#1552 - Matthew McConaughey

[0] The Joe Rogan experience.

[1] Train by day, Joe Rogan, podcast by night, all day.

[2] Hello, Matthew.

[3] Hello, Joe.

[4] What's going on, man?

[5] Got a book out?

[6] Got a book out.

[7] Got a green light.

[8] Trying to catch him.

[9] What makes a guy who is successful as you as an actor?

[10] What makes you want to expose more of yourself?

[11] Because that's kind of what you're doing by writing a memoir, right?

[12] You're exposing your thought process, your life, your lessons.

[13] Another way of communicating.

[14] You know, what I do, my day job as an actor, it's got four filters from the raw expression.

[15] There's my raw expression.

[16] There is what's being recorded.

[17] There's what's being edited and there's what's being put on the screen.

[18] I wanted to do something where I got rid of the filters.

[19] Writing a book, there is one filter because it's the written word.

[20] What you do, what we're doing now, when you do stand -up, that's no filters.

[21] You know, that's the direct, it's live.

[22] The big show is always recording sort of ultimate goal.

[23] But I wanted to put it down and say, hey, I want to, I'm part of these movies.

[24] They're usually written by somebody else, directed by somebody else, edited by someone else, financed by someone.

[25] I was like, no, I want to go direct my own movie.

[26] I want to produce my own movie.

[27] How do that?

[28] I want to put the words on a page.

[29] And I'd been writing for 36 years, so I had a lot of conflict.

[30] to go through and see if it was something worthy of sharing.

[31] Yeah, so you've been keeping a journal for 36 years?

[32] Yep.

[33] What made you start doing that?

[34] I think probably in the beginning, the usual reason someone writes in a journal, you know.

[35] Well, my heart's broken.

[36] Gretchen Donnelly broke up with me. Why do I have little scimbles on my face?

[37] Why do I only have peach fuzz up in my pecker and everyone else has?

[38] And then in my early 20s, I remember I was kind of rolling.

[39] college, I had a job, had money in my pocket, I had a nice girlfriend, making my grades, my relationships were good.

[40] And I remember going, oh, you hadn't been writing in your journal here as much.

[41] Notice you don't do that so much, when things are going well.

[42] And I said, I think you better start writing down things when things are going well.

[43] I mean, my idea was that, hey, you're going to get in a rut again.

[44] You'll lose your frequency again in life.

[45] You might want this to go back and look at to help you recalibrate.

[46] And that proved to be true.

[47] So many times we dissect failure and hardships, but we don't dissect success.

[48] And going back in those journals, I found that there were times when I got in a rut later and I was able to go back to those journals and go, what were your habits when you were rolling, man?

[49] Who were you hanging out with?

[50] Where were you going?

[51] What were you eating?

[52] What were you drinking?

[53] How much sleep were you getting?

[54] How are you looking at life?

[55] And they helped me recalibrate in the times when I was off frequency and get back on the rails again and find my frequency again.

[56] what were the things that when things were going great what was what were the common factors common factors were one check in with yourself before checking in with the world when you wake up in the morning really just sit there and take a little time read a little something that's between me and me write a little something that's between me and me before picking up the damn phone and saying hey what emails came in or hopping out in the kitchen and going and everyone else is already up going hey hey hey what's up take take take take 10 minutes to check in with me before checking in with the world.

[57] What were the other things?

[58] Sense of humor.

[59] Sense of humor.

[60] I found that I was laughing more.

[61] My happiest time in my life when I got my wink back, man. When I got my wink, if I lose my wink, it's like, oh, I'm taking things too seriously.

[62] So I had more of a sense of humor.

[63] Didn't they take things as personal in many ways?

[64] and wasn't asking permission as much when I was rolling.

[65] Asking permission.

[66] Like, what do you mean by that?

[67] Well, just ask permission about having the confidence to believe in something I want to do and just doing it and saying, hey, if you ask permission, you're already creating one of those filters away from the raw expression.

[68] Just do it.

[69] It's live.

[70] Don't you can.

[71] What you're saying, what it sounds like is like you almost like self -measement.

[72] medicated with a type of meditation that you invented yourself.

[73] You almost like figured out a meditation.

[74] Because that's what people who meditate, that's what they say to do.

[75] Take an X amount of time, 10, 20, whatever it is, minutes out of the day, focus on your breathing, clean the mind out of anxiety and stress.

[76] And if you do that on a regular basis, you'll have a happier life.

[77] and you seem to have figured that out on your own, or did you read books about doing this?

[78] I think I figured it out of my own.

[79] I mean, the other thing that I didn't tell you was to book in the day before I say my prayers at night to go through the day, which I don't know about you, but it can be hard to remember what you had for breakfast after dinner when you're going to bed.

[80] It can be hard to remember with those first things we did in the day.

[81] So I'll go back through my day when I'm happiest.

[82] I go back to my day.

[83] and I like to write a mental note of what is tomorrow.

[84] What are my plans for tomorrow?

[85] That's a big stress reliever for me. I think I learned it on my own.

[86] I've always been a list keeper.

[87] I love making long list of things to do during the day.

[88] And I add everything.

[89] I add the simple things that you know you're going to do anyway in the list.

[90] You know, like kiss your wife.

[91] You know what I mean?

[92] Drop a deuce, whatever it is.

[93] I write things that I'm going to do just so it's more to mark off the list.

[94] You write down and you have to take a shit?

[95] Like, really?

[96] Just remember, you know, enjoy that or read something funny or have a list in that favorite tune of yours, something that I note because the longer the list, the more things I can mark off that day, the more I feel like I accomplished.

[97] And the more it makes it kind of easy to do the hard stuff, you know?

[98] Yeah, I do that with some things that I have to do, like exercise and writing.

[99] I do that with some things, but it seems like you're very meticulous with this.

[100] Yeah, I go through hot streaks and cold streaks on it, you know, I do it more times than others, but I've found that those are the common denominators, some of the things I do when I am the most happy.

[101] I'm not a big meditator, but my exercise, what I call breaking a sweat once a day, exercising, I find for me that is necessary because it puts a demarcation between all of my responsibilities.

[102] And I could sometimes look up.

[103] You know how it is.

[104] Sometimes you go through the day or days and you're so busy, and I'm good on autopilot at getting stuff done.

[105] But everything you have to do, stress comes when those responsibilities feel like they're stacked vertically on our shoulders.

[106] And there's a proverbial weight on our shoulders.

[107] When I go break a sweat, all of a sudden all those things that were stacked vertically on my shoulders, my responsibilities lay down and they're laterally out in front of me. So there's no more weight on my shoulder.

[108] and I find that I get those things done better and with more enjoyment if I just go, oh, there they are in front of you.

[109] Just handle one, then hop to the next one and handle that.

[110] Then hop to the next one and handle that.

[111] I handle much more better, but I see demarcations between my responsibilities if I go break a sweat.

[112] Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that.

[113] I think there's a biological need for that when human beings are under pressure because I think the way our bodies are set up, pressure historically, genetically meant your life was in danger and you had to exert energy and your body stored up this energy you you had adrenaline rushes you had anxiety you had all these different physical needs that you had to take care of and if you don't exert energy those physical needs are not met and your body's confused it stores up a lot of this and you just you get anxious you yell at red lights and people just freak out generally your your tolerance for bullshit is way lower but if you can just get that physical need taken care of you're way better at handling life way better way better yeah I couldn't tell people that enough I'm a broken record with it I say it too much and I love hearing people like yourself successful people that have thought about a lot of the various aspects of what's good and bad about their life express that because I think everyone needs to hear it It's just we need to hear it from enough people so that it just becomes ingrained in everyone's head every day, brush your teeth, every day, break a sweat.

[114] Just go do it.

[115] I mean, it's good for so many things.

[116] You know, people talk about, oh, you know, no stress.

[117] I'm like, well, bullshit.

[118] Stress is part of life.

[119] It means you give it down.

[120] You know what I mean?

[121] You're going to have stress.

[122] You're supposed to have stress.

[123] But I know I handle things better and more thoroughly and more like myself, like I want to.

[124] to the outcome is always better and i enjoy doing it more if i do go break that sweat and get those endorphins going and that presses reset for me and it shows me a little it separates all the events like i said laterally and they don't feel like they're stacked up on top of me yeah also sleep for me how much do you get a night nine and a half woo i love it that's great i wish i could do that god damn when i get a nine and a half an hour night oh my god i feel so good the next day I feel amazing.

[125] I feel like a newer person.

[126] Well, I'm lucky I have a wife that says, no, no, no. You get your nine and a half.

[127] I'll get my seven because I'd rather handle the stuff I handle that you don't while you're sleeping than be around you when you hadn't had enough sleep.

[128] Well, you set it up right.

[129] Yeah, I can't stress that enough, too.

[130] Sleep is everything.

[131] Sleep, exercise, health, keep the body functioning correctly, all those things.

[132] they're not just it's it's not a vanity thing and it's not a laziness thing it's literally like it improves the quality of the way the mind functions and you get better things done you're the quality of your work will be better definitely think more clearly you don't waste your time chasing down bullshit you don't you know you do the right kind of work you know we all know I love hard work but I've got many times my life where I'm doing the wrong kind of work I love the kind of work where I've accomplished what I needed to do during the day and I lay my head on the pillow and I'm exhausted because I got done what I needed to get done as best I could.

[133] I do not like the exhaustion at the end of the day where I'm like, man, I feel like I was just going to revolutions, man. I don't know if today had any ascension to it.

[134] I didn't build anything.

[135] Today was a, I don't know if I, maybe I went backwards, you know?

[136] I don't like that kind of exhaustion.

[137] And that's the kind of exhaustion that actually I don't go to sleep well.

[138] I actually keeps me up.

[139] The only thing I get good out of those shitty days is a desire to never have those shitty days again.

[140] I think the good aspects of negative feelings is recognizing how good positive feelings are, how good the feelings of accomplishment are by failing.

[141] And that's why we're talking about, you know, like no stress, just live in peace.

[142] That's a crock of shit.

[143] That's like never feel bad.

[144] Well, then you're never going to appreciate feeling good.

[145] Like, we need hills and valleys.

[146] I'm with you 100 % on that I mean I write in my book you know and I get asked a lot do you believe in fear I'm like well hell yeah I believe in fear the fuck doesn't believe in fear well you know you see those like no fear oh those people are so silly like no no no no no I do and they're like do you fear I said I have fear every single day it's the overcoming of the fear or I know being raised you know we were a physical discipline family we got the we got the belt We didn't get grounded.

[147] My parents' motto was, we're not going to ground you because that takes away your time.

[148] And your time is your most valuable thing.

[149] Now, we never got injured.

[150] We just get hurt at the time.

[151] You cried and it was over with.

[152] But there were things that I did not do growing up and still do not do for fear of the consequences.

[153] That works for me going, I heard time things I did not do growing up going like, no, that'd be a lot of fun.

[154] But not so much, not more fun than how much it's going to suck.

[155] if I get caught.

[156] Physical consequences are, it's a very controversial subject because a lot of people think, I don't hit my kids, but a lot of people that I know who are my age were hit when they were young and they look back on it and they say, you know what?

[157] I learned from that and my parents didn't, they didn't beat me. They physically punished me for something that I did wrong and they didn't do it to be sadistic.

[158] They did it because they can.

[159] cared about me and that's how they were raised.

[160] It's a very controversial subject because people get up in arms with the idea of hitting children.

[161] So even you bring it up that it was beneficial to you is going to have a lot of people's hackles raised.

[162] Sure.

[163] And I get asked all the time and I've shared it openly how I was raised and what kind of corporal punishment we got.

[164] I don't choose to discipline my children the same way my parents did.

[165] But I've said this before.

[166] I wouldn't trade one single of those asswopants I got for the values that were instilled in me from getting them.

[167] And I'm very clear and was at the time that I earned everyone I got.

[168] I earned everyone.

[169] And we were a family, you know, my parents were like, we get it over with and over, take it, and it's over.

[170] And we don't hold grudges.

[171] No one's going to speak of it again.

[172] And if you got in trouble, that was the night dad would take us across town to our favorite burger joint and let us stay as late as we wanted.

[173] And it was over.

[174] You've gotten more trouble if you brought something back up, you know, to somebody in the family.

[175] Yeah, but what about when you do that?

[176] No, no, no. They already got in trouble for that.

[177] You don't bring it back up.

[178] You could not go to sleep in our family holding a grudge.

[179] My parents would stay up all night and let you miss school to sit there and keep hashing out until we could hug it out, cry it out, and say, I love you and move on.

[180] Sounds like you had a wise family.

[181] I mean, it's a controversial thing to say if they hit you, a lot of people would say there's other ways to do.

[182] it.

[183] But the way they made you hug it out and stay up all night and communicate, it sounds very wise.

[184] I think it was.

[185] You know, I don't, you know, like I said, I don't choose to discipline my kids the way my parents discipline me, but I damn sure don't judge them or say what they did was wrong.

[186] They came from a different era as well, right?

[187] Yeah, it did come from a different era, yeah.

[188] That's a thing that it's very difficult for people to come to grips with, is that, you know, human beings that were raised 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago, it was a different world.

[189] It just was different.

[190] And we know more now.

[191] And like you're saying, you do not choose to discipline your children that way.

[192] But it was so common back then.

[193] It was, yeah.

[194] I mean, it was, you know, my parents were probably thought they were taking easy on their boys more than their parents treated them.

[195] Yes.

[196] They probably had it much more harsh.

[197] You know, and it's a, like I said, there are things I did not do that I should not have done for fear getting my backside.

[198] So there's value in that fear and consequences.

[199] And consequences go both ways, you know.

[200] There's good ones and the bad.

[201] There's a consequence for everything we do.

[202] But there were definitely things I didn't do that I should not have done for the fear of the consequences that were useful to me. is this the writing of this book is some of it almost like like letters to your younger self like a lesson to people who are like you coming up because one of the things it's so beneficial to young people with reading autobiographies and memoirs of successful people who lived extraordinary lives is you get to see all the thought process you get to see the the warts the failures, the whole thing, the fears, the anxiety.

[203] You get to see it all so you go, oh, that Matthew McConaughey guy, he's a normal dude.

[204] He's not just the guy from Dallas Buyers Club and all these movies.

[205] He's a normal human being and maybe I can one day achieve heights like him as well.

[206] Or maybe I read this book and I'm someone who feels like, you know, as we often do when we're going through a crisis that we're the only ones and it's only happened to me I'm the center of the universe no one else will understand and you can read and go well here's a guy who's successful who shoot I even maybe thought he just kind of rolls out of bed and makes everything look easy which you find out I try to work to get to that point but maybe you look and you hear it and you go oh he went through some similar things I share some stories in here that are very subjective to me but the more subjective and personal I got the more I found that oh these are more relatable to the more amount of people out there so you may read this story and go, I have that story, a similar story in my life.

[207] Well, here's how McConaughey handled it or wished he would have handled it or here's some help.

[208] He got along the way.

[209] Here's somewhere where he took a walkabout with himself and found out some things about himself.

[210] Maybe that's something I could do for myself.

[211] So there are some tools in the book for someone to seed themselves in and help navigate our way out of crisis, red and yellow lights, but also how to navigate things when we are catching green lights because I have a chapter and you're called the art of running downhill.

[212] You know, I self -sabotaged myself when things were going too well before until I learned that that really wasn't my right to put a roof over my expectations for myself and who the hell did I think I was.

[213] Well, that's more common than not, isn't it?

[214] There's the people get what they call what's imposter syndrome.

[215] You know, you don't feel like you deserve all the good things that are happening to you.

[216] And it just seems odd.

[217] You see it happen to other people.

[218] almost makes sense.

[219] You see other people being very successful.

[220] You're detached.

[221] But when it's happening to you, it's almost like, this is uncomfortable because this is not normal.

[222] And so I'm going to fuck this up so that I feel like I used to feel before, which at least, even if it was failure, it's comfortable.

[223] I'm accustomed to it.

[224] I need some resistance.

[225] Yes.

[226] And look, and I think there's very healthy ways to create resistance in our lives when we are on so -called easy street that may not challenging ourselves in the right way you know that we need to create resistance to overcome it to feel most alive but there's also foolish times to create resistance and the fact of that is things are going so well you think that's how it's going to be for the rest of your life no trust me the uphill's coming the drama the real drama's coming don't create any false drama in front of you right now because you're kind of patronizing yourself the real drama is going to come someone is going to get sick you are going to get hurt Something will happen in your life.

[227] The world will do unto you or you'll do it under yourself.

[228] So don't trip yourself running downhill and face plant and break your frickin' nose just because you needed some resistance running downhill.

[229] Yeah.

[230] Because it must be that up hills coming.

[231] You know what I mean?

[232] But to go to the first part of that, I'm a big fan of creating resistance to keep myself in check and to make sure that I'm feeling most alive to overcome the right things in my life.

[233] Yeah, me as well.

[234] I find physical resistance is the best thing to calm my mind and to provide physical challenges that allow me to it allows me to deal with success easier because there's bullshit that I have to deal with, but the bullshit is physical.

[235] And it's sometimes as challenging mentally to do very physically exerting exercises or particularly jiu -jitsu or martial arts, because it just breaks you down.

[236] And so then the other stuff that's sort of, it seems like it should be complicated, but it's not.

[237] You don't know why.

[238] You don't sweat it as much.

[239] Wait, and it sobers you up.

[240] Yes.

[241] In a very literal way.

[242] And in the same way, it's a daily routine to sober yourself up, to throw off the mendic, mendacious bullshit in your life that you were so concerned about and get down to what really needs to happen.

[243] Mountains become mole hills.

[244] You know, it's, you know, big moments in our life sober is up, too.

[245] I know my father moving on and passing on from this life, sobered me up in a way that I then stepped up and said, oh, you don't have your dad to rely on anymore to catch you when you fall.

[246] All these things he's been teaching you that you've been kind of making B minuses in life.

[247] Now you better start making A's at him because he's not there.

[248] So you better take some ownership.

[249] And I remember when he moved on, I carved this in a tree, be less impressed, more involved.

[250] And what it was as soon as he passed away, I noticed that all the things that I was revering in life mortally, like the fame, people, that success, money, they lowered down to eye level things that I was looking up at.

[251] And all the things that I was patronizing and condescending and going, oh, sloughing off, that's not worthy of me. They rose up to eye level.

[252] And I remember saying, boy, the world is flat.

[253] I'm looking at it in the eye.

[254] I see further.

[255] I see wider.

[256] I see clearer.

[257] I've got to take ownership of myself and I stood with my heart hire I stood with my head higher and I walked forward and started doing things and that way that I was saying, without asking so much permission all the time and got a lot more done and became a lot more myself and found more satisfaction.

[258] Yeah, sometimes people do need some wake -up call to let you know that this is a temporary existence and make the best out of it and enjoy it.

[259] And sometimes it doesn't happen unless something tragic happens.

[260] Like they are in a terrible way, but also a beautiful way.

[261] There's a lot of power and tragedy because you get something on the other end of it and you get clarity.

[262] We will get some clarity out of this tragic and awkward time of COVID.

[263] Yes.

[264] There are lessons we're learning that we don't even know what they are right now, that when we get out of it will inherently be part of our being that will go forward.

[265] I sure as hell hope so.

[266] But you know us humans.

[267] We're quick to snap right back to how we were before.

[268] Yeah, my concern is that it's happening so fast, but it's going to take a long time to sort of even out and for us to reach equilibrium.

[269] That's what I'm worried about with this.

[270] Wait, that what's happening so fast?

[271] The deterioration, that, you know, the financial deterioration, the fear, the changes with the masks and the social distancing, and everything's happening so fast, I'm worried it's just going to take a long time before people, feel comfortable again?

[272] Oh, yeah.

[273] I mean, look, I think for millions of people, this is the new normal.

[274] I think, I don't think we're ever really going back to how it was.

[275] I mean, this is a year that agree or disagree with how we've gone about it and how things have been politicized here and there.

[276] This is a year that have shaken our floor.

[277] I don't believe this is ever, this year is going to be on page 14 of the news for quite some time.

[278] I think we've got a lot of rebuilding to do in the long term.

[279] It may be a 20 -year build.

[280] Yeah, no, I agree.

[281] It's just strange.

[282] It just feels strange.

[283] You go outside, the world just feels different than it felt a year ago.

[284] And that's that phrase, the new normal that people like to bring up.

[285] And this is where we find ourselves.

[286] But I, along with you, I'm almost always optimistic.

[287] And I have a lot of faith in human beings.

[288] and I think that we can get through this and have a very valuable lesson about when things do happen that are positive and good, maybe we won't take it for granted as much as we did before because we never thought that something like this was ever going to come along where the whole world was going to shut down for 7, 8, 9, 10, who knows how many months.

[289] Yeah.

[290] Forced winter.

[291] Yeah.

[292] We had one forced upon us in something that we don't take enough time to force upon ourselves and choose upon ourselves.

[293] do.

[294] You know, you talked about optimism, which I'd love to open that up with you and faith in mankind.

[295] And I was asked the other day about how do I trust?

[296] And this is a time in the world where there's great distrust and people don't believe.

[297] And you don't trust.

[298] You don't trust others.

[299] You end up not trusting yourself, et cetera, that reciprocity goes back and forth.

[300] And then everyone's walking in circles.

[301] But my answer, and I never thought about it until this guy asked me. So I was like, well, like I'm talking to you right now, Joe, I give you, you have 100 % of my trust until you don't.

[302] I'm not coming in hedging my bet with you or anyone that I meet for the first time.

[303] I'm not coming in like, well, you're going to have to really earn your trust with me. I'm looking out for you.

[304] No, you have 100%.

[305] You may ask me some questions right now that I'm like going, I think he's getting it's something else that's not really in my best interest.

[306] And maybe then you start losing some of my trust.

[307] But as of right now, we meet, you have 100 % until it starts to decrease.

[308] And that's all.

[309] That's up to you.

[310] I try to go towards everybody like that first.

[311] So how is that, and let's talk about optimism, because there's foolish optimism.

[312] There's like, and I don't think what you and I are saying is, hey, glass half full, always see it half full.

[313] No, let's recognize that it's half empty.

[314] That's the inevitable part.

[315] It's half empty or it's half full.

[316] Now, what's the constructive way forward?

[317] What can you do something with?

[318] The half the glass has got nothing in it or the half that's got something in it?

[319] Well, I think what I can do is with the half that's got something in it.

[320] and it makes something, irrigate something, create more water so I can fill it up.

[321] I mean, it's choosing where can we be constructive and choose the affirmative.

[322] And that's not a foolish optimism because a lot of times I think certain optimisms, Hallmark card optimisms can almost deny that there was the other half of glass that was empty or deny it's a problem.

[323] And I'm not into, I'm not really a purchaser of denying where there's a problem.

[324] You've got what I call whiskey full.

[325] philosopher wisdom like if you and I were having a couple of drinks at the bar I have a feeling you would say some cool shit that I would remember and I would take home and I'd go hmm I'd be like lying in bed going to I'm going to remember that that makes a lot of sense where did you get that from uh I think I mean I grew up and found this storytellers I love lyrics I love bumper stickers I love slogans.

[326] I love to deconstruct a big conversation down to what's a one -liner?

[327] What's the title of that song we just sang?

[328] What's the title of this hour or whatever you and I talk?

[329] What's the title of a relationship I have?

[330] And you get enough of those things, oh, what's the album title?

[331] I think of things lyrically, and I think that may be where it comes from, as I think in a musical way.

[332] Is this something you've acquired?

[333] Is this something you always had?

[334] or you just sort of slowly developed it?

[335] I think, I'm guessing it was slowly developed.

[336] I mean, again, I come from a family of storytellers.

[337] Well, we sat around the table and told stories.

[338] And if you didn't tell your story good, somebody else the table took it over.

[339] And you'd speak up.

[340] You better be telling a good story and not dragging on or losing your train of thought because somebody else will step in and roll over you.

[341] Right.

[342] So when you wanted to get a word in, you better be a good storyteller.

[343] Well, is that how you got into acting, like the ability to entertain?

[344] because the storyteller is essentially an entertainer.

[345] Sure.

[346] Well, I went to film school first because when I look back of the diaries, I really couldn't admit that I wanted to be in front of the camera as an actor.

[347] But that's what I really wanted to do.

[348] But I went to film school because I felt like being a storyteller behind the camera was something that my dad, one, could digest as a possible route forward for his son.

[349] And it was all that I could digest at the time.

[350] So when I made the leap to film school, I immediately would direct actors by performing myself in front of the camera.

[351] So I really liked the first person's subjective performance.

[352] And then I got that job in that summer of 92 on Days Confused, where I ended up three lines turned into three weeks' work.

[353] I'm getting paid $320 a day.

[354] People are telling me I'm good at it.

[355] I keep getting invited back to set.

[356] I'm like, is this fucking legal?

[357] Yes.

[358] And so I went back, graduated, picked up my U -Haul, drove west young man you know two weeks out of out of graduating college and um you know i didn't have that story of roughing it when i first got out there first two auditions i went on i got the job that's pretty fucking amazing yeah did you when you when you say that you didn't want to admit that you wanted to be in front of the camera like what do you think was holding you back i think it was the i look i was raised in a blue collar family where you get a job you work your way up the ladder, company ladder.

[359] To be in the arts, to be in front of camera, the actor sounded so vain, sounded so avant -garde, sounded so European, sounded so nothing stable about it.

[360] And so to bring that up to my dad, even bring it up my, like I said, it was not even in the vernacular of my dreams.

[361] I did not even dream about it.

[362] The only place that I admitted it was in my diaries.

[363] And I found those where I wrote to myself before I even consciously admit it that I did want to be an actor all the way back since 1988 but I never admitted it until I started doing it and it turned into about 1993 that I was like okay I think I can do this I'm giving a shot and I love this um it's totally understandable that it would fall into some form of self -sabotage if it came that easy if all the sudden you're on days and confused all of a sudden you do your first two auditions did you get the gig everything's rolling you're young and handsome woo come on green nights I mean how did you self -correct tell you what I did I uh I got it really happened around 96 after I did a film with Time to Kill I remember the Friday before Time to Kill open that's the movie that I was the lead in a big budget John Grish movie that was the one that made me famous all right So the Friday before that movie opened, I, you know, there's 100 scripts I wanted to do.

[364] I would have done anything to do any of these scripts.

[365] 99, no you can't.

[366] One, yes, you can.

[367] I'm walking down the 3rd Street promenade in Santa Monica, 400 people in the promenade.

[368] 396, minding their own business, four of them checking me out.

[369] Two girls that thought I was cute and a couple other people that maybe like my shoes.

[370] The Monday following that weekend, Time to Kill opens at night.

[371] The Monday following, all of a sudden, out of those 100 scripts, 99 yeses.

[372] You can do any of these, Matthew, one no. All of a sudden, that same promenade walk I took, 400 people.

[373] Now 396 were staring at me, and four people weren't, one of them was blind.

[374] It inverted.

[375] The world became a mirror.

[376] I noticed, oh, shit, I don't need any strangers anymore.

[377] People are coming up to me going like, I'm so sorry about Ms. Hud, and I'm going, wait a minute.

[378] Number one, what's your name?

[379] I've never met you.

[380] I had a dog whose name is Ms. Hud and has cancer.

[381] You just skipped five filters of howdy.

[382] You know what I mean?

[383] And I remember feeling unbalanced about it.

[384] How old were you?

[385] I'm 23 at that time.

[386] I'm being told, I love you.

[387] I love you.

[388] And in my mind, I'm going, man, we don't throw that word around.

[389] I've said that to four people in my life.

[390] So I wanted to know what the heck was real, what really mattered.

[391] And I was looking for a place to go.

[392] I needed to get out.

[393] I needed to go, those demarcations we talked about earlier.

[394] I needed to go break a long sweat.

[395] I needed to go out and let memory catch up and see what the hell was real, what was not.

[396] So I packed up my stuff.

[397] I went to a monastery for about a week.

[398] And then I got back and I went off.

[399] I had this certain dream, a repeating dream that came to me. And I went to Peru and fluttered the Amazon for 22 days.

[400] And it was a forced solitude.

[401] Nobody there knew my name.

[402] They didn't speak English.

[403] I was forced to be with myself and my thoughts in my own company, which I was not enjoying.

[404] So after about 12 days of shaking the monkeys off my back, figuring out what the hell was going to forgive myself for and what I was going to lay down the hammer and say enough's enough about.

[405] I came out of it, woke up one morning, light as a feather, and shook hands with myself and said, we're going to be all right, man. You're the one person I can't get rid of, McConaughey, so we might as well get along and re -entered.

[406] And that recalibration helped a lot to disseminate through all the bullshit.

[407] and all the excess of affluence that was coming at me at the time.

[408] And I found some discernment.

[409] You know, I found some discrimination in my choices again.

[410] Um, and moved on from there.

[411] But I've had to do that.

[412] I've had to take off of my own many times to go recalibrate.

[413] That sounds like a story of a man running and the rocks fall right behind him.

[414] Like you just missed it.

[415] Like also 23 years old, you weren't a child star, but it was damn close.

[416] like we all know what happens when your personality develops in the spotlight and you're famous almost no one gets out alive I mean and I understand it I wasn't ready to go out to Hollywood before I did Hollywood's not a place to go find yourself Hollywood's a place where you can be anything you want it's infinite yeses well in the infinite yeses as you know the infinite options can make a tyrant of any of us What is that noise that keeps going off?

[417] Is that on your end?

[418] That's on my end.

[419] What is that?

[420] I think it's emails coming in.

[421] It's a crazy ding.

[422] Sign it.

[423] Is that what you get when you get emails?

[424] That would annoy the fuck out of me. What's yours do?

[425] I don't, I check them once a day.

[426] Oh, see, I don't text.

[427] You know, I like to email more than text because I can press, I can flag an email.

[428] I can't flag a text.

[429] text would allow me to flag it.

[430] Oh, I'm going to save that to answer it later.

[431] And if I would just do text, I may forget your wrote.

[432] And then two weeks later ago, I never wrote him back.

[433] Right.

[434] I do that.

[435] Where's my do where?

[436] But at least it doesn't go, ding.

[437] I don't know.

[438] Maybe Jody Foster made it out alive.

[439] She might be the only, I mean, you worked with her.

[440] Did she, did she make it out alive of being a child fame?

[441] She made it out alive.

[442] You know, she was, yeah, she was, but she the cop.

[443] turtone girl on the beach she was a bunch of things she wasn't in she in taxi driver yeah yeah i mean man she did you know who else did ron howard yes he did he's a very nice guy i ran into him at a doctor's office he couldn't have been nicer and more normal and really enjoyed talking to him yeah solid um you know but i don't know i've never talked to them about how they navigated in their youth.

[444] They obviously had some support because, you know, I see the, I see parents with their children and they want them to be in from the camera.

[445] And I've even seen some set that we work with.

[446] And the mother's behind the camera like Olin Mills photography going, cheese, say cheese.

[447] And the director, you go, no, no, no, no, no. This is not Olin Mills.

[448] We just want the child to be himself or herself if they have the comments to be themselves in front of camera.

[449] Don't be.

[450] acting like anything this is not a olan mills photo shoot um and so a lot of times i've seen the parents they're the ones that actually need the recalibration yeah um to go whoa don't be you're making your your child doesn't know who he or she is yet and yet you're forcing them to try and be someone else and that's their reality there's danger in that yeah sure no there really is it's it's very unfortunate when you see that um you've worked with kids that have had to play your kid.

[451] Like, is that feel conflicted to you when that happens?

[452] Like, you almost like don't want them to do it?

[453] No, that's been some of my most comfortable roles as playing a father or a father figure.

[454] And I think that's because the one thing I always knew I wanted to be in life was a father.

[455] I knew that since I was eight years old.

[456] What I mean is for the children themselves.

[457] Like, do you feel weird for them?

[458] No, no, the kids that are playing your child.

[459] like knowing that they're going to be in a film at a really young age and they're going to experience all this?

[460] I mean, I'll check in with, you know, again, what I've noticed is it's the parent that may need the recalibration.

[461] The kid's just fine.

[462] But then you see the mother or the father loving it more than they're loving it or loving that child.

[463] Isn't from the camera when we're going to be famous?

[464] Well, you know, when I can, I'm trying to talk about, are your values in line here?

[465] because your son or daughter's future and who they are is pending on how you deal with it.

[466] I've also seen parents handle it really, really well.

[467] You're going to work.

[468] You have a job to do.

[469] If you have a talent to do that, but you still come home and you still do the chores and you're still my son or my daughter who acts just like you do and we don't do any of that other, that BS.

[470] You know, things aren't going around here.

[471] And you don't want to steal.

[472] I wouldn't want my child to be raised in Hollywood.

[473] buy Hollywood.

[474] I now, you know, early my career, I was like, no, I would never want my kids if I have them doing what I do.

[475] I've completely turned to 180 on that.

[476] I would love if my kids got into the industry that I'm in.

[477] It's been great to me. I've met some of the most creative, awesome people in my life.

[478] But there's a time.

[479] I wouldn't want them to go find out who they are in the Hollywood game by being an actor or that kind of story.

[480] Tell your own.

[481] I want to know their own story first before they're going to go tell someone else's story.

[482] Yeah, I've likened it to like almost like a chemical process.

[483] Like if you want to make epoxy, you have to add a bunch of different ingredients.

[484] And if you don't add the ingredients while you're mixing it up, it'll never be sure.

[485] It'll never really firm up.

[486] It'll never be complete.

[487] And I feel like that's one of things that happens to a lot of child actors.

[488] Like the experience of people not knowing who you are, you have to earn their respect, you have to earn their love, earn their friendship, prove your yourself, not have people love you before you even meet them.

[489] That's just, that seems toxic for children.

[490] It just seems crazy.

[491] I think it is highly toxic.

[492] Yeah.

[493] And, you know, we started off the conversation on this topic 10 minutes ago.

[494] Not many have recovered.

[495] No, not many.

[496] From that, the insecurity, the lack of known who they are, the lack of talk about resistance.

[497] You know, Hollywood's a place of yes.

[498] Yes, of course you can.

[499] Be whatever you want.

[500] It's Halloween every day.

[501] Now, wait a minute, if you're playing dress -up every day and you have the option to be whoever the heck you want and, you know, you want to go to the club all night, you can do that too.

[502] Everything's a yes.

[503] In those infinite yeses, you can get lost and not found.

[504] Yeah, I think they, you know, you've got to have some structure.

[505] And like I said, I went out of 22, 23.

[506] I don't think I was ready to go out there before I went out there.

[507] Because I had a sense, if I didn't, as much I had a sense of who I was, I had a very clear sense of who I was not.

[508] And that helped me because I was able to see some things and be invited to some things and be around some place.

[509] So I was like, you know what, this is a stop, not a stay for me. This isn't really going to feed me and it really turned me on.

[510] This is a short term, you know, something I'm getting that's feeding me in the short term, but this isn't going to last.

[511] Isn't it really who I am?

[512] Yeah, I've talked to a few child stars that sort of got, like Miley Cyrus is one that I talked to recently.

[513] And, you know, you see it in the conversation.

[514] when she's describing what it was like to grow up famous.

[515] And it's a very difficult path.

[516] And I don't, you know, I think Jody Foster, Ron Howard, there's a few that have gotten through it.

[517] Someone should actually sit down with those folks and try to figure out what's the common denominator.

[518] Like, how did they do it?

[519] That'd be some great science of how they did it.

[520] You know, a story about, I had a teaching tool that had to do with something I pulled off in Hollywood for my kids.

[521] And I'm big on delayed gratification.

[522] And, you know, after I won the Oscar for Best Actor, my kids were like, well, what'd you get the trophy for?

[523] And I said, well, you remember a year and a half ago, we're in New Orleans, Pop, I would go away, you'd wake up at the morning, I was already at work, and I'd come home and have dinner with you all and tuck you in, and you wake up the next morning, I was gone again, and remember you said I looked like a giraffe because I was so skinny.

[524] And like, yeah.

[525] And I go, well, what I was doing for those 30 days when I was gone all day, a year and a half later, somebody said, deemed that excellent work.

[526] And they gave me a trophy for that work.

[527] What I did a year and a half ago.

[528] And I remember, I saw him click.

[529] They were like, oh, oh, our future is a compounding interest.

[530] You know what I mean?

[531] And ask, oh, you can build, you can't do something today and get rewarded tomorrow.

[532] And it was, it was a, an example that worked for them of understanding, you know, that you can invest and make choices to engineer more ROI, you know?

[533] I know that was a milestone for you and obviously you won the Oscar for it, but there's something about these physical transformation roles when an actor does something where you realize like they're literally torturing themselves.

[534] I mean, when you, how did you get down to?

[535] How much did you weigh?

[536] I weighed 1 .35.

[537] And look, you know this.

[538] I was not torturing myself.

[539] I was militant.

[540] The hardest part was making the damn choice.

[541] It was my responsibility.

[542] If I looked like I do now playing Ron Woodruff in Dallas Spires Club, you are out of the movie, the first frame.

[543] Oh, bullshit.

[544] He doesn't, he's not stage 4HV.

[545] I'm out.

[546] What's my job?

[547] I had to lose the weight.

[548] Once I made my mind up, I did the smart thing.

[549] I gave myself five months.

[550] I got on a diet.

[551] where I'd have my tapio caputting or whatever, three eggs in the, egg whites in the morning, five ounce of fish, a cup of vegetables for lunch, five ounce, a cup of vegetables for dinner, as much wine as I wanted to drink.

[552] And I lost 2 .5 pounds a week like clockwork, no exercise.

[553] As much wine as you wanted to drink?

[554] Much as a one.

[555] How does it?

[556] What kind of diet is this?

[557] It worked, 2 .5 pounds.

[558] And it didn't matter if I was going to the treadmill and burning 2 ,000 calories a day or not, two point five pounds a week clockwork and what happened during that time this is another reason that i really didn't torture myself and people say oh my gosh what's been so hard i was like no what i learned from it that the body is more resilient than we give it credit for i the power i lost from the neck down equally or more so sublimated to the neck up i was so my mental game was so acute and so on point i was clinically smart it didn't matter if i drank my wine until one in the morning at 4 .30 a .m., no alarm clock, bang, I was up every morning, had incredible amount of mental energy.

[559] I had no leverage from my neck down.

[560] I mean, my knees, I had no insulation anywhere, you know, my body would hurt when I'd try to run 10 feet.

[561] But from here up, there's some things I actually miss about it.

[562] What do you think, what was the process?

[563] Like, why did your brain work better when you were starving yourself?

[564] I think because it wasn't relying on it.

[565] I think on a cellular level, I felt my body going, hey, to use a baseball term, you got people over there on the bench in the dugout, then you got people out in the field that are, you know, sitting in the, in the bullpen not working out.

[566] On a cellular level, cellularly, my sales and they were in the dugout and over there in the bullpen had to get up and go, whoa, we're not getting fed what we used to get fed. We got to, we got to exercise here.

[567] We got to come too, hutt -hut.

[568] Because my body's not getting, we're not getting what we used to get.

[569] We're not placated by what we used to get.

[570] Our insulation's gone.

[571] Our, our, our, what we're relying on is gone.

[572] What we used to rely on is gone.

[573] So I think my whole body woke up and my brain got really super, super sharp on that as well.

[574] So I think it was the going without the, there was a bit of it was what I went without that sharpened up and made my brain on the cellular level much more hungry.

[575] What do you weigh normally?

[576] 188.

[577] Jesus Christ.

[578] So you lost 50 pounds.

[579] Yeah.

[580] There's roles where guys do this, where it defines their career in some, like Robert De Niro when he gained weight for Raging Bull, Christian Bale when he did the machinist.

[581] Yeah.

[582] Yeah.

[583] There's these roles where a guy or a woman just transformed, Charlize Theron, when she played Monster.

[584] they transform their body and it's like a it's a different level of of commitment and when you entered into that film was this the first time you'd ever had to do that yeah first time ever had to do it i mean you you got jacked for that uh well i don't know how jacked you were before for that dragon movie i'm sorry i forget the name of rain of fire rain of fire i fucking love that movie that was a great movie for van zan god i miss van zan it was a great movie talk about a guy who was about no Shit.

[585] Boy, that was a sobering character.

[586] I miss that guy.

[587] Yeah, it was a fun character.

[588] But you were jacked in that movie.

[589] Were you jacked normally or did you have to get jacked for that movie?

[590] I got more jacked for that.

[591] Look, our family, my dad, we come from our anatomy and the McCona Hayes have big tricep.

[592] My dad, you see, you'll love this.

[593] I'd be sitting there as a kid.

[594] And my dad was a big guy, 64, 265.

[595] You know, played Kentucky under Bear Bryant, got drafted by the Green Bay Packers.

[596] He was a big bear of a man. And he comes in the living room one night, and I'm in front of the TV watching my favorite show, Incredible Hulk.

[597] And there's Luke Rick.

[598] And I'm like standing in front of the TV doing all this.

[599] He goes, boy, what's you doing?

[600] I was like, Dad, look at him, man. I mean, he's got these baseball -sized biceps.

[601] Look at him.

[602] Wow.

[603] And he goes, uh -huh.

[604] He takes off his shirt.

[605] And he goes, let me tell you something, son.

[606] He goes, that right there.

[607] He pulled the bicep.

[608] He goes, that's nice.

[609] Makes the girl scream.

[610] You know, it's for show.

[611] He goes, that right there he goes that's the work muscle that's the one that puts the roof over our head that's for dough show and dough the triceps for for dough so i had big triceps so when i went and worked out and if i take a little bit of creatine my triceps go bananas so that was a minor transformation it wasn't that difficult to do no it was it was minor it was a lot of boxing and and just some nice, you know, throwing some weight around.

[612] You just got fit.

[613] But for Dallas Buyers Club.

[614] Yeah.

[615] Well, I was trying to stay within 10 pounds of striking weight of whatever I need to do for the role.

[616] Was it hard to make the decision to do that for Dallas Byers Club, though?

[617] Because that was a giant transformation.

[618] I mean, it wasn't hard.

[619] I was looking for something to be all consumed with, something to be obsessed with, a singular obsession.

[620] go, this is my job.

[621] So my life revolved around that.

[622] My wife made me meals.

[623] Trust me, I didn't go to Pizza Hut and say, no thank you to the pizza.

[624] I'll have a salad.

[625] I did not even put myself in front of temptations.

[626] I was a hermit.

[627] I stayed in.

[628] My wife made me the meals and I studied and wrote and created the character all day long.

[629] And I never got tired of that.

[630] So my world, I was in a bubble.

[631] I just put myself in a bubble for five and a half months.

[632] And that commitment to put me, myself on that island to know that this is it's good to have the singular obsession you you cannot go far enough mcana hay that was there's a freedom in that there's a freedom i've always find having having a character i can commit that much too you cannot go far enough that that was your thought process yeah i knew when i got down to 135 i was like oh okay that's good and mind you we'll tell you this when i started to eat more at 135 to say let's slow this train down and quit losing weight.

[633] My body had already got the message and had its blinders on that we're going south and it kept going south.

[634] So that was a bit scary because I kept losing the weight because my body had already gotten in the rhythm of losing weight.

[635] And like I said, it turned a blind eye on getting any more food.

[636] So there was a tough transition there for about two weeks to get my weight to balance out again and say, let's just hold at 135.

[637] So you dropped below 135 at one point in time?

[638] just went below with 135 got down about 132 and then brought it back up now how long did it take for you to physically recover from something like that where you're back to normal man i'm still recovering really because i thought that i thought that when i saw you in that film i told my wife remember saying this like this is going to take a long time for him to bounce back because i know how hard it is for guys to cut weight for fights and i know i know a lot of guys that have really depleted their body doing that and when i saw you you that gaunt and skinny.

[639] I was like, he's eating his body.

[640] Your body ate itself.

[641] It was eating itself.

[642] It's the only way.

[643] Yeah.

[644] I look, I came back and I did true detective after that, and I got on true detective.

[645] I got to about 167 and held.

[646] And I loved that weight as well, because I had a little more leverage, had a little more athletic ability, had a little more insulation around my joints, but I was still pretty stripped and ripped.

[647] Slowly coming back from that, I did learn this.

[648] I had to come back very slowly, because I had heard.

[649] heard stories about people that go, well, now I'm back, now I'm going to gain weight, I can eat as much as I want, and that you can, you can grow back and look deformed.

[650] Your features can come back if you rush it.

[651] They can come back in odd ways.

[652] So I very slowly put the weight back on.

[653] I then did a role a few years ago, I guess it was about four, three, three years after pounds where I put on 47 pounds.

[654] So I was 220.

[655] What was that?

[656] Which is a lot more gold.

[657] It's called gold.

[658] It's a hell of a lot more fun to put that weight on than to take it off where I was cheeseburger king.

[659] And my family loved me in that role because I was Captain Fun.

[660] I was yes to everything.

[661] Milkshakes for breakfast, you got it.

[662] Let's go.

[663] Now that was, I've never talked about at that time, I was still mentally sharp, not as sharp as I was when I was down at 135, but at 220, libido was through the roof.

[664] I couldn't catch a cold if I swam in the damn canals of Amsterdam, man. I was like the abominable snowman.

[665] I was insulated and had great energy during that time.

[666] Now, coming back from that, I still got a couple things on my back here around the waist.

[667] I'm like, where'd that come back?

[668] That came up with that rolling gold.

[669] And what's that still doing hanging around?

[670] You know, so I did have to come back slowly.

[671] but I will say this you know 188 since then that's my fighting weight before I look a little different than the 188 before then before Dallas Byers Club it's a different 188 so it did take a physical toll sure I would say you know even you know neck and things like that you know neck and then you know bone structures this same but where and how much of this is just getting older too and having less fat sales right i'm not sure um but yeah it it it didn't hurt like i said i think i stretched my body i noticed when you know when i got down to that weight at 135 if i you know tried to sprint 10 10 yards and i just my knees would buckle i had no insulation and i needs hurt yeah i watched it again recently just to kind of get it into my head and that's what i was thinking like this is gonna to take a while to bounce back from like i almost forgot how gaunt you got and it was it was striking you know and that's a a fucking crazy commitment man you drinking moonshine what are you doing there what is that some some kombucha oh it was either neither that or whiskey a few hours okay yeah your kombucha guy i love that stuff daily i do too That's great for the immune system.

[672] When you look at a role, like a role like Dallas Buyers Club or something like that, like what makes you choose a role?

[673] Does it just have to resonate with you?

[674] Is it who's involved, who the directors are, the producers, the other actors that are committed to it?

[675] Like what makes you decide this is interstellar?

[676] Let's do it.

[677] All right.

[678] Well, first, what's the pedigree of the people around me?

[679] The director, the script, the producers are.

[680] Are they excellent?

[681] Are they the right for this story?

[682] I do look at that.

[683] But the main thing I look at is like this character.

[684] The last 12 years I've been able to choose characters that made me shaking my boots the right way.

[685] You know, that good kind of scared where you're like, ooh, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with this, but I can't wait to find out.

[686] I like characters where the decisions are really going to cost them, where there's consequences with every single scene that they're in.

[687] And the favorite consequences to have are something like a Ron Woodrow.

[688] It's life or death consequences.

[689] Something like a Van Zan.

[690] How can I remain from becoming extinct?

[691] You know, those are great.

[692] Okay, we brought it down to the bare necessities, how to survive or how to stay alive.

[693] From that place, then I can give my all.

[694] Now choosing roles where I'm not going to have any compression from the ceiling to the basement of the emotions I want to give.

[695] No one's going to tell me, oh, you can't be that angry.

[696] Oh, no one's going to tell me you can't be that sad.

[697] You can't cry that hard.

[698] No one's going to tell me you can't laugh that hard.

[699] No one's going to tell me you can't hurt that bad.

[700] I don't like to be – I've been enjoying choosing roles that have a really high ceiling and a limitless ceiling and a limitless basement to where I, Matthew, can go as deep or as high as I want to with them.

[701] There's a lot of roles that have done in my career, for instance, like with romantic comedies, where those emotions are compressed for a reason.

[702] The ceiling, you can't laugh that loud.

[703] You can't love that hard.

[704] You can't get that pissed off.

[705] You'll sink the ship of those movies.

[706] They die, built for buoyancy.

[707] I've been enjoying the dramatic roles, and that's what I love about drama, is that, no, it's to the individual actor.

[708] Your ceiling of how much you want to love or your basement of how much you want to hate, go for it.

[709] um there is no there is no limit on either one of those that's the kind of role that really has been turning me on and that makes me feel like i'm having an experience in the making of the movie in the architecture of the character um rather than just going and doing a job and getting a paycheck during the uh quarantine the lockdown my family and i had movie night basically every night especially when the kids were uh doing zoom classes because you know it just it was we had to do something different so we mix it up and we watch Contact again and I haven't seen Contact in forever and first of all God damn what a good movie that was That's a good movie and that's a good movie And a great movie about aliens Like a movie that It gives you a different perspective On the possibilities of contact And just the fact that it was a Carl Sagan book And there's just so much good to it That character that you played was a fascinating guy and I kind of feel like there's some of you in that guy sure I mean you are you are am I wrong here you are religious in some way yeah absolutely and I want to I want to bring this up in this day and age when people go no I'm not religious I'm only spiritual you know what the Latin root of religion is Rie Ligare And LaGaree means to bind together.

[710] Re means again.

[711] Well, in a world, they're saying I'm only spiritual because I want unity, that's exactly what religion means.

[712] We bastardized the meaning of it over time, and we've excluded people, and we've corporatized it and such.

[713] But yes, I am religious.

[714] That character, you know, I had written stories.

[715] I'd written a college paper called John Wayne Goes West, and it was about how can you be a believer in a world of science?

[716] And I remember writing things like during the making of that movie, like, science is the practical pursuit of God.

[717] The two are not exclusive.

[718] They dance together.

[719] They go together belief in science.

[720] And I never saw those as contradictions.

[721] And that's part of what the reason I attacked that role and became part of that movie.

[722] I wanted to play a person that had that point of view of a believer in a world of science.

[723] Not at the exclusion of science and not at the exclusion of belief.

[724] Yeah, it's a confusing role for a lot of people if someone is a believer and also a proponent of science.

[725] Because they want to know what are your literal beliefs?

[726] Like, are you taking the Bible at its literal word, or do you use it as some sort of a guidebook of the experiences of these people that lived thousands of years ago that have been translated?

[727] from multiple different languages back to English.

[728] And is there wisdom in those translations?

[729] Is there wisdom in those original thoughts, these thousands of years of people contemplating and mulling on these things?

[730] And that so many have used these as a scaffolding for morals and ethics and for societies.

[731] Yep.

[732] It's, I mean, you know, for people that go, oh, it's a circus book or people that are non -believers.

[733] And I'm like, well, it's still the best one going.

[734] There's a lot of great truths that come out of the Bible.

[735] And it is open for a lot of people.

[736] It has been interpreted and reinterpreted.

[737] It has been translated.

[738] It has been handed down.

[739] I, for myself, I don't know what to do in my daily life with the Burning Bush.

[740] I don't know what to do with that.

[741] I do know what to do with love your neighbor like yourself.

[742] I do know what to do with Matthew 622.

[743] If I be single, that whole body will be full of light.

[744] I do know what to do with some proverbs that I can take into daily practice and go, oh, I felt my life.

[745] I felt improvement.

[746] I felt success in my relationships and my relationship with the day with my career by following that, by treating others how I wanted to be treated, the golden rule.

[747] I take the practical stuff myself and try to utilize it and pick out what can work for me. When you say you don't know what to do with the burning bush, like, what do you mean by that?

[748] I don't know what to do on a daily basis with the teaching of, and then he, you know, and then he showed up as a burning bush or the magic tricks.

[749] And I don't know what to do with, and Jesus healed everyone and he couldn't walk.

[750] And now he touched me and he can walk.

[751] I don't know what to do with that.

[752] I don't know how to take that into my life and go, oh, there's something useful and practical and healthy for you, Matthew, that you can practice there.

[753] So the magic that leans in towards, you know, what we would call now more fantasy.

[754] I don't know what to do with that.

[755] There's philosophies and there's proverbs and there's teachings that I think are very valid and very helpful that we could all be reminded of that are in the Bible that I do find quite useful.

[756] Yeah, I think it's almost impossible.

[757] to figure out what they were trying to say with a lot of the things.

[758] It's why it's open to interpretation, but also open to manipulation.

[759] And that's where people have a real problem with it, when it's used to separate people, to exclude people, to marginalize people, to judge people.

[760] But it's hard for people that understand those aspects and that those things happen to actually parse out that there's good about it too.

[761] and that there's a lot of really valuable lessons in these books.

[762] 100%.

[763] I get it.

[764] I mean, you know, it's like what are our fathers teaches?

[765] Is your father still alive?

[766] Well, I don't really know them.

[767] I have a complicated family history.

[768] Okay.

[769] Well, fathers are father figures.

[770] I have a stepfather.

[771] He's still alive, and I'm close to him.

[772] Well, stepfather, when he goes, you'll find that.

[773] and things where the messenger and the message weren't exactly in simpatico you know what mean if you throw the messenger out but you're like oh bullshit you weren't following all that stuff no you take the message the this is the stuff that you can that could work for you that maybe they wanted it for you they couldn't follow through it on it themselves there's certain parts of the Bible that have that too you don't throw out the whole you can't think it's it makes any sense to throw out the whole book it's what we're doing in society now I mean we're we're we're making people persona non grata because of something they they do or you know and that is that is right now deemed wrong or it's the hot point on a hot topic right now you can't erase someone's entire existence where the heck does some forgiveness go and again that like optimism it's not erasing the crisis it's not saying there wasn't a problem first it's not saying that there's parts of the Bible that have been people have bastardized and used in the wrong way.

[774] But you don't throw the whole book out and say, well, it's all, it's all bad then.

[775] It's all used, because it's false.

[776] Have you encountered difficulty expressing this in Hollywood?

[777] You know, Hollywood is predominantly left wing and very secular or Jewish in some circles, but it's not like a place where Christian fundamental values are espoused openly.

[778] You know, a lot of Jewish folks are in Hollywood, and that seems to be okay with a lot of people, but some other religions, particularly if you're a fundamentalist Christian or if you have Christian values, a lot of people frown upon that.

[779] Why do you think that is, and have you had difficulties with that?

[780] I don't know.

[781] I haven't had difficulties.

[782] culties.

[783] I have had, and I won't throw any people into the bus, but I have had moments where I was on stage receiving an award in front of my peers in Hollywood.

[784] And there were people in the crowd that I have prayed with before dinners many times.

[785] And when I thank God, I saw some of those people go to clap, but then notice that, well, it's a big bad thing on my resume and then sit back on their hands.

[786] Oh, wow.

[787] And I've seen people read the room and go, whoa, that wouldn't bode well for me in the future if for getting a job or getting votes or what have you.

[788] I have seen that.

[789] I've witnessed that.

[790] I don't judge him for it.

[791] I just wish, you know, that it seems like a silly argument.

[792] There's a, you know, one of the things, that are people, some people in our industry.

[793] Not all of them, but there's some that go to the left so far as our friend Jordan Peterson, who's back, saw his video being back, that go to the illiberal left side so far that it's so condescending and patronizing to 50 % of the world that need the empathy that the liberal I have gives and should give to throw somebody's illegitimize them because they say they are a believer.

[794] It's just so arrogant.

[795] And in some ways, hypocritical to me. Yeah, so I haven't run into, you know, I haven't headbutted trouble on that.

[796] But I've always, you look, my career, I've pretty much gone my own path.

[797] And by hook or by crook, just trying to figure a way out into what I was doing.

[798] And I haven't measured or noticed where it has harmed or gotten my way of what I wanted to achieve in Hollywood.

[799] I think you slipped through the net.

[800] You got far enough down the river where it's not going to be a problem.

[801] Well, kind of like when I, you know, like my mom when I first got famous, you know, it's a great story in the book.

[802] Right when I got famous, I'm trying to figure my own shit out, right?

[803] And then next night I get at a call.

[804] My buddy says, hey, you watching this?

[805] I'm like, what?

[806] He goes, turn on a hard copy.

[807] And there's my mom with a cameraman, taking a guy through our house going, this is where I caught him in bed with Melissa.

[808] And you know what I caught him doing in there.

[809] Oh, don't worry about it.

[810] It's no big deal.

[811] I've seen it a thousand times.

[812] And I'm going, I call her up.

[813] I'm like, Mom, what did you do?

[814] She's like, what?

[815] I go, don't say what.

[816] I can hear it on the other than the line.

[817] You're watching it, too.

[818] It's hard copy.

[819] She's like, oh, I didn't think you'd find out.

[820] I had eight years where my mom and I's relationship was strained.

[821] I couldn't, I didn't have a mother to talk to, to share things with it's because hell it'd show up on a hard copy the next night.

[822] But my career got solidified enough, you know, I slipped through the net.

[823] I was, I was stable enough.

[824] I went in and let go with the rain and said, Mom, you can go for it.

[825] You can take the mic anytime.

[826] You can hit that red carpet wear your short leather dress and talk, tell whatever stores you want to.

[827] But again, it took all.

[828] while for me to feel stable enough to slip through the net and let her go be herself as well.

[829] This thing you're talking about with people disparaging people for their opinions and their beliefs and the way they live in their life, I think a lot of this is coming from this condensed way of impersonal communication that we're getting from social media.

[830] I think this is so much of the way people are judging people and the way people are communicating with people.

[831] One -on -one, is how human beings are supposed to talk.

[832] That's how we're supposed to work things out.

[833] And when you look at a person's eyes and you experience their feelings and you read their social cues, that's how we communicate and that's how we work things out and hash things out and figure each other out and maybe someone has a different set of beliefs in you, but they happen to be your neighbor and you like them.

[834] And you're like, hey man, tell me what's it like to be a Sikh?

[835] What does it like to be Muslim?

[836] What are your beliefs as a question?

[837] waker like what do you what what's going on in your life tell me i've i had a neighbor who was one of my favorite neighbors i've ever had he was a scientologist and he was a weird dude man but he was always friendly as hell and i would go outside we'd have weird conversations about these things that he was doing and i just try to figure him out and he'd try to figure me out we you know we always waved to each other we're always friendly i missed that guy but he uh he and i if we were talking online, I'd be like, you know, if I was a younger man and I was dumber and he said something about his belief and I thought that was stupid, I'd probably say, what kind of dumb shit is that?

[838] You believe that nonsense?

[839] Written by a science fiction author.

[840] But talking to the guy, that was never the way I talked to him.

[841] When he and I were looking at each other, we're just two neighbors trying to figure each other out and just trying to be friendly and have a harmonious neighborhood.

[842] Well, it's one of the, one of the, one One of the things I think you're going to like about your new home, the city.

[843] I think I mentioned this to you when I called you to say, welcome.

[844] You know, one of the great things about Austin, Texas, is even though it's the blueberry and tomato soup, the more liberal city and the conservative state, you can see neighbors next door to each other, talking to each other.

[845] And one has a Trump sign in the yard.

[846] The other one has a Biden sign in the yard.

[847] They're still having a conversation.

[848] No one's going sneaking out in the middle of the night to go rip that other person sign that.

[849] out.

[850] Yeah.

[851] It's when Austin is at its best, it has that.

[852] You know, I think that the, you know, and I've got young children and they're starting to get, we don't, wow, I'm on social media yet, but you see these people, we're living in a time where you put out something of yourself, and your whole value of yourself is reliant on what the world out there, strangers, you don't know, comment about that.

[853] And if I put out of pictures I'm really having, excited, about on Instagram tonight, and if I'm going to look what the reaction is, and the majority says, oh, F, you McGone, all of a sudden I have a bad night.

[854] I'm having a bad time.

[855] But if you go, same picture, and you go, awesome.

[856] And the consensus is awesome.

[857] All of a sudden, you've controlled how I feel, and I'm having a great night.

[858] I'm in a great mood.

[859] So we're at the, we're sort of at the behest people of, we're reacting.

[860] That's kind of what we're doing more in the social media.

[861] we're reacting and you look at, you know, things that, things that go on on issues right now, it, it, it, it, everyone's reacting to, to, to, to, to, to, to, instead of, instead of creating the story or having an opinion coming out of the gate.

[862] Um, and hey, I understand it to some extent because people are getting, you get hired and fired on those things these days.

[863] Yeah.

[864] You know, you know, hired and fired at you, you're hired and fired or not hired because you don't have as many people following your whatever it is.

[865] That's a measure now of what we call success in this life.

[866] What's up at the top in America?

[867] Money and fame, baby.

[868] You got that.

[869] You've made it in America.

[870] You are successful.

[871] We pat you on the back.

[872] We give you respect.

[873] I got nothing against money and fame.

[874] I got money and I'm famous.

[875] But that's not where my value system lies of what I'm what it's the most important to me and what I'm trying to teach my kids there's a way to get that and if you can do it in a way to have your value system let's just praise that um but it's tough because that's not what the world right now especially America rewards people for yeah I think there's a real issue with social media in particular with children in that we're just not designed for that we're not designed for that kind of communication and it's so easy to dismiss someone who's just text on a screen.

[876] It's so easy to shut people down.

[877] And you see people getting praised because they're famous and because they're wealthy.

[878] I mean, how much of what social media is for a lot of young kids is seeing famous people in front of Lamborghinis with a million -dollar watch on.

[879] It's a bizarre posing ritual that people are doing.

[880] It's very strange.

[881] Funny story about that.

[882] I'm in Miami, Southeast.

[883] Now mind you, I really like Miami because it's so obvious.

[884] I mean, in L .A., people get like a boob job or a lip job or a calf job, and they try to say, no, it's all natural.

[885] In Miami, they go, I just got my calf job.

[886] I just got a boob job.

[887] Hold on.

[888] Hold on.

[889] Calf jobs?

[890] How many people are getting calf jobs?

[891] No, guys will go get a calf implant.

[892] Is that real?

[893] That's still happening?

[894] And in Miami, they're probably.

[895] They're showing you.

[896] Like, they're out there's no shame in that.

[897] There's no embarrassment.

[898] Not being that.

[899] All right.

[900] I'm in Miami making a film.

[901] I think it was the beach bum.

[902] And I'm walking along the beach and there's this guy, unbuttoned silk shirt, got his gold chains on.

[903] He's all greased up.

[904] He's leaning against his purple Lamborghini.

[905] And he's got somebody taking pictures of him.

[906] And I'm just saying, like, what's going on?

[907] He's got the palm trees in the back in the ocean.

[908] So I ask him.

[909] I said, what are you doing?

[910] And he goes, oh, man, I'm getting this picture taken for my Tinder page, man. in the next 20 minutes two other guys came by and I asked a guy I go is that your Lamborghini goes no no no I just rented it for the day for my Tinder page pick two guys walk by in the next 20 minutes and paid him 50 bucks to lean against his purple rented Lamborghini to get their Tinder page pick Oh my God I wonder if it works it's got to work it's got a work to someone and he got his rent paid for for his purple Lamborghini yeah well Miami you should have a passport to go there it's a it's barely America it's a lot of fun it's a great place a lovely city I love visiting there but I don't think I could ever live there I go to Miami and I just go you guys are fucking out of control and then I get out of there it's the only place before I was doing my last Netflix special I was using these yonder bags and what a yonder bag is is you have to put your cell phone in the bag when you go in there so you can't film the show or you can't talk on it and the idea is that the people won't be distracted because their cell phone will be in this magnetic pouch you have it, you have possession of your phone nobody's taking your phone but when you want to leave or use the phone like if someone's going to call you maybe got a babysitter you can go outside they'll open the pouch up and then you can use your phone.

[911] Most shows I did this I did shows all over the country the show's people were more attentive, they sat down, they didn't get distracted by their phone, and they just listened.

[912] In Miami, all they did was get up and go outside.

[913] So the whole show, the fucking shows, like an hour and 45 minutes, it's just people getting up and going out and coming back and getting up and coming back and getting up and coming back.

[914] It was like people were constantly going back and forth.

[915] I don't know if they're doing Coke or if they're just part, but they were, the idea of not having their phone with them, They're like, what the fuck?

[916] I need my phone.

[917] They're so distracted, so chaotic.

[918] It was a lot of fun, though.

[919] I'm not even complaining.

[920] Where the mannequins, even the mannequins have fake boobs.

[921] It's true.

[922] It's true.

[923] It is true.

[924] If you go to a department store, the mannequins have giant fake boobs.

[925] Yeah, because look, the girls that want to buy those clothes also have fake boobs.

[926] They don't want some weird natural body.

[927] Like, how am I going to know what's going to look like on me?

[928] and again I'm not shitting on Miami I love it here I love it there rather but I always said if you want to starve to death open up a bookstore in Miami ain't nobody buying books there nobody's buying green lights they might get the audio book and listen to it when they're on the treadmill but it's it's a wild place and and that show that I did the shows that I did down there they were fun I had a great time the audiences were great they laugh hard but they were just all over the place just up and down and back and up and back and coming back and sitting down excuse me pardon me up more people i'm like you guys are out of fucking control yeah yeah it's a it's an obvious place uh have you ever seen the documentaries cocaine cowboys yes well that's all the whole like how it all got started down there the craziness let's those cocaine cowboys one and two are my all -time favorite documentaries.

[929] Just Miami's got a wild fucking history.

[930] Yep, it does.

[931] And stories like that make great films, though, because there's some, there's real live stories about this country in particular, but this world in general, that, you know, like Scarface or something like that, we're just like, this is kind of based on reality.

[932] You know, it's one of the beautiful things about a film is that a film, is that a film like Scarface will make you look into that, like, well, how much of this is real?

[933] Did they really do that?

[934] Oh, yeah, they really did send over prisoners and release prisoners and send them to America.

[935] And they really did have hundreds and thousands of murders and gun violence all over the streets and cocaine everywhere.

[936] And that's real.

[937] That was real.

[938] And it was happening.

[939] Well, that's, you know, the best, it's always said, you know, truth's changer, stranger than fiction.

[940] But, yeah, I mean, one of the words I have a page in the book about my least favorite word in the English language being unbelievable.

[941] No, it's all pretty doggle unbelievable.

[942] And you see it happen.

[943] You're like, yeah, wow, I didn't think that was possible.

[944] Well, the damn sure was.

[945] And it's usually stranger than any Hollywood script could make it or more exciting.

[946] Yeah, I say unbelievable too often.

[947] And it's sort of a placeholder word for holy shit.

[948] Right.

[949] You know, unbelievable.

[950] But it is believable, yeah.

[951] for sure.

[952] I mean, it have to be pretty odd in this day and age to be unbelievable.

[953] I don't remember the last thing I saw that was unbelievable.

[954] Whether it was some or whether it was like, are you fucking kidding me?

[955] I'm like, you know, boy, it's one thing you can depend on people being it's people.

[956] Yeah.

[957] Well, so in your life right now, when, you know, you've had this incredibly successful career and I assume you're still writing down these lists of things to do.

[958] When you when you look at like what you would like to accomplish me you've accomplished so much in the world of acting and filmmaking is there something out there that really is a goal or a thought that's sticking in your mind or something you haven't done yet yeah um one of the things i got to do that's at the top of the list is do my best to shepherd three young children through this life so they can go off and be independent and autonomous and hopefully competent young individuals.

[959] That's that's priority number one.

[960] But personally, there's a, there's a role that I've created and assumed for myself called the Ministry of Culture.

[961] And it's about finding a shared and competent value system.

[962] And it's something that I'm going to initialize it, hopefully right there in Austin.

[963] Values, as far as I can tell, are the, the, the, the common, denominator that they've always been cool.

[964] There's ones that we can agree on.

[965] They work then, they work now.

[966] They will not go out of style.

[967] We're in such a time right now where our social contracts are so broken and they're broken with ourselves as well.

[968] We don't have expectations of each other or of ourselves.

[969] It's kind of anarchic, a nation divided.

[970] And in Austin in particular, as a very popular and fast -growing city, it's changing a lot.

[971] And, you know, we're If Austin is a city, it starts to consume more than it creates, starts to not be conscious with its money, starts not to invest in itself.

[972] If too many people come to Austin from California, wherever they come from, and try to turn Austin into why they left where they were coming from, we're going to look up in 10 years and go, what the hell happened, man?

[973] And Austin's got a lot of soul, got a lot of soul.

[974] And I think it lies in its values.

[975] So this sort of campaign movement that I want to push is reminding.

[976] those of us from Austin, why we love it there.

[977] Austin's a place where nobody's too good, nobody's good enough.

[978] And initiating and educating newcomers and saying, hey, here's who we are, who is who we're not.

[979] If you don't really want to abide about who we are and what we believe in, make it a stop, not a stay, keep on moving.

[980] But I think Austinites have earned that, and I think newcomers will appreciate that.

[981] I want to look up in 10 years in being Austin be a city that's an example of a place that became a metropolis that held on to its soul that you know the things you look at around town crime rate employment etc are still at numbers that are incredibly respectable that we don't get don't get loose it's a very creative town you know and like I said it's the it's the blueberry in the in the red state but it's not an anarchic town it's not a dirty town it's not a sloppy town it's an innovative town It's a creative town, and it's a young town.

[982] And, you know, I think we all know.

[983] Progress is not saying yes to every new thing.

[984] Progress is more about innovation, but it's also relying on tried and true things that work, have worked, and will continue to work.

[985] And I just want to remind us all the certain values that we have in this as Austinites and as individuals.

[986] And, you know, where that goes from there, if that goes outside of Austin and through the United States, it's a scalable idea that I dream of that could go.

[987] outside of the United States.

[988] It could go worldwide and success.

[989] I like looking at cities and people, looking at cities as individuals that have personalities and reminding the people.

[990] Let's sell a city to the people that live in it.

[991] Sell Austin to Austinites and to people who are coming to it.

[992] That's my goal.

[993] That's what I'm into right now.

[994] That's the character that I'm inhabiting right now in my life that's not on a screen.

[995] I'm wanting to say, hey the big show's live life the recorder's always on and what's the story we're telling in life that's that's the character i want to play right now in my life outside of my family uh that's not on any kind of screen or any kind of capsule that's going to be on your television screen it's just if i pull it off it's going to be something that i'm just living and doing and coming there's something about this town that's very unique and i i knew it for years i've been coming here and doing stand -up since the 90s, but, you know, when the pandemic hit and I decided to move here, I did have that feeling like, boy, a lot of Californians are going to move here.

[996] How do we not fuck it up?

[997] And you and I had this very conversation.

[998] Like, don't turn this into the place you left.

[999] So what specifically do you think people need to not do?

[1000] To not do?

[1001] Yeah.

[1002] Well, you're coming to Texas because you got the, no taxes.

[1003] You're coming to Austin because it's affluent.

[1004] It's happening.

[1005] You're coming for the people, the food, the swing.

[1006] It's happening.

[1007] It's a creative town.

[1008] It's alive.

[1009] It's young.

[1010] You've got to pay a tithe.

[1011] Ask not what Austin can do for you.

[1012] Ask what you can do for Austin and personalize the place, man. I mean, give your tithe to the city.

[1013] It is a place.

[1014] Like I said, that nobody's too good and everybody's good enough.

[1015] We don't run over people to get where we're going.

[1016] Austin will open up their perver roller decks, and you tell me if you've felt this with yourself, quicker than any city I've ever been to as a newcomer.

[1017] Oh, yeah, you want to go on some contacts?

[1018] Here.

[1019] I mean, in some ways, I'm like, Austin, boy, you know, you maybe could take more ownership of that IP, but it gives it away.

[1020] It's very free, and we trust.

[1021] It's a very trusting town and a town of second chances for people, but don't take advantage of that freedom, understand that there's responsibility to the freedoms that we have, We do have to earn it daily and don't just over leverage ourselves and spend because, hey, we're the most popular person in school right now.

[1022] Don't get caught looking in the mirror at ourselves going, oh, aren't I great?

[1023] Look at us.

[1024] We're number one.

[1025] We're popular.

[1026] We're still got boots on and we still pull them on and strap them on and get work done.

[1027] Even though we're young and innovative in Techtown, we're still a classic.

[1028] And, you know, it's accountability, it's responsibility, it's fairness to other people.

[1029] It's understanding where is Austin idyllic?

[1030] And what is it really?

[1031] Because in some ways I think of Austin, I'm finding out it's not as ideal as I think it is in my mind.

[1032] And what?

[1033] Well, I've got a listening to it.

[1034] And I talk about the diversity in Austin.

[1035] And it is a international destination.

[1036] And I talk about the, you know, the equality of Austin.

[1037] You know, the rule in Austin has always been, all you got to do is be yourself.

[1038] That's kind of the rule.

[1039] That's what's cool about Austin.

[1040] Not what you think you ought to be, but just be yourself.

[1041] It doesn't matter if you're blue -haired, short, lesbian, American Indian, cowboy, sheriff, whatever.

[1042] Everyone's sitting at the same bar having a drink, and no one's yelling about their place because if you're yelling about, hey, I want to let you know how I'm different in Austin.

[1043] Austin's like going, what were you yelling about?

[1044] We didn't really care.

[1045] That's one of the great things about Austin at best.

[1046] It celebrates differences when Austin is at its best.

[1047] Austin's not trying to homogenize people to say, hey, we're all the same.

[1048] No, we're not.

[1049] We're all very different, and that's cool.

[1050] But we do have some social contracts amongst us.

[1051] We're a clean place.

[1052] We don't lie cheat and steal to get where we're going.

[1053] We look ahead, but we appreciate tradition at the same time.

[1054] We take care as much as we can of our natural beauties around here.

[1055] At the same time, we're metropolis.

[1056] We're growing up.

[1057] Now, how can we grow up and wide and still grow deep?

[1058] That's what I want to lean into is what are the roots.

[1059] So we're not just, again, looking up in 10 years and going, who do we become?

[1060] Where did all these socialites come from?

[1061] You know?

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] One thing that's plaguing Los Angeles that I'm starting to see here is, the homelessness in tent form all over the city.

[1064] Los Angeles is out of control.

[1065] I mean, it's bizarre that it hasn't been handled.

[1066] I mean, I was just having a conversation with my friend Brian about it before the show.

[1067] And he was telling me that in Burbank, they just shut that down.

[1068] They won't let it happen.

[1069] You can't just put up a tent somewhere.

[1070] I mean, I'm an empathetic person, and I think that, you know, all the people that are out there that are homeless, that are down their luck for whatever reason, whether they've been abused or they're alcoholics or drug addicts or whatever it is.

[1071] They're all our brothers and sisters.

[1072] And I'm not a social engineer.

[1073] I don't know what the solution is to something like that.

[1074] But I know that it gets out of hand.

[1075] It's gotten out of it.

[1076] If you go to Venice, my friend Bridget sent me a video of her driving down Venice and it's a mile of tents.

[1077] I mean a straight mile.

[1078] She got the phone out the window and it's just tense everywhere.

[1079] like it's it's crazy how does someone how do you put a stop to that without being an asshole how do you how do you maintain empathy and say hey you can't put a fucking tent up on the sidewalk great question and i don't know the answer um you said it earlier look a lot of these most of these people have a mental challenge or they've gotten drugs and so you know and austin you know putting some and up in some some vacated hotel I don't know to what extent that's that's working you know I've got friends who have businesses downtown who they've got homeless people camping out in front and if someone walks in there they're they're getting berated by this person that's homeless that has this mental something mentally askew in their not in their nugget I don't I don't know you can't eliminate the problem but how do you read you know this question of how do we rehabilitate is an ongoing question, not just with homeless people.

[1080] You know, it's, it's, you know, with people that aren't, that, that don't have mental problems, it's, we have the question of rehabilitation.

[1081] I mean, and for those people, I'm like, well, you have to be sincerely seeking retribution and, and understand what you did wrong to get the chance to be forgiven and be in rehabilitate and get a second chance.

[1082] For the homeless people, I think, you know, I mean, I think if you're going to go to the, how do we, how do we get them more mentally stable and can we to what extent?

[1083] Get them mental help and not just keep picking them up and saying, let's move them to this side of the curb.

[1084] And then well, that curve got full.

[1085] Let's move them to this side of the curve.

[1086] And then you end up with, you know, a shanty town or something.

[1087] It's, you know, I think they're always going to be to some extent, you know, there's going to be.

[1088] There's going to be.

[1089] going to be homeless.

[1090] There's always going to be some socioeconomic imbalance.

[1091] I don't think we're going to, that's another thing that I think we have to, as a people, especially on the left, have to realize this whole perfect equality amongst all of us and perfect justice, I don't think that's a possible destination for anybody.

[1092] I think it's great to keep.

[1093] America is a constant chase.

[1094] It's a chasing a jet.

[1095] Yes.

[1096] It's we never will get there.

[1097] And that's, The point, just keep chasing it.

[1098] Try to have a little ascension in our journey going forward and a little bit of evolution.

[1099] But we're never going to arrive at this utopian state where, ta -da, we did it.

[1100] It's the Garden of Eden before an apple was eaten.

[1101] You know, it's not going to happen.

[1102] I don't believe.

[1103] So, I don't know, I question how the best way to rehabilitate situations and like the homeless one all the time.

[1104] And I don't know the answer.

[1105] I do, if we can get them some mental help and then give somebody, you know, not just, if we can make jails, not just a holding sale.

[1106] I mean, think about it.

[1107] If jails really worked, once you've done your time, you ought to be even money, right?

[1108] Yeah, yeah.

[1109] You should be better.

[1110] You're not even money.

[1111] You're coming out with the scarlet letter on you, and you're going to have to work five times harder than the next guy to get that job.

[1112] You know, if you're an offender of such, you're going to be.

[1113] found and located and they're going to share your location through the city and you're going to find out from your neighbor that you're moving in and you can understand the people going I don't want that somebody's living next door to me right well if rehabilitation worked it would be like well no it's okay because they did their stint it doesn't really work like that so it's a constant question I have about about how to how it's the best way to rehabilitate yeah no one seems to have an answer it's uh everyone throws their hands up in the air and just keeps on moving I don't know.

[1114] One of the things you were talking about before, Jordan Peterson talks about, that equality of outcome is a terrible idea.

[1115] Equality of opportunity is a fantastic idea.

[1116] Opportunity to succeed.

[1117] But the problem with equality of outcome is there's not equality of effort.

[1118] And it's one of the beautiful things about society is that you, and this is what we're talking about before about reading your memoir and reading an autobiography of us.

[1119] successful person is realizing that there's work to be done.

[1120] There's things you have to do in order to be this person that people admire.

[1121] And it doesn't come easy.

[1122] And some people aren't going to do that work.

[1123] And if they're not going to do that work, they're not going to achieve that outcome.

[1124] And that's just life.

[1125] And the equality of opportunity, you know, that's not even real because different people start off at different blocks in life.

[1126] They start off in different spots.

[1127] They start off with different challenges and different physical attributes and physical problems.

[1128] Everyone has their own hand of cards that you're dealt.

[1129] But treating people equally and giving people the best possible chance that we can as a community and as a culture.

[1130] That's what we all strive for.

[1131] And the problem with the homeless situation and the problem with prisons, it's a similar problem is that the downtrodden, the people that have hit a bad spot in the game of life.

[1132] Like, what is our responsibility to them?

[1133] And if we are a community, look, if there's only three of us and one of us is fucked up, we go, hey, let's help Mike.

[1134] You know, he's fucked up.

[1135] Let's try to bring Mike into the fold and give him some life lessons and give him some love and hope that we can bring them back up to a point where a couple years from now, we're looking back on this going, hey, look, you used to be over there, and now you're here and everything's great.

[1136] that's what we'd ultimately love but there's almost too many challenges and too many people and everybody has their own problems so people throw their arms up their arms up in the air and they keep moving and these things don't seem to get better the prison population seems to increase homeless population especially during this pandemic has increased i don't have answers you know i really don't so it's i'm spinning my wheels as much the next guy yeah yeah it's uh you know It's a question that's yet to be answered on many levels before this time and after this time.

[1137] You know, that equal opportunity, that would be the gig.

[1138] That would be there.

[1139] Then you could measure.

[1140] Because we are all born with different innate abilities.

[1141] And if we're fortunate enough to be in a position, we go, well, I'm going to do what I'm good at, and I'm going to work my backside off for it.

[1142] And I'm going to get educated about it.

[1143] I'm willing to put it in the work, America's a place that that's the American dream.

[1144] That's what they mean by the land of opportunity.

[1145] If you should have the chance to pursue what you want to do, and if you're willing to work for it and get educated on it, you have an opportunity to make a life.

[1146] I understand there's not complete equal opportunity across the board.

[1147] I understand that I personally was born with different innate abilities than you or someone else.

[1148] I was also born with more opportunities than a lot of people.

[1149] I was born into a two -parent family.

[1150] That's one of our biggest diseases, I think, in the, in the, in that we have in the states, is that the family unit breaks up sometimes too quickly, too easily, you know, mom or dad, jets, if the going gets tough too quickly.

[1151] So, you know, I, you know, I was, some would say symmetrically speaking, I'm a good looking guy, so that's got me indoors that maybe it wouldn't have got other people into.

[1152] try to do my best once I got in the door.

[1153] I'm not going to apologize for any opportunities I've had, but I do understand that I've had opportunities that other people have not had.

[1154] I've created many on my own, but I've also been introduced and met people who open those doors for me that would not have been open for other people.

[1155] Yeah, what do we do with them?

[1156] I think there's a place, and this is what I'm striving to get to and understand more and more.

[1157] None of us do a damn thing about anything unless it's personal.

[1158] intellectually, we talk about it.

[1159] It makes sense.

[1160] But we really don't take action until it's trespassing on our walls and it's going to affect me or you or my family.

[1161] That's when we go, okay, I'm going to take action.

[1162] So I think whatever we do is got to be personal.

[1163] The choice that I'm making for my own selfish choice for me. There's a place where there's a choice where that also is what's best for the most amount of people.

[1164] Where the personal choice is also the best choice for the most amount of people.

[1165] I call it the egotistical utilitarian.

[1166] That's where the eye meets the we.

[1167] That's where what we want is what we need.

[1168] And what we need is actually what we want.

[1169] Where what's best for us is best for the most amount of people.

[1170] Where we're the most selfless, we're actually the most selfish.

[1171] We're the most selfish.

[1172] We're actually the most self -less.

[1173] that's the place where when I talk about like green lights there's a place to create green lights that are best for ourselves and others at the same time that's the honeyhole I don't know exactly what that place is all the time but that's the place I think we could all be a little more conscious of how we go about moving forward and making choices based on that Austin seems to be of a manageable size as I was trying to describe this to one of my friends in LA he's like what's so great about Austin I was like first of all people aren't devalued because there's not too many of them there's a problem with when there's too many people then people become a nuisance there's too many of them Austin doesn't have that problem so when I look at like the homelessness problem in Austin like you know what this is not out of control yet this seems like you could still fix that like someone's got to realize that this could get out of hand and this is a thing that you can kind of it's it's within the boundaries of of resources to step in and manage this.

[1174] And manage it now.

[1175] Yes, before it gets out, yeah.

[1176] Look up in 10 years ago, shit is too late, it's out of control.

[1177] Like Venice, yeah.

[1178] We wanted to just grow and turn our backs on that and not look at it.

[1179] And now all of a sudden it's out of hand and I don't know what to do with it.

[1180] And it happens quick.

[1181] It happens quick.

[1182] Venice two years ago was not this.

[1183] There was a few tents every, you know, here and there you'd see tents.

[1184] Now it's fucking bonkers.

[1185] and I would I mean obviously you're dealing with a much larger population in California but this this place is special I mean it really is there's there's it's it's a great size and the people here are really exceptional it's it does have a personality it has a very unique like a mixture of cowboys and hippies it's a weird spot you know and it's that melting blending of all these different types of people here has made it very tolerant and very unique and the fact that there's the university here and there's a lot of artistic people and musical people and creative people.

[1186] It's a real good spot and I'm happy to be here but I don't want to fuck it up.

[1187] I hear you.

[1188] Well, there's a lot of, you know, there is a community in Austin and Austin at its best does come together and realize that it has an identity to move forward with to protect.

[1189] and you're right it's not so big and i believe that it can grow um and but it can grow while still having a sense of itself and its own identity in it to protect that identity and grow forward turn the page progress yes it's coming but also preserve the core DNA of who we are we're no longer the little hippie town that's just had some music in the capital and a university no we're dot com tech town we're banker town lawyer town international destination to all those things that's fine.

[1190] But in that, there's a, there's a, you know, Austin has, I want to help define by listening to a lot of Austinites as well, what our constitution is in Austin that's separate from anywhere else.

[1191] So this is something you're, you're actively trying to, you said a minister of culture.

[1192] Is this something you, you have a thought in your head of how to, how to do this?

[1193] Yes.

[1194] I have a shared values campaign that I've put together.

[1195] and I want to sort of advertise and sell Austin to Austin all around Austin.

[1196] And it's just sort of value -based aspirational messages just to remind us who we are to keep the community as tight as possible to form expectations and solidify expectations amongst ourselves.

[1197] So if someone acts outside of those, they're noticed and they're kind of nudge back.

[1198] There's another thing Austin does very well.

[1199] Austin, Austin, I don't know how it is now since we've had like the protest with Black Lives Matter and stuff.

[1200] But Austin used to be, there was a great relationship with the police force.

[1201] Not just with me, with seeing Matthew McConaugh walk down the street, with John and Jane Doe, you're going to cross, you know, you went jaywalking across 6th Street.

[1202] They caught you before and like nudged you over and said, hey, don't do it before they gave you the ticket.

[1203] There was a play of like they were part of the community.

[1204] They felt like, you know, you give them a wave.

[1205] You didn't see a cop in Austin and go, oh, shit.

[1206] You saw one of you, you waved.

[1207] And if you weren't looking, you never felt like they were looking to get you.

[1208] Crime was low, you know.

[1209] So we'll see how that relationship has to be worked on in the city of Austin right now, you know, quite a bit.

[1210] Yeah.

[1211] What were your thoughts when the whole idea to defund the process?

[1212] police came to fruition?

[1213] Well, let's break that down one.

[1214] Defunded police, that moniker, if you, if you wanted to say, it's almost like it should have been renamed because defunded police does not sound anything like there's been money reallocated to different areas of handling some police exercise.

[1215] It sounds like you got a million, we're taking 300 ,000, good luck.

[1216] Yeah.

[1217] And it's not exactly what it is, to be fair.

[1218] The community, and the police, and not just in Austin, but all over.

[1219] And I think they are doing this in Miami, to bring up Miami, need to get back together.

[1220] And the community needs to say, here's what's unfair.

[1221] Here's how I feel unfair as a black man or a person of color or whatever situation.

[1222] Here's my problem with my relationship with you as cops.

[1223] Well, the police got to get clear to go, okay, our whole force isn't screwed up.

[1224] We have to have law and order.

[1225] Do we all agree on that?

[1226] Yes, we can all agree on that.

[1227] We've got a few bad apples that either need to be trained better.

[1228] So we don't have those kind of bad apples or people or cops choking under, under, under, and I mean the word, as in you fumbling at the go line.

[1229] I don't mean literally joking.

[1230] I mean that don't follow through on their duty in the right way when they're under the, when they're under the gun, under the heat of the moment.

[1231] That's what I mean.

[1232] There are cops that have done that.

[1233] So few of these bad apples need to be removed, But they also, we need to make sure we're training them better.

[1234] Now, also the cops need to go to the communities and go, can y 'all remember and understand our point of view that we're like the tow truck driver?

[1235] We're not called when there's good news.

[1236] We're called when it's bad news.

[1237] So we're coming in going looking for trouble.

[1238] All right?

[1239] So we're already under stress if we even get a call.

[1240] So can y 'all help us in our way that we communicate?

[1241] Can we get trust again that?

[1242] if a cop says, hey, stand steel, take your hands out, you pocket, hold them up.

[1243] Yep, I'm doing that.

[1244] That we're not going to be, something's not going to happen to us that shouldn't.

[1245] That there will be a, you know, because obviously the situations like that, you're not being called.

[1246] You're not in that situation when it's good news.

[1247] You know, so everyone's already tensions are high.

[1248] But that's, you know, as far as defund, we're going to see, we're going to see if there's reallocation of money, like in Austin and other places, how that works.

[1249] I mean, my first gut instinct was, I don't see how that repairs the relationship between the community and the police force.

[1250] I don't see how that's coming together.

[1251] I don't see how that's going to rehabilitate that relationship.

[1252] And now you have spite on both sides.

[1253] Again, we're going to see, I don't know if we really had a bird in hand when we made the change.

[1254] Do we have we practiced these other, have we seen these other?

[1255] other forms where the reallocated money goes to for 911 calls and stuff?

[1256] Have we seen these other forms work?

[1257] Have we seen them be improvements?

[1258] I don't know.

[1259] So hopefully we'll see if this is just sort of guinea pigging the idea.

[1260] We'll see how it works.

[1261] But I'm more for saying, okay, instead of taking away your money and your funds, which you could use to train better and work on the relationship of what your job is and what you expect.

[1262] and what communities expect from you, I'd rather have done that than pull money from them.

[1263] So we're going to see how this experiment goes.

[1264] Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

[1265] I think they need training.

[1266] They need more training and more understanding.

[1267] And I think we all need to understand that there's a tremendous amount of these people that are under insane stress every day, and they probably have massive PTSD.

[1268] And, you know, every time you're pulling somebody over, you're worried about getting shot.

[1269] Every time you're visiting someone's apartment for a domestic abuse case, you're worried you're going to get killed, or you're going to see someone killed.

[1270] You've seen murders and deaths.

[1271] And the human mind is not designed to deal with that kind of stress day in, day out.

[1272] And a lot of these people are, you know, when you see these horrible reactions that cops have to situations where they do completely overstep their boundaries and abused people.

[1273] I think a lot of those people are really fucked up by the time they get to that point and I don't Yeah, a lot of those people were fucked up before They got That too, that's right.

[1274] Before they even became a cop Or they became a cop for the right reason They had personal problems before And we need to filter those people out And that also comes through training The same kind of training that they filter people out Through the military You know, and you want to be a Navy SEAL You got to go through buds and good luck if you have a lot of character flaws you're not going to make it they will be exposed and i think that counseling and training and then communication with the community is what we need we don't need to defund them it seems like a popular social sentiment that people are repeating because it puts you in this ideology of a person who cares and is progressive but i don't think it's ever been fleshed out i don't think people have thought it out in the long term and if you're looking at the consequences of how this is playing out in New York City, homicides are up by hundreds of percent, burglaries, armed robberies, everything's up.

[1275] It's not good.

[1276] The defunding of the police has been horrible for New York City.

[1277] The consequences have been the exact opposite to what everybody hoped they'd be.

[1278] And I'm worried about that here as well.

[1279] But Governor Abbott has stepped in and said he's going to put a stop to that, which is, you know, there's talk about not giving the towns that do this, they're not going to have access to property taxes and this is you know obviously there's no income tax in austin and in the state of texas so the governor is supposedly stepped in and going to iron this out so i'm hoping it works out and cooler heads of prevail me too i'm with the training and have more reverence for the job and understand they're called in when they're not called in when it's good news you know my my brother rooster has a real good interesting take i think on like you know, gun control.

[1280] And Texas is a big right to carry state and a gun state.

[1281] But he brought up the samurai sword, how there was a reverence for it.

[1282] And I remember how we were brought up.

[1283] You got your toy gun and then you got your daisy one pump.

[1284] And until you had mastered that, like not turning and ever, if you turned and even though it wasn't cocked, and it was aimed at someone, nope, you got the gun taken away from you.

[1285] You know what I mean?

[1286] But you had to master the daisy gun first.

[1287] after years of that, you moved up to the 22.

[1288] And you had to master that.

[1289] And you had to make sure it was always unloaded and put back in the case.

[1290] You've got a reverence for this tool.

[1291] There's a long sort of initiation reverence before you could move up to a larger gun.

[1292] We've lost a reverence for that tool.

[1293] And the samurai sword is a good example because there's a reverence for that.

[1294] There's an initiation period to get to where you could have that.

[1295] And I think that'd be, you know, that's kind of one of the places where I lie with the, that is too easy to get a gun sometimes, that there should be that background check, which goes back into when we're talking about with police force, background check, training, have a reverence for the job, understand the expectations, understand it's a high -stress job, can you handle it?

[1296] let's learn how to handle it because they have to call audibles in the moment that our life audibles yeah and as we said get rid of the ones who can't because it is a hard job and hard jobs are not for everybody and i think that and that's that punishes the good cops when someone does a horrible thing like the george floyd case all those good cops who would never think about doing that ever in their life ever are lumped into the same category as that guy.

[1297] And I think that's awful.

[1298] Yep.

[1299] I agree.

[1300] Yeah.

[1301] Listen, man, I enjoy talking to you.

[1302] This was great.

[1303] I really do.

[1304] And I wish you luck with your book.

[1305] And I've loved your movies.

[1306] And I wish you nothing but success.

[1307] And let's get together and break bread someday.

[1308] I look forward to it, Joe.

[1309] Thanks, man. Enjoy talking to you.

[1310] And I look forward to doing it in person.

[1311] Let's do it, brother.

[1312] Thank you.

[1313] Thank you.

[1314] Thank you.

[1315] Good luck with the book.

[1316] Goodbye.

[1317] Thank you now.

[1318] Bye.