it's great to know who you are.

[1455] Yeah.

[1456] Now, let me ask you, because it's that time.

[1457] What's happening next?

[1458] What are you working on?

[1459] And you have your show on Netflix.

[1460] You've filmed what first season you've shot, right?

[1461] Yes, we shot it.

[1462] It just came out.

[1463] It's on Netflix.

[1464] It's called Insatiable.

[1465] And how soon will they tell you if you're going to do another?

[1466] They just did.

[1467] They did.

[1468] Congratulations.

[1469] Congratulations.

[1470] Do you shoot at Netflix?

[1471] No, I shoot in Atlanta.

[1472] Oh, no. Well, I love Atlanta, but also no thank you.

[1473] It's the first time I kind of was just dragged kicking and screaming.

[1474] I was just like, this is my dream job.

[1475] This is my dream role.

[1476] This is what I want.

[1477] I love this cast.

[1478] The show died.

[1479] It was at CW.

[1480] Whatever.

[1481] And then Netflix bought it.

[1482] It really was this gorgeous kind of victory.

[1483] And also, boy, was I not.

[1484] looking forward to moving to Atlanta.

[1485] Again, no comment in Atlanta.

[1486] It's just not your home.

[1487] It's not my home.

[1488] And it was also just timing -wise, the first time that I was going to be able to be home as the same time as my boyfriend and my brother and sister -in -law were here and I was just really finally able to do that.

[1489] I would travel for movies.

[1490] And so this one, I was like, I finally have time here.

[1491] And then I had a second in town.

[1492] I broke my kneecap in half.

[1493] Oh, your petala?

[1494] Yes.

[1495] How?

[1496] Yeah.

[1497] You know bones?

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] I know all of them.

[1500] Wow.

[1501] Yeah.

[1502] What's this one?

[1503] Uh, ulna or radius, depending on I can't tell which one.

[1504] Is that true?

[1505] You know all the bones?

[1506] Yeah.

[1507] Does he know all the bones?

[1508] Yeah.

[1509] He knows a lot of bones.

[1510] He does know all the bones.

[1511] It's more impressive.

[1512] Point to ones in your head and I'll tell you.

[1513] Uh, parietal.

[1514] Uh, maxilla.

[1515] Uh, survey.

[1516] Why do you know bones?

[1517] Should I know this?

[1518] Um, osteology anthropology, anthropology class.

[1519] And for whatever reason, I really dug it.

[1520] Like my German from 30 years ago.

[1521] Yeah.

[1522] Really locked it in.

[1523] It's so hard for me. learn those words that if I learn them, they're there for pretty much good.

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] And I'm nauseating when I go to the doctor because I'm trying so hard to get out my knowledge of the bones and they have to kind of sit through it and it's the worst.

[1526] You're like, right, right?

[1527] How did you break your patella?

[1528] Oh, I just fell through a door wrong.

[1529] Oh, okay.

[1530] So you do drink now.

[1531] Okay.

[1532] Go ahead.

[1533] I like climb trees and ride bikes and rollerblades.

[1534] I'm very tomboyish.

[1535] I always have been.

[1536] I box.

[1537] And this is the older brother thing.

[1538] I think.

[1539] Yeah, yeah.

[1540] Yeah.

[1541] And also that's just what I like.

[1542] And like when you ask what we'd do in Texas, it was like we would just build ramps and like ride our BMX by something.

[1543] But really quick, do you think there's anything you just really like that doesn't have a causality to it?

[1544] Like, do you just trust that you like things?

[1545] Because I don't really trust that I just like things.

[1546] No, yeah.

[1547] No, I think everything's super informed by a lot of things.

[1548] Yeah, yeah.

[1549] And we just take for granted like, oh, no, I love that.

[1550] But then like there's probably a reason.

[1551] Yeah.

[1552] Well, which is actually comforting because then that points to an area of conviction versus being kind of trendy and like wishy -washy and being like, like, oh, I like this because it's cool to like this.

[1553] Yeah.

[1554] And also you can go like, oh, I keep trying to fill this void or this weird identity thing with all these things and it's not worked.

[1555] So it's kind of relevant to just every now and then take stock of like, oh, yeah, I'm on my eighth extreme sport and I still feel blank.

[1556] Right.

[1557] Or like I know that like my everything about my.

[1558] character has improved when I started boxing.

[1559] So like, let's stay with that.

[1560] Or if I'm not at a boxing gym or at a place where there's a gym or a trainer or whatever, the principle of that, whether that's like fast footwork or pushing myself past my capacity or feeling kind of strong and targeting the aggression, whatever it is.

[1561] Now, that's the great thing about being stuck in Atlanta, right?

[1562] Is that you work and then you basically don't have any friendship circle so you can work out all the time.

[1563] That's what I was going to say, actually, is that like I did not like, I was, sprint there and once I was there I found it was just so nice to exist in a place where my whole thing was to do this one thing and you know in LA there's and with social media and whatever there's so much that we do to supplement being an actor and a public figure and so many auditions and so coaching this and studying this and I love that and truly am insatiable in that way like that is really you know that's like what we've talked about today is like the things that I become obsessed with and whatever but I think that like being able to be forced to have all of your inspiration and feelings and output be cyclical in one direction with one thing and one show and one role in one project and for that long for like six months and 15 16 hour days and shooting from four in the morning or shooting till four in the morning or whatever it is it like pushed me past my capacity and when I box it I'm like I can't do another two minute round I can't, I don't have it in me, have 30 seconds left in me. And they're like, 30 seconds finish strong, like, go.

[1564] Like, don't show weakness.

[1565] And you're like, all right, I didn't have that.

[1566] Like, I could have sworn I didn't have this and I have found it.

[1567] And I kind of did the rest of that where you're doing like marathon distances at sprint paces.

[1568] And that was what insatiable felt like.

[1569] And it was really fulfilling.

[1570] And you want to direct.

[1571] Not that this.

[1572] You have directed and you would like to.

[1573] So I just got accepted into Ryan Murphy's half program, the directing mentorship.

[1574] The hash and half initiative.

[1575] I don't know if you know it's like.

[1576] So his initiative is like 50.

[1577] 50, he wants his intention.

[1578] Broads.

[1579] He wants bitches.

[1580] Bitches.

[1581] 50 % broads, 50 % bitches.

[1582] We got 25 % hoes.

[1583] He wants 50 % of TV to be directed by minorities, women, people of color, LGBTQ.

[1584] And so it's a really great mentorship where he will partner someone up with an existing director on one of his shows.

[1585] and kind of from prep into throughout the shooting and into the editing you are able to kind of shadow and I've shadowed before but never to this capacity and never had an opportunity that's like this and so my directing mentor Maggie Kylie recommended me for this and I went through the whole process and application in the interview and sweated it out and then I just got my dates which is very exciting so I'm going to be shadowing on 911 on Fox Oh fun!

[1586] That's Peter's show.

[1587] You'll be with Peter Krausee my TV brother who's the nicest boy on the planet.

[1588] He's neither a bitch nor a abroad, but he is from Minnesota, so the kindness will envelop you.

[1589] Wow.

[1590] Yeah, I hope you get to interact with him because he is the most special person.

[1591] I'll make it a point to.

[1592] Yeah.

[1593] And then hopefully you'll be directing your show maybe this year.

[1594] Maybe.

[1595] If I have some, if it makes sense.

[1596] I mean, again, like, it's the dream is to do that.

[1597] Yeah.

[1598] And then you realize that to fully like break yourself in every way for an episode of the show.

[1599] I don't know if there's room to do that.

[1600] both behind and in front of the camera.

[1601] I think the idea of directing...

[1602] Because I directed Jesse and that was easy because it was multi -cam.

[1603] Right.

[1604] So, yeah, I'm very interested to kind of move into this world.

[1605] But I think it'd be cool to, you know, direct shorts and direct...

[1606] Yes.

[1607] Okay.

[1608] Now, I really have to go, but I do want to ask you one, just your opinion because you're younger than us.

[1609] Although you are closer and age to Monica than Monica is to me, but...

[1610] That's true.

[1611] That being said, it appears to me that your generation seems to have a much higher rate of anxiety and depression.

[1612] And what do you think is the root of that?

[1613] Do you have a theory?

[1614] I think that comparison is rampant and unavoidable because of social media.

[1615] And I think that there's a lot more data on it.

[1616] So I think people now can understand and verbalize what they're saying and people who would have otherwise faced a stigma in conversation are now able to look into it and identify that help heal.

[1617] Well, now, so I have, I think there are three very strong contributing factors.

[1618] One, as you pointed out, you're comparing yourself.

[1619] You had to go to the grocery store and pick up an us weekly and see someone much hotter than yourself and then feel shitty.

[1620] But now you just look at your phone.

[1621] So I think that's one of them.

[1622] Two, I think that as parents had less kids, you could put way more resources into fewer kids and they were obsessed with the kids' health and well -being at all time.

[1623] So then the kid themselves is obsessed with that.

[1624] I think that's an issue.

[1625] There is yet another side of me that's just a fucking cynic and thinks that we live in a culture now that provides prestige for victimhood.

[1626] And so the cynic in me goes, well, everyone just, that's how you're popular.

[1627] It's like, well, I have this conditions.

[1628] That's like the dark side of me that thinks a little bit of it is attention -seeking.

[1629] Do you think any of it's attention -seeking?

[1630] You know, every person is different.

[1631] I think that as a general thought that is something that checks out with a lot of people that I have seen navigate this.

[1632] So I think like if we are as a culture obsessed with diagnosing and being the person that has this thing, instead of finding value in.

[1633] and that brokenness being the thing that makes you special, how much more important it is for all of us to be able to have the resources and the access and the information to acknowledge that all of us have a different version of something, it is a thing that I will constantly do what I can do to encourage.

[1634] Well, I also, people underestimate, I think, the power of your brain.

[1635] I really don't think we understand yet what your brain can do.

[1636] It's simply because when my identity was I rescue people, again, I was at the movies.

[1637] I witnessed, no one witnesses two hobos fighting over a fucking fifth of Jack Daniels and assaulting the manager.

[1638] Like, people go their whole life to not see that.

[1639] And I seem to find myself in those situations like once a month because my identity was someone who intervened and protected people.

[1640] And so I can't explain the power of that.

[1641] I know that now that that's not my identity, I almost never see that stuff.

[1642] So that's suspicious to me. Also, if you get attention through victimhood, I think you will find that you somehow will be, be a victim of many things.

[1643] And I think you can also give yourself illnesses.

[1644] Yeah.

[1645] I think you can.

[1646] If you stay.

[1647] I listen to a really interesting podcast, which fold in a lot of findings in a survey about placebos and just spoke to the greater kind of mental power.

[1648] And it really messed me up in like a great way.

[1649] Mm -hmm.

[1650] Because I realize those things that we own, we attract, right?

[1651] And those things perpetuate themselves.

[1652] and when you are making bad choices, even in a very visible sense, you surround yourself with people who are making worse choices, so you're not the one making the worst choices in the room.

[1653] Yeah, absolutely.

[1654] And it can be daunting to be around people who are seeking healing or maybe healing in a more rapid rate or healing from something that's a lot easier to heal or whatever.

[1655] But I think that when we start to glamorize healing and peace, then that is what we begin to attract and we find ourselves in that situation and we find ourselves in that dynamic.

[1656] My mom, when I was growing up, we would be in the grocery store and people would just walk up and be like, my kid gets out of jail today and I'd be like, all right, I'll see you in 20 minutes.

[1657] Like, this is just, and it always was that way.

[1658] And I kind of inherited that and have always had my friends call them strays and they like, people who would crash at my house or do this thing or then like aggressively turn my friends against me and I just was like, I didn't know that we weaponized vulnerability that way.

[1659] I thought we all just help each other if we can and then realizing like, oh, okay, you know, and cutting those people out and only choosing positive people or whatever.

[1660] It kind of, it does perpetuate itself.

[1661] Yeah, in my opinion, I think most people in relationships and most friendships, you tend to attract people at the similar level of self -esteem you have.

[1662] So if you feel like a piece of shit, odds are you're going to date someone who feels like a piece of shit and you guys are going to kind of fuel that.

[1663] And as you get better, you'll find that's why, I think as a lot of people, grow and get healthier, their partners make a little less sense to them because they no longer have this matching self -worth and esteem.

[1664] I have only, you know, I've known this guy in several different versions of us.

[1665] And I've never been as healthy as I am right now in every sense, in both of us navigating it together in separately and in different ways.

[1666] Like, it's never been this manageable and in fact I forget I never thought that there would be time because I go through periods of like intense agoraphobia and there are times that I will just completely forget and I'll find myself like here and it's awesome like in a stranger's house doing a thing that I've listened to you know and like it never occurred to me that I just like shouldn't come here today which usually something that I really want there is also an equal and opposite weight of why I should not do it.

[1667] Yes.

[1668] So, you know, I feel healthy.

[1669] It's cool.

[1670] That's wonderful.

[1671] Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, you're one of the good examples.

[1672] You have what?

[1673] It's 650 million followers on Instagram and Twitter.

[1674] Yeah.

[1675] You have a ton.

[1676] Yeah, I don't know.

[1677] Much more than my wife.

[1678] And I think of hers being very popular.

[1679] She's awesome.

[1680] Well, thank you so much for coming.

[1681] I hope it was as fun for you as us.

[1682] I'm already in Paris.

[1683] All right.

[1684] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1685] I'm all out of facts.

[1686] I'm so lost without you.

[1687] I know you are right.

[1688] Fact checking for so long.

[1689] I'm all out of facts.

[1690] What am I without you?

[1691] I can't be too late to say that I'm so wrong.

[1692] That looks beautiful.

[1693] You so much.

[1694] I looked at you the whole time.

[1695] I was unable to look at myself.

[1696] Did you notice how I went, I zoned out.

[1697] Uh -huh.

[1698] You really went there.

[1699] First of all, it's a love song, which scares me. Why?

[1700] You can't just kind of like, you know, like if you go to karaoke and you sing kind of a song with a like a real driving rhythm, everyone's clapping their hands and stomping their feet.

[1701] It doesn't really matter what your voice sounds like.

[1702] But a ballad, a sincere love song, you better have to be a song.

[1703] have the pipes girl yeah well you did yeah the pipes you laid up you laid down some pipes you got the pipes your faces slamming your body's hectic jamming that's i think i backed it up you've got looks you've got the looks you know that song that's prince oh i don't think i know it yeah who's he oh well i'm glad you asked um He was the son of a king and Brunei, prince.

[1704] He's the crowned prince.

[1705] But he left Brunei really young, and he went to Minneapolis, and he started Paisley Park, recording studio.

[1706] Okay.

[1707] Then he made a sexy movie called Purple Rain.

[1708] Purple Rain.

[1709] Is Prince really?

[1710] Was he really a prince?

[1711] Yeah.

[1712] For real?

[1713] No. Well, I got confused because half of that story was real.

[1714] and half of it was a lie.

[1715] Those are the best lies.

[1716] Those are the best kind of lies.

[1717] You want to anchor it in some facts.

[1718] Yeah.

[1719] Yeah, no, he was just black.

[1720] Or maybe he wasn't just black.

[1721] He's very light skin.

[1722] There might be some kind of mix in there, but I doubt it's from Brunei.

[1723] Sure.

[1724] We don't know.

[1725] You ever met anyone from Brunei?

[1726] No, never.

[1727] Well, as you know, we hung out with some folks from Brunei.

[1728] I would say they look, they're very close to the Philippines.

[1729] So they look.

[1730] Very similar to folks from the Philippines.

[1731] Oh, really?

[1732] I could see that, yeah.

[1733] Yeah, but when you hear the Sultan of Brunei, just the word Salton to me, it puts my head right in the Middle East.

[1734] Oh, sure.

[1735] You know?

[1736] Sure.

[1737] I can see that.

[1738] I would assume like a, I would assume it would be a combo.

[1739] Mm. Like sort of an Arab, an Arab mix with an Asian.

[1740] Okay.

[1741] Like a mashup.

[1742] No, this just looks.

[1743] straight Filipino.

[1744] Okay.

[1745] Malaysian.

[1746] You know, all that area there.

[1747] Yeah.

[1748] South Pacific.

[1749] Pacifica.

[1750] Christel Pacifica.

[1751] Oh, it's speaking of South Pacifica.

[1752] So what are we going to get into today, Monica?

[1753] We're getting into Debbie's world.

[1754] Really quick.

[1755] Monica's wearing a really fashionable slack.

[1756] It's got a herringbone pattern weave.

[1757] Well, it's not a print, is it?

[1758] Those pants have been woven.

[1759] That's true.

[1760] Yeah, they are.

[1761] They somehow did the weaving in a herringbone, a textbook herringbone pattern.

[1762] And it's very becoming.

[1763] Thank you.

[1764] It's a fancy pant.

[1765] A fancy pant.

[1766] A me pant?

[1767] Yeah, because I have an audition where I have to look professional.

[1768] You look incredibly professional.

[1769] Thank you.

[1770] Too professional?

[1771] Yeah, I do feel like someone from HR just came downstairs to kind of talk to me about.

[1772] how I wipe my buns on air and stuff like that.

[1773] You imagine we in an HR person?

[1774] No. So, Dax, just heard your jello story.

[1775] That HR person would need to get paid a lot of money.

[1776] They'd be working overtime for us.

[1777] They would.

[1778] And it would all fall on deft ears.

[1779] Deaf ears or deft?

[1780] I think deaf.

[1781] Okay.

[1782] It would fall on deaf ears.

[1783] And then I was like, I wonder if that's a bad phrase.

[1784] Falls on deaf ears?

[1785] I don't think so.

[1786] Okay.

[1787] Yes.

[1788] Yeah.

[1789] What else are you going to call deafness other than what deaf?

[1790] And if something falls on ears that don't work, you'd just be lying to say that they're not deaf, those ears.

[1791] Look, you know, I was born deaf, so I feel like I can speak for the deaf community on this.

[1792] You're giggling, but people might not know that about me, but I was.

[1793] I know.

[1794] I don't know that you can speak for the deaf community because you were, you were deaf for two years, which is significant, but not, you're not, it hasn't really, has it impacted your adult life?

[1795] It's hard to know.

[1796] It's really hard to know because so much foundational development happens in those first 24 months.

[1797] Yes.

[1798] And I was just, I was without sound.

[1799] Do you know my nickname's grunt?

[1800] Do you know that about me?

[1801] From your mom?

[1802] My whole family.

[1803] My father almost only called me. Jesus, he's old.

[1804] Oh, no. Do you need water?

[1805] I wish you were that simple.

[1806] You and I broke, well, you didn't break anything.

[1807] I had been being perfect for about eight days on my diet.

[1808] And then last night, I turned into a werewolf and I attacked that freezer.

[1809] And you and I got into so much ice cream.

[1810] Yeah.

[1811] And today I'm paying the price.

[1812] You are?

[1813] Well, I have a little, I don't want to gross anyone out, but you know what I'm saying.

[1814] No, tell us.

[1815] Some phlegm.

[1816] Oh, it's not some.

[1817] It's very gross.

[1818] There's nothing grosser than phlegm.

[1819] I'd rather have someone pee on me than put their flem on me. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[1820] Whoa, stop the clock.

[1821] You think phlegm is the grossest thing.

[1822] By far.

[1823] Yes, and plug your ears if you have a sensitive stomach for the analogy I'm about to give.

[1824] If you had your choice between someone throws a handful of phlegm at your person or their poop at you, I would pick poop.

[1825] What about puke?

[1826] Ooh, great one.

[1827] Way to come over the top.

[1828] Thank you.

[1829] I'd say they're equal for me. Maybe almost, maybe puke is preferred because I feel like it would spray right off.

[1830] Like if you had a garden hose, you could just clean up really quick.

[1831] I guess phlegm is sticky.

[1832] Oh, because, okay.

[1833] Okay, see, I bet people are having a real hard time, so let's steer out of this ditch we're in.

[1834] Okay.

[1835] My father almost only called me grunt, and my mom called me grunt quite often, and even my older brother sometimes.

[1836] Because you couldn't hear, so you were grunting around.

[1837] Yeah, I was like trying to talk, but I was grunting.

[1838] That's cute.

[1839] Like a little cave guy.

[1840] Yeah.

[1841] A little cave baby.

[1842] Cavey.

[1843] That's cute.

[1844] A cavey?

[1845] A cave baby.

[1846] you could call a KB.

[1847] Sure.

[1848] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1849] Where'd you go just now?

[1850] I was just thinking about phlegm.

[1851] Oh, okay.

[1852] You're still on it.

[1853] One of the things I like most about you, which is probably already obvious by now to everyone, is your high tolerance for groatiness.

[1854] Like people who are squeamish.

[1855] I never would have thought that about myself, but I guess it's true.

[1856] Oh, yeah.

[1857] Well, I think we found out for sure that you had a iron, iron stomach when Jess was having all of his different evolutions.

[1858] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1859] Yeah, and we will, of course, respect his privacy.

[1860] But suffice to say, you inspected some things, and I was pretty impressed.

[1861] Yeah, I got in there.

[1862] Mm -hmm.

[1863] Mm -hmm.

[1864] Okay.

[1865] Okay, Debbie, we talk a little bit about, I'm going to post a picture of Tom Wilkinson next to Millie Bobby Brown for our listeners.

[1866] Great.

[1867] So they can see and they can decide for themselves whether it's accurate.

[1868] It's uncanny.

[1869] We'll leave it to the listeners to decide.

[1870] I'll just put it out there.

[1871] I don't think so.

[1872] Right.

[1873] Yeah, you're on record is not thinking there's any resemblance.

[1874] I think it's uncanny.

[1875] And then you think LeBron looks like Ashton, so I might post that too.

[1876] Yeah.

[1877] That one after I said it, I went shopping on Google Images to substantiate my claim.

[1878] Yeah.

[1879] And it's not, I couldn't even see it anymore.

[1880] When he was younger, I don't know.

[1881] I'll do some work on that.

[1882] Oh, other last update, interestingly, I still can't find that anthro article about American GIs and English women getting pregnant.

[1883] But we found another article that was very interesting by a sociologist that is academic in nature.

[1884] Sure.

[1885] And the point of that study that we read was at least then in 1940, they gave it like out of 30.

[1886] So out of 30, Americans kiss, like, let's say it's an ascending scale of intensity, 30, you're fucking, you know, zero's googly eyes.

[1887] Americans, kissing's like number three.

[1888] They get to kissing really quick.

[1889] It's not a thing for us.

[1890] 10 maybe.

[1891] I forget the example they gave in that article, but it was sub 10, as I recall.

[1892] But what was interesting at least then, and maybe it's the same still now, is that for English folks, Kissing's like 23.

[1893] It's like the most intimate.

[1894] It's so intimate.

[1895] And it's, you've done a lot of stuff.

[1896] You've held hands.

[1897] You're in a relation.

[1898] You know, like it's really far down the road.

[1899] Yes.

[1900] So the theory of this thing was that English girls were, uh, they were just leaping right to what's next after kissing on their scale.

[1901] Exactly.

[1902] Like the guys would kiss and, and so it would trigger for them like, oh, this is hyper intimate.

[1903] Yeah.

[1904] Yeah, we're seconds away from coitus.

[1905] Yes.

[1906] So that's why it would happen.

[1907] That makes sense to me, yeah.

[1908] Yeah, that's very interesting too.

[1909] Yeah.

[1910] All right.

[1911] So Debbie said that German families in her experience, most of the time one of the parents doesn't work.

[1912] Most of the time the female doesn't work.

[1913] And so I looked into this.

[1914] And there are a lot of articles about this, about women sort of getting a little, bit pushed out of the workforce once they have children because they never really return back in a in a full -time capacity they were a lot of them come back part -time but not full -time and then it's like hard to really build a full career as a part -time employee so then they all just sort of get like stuck in this kind of in -between realm which was interesting and also part of that is because I guess a lot of the schools are part -time.

[1915] Part -time, that's not the right word.

[1916] Like, they get out early, really early.

[1917] Oh, okay.

[1918] So there needs to be a parent there to pick up the children.

[1919] And they also have a very good maternity leave.

[1920] Oh, okay.

[1921] Which encourages them to stay a little longer and then, yeah.

[1922] Right.

[1923] Yeah, it's weird.

[1924] There's a really fun thing to talk about on this topic.

[1925] Oh, I don't know exactly what you're going to say.

[1926] but I know, you know, it's tricky because there's a big conversation in our culture about mimicking these European models of like long maternity leaves and maybe ultimately that's not all that helpful for a culture where also we value women rising up in the workplace.

[1927] Yeah, to me, the really like, macro conversation that's interesting.

[1928] You know, it was pointed out in a debate that we watch with Jordan Peterson in this English female talk show host.

[1929] And let me just say for the record, I find a ton of what Jordan Peterson says to be repugnant, but also I find some of the things he says kind of compelling.

[1930] He's certainly a thought starter.

[1931] And when they were arguing, they were discussing what it takes to be a CEO.

[1932] and the host was pointing out the huge disparity in female CEOs of, you know, Fortune 500 companies and whatnot.

[1933] And Jordan said, well, okay, the thing is to be a CEO, your life is absolutely miserable.

[1934] That's all you do is you run a company.

[1935] That's your, that's from sunup to sundown, you run a company.

[1936] And that's how you become CEO.

[1937] And why are women even fighting for that?

[1938] which I thought was just an interesting thought.

[1939] Why would anyone want to be a CEO?

[1940] I would not want to be a CEO.

[1941] And if it would come at the expense of every other aspect of my life, it certainly gets less attractive.

[1942] And I think he was just pointing out, it's a weird thing that we're fighting for.

[1943] He said, I think it might be more admirable and applaudable.

[1944] That's an odd word, but it sounds like audible.

[1945] That women are healthier.

[1946] don't want their entire life to just be their job, that they value other things more than that status of being CEO.

[1947] But there's just an innate nature to think like, oh, if one job's number one, that's what everyone should have access to, or that's what, just making it number one, declaring CEO number one, and that there's more pay that comes with that, innately just makes it some kind of an enviable position.

[1948] when if you really think about it, like, it's not an enveiled.

[1949] No one should be striving to make it.

[1950] I think everyone wants to be at the top of their respective field, and so do you.

[1951] Well, no, I don't.

[1952] I don't, but that took me a long time to get to the part where I don't.

[1953] I'm on a TV show.

[1954] I don't want to be number one on the call sheet.

[1955] I don't want Ashton's job in any shape or form.

[1956] I know how much more effort it takes to be in his role.

[1957] than my role.

[1958] And I so value that I have more time to do this podcast and more time to pick up my kids from school.

[1959] Yeah, but this podcast is a job in itself and you're at the top of that model too.

[1960] You're running a company.

[1961] And on the show, you're right.

[1962] I see what you're saying.

[1963] You're not like the tippy top of that world, but you are in what we could equate to the highest level of management like if you're looking at this industry as a whole you're at the top you're not the top you're not CEO but you are working with the CEO I'm in the MBA yeah but I'm equating it to what we're talking about specifically here which is which is business and and you are you are in the position that these men want to be in and women want to be and of course because you want to have power and you want to be able to exert your control and all of it yeah I guess what I'm saying is there's one conversation which is about inequity and unequal opportunity for men and women.

[1964] That's almost like one conversation.

[1965] But through that conversation, what comes up is this notion of CEOs, which to me just starts a separate conversation, which is we all, I think we'd all have a knee -jerk reaction of like, yeah, I'd want to be the CEO.

[1966] But I'm almost pointing out that that's kind of a failure of us buying into this model of number one's the best without ever contemplating what your life looks like to be number one.

[1967] Like to be able to say I'm number one of the company, it just comes with such a huge price that is worth evaluating, I guess.

[1968] Yeah, that's true.

[1969] I guess that's my bigger point.

[1970] It's really, it leaves the pay gap debate and just becomes like, who would want that kind of role.

[1971] Yeah, but no one, yeah, I mean, you're right.

[1972] I just, no one, no one's asking that question.

[1973] No one's asking, like, why do men want this?

[1974] Right.

[1975] I mean, from my, my thought is men, well, obviously women are incredibly competitive as well.

[1976] I think there's, I think testosterone is a component in it.

[1977] Like if you look at Wall Street stock market traders in those studies they do where the riskier the trades, they do their actual testosterone level goes up, which then promotes even riskier trades.

[1978] So it's like a, you know what I'm saying?

[1979] It's like a self -fueling cycle of that.

[1980] Yeah.

[1981] I just think it's like easy.

[1982] I mean, I'm sure that's true and that's chemical and that's science.

[1983] but women want those things too, I mean, I do.

[1984] So I don't think if the conversation is why do people want it, it has to be, it has to be why do people want it?

[1985] Not why do women want it.

[1986] Of course they do.

[1987] I'll ask you.

[1988] I'll ask you.

[1989] I'll let you theorize on this.

[1990] Do you think in general, in general, do men carry as much disappointment over choosing not to have kids as women do?

[1991] Probably not.

[1992] And then add on to that.

[1993] But I don't think that's, I know, I think you think that's very, very, very genetic, and I understand that, but I think it's more cultural.

[1994] Which is fine.

[1995] It wouldn't matter to me whether it was genetic or cultural.

[1996] I'm just saying I can see the evaluating whether you're going to dedicate your entire life, to this CEO track is easier for a man if in our culture it's easier for a man to accept he's not going to have kids so just right there would make it easier for that sacrifice except that most i would i would i'll look i would i would venture to say most CEOs of companies have children well then there's the other unfair tricky thing is a man can have a kid at 60 but a woman has to have generally speaking, a child before she's 35 or 40 or 42, which is right in the bull's eye of when you'd be rapidly climbing the ladder at a company.

[1997] Yeah, that's true.

[1998] But also, even if the husband, the CEO is not 60, he's 35 or 40, the expectation for him to be home with the children is not there.

[1999] It's zero.

[2000] Yeah.

[2001] So that's, to me, the bigger issue and the reason that there's this big divide.

[2002] It's more about.

[2003] Well, and also, so that's great.

[2004] And also, you're right that the male CEO likely has a wife who doesn't work.

[2005] Yes.

[2006] But the female CEO likely does not have a husband who's sitting at home.

[2007] Exactly.

[2008] Yes.

[2009] So she most likely has to sacrifice, not him.

[2010] And that's juicy, fun stuff that I think that, base needs to evolve to result in a different outcome at the top to just kind of mandate well starting next year X percentage has to be female or male without having any of the structure in place to support that or any of the evolution culturally right to make that feasible seems naive is that the right word or just short -sighted or something yeah it just seems like you're you're you're going to the very end of the downriver problem and trying to work backwards right hoping it'll sort itself out that's why there is a push for paternity leave and stuff like that so that the men feel those things equal to the woman at the beginning the beginning of their child's life which starts you know which is the beginning of that whole process of this person is the caregiver, this person isn't.

[2011] If it's both at the beginning, it's likely going to be a little more equal.

[2012] Yeah.

[2013] Could be anyway.

[2014] Anyhow.

[2015] Okay, you said Jackson Hole is at 6 ,500 feet elevation.

[2016] And it's at 6 ,237 feet.

[2017] You're really close.

[2018] Very, very, very, 700 and close.

[2019] Some feet off 37 60s No not 700 367 feet off 367 feet off 363 right hold on 62 it's 62 37 37 yeah so I was 363 feet off 63 yeah you said 67 I did I think oh no it's Our fast math is becoming so long.

[2020] Yeah, because I'm trying to check it.

[2021] And I don't know when you're going to do fast math.

[2022] It's hard for me. I'll tell you when I'm going to do fast math.

[2023] Always.

[2024] I know.

[2025] She said something about loophole, and you thought she was talking about a game.

[2026] You thought a game where you tossed a ring on a beer bottle was maybe called loophole.

[2027] Oh.

[2028] And that's just called ring toss.

[2029] Ring toss.

[2030] Yeah.

[2031] Ring, extend the security around your home.

[2032] Oh, that fact was brought to you by ring.

[2033] Wow.

[2034] This is a, this is a sponsor heavy fact check.

[2035] Oh, good.

[2036] Yeah.

[2037] So also there's a game, a very fun ring toss type game at Ryan Hanson and Amy Hanson's house.

[2038] Have you played it?

[2039] Do you like it?

[2040] I do like it.

[2041] Okay.

[2042] I don't love it.

[2043] Did you win?

[2044] No, of course not.

[2045] Of course.

[2046] If you won, you would love it.

[2047] Yeah.

[2048] But there's a string attached to the ceiling.

[2049] Yep.

[2050] And it has like a ring at the bottom of the string.

[2051] And the string is about four and a half, five feet long.

[2052] And then on the far side of the room is a hook.

[2053] Yes.

[2054] And you have to swing the string and get the little ring to attach itself to that hook.

[2055] Yes.

[2056] It's fun.

[2057] It's still a slow.

[2058] Like I like cornhole.

[2059] You toss it.

[2060] It's real time.

[2061] Love cornhole.

[2062] horseshoes, what a game, a shuffleboard, boom, boom, you know, this thing is like, but I would have thought, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, oh, I missed.

[2063] Yeah, but I would have thought you, I think.

[2064] If I was better at it, I'd like it.

[2065] Yeah, and you, I'm surprised because there is skill.

[2066] It's a skill game.

[2067] I believe it is.

[2068] So I'm, perhaps you didn't like it.

[2069] First and foremost, you're better at it than I am.

[2070] Well, I'm not good at it.

[2071] I got it on like twice after a lot of tries.

[2072] I don't know that I've ever gotten enough.

[2073] Ryan was good at it.

[2074] I can't get it in.

[2075] I called, texted him today to ask what that was called.

[2076] And he said he calls it ring hooker thingy.

[2077] Oh, great.

[2078] So that's the official thing.

[2079] Google ring hooker thingy.

[2080] I'm sure many products will bounce up.

[2081] It's actually called Tiki Toss.

[2082] I found that when I was Googling.

[2083] Oh, it is?

[2084] Yeah.

[2085] Tiki toss.

[2086] Yeah.

[2087] I wonder if they thought about changing the name of it post -Charlottesville.

[2088] I felt really bad for the manufacturer.

[2089] those teaky torches because that's just that was a total benign product that even you know what happened is shortly after charlottesville um i was went to do mel's movie for that week buddy games and there was this thing that had been written of course long before that where they all have these teaky torches and i was like guys this is this feels a little white nationalist now and it was decided that we got to limit this sure and then i just thought oh the poor teaky torch company They had nothing to do with this.

[2090] That's true.

[2091] That's true.

[2092] Although did they during the KKK?

[2093] No, no, no, no. No, I mean, but did the KKK use teakotches?

[2094] Oh, yeah, they love.

[2095] Well, they weren't using teaky torches.

[2096] They were like using, you know, cloth dipped in turpentine wrapped around a pole.

[2097] Essentially a teakied.

[2098] Well, yeah, but again, not the Tiki Torch Company.

[2099] We've got to really.

[2100] No, that, of course, of course.

[2101] But they're presumably a lovely company, maybe even family.

[2102] owned maybe even black.

[2103] We don't know.

[2104] Oh my God.

[2105] Or Jewish?

[2106] Jesus.

[2107] I associate Tiki with Hawaiian.

[2108] Hawaii aren't in support of white nationalism.

[2109] But maybe in Hawaii it's still a, it's still a profitable business.

[2110] Well, I know it wasn't to be limited to just Hawaii for Pete's you know what?

[2111] Another reason to despise anti -Semites.

[2112] Yes, because they can tank a really nice company.

[2113] You didn't hate them already.

[2114] Now's a reason.

[2115] Yeah, if you're on the fence about whether or not to be sympathetic to white nationalists, just think of the Tiki Torch company.

[2116] Company.

[2117] From Oahu, Hawaii.

[2118] So she says, she calls herself a tomboy in this.

[2119] Mm -hmm.

[2120] And that just made me think after the fact I told you this off air.

[2121] Oh, I thought you were going to go another direction, but please.

[2122] Oh, no, that I think.

[2123] I think tomboy is about to be a word exed out of our vocabulary.

[2124] In light of the mask you live in, these gender roles that we imbued onto children.

[2125] Yeah, that if she's acting boyish, she's a tomboy.

[2126] Before we even get serious, let's even think about the term tomboy.

[2127] It's almost bizarre to me, it's almost like you'd call that that term should be like Katie boy, because there's like a girl and a boy, but tomb boy, I don't even understand.

[2128] Yeah, because you're acting like a regular boy named Tom.

[2129] That doesn't make, you just say boy.

[2130] You don't need to add the word Tom.

[2131] No, because otherwise then you'd be calling her a boy.

[2132] You have to differentiate that.

[2133] Still, if the phrase means of female acting like a boy, we should probably have a female name in front of boy, like a Jenny boy.

[2134] I was a real Jenny boy when I grew up.

[2135] I thought you were going to say something else.

[2136] I know what you thought of us.

[2137] And I'm hesitant to say it because I really liked our guest.

[2138] I know what you're about to say.

[2139] What am I about to say?

[2140] You're about to say that all these pretty young girls, actresses, like come in and then they act like they act like they're a nerd or they're a tomboy or there are all these things that they're not.

[2141] Amy Schumer has a really funny sketch about this.

[2142] She has an amazing.

[2143] Please.

[2144] Even if you don't like Amy Schumer, please.

[2145] YouTube her this hilarious sketch about a like a pretty prototypical hot actress on a talk show side note her legs are getting darker and darker every time they show a wide shot did you pick up that they're getting bronze and colton yeah but she's talking about how she's a nerd and she only played video games and read comic books and then there's geeks in the audience yeah jerking off listening yeah it's so funny it's really funny and it seems to be kind of a a well -worn trope at this point, right?

[2146] Her sketch wouldn't have got on TV and we wouldn't have laughed so hard if there wasn't some kernel of truth to it.

[2147] But you know what's unfair is we laugh and we feel like we get it because we don't feel like we're hot.

[2148] Yeah, like we don't feel like we're in that camp or we could be like we, I don't know.

[2149] You know what just occurred to me. there are probably many listeners of this podcast that think I'm guilty of that.

[2150] Like my version of saying I'm a tomboy is that, you know, I was dyslexic and I couldn't get any girls, no girls like me in elementary school, all these things.

[2151] Maybe they think that about me. That's what I'm saying, that we're putting that on them, but we're doing the same thing when we're laughing and we're like, we get it because we are, we actually were a nerd or we actually were a tomboy or we blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[2152] Sure.

[2153] You actually read comic books.

[2154] Yeah.

[2155] We think that we're allowed to think that because we aren't hot, but that is not maybe fair.

[2156] Well, you know what else isn't fair?

[2157] And this is going to be very hard to ask for some empathy and sympathy towards people that are tens.

[2158] But isn't it also sad that someone has to be a shame that they were hot growing up, that they have to downplay it?

[2159] But they also might not be downplaying it.

[2160] Like, that's what I'm saying.

[2161] It's maybe not fair for us to say.

[2162] that they weren't a tomboy.

[2163] They very well could have been when we just are like, no, I'll see your face and there's just no way.

[2164] Like, I don't think that's fair for us to do.

[2165] Yeah, I just think when they try to act like guys weren't into them because they were such a science nerd, I find that pretty hard to believe.

[2166] To be fair, I've never heard in this conversation, like, guys weren't into me because of I was a tomboy or I was a nerd.

[2167] I've heard I wasn't into boys.

[2168] Well, when I hear it on talk show, goes on Stern.

[2169] And the question is generally like, oh, guys must have been driving you crazy because they're clearly beautiful.

[2170] And they go, no, when I was young, I was like, I was such a tomboy and I was so, I was such a math nerd.

[2171] It's generally, in my opinion, a response to a question of like, oh, I mean, the insinuation is your life must have been easy from day one because you're, you're a 10.

[2172] Yeah.

[2173] So then of course they feel like they need to, that's a weird thing to go like, you're right.

[2174] Yeah, it's been a breeze.

[2175] But also, not everyone looks like they looked when they were in high school or middle school.

[2176] I know.

[2177] I was a lot cuter in junior high.

[2178] I was a bona fide nine in junior high.

[2179] Just seventh and eighth grade.

[2180] Yeah, I just don't.

[2181] I just think it's a little unfair of us to say that.

[2182] I guess.

[2183] It is funny, though.

[2184] It's a thing.

[2185] Anywho.

[2186] Okay.

[2187] Oh, but yeah, but anyway, I think that word's going to get scrapped soon.

[2188] Say goodbye to Tom Boy.

[2189] Yeah.

[2190] Although, I will say after talking to Debbie for a while and just seeing how she interacts and handles herself, I'm inclined to believe that about her.

[2191] I totally believe it.

[2192] That's what I'm inclined to believe that whether guys liked her or not that it probably blew right over her head if they did.

[2193] Mm -hmm.

[2194] I don't think that's what she was in the market for.

[2195] I think that's where her interest lied.

[2196] She also wasn't talking about it in respect to boys.

[2197] She was just saying like she did this.

[2198] Well, no, she was because I was like, I can't believe you didn't have a boyfriend until, you know, she didn't have an awful.

[2199] That's not when she said she was a top boy.

[2200] She said it later when she was talking about her interests and stuff.

[2201] Right.

[2202] That's it.

[2203] That's it?

[2204] Yeah.

[2205] All right.

[2206] Love you.

[2207] Love you.

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